'Tyrel,' he said at last, 'you ought to think before you talk. I like that girl.'
Well ... I felt mighty mean and low down. I set store by Orrin. Most ways he was smarter than me, but about this Pritts affair, I figured he was wrong.
'Orrin, I'm sorry. We never had much, you and me. But what we had, we had honest We want a home for Ma. But it wouldn't be the home she wants if it was bought with blood.'
'Well ... damn it, Tyrel, you're right, of course. I just wish you hadn't been so rough on Mr. Pritts.'
'I'm sorry. It was me, not you. You ain't accountable for the brother you've got.'
'Tyrel, don't you talk thataway. Without you that day back home in Tennessee I'd be buried and nobody knows it better than me.'
Chapter VII
This was raw, open country, rugged country, and it bred a different kind of man.
The cattle that went wild in Texas became the longhorn, and ran mostly to horns and legs because the country needed a big animal that could fight and one who could walk three days to get water. Just so it bred the kind of man with guts and toughness no eastern man could use.
Most men never discover what they've got inside. A man has to face up to trouble before he knows. The kind of conniving a man could get away with back east wouldn't go out here. Not in those early years. You can hide that sort of behavior in a crowd, but not in a country where there's so few people. Not that we didn't have our own kinds of trickery and cheating.
Jonathan Pritts was one of those who mistook liberty for license and he figured he could get away with anything. Worst of all, he had an exaggerated idea of how big a man he was ... trouble was, he wasn't a big man, just a mean one.
We banked our money with the Express Company in Santa Fe, and then we saddled up and started back to the Purgatoire after more cattle. We had us an outfit this time. Dapple was still my horse, and a better no man was likely to have, but each of us now had four extra mounts and I'd felt I'd done myself proud.
The first was a grulla, a mouse-colored mustang who, judging by disposition, was sired out of a Missouri mule by a mountain lion with a sore tooth. That grulla was the most irritating, cantankerous bit of horseflesh I ever saw, and he could buck like a sidewinder on a red-ant hill. On the other hand he could go all day and night over any kind of country on less grass and water than one of Beale's camels. My name for him was Sate, short for Satan.
There was a buckskin, a desert horse used to rough going, but steady. In many ways the most reliable horse I had. His name was Buck, like you might expect.
Kelly was a big red horse with lots of bottom. Each horse I paid for out of my own money, although Sate they almost gave me, glad to be rid of him, I expect.
First time I straddled Sate we had us a mite of a go-around. When I came off him I was shook up inside and had a nosebleed, but I got off when I was good and ready and from that time on Sate knew who was wearing the pants.
My fourth horse I bought from an Indian. We'd spent most of the day dickering with Spanish men, and this Indian sat off to one side, watching. He was a big-framed Nez Perce from up Idaho, Montana way.
He was at the corral at sunup and by noontime I'd not seen him have a bite to eat. 'You're a long way from home,' I said, slicing off a chunk of beef I'd had fixed for a lunch and handed it to him. He looked at me, a long, careful look, then he accepted it. He ate slow like a starving man who can't eat a lot at first because his stomach shrinks up.
'You speak English?'
'I speak.'
Splitting my grub down the middle, I gave him half, and we ate together. When we'd finished he got up. 'Come--you see horse.'
The horse was a handsome animal, a roan with a splash of white with red spots on the white, the kind of horse they call an appaloosa. Gaunt as his owner he stood a good sixteen hands. Looked like this Indian had come a long way on short rations. So I swapped him my old rifle (I'd bought a .44 Henry the day before) and some grub. I threw in my old blanket.
We were a week out of Santa Fe when we found a spot in the bend of a creek among some rocks. When we'd forted up they left it to me to scare up some fresh meat as we planned to live off the country and stretch our store-bought rations.
That Montana horse could move. He could get out and go, lickety-brindle, and he was smart. We passed up antelope because no matter what folks tell you it's the worst kind of Rocky Mountain meat. Old-timers will tell you that cougar meat is best. Lewis and Clark said that, and Jim Bridger, Kit Carson, Uncle Dick Woolton, Jim Baker ... they all agreed.
Morning, with a bright sun over far hills, shadows lying in the folds and creases of the country, sunlight on cotton-wood leaves and sparkling on the river water ... a meadow lark calling. Montana horse and me, we sure loved it.
We took off along an old deer trail. This was higher country than before, the plateaus giving way to long ridges crested with pines and slopes dotted with juniper or pinon.
Suddenlike, I saw a deer ... and then another. Tethering Montana horse I moved up with my rifle. Feeding deer are easy to stalk if a man is careful on his feet and doesn't let them get wind of him. When deer put their heads down to graze, you can move up on them, and you can keep moving, very quiet. When their tails start to switch they're going to look up, so you freeze in position. He may be looking right at you when he looks up, and he might look a long time, but if you stand right still, after awhile he will decide you're a harmless tree or stump and go back to feeding.
I worked my way up to within fifty yards of a good big buck and then I lifted my rifle and put a bullet behind the left foreleg. There was another deer no further off and on my left, and as I fired at the first one I swung the rifle just as he was taking his first jump and my bullet broke his neck as he hit ground.
Working fast, I butchered those deer, loaded the choice cuts into their hides and mounted Montana horse. When I came out of the trees a couple of miles further on a half-dozen buffalo were running across the wind. Now no buffalo runs without reason.
Pulling up on the edge of the trees I knew we'd be hard to see, for that roan and me with my buckskin outfit fitted into the country like part of it. No man in this country ever skylines himself if he can help it.
Sometimes the first man to move is the first to die, so I waited. The sun was bright on the hillside. My horse stamped a foot and switched his tail. A bee hummed around some leaves on a bush nearby.
They came in a single file, nine of them in a row. Utes, from the description I'd heard from Cap. They came out of the trees and angled along the slope in front of me.
Now most times I prefer to stand my ground and fight it out for running can make your back a broad target, but there are times to fight and times to run and the wise man is one who can choose the right time for each. First off, I sat still, but they were riding closer and closer to me, and if they didn't see me their horses would. If I tried to go back into the trees they'd hear me.
Sliding my rifle across my saddle I said a prayer to the guardian angel of fools and covered maybe thirty yards before they saw me. One of them must have spoken because they all looked.
Indians can make mistakes like anybody. If they had all turned and come at me I'd have had to break for the brush and I'd have been fairly caught. But one Indian got too anxious and threw up his rifle and fired.
Seeing that rifle come up, I hit the spurs to Montana horse and went away from there, but in the split seconds before I hit him with the spurs, I fired. As I'd been timing my horse's steps I'd shot at the right time and I didn't miss.
My shot took out, not the Indian shooting at me but the one who seemed to be riding the best horse. My shot was a hair ahead of his and he missed when Montana horse jumped. We took out ... and I mean we really lit a shuck. There was nothing around there I wanted and what I wanted most was distance from where I was.
With that first Indian down I'd cut my sign right across their trail and now they wanted me mighty bad, but that horse didn't like Utes any better than I did. He put his ears back and stretched out his tail and left there like a scared rabbit.
My next shot was a miss. With Montana horse travelling like he'd forgot something in Santa Fe, there wasn't much chance of a hit. They had all come right at me with the shooting and I saw unless I did something drastic they
