The Daybreakers (1960) s-6

by Louis L'Amour

  Anybody expecting Abilene to be a metropolis would have been some put out, but to Orrin and me, who had never seen anything bigger than Baxter Springs, it looked right smart of a town. Why, Abilene was quite a place, even if you did have to look mighty fast to see what there was of it.

  Main thing was that railroad. I'd heard tell of railroads before, but had never come right up to one. Wasn't much to see: just two rails of steel running off into the distance, bedded down on crossties of hewn logs. There were some stock pens built there and about a dozen log houses. There was a saloon in a log house, and across the tracks there was a spanking-new hotel three stories high with a porch along the side fronting the rails. Folks had told me there were buildings that tall, but I never figured to see one.

  There was another hotel, too. Placed called Bratton's, with six rooms to let.

  East of the hotel there was a saloon run by a fat man called Jones. There was a stage station ... that was two stories ... a blacksmith shop and the Frontier Store.

  At the Drovers' Cottage there was a woman cooking there and some rooms were let, and there were three, four cattle buyers loafing around.

  We bunched our cows on the grass outside of town and Mr. Belden rode in to see if he could make a deal, although he didn't much like the look of things.

  Abilene was too new, it looked like a put-up job and Kansas hadn't shown us no welcome signs up to now.

  Then Mr. Belden came back and durned if he hadn't hired several men to guard the herd so's we could have a night in town ... not that she was much of a place, like I said. But we went in.

  Orrin and me rode down alongside the track, and Orrin was singing in that big, fine-sounding voice of his, and when we came abreast of the Drovers' Cottage there was a girl a-setting on the porch.

  She had a kind of pale blond hair and skin like it never saw daylight, and blue eyes that made a man think she was the prettiest thing he ever did see. Only second glance she reminded me somehow of a hammer-headed roan we used to have, the one with the one blue eye ... a mighty ornery horse, too narrow between the ears and eyes. On that second glance I figured that blonde had more than a passing likeness to that bronc.

  But when she looked at Orrin I knew we were in for trouble, for if ever I saw a man-catching look in a woman's eyes it was in hers, then.

  "Orrin," I said, "if you want to run maverick a few more years, if you want to find that western land, then you stay off that porch."

  "Boy," he put a big hand on my shoulder, "look at that yaller hair!"

  "Reminds me of that hammer-headed, no-account roan we used to have. Pa he used to say, 'Size up a woman the way you would a horse if you were in a horse trade; and Orrin, you better remember that."

  Orrin laughed. "Stand aside, youngster," he tells me, "and watch how it's done."

  With that Orrin rode right up to the porch and standing up in his stirrups he said, "Howdy, ma'am! A mighty fine evening! Might I come up an' set with you a spell?"

  Mayhap he needed a shave and a bath like we all did, but there was something in him that always made a woman stop and look twice.

  Before she could answer a tall man stepped out. "Young man," he spoke mighty sharp, "I will thank you not to annoy my daughter. She does not consort with hired hands."

  Orrin smiled that big, wide smile of his. "Sorry, sir, I did not mean to offend.

  I was riding by, and such beauty, sir, such beauty deserves its tribute, sir."

  Then he flashed that girl a smile, then reined his horse around and we rode on to the saloon.

  The saloon wasn't much, but it took little to please us. There was about ten feet of bar, sawdust on the floor, and not more than a half-dozen bottles behind the bar. There was a barrel of mighty poor whiskey. Any farmer back in our country could make better whiskey out of branch water and corn, but we had our drinks and then Orrin and me hunted the barrels out back.

  Those days, in a lot of places a man might get to, barrels were the only place a man could bathe. You stripped off and you got into a barrel and somebody poured water over you, then after soaping down and washing as best you could you'd have more water to rinse off the soap, and you'd had yourself a bath.

  "You watch yo'self," the saloon keeper warned, "feller out there yestiddy shot himself a rattler whilst he was in the barrel."

