Satisfied with his efforts, he carried the sign to his horse, ready to ride.
He and Sally mounted up and they traveled east through the brightening light of the early morning. After the shrouding darkness of night, the silent wilderness of rock around them was again touched with color, the pink, red and yellow of the mesas and ridges and the occasional green of grass and trees. Once they saw a small herd of bighorn sheep mount the almost vertical slope of a mesa, and behind them a flash of molten gold as a hunting cougar bounded with fluid grace from rock to rock.
They reached Fowler’s canyon without incident, seeing no sign of Tobin’s posses. Tyree told Sally she was now the boss since she knew much more about hazing cows out of a canyon than he did.
Sally shook out a loop and for the next couple of hours she and Tyree moved cattle off Fowler’s grass to the east bank of the wash. Sally was an excellent puncher who made the hot, dusty work look effortless. Tyree helped by turning back the occasional stubborn maverick that didn’t want to leave, at first showing more enthusiasm than skill, until the remembered ways slowly came back to him.
“You know, Sally, a man could get used to this again.” He grinned as they stopped in the shade for a while and shared a canteen. “Especially if he was working his own cattle on his own place.”
In the end they moved more than two hundred head, and when it was over Tyree stuck his sign into the ground at the mouth of the canyon.
KEEP OUT
PRIVATE PROPERTY
Sally sat her paint and looked down in amusement at Tyree’s handiwork. “Of course, it could be argued that Laytham has as much right to the canyon as Fowler did,” she said. “I doubt this is deeded land.”
Tyree nodded. “That’s true, except that Owen was here first. As far as I’m concerned he staked his claim to the place.”
“Do you think that sign will keep Laytham from moving his cows back?”
“No,” Tyree answered. “But it will tell him that he’s been notified.”
Sally looked around her. “Well, where do we go from here?”
“We ride north,” Tyree said. “I want to check on Mrs. Lassiter. I don’t want the same thing to happen to her as happened to Luke.”
The Lassiter ranch lay five miles northwest of the La Sal Mountains, a scattering of buildings and corrals alongside a winding, narrow creek with plentiful grazing on both banks. Cattle lay in the shade of the cottonwoods lining the banks or stood belly high in the cool creek water. A red sandstone cliff, all of eight hundred feet high, was an impassible barrier to the north. To the east and west, beyond the creek, the land stretched away level, tufted with sparse grass, in the distance a few dark junipers and after those the sheer, towering walls of flat-topped mesas and rawboned ridges of craggy rock. The wind blew steadily here, coming off the high mountains, carrying with it the smell of sagebrush and pine.
Tyree reined up in the shade of a cottonwood, his eyes scanning the Lassiter ranch and the wild, broken land around him. Nothing moved but the wind that got tangled up in Sally’s hair, blowing shining curls across her cheeks.
Kicking the horse into motion, Tyree checked the brands on the cattle he passed. Most bore the Lassiter Lazy-S, but a few were marked with Quirt Laytham’s Rafter-L.
Tyree rode into the yard in front of the cabin. “Hello the house!” he yelled. His voice echoed away in the distance and the following dead silence mocked him. The cabin windows turned blank eyes to him and Sally, revealing nothing of what lay inside.
There was a feeling of death and danger in the air, an atmosphere so strong Tyree felt it reach out to him, unsettling him enough that he pulled his Colt from his waistband, grateful for its reassuring heft.
He waited a few moments, his restless eyes scanning the cabin and what he could see of the other buildings. The place was still, lifeless, and in the waning day shadows clung to walls and corrals, dark, mysterious and fraught with menace. Tyree swung out of the saddle. He let the reins of the steeldust trail then turned and looked up at the girl. “I’m going into the cabin.” He smiled, attempting to make light of what he was about to say. “Just be ready to hightail it out of here if anything real bad happens.”
The girl nodded, and gathered up the paint’s reins. She slid Tyree’s rifle out of the scabbard on his horse and laid it across the saddle horn. “I’ll be ready, Chance,” she said. “But I’m not hightailing it anywhere.”
Stepping to the door, Tyree knocked hard a few times. Nothing stirred inside. He pushed on the door and it swung open on oiled hinges. He stepped into the cabin, his gun up and ready.
