Cal had said nothing yet, but he was leaning forward in his chair, resting his arms on his knees, slowly rotating his hat around and around, his dark eyes examining her intently.
“But what about that other stuff?” he said. “About Jamie’s ex? And his girlfriend? The things Mandy told Jamie about Ray and Tina? About what was going on at that party the night she had to stay with them?”
Elaine didn’t answer immediately. She weighed her response carefully. Finally, she spoke. “I think it’s likely Ray is involved in criminal activities, but by itself the child’s story is not going to be good enough. We need evidence, Cal. Hard evidence.”
She was looking at him thoughtfully, as though she were putting him through some kind of unspoken examination. Cal nodded, also thoughtfully, and she decided they understood each other. She laid her pen down across the yellow pad and sat way back into the big executive chair.
“Of course, if we had that kind of evidence, some real proof of what he’s doing, we’d have a much stronger case.” She didn’t dare to be too explicit, but she was pretty sure both Cal and Jamie were getting the meaning behind her noncommittal words. “A private investigator would be able to do it, but it’s hard in a small town for him to work unobtrusively. Someone who lives and works in the area could manage it a little more easily. Of course, he’d have to be careful not to do anything illegal himself.”
She was now talking only to Cal.
“I suspect we’re dealing with some genuinely dangerous people,” she said as Cal nodded his agreement. Clearly he had already reached the same conclusion. “Still, with care—and with plenty of nerve—it might be possible for someone who has his wits about him to turn up something useful.”
Cal still looked at her thoughtfully, only nodding his head once or twice, following her exactly. “I understand what you’re saying, ma’am, and I hope it’s real clear that this part of it is something Jamie should stay out of.”
Jamie was ready to jump in, but Elaine turned to her, cutting her protest short.
“Absolutely. Aside from the danger—and I know you’re not afraid of the danger, Jamie—but I want you to be totally without any involvement in whatever may happen in the course of this—”
She stopped. After all, she couldn’t counsel anyone to do anything illegal. Like trespass. Or breaking and entering. Or burglary. To say nothing of risking one’s neck. But if Cal chose to snoop around on his own, well, it certainly couldn’t be said that Elaine French had said anything to encourage him. She was, after all, a responsible, highly respected attorney—an officer of the court. She let her voice trail off, waving her hand vaguely in their direction.
“In the meantime,” she said, “I’ll start putting together a petition to modify the original divorce decree. Let’s give it a week to see if anything”—she glanced at Cal—“turns up.” She pushed her chair back from the desk and stood up, indicating their conference was concluded.
“Well,” Cal said to her as she walked them to the door, “I wouldn’t be surprised if something does in fact just happen to turn up. If it does, I guess you just might hear about it, ma’am.”
Elaine held the door for them. “That’s what I’m hoping for. Without some really good information, it’s going to be an uphill battle.”
Chapter Twelve
They were silent until they reached the front doors of the Stilton Building, but as soon as they were outside, Jamie stopped abruptly and turned toward Cal.
“You can go on ahead, Cal,” she said. “I won’t be riding with you back to Sharperville. I’m going to take the bus instead.”
“You don’t have to do that, Jamie.” He was obviously surprised—and not pleased.
“Yes, I do,” she said. “I’ve decided.”
She was unwilling to try to explain, but after last night, she couldn’t face the long drive alone with him. It had been hard enough, driving back to Salt Lake from the C-Bar. Five more hours cooped up with an angry man would be unbearable.
He looked at her hard for a long minute, but all he saw was her fierce stubbornness, the little jaw set unyieldingly, the blonde head held defiantly. His face was grim, but he didn’t even try to argue with her.
Shit! But if that’s the way she wants it—
He was too hurt, too angry, too ashamed to argue.
“Suit yourself,” was all he said.
He pulled his hat down over his black brows, turned away and left her, standing alone on the sidewalk, alone in the press of people hurrying around her. She turned quickly, too, so she wouldn’t have to watch him walking away from her.
