Guns of the Canyonlands (23 page)

Tyree looked around and found a tin cup that had escaped the flames. He walked to the creek, rinsed out the cup, then filled it with water. When he got back he held the old man’s head and put the water to his lips.

Boyd drank a few sips, then nodded. “That was good, Chance. Real good.” He swallowed hard. “They burned my fiddle, boy. Burned the old cabin where Lorena grew up and my fiddle with it. Now why would they do a thing like that to a man? Tell me why, Chance?”

Tyree shook his head. “I don’t know, Luke. I only know evil exists and it’s continually at war with all of God’s creation. Maybe someday a preacher will tell me the why of it.”

Tyree gently laid Boyd’s head back on the ground. “The man with two guns. Was his name Luther Darcy?”

“I seem to recollect that’s what they called him. Of course, I’d heard the name before. He’s a bad one, Chance. As bad as they come.”

“Recognize any of the others?”

Boyd shook his head. “No. It all happened so fast, I didn’t get a good look at any of them.”

“Think, Luke,” Tyree said. “Was Quirt Laytham with them?”

“Didn’t see him, Chance. I don’t think Quirt had a hand in this.”

Tyree let that go. “Luke, I’ve got to get you to a doctor.”

“Too late for that, boy,” the old man said. His fevered eyes sought Tyree’s in the gloom. “Listen, Chance, I’ve been lying here thinking and it’s good you came along when you did. When I’m gone, I want you to have this place. I’m giving it to you. I once thought Lorena would live on here, but that ain’t likely now she’s getting hitched to Quirt Laytham.” Boyd reached up a smoke-blackened hand and clutched the front of Tyree’s shirt. “Ranch this place and make a go of it, son,” he said. “I think them who burned me out want to have it for themselves, but don’t let them. Hang on to it, Chance, fight for it if you must, and don’t let anybody take it from you.”

Tyree smiled and shook his head. “Luke, this will be Lorena’s ranch. She’s your daughter and it’s hers by right.”

“No, Chance. Lorena will have all of Quirt’s lands and cattle. She doesn’t need this place, but you do.” The old rancher took a couple of tortured, shuddering breaths as waves of pain swept over him. “In the cabin. Look for it now. A steel box. The flames won’t have touched it.” Boyd saw Tyree’s hesitation and said, “Go, boy, get it now.”

Tyree walked into the smoking cabin and after a few minutes searching found a large metal box. The steel was scorched and blackened, but the box itself was intact. He carried it out to Boyd and the old man said, “Open it.”

Tyree opened the box and took out the items one by one, a deed to Boyd’s ranch, a couple of double eagles and a gold medal on a colored ribbon.

The rancher smiled. “I was given that by old General Winfield Scott after the battle of Contreras in the Mexican war. I’d been with him since Vera Cruz and stood at his side when he took the Mexican surrender at Mexico City on September fourteenth, eighteen and forty-seven.” Boyd looked up at Tyree, shaking his head. “Hell, it seems like just yesterday, but it was sure a long time ago.”

Boyd’s hand reached to his shirt pocket and took out a stub of pencil. “Bring that deed close to me, Chance. I’m signing this ranch over to you.”

“Luke, I don’t think—”

“Don’t argue, boy. I was thinking of doing this for a spell and not just tonight. In fact right after you met that pretty Sally gal. You two will make this a proper ranch, and you’ll have children to bring life to the place.” Boyd scribbled on the deed, and handed it back to Tyree. “There, it’s done. I’ve signed the ranch over to you and it’s yours.”

Again Tyree opened his mouth to object, but Boyd waved a hand and hushed him into silence. “Now, boy, there’s something you can do for me,” he said. “Chance,” he whispered, his voice hoarse with pain, “I’m burned away from the waist down. Nothing left of my legs but ash. I’m in so much pain I can hardly stand it and it’s getting worse by the minute. There’s no hope for me, but I don’t want to linger like this. I wouldn’t allow an animal to suffer like I’m suffering right now.”

Boyd again clutched Tyree’s shirt. “Make it a clean shot, son.” His pleading eyes sought those of Tyree’s in the darkness. “Do this much for me, boy. Help an old man.”

Tyree eased a fallen timber off Boyd’s legs and he was shocked by what he saw. Luke was right—both his limbs were incinerated, burned to a mass of blackened, melted flesh, spikes of white bone showing here and there. Luke Boyd must have been in agony, and so far only the old rancher’s stubborn courage had prevented him from screaming.

