Chapter Twenty
Tension hung over the camp with all the thickness
of a heavy fog. Only the twins were immune to it. Trey played his
own boisterous version of tag with Quint while Laura sat on Jessy’s
lap and made eyes at the cook. The twins’ innocence gave a look of
normalcy to the scene that was taken away by Cat’s restless pacing.
As usual, she made no attempt to conceal the anxiety that gripped
everyone.
Cat made a few attempts to occupy
herself with the children, but after a short while the edginess
took hold and she wandered off, usually to stare in the direction
of the Three Fingers, watching for a rider to return with news of
Ty.
After another fruitless vigil, she
walked back to the cookshack and refilled her coffee mug. It was
not the coffee she wanted as much as it was something to do with
her hands. Worry clouded her green eyes when she darted a look at
Jessy.
“Just because there was blood on the
saddle, that doesn’t necessarily mean he is badly hurt. You can
bleed a lot just from a nasty cut.” Cat seemed to gain some
reassurance from voicing the thought aloud. “That’s probably all
that happened, Jessy.”
“I know.” Jessy had told herself the
same thing, but she had trouble believing it.
A ranch pickup came roaring toward
camp, traveling at a reckless speed. Its approach brought Jessy to
her feet as Cat hurriedly discarded her cup in the wreck pan and
moved toward the oncoming vehicle.
“That must be Amy,” Cat
murmured.
But it was Ballard who emerged from the
cloud of dust that swallowed the truck when it came to a stop. His
first few strides toward camp had a frantic quality about them.
Then he saw Jessy and relief visibly sagged through
him.
“There you are.” He walked straight to
Jessy, a faint smile lifting the corners of his mouth. “I’ve been
half out of my mind since Sally told me you’d come out here to
roundup. How did you manage to sneak away without me seein’ you
leave?”
“I didn’t sneak away. I rode with
Chase,” Jessy replied, her attention already straying.
“I never gave it a second thought when
he left this morning. It never crossed my mind to check and see if
you were with him. I’ll know better next time.” His lazy smile was
full of self-reproach.
“When we saw your truck, we were sure
you were Amy.” Cat glanced toward the road and chewed absently at
her lower lip.
“Amy Trumbo?” Ballard asked with a
frown. “Why are you expecting her? Is somebody hurt?” His glance
made a lightning sweep of the camp area as if searching for an
injured rider.
“Ty is missing.” Cat’s jumbled nerves
needed the release of words. “They found his horse.”
“Don’t tell me he got thrown?” Ballard
reacted with a half-smile of disbelief then shook his head. “Naw,
his horse probably stepped in a prairie dog hole and took a
spill.”
“There was blood on the saddle.” In
Cat’s mind that negated any thought that Ty would be found walking
back to the roundup site.
After a slight pause, Ballard darted a
look of concern at Jessy then insisted, “That doesn’t mean
anything.”
Cat took heart from that. “I said the
same thing to Jessy not two minutes ago.”
“I guess they’re out lookin’ for him
now,” he surmised. “Is Chase with them?”
“Yes.” Cat nodded. “He made Jessy come
back to camp when they found Ty’s horse.”
He eyed Jessy with a measuring glance.
“Knowin’ you, that was bound to gall a little. But I wouldn’t hold
it against him. It was the way he was raised.”
“I know that,” Jessy
confirmed.
“It’s the waitin’, though, isn’t it?”
Ballard guessed. “It would be a lot easier to take if you were out
there with them.”
The answer to that was too obvious to
be spoken. Idleness had never suited Jessy. The circumstances only
made it worse.
“Don’t worry. Chase will find him,”
Ballard stated. “He’ll move heaven an’ earth until he does. Isn’t
that right, dark eyes?” He grinned at Laura and tickled her under
the chin. She giggled with delight. He held out his hands to her.
“Wanta come with me while I fetch myself a cup of coffee? I’ll bet
your momma’s arm is about broke from holdin’ a big girl like
you.”
Without hesitation, Laura stretched out
her arms to him. At a year-and-a-half, she was already eager to
make a new conquest. Jessy passed her into Ballard’s
arms.
