by Janet Dailey
Chase darkened in anger, his rough features hardening as he ignored his friend’s comments and walked past Buck directly to the pickup. “Let’s get a move on.”
Buck climbed across the open bed of the truck, rather than walk around the tailgate to the passenger’s side. Both doors were slammed shut in unison and Chase turned the key in the ignition.
“Now I understand why you bought those rubbers a couple of weeks back.” Buck was still grinning, his hat tilted to the back of his head, an arm resting on the frame of the opened window. He loved to tease, especially when he could get a rise out of his victim. “You don’t want to get a young thing like that knocked up, but I don’t know if I would trust those rubbers if I were you. You don’t know how long they’ve been sitting on the shelf under Lew’s counter. They’re probably yellow with age now. They’re liable to split on you just when you need them the most.”
“Lay off it, Buck,” Chase warned and shifted the truck into gear. It jumped forward as his foot tromped on the accelerator, then eased back with an effort at control.
“How come you never told me you had some action going on the side?” Buck persisted in a mock complaint. “We never had any secrets from each other before. We’re practically brothers. You know I would never try to move in on your territory, so how come you never mentioned this hot little affair you have going with the O’Rourke girl!”
It was true. They rarely kept any information from each other, trading stories and experiences, bragging and joking about the women they’d had.
“Maybe I just didn’t want to hear any of your crude remarks.” Chase’s expression remained stern, his gaze not straying from the bumpy path through the grass.
“Come on, Chase,” Buck grumbled. “Where’s your sense of humor?”
“I’ll find it when you show some sense of decency.”
“Man, you’re as testy as a bull on the prod.” Buck slouched in the seat, pulling his hat forward and low on his forehead, and stared out the side window for a sullen moment. “What you need is a few beers to loosen up,” he said finally. “It’s Friday and I’m going into town. Why don’t you come with me?”
“No, thanks.”
“Come on, Chase,” Buck urged. “You haven’t sampled any of Jake’s new entertainment yet. You need a wild night of whoring and drinking to get rid of that chip on your shoulder.”
“I’m not interested.” He repeated his refusal. A whore’s sex didn’t interest him, not when he’d just had the satisfaction of the real thing. As for the drinking, that didn’t appeal to him, either.
“Then I’ll go by myself.” Buck shrugged, paused a second, then glanced at Chase. “Loan me twenty dollars till payday.”
“Twenty?” He sliced an impatient glance at his buddy. “You already owe me thirty. That would make fifty you’ve borrowed this month.”
“So? I’ll pay you back when I get paid.”
“Yeah, and then borrow it back the following week.”
“Hell, you can afford it,” Buck retorted. “I’m not the one next in line to inherit all this. What’s the big deal, anyway? All I’m asking for is a lousy twenty-dollar loan from a guy who’s supposed to be my best friend.”
Chase stretched his right leg stiff and lifted himself slightly off the cab seat to reach deep into the pocket of his jeans for his cash. All he had was four singles and a twenty. He separated the twenty from the dollar bills and handed it to Buck.
“Here.” His glance took in the sulky look on the usually grinning face, and a smile eased the stiffness of his own mouth. “Who is being the sorehead now?”
Buck met his glance, then slowly laughed at himself, and took the money, stuffing it into his shirt pocket. “Thanks, Chase. You’ll get it back. I wish you’d change your mind about coming with me. We could have a high ole time, you and me.”
“I’ll go next time.” He realized he’d been neglecting his best buddy and felt obligated by friendship to do something about it.
Resting a heel on the running board of the truck, Nate Moore took the makings of a cigarette out of his shirt pocket while he watched the riders gathering cattle into a holding pen. Webb Calder stood beside him, an arm braced against the cab of the truck, his expression grim.
