This Calder Sky

by Janet Dailey

  “Are you going to turn the herd?” he challenged them, aware that Culley was groggily pushing himself to his feet.

  “Dammit, Chase! These animals are starving!” MacGruder appealed to him.

  “Nate, I want ten more head to join those two on the ground,” Chase ordered without looking at the foreman. “And ten more for every minute they wait.”

  A mixture of shock and outrage entered the expressions of the two ranchers as there was the immediate crack of a rifle, followed by the grunt of a falling animal. Chase counted off the shots in his head while the dazed ranchers watched their cows fall one by one. Even Culley was staring in grief-stricken shock.

  “You can’t do this!” Hensen protested when silence finally followed the tenth shot.

  “Turn them.”

  The fools continued to hesitate until they heard the click of a rifle bullet being levered into the chamber. “All right!” Bill MacGruder shouted and raised a hand for them to hold their fire. “We’ll drive them back. For God’s sake, don’t shoot anymore!”

  Culley glared his hatred as he caught the trailing reins of his horse and remounted to join his partners. They moved quickly to bunch the herd and push it back through the gap in the fence while Chase and his men watched.

  Nate eyed the man sitting so tall in the saddle, unyielding in the way of the Calders, and murmured in a voice that no one heard but himself. “The king is dead. Long live the king.”

  Chapter XXIV

  Chase climbed the porch steps of The Homestead and paused to look over his shoulder. Pride unconsciously registered as his gaze swept the headquarters of the Triple C. Running the ranch had become second nature to him in the five years since his father’s death. During the first few months, he had been tested at every turn. Concealing whatever self-doubts he had, he had faced every challenge and the Triple C was intact, and operating smoothly and efficiently. This was the job he’d been born and bred to do, and he did it well. If some regarded his pride as arrogance, then it was an earned arrogance.

  He squared around and walked to the front door, his measured strides sounding loud on the wooden floor of the porch. Swinging the door closed after he had crossed the threshold, he started directly toward the den.

  “Chase?” Ruth Haskell’s hesitant voice made him pause and turn to glance in the direction of the dining room. After his father’s death, she had begun to show her age. There always seemed to be a haunting sadness lurking in the shadows of her blue eyes.

  But it wasn’t Ruth his gaze fell on. There was a moment when Chase thought he was seeing a ghost as he stared at the pale-faced man standing beside her. He was holding his cowboy hat nervously in front of him, exposing curly, dark blond hair. There was hardly any light shining in the blue eyes, certainly not the dancing gleam Chase remembered.

  “Hello, Chase.” The voice was subdued and hesitant, unsure of his welcome.

  But it was Buck’s voice. For a fleeting moment, Chase was consumed by the urge to cross the space that separated them and clasp the hand of his long-lost friend. Then he remembered the circumstances under which Buck had left the ranch, and he remained where he was.

  “Hello, Buck. I didn’t know you were out.” His voice was as expressionless as his face. His gaze slid to Ruth, noting the way she was biting her lip. She had known, he realized, and simply omitted mentioning it to him.

  “They released me yesterday, reduced my sentence on account of ‘good behavior,’ if you can imagine that!” His laugh rang hollow and Buck lowered his head, nervously fingering his hat. “I know to say ‘I’m sorry’ probably doesn’t mean much, Chase, but I want you to know I am.”

  The line of his mouth thinned as Chase pressed his lips together. He disliked seeing Buck humble himself and was glad when Ruth slipped out of the room to leave them alone. Since he didn’t know what to say, he remained silent while Buck walked awkwardly into the entryway.

  “There’s nothing I can say that will excuse the way I behaved toward you,” Buck continued, “or make you forget the things I said. When it hit me that I was going to jail for what I’d done, I panicked. Have you ever been scared, Chase—I mean really scared, all the way down to your toes? I was like an animal caught in a trap that turns and starts biting himself.” He paused and sighed heavily, finally lifting his gaze to meet Chase’s unwavering eyes. “I had a lot of time to think about all this in prison. I just wanted you to know how I feel. And I was sorry to hear about your dad. I know it must have been rough on you. The two of you were always close. Well”—he fingered his hat again and smiled stiffly—“I won’t keep you. I know you’re busy, so … I’ll be going.”

