Guns of the Canyonlands

Chapter 6

Both of them again up on the buckskin, Tyree and Fowler followed Hatch Wash north for several miles as the day faded into evening. Out among the canyons the talking coyotes were filling the night with their sound and a hunting cougar roared once in the distance, then fell silent.

Fowler swung west and splashed across the creek, entering a narrow draw with steep, high walls. Struggling spruce and juniper were just visible in the failing light, clinging to narrow outcroppings of rock high above them. The bottom of the draw was sandy and clumps of mesquite grew here and there, brushing against the legs of the riders with a dry, rasping hiss.

“We’re headed due west, toward the Colorado,” Fowler said over his shoulder. “But in an hour or so we’ll cut north toward where Hatch Wash meets the river. Where we’re going we’ll be pretty much near level with the peaks of the La Sal Mountains to the east.”

“You mean the slot canyon?” Tyree asked.

“Thought it through and changed my mind about that,” Fowler said. “You need plenty of bed rest and good grub. We’re going to pay a visit on an old friend of mine, a man called Luke Boyd. He’ll see us all right.”

Now the sun was gone, the night air was turning cool, and Tyree, having lost so much blood, shivered.

Fowler, a perceptive and caring man, turned in the saddle. “Reach behind the cantle, Chance. I’ve got me a mackinaw inside my bedroll.”

Tyree found the coat and quickly shrugged into it, grateful for the warmth of the wool, thin and threadbare though it was.

After thirty minutes the draw widened out into a patch of open, flatter country, less hemmed in by the surrounding bastions of rock. Mesquite and clumps of rabbit bush covered the ground, and the night air smelled of cedar and juniper.

As they cleared the confining walls of the draw, Tyree looked up and saw a sky full of stars. The moon was not yet visible, but already its diffused glow was painting the land around them the color of tarnished silver.

Weak as he was, Tyree nodded in the saddle, lulled by the rocking motion of the buckskin and the sound of its soft footfalls on the sand.

Fowler’s voice woke him. “Almost there, Chance, but from now on we ride real careful. Ol’ Luke Boyd has a Sharps fifty-seventy ranged at a hundred yards and he’s never been bashful about using it.”

“Must be a real good friend of yours, huh?” Tyree asked, the smile in his voice evident.

“He was, before I was sent to prison. I guess he still is, but in the dark a Sharps sometimes can’t tell the difference between friend and foe, so I plan on making sure he knows it’s me that’s a-coming at him.”

“What’s he do, this Luke Boyd with the Sharps ranged at a hundred yards?”

“He runs a one-loop spread a couple of miles east of the Colorado. He also does some gold prospecting around here from time to time. Between one thing and another, he’s always gotten by. Has himself a right lovely daughter called Lorena. I guess she must be about twenty-five by now. Luke says she was the child of his old age.” An edge of bitterness crept into Fowler’s voice. “Quirt Laytham is sweet on her. He says he wants to marry her, and last I heard, Lorena hasn’t said yes, but she hasn’t said no.”

As the moon swung into the sky, Fowler urged the buckskin up a steep rise crested by jumbled rocks of all sizes, dark clumps of mesquite and juniper growing among them. Once there he reined in the horse and pointed to a narrow valley below them.

“See the light beyond the creek? That’s Luke’s cabin. I’d say we’re in good time for supper.”

Tyree looked over Fowler’s shoulder. The bright moonlight reflected on the creek, turning it into a ribbon of silver flanked on both sides by grass and cottonwoods, and farther out, scattered stands of piñon pine and spruce. The cabin was built on the far side of the creek, backing up to the massive rampart of a flat-topped mesa that rose in a series of pink-and-yellow ledges to a height of more than six thousand feet. A ribbon of gray smoke tying bow-knots in the still air, lifted from the cabin’s chimney, and even at a distance Tyree smelled burning cedar.

The dark bulk of a barn loomed a distance to the left of the cabin, beside it a pole corral and a windmill. A small bunkhouse, its single window darkened, stood off a ways, closer to the creek.

It was a wild, beautiful place, but one that echoed of isolation and aching loneliness, located as it was between earth and sky in the midst of a hard land where life was a daily struggle and everything came at a price, paid in sweat or blood—or both.

It was, Tyree decided, no place for a lovely woman. The thought surprised him. He only had Fowler’s word for it that Lorena was lovely . . . but somehow he knew, perhaps from the music of her name, that she was.

“Once we get onto the flat, I’ll hail the cabin,” Fowler said. “Let me do the talking and show as little of that Winchester as you can. Then we ride in real slow and easy, and do nothing sudden. Luke Boyd isn’t a trusting man.”

