This Calder Sky

by Janet Dailey

  Chapter XXXI

  The bay gelding pulled at the bit, dancing sideways in its eagerness to reach the barns, but Maggie held it down to a fast walk as they entered the ranch yard. She saw Tucker wave to her from the back door of the cookhouse and motion that he wanted to speak to her. She reined the protesting horse toward him, the bay unwilling to be turned away from the bars and the waiting grain.

  “Hi.” She stopped the horse and swung out of the saddle when she reached Tucker. A brisk ride had brought color to her cheeks and rumpled the black hair curling out from under her hat.

  “Culley sent word that he wanted to meet you at four o’clock by the east gate of the north range.” Tucker wasted no time passing on the message. “Take the keys to my truck. It’s the green one. You’ll just have time to make it. I’ll take care of your horse.”

  A quick glance at her watch confirmed his statement, and she handed him the reins to her horse and took the keys he offered. The full impact of the message didn’t hit her until she had turned onto the ranch road that branched to the north. Culley asked to meet her on the north range—where she and Chase used to meet, Calder property. And Chase had warned him not to set foot on his land.

  Her toe pressed the accelerator down and the speedometer needle swung to fifty-five. She was suddenly frightened by the risk her brother was taking, deliberately defying Chase … as her father had defied his father’s warning. A dust cloud plumed behind the speeding truck as she raced along the road.

  When she approached the north range, the sight of a horse and rider cantering across an open stretch slowed her down. For an instant, Maggie thought the slender rider was her brother, and she knew another moment of fear that he was riding so openly across Calder land. Then she recognized Buck Haskell. Thankfully, he was riding in the opposite direction from the east gate. She breathed a sigh of relief.

  There was no sign of Culley when she reached the designated meeting place. She climbed out of the truck and glanced at her watch. She was five minutes late. Had he left when she didn’t show up on time? She hoped so.

  Tall poles flanked both ends of the gate, standing high to mark where the fence gate was located so a rider could aim for it while he was still some distance away. Maggie climbed to the second highest rail to see if Culley was still in sight and used the tall pole at one end to keep her balance.

  A shrill whistle came from the trees near the winding river. Maggie looked to her right and saw the horse and rider standing in the shadows. Culley waved his hat to her. She swung a leg across the top rail, finding a toehold on the same board from the opposite side. Quickly she brought the other leg over and hopped to the ground. She hurried quickly across the open ground to the trees.

  “What are you doing here, Culley? I saw Buck Haskell riding south of here. If he finds you—”

  “Don’t worry about him.” He brushed aside her concern. “He’s long gone, headed for the ranch.” There was a rashness about him; she could see it in his eyes. “I knew you’d come.”

  “You sent for me. Of course, I came.” She tried to calm down her own jittery nerves before she attempted to reason with him and convince him to leave before somebody discovered them.

  “You may be married to Calder, but your family is still important to you.” He said it fiercely, as if needing the reassurance of her loyalty.

  “You are important to me. Except for Ty, you’re the only family I have.”

  He grabbed her shoulders again, as he had done that night at the house, and looked deep into her eyes. “Why do you stay there? Why don’t you come home where you belong?”

  “I can’t leave my son. Ty is only fifteen. Culley, he needs me.”

  “But he’s no good. He’s a Calder. Leave him, Maggie. Leave him before it’s too late. You’ve got to get away from there. I don’t want you getting mixed up with this.”

  “Mixed up with what? What are you talking about?” She frowned, worried by the intensity of his voice.

  There was an impatient shake of his head at the interruption of her questions. “You’ve got to trust me, Maggie. Didn’t I do the right thing when I sent you away from here before?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Then trust me now,” he urged. “I know Calder married you, but he doesn’t care about you. He only did it because he wanted his son. He already has a mistress in town, so what does he want with you? I tried to tell Sally that he would hurt her, but she wouldn’t listen to me—just like you wouldn’t listen to me a long time ago. But I was right. You’ve got to listen to me now, Maggie. He’ll hurt you. When all this starts, he’ll turn on you.”