“You’re a Calder, that’s for sure,”
Ballard told her as he headed toward the cookshack. “I remember
when your aunt used to flirt with all the cowboys at roundup. She
wasn’t but a few years older than you are then.” Laura made a grab
for something in his shirt pocket, but he stopped her. “Don’t you
go stealin’ my makings. In case you don’t know it, you’re too young
to smoke.”
“Mine,” Laura stated.
“Nope, it’s mine. I’ll tell ya’ what,
as soon as I get my coffee, you can sit on my lap and watch while I
roll me a smoke. How’s that? Okay?”
“ ’kay.”
“He’s good with children.” Cat watched
the pair, almost glad of the distraction. But it didn’t last.
Turning, she dragged in a worried breath and gazed toward the Three
Fingers. “Surely they have found him by now.”
“It’s rough country.” Jessy visualized
it in her mind, trying to recall all the hard-to-see
places.
“And if he’s unconscious—” Cat bit down
on her lip, shutting off the rest of that thought.
An engine droned behind them. Turning,
Jessy saw another pickup traveling across the open ground, but at a
sensible pace. “Here comes Amy.”
“Thank God.” Cat’s voice vibrated with
feeling. With brisk efficiency, Amy Trumbo stepped out of the
truck, carrying her medical emergency kit. Her sharp glance
searched both their faces.
“They haven’t found him yet, have
they?” Amy guessed, empathy softening her expression.
Before Cat could confirm that, the cook
Joe Johns hollered, “Riders coming in.”
Her heart in her throat, Jessy swung
around and immediately saw a handful of riders in the distance,
approaching camp at a slow lope. Exhibiting a rare show of emotion,
she gripped Cat’s arm.
“Do you see Ty with them?” She strained
forward, her gaze scouring the riders in search of Ty’s familiar
high and wide shape.
Mutely Cat shook her head. “I don’t
understand,” she murmured. “If they haven’t found him, why are they
coming back?”
Jessy had a feeling she knew the
answer, but she refused to say it. She picked out her father’s
short, stocky shape and fixed her gaze on him.
It was an unwritten rule of ranch
etiquette that a man didn’t ride his horse into camp and possibly
foul the ground where other men were to eat and drink. But this was
one time when the rule wasn’t observed. Instead of swinging away to
the picket area, the band rode straight into camp.
“Where’s Ty?” Cat’s voice had a trace
of panic in it. “Didn’t you find him?”
The other riders glanced at Stumpy.
Jessy knew at once he had been the one chosen to break the news.
When he ducked his head, avoiding her gaze, and climbed out of the
saddle before answering, Jessy took a step backward, going cold all
over.
“We found him all right.” There was
such utter sadness in his eyes when he finally met her look. “I’m
sorry, Jessy, but—” Stumpy tried, but he couldn’t get the words
out.
“He’s dead, isn’t he?” She said them
for her father.
Stumpy nodded, his mouth tightly
compressed, a kind of pain in his eyes.
“That’s a lie!” Cat screamed, an
underlying sob to her voice. “He isn’t dead. Not Ty. Not my
brother!” Amy Trumbo stepped up and attempted to wrap her arms
around Cat in comfort, but she was rigid in them. “It can’t be
true,” Cat protested. “It can’t be.”
“We don’t want it to be,” Amy murmured.
“But we both know Stumpy wouldn’t lie.”
A horrible moan of pain came from Cat
as she sagged against Amy and sobbed brokenly. All the while Jessy
stood beneath the heat of the sun’s full glare, cold to the bone. A
hand moved onto her shoulder, but she barely felt it. It was almost
as though the person behind her were touching someone
else.
“You’re white as a sheet, Jessy.” It
was Ballard’s soft voice that came from somewhere near her
shoulder. “You’d better sit down.”
“No.” She rejected that suggestion out
of hand and looked straight at her father. “How? How did he
die?”
Stumpy knew better than to pull any
punches with his daughter. “Chase thinks he might have been
stabbed.” He passed the reins to one of the other riders and moved
to Jessy’s side, wrapping a fatherly arm around her. “Ballard’s
right. You need to sit down.”
Making no objection this time, Jessy
let him guide her to a campstool. Somebody put a cup in her
hand.
“Drink this,” the cook
ordered.
Almost trancelike, she took a sip then
drew back in distaste. “It has sugar in it.”
“It’s good for shock,” the cook told
her. “Drink it.”
