Calder Born, Calder Bred

by Janet Dailey

  “You don’t seem to understand.” He tried to control his temper.

  “No, you don’t understand!” Jessy retorted. “You are doing it for money—for profit. It’s business, you say. It’s progress. You’ve been given a legacy, Ty. A tradition that has prided itself on caring for the land and people. You’re going to lose both because you think money is more important. People built this ranch. The only way it could ever be destroyed is from the inside. And you’re the core of it. If the heart is no good, the rest of it will slowly die.”

  It was a long moment before Ty offered any response. “You’ve made your point,” he said.

  In silence, they made the long drive back to the ranch headquarters. Her words hammered in his mind all the way. When Jessy dropped him off at The Homestead, nothing was said; simple courtesies seemed superfluous at this point.

  Tara attempted to besiege him with questions, but Ty stayed in the house just long enough to get the keys to the single-engine aircraft, then left again. After taking off from the runway, he flew over the site picked for the jointly ventured coal plant, surrounded by rolling, grass-covered terrain with its rich deposit of low-sulfur coal inches below the surface. The road surveyors were colored dots in the grass, their vehicles the size of a child’s toys viewed from the plane’s altitude.

  Banking the plane to the east, Ty continued his flight over the scrub prairies where grass struggled for survival against the erosion of wind and rain, and against the sturdy weeds. Then he changed his course to fly to the Stockman place.

  A large green blanket of carefully nurtured grass offered a marked contrast to the black coal pit with its haze of dust and crawling machinery. But the reclaimed area suddenly appeared small when compared to the trail of chewed-up earth the monster shovel had devoured as it followed the underground coal seam.

  When he returned to The Homestead, there was a lift to his shoulders and more authority in his rolling stride. He went straight to the study, called his father at the hospital, and advised him of his decision to break the contract with Dyson.

  “I’m glad.” His father’s voice sounded choked, but it came back strong. “What are you going to do now that you won’t have that money?”

  “Cut down to a bare-bones operation.” Ty told him some of his plans, to which his father added his suggestions. Together they arrived at a workable program. It wouldn’t solve the ranch’s financial woes, but it gave them a chance to ride it out to better times.

  “What about Dyson?” his father questioned. “He’ll fight you—son-in-law or not.”

  “It’s possible,” Ty conceded.

  “Don’t wait to find out,” his father advised him, and they discussed the best way to block any moves Dyson might make. “You’ll have to watch him. He’s clever, very clever.”

  “I will.”

  After the phone conversation with his father was finished, Ty began making calls to summon the managers of the various operations and outlying camps to the headquarters.

  Over the next hour and a half, they trickled in one by one from their various districts. Most of them were stiff and cool toward him, ready to take his orders but not ready to like them. They had lost trust in his judgment; his previous decision had gone against the values they’d been brought up to believe. But their opinion underwent a change once they heard what he had to say.

  “When a man’s made a mistake, he’s got two choices.” Ty said the same thing to Wyatt Yates that he’d told the others before the manager of the horse-breeding operation had arrived. “He can grit his teeth and bull his way along, pretending that he’s right. Or he can own up to his mistake and do his damnedest to change it. I thought mining coal was the answer to the financial problems we’ve been having. But it’s only going to bring more problems. I’m going to break the deal and fight to stop it.”

  “Do you think you can do it?” Yates eyed him, still wary.

  “I won’t know if I don’t try.” Ty wisely didn’t claim he could do anything. “In the meantime, I want you to get on the phone and start calling breeders around the country and sell those two studs. Find buyers for all the young stock you can, except for that two-year-old stud out of that San Peppy mare. We’ll keep him back for future foundation sire. Keep the Cougar-bred mares and sell the rest.”

  His instructions to Arch Goodman were similar when he came. “Sell off all the fat cattle in the feedlot and save the grain to fatten our young stuff coming off the range this fall. We’re cutting our losses now before the cattle market drops any lower.”

  “Dumping that many cattle in a depressed market is liable to drive the prices down still more,” Arch warned.