“I went by here about ten days ago and noticed that one steer with the split ear wasn’t at the salt block. He’s always been there in the mornings. It got to where I looked for him automatically,” Nate explained. “At first I thought maybe he’d broken a leg or got bitten by a rattler, so I mentioned to Slim to keep an eye out for him when he checked the herd the first part of the week. A couple of days later he told me he hadn’t seen hide nor hair of that steer. That spooked me and I rode out to take a look for myself.”
“How many do you think are missing?” Webb watched the riders bringing the cattle to the pen in small bunches.
“A conservative estimate would be forty to fifty head. It could go higher.” He returned the cigarette papers and tobacco pouch to his pocket, a rolled cigarette dangling from his lips, and raked a match across his jeans to light it.
“Any guess about when the rustlers hit us?”
“It’s hard to say. More than ten days ago.” He squinted at the smoke. “Probably backed a semi up to the fence gate and loaded ’em in. That’s the way it’s usually done.”
Webb breathed in deeply and straightened from his leaning stance against the truck. “Right.” It was a terse agreement. Nate stepped out of the way as Webb reached for the door handle. “Let me know the final count as soon as you get it.”
“Will do.”
Driving out of the pasture, Webb took the ranch road back to the headquarters and stopped the pickup in front of The Homestead. He called to one of the ranch hands passing by: “Find Virg Haskell and send him up to the house. I want to see him.” A hand was lifted in acknowledgment of the order, and Webb continued on his way to the house.
Twenty minutes later, a slim, brown-haired man entered without bothering to knock. None of the employees observed that formality. A Calder was always accessible to those who worked for him. Virgil Haskell walked directly to the den that doubled as Calder’s private office and removed his hat as he entered the room.
“Bevins said you asked to see me.”
“That’s right.” Webb leaned back in his chair to look at the man. He’d never been impressed with Haskell, although he couldn’t fault the man’s work record. Virg had been Ruth’s choice for a husband, and Ruth was a dear friend, closely linked to the family. Yet Webb had always suspected that Haskell trod on that relationship to advance himself at the ranch. There had never been any definite proof of that, and Webb had decided that it was a natural prejudice. No one would ever be good enough for Ruth. Although he’d never admitted it, not even to himself, Webb was half in love with her. After he’d gotten over his wife’s death, he probably would have married Ruth if she had been free. But she hadn’t been, so he had channeled his affection for her into a brotherly concern, his head ruling his heart with typical Calder discipline.
“We’ve had some cattle stolen, roughly fifty head from the north pasture,” Webb began.
“When?” Haskell frowned in surprise.
“Ten days to two weeks ago, as close as we can tell. The first thing I want you to do is organize a count of the rest of our herds, starting with those pastured close to the main roads. Then I want you to take a couple of men and question everybody in the vicinity of the north range. Someone might have noticed a semi-trailer rig, or something out of the ordinary. Report back anything you find, immediately.”
“I’ll get on it right away.” The hat was pushed onto the brown hair as Virgil Haskell left the den to begin carrying out the instructions he’d been given.
With his own inquiry begun, Webb reached for the telephone to notify the sheriff’s department. It was strictly an afterthought that he observed the formality of letting the authorities know about the theft.
Chapter IX
Maggie glance
d at the wall clock to check the time. It was almost eleven-thirty. If she hurried, she’d be able to finish the dusting before she had to fix lunch. Lifting an ashtray, she ran the oiled cloth over the top of a magazine stand moved onto the desk. It was an old thing, badly scratched and scarred. The top of it was strewn with papers, mostly advertisements, which Maggie shuffled into a pile. As she lifted the cigar box of bills, she accidentally bumped the decorative stein. It teetered on the edge of the desk and fell to the hard floor—her saving grab missing it. The stein broke into three pieces.
“Damn!” She cursed her clumsiness as she knelt to pick up the pieces.
A section of the handle was broken, and the hinged lid to the stein had snapped off the mug. There was a vee-shaped chip broken from the body of the stein. As Maggie picked up the main body of the stein to see if the chip could be glued into place, she noticed something inside. She reached in, careful to avoid the broken points on the lip, and took out the roll of dark paper.
