Guns of the Canyonlands

Chapter 4

Fowler’s food, rough and ready as it was, had given Tyree strength. When the man left, Chance unbuttoned his bloodstained shirt and carefully examined his gunshot wound. He had no way of knowing how the one in his back looked, but when he removed the prickly pear plug the entrance wound showed no sign of infection, though it was an angry red and sore to the touch.

As far as he could tell, the bullet had gone through clean and hadn’t hit any vital organs. But how long would it be before his strength returned?

Tyree had no answer to that question, but to prove to himself that he was already on the mend, he rose unsteadily to his feet. He would scout the canyon and see how he held up.

The moon was riding high in the sky, touching the rims of a few clouds with silver, when he came on the stone foundation of Fowler’s cabin. Judging by the charred beams that were left from the roof, the cabin had been built solid, skillfully crafted to last by a man who knew carpentry and liked to use his hands.

Tyree was puzzled. Fowler had obviously planned to put down roots here, make a home for himself. Why throw it all away by murdering a well-respected preacher for his watch and the few dollars in his pockets?

The killing didn’t make any sense, and Tyree decided that when Fowler came down from the mesa come sunup he’d ask him for the whole story.

He stood in the moonlight and looked around him. The cattle had stirred, got to their feet and were now grazing, all of them Quirt Laytham’s.

Fowler said the rancher had lied about his role in the preacher’s murder. Did someone else kill John Kent, maybe a nameless saddle tramp passing through the canyon country? It could be that Kent’s death dropped like a plum into Laytham’s lap, a golden opportunity to pin the murder on Fowler and claim his land.

Tyree’s eyes lifted to the top of the mesa rising a thousand feet above the valley floor. The moonlight touched the branches of a few juniper growing near the edge and bathed the mesa’s pink-and-red walls in a pale glow.

Up there the wind would be blowing and would help Fowler keep alert. Tyree fervently hoped the man’s eyesight was better than his shooting skills. If Laytham and his men rode into the valley undetected, he and Fowler would be caught in a death trap.

The canyon grass showed signs of overgrazing, in some places worn down to bare patches of mud. If Quirt Laytham wanted to expand his empire, he’d have to push constantly for more water and grass, both hard to come by in the barren canyon country.

But there was another way—take away grass and water from those who already owned it. That had been done before in Texas and a lot of other places. From what he’d learned of Quirt Laytham, the man was ambitious enough to be capable of anything.

Tyree allowed himself a wry smile. He’d thought to ride into the canyonlands to find peace and quiet, away from guns and gunfighting men. Instead, he’d kicked over a hornet’s nest, and it seemed like every man he’d come in contact with had his stinger out and was spoiling for trouble.

Then so be it. He would give Laytham and the rest all the fight they could handle—and then some.

After making a round of the canyon, Tyree returned to the camp under the rock overhang and studied the colored drawings on the wall. Fowler had said the Utes had occasionally used this place for shelter, and he found small scraps of the finely woven baskets in which they’d stored food. There were also fragments of water jugs, made with coiled ropes of tough yucca or bear grass lined with pine pitch.

Related to the Comanche, the Utes had earned a reputation as mighty warriors with an implacable hatred of the white man. But now, like all the once mighty horse Indians, they were penned up in reservations and the passing of time was already fading the drawings they’d made. Soon those, like the Utes themselves, would be gone forever.

Suddenly weary, the bullet wound in his side seeping blood, Tyree sought his blankets and lay on his back, staring at the moon-splashed sky. The stars looked so close, he felt like he could reach up and grab a handful and let them trickle, shining like silver dollars, through his fingers.

He smiled at the thought; then, the soft cropping sound of the grazing cattle lulling him, he surrendered to sleep.

“Wake up, Tyree! We got to get out of here!”

As is the way of a man who has ridden dangerous trails, Tyree was awake instantly, every sense alert.

“What’s happening?” he asked, settling his hat on his head. “Is it Laytham?”

Fowler nodded, his dark eyes revealing his unease. “Probably Laytham. Big dust to the south, coming on fast. We have to move.”

Tyree rose to his feet, swaying from weakness and fatigue. The night was dying around him, brightening into dawn, a burnished gold sky showing to the east banded by thin streaks of dark blue cloud. There was a slight chill in the air that would soon be gone, and a faint breeze fanned his cheek.

Fowler was already tightening the cinch on the buckskin when Tyree stepped beside him. “Where are we headed?” he asked.

“North,” Fowler answered, “toward Dead Horse Point. Three, maybe four miles this side of the point, there’s a slot canyon that branches off to the east off the wash. We’ll be safe there”—a faint smile touched Fowler’s lips—“at least for a while.”

Fowler hurriedly threw what remained of his food into a sack then swung into the saddle. Tyree slipped a foot into the stirrup and climbed up behind him. He bit back a groan as the wound in his side reopened, suddenly staining his shirt with fresh blood.

“The Arapaho Kid could track a minnow through a Louisiana swamp,” Fowler said. “He’ll find us eventually and we’ll have to move again—unless . . .”

