held no question.
“No,” I said, “assassins.”
He nodded his head slowly. “There will be much trouble,” he said, “this one,” he
indicated Torres, “was a good man.”
“He was my friend.”
“Si.”
Leaving the Mexican to guard the road approaching the spot—just beyond the gap—I
put Joe between the spot and the town. Only I did this after we loaded the
bodies in the buckboard. Then I sent Orrin and Cap off to town with the bodies.
Joe looked at me, his eyes large. “Keep anybody from messing up the road,” I
said, “until I’ve looked it over.”
First I went back to the spot in the grass where the drygulchers had waited. I
took time to look all around very carefully before approaching the spot itself.
Yet even as I looked, a part of my mind was thinking this would mean the lid was
going to blow off. Juan Torres had been a popular man and he had been killed,
the others, God rest their souls, were incidental. But it was not that alone, it
was what was going to happen to my own family, and what Orrin already knew. Only
one man had real reason to want Juan Torres dead …
One of the men had smoked his cigarettes right down to the nub. There was a
place where he had knelt to take aim, the spot where his knee had been and where
his boot toe dug in was mighty close. He was a man, I calculated, not over five
feet-four or-five. A short man who smoked his cigarettes to the nub wasn’t much
to go on, but it was a beginning.
One thing I knew. This had been a cold-blooded murder of men who had had no
chance to defend themselves, and it had happened in my bailiwick and I did not
plan to rest until I had every man who took part in it … no matter where the
trail led.
It was a crime on my threshold, and it was a friend of mine who had been killed.
And once before Orrin and I had prevented his murder … and another time Torres
had been shot up and left for dead.
I was going to get every man Jack of them. There had been five of them here and
they had gathered up all the shells before leaving … or had they?
Working through the tall grass that had been crashed down by them, I found a
shell and I struck gold. It was a .44 shell and it was brand, spanking new. I
put that shell in my pocket with a mental note to give some time to it later.
Five men … and Torres himself had been hit by four bullets. Even allowing that
some of them might have gotten off more than one shot, judging by the bodies
there had been at least nine shots fired before that final shot.
Now some men can lever and fire a rifle mighty fast, but it was unlikely you’d
find more than one man, at most two, who could work a lever and aim a shot as
fast as those bullets had been, in one group of five men.
Torres must have been moving, maybe falling after that first volley, yet
somebody had gotten more bullets into him. The answer to that one was simple.
There were more than five.
Thoughtfully, I looked up at that hill crested with cedar which arose behind the
place where they’d been waiting. They would have had a lookout up there, someone
to tell them when Torres was coining.
For a couple of hours I scouted around. I found where they had their horses and
they had seven of them, and atop the ridge I found where two men had waited,
smoking. One of them had slid right down to the horses, and a man could see
where he had dug his heels into the bank to keep from sliding too fast.
Cap came and lent me a hand and after a bit, Orrin came out and joined us.
One more thing I knew by that time. The man who had walked up to Torres’ body
and fired that last shot into his head had been a tall man with fairly new boots
and he had stepped in the blood.
Although Orrin held off and let me do it—knowing too many feet would tramp
everything up—he saw enough to know here was a plain, outright murder, and a
carefully planned murder at that.
First off, I had to decide whether they expected to be chased or not and about
how far they would run. How well did they know the country? Were they likely to
go to some ranch owned by friends, or hide out in the hills?
Cap had brought back Kelly all saddled and ready, so when I’d seen about all I
could see there, I got into the saddle and sent Joe back to our ranch. He was
mighty upset, wanting to go along with a posse, but if it was possible I wanted
to keep Joe and Bob out of any shooting and away from the trouble.
“What do you think, Tyrel?” Orrin watched me carefully as he spoke.
“It was out-and-out murder,” I said, “by seven men who knew Torres would be
coming to Mora. It was planned murder, with the men getting there six to seven
hours beforehand. Two of them came along later and I’d guess they watched Torres
from the hills to make sure he didn’t turn off or stop.”
Orrin stared at the backs of his hands and I didn’t say anything about what I
suspected nor did Cap.
“All right,” Orrin said, “you go after them and bring them in, no matter how
long it takes or what money you need.”
I hesitated. Only Cap, Orrin, and me were there together. “Orrin,” I said, “you
had me hired, and you can fire me. You can leave it to Bill Sexton or you can
put in someone else.”
Orrin seldom got mad but he was angry when he stared back at me. “Tyrel, that’s
damn-fool talk. You do what you were hired to do.”
Not one of the three of us could have doubted where that trail would lead, but
maybe even then Orrin figured it would lead to Fetterson, maybe, but not to
Pritts.
Bill Sexton came up just then. “You’ll be wanting a posse,” he said, “I can get
a few good men.”
“No posse … I want Cap, that’s all.”
“Are you crazy? There’s seven of them … at least.”
“Look, if I take a posse there’s apt to be one in the crowd who’s trigger happy.
If I can avoid it I don’t want any shooting. If I can take these men alive, I’m
going to do it.”
“You’re looking to lose your scalp,” Sexton said doubtfully, “but it’s your
hair. You do what you’ve a mind to.”
“Want me to come along?” Orrin asked.
“No.” I wanted him the worst way but the less involved he was, the better. “Cap
will do.”
The way I looked at it, the chances were almighty slim that the seven would stay
together very long. Some of them would split off and that would shorten the
odds.
The Alvarado Ranch lay quiet under low gray clouds when Cap and I rode up to the
door. Briefly, I told Miguel about Torres. “I will come with you,” he said
instantly.
“You stay here.” I gave it to him straight. “They thought by killing Torres they
would ruin any chance the señorita would have. Torres is killed but you are not.
You’re going to take his place, Miguel. You are going to be foreman.”
He was startled. “But I—”
“You will have to protect the señorita,” I said, “and you will have to hire at
least a dozen good men. You’ll have to bunch what cattle she has left and guard
them. It looks to me like the killing of Juan Torres was the beginning of an
attempt to put her out of business.”
I went on inside, walking fast, and Dru was there to meet me. Quietly as
possible, I told her about Juan Torres’ death and what I had told Miguel.
“He’s a good man,” I said, “a better man than he knows, and this will prove it
to him and to you. Give him authority and give him responsibility. You can trust
him to use good judgment.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Why, what a deputy sheriff has to do. I am going to run down the killers.”
“And what does your brother say?”
“He says to find them, no matter what, no matter how long, and no matter who.”
“Tyrel—be careful!”
That made me grin. “Why, ma’am,” I said, grinning at her, “I’m the most careful
man you know. Getting myself killed is the last idea in my mind … I want to
come back to you.”