the Daybreakers (1960) (16 page)

Ben sat on the floor staring up at Orrin. "You're a fighter," he said, "you pack a wallop in those fists."

The average man in those years knew little of fist-fighting. Men in those days, except such types as Bully Ben, never thought of fighting with anything other than a gun. Ben had won his fights because he was a big man, powerful, and had acquired a rough skill on the river boats. Pa had taught us and taught us well.

He was skilled at Cornish-style wrestling and he'd learned fist-fighting from a bare-knuckle boxer he'd met in his travels.

Ben was a mighty confused man. His strength was turned against him, and everything he did, Orrin had an answer for. On a cooler night Orrin would never have worked up a sweat.

"You had enough?" Orrin asked.

"Not yet," Ben said, and got up.

Now that was a mighty foolish thing, a sadly foolish thing, because until now, Orrin had been teaching him. Now Orrin quit fooling. As Ben Baker straightened up, Orrin hit him in the face with both fists before Ben could get set. Baker made an effort to rush and holding him with his left, Orrin smashed three wicked blows to his belly, then pushed Ben off and broke his nose with an overhand right. Ben backed up and sat down and Orrin grabbed him by the hair and picking him off the floor proceeded to smash three or four blows into his face, then Orrin picked Ben up, shoved him against the bar and said, "Give him a drink." He tossed a coin on the bar and walked out. Looked to me like Orrin was in charge.

After that there was less trouble than a man would expect. Drunks Orrin threw in jail and in the morning he turned them out.

Orrin was quick, quiet, and he wasted no time talking. By the end of the week he had jailed two men for firing guns in the town limits and each had been fined twenty-five dollars and costs. Both had been among the crowd at Pawnee Rock and Orrin told them to get out of town or go to work.

Bob and me rode down to Ruidoso with Cap Rountree and picked up a herd of cattle I'd bought for the ranch, nigh onto a hundred head.

Ollie Shaddock hired a girl to work in his store and he devoted much of his time to talking about Orrin. He went down to Santa Fe, over to Cimarron and Elizabethtown, always on business, but each time he managed to say a few words here and there about Orrin, each time mentioning him for the legislature.

After a month of being marshal in Mora there had been no killings, only one knifing, and the Settlement crowd had mostly moved over to Elizabethtown or to Las Vegas. Folks were talking about Orrin all the way down to Socorro and Silver City.

On the Grant there had been another killing. A cousin of Abreu's had been shot ... from the back. Two of the Mexican hands had quit to go back to Mexico.

Chico Cruz had killed a man in Las Vegas. One of the Settlement crowd. Jonathan Pritts came up to Mora with his daughter and he bought a house there.

It was two weeks after our housewarming before I got a chance to go see Dru. She was at the door to meet me and took me in to see her grandfather. He looked mighty frail, lying there in bed.

"It is good to see you, senor," he said, almost whispering. "How is your ranch?"

He listened while I told him about it and nodded his head thoughtfully. We had three thousand acres of graze, and it was well-watered. A small ranch by most accounts.

"It is not enough," he said, at last, "to own property in these days. One must be strong enough to keep it. If one is not strong, then there is no hope."

"You'll be on your feet again in no time," I said.

He smiled at me, and from the way he smiled, he knew I was trying to make him feel good. Fact was, right at that time I wouldn't have bet that he'd live out the month.

Jonathan Pritts, he told me, was demanding a new survey of the Grant, claiming that the boundaries of the Grant were much smaller than the land the don claimed. It was a new way of getting at him and a troublesome one, for those old Grants were bounded by this peak or that ridge or some other peak, and the way they were written up a man could just about pick his own ridges and his own peak. If Pritts could get bis own surveyor appointed they would survey Don Luis right out of his ranch, his home, and everything.

"There is going to be serious trouble," he said at last. "I shall send Drusilla to Mexico to visit until it is over."

Something seemed to go out of me right then. If she went to Mexico she would never come back because the don was not going to win his fight. Jonathan Pritts had no qualms, and would stop at nothing.

I sat there with my hat in my hand wishing I could say something, but what did I have to offer a girl like Drusilla? I was nigh to broke. Right then I was wondering what we could do for operating expenses, and it was no time to talk marriage to a girl, even if she would listen to me, when that girl was used to more than I could ever give her.

At last the don reached for my hand, but his grip was feeble. "Senor, you are like a son to me. We have seen too little of you, Drusilla and I, but I have found much in you to respect, and to love. I am afraid, senor, that I have not long, and I am the last of my family. Only Drusilla is left. If there is anything you can do, senor, to help her ... take care of her, senor."

"Don Luis, I'd like ... I mean ... I don't have any money, Don Luis. Right now I'm broke. I must get money to keep my ranch working."

"There are other things, my son. You have strength, and you have youth, and those are needed now. If I had the strength ..."

Drusilla and I sat at the table together in the large room, and the Indian woman served us. Looking down the table at her my heart went out to her, I wanted her so. Yet what could I do? Always there was something that stood between us.

"Don Luis tells me you are going to Mexico?"

"He wishes it. There is trouble here, Tye."

"What about Juan Torres?"

"He is not the same ... something has happened to him, and I believe he is afraid now."

Chico Cruz ...

"I will miss you."

"I do not want to go, but what my grandfather tells me to do, I must do. I am worried for him, but if I go perhaps he will do what must be done."

"Any way I can help?"

"No!" She said it so quickly and sharply that I knew what she meant. What had to be done we both knew: Chico Cruz must be discharged, fired, sent away. But Dru was not thinking of the necessity, she was thinking of me, and she was afraid for me.