Only it wasn’t paper. It was money. She sat back on her heels in stunned disbelief. She had never seen so much money in all her life. She fingered the bills, all crisp and green. They didn’t look like counterfeits; the money looked real. Maggie started to count it with trembling, eager fingers. Too dazed by her find, she didn’t hear the footsteps on the porch. She wasn’t aware of anything until she heard the screen door slam. Then she looked up to see her father and brother had entered the house.
“Look what I found!” Maggie lifted her hand to show them the money, laughing and excited. “There’s hundreds here and more!”
“What are you doing with that?” The angry demand from her father was followed with action as he strode quickly over to take it from her hands.
“It was in the beer stein. When it fell—” Maggie stopped when she realized that neither of them was surprised. Culley looked uncomfortable—worried, almost. The sparkling excitement of discovery faded from her green eyes. A sharp-edged tension claimed her, running tautly through her nerve ends. “Where did you get this money, Pa?”
“It’s none of your affair.” He avoided her gaze and shoved the roll of money into his pocket.
Maggie pushed to her feet, an unknown fear gnawing at the pit of her stomach. “Yes, it is. I want to know how you got that much money.”
Her father glanced at Culley, a secretive gleam dancing in his dark eyes. “We’ve been doing a little moonlighting,” he said, sounding deliberately mysterious. A smile didn’t quite make it onto her brother’s face, but Maggie could tell they were sharing a private joke. It increased her suspicions.
“Are you trying to tell me you earned that much money working for someone else?” She didn’t believe them. “Who? When? You’ve been here all the time.”
“It’s night work,” Culley said and grinned at his father.
“Night work? Doing what?” Her uneasiness grew as she looked from one to the other.
“Now just what do you think we’ve been doing, little girl?” her father challenged with a cocky look.
A cold, sinking feeling chilled her. The one thought her mind had been avoiding became the only one left. The clues were all there—night work, a large sum of money, and the widely known fact that someone had been stealing Calder cattle. That was all anyone had talked about for the last two weeks. And her father had smirked with satisfaction each time the subject was discussed in front of him.
“Have you … had anything to do with the cattle that have been stolen?” Maggie had to force the question out, her voice flat and hard in its accusation.
A smugness came over her father’s face. “You’re looking at the brains behind it.”
“You fools! You crazy fools!” Maggie stormed. “Do you think you’re going to get away with it?”
“We haven’t been caught the last three times—and we aren’t ever going to be caught!” Her father stretched his short body to attain every inch of his height and pushed out his chest.
“Three?” Maggie frowned. “But I only heard about—”
“Yeah.” There was a malicious grin on his face. “Calder hasn’t discovered the last one yet. That’s the problem with owning so much. It takes a while to find out if something is missing.”
“We’re just like two pesky mosquitoes,” Culley inserted, “buzzing around and stinging him where he ain’t expecting it, taking little bites here and little bites there—until pretty soon he’s all ate up.” He laughed and her father joined in with him.
Maggie stared at them, chilled to the bone and frightened, although she didn’t let it show. “What happens when he gets mad, Pa? What happens when you sting him so much that he comes after you?”
“How’s he going to know which mosquito to swat at?” he retorted. “He’ll go stomping around, swiping at everyone, but he’ll never be able to prove nothing.”
Maggie shook her head slowly, not believing that. “You’ve just been lucky.”
“Lucky, hell! We’ve been smart! Tucker and me have worked this thing out to where it’s foolproof!” he bragged. “Not even the guy we’re selling the beef to knows who we are. We can’t be traced. Even the semi changes drivers so the guy making the delivery doesn’t know any names on the other end.”