The terrible sight of Boyd’s legs made Tyree’s decision for him. He turned the old man’s head in the direction of the western sky where a million stars shimmered. “Watch the stars, Luke,” he said. “Watch the stars and remember your life. Remember how it was, every single moment of it.”

The old man nodded and the night sky was reflected in his eyes. His face settled into repose, smiling, a man at peace with himself and his death.

Tyree thumbed back the hammer of his Colt. “Remember how it was, Luke,” he whispered. “Remember how it was, my friend.” The sound of a gunshot echoed loud through the canyons, then faded away like the beat of a distant drum.

 

Tyree laid Luke Boyd to rest at the base of the mesa. He dug the grave deep, and when the old man was covered with earth, he piled the spot high with talus rocks so that it would be seen and be safe from animals. Then he fashioned a cross from a couple of the burned timbers from the cabin and set it up among the rocks.

Hat in hand, Tyree stood at the graveside for long hours as the moon dropped in the sky and a deeper darkness fell around him. The coyotes sang Luke’s lonely funeral dirge while the breeze sighed and whispered a eulogy to the listening night.

When the dawn came, Chance Tyree finally turned away from the grave and allowed his grief to be replaced with a savage anger.

He looked up at the brightening sky, his face a mask of pain and hate, and made a vow . . . to visit a hundred different kinds of hell on the canyon country.

Tyree searched among the ruins of the cabin and found several cans of food. The labels were burned away and he had no idea what the cans contained. But he was lucky. There were beans in the first can he opened, peaches in the second, the contents of both scorched but edible.

He ate hastily, then swung into the saddle. His first task was to rescue Sally. No matter the odds, he was determined to free the girl and bring her back here—home to his ranch.

Tyree rode through the remainder of the night, chasing the dawn, and the morning sun was just beginning its climb into the sky when he rode into Crooked Creek and reined up outside the Regal Hotel. A few people were walking briskly along the boardwalks and several cow ponies stood three-legged at the hitching rail of the restaurant, but at this early hour the town was quiet.

Tyree stepped out of the saddle, yanked his Winchester from the scabbard and levered a round into the chamber. He jumped onto the boardwalk and slammed through the hotel door. The clerk at the desk—a small, round man wearing an eyeshade, muttonchop whiskers bookending a cherubic face—looked up from the ledger he’d been studying, his eyes alarmed.

Giving the man no chance to talk, Tyree snapped, “Sally Brennan’s room?”

“Top floor, number twenty-six,” the clerk answered. “But, hey, you’ve got no right to—”

Tyree didn’t wait to hear the rest. He was already taking the stairs two at a time.

At the end of the hallway, a couple of men with deputy’s stars pinned to their shirts, shotguns in their laps, were sitting on chairs outside the door. One was Len Dawson, the other a tall, sour looking man Tyree didn’t know. The two immediately sprang to their feet, and Dawson shouted, “Tyree! What the hell are you doing here?”

“Move back from the door, Dawson,” Tyree said, making his point with his waving rifle. “I’m here for Sally.”

“The hell you are!” the man with Dawson yelled. He swung the scattergun in Tyree’s direction. Tyree fired, levered the Winchester and fired again. Hit twice, the deputy slammed against the wall, then slid to the floor, a trail of blood smearing the flowered wallpaper behind him.

Dawson made no attempt to level his shotgun. But he was eyeing Tyree, a hard, angry scowl betraying the fact that he was thinking about making a play.

“Don’t even try it, Dawson,” Tyree said. “I’m all through talking. From now on I’ll let my guns do all the speechifying for me.”

Dawson was bucking a stacked deck and he knew it. He let the shotgun remain right where it was, the man sitting still as a marble statue. Tyree stepped up to the deputy, wrenched the gun from his hands, broke it open and removed the loads. “Inside,” he said. “And please, Dawson, give me an excuse to drill you.”

Wordlessly, his face suddenly gray, the deputy opened the door to Sally’s room and Tyree followed him inside. The girl was sitting up in bed, a bandage around her shoulder, her eyebrows raised in shocked surprise.

“Chance, I heard the shooting and—”

“Get dressed, Sally,” Tyree interrupted. “I’m taking you out of here.”

Sally needed no further encouragement. She was wearing a plain white shift that someone had given her, and she swung out of bed, showing a deal of shapely leg. “You two turn around until I get dressed,” she ordered.