  Everything about her brother was quick and restless, his mood swinging from angry demand to lame pleas in the span of a few seconds. This wild fluctuation alarmed Maggie, although she tried not to show it.

  “I’m listening to you,” she assured him. “But why don’t you trust me, Culley? You keep telling me I’ll get hurt when all this starts, but you won’t tell me what’s going to happen. How come you won’t trust me?”

  “I can’t tell you, don’t you see?” A vein stood out sharply on his forehead as he continued urgently. “Until you’re off his ranch for good, I can’t take the chance that Calder might find a way to make you talk. You’ve got soft living in the city, Maggie. You’re used to being wrapped in cotton wool and treated like a lady. You’ve forgotten how to be a woman out here.”

  “I may have forgotten a few things”—like the binding promise inherent in a man’s word, or how strong the basic needs are between a man and woman—“but I’m not soft, Culley.”

  The hard lines loosened around his mouth, permitting a fleeting smile. “Maybe not. But you’ve got to leave this place. We’re finally going to get even with the Calders for hanging our pa. We’ve got a plan.”

  “We? Is Tucker in on this?” There was surprise in her voice, because she had believed Tucker had put all that away.

  He gave her a bright glance, turning sly. “There’s no way to get to Calder from the outside. But from the inside, his belly is exposed. We’ll get him this time. But you’ve got to leave before it all starts happening. There isn’t much time.”

  “When will it start?” she asked.

  “Soon,” was all he would say. “You have to leave, Maggie. I want you away, where you’ll be safe. You think because he married you that everything will be all right, but it won’t be. It never will be until Calder is in his grave.”

  “Culley—” She was suddenly very frightened—frightened for him and frightened for Chase. Yet, in her heart, she couldn’t believe that her brother intended to kill Chase. It had only been a figure of speech. Not even in his wildest moment would he be capable of such a violent act. “Culley”—she started again in a more controlled voice, veering away from the subject—“I saw Doc Barlow in town the other day.” She lied, because it was Chase who talked to him. “He mentioned that he planned to stop out and see you some evening. Did he come by?”

  “Yeah.” He released her. Maggie’s shoulders tingled where he had gripped them so hard. “He stopped by last week, said I looked tired and overworked and wanted me to come to his office so he could examine me. He claimed there were pills he could give me to help me rest better at night.”

  “There are,” Maggie insisted.

  “I thought you’d understand.” He looked at her grimly. “I don’t want to rest until I’ve settled the score with Calder.” He walked to his horse and stepped into the saddle. “Don’t stay there, Maggie. I can’t look out for you the way I should when you’re there.” He turned his horse and rode into the trees, ducking a low-hanging branch.

  That night, she barely had time to change for dinner before Chase arrived home. She said very little during the meal and ate even less. The urge was strong to tell Chase of her meeting with Culley, to warn him, but there was her brother to consider. Maybe he hadn’t meant anything he said. Maybe he’d just been talking. Outwardly, she looked very calm and quiet, but inside she was a mass o
f uncertainty. How could she stop her brother when she didn’t know what he was going to do, or even if he was going to do anything?

  Chase walked onto the porch, dusting off his clothes with his hat. A series of minor irritations that day had left him in a foul mood. Not that he had been in the best of moods this last week. Maggie had been giving him the silent treatment, barely talking at all.

  Inside the house he paused, listening, but no sound greeted him. It was early. Maggie was probably still out riding. He’d like to know where she went on her rides … and who she met—if it was her brother, or someone else. She had stopped mentioning what the conditions were in the particular section of range she had ridden, which is what made him suspect she had something else on her mind while she was out there.

  The unanswered questions, the half-formed suspicions sat in his mind, working on him, until every other thought he had was about her. He had told her from the beginning that she was free—that she could come and go as she pleased; the marriage was a mere formality to ensure his claim on Ty, so he had no grounds to demand an accounting of her activities when she was away from him. The possibility that she was meeting a man other than her brother awakened feelings in him that were akin to jealousy.

