Ralph Compton - Guns of the Canyonlands

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 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.