Free the Daybreakers (1960) by Louis - Sackett's 06 L'amour Page A

Cap. He just laid a gun barrel alongside of Wilson's head and Wilson folded right back into his chair.
    The man facing Orrin had a six-shooter in his stomach and I was looking across a gun barrel at Pritts himself. "Mr. Pritts," I said, "you're a man who wants to move in on folks with guns. Now you just tell them to go ahead with what they've started and you'll be dead on the floor by the tune you've said it."
    Laura stared at me with such hatred as I've ever seen on a woman's face. There was a girl with a mighty big picture of her pa and anybody who didn't see her pa the way she did couldn't be anything but evil. And whoever she married was always going to play second fiddle to Jonathan Pritts.
    Pritts looked like he'd swallowed something that wasn't good for him. He looked at that Navy Colt and he knew I was not fooling. And so did I.
    "All right." He almost choked on it. "You can go."
    We walked to our horses with nobody talking and when we were in our saddles Orrin turned on me. "Damn you, Tye, you played hell. You the same as called him a thief."
    "That land belongs to Alvarado. We killed a lot of Higginses for less."
    That night I slept mighty little, trying to figure out if I'd done right. Anyway I looked at it, I thought I'd done the right thing, and I didn't believe my liking for Drusilla had a thing to do with it. And believe me, I thought about that.
    Next morning I saw Fetterson riding out of town with a pack of about forty men, and Wilson was with him. Only Wilson's hat wasn't setting right because of the lump on his skull. They rode out of town, headed northeast.
    About the time they cleared the last house a Mexican boy mounted on a speedy looking sorrel took off for the hills, riding like the devil was on his tail.
    Looked to me like Don Luis had his own warning system and would be ready for Fetterson before he got there. Riding that fast he wouldn't be riding far, so chances were a relay of horses was waiting to carry the word. Don Luis had a lot of men, lots of horses, and a good many friends.
    Orrin came out, stuffing his shirt into his pants. He looked mean as a bear with a sore tooth. "You had no call to jump Mr. Pritts like that."
    "If he was an honest man, I'd have nothing to say."
    Orrin sat down. One thing a body could say for Orrin, he was a fair man.
    "Tyrel," he said at last, "you ought to think before you talk. I like that girl."
    Well ... I felt mighty mean and low down. I set store by Orrin. Most ways he was smarter than me, but about this Pritts affair, I figured he was wrong.
    "Orrin, I'm sorry. We never had much, you and me. But what we had, we had honest We want a home for Ma. But it wouldn't be the home she wants if it was bought with blood."
    "Well ... damn it, Tyrel, you're right, of course. I just wish you hadn't been so rough on Mr. Pritts."
    "I'm sorry. It was me, not you. You ain't accountable for the brother you've got."
    "Tyrel, don't you talk thataway. Without you that day back home in Tennessee I'd be buried and nobody knows it better than me."

    Chapter VII
    This was raw, open country, rugged country, and it bred a different kind of man.
    The cattle that went wild in Texas became the longhorn, and ran mostly to horns and legs because the country needed a big animal that could fight and one who could walk three days to get water. Just so it bred the kind of man with guts and toughness no eastern man could use.
    Most men never discover what they've got inside. A man has to face up to trouble before he knows. The kind of conniving a man could get away with back east wouldn't go out here. Not in those early years. You can hide that sort of behavior in a crowd, but not in a country where there's so few people. Not that we didn't have our own kinds of trickery and cheating.
    Jonathan Pritts was one of those who mistook liberty for license and he figured he could get away with anything. Worst of all, he had an exaggerated idea of how big a man he was ... trouble was, he wasn't a big man,