  There was a conflict raging inside Chase as he watched Buck start to turn away. Half of him was saying to let him go, but the stronger side was remembering the good times.

  “How about a drink?” he asked and smiled for the first time when he saw the old brightness return to Buck’s eyes.

  “I’d love one,” Buck declared. “I haven’t tasted good whiskey in almost ten years.”

  “We’ll correct that.” His hand rested naturally on his old friend’s shoulder as they entered the den together.

  “The place hasn’t changed much.” Buck glanced around the room as Chase walked to the bar to pour each of them a drink. “Everything is the way I remember it.”

  “What do you plan to do now?” Chase handed him a glass.

  “Find me some work. You don’t happen to know someone who might be willing to hire a rusty cowboy who’s been out of circulation for a few years, do you?” he mocked with some of his old sparkle.

  Chase stared at his glass for a minute, the conflict rising again. “I might.”

  “Hey! I wasn’t hitting you up for work,” Buck insisted quickly. “I mean—”

  Chase slanted him a sideways glance, measuring him. “Do you mean you don’t want to work for the Triple C again?”

  “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t.” There was a yearning quality in his sighing answer. Buck swirled the liquor in his glass and watched the changing amber shades. “Coming home is all I’ve dreamed about for ten years.” He shook his head in silent regret. “But it isn’t right for me to expect you to give me a second chance.”

  “I’ll decide that, Buck. And if I discover that you don’t deserve it, I will personally kick you out on your ear.”

  “Hey, I’d paint sheds, clean out barns, repair windmills—whatever you say,” Buck promised. “You don’t even have to put me on a horse until I prove myself again.”

  “Sorry.” Chase shook his head. “I’m only interested in hiring Buck Haskell, the cowboy.”

  “I’ll work longer and harder than anybody you ever saw. I promise you that, Chase.”

  By the end of the second month, Chase believed him. Buck was the first one out every morning and the last one in at night. There were times when he did the work of two people. He didn’t go into Jake’s and rarely drank, except for a cold beer or a glass of whiskey with Chase if he happened to be at The Homestead in the evenings, which wasn’t often. From all Chase had been able to gather, he didn’t spend his money wildly, but saved some of each paycheck. And he didn’t try to pick up their friendship where it had left off, either, as if he knew he had to earn Chase’s trust before the old bonds could be established once more.

  Elizabeth toyed with her appetizer, broiled grapefruit sweetened with a mixture of sugar and Galliano liqueur, usually something she enjoyed very much. Phillip studied her quietly from the opposite end of the table and recognized the introspective mood, guessing its cause.

  “You heard from your brother today.”

  She looked up in startled confusion. “How did you know?”

  “I can tell,” he murmured and laid down his serrated grapefruit spoon. “What did he have to say?”

  “Just the usual things.” Maggie shrugged and explained no further. Phillip had read enough of Culley’s letters to know he had ranted on about Chase Calder. It worried her sometimes at how obse
ssive her brother’s hatred had become. Her own had dulled with time and Phillip’s loving influence, which had healed much of her pain.

  “Have I ever met my uncle?” Ty asked with a deep frown.

  At ten, nearly eleven years old, he was acquiring an even more striking resemblance to Chase. Maggie was more conscious of it at certain times than others, like now, when Culley’s letter had freshened all her memories of the man.

  “No, you haven’t.” She quickly changed the subject. “Where are you and Jeff going tonight?” Jeff Broad-street was a friend of Ty’s. Both boys attended the same private school. Jeff’s parents were taking the two out for the evening.

