Tom Sunday glanced up and smiled. "We will want twenty-five dollars per head."
The captain merely glanced at him. "Of course not," he said, then he smiled at us and lifted his glass. "Your health--"
"What about Don Luis Alvarado?" Orrin asked suddenly.
The captain's expression stiffened a little and he asked, "Are you one of the Pritts crowd?"
"No," Tom Sunday said, "we met the don out on the Plains. Came west from Abilene with him, as a matter of fact."
"He's one of those who welcomed us in New Mexico. Before we took over the Territory the Mexican government was in no position to send troops to protect these colonies from the Indians. Also, most of the trade was between Santa Fe and the States, rather than between Santa Fe and Mexico. The don appreciated this, and most of the people here welcomed us."
"Jonathan Pritts is bringing in settlers," Orrin said.
"Mr. Pritts is a forceful and energetic man," the captain said, "but he is under the false impression that because New Mexico has become a possession of the United States ... I should say, a part of the United States ... that the property rights of all Spanish-speaking people will be tossed out the window."
There was a pause. "The settlers--if one wishes to call them that--that Jonathan Pritts is bringing in are all men who bring their guns instead of families."
I had me another glass of wine and sat back and listened to the captain talking with Tom Sunday. Seems the captain was out of that Army school, West Point, but he was a man who had read a sight of books. A man never realizes how little he knows until he listens to folks like that talk. Up where I was born we had the Bible, and once in a while somebody would bring a newspaper but it was a rare thing when we saw any other kind of reading.
Politics was a high card up in the hills. A political speech would bring out the whole country. Folks would pack their picnic lunches and you'd see people at a speech you'd never see elsewhere. Back in those days 'most every boy grew up knowing as much about local politics as about coon dogs, which was about equal as to interest.
Orrin and me, we just set and listened. A man can learn a lot if he listens, and if I didn't learn anything else I was learning how much I didn't know. It made me hungry to know it all, and mad because I was getting so late a start.
We'd picked up a few more head of cattle coming south and the way it was going to figure out, each of us would have more than a thousand dollars of his own when we'd settled up. Next day Orrin and Cap went to the stage office and arranged to ship east the gold we'd found in the wagon.
The itch to see the town got the best of me so I walked outside. Those black-eyed senoritas was enough to turn a man's good sense. If Orrin would look at some of these girls he'd forget all about Laura. It was no wonder he fell for her. After a man has been surrounded for months by a lot of hard-handed, hairy-chested men even the doggiest kind of female looks mighty good.
Most of all right now I wanted a bath and a shave. Cap, he followed me.
"Seems to me there's things around town need seeing to," I suggested.
"You look here, Tyrel, if you're thinkin' of what I think you're thinkin' you'd better scout the country and study the sign before you make your move. If you figure to court a Spanish gal you'd also better figure to fight her man."
"Seems like it might be worth it."
This was siesta time. A dog opened one eye and wagged a tail to show that if I didn't bother him he'd be pleased. Me, I wasn't of a mind to bother anybody.
Taking it slow, I walked down the dusty street. The town was quiet. A wide door opened into a long, barnlike building with a lot of tubs and water running through in a ditch. There was homemade soap there and nobody around. There was a pump there, too. It was the first time I ever saw a pump inside a house. Folks are sure getting lazy ... won't even go outside the house to pump.
This here must be a public bathhouse, but there was nobody around to take my money. I filled a tub with water, stripped off and got in and when I'd covered with soap, head to foot, three women came in with bundles of clothes on their heads.
First off I stared and they stared and then I yelled. All of a sudden I realized this here was no bathhouse but a place to wash clothes.
Those Spanish girls had taken one look and then they began to shriek, and first off I figured they were scared, but they weren't running, they were just standing there laughing at me.
Laughing!
Grabbing a bucket of water I doused myself with it and grabbed up a towel. Then they ran outside and I could hear screams and I never crawled into my clothes so fast in all my born days. Slinging gun belt around me at a dead run I beat it for my horse.