“You’re the boss,” Tyree said. “I’m willing to risk the Sharps to get off of this buckskin for a spell.”

Fowler urged the horse down the slope, then crossed the flat to the near bank of the creek. There he reined up and cupped his hands to his mouth. “Hello the cabin!”

Immediately a lamp inside was doused, the door opened a crack and a man’s harsh voice yelled, “What do you want? I got me a Sharps big fifty here and I ain’t a-settin’ on my gun hand.”

“Luke, it’s me. It’s Owen Fowler.”

A few moments of silence, then, “Owen, it’s you? Why in tarnation didn’t you say so in the first place instead of settin’ out there gabbing? Come on in.”

Fowler kicked the buckskin into motion and splashed across the creek. The cabin door opened wider and a squat, heavily bearded man who was somewhere in his midsixties stepped into the yard, a rifle in his hands.

Smiling to himself, Tyree decided that Fowler had been right—Luke Boyd wasn’t a trusting man.

Fowler reined up when he was close to Boyd and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Got me a friend with me. He’s been half-hung and shot up pretty bad.”

“Then light, Owen, and bring both of you inside.”

Tyree climbed off the buckskin, staggered a little, then glanced beyond Boyd to the cabin where a shadow was standing in the doorway. He looked closer, his eyes trying to penetrate the gloom . . . and beheld an angel.

Lorena Boyd stepped quickly to Tyree’s side, her lovely brown eyes dark with concern. “I saw you stagger. Are you all right? You seem very weak.”

Tyree managed a tired smile. “I’m fine. Tired is all.”

“Then let me help you inside.”

Lorena put her arm around Tyree’s waist and helped him step up onto the porch and into the cabin. He was very aware of the woman’s warm closeness and the firmness of her breast against his side. She was, he decided, the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen in his life.

Her thick mass of auburn hair was drawn back from her face and tied at her neck with a pink ribbon. Her cheekbones were wide and high, her mouth full, the lips generous and voluptuous. When she smiled her teeth were even and very white. Hers was a mysterious, haunting beauty, the kind that lingers long in the memory of a man, and Tyree felt his breath catch in his throat as she lit a lamp in the cabin and the light fell across her face and body.

Lorena was dressed in a severely tailored white shirt open at the neck, showing a triangle of flawless, lightly tanned skin. Her straight, canvas skirt was split for riding. Neither garment did anything to conceal the generous curves of her body.

She pulled out a chair and said, “Sit here, mister. . . . Sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

“There’s no mister.” Tyree smiled. “The name is Chance Tyree.”

Lorena tasted the name on her tongue, then said, “Chance Tyree, I like that. It has a ring to it.”

Luke Boyd stepped into the cabin and froze in his tracks when he heard Lorena speak. “Chance Tyree,” he said. “Would that be the Chance Tyree out of Texas? DeWitt County maybe?”

“There’s unlikely to be another,” Tyree said, his eyes guarded as he studied the stocky rancher. “De-Witt County and other places.”

“Heard of you,” Boyd said. “Heard a lot about you over the years.” The rancher was silent for a few moments as though making his mind up about something. Finally he set his rifle down on the table and held out his hand. “Luke Boyd.”

Tyree shook the man’s hand; then Boyd said, “I don’t hold a man’s past against him. What’s done is done. But when you’re well enough to ride, I’d consider it as a favor if you’d move on.”

It was in Tyree’s mind to say, “Old man, there’s nothing to keep me here.” But when he looked at Lorena, the woman he’d all of a sudden made up his mind to marry, the words died stillborn in his throat. Instead he managed, “I don’t aim to be a burden on you, Mr. Boyd. At first light tomorrow I’ll leave.”

“No need for that,” Boyd said. “You can stay here for a few days, a few weeks if need be, at least until you’re well enough to ride. But then you got to be going.” The older man smiled, his teeth flashing white under his beard. “No hard feelings I hope, Chance. And mister don’t set right with me any more than it does with you. The name’s Luke.”

The old rancher had offered the peace pipe, and Tyree took it. “I’m obliged to you, Luke,” he said, matching Boyd’s smile with one of his own. “But I figure I can ride in a couple of days—that is, if you can sell me a horse.”

Boyd nodded. “We’ll talk about that when the time comes.” His eyes lifted to his daughter. “Lorena, can’t you see this young feller is wounded? Judging by the amount of blood on his shirt, it’s bad, so see to him, child.” Without waiting for a reply he turned to Fowler. “Now, Owen, what the hell are you doing out of jail?”