  “To a movie, a Western. Jeff said the previews really looked good,” he enthused. “Doesn’t Uncle Culley own a ranch?”

  “Yes,” Phillip answered when Maggie failed to respond to the question.

  “How come we never go visit him? That would really be neat to stay on a real ranch. Can we go sometime, Mom?”

  “We’ll see,” she said crisply. She knew they never would, but she didn’t tell Ty that because it would require an explanation.

  “How about this summer?” he suggested.

  “We are going to London this summer,” she reminded him.

  “London is nothing but a bunch of old buildings and stuffy museums,” Ty complained. “I’d rather go to the ranch.”

  “We are going to London,” Maggie stated. “All our reservations have been made and it’s too late to cancel them.” She realized how sharp her voice had become, so she softened it. “London is a fascinating city. You’ll enjoy it. Your father and I had a wonderful time there on our honeymoon.”

  “I thought you went to Paris for your honeymoon.”

  “We did, but we spent a few days in London, as well,” she explained.

  “I’d still rather go to my uncle’s ranch in Montana,” Ty grumbled.

  “That’s enough discussion for now, Ty,” Phillip advised and changed the subject to one less painful to his wife. But the whole subject needed to be straightened out. Phillip waited until dinner was finished and Ty had excused himself from the table before bringing it up again. “Ty should meet your brother, Elizabeth. After all, Culley is the only uncle he has.”

  “I’ll invite Culley to come to California.”

  “He won’t come. He didn’t come to your graduation or our wedding. He’s always too busy,” Phillip reminded her. “Besides, it’s the ranch Ty really wants to see.”

  “It’s just a phase he’s going through. He’ll outgrow it,” she stated.

  “I seriously doubt it, Elizabeth. Ty is a natural horseman. That isn’t something he is going to outgrow,” he reasoned.

  “I don’t care. He isn’t going to Montana—now, or ever.” She resented that Phillip was taking Ty’s side in this.

  “What happens when he’s older? When you can’t tell him anymore what he can and can’t do?” He studied her close-mouthed expression and sighed. “Elizabeth, Ty has the right to be told he’s adopted. I’ve said it before.” That was one of the few points in their life on which he disagreed with his wife.

  “What would it change? What would it accomplish, except to confuse him? Ty believes you’re his father. You are his father,” she insisted.

  “And if he finds out someday?”

  “He won’t. He won’t ever find out.”

  With a heavy sigh, Phillip let the subject drop. Maggie simply refused to see the trouble that lay ahead. It worried him, but, as in all things, he gave in to her wishes and held his silence.

  PART VI

  A sky of union,

  A sky complete,

  This sky that watches

  Two Calders meet.

  Chapter XXV

  Her fingertips lovingly caressed the photograph of the lean, gray-haired man while her eyes misted over with tears. “My darling Phillip,” Maggie whispered, “we had ten wonderful years of marriage. I shall always treasure that.” It was still so hard to accept that he was gone, taken from her so quickly, without warning, the victim of a massive coronary two months before.

  She looked around the room they had shared, scattered with boxes packed with his clothes slated for donation to a local charity. She had postponed this task for so long, knowing how empty the room would seem without his things. Her glance fell on the family Bible on the bedside table. It had been tucked away on a closet shelf. Everything seemed so final now that she had entered the date of Phillip’s death in the record.

  A car roared up the private lane, its unmuffled motor shattering the night’s stillness. From the paddocks, a horse trumpeted its alarm. Maggie glanced at the luminous dial of the clock on the bed’s nightstand. Ty was supposed to have been home over an hour ago. The combination of his fifteenth birthday and his father’s death had convinced him that as the man of the family, he could take liberties with the rules. To make matters worse, Jeff had just turned sixteen and obtained his driver’s license, so there was always transportation available for Ty.

  Reaching for her satin robe lying at the foot of the bed, Maggie pulled it on as she hurried out of the master bedroom, where she now slept alone. She was halfway down the white staircase when she heard the front door slam and the car revving its motor as it reversed out of the drive. A light was already on in the living room. The reason for it became apparent when Pamela wheeled her chair into the foyer.

