Cap took his pipe out of his mouth and knocked out the ashes against the awning post. 'Tyrel, mark my words! He's started now an' nuthin's goin' to stop him.
Orrin will be next an' then you.'
That night I got into the saddle and rode all the way out to the ranch to sleep, pausing only a moment at the gap where the river flowed through, remembering Juan Torres who died there. It was bloody country and time it was quieted down.
Inside me I didn't want to admit that Cap was right, but I was afraid, I was very much afraid.
As if the shooting, which had nothing to do with Pritts, Alvarado, or myself, had triggered the whole situation from Santa Fe to Cimarron, the lid suddenly blew off. Maybe it was that Pritts was shrewd enough to see his own position weakening and if anything was to be done it had to be done now.
Jonathan and Laura, they moved back up to Mora and it looked like they had come to stay. Things were shaping up for a trial of Wilson and Fetterson for the murder of Juan Torres.
We moved Fetterson to a room in an old adobe up the street that had been built for a fort. We moved him by night and the next morning we stuck a dummy up in the window of the jail. We put that dummy up just before daylight and then Cap, Orrin, and me, we took to the hills right where we knew we ought to be.
We heard the shots down the slope from us and we went down riding fast. They were wearing Sharps buffalo guns. They both fired and when we heard those two rifles talk we came down out of the higher trees and had them boxed. The Sharps buffalo was a good rifle, but it was a single shot, and we had both those men covered with Winchesters before they could get to their horses or had time to reload.
Paisano and Dwyer. Caught flat-footed and red-handed, and nothing to show for it but a couple of bullets through a dummy.
That was what broke Jonathan Pritts' back. We had four of the seven men now and within a matter of hours after, we tied up two more. That seventh man wasn't going to cause anybody any harm. Seems he got drunk one night and on the way home something scared his horse and he got bucked off and with a foot caught in the stirrup there wasn't much he could do. Somewhere along the line he'd lost his pistol and couldn't kill the horse. He was found tangled in some brush, his foot still in the stirrup, and the only way they knew him was by his boots, which were new, and his saddle and horse. A man dragged like that is no pretty sight, and he had been dead for ten to twelve hours.
Ollie came down to the sheriff's office with Bill Sexton and Vicente Romero.
They were getting up a political rally and Orrin was going to speak. Several of the high mucky-mucks from Santa Fe were coming up, but this was to be Orrin's big day.
It was a good time for him to put himself forward and the stage was being set for it. There was to be a real ol' time fandango with the folks coming in from back at the forks of the creeks. Everybody was to be there and all dressed in their Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes.
In preparation for it I made the rounds and gave several of the trouble makers their walking papers. What I mean is, I told them they would enjoy Las Vegas or Socorro or Cimarron a whole sight better and why didn't they start now.
They started.
'Have you heard the talk that's going around?' Shea asked me.
'What talk?'
'It's being said that Tom Sunday is coming into town after Orrin.'
'Tom Sunday and Orrin are friends,' I said, 'I know Tom's changed, but I don't believe he'll go that far.'
'Put no faith in that line of thought, Tyrel. Believe me, the man hasn't a friend left. He's surly as a grizzly with a sore tooth, and nobody goes near him any more. The man's changed, and he works with a gun nearly every day. Folks coming by there say they can hear it almost any hour.'
'Tom never thought much of Orrin as a fighter. Tom never knew him like I have.'
'That isn't all.' Shea put his cigar down on the edge of the desk. 'There's talk about what would happen if you and Tom should meet.'
Well, I was mad. I got up and walked across the office and swore. Yes, and I wasn't a swearing man. Oddly enough, thinking back, I can't remember many gunfighters who were. Most of them I knew were sparing in the use of words as well as whiskey.
But one thing I knew: Orrin must not meet Tom Sunday. Even if Orrin beat him, Orrin would lose. A few years ago it would not have mattered that he had been in a gun battle, now it could wreck his career.
If Orrin would get out of town ... but he couldn't. He had been selected as the speaker for the big political rally and that would be just the time when Tom Sunday would be in town.
'Thanks,' I said to Shea, 'thanks for telling me.'
Leaving Cap in charge of the office I mounted up and rode out to the ranch.
Orrin was there, and we sat down and had dinner with Ma. It was good to have our feet under the same table again, and Ma brightened up and talked like her old self.
Next day was Sunday and Orrin and me decided to take Ma to church. It was a lazy morning with bright sunshine and Orrin took Ma in the buckboard and we boys rode along behind.
We wore our broadcloth suits and the four of us dressed in black made a sight walking around Ma, who was a mighty little woman among her four tall sons, and Dru was with us, standing there beside Ma and me, and I was a proud man.
It was a meeting I'll not soon forget, that one was, because when Ollie heard the family was going, he came along and stood with us at the hymn singing and the preaching.
Whether or not Orrin had heard any of the stories going round about Tom I felt it necessary to warn him. If I expected him to brush it off, I was wrong. He was dead serious about it when I explained. 'But I can't leave,' he added, 'everybody would know why I went and if they thought I was afraid, I'd lose as many votes as if I actually fought him.'
He was right, of course, so we prepared for the meeting with no happy anticipation of it, although this was to be Orrin's big day, and his biggest speech, and the one that would have him fairly launched in politics. Men were coming up from Santa Fe to hear him, all the crowd around the capital who pulled the political strings.
Everybody knew Orrin was to speak and everybody knew Tom would be there. And nothing any of us could do but wait.
Jonathan Pritts knew he had been left out and he knew it was no accident. He also knew that it was to be Orrin's big day and that Laura's cutting loose had not hurt him one bit.
Also Jonathan knew the trial was due to come off soon, and before the attorney got through cross-examining Wilson and some of the others the whole story of his move into the Territory would be revealed. There was small chance it could be stopped, but if something were to happen to Orrin and me, if there was to be a jail delivery ...
He wouldn't dare.
Or would he?
Chapter XX
The sun was warm in the street that morning, warm even at the early hour when I rode in from the ranch. The town lay quiet and a lazy dog sprawled in the dust opened one eye and flapped his tail in a I-won't-bother-you- if-you-don't-bother-me sort of way, as I approached.
Cap Rountree looked me over carefully from those shrewd old eyes as I rode up.
'You wearing war paint, boy? If you ain't, you better. I got a bad feeling about today.'
Getting down from the saddle I stood beside him and watched the hills against the skyline. People were getting up all over town now, or lying there awake and thinking about the events of the day. There was to be the speaking, a band concert, and most folks would bring picnic lunches.
'I hope he stays away.'
Cap stuffed his pipe with tobacco. 'He'll be here.'
'What happened, Cap? Where did it start?'
He leaned a thin shoulder against the awning post. 'You could say it was at the burned wagons when Orrin and him had words about that money. No man likes to be put in the wrong.
'Or you could say it was back there at the camp near Baxter Springs, or maybe it was the day they were