  Orrin bathed in one barrel, Tom Sunday in another, while I shaved in a piece of broken mirror tacked to the back wall of the saloon. When they finished bathing I stripped off and got into the barrel and Orrin and Tom, they took off. Just when I was wet all over, Reed Carney came out of the saloon. My gun was close by but my shirt had fallen over it and there was no chance to get a hand on it in a hurry.

  So there I was, naked as a jaybird, standing in a barrel two-thirds full of water, and there was that trouble-hunting Reed Carney with two or three drinks under his belt and a grudge under his hat.

  It was my move, but it had to be the right move at the right time, and to reach for that gun would be the wrong thing to do. Somehow I had to get out of that tub and there I was with soap all over me, in my hair and on my face and dribbling toward my eyes.

  The rinse water was in a bucket close to the barrel so acting mighty unconcerned I reached down, picked it up, sloshing it over me to wash off that soap.

  "Orrin," Carney said, grinning at me, "went to the hotel and it don't seem hardly right, you in trouble and him not here to stand in front of you."

  "Orrin handles his business. I handle mine."

  He walked up to within three or four feet of the barrel and there was something in his eyes I'd not seen before. I knew then he meant to kill me.

  "I've been wonderin' about that. I'm curious to see if you can handle your own affairs without that big brother standing by to pull you out."

  The bucket was still about a third full of water and I lifted it to slash it over me.

  There was a kind of nasty, wet look to his eyes and he took a step nearer. "I don't like you," he said, "and I--" His hand dropped to his gun and I let him have the rest of that water in the face.

  He jumped back and I half-jumped, half-fell out of the barrel just as he blinked the water away and grabbed iron. His gun was coming up when the bucket's edge caught him alongside the skull and I felt the whiff of that bullet past my ear.

  But that bucket was oak and it was heavy and it laid him out cold.

  Inside the saloon there was a scramble of boots, and picking up the flour-sack towel I began drying off, but I was standing right beside my gun and I had the shut pulled away from it and easy to my hand it was. If any friends of Carney's wanted to call the tune I was ready for the dance.

  The first man out was a tall, blond man with a narrow, tough face and a twisted look to his mouth caused by an old scar. He wore his gun tied to his leg and low down the way some of these fancy gunmen wear them. Cap Rountree was only a step behind and right off he pulled over to one side and hung a hand near his gun butt. Tom Sunday fanned out on the other side. Two others ranged up along the man with the scarred lip.

  "What happened?"

  "Carney here," I said, "bought himself more than he could pay for."

  That blond puncher had been ready to buy himself a piece of any fight there was left and he was just squaring away when Cap Rountree put in his two-bit's worth.

  "We figured you might be troubled, Tye," Cap said in that dry, hard old voice, "so Tom an' me, we came out to see the sides were even up."

  You could feel the change in the air. That blond with the scarred lip--later I found out his name was Fetterson--he didn't like the situation even a little.

  Here I was dead center in front of him, but he and his two partners, they were framed by Tom Sunday and Cap Rountree.

  Fetterson glanced one way and then the other and you could just see his horns pull in. He'd come through that door sure enough on the prod an' pawin' dust, but suddenly he was so peaceful it worried me.

  "You better hunt yourself a hole before he comes out of it," Fetterso
n said.

  "He'll stretch your hide."

  By that time I had my pants on and was stamping into my boots. Believe me, I sure hate to face up to trouble with no pants on, and no boots. So I slung my gun belt and settled my holster into place. "You tell him to draw his pay and rattle his hocks out of here. I ain't hunting trouble, but he's pushing, mighty pushing."

  The three of us walked across to the Drovers' Cottage for a meal, and the first thing we saw was Orrin setting down close to that blond girl and she was looking at him like he was money from home. But that was the least of it. Her father was setting there listening himself ... leave it to Orrin and that Welsh-talking tongue of his. He could talk a squirrel right out of a walnut tree ... I never saw the like.

  The three of us sat down to a good meal and we talked up a storm about that country to the west, and the wild cattle, and how much a man could make if he could keep Comanches, Kiowas, or Utes from lifting his hair.

