“When did you last eat?” Tyree asked, an amused smile touching his lips.
Sally shrugged. “I don’t recollect. It was a spell back.”
She watched Tyree build a smoke and asked, “Will you make me one of those?”
Tyree shook his head. “No. Tobacco will stunt your growth.”
“Didn’t do that to you.”
“Maybe I was lucky.”
Since the morning was well advanced, there were no other diners in the restaurant. Tyree leaned closer to the girl. “How long have you been hunting Luther Darcy?”
“A year, maybe a little more.”
“How did it happen? With your brother, I mean.”
Sally dipped the tip of her middle finger into a small puddle of molasses syrup on her plate and licked the finger clean. “My folks had a hardscrabble ranch just south of the Platte in the Wyoming Territory, but when I was six years old they were both took by the cholera. My brother, Tom, was barely twelve at the time, but he kept the place going and he raised me—well, him and an old hired hand who passed on a couple of years ago.”
The girl leaned forward in her chair. “Mister, you sure you want to hear all this? It ain’t like we’re kin or anything.”
Tyree smiled. “The name’s Chance, and, yes, I want to hear about it. It seems to me we share a common enemy, and that’s kin enough.”
“Well, Chance, about eighteen months ago there was a sight of rustling along the Platte and the local cattleman’s association hired Darcy as a range detective—just a fancy name for a hired killer.
“About then, Tom rode into Cheyenne trying to get a bank loan to tide us over until we sold our herd. Tom had just bought a paint pony from the Rocking J ranch, off a man called Bill Hardesty, a mighty important member of the association. Darcy saw Tom in the street and accused him of stealing the horse and pushed him into going for his gun. Tom hadn’t even cleared leather when Darcy shot him.” Small tears reddened Sally’s eyes. “I was told my brother died a few minutes later, cursing Darcy and all he stood for.”
“And you’ve been tracking Darcy ever since?”
“Uh-huh. I sold the ranch for what I could get, and that was little enough, then tracked Darcy all over the territory but never got close enough to get a shot at him. Then I heard he’d moved south to Salt Lake City. I followed him there but lost him again. Finally a couple of punchers in Moab told me a gun-slinger by the name of Darcy was working for a big rancher near Crooked Creek.
“I followed him here, got in yesterday. And you know the rest.”
Tyree crushed out his cigarette butt in the ashtray and refilled Sally’s coffee cup. “How come you tied one on last night?”
“I was hurting and it eased the pain.”
“Of your brother’s death?”
Sally shook her head. Suddenly her eyes were old and her voice dropped to a husky whisper. “No, that pain I’ll have always. This is another pain, sharper and a lot more agonizing, a pain I’ve had spiking at me for a twelvemonth because I want to kill Luther Darcy so bad. I plan to look into his eyes as he dies and laugh and see the fear in them. I hate him and I want revenge and that’s a festering sore no doctor can heal. With all the hatred that’s inside me, my life has become a hell. For every hour I hate, I lose sixty minutes of happiness, but there’s no going back from it.” The girl tried to smile. “With Tom gone, there’s only me, so I have it to do.”
Sally picked up her coffee cup with both hands and held it close to her lips. “And what about you, Chance Tyree. Who is this Quirt Laytham? And do you have a pain inside you?”
“I never thought about it in those terms,” Tyree answered, his face troubled. “But, yes, I guess I do.”
Tyree told Sally about being hanged and shot, then about Owen Fowler and finally Luke Boyd and Lorena.
When he finished speaking, the girl leaned back in her chair and smiled. “We’re a pair then, aren’t we? We live with hate and it’s eating away at us like a cancer. How about this girl, Lorena Boyd? Is she beautiful?”
“Very.”
“Do you love her?”
Tyree hesitated for just a moment, surprised at the girl’s question. But, with a woman’s perception, Sally read his face. “You’re unsure, aren’t you?”
“Yes, maybe I am. Quirt Laytham stands between us.”
“And when you kill him?”
“Then his ghost will stand between us.”
Sally rose. “I’d say that’s a no-win situation, Chance Tyree. Well, it’s been nice talking with you, but I have to be going.”
“Where?”
The girl shrugged. “I don’t know. Around I guess.”
“You’d better come back with me to Luke Boyd’s place. I’m sure you’ll be made welcome.”
Sally hesitated, uncertain, and Tyree said: “I can’t leave you here with Luther Darcy in town. Now he knows you’re after him he’ll be on his guard and he’ll kill you any way he can.”
“Darcy doesn’t want to kill me,” the girl said. “At least not right away. I saw that much in his eyes back at the livery stable. He wants something else. Maybe he nurses a sick fantasy about ravishing the sister of a man he murdered. I don’t know.”
“That settles it then, Sally,” Tyree said. “We’ll get your horse. You’re coming with me.”
The girl nodded. “I’ll go along with that at least for now. But just so you know, Chance—if I come with you you’ll be borrowing my trouble. Big trouble.”
Tyree smiled. “I guess I can handle it.”
“Just so you know,” Sally said.
Chapter 14
The day was shading into evening when Tyree rode up to Boyd’s cabin. The old rancher immediately burst through the door and seemed genuinely pleased to see him. He looked at Sally, taking in her shabby clothes and the rifle under her knee. “And who might this young lady be?”
Tyree smiled. “Just a maverick passing through. Her name’s Sally Brennan. She’s flat broke and needs a place to stay and I thought about you.”
“Of course she can stay!”
Lorena stepped out of the cabin and gave the girl a dazzling smile. “You can stay here as long as you like, Sally. It’s been ages since I had another woman to talk to.”
Sally smiled in return and swung out of the saddle. “Thank you. I could sure use a bath and somewhere soft to sleep. I’ve been lying on rocks or straw for months.”
For a brief moment Lorena’s eyes caught and held Tyree’s, both of them aware of the uneasy truce that lay between them. She had not asked him how he’d met the girl, but he knew that would come later.
Lorena fussed over Sally and led her into the cabin. When they were gone, a grinning Boyd studied Tyree, his left eyebrow rising in a question.
“It’s not what you think, Luke. Like I said, she’s passing through and needed help.”
Boyd nodded, but seemed unconvinced. “Whatever you say, Chance.” The grin died on his lips and his face became somber. “You catch up with the Arapaho Kid?”
“Yes, I did.”
Tyree swung off the steeldust and Boyd said, “Well?”
A few moments passed before Tyree answered, the old rancher’s question dangling in the air. Finally he said, “The Kid won’t be murdering anyone else.”
Boyd grinned. “You kill him?”
“No,” Tyree answered. “I smashed up his hands. As long as he lives he’ll never be able to shuck a gun again.”
“You . . . you broke his hands?”