Shock, was that what she was feeling?
It felt like a great raging emptiness—with a giant ache where her
heart should be.
“Where’s Chase?” The sudden and sharp
question came from Ballard.
“He stayed with the body,” Stumpy
replied.
The body. It
was a cold and final phrase. Pain closed around her throat, briefly
shutting off her air. In desperation Jessy gulped down more of the
disgustingly sweet coffee.
“You left Chase out there by himself!”
Ballard thundered. “That was a fool thing do. What if Haskell’s
still out there?”
Jessy’s head came up, his question
slicing through her own emotional haze. “You have to go back,” she
said to her father. “You can’t let Chase stay out there alone. It
might not be safe.”
When Stumpy wavered, equally concerned
for her well-being, Ballard spoke up, “You stay here, Stumpy. I’ll
take some of the boys and ride back.”
“You do that.” There was deep-felt
gratitude in the look Stumpy sent him. Turning, he called to the
others, “Jobe, Hank, Ben, you ride with Ballard back to the Three
Fingers and keep an eye on Chase.”
Ballard hesitated, watching as Trey
toddled up to Jessy and patted her knee for attention. “Mama?”
Young though he was, Trey sensed the change in atmosphere. It
showed in the uneasy worry in his expression.
His eyes were the dark brown of a
Calder. For an instant, Jessy saw Ty in them and gathered Trey into
her arms. Here was the tragedy—that Trey would grow up without ever
knowing his father. She hugged him close. For once, Trey didn’t
object.
“You might want to take Jessy and the
twins back to The Homestead,” Ballard suggested. “There is really
no reason for them to stay here. It’ll be another hour or more
before Logan shows up. Once he’s here, it’s probably gonna take him
a long time to check everything out.”
There was truth in what he said, and
more in what he had left unsaid. The investigation into Ty’s death
had yet to begin. Which meant it would be hours before the body
would be taken away. Jessy would accomplish nothing by staying. And
she had two very good reasons for leaving—their
children.
Rising to her feet, she shifted Trey to
her hip. “Come on. Let’s find your sister and go home.” Her voice
was thick with the tears she hadn’t allowed herself to
shed.
Trey scowled. “See Daddy.”
His innocent demand ripped through her.
Jessy struggled to find her voice, at last managing to utter a
choked, “Not today, sweetheart.”
Not ever again.
A purpling dusk pressed against the
windows of The Homestead, something bleak in its darkness. Chase
stood in front of the fireplace, a booted foot propped on its
raised hearth, a hand gripping the mantel. He stared into the
blackened opening, the heaviness of his loss weighing on him, his
mind turning back.
“Chase?” Logan’s questioning voice
penetrated his reverie.
Rousing himself with an effort, Chase
threw a glance at his son-in-law. “Sorry,” he said and dragged in a
long breath. “My mind drifted.”
“You were thinking about Ty, weren’t
you?” Logan guessed.
Chase nodded. “I was remembering the
night Ty showed up in Blue Moon and informed me I was his father. I
brought him back here.” He lifted his gaze to the sweeping set of
horns mounted above the mantle. “He asked about the horns, wanted
to know if they were real. I told him the story of the brindle
Longhorn steer called Captain that led the first cattle drive to
this site. The same story my father told me.” After a long pause,
full of memory, his big chest lifted on a deep breath and Chase
turned from the fireplace. “I feel old, Logan, older than this
land.” Grief haunted the darkness of his eyes. “A man shouldn’t
outlive his children.”
“There can’t be many things harder to
bear.” Logan’s glance slid to the dried bloodstains on the front of
Chase’s shirt. It made for a poignant image of this powerful
man.
During his years in law enforcement,
Logan had observed similar things before. But it had more impact on
him this time. He had come to know and respect both Ty and Chase
Calder as more than just his in-laws.
Avoiding the desk, Chase walked over to
the drink cart and poured a shot of whiskey into a glass. “What was
it you were saying earlier?” he asked crisply, making it clear the
time to reminisce was over. That he had made any expression of
grief to Logan was a measure of the trust Chase had in him. Logan
was counting on that, heavily.
“The autopsy is scheduled for tomorrow
afternoon. The body will be released for burial either late in the
evening or the next morning.” He kept his answer factual, sensing
it was what Chase wanted.
