Guns of the Canyonlands

by Ralph Compton

  Tyree made up his mind.

  He straightened, then made a dash for the willow. Immediately he heard the crash of the rifle and felt a bullet tug at the back of his shirt. He ran on . . . twenty yards to go. Running flat out, awkward in spurs and high-heeled boots, he covered another few yards, then his foot rolled on a loose rock and he stumbled and fell flat on his face in the water. A bullet spurted a small fountain near his head, then a second burned across the back of his right thigh. Tyree got to his feet and ran, thumbing off wild shots toward the rocks where the rifleman was hidden.

  The sandbank was very close now and he dived for its shelter as bullets whapped into the water or creased the air around him. Tyree splashed into the creek, throwing up a cascade of water, rolled, and came up against the bank, a four foot high ledge of soft yellow sand tangled with willow roots.

  For a few moments, he leaned against the bank, breathing hard, his chest heaving. Then he took off his hat, filled it with creek water and poured the water over his head, enjoying its welcome coolness.

  It was time to move again.

  After several attempts, his boots slipping on the loose sand, Tyree managed to get a toehold on a thick root and clambered up the bank. Heavy clumps of Indian grass grew around the base of the willow, and he worked his way through those until he had a clear view of the rocks where the rifleman was hidden.

  There had been no time to grab his own rifle, and Tyree was keenly aware of the uncertainty of his Colt at this distance. Between him and the bushwhacker lay fifty yards of open ground, too far for accurate revolver work.

  But he couldn’t get any closer without exposing himself to the hidden marksman’s rifle, so for better or worse, here he had to stay.

  There was no movement among the rocks, and Tyree took the time to reload his gun. The day’s heat was building and the sun was hot on his damp back, steaming off the creek water.

  He waited, scanning the rocks with eyes that missed nothing.

  There it was, a movement, just a flash of blue cloth against the drab dun of the rocks!

  Tyree pushed the Colt straight out in front of him, holding the handle of the gun with both hands. He thumbed back the hammer, the metallic triple click loud in the quiet, and sighted on the rocks.

  A few slow minutes inched by as beads of sweat gathered on Tyree’s forehead and his mouth ran dry. Around him the rugged land lay still, silent and unchanging, except in the far distance where the buttes, crags and mesas were already shimmering, shifting shape in the growing heat.

  Another fleeting glimpse of blue. And another. More of it that time.

  Slowly, looking around him like a wild thing, a man emerged from the rocks, a rifle slanted across his chest. Tyree recognized the yellow hair under the man’s hat and the bloodstained bandage on his shoulder. It was Roy Will. As he’d expected, the outlaw had wasted no time on making good his promise to avenge his brother’s death.

  Will took a few steps toward the creek, then stopped, his head turning, checking the land around him. Warily, he angled toward the spot where Tyree was hidden, advanced three or four yards, then stopped again, his eyes speculatively scanning the willow.

  Tyree laid the front sight of his Colt on Will’s chest and his forefinger took up the sixteenth of an inch of slack on the trigger. He held his breath, gripped the gun rock steady—and fired.

  Will jerked as the bullet burned across his left arm. He threw the rifle to his damaged shoulder and hammered off three fast shots in Tyree’s direction, all of them crashing into the branches of the willow well above his head.

  The man was close enough that Tyree saw him wince as the recoiling rifle pounded against his broken shoulder.

  Tyree fired again. A clean miss. But it was enough. It seemed Will was an outlaw who clearly understood his limitations and he had decided this was not his day. The man ran back to the shelter of the rocks and a few moments later Tyree heard the echoing clatter of a horse’s hooves in the canyon.

  Quickly Tyree sprang to his feet and ran to the dry wash where the steeldust was grazing. He caught up the reins and swung into the saddle, then galloped toward the canyon mouth.

  He had no intention of letting Will escape to bush-whack him another day when his shooting shoulder was better healed and his aim surer.

  Ahead of Tyree the canyon entrance yawned open, a clean-cut cleft in the rock not a whole lot wider than a slot, its sheer sides climbing six or seven hundred feet to the flat top of the mesa. Will was obviously gambling that the canyon had an outlet on the other side of the mesa, an uncertain thing since so many of them were boxes, ending in an impassible barrier of rock.