  With telephone calls to make, he entered the den, but he walked to the bar instead of the desk and poured a straight shot of whiskey. He bolted half of it down, starting a backfire that he hoped would burn out the smoldering coals of his jealousy. He sprawled in a leather chair, leaning his head back to stare at the stone fireplace. He lit a long cheroot and nursed it between his lips. Had any of his ancestors endured marriages with separate bedrooms? If a man couldn’t keep his wife home, he wasn’t much of a man. But he’d given his permission.

  All taut energy lay inside him, with no release, all the frustrations of wanting without the right to possess, because he’d given it away. He downed the rest of his drink and rolled to his feet with an animal-like tension. After taking one step toward the bar, Chase stopped. Getting drunk wasn’t the answer. He shoved the glass onto a tabletop and pivoted. Work. Fill his mind with other thoughts. Exhaust his body until it was unaware of any physical need but sleep.

  He walked to the desk to make those phone calls and stopped short with his hand on the back of the swivel chair. All the color drained from his face. Lying in the middle of the desk was a miniature noose made from white string. It was exact in detail, right down to the nine wraps that formed the hangman’s knot.

  How had it gotten there? Who had put it there? Who would know the significance? Only a handful, and most of that number Chase could dismiss. That left only three—Maggie, Culley and Tucker. Maggie was his wife, but she couldn’t be eliminated from the list. A cold rage filled him. Once he had believed her innocent of the rustling, but she had known about it—taken part in one raid.

  The front door closed, and he turned his head toward the sound. He heard the footsteps—light, even-paced strides. It was Maggie. He’d listened to her walk often enough during his evenings working in the den. He walked to the open double doors.

  “Maggie?” His peremptory tone stopped her midway across the living room, her Stetson swinging in her hand. She looked tired and flushed from her ride. When she turned, he noticed the way her high breasts pushed out the front of the cotton blouse. “Would you come in here a minute? I want to talk to you.”

  She agreed in that quiet, concise manner that provoked him with its aloofness. “Of course.” She came toward him, combing a hand through her hair that curled nearly to her shoulders.

  He waited until she was at the door before he turned to escort her to the desk. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the first tremor of shock and turned to observe her reaction. She had halted, her widened gaze locked on the miniature noose while her face turned ghostly pale. That was a reaction no actress could fake. She hadn’t known it was there, he realized, or she would have been better prepared. What anger remained in him was directed toward himself for doing this to her.

  “Maggie.” His voice was sharp to break the morbid spell of the noose.

  Her gaze jerked to him, tears welling in her eyes. “Is this your idea of some cruel practical joke?” She choked on the bitter words.

  “I had to find out if you knew about it.” He walked to the bar to pour her a drink and she followed him partway.

  “If I knew about it?” Her fingers were pressed to her breastbone, emphasizing her words as she demanded an explanation.

  “Yes. That was left on the desk for me to find—not you. Drink this.” He extended a shot glass of whiskey to her.

  She waved it aside with an impatient gesture. “I don’t want it. You mean someone—” She frowned and didn’t complete the sentence.

  “Yes.”

  “But who could have—” She stopped again.

  “The list of possibilities is very short.” Chase studied the shot glass still in his hand, lifting his gaze to catch hers. “Have you seen your brother lately?”

  She moved to a window, staring out of it and clasping her hands in front of her. “Yes, I’ve seen him.”

  “Do you remember anything he said?”

  “He said a lot of wild things, but he’s always talked about getting even. Even in his letters, he was always mentioning it. He never did anything, though—not in all this time.”

  “That hangman’s rope is more than just talk.”

  “I know.” She looked down at her hands. “He’s my brother, Chase. I’m worried about him.”

  “His scare tactics—or whatever he wants to call them—won’t work. You can tell him that for me,” he said grimly.