  “At the moment, I can’t worry about what lower prices are going to do to the other guy. Make arrangements to get the cattle shipped, and get the best price you can for them.”

  As Arch left the study, Tara came in. There was curiosity behind her smile. “What’s going on here this afternoon? People constantly coming and going all the time?”

  “I’m implementing some more cost-cutting measures, ranchwide,” he replied, still businesslike in his tone, although the look in his eye gentled under the stroking touch of her hand. “Some of which you aren’t going to like.”

  “Such as?” She cocked her head to one side.

  “You’re going to have to give your cook and that housekeeper notice that we won’t be needing their services after the end of the month,” Ty stated.

  “You can’t be serious.” The smile left her face as she reacted first with incredulity, then with indignation. “You can’t do that. I need them. We have guests coming nearly every weekend for the rest of the summer.”

  “You’ll simply have to explain to your guests that they’ll either have to make their own beds and wash their own dishes or entertain themselves while you do it. This is a working ranch, not a hotel equipped with maids and room service.”

  “I have never heard anything so absurd in my life,” Tara flashed. “These are important people. I can’t ask them to come out to the kitchen and wash the dishes.”

  “Who knows? They might get a kick out of it.” He shrugged lightly.

  “Well, I’m not going to find out,” she informed him, breathing deep and fast in anger. “Neither Simone nor Mrs. Thornton is leaving. This is my house, and you’re not going to tell me how to run it. I don’t tell you how to run the ranch.”

  “You’re wrong. This is our house and our ranch. The house isn’t strictly your domain and the ranch mine. Both belong to both of us,” Ty argued roughly.

  “I don’t care about the ranch or what you do with it. I’ve told you dozens of times to hire a manager and let him run it, but you wouldn’t listen to me.”

  “I listened and disagreed.”

  “Then I’m disagreeing with you about letting Simone and Mrs. Thornton go,” Tara countered.

  “I’ve had to cut expenses all the way across the board—that includes the household budget. So if you want to pay them out of your own money, that’s your business.”

  “Why are you so worried about money again?” Impatience and confusion ran hotly through her voice. “I thought the partnership with Daddy settled all that. There will be more than enough money for everything once you start selling the coal.”

  “There won’t be any money because there isn’t going to be any coal sold,” Ty stated flatly as the front door opened.

  “What do you mean? Since when?” But her questions were interrupted by the sound of Dyson’s voice calling out her name. “In here, Daddy!” she answered and started across the room to meet him when he entered. “Ty was just telling me some nonsense that you wouldn’t be selling the coal. I—”

  Ty interrupted her before she could go further, standing as Dyson darted him a puzzled glance. “I’m glad you’re here, E.J. I was just about to explain to Tara that I’ve decided to back out of our deal.”

  “I don’t understand.” Dyson laughed his confusion. “It’s all been agreed. What is it? Aren’t
you satisfied with the terms? Do you feel you’re entitled to a larger split?”

  “I’m not objecting to the terms. It’s the use of the land I don’t like. There isn’t going to be any strip-mining on Calder property.” Ty made his announcement and glanced at Strick-lin standing in the doorway, listening and letting Dyson do all the talking. “I suggest we dissolve this partnership amicably and forget it.”

  “She had something to do with this, didn’t she?” Tara accused. “You were in favor of it until she came to see you this afternoon.”

  “Let’s leave Jessy out of this discussion.” It was a quiet warning. He refused to let her name be dragged through a family argument. “She may have opened my eyes to a few things, but the decision was mine.”

  “We have a deal, Ty,” Dyson reminded him, dropping his cajoling attitude. “It’s all signed and legal.”

  “And I’m telling you I’m breaking it. Now, we can either do it amicably or not. It’s up to you.” His gaze leveled on the man, offering the opportunity to avoid an unpleasant confrontation.

  “You’re not thinking straight, boy,” Dyson insisted. “In my business, a deal’s a deal. It’s a little late to change your mind now.”

