the Daybreakers (1960) (20 page)

Tom Sunday had a couple of drinks under his belt and he turned slowly and looked at Ed Fry.

Probably Fry hadn't known until then that Sunday was in the saloon, because according to the way Cap told it, Fry went kind of gray in the face and Cap said you could see the sweat break out on his face. Folks had warned him what loose talk would do, but now he was face to face with it.

Tom was very quiet. When he spoke you could hear him in every corner of the room, it was that still.

"Mr. Fry, it comes to my attention that you have on repeated occasions stated that I was a cow thief. You have done this on the wildest supposition and without one particle of evidence. You have done it partly because you are yourself a poor cowman as well as a very inept and stupid man."

When Tom was drinking he was apt to fall into a very precise way of speaking as well as using all that highfalutin language he knew so well.

"You can't talk to me like--"

"You have said I was a cow thief, and you have said the Sacketts protect me. I have never been a cow thief, Mr. Fry, and I have never stolen anything in my life, nor do I need protection from the Sacketts or anyone else. Anyone that says I have stolen cattle or that I have been protected is a liar, Mr. Fry, a very fat-headed and stupid liar."

He had not raised his voice but there was something in his tone that lashed a man like a whip and in even the simplest words, the way Tom said them, there was an insult.

Ed Fry lunged to his feet and Tom merely watched him. "By the Lord--"

Ed Fry grabbed for his gun. He was a big man but a clumsy one, and when he got the gun out he almost dropped it. Sunday did not make a move until Fry recovered his grip on the gun and started to bring it level, and then Tom palmed his gun and shot him dead.

Cap Rountree told Bill Sexton, Orrin, and me about it in the sheriff's office two' days later. "No man ever had a better chance," Cap said, "Tom, he just stood there and I figured for a minute he was going to let Fry kill him. Tom's fast, Tye, he's real fast."

And the way he looked at me when he said it was a thing I'll never forget.

Chapter
XV

It was only a few days later that I rode over to see Drusilla. Not that I hadn't wanted to see her before, but there had been no chance. This time there was nobody to turn me away and I stopped before an open doorway.

She was standing there, tall and quiet, and at the moment I appeared in the door she turned her head and saw me.

"Dru," I said, "I love you."

She caught her breath sharply and started to turn away. "Please," she said, "go away. You mustn't say that."

When I came on into the room she turned to face me. "Tye, you shouldn't have come here, and you shouldn't say that to me."

"You know that I mean it?"

She nodded. "Yes ... I know. But you love your brother, and his wife's family hate me, and I ... I hate them too."

"If you hate them, you're going about it as if you tried to please them. They think they've beaten your grandfather and beaten you because you live like a hermit. What you should do is come out, let people see you, go to places."

"You may be right."

"Dru, what's happening to you? What are you going to do with yourself? I came here today to pay you money, but I'm glad I came and for another reason.

"Don Luis is gone, and he was a good man, but he would want you to be happy. You are a beautiful girl, Dru, and you have friends. Your very presence around Santa Fe would worry Laura and Jonathan Pritts more than anything we could think of.

Besides, I want to take you dancing. I want to marry you, Dru."

Her eyes were soft. "Tye, I've always wanted to marry you. A long time ago I would have done it had you asked me, that first time you visisted us in Santa Fe ..."

"I didn't have anything. I was nobody. Just another drifter with a horse and a gun."

"You were you, Tye."

"Sometimes there were things I wanted to say so bad I'd almost choke. Only I never could find the words."

So we sat down and we had coffee again like we used to and I told her about Laura and Ma, which made Dru angry.

"There's trouble shaping, Dru. I can't read the sign clear enough to say where it will happen, but Pritts is getting ready for a showdown.

"There's a lot could happen, but when it happens, I want you with me."

We talked the sun down, and it wasn't until I got up to go that I remembered the money. She pushed it away. "No, Tyrel, you keep if for me. Invest it for me if you want to. Grandfather left me quite a bit, and I don't know what to do with it now."

That made sense, and I didn't argue with her. Then she told me something that should have tipped me off as to what was coming.

"I have an uncle, Tye, and he is an attorney. He is going to bring an action to clear the titles to all the land in our Grant. When they are clear," she added, "I am going to see the United States Marshal moves any squatters off the land."

Well ... what could I say? Certainly it was what needed to be done and what had to be done sooner or later, but there was nothing I could think of that was apt to start more trouble than that.

Jonathan Pritts had settled a lot of his crowd on land belonging to the Alvarado Grant. Then he had bought their claims from them, and he was now laying claim to more than a hundred thousand acres. Probably Pritts figured when the don died that he had no more worries ... anyway, he was in it up to his ears and if the title of the Alvarado Grant proved itself, he had no more claim than nothing. I mean, he was broke.

Not that I felt sorry for him. He hadn't worried about what happened to the don or his granddaughter, all he thought of was what he wanted. Only if there was anything that was figured to blow the lid off this country it was such a suit.

"If I were you," I advised her, "I'd go to Mexico and I'd stay there until this is settled."

"This is my home," Dru said quietly.

"Dru, you don't seem to realize. This is a shooting matter. They'll kill you ... or they'll try."

"They may try," she said quietly. "I shall not leave."

When I left the house I was worried about Dru. If I had not been so concerned with her situation I might have given some thought to myself.

They would think I had put her up to it. From the day that action was announced I would be the Number-One target in the shooting gallery.

When I was expecting everything to happen, nothing happened. There were a few scattered killings further north. One was a Settlement man who had broken with Jonathan Pritts and the Settlement Company ... it was out of my bailiwick and the killing went unsolved, but it had an ugly look to it.

