the Daybreakers (1960) (14 page)

Out in the darkness, helping Romero get Miguel into the saddle, I asked, "Who's he?"

"From Mexico. Torres sent for heem. He is a bad man. He has kill many times."

Cruz looked to me like one of those sleek prairie rattlers who move like lightning and kill just as easily, and there was nothing about him that I liked.

Yet I could understand the don sending for him. The don was up against a fight for everything he had. It worried him, and he knew he was getting old, and he was no longer sure that he could win.

When I came back to the fire, Chico Cruz looked up at me. "It was good shooting," he said, "but I can shoot better."

Now I'm not a man to brag, but how much better can you get?

"Maybe," I said.

"Someday we might shoot together," he said, looking at me through the smoke of his cigarette.

"Someday," I said quietly, "we might."

"I shall look forward to it, senor."

"And I," I smiled at him, "I shall look back upon it."

Chapter
XI

We expected trouble from Pritts but it failed to show up. Orrin came out to the place and with a couple of men Don Luis loaned us and help from Cap and Tom we put a house together. It was the second day, just after work finished when we were setting around the fire that Orrin told Tom Sunday he was going after the marshal's job.

Sunday filled his cup with coffee. His mouth stiffened up a little, but he laughed. "Well, why not? You'd make a good marshal, Orrin ... if you get the job."

"I figured you wanted it ...." Orrin started to say, then his words trailed off as Tom Sunday waved a hand.

"Forget it. The town needs somebody and whoever gets it will do a job. If I don't get it and you do, I'll lend a hand ... I promise that. And if I get it, you can help me."

Orrin looked relieved, and I knew he was, because he had been worried about it.

Only Cap looked over his coffee cup at Tom and made no comment, and Cap was a knowing man.

Nobody needed to be a fortuneteller to see what was happening around town. Every night there were drunken brawls in the street, and a man had been murdered near Elizabethtown, and there had been robberies near Cimarron. It was just a question of how long folks would put up with it.

Meanwhile we went on working on the house, got two rooms of it up and Orrin and me set to making furniture for them. We finished the third room on the house and then Orrin and me rode with Cap over to the Grant where we bought fifty head of young stuff and drove it back and through the gap where we branded the cattle and turned them loose.

Working hard like we had, I'd not seen much of Drusilla, so I decided to ride over. When I came up Antonio Baca and Chico Cruz were standing at the gate, and I could see that Baca was on duty there. It was the first time I'd seen him since the night he tried to knife me on the trail.

When I started to ride through the gate, he stopped me. "What is it you want?"

"To see Don Luis," I replied.

"He is not here."

"To see the senorita, then."

"She does not wish to see you."

Suddenly I was mad. Yet I knew he would like nothing better than to kill me.

Also, I detected something in his manner ... he was insolent. He was sure of himself.

Was it because of Chico Cruz? Or could it be that the don was growing old and Torres could not be everywhere?

"Tell the senorita," I said, "that I am here. She will see me."

"It is not necessary." His eyes taunted me. "The senorita is not interested in such as you."

Chico Cruz moved his shoulders from the wall and walked slowly over. "I think," he said, "you had better do like he say."

There was no burned-match trick to work on them, and anyway, I wasn't looking for a fight with any of Don Luis' people. The don had troubles of his own without me adding to them. So I was about to ride off when I heard her voice.

"Tye!" She sounded so glad I felt a funny little jump inside me. "Tye, why are you waiting out there? Come in!"

Only I didn't come in, I just sat my horse and said, "Senorita, is it all right if I call here? At any time?"

"But of course, Tye!" She came to the gate and saw Baca standing there with his rifle. Her eyes flashed. "Antonio! Put that rifle down! Senor Sackett is our friend! He is to come and go as he wishes, do you understand?"

He turned slowly, insolently away. "Si," he said, "I understand."

But when he looked at me his eyes were filled with hatred and I glanced at Cruz, who lifted a hand in a careless gesture.

When we were inside, she turned on me. "Tye, why have you stayed away? Why haven't you been to see us? Grandfather misses you. And he wanted to thank you for what you did for Juan Torres, and for Miguel."

'They were my friends."

"And you are our friend."

She looked up at me, then took my hand and led me into another room and rang a little bell. She had grown older, it seemed, in the short time since I had last seen her. She looked taller, more composed, yet she was worried too, I could see that.

"How is Don Luis?"

"Not well, Tye. My grandfather grows old. He is more than seventy, you know. I do not even know how old, but surely more than that, and he finds it difficult to ride now.

"He fears trouble with your people. He has many friends among them, but most of them resent the size of the ranch. He wants only to keep it intact for me."

"It is yours."

"Do you remember Abreu?"

"Of course."

"He is dead. Pete Romero found him dead last week, ten miles from here. He had been shot in the back by someone with a Sharps buffalo gun."

"That's too bad. He was a good man."

We drank tea together, and she told me all that had been happening. Some days now it was difficult for the don to get out of bed, and Juan Torres was often off across the ranch. Some of the men had become hard to handle and lazy.

Apparently, what had happened today was not the only such thing.

Don Luis was losing his grip when he needed desperately to be strong, and his son, Drusilla's father, had long been dead.

"If there is any way that I can help, you just call on me."

She looked down at her hands and said nothing at all, and I sort of felt guilty, although there was no reason why. There was nobody I loved so much as Drusilla, but I'd never talked of love to anybody, and didn't know how to go about it.

"There's going to be trouble at Mora," I said, "it would be well to keep your men away from there."

"I know." She paused. "Does your brother see Senorita Pritts?"

"Not lately." I paused, uncertain of what to say. She seemed older.

So I told her about the place we had found, and thanked her for the help of the men the don had sent to help us with the adobe bricks. Then I told her about Tom Sunday and Orrin, and she listened thoughtfully. All the Mexicans were interested in the selection of the marshal, for it was of great importance to them. His authority would be local, but there was a chance he could move into the sheriff's job and in any case, the selection of a man would mean a lot to the Mexicans who traded in Mora and who lived there, as many did.

What I was saying wasn't at all what I wanted to say, and I searched for the words I wanted and they would not come. "Dru," I said suddenly, "I wish--"

She waited but all I could do was get red in the face and look at my hands.

Finally, I got up, angry with myself. "I've got to be going," I said, "only--"

"Yes?"

"Can I come back? I mean, can I come to see you often?"

She looked straight into my eyes. "Yes, you can, Tye. I wish you would."

When I rode away I was mad with myself for saying nothing more. This was the girl I wanted. I was no hand with women but most likely Drusilla considered me a man who knew a lot about women, and figured if I had anything to say, that I'd say it.

She had a right to think that, for a man who won't speak his mind at a time like that is no man at all. More than likely she would think I just didn't want to say anything. If she thought of me that way at all.

That was a gloomy ride home, and had anybody been laying for me that night I'd have been shot dead I was that preoccupied. When I rode up to the house I saw Ollie's horse tied outside.

Ollie was there, along with a man who operated a supply store in Mora. His name was Wilson. "The time is now, Orrin. You've got to come in and stay in town a few days. Charley Smith and that sandy-haired man who was with him have done a lot to rile folks around town, and they were mighty impressed the way Tyrel handled them."

"That was Tyrel, not me."

"They know that, but they say you're two of a kind. Only," ... Ollie looked apologetically at me, "they don't figure you're as mean as your brother. I mean they like what happened out here, only they don't hold with killing."

Orrin glanced at him. "There wasn't another thing Tyrel could have done, and mighty few who could have done what he did."