“Good. We’ll be able to finalize the
funeral arrangements.” Chase studied the whiskey in his glass. He
gave it a quick swirl then bolted down half of it. “Have you spoken
with Culley yet? With Cat there, he was bound to be somewhere
around.”
“I talked to him,” Logan confirmed with
a nod. “He said he didn’t see anything. He shadowed Cat and Quint
when they drove the cattle back to camp.” Like Chase, he avoided
any direct reference to Ty.
“What about that piece of a knife blade
that was still embedded in the wound? Were you able to learn
anything from it?”
Logan briefly toyed with the idea of
keeping that information to himself. But it came back to that issue
of maintaining Chase’s trust in him.
“We’re still checking on it, but it
appears to have been homemade.”
“Like the kind you might confiscate
from an inmate in prison,” Chase suggested.
Logan didn’t like the cold, steely look
in Chase’s eyes. Since coming to Montana, he had heard a few
whispers about Calder justice. At that moment, Logan knew he needed
to make it clear he would brook no interference.
“I’ll handle this, Chase, just like I
did the last time there was trouble,” he stated firmly. Even though
Buck Haskell hadn’t been mentioned by name, they both knew he was
the prime suspect. “Don’t do anything on your own that you’ll come
to regret.”
“I won’t. You have my word on that.”
The corners of his mouth lifted in a smile that was as cold as his
eyes, which made Logan all the more uneasy. “By the way,” Chase
continued, much too casually, “have you learned where Haskell was
this morning?”
“It’s being done now.” Logan had
nothing confirmed and refused to pass on any speculation that had
been heard.
Chase didn’t have an opportunity to
question him further on the subject as footsteps approached the
den. Recognizing the familiar light tread of them, Logan rose from
the chair. When Cat entered the den, her green eyes were without
their usual sparkle. Grief had dulled them and given her a faintly
sunken and hollow look. It was a sight that ripped at him. Cat felt
all things deeply; this time it was her brother’s
death.
She stopped when she saw him, her gaze
clinging to his face. “I didn’t hear you drive in.”
Sensing the tight control she was
exerting on herself, Logan crossed the room and gathered her
loosely in his arms. “I’ve only been here a few minutes.” He felt
her shudder then relax against him, her arms circling to clutch him
close. “Chase said you were upstairs helping Jessy get the twins in
bed. Are they asleep?”
“Finally,” she mumbled against his
shirt then drew back, tilting her head to look at him, a stark pain
in her expression. “It was awful, Logan. Three times Trey asked for
his daddy. I know he’s too young to understand, but he must sense
something.” With a sudden flicker of concern, Cat looked quickly
around the room. “Where’s Quint?”
“In the living room,” Chase told her.
“Sound asleep on the couch.”
“Poor guy.” She managed a wan smile.
“It’s past his bedtime, too. We’re ready to go home whenever you
are.”
“Sorry, but I’m going to be tied up
awhile longer.” Logan didn’t say with what, but she knew he meant
with the ongoing investigation into her brother’s
murder.
On other occasions when he had to work
late, she had usually made some joke about being married to a
sheriff. This time, though, she drew away from him, bright tears
welling in her eyes.
“Cat.” Logan took a step after
her.
“I’m fine,” she insisted with a quick,
high lift of her head. “Honestly. This Calder is tougher than she
looks.”
He looked at his petite wife and
smiled, knowing it was true. “I stopped by the ranch and picked up
a few things for you and Quint. I thought it might be better if you
spent the night here. That way you won’t have to drive back over
first thing in the morning. If there’s anything I forgot, you can
let me know and I’ll drop it by tomorrow.”
“It’s probably best that I stay here,”
Cat agreed on a thoughtful note. “All the arrangements still need
to be finalized, and—” She paused and glanced at Chase. “What will
you do about roundup?”
“Nothing. I’ll pull the boys off long
enough to attend the funeral then send them back out ’til we
finish. We can’t stop now that we’ve started. You know that,” Chase
replied with a trace of impatience.
Cat knew it wasn’t directed at her, but
at the fact that it had to be that way. “Of course I
do.”
He threw a look beyond her. “Is Jessy
coming down?”
“In a few minutes, she said,” Cat
replied.
