There was a murmur among the men. A sound of uneasiness. “Don't get
us wrong, Tall,” Jed Horner said. “We're behind you in whatever you
decide to do about this. Like I said, there wasn't a better man than
your pa. But I think you ought to know it would be taking an awful
chance riding right into town that way. Police are o thick as lice on a
dog's back.”
I turned on him. “You don't have to go with me. It's my job and I can
take care of it myself.”
“Tall, you know we don't mean it that way. If that's what you want,
why, I guess you can count on us to be with you.”
The other men made sounds of agreement, but a bit reluctantly. Then a
man I hadn't noticed before pushed his way to the front. He was a small
man with a ridiculously large mustache, and dark, intelligent little
eyes peering out from under bushy gray eyebrows. He was Martin Novak,
Ray Novak's father.
“Don't you think you ought to think this over, Tall?” he asked
quietly. “Is it going to settle anything if you and the other ranchers
go riding into town, looking for a war?”
“I'm not asking anybody to go with me,” I said.
He regarded my two pistols, and I wondered if Ray had told him about
Pappy Garret. But those eyes of his didn't tell me a thing. Then he
seemed to forget me and turned slowly in a small circle, looking at the
other men.
“Why don't you break it up?” he asked quietly. “Go on home and give
things a chance to straighten out by themselves. It'll just make things
worse—somebody else will get killed—if you all go into town looking
for trouble.” Then he turned back to me. “Tall, you're wanted in these
parts by the law. These other men will be breaking the law, too, if
they tie up with you in this thing. Sooner or later there'll be real
law in Texas. When that happens, this man Thornton will get what's
coming to him. I'll give you my word on that.”
He actually meant every word of what he was saying. He had lived law
for so long that anything that walked behind a tin badge got to be a
god to him.
“Do you expect me to do like your son?” I asked tightly. “Would you
want me to give myself up to the bluebellies, after what they have just
done here?”
He started to say something, and then changed his mind. He looked at
me for a long moment, then, “I guess it wouldn't do any good to tell
you what I think, Tall. You'd go on and do things your own way.”
He turned and walked through the circle of ranchers. I heard Pat
Roark saying, “Well, I'll be damned. I never figured the marshal would
back down on his own people when it came to a fight with the
bluebellies.”
Then Bucky Stow came out of the barn leading a saddled bay over to
where we were. Slowly, the circle begin to break up and the men went,
one and two at a time, to get their horses.
I said, “Thanks, Bucky,” as I took the bay's reins. “Take good care
of Red. I'll want him when I get back.”
Bucky shuffled uncomfortably. He was a quiet man who never said much,
and I'd never known him to carry a gun, much less use one. He said,
“Tall, I guess you know how I felt about your pa. I'd be glad to...”
“You stay here, Bucky. You look after the womenfolks.”
His eyes looked relieved. I led the bay over toward the corral where
the ranchers were getting their horses cinched up. I hadn't taken more
than a dozen steps when Laurin came out on the front porch.
“Tall?”
I wasn't sure that I wanted to talk to Laurin now. There was only one
thing in my mind—a man by the name of Thornton. But she called again,
I paused, and then I went over to the end of the porch. Her eyes had
that wide, frightened look that I had seen in Ma's eyes a few minutes
before.
“Tall,” she said tightly, “don't do it. They'll kill you in a minute
if you go into town looking for trouble.”
I tried to keep my voice even. “Nothing's going to happen to me. You
just stay here and take care of Ma. There's nothing to worry about.”
She made a helpless little gesture with her hands. Even through all
the bitterness that was in me, I thought how beautiful she was and how
much I loved her.
“Tall, please, for my sake, for your mother's sake, don't do anything
now.”
“I have to do something,” I said. “Don't you see that?” “I just know
that there's going to be more trouble, and more killing. It will be the
start of a war if you go into town bent on revenge.”
I tried to be patient, but there was something inside me that kept
urging me to strike out and hurt. I said, “What do you want me to do,
turn yellow like Ray Novak, and turn myself over to the bluebellies?”
