the Daybreakers (1960) (15 page)

"Come out, Tom, Ma will want to see you. We've talked of you so much."

He turned abruptly and walked out the door, leaving me standing there. On the porch he paused. Some of the settlement gang were gathered around, maybe six or eight of them, the Durango Kid and Billy Mullin right out in front. And the Durango Kid sort of figured himself as a gunman.

More than anything I wanted Tom Sunday to go home and sleep it off or to ride out to our place. I knew he was on edge, in a surly mood, and Tom could be hard to get along with.

Funny thing. Ollie had worked hard to prepare the ground work all right, and Orrin had a taking way with people, and the gift of blarney if a man ever had it. It was a funny thing that with all of that, it was Tom Sunday who elected Orrin to the marshal's job.

He did it that day there in the street. He did it right then, walking out of that door onto the porch. He was a proud and angry man, and he had a few drinks under him, and he walked right out of the door and faced the Durango Kid.

It might have been anybody. Most folks would have avoided him when he was like that, but the Kid was hunting notches for his gun. He was a lean, narrow-shouldered man of twenty-one who had a reputation for having killed three or four men up Colorado way. It was talked around that he had rustled some cows and stolen a few horses and in the Settlement outfit he was second only to Fetterson.

Anything might have happened and Tom Sunday might have gone by, but the Durango Kid saw he had been drinking and figured he had an edge. He didn't know Tom Sunday like I did.

"He wants to be marshal, Billy," the Durango Kid said it just loud enough, "I'd like to see that."

Tom Sunday faced him. Like I said, Tom was tall, and he was a handsome man, and drinking or not, he walked straight and stood straight. Tom had been an officer in the Army at one time, and that was how he looked now.

"If I become marshal," he spoke coolly, distinctly, "I shall begin by arresting you. I know you are a thief and a murderer. I shall arrest you for the murder of Martin Abreu."

How Tom knew that, I don't know, but a man needed no more than a look at the Kid's face to know Tom had called it right.

"You're a liar!" the Kid yelled. He grabbed for his gun.

It cleared leather, but the Durango Kid was dead when it cleared. The range was not over a dozen feet and Tom Sunday--I'd never really seen him draw before--had three bullets into the Kid with one rolling sound.

The Kid was smashed back. He staggered against the water trough and fell, hitting the edge and falling into the street. Billy Mullin turned sharply. He didn't reach for a gun, but Tom Sunday was a deadly man when drinking. That sharp movement of Billy's cost him, because Tom saw it out of the tail of his eye and he turned and shot Billy in the belly.

I'm not saying I mightn't have done the same. I don't think I would have, but a move like that at a time like that from a man known to be an enemy of Tom's and a friend to the Kid ... well, Tom shot him.

That crowd across the street saw it. Ollie saw it. Tom Sunday killed the Durango Kid, and Billy Mullin was in bed for a couple of months and was never the same man again after that gunshot ... but Tom Sunday shot himself right out of consideration as a possible marshal.

The killing of the Kid ... well, they all knew the Kid had it coming, but the shooting of Billy Mullin, thief and everything else that he was, was so offhand that it turned even Tom's friends against him.

It shouldn't have. There probably wasn't a man across the street who mightn't have done the same thing. It was a friend of Tom's who turned his back on him that day and said, "Let's talk to Orrin Sackett about that job."

Tom Sunday heard it, and he thumbed shells into his gun and walked down the middle of the street toward the house where he'd been sharing with Orrin, Cap, and me when we were in Mora.

And that night, Tom Sunday rode away.

Chapter
XII

Come Sunday we drove around to the house where Ma was living with the two boys and we helped her out to the buckboard. Ma was all slicked out in her Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes--which meant she was dressed in black--and all set to see her new home for the first time.

Orrin, he sat in the seat alongside her to drive, and Bob and Joe, both mounted up on Indian ponies, they brought up the rear. Cap and me, we led off.