After the bright sunlight, the place was dark. He walked into its different rooms and finally checked the bedroom. But the cabin was deserted. A coffeepot on the stove was still warm, though the fire had burned down to a few red coals, and the remains of breakfast were still on the table. Two people had sat there to eat, but hadn’t finished their food—scraps of salt pork and congealed, greasy eggs still lay on the plates.
Tyree searched further and found a metal box, like the one Boyd had kept at his cabin. The lock had been forced and the box was empty. Was this where Steve Lassiter had kept the deed to his ranch—or his money?
Stepping outside again, Tyree motioned Sally to follow. He walked around the back of the cabin, and found the first dead man. The puncher was sprawled facedown in the dirt, the back of his shirt covered in blood, fat blue flies already buzzing around his body.
Tyree turned the man over and recognized a face he’d seen in Bradley’s when Sally had braced Luther Darcy. He was one of Laytham’s riders and he’d apparently been shot in the back while trying to make a run for it.
The second Laytham puncher was in the barn. There were signs he’d tried to fight off his assailants, five .45 caliber shells scattered around him. He’d had time to reload his gun before he was killed. This man had been shredded by bullets, the last one between his eyes, the muzzle of the gun so close, black grains of unburned powder had been driven into his nose and forehead.
Where was Mrs. Lassiter?
Puzzled, Tyree scouted the area around the cabin. After a few minutes he found two graves dug side by side well away from the house, toward the cliff. One held the remains of Steve Lassiter, a rough wooden marker bearing only his name. The other was fresher and unmarked. It could only be Jean’s last resting place.
Short of opening the grave, there was no way of telling if the woman had died a violent death or had passed away from grief. The two Laytham punchers might have known, but they were beyond questioning.
Tyree was aware of Sally stepping beside him. The girl looked down at the grave, a sadness in her eyes. “She was a real nice lady,” Sally said. “She deserved better than this.”
Turning to Sally, Tyree asked, “Who would gun Laytham’s punchers? Something here doesn’t set right with me. As far as I know the man has no enemies but me.”
“It makes sense if there’s another party involved,” the girl said.
“The party of the third,” Tyree whispered, deep in thought.
“What was that?”
Tyree shook his head. “Oh, nothing. I’m just repeating something Nick Tobin said to me.”
“Maybe it was rustlers,” Sally offered. “Laytham said he was losing cattle and he blamed Owen Fowler. We know Owen wasn’t stealing his cows, so it had to be someone else.”
“No, Sally, not rustlers,” Tyree said. “Look around you. There are Lassiter and Laytham cows everywhere. If it had been rustlers the whole herd would be gone.”
“Then who?” the girl asked.
“I don’t know,” Tyree said. “But whoever he is, he took the deed to this land from a box in the cabin after he killed the punchers. I’d say he’s a dangerous man, with as much ambition as Laytham, and maybe more.” He took the girl’s arm and together they began to walk away from the grave.
Sally had been right all along: Someone else had taken cards in the game. But it didn’t change anything. As far as Tyree was
concerned, Quirt Laytham was still the enemy.
The question was, how would Tyree get at him?
Chapter 21
Over the next couple of days, Tyree and Sally began the task of salvaging what they could from the Boyd cabin, especially the heavy logs, expensive and hard to come by in the canyon country. Tyree planned to rebuild one day, and the logs would be a start.
He shot a deer and a brace of sage hens and they ate well, helped along with the coffee, flour and salt they’d found at the Lassiter cabin.
When Tyree checked on Fowler’s canyon, he discovered that Laytham’s cattle were back, his sign broken and trampled into the dust. There were plenty of horse tracks along the wash, and he guessed the rancher was hunting him, no doubt blaming him for the deaths of his two riders.
It was now only a matter of time before Laytham swung by Boyd’s cabin. If Luther Darcy had indeed been acting on someone else’s orders, the chances were Laytham didn’t even know the old man was dead. And, Tyree realized with a pang of regret, neither did Lorena.
Tyree had thought to take the fight to Quirt Laytham, but it seemed likely that the man would soon bring the fight to him. Tyree would make his stand on his own ground, and he decided to try and even the odds.
