or four men up Colorado way. It was talked around that he had rustled some cows
and stolen a few horses and in the Settlement outfit he was second only to
Fetterson.
Anything might have happened and Tom Sunday might have gone by, but the Durango
Kid saw he had been drinking and figured he had an edge. He didn’t know Tom
Sunday like I did.
“He wants to be marshal, Billy,” the Durango Kid said it just loud enough, “I’d
like to see that.”
Tom Sunday faced him. Like I said, Tom was tall, and he was a handsome man, and
drinking or not, he walked straight and stood straight. Tom had been an officer
in the Army at one time, and that was how he looked now.
“If I become marshal,” he spoke coolly, distinctly, “I shall begin by arresting
you. I know you are a thief and a murderer. I shall arrest you for the murder of
Martin Abreu.”
How Tom knew that, I don’t know, but a man needed no more than a look at the
Kid’s face to know Tom had called it right.
“You’re a liar!” the Kid yelled. He grabbed for his gun.
It cleared leather, but the Durango Kid was dead when it cleared. The range was
not over a dozen feet and Tom Sunday—I’d never really seen him draw before—had
three bullets into the Kid with one rolling sound.
The Kid was smashed back. He staggered against the water trough and fell,
hitting the edge and falling into the street. Billy Mullin turned sharply. He
didn’t reach for a gun, but Tom Sunday was a deadly man when drinking. That
sharp movement of Billy’s cost him, because Tom saw it out of the tail of his
eye and he turned and shot Billy in the belly.
I’m not saying I mightn’t have done the same. I don’t think I would have, but a
move like that at a time like that from a man known to be an enemy of Tom’s and
a friend to the Kid … well, Tom shot him.
That crowd across the street saw it. Ollie saw it. Tom Sunday killed the Durango
Kid, and Billy Mullin was in bed for a couple of months and was never the same
man again after that gunshot … but Tom Sunday shot himself right out of
consideration as a possible marshal.
The killing of the Kid … well, they all knew the Kid had it coming, but the
shooting of Billy Mullin, thief and everything else that he was, was so offhand
that it turned even Tom’s friends against him.
It shouldn’t have. There probably wasn’t a man across the street who mightn’t
have done the same thing. It was a friend of Tom’s who turned his back on him
that day and said, “Let’s talk to Orrin Sackett about that job.”
Tom Sunday heard it, and he thumbed shells into his gun and walked down the
middle of the street toward the house where he’d been sharing with Orrin, Cap,
and me when we were in Mora.
And that night, Tom Sunday rode away.
Chapter XII
Come Sunday we drove around to the house where Ma was living with the two boys
and we helped her out to the buckboard. Ma was all slicked out in her
Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes—which meant she was dressed in black—and all set to
see her new home for the first time.
Orrin, he sat in the seat alongside her to drive, and Bob and Joe, both mounted
up on Indian ponies, they brought up the rear. Cap and me, we led off.
Cap didn’t say much, but I think he had a deep feeling about what we were doing.
He knew how much Orrin and me had planned for this day, and how hard we had
worked. Behind that rasping voice and cold way of his I think there was a lot of
sentiment in Cap, although a body would never know it.
It was a mighty exciting thing at that, and we were glad the time of year was
right, for the trees were green, and the meadows green, and the cattle feeding
there … well, it looked mighty fine. And it was a good deal better house than
Ma had ever lived in before.
We started down the valley, and we were all dressed for the occasion, each of us
in black broadcloth, even Cap. Ollie was going to be there, and a couple of
other friends, for we’d sort of figured to make it a housewarming.
The only shadow on the day was the fact that Tom Sunday wasn’t there, and we
wished he was … all of us wished it. Tom had been one of us so long, and if
Orrin and me were going to amount to something, part of the credit had to be
Tom’s, because he took time to teach us things, and especially me.
When we drove up through the trees, after dipping through the river, we came
into our own yard and right away we saw there were folks all around, there must
have been fifty people.
The first person I saw was Don Luis, and beside him, Drusilla, looking more
Irish today than Spanish. My eyes met hers across the heads of the crowd and for
an instant there we were together like we had never been, and I longed to ride
to her and claim her for my own.
Juan Torres was there, and Pete Romero, and Miguel. Miguel was looking a little
pale around the gills yet, but he was on his own feet and looked great. There
was a meal all spread out, and music started up, and folks started dancing a
fandango or whatever they call it, and Ma just sat there and cried. Orrin, he
put his arm around her and we drove all the rest of the way into the yard that
way, and Don Luis stepped up and offered Ma his hand, and mister, it did us
proud to see her take his hand and step down, and you’d have thought she was the
grandest lady ever, and not just a mountain woman from the hills back of
nowhere.
Don Luis escorted her to a chair like she was a queen, and the chair was her own
old rocker, and then Don Luis spread a serape across her knees, and Ma was home.
It was quite a shindig. There was a grand meal, with a whole steer barbecued,
and three or four javelinas, plenty of roasting ears, and all a man could want.
There was a little wine but no drinking liquor. That was because of Ma, and
because we wanted it to be nice for her.
Vicente Romero himself, he was there, and a couple of times I saw Chico Cruz in
the crowd. Everybody was having themselves a time when a horse splashed through
the creek and Tom Sunday rode into the yard. He sat his horse looking around,
and then Orrin saw him and Orrin walked over.
“Glad you could make it, Tom. It wouldn’t have been right without you. Get down
and step up to the table, but first come and speak to Ma. She’s been asking for
you.”
That was all. No words, no explanations. Orrin was that way, though. He was a
big man in more ways than one, and he liked Tom, and had wanted him there.
We had a fiddle going for the dancing, and Orrin took his old gee-tar and sang
up some songs, and Juan Torres sang, and we had us a time. And I danced with
Dru.
When I went up to her and asked her to dance, she looked right into my eyes and
accepted, and then for a minute or two we danced together and we didn’t say much
until pausing for a bit when I looked at her and said, “I could dance like this
forever … with you.”
She looked at me and said, her eyes sparkling a little, “I think you’d get very
hungry!”
Ollie was there and he talked to Don Luis, and he talked to Torres, and he got
Torres and Jim Carpenter together, and got them both with Al Brooks. They talked
it over, and Torres said the Mexicans would support Orrin, and right then and
there, Orrin got the appointment.
Orrin, he walked over to me and we shook hands. “We did it, Tyrel,” Orrin said,
“we did it. Ma’s got herself a home and the boys will have a better chance out
here.”
“Without guns, I hope.”
Orrin looked at me. “I hope so, too. Times are changing, Tyrel.”
The evening passed and folks packed into their rigs or got back into the saddle
and everybody went home, and Ma went inside and saw her house.
We’d bought things, the sort of things Ma would like, and some we’d heard her
speak of. An old grandfather’s clock, a real dresser, some fine tables and