She was eager to get away from there. She strode along Main Street, a lonely little figure, moving through the uncaring crowd. At the intersection she asked a passerby for directions to the bus terminal, glad to learn it was nearby. She found it easily, waited for the next bus heading south, to Sharperville, and then chewed her nails miserably all the way back, not even seeing the breathtaking, corkscrewing mountain passes through which the bus traveled, or the mesa-skimming blacktop from which the sheer drop on both sides made the road seem a skyway, unsupported by the earth. It was dangerous terrain and one had to be so careful, but she was too miserable to notice.
* * *
When he got back to the ranch, Ellie and Harvey saw right away that something was wrong. Cal looked like he was ready to kick the cat—or anything else handy—and since he was usually so even-tempered, everyone just stayed out of his way; they knew he’d talk when he was ready. Ellie asked if he’d had dinner, but she couldn’t get more than a preoccupied mumble. He poured himself a mug of coffee, drank about half of it standing at the kitchen counter, looking fierce. Then he said something about there being a couple of hours’ daylight left and he was going to go work on those fence posts and then he disappeared into his room, changed his clothes and stormed out to the road that went through the alfalfa field. The sound of the sledge driving fence posts into the ground could be heard for hours, long after everyone had gone to bed.
* * *
“Where you been?” Lee Sundstrom barely looked away from the television to acknowledge his daughter’s arrival. A beer can, already empty, dangled from his slack fingers, and in his eyes, brooding and dull, squinting through the cigarette smoke that veiled his face, there was no interest at all in her response.
“I told you. I was going to Salt Lake to see a lawyer.”
He made no answer, only puffed listlessly on his cigarette, his sharp face made garish by the television light.
It’s pointless to explain anything to him. He doesn’t care if I come or go, he doesn’t care why I went or what I did while I was away or what I’m going to do now.
Her glance slid past him and past the awful reality of this crumbling place and its useless occupant. With a terrible sense of a shattering collapse, of brittle, over-stressed defenses crashing within her, she hated it all. She wanted to erase it, replace it with its opposite, with a lively, happy family like the one she’d seen in the Cameron home.
But it couldn’t be done. This was the reality of her home, these were the facts of her life. Against this scene, the memory of the C-Bar was now like a knife, slicing at the slender threads of her self-esteem. She didn’t want this shabby place to be her home, but it was. And she didn’t want this empty man to be her father, but there was no other, only this one.
She imagined it all through Cal’s eyes and she hated it and was ashamed, and she hated herself for her shame. The confusions that were raging through her were cutting her to pieces. She climbed the stairs to the refuge of her bedroom, undressed, and then sat, naked in the dark and cold, for more than an hour, without even the candle’s light to warm her hopes or show her the future.
Cal said he’d help. But not, I think, after last night. And so what! I don’t need him. I can handle it myself.
She got into bed, still naked, and finally she slept.
* * *
Cal’s heart was badly bruised, and his brain felt like m
ush. What’s more, his leg had been aching horribly for hours. Despite all the physical therapy, there were going to be days like this, from now on, when the knee would be giving him trouble, and hard work was the only way Cal knew to fight pain . . . from now on . . .
The words repeated themselves relentlessly in his head, for his time of grieving for the heedless, happy-go-lucky boy he had been was not yet over. With each blow of the sledge-hammer against a post, he fought an agonizing battle against his demons, struggling to accept the reality of a loss that could never be recovered. He would never be the same—could never be the same. And he was beginning to understand: these are the blows that turn a boy into a man. A hard lesson, but Cal was learning it.
And gradually, although his heart still hurt, and he continued to pound those posts with all the fury of a man raging against his fate, the pain in his leg was forgotten, and one idea emerged clearly from the tangle of emotions, a single ray of clarity in the black, senseless hurricane that was twisting through his mind.