Cap didn't say much, but I think he had a deep feeling about what we were doing.

He knew how much Orrin and me had planned for this day, and how hard we had worked. Behind that rasping voice and cold way of his I think there was a lot of sentiment in Cap, although a body would never know it.

It was a mighty exciting thing at that, and we were glad the time of year was right, for the trees were green, and the meadows green, and the cattle feeding there ... well, it looked mighty fine. And it was a good deal better house than Ma had ever lived in before.

We started down the valley, and we were all dressed for the occasion, each of us in black broadcloth, even Cap. Ollie was going to be there, and a couple of other friends, for we'd sort of figured to make it a housewarming.

The only shadow on the day was the fact that Tom Sunday wasn't there, and we wished he was ... all of us wished it. Tom had been one of us so long, and if Orrin and me were going to amount to something, part of the credit had to be Tom's, because he took time to teach us things, and especially me.

When we drove up through the trees, after dipping through the river, we came into our own yard and right away we saw there were folks all around, there must have been fifty people.

The first person I saw was Don Luis, and beside him, Drusilla, looking more Irish today than Spanish. My eyes met hers across the heads of the crowd and for an instant there we were together like we had never been, and I longed to ride to her and claim her for my own.

Juan Torres was there, and Pete Romero, and Miguel. Miguel was looking a little pale around the gills yet, but he was on his own feet and looked great. There was a meal all spread out, and music started up, and folks started dancing a fandango or whatever they call it, and Ma just sat there and cried. Orrin, he put his arm around her and we drove all the rest of the way into the yard that way, and Don Luis stepped up and offered Ma his hand, and mister, it did us proud to see her take his hand and step down, and you'd have thought she was the grandest lady ever, and not just a mountain woman from the hills back of nowhere.

Don Luis escorted her to a chair like she was a queen, and the chair was her own old rocker, and then Don Luis spread a serape across her knees, and Ma was home.

It was quite a shindig. There was a grand meal, with a whole steer barbecued, and three or four javelinas, plenty of roasting ears, and all a man could want.

There was a little wine but no drinking liquor. That was because of Ma, and because we wanted it to be nice for her.

Vicente Romero himself, he was there, and a couple of times I saw Chico Cruz in the crowd. Everybody was having themselves a time when a horse splashed through the creek and Tom Sunday rode into the yard. He sat his horse looking around, and then Orrin saw him and Orrin walked over.

"Glad you could make it, Tom. It wouldn't have been right without you. Get down and step up to the table, but first come and speak to Ma. She's been asking for you."

That was all. No words, no explanations. Orrin was that way, though. He was a big man in more ways than one, and he liked Tom, and had wanted him there.

We had a fiddle going for the dancing, and Orrin took his old gee-tar and sang up some songs, and Juan Torres sang, and we had us a time. And I danced with Dru.

When I went up to her and asked her to dance, she looked right into my eyes and accepted, and then for a minute or two we danced together and we didn't say much until pausing for a bit when I looked at her and said, "I could dance like this forever ... with you."

She looked at me and said, her eyes sparkling a little, "I think you'd get very hungry!"

Ollie was there and he talked to Don Luis, and he talked to Torres, and he got Torres and Jim Carpenter together, and got them both with Al Brooks. They talked it over, and Torres said the Mexicans would support Orrin, and right then and there, Orrin got the appointment.

Orrin, he walked over to me and we shook hands. "We did it, Tyrel," Orrin said, "we did it. Ma's got herself a home and the boys will have a better chance out here."

"Without guns, I hope."

Orrin looked at me. "I hope so, too. Times are changing, Tyrel."

The evening passed and folks packed into their rigs or got back into the saddle and everybody went home, and Ma went inside and saw her house.

We'd bought things, the sort of things Ma would like, and some we'd heard her speak of. An old grandfather's clock, a real dresser, some fine tables and chairs, and a big old four-poster bed. The house only had three rooms, but there would be more--and we boys had slept out so much we weren't fit for a house, anyway.