Using heavy talus rocks, he spent a morning building a stone parapet at the base of the mesa behind the cabin where he and Sally could hold off an attack. The steep slope behind the rock wall was of soft, weathered sandstone, unlikely to cause ricochets, and the base of the mesa stretched away straight on both sides, providing no cover to anyone trying to flank their position.
Tyree gathered up several canteens from the barn and bunkhouse and filled them at the creek. He placed the water in a shady spot behind his stone breastwork and figured he and Sally were as ready as they’d ever be to repel an assault.
They had only one rifle, and this he gave to Sally, trusting to his Colts.
Now all they could do was wait.
A day passed, then another. Tyree spent most of his time on the summit of the mesa, scanning the land around him. Once he thought he saw dust rise far to the west across the Colorado, but it was fleeting and brief, and soon disappeared.
Where was Laytham? Had the man given up the hunt and returned to his ranch?
But why hadn’t he come here to Luke’s cabin? Or had Lorena put him off the scent, maybe telling Laytham that her father had long ago ordered Chance Tyree off his property?
It was possible, Tyree decided. But somehow he didn’t think it likely. Lorena’s first loyalty must be to her future husband and it would stand to reason she’d help him any way she could.
On the morning of the third day, just as he returned to his position atop the mesa, Tyree spotted dust to the south, the lifting cloud laced red by the rays of the rising sun. He waited for long moments, making sure his eyes had not been deceiving him. But he was not mistaken. The dust was getting closer, kicked up by many riders, coming on hard. And there was no doubt where they were headed—right for him.
The fight with Laytham had come and Tyree felt something akin to joy rise in him. He had waited long for this moment, and now, his heart pounding, it was getting nearer at a gallop.
Tyree scrambled down from the mesa and shouted a warning to Sally. The girl grabbed her rifle and ran to the rock wall where Tyree joined her, a gun in each hand.
“Laytham?” Sally asked, her eyes wide.
Tyree nodded. “Him and what looks like a passel of others.”
But Quirt Laytham was not among the seven men who rode up to the cabin and sat their horses in the yard. Five of them, all wearing deputy’s stars, Tyree didn’t know. But he recognized the huge, arrogant bulk of Clem Daley. The man was sitting astride a prancing black, holding upright a Winchester, the butt resting on his right thigh. Beside him was Len Dawson, looking old and tired, aged not by his years but by the violent events of the past weeks.
Daley said something over his shoulder to one of his men. The deputy rode to the barn and checked inside. “His horse is here all right, Clem!” he yelled from the open doorway. “Big steeldust, like you said.”
Daley rode to the side of the cabin, looking warily around him. He cupped a hand to his mouth and called out, “Tyree, show yourself. We need to talk.”
Tyree knew his position would be discovered sooner or later, so he stood and hollered, “Say what you came to say, Daley. Then light a shuck out of here.”
The big deputy’s bloodshot eyes scanned the base of the mesa and stopped when they lighted on Tyree. He kicked his horse forward twenty or so yards then reined up. “Tyree,” he said, “I want you to come with us. You have a date with the hangman, boy, and best you get it over and done with.” He waited a few moments, letting that sink in, then added, “Now you surrender or we’ll mosey on over there after you. I see you got that little Brennan gal with you. Just remember, when we start shooting, our guns won’t make no never mind between a man and a woman.”
“Where’s your boss, Daley?” Tyree asked, an anger rising in him. “Too yellow to do his own dirty work?”
Daley looked perplexed for a moment, then said, “You talking about Sheriff Tobin?”
“Hell, no, I’m talking about Quirt Laytham, and you know it.”
To Tyree’s surprise, Daley threw back his head and laughed. Then he wiped tears from his eyes and yelled, “You are a one, Tyree, funny as a three-legged mule trying to pull a buggy. You know Laytham is dead, on account of how you were the one that plugged him just yes’tidy.”
Tyree felt like he’d been slapped. Quirt Laytham was dead? That hardly seemed possible. Or was Daley, for dark reasons of his own, lying?
Voicing his doubt, Tyree said, “You’re a liar, Daley. I didn’t kill Quirt Laytham and neither did anybody else.”