“Good. I—” Chase broke off the
sentence, catching the muffled roar of a fast-traveling vehicle
outside.
He turned with a frown as headlight
beams slewed across the windows. This was not a night when people
would call to offer their sympathies. Tonight was a time for the
family to grieve in private.
As the bright beams swung away from the
windows, brakes squealed and tires skidded. In all of it, there was
a sense of alarm. Chase headed for the front door as racing feet
pounded up the porch steps.
“Dear God, what’s happened now?” Cat
picked up the same vibrations and darted a worried look at Logan,
but he had already followed Chase into the wide hall.
The front door burst open with a force
that slammed it against the doorstop. A wild-eyed Tara rushed in
and halted briefly when she saw Chase, wet streaks of black mascara
running down her cheeks.
“Chase, thank God.” She launched
herself at him, desperate fingers clutching at his shirtfront.
“They just told me—” Tara broke off the sentence with a denying
shake of her head. “It’s not true. It can’t be true. Ty is here,
isn’t he?” Emotion sobbed in her voice. Frantic, she looked past
him. “I need to see him.”
“Tara.” Chase gripped her shoulders.
“Tara, it’s true. Ty is—”
“No!” she screamed to silence him and
twisted in a wild frenzy to pull away, fear giving her a man’s
strength. “That’s a lie! He isn’t dead. He’s here. I know he
is.”
In a frenzy, Tara charged toward the
living room. Logan made a grab for her, but she jerked free from
him as easily as she had from Chase.
“You aren’t going to keep me from him.
None of you!” Tara hurled the warning, a half-crazed glare in her
eyes. “I’ll find him. Ty!” she called then saw Jessy coming down
the stairs, her outer calm in direct contrast to Tara’s hysteria.
Tara froze for a split second then ran for the steps. “He’s up
there, isn’t he? Ty! Ty?”
At the landing, Jessy blocked Tara’s
path. “You can’t go up there. You’ll wake the twins.”
“Get out of my way!” Tara shrieked and
reached to push Jessy aside. “Ty’s up there! I have to see him. Ty!
Ty!”
As always, she had met her match in
Jessy. Jessy shoved her back. “Stop it, Tara! He’s
dead.”
Wild with denial, Tara threw herself at
Jessy again. “You’re lying,” she sobbed hoarsely. “You’re all
lying.”
Reinforcements arrived in the form of
Logan as he grabbed Tara from behind and pulled her off Jessy. When
Tara started to fight him, Jessy slapped her hard across the
face.
“I have wanted to do that for a long
time.” Jessy glared at Tara with a kind of cold, controlled anger.
“Now, get it through your head—Ty is dead. All the ranting and
raving in the world won’t change it.”
With a horrible cry of pain, Tara
collapsed into Logan’s suddenly supporting arms. He managed, with
some difficulty, to scoop her up and carry her down the short
flight of stairs, her arms, legs, and head dangling in
limpness.
“I think she fainted,” he said to Cat
and Chase.
“I’ll see if Sally has any smelling
salts.” Cat moved toward the kitchen.
“Ordinary household ammonia will work
just as well,” Logan told her as he carried Tara into the living
room.
Awakened by the commotion, a
sleepy-eyed Quint looked on in confusion. “What’s wrong,
Dad?”
“Nothing, son. Tara fainted, that’s
all.” With Quint on the couch, Logan deposited the unconscious Tara
in the overstuffed armchair.
Jessy followed them into the living
room and looked at Tara with dispassion. “I don’t care what you do
with her, but she isn’t staying here.”
“Don’t worry. She won’t,” Chase
stated.
Busy propping Tara in the chair, Logan
made no comment. When Cat returned to the living room, Sally was
right behind her. Revived by a couple of whiffs of ammonia, Tara
coughed and choked into wakefulness. She looked around wildly for a
second. Then her eyes focused on Sally.
“He’s gone, Sally,” she blubbered.
“What am I going to do?”
She immediately began to sob and wail
hysterically. When Sally took over the job of attempting to console
her, Logan left her to it and turned to Chase.
