Lone Calder Star (14 page)

"He said he was going to call Cat tonight. I'll let her know that I need to talk to him and mention it then."

Yet Chase's concern only reminded Jessy of the assault on Quint by three men. When she had sent Quint to Texas, she had strongly suspected, like Chase, that the Cee Bar's problems were caused by an outside source. But Jessy had never really believed she was putting Quint in any physical danger. Now she couldn't ignore the possibility.

"Chase, is it really important that we keep the Cee Bar?" Ultimately such a decision was Jessy's to make, but the habit of seeking her father-in-law's counsel was too deeply ingrained for her not to ask the question of him. "It's always been more of a financial liability than an asset to the Triple C."

She expected him to come back with his usual answer-that Calder land was never for sale. This time Chase didn't speak off the top of his head, but gave her question considerablt more thought before offering a reply.

"'I'hc day may come when selling it is the right move. But it will never be right if someone is trying to force that sale. You'd be showing weakness. Others will see it." His gaze was hard with warning. "When they do, you could find yourself in a fight for the Triple C."

Jessy recalled the number of times something similar had happened during Chase's life. She wanted to believe those days were gone, but she realized that the old-time range wars weren't all that different from the hostile takeovers of modern day. Only the tactics had changed.

After wrapping up a report on the current trend in the grain market, the radio announcer moved on to opening livestock prices. Dallas listened with only half an ear and smothered another yawn, fighting the fatigue that came from burning the midnight oil too long the night before. She reached for her coffee cup only to find it nearly empty.

With a frustrated sigh, she rolled her chair back from the desk and carried her cup over to the coffeepot that sat atop the table along a side wall, accessible to any customers of the feed store.

She refilled her cup with the strong brew and glanced idly at her boss.

Holly Sykes stood in front of the big window facing the highway. He'd been standing there when she arrived for work at eight o'clock, and had hardly budged from the spot since. Dallas had the impression he was watching for something or someone, but she was too tired to summon up any curiosity as to who or what that might be.

As she started back to her desk, she barely registered the familiar rumble of a semi. Holly Sykes took a quick step closer to the window, his sudden movement attracting her attention. She glanced out the window to identify the cause of his sudden interest and saw a semi hauling a flatbed trailer loaded with round hay bales.

The minute it passed, Holly abruptly pivoted away from the window and made a beeline for his desk. Dallas immediately guessed that the hay was destined for the Cee Bar. He picked up his phone and rapidly punched a set of numbers.

"It's Sykes. It just went by." That was the extent of his conversation.

There wasn't any doubt in her mind that he'd called the Slash R Ranch. The briefness of it was similar to the curt warning Holly had delivered when she showed up for work Monday morning.

"Stay away from that guy at the Cee Bar," he'd said. "You won't be told twice."

Dallas had a heavy feeling in the pit of her stomach when she thought of Quint. The odds were clearly stacked against him. She was suddenly angry and depressed, both at the same time.

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Boone flipped the cell phone shut and sent a sidelong glance at the uniformed deputy behind the wheel of the patrol car. There was a dark glitter in his eyes that Deputy Joe Ed Krause found difficult to meet. And the smile that quirked Boone's mouth didn't make him feel any more comfortable.

"The truck just rolled into town," Boone told him. "You know what you're supposed to do."

Joe Ed bobbed his head in a quick nod and repeated the instructions, "I wait until after he's delivered the hay, let him get a mile or so down the road, then pull him over. In the meantime, I'm to stay out of sight."

Satisfied, Boone passed him some folded bills. "Just to show we appreciate the favor, take your wife out to dinner."

"You didn't have to do that." Joe Ed was quick to notice the top bill was a twenty and stuffed it all in his pocket. "You know I'm happy to oblige if I can."

"Like I said, we appreciate it," Jo Ed said and climbed out of the car.

The deputy kept one eye on the rearview mirror, tracking Boone's progress as he made his way to the pickup parked behind the patrol car. The money felt good in his pocket. If he had any regrets, it was that there weren't more favors he could do for the Rutledges.

Less than a minute later, Boone swung his pickup around the patrol car and accelerated down the country road. Deciding that this was as good a place as any to kill time, Joe Ed settled back in the driver's seat, calculating that it would take the semi between fifteen and twenty minutes to reach the Cee Bar and somewhere around an hour to unload its hay.

Scant minutes after he arrived at the intersection a half mile down the road from the Cee Bar's entrance, Joe Ed spotted the semi coming down the ranch lane, its trailer empty. Waiting, he let it go past him, then pulled onto the road behind it. He followed for a good mile before he flipped on his lights. He smiled to himself, imagining the way the truck driver was cussing, certain there was no cause for getting pulled over.

Air brakes whooshed as the semi slowed and swung onto the shoulder. Joe Ed stopped behind him and took his time getting out of the patrol car, then dawdled at the rear of the trailer.

The driver swung down from the cab. Of average height and build, he looked to be in his early twenties.

"What's the problem, Officer?" His attempt to sound pleasant failed to mask the driver's underlying impatience.

