Calder Storm (19 page)

“Sounds like Laredo,” Matt Rivers stated without hesitation. “He's been with the Calders for years.”

“Is he their foreman or something?”

“Naw. He just works there.”

“Really?” Donovan said with surprise. “Do the Calders usually have an ordinary ranch hand eat with them?”

“No,” he admitted, and shrugged. “Laredo's different, though.”

“How so?” Donovan pressed with open curiosity.

A frown of uncertainty flickered over the man's voice. “I don't know. I think old man Calder was married to his mother or his aunt—I think it was his mother.”

“Then he'd be Calder's stepson.”

The cowboy smiled, his own confusion clearing. “I guess he would at that. Which just goes to prove what anyone around here will tell you—the Triple C is a clannish bunch. They always favor their own over outsiders.”

“So I've heard.” Yet Donovan thought it a bit odd that Laredo hadn't claimed the relationship when he introduced himself. More than that, he wondered why Rutledge hadn't mentioned it to him. But the answer to that would have to wait until morning.

 

A vigorous hand rang the church bell, summoning worshippers to the morning service. The only customer in The Oasis was a passing truck driver, busy dividing his attention between the tall
stack of pancakes in front of him and the buxom waitress bending low to refill his coffee cup.

With the lull in business promising to be a long one, Donovan unlocked the door to the back office, stepped inside, and relocked it before crossing to the desk. He took a seat and dialed the number he had long ago committed to memory.

“It's Donovan,” he identified himself the minute Rutledge answered. “Do you have a few minutes?”

“I do. Did the Calders show up last night?”

“They did. You never mentioned that Chase Calder has a stepson.

“It's the first I heard of it.”

“That's what a rancher's son told me last night. The stepson goes by the name of Laredo Smith. When I first met him, I would have sworn he was a bodyguard. But the cowboy claimed his mother was married to the old man.”

“As far as I know,” Rutledge began in a thought-filled voice, “Chase Calder was only married twice. His first wife was the daughter of a neighboring rancher up there. And his second wife was a widow by the name of Hattie Ludlow. She owned a small ranch not far from mine. Chase bought it from her shortly before they married. I don't recall that she had any children, but I'll find out.”

“If this Laredo is supposed to be her son, then his last name should be Ludlow, unless he had a different father. And there's always the possibility that my source got it wrong,” Donovan admitted. “Initially he wasn't sure if the woman was Laredo's aunt or his mother. Whoever he is, he's in damned tight with the family.”

“Is that why you're so interested in him? Do you think you can turn him? Get him to feed us information?”

“Not this one.” Donovan was certain of that. “No, I saw something in his eyes I didn't like. I don't know what your plans are, and I don't want to know. But a word of warning—watch out for this guy. He can be dangerous.”

“The Calders have a big name. It's logical that they would have some protection around,” Rutledge replied in unconcern. “I'll check out Hattie Ludlow and see what her connection was to this Laredo Smith. In the meantime, you learn what you can about him. But make sure he doesn't find out that you're asking about him.”

“Don't worry. The questions won't be coming from me.” Then Donovan asked, “Did that information I sent you about the Kaufman ranch arrive yet?”

“It came Friday.” Without expressing an interest, or lack thereof, in the property, Rutledge moved on to other matters before bringing the conversation to a quick conclusion.

When Donovan emerged from the back office a few minutes later, he was greeted by the sound of two sets of footsteps going up the rear staircase. A ghost of a smile touched the corners of his mouth at the sight of the semi still parked outside and the empty restaurant area.

Some thirty minutes later, he rousted the rest of his girls from their beds and gathered all of them together. His instructions came with a promise of a reward and a warning not to deviate from the reason he had given them for seeking the information he wanted. All swore they wouldn't, and he was confident they knew better than to try.

A
relentless August sun had burned off all the early morning coolness, and the air was as dry as the thick brown grass beneath the horses' hooves. Already Trey could feel a trickle of sweat running down his back, and it was barely midmorning.

Thirty-odd head of cows plodded ahead of him. Every now and then one would pause to grab a bite of the buffalo grass that was already cropped short. When a straggler lowered her head to sample some, Trey started to rein his horse toward it, but Laredo was already there, slapping a coiled rope against his leg. Reluctantly, the cow trotted forward to rejoin the rest.

Off to his right, a pair of cows crested a low rise at a harried trot. Tank Willis was right behind them, keeping up a steady pressure until they neared the slow-moving herd. Then he backed off and swung his horse in between Trey and Laredo.

“Those two are the last from that section. Johnny and Ben rode up to check the butte.” His horse released a blowing snort and settled into a jigging walk. In one continuous motion, Tank took off his hat, wiped his forehead sweat on a shirtsleeve, and rocked the hat back on his head. “You know, I can't remember ever moving cattle off their summer pasture the first week in August.”

“There wasn't any choice this year,” said Trey. “Another month on this grass and they would have chewed it to the roots.”