“Suit yourself,” Daley said. He turned in the saddle and called to Dawson, ordering the man to join him. When the deputy reined up alongside him, Daley said, loud enough for Tyree to hear, “Tell Tyree what happened to Mr. Laytham yes’tidy morning.”
“Hell,” Dawson growled, “he knows already.”
“Tell him anyway. Make this official, like.”
Dawson shook his head at the pointlessness of the task, then, looking right at Tyree, he said, “Mr. Laytham stepped out the door to go to the cookhouse for his coffee like he done every morning. Only yesterday morning was different because he hadn’t took but three steps when you cut him down with a rifle bullet, Tyree.” Dawson’s fingers strayed to his temple. “Got him right here and he was dead when he hit the ground.” The deputy’s lips twisted into a bitter smile. “Mighty good shootin’.”
There was no doubting Dawson’s sincerity. Someone had murdered Quirt Laytham, gunned him down in cold blood from ambush. But who?
Tyree had no time to ponder the question because Daley was asking, “Now will you get out from them rocks, or do we come in after you?”
Turning to Sally, Tyree said, “Maybe I can get Daley to give you a safe conduct away from here. How does that set with you?”
The girl shook her head, her face determined. “I’ll stick, Chance. You need my help. I’m not going anywhere.”
“I was hoping you’d say that.” Tyree grinned. He looked over at Daley and yelled, “I’m not making it easy for you, Daley. You want me, come and get me.”
The big deputy shrugged, a cold grin on his fleshy lips. “Your funeral. But we’ll try not to shoot up the girl too much. We’ll want her all in one piece later.”
He and Dawson swung their horses around and loped back to their waiting men where they immediately engaged in a heated conversation, heads now and then swiveling to look at Tyree.
There were seven of them against two, one of them just a slip of a girl, but it was obvious that Daley’s deputized riders didn’t relish the idea of attacking across a hundred yards of open ground where there was not a scrap of cover. These would be Laytham’s men, hired guns anxious to avenge their dead boss, but with his death their wages would stop and the lo
yalty of their kind only stretched so far.
Judging by Daley’s flushed, angry face, the five were ready to pull out and wait for another time when the odds would be more in their favor.
In the end, Tyree never knew how Daley convinced them. Maybe he appealed to their dubious loyalty, but more likely he offered money, a bonus in double eagles, like the one paid to the Arapaho Kid for killing Owen Fowler.
Whatever it was, Daley’s argument swayed his deputies. The huddle of riders broke up and shook out into a loose line, the big deputy in the middle. A few pulled rifles from the boots under their knees, the rest drew their Colts.
“It’s coming, Sally,” Tyree said, his voice tense. “Don’t try to rush it. Just draw a firm bead and shoot nice and steady.”
The girl nodded, laying her cheek on the rifle stock. Tyree saw fear in Sally’s eyes, but he didn’t blame her any. He was scared himself.
Daley let out a wild whoop, and the line of riders spurred their mounts into a gallop, charging fast across the open ground.
Tyree rose to his feet and cut loose, both six-guns hammering. Beside him he heard the flat, emphatic statement of Sally’s rifle. A horse screamed and leaped into the air, throwing its rider. The man scrambled to his feet and managed to get off a wild shot from his rifle before Tyree cut him down. A second man, clutching a bloody chest, lost his balance and fell. His horse, a big, rangy sorrel, swung to its right and careened into a bearded rider. Both the bearded man’s mount and the sorrel crashed to the ground in a tangle of flying hooves and billowing dust.
Seeing three of their number go down in just a couple of hell firing seconds was enough for the remaining two Laytham riders, neither of them very committed to the wild charge in the first place. The surviving attackers, Daley included, scattered. A man ran his horse into the barn, while a second headed for the bunkhouse. Daley and Len Dawson rode around the cabin and vanished from sight.
The bearded man who’d gone down with his horse suddenly staggered to his feet. He’d lost his rifle, but he pulled his belt gun and snapped a fast shot at Tyree, the bullet whapping into the sandstone inches from his head. No mercy in him, Tyree fired both his guns at the same instant and the man staggered, then fell flat on his face.
Guns of the Canyonlands Page 19