In as few words as possible, Fowler told Boyd about the jail’s cholera outbreak that won him his freedom, his finding Tyree south of Crooked Creek hanging more dead than alive, then their fight with Quirt Laytham and his riders along the bank of Hatch Wash. He also mentioned Sheriff Tobin parroting Laytham’s accusation that he’d been rustling his stock.

Lorena, who had been listening intently as she gently bathed Tyree’s wounds with warm water then bound them up with a bandage, gave an audible gasp at the mention of Laytham’s name.

“That doesn’t sound like the Quirt Laytham I know,” she said. “For heaven’s sake, Owen, why would Quirt accuse you of rustling his cattle and then attack you?”

“He wants my land, Lorena,” Fowler said evenly. “His cows are already grazing in my canyon.”

Lorena’s chin lifted in a stubborn tilt. “Quirt told me about that. He said he mixed his stuff in with yours and that he planned to give you a share of the profits when you got out of jail. He was doing you a favor, Owen. Can’t you see that?”

“And was Laytham doing me a favor when he told Sheriff Tobin’s deputies to hang me?” Tyree asked, annoyance starting to niggle at him. Lorena seemed so sure of Laytham’s innocence, and that burned him.

“That was obviously a case of mistaken identity,” the girl flared in return. “The canyonlands are infested with rustlers. Quirt is trying to run them clean out of the country. Just ask Pa. He’s lost cattle and he’s losing more by the day.”

Boyd nodded. “Can’t argue with that, Chance. I don’t quite know how many head I’ve lost, but it’s a passel. That’s why I graze my Hereford bull close to the cabin.”

“Lorena,” Tyree said, keeping his voice level despite his growing irritation, “Laytham knew who he was shooting at along Hatch Wash. He called Owen and me by name.”

The girl bit her lip, then shook her head defiantly. “I’ll ask Quirt about this. I know there’s been some kind of terrible misunderstanding.” She hesitated a moment, then said, “However, cattle are being stolen from the range and you are a stranger in these parts, Chance. And . . .”

Lorena swallowed hard, as if what she was about to say was not coming easy. “Owen, you’ve known me since I was a little girl in pigtails, but you are a convicted murderer.” She waved her hands helplessly. “Oh, I’m messing this up completely, aren’t I? But what I’m trying to say is that you can understand how Quirt might have jumped to certain conclusions, wrong as they might be.”

Tyree lifted his eyes to Lorena’s flushed face. The cabin was very quiet, the only movement a tiny silver moth that fluttered around the oil lamp above the table.

The girl was obviously sweet on Laytham and was determined to defend him to the bitter end. Did that mean she was in love with him? Did I, Tyree thought bitterly, jump to my own wrong conclusion that I could make her my wife?

Boyd’s voice, gently chiding, cut across Tyree’s thoughts. “Lorena, I’ve told you often that I didn’t think Owen was capable of murder. I believe someone else killed and robbed John Kent.”

For a few moments Lorena stood still, her eyes revealing a knot of different emotions. Finally she walked swiftly across the cabin and threw her arms around Fowler’s neck. “Owen, I know you’re not a killer,” she said. “You’re a gentle, loving man. When I was young, I used to marvel at how animals came to you, especially when they were sick or injured. Animals have an instinct about people—they can sense goodness in them, just as I have always sensed the goodness in you.”

She kissed Fowler on the cheek, then stepped back and brushed away a stray lock of hair that had tumbled onto her forehead. “It’s just . . . just that when I heard you and Chance say all those terrible things about Quirt I got quite angry.” Her eyes moved from Fowler to Tyree. “I can’t explain it, but when I’m with him, I also sense a goodness in Quirt.”

Tyree thought about Laytham, with his handsome, brutal face, his expensive clothes and his cattle and blood horses. He was a suitor of wealth and power, the kind to turn any young woman’s head. Lorena had not yet learned that it’s fine to judge a wild-flower or a butterfly by its appearance, but not a man.

He was about to say so, when Boyd interrupted him. The rancher slapped his hands together and grinned. “Well, I don’t know about the rest of you folks, but I’m getting real hungry for supper.” He turned to Lorena. “What are we having, daughter?”

Later, as Lorena busied herself at the stove and Owen and Luke talked and smoked their pipes outside, Tyree stepped beside the girl and lightly touched her shoulder. “Lorena, I’ve got something to say to you. The first is yes, I’ve ridden a few owl-hoot trails in my life, but I’m no rustler and neither is Owen Fowler. The second is that someday I plan to make you forget all about Quirt Laytham and take you as my wife.”

The woman’s back stiffened; then she slowly turned to face him. “Mr. Tyree,” she said, her beautiful eyes blazing, “I certainly wouldn’t count on that if I was you.”