  Tyree reined in the steeldust and entered the canyon at a walk, his Winchester ready to hand across the saddle horn. There was a thin trickle of water along the canyon bottom and a few deer and cattle tracks. The light was thin, picking up an amber tint from the walls, and the sandy bottom was broken in places by clumps of prickly pear and ocotillo. The canyon smelled of cows and the dust kicked up by Will’s horse.

  Down here it was very quiet, the only sound the creak of Tyree’s saddle leather and the soft thud of the steeldust’s hooves on the sand. His stirrups scraping against the walls, Tyree rode around a tight bend and then entered a rock passageway about fifty yards wide with smooth, curved walls. Here the water had pooled in a long, shallow tank but was only a couple of inches deep.

  Ahead of him, its top hidden from sight by an outcropping of rock, a shallow trough rose from the canyon floor and slanted upward, following an unexpected, gradual slope in the wall. The basin had been gouged out in ancient times by the fall of heavy boulders, and later by rain erosion. Tyree guessed it went clear to the top of the mesa.

  He rode around the outcropping and immediately reined in the steeldust. Roy Will, probably fearful that he’d ridden into a box, was urging his horse up the trough. The rustler rode to his left, then turned right again, creating his own switchback trail up the slope. He was attempting to reach the summit of the mesa, trusting to luck that he’d find a way back onto the flat.

  But Will wasn’t going to make it.

  The rustler fought his horse as it faltered, its hooves skidding on loose sand and talus, frightened arcs of white showing in its eyes.

  “Will!” Tyree yelled. “Throw down your gun and get down from there.”

  “Damn you, Tyree!” the man cried, surprised, his face twisted in fury. “I’ll see you in hell first!”

  Will savagely swung his struggling horse around and headed down the slope, his mount sliding most of the way on its haunches. The rustler had booted his rifle, but the Colt in his hand barked. The bullet missed Tyree’s head by inches, caromed off the canyon wall then ricocheted wildly, the whining lead bouncing back and forth from rock to rock, dangerous and lethal.

  Will had almost reached the bottom of the canyon and was firing as he came. His plunging horse was an unstable platform for accurate shooting, but his bullets rebounded from the rock walls and Tyree was aware of the peril of all that wildly flying lead.

  Tyree fired his Winchester from the hip, working the lever fast, hammering bullets into Will. Sudden red roses bloomed on the rustler’s blue shirt and the man screamed, threw up his arms and fell backward out of the saddle, hitting the sandy floor with a thud.

  The hollow echoes of his gunshots were still reverberating through the smoke-streaked canyon as Tyree swung out of the saddle and stepped to the fallen rustler.

  Will’s eyes were wide open, but he was seeing nothing. The man had been already dead when he hit the ground.

  The rustler’s horse was also down, its right leg shattered by a ricocheting bullet. Tyree put the animal out of its misery with one well-aimed shot, then holstered his gun.

  Suddenly he was tired, tired beyond belief, the wound in his side a dull, relentless ache that pounded at him. He stepped into the saddle once more and turned his horse toward the mouth of the canyon.

  For some reason he could scarcely fathom, he badly wan
ted to see Sally again.

  Chapter 15

  Tyree was still a mile from the cabin when he met Luke Boyd on the trail alongside the creek. The old rancher rode up to him and his eyes searched the younger man’s face, a question forming on his lips.

  “Yes, Luke,” Tyree said, beating him to it, “I ran into Roy Will.”

  “He dead?”

  Tyree nodded. “Back in a canyon. He didn’t give me any choice.”

  “Heard guns. Noise travels far in these canyons. I was on my way to help.” He looked Tyree over. “You hurt any?”

  “Shallow bullet burn across the back of my leg is all.” Tyree smiled. “Nothing to speak about.”

  “You look all used up, boy. Tell you what. Why don’t you come back to the cabin and let’s you and me share a jug?”

  “Best offer I’ve had all day, Luke.” Tyree grinned.

  The day was hot, and Lorena and Sally were sitting in chairs outside, under the shade of a spruce growing near the cabin. Despite the heat, both women looked cool and lovely, and Tyree’s breath caught in his throat, like a man who’d unexpectedly come across a pair of blooming prairie roses in the desert.

