ready to go.”
Tyree nodded his thanks and waited until Sally stepped into the saddle. “Once again, Zeb,” he said, smiling, “thanks for your help. And once again, I’m beholden to you.”
“No trouble, Tyree,” the old man said. “But it seems like everything I do to help you shortens the play.” He grinned. “But what the hell? It’s not the length of the performance that counts. It’s the excellence of the actors.” He shook his head. “And you two are excellent.”
“Then stick around for the last act,” Tyree said. “It’s coming soon.”
The old man lifted a hand. “Hell, I wouldn’t miss that for the world.”
A cloud of dust roiled around the steeldust and the paint as they stretched their necks and hit the flats at a fast gallop. Behind him Tyree suddenly heard the sharp, spiteful bark of a wheel gun. He turned and saw the little hotel clerk standing in the middle of the street, a raging, arm-waving Dawson beside him. The clerk held a small pepperbox revolver at eye level in his right hand and he fired again and again, his shots flying wild.
Tyree grinned and shook his head at Sally. “For a married man, that hombre sure likes to live dangerously.”
Because of Tobin’s posses, Tyree and Sally again kept to the rugged canyonlands well away from Hatch Wash. As they rode, Tyree told the girl about Luke Boyd’s death.
“So Luther Darcy has another killing to answer for,” Sally said, tears springing into her eyes.
Tyree nodded, his face grim. “Darcy will answer to me for that one.”
Just as the sun was setting they rode over a saddleback ridge between the sloped bases of high, twin mesas and then down into a small meadow covered with wildflowers, long streaks of blue columbine, white wild orchids and scarlet monkeyflower.
“Let’s stop here for a while,” Sally said. “I want to gather some of those.”
Tyree helped the girl from the saddle and watched as she collected a bunch of the wildflowers, all of them fresh and blooming, watered by underground seeps from the mesas.
They mounted again and fetched up to Boyd’s ruined cabin as the darkness fell around them and the night birds began to peck at the first stars.
Sally walked to the old rancher’s grave and laid the flowers on top of the piled rocks, her cheeks wet with tears. After a while she returned to Tyree’s side and looked around her. “I can’t believe he’s gone,” she said. “I keep expecting him to step out of the barn and wave and give me that big grin the way he always did.”
Tyree nodded. “He was a good man, a fine man, and I’ll miss him.”
He led the steeldust into the barn and forked the horse some hay, then gathered wood along the creek and built a fire. After that he again foraged in the cabin, finding a few more cans of food and the still intact whiskey jug.
As he and Sally sat by the fire, they shared a can of meat and some canned tomatoes, then each had a drink from the jug, the strong liquor helping to quiet some of the clamor inside them.
“How is the shoulder?” Tyree asked.
The girl shrugged. “Darcy’s bullet just grazed me, but it was enough to knock me off my feet. Well, it was that or shock maybe, because I sure enough fainted.” She lifted a corner of the bandage and looked at her injury in the firelight. “I’ll have a nice little scar there, but the wound itself is healing well.”
“I’ve got something to show you,” Tyree said.
The firelight bronzing his face, he took the deed to Boyd’s ranch from his shirt pocket and wordlessly passed it to Sally. The girl read what the old man had written and looked at Tyree in surprise.
Tyree shrugged. “Luke wanted me to have the place. By rights, it belongs to Lorena. If she cares to claim it, then I’ll hand it back to her.”
For a few moments, Sally sat in silence. Then she said, “Lorena may not want the place, but Quirt Laytham surely does. And when he and Lorena get married, he can claim it legally through his new wife.”
“It seems he doesn’t want to wait that long,” Tyree said. “That’s why he had Darcy kill Luke.”
Sally shook her head. “But, Chance, that just doesn’t make any sense. Why would Laytham murder the father of the woman he intends to wed?” The girl looked at Tyree, red flames dancing in her dark eyes. “Chance, I think someone else has taken cards in this game—the same person who killed Steve Lassiter and then ordered Darcy to murder Luke. There’s another player, a mystery man who wants all the same things Laytham does, especially wealth, and the power that goes with it.”
“Who?” Tyree asked, skepticism heavy in his voice.
Sally shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“Luther Darcy?”
“Maybe. But Darcy isn’t the kind to settle in one place for long. Whoever killed Steve Lassiter and Luke Boyd wants to put down roots, dig them deep and found a dynasty.”
“Describes Quirt Laytham to a tee,” Tyree said. “Seems to me your mystery man is no mystery.”
“No, Chance, it’s not him. It’s someone else, someone who shares all of Laytham’s ambitions.”
“Do you have a single shred of proof for all this, Sally?” Tyree asked.
Again the girl shook her head. “No.” She hesitated a few moments, then added, “Just call it woman’s intuition.”
Tyree laughed. “Well, does your woman’s intuition tell you it’s time we were heading for our blankets?”
“You’re making fun of me again, aren’t you?” Sally asked, her cheeks reddening.
“No, no, I’m not.” Tyree smiled. “I’ll think about what you said. But I doubt it will change my mind about Laytham. He was behind the killing of Owen Fowler, and now Steve and Luke. There’s no mystery man, Sally. It’s still only Quirt Laytham.”
“Think what you want, Chance Tyree,” the girl said, her back stiffening. “But I know I am right.”
They bedded down in the barn that night, but Tyree stayed awake for a long time, listening to Sally’s gentle breathing beside him. Could she be right about another player? Was he perhaps Tobin’s mysterious “party of the third” who had offered him a thousand dollars to leave the territory?
In the darkness Tyree shook his head. All the signs pointed to Laytham, no one else. Come morning he planned to make his first move against the big rancher, to let him know the reckoning was about to start.
After a while Tyree closed his eyes, lulled to sleep by the echoing cries of the calling coyotes and the warm closeness of the woman lying beside him.
Tyree and Sally were awake at first light. They shared a can of tomatoes for breakfast, Tyree grieving over the fact of having neither coffee nor tobacco and being fervently wishful for both.
After they’d eaten, Tyree said, “I plan on moving Laytham’s cows out of Owen Fowler’s canyon this morning. Then I aim to check on Mrs. Lassiter.”
“I’ll come with you,” Sally said. “I want to see how she’s holding up.”
“It might be safer if you stay here, Sally,” Tyree said. “Luther Darcy did what he came to do when he shot Luke. I doubt he’ll be back anytime soon.”
An eyebrow arched high on the girl’s forehead and an amused smile played around her lips. “Chance, think about it. When was the last time you punched cows?”
Tyree thought the question through and admitted to himself that he’d forgotten just about all he’d ever learned about cowboying over the years. Those skills had left him a long time before, round about the time he’d bought his first Colt, and his knowledge of the ways of cattle was blunted.
Sally saw the doubt in the young man’s face and she smiled. “I’ve worked cattle all my life, Chance, and did it until recently. Believe me, you’ll need my help to get Laytham’s herd out of the canyon.”
Tyree saw the logic in Sally’s suggestion and he grinned. “You’re right. Maybe it’s best you come along.”
Before they left, Tyree fashioned a sign from scraps of pine board he found in the barn. There was some leftover white paint from one of Boyd’s projects and he hurriedly blocked out some words using a discarded brush he’d also discovered.
Satisfied with his efforts, he carried the sign to his horse, ready to ride.
He and Sally mounted up and they traveled east through the brightening light of the early morning. After the shrouding darkness of night, the silent wilderness of rock around them was again touched with color, the pink, red
