Guns of the Canyonlands

Chapter 7

A week drifted by and Tyree’s strength grew as his wounds began to heal. He moved his gear into the bunkhouse, no longer wishing to crowd Lorena and her father in the cabin.

Lorena still bathed and bandaged him every day. She even washed and mended his shirt, but she was frosty and distant, polite to a fault, the looming shadow of Quirt Laytham lying between them.

Tyree was yet to tell Lorena that he planned on destroying Laytham, wiping out even his memory from the canyonlands. He would have to let her know soon, but he feared how she would react. There was a distinct probability she’d run into Laytham’s arms and he would lose her forever.

His frustration growing, Tyree considered another possibility—he could step away from his showdown with Laytham and ask Lorena to leave with him. But even as he mulled over this option, he soon dismissed it. A devil was driving him and it would not let up until justice was done. He had been a stranger passing through, but Crooked Creek lawmen, men Laytham kept in his pocket, had seen fit to hang him. There could be no going back from that. Tyree was a man who measured things only in the light of his own experience, a seasoning he had gained among tough, uncompromising men. He had no other yardstick. He knew he had been badly wronged and for that, there must be a reckoning. It was a principle as old as the Bible—an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Even his growing love for Lorena, coldly distant as she was, would not sidetrack him from his purpose.

On the morning of the eighth day of his stay at Luke’s ranch, Tyree stepped out of the bunkhouse door after breakfast and saw the old rancher and Fowler saddling their horses in the barn.

He strolled over and Boyd answered his unasked question. “It’s high time I made a tally of my herd, Chance. I’ve been prospecting some this past three months and during that time they’ve scattered to hell and gone, them that haven’t been rustled. I’ll drive them out of the canyons toward the creek and count them there.”

Interested, Tyree asked, “You planning on making a drive, Luke?”

The old rancher nodded. “I figure come spring I’ll hire me a couple of men and push a herd to the Union Pacific railhead at Salt Lake City.” He shrugged. “Money’s been tight for a spell, and I want Lorena to be able to afford some nice things, women’s fixin’s and the like.”

“I was once pretty handy with a rope,” Tyree said. “Mind if I tag along today?”

“You up for it, boy?” Luke asked. “That bullet wound in your side has some healing to do yet and you still look a mite peaked.”

“I’ll be all right,” Tyree said. “I’ll need a good cutting horse, though.”

Luke thought the younger man’s offer through for a few moments, then said, “We could sure use another hand. Glad to have you along.” He nodded toward the corral. “Throw a saddle on that steeldust. He’ll buck a time or two just to keep you honest, but after that he’ll settle down. He’s a first-rate cow pony.”

The old rancher’s eyes moved to Tyree’s waist. “Better wear your gun.”

Tyree smiled. “I thought we were rounding up your cows, not shooting them.”

“Wear your gun just the same,” Boyd said, his face solemn. “Back in seventy-eight, Governor George W. Emery told the legislature that the Utah Territory had more rustlers to the square mile than any other place in the country. It was the only damn thing I ever agreed with him on.” Boyd’s eyes met Tyree’s. “Wear your iron, boy. I’m not saying we’ll run into shooting trouble, but out there among the canyons a man never knows.”

Tyree saw the logic in what Boyd was saying. He went back inside the bunkhouse, retrieved the gun belt from the peg and strapped it around his hips, then lifted his Winchester from the rack. When he passed the cabin the door was open. Lorena had her back to him, putting away dishes, and she didn’t turn.

“We’re heading out to make a tally of your pa’s cows,” Tyree said. “Will you be all right here alone?”

“I can use the Sharps about as well as Pa,” the girl answered, still without turning. “I’ll be just fine.”

Tyree pulled his canvas suspenders over his shoulders and settled his hat on his head. He was about to step toward the barn again, but Lorena’s voice stopped him.

“Be careful out there, Chance,” she said. “Those canyons can be treacherous.”

Lorena still had her back to him as Tyree said, “Worried about me, Lorena?”

The girl turned to face him. “Yes, you and Pa and Owen. All of you.”

Tyree could not read Lorena’s eyes. But was there something there, real concern, maybe? Was it something he might hold on to, to give him hope? He had no time to ponder those questions. The girl turned away again, her back straight and stiff.

He stepped through the bright light of the morning, confused, feeling no closer to Lorena now than he had for the past eight days.

Luke Boyd had been right about the steeldust. The horse bucked a few times, enough to justify his reputation, then settled down and seemed eager for the trail.

“We’ll head east along the creek and search the canyons,” Boyd said. He wore a battered black hat, a plaid shirt and corduroy pants tucked into muleeared boots. An old cap-and-ball Remington rode on his hip and, like Tyree, he had a Winchester under his knee.