Jamie needs help. And whatever else happens, I’m not going to let that ex-husband of hers do her any more damage. I understood Elaine French’s message even if she didn’t spell it out for me—and I know what needs to be done.
That realization was the first shred of peace he’d experienced all day and it allowed him finally to put away his tools, go back to the house, and get some sleep.
He was up early the next morning and Harvey was glad to see his brother-in-law looking calmer. As soon as the chores were done, Cal said he had something to tend to. Later that morning, Harvey saw Cal had taken one of the saddle horses and was riding west, toward the desert range.
* * *
The crew started early on summer mornings, taking advantage of the cooler hours, so by sunup on Wednesday, Jamie was back at work. She tried to concentrate on cutting the drainage trenches alongside the road bed, but her hands pushed and pulled mechanically on the joysticks. Her mind was engaged elsewhere.
A new place to live. That’s number one. How long do I have? Elaine said the papers will be ready by the end of the week. I’ll need to start looking right away.
And I’ll have to get the new place fixed up, with a bed for Mandy, and enough furniture and kitchen things for two, so I can show I’m ready to make a suitable home for us both. “Suitable”—whatever that means. As though pretty curtains and new dishes could satisfy a child’s need for love and safety. But that’s what they’ll be looking for. I’ll go over to Butcher’s Fork in the next day or two, and start buying things. Thank God, the money will go further, now that I don’t have to worry about legal costs. That, at least, is something to thank Cal for, bringing me to Ms. French.
She got through the day somehow—with her mind running on overdrive—and after sundown, when the guys went out for beer, Jamie was in no mood to join them. Instead, she picked up a copy of the Desert Bee and, with a paper-wrapped hamburger and a Coke balanced next to her on the car’s front seat, she started hunting for a new place to live. With no success, as it turned out, but it was better than spending the evening at home, and it was definitely a step forward.
But she couldn’t stop herself from watching for a sign from Cal—a phone call perhaps, or his blue pickup moving in a cloud of dust up her driveway. No matter how hard she tried, her mind insisted on being filled with Cal, replaying every word, every gesture that had passed between them, returning in maddening repetitions to their last night together.
* * *
By Thursday morning, she was back at work in an even more poisonous mood, veering uncontrollably between fury at Cal and the frustration of her helpless inability to forget him. By the time the sun was high, the day was hotter, and the dusty cloud around her was drier in her eyes and more grating in her throat, The harsh shards of anger were cutting though her like erratic razor blades, and she was a miserable muddle of blasted pride and murderous rage.
It showed in the way she worked the controls of the backhoe, viciously slamming the joysticks back and forth as she struggled with the impulse to smash something. She made the machine take great angry chunks out of the earth, and even Gordon noticed she was swinging the big boom too violently as she deposited the huge buckets of dry soil alongside the trench. He came up beside the yellow monster, shouting to be heard over the growling engine.
“Hey, Jamie! Take it easy! That’s a hundred thousand bucks worth of equipment!”
Oh, go buzz off!
She didn’t say it, of course. She had at least that much self-control. She knew that Gordon hadn’t done anything to deserve such a harsh response. So she just lifted her hand instead, signaling that she’d heard and understood.
“Sorry about that, Gordon.” she managed to yell at him over the machine’s noise. “I’ll watch it.”
Gordon had seen, ever since she’d returned from Salt Lake City, that Jamie’s mind was far away, and he’d already decided to give her a couple of days to settle down before he had a little talk with her. Might be she’d need a friendly ear or a little help with some problem. But Jamie made it through the rest of the day without causing Gordon any more concern and he stopped worrying about her.
It wasn’t until she was on her way home that night that a sign of Cal Cameron’s existence turned up. She had stopped to gas up at the Chevron station and there was the blue pickup, standing big as you please, at one of the pumps. Her heart jumped eagerly, but then she saw it wasn’t Cal who was sitting in the cab. Ellie Jackman was waiting on the front seat, and Jamie realized the man filling the tank must be Cal’s brother-in-law, Harvey Jackman.
