'You saw the money paid?'
'Yes, senor. With my two eyes I saw it. They were paid much in gold ... the balance, he said.'
'Tina, they killed Juan Torres ... did you know him?'
'Si... he was a good man.'
'In court, Tina. Would you testify against them? Would you tell you saw money paid? It would be dangerous for you.'
'I will testify. I am not afraid.' She stood very still in the darkness. 'I know, senor, you are in love with the Senorita Alvarado, but could you help me, senor? Could you help me to go away from here? This man, the one you talked to, he is my ... how do you call it? He married my mother.'
'Stepfather.'
'Si ... and my mother is dead and he keeps me here and I work, senor. Someday I will be old. I wish now to go to Santa Fe again but he will not let me.'
'You shall go. I promise it.'
The men had gone and we had not seen them but she told me one had been Paisano.
Only one other she knew. A stocky, very tough man named Jim Dwyer ... he had been among those at Pawnee Rock. But Fetterson was here and he was the one I wanted most.
We slept a little, and shy of daybreak we rolled out and brushed off the hay. I felt sticky and dirty and wanted a bath and a shave the worst way but I checked my gun and we walked down to the hotel. There was a light in the kitchen and we shoved open the back door.
The bartender was there in his undershirt and pants and sock feet. There was the tumbled, dirty bedding where he had slept, some scattered boots, dirty socks, and some coats hung on the wall, on one nail a gun belt hung. I turned the cylinder and shucked out the shells while the bartender watched grimly.
'What's all this about?'
Turning him around we walked through the dark hall with a lantern in Cap's hand to throw a vague light ahead.
'Which room is he in?'
The bartender just looked at me, and Cap, winking at me, said, 'Shall I do it here? Or should we take him out back where they won't find the body so soon?'
The bartender's feet shifted 'No, look!' he protested. 'I ain't done nothing.'
'He'd be in the way,' I said thoughtfully, 'and he's no account to us. We might as well take him out back.'
Cap looked mean enough to do it, and folks always figured after a look at me that killing would be easier for me than smiling.
'Wait a minute ... he ain't nothin' to me. He's in Room Six, up the stairs.'
Looking at him, I said 'Cap, you keep him here.' And then looking at the bartender I said, 'You know something? That had better be the right room.'
Up the stairs I went, tiptoeing each step and at the top, shielding the lantern with my coat, I walked down the hall and opened the door to Room Six.
His eyes opened when I came through the door but the light was in his eyes when I suddenly unveiled the lantern and his gun was on the table alongside the bed.
He started to reach for it and I said, 'Go ahead, Fetterson, you pick it up and I can kill you.'
His hand hung suspended above the gun and slowly he withdrew it. He sat up in bed then, a big, rawboned man with a shock of rumpled blond hair and his hard-boned, wedgelike face. There was nothing soft about his eyes.
'Sackett? I might have expected it would be you.' Careful to make no mistakes he reached for the makings and began to build a smoke. 'What do you want?'
'It's a murder charge, Fett. If you have a good lawyer you might beat it, but you make a wrong move and nothing will beat what I give you.'
He struck a match and lit up. 'All right ... I'm no Reed Carney and if I had a chance I'd try shooting it out, but if that gun stuck in the holster I'd be a dead man.'
'You'd never get a hand on it, Fett.'
'You takin' me in?'
'Uh-huh. Get into your clothes.'
He took his time dressing and I didn't hurry him. I figured if I gave him time he would decide it was best to ride along and go to jail, for with Pritts to back him there was small chance he would ever come to trial. My case was mighty light on evidence, largely on what Tina could tell us and what I had seen myself, which was little enough.
When he was dressed he walked ahead of me down the hall to where Cap was waiting with a gun on the bartender. We gathered up Fetterson's horse and started back to town. I wasn't through with that crowd I'd trailed, but they would have to wait.
Our return trip took us mighty little time because I was edgy about being on the trail, knowing that the bartender might get word to Fetterson's crowd. By noon the next day we had him behind bars in Mora and the town was boiling.
Fetterson stood with his hands on the bars. 'I won't be here long,' he said, 'I'd nothing to do with this.'
'You paid them off. You paid Paisano an advance earlier.'
There was a tic in his eyelid, that little jump of the lid that I'd noticed long ago in Abilene when he had realized they were boxed and could do nothing without being killed.
'You take it easy,' I said, 'because by the time this case comes to court I'll have enough to hang you.'
He laughed, and it was a hard, contemptuous laugh, too. 'You'll never see the day!' he said. 'This is a put-up job.'
When I walked outside in the sunlight, Jonathan Pritts was getting down from his buckboard.
One thing I could say for Jonathan ... he moved fast.
Chapter XVII
It had been a long time since I'd stood face to face with Jonathan Pritts. He walked through the open door and confronted me in the small office, his pale blue eyes hard with anger. 'You have Mr. Fetterson in prison. I want him released.'
'Sorry.'
'On what charge are you holding him?'
'He is involved in the murder of Juan Torres.'
He glared at me. 'You have arrested this man because of your hatred for me. He is completely innocent and you can have no evidence to warrant holding him. If you do not release him I will have you removed from office.'
He had no idea how empty that threat was. He was a man who liked power and could not have understood how little I wanted the job I had, or how eager I was to be rid of it.
'He will be held for trial.'
Jonathan Pritts measured me carefully. 'I see you are not disposed to be reasonable.' His tone was quieter.
'There has been a crime committed, Mr. Pritts. You cannot expect me to release a prisoner because the first citizen who walks into my office asks me to. The time has come to end crimes of violence, and especially,' I added this carefully, 'murder that has been paid for.'
This would hit him where he lived, I thought, and maybe it did, only there was no trace of feeling on his face. 'Now what do you mean by that?'
'We have evidence that Fetterson paid money to the murderers of Juan Torres.'
Sure, I was bluffing. We had nothing that would stand up in court, not much, actually, on which to hold him. Only that I had seen him paying money to Paisano, and he had been at Tres Ritos when the killers arrived, and that Tina would testify to the fact that he had paid money there. 'That is impossible.'
Picking up a sheaf of papers, I began sorting them. He was a man who demanded attention and my action made him furious.