His Henry shattered and inoperable, Fowler had Luke’s Greener scattergun tied to the back of his saddle with piggin strings, and he wore a Green River knife on his belt. A copy of Thomas Carlyle’s History of Frederick the Great was stuffed into a back pocket of his pants. Seeing the book, Tyree smiled. It seemed Owen planned to do more reading than cowboying.

Lorena stood at the door of the cabin as Tyree and the others rode out, and he waved to her. She waved back, but whether to him or her pa he did not know.

Under a flaming sky streaked with banners of dark blue cloud, the riders followed the creek south. Around them spread a desolate, silent land of high, serrated ridges, great flat-topped mesas, rocky basins and slender spires and pinnacles of pink, red and yellow sandstone. Sparse growths of Douglas fir, mountain mahogany, scrub oak, sagebrush and mountain shrub grew high up the canyon walls, piñon and juniper at the lower levels.

It was still early, but the morning was already hot, the steep, rocky crags on all sides beginning their shimmering dance in the heat. Dust devils spiraled ahead of the riders and sand began to work its way inside their clothes and make their eyes red and gritty. Among the canyons phantom blue lakes glittered, mirages formed by the strengthening sunlight and the clear, dry air.

Along the creek, grazing in the shade of cottonwoods or standing knee high in the cool water, they counted eighty Herefords, all carrying Boyd’s LB brand. The cattle were fat and sleek, wary and wild as deer.

But as they rode Boyd’s eyes were shadowed with concern. He had yet to cut sign of his bull, and that bothered him.

Now the easy part of the tally was over. It was time for the three men to fan out and begin their search of the canyons and draws for the rest of Boyd’s cows.

Tyree took a sandy switchback cattle trail up a sloping ridge and rode down the other side into a narrow gorge. The trail showed signs of recent use, the cattle tracks overlaid with those of deer and antelope. Because of the canyon’s steep walls, little light penetrated to the bottom and Tyree found himself riding in a strange, violet gloaming. Here, away from the sun, the air was much cooler—one reason cattle were so attracted to canyons, including the slots that were just narrow, twisting fissures in the rock.

Tyree found half a dozen cows lying around a shallow seep on the canyon floor where grew a few stunted willows and scattered clumps of sagebrush. The Herefords were reluctant to move back to the heat and flies, but the steeldust knew his business and soon had them up and headed for the canyon mouth.

Tyree hazed the cattle toward the creek and saw Fowler driving another small herd. Boyd, looking grouchy, had ridden into a canyon to the east and had returned empty-handed.

“Damn it all,” the old rancher growled, the heat and dust making his patience wear thin. “I haven’t seen hide nor hair of my bull. Now where in hell has he wandered off to? He always liked to stay close to them cows.”

Tyree took off his hat and wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. “Still a lot of canyons and draws to search, Luke.” He settled his hat back on his head. “We’ll find him.”

“I sure hope so,” Boyd said. “And I’ll rest a lot easier when we do. I set store by that bull. A time back I read that John Slaughter down in Texas had paid five thousand dollars for a prize Hereford bull. Well, a fool and his money are soon parted I guess, because I guarantee that I bought a better animal for less than half that price.”

By eleven, after four hours of sweaty, grueling work in the growing heat of the day, Tyree and the others had counted over two hundred head. But there was as yet no sign of the bull and that rankled them all, especially Boyd.

At noon, they camped in the shade of a cottonwood by the creek, boiled coffee and broiled slices of salt pork over the fire. Lorena had packed a round of yellow cornbread and a small pot of honey. They spread the corn pone thick with honey, then ate it with the pork.

“Good vittles,” Fowler commented as he brushed crumbs from the front of his shirt. “Stick to a man’s ribs.”

Tyree nodded, smiling. “You’re right about that. Salt pork does stay with a man and it keeps on repeating itself.”

“And Lorena put a good scald on the corn pone—that’s fer sure,” Boyd said. He turned to Tyree. “How you holding up, boy?”

“My side is punishing me some, but I reckon I’ll stick.”

“Good, I’m glad you’re feeling spry, because next we start on the slot canyons. Maybe my bull is in one of them.”

“How are we going to get the cows out of the slots, Luke?” Fowler asked, laying down his book. “Those canyons are so darned narrow there’s no room for a pony to turn and not enough space to swing a cat, let alone a loop.”

Boyd answered Fowler’s question with one of his own. “How long were you in the cattle business before you was sent to the hoosegow, Owen?”

“Not long—a twelvemonth, I guess.” He thought about it. “No more’n a twelvemonth.”

Tyree built a smoke and studied Fowler. The man had the long, melancholy face and sad brown eyes of a poet, and his hands were slender, like a woman’s. He was high-shouldered, his chest narrow and sunken.

