let you be as long as you stayed ... that was their way, but the same Injun in whose tipi you slept might follow you when you left an' murder you.
'They hadn't the same upbringin' a white man has. There was none of this talk of mercy, kindness and suchlike which we get from the time we're youngsters. We get it even though most folks don't foller the teachin'. An Injun is loyal to nobody but his own tribe ... an' any stranger is apt to be an enemy.
'You fight an Injun an' whup him, after that maybe you can trade with him. He'll deal with a fightin' man, but a man who can't protect hisself, well, most Injuns have no respect for him, so they just kill him an' forget him.'
Around the fires at night there was talk and laughter. Orrin sang his old Welsh and Irish ballads for them. From Pa he'd picked up some Spanish songs, and when he sang them you should have heard them Spanish men yell! And from the far hills the coyotes answered.
Old Rountree would find a spot well back from the flames and set there watching the outer darkness and listening. A man who stares into flames is blind when he looks into outer darkness, and he won't shoot straight ... Pa had taught us that, back in Tennessee.
This was Indian country and you have to figure, understanding Indians, that his whole standing in this tribe comes from how many coups he's counted, which means to strike an enemy, a living enemy, or to be the first one to strike a man who has fallen ... they figure that mighty daring because the fallen man may be playing possum.
An Indian who was a good horse thief, he could have the pick of the girls in the tribe. Mostly because marriage was on the barter system, and an Indian could have all the wives he could afford to buy ... usually that wasn't more than two or three, and mostly one.
Orrin hadn't forgotten that Laura girl. He was upset with me, too, for leading him off again when he was half a mind to tie up with Pritts.
'He's paying top wages,' Orrin said, one night.
'Fighting wages,' I said.
'Could be, Tyrel,' Orrin said, and no friendly sound to his voice, 'that you're holding something against Mr. Pritts. And against Laura, too.'
Go easy, boy, I told myself, this is dangerous ground. 'I don't know them. Only from what you've said he's planning to horn in on land that doesn't belong to him.'
Orrin started to speak but Tom Sunday got up. 'Time to turn in,' he spoke abruptly, 'gettin' up time comes early.'
We turned in, both of us with words we were itching to say that were better unsaid.
It rankled, however. There was truth about me having a holding against Pritts and his daughter. That I had ... she didn't look right to me, and I've always been suspicious of those too-sanctimonious men like Jonathan Pritts.
The way he looked down that thin New England nose of his didn't promise any good for those who didn't agree with him. And what I said to Orrin that time, I'd believed. If Pritts had been so much back home, what was he doing out here?
We filled our canteens at daybreak with no certain water ahead of us. A hot wind searched the grass. At Mud Creek there was enough water in the creek bottom for the horses, but when we left it it was bone dry. It was seven miles to the Water Holes, and if there was no water there it was a dry day's travel to the Little Arkansas.
The sun was hot. Dust lifted from the feet of the horses and mules, and we left a trail of dust in the air. If any Indians were around, they'd not miss us.
'A man would have to prime himself to spit in country like this,' Tom Sunday remarked.
'How about the country we're heading toward, Cap?'
'Worse ... unless a man knows the land. Only saving thing, there's no travel up thataway except for Comanches. What water there is we'll likely have to ourselves.'
Every day then, Drusilla was riding with me. And every day I felt myself looking for her sooner than before. Sometimes we were only out for a half hour, at most an hour, but I got so I welcomed her coming and dreaded her going.
Back in the mountains I'd known few girls. Mostly I fought shy of them, not figuring to put my neck in any loops I couldn't pull out of ... only I had a feeling I was getting bogged down with Drusilla.
She was shy of sixteen, but Spanish girls marry that young and younger, and in the mountains they did also. Me, I had nothing but a dapple horse, a partnership in some mules, and my old Spencer and a Colt pistol. It didn't count up to much.
Meanwhile, I'd been getting to know the vaqueros. I'd never known anybody before who wasn't straight-out American, and back in the hills we held ourselves suspicious of such folk. Riding with them, I was finding they were good, solid men.
Miguel was a slim, wiry man who was the finest rider I ever knew, and maybe a couple of years older than me. He was a handsome man with a quick laugh, and like me he was always ready to ride far afield.
Juan Torres was the boss of the lot, a compact man of forty-three or four, who rarely smiled but was always friendly. Maybe he was the finest rifle shot I ever saw ... he had worked for Don Luis Alvarado since he, Torres, was a boy, and thought of him like he was a god.
There was Pete Romero, and a slim, tough young devil called Antonio Baca ... the only one who didn't have the Basque blood. It seemed to me he thought he was a better man than Torres, and there was something else I figured was just my thinking until Cap mentioned it.
'Did you ever notice how young Baca looks at you when you ride with the senorita?'
'He doesn't seem to like it. I noticed that.'
'You watch yourself. That boy's got a streak of meanness.'
That was all Cap said, but I took it to mind. Stories I'd heard made out these Spanish men to be mighty jealous, although no girl was going to look serious at me when there were men around like Orrin and Tom Sunday.
There's no accounting for the notions men get, and it seems to me the most serious trouble between men comes not so much from money, horses, or women, but from notions. A man takes a dislike to another man for no reason at all but that they rub each other wrong, and then something, a horse or a woman or a drink sets it off and they go to shooting or cutting or walloping with sticks.
Like Reed Carney. Only a notion. And it could have got him killed.
At the Little Arkansas we camped where a little branch flowed from a spring in the bluff and ran down to the river. It was good water, maybe a mite brackish.
After night guard was set I slipped out of camp with a rifle and canteen and went down to the Little Arkansas. Dark was coming on but a man could see. Moving down to the river's edge ... there was more sand than water ... I stood listening.
A man should trust his senses and they'll grow sharper from use. I never took it for granted that the country was safe. Not only listening and watching as I moved, but testing the air for smells. Out on the prairie where the air is fresh a man can smell more than around people, and after awhile he learns to smell an Indian, a white man, a horse, or even a bear.
Off in the distance there was heat lightning, and a far-off nimble of thunder.
Waiting in the silence after the thunder a stone rattled across the river and a column of riders emerged from the brush and rode down into the river bed. There might have been a dozen, or even twenty, and although I could not make them out I could see white streaks on their faces that meant they were painted for war.
Crossing the stream sixty, seventy yards below me they rode out across the prairie. They would not be moving this late unless there was a camp not far off, and that meant more Indians and a possible source of trouble.
When they had gone I went back to camp and got Cap Rountree. Together, we talked to Torres and made what plans we could.
Daylight came, and on the advice of Torres, Drusilla remained with the wagons.
We moved slowly, trying to keep our dust down.
It was dry ... the grass was brown, parched and sun-hot when we fetched up to Owl Creek and found it bone-dry. Little and Big Cow Creeks, also dry.
