that old shawl over her knees. When I walked in she was puffing on that old pipe and she looked me up and down mighty sharp.
'You've filled out. Your Pa would be proud of you.'
So we sat there and talked about the mountains back home and of folks we knew and I told her some of our plans. Thinking how hard her years had been, I wanted to do something for her and the boys. Bob was seventeen, Joe fifteen.
Ma wasn't used to much, but she liked flowers around her and trees. She liked meadow grass blowing in the wind and the soft fall of rain on her own roof. A good fire, her rocker, a home of her own, and her boys not too far away.
Ollie Shaddock wasted no time but rode off toward Mora. He was planning on buying a place, a saloon, or some such place where folks could get together. In those days a saloon was a meeting place, and usually the only one.
Of the books I'd bought I'd read Marcy's guide books first, and then that story, The Deerslayer. That was a sure enough good story too. Then I read Washington Irving's book about traveling on the prairies, and now was reading Gregg on Commerce of the Prairies. Reading those books was making me talk better and look around more and see what Irving had seen, or Gregg. It was mighty interesting.
Orrin and me headed for the hills to scout a place for a home. Sate was feeling his oats and gave me a lively go-around but I figured the trip would take some of the salt out of him. That Satan horse really did like to hump his back and duck his head between his legs.
We rode along, talking land, cattle, and politics, and enjoying the day. This was a far cry from those blue- green Tennessee mountains, but the air was so clear you could hardly believe it, and I'd never seen a more beautiful land. The mountains were close above us, sharp and clear against the sky, and mostly covered with pines.
Sate wasn't cutting up any more. He was stepping right out like he wanted to go somewhere, but pretty soon I began to get a feeling I didn't like very much.
Sometimes a man's senses will pick up sounds or glimpses not strong enough to make an impression on him but they affect his thinking anyway. Maybe that's all there is to instinct or the awareness a man develops when he's in dangerous country. One thing I do know, his senses become tuned to sounds above and below the usual ranges of hearing.
We caught, of a sudden, a faint smell of dust on the air. There was no wind, but there was dust. We walked our horses forward and I watched Sate's ears. Those ears pricked up, like the mustang he was, and I knew he was aware of something himself.
My eyes caught an impression and I walked my horse over for a look where part of the bark was peeled back from a branch. There were horses' tracks on the ground around the bush.
'Three or four, wouldn't you say, Tyrel?'
'Five. This one is different. The horses must have stood here around two hours, and then the fifth one came up but he didn't stop or get down.'
Several cigarette butts were under a tree near where the horses had been tethered, and the stub of a black cigar. We were already further north than we had planned to go and suddenly it came to me. 'Orrin, we're on the Alvarado grant.'
He looked around, studied our back trail and said. 'I think it's Torres.
Somebody is laying for him.'
He walked his horse along, studying tracks. One of the horses had small feet, a light, almost prancing step. We both knew that track. A man who can read sign can read a track the way a banker would a signature. That small hoof and light step, and that sidling way of moving was Reed Carney's show horse.
Whoever the others had been, and the chances were Reed Carney had joined up with Fetterson and Pritts, they had waited there until the fifth man came along to get them. And that meant he could have been a lookout, watching for the man they were to kill.
Now we were assuming a good deal. Maybe. But there was just nothing to bring a party up here ... not in those days.
Orrin shucked his Winchester.
It was pine timber now and the trail angled up the slope through the trees. When we stopped again we were high up and the air was so clear you could see for miles. The rim was not far ahead. We saw them.
Four riders, and below on the slope a fifth one, scouting. And off across the valley floor, a plume of dust that looked like it must be the one who was to be the target.
The men were below us, taking up position to cover a place not sixty yards from their rifles. They were a hundred feet or so higher than the rider, and he would be in the open.
Orrin and me left our horses in the trees. We stood on the edge of the mesa with a straight drop of about seventy feet right ahead of us, then the talus sloped away steeply to where the five men had gathered after leaving their horses tied to the brush a good hundred yards off.
They were well concealed from below. There was no escape for them, however, except to right or left. They could not come up the hill, and they could not go over the rim. Orrin found himself a nice spot behind a wedged-up slab of rock.
Me, I was sizing up a big boulder and getting an idea. That boulder sat right on the edge of the mesa, in fact it was a part of the edge that was ready to fall ... with a little help.
Now I like to roll rocks. Sure, it's crazy, but I like to see them roll and bounce and take a lot of debris with them. So I walked to the rim, braced myself against the trunk of a gnarled old cedar and put my feet against the edge of that rock.
The rider they were waiting for was almost in sight. When I put my boots against that rock my knees had to be doubled up, so I began to push. I began to straighten them out. The rock crunched heavily, teetered slightly, and then with a slow, majestic movement it turned over and fell.
The huge boulder hit with a heavy thud and turned over, gained speed, and rolled down the hill. The riders glanced around and seemed unable to move, and then as that boulder turned over and started to fall, they scattered like sheep.
At the same instant, Orrin lifted his rifle and put a bullet into the brush ahead of their horses. One of the broncs reared up and as Orrin fired again, he jerked his head and ripping off a branch of the brush, broke free and started to run, holding his head to one side to keep from tripping on the branch.
The lone horseman had come into sight, and when he stared up the mountain, I lifted my hat and waved, knowing from his fawn-colored sombrero that it was Torres. Doubtfully, he lifted a hand, unable to make us out at that distance.
One of the men started for their horses and Orrin put a bullet into the ground ahead of him and the man dove for shelter. Orrin levered another shot into the rocks where he disappeared then sat back and lighted up one of those Spanish cigars.
It was downright hot. Settling in behind some rocks I took a pull at my canteen and figured down where they were it had to be hotter than up here where we had some shade.
'I figure if those men have to walk home,' Orrin said, 'It might cool their tempers some.'
A slow half hour passed before one of the men down below got ambitious. My rifle put a bullet so close it must have singed his whiskers and he hunkered down in the rocks. Funny part of it was, we could see them plain as day. Had we wanted to kill them we could have. And then we heard a horse coming through the trees and I walked back to meet Torres.
'What happens, senor?' He looked sharply from Orrin to me.
'Looks like you were expected. Orrin and me were hunting a place for ourselves and we found some tracks, and when we followed them up there were five men down there.' I showed him where. Then I explained our idea about the horses and he agreed.
'It will be for me to do, senor.'
He went off down the slope and after awhile I saw him come out of the trees, untie the horses and run them off.
When Torres rode back Orrin came up to join us. 'It is much you have done for me,' Torres said. 'I shall not forget.'
