conceded that he had just spent one of the most pleasant nights of his life.
But that mood vanished come the dawn, when he rose and went down to the creek to wash . . . and Luke Boyd told him that Sally was gone.
“She laid the two dresses I gave her out on her bed and left me a little thank-you note,” Lorena said, as Tyree and Boyd drank coffee in the cabin.
“Anything else?” Tyree asked. “Did she say where she was headed?”
“No,” Lorena answered. “Just a thank-you and nothing more.”
Tyree gazed into his coffee cup, feeling a knot of emotion in his belly. He had grown to like Sally, and now he feared for her. She would try to track down Luther Darcy and kill him. But she was no match for the gunman, either in skill or in cunning.
Lorena broke into Tyree’s thoughts. “Women don’t keep secrets from each other for long, Chance,” she said. “I know why Sally came to the canyonlands.”
Tyree’s head jerked up in surprise. “She told you?”
“Yes, she told me about her brother’s death and her hunt for Luther Darcy.”
Tyree was not anxious to reopen unhealed wounds, but what had to be said had to be said. “Did Sally tell you that Darcy works for Quirt Laytham?”
Lorena’s chin lifted defiantly. “Yes, yes, she did, and that’s why I’m going to talk to Quirt today. I’m going to demand that he give Darcy his time and send him packing.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
Lorena shook her head. “That won’t happen. Quirt wants to marry me and he’ll do anything I ask.”
“Lorena has a point, Chance,” Boyd said. “Ol’ Quirt sure is sweet on her. It isn’t likely he’ll refuse her anything.”
Tyree rose to his feet. “You do as you please, Lorena. But in the meantime I’m going to look for Sally and try to keep her away from Darcy.”
“Chance, I’m also going to do something else. I’ll ask Quirt to talk to you and see if we can get rid of the bad blood between you two.”
A small sadness in him, Tyree looked at the girl, her beauty so dazzling it caused him a sweet pain. “Don’t waste your efforts, Lorena,” he said. “I’ll deal with Laytham in my own way and my own time.”
Anger flared in the girl. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, then why don’t you just leave? You’ve caused nothing but trouble since Owen Fowler brought you here.”
“Lorena,” Boyd said mildly, his eyes lifting to his daughter, “Chance is my guest. I’ll be the one to tell him to leave, not you.”
Slowly the angry red stain drained from Lorena’s cheeks. “I’m sorry, Pa. It’s just that some people around here are so . . . so pigheaded.” She grabbed her hat and riding crop from the rack. “I’m going to talk to Quirt. At least
The girl stormed outside, and a few moments later Tyree heard the hammer of her horse’s galloping hooves recede into the distance.
Tyree’s mood of last night had now totally gone, the memory of it extinguished, and cold gray ashes of regret were all that remained. He turned to Boyd. “Luke, you think Lorena really loves Laytham?”
The old rancher shrugged, his face unreadable. “Son, I don’t know who Lorena really loves.”
The way Tyree figured it, Sally Brennan could be in one of two places—Crooked Creek, or staking out Quirt Laytham’s ranch. At either location she had a good chance of running into Luther Darcy.
He made a decision and headed the steeldust toward Crooked Creek. By what he’d heard from others, Darcy was work shy, a trait shared by most hired guns, and by all accounts spent more time in Bradley’s saloon than he did at the Rafter-L.
Laytham’s cows were spread out along both sides of Hatch Wash, even farther north than before, and all were in excellent shape. On a whim, Tyree turned into Owen Fowler’s canyon, and saw more of Laytham’s Herefords.
It seemed like the man was moving herds into the entire country and Tyree wondered how long it would be before small ranchers like Luke Boyd and Steve Lassiter were pushed out as Laytham expanded all the way north to Moab, and maybe beyond. Grass and water were at a premium in this magnificent but barren country. Laytham needed grass—and both Boyd and Lassiter were sitting on a lot of it.
Crooked Creek lay drowsing in the afternoon heat when Tyree rode to the livery stable. An old-timer in denim overalls and a straw hat was sitting on a bench outside the stable and Tyree reined up close to him.
“Howdy,” Tyree said. “You new here?”
The man lifted faded brown eyes to the young rider then spat a string of tobacco juice. “Right back at ya, howdy your ownself. And, no, I’m not new here. I been laid up for a few weeks with the rheumatism, is all. Couldn’t leave my cabin, an’ that was surely hard on me on account of I’m what you might call a watching man.”
“Well, watching man, I’m looking for a girl, maybe seventeen years old, yellow hair, stands a couple of inches over five feet.”
“Hell, mister, ain’t we all,” the old man said.
Tyree smiled. “She might be sleeping in your hayloft.”
The old-timer shook his head. “Ain’t nobody like that up there. Trust me, I’d know if a gal like the one you’re asking about was sleeping here.”
“You seen Luther Darcy in town?” Tyree asked, taking a different tack.
“No, I haven’t seen him and I don’t want to see him either,” the old man answered. “That one is pure pizen.”
Tyree touched fingers to his hat and swung the steeldust away. “Obliged to you.”
“Stop by anytime,” the oldster said. “I don’t get much comp’ny around here, yellow-haired females or otherwise.”
There were a couple of cow ponies outside Bradley’s, both with Rafter-L brands, and Tyree slipped the thong off his Colt before he stepped inside.
At first the bartender, the man Tobin had called Benny, seemed surprised to see him, but then his face screwed into an ugly scowl. “What the hell are you doing here?” he asked. “Luther Darcy told you to stay away.”
Tyree ignored the man and studied the two Laytham riders who were propping up the bar. Both were young, and had a wild, reckless look about them, their guns worn low on the thigh, handy to get at and not for show. Both were dressed in worn range clothes. The taller of the two wore a long, canvas duster.
Satisfied that the men presented no immediate threat, Tyree turned to the bartender again. “I’m looking for a girl who was in here drinking a few nights ago. Blond gal, name’s Sally Brennan.”
“Haven’t seen her since,” the bartender said. “Whores like that come and go.”
Tyree smiled. He was still smiling when he reached across the bar, grabbed the man by the front of his shirt and backhanded him hard across the face.
“Mister,” Tyree said, his voice level, without a trace of anger, “I don’t know where you come from, but out here we don’t talk about womenfolk like that.”
A trickle of blood ran from the bartender’s nose and his eyes were blazing. He reached up and grabbed Tyree’s wrist in a huge right hand, squeezing hard, trying to loosen Tyree’s grip.
For a few moments, the two men wrestled in silence. Benny, a strong, powerful man, was using his right against Tyree’s left, but he could not budge the younger man’s fist clenched in his shirt, feeling the steel in him.
The bartender’s face slowly changed, the color draining from his cheeks as he realized he was badly overmatched. Finally he dropped his hand, and Tyree pushed the man away from him, sending Benny sprawling backward into the bar, glasses and bottles crashing to the floor.
The two Laytham men had watched the whole thing with a growing interest, but neither made an attempt to intervene. The one in the duster grinned and said to the bartender, “How’s it feel to come off second best, huh,
