Well ... what could I say? Certainly it was what needed to be done and what had to be done sooner or later, but there was nothing I could think of that was apt to start more trouble than that.
Jonathan Pritts had settled a lot of his crowd on land belonging to the Alvarado Grant. Then he had bought their claims from them, and he was now laying claim to more than a hundred thousand acres. Probably Pritts figured when the don died that he had no more worries ... anyway, he was in it up to his ears and if the title of the Alvarado Grant proved itself, he had no more claim than nothing. I mean, he was broke.
Not that I felt sorry for him. He hadn't worried about what happened to the don or his granddaughter, all he thought of was what he wanted. Only if there was anything that was figured to blow the lid off this country it was such a suit.
"If I were you," I advised her, "I'd go to Mexico and I'd stay there until this is settled."
"This is my home," Dru said quietly.
"Dru, you don't seem to realize. This is a shooting matter. They'll kill you ... or they'll try."
"They may try," she said quietly. "I shall not leave."
When I left the house I was worried about Dru. If I had not been so concerned with her situation I might have given some thought to myself.
They would think I had put her up to it. From the day that action was announced I would be the Number-One target in the shooting gallery.
When I was expecting everything to happen, nothing happened. There were a few scattered killings further north. One was a Settlement man who had broken with Jonathan Pritts and the Settlement Company ... it was out of my bailiwick and the killing went unsolved, but it had an ugly look to it.
Jonathan Pritts remained in Santa Fe, Laura was receiving important guests at her parties and fandangos most every night. Pritts was generally agreed to have a good deal of political power. Me, I was a skeptic ... because folks associate in a social way doesn't mean they are political friends, and most everybody likes a get-together.
One Saturday afternoon Orrin pulled up alongside me in a buckboard. He looked up at me and grinned as I sat Sate's saddle.
"Looks to me like you'd sell that horse, Tyrel," he said. "He was always a mean one."
"I like him," I said. "He's contrary as all get-out, and he's got a streak of meanness in him, but I like him."
"How's Ma?"
"She's doing fine." It was a hot day and the sweat trickled down my face. The long street was busy. Fetterson was down there with the one they called Paisano, because he gave a man a feeling that he was some kin to a chaparral cock or road runner. Folks down New Mexico way called them paisanos.
Only I had a feeling about Paisano. I didn't care for him much.
"Ma misses you, Orrin. You should drive out to see her."
"I know ... I know. Damn it, Tyrel, why can't womenfolks get along?"
"Ma hasn't had any trouble with anybody. She's all right, Orrin, the same as always. Only she still smokes a pipe."
He mopped his face, looking mighty harried and miserable. "Laura's not used to that." He scowled. "She raises hell every time I go out to the place."
"Womenfolks," I said, "sometimes need some handling. You let them keep the bit in their teeth and they'll make you miserable and themselves too. You pet 'em a little and keep a firm hand on the bridle and you'll have no trouble."
He stared down the sun-bright street, squinting his eyes a little. "It sounds very easy, Tyrel. Only there's so many things tied in with it. When we become a state I want to run for the Senate, and it may be only a few years now."
"How do you and Pritts get along?"
Orrin gathered the reins. He didn't need to tell me. Orrin was an easygoing man, but he wasn't a man you could push around or take advantage of. Except maybe by that woman.
"We don't." He looked up at me. "That's between us, Tyrel. I wouldn't even tell Ma. Jonathan and I don't get along, and Laura .. . well, she can be difficult."
"You were quite a bronc rider, Orrin."
"What's that mean?"
"Why," I pushed my hat back on my head, "I'd say it meant your feet aren't tied to the stirrups, Orrin. I'd say there isn't a thing to keep you in the saddle but your mind to stay there, and nobody's going to give you a medal for staying in the saddle when you can't make a decent ride of it.
"Take Sate here," I rubbed Sate's neck and that bronc laid back his ears, "you take Sate. He's a mean horse. He's tough and he's game and he'll go until the sun comes up, but Orrin, if I could only have one horse, I'd never have this one. I'd have Dapple or that Montana horse.
"It's fun to ride a mean one when you don't have to do it every day, but if I stay with Sate long enough he'll turn on me. And there's some women like that."
Orrin gathered the reins. "Too hot ... I'll see you later, Tyrel."
He drove off and I watched him go. He was a fine, upstanding man but when he married that Laura girl he bought himself a packet of grief.
Glancing down the street I saw Fetterson hand something to Paisano. It caught the sunlight an instant, then disappeared in Paisano's pocket. But the glimpse was enough. Paisano had gotten himself a fistful of gold coins from Fetterson, which was an interesting thought.
Sometimes a man knows something is about to happen. He can't put a finger on a reason, but he gets an itch inside him, and I had it now. Something was building up. I could smell trouble in the making, and oddly enough it might have been avoided by a casual comment. The trouble was that I did not know that Torres was coming up from Socorro, and that he was returning to work for Dru.
Had I known that, I would have known what Jonathan Pritts' reaction was to be.
If Dru had happened to mention the fact that Torres was finally well and able to be around and was coming back, I would have gone down to meet him and come back with him.
