Guns of the Canyonlands by Ralph Compton Read Free Book Online Page B

He’d never been a soldier, but he’d learned enough about tactics over the years to know that attacking an entrenched enemy along a narrow front was always a losing proposition.
    He calculated that right about now Quirt Laytham must be fuming, and the thought pleased him immensely.
    Tyree thumbed a match into flame and lit his cigarette. He pushed the Henry out in front of him and waited. When would Laytham renew the attack? That question was answered less than ten minutes later.
    A bullet hit a rock near where Tyree was crouched, splattering stinging splinters into his cheek. A second thudded into the butte above his head and a third smashed into the Henry, sending it flying from its place on the rock.
    Tyree stretched out and picked up the rifle—and his shocked eyes beheld a disaster. The shot, luckier than most, had badly mangled the magazine tube close to the chamber.
    He swore under his breath. The rifle would shoot the round under the hammer, but the chances were that it would not feed a second. Without the Henry, he was as good as dead and Fowler with him. It was not a thought to comfort a man.
    Tyree scanned the bank of the wash and saw a flash of metal behind a cottonwood about a hundred yards away. Laytham’s men were coming at him on foot, using whatever cover they could find.
    Drawing a bead on the cottonwood, Tyree waited. A few slow seconds ticked past, then he saw a man in a blue flannel shirt step out from behind the tree, his Winchester coming up fast.
    Tyree fired at the same time as the Laytham rider. The man jerked under the impact of the Henry’s .44 bullet and his rifle spun away from him. Clutching a shattered and bloody shoulder he turned and, crouched over, stumbled away, his face white with shock.
    Lead whined off a rock in front of Tyree as he worked the lever of the Henry. To his relief, he heard a reassuring clink-clunk as the bent and dented loading tube fed a round. But would it feed another?
    There was no time to ponder that question. A man was working his way along the canyon wall toward him, a second close behind. Both were carrying Winchesters and were stepping warily, their eyes on Tyree’s position.
    Tyree sighted on the man in the lead. He took a breath, held it and squeezed the trigger. His bullet hit the tobacco sack tag hanging over the man’s shirt pocket dead center. The Laytham rider spun, then slammed against the mesa wall. He slid to a sitting position, his head lolling loose on his shoulders, dead before he hit the ground.
    The second man fired a wild shot that split the air above Tyree’s head; then he was running, looking back fearfully over his shoulder.
    “Five down, seven to go,” Tyree whispered to himself, his smile a grim, tight line. He tried to crank the Henry, but the lever jammed halfway on a mangled round.
    The damaged rifle was useless.
    Weak as he was, the side of his shirt glistening with blood, Tyree knew Laytham and his surviving men were still dangerous and capable of mounting another attack.
    He had to find a replacement rifle and fast. The trouble was, the guns were out there . . . with the dead.

Chapter 5
    Warily, Tyree rose from his position behind the rocks. Moving on cat feet, he stepped toward the canyon wall. It was very hot and still, the rugged parapets of rock surrounding him a barrier to any passing breeze. Overhead the sky was blue, hemmed in close by the stone ramparts on either side of the wash, a few fluffy white clouds visible now and then. The Laytham rider he’d killed was still slumped over in a sitting position, the front of the man’s shirt thick with blood that was already starting to dry.
    The rifle he needed was there, and along with it the dead man’s revolver. Looking constantly in the direction of Laytham and his riders, Tyree kneeled beside the dead man, knowing that if the rancher decided to attack now he’d be caught out in the open and quickly cut down.
    Tyree picked up a .44-.40 Winchester that lay close to the