  Seemed strange to be sitting at a table. We were all so used to setting on the ground that we felt awkward with a white cloth and all. Out on the range a man ate with his hunting knife and what he could swab up with a chunk of bread.

  That night Mr. Belden paid us off in the hotel office, and one by one we stepped up for our money. You've got to remember that neither Orrin or me had ever had twenty-five dollars of cash money in our lives before. In the mountains a man mostly swapped for what he needed, and clothes were homespun.

  Our wages were twenty-five dollars a month and Orrin and me had two months and part of a third coming. Only when he came to me, Mr. Belden put down his pen and sat back in his chair.

  "Tye," he said, "there's a prisoner here who is being held for the United States Marshal. Brought in this morning. His name is Aiken, and he was riding with Back Rand the day you met them out on the prairie."

  "Yes, sir."

  "I had a talk with Aiken, and he told me that if it hadn't been for you Back Rand would have taken my herd . . or tried to. It seems, from what he said, that you saved my herd or saved us a nasty fight and a stampede where I was sure to lose cattle. It seems this Aiken knew all about you Sacketts and he told Rand enough so that Rand didn't want to call your bluff. I'm not an ungrateful man, Tye, so I'm adding two hundred dollars to your wages."

  Two hundred dollars was a sight of money, those days, cash money being a shy thing.

  When we walked out on the porch of the Drovers' Cottage, there were three wagons coming up the trail, and three more behind them. The first three were army ambulances surrounded by a dozen Mexicans in fringed buckskin suits and wide Mexican sombreros. There were another dozen riding around the three freight wagons following, and we'd never seen the like.

  Their jackets were short, only to the waist, and their pants flared out at the bottom and fitted like a glove along the thighs. Their spurs had rowels like mill wheels on them, and they all had spanking-new rifles and pistols. They wore colored silk sashes like some of those Texas cowhands wore, and they were all slicked out like some kind of a show.

  Horses? Mister, you should see such horses! Every one clean-limbed and quick, and every one showing he'd been curried and fussed over. Every man Jack of that crowd was well set-up, and if ever I saw a fighting crowd, it was this lot.

  The first carriage drew up before the Drovers' Cottage and a tall, fine-looking old man with pure white hair and white mustaches got down from the wagon, then helped a girl down. Now I couldn't rightly say how old she was, not being any judge of years on a woman, but I'd guess she was fifteen or sixteen, and the prettiest thing I ever put an eye to.

  Pa had told us a time or two about those Spanish dons and the senoritas who lived around Santa Fe, and these folks must be heading that direction.

  Right then I had me an idea. In Indian country the more rifles the better, and this, here outfit must muster forty rules if there was one, and no Indian was going to tackle that bunch for the small amount of loot those wagons promised.

  The four of us would make their party that much stronger, and would put us right in the country we were headed for. Saying nothing to Sunday or Rountree, I went into the dining room. The grub there was passing fine. Situated on the rails they could get about what they wanted and the Drovers' Cottage was all set up to cater to cattlemen and cattle buyers with money to spend. Later on folks from back east told me some of the finest meals they ever set down to were in some of those western hotels ... and some of the worst, too.

  The don was sitting at a table with that pretty girl, but right away I could see this was no setup to buck if a man was hunting trouble. There were buckskin-clad riders setting at tables around them and when I approached the don, four of them came out of their chairs like they had springs in their pants, and they stood as if awaiting a signal.

  "Sir," I said, "from the look of your outfit you'll be headed for Santa Fe. My partners and me ... there are four of us ... we're headed west. If we could ride along with your party we'd add four rifles to your strength and it would be safer for us."

  He looked at me out of cold eyes from a still face. His mustache was beautifully white, his skin a pale tan, his eyes brown and steady. He started to speak, but the girl interrupted and seemed to be explaining something to him, but there was no doubt about his answer.

  She looked up at me. "I am sorry, sir, but my grandfather says it will be impossible."

  "I'm sorry, too," I said, "but if he would like to check up on our character he could ask Mr. Belden over there."

  She explained, and the old man glanced at Mr. Belden across the room. There was a moment when I thought he might change his mind, but he shook his head.

