Guns of the Canyonlands by Ralph Compton

“Well, I was getting mighty tired of the bank, so I withdrew my savings, asked for my time and bought the herd. Cost me just about every cent I owned. Then I pushed them up Hatch Wash, looking for a place to start a ranch, and by and by, I found my canyon. Built my cabin, then had it pretty good for three, four months, until Quirt Laytham moved into the territory with his herd.” Fowler shrugged. “After that, well, you know what followed.”
    “I don’t, Owen,” Tyree said. “You never did tell me what happened.” He smiled. “And feel free to tell me it’s none of my damn business.”
    “Since you’ve made an enemy of Quirt Laytham on my account I guess you’re entitled to know,” Fowler said. The leaves of the cottonwood cast shifting shadows on the man’s face and his eyes lost their light, fading to a dull, expressionless black.
    “We had a preacher in Crooked Creek by the name of John Kent. He was a good man, cared about folks and not only his own flock. John was a sociable man and he rode up the wash to visit with me from time to time, and we’d drink coffee and talk cattle prices and books we’d read and stuff like that.
    “Then one morning, nigh on nine years ago, I woke up and found John’s body near my cabin. I knew he’d been shot in the back at close range, because his coat had caught on fire. And he’d been robbed. I was leaning over John’s body when Quirt Laytham rode in along with Nick Tobin, Len Dawson, Clem Daley and a few others.
    “Tobin said they’d been out looking for John since he’d failed to return home last night after visiting with me. Then he pulled his gun on me, accused me of murder and told Dawson to go search my cabin. When Dawson came back out he was holding John’s watch and some money. Said he’d found it piled up on my table where I’d left it.
    “I looked up at Laytham and he was grinning, something mighty akin to triumph in his eyes. ‘We got him, boys,’ he said. ‘We got us that man who murdered John Kent.’ ” Fowler shrugged. “You know the rest. I was found guilty and sentenced to twenty-five years at hard labor.”
    “Who do you think killed Deacon Kent, Owen?” Boyd asked.
    Fowler shook his head at him. “I don’t know. A drifter maybe. All I know is that it wasn’t me. I liked and respected John. He was a good man. I had no reason to murder him.”
    While Fowler spoke, Luke Boyd had been whittling on a piece of fallen tree branch. He tossed the branch away, folded his knife and said, “That’s quite a story, Owen. First time I’ve heard the whole thing.” He rose to his feet. “Time to mount up, boys. We’ve a passel of slot canyons to search before nightfall.”
    “You still haven’t told us how you plan on doing it, Luke,” Fowler said, also standing, carefully putting Carlyle in his back pocket.
    Boyd smiled. “Owen, I knowed you hadn’t been ranching long enough to learn about slot canyons and God apples.”
    “God apples are a new one on me, too, Luke,” Tyree said.
    The old rancher nodded. “All right, since neither of you know, I’ll tell you about them. A few years back a puncher had himself a one-eyed hoss for sale up in the Bradshaws in the Arizona Territory. This Easterner dude asks him why the pony has only one eye. ‘Well, sir,’ the puncher says, ‘that don’t bother him none. He’s still the best cow pony in these parts.’ But the dude wouldn’t let it go. ‘What happened to his eye?’ he asks, all curious like. ‘God did it,’ the puncher says. ‘How?’ asks the dude. ‘One time that there hoss wouldn’t go in the corral an’ I cut him down with a God apple,’ says the puncher. ‘A what?’ asks the dude, real buffaloed. ‘A rock, you eejit,’ says the puncher. ‘God left them around to help us poor cowboys.’ ”
    Boyd grinned. “And that’s how come that ever since punchers call rocks God apples.”
    Tyree and Fowler exchanged looks, then the younger man asked, “Luke, what’s all