Jonathan Pritts remained in Santa Fe, Laura was receiving important guests at her parties and fandangos most every night. Pritts was generally agreed to have a good deal of political power. Me, I was a skeptic ... because folks associate in a social way doesn't mean they are political friends, and most everybody likes a get-together.

One Saturday afternoon Orrin pulled up alongside me in a buckboard. He looked up at me and grinned as I sat Sate's saddle.

"Looks to me like you'd sell that horse, Tyrel," he said. "He was always a mean one."

"I like him," I said. "He's contrary as all get-out, and he's got a streak of meanness in him, but I like him."

"How's Ma?"

"She's doing fine." It was a hot day and the sweat trickled down my face. The long street was busy. Fetterson was down there with the one they called Paisano, because he gave a man a feeling that he was some kin to a chaparral cock or road runner. Folks down New Mexico way called them paisanos.

Only I had a feeling about Paisano. I didn't care for him much.

"Ma misses you, Orrin. You should drive out to see her."

"I know ... I know. Damn it, Tyrel, why can't womenfolks get along?"

"Ma hasn't had any trouble with anybody. She's all right, Orrin, the same as always. Only she still smokes a pipe."

He mopped his face, looking mighty harried and miserable. "Laura's not used to that." He scowled. "She raises hell every time I go out to the place."

"Womenfolks," I said, "sometimes need some handling. You let them keep the bit in their teeth and they'll make you miserable and themselves too. You pet 'em a little and keep a firm hand on the bridle and you'll have no trouble."

He stared down the sun-bright street, squinting his eyes a little. "It sounds very easy, Tyrel. Only there's so many things tied in with it. When we become a state I want to run for the Senate, and it may be only a few years now."

"How do you and Pritts get along?"

Orrin gathered the reins. He didn't need to tell me. Orrin was an easygoing man, but he wasn't a man you could push around or take advantage of. Except maybe by that woman.

"We don't." He looked up at me. "That's between us, Tyrel. I wouldn't even tell Ma. Jonathan and I don't get along, and Laura .. . well, she can be difficult."

"You were quite a bronc rider, Orrin."

"What's that mean?"

"Why," I pushed my hat back on my head, "I'd say it meant your feet aren't tied to the stirrups, Orrin. I'd say there isn't a thing to keep you in the saddle but your mind to stay there, and nobody's going to give you a medal for staying in the saddle when you can't make a decent ride of it.

"Take Sate here," I rubbed Sate's neck and that bronc laid back his ears, "you take Sate. He's a mean horse. He's tough and he's game and he'll go until the sun comes up, but Orrin, if I could only have one horse, I'd never have this one. I'd have Dapple or that Montana horse.

"It's fun to ride a mean one when you don't have to do it every day, but if I stay with Sate long enough he'll turn on me. And there's some women like that."

Orrin gathered the reins. "Too hot ... I'll see you later, Tyrel."

He drove off and I watched him go. He was a fine, upstanding man but when he married that Laura girl he bought himself a packet of grief.

Glancing down the street I saw Fetterson hand something to Paisano. It caught the sunlight an instant, then disappeared in Paisano's pocket. But the glimpse was enough. Paisano had gotten himself a fistful of gold coins from Fetterson, which was an interesting thought.

Sometimes a man knows something is about to happen. He can't put a finger on a reason, but he gets an itch inside him, and I had it now. Something was building up. I could smell trouble in the making, and oddly enough it might have been avoided by a casual comment. The trouble was that I did not know that Torres was coming up from Socorro, and that he was returning to work for Dru.

Had I known that, I would have known what Jonathan Pritts' reaction was to be.

If Dru had happened to mention the fact that Torres was finally well and able to be around and was coming back, I would have gone down to meet him and come back with him.

Juan Torres was riding with two other Mexicans, men he had recruited in Socorro to work for Dru, and they were riding together. They had just ridden through the gap about four miles from Mora when they were shot to doll rags.

Mountain air is clear, and sound carries, particularly when it has the hills behind it. The valley was narrow all the way to town, and it was early monring with no other sound to interfere.

Orrin had come up from Santa Fe by stage to Las Vegas and had driven up to town from there. We had walked out on the street together for I'd spent the night in the back room at the sheriff's office.

We all heard the shots, there was a broken volley that sounded like four or five guns at least, and then, almost a full half minute later, a single, final shot.

Now nobody shoots like that if they are hunting game. For that much shooting it has to be a battle, and I headed for Orrin's buckboard on the run with him right behind me. His Winchester was there and each of us wore a belt gun.

Dust lingered in the air at the gap, only a faint suggestion of it. The killers were gone and nobody was going to catch up with them right away, especially in a buckboard, so I wasted no time thinking about that.

Juan Torres lay on his back with three bullet holes in his chest and a fourth between his eyes, and there was a nasty powder burn around that.

"You know what that means?" I asked Orrin. "Somebody wanted him dead. Remember that final shot?" There was a rattle of hoofs on the road and I looked around to see my brother Joe and Cap Rountree riding bareback. The ranch was closer than the town and they must have come as fast as they could get to their horses. They knew better than to mess things up. Juan Torres had been dead when that final shot was fired, I figured, because at least two of the bullets in the chest would have killed him. The two others were also dead. I began casting for sign.

Not thirty feet off the trail I found where several men had waited for quite some time. There were cigarette stubs there and the grass was matted down.

Orrin had taken one look at the bodies and had walked back to the buckboard and he stood there, saying no word to anybody, just staring first at the ground and then at his hands, looking like he'd never seen them before.