“It is not. But we will risk it. We cannot risk you being here, Chico. There is
an evil that comes with you.”
“And not with you?” He stared at me.
“Perhaps … anyway, I shall not be here.”
We heard the sound of a horse outside, and glanced out to see Pete Romero
leading Chico’s horse.
Chico walked to the door and he looked at me. “What of my gun?” he said, and
swung into the saddle.
“You may need it,” I said, “and I would not want you without it.”
So I handed him the gun, nor did I take the shells from it. He opened the
loading gate and flipped the cylinder curiously, and then he looked at me and
held the gun in his palm, his face expressionless.
For several seconds we remained like that, and I don’t know what he was
thinking. He had reason to hate me, reason to kill me, but he held the gun in
his hand and looked down at me, and my own gun remained in its holster.
He turned his horse. “I think we will never meet,” he said, “I like you, señor.”
Juan Torres and I stood there until we could hear the gallop of his horse no
longer.
Chapter XIII
Jonathan Pritts had brought with him an instrument more dangerous than any gun.
He brought a printing press.
In a country hungry for news and with a scarcity of reading material, the
newspaper was going to be read, and people believe whatever they read must be
true—or it would not be in print.
Most folks don’t stop to think that the writer of a book or the publisher of a
newspaper may have his own axe to grind, or he may be influenced by others, or
may not be in possession of all the information on the subject of which he
writes.
Don Luis had known about Pritts’ printing press before anybody else, and that
was one reason he wanted his granddaughter out of the country, for a paper can
be used to stir people up. And things were not like they had been.
Don Luis sent for me again, and made a deal to sell me four thousand acres of
his range that joined to mine. The idea was his, and he sold it to me on my
note.
“It is enough, señor. You are a man of your word, and you can use the range.” He
was sitting up that day. He smiled at me. “Moreover, señor, it will be a piece
of land they cannot take from me, and they will not try to take it from you.”
At the same time, I bought, also on my note, three hundred head of young stuff.
In both cases the notes were made payable to Drusilla. The don was worried, and
he was also smart. It was plain that he could expect nothing but trouble. Defeat
had angered Jonathan Pritts, and he would never quit until he had destroyed the
don or been destroyed himself.
His Settlement crowd had shifted their base to Las Vegas although some of them
were around Elizabethtown and Cimarron, and causing trouble in both places. But
the don was playing it smart … land and cattle sold to me they would not try
to take, and he felt sure I’d make good, and so Drusilla would have that much at
least coming to her.
These days I saw mighty little of Orrin. Altogether we had a thousand or so head
on the place now, mostly young stuff that would grow into money. The way I
figured, I wasn’t going to sell anything for another three years, and by that
time I would be in a position to make some money.
Orrin, the boys, and me, we talked it over. We had no idea of running the big
herds some men were handling, or trying to hold big pieces of land. All the land
I used I wanted title to, and I figured it would be best to run only a few
cattle, keep from overgrazing the grass, and sell fat cattle. We had already
found out we could get premium prices for cattle that were in good shape.
Drusilla was gone.
The don was a little better, but there was more trouble. Squatters had moved
into a valley on the east side of his property and there was trouble. Pritts
jumped in with his newspaper and made a lot more of the trouble than there had
been.
Then Orrin was made sheriff of the county, and he asked Tom to become a deputy.
Now we had a going ranch and everything was in hand. We needed money, and if I
ever expected to make anything of myself it was time I had at it. There was
nothing to do about the ranch that the boys could not do, but I had notes to Don
Luis to pay and it was time I started raising some money.
Cap Rountree rode out to the ranch. He got down from his horse and sat down on
the step beside me. “Cap,” I said, “you ever been to Montana?”
“Uh-huh. Good country, lots of grass, lots of mountains, lots of Indians, mighty
few folks. Except around Virginia City. They’ve got a gold strike up there.”
“That happened some years back.”
“Still working.” He gave me a shrewd look out of those old eyes. “You gettin’
the itch, too?”
“Need money. We’re in debt, Cap, and I never liked being beholden to anybody.
Seems to me we might strike out north and see what we can find. You want to come
along?”
“Might’s well. I’m gettin’ the fidgets here.”
So we rode over to see Tom Sunday. Tom was drinking more than a man should. He
had bought a ranch for himself about ten miles from us. He had him some good
grass, a fair house, but it was a rawhide outfit, generally speaking, and not at
all like Tom was who was a first-rate cattleman.
“I’ll stay here,” he told me finally. “Orrin offered me a job as deputy sheriff,
but I’m not taking it. I think I’ll run for sheriff myself, next election.”
“Orrin would like to have you,” I said. “It’s hard to get good men.”
“Hell,” Tom said harshly, “he should be working for me. By rights that should be
my job.”
“Maybe. You had a chance at it.”
He sat down at the table and stared moodily out the window.
Cap got to his feet. “Might’s well come along,” he said, “if you don’t find any
gold you’ll still see some fine country.”
“Thanks,” he said, “I’ll stay here.”
We mounted up and Tom put a hand on my saddle. “Tye,” he said, “I’ve got nothing
against you. You’re a good man.”
“So’s Orrin, Tom, and he likes you.”
He ignored it. “Have a good time. If you get in trouble, write me and I’ll come
up and pull you out of it.”
“Thanks. And if you get in trouble, you send for us.”
He was still standing there on the steps when we rode away, and I looked back
when I could barely make him out, but he was still standing there.
“Long as I’ve known him, Cap,” I said, “that was the first time I ever saw Tom
Sunday without a shave.”
Cap glanced at me out of those cold, still eyes. “He’d cleaned his gun,” he
said. “He didn’t forget that.”
The aspen were like clusters of golden candles on the green hills, and we rode
north into a changing world. “Within two weeks we’ll be freezin’ our ears off,”
Cap commented.
Nonetheless, his eyes were keen and sharp and Cap sniffed the breeze each
morning like a buffalo-hunting wolf. He was a new man, and so was I. Maybe this
was what I was bred for, roaming the wild country, living off it, and moving on.
In Durango we hired out and worked two weeks on a roundup crew, gathering
cattle, roping and branding calves. Then we drifted west into the Abajo
Mountains, sometimes called the Blues. It was a mighty big country, two-thirds
of it standing on edge, seemed like. We rode through country that looked like
hell with the fires out, and we camped at night among the cool pines.
Our tiny fire was the only light in a vast world of darkness, for any way we
looked there was nothing but night and the stars. The smell of coffee was good,
and the smell of fresh wood burning. We hadn’t seen a rider for three days when
we camped among the pines up there in the Blues, and we hadn’t seen a track in
almost as long. Excepting deer tracks, cat or bear tracks.
Out of Pioche I got a job riding shotgun for a stage line with Cap Rountree
handling the ribbons. We stayed with it two months.
Only one holdup was attempted while I rode shotgun because it seemed I was a