'Is that Pritts? That feller you've been talking to?'
'Jonathan Pritts and his daughter Laura. Mighty fine New England people. He's a town-site developer. She wasn't pleased to come west and leave their fine home behind and all their fine friends, but her Pa felt it his duty to come west and open up the country for the right people.'
Now something about that didn't sound right to me, nor did it sound like Orrin.
Remembering how my own skull was buzzing over that Spanish girl I figured he must have it the same way over that narrow-between-the-eyes blond girl.
'Seems to me, Orrin, that most folks don't leave home unless they figure to gain by it. We are going west because we can't make a living out of no side-hill farm. I reckon you'll find Jonathan Pritts ain't much different.'
Orrin was shocked. 'Oh, no. Nothing like that. He was a big man where he came from. If he had stayed there he would be running for the Senate right now.'
'Seems to me,' I said, 'that somebody has told you a mighty lot about her fine friends and her fine home. If he does any developin' it won't be from goodness of his heart but because there's money to be had.'
'You don't understand, Tyrel. These are fine people. You should get acquainted.'
'We'll have little time for people out west rounding up cows.'
Orrin looked mighty uncomfortable. 'Mr. Pritts has offered me a job, running his outfit. Plans to develop town sites and the like; there's a lot of old Spanish grants that will be opened to settlement.'
'He's got some men?'
'A dozen now, more later. I met one of them, Fetterson.'
'With a scarred lip?'
'Why, sure!' Orrin looked at me mighty curious. 'Do you know him?'
For the first time then I told Orrin about the shindig back of the saloon when I belted Reed Carney with the bucket.
'Why, then,' Orrin said quietly, 'I won't take the job. I'll tell Mr. Pritts about Fetterson, too.' He paused. 'Although I'd like to keep track of Laura.'
'Since when have you started chasing girls? Seems to me they always chased after you.'
'Laura's different ... I never knew a city girl before, and she's mighty fine.
Manners and all.' Right then it seemed to me that if he never saw them again it would be too soon ... all those fancy city manners and city fixings had turned Orrin's head.
Another thing. Jonathan Pritts was talking about those Spanish land grants that would be opened to settlement. It set me to wondering just what would happen to those Spanish folks who owned the grants?
Sizing up those riders of the don's I figured no rawhide outfit made up of the likes of Fetterson would have much chance shaking the don's loose from their land. But that was no business of ours. Starting tomorrow we were wild-cow hunters.
Anyway, Orrin was six years older than me and he had always had luck with girls and no girl ever paid me much mind, so I was sure in no position to tell him.
This Laura Pritts was a pretty thing ... no taking that away from her.
Nonetheless I couldn't get that contrary hammerheaded roan out of mind. They surely did favor.
Orrin had gone back into the cottage and I walked to the edge of the street.
Several of the don's riders were loafing near their wagons and it was mighty quiet.
Rountree spoke from the street. 'Watch yourself, Tye.'
Turning, I looked around.
Reed Carney was coming up the street.
Chapter III
Back in the hills Orrin was the well-liked brother, nor did I ever begrudge him that. Not that folks disliked me or that I ever went around being mean, but folks never did get close to me and it was most likely my fault. There was always something standoffish about me. I liked folks, but I liked the wild animals, the lonely trails, and the mountains better.
Pa told me once, 'Tyrel, you're different. Don't you ever regret it. Folks won't cotton to you much, but the friends you will make will be good friends and they'll stand by you.'
Those days I thought he was wrong. I never felt any different than anybody else, far as I could see, only now when I saw Reed Carney coming up the street, and knowing it was me he was coming to kill, something came up in me that I'd never felt before, not even when Long Higgins started for Orrin.
It was something fierce and terrible that came up and liked to choke me, and then it was gone and I was very quiet inside. The moments seemed to plod, every detail stood out in sharp focus, clear and strong. Every sense, every emotion was caught and held, concentrated on that man coming up the street.
He was not alone. Fetterson was with him, and the two who had come from the saloon when I laid Carney low with the bucket. They were a little behind him and spread out.
Orrin was inside somewhere and only that dry, harsh old man with his wolf eyes was there. He would know what was to be done, for nobody needed to tell him how to play his cards in a situation like this ... and no one needed to tell me.
Suddenly, with a queer wave of sadness and fatality, I realized that it was for moments such as this that I had been born.
Some men are gifted to paint, some to write, and some to lead men. For me it was always to be this, not to kill men, although in the years to come I was to kill more than I liked, but to command such situations as this.
Reed was coming up the street and he was thinking what folks would say when they told the story in the cow camps and around the chuck wagons. He was thinking of how they would tell of him walking up the street to kill Tyrel Sackett.
Me, I wasn't thinking. I was just standing there. I was just me, and I knew some things were inevitable.
On my right a door closed and I knew Don Luis had come out on the porch. I even heard, it was that still, the scratch of the match when he lit his cigar.
When Reed started at me he was more than a hundred yards off, but when he had covered half the distance, I started to meet him.
He stopped.
Seems like he didn't expect me to come hunting it. Seems like he figured he was the hunter and that I would try to avoid a shoot out. Seems like something had happened to him in that fifty yards, for fifty yards can be a lifetime.
Suddenly, I knew I didn't have to kill him. Mayhap that was the moment when I changed from a boy into a man. Somewhere I'd begun to learn things about myself and about gunfights and gunfighters. Reading men is the biggest part; drawing fast, even shooting straight, they come later. And some of the fastest drawing men with guns were among the first to die. That fast draw didn't mean a thing ... not a thing.
The first thing I was learning was there are times when a man had to kill and times when he had no need to.
Reed Carney wanted a shoot out and he wanted to win, but me, I'm more than average contrary. Watching Reed come up the street, I knew I didn't need a gun for him; suddenly it came over me that Reed Carney was nothing but a tinhorn. He fancied himself as a tough man and a gunfighter, but he didn't really want anybody shooting at him. The trouble with having a reputation as a tough man is that the time always comes when you have to be a tough man. It's a whole lot different.
Nothing exciting or thrilling about a gunfight. She's a mighty cold proposition for both parties. One or t'other is to be killed or hurt bad, maybe both. Some folks take chances because they've got it in their minds they're somebody special, that something will protect them. It is always, they figure, somebody else who dies.
Only it ain't thataway. You can die. You can be snuffed out like you never existed at all and a few minutes after you're buried nobody will care except maybe your wife or your mother. You stick your finger in the water and you pull it out, and that's how much of a hole you leave when you're gone.
Reed Carney had been thinking of himself as a mighty dangerous man and he had talked himself into a shoot out. Maybe it was something in his walk or the way he looked or in the fact that he stopped when I started toward him. Mayhap it was something sensed rather than seen, that something within me that made me different than other men. Only suddenly I knew that by the time he had taken ten steps toward me the fight had begun to peter