I walked to her carriage with Dru, and we stood there by the wheel. "I've been happy today," I told her.

"You have brought your mother home," she said. "It is a good thing. My grandfather admires you very much, Tye. He says you are a thoughtful son and a good man."

Watching Dru drive away in that carriage it made me think of money again. It's a high card in a man's hand when he goes courting if he has money, and I had none of that. True, the place we had, belonged to Orrin and me but there was more to it than that. Land wasn't of much value those days nor even cattle. And cash money was almighty scarce.

Orrin was going to be busy, so the money question was my chore.

Orrin, he worked hard studying Blackstone. From somewhere he got a book by Montaigne and he read Plutarch's Lives, and subscribed to a couple of eastern papers, and he read all the political news he could find, and he rode around and talked to folks or listened to them tell about their troubles. Orrin was a good listener who was always ready to give a man a hand at whatever he was doing.

That was after. That was after the first big night when Orrin showed folks who was marshal of Mora. That was the night he took over, the night he laid down the law. And believe you me, when Orrin takes a-hold, he takes a-hold.

At sundown, Orrin came up the street wearing the badge, and the Settlement men were around, taking their time to look him over. Having a marshal was a new thing in town and to the Settlement outfit it was a good joke. They just wanted to see him move around so they could decide where to lay hold of him.

The first thing Orrin done was walk through the saloon to the back door and on the inside of the back door he tacked up a notice. Now that notice was in plain sight and what was printed there was in both Spanish and English.

No gun shall be drawn or fired within the town limits.

No brawling, fighting or boisterous conduct will be tolerated.

Drunks will be thrown in jail.

Repeat offenders will be asked to leave town.

No citizen will be molested in any way.

Racing horses or riding steers in the street is prohibited.

Every resident or visitor will be expected to show visible means of support on demand.

That last rule was pointed right at the riffraff which hung around the streets, molesting citizens, picking fights, and making a nuisance of themselves. They were a bad lot.

Bully Ben Baker had been a keel-boat man on the Missouri and the Platte and was a noted brawler. He was several inches taller than Orrin, weighed two hundred and forty pounds, and Bully Ben decided to find what the new marshal was made of.

Bully Ben wasted no time. He walked over to the notice, read it aloud, then ripped it from the door. Orrin got to his feet.

Ben reached around, grinning cheerfully, and took a bottle from the bar, gripping it by the neck. Orrin ignored him, picked up the notice and replaced it on the door, and then he turned around and hit Ben Baker in the belly.

When Orrin had gone by him and replaced the notice, Bully Ben had waited to see what would happen. He had lowered his bottle, for he was a man accustomed to lots of rough talk before fighting, and Orrin's punch caught him off guard right in the pit of the stomach and he gasped for breath, his knees buckling.

Coolly, Orrin hit him a chopping blow to the chin that dropped Ben to his knees.

The unexpected attack was the sort of thing Ben himself had often done but he was not expecting it from Orrin.

Ben came up with a lunge, swinging his bottle and I could have told him he was a fool. Blocking the descending blow with his left forearm, Orrin chopped that left fist down to Ben's jaw. Deliberately then, he grabbed the bigger man and threw him with a rolling hip-lock. Ben landed heavily and Orrin stood back waiting for him to get up.

All this time Orrin had acted mighty casual, like he wasn't much interested. He was just giving Bully Ben a whipping without half trying. Ben was mighty shook up and he was astonished too. The blood was dripping from a cut on his jawbone and he was stunned, but he started to get up.

Orrin let him get up and when Ben threw a punch, Orrin grabbed his wrist and threw him over his shoulder with a flying mare. This time Baker got up more slowly, for he was a heavy man and he had hit hard. Orrin waited until he was halfway to his feet and promptly knocked him down.