the Daybreakers (1960) (23 page)

Chapter
XVII

It had been a long time since I'd stood face to face with Jonathan Pritts. He walked through the open door and confronted me in the small office, his pale blue eyes hard with anger. "You have Mr. Fetterson in prison. I want him released."

"Sorry."

"On what charge are you holding him?"

"He is involved in the murder of Juan Torres."

He glared at me. "You have arrested this man because of your hatred for me. He is completely innocent and you can have no evidence to warrant holding him. If you do not release him I will have you removed from office."

He had no idea how empty that threat was. He was a man who liked power and could not have understood how little I wanted the job I had, or how eager I was to be rid of it.

"He will be held for trial."

Jonathan Pritts measured me carefully. "I see you are not disposed to be reasonable." His tone was quieter.

"There has been a crime committed, Mr. Pritts. You cannot expect me to release a prisoner because the first citizen who walks into my office asks me to. The time has come to end crimes of violence, and especially," I added this carefully, "murder that has been paid for."

This would hit him where he lived, I thought, and maybe it did, only there was no trace of feeling on his face. "Now what do you mean by that?"

"We have evidence that Fetterson paid money to the murderers of Juan Torres."

Sure, I was bluffing. We had nothing that would stand up in court, not much, actually, on which to hold him. Only that I had seen him paying money to Paisano, and he had been at Tres Ritos when the killers arrived, and that Tina would testify to the fact that he had paid money there. "That is impossible."

Picking up a sheaf of papers, I began sorting them. He was a man who demanded attention and my action made him furious.

"Mr. Pritts," I said, "I believe you are involved in this crime. If the evidence will substantiate my belief you will hang also, right along with Fetterson and the others."

Why, he fooled me. I expected him to burst out with some kind of attack on me, but he did nothing of the kind. "Have you talked to your brother about this?"

"He knows I have my duty to do, and he would not interfere. Nor would I interfere in his business."

"How much is the bail for Mr. Fetterson?"

"You know I couldn't make any ruling. The judge does that. But there's no bail for murder."

He did not threaten me or make any reply at all, he just turned and went outside. If he had guessed how little I had in the way of evidence he would have just sat still and waited. But I have a feeling about this sort of thing ... if you push such men they are apt to move too fast, move without planning, and so they'll make mistakes.

Bill Sexton came in, and Ollie was with him. They looked worried.

"How much of a case have you got against Fetterson?" Sexton asked me.

"Time comes, I'll have a case."

Sexton rubbed his jaw and then took out a cigar. He studied it while I watched him, knowing what was coming and amused by all the preliminaries, but kind of irritated by them, too.

"This Fetterson," Sexton said, "is mighty close to Jonathan Pritts. It would be a bad idea to try to stick him with these killings. He's got proof he wasn't anywhere around when they took place."

"There's something to that Tye," Ollie said. "It was Jonathan who helped put Orrin in office."

"You know something?" I had my feet on the desk and I took them down and sat up in that swivel chair. "He did nothing of the kind. He jumped on the band wagon when he saw Orrin was a cinch to win. Fetterson stays in jail or I resign."

"That's final?" Ollie asked.

"You know it is."

He looked relieved, I thought. Ollie Shaddock was a good man, mostly, and once an issue was faced he would stand pat and I was doing what we both believed to be right.

"All right," Sexton said, "if you think you've got a case, we'll go along."

It was nigh to dark when Cap came back to the office. There was no light in the office and sitting back in my chair I'd been doing some thinking.

Cap squatted against the wall and lit his pipe. "There's a man in town," he said, "name of Wilson. He's a man who likes his bottle. He's showing quite a bit of money, and a few days ago he was broke."

"Pretty sky," I said, "the man who named the Sangre de Cristos must have seen them like this. That red in the sky and on the peaks ... it looks like blood."

"He's getting drunk," Cap said.

Letting my chair down to an even keel I got up and opened the door that shut off the cells from the office. Walking over to the bars and stopping there, I watched Fetterson lying on his cot. I could not see his face, only the dark bulk of him and his boots. Yes, and the glow of his cigarette.

"When do you want to eat?"

He swung his boots to the floor. "Any time. Suit yourself."

"All right." I turned to go and then let him have it easy. "You know a man named Wilson?"

He took the cigarette from his mouth. "Can't place him. Should I?"

"You should ... he drinks too much. Really likes that bottle. Some folks should never be trusted with money." When I'd closed the door behind me Cap lit the lamp. "A man who's got something to hide," Cap said, "has something to worry about."

Fetterson would not, could not know what Wilson might say, and a man's imagination can work overtime. What was it the Good Book said? "The guilty flee when no man pursueth."

The hardest thing was to wait. In that cell Fetterson was thinking things over and he was going to get mighty restless. And Jonathan Pritts had made no request to see him. Was Jonathan shaping up to cut the strings on Fetterson and leave him to shift for himself? If I could think of that, it was likely Fetterson could too.

Cap stayed at the jail and I walked down to the eating house for a meal. Tom Sunday came in. He was a big man and he filled the door with his shoulders and height. He was unshaved and he looked like he'd been on the bottle. Once inside he blinked at the brightness of the room a moment or two before he saw me and then he crossed to my table. Maybe he weaved a mite in walking ... I wouldn't have sworn to it.

"So you got Fetterson?" He grinned at me, his eyes faintly taunting. "Now that you've got him, what will you do with him?"

"Convict him of complicity," I replied. "We know he paid the money."

"That's hitting close to home," Sunday's voice held a suggestion of a sneer.

"What'll your brother say to that?"

"It doesn't matter what he says," I told him, "but it happens it has been said.

I cut wood and let the chips fall where they may."

"That would be like him," he said, "the sanctimonious son-of -a-bitch."