It must have been a sight, me all soapy in that tub. Red around the gills. I started Dapple out of town on a run and the last thing I could hear was laughter. Women sure do beat all.
Anyway, I'd had a bath.
Morning was bright and beautiful like nine mornings out of ten in the high desert country. We met the captain and turned the cattle over to him. We'd finally settled on twenty dollars a head, which was a very good price at the time and place.
First off, as we rode into town, a girl spotted me. She pointed her finger at me, gasped, and spoke excitedly to the girl with her, and then they both began to look at me and laugh.
Orrin was puzzled because the girls always noticed him first and paid me no mind. "Do you know those girls?"
"Me? I never saw them before in my life." But it gave me a tip-off as to what it was going to be like. That story must be all over Santa Fe by now.
Before we reached the La Fonda we'd passed a dozen girls and they all laughed or smiled at me. Tom Sunday and Orrin, they hadn't an idea of what was going on.
The La Fonda was cool and pleasant again, so we ordered wine and a meal. The girl who took our order realized all of a sudden who I was and she began to giggle. When she went out with our order, two or three girls came from the kitchen to look at me.
Picking up a glass of wine, I tried to appear worldly and mighty smug about it all. Fact was, I felt pretty foolish.
Orrin was getting sore. He couldn't understand this sudden interest the girls were taking in me. He was curious, interested and kind of jealous all to once.
Only thing I could do was stand my ground and wear it out or high-tail it for the brush.
Santa Fe was a small town, but it was a friendly town. Folks here all wanted the good time that strangers brought. Those years, it was a town at the end of things, although it was old enough to have been a center of everything. And the girls loved a fandango and enjoyed the presence of the Americans.
There was a cute little button of a Mexican girl and every time I'd see her she'd give me a flashing glance out of those big dark eyes, and believe me, I'd get flustered.
This one had a shape to take a man's eye. Every time she'd pass me on the streets she'd give a little more swish to her skirts and I figured we could get acquainted if I just knew how to go about it. Her name was Tina Fernandez.
Night of the second day, there was a knock at the door and when I opened it Fetterson was standing there.
"Mr. Pritts wants to see you, all of you. He wants to talk business."
We looked at each other, then Orrin got up to go. The rest of us followed him and a Mexican standing at the bar turned his back on us. Anybody who was friendly to Jonathan Pritts would find few friends in Santa Fe.
It wasn't just that which worried me. It was Orrin.
Jonathan Pritts had four men outside the adobe where he lived and a few others loafing near the corral. Through the bunkhouse door I could see several men, all armed.
One thing you've got to watch, Tyrel, I told myself, is a man with so many fighters around. He wouldn't have all those men unless he figured he'd need them.
Rountree glanced at me. He was badger tough and coon smart. Sunday paused on the porch and took out a cigar; when he reached back and struck the match on his pants three chairs creaked as men put their hands to their gu
ns. Tom didn't let on he noticed but there was a sly smile around his mouth.
Laura came to meet us in a blue dress that brought out the blue in her eyes, so she looked like an angel. The way she offered both hands to Orrin and the way she looked at him ... it was enough to make a man gag. Only Orrin wasn't gagging. He was looking like somebody had hit him with a fence post.
Cap was uncommon sour but Sunday--always a hand with the ladies--gave her a wide smile. Sometimes I thought it irritated him that Laura had chosen to fall for Orrin and not him. Her eyes looked past Orrin at me and our minds were hitched to the same idea. We simply did not like each other.
Jonathan Pritts entered wearing a preacher's coat and a collar that made you wonder whether he was going to offer prayer or sell you a gold brick.
He passed around a box of cigars and I was glad I didn't smoke. Orrin accepted a cigar, and after the slightest hesitation, Tom did too.
"I don't smoke," I said.
"Will you have a drink?"
"I don't drink," I said.
Orrin looked at me, because while I don't care for the stuff I sometimes drink with friends.
"You boys have done well with your cattle," Pritts said, "and I like men with business minds. However, I am wondering what you plan to do with the proceeds of your success. I can use men who want to invest business brains and capital, men who can start something and carry it through."