Juan Torres was riding with two other Mexicans, men he had recruited in Socorro to work for Dru, and they were riding together. They had just ridden through the gap about four miles from Mora when they were shot to doll rags.
Mountain air is clear, and sound carries, particularly when it has the hills behind it. The valley was narrow all the way to town, and it was early monring with no other sound to interfere.
Orrin had come up from Santa Fe by stage to Las Vegas and had driven up to town from there. We had walked out on the street together for I'd spent the night in the back room at the sheriff's office.
We all heard the shots, there was a broken volley that sounded like four or five guns at least, and then, almost a full half minute later, a single, final shot.
Now nobody shoots like that if they are hunting game. For that much shooting it has to be a battle, and I headed for Orrin's buckboard on the run with him right behind me. His Winchester was there and each of us wore a belt gun.
Dust lingered in the air at the gap, only a faint suggestion of it. The killers were gone and nobody was going to catch up with them right away, especially in a buckboard, so I wasted no time thinking about that.
Juan Torres lay on his back with three bullet holes in his chest and a fourth between his eyes, and there was a nasty powder burn around that.
"You know what that means?" I asked Orrin. "Somebody wanted him dead. Remember that final shot?" There was a rattle of hoofs on the road and I looked around to see my brother Joe and Cap Rountree riding bareback. The ranch was closer than the town and they must have come as fast as they could get to their horses. They knew better than to mess things up. Juan Torres had been dead when that final shot was fired, I figured, because at least two of the bullets in the chest would have killed him. The two others were also dead. I began casting for sign.
Not thirty feet off the trail I found where several men had waited for quite some time. There were cigarette stubs there and the grass was matted down.
Orrin had taken one look at the bodies and had walked back to the buckboard and he stood there, saying no word to anybody, just staring first at the ground and then at his hands, looking l
ike he'd never seen them before.
A Mexican I knew had come down the road from town, and he was sitting there on his horse looking at those bodies. "Bandidos?" he looked at me with eyes that held no question.
"No," I said, "assassins."
He nodded his head slowly. "There will be much trouble," he said, "this one," he indicated Torres, "was a good man."
"He was my friend."
"Si."
Leaving the Mexican to guard the road approaching the spot--just beyond the gap--I put Joe between the spot and the town. Only I did this after we loaded the bodies in the buckboard. Then I sent Orrin and Cap off to town with the bodies.
Joe looked at me, his eyes large. "Keep anybody from messing up the road," I said, "until I've looked it over."
First I went back to the spot in the grass where the drygulchers had waited. I took time to look all around very carefully before approaching the spot itself.
Yet even as I looked, a part of my mind was thinking this would mean the lid was going to blow off. Juan Torres had been a popular man and he had been killed, the others, God rest their souls, were incidental. But it was not that alone, it was what was going to happen to my own family, and what Orrin already knew. Only one man had real reason to want Juan Torres dead ...
One of the men had smoked his cigarettes right down to the nub. There was a place where he had knelt to take aim, the spot where his knee had been and where his boot toe dug in was mighty close. He was a man, I calculated, not over five feet-four or-five. A short man who smoked his cigarettes to the nub wasn't much to go on, but it was a beginning.
One thing I knew. This had been a cold-blooded murder of men who had had no chance to defend themselves, and it had happened in my bailiwick and I did not plan to rest until I had every man who took part in it ... no matter where the trail led.
It was a crime on my threshold, and it was a friend of mine who had been killed.
And once before Orrin and I had prevented his murder ... and another time Torres had been shot up and left for dead.
I was going to get every man Jack of them. There had been five of them here and they had gathered up all the shells before leaving ... or had they?
Working through the tall grass that had been crashed down by them, I found a shell and I struck gold. It was a .44 shell and it was brand, spanking new. I put that shell in my pocket with a mental note to give some time to it later.
Five men ... and Torres himself had been hit by four bullets. Even allowing that some of them might have gotten off more than one shot, judging by the bodies there had been at least nine shots fired before that final shot.
Now some men can lever and fire a rifle mighty fast, but it was unlikely you'd find more than one man, at most two, who could work a lever and aim a shot as fast as those bullets had been, in one group of five men.
Torres must have been moving, maybe falling after that first volley, yet somebody had gotten more bullets into him. The answer to that one was simple.
There were more than five.
Thoughtfully, I looked up at that hill crested with cedar which arose behind the place where they'd been waiting. They would have had a lookout up there, someone to tell them when Torres was coining.
For a couple of hours I scouted around. I found where they had their horses and they had seven of them, and atop the ridge I found where two men had waited, smoking. One of them had slid right down to the horses, and a man could see where he had dug his heels into the bank to keep from sliding too fast.
Cap came and lent me a hand and after a bit, Orrin came out and joined us.
One more thing I knew by that time. The man who had walked up to Torres' body and fired that last shot into his head had been a tall man with fairly new boots and he had stepped in the blood.
Although Orrin held off and let me do it--knowing too many feet would tramp everything up--he saw enough to know here was a plain, outright murder, and a carefully planned murder at that.
First off, I had to decide whether they expected to be chased or not and about how far they would run. How well did they know the country? Were they likely to go to some ranch owned by friends, or hide out in the hills?
