Guns of the Canyonlands

Chapter 22

Six dead men were scattered around the ranch, and Tyree and Sally spent the rest of that day burying them. It was hard, grueling work that involved dragging the bodies well away from the cabin and digging graves deep enough to discourage coyotes.

One horse was dead, and Tyree dragged the carcass behind the powerful black to the mouth of a canyon where he left it to be taken care of by scavengers. On the plus side, he and Sally had acquired five good horses and enought weapons and ammunition to start a small war. Tyree also relieved two of the dead of their tobacco and papers, necessity overcoming any squeamishness he might have felt on the matter.

Later, as the day died around them, he and Sally sat by the fire drinking coffee, lost in their own thoughts.

The men on whom Tyree had planned to take his revenge were now all dead, and their passing had left a void inside him that he had no idea how to fill. As he sat and watched the firelight play in Sally’s hair, touching each curl with burnished gold, he made a vow—as long as he lived, he would never hate another man. To hate a man as he had hated Quirt Laytham was to walk in darkness, never again to see the light. He had lived long with his hate and the older it got, the tighter it became until it gripped his gut like a fist holding a stick.

Now Laytham was gone, but Tyree found he could take no joy in his death.

But perhaps there was a path to the light, a way to remove the emptiness inside him . . . replace the hate he’d felt with another, more tender emotion.

He reached out and ran the back of his forefinger down Sally’s cheek. The girl smiled and inclined her head, trapping Tyree’s hand between her neck and shoulder. They sat that way for a long while as the coyotes called in the distance and the guttering fire made its small sound in the gathering darkness.

At first light, Tyree rose from his bed in the barn and filled the coffeepot with water from the creek. He built up the fire and placed the pot on the coals to boil.

Sally had heard him stir, and now she stepped beside him, looking impossibly fresh and pretty, despite the few stray straws in her hair.

Anticipating her question, Tyree said, “I’m riding to the Rafter-L. I have to tell Lorena about her father.” He hesitated a few moments, then added, “And hear what she has to say about Quirt Laytham’s murder.”

“Do you think she’ll accuse you?” Sally asked.

Tyree shrugged. “I don’t know. I hope she was around me long enough to realize that I’m not a bushwhacker. But there’s no telling how she’ll react. Could be when I tell her what Len Dawson said she’ll change her mind about Laytham, although I’m not counting on it. What is a lowlife like Dawson’s word to Lorena, or anybody else come to that?”

“He was dying when he told us about Laytham killing the preacher,” Sally pointed out. “Don’t dying men always tell the truth?”

His face bleak, Tyree said, “I’ve heard dying men lie, right up until they took their last breath. Lorena will have no reason to believe me, but I’ve got to try.”

“I’ll come with you,” Sally said. “I like Lorena and I think she likes me. I’m sure she’ll listen when I tell her you’d nothing to do with her intended’s death.”

Tyree nodded. “I’m hoping she will. As it is, she’ll take the news about Luke real hard and coming on top of what happened to Laytham. . . . Well, who knows how she’s going to react.”

The girl hesitated, thinking about what she had to say, then managed finally, “Chance, Luther Darcy could be at the ranch.”

“I thought about that, Sally. But if he is, let me deal with him. Him and me, we’re in the same business—the gunfighting business—and it’s only a question of who between us learned his trade better.”

“Chance,” Sally said, “I’ll take a shot at Darcy if I can. I haven’t let go of a thing.”

There was no point in arguing and Tyree knew it. He took the pot from the fire. “Ready for coffee?” he asked.

The night shadows were washing out of the canyons, and the mesas and ridges stood out sharp and clear in the morning light as Sally and Tyree rode away from the cabin toward the Laytham ranch, following a route Lorena had once described to him.

They rode for most of the morning through the wild country. Around them lay a vast, endless maze of winding canyons, craggy ridges and red-and-yellow mesas, one layer of rock piled on another, each a little smaller than the one before, like a tiered wedding cake. The air of the new day, still free of dust, smelled fresh and clean. They rode by a couple of deer, then a small herd of pronghorn antelope grazing under a cottonwood by a slow-moving creek, their heads buried to the ears in dark green grass.

The sun was almost directly overhead in a cloudless sky when Sally and Tyree topped a low lava ridge and saw the Rafter-L spread out in a wide valley below them.

The ranch was dominated by a white-painted, two-story frame house with a veranda wrapped around three sides and a spectacular backyard view of a towering mesa. To the right and left of the main house were stables, a blacksmith’s forge and other buildings, including an extensive bunkhouse, all of them well maintained. A couple of roofed artesian wells, shaded by trees, provided cool water, adding a reliable supply to the rushing spring that ran just to the north of the property.

Whatever Quirt Laytham had been, he knew ranching and he hadn’t stinted on hard work, as his place testified.

Tyree rode down the slope of the ridge, Sally following close behind. They reined up in the yard in front of the house, the eerie silence of the place enveloping them. Nothing stirred, not even the wind, and the door to the bunkhouse stood open, some scattered scraps of clothing lying in the dirt outside as though the occupants had left in a hurry.

“Hello the house!” Tyree called out.