Nobody said anything and he brushed the ash from his cigar and studied the glowing end for a minute.
"There may be a little trouble at first. The people on the land are not Americans and may resent our moving in."
Orrin spoke slowly. "Tyrel and me came west hunting land. We're looking for a home."
"Good! New Mexico is now a part of the United States, and it's time that we American citizens had the benfits."
He drew deep on his cigar. "The first comers will be first served."
"The way it sounds," I said, "you plan to shove out the first comers and move in yourself."
Pritts was mad. He was not accustomed to straight talk--least of all from men like us. He said nothing for a moment and Laura sat down near Orrin and I got a whiff of her perfume.
"The Mexicans have no rights," Pritts replied. "The land belongs to us freeborn Americans, and if you come in with us now you will have shares in the company we are forming."
"We need a home for Ma," Orrin said, "we do need land."
"If we get it this way, there'll be blood on it," I said, "but first we should get Mr. Pritts' proposition in writing, just what he has in mind, and how he aims to settle up." That was Pa talking. Pa always said, "Get it in writing, boy."
"A gentleman's word," Pritts replied stiffly, "should be enough."
I got up. I'd no idea what the others figured to do and didn't much care. This sanctimonious old goat was figuring to steal land from folks who'd lived on it for years.
"A man who is talking of stealing land with guns," I said, "is in no position to talk about himself as being a gentleman. Those people are American citizens now as much as you or me."
Turning around, I started for the door, and Cap Rountree was only a step behind me. Tom Sunday hesitated, being a polite man, but the four of us were four who worked and travelled together, so he followed us. Orrin lagged a little, but he came.
Pritts yelled after us, his voice trembling he was so mad. "Remember this! Those who aren't with me are against me! Ride out of town and don't come back!"
None of us were greenhorns and we knew those men on the porch weren't knitting so when we stopped, the four of us faced out in four directions. "Mr. Pritts," I said, "you've got mighty big ideas for such a small head. Don't you make trouble for us or we'll run you back to the country they run you out of."
He was coming after us and he stopped in midstride, stopped as though I'd hit him with my fist. Right then I knew what I'd said was true ... somebody had run him out of somewhere.
He was an arrogant man who fancied himself important, and mostly he carried it off, but now he was mad. "We'll see about that!" he shouted. "Wilson, take them!"
Rountree was facing the first man who started to get out of a chair, which was Wilson, and there was no mercy in old Cap. He just laid a gun barrel alongside of Wilson's head and Wilson folded right back into his chair.
The man facing Orrin had a six-shooter in his stomach and I was looking across a gun barrel at Pritts himself. "Mr. Pritts," I said, "you're a man who wants to move in on folks with guns. Now you just tell them to go ahead with what they've started and you'll be dead on the floor by the tune you've said it."
Laura stared at me with such hatred as I've ever seen on a woman's face. There was a girl with a mighty big picture of her pa and anybody who didn't see her pa the way she did couldn't be anything but evil. And whoever she married was always going to play second fiddle to Jonathan Pritts.
Pritts looked like he'd swallowed something that wasn't good for him. He looked at that Navy Colt and he knew I was not fooling. And so did I.
"All right." He almost choked on it. "You can go."
We walked to our horses with nobody talking and when we were in our saddles Orrin turned on me. "Damn you, Tye, you played hell. You the same as called him a thief."
"That land belongs to Alvarado. We killed a lot of Higginses for less."
That night I slept mighty little, trying to figure out if I'd done right. Anyway I looked at it, I thought I'd done the right thing, and I didn't believe my liking for Drusilla had a thing to do with it. And believe me, I thought about that.
Next morning I saw Fetterson riding out of town with a pack of about forty men, and Wilson was with him. Only Wilson's hat wasn't setting right because of the lump on his skull. They rode out of town, headed northeast.
About the time they cleared the last house a Mexican boy mounted on a speedy looking sorrel took off for the hills, riding like the devil was on his tail.
