his yell brought out was Tina Fernandez. She knew me all right. All those Santa
Fe women knew me.
Only she didn’t make out like she knew me. She was neat as a new pin, and she
brought a pot of coffee and two cups and she poured the coffee and whispered
something that sounded like cuidado—a word meaning we should be careful.
We drank our coffee and ate some chili and beans with tortillas and I watched
the kitchen door and Cap watched the street.
The grub was good, the coffee better, so we had another cup. “Behind the
corral,” she whispered, “after dark.”
Cap chewed his gray mustache and looked at me out of those old, wise-hard eyes.
“You mixin’ pleasure with business?”
“This is business.”
We finished our coffee and we got up and I paid the bartender while Cap studied
the street outside. The bartender looked at my face very carefully and then he
said, “Do I know you?”
“If you do,” I said, “you’re going to develop a mighty bad memory.”
The street was empty. Not even a stray dog appeared. Had we guessed wrong? Had
they gone around Tres Ritos? Or were they here now, waiting for us?
Standing there in the quiet of early evening I had a dry mouth and could feel my
heart beating big inside of me. Time to time I’d seen a few men shot and had no
idea to go out that way if I could avoid it.
We heard them come into town about an hour later. Chances are they grew tired of
waiting for us, if that was what they had been doing. They came down the street
strung out like Indians on the trail, and from where we lay in the loft over the
livery stable we could not see them but we could hear their horses.
They rode directly to the saloon and got down there, talking very little. As we
had ridden into Tres Ritos by a back trail they would have seen no tracks, so
unless they were told by the bartender they were not likely to realize we were
around.
Lying there on the hay, listening out of the back of my mind for any noise that
would warn us they were coming our way, I was not thinking of them, but of
Orrin, Laura, Tom Sunday, Dru, and myself. And there was a lot to think about.
Jonathan Pritts would not be talking to Tom Sunday unless there was a shady side
to his talk, for Jonathan was a man who did nothing by accident. I knew Tom had
no use for the man, but as far back as the night Jonathan had sent for us in
Santa Fe there had been a streak of compromise in Tom. He had hesitated that
night, recognizing, I think, that Jonathan was a man who was going to be a
power.
What was Jonathan Pritts up to? The thought stayed with me and I worried it like
a dog at a bone, trying to figure it out. Of one thing I was sure: it promised
no good for us.
Cap sat up finally and took out his pipe. “You’re restless, boy.”
“I don’t like this.”
“You got it to do. A man wants peace in a country he has to go straight to the
heart of things.” He smoked in silence for a few minutes. “Time to time I’ve
come across a few men like Pritts … once set on a trail they can’t see
anything but that and the more they’re balked the stiffer they get.” He paused a
moment. “As he gets older he gets meaner … he wants what he’s after and he
knows time is short.”
The loft smelled of the fresh hay and of the horses below in their stalls. The
sound of their eating was a comfortable sound, a good sleeping sound, but I
could not sleep, tired as I was.
If I was to do anything with my life it had to be now and when this trail had
been followed to the end I was going to quit my job, marry Dru, and settle down
to build something.
We’d never rightly had a real home and for my youngsters I wanted one. I wanted
a place they could grow up with, where they could put down roots. I wanted a
place they’d be proud to come back to and which they could always call home …
no matter how far they went or what happened.
Getting up I brushed off the hay, hitched my gun belt into position, and started
for the ladder.
“You be careful.”
“I’m a careful man by nature.”
At the back of the corral I squatted on my heels against a corral post and
waited.
Time dragged and then I heard a soft rustle of feet in the grass and saw a
shadow near me and smelled a faint touch of woman-smell.
“You all right?”
It was scarcely a whisper but she came to me and I stood up keeping myself in
line with that corral post at the corner.
“They are gone,” Tina said.
“What?”
“They are gone,” she repeated, “I was ‘fraid for you.”
She explained there had been horses for them hidden in ths woods back of the
saloon, and while they were inside drinking, their saddles had been switched and
they had come out one by one and gone off into the woods.
“Fooled us … hornswoggled us.”
“The other one is there. He is upstairs but I think he will go in the morning.”
“Who?”
“The man who gave them money. The blond man.”
Fetterson? It could be.
“You saw the money paid?”
“Yes, señor. With my two eyes I saw it. They were paid much in gold … the
balance, he said.”
“Tina, they killed Juan Torres … did you know him?”
“Si… he was a good man.”
“In court, Tina. Would you testify against them? Would you tell you saw money
paid? It would be dangerous for you.”
“I will testify. I am not afraid.” She stood very still in the darkness. “I
know, señor, you are in love with the Señorita Alvarado, but could you help me,
señor? Could you help me to go away from here? This man, the one you talked to,
he is my … how do you call it? He married my mother.”
“Stepfather.”
“Si … and my mother is dead and he keeps me here and I work, señor. Someday I
will be old. I wish now to go to Santa Fe again but he will not let me.”
“You shall go. I promise it.”
The men had gone and we had not seen them but she told me one had been Paisano.
Only one other she knew. A stocky, very tough man named Jim Dwyer … he had
been among those at Pawnee Rock. But Fetterson was here and he was the one I
wanted most.
We slept a little, and shy of daybreak we rolled out and brushed off the hay. I
felt sticky and dirty and wanted a bath and a shave the worst way but I checked
my gun and we walked down to the hotel. There was a light in the kitchen and we
shoved open the back door.
The bartender was there in his undershirt and pants and sock feet. There was the
tumbled, dirty bedding where he had slept, some scattered boots, dirty socks,
and some coats hung on the wall, on one nail a gun belt hung. I turned the
cylinder and shucked out the shells while the bartender watched grimly.
“What’s all this about?”
Turning him around we walked through the dark hall with a lantern in Cap’s hand
to throw a vague light ahead.
“Which room is he in?”
The bartender just looked at me, and Cap, winking at me, said, “Shall I do it
here? Or should we take him out back where they won’t find the body so soon?”
The bartender’s feet shifted “No, look!” he protested. “I ain’t done nothing.”
“He’d be in the way,” I said thoughtfully, “and he’s no account to us. We might
as well take him out back.”
Cap looked mean enough to do it, and folks always figured after a look at me
that killing would be easier for me than smiling.
“Wait a minute … he ain’t nothin’ to me. He’s in Room Six, up the stairs.”
Looking at him, I said “Cap, you keep him here.” And then looking at the
bartender I said, “You know something? That had better be the right room.”
Up the stairs I went, tiptoeing each step and at the top, shielding the lantern
with my coat, I walked down the hall and opened the door to Room Six.
His eyes opened when I came through the door but the light was in his eyes when
I suddenly unveiled the lantern and his gun was on the table alongside the bed.