“You heard what the lady said, Dawson. Turn around,” Tyree said.

The deputy did as he was told and when Sally was dressed she stepped beside Tyree and said, “I think my horse is at the livery.”

Tyree shook his head. “No time for that,” he said. “My shots will have attracted a crowd.” He extended an open palm to Dawson. “Key.”

Dawson dug in his pocket and came up with the room key. “You’ll never get out of Crooked Creek alive,” he said. “You know that, don’t you?”

It was an empty threat, the last resort of a vexed, angry man and Tyree did not answer. He stripped the deputy of his gun belt, then locked him inside the room. He removed Dawson’s Colt from its holster, filled his pockets with ammunition from the loops, and hung the belt on the door handle. “Take this,” he told Sally, handing her his Winchester. “If you have to, favor your shoulder and shoot from the hip.”

“Chance,” Sally said, a mild exasperation in her voice, “my left shoulder took Darcy’s bullet. I shoot off my right.”

Tyree grinned. “Shows you how observant I am.”

The girl followed Tyree downstairs to the lobby of the hotel and the frightened clerk cringed against the wall as Tyree turned and glared at him.

Tyree crooked a finger in the man’s direction. “You,” he said, “come over here.”

“Mister, I’ve got a wife and kids,” the clerk whined. “Don’t kill me.”

“Step out the door and take a look,” Tyree said. “Tell me what you see.”

“Sure, sure, mister, anything you say.”

The clerk opened the door, stuck his head outside and hesitated for a few moments. Then he threw the door open wide and ran into the street, hollering, “Murder! Murder!”

Tyree cursed under his breath and stepped through the door, a gun in each hand. But, as it happened, luck was with him.

A small crowd of curious townspeople had gathered on the boardwalk opposite the hotel, but neither Tobin nor the Laytham punchers were in sight.

Tyree smiled grimly to himself. Tobin, Darcy and the rest were probably still out hunting him, leaving Crooked Creek wide-open but for the inept Dawson.

He didn’t plan on staying around to push his luck, but there was time to get Sally’s pony. He stepped to his horse and swung into the saddle, then helped Sally get up in front of him. Tyree swung the steeldust around and loped toward the livery stable.

Zeb Pettigrew stepped out of the stable, leading the paint, grinning from ear to ear. “You know I’m a watching man, Tyree, so I saw you ride in to town. I guessed why you were here. Then I heard the shooting and knowed for sure why you were here.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “The young lady’s mare is saddled and ready to go.”

Tyree nodded his thanks and waited until Sally stepped into the saddle. “Once again, Zeb,” he said, smiling, “thanks for your help. And once again, I’m beholden to you.”

“No trouble, Tyree,” the old man said. “But it seems like everything I do to help you shortens the play.” He grinned. “But what the hell? It’s not the length of the performance that counts. It’s the excellence of the actors.” He shook his head. “And you two are excellent.”

“Then stick around for the last act,” Tyree said. “It’s coming soon.”

The old man lifted a hand. “Hell, I wouldn’t miss that for the world.”

 

A cloud of dust roiled around the steeldust and the paint as they stretched their necks and hit the flats at a fast gallop. Behind him Tyree suddenly heard the sharp, spiteful bark of a wheel gun. He turned and saw the little hotel clerk standing in the middle of the street, a raging, arm-waving Dawson beside him. The clerk held a small pepperbox revolver at eye level in his right hand and he fired again and again, his shots flying wild.

Tyree grinned and shook his head at Sally. “For a married man, that hombre sure likes to live dangerously.”

 

Because of Tobin’s posses, Tyree and Sally again kept to the rugged canyonlands well away from Hatch Wash. As they rode, Tyree told the girl about Luke Boyd’s death.

“So Luther Darcy has another killing to answer for,” Sally said, tears springing into her eyes.

Tyree nodded, his face grim. “Darcy will answer to me for that one.”

Just as the sun was setting they rode over a saddleback ridge between the sloped bases of high, twin mesas and then down into a small meadow covered with wildflowers, long streaks of blue columbine, white wild orchids and scarlet monkeyflower.

“Let’s stop here for a while,” Sally said. “I want to gather some of those.”

Tyree helped the girl from the saddle and watched as she collected a bunch of the wildflowers, all of them fresh and blooming, watered by underground seeps from the mesas.