He was answered with a hushed, uneasy quiet.

“There’s nobody to home,” Sally said, her voice sounding very small in the oppressive silence. “Maybe they’re all attending Laytham’s funeral.”

“Could be,” Tyree agreed. He looked around him, wondering what to do next. He was an uninvited stranger here and couldn’t very well go barging into the house.

Then he and Sally heard it at the same time . . . the slow, steady beat of a muffled drum. The noise seemed to come from the cookhouse, a small cabin with an iron chimney built for convenience sake near the bunkhouse. But no smoke rose from the stove inside, and, like the one to the bunkhouse, the door stood ajar.

The drumming stopped for a few moments, then started up again, a slow, cadenced Thud! Thud! Thud!

“Wait here, Sally,” Tyree said. “I’m going to take a look-see.”

He felt no sense of impending danger, but he eased the Colt in his waistband, bringing it closer to hand should he have to draw in a hurry.

Tyree walked his horse to the cookhouse, looking around him. No one was in sight, and this at a time when the ranch should have been bustling with activity, the smith’s hammer clanging, riders coming and going, the ranch cook busily preparing the hands’ lunchtime beef and beans.

And where was Lorena?

As he swung out of the saddle, the drumming, which had stopped momentarily, began again. But this time there were only a few beats, then the drum fell once again into silence.

As Tyree remembered, ranch cooks were often a bad-tempered bunch, notoriously touchy about anyone entering their domain uninvited. He stopped outside the door and asked, “Anybody to home?”

A second or two passed; then a weak voice from inside whispered, “I’m in here.”

Tyree stepped inside, and once his eyes became accustomed to the gloom, he saw a man lying on his back on the floor. Blood was congealed on the pine boards around the fallen cook, the white apron around his waist stained a rusty red. What looked to be a wooden washtub had fallen at the man’s left foot, and he hit it with the toe of his shoe. The tub gave off a dull thud. “Knew if I kept this up long enough, somebody would eventually come looking,” he said.

Kneeling beside the cook, Tyree asked: “What happened?”

“Hell, that’s easy to see, even for a puncher,” the cook snapped. “I’ve been shot through and through.”

“Who shot you?” Tyree asked.

“Is it bad?” the cook asked, ignoring Tyree’s question.

Quickly Tyree untied the man’s apron and looked at his wound.

“Well, is it bad?”

Tyree nodded. “Yeah, as bad as it gets. You’ve been gut-shot.”

“Thought so,” the cook muttered. “Paining me considerable.” His eyes sought those of Tyree in the dimness of the cabin. “Been bad around here recently. Luther Darcy showed up real early this morning before first light. Killed one of the hands who stood up to him and ran the rest off. Miss Lorena, she came down wearing only her nightgown and tried to get them boys to stay, but they lit out just the same, said she couldn’t pay them enough to face Darcy.” The cook coughed, a rush of blood staining his lips. “Can’t say as I blame them.”

“Darcy do this to you?” Tyree asked.

The man shook his head. “Nah, even Luther Darcy knows good cooks are hard to replace. He had me pour him some coffee after the killing, but he didn’t offer me no harm. He stayed awhile, back-talked Miss Lorena, and then rode out of here.”

“Then who—”

“Nick Tobin.”

Tyree was stunned. “Sheriff Tobin shot you?”

“After Darcy left, maybe an hour before you showed up, he stepped in here and asked me who was to home. I said only me and Miss Lorena, and as soon as I got the words out, without even a howdy-do, he shucked his pistol and shot me. Then he walked away mighty fast toward the house.”

Alarm clamoring at him, Tyree asked, “Where is Lorena?”

“Still at the house I guess,” the cook said. “Leastways she didn’t come a-running after she heard the shot that’s done killed me.”

Tyree rose to his feet. “Stay here,” he said. “I’ll be back.”

“Hell, I ain’t goin’ no place,” the cook said.

Tyree sprinted for the house, ignored Sally’s shouted question and bounded up the stairs of the veranda to the front door. He tried the handle, but it had been locked from the outside.

Fear sliding into his belly like a knife blade, he raised his boot and kicked the door. Once, twice, then it crashed inward, splintering wood from around the lock. Behind him he heard Sally’s bewildered yell, “Chance, what are you doing?”

But he didn’t take time to answer. He ran into the house and called out, “Lorena, where are you?”

The house was silent, but for the slow, stately tick of a grandfather clock standing in the hallway.

There were several rooms opening off the hall, and Tyree entered all of them. One was a parlor, another a dining room, both expensively and ornately furnished in the accepted mode of the time, but Tyree took no time to admire the decor.

Lorena had to be upstairs, maybe hurt.

Taking the steps two at a time, Tyree ran up the winding staircase and when he reached the landing he hollered again, “Lorena!”

There was no answer.

Tyree tried a bedroom. It was a man’s room, no doubt Laytham’s, but it was empty. He tried another room off the long hallway. That too was empty. The door to the remaining room was slightly ajar. Tyree pulled his Colt and walked on cat feet to the door, the gun upraised and ready. He pushed the door wide, slamming it hard against the wall, then stepped inside—into a scene of unimaginable horror.