Chico Cruz ...

We knew each other, that one and I, and we each had a feeling about the other.

If this had to be done, then I would do it myself. There was no hope that the Don would recover in time, for we both knew that when we parted tonight we might not meet again. Don Luis did not have the strength, and his recovery would take weeks, or even months.

What was happening here I understood. Torres was afraid of Cruz and the others knew it, so their obedience was half-hearted. There was no leader here, and it was nothing Cruz had done or needed to do. I doubted if he had thought of it ... it was simply the evil in him and his willingness to kill.

Whatever was to be done must be done now, at once, so as we ate and talked I was thinking it out. This was nothing for Orrin, Cap, or anyone but me, and I must do it tonight. I must do it before this went any further. Perhaps then she would stay, for I knew that if she ever left I would never see her again.

At the door I took her hand ... it was the first time I had found courage to do it. "Dru ... do not worry. I will come to see you again." Suddenly, I said what I had been thinking. "Dru ... I love you."

And then I walked swiftly away, my heels clicking on the pavement as I crossed the court. But I did not go to my horse, but to the room of Juan Torres.

It seemed strange that a man could change so in three years since we had met.

Three years? He had changed in months. And I knew that Cruz had done this, not by threats, not by warnings, just by the constant pressure of his being here.

"Juan ... ?"

"Senor?"

"Come with me. We are going to fire Chico Cruz."

He sat very still behind the table and looked at me, and then he got up slowly.

"You think he will go?"

He looked at me, his eyes searching mine. And I told him what I felt. "I do not care whether he goes or stays."

We walked together to the room of Antonio Baca. He was playing cards with Pete Romero and some others.

We paused outside and I said, "We will start here. You tell him."

Juan hesitated only a minute, and then he stepped into the room and I followed.

"Baca, you will saddle your horse and you will leave ... do not come back."

Baca looked at him, and then he looked at me, and I said, "You heard what Torres said. You tried it once in the dark when my back was turned. If you try it now you will not be so lucky."

He put his cards into a neat, compact pile, and for the first time he seemed at a loss. Then he said, "I will talk to Chico."

"We will talk to Chico. You will go." Taking out my watch, I said, "Torres has told you. You have five minutes."

We turned and went down the row of rooms and stopped before one that was in the dark. Torres struck a light and lit a lantern. He held the light up to the window and I stepped into the door.

Chico Cruz had been sitting there in the darkness. Torres said, "We don't need you any longer, Chico, you can go ... now."

He looked at Torres from his dark, steady eyes and then at me.

"There is trouble here," I said, "and you do not make it easier."

"You are to make me go?" His eyes studied me carefully.

"It will not be necessary. You will go."

His left hand and arm were on the table, toying with a .44 cartridge. His right hand was in his lap.

"I said one day that we would meet."

"That's fool talk. Juan has said you are through. There is no job for you here, and the quarters are needed."

"I like it here."

"You will like it elsewhere." Torres spoke sharply. His courage was returning.

"You will go now ... tonight."

Cruz ignored him. His dark, steady eyes were on me. "I think I shall kill you, senor."

"That's fool talk," I said casually and swung my boot up in a swift, hard kick at the near edge of the table. It flipped up and he sprang back to avoid it and tripped, falling back to the floor. Before he could grasp a gun I kicked his hand away, then grabbed him quickly by the shirt and jerked him up from the floor, taking his gun and dropping him in one swift moment.

He knew I was a man who used a gun and he expected that, but I did not want to shoot him. He clung to his wrist and stared at me, his eyes unblinking like those of a rattler.

"I told you, Cruz."

Torres walked to the bunk and began stuffing Chico's clothes into his saddlebags, and rolling his bedroll. Chico still clung to his wrist.

"If I go they will attack the hacienda," Cruz said, "is that what you want?"

"It is not. But we will risk it. We cannot risk you being here, Chico. There is an evil that comes with you."

"And not with you?" He stared at me.

"Perhaps ... anyway, I shall not be here."

We heard the sound of a horse outside, and glanced out to see Pete Romero leading Chico's horse.

Chico walked to the door and he looked at me. "What of my gun?" he said, and swung into the saddle.

"You may need it," I said, "and I would not want you without it."

So I handed him the gun, nor did I take the shells from it. He opened the loading gate and flipped the cylinder curiously, and then he looked at me and held the gun in his palm, his face expressionless.

For several seconds we remained like that, and I don't know what he was thinking. He had reason to hate me, reason to kill me, but he held the gun in his hand and looked down at me, and my own gun remained in its holster.

He turned his horse. "I think we will never meet," he said, "I like you, senor."

Juan Torres and I stood there until we could hear the gallop of his horse no longer.

Chapter
XIII

Jonathan Pritts had brought with him an instrument more dangerous than any gun.

He brought a printing press.

In a country hungry for news and with a scarcity of reading material, the newspaper was going to be read, and people believe whatever they read must be true--or it would not be in print.

Most folks don't stop to think that the writer of a book or the publisher of a newspaper may have his own axe to grind, or he may be influenced by others, or may not be in possession of all the information on the subject of which he writes.

Don Luis had known about Pritts' printing press before anybody else, and that was one reason he wanted his granddaughter out of the country, for a paper can be used to stir people up. And things were not like they had been.

Don Luis sent for me again, and made a deal to sell me four thousand acres of his range that joined to mine. The idea was his, and he sold it to me on my note.