his way to the front. He was a small man with a ridiculously large mustache, and dark, intelligent little eyes peering out from under bushy gray eyebrows. He was Martin Novak, Ray Novak's father.
“Don't you think you ought to think this over, Tall?” he asked quietly. “Is it going to settle anything if you and the other ranchers go riding into town, looking for a war?”
“I'm not asking anybody to go with me,” I said.
He regarded my two pistols, and I wondered if Ray had told him about Pappy Garret. But those eyes of his didn't tell me a thing. Then he seemed to forget me and turned slowly in a small circle, looking at the other men.
“Why don't you break it up?” he asked quietly. “Go on home and give things a chance to straighten out by themselves. It'll just make things worse—somebody else will get killed—if you all go into town looking for trouble.” Then he turned back to me. “Tall, you're wanted in these parts by the law. These other men will be breaking the law, too, if they tie up with you in this thing. Sooner or later there'll be real law in Texas. When that happens, this man Thornton will get what's coming to him. I'll give you my word on that.”
He actually meant every word of what he was saying. He had lived law for so long that anything that walked behind a tin badge got to be a god to him.
“Do you expect me to do like your son?” I asked tightly. “Would you want me to give myself up to the bluebellies, after what they have just done here?”
He started to say something, and then changed his mind. He looked at me for a long moment, then, “I guess it wouldn't do any good to tell you what I think, Tall. You'd go on and do things your own way.”
He turned and walked through the circle of ranchers. I heard Pat Roark saying, “Well, I'll be damned. I never figured the marshal would back down on his own people when it came to a fight with the bluebellies.”
Then Bucky Stow came out of the barn leading a saddled bay over to where we were. Slowly, the circle begin to break up and the men went, one and two at a time, to get their horses.
I said, “Thanks, Bucky,” as I took the bay's reins. “Take good care of Red. I'll want him when I get back.”
Bucky shuffled uncomfortably. He was a quiet man who never said much, and I'd never known him to carry a gun, much less use one. He said, “Tall, I guess you know how I felt about your pa. I'd be glad to...”
“You stay here, Bucky. You look after the womenfolks.”
His eyes looked relieved. I led the bay over toward the corral where the ranchers were getting their horses cinched up. I hadn't taken more than a dozen steps when Laurin came out on the front porch.
“Tall?”
I wasn't sure that I wanted to talk to Laurin now. There was only one thing in my mind—a man by the name of Thornton. But she called again, I paused, and then I went over to the end of the porch. Her eyes had that wide, frightened look that I had seen in Ma's eyes a few minutes before.
“Tall,” she said tightly, “don't do it. They'll kill you in a minute if you go into town looking for trouble.”
I tried to keep my voice even. “Nothing's going to happen to me. You just stay here and take care of Ma. There's nothing to worry about.”
She made a helpless little gesture with her hands. Even through all the bitterness that was in me, I thought how beautiful she was and how much I loved her.
“Tall, please, for my sake, for your mother's sake, don't do anything now.”
“I have to do something,” I said. “Don't you see that?” “I just know that there's going to be more trouble, and more killing. It will be the start of a war if you go into town bent on revenge.”
I tried to be patient, but there was something inside me that kept urging me to strike out and hurt. I said, “What do you want me to do, turn yellow like Ray Novak, and turn myself over to the bluebellies?”
“It wouldn't be turning yellow, Tall.” Her voice was breathless, the words coming out fast, stumbling over each other in their haste. “Tall, can't you see what you'll be starting? If you can't think of yourself, think of others. Of me, and your mother.”
The ranchers were waiting. They had their horses saddled, and the only thing holding them up was myself. I started backing away. “This is man's business,” I said. “Women just don't understand things like this.” Then I added, “Don't worry. Everything's going to be all right.” But the words sounded flat and stale in my own ears.
We rode away from the ranch house with me in the van, and Pat Roark riding beside me. There was about a dozen of us, and we rode silently, nobody saying a word. I concentrated on the thud of the bay's hoofs, and the little squirts of powdery red dust that rose up, and a lazily circling chicken hawk up above, cutting clean wide swaths against a glass sky. I didn't dare to think of Pa. There would be time enough for that.
We traveled south on the wagon road that we always used going to Garner's Store, across the arroyo and onto the flats. We reached Garner's Store, a squat boxlike affair made of cottonwood logs and 'dobe bricks, about an hour after leaving the ranch house. It set in the V of the road, where the wagon tracks leading from the Bannerman and the Novak ranches came together. As we sighted the store, we saw two Negro police leave in a cloud of dust, heading south toward John's City.
There was no use going after them. A dozen armed men couldn't very well ride into town and expect to surprise anybody. We pulled our horses up at the store and let them drink at the watering trough. After a while Old Man Garner came out looking vaguely worried.
I said, “Those were Davis police, weren't they, the ones that fogged out of your place a few minutes back?”
The old man nodded. “I guess they was kind of ex-pectin' something out of your pa's friends, Tall. Anyway, they stayed here until they saw you comin', and then they lit out for town.”
Pat Roark said, “Did they mention what outfit they was out of?”
The old man thought. “They mentioned Hooker's Bend. I reckon they come from around there.”