“Unless what?” Tyree asked.

“I just had a thought. But I need time to study on it some. I’ll let you know later what I decide.”

They left the canyon at a fast trot then looped north along the wash, walls of red rock rising sheer on either side of them. After ten minutes Fowler glanced over his shoulder. “They’re riding after us, Tyree. Laytham must have sent that damned Arapaho breed to check the canyon and discovered that we’d lit a shuck. Now he knows we’re right in front of him.”

Tyree turned and studied their back trail. A dust cloud was rising into the air about a quarter of a mile behind them, and judging by the way it moved, Laytham’s riders were coming on at a fast gallop.

At first the buckskin stretched out, setting a good pace. But, carrying a double load and worn out from yesterday’s long ride, the horse began to falter, its steady gait slowing.

They’d soon be caught and out here in the open they wouldn’t stand a chance.

He looked over Fowler’s shoulder to the trail ahead. Like the prow of a great ship, the wall of a dome-topped butte jutted into the wash. At its base were heaps of talus, sandstone rocks that had tumbled down from higher up the slope. The wash rounded the wall then turned sharply to its right, so that what lay beyond was hidden from Tyree’s sight.

If they had to make a stand, that was as good a place as any.

“Fowler!” Tyree yelled. “Rein up this side of the butte.”

“Why? Man, they’re almost on top of us. They’ll shoot us all to pieces.”

“Don’t argue,” Tyree snapped. “Damn it, Owen, just do it.”

Fowler pulled the buckskin to a ragged halt at the base of the butte, and Tyree clambered awkwardly off the horse’s rump. He reached out a hand to Fowler. “Give me the Henry and your canteen.”

“But you’re in no shape to—”

“The Henry!” Tyree snapped. “And the canteen. Now!”

Fowler looked down at the younger man and read something in his green eyes that chilled him. Without another word he slid the rifle from the boot under his knee and passed it, with the canteen, to Tyree.

“This is my kind of game, Fowler,” Tyree said, his drawn, tight face suddenly softened by a smile. “And, unlike you, I shoot pretty good.”

“What do you want me to do?” Fowler asked. “I can’t leave you here to face Laytham and his men alone.”

“Get round the other side of the butte,” Tyree said. “When I come a-running, be ready to fog it on out of here.”

Fowler’s eyes lifted beyond Tyree to the rising plume of dust bearing down on them. He seemed to realize that the younger man’s skill as a gunfighter was the only thing that stood between them and death, and he gathered up the reins of the buckskin.

“Tyree,” he said, “buena suerte, mi amigo.”

Tyree’s smile grew wider. “Thanks. Something tells me I’m going to need all the luck I can get.”

Tyree took up a position among the jumble of talus, his front and sides protected by slabs of sandstone rock, the steep slope of the butte behind him. He looked down the wash, his far-seeing eyes probing the distance.

The dust was much closer now, maybe only a few minutes away. Tyree levered a round into the brass chamber of the Henry and studied the land around him.

Laytham had no way to flank his position. He and his men would have to come at him along the bank of the wash. Apart from a few scattered cottonwoods, to his right there was no cover. Tyree would place his trust in the rapid fire of the Henry to break up their charge.

The sun had just begun its climb into the sky, but the morning coolness was gone and the day was already hot. Tyree felt weak and light-headed, and sweat prickled the grazed skin of his neck. He took off his hat and laid the back of his head on the slope of the butte, his burning, red-rimmed eyes closing. It would be so easy to drift into sleep. . . .

The drum of hammering hooves on the bank of the wash jolted Tyree back to wakefulness. A dozen men were riding toward him at a breakneck gallop, a big, handsome man in a black broadcloth suit and flowered vest in the lead.

Now was not the time for carefully aimed fire. Tyree had to shoot fast to break up Laytham’s charge and turn back his oncoming riders.

Rising to his feet, he threw the Henry to his shoulder and cranked off four quick rounds. The results of his firing were devastating.

Hit hard, a man yelled, threw up his arms and toppled backward off his horse. A big sorrel in the lead went down, throwing its rider. Coming on fast, another horse crashed into the fallen animal’s flailing hooves and it too tumbled, cartwheeling headfirst into the ground. Its rider, a man in a black hat and black-and-white cowhide vest, screamed as he fell under the horse and the saddle horn crashed into his chest.

Tyree fired at the man in the broadcloth suit, guessing he was Laytham. A miss. Now their trailing dust cloud had caught up with the riders, shrouding them in a shifting, swirling yellow fog.

“Back!” somebody, probably Laytham, yelled. “Damn it, get back!”

His blood up, Tyree fired rapidly into the dust, at the wild tangle of bucking horses and cursing men. He thought he saw another man jerk from the impact of a bullet, then Laytham’s riders were heading back the way they’d come, the thick dust that roiled around them making further shooting useless.

Tyree lowered the rifle and a grim smile touched his lips. Quirt Laytham had thought this was going to be easy, twelve against two—one of them wounded and maybe dying, the other a man who couldn’t shoot. Instead he’d sure enough grabbed a cougar by the tail.