“It wouldn't be turning yellow, Tall.” Her voice was breathless, the
words coming out fast, stumbling over each other in their haste. “Tall,
can't you see what you'll be starting? If you can't think of yourself,
think of others. Of me, and your mother.”
The ranchers were waiting. They had their horses saddled, and the
only thing holding them up was myself. I started backing away. “This is
man's business,” I said. “Women just don't understand things like
this.” Then I added, “Don't worry. Everything's going to be all right.”
But the words sounded flat and stale in my own ears.
We rode away from the ranch house with me in the van, and Pat Roark
riding beside me. There was about a dozen of us, and we rode silently,
nobody saying a word. I concentrated on the thud of the bay's hoofs,
and the little squirts of powdery red dust that rose up, and a lazily
circling chicken hawk up above, cutting clean wide swaths against a
glass sky. I didn't dare to think of Pa. There would be time enough for
that.
We traveled south on the wagon road that we always used going to
Garner's Store, across the arroyo and onto the flats. We reached
Garner's Store, a squat boxlike affair made of cottonwood logs and
'dobe bricks, about an hour after leaving the ranch house. It set in
the V of the road, where the wagon tracks leading from the Bannerman
and the Novak ranches came together. As we sighted the store, we saw
two Negro police leave in a cloud of dust, heading south toward John's
City.
There was no use going after them. A dozen armed men couldn't very
well ride into town and expect to surprise anybody. We pulled our
horses up at the store and let them drink at the watering trough. After
a while Old Man Garner came out looking vaguely worried.
I said, “Those were Davis police, weren't they, the ones that fogged
out of your place a few minutes back?”
The old man nodded. “I guess they was kind of ex-pectin' something
out of your pa's friends, Tall. Anyway, they stayed here until they saw
you comin', and then they lit out for town.”
Pat Roark said, “Did they mention what outfit they was out of?”
The old man thought. “They mentioned Hooker's Bend. I reckon they
come from around there.”
Pat looked at me. “You ready to ride, Tall?”
“I'm ready.”
AS WE RODE, Pat Roark seemed to be the only man in the whole group
who was completely at ease. He rode slouched over to one side of his
saddle, grinning slightly, as if he was looking forward to the
excitement. He's just a kid, I thought. Nothing but a damned green kid
who doesn't know what he's getting into. But then I realized that he
was as old as I was. Maybe a few months older. I'd never thought of him
before as being a kid.
“Cavalry,” Pat Roark said, as if he had been giving it considerable
thought. “They're the ones we've got to watch out for. The police don't
amount to a damn.”
“How much cavalry is there?” I asked.
He shrugged. “There's a detail up north somewhere, about a half a
troop, I think. They come and go in John's City, but they've got too
much territory to cover to stay there all the time.”
“But the police will be there,” I said.
He looked at me. “They'll be there. This Thornton I mentioned—Jake
Thornton, I think his name is—probably we'll find him in the City Bar.
It's the only place in town that caters friendly to carpetbaggers.”
I kept my voice level. “Do you know this Thornton when you see him?”
“I know him. I'll point him out to you when the time comes. It'll be
a pleasure.”
I knew then that Pat Roark was the only one I could really depend on
when things got down to shooting. The others, mostly, were just coming
along because they didn't have the guts to stay back. They were all
good men, and I didn't have anything against them, but this was my
fight, not theirs, and they knew it better than anybody.
When we sighted the town, Pat took out his pistol to check the
loading. I said, “Do you mind if I look at that?” He grinned and handed
it over.
It wasn't much of a weapon—an old .36-caliber Gofer revolver. It was
mounted on a brass frame and had a naked trigger without any guard. I
recognized it as one of the guns that the Confederacy had bought from
some outlaw arms dealers before the war, probably because the Yankees
were afraid to shoot them and they were cheap. Across the top of the
frame and barrel there was the mark: T. W. Gofer's Patent, Portsmouth,
Va. I figured it was about an even bet that the cylinder would explode
before you could get off the third shot.
