They were getting up a political rally and Orrin was going to speak. Several of
the high mucky-mucks from Santa Fe were coming up, but this was to be Orrin’s
big day.
It was a good time for him to put himself forward and the stage was being set
for it. There was to be a real ol’ time fandango with the folks coming in from
back at the forks of the creeks. Everybody was to be there and all dressed in
their Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes.
In preparation for it I made the rounds and gave several of the trouble makers
their walking papers. What I mean is, I told them they would enjoy Las Vegas or
Socorro or Cimarron a whole sight better and why didn’t they start now.
They started.
“Have you heard the talk that’s going around?” Shea asked me.
“What talk?”
“It’s being said that Tom Sunday is coming into town after Orrin.”
“Tom Sunday and Orrin are friends,” I said, “I know Tom’s changed, but I don’t
believe he’ll go that far.”
“Put no faith in that line of thought, Tyrel. Believe me, the man hasn’t a
friend left. He’s surly as a grizzly with a sore tooth, and nobody goes near him
any more. The man’s changed, and he works with a gun nearly every day. Folks
coming by there say they can hear it almost any hour.”
“Tom never thought much of Orrin as a fighter. Tom never knew him like I have.”
“That isn’t all.” Shea put his cigar down on the edge of the desk. “There’s talk
about what would happen if you and Tom should meet.”
Well, I was mad. I got up and walked across the office and swore. Yes, and I
wasn’t a swearing man. Oddly enough, thinking back, I can’t remember many
gunfighters who were. Most of them I knew were sparing in the use of words as
well as whiskey.
But one thing I knew: Orrin must not meet Tom Sunday. Even if Orrin beat him,
Orrin would lose. A few years ago it would not have mattered that he had been in
a gun battle, now it could wreck his career.
If Orrin would get out of town … but he couldn’t. He had been selected as the
speaker for the big political rally and that would be just the time when Tom
Sunday would be in town.
“Thanks,” I said to Shea, “thanks for telling me.”
Leaving Cap in charge of the office I mounted up and rode out to the ranch.
Orrin was there, and we sat down and had dinner with Ma. It was good to have our
feet under the same table again, and Ma brightened up and talked like her old
self.
Next day was Sunday and Orrin and me decided to take Ma to church. It was a lazy
morning with bright sunshine and Orrin took Ma in the buckboard and we boys rode
along behind.
We wore our broadcloth suits and the four of us dressed in black made a sight
walking around Ma, who was a mighty little woman among her four tall sons, and
Dru was with us, standing there beside Ma and me, and I was a proud man.
It was a meeting I’ll not soon forget, that one was, because when Ollie heard
the family was going, he came along and stood with us at the hymn singing and
the preaching.
Whether or not Orrin had heard any of the stories going round about Tom I felt
it necessary to warn him. If I expected him to brush it off, I was wrong. He was
dead serious about it when I explained. “But I can’t leave,” he added,
“everybody would know why I went and if they thought I was afraid, I’d lose as
many votes as if I actually fought him.”
He was right, of course, so we prepared for the meeting with no happy
anticipation of it, although this was to be Orrin’s big day, and his biggest
speech, and the one that would have him fairly launched in politics. Men were
coming up from Santa Fe to hear him, all the crowd around the capital who pulled
the political strings.
Everybody knew Orrin was to speak and everybody knew Tom would be there. And
nothing any of us could do but wait.
Jonathan Pritts knew he had been left out and he knew it was no accident. He
also knew that it was to be Orrin’s big day and that Laura’s cutting loose had
not hurt him one bit.
Also Jonathan knew the trial was due to come off soon, and before the attorney
got through cross-examining Wilson and some of the others the whole story of his
move into the Territory would be revealed. There was small chance it could be
stopped, but if something were to happen to Orrin and me, if there was to be a
jail delivery …
He wouldn’t dare.
Or would he?
Chapter XX
The sun was warm in the street that morning, warm even at the early hour when I
rode in from the ranch. The town lay quiet and a lazy dog sprawled in the dust
opened one eye and flapped his tail in a
I-won’t-bother-you-if-you-don’t-bother-me sort of way, as I approached.
Cap Rountree looked me over carefully from those shrewd old eyes as I rode up.
“You wearing war paint, boy? If you ain’t, you better. I got a bad feeling about
today.”
Getting down from the saddle I stood beside him and watched the hills against
the skyline. People were getting up all over town now, or lying there awake and
thinking about the events of the day. There was to be the speaking, a band
concert, and most folks would bring picnic lunches.
“I hope he stays away.”
Cap stuffed his pipe with tobacco. “He’ll be here.”
“What happened, Cap? Where did it start?”
He leaned a thin shoulder against the awning post. “You could say it was at the
burned wagons when Orrin and him had words about that money. No man likes to be
put in the wrong.
“Or you could say it was back there at the camp near Baxter Springs, or maybe it
was the day they were born. Sometimes men are born who just can’t abide one
another from the time they meet … don’t make no rhyme nor reason, but it’s
so.”
“They are proud men.”
“Tom’s gone killer, Tyrel, don’t you ever forget that. It infects some men like
rabies, and they keep on killing until somebody kills them.”
We stood there, not talking for awhile, each of us busy with his own thoughts.
What would Dru be doing about now? Rising at home, and planning her day,
bathing, combing her long dark hair, having breakfast.
Turning away I went inside and started looking over the day’s roundup of mail.
This morning there was a letter from Tell, my oldest brother. Tell was in
Virginia City, Montana, and was planning to come down and see us. Ma would be
pleased, mighty pleased. It had been a sorry time since we had seen Tell.
There was a letter from that girl, too. The one we had sent the money we found
in that burned wagon … she was coming west and wanted to meet us. The letter
had been forwarded from Santa Fe where it had been for weeks … by this time
she must be out here, or almost here. It gave me an odd feeling to get that
letter on this morning, thinking back to the trouble it had caused.
Cap came in from outside and I said, “I’m going to have coffee with Dru. You
hold the fort, will you?”
“You do that, boy. You just do that.”
Folks were beginning to crowd the streets now, and some were hanging out hunting
and flags. Here and there a few rigs stood along the street, all with picnic
baskets in the back. There were big, rawboned men in the Sunday-go-to-meeting
clothes and women in fresh-washed ginghams and sunbonnets. Little boys ran and
played in the streets, and their mothers scolded and called after them while
little girls, starched and ribboned, looked on enviously and disdainfully.
It was good to be alive. Everything seemed to move slow today, everything seemed
to take its time … was this the way a man felt on his last day? Was it to be
my last day?
When I knocked on the door Dru answered it herself. Beyond the welcome I could
see the worry.
“How’s about a poor drifter begging a cup of coffee, ma’am? I was just passin’
through and the place had a kindly look.”
“Come in, Tye. You don’t have to knock.”
“Big day in town. Biggest crowd I ever saw. Why, I’ve seen folks from Santa Fe
… as far as Raton or Durango.”
The maid brought in the coffee and we sat at the breakfast table looking out the