Tank nodded in understanding and scanned the cloudless sky. “If it don't rain soon, we'll be feeding them a lot of hay this winter. And soon, too.”

“True enough.” Trey rested his hands on the saddle horn, sitting easy but alert in the saddle.

“Somebody at The Oasis told me last Saturday night that they're calling for rain next week,” Tank offered on a wistful note.

“God knows, we're long past due for some.” Trey made his own study of the pale blue sky.

“Hey, Laredo.” Tank's sudden grin had a streak of devilry in it. “You know that redhead that works at The Oasis—the one called Bambi?”

“I remember seeing a redhead there,” Laredo acknowledged. “What about her?”

“It seems she's sweet on you.”

Laredo eyed him with skeptical amusement.” Where did you get a fool idea like that?”

“Andy Palmer told me last Saturday.”

“That she was sweet on me?” His glance questioned that claim.

“Well, actually Andy said that she was asking about you.” Tank's grin widened. “She claimed she thought you were kinda cute for an old guy.” He put teasing stress on the “old” part.

“Did she want to know anything else about me?” Laredo wondered, his lazy smile still in place, but with a sharpening of his glance.

“Naw, that was about it,” Tank admitted, then eyed Laredo with sly, mocking humor. “Although Andy did mention that she thought you might be a foreman or something. She was probably trying to find out how much money you make. You'd best be careful the next time you go in there, or she'll be sliding all over you, trying to coax some of it out of you.” Laughing, he hauled back on the reins and turned his horse away from them. “See you later.”

Off he rode in the direction of the butte. Trey ran a curious glance over Laredo, watching as he hurried along a lagging cow.

“I could be wrong,” Trey began in a casual tone, “but I had the feeling that you didn't like the idea that this redhead was asking questions about you.”

“Maybe I'm not sure she was the one wanting the information,” Laredo countered.

“You think somebody else put her up to it?”

“Could be.”

There was only one logical choice for that person. “Why would Donovan be trying to get information about you?”

“Good question. Too bad I don't know the answer.”

Mixed in with that note of indifference in Laredo's voice was a touch of grimness. Trey caught it right away but chose not to comment on it. It summoned up the half-forgotten whispers he'd heard as a boy, hints that Laredo had been in trouble with the law. There had even been a suggestion that Logan had uncovered his secret while he was sheriff but chose to keep quiet about it. Until now Trey had always dismissed those old rumors as another tall tale the old-timers liked to feed people, one that would turn out to be only partly fact and mostly fiction. Trey wasn't so sure about this one anymore.

“You're positive Donovan isn't someone you might have known before you came here?” Trey put it as a question and observed the way Laredo's glance sliced to him.

“Positive.” He looked Trey in the eye when he answered him. “He isn't a man I'd be likely to forget. And he isn't one I would trust, either.”

Laredo never suggested that Trey should distrust the man as well. That wasn't his way. But the seed was planted just the same.

“I'll talk to Tank and make sure he passes the word for everybody to watch their step in there.” Saddle leather creaked as Trey shifted his weight in the seat. “We'll find out soon enough what Donovan's game is. Blue Moon's too small for anything to stay a secret for long.”

“Don't count on that,” Laredo advised. “That's a man who knows how to keep his mouth shut. And he plans on being here for the long haul. If we find out anything, it's something he wants us to know.”

Amusement quirked Trey's mouth. “If I didn't know better, I'd think it was Granddad talking. You sound just like him, always expecting danger to be lurking in every shadow.” Trey found it hard to take this kind of talk seriously.

“When you own a place as big as the Triple C, there's always going to be somebody who resents it. Whether you're responsible or not, you'll get blamed for their troubles. Cattle prices are too low—the Calders glutted the market. Their well goes dry—the Calders lowered the water table by irrigating their hayfields. Most of it won't ever be anything more than a lot of ill-natured griping.” Laredo paused to make his point. “But it only takes one to decide he wants to get even. Chase knows what he's talking about. Always check those shadows.”

Trey lost some of his skepticism. “That's why he's fixated on Rutledge, isn't it?”

“Can you think of a better man to fear than one with the power and wealth that Rutledge has—and with his only son dead at the hands of a Calder?” Laredo countered.

“It was self-defense.” In Trey's mind, that made all the difference.

“Do you think that matters to him?”

“It should.” But Trey realized that “should” didn't mean it would.

His gaze stretched beyond the dusty backs of the plodding cattle and drifted over the sweep of gently rolling land ahead of them, mostly covered in summer-brown grass. Wherever there was a patch of bare ground, the soil had turned to powder.

Laredo could say all he wanted to about the danger Rutledge might pose, but as far as Trey was concerned, the lack of rain was the biggest threat to the Triple C right now.

 

Halfway up the knoll, Chase came to a halt and leaned both hands on his cane. It galled him that he could no longer climb the smallest hill without stopping to catch his breath. Growing old could be hell at times.