“Why are you doing this, Pa?” she demanded. “Because of Chase? Because of—”
“Calder’s had everything his way in this part of the country for too long. It’s got to the point where he thinks him and his can do anything without being touched—without being made to pay for it. He’s squeezed us little guys out, taking the best land and water, controlling the market so we don’t get decent prices for our beef, and lording it over us like he was some damned king!” Angus towered in his role as champion of the oppressed, David rising up to smite Goliath. “We’re going to get even with Calder for everybody! And we’ve only started!”
“You have to stop!” Maggie insisted, and she vibrated with an anger that came from an inner fear. “Quit while you’re ahead, Pa. You’ve got all that money. It’s more than we’ve ever had. It’s enough. You’ve showed Calder—now quit while you can.”
“We aren’t quitting. We’re going to keep taking from the rich and giving to the poor until there isn’t anything left to take. We’re going to break Calder.”
“No. If you don’t stop stealing cattle, I’ll go to Calder and tell him what you’re doing,” she threatened.
“No, you won’t.” He shook his head, unalarmed by her threat. “You won’t send your father and brother to prison. Right now Chase Calder has you blinded, but the day will come when you’ll see what the Calders are really like. They think they are so big and powerful that they can do anything they want and get away with it. But they won’t—not as long as there’s an O’Rourke around.” He studied her, then gave a decisive nod. “You’ll keep quiet about what you know.”
Her father was right. It had been an empty threat. She wouldn’t tell old man Calder or Chase that her father and brother had joined up with Bob Tucker to rustle Triple C cattle. She couldn’t turn in her own family.
“You’d better get some lunch on the table,” Angus advised now that he had silenced her argument for good. “We’ve had a full morning’s work and we have to meet Tucker in town to start working out the details of which spot we’re going to hit next.”
In a numbed state, Maggie prepared the noon meal and put it on the table for them. She had no appetite as she picked at the food on her plate. While she listened to the confident voices of her father and brother, there was no question in her mind that her loyalty was to them, but how could she meet Chase again, knowing what she did? If she saw him and didn’t mention anything, then wasn’t she a party to the rustling? But if she stopped meeting him, wouldn’t he become suspicious and wonder why? She was caught in the middle with no way to turn.
The theft of the cattle had meant a lot of extra work at the Triple C, so it had been a week since she’d seen him for more than a couple of minutes, just long enough for Chase to explain why he coul
dn’t stay. Maybe he wouldn’t be able to make it tomorrow afternoon, either, Maggie hoped. Then perhaps she’d have time to decide the best way to handle the situation.
But he was there waiting for her when she arrived the next day. His horse was grazing in the wildflower-strewn meadow in the section they called the Broken Bluff. Chase walked forward to meet her, the white flash of his smile showing against the layered tan of his features. Maggie stopped her horse before she reached him and slipped out of the saddle without giving him a chance to help her down. She let the reins trail the ground and patted her horse’s neck, not looking at Chase when he walked up to her, postponing the moment when she had to meet his eyes.
“I thought you might be too busy to come today.” She gave him an immediate opening to say he had to leave.
“We’re busy, all right, but not that busy.” A hand was hidden behind his back. He brought it around to offer her a bouquet of wildflowers. “These are for you, Maggie.”
Her throat grew tight when she looked at the collection of riotous color held in that large, masculine hand. She reached for them hesitantly, encircling their stems with her fingers and lifting them to her face to inhale their wild fragrance.
“No one’s ever given me flowers before.” She glanced into the dark intensity of his eyes and ached inside.
There was a faint curve to his mouth. “If any of the boys saw me picking those flowers, they would never let me hear the end of it.”
She could well imagine how much he would get ribbed if he had been seen doing something so blatantly romantic. It was difficult for her to imagine this virile and husky man picking flowers. Such sentimentality didn’t seem to fit the image of rough, raw manhood.
“Do you like them?” he prompted.
“Yes.” Maggie nodded, unable to lift her gaze from the bouquet, her fingertips lightly tracing the satiny petals.
The point of his finger raised her chin. “Then how about thanking me for them?” he suggested.
