that he had no more worries … anyway, he was in it up to his ears and if the
title of the Alvarado Grant proved itself, he had no more claim than nothing. I
mean, he was broke.
Not that I felt sorry for him. He hadn’t worried about what happened to the don
or his granddaughter, all he thought of was what he wanted. Only if there was
anything that was figured to blow the lid off this country it was such a suit.
“If I were you,” I advised her, “I’d go to Mexico and I’d stay there until this
is settled.”
“This is my home,” Dru said quietly.
“Dru, you don’t seem to realize. This is a shooting matter. They’ll kill you …
or they’ll try.”
“They may try,” she said quietly. “I shall not leave.”
When I left the house I was worried about Dru. If I had not been so concerned
with her situation I might have given some thought to myself.
They would think I had put her up to it. From the day that action was announced
I would be the Number-One target in the shooting gallery.
When I was expecting everything to happen, nothing happened. There were a few
scattered killings further north. One was a Settlement man who had broken with
Jonathan Pritts and the Settlement Company … it was out of my bailiwick and
the killing went unsolved, but it had an ugly look to it.
Jonathan Pritts remained in Santa Fe, Laura was receiving important guests at
her parties and fandangos most every night. Pritts was generally agreed to have
a good deal of political power. Me, I was a skeptic … because folks associate
in a social way doesn’t mean they are political friends, and most everybody
likes a get-together.
One Saturday afternoon Orrin pulled up alongside me in a buckboard. He looked up
at me and grinned as I sat Sate’s saddle.
“Looks to me like you’d sell that horse, Tyrel,” he said. “He was always a mean
one.”
“I like him,” I said. “He’s contrary as all get-out, and he’s got a streak of
meanness in him, but I like him.”
“How’s Ma?”
“She’s doing fine.” It was a hot day and the sweat trickled down my face. The
long street was busy. Fetterson was down there with the one they called Paisano,
because he gave a man a feeling that he was some kin to a chaparral cock or road
runner. Folks down New Mexico way called them paisanos.
Only I had a feeling about Paisano. I didn’t care for him much.
“Ma misses you, Orrin. You should drive out to see her.”
“I know … I know. Damn it, Tyrel, why can’t womenfolks get along?”
“Ma hasn’t had any trouble with anybody. She’s all right, Orrin, the same as
always. Only she still smokes a pipe.”
He mopped his face, looking mighty harried and miserable. “Laura’s not used to
that.” He scowled. “She raises hell every time I go out to the place.”
“Womenfolks,” I said, “sometimes need some handling. You let them keep the bit
in their teeth and they’ll make you miserable and themselves too. You pet ’em a
little and keep a firm hand on the bridle and you’ll have no trouble.”
He stared down the sun-bright street, squinting his eyes a little. “It sounds
very easy, Tyrel. Only there’s so many things tied in with it. When we become a
state I want to run for the Senate, and it may be only a few years now.”
“How do you and Pritts get along?”
Orrin gathered the reins. He didn’t need to tell me. Orrin was an easygoing man,
but he wasn’t a man you could push around or take advantage of. Except maybe by
that woman.
“We don’t.” He looked up at me. “That’s between us, Tyrel. I wouldn’t even tell
Ma. Jonathan and I don’t get along, and Laura .. . well, she can be difficult.”
“You were quite a bronc rider, Orrin.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Why,” I pushed my hat back on my head, “I’d say it meant your feet aren’t tied
to the stirrups, Orrin. I’d say there isn’t a thing to keep you in the saddle
but your mind to stay there, and nobody’s going to give you a medal for staying
in the saddle when you can’t make a decent ride of it.
“Take Sate here,” I rubbed Sate’s neck and that bronc laid back his ears, “you
take Sate. He’s a mean horse. He’s tough and he’s game and he’ll go until the
sun comes up, but Orrin, if I could only have one horse, I’d never have this
one. I’d have Dapple or that Montana horse.
“It’s fun to ride a mean one when you don’t have to do it every day, but if I
stay with Sate long enough he’ll turn on me. And there’s some women like that.”
Orrin gathered the reins. “Too hot … I’ll see you later, Tyrel.”
He drove off and I watched him go. He was a fine, upstanding man but when he
married that Laura girl he bought himself a packet of grief.
Glancing down the street I saw Fetterson hand something to Paisano. It caught
the sunlight an instant, then disappeared in Paisano’s pocket. But the glimpse
was enough. Paisano had gotten himself a fistful of gold coins from Fetterson,
which was an interesting thought.
Sometimes a man knows something is about to happen. He can’t put a finger on a
reason, but he gets an itch inside him, and I had it now. Something was building
up. I could smell trouble in the making, and oddly enough it might have been
avoided by a casual comment. The trouble was that I did not know that Torres was
coming up from Socorro, and that he was returning to work for Dru.
Had I known that, I would have known what Jonathan Pritts’ reaction was to be.
If Dru had happened to mention the fact that Torres was finally well and able to
be around and was coming back, I would have gone down to meet him and come back
with him.
Juan Torres was riding with two other Mexicans, men he had recruited in Socorro
to work for Dru, and they were riding together. They had just ridden through the
gap about four miles from Mora when they were shot to doll rags.
Mountain air is clear, and sound carries, particularly when it has the hills
behind it. The valley was narrow all the way to town, and it was early monring
with no other sound to interfere.
Orrin had come up from Santa Fe by stage to Las Vegas and had driven up to town
from there. We had walked out on the street together for I’d spent the night in
the back room at the sheriff’s office.
We all heard the shots, there was a broken volley that sounded like four or five
guns at least, and then, almost a full half minute later, a single, final shot.
Now nobody shoots like that if they are hunting game. For that much shooting it
has to be a battle, and I headed for Orrin’s buckboard on the run with him right
behind me. His Winchester was there and each of us wore a belt gun.
Dust lingered in the air at the gap, only a faint suggestion of it. The killers
were gone and nobody was going to catch up with them right away, especially in a
buckboard, so I wasted no time thinking about that.
Juan Torres lay on his back with three bullet holes in his chest and a fourth
between his eyes, and there was a nasty powder burn around that.
“You know what that means?” I asked Orrin. “Somebody wanted him dead. Remember
that final shot?” There was a rattle of hoofs on the road and I looked around to
see my brother Joe and Cap Rountree riding bareback. The ranch was closer than
the town and they must have come as fast as they could get to their horses. They
knew better than to mess things up. Juan Torres had been dead when that final
shot was fired, I figured, because at least two of the bullets in the chest
would have killed him. The two others were also dead. I began casting for sign.
Not thirty feet off the trail I found where several men had waited for quite
some time. There were cigarette stubs there and the grass was matted down.
Orrin had taken one look at the bodies and had walked back to the buckboard and
he stood there, saying no word to anybody, just staring first at the ground and
then at his hands, looking like he’d never seen them before.
A Mexican I knew had come down the road from town, and he was sitting there on
his horse looking at those bodies. “Bandidos?” he looked at me with eyes that