At least three of his men were dead or wounded, and a third, the man in the cowhide vest, was pinned under his horse, gasping out his life, his face ashen.

As the dust settled, Tyree saw that Laytham and the others had drawn out of rifle range. They were milling around, as though uncertain of what to do next. They’d been badly burned and didn’t seem overly anxious to mount another charge.

Tyree turned as Fowler stepped beside him. The man’s eyes scanned the destruction Tyree had wrought and he whistled between his teeth. “You sure played hob,” he said.

“They’ll be back,” Tyree said, a sudden weariness in him. “And next time they’ll be more careful. From what I’ve been told about Laytham, he’s not a man to quit so easily.”

Fowler dug into the pocket of his threadbare coat and gave Tyree a handful of .44 shells. He watched as the younger man fed them into the Henry, then asked, “You think maybe this is a good time for us to make tracks?”

Tyree shook his head. “They’d only take out after us, and if they catch us in the open without cover, we’re dead.” He smiled and lightly tapped the Henry. “When Laytham makes up his mind to come this way again, I aim to discourage him for good. I want to make damn sure that old dog is done hunting before we fog it on out of here.”

“He won’t charge us next time,” Fowler said, so low and soft it was like he was talking only to himself. “He’ll maybe send the Arapaho Kid. That breed can move like a ghost.” He turned to Tyree. “You look like hell, by the way.”

“Thanks,” Tyree said. “And I feel worse than I look. I reckon I’d have to be three days dead before I’d start to feel better.”

“You want me to stay close?” Fowler asked.

Tyree shook his head. “No, go back to the horse. Like I told you before, if I come running, just be ready to hightail it out of here.”

“Suit yourself,” Fowler said. He dug into a pocket again and passed Tyree a chunk of antelope jerky. “It isn’t tasty, but it will keep you going.”

After Fowler was gone, Tyree chewed on the tough jerky and studied the open ground in front of him. Laytham and his men had drawn off about a half-mile along the wash, taking refuge behind a jutting outcrop of sandstone rock. Judging by all the shouting that was going on, they were arguing among themselves about their next course of action.

Most of these men were the same stamp as Len Dawson and Clem Daley, riders hired for their gun skills, their loyalty stretching only as far as next pay-day. They’d been badly shot up by a skilled rifleman and no longer seemed eager for the fight.

Tyree smiled as he built himself a smoke. He’d never been a soldier, but he’d learned enough about tactics over the years to know that attacking an entrenched enemy along a narrow front was always a losing proposition.

He calculated that right about now Quirt Laytham must be fuming, and the thought pleased him immensely.

Tyree thumbed a match into flame and lit his cigarette. He pushed the Henry out in front of him and waited. When would Laytham renew the attack? That question was answered less than ten minutes later.

A bullet hit a rock near where Tyree was crouched, splattering stinging splinters into his cheek. A second thudded into the butte above his head and a third smashed into the Henry, sending it flying from its place on the rock.

Tyree stretched out and picked up the rifle—and his shocked eyes beheld a disaster. The shot, luckier than most, had badly mangled the magazine tube close to the chamber.

He swore under his breath. The rifle would shoot the round under the hammer, but the chances were that it would not feed a second. Without the Henry, he was as good as dead and Fowler with him. It was not a thought to comfort a man.

Tyree scanned the bank of the wash and saw a flash of metal behind a cottonwood about a hundred yards away. Laytham’s men were coming at him on foot, using whatever cover they could find.

Drawing a bead on the cottonwood, Tyree waited. A few slow seconds ticked past, then he saw a man in a blue flannel shirt step out from behind the tree, his Winchester coming up fast.

Tyree fired at the same time as the Laytham rider. The man jerked under the impact of the Henry’s .44 bullet and his rifle spun away from him. Clutching a shattered and bloody shoulder he turned and, crouched over, stumbled away, his face white with shock.

Lead whined off a rock in front of Tyree as he worked the lever of the Henry. To his relief, he heard a reassuring clink-clunk as the bent and dented loading tube fed a round. But would it feed another?

There was no time to ponder that question. A man was working his way along the canyon wall toward him, a second close behind. Both were carrying Winchesters and were stepping warily, their eyes on Tyree’s position.

Tyree sighted on the man in the lead. He took a breath, held it and squeezed the trigger. His bullet hit the tobacco sack tag hanging over the man’s shirt pocket dead center. The Laytham rider spun, then slammed against the mesa wall. He slid to a sitting position, his head lolling loose on his shoulders, dead before he hit the ground.

The second man fired a wild shot that split the air above Tyree’s head; then he was running, looking back fearfully over his shoulder.

“Five down, seven to go,” Tyree whispered to himself, his smile a grim, tight line. He tried to crank the Henry, but the lever jammed halfway on a mangled round.

The damaged rifle was useless.

Weak as he was, the side of his shirt glistening with blood, Tyree knew Laytham and his surviving men were still dangerous and capable of mounting another attack.

He had to find a replacement rifle and fast. The trouble was, the guns were out there . . . with the dead.