  "I am sorry." She looked like she really was sorry. "My grandfather is a very positive man." She hesitated and then she said, "We have been warned that we may be attacked by some of your people."

  I bowed ... more than likely it was mighty awkward, it was the first time I ever bowed to anybody, but it seemed the thing to do.

  "My name is Tyrel Sackett, and if ever we can be of help, my friends and I are at your service." I meant it, too, although that speech was right out a book I'd heard read one time, and it made quite an impression on me. "I mean, I'll sure come a-foggin' it if you're in trouble."

  She smiled at me, mighty pretty, and I turned away from that table with my head whirling like somebody had hit me with a whiffletree. Orrin had come in, and he was setting up to a table with that blond girl and her father, but the way those two glared at me you'd have sworn I'd robbed a hen roost.

  Coming down off the steps I got a glimpse into that wagon the girl had been riding in. You never seen the like. It was all plush and pretty, fixed up like nothing you ever saw, a regular little room for her. The second wagon was the old man's, and later I learned that the third carted supplies for them, fine food and such, with extra rifles, ammunition, and clothing. The three freight wagons were heavy-loaded for their rancho in New Mexico.

  Orrin followed me outside. "How'd you get to know Don Luis?"

  "That his name? I just up an' talked to him."

  "Pritts tells me he's not well thought of by his neighbors." Orrin lowered his voice. "Fact is, Tyrel, they're getting an outfit together to drive him out."

  "Is that Pritts? That feller you've been talking to?"

  "Jonathan Pritts and his daughter Laura. Mighty fine New England people. He's a town-site developer. She wasn't pleased to come west and leave their fine home behind and all their fine friends, but her Pa felt it his duty to come west and open up the country for the right people."

  Now something about that didn't sound right to me, nor did it sound like Orrin.

  Remembering how my own skull was buzzing over that Spanish girl I figured he must have it the same way over that narrow-between-the-eyes blond girl.

  "Seems to me, Orrin, that most folks don't leave home unless they figure to gain by it. We are going west because we can't make a living out of no side-hill farm. I reckon you'll find Jonathan Pritts ain't much different."

/>   Orrin was shocked. "Oh, no. Nothing like that. He was a big man where he came from. If he had stayed there he would be running for the Senate right now."

  "Seems to me," I said, "that somebody has told you a mighty lot about her fine friends and her fine home. If he does any developin' it won't be from goodness of his heart but because there's money to be had."

  "You don't understand, Tyrel. These are fine people. You should get acquainted."

  "We'll have little time for people out west rounding up cows."

  Orrin looked mighty uncomfortable. "Mr. Pritts has offered me a job, running his outfit. Plans to develop town sites and the like; there's a lot of old Spanish grants that will be opened to settlement."

  "He's got some men?"

  "A dozen now, more later. I met one of them, Fetterson."

  "With a scarred lip?"

  "Why, sure!" Orrin looked at me mighty curious. "Do you know him?"

  For the first time then I told Orrin about the shindig back of the saloon when I belted Reed Carney with the bucket.

  "Why, then," Orrin said quietly, "I won't take the job. I'll tell Mr. Pritts about Fetterson, too." He paused. "Although I'd like to keep track of Laura."

  "Since when have you started chasing girls? Seems to me they always chased after you."

  "Laura's different ... I never knew a city girl before, and she's mighty fine.

  Manners and all." Right then it seemed to me that if he never saw them again it would be too soon ... all those fancy city manners and city fixings had turned Orrin's head.

  Another thing. Jonathan Pritts was talking about those Spanish land grants that would be opened to settlement. It set me to wondering just what would happen to those Spanish folks who owned the grants?

  Sizing up those riders of the don's I figured no rawhide outfit made up of the likes of Fetterson would have much chance shaking the don's loose from their land. But that was no business of ours. Starting tomorrow we were wild-cow hunters.

  Anyway, Orrin was six years older than me and he had always had luck with girls and no girl ever paid me much mind, so I was sure in no position to tell him.