affairs without that big brother standing by to pull you out.”
The bucket was still about a third full of water and I lifted it to slash it
over me.
There was a kind of nasty, wet look to his eyes and he took a step nearer. “I
don’t like you,” he said, “and I—” His hand dropped to his gun and I let him
have the rest of that water in the face.
He jumped back and I half-jumped, half-fell out of the barrel just as he blinked
the water away and grabbed iron. His gun was coming up when the bucket’s edge
caught him alongside the skull and I felt the whiff of that bullet past my ear.
But that bucket was oak and it was heavy and it laid him out cold.
Inside the saloon there was a scramble of boots, and picking up the flour-sack
towel I began drying off, but I was standing right beside my gun and I had the
shut pulled away from it and easy to my hand it was. If any friends of Carney’s
wanted to call the tune I was ready for the dance.
The first man out was a tall, blond man with a narrow, tough face and a twisted
look to his mouth caused by an old scar. He wore his gun tied to his leg and low
down the way some of these fancy gunmen wear them. Cap Rountree was only a step
behind and right off he pulled over to one side and hung a hand near his gun
butt. Tom Sunday fanned out on the other side. Two others ranged up along the
man with the scarred lip.
“What happened?”
“Carney here,” I said, “bought himself more than he could pay for.”
That blond puncher had been ready to buy himself a piece of any fight there was
left and he was just squaring away when Cap Rountree put in his two-bit’s worth.
“We figured you might be troubled, Tye,” Cap said in that dry, hard old voice,
“so Tom an’ me, we came out to see the sides were even up.”
You could feel the change in the air. That blond with the scarred lip—later I
found out his name was Fetterson—he didn’t like the situation even a little.
Here I was dead center in front of him, but he and his two partners, they were
framed by Tom Sunday and Cap Rountree.
Fetterson glanced one way and then the other and you could just see his horns
pull in. He’d come through that door sure enough on the prod an’ pawin’ dust,
but suddenly he was so peaceful it worried me.
“You better hunt yourself a hole before he comes out of it,” Fetterson said.
“He’ll stretch your hide.”
By that time I had my pants on and was stamping into my boots. Believe me, I
sure hate to face up to trouble with no pants on, and no boots. So I slung my
gun belt and settled my holster into place. “You tell him to draw his pay and
rattle his hocks out of here. I ain’t hunting trouble, but he’s pushing, mighty
pushing.”
The three of us walked across to the Drovers’ Cottage for a meal, and the first
thing we saw was Orrin setting down close to that blond girl and she was looking
at him like he was money from home. But that was the least of it. Her father was
setting there listening himself … leave it to Orrin and that Welsh-talking
tongue of his. He could talk a squirrel right out of a walnut tree … I never
saw the like.
The three of us sat down to a good meal and we talked up a storm about that
country to the west, and the wild cattle, and how much a man could make if he
could keep Comanches, Kiowas, or Utes from lifting his hair.
Seemed strange to be sitting at a table. We were all so used to setting on the
ground that we felt awkward with a white cloth and all. Out on the range a man
ate with his hunting knife and what he could swab up with a chunk of bread.
That night Mr. Belden paid us off in the hotel office, and one by one we stepped
up for our money. You’ve got to remember that neither Orrin or me had ever had
twenty-five dollars of cash money in our lives before. In the mountains a man
mostly swapped for what he needed, and clothes were homespun.
Our wages were twenty-five dollars a month and Orrin and me had two months and
part of a third coming. Only when he came to me, Mr. Belden put down his pen and
sat back in his chair.
“Tye,” he said, “there’s a prisoner here who is being held for the United States
Marshal. Brought in this morning. His name is Aiken, and he was riding with Back
Rand the day you met them out on the prairie.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I had a talk with Aiken, and he told me that if it hadn’t been for you Back
Rand would have taken my herd . . or tried to. It seems, from what he said, that
you saved my herd or saved us a nasty fight and a stampede where I was sure to
lose cattle. It seems this Aiken knew all about you Sacketts and he told Rand
enough so that Rand didn’t want to call your bluff. I’m not an ungrateful man,
Tye, so I’m adding two hundred dollars to your wages.”
Two hundred dollars was a sight of money, those days, cash money being a shy
thing.
When we walked out on the porch of the Drovers’ Cottage, there were three wagons
coming up the trail, and three more behind them. The first three were army
ambulances surrounded by a dozen Mexicans in fringed buckskin suits and wide
Mexican sombreros. There were another dozen riding around the three freight
wagons following, and we’d never seen the like.
Their jackets were short, only to the waist, and their pants flared out at the
bottom and fitted like a glove along the thighs. Their spurs had rowels like
mill wheels on them, and they all had spanking-new rifles and pistols. They wore
colored silk sashes like some of those Texas cowhands wore, and they were all
slicked out like some kind of a show.
Horses? Mister, you should see such horses! Every one clean-limbed and quick,
and every one showing he’d been curried and fussed over. Every man Jack of that
crowd was well set-up, and if ever I saw a fighting crowd, it was this lot.
The first carriage drew up before the Drovers’ Cottage and a tall, fine-looking
old man with pure white hair and white mustaches got down from the wagon, then
helped a girl down. Now I couldn’t rightly say how old she was, not being any
judge of years on a woman, but I’d guess she was fifteen or sixteen, and the
prettiest thing I ever put an eye to.
Pa had told us a time or two about those Spanish dons and the señoritas who
lived around Santa Fe, and these folks must be heading that direction.
Right then I had me an idea. In Indian country the more rifles the better, and
this, here outfit must muster forty rules if there was one, and no Indian was
going to tackle that bunch for the small amount of loot those wagons promised.
The four of us would make their party that much stronger, and would put us right
in the country we were headed for. Saying nothing to Sunday or Rountree, I went
into the dining room. The grub there was passing fine. Situated on the rails
they could get about what they wanted and the Drovers’ Cottage was all set up to
cater to cattlemen and cattle buyers with money to spend. Later on folks from
back east told me some of the finest meals they ever set down to were in some of
those western hotels … and some of the worst, too.
The don was sitting at a table with that pretty girl, but right away I could see
this was no setup to buck if a man was hunting trouble. There were buckskin-clad
riders setting at tables around them and when I approached the don, four of them
came out of their chairs like they had springs in their pants, and they stood as
if awaiting a signal.
“Sir,” I said, “from the look of your outfit you’ll be headed for Santa Fe. My
partners and me … there are four of us … we’re headed west. If we could ride
along with your party we’d add four rifles to your strength and it would be
safer for us.”
He looked at me out of cold eyes from a still face. His mustache was beautifully