chairs, and a big old four-poster bed. The house only had three rooms, but there
would be more—and we boys had slept out so much we weren’t fit for a house,
anyway.
I walked to her carriage with Dru, and we stood there by the wheel. “I’ve been
happy today,” I told her.
“You have brought your mother home,” she said. “It is a good thing. My
grandfather admires you very much, Tye. He says you are a thoughtful son and a
good man.”
Watching Dru drive away in that carriage it made me think of money again. It’s a
high card in a man’s hand when he goes courting if he has money, and I had none
of that. True, the place we had, belonged to Orrin and me but there was more to
it than that. Land wasn’t of much value those days nor even cattle. And cash
money was almighty scarce.
Orrin was going to be busy, so the money question was my chore.
Orrin, he worked hard studying Blackstone. From somewhere he got a book by
Montaigne and he read Plutarch’s Lives, and subscribed to a couple of eastern
papers, and he read all the political news he could find, and he rode around and
talked to folks or listened to them tell about their troubles. Orrin was a good
listener who was always ready to give a man a hand at whatever he was doing.
That was after. That was after the first big night when Orrin showed folks who
was marshal of Mora. That was the night he took over, the night he laid down the
law. And believe you me, when Orrin takes a-hold, he takes a-hold.
At sundown, Orrin came up the street wearing the badge, and the Settlement men
were around, taking their time to look him over. Having a marshal was a new
thing in town and to the Settlement outfit it was a good joke. They just wanted
to see him move around so they could decide where to lay hold of him.
The first thing Orrin done was walk through the saloon to the back door and on
the inside of the back door he tacked up a notice. Now that notice was in plain
sight and what was printed there was in both Spanish and English.
No gun shall be drawn or fired within the town limits.
No brawling, fighting or boisterous conduct will be tolerated.
Drunks will be thrown in jail.
Repeat offenders will be asked to leave town.
No citizen will be molested in any way.
Racing horses or riding steers in the street is prohibited.
Every resident or visitor will be expected to show visible means of support on
demand.
That last rule was pointed right at the riffraff which hung around the streets,
molesting citizens, picking fights, and making a nuisance of themselves. They
were a bad lot.
Bully Ben Baker had been a keel-boat man on the Missouri and the Platte and was
a noted brawler. He was several inches taller than Orrin, weighed two hundred
and forty pounds, and Bully Ben decided to find what the new marshal was made
of.
Bully Ben wasted no time. He walked over to the notice, read it aloud, then
ripped it from the door. Orrin got to his feet.
Ben reached around, grinning cheerfully, and took a bottle from the bar,
gripping it by the neck. Orrin ignored him, picked up the notice and replaced it
on the door, and then he turned around and hit Ben Baker in the belly.
When Orrin had gone by him and replaced the notice, Bully Ben had waited to see
what would happen. He had lowered his bottle, for he was a man accustomed to
lots of rough talk before fighting, and Orrin’s punch caught him off guard right
in the pit of the stomach and he gasped for breath, his knees buckling.
Coolly, Orrin hit him a chopping blow to the chin that dropped Ben to his knees.
The unexpected attack was the sort of thing Ben himself had often done but he
was not expecting it from Orrin.
Ben came up with a lunge, swinging his bottle and I could have told him he was a
fool. Blocking the descending blow with his left forearm, Orrin chopped that
left fist down to Ben’s jaw. Deliberately then, he grabbed the bigger man and
threw him with a rolling hip-lock. Ben landed heavily and Orrin stood back
waiting for him to get up.
All this time Orrin had acted mighty casual, like he wasn’t much interested. He
was just giving Bully Ben a whipping without half trying. Ben was mighty shook
up and he was astonished too. The blood was dripping from a cut on his jawbone
and he was stunned, but he started to get up.
Orrin let him get up and when Ben threw a punch, Orrin grabbed his wrist and
threw him over his shoulder with a flying mare. This time Baker got up more
slowly, for he was a heavy man and he had hit hard. Orrin waited until he was
halfway to his feet and promptly knocked him down.
Ben sat on the floor staring up at Orrin. “You’re a fighter,” he said, “you pack
a wallop in those fists.”
The average man in those years knew little of fist-fighting. Men in those days,
except such types as Bully Ben, never thought of fighting with anything other
than a gun. Ben had won his fights because he was a big man, powerful, and had
acquired a rough skill on the river boats. Pa had taught us and taught us well.
He was skilled at Cornish-style wrestling and he’d learned fist-fighting from a
bare-knuckle boxer he’d met in his travels.
Ben was a mighty confused man. His strength was turned against him, and
everything he did, Orrin had an answer for. On a cooler night Orrin would never
have worked up a sweat.
“You had enough?” Orrin asked.
“Not yet,” Ben said, and got up.
Now that was a mighty foolish thing, a sadly foolish thing, because until now,
Orrin had been teaching him. Now Orrin quit fooling. As Ben Baker straightened
up, Orrin hit him in the face with both fists before Ben could get set. Baker
made an effort to rush and holding him with his left, Orrin smashed three wicked
blows to his belly, then pushed Ben off and broke his nose with an overhand
right. Ben backed up and sat down and Orrin grabbed him by the hair and picking
him off the floor proceeded to smash three or four blows into his face, then
Orrin picked Ben up, shoved him against the bar and said, “Give him a drink.” He
tossed a coin on the bar and walked out. Looked to me like Orrin was in charge.
After that there was less trouble than a man would expect. Drunks Orrin threw in
jail and in the morning he turned them out.
Orrin was quick, quiet, and he wasted no time talking. By the end of the week he
had jailed two men for firing guns in the town limits and each had been fined
twenty-five dollars and costs. Both had been among the crowd at Pawnee Rock and
Orrin told them to get out of town or go to work.
Bob and me rode down to Ruidoso with Cap Rountree and picked up a herd of cattle
I’d bought for the ranch, nigh onto a hundred head.
Ollie Shaddock hired a girl to work in his store and he devoted much of his time
to talking about Orrin. He went down to Santa Fe, over to Cimarron and
Elizabethtown, always on business, but each time he managed to say a few words
here and there about Orrin, each time mentioning him for the legislature.
After a month of being marshal in Mora there had been no killings, only one
knifing, and the Settlement crowd had mostly moved over to Elizabethtown or to
Las Vegas. Folks were talking about Orrin all the way down to Socorro and Silver
City.
On the Grant there had been another killing. A cousin of Abreu’s had been shot
… from the back. Two of the Mexican hands had quit to go back to Mexico.
Chico Cruz had killed a man in Las Vegas. One of the Settlement crowd. Jonathan
Pritts came up to Mora with his daughter and he bought a house there.
It was two weeks after our housewarming before I got a chance to go see Dru. She
was at the door to meet me and took me in to see her grandfather. He looked
mighty frail, lying there in bed.
“It is good to see you, señor,” he said, almost whispering. “How is your ranch?”
He listened while I told him about it and nodded his head thoughtfully. We had
three thousand acres of graze, and it was well-watered. A small ranch by most