As his breathing began to even out, he gathered himself to make the final push to the front steps of The Homestead, where he could sit for a minute or two and pretend to be enjoying the morning air. He hadn't traveled more than two feet when he heard the front door close and saw Sloan skipping lightly down the steps. There was an exuberance about her that made him smile.

“Just getting back from your walk, I see. You must have taken a long one this morning,” she remarked.

“It wasn't long, just slow,” Chase corrected, then gestured with his cane at the leather case she carried. “Where are you off to?”

“On a picture-taking spree.”

He frowned. “Who's getting their picture taken on a workday?”

“Oh, I'm not taking pictures of anyone in particular,” Sloan hastened to explain, “just whatever I happen to see. Trey mentioned they were moving cattle to another pasture today, so I thought I might try to capture some of that on film.”

After a small hesitation, Chase nodded, a little slow at recalling. “That's right. The grass at the Broken Butte range was getting short.” He ran a thoughtful glance over his grandson's young bride.

“If that's where you're heading, you might want to wait and follow the cook when he takes the noon meal to the boys. He'll be pulling out in an hour or less.”

She shook her head in unconcern. “This morning light is too good to waste. Cat gave me directions. I'll find them.” She struck out for the ranch pickup parked a few feet away.

Chase called out after her, “You got water with you?”

“Are you kidding?” She threw a laughing look at him as she pulled opened the driver's door. “Cat loaded me up with everything—water, sandwiches, the works. I feel like a schoolkid with a packed lunch. See you sometime this afternoon. I'll probably be
late, so don't worry.” Offering a farewell wave, Sloan climbed into the cab and pulled the door closed after her.

Dust billowed around the tires when she backed away from the house and pointed the truck at the ranch yard. It hung like a haze in the air, smudging his vision. Chase turned from it and resumed his climb up the steps.

With the ranch headquarters reflected in her rearview mirror and an open road before her, Sloan increased the truck's speed. Soon there was nothing but the sun-baked plains stretching out from the road, vast and empty, constant yet ever changing. The sight of them filled her with a sense of freedom. For too many weeks she had been obliged to stay close to The Homestead while the master suite went through its face-lift. The work was finally finished, and all their clothes, toiletries, and other personal items were back in place, leaving her free to explore.

The Triple C's network of inner roads didn't follow any set grid pattern, with other roads intersecting at regular intervals. With few exceptions, most had evolved from old trails once used by buckboards, supply wagons, and the occasional buggy to reach its outlying camps. As a result, the route chosen had always been one that would be the easiest for a horse team to traverse.

Any substantial rise in the undulating prairie was skirted to avoid a hard pull for the horses. Other times routes were dictated by the location of water crossings. There were stretches where the current roads ran straight and true, but they never lasted long before resuming their snaking course through the heart of the land.

It was rare for there to be the customary four-way intersection. Usually there was just another road branching in one direction or the other, with no signs to indicate where it led.

With the whole day ahead of her and no real timetable to keep, Sloan didn't mind the dirt road's many curves. The slower pace made it easy for her to look around and study the photographic possibilities.

A half dozen times she pulled off and gathered up her oversized
camera case to capture some scene that caught her eye, sometimes using a zoom lens and, at others, a wide-angle. Sometimes it was just the roll of land beneath an endless sky that invited a picture. Once it was a hawk perched on a fence post that posed for her camera, then obligingly took wing. Another time, it was a small herd of pronghorn antelopes, heads turned to stare in open curiosity. At a river crossing, she spotted a cow at the water's edge and captured the sparkle of sunlight on the ripples the animal made as it drank.

After climbing onto the pickup's roof to achieve the necessary vantage point, Sloan snapped a few shots of a fence line marching across an empty expanse into forever. But the light was all wrong to achieve the effect she wanted. A check of the sun's position confirmed her suspicion that it was nearing its zenith.

Back inside the pickup, she packed her camera away for the time being, rolled up the windows, and turned the air-conditioner on full blast to rid the interior of its stifling heat. Again she pulled onto the road, but this time she kept her attention on it, watching for the turnoff she was to take.

Roughly a mile farther, she saw a road that forked to the right. Certain that Cat had instructed her to take the third one, Sloan drove on past it. She continued another five miles before she came to the third turnoff.

According to Cat's directions, there would be a pasture gate some three miles after the turn. Sloan went closer to four miles before she saw it. There were no trucks or stock trailers in sight, but Cat had warned her that she might not see any.

As she swung open the gate, Sloan noticed a rutted track, half hidden by the thick grass, that curved off into the pasture. She drove the pickup onto it, stopped to shut the gate behind her, then followed the dim trail. She soon came across the suggestion of other tracks, some branching to the left and others to the right. Uncertain which to take, she stayed on the one that seemed to show more use.

It was rough and deeply rutted in spots, forcing her to slow the
truck to a fraction of its usual speed. All the while she kept scanning the land around her, watching for the flash of sunlight on a truck's windshield or a glimpse of a rider. She saw nothing.