  “Hello, Ty. Did you have a good time tonight?”

  The question irritated Maggie. Pamela virtually encouraged Ty with her attitude that anything he did was perfectly all right. It was undermining what authority Maggie did exercise over her son.

  “You should have come with us, Pamela. It was great!” At fifteen, his voice was changing, cracking out of its low octave to the high squeak. “Have you ever been to a rodeo? Man, it’s exciting!”

  “Ty, do you realize what time it is?” Maggie came the rest of the way down the stairs, more upset than she might have been because of Pamela.

  “I’m sorry, Mom.” He wasn’t very successful at looking contrite. An inch short of six feet, he was starting to fill out in the shoulders and chest. His height and his heavy-boned features made him look older than he was. There was just enough fuzz on his cheeks that he had to shave, which really made him feel like a man. He had naturally respected Phillip’s authority because he had been a man, but he regarded Maggie’s orders with a kind of indulgence, as if he had to humor her because she was a woman. “But the bull-riding was the last event. Jeff and I didn’t want to miss it.”

  “Am I supposed to ignore the fact that you are more than an hour late coming home?”

  “Oh, Elizabeth,” Pamela rebuked her sternness. “It isn’t as though Ty had been to some wild party and come home drunk. It was all very innocent.”

  “If you don’t mind, Pamela, I will handle this,” she retorted, fed up with the woman’s constant interference. It was difficult to believe she had once regarded her as a model of what she wanted to be. It had only been superficial. She often pitied Pamela because of the emptiness of her life, but it was empty because Pamela was essentially empty. It was something she had been slow to discover. It was only after Maggie had joined the executive staff of an international charity organization, where her facility with languages was so useful, and she had tried to interest Pamela in some volunteer work, that she realized Phillip’s sister was a very shallow person, unable to help herself or anyone else. It was more than her body that was crippled.

  “You are much too strict with him, Elizabeth,” Pamela criticized.

  Controlling her temper with an effort, Maggie turned calmly to her son. “Ty, will you please go upstairs and wait for me in my room?” She waited silently while he climbed the stairs and she heard the door to the master bedroom close. Then she faced her sister-in-law. “Don’t ever interrupt again when I am reprimanding my son, Pamela. I won’t stand for it anymore.”

  “What have I done?” She looked properly astounded.

  “Yo
u encourage Ty to disregard what I say. I will not tolerate any more interference from you on matters that are strictly between me and my son.”

  “I will not be told by you how I shall conduct myself in my own house!” Pamela flared. “In case you have forgotten, this is my house! You are merely a guest.”

  “Yes, this is your house. Phillip left it to you, and I’m glad he did. But, in case you have forgotten, Ty is my son. If I leave, he will go with me.” She considered that thought a moment. “Maybe it would be for the best, because it seems certain that you and I are not going to be able to get along.”

  “You can’t be serious!” The possibility frightened Pamela.

  “If you and I can’t come to an understanding about Ty, I don’t see where I have an alternative.” Maggie pivoted with a swirl of her satin robe and ascended the stairs to the second floor. She didn’t want to leave this house, where she and Phillip had lived so happily. It was filled with so many fond memories. Perhaps threatening to leave would be sufficient.

  As she entered the master bedroom, she automatically glanced around the room to locate her son. He was seated on the side of the king-sized bed, his back turned to her, his wide shoulders slightly hunched. There was a dazed, pained look to his expression that brought a frown to Maggie’s face.

  “Who is Chase Calder?” he asked hoarsely.

  Shock wiped the frown from her forehead and drained the color out of her cheeks. “Where did you hear that name?” she accused in a whisper.

  “I read it. Here.” He straightened from the bed and turned to show her the book in his hand.

  Maggie recognized the Malloy family Bible. “No.” It was little more than a breath.