was something that existed between us that we both understood.
The happiest hours of my life were those when I was riding with Dru or sitting
across a table from her. And I’ll always remember her face by candlelight … it
seemed I was always seeing it that way, and soft sounds of the rustle of gowns,
the tinkle of silver and glass, and Dru’s voice, never raised and always
exciting.
Within the thick adobe walls of the old Spanish house there was quiet, a
shadowed peace that I have associated with such houses all my years. One stepped
through the door into another world, and left outside the trouble, confusion,
and storm of the day.
“When this is over, Dru,” I said, “we’ll wait no longer. And it will soon be
over.”
“We do not need to wait.” She turned from the window where we stood and looked
up at me. “I am ready now.”
“This must be over first, Dru. It is a thing I have to do and when it is
finished I shall take off my badge and leave the public offices to Orrin.”
Suddenly there was an uneasiness upon me and I said to her, “I must go.”
She walked to the door with me. “Vaya con Dios,” she said, and she waited there
until I was gone.
And that night there was trouble in town but it was not the trouble I expected.
Chapter XIX
It happened as I left my horse in front of the saloon and stepped in for a last
look around. It was after ten o’clock, and getting late for the town of Mora,
and I went into the saloon and stepped into trouble.
Two men faced each other across the room and the rest were flattened against the
walls. Chico Cruz, deadly as a sidewinder, stood posed and negligent, a slight
smile on his lips, bis black eyes flat and without expression.
And facing him was Tom Sunday. Big, blond, and powerful, unshaven as always
these days, heavier than he used to be, but looking as solid and formidable as a
blockhouse.
Neither of them saw me. Their attention was concentrated on each other and death
hung in the air like the smell of lightning on a rocky hillside. As I stepped
in, they drew.
With my own eyes I saw it. Saw Chico’s hand flash. I had never believed a man
could draw so fast, his gun came up and then he jerked queerly and his body
snapped sidewise and his gun went off into the floor and Tom Sunday was walking.
Tom Sunday was walking in, gun poised. Chico was trying to get his gun up and
Tom stopped and spread his legs and grimly, brutally, he fired a shot into
Chico’s body, and then coolly, another shot.
Chico’s gun dropped, hit the floor with a thud. Chico turned and in turning his
eyes met mine across the room, and he said very distinctly into the silence that
followed the thundering of the guns, “It was not you.” He fell then, fell all in
a piece and his hat rolled free and he lay on the floor and he was dead.
Tom Sunday turned and stared at me and his eyes were blazing with a hot, hard
flame. “You want me?” he said, and the words were almost a challenge.
“It was a fair shooting, Tom,” I said quietly. “I do not want you.”
He pushed by me and went out of the door, and the room broke into wild talk.
“Never would have believed it. … Fastest thing I ever saw. … But Chico!” The
voice was filled with astonishment. “He killed Chico Cruz!”
Until that moment I had always believed that if it came to a difficulty that
Orrin could take care of Tom Sunday, but I no longer believed it. More than any
of them I knew the stuff of which Orrin was made. He had a kind of nerve rarely
seen, but he was no match for Tom when it came to speed. And there was a fatal
weakness against him, for Orrin truly liked Tom Sunday.
And Tom?
Somehow I didn’t think there was any feeling left in Tom, not for anyone, unless
it was me. The easy comradeship was gone. Tom was ingrown, bitter, hard as
nails.
When Chico’s body was moved out I tried to find out what started the trouble,
but it was like so many barroom fights, just sort of happened. Two, tough, edgy
men and neither about to take any pushing around. Maybe it was a word, maybe a
spilled drink, a push, or a brush against each other, and then guns were out and
they were shooting.
Tom had ridden out of town.
Cap was sitting in the jail house with Babcock and Shea when I walked in. I
could see Fetterson through the open door, so walked back to the cells.
‘That right? What they’re saying?”
“Tom Sunday killed Chico Cruz … beat him to the draw.”
Fetterson shook his head unbelievingly, “I never would have believed it. I
thought Chico was the fastest thing around … unless it was you.”
Fetterson grinned suddenly. “How about you and Tom? You two still friends?”
It made me mad and I turned sharply around and he stepped back from the bars,
but he was grinning when he moved back. “Well, I just asked,” he said, “some
folks never bought that story about you backin’ Cruz down.”
“Tom is my friend,” I told him, “we’ll always be friends.”
“Maybe,” he said, “maybe.” He walked back to the bars. “Looks like I ain’t the
only one has troubles.”
Outside in the dark I told Cap about it, every detail. He listened, nodding
thoughtfully. “Tyrel,” Cap said, “we been friends, and trail dust is thicker’n
blood, but you watch Tom Sunday. You watch him. That man’s gone loco like an old
buffalo bull who’s left the herd.”
Cap took his pipe out of his mouth and knocked out the ashes against the awning
post. “Tyrel, mark my words! He’s started now an’ nuthin’s goin’ to stop him.
Orrin will be next an’ then you.”
That night I got into the saddle and rode all the way out to the ranch to sleep,
pausing only a moment at the gap where the river flowed through, remembering
Juan Torres who died there. It was bloody country and time it was quieted down.
Inside me I didn’t want to admit that Cap was right, but I was afraid, I was
very much afraid.
As if the shooting, which had nothing to do with Pritts, Alvarado, or myself,
had triggered the whole situation from Santa Fe to Cimarron, the lid suddenly
blew off. Maybe it was that Pritts was shrewd enough to see his own position
weakening and if anything was to be done it had to be done now.
Jonathan and Laura, they moved back up to Mora and it looked like they had come
to stay. Things were shaping up for a trial of Wilson and Fetterson for the
murder of Juan Torres.
We moved Fetterson to a room in an old adobe up the street that had been built
for a fort. We moved him by night and the next morning we stuck a dummy up in
the window of the jail. We put that dummy up just before daylight and then Cap,
Orrin, and me, we took to the hills right where we knew we ought to be.
We heard the shots down the slope from us and we went down riding fast. They
were wearing Sharps buffalo guns. They both fired and when we heard those two
rifles talk we came down out of the higher trees and had them boxed. The Sharps
buffalo was a good rifle, but it was a single shot, and we had both those men
covered with Winchesters before they could get to their horses or had time to
reload.
Paisano and Dwyer. Caught flat-footed and red-handed, and nothing to show for it
but a couple of bullets through a dummy.
That was what broke Jonathan Pritts’ back. We had four of the seven men now and
within a matter of hours after, we tied up two more. That seventh man wasn’t
going to cause anybody any harm. Seems he got drunk one night and on the way
home something scared his horse and he got bucked off and with a foot caught in
the stirrup there wasn’t much he could do. Somewhere along the line he’d lost
his pistol and couldn’t kill the horse. He was found tangled in some brush, his
foot still in the stirrup, and the only way they knew him was by his boots,
which were new, and his saddle and horse. A man dragged like that is no pretty
sight, and he had been dead for ten to twelve hours.
Ollie came down to the sheriff’s office with Bill Sexton and Vicente Romero.