the darkness. “Do this much for me, boy. Help an old man.”
Tyree eased a fallen timber off Boyd’s legs and he was shocked by what he saw. Luke was right—both his limbs were incinerated, burned to a mass of blackened, melted flesh, spikes of white bone showing here and there. Luke Boyd must have been in agony, and so far only the old rancher’s stubborn courage had prevented him from screaming.
The terrible sight of Boyd’s legs made Tyree’s decision for him. He turned the old man’s head in the direction of the western sky where a million stars shimmered. “Watch the stars, Luke,” he said. “Watch the stars and remember your life. Remember how it was, every single moment of it.”
The old man nodded and the night sky was reflected in his eyes. His face settled into repose, smiling, a man at peace with himself and his death.
Tyree thumbed back the hammer of his Colt. “Remember how it was, Luke,” he whispered. “Remember how it was, my friend.” The sound of a gunshot echoed loud through the canyons, then faded away like the beat of a distant drum.
Tyree laid Luke Boyd to rest at the base of the mesa. He dug the grave deep, and when the old man was covered with earth, he piled the spot high with talus rocks so that it would be seen and be safe from animals. Then he fashioned a cross from a couple of the burned timbers from the cabin and set it up among the rocks.
Hat in hand, Tyree stood at the graveside for long hours as the moon dropped in the sky and a deeper darkness fell around him. The coyotes sang Luke’s lonely funeral dirge while the breeze sighed and whispered a eulogy to the listening night.
When the dawn came, Chance Tyree finally turned away from the grave and allowed his grief to be replaced with a savage anger.
He looked up at the brightening sky, his face a mask of pain and hate, and made a vow . . . to visit a hundred different kinds of hell on the canyon country.
Chapter 20
Tyree searched among the ruins of the cabin and found several cans of food. The labels were burned away and he had no idea what the cans contained. But he was lucky. There were beans in the first can he opened, peaches in the second, the contents of both scorched but edible.
He ate hastily, then swung into the saddle. His first task was to rescue Sally. No matter the odds, he was determined to free the girl and bring her back here—home to his ranch.
Tyree rode through the remainder of the night, chasing the dawn, and the morning sun was just beginning its climb into the sky when he rode into Crooked Creek and reined up outside the Regal Hotel. A few people were walking briskly along the boardwalks and several cow ponies stood three-legged at the hitching rail of the restaurant, but at this early hour the town was quiet.
Tyree stepped out of the saddle, yanked his Winchester from the scabbard and levered a round into the chamber. He jumped onto the boardwalk and slammed through the hotel door. The clerk at the desk—a small, round man wearing an eyeshade, muttonchop whiskers bookending a cherubic face—looked up from the ledger he’d been studying, his eyes alarmed.
Giving the man no chance to talk, Tyree snapped, “Sally Brennan’s room?”
“Top floor, number twenty-six,” the clerk answered. “But, hey, you’ve got no right to—”
Tyree didn’t wait to hear the rest. He was already taking the stairs two at a time.
At the end of the hallway, a couple of men with deputy’s stars pinned to their shirts, shotguns in their laps, were sitting on chairs outside the door. One was Len Dawson, the other a tall, sour looking man Tyree didn’t know. The two immediately sprang to their feet, and Dawson shouted, “Tyree! What the hell are you doing here?”
“Move back from the door, Dawson,” Tyree said, making his point with his waving rifle. “I’m here for Sally.”
“The hell you are!” the man with Dawson yelled. He swung the scattergun in Tyree’s direction. Tyree fired, levered the Winchester and fired again. Hit twice, the deputy slammed against the wall, then slid to the floor, a trail of blood smearing the flowered wallpaper behind him.
Dawson made no attempt to level his shotgun. But he was eyeing Tyree, a hard, angry scowl betraying the fact that he was thinking about making a play.
“Don’t even try it, Dawson,” Tyree said. “I’m all through talking. From now on I’ll let my guns do all the speechifying for me.”
Dawson was bucking a stacked deck and he knew it. He let the shotgun remain right where it was, the man sitting still as a marble statue. Tyree stepped up to the deputy, wrenched the gun from his hands, broke it open and removed the loads. “Inside,” he said. “And please, Dawson, give me an excuse to drill you.”
Wordlessly, his face suddenly gray, the deputy opened the door to Sally’s room and Tyree followed him inside. The girl was sitting up in bed, a bandage around her shoulder, her eyebrows raised in shocked surprise.
“Chance, I heard the shooting and—”
“Get dressed, Sally,” Tyree interrupted. “I’m taking you out of here.”
Sally needed no further encouragement. She was wearing a plain white shift that someone had given her, and she swung out of bed, showing a deal of shapely leg. “You two turn around until I get dressed,” she ordered.
“You heard what the lady said, Dawson. Turn around,” Tyree said.
The deputy did as he was told and when Sally was dressed she stepped beside Tyree and said, “I think my horse is at the livery.”
Tyree shook his head. “No time for that,” he said. “My shots will have attracted a crowd.” He extended an open palm to Dawson. “Key.”
Dawson dug in his pocket and came up with the room key. “You’ll never get out of Crooked Creek alive,” he said. “You know that, don’t you?”
It was an empty threat, the last resort of a vexed, angry man and Tyree did not answer. He stripped the deputy of his gun belt, then locked him inside the room. He removed Dawson’s Colt from its holster, filled his pockets with ammunition from the loops, and hung the belt on the door handle. “Take this,” he told Sally, handing her his Winchester. “If you have to, favor your shoulder and shoot from the hip.”
“Chance,” Sally said, a mild exasperation in her voice, “my left shoulder took Darcy’s bullet. I shoot off my right.”
Tyree grinned. “Shows you how observant I am.”
The girl followed Tyree downstairs to the lobby of the hotel and the frightened clerk cringed against the wall as Tyree turned and glared at him.
Tyree crooked a finger in the man’s direction. “You,” he said, “come over here.”
“Mister, I’ve got a wife and kids,” the clerk whined. “Don’t kill me.”
“Step out the door and take a look,” Tyree said. “Tell me what you see.”
“Sure, sure, mister, anything you say.”
The clerk opened the door, stuck his head outside and hesitated for a few moments. Then he threw the door open wide and ran into the street, hollering, “Murder! Murder!”
Tyree cursed under his breath and stepped through the door, a gun in each hand. But, as it happened, luck was with him.
A small crowd of curious townspeople had gathered on the boardwalk opposite the hotel, but neither Tobin nor the Laytham punchers were in sight.
Tyree smiled grimly to himself. Tobin, Darcy and the rest were probably still out hunting him, leaving Crooked Creek wide-open but for the inept Dawson.
He didn’t plan on staying around to push his luck, but there was time to get Sally’s pony. He stepped to his horse and swung into the saddle, then helped Sally get up in front of him. Tyree swung the steeldust around and loped toward the livery stable.
Zeb Pettigrew stepped out of the stable, leading the paint, grinning from ear to ear. “You know I’m a watching man, Tyree, so I saw you ride in to town. I guessed why you were here. Then I heard the shooting and knowed for sure why you were here.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “The young lady’s mare is saddled and