  “Chance,” Lorena said, jumping to her feet as Tyree swung out of the saddle, “we heard shooting. We’ve been so worried.”

  Tyree held the reins of the steeldust and nodded. “It was Roy Will. He bushwhacked me, or at least he tried to.”

  “Is he . . . ?”

  “Yes, he’s dead.”

  Sally, looking crisp and pretty in another of Lorena’s dresses, took the reins from Tyree’s hand. “Chance, you look exhausted. Best you sit for a while and I’ll see to your horse.”

  “Sally, you don’t have to do that.”

  “I know I don’t have to.” The girl smiled. “But I want to.”

  Later, Boyd brought out his jug. He and Tyree passed it back and forth, and Tyree was pleased when Sally refused a drink. Maybe her heavy drinking had been a onetime thing and it was over.

  Rustler or no, the killing of Roy Will seemed to cast a pall over everybody, and even Sally didn’t talk much. Lorena seemed oddly withdrawn, as though she was busy with her own thoughts. As to what those thoughts might be, Tyree could not hazard a guess.

  As the long day shaded into a warm, starlit evening, Boyd brought a couple of lanterns outside and set them up, their flickering flames casting dancing circles of orange light on the hard-packed dirt of the yard. A few moments later he produced a fiddle and said, “We’re all of us sitting with long faces and I reckon it’s time I livened things up around here.”

  Grinning wide, he tucked the fiddle under his chin and played. It was immediately clear that Boyd was a fine musician and he performed an excellent rendition of “Ducks in the Pond,” followed by a lively version of “Old Joe Clark.”

  “Let’s have some dancing,” Boyd yelled, the music and the whiskey taking ahold of him. “Here, Chance, let’s see you and Sally step it out.”

  Taking his cue from Boyd and caught up in the moment himself, Tyree grinned, walked to where Sally was sitting and bowed. “May I have the honor of this dance, Miss Brennan?”

  “Why, of course, Mr. Tyree.” Sally beamed, extending her hand.

  Tyree was a fair dancer, as was Sally, and together they made an attractive couple as they went through the complex circles, promenades and allemandes of the “Virginia Reel” and then “Money in Both Pockets.”

  Lorena joined in the fun, her dancing both enthusiastic and elegant. For a few hours she, Sally and Tyree forgot their troubles and the dark shadows that lay between them, letting the music lift them to a different, happier place.

  It was well after midnight when Tyree sought his bunk. He lay on his back, smiling into the darkness, and conceded that he had just spent one of the most pleasant nights of his life.

  But that mood vanished come the dawn, when he rose and went down to the creek to wash . . . and Luke Boyd told him that Sally was gone.

  “She laid the two dresses I gave her out on her bed and left me a little thank-you note,” Lorena said, as Tyree and Boyd drank coffee in the cabin.

  “Anything else?” Tyree asked. “Did she say where she was headed?”

  “No,” Lorena answered. “Just a thank-you and nothing more.”

  Tyree gazed into his coffee cup, feeling a knot of emotion in his belly. He had grown to like Sally, and now he feared for her. She would try to track down Luther Darcy and kill him. But she was no match for the gunman, either in skill or in cunning.

  Lorena broke into Tyree’s thoughts. “Women don’t keep secrets from each other for long, Chance,” she said. “I know why Sally came to the canyonlands.”

  Tyree’s head jerked up in surprise. “She told you?”

  “Yes, she told me about her brother’s death and her hunt for Luther Darcy.”

  Tyree was not anxious to reopen unhealed wounds, but what had to be said had to be said. “Did Sally tell you that Darcy works for Quirt Laytham?”

  Lorena’s chin lifted defiantly. “Yes, yes, she did, and that’s why I’m going to talk to Quirt today. I’m going to demand that he give Darcy his time and send him packing.”

  “And if he doesn’t?”

  Lorena shook her head. “That won’t happen. Quirt wants to marry me and he’ll do anything I ask.”

  “Lorena has a point, Chance,” Boyd said. “Ol’ Quirt sure is sweet on her. It isn’t likely he’ll refuse her anything.”

  Tyree rose to his feet. “You do as you please, Lorena. But in the meantime I’m going to look for Sally and try to keep her away from Darcy.”

