He tensed, getting ready. Darcy noted Tyree’s slight movement and his hands lifted, closer to the Remingtons.
“Do it, Tyree,” he yelled. “Do it!”
A rock flew out of the darkness.
Thrown with considerable force and skill, the rock slammed into Darcy’s right temple with a sickening thud. The gunman’s head jerked and, shocked, he took a single step back.
Tyree dived for the gun at his feet.
Darcy’s Remingtons flared, bullets splitting the air where Tyree had been standing a moment before. But Tyree had already dropped to his knees, scooping up the Colt before he threw himself flat on his belly.
He fired at Darcy, fired again. Hit hard, the gunman staggered, his guns coming up. Darcy’s guns roared as Tyree rolled to his right, two bullets kicking up dirt just inches away from him. Tyree fired, thumbed back the hammer and shot a second time.
Under his brocaded vest, Darcy’s white shirt was scarlet with blood. The man backpedaled until he tripped on the cabin porch and toppled backward, his arms sprawling at his sides, convulsively triggering his revolvers until the hammer clicked on spent rounds.
Warily, Tyree rose to his feet and walked toward the fallen gunman. He was aware of Sally emerging from the shadows, another rock in her hand.
Darcy was still conscious, but the grayness of death was on his face. He looked up at Tyree and smiled. “You got lucky,” he said. “You’d never have beaten me in a fair fight.” He grimaced against a wave of pain, and asked, “What the hell hit me?”
“A God apple,” Tyree said.
“A what?”
“A rock, you eejit. God left them around to help us poor cowboys.”
Darcy shook his head, his eyes unbelieving. Then he rattled deep in his throat and suddenly all the life that was in him was gone.
Tyree turned as Sally stepped to his side. “Who taught you to throw like that?” he asked, grinning.
The girl smiled. “When you grow up as poor as I did, that’s how you hunt prairie chickens,” she said. “We didn’t have money for shotgun cartridges, and I soon learned not to throw like a girl. Hunger is an excellent teacher.”
Tyree took Sally in his arms and kissed her hard and long. After a few moments, he heard the God apple drop at her feet.
Epilogue
Four months later Sally Brennan and Chance Tyree were married in the church at Crooked Creek. Zeb Pettigrew stood as best man.
Just about everybody in town attended the wedding, and all agreed bride and groom made a handsome couple and were surely destined for a long, happy life together.
Afterward, at a reception organized by the stalwarts of the fire department, Pettigrew stepped beside Tyree, a glass of champagne in his hand. Zeb had scrubbed up for the occasion and wore a black suit and collarless white shirt.
“First time I ever seen you without a gun, boy,” he said.
Tyree nodded. “It’s back to home at the cabin, Zeb, hanging on a nail.” He smiled at the old man. “The play is over, watcher.”
Pettigrew shook his head. “The old play is ended, maybe so, but a new drama begins.”
“Not for me,” Tyree said. “I’m all through with guns and gunfighting. Soon I hope to be a family man and be known only as a respectable rancher.”
“Who said anything about guns?” Pettigrew said, looking mildly offended. “I’m talking about seeing those young’uns of yours grow up, the girls as pretty as their ma and the boys as tall and straight as their pa.”
The old man sipped his champagne and smiled. “I’ll be watching. . . .”