Fowler was, Tyree decided, nobody’s idea of a cattleman.

“I was working as a bank clerk over to Crooked Creek when a feller rode in with twenty head of Herefords and a Red Angus bull he was trying to sell,” Fowler said, as though his start in the ranching business needed some explanation. “Well, I was getting mighty tired of the bank, so I withdrew my savings, asked for my time and bought the herd. Cost me just about every cent I owned. Then I pushed them up Hatch Wash, looking for a place to start a ranch, and by and by, I found my canyon. Built my cabin, then had it pretty good for three, four months, until Quirt Laytham moved into the territory with his herd.” Fowler shrugged. “After that, well, you know what followed.”

“I don’t, Owen,” Tyree said. “You never did tell me what happened.” He smiled. “And feel free to tell me it’s none of my damn business.”

“Since you’ve made an enemy of Quirt Laytham on my account I guess you’re entitled to know,” Fowler said. The leaves of the cottonwood cast shifting shadows on the man’s face and his eyes lost their light, fading to a dull, expressionless black.

“We had a preacher in Crooked Creek by the name of John Kent. He was a good man, cared about folks and not only his own flock. John was a sociable man and he rode up the wash to visit with me from time to time, and we’d drink coffee and talk cattle prices and books we’d read and stuff like that.

“Then one morning, nigh on nine years ago, I woke up and found John’s body near my cabin. I knew he’d been shot in the back at close range, because his coat had caught on fire. And he’d been robbed. I was leaning over John’s body when Quirt Laytham rode in along with Nick Tobin, Len Dawson, Clem Daley and a few others.

“Tobin said they’d been out looking for John since he’d failed to return home last night after visiting with me. Then he pulled his gun on me, accused me of murder and told Dawson to go search my cabin. When Dawson came back out he was holding John’s watch and some money. Said he’d found it piled up on my table where I’d left it.

“I looked up at Laytham and he was grinning, something mighty akin to triumph in his eyes. ‘We got him, boys,’ he said. ‘We got us that man who murdered John Kent.’ ” Fowler shrugged. “You know the rest. I was found guilty and sentenced to twenty-five years at hard labor.”

“Who do you think killed Deacon Kent, Owen?” Boyd asked.

Fowler shook his head at him. “I don’t know. A drifter maybe. All I know is that it wasn’t me. I liked and respected John. He was a good man. I had no reason to murder him.”

While Fowler spoke, Luke Boyd had been whittling on a piece of fallen tree branch. He tossed the branch away, folded his knife and said, “That’s quite a story, Owen. First time I’ve heard the whole thing.” He rose to his feet. “Time to mount up, boys. We’ve a passel of slot canyons to search before nightfall.”

“You still haven’t told us how you plan on doing it, Luke,” Fowler said, also standing, carefully putting Carlyle in his back pocket.

Boyd smiled. “Owen, I knowed you hadn’t been ranching long enough to learn about slot canyons and God apples.”

“God apples are a new one on me, too, Luke,” Tyree said.

The old rancher nodded. “All right, since neither of you know, I’ll tell you about them. A few years back a puncher had himself a one-eyed hoss for sale up in the Bradshaws in the Arizona Territory. This Easterner dude asks him why the pony has only one eye. ‘Well, sir,’ the puncher says, ‘that don’t bother him none. He’s still the best cow pony in these parts.’ But the dude wouldn’t let it go. ‘What happened to his eye?’ he asks, all curious like. ‘God did it,’ the puncher says. ‘How?’ asks the dude. ‘One time that there hoss wouldn’t go in the corral an’ I cut him down with a God apple,’ says the puncher. ‘A what?’ asks the dude, real buffaloed. ‘A rock, you eejit,’ says the puncher. ‘God left them around to help us poor cowboys.’ ”

Boyd grinned. “And that’s how come that ever since punchers call rocks God apples.”

Tyree and Fowler exchanged looks, then the younger man asked, “Luke, what’s all that to do with the slot canyons?”

The rancher smiled, bent over and extended a hand to Tyree, who took it. With surprising strength, Boyd pulled the younger man to his feet. “This is how we’re going to do it, Chance. Since you’re the youngest atween us and feeling right spry again, you’re gonna get an armload of God apples and get up on the rims of those canyons. Toss your rocks into the slots and when the cattle come hightailing it out of there, me and Owen will count them.” He nodded to Fowler. “All except my bull, Owen. I plan to dab a loop on him and lead him closer to the cabin.”

Tyree grinned. “Then I guess I’d better start searching for God apples.”

“Plenty of them around, son,” Boyd said, throwing that last of the coffee on the fire. “God provides us with every blessing in abundance, the Good Book says. So get to gathering.”