  “It’s never too late,” Ty corrected. “Maybe I need to make myself clear. You have twenty-four hours to get your surveyors off my land. There will be no road. There will be no strip mine. There will be no coal plant.”

  “And I’m telling you we have a legal agreement,” Dyson tersely reminded him.

  “Then you’d better sue me for breach of contract!” Ty snapped.

  “You’re forgetting something. I hold the mineral rights to that land. I don’t need you for a partner. I made the deal with you because I thought it was the honorable thing to do so we could all share in the wealth. But if you’re going to welsh on the deal, you don’t deserve any of the money. There’s a fortune out there, and if you’re too dumb to see it, I’m not.” It was almost a threatening tone, advising Ty that he was going ahead with the plans with or without him. “I thought you had some smarts, boy. But this is a dumb move. We’re going to take that coal out of that ground. And the way it stands now, you aren’t going to get a dime.”

  “Now it’s you who’s forgetting something,” Ty replied in a deadly level voice. “That chunk of ground you’re talking about is landlocked. And you’ll play hell crossing Calder property to get to it.”

  “I’ve done my best to avoid a fight with you—for Tara Lee’s sake—but you’ve backed me into a corner,” Dyson warned. “Whatever happens, it’s your doing—you started it.” Stiff with anger, he turned to his daughter, a turbulent figure of contained fury at his side. “I’m sorry, Tara Leee but you see how it is.” He threw another dark look at Ty, then swung to his partner. “Come on, Stricklin, let’s get out of here.”

  As the two men left the study, Ty watched Tara struggling with her temper, all the volatile emotions enriching the vibrancy of her dark beauty. Slowly she crossed the room to him, the reluctance in her body showing that it went against her pride to plead with him.

  “How can you do this?” Then suddenly, unexpectedly, she was pressing her body against him, her fingers curling into his shirt with a kind of desperation. “Don’t do it, Ty. Please.”

  His arms went around her as he bent and kissed her silky black hair. “Try to understand, Tara. It’s not what I want to do. It’s what I have to do . . . for the ranch ... for the heritage of the land.”

  With a negative swaying of her head that brushed his chin, she resisted the finality of his words. She lifted her determined, insistent dark eyes to his face while her hands came up to stroke his jaw in frantic little caresses.

  “It isn’t too late to change your mind, Ty,” Tara urged. “I can talk to Daddy and smooth it all out. I’ll just explain to him that you were confused for a little while.” Her hands tugged at his head to force it down while her hot, eager lips rushed onto his mouth, kissing him in a wildly anxious way. “He’ll understand.” Between bites, she breathed the words into his mouth. “I know he will.” Her heated lips worked on him, awakening the heavy impulses that made him tighten his arms around her. “Everything will be all right. You’ll see.” Confidence ran through her.

  “Tara, no.” The rasping pitch in his voice showed his level of disturbance while he roughly trailed his mouth across her cheek. “I’m not going to change my mind.”

  Her hands pushed at his chest to arch her body away from him. “But you made an agreement with him. You gave him your word on it. I thought your promise was supposed to mean something.”

  “I have a prior commitment that’s in direct conflict with the deal I made with your father.” His voice was still husky as he tried to convince her. “It has to take precedence.”

  “How can you be such a fool?” Tara broke out of his arms, angry and disgusted with him again. “Do you realize how rich we could be? There’s a fortune lying out there.”

  “And that’s where it’s going to stay.”

  “No, it won’t. Daddy’s company will take it—all of it. And half of it can be yours if you’ll only listen to me.”

  “No.” Ty was adamant, unswayed by her appeals or demands.

  “If you can throw away a chance like this, then our marriage obviously means very little to you.” She stood indignantly erect, proud and strong-willed. “You’re willing to sacrifice our future, which means you don’t care if we have one. I think you’ve made that very plain.”

  “Tara—” A heavy sigh broke from him.

  “When my father walks out of this house, I’m going with him.”

  It irritated him that she was using this issue to test his love. “Don’t make idle threats, Tara,” he snapped.