I handed the pistol back to him. Then, on impulse, I drew one of
those new, deadly .44's that Pappy had given me and handed that over
too.
“You'd better take this,” I said, “in case you need a pistol.”
He took it, admiring its velvety finish and fine balance. Then he
grinned again and shoved it into his waistband. “Thanks, Tall. I guess
with a pair of these between us, we haven't got anything to worry
about.”
In Pat Roark, I knew that I had one good man on my side. And one good
man was all I needed.
We rode into Main Street in no particular formation, Pat and myself
still in the van, and the others strung out in the rear. The town was
ready for us. Everything that a bullet could hurt had been taken off
the plank walk and dragged inside. The street was almost deserted, with
only two or three horses standing at the block-long hitching rack. The
last buckboard was just pulling out of the far end of the street as we
came into town.
“We hit it right,” Pat Roark said out of the side of his mouth. “The
cavalry's not in town.” He was moving his head slowly from side to
side, not missing a thing. The thumb of his right hand, I noticed, was
hooked in his cartridge belt, close to the butt of that new .44. When
his head turned in my direction again he said, “You want to try the
City Bar first?”
I nodded. The bar was a two-story frame building standing on the
corner, at the end of the block. When we reached it, I motioned for Pat
to pull in, and I waited for the others to come up.
“Look,” I said, as they grouped up around me, “I know this is none of
your fight. I'm not asking you to come in with me, but I'll appreciate
it if you keep watch outside here and see that nobody has a chance to
get me and Pat in the back.”
The men looked as if they wanted to object and join in on the fight,
but nobody did. Jed Horner was the only one to say anything.
“Tall, we don't want you to get the idea that we're not with you.
It's just like I said...”
I left him talking and looped the bay's reins over the hitching rack.
Pat was waiting for me on the plank walk, his back against the
building.
“I guess we might as well go in,” I said.
“I guess so.”
We kicked both batwings open at the same time and stepped inside. I
was ready to draw from the first. I half expected a rifle, or maybe a
shotgun, to be looking at us from over the bar. But there was nothing
out of the way. Business was going on as usual. A couple of Davis
policemen were having beer at the bar, a handful of turncoats and
scalawags were in the back of the place where the gambling tables were.
A roulette ball rattled like dry bones as the wheel spun, then the
rattling stopped abruptly as the ball went into a slot. “Black,
twenty-three,” I heard somebody say.
“He isn't here,” Pat said under his breath.
The bartender and two policemen were watching us carefully, but
nobody made a move. There was something about the whole setup that I
didn't like. I knew the bartender recognized me, and probably the two
policemen as well. Then why didn't they do something? I was the one
they wanted.
I went over every inch of the place with my eyes. There were nine men
in the place, counting the bartender, a croupier, and a blackjack
dealer. In the back of the place there were some stairs leading up to a
small gallery jutting out over the gambling area, but there was nobody
up there that I could see.
Without turning his head, Pat said, “You want to try the marshal's
office?”
That would be the logical thing to do, but there was still something
about this place that I didn't like. I walked over to the bar, and Pat
stayed where he was, by the door. The roulette ball didn't rattle any
more. The blackjack dealer paid off, raked his cards in, and waited.
Everybody seemed to be waiting for something.
The bartender moved away from his two police customers and came down
to the end of the bar where I was.
“What'll you have, Tall?” he asked easily. Maybe a little too easily.
“Information,” I said. “I'm looking for a man. A man by the name of
Thornton.”
He thought it over carefully. “You ought to try the marshal's
office,” he said finally. “That's his headquarters, not here.”
He started to reach under the bar for something. A bar rag maybe, or
some fresh glasses. But it could have been a shotgun.
I said, “Just keep your hands where I can see them.” The two
policemen were watching us, but so far they hadn't made any move toward
their guns. One was short and big around the belly and hips. The other
was big all over, maybe six feet tall and weighing around two hundred
pounds. I called down the bar.