“I told you, Daley,” Tyree said. “This is not your day. But if you want to take a hand in this, shuck off my coat. I don’t want your blood all over it.”
“Damn you, Tyree. I’ll—”
“Leave it be, Clem,” the Kid said, his smile razor thin. He reached out, retrieved his cigar and stuck it in the corner of his mouth. His right hand, slender and well manicured as a woman’s, hovered near his belt buckle. “This one’s all mine. I enjoy killing a man for breakfast.”
The Arapaho Kid grabbed for the Colt in his cross-draw holster—but Tyree, expecting the move, did the last thing the gunman expected. He made no attempt to draw.
Shifting position fast, he stepped into the Kid and pinned the man’s gun hand with his left as it closed on the butt of his gun. His right fist crashed into the Kid’s face and Tyree felt the man’s nose smash under his knuckles. The Kid dropped his gun and let out a bubbling scream, but Tyree was merciless. He backhanded the gunman across the face then held him upright to take a hard left. The Kid’s lips pulped against his teeth, and his knees buckled. Tyree took a half step back and as the man fell he slammed a powerful uppercut to the Kid’s chin. The gunman staggered back, then crashed to the floor. He lay on his back, his left leg twitching, and did not get up.
For a few moments the other men at the bar froze, trying to make sense of what they’d just witnessed. Then Daley hurled a wild curse at Tyree and went for his gun. He still hadn’t cleared leather when he found himself looking into the muzzle of Tyree’s Colt.
“That’s it. I’m done!” Daley screamed, his eyes popping out of his head. He let his gun drop and it thudded onto the floor.
The three others at the bar, bad actors all, had the wild, reckless look of men who were thinking about auditioning for parts in the play.
But Tyree’s cold command stopped them. “Call off your dogs, Daley, or I’ll gut shoot you right where you stand.”
“You heard the man. Back off!” Daley shrieked. The big deputy was almost frantic with fear, knowing how close he stood to a bullet in the belly.
The others reluctantly lifted their hands clear of their guns, and one of them, a lantern-jawed man in a butternut shirt, asked, “Clem, you sure this is how you want it?”
“Yes, damn it,” Daley yelped. “Step away from it.”
“Daley,” Tyree said, no give in him, “take off my coat and lay it on the bar.”
The deputy hesitated and Tyree yelled, “Do it now!”
His face gray, Daley quickly peeled off the coat and did as he was told.
“Take me a month to get your stink out of that,” Tyree said. He leaned down and grabbed the Kid by the back of his shirt collar; then his eyes lifted to Daley again. “Where’s my dun?” he asked. “And my Colt.”
“They ain’t here, honest,” Daley said. “I took your hoss and the guns to the Rafter-L.”
“Daley, I plan on staying in town tonight,” Tyree said. “Come first light tomorrow morning I want to see that dun standing outside the hotel. I want my gun and belt hanging from the saddle horn. You got that?”
The big deputy touched his tongue to dry lips. He was badly frightened. With the Arapaho Kid out of it, no longer there to back his play, he felt naked and alone.
“Sure, anything you say,” Daley said.
“Now you and the others get on your ponies and ride out of here,” Tyree said. “I don’t want to have to be always watching my back.”
Tyree strolled outside the saloon door until Daley and the other Laytham riders mounted up and left town, the big deputy in the lead, slapping his horse with the reins until it stretched its neck and its legs blurred into a flat-out run.
When Tyree stepped back inside, the bartender asked, nodding toward the still unconscious Arapaho Kid, “What about him?”
“He killed a friend of mine,” Tyree said. “But I reckon his days as a shooter of unarmed men are about to come to a permanent close.”
“You gonna kill the Kid?” the bartender asked, his face shocked.
Tyree nodded. “Something like that.”
“Mister,” the bartender protested, “there ain’t nothing like that.”
“Maybe so,” Tyree said. “But there’s worse.”
He hauled the Kid outside and, as a curious crowd gathered, dragged him by the collar of his shirt to the horse trough near the hitching rail. Tyree repeatedly dunked the gunman’s head into the water, each time leaving it there until the man began to frantically kick and struggle and bubbles rose to the surface.
Finally Tyree forced the Kid to his knees. Then he bent and looked into his face, their noses only inches apart. “You awake now, Kid?” he asked through gritted teeth. “I want you to know exactly what’s happening to you, every last part of it.”
Blood ran in watery fingers from the gunman’s nose over his mouth and chin, but his face was dark and ugly with anger. “I’ll kill you for this, Tyree,” he snarled. “By God, I’ll gun you first chance I get.”
Tyree smiled and shook his head. “Kid, your killing days ended when you murdered Owen Fowler.” Tyree pulled the gunman to his feet and spun him around. He shoved his hand into the Kid’s pocket and found what he’d been looking for—four shiny new double eagles.
Tyree turned the man again and shoved the coins under the Kid’s smashed nose. “Four of these in your pocket and one on the bar in the saloon,” he said, his eyes hard, each breath short and harsh. “Is that what Laytham considered Owen Fowler’s life was worth, huh? A lousy hundred dollars?”
“You go to hell!” the Kid snapped.
Tyree viciously backhanded the gunman across the face. “Was it?” he yelled. “Was Owen worth only a hundred dollars?”
The Kid’s face was a bloody mess and he was struggling to breathe. “A bonus,” he gasped. “It was a bonus.”
“For murdering Owen Fowler?”
“Yeah, yeah, for Fowler.”
The Arapaho Kid’s right hand dropped for the gun on his hip. But Tyree saw it coming and slapped the hand aside. He yanked the Kid’s Colt from the holster and shoved it into his own waistband.
“You’re a sorry piece of low-life trash, Kid,” Tyree said, his voice suddenly level and chillingly calm. “Now I’m going to make sure you never kill another unarmed man.”
Judged by the standards of a later era, what followed next was brutal, savage and merciless. But it is wise for a man to hesitate to judge the conduct of Western men lest he fall into the common error of condemning what he does not understand. Chance Tyree lived at a violent time in a violent land and justice as he understood it was swift, certain and tailored to fit the crime.
Tyree dragged the kicking, yelling Arapaho Kid to the hitching rail and laid the gunman’s manicured, pampered right hand on the rough pine of the cross post. He pulled the Kid’s Colt from his waistband, held it by the barrel and, with the butt, smashed the hand into a pulp of blood, gristle and splintered bone.
Ignoring the Kid’s screams and the cries of the crowd for Sheriff Tobin, he did the same thing with the Kid’s left. And when it was over, he stepped back and looked down with cold eyes at the whimpering gunman, who was bent over on his knees, his ruined hands held close to his belly, rocking back and forth.
No backup in him, and no compassion either, Tyree said, “You’d best find yourself another line of work, Kid. I’d say your days as a hired gun are over.”
He grabbed the Kid by the back of his collar and pushed him toward his horse. “Now ride, and if I ever see you in the canyon country again, I’ll kill you.”
The Kid staggered to his horse, his pain-filled face ashen and scared. He wanted to get away from here, as far away as possible from the tall, relentless man with eyes the color of cold green death.
After several attempts, the Kid finally swung into the saddle and he kneed his horse forward. The big bartender from Bradley’s stood on the boardwalk. He threw Tyree a look of hatred, and called out to the Kid, “Hey, Kid, you want my shotgun?”
The Arapaho Kid gave the bartender a sidelong glance and gasped, “You go to hell.”
He kicked his horse into a lope and headed out of town. Tyree watched him leave until horse and rider were