"Tom," I said quietly, "that term could apply to both of us. We're brothers, you know."

He looked at me, and for a moment there I thought he was going to let it stand, and inside me I was praying he would not. I wanted no fight with Tom Sunday.

"Sorry," he said, "I forgot myself. Hell," he said then, "we don't want trouble.

We've been through too much together."

"That's the way I feel," I said, "and Tom, you can take my say-so or not, but Orrin likes you, too."

"Likes me?" he sneered openly now. "He likes me, all right, likes me out of the way. Why, when I met him he could scarcely read or write ... I taught him. He knew I figured to run for office and he moved right in ahead of me, and you helping him."

"There was room for both of you. There still is."

"The hell there is. Anything I tried to do he would block me. Next time he runs for office he won't have the backing of Jonathan Pritts. I can tell you that."

"It doesn't really matter."

Tom laughed sardonically. "Look, kid, I'll tip you to something right now.

Without Pritts backing him Orrin wouldn't have been elected ... and Pritts is fed up."

"You seem to know a lot about Pritts' plans."

He chuckled. "I know he's fed up, and so is Laura. They're both through with Orrin, you wait and see."

"Tom, the four of us were mighty close back there a while. Take it from me, Tom, Orrin has never disliked you. Sure, the two of you wanted some of the same things but he would have helped you as you did him."

He ate in silence for a moment or two, and then he said, "I have nothing against you, Tye, nothing at all."

After that we didn't say anything for a while. I think both of us were sort of reaching out to the other, for there had been much between us, we had shared violence and struggle and it is a deep tie. Yet when he got up to leave I think we both felt a sadness, for there was something missing.

He went outside and stood in the street a minute and I felt mighty bad. He was a good man, but nobody can buck liquor and a grudge and hope to come out of it all right. And Jonathan Pritts was talking to him.

I arrested Wilson that night. I didn't take him to jail where Fetterson could talk to him. I took him to that house at the edge of town where Cap, Orrin, and me had camped when we first came up to Mora.

I stashed him there with Cap to mount guard and keep the bottle away. Joe came in to guard Fetterson and I mounted up and took to the woods, and I wasn't riding on any wild-goose chase ... Miguel had told me that a couple of men were camped on the edge of town, and one of them was Paisano.

From the ridge back of their camp I studied the layout through a field glass. It was a mighty cozy little place among boulders and pines that a man might have passed by fifty times without seeing had it not been for Miguel being told of it by one of the Mexicans.

The other man must be Jim Dwyer--a short, thickset man who squatted on his heels most of the time and never was without his rifle.

There was no hurry. There was an idea in my skull to the effect these men were camping here for the purpose of breaking Fetterson out of jail. 1 wanted those men the worst way but I wanted them alive, and that would be hard to handle as both men were tough, game men who wouldn't back up from a shooting fight.

There was a spring about fifty yards away, out of sight of the camp. From the layout I'd an idea this place had been used by them before. There was a crude brush shelter built to use a couple of big boulders that formed its walls. All the rest of the day I lay there watching them. From time to time one of them would get up and stroll out to the thin trail that led down toward Mora.

They had plenty of grub and a couple of bottles but neither of them did much drinking. By the time dark settled down I knew every rock, every tree, and every bit of cover in that area. Also I had spotted the easiest places to move quietly in the dark, studying the ground for sticks, finding openings in the brush.

Those men down there were mighty touchy folks with whom a man only made one mistake.

Come nightfall I moved my horse to fresh grass after watering him at the creek.

Then I took a mite of grub and a canteen and worked my way down to within about a hundred feet of their camp.

They had a small fire going, and coffee on. They were broiling some beef, too, and it smelled almighty good. There I was, lying on my belly smelling that good grub and chewing on a dry sandwich that had been packed early in the day. From where I lay I could hear them but couldn't make out the words.

My idea was that with Fetterson in jail it was just a chance Jonathan Pritts might come out himself. He was a cagey man and smart enough to keep at least one man between himself and any gun trouble. But Pritts wanted Fetterson out of jail.

It seemed to me that in the time I'd known Jonathan Pritts he had put faith in nobody. Such a man was unlikely to have confidence in Fetterson's willingness to remain silent when by talking he might save his own skin. Right now I thought Pritts would be a worried man, and with reason enough.

Fetterson had plenty to think about too. He knew that we had Wilson, and Wilson was a drinker who would do almost anything for his bottle. If Wilson talked, Fetterson was in trouble. His one chance to get out of it easier was to talk himself. Personally, I did not believe Fetterson would talk--there was a loyalty in the man, and a kind of iron in him, that would not allow him to break or be broken.

I was counting on the fact that Pritts believed in nobody, was eternally suspicious and would expect betrayal.

What I did not expect was the alternative on which Jonathan Pritts had decided.

I should have guessed, but did not. Jonathan was a hard man, a cold man, a resolute man.

Now it can be mighty miserable lying up in the brush, never really sleeping, and keeping an eye on a camp like that. Down there, they'd sleep awhile and then rouse up and throw some sticks on the fire, and go back to sleep again. And that's how the night run away.

It got to be the hour of dawn with the sun some time away but crimson streaking the sky, and those New Mexico sunrises ... well, there's nothing like the way they build a glory in the sky.

Paisano stood up suddenly. He was listening. He was lower in the canyon and might hear more than I. Would it be Jonathan Pritts himself? If it was, I would move in, taking the three of them in a bundle. Now that might offer a man a problem, and I wanted them all alive, which would not be a simple thing. Yet I had it to do. What made me turn my head, I don't know. There was a man standing in the brush about fifty feet away, standing death-still, his outline vague in the shadowy brush. How long that man had been there I had no idea, but there he was, standing silent and watching.