Ellie had seen her get out of her car and called to her.
“Why, hi there, Jamie.” She stuck her head out the window to call to her husband. “Harvey, look who’s here. This here’s Jamie Sundstrom, the girl Cal was talking about.”
Harvey was a big man, maybe in his late thirties. Ruddy-faced and genial.
“Hey, Jamie. How’re you doing?” He topped off his tank and replaced the nozzle in its holder, then came over to her as she was preparing to start the gas running. “Here, let me get that for you,” he said, taking the hose out of her hand. “Fill her up?”
“Yes, thanks. It’s nice to meet you, Harvey.”
A thousand questions raced through her head but only pleasantries made their way through her mouth. Only when Harvey was screwing the cap back onto the gas tank did she finally bring herself to say what was really on her mind—what had been on her mind every minute since she and Cal had parted.
“I haven’t seen Cal for a couple days. How is he?” She tried hard to sound casual.
“Far as I know, he’s okay. Since you guys got back from Salt Lake, I haven’t seen him much, either. He just saddled up his horse and said he’d be away for a few days. Yesterday, right about sunup, just after we finished the chores. Said he’d be gone a while—asked me to get his truck gassed up while he was away. Then he took off into the desert and I guess I won’t be looking for him to come home till maybe the weekend some time.” He used the bandana that was hanging from his back pocket to wipe his hands. “I wouldn’t worry about him, though. Cal can take care of himself.”
Jamie just nodded. She didn’t trust herself to ask any more questions, but Cal’s disappearance, with no explanation, not even to Harvey, only reinforced her certainty that she’d been dumped.
But why would Cal just take off into the desert? What would he be doing out there? Had he decided it was just time to move on?
But no. He left his truck behind. He’ll have to be back, at least to get his truck.
Chapter Thirteen
Months before, when the cows were out on their winter range, something there on the desert floor had caught Cal’s eye. He’d been busy that day, doctoring a sick heifer, so he’d made only a mental note and then forgot about it. Forgot about it, that is, until he was sitting in Elaine French’s office, figuring what he could do about finding the evidence against Ray Nixon. That’s when he remembered the burn marks
in the dry soil.
The memory of the flat, blackened patches on the sand and some ideas about Jamie’s ex-husband suddenly came together in Cal’s mind, and with crystal clarity, he realized what the evidence against Ray was going to be. He knew it would take maybe a few days—and he also knew it would be premature to discuss it with Jamie at this stage. Anyway, the less she knew, the safer she’d be.
Now he packed a couple of days’ food into his saddle bags, slung his bedroll over his horse’s neck, and transferred one of the Winchesters from the gun rack in the truck to the scabbard on his saddle. A cowboy uses a gun as a tool first—to collect some dinner when the grub box is empty or to permanently discourage a predatory animal—and as a weapon only if it becomes necessary. The way Cal had this figured, he was not dealing with pussy cats. Wouldn’t surprise him if he met up with some trouble out there on the range and he wanted to be carrying some firepower. He slipped a revolver—the. 357 magnum that he always carried in the truck’s side pocket—into a holster and belted it on over his jeans.
Twenty thousand acres of open country was a lot of territory to cover on horseback, and it wasn’t until close to sundown on the second day that Cal found the marks in the sand he’d been looking for, like those he’d seen months earlier. The shadows of the sage were already long across the dusty ground, almost obscuring his discovery, but he knew he’d found the first link in the chain of evidence.
With one hand grasping the horn of the saddle and his other arm resting over it, he leaned forward, taking a good, long look at the hard, crystalline patch of white residue, about five inches across, just to the left of the horse’s front hoof. A few feet away there was a second patch, and beyond that another. A quick glance told him the burn marks formed a square pattern, about forty feet in each direction, and that he was standing at its southeast corner.
A Cowboy's Love Page 15