Cap had brought back Kelly all saddled and ready, so when I'd seen about all I could see there, I got into the saddle and sent Joe back to our ranch. He was mighty upset, wanting to go along with a posse, but if it was possible I wanted to keep Joe and Bob out of any shooting and away from the trouble.
"What do you think, Tyrel?" Orrin watched me carefully as he spoke.
"It was out-and-out murder," I said, "by seven men who knew Torres would be coming to Mora. It was planned murder, with the men getting there six to seven hours beforehand. Two of them came along later and I'd guess they watched Torres from the hills to make sure he didn't turn off or stop."
Orrin stared at the backs of his hands and I didn't say anything about what I suspected nor did Cap.
"All right," Orrin said, "you go after them and bring them in, no matter how long it takes or what money you need."
I hesitated. Only Cap, Orrin, and me were there together. "Orrin," I said, "you had me hired, and you can fire me. You can leave it to Bill Sexton or you can put in someone else."
Orrin seldom got mad but he was angry when he stared back at me. "Tyrel, that's damn-fool talk. You do what you were hired to do."
Not one of the three of us could have doubted where that trail would lead, but maybe even then Orrin figured it would lead to Fetterson, maybe, but not to Pritts.
Bill Sexton came up just then. "You'll be wanting a posse," he said, "I can get a few good men."
"No posse ... I want Cap, that's all."
"Are you crazy? There's seven of them ... at least."
"Look, if I take a posse there's apt to be one in the crowd who's trigger happy.
If I can avoid it I don't want any shooting. If I can take these men alive, I'm going to do it."
"You're looking to lose your scalp," Sexton said doubtfully, "but it's your hair. You do what you've a mind to."
"Want me to come along?" Orrin asked.
"No." I wanted him the worst way but the less involved he was, the better. "Cap will do."
The way I looked at it, the chances were almighty slim that the seven would stay together very long. Some of them would split off and that would shorten the odds.
The Alvarado Ranch lay quiet under low gray clouds when Cap and I rode up to the door. Briefly, I told Miguel about Torres. "I will come with you," he said instantly.
"You stay here." I gave it to him straight. "They thought by killing Torres they would ruin any chance the senorita would have. Torres is killed but you are not.
You're going to take his place, Miguel. You are going to be foreman."
He was startled. "But I--"
"You will have to protect the senorita," I said, "and you will have to hire at least a dozen good men. You'll have to bunch what cattle she has left and guard them. It looks to me like the killing of Juan Torres was the beginning of an attempt to put her out of business."
I went on inside, walking fast, and Dru was there to meet me. Quietly as possible, I told her about Juan Torres' death and what I had told Miguel.
"He's a good man," I said, "a better man than he knows, and this will prove it to him and to you. Give him authority and give him responsibility. You can trust him to use good judgment."
"What are you going to do?"
"Why, what a deputy sheriff has to do. I am going to run down the killers."
"And what does your brother say?"
"He says to find them, no matter what, no matter how long, and no matter who."
"Tyrel--be careful!"
That made me grin. "Why, ma'am," I said, grinning at her, "I'm the most careful man you know. Getting myself killed is the last idea in my mind ... I want to come back to you."
She just looked at me. "You know, Dru, we've waited long enough. When I've caught these men I am going to resign and we are going
to be married ... and I'm not taking no for an answer."
Her eyes laughed at me. "Who said no?"
At the gap Cap and I picked up the trail and for several miles it gave us no trouble at all. Along here they had been riding fast, trying to put distance between themselves and pursuit.
It was a green, lovely country, with mountain meadows, the ridges crested with cedar that gave way to pine as we climbed into the foothills. We camped that night by a little stream where we could have a fire without giving our presence away.
Chances were they would be expecting a large party and if they saw us, would not recognize us. That was one reason I was riding Kelly. Usually I was up on Dapple or Montana horse, and Kelly was not likely to be known.
Cap made the coffee and sat back into the shadows. He poked sticks into the fire for a few minutes the way he did when he was getting ready to talk.
"Figured you'd want to know. Pritts has been down to see Tom Sunday."
I burned my mouth on a spoonful of stew and when I'd swallowed it I looked at him and said, "Pritts to see Tom?"
"Uh-huh. Dropped by sort of casual-like, but stayed some time."
"Tom tell you that?"
"No ... I've got a friend down thataway."
"What happened?"
"Well, seems they talked quite some time and when Pritts left, Tom came out to the horse with him and they parted friendly."
Jonathan Pritts and Tom ... it made no kind of sense. Or did it?
The more thought I gave to it the more worried I became, for Tom Sunday was a mighty changeable man, and drinking as he was, with his temper, anything might happen.
Orrin had had trouble with Pritts--of this I was certain sure--and Pritts had made a friendly visit to Tom Sunday. I didn't like the feel of it. I didn't like it at all.
Chapter XVI
There was a pale lemon glow over the eastern mountains when we killed the last coals of our fire and saddled up. Kelly was feeling sharp and twisty, for Kelly was a trail-loving horse who could look over big country longer than any horse I ever knew, except maybe Montana horse.
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