  “Chance, I’m also going to do something else. I’ll ask Quirt to talk to you and see if we can get rid of the bad blood between you two.”

  A small sadness in him, Tyree looked at the girl, her beauty so dazzling it caused him a sweet pain. “Don’t waste your efforts, Lorena,” he said. “I’ll deal with Laytham in my own way and my own time.”

  Anger flared in the girl. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, then why don’t you just leave? You’ve caused nothing but trouble since Owen Fowler brought you here.”

  “Lorena,” Boyd said mildly, his eyes lifting to his daughter, “Chance is my guest. I’ll be the one to tell him to leave, not you.”

  Slowly the angry red stain drained from Lorena’s cheeks. “I’m sorry, Pa. It’s just that some people around here are so . . . so pigheaded.” She grabbed her hat and riding crop from the rack. “I’m going to talk to Quirt. At least he will listen to reason.”

  The girl stormed outside, and a few moments later Tyree heard the hammer of her horse’s galloping hooves recede into the distance.

  Tyree’s mood of last night had now totally gone, the memory of it extinguished, and cold gray ashes of regret were all that remained. He turned to Boyd. “Luke, you think Lorena really loves Laytham?”

  The old rancher shrugged, his face unreadable. “Son, I don’t know who Lorena really loves.”

  The way Tyree figured it, Sally Brennan could be in one of two places—Crooked Creek, or staking out Quirt Laytham’s ranch. At either location she had a good chance of running into Luther Darcy.

  He made a decision and headed the steeldust toward Crooked Creek. By what he’d heard from others, Darcy was work shy, a trait shared by most hired guns, and by all accounts spent more time in Bradley’s saloon than he did at the Rafter-L.

  Laytham’s cows were spread out along both sides of Hatch Wash, even farther north than before, and all were in excellent shape. On a whim, Tyree turned into Owen Fowler’s canyon, and saw more of Laytham’s Herefords.

  It seemed like the man was moving herds into the entire country and Tyree wondered how long it would be before small ranchers like Luke Boyd and Steve Lassiter were pushed out as Laytham expanded all the way north to Moab, and maybe beyond. Grass and water were at a premium in this magnificent but barren country. Laytham needed grass—and both Boyd and Lassiter were sitting on a lot of it.

  Crooked Creek lay drowsin
g in the afternoon heat when Tyree rode to the livery stable. An old-timer in denim overalls and a straw hat was sitting on a bench outside the stable and Tyree reined up close to him.

  “Howdy,” Tyree said. “You new here?”

  The man lifted faded brown eyes to the young rider then spat a string of tobacco juice. “Right back at ya, howdy your ownself. And, no, I’m not new here. I been laid up for a few weeks with the rheumatism, is all. Couldn’t leave my cabin, an’ that was surely hard on me on account of I’m what you might call a watching man.”

  “Well, watching man, I’m looking for a girl, maybe seventeen years old, yellow hair, stands a couple of inches over five feet.”

  “Hell, mister, ain’t we all,” the old man said.

  Tyree smiled. “She might be sleeping in your hayloft.”

  The old-timer shook his head. “Ain’t nobody like that up there. Trust me, I’d know if a gal like the one you’re asking about was sleeping here.”

  “You seen Luther Darcy in town?” Tyree asked, taking a different tack.

  “No, I haven’t seen him and I don’t want to see him either,” the old man answered. “That one is pure pizen.”

  Tyree touched fingers to his hat and swung the steeldust away. “Obliged to you.”

  “Stop by anytime,” the oldster said. “I don’t get much comp’ny around here, yellow-haired females or otherwise.”

  There were a couple of cow ponies outside Bradley’s, both with Rafter-L brands, and Tyree slipped the thong off his Colt before he stepped inside.

  At first the bartender, the man Tobin had called Benny, seemed surprised to see him, but then his face screwed into an ugly scowl. “What the hell are you doing here?” he asked. “Luther Darcy told you to stay away.”

  Tyree ignored the man and studied the two Laytham riders who were propping up the bar. Both were young, and had a wild, reckless look about them, their guns worn low on the thigh, handy to get at and not for show. Both were dressed in worn range clothes. The taller of the two wore a long, canvas duster.