'Orrin, if Laura suits you, and if she makes you happy, then it doesn't matter who likes her. A man has to live his own life.'
Orrin walked out to the corral with me and leaned on the rail and we stood there and talked the sun out of the sky and the first stars up before we went in to dinner. He had learned a lot, and he had been elected to the legislature, and a good part of it had been the Mexican vote, but at the last minute the Pritts crowd had gotten behind him, too. He had won by a big majority and in politics a man who can command votes can be mighty important.
Already they were talking about Orrin for the United States Senate, or even for governor. Looking at him across the table as he talked to Ma and the boys, I could see him as a senator ... and he'd make a good one.
Orrin was a smart man who had grown smarter. He had no illusions about how a man got office or kept it, yet he was an honest man, seeking nothing for himself beyond what he could make in the natural way of things.
'I wanted Tom Sunday for the deputy job,' Orrin said, 'he turned it down, saying he didn't need any handouts.' Orrin looked at me. 'Tye, I didn't mean it that way. I liked Tom, and I needed a strong man here.'
'Tom could have handled it,' Cap said. 'That's bad, Tom feelin' thataway.'
Orrin nodded. 'It doesn't seem right without Tom. He's changed, Cap. He drinks too much, but that's only part of it. He's like an old bear with a sore tooth, and I'm afraid there'll be a killing if it keeps up.'
Orrin looked at me. 'Tom always liked you. If there is anybody can keep him in line it will be you. If anybody else even tried, and that includes me, he would go for his gun.'
'All right.'
Miguel rode over on the second day and we talked. Drusilla did not want to see me--he'd been sent to tell me that.
'Why, Miguel?'
'Because of the woman your brother has married. The senorita believes the hatred of Jonathan Pritts killed her father.'
'I am not my brother's keeper,' I replied slowly, 'nor did I choose his wife.' I looked up at him. 'Miguel, I love the senorita.'
'I know, senor. I know.'
The ranch was moving nicely. The stock we had bought had fattened out nicely, and some had been sold that year. Bill Sexton was sheriff, and I took to him right off, but I could also see that he was an office man, built for a swivel chair and a roll-top desk.
Around Mora I was a known man, and there was mighty little trouble. Once I had to run down a couple of horse thieves, but I brought them in, without shooting, after trailing them to where they had holed up, then--after they'd turned in--I injuned down there and got their guns before I woke them up.
Only once did I see Tom Sunday. He came into town, unshaven and looking might unpleasant, but when he saw me he grinned and held out his hand. We talked a few minutes and had coffee together, and it seemed like old times.
'One thing,' he said, 'you don't have to worry about. Reed Carney is dead.'
'What happened?'
'Chico Cruz killed him over to Socorro.'
It gave me a cold feeling, all of a sudden, knowing that gun-slinging Mexican was still around, and I found myself hoping that he did not come up this way.
When I'd been on the job about a week I was out to the ranch one day when I saw that shining black buckboard coming, only it wasn't Orrin driving. It was Laura.
I walked down from the steps to meet her. 'How are you, Laura? It's good to see you.'
'It isn't good to see you.' She spoke sharply, and her lips thinned down. Right at that moment she was a downright ugly woman. 'If you have any feeling for your brother, you will leave here and never come back.'
'This is my home.'
'You'd better leave,' she insisted, 'everybody knows you're a vicious killer, and now you've wheedled the deputy's job out of Sexton, and you'll stay around here until you've ruined Orrin and me and everybody.'
She made me mad so I said, 'What's the difference between being a killer and hiring your killing done?'
She struck at me, but I just stepped back and she almost fell out of the buckboard. Catching her arm, I steadied her, and she jerked away from me. 'If you don't leave, I'll find a way to make you. You hate me and my father and if it hadn't been for you there wouldn't have been any of this trouble.'
'I'm sorry. I'm staying.'
She turned so sharply that she almost upset the buggy and drove away, and I couldn't help wondering if Orrin had ever seen her look like that. She wasn't like that hammer-headed roan I'd said she was like. That roan was a whole damned sight better.
Ma said nothing to me but I could see that she missed Orrin's visits, which became fewer and fewer, Laura usually contrived to have something important to do or somewhere important for him to be whenever he thought about coming out.
There was talk of rustling by Ed Fry who ranched near Tom's place, and we had several complaints about Tom Sunday. Whatever else Tom might be, he was an honest man. I got up on Kelly and rode the big red horse out to Sunday's place.
It was a rawhide outfit. I mean it the western way where a term like that is used to mean an outfit that's held together with rawhide, otherwise it would fall apart. Tom Sunday came to the door when I rode up and he stood leaning against the doorjamb watching me tie my horse.
'That's a good horse, Tye,' he said, 'you always had a feeling for a good horse.'
He squatted on his heels and began to build a smoke. Hunkering down beside him I made talk about the range and finally asked him about his trouble with Fry.
He stared at me from hard eyes. 'Look, Tye, that's my business. You leave it alone.'
'I'm the law, Tom,' I said mildly. 'I want to keep the peace if I can do it.'
'I don't need any help and I don't want any interference.'
'Look, Tom, look at it this way. I like this job. The boys do all there is to do on the ranch, so I took this job. If you make trouble for me, I may lose out.'
His eyes glinted a little with sardonic humor. 'Don't try to get around me, Tye.
You came down here because you've been hearing stories about me and you're worried. Well, the stories are a damned lie and you know it.'
'I do know it, Tom, but there's others.'
'The hell with them.'
'That may be all right for you, but it isn't for me. One reason I came down was to check on what's been happening, another was to see you. We four were mighty close for a long time, Tom, and we should stay that way.'
He stared out gloomily. 'I never did get along with that high-and-mighty brother of yours, Tye. He always thought he was better than anybody else.'
'You forget, Tom. You helped him along. You helped him with his reading, almost as much as you did me. If he is getting somewhere it is partly because of you.'
I figured that would please him but it didn't seem to reach him at all. He threw his cigarette down. 'I got some coffee,' he said, and straightening up he went inside.
We didn't talk much over coffee, but just sat there together, and I think we both enjoyed it. Often on the drives we would ride for miles like that, never saying a word, but with a kind of companionship better than any words.
There was a book lying on the table called Bleak House by Charles Dickens. I'd read parts of some of Dickens' books that were run as serials in papers. 'How is it?' I asked.
'Good ... damned good.'
He sat down opposite me and tasted the coffee. 'Seems a long time ago,' he said gloomily, 'when you rode up to our camp outside of Baxter Springs.'
'Five years,' I agreed. 'We've been friends a long time, Tom. We missed you, Cap and me, on this last trip.'