“See if you can raise somebody at
Tara’s place. Have them fly a doctor there right away. She’ll
likely need to be sedated.” He made a grim study of the distraught
woman. “As soon as we can get her to settle down, I’ll put her in
the back of my squad car and take her there. Maybe Sally can ride
along and keep an eye on her tonight. She is in no condition to be
left alone, that’s for sure.”
After twenty minutes, Tara’s hysterical
sobbing finally subsided to an incessant weeping and moaning. Logan
half carried and half walked her to his vehicle and installed Tara
in its back seat. Sally crawled in after her and gathered the
sobbing woman into her arms.
With The Homestead quiet once more, Cat
retrieved their overnight case, took Quint by the hand, and led him
upstairs to bed. Jessy watched the pair until they disappeared from
view.
“Poor guy,” she murmured to Chase,
observing, “he is so tired.”
“Are you?” His gaze made a thoughtful
study of her face.
Jessy reacted with a sharp shake of her
head, her glance sliding upward in the direction of the master
bedroom. “I can’t sleep. Not yet.”
“Good. We need to talk.” He started
toward the den.
But Jessy was quick to reject it. “I’d
rather not, Chase.”
His glance was full of understanding,
yet insistent. “I don’t want to any more than you do, but these
next few days will be hectic and there are things that need to be
said. Right now may be the only time we have.”
Jessy didn’t renew her objection when
he placed a guiding hand on her back and steered her into the den.
She sat down in one of the wing-backed chairs, but she didn’t relax
in it, tension showing in the line of her body. Chase paused at the
drink cart, poured some whiskey into two glasses and carried one to
her, then reluctantly made his way to the swivel chair behind the
desk.
“It doesn’t seem real, does it?” he
guessed astutely.
Her mouth twisted in a wry grimace of
acknowledgment. “A part of me keeps expecting him to walk through
the door.” Head down, Jessy stared at the glass in her hand. “I
have to be honest, Chase. I’m not sure I can stand to live in this
house.”
“Why?” He rocked back in his chair.
“Because it’s nothing but a bunch of rooms, filled with familiar
things yet empty and lifeless? Because it doesn’t feel like a home
anymore?”
Jessy lifted her head, stunned that
Chase could describe it so accurately. Until that moment it hadn’t
occurred to her that the house might feel the same way to him. Why
should it when he had lived in it all his life while it had been
her home for only a few years?
“It’s a feeling that won’t go away
anytime soon, take my word for it,” Chase told her, and Jessy
immediately thought of Maggie and how difficult it must have been
for Chase to live here after she died. “Eventually Trey and Laura
will breathe life into it and make it feel like a home again. In
the meantime, you have to hang on and wait.”
“I suppose.” She felt much too empty
inside to care.
“You are a strong woman, Jessy. And a
smart one, too. I’m counting on that,” he stated. “Take a good look
at that map on the wall behind me.”
Responding to the authority in his
voice, Jessy did as she was told even though she had looked at it a
thousand times before. Every mark and line on its aged surface was
as familiar as her own face in the mirror.
“There is no way any man can know if he
will live two more days or twenty years. But we both know it isn’t
likely that I will live to see Trey take over the reins of the
Triple C. That means it will be in your hands.”
Jessy stared at the map, the length and
breadth of its boundaries making a new impact on her. The
possibility that she might one day shoulder the responsibility of
its operation was not one she had ever imagined. But the truth in
Chase’s words couldn’t be ignored, however much she might want to
deny them.
As if reading her mind, Chase said,
“Neither one of us expected this to happen, but it has. Maybe I
should have waited a few days before telling you, but it has to be
faced. You might as well know the Triple C won’t give us time to
mourn. There is work to be done, Jessy. And it’s up to you and me
to do it.”
Everything he said rang true. “I have a
lot of learning to do,” she realized.
A small smile of approval edged the
corners of his mouth. “Not as much as you think.” He nodded at the
glass in her hand. “Drink that whiskey and go to bed. It’s going to
be a long full day tomorrow.”
She bolted down the liquor and
shuddered at that searing burn that banished the coldness within.
She met Chase’s gaze, feeling closer to him than she ever had.
Rising, she set the empty glass on his desk and crossed to the
door.
Pausing there, Jessy glanced back.
“When are you going after Buck?”
He studied her for a long measuring
second. “You’ll have no part of that, Jessy.”
Calm as could be, she replied, “Yes, I
will.”