  It was the wrong thing to say. He had called her bluff and forced her into playing out her hand. Ultimately, they both would be losers in the game. With an anger that was almost regal, Tara walked from the room. Ty couldn’t call her back, because neither of them had left room for compromise.

  An hour later, he was on the telephone when he heard the bang of suitcases on the stairs. His attorney’s voice barely registered in his mind as Ty listened to the sounds of departure—the footsteps, the opening and closing of doors, car doors, and trunks, and the starting of a motor.

  Suddenly, the front door opened and light footsteps entered the house. Just for a minute, Ty let himself admit how much he needed support and understanding from his wife at this crucial juncture. But it was his sister, Cathleen, who appeared in the doorway.

  “Where’s Tara going? She didn’t say anything to me about leaving.” Cat had to wait for her explanation until he was off the phone.

  With the passage of the first twenty-four hours, a tense waiting game began. Sooner or later, Dyson was going to make a move. For Ty, it was a matter of trying to anticipate when he would make it and what it would be, so he could be prepared to block it. Everyone on the ranch was put on the alert with orders to first report the presence of any outsider to headquarters, then escort the trespasser off Triple C range with whatever force was necessary. Ty shifted all the hands he could spare from their regular duties into the northeast district of the ranch. It involved a major reallocation of riders, which included Jessy being temporarily transferred to the lower east camp at Wolf Meadow.

  Her route across the ranch had her traveling over a section of the main road leading east to Blue Moon. Dust plumed behind the pickup as she headed into the high-angling light of a morning sun. Her attention was on the road, watching for the south turnoff. She wouldn’t have noticed the hidden vehicle at all if the sunlight hadn’t hit its window just right and reflected a glare into her eyes.

  Wincing at the painfully brilliant flash, she jerked her head to the side to avoid it. At the same moment, she became alert to her surroundings and slowed the truck to scan the rugged, rolling land to locate the cause of that sudden glare. Jessy was almost ready to decide it had been some broken glass along the roadside and her brief alarm had
been unnecessary when she spotted a four-wheel-drive vehicle. The squatty-nosed jeep was well hidden, back from the road in a wide coulee, its dark green color blending in with thick-growing chokecherry bushes.

  With no hesitation, she shifted the pickup into low gear and turned off the road to bounce over the rough terrain to search for the driver. In the meantime, she reached for the mike of the citizens’-band radio and relayed the news of her discovery back to the base station at the headquarters. The trail turned out to be so simple to follow, it was almost laughable. Stakes with little red flags marched out in a row, leading Jessy directly to the surveying crew.

  The rattling rumble of her truck bumping over the rough ground gave them ample warning of her approach, but they boldly remained in the open, the three of them grouped around the tripod-mounted trans. Jessy circled them to stop in their paths, then reached behind her to take the .30/.30 from its window rack before climbing out of the truck. The rifle was held loosely, the butt tucked under her armpit and the muzzle lowered at the ground. Thirty feet separated her from the men.

  “You’re trespassing. Take your gear and get moving,” she ordered smoothly.

  “We’re on government land. And we’re here doing a job.” The man in the khaki jacket made the response.

  “You’re inside the Calder fenceline.” Jessy didn’t argue the rightful ownership of the land. “My orders are to escort any trespassers off Triple C range.” She shifted her hold on the rifle to bring the barrel level. “I’ll tell you again to get moving.”

  Next came that instant of anger when a man’s been physically threatened by a woman. “I suggest you put that rifle up before you find yourself in trouble!” the surveyor retorted.

  “You’re the one that’s in trouble, mister.” When he took an angry step toward her, Jessy cocked the rifle and squeezed off a shot that whined two feet above his head. He stopped short, cautiously trying to decide whether that had been purposely or accidentally close. “I’ve owned a rifle since I was twelve, and I’ve collected my share of bounty on coyote hides. Now, if you want to know whether a woman can shoot what she aims at, you just take another step.” This time she had the rifle butt by her shoulder. “Now get your stuff and start walking.”