so much dust it was impossible to pick out individual riders. But Tyree had no doubt that Tobin was among them, and likely Laytham and Luther Darcy.
Tyree turned to Sally, a smile on his lips. “Well, as of right now it, looks like I’m still being hunted, so where do we go from here?”
“Do you think Darcy is down there among those riders?” Sally asked.
“It’s likely. After I told Laytham he had to get out of the territory or be destroyed, he wants me dead real bad. Darcy is his man, his finger looking for a trigger.”
Sally was silent for a few moments, deep in thought. Then she said, “Chance, when they don’t find you they’ll probably go back to Crooked Creek and head for the saloon. That’s where Darcy will be, and that’s where I’m going.”
Tyree was aware of the dangers that awaited him in Crooked Creek, but he could not step back and allow Sally to go there by herself.
Now he put his thoughts into words. “Then I’m going with you,” he said. “You could get your damn fool little head blown off if I’m not around to help.”
Sally’s temper flared. “You think I’m a child, don’t you?”
Before Tyree could answer, she stood on tiptoe, threw her arms around him and her mouth reached hungrily for his. They melted into each other, Tyree surprised at the depth and sudden, white-hot heat of his passion.
But Sally pulled away from him, panting, her high, firm breasts rising and falling under her gingham shirt. “Did that feel like a child’s kiss?”
Utterly lost, trying desperately to stem that dam of desire that had broken inside him, Tyree said, “No . . .” His voice was husky, and he cleared his throat and tried again. “No, it wasn’t,” he managed. “It was a grown woman’s kiss.”
Sally tossed her head, her curls bobbing. “Then stop treating me like a child.”
“I won’t,” Tyree said sincerely. “I won’t ever again.”
He reached for the girl, but she stepped beyond his outstretched arms. “Later, Chance, when all this is over. I can’t give myself to you or any other man until then.”
Tyree fought himself, fought to douse the fire in his belly, and when the flames finally flickered and died, the woman smell of the girl no longer making his head swim, he managed a weak grin. “But grown woman’s kiss or no, I’m not letting you ride into Crooked Creek alone.”
“I never for a single moment thought you would,” Sally said.
Chapter 18
Crooked Creek slumbered in the drowsy afternoon heat as Sally and Tyree rode across the brush flats, then scouted the town from near the livery stable.
There were no horses at the hitching rail outside Bradley’s, and few people on the street. A mule-drawn wagon was being loaded with supplies at A. K. Dunn’s general store, a couple of miners throwing bags of flour, salt and dried fruit into the bed. There was no placer mining in the canyonlands, but a few hardy prospectors panned for gold in the creeks, most of them making grub money and little else besides.
Over at the church building, a woman in a faded blue dress was polishing a brass doorknob and a bald man in a broadcloth suit stepped out of the bank, glanced up at the sun, checked his watch, then went back inside again.
A stray breeze lifted a thin veil of dust, throwing it against the legs of Tyree’s horse as he and Sally swung out of their saddles at the door to the livery stable, nodding to Zeb Pettigrew, who was sitting on the bench outside, smoking a reeking pipe.
The old man ran his eyes over Tyree, then, more appreciatively over Sally, and said, “Glad to see you’re on your feet, Tyree. I never did get a chance to ride back to the canyon but anyhow you healed up all on your own.”
“Like I told you, Zeb, I’m beholden to you,” Tyree said, “if you ever need a favor.”
The man nodded. “I’ll bear that in mind.” A smile touched his lips under his beard. “I don’t know if you’re aware of it, but you two ain’t exactly welcome hereabouts. Nick Tobin swears he’s going to hang you for gunning the town’s best bartender, that is, if Luther Darcy doesn’t shoot you down first.”
“Where is Tobin?” Tyree asked.
Pettigrew waved a negligent hand. “Out there somewheres, hunting, you I suppose.”
Tyree and Sally led their horses into the stable, stripped off the saddles and fed them a scoop of oats. Tyree threw hay into the stalls then brushed stray straws from his jeans. “How do you plan to play this, Sally?” he asked, knowing what the answer would be and dreading it. The girl’s immediate reply didn’t disappoint him.
“Wait until Darcy gets here. Then brace him in the saloon.”
Tyree shook his head. “Sally, Darcy is fast with a gun. You won’t stand a chance against him.”
“Would you?” the girl asked.
Tyree shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe. But I have a feeling I’d have to take my hits and somehow keep standing.”
“I thought about bushwhacking him,” Sally said, her voice matter-of-fact. “It wouldn’t bother me in the least. But then I thought he might die and never know who had killed him. I want him to know it was me, and why he’s dying.”
For a few moments, Tyree stood silent, thinking things through. He would back up Sally when the time came, but against a skilled gunman like Darcy the outcome would be a mighty uncertain thing. Was there any other way? Tyree racked his brains, but couldn’t find a solution. Sally was dead set on bracing Darcy and she’d do it with or without his help, today, tomorrow or at some other time. No matter when, the danger would be just as great.
The girl’s kiss had roused something in Tyree, an all-consuming passion he’d never felt before. But in his heart of hearts did he consider Sally merely a pale substitute for Lorena, a woman he wanted but could never have? A vehement denial did not immediately spring into Tyree’s mind, and that troubled him.
“You two can stay here if’n you like,” Zeb Pettigrew said, walking back to where Sally and Tyree were standing. “Best you stay off the street. You can see all you want to see from here.” He cocked his head to one side like a hairy, intelligent bird. “And what do you want to see?”
“Luther Darcy,” Sally said without hesitation. “I plan on killing him today.”
Pettigrew scratched his great belly. “Luther Darcy and his kind don’t kill easy, little lady. I’d do some reconsidering on that score.”
“I’ve considered it,” Sally said. “In fact it’s all I’ve thought about for the past year since he murdered my brother. I’ve considered it time and time again, and all that reflecting has convinced me of just one thing—I have to rid the earth of Luther Darcy’s shadow.”
The old man grinned. “Well, I reckon your mind’s made up and you’ll do what you have to do. Tell you this, one good thing about getting to my age is that a man can sit in the shade, light his pipe and watch it all happen. It ain’t near as dangerous thataway.”
Tobin’s posse rode into Crooked Creek at sun-down. Luther Darcy was with them, but there was no sign of Quirt Laytham.
Tobin went directly to his office, but Darcy and the others barged through the swinging doors of Bradley’s. Tyree thought they looked like a tired, dispirited bunch.
Beside him, Sally tensed. She went back to the stall, got her Winchester and levered a round into the chamber. The girl’s face was ghostly pale, her lips white, but there was a hard, determined glint in her eyes and Tyree realized there would be no turning her away from what was to come.
“Wait, Sally,” he said. He drew his Colt, fed a round into the empty chamber under the hammer and reholstered the gun.
“Ready?” the girl asked, the word coming strained and thin from a tight throat.
Tyree attempted a smile. “As I’ll ever be.”
As they stepped past Pettigrew, the man was lighting his pipe. Talking around the stem through a cloud of rank smoke, he said, “Well, good luck, you two.” He smiled, shaking out a match. “I’ll be watching.”
