Fowler was silent for a few moments, then said, “Dawson has killed his share, but he’s not the worst of them. Daley now, he’s poison mean and good with a gun and his fists. The talk is that he’s killed seven men, and I believe it.”
Tyree tried to rise again, and Fowler helped him sit up, propping his back against a cottonwood trunk.
After he recovered from the pain caused by the shift of position, Tyree rasped, “Those two said they were acting on orders from a man named Quirt Laytham.”
The skin suddenly tightened around Fowler’s eyes. “Laytham is the man whose lying testimony got me sentenced to twenty-five years behind bars for murder. He swaggers a wide path around here, owns the biggest ranch for a hundred miles in all directions and is hungry for more, mine included. There are maybe two, three hundred cows on my grass right now, and all of them belong to Quirt Laytham.”
“Him and me have a score to settle,” Tyree said. He touched the rope burn on his neck. “For this. The two who hung me were acting on Laytham’s orders.”
“Best you rest your voice for a while,” Fowler said. “Keep talking and you may lose it altogether.”
Fowler rose and poured coffee into a tin cup. He kneeled behind Tyree and held the cup to his lips. “Careful,” he said. “It’s hot, but it will do you good.”
“I can manage,” Tyree said. He took the cup from Fowler and drank. The coffee was strong and bitter, the way he liked it, and it seemed to give him strength.
Fowler watched Tyree drink, then bit his lip as he thought for a few moments. Finally he said, “Mister, I don’t know who you are but—”
“Name’s Chance Tyree.”
Fowler nodded, his eyes suddenly guarded. “Heard of you, prison talk mostly.” He was silent for a while, then said, “You being a named Texas gunfighter won’t help you none in Crooked Creek. Go against Laytham and his riders and you’ll be bucking a stacked deck. Quirt is fast with a gun, but there are two working for him who are even faster. One is a breed, a natural born killer who calls himself the Arapaho Kid. And the other is Luther Darcy.”
If Fowler expected a reaction from Tyree he was disappointed. “There will be a reckoning between Laytham and me,” Chance croaked. “Depend on it.”
“The name Luther Darcy doesn’t mean anything to you?”
Tyree shook his head, a gesture that made pain flare in his throat. “No. Why should it?”
“Then you’d better learn up on him right quick,” Fowler said. “There are them who say Darcy is the fastest gun west of the Mississippi and there are others who claim he’s the fastest who ever lived, or will ever live, come to that. He killed a named man up in the Montana Territory a while back, then another in Crooked Creek just a few days ago.”
Tyree managed a weak smile. “I’ve come up against a few with that kind of reputation before and I’m still here.”
His eyes bleak in his long, melancholy face, Fowler said, “Maybe you’re still here on account of how you never come up against Luther Darcy.”
Chapter 3
The dawn brightened into morning and the cobalt blue sky was banded by streaks of red and jade. Tyree finished his coffee and built a smoke with unsteady hands. Beyond the hills, toward Crooked Creek, the last shadows had been washed from the brush flats and the wakening jays were already quarreling among the branches of the cottonwoods.
After a while Tyree tried to get to his feet, but the effort drained him and he slumped back to the ground, his head reeling.
Owen Fowler tightened the cinch on his buckskin then stepped beside the wounded man. “We have to ride,” he said. “I got the feeling Len Dawson and Clem Daley will come back to check on their handiwork. We don’t want them to find us here. Not if we want to keep on breathing, we don’t.”
A flicker of doubt crossed Fowler’s face. “Think you can stay on a horse?”
Tyree nodded. He knew he was very weak and the pain of the bullet wound in his side was a living thing that gnawed at him. His head pounded and his mouth was dry, his torn throat on fire.
“Which way are we headed?” he asked.
Fowler gestured vaguely to the northeast. “That way. Across the brush flats then into the canyonlands. My place, such as it is, is off Hatch Wash, and that’s a fair piece away.” The man hesitated, then added, “Had me a cabin once, but that’s gone. I’ve been sleeping under the stars since I got back.”
Something in Fowler’s face told Tyree this wasn’t going to be an easy trip. He had heard enough about the canyon country to know he was facing a harsh, unforgiving wilderness of rawboned rock ridges and high-walled mesas, the gorges so deep the rivers were lost below steep cliffs that hid the daylight. Even the Indians had steered clear of the place, visiting it only out of necessity, and seldom at that.
As though reading Tyree’s mind, Fowler kneeled beside him. “Where we’re headed the country is wild and mighty lonely. The land is broken and raw, all tumbled together, like God grew bored with it and left it unfinished.” He smiled. “It’s no bargain but considering the alternative, I’d say we’ve got little choice in the matter.”
“I’ll ride,” Tyree said. He struggled to his feet and the ground suddenly rocked so violently under him that Fowler had to quickly reach out and support him. Blood loss had left Tyree as helpless as a baby, and he cursed himself for his own weakness. He was a proud man who had never in his life asked help or a favor of anyone, and now he was totally dependent for his survival on a man he hardly knew.
“Can you make it?” Fowler asked, concern shading his dark brown eyes.
“I’ll make it,” Tyree answered. “Let’s hit the trail.” He looked at Fowler and saw the doubt in the man’s homely features. “I told you, I’ll make it,” he said, a sudden, stubborn anger in him.
Fowler nodded. “Just so you know what you’re getting yourself into.” A slight smile tugged at his lips. “Right now, Tyree, I’d say your chances of reaching my place are slim to none, and slim is already saddling up to leave town.”
Tyree disentangled from Fowler’s supporting arm. “Let’s ride,” he said, his face stiff. “Believe me, I can get there.”
Fowler swung into the saddle of the buckskin, then kicked the stirrup loose for Tyree. It took the wounded man several attempts before he summoned the strength to finally get up on the buckskin and settle himself behind the high cantle of Fowler’s saddle.
“Ready?” Fowler asked.
“As I’ll ever be,” Tyree answered.
“Then let’s get it done.”
When he thought about it later, Tyree could recall little of that ride.
The sun was already hot when they crossed the brush flats then entered the canyon country, but in the gorges between the cliffs and mesas the heat was almost unbearable.
Around them spread an immense, rough-hewn wilderness of sculptured rocks, needles, arches and narrow slot canyons that seemed to stretch away forever in all directions. Stunted spruce grew on the flat tops of immense mesas, desperately struggling for life in an uncaring environment, and the air smelled dry, like the dust of ancient Indian dead.
Only occasionally, mostly along the banks of the creeks, would there be islands of green with trees and grass where fat, white-faced cattle grazed.
“Quirt Laytham’s cows,” Fowler said, talking over his shoulder as they rode under spreading cottonwoods. “See his Rafter-L brand? Looks like he’s pushing his herds into the whole damn country.”
Tyree heard but did not answer. The pain in his side hammered at him and the skin of his face and neck felt thin and chafed. His hands were stiff and hard to close.