  She turned her head to look at him, a certain desperation in her otherwise calm expression. “I don’t want anything to happen to him.”

  His nostrils flared in contained anger. “Do you give a damn what happens to me?”

  “Of course I do!” The blazing fires in her eyes burned him. For a minute Chase thought he had gotten through to the old Maggie. Then they were contained with cool control. “I care about any human being.”

  “Do you?” he mocked as she looked out the window again. “Sometimes I wonder.” He caught the movement of her hands and glanced down to see her turning her wedding band around and around on her finger. “Is the ring too loose?” His symbolic thought was to make it tighter and cut off all circulation.

  “No.” She glanced down, as if not previously realizing what she was doing. “I’m just used to my husband’s ring.”

  “I am your husband.” His mouth was a tight white line.

  A stillness settled over her. “Yes.” It was a quiet affirmation. Then she was lifting her head, so cool and poised that he wanted to shake her. “Excuse me. I need to shower and change before I fix your dinner.” She moved away without looking at him and left the room.

  Chase listened to the footsteps carrying her away from him. As Maggie climbed the stairs, he drank down the shot of whiskey he’d poured for her and gripped the empty glass. In a surge of anger, he hurled it at the fireplace, where it crashed and splintered in the blackened hearth.

  The next morning, Maggie was dusting the furniture in the living room while Ruth ran the dustmop over the tiled floor. She heard Chase come in but didn’t look around, presuming he would go to the den. It was several seconds before she felt the touch of his gaze on her and realized he was watching her. She turned suddenly, surprising him and catching the hard-biting hunger in his look before he wiped it away. There was a swift, hot rise of her pulse, disturbed by that glimpse of his needs.

  “I’ll be away from the ranch today, so I won’t be here for lunch,” he said. “I may be late coming home. If I’m not here by seven, don’t hold up dinner for me.”

  “All right.” She kept her voice even. Instead of the regular ranch clothes, he was dressed in a Western-cut suit and white shirt, tailored to fit his long, muscled frame. The effect was one of power and authority—and an ease in shouldering it.

  He seemed on the verge of saying
something else, then changed his mind as he looked at Ruth. Donning a cream-colored Stetson, he turned and walked to the door. As it closed behind him, Maggie released the breath she had unconsciously been holding and bent to finish dusting an end table.

  “Have you quarreled?” The question from Ruth stiffened Maggie.

  “No, of course not,” she denied, deliberately casual.

  The small silence that followed revealed that Ruth Haskell did not fully believe the marriage was without problems. “Try to be understanding, Maggie,” she said finally. “Running the Triple C is a lonely job, with an enormous amount of pressure and responsibility. I recall that Lillie—Webb’s wife—used to tell me it demanded that Webb be more than a man. And the only time he could be ‘just a man’ was when they closed the bedroom door at night.”

  The intimacies—the confidences that a man and wife shared—were something that made Maggie uncomfortable. Chase was her husband. Despite her slip yesterday, that was the way she thought of him. It was this that compounded her fear about what Culley might be planning.

  “Chase is the heart of the Triple C. He pumps life to the farthest reaches of the ranch, ties it all together, and keeps it healthy,” Ruth continued quietly. “The heart has to be strong and good. A Calder is a special breed of man, Maggie. And it takes a special breed of woman to stand at his side. I wasn’t sure at first, but you are that kind.” There was a gentle curve to her mouth. “I know you know about Sally Brogan. A woman always knows about the other woman in her husband’s life. She is a gentle, loving person who served a need in his life—gave him a quiet place to go and an undemanding affection. But she is like me, a shadow destined to remain in the background. You are like Chase, able to stand in the sunlight, letting it glare on your flaws and shine on your assets. You belong in this house the same way Lillie did.” She suddenly realized how much she had talked while Maggie remained silent. Her expression became rueful and apologetic. “I’m sorry. I probably shouldn’t be saying all this, but Chase is like my own son. I raised him and … I want him to be happy. I know you have what it takes to make him very happy.”