Looked to me like Don Luis had his own warning system and would be ready for Fetterson before he got there. Riding that fast he wouldn't be riding far, so chances were a relay of horses was waiting to carry the word. Don Luis had a lot of men, lots of horses, and a good many friends.
Orrin came out, stuffing his shirt into his pants. He looked mean as a bear with a sore tooth. "You had no call to jump Mr. Pritts like that."
"If he was an honest man, I'd have nothing to say."
Orrin sat down. One thing a body could say for Orrin, he was a fair man.
"Tyrel," he said at last, "you ought to think before you talk. I like that girl."
Well ... I felt mighty mean and low down. I set store by Orrin. Most ways he was smarter than me, but about this Pritts affair, I figured he was wrong.
"Orrin, I'm sorry. We never had much, you and me. But what we had, we had honest We want a home for Ma. But it wouldn't be the home she wants if it was bought with blood."
"Well ... damn it, Tyrel, you're right, of course. I just wish you hadn't been so rough on Mr. Pritts."
"I'm sorry. It was me, not you. You ain't accountable for the brother you've got."
"Tyrel, don't you talk thataway. Without you that day back home in Tennessee I'd be buried and nobody knows it better than me."
Chapter VII
This was raw, open country, rugged country, and it bred a different kind of man.
The cattle that went wild in Texas became the longhorn, and ran mostly to horns and legs because the country needed a big animal that could fight and one who could walk three days to get water. Just so it bred the kind of man with guts and toughness no eastern man could use.
Most men never discover what they've got inside. A man has to face up to trouble before he knows. The kind of conniving a man could get away with back east wouldn't go out here. Not in those early years. You can hide that sort of behavior in a crowd, but not in a country where there's so few people. Not that we didn't have our own kinds of trickery and cheating.
Jonathan Pritts was one of those who misto
ok liberty for license and he figured he could get away with anything. Worst of all, he had an exaggerated idea of how big a man he was ... trouble was, he wasn't a big man, just a mean one.
We banked our money with the Express Company in Santa Fe, and then we saddled up and started back to the Purgatoire after more cattle. We had us an outfit this time. Dapple was still my horse, and a better no man was likely to have, but each of us now had four extra mounts and I'd felt I'd done myself proud.
The first was a grulla, a mouse-colored mustang who, judging by disposition, was sired out of a Missouri mule by a mountain lion with a sore tooth. That grulla was the most irritating, cantankerous bit of horseflesh I ever saw, and he could buck like a sidewinder on a red-ant hill. On the other hand he could go all day and night over any kind of country on less grass and water than one of Beale's camels. My name for him was Sate, short for Satan.
There was a buckskin, a desert horse used to rough going, but steady. In many ways the most reliable horse I had. His name was Buck, like you might expect.
Kelly was a big red horse with lots of bottom. Each horse I paid for out of my own money, although Sate they almost gave me, glad to be rid of him, I expect.
First time I straddled Sate we had us a mite of a go-around. When I came off him I was shook up inside and had a nosebleed, but I got off when I was good and ready and from that time on Sate knew who was wearing the pants.
My fourth horse I bought from an Indian. We'd spent most of the day dickering with Spanish men, and this Indian sat off to one side, watching. He was a big-framed Nez Perce from up Idaho, Montana way.
He was at the corral at sunup and by noontime I'd not seen him have a bite to eat. "You're a long way from home," I said, slicing off a chunk of beef I'd had fixed for a lunch and handed it to him. He looked at me, a long, careful look, then he accepted it. He ate slow like a starving man who can't eat a lot at first because his stomach shrinks up.
"You speak English?"
"I speak."
Splitting my grub down the middle, I gave him half, and we ate together. When we'd finished he got up. "Come--you see horse."
The horse was a handsome animal, a roan with a splash of white with red spots on the white, the kind of horse they call an appaloosa. Gaunt as his owner he stood a good sixteen hands. Looked like this Indian had come a long way on short rations. So I swapped him my old rifle (I'd bought a .44 Henry the day before) and some grub. I threw in my old blanket.
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