"Your taillights kept blinking on and off," Joe Ed lied. "You probably have a short or loose connection somewhere."

The driver frowned in surprise. "They've been working fine."

But there was new doubt in his voice.

"Didn't I just see you pull out of the Cee Bar Ranch?"

"Yeah, I dropped off a bunch of hay for them." The driver was already busy checking to make sure the connections were tight.

"As rough as that lane is, it wouldn't surprise me if something jiggled loose," the deputy remarked, then feigned nonchalance. "Say, does Red Parker still work there?"

"Couldn't say." The driver shrugged in indifference.

"I know he used to. He's hard to miss. His hair is as red as fire."

"Neither of the men I saw had red hair."

"They didn't." The deputy tried to sound disappointed. "The men you saw-what did they look like?"

"One was tall with black hair, maybe thirty. He's the one who signed for the hay. The other one was an old guy," the driver answered without any real interest.

"An old guy," Joe Ed repeated thoughtfully, then eyed the young driver. "What was he, forty?

Fifty?"

"Hell, he looked seventy, if he was a day," the driver declared with a typical amusement of the
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young for the ancient. "But he sure knew how to work that tractor."

"Red isn't anywhere close to seventy. I guess it wasn't him. I wonder who the old guy is. You didn't happen to catch his name, did you?"

"No, we didn't get around to introductions. The other guy, though, he had an Indian name.

Grayhawk or something like that." He paused, shooting the deputy a curious look. "Is it important?"

"Naw," he said with a quick shake of his head. "I was just curious." He flicked a hand at the trailer's taillights. "When you get down the road, you might want to have somebody make sure your lights are working right."

Back in the patrol car, Joe Ed pulled onto the road, eager to reach his prearranged meeting place with Boone Rutledge and relay the information he had gleaned from the truck driver.

There was an excitement in knowing that there might be a way for him to earn more money. The question of whether it was ethical or not never arose. He didn't know of a single cop who didn't do some moonlighting during his off-duty hours.

The reds and golds of sunset streaked the western sky, tinting the Slash K's trademark white fences with a rosy hue. Evening's approach brought a natural slowing of activity. But any impression of calm was shattered by the roaring drone of a helicopter's powerful engine and the rhythmic chop of its rotary blades beating the air as it swooped out of the sky and took aim at the private helipad, located near the main house.

Boone clamped a hand on his hat and angled away from the powerful downdraft that preceded the helicopter's actual touchdown. It was a position he held until he heard the slowing whine of the engine shutting down and felt the abatement of its self-generated wind. He watched while the specially designed lift was rolled up to the passenger door.

The arrival scene was much too commonplace for Boone to marvel at the engineering that enabled his father to exit the aircraft onto a hoist that lowered his wheelchair to the ground, all with an absolute minimum of assistance from others. Impatience with the lift's slow descent was the only thing Boone felt as he waited for his father to join him.

At last the wheelchair came rolling toward him in its nearly noiseless glide, and Boone found himself under the scrutiny of his father's piercing gaze. As always it was difficult to hold. Boone lifted his chin a notch, girding himself with the knowledge that this time he had succeeded beyond his father's expectations. He couldn't possibly find fault with him.

"Well, well, well," Max Rutledge declared, his mouth twisting in a sardonic smile, "if it isn't my son on hand to greet me. That can only mean you have something of importance to tell me."

"I do," Boone acknowledged, irritated that he hadn't waited in the house.

"Spilll it." Max gestured in annoyance at the delay. "Tell me this great news of yours."

Boone bristled at the ridicule in his father's voice and flicked an irritated glance at Harold Barnctt, his lather's valet and full time nurse, who now joined them. It galled him to have others hear the way his father spoke to him.

"I wouldn't call it great news or even good news," Boone stated curtly. "But it is news."

There was a slight pause as Max's gaze sharpened on him, assessing the meaning of his statement.

"You know who the hired man is."

"You aren't going to like it," Boone warned, secretly pleased about that. "It's Empty Garner."

"Garner," Max repeated, bitterness pinching his mouth. "That wiley old bastard. We can forget any thought of buying him off. And there isn't much chance of scaring him away either."

"Why would youu want to? How much work can an old man like that do? Not much, I'll bet.

Echohawk might as well not have anyone working for him as that old man. And that was the point, wasn't it?"

"It was originally," Max agreed, his brow furrowed in heavy thought. "But with Echohawk on the scene, it was time to change tactics."

"When did you decide that?" Boone frowned in surprise. "This is the first I've heard of it."

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"There's a lot you don't know." The instant he issued the dismissive statement, Max engaged the control stick and sent the wheelchair spinning toward the side entrance to the house.

Boone stood flat-footed for an angry second, then strode after him. But the wheelchair's speed, the valet's presence, and the narrow walkway made it impossible for Boone to catch up with his father before he entered the house.

Simmering with resentment, he followed his father into the den and peeled off to the bar where he poured himself a straight shot of bourbon and tossed it down, welcoming the choking fire that closed off his throat. He refilled the glass, diluted the bourbon with water, and threw in some cubes.

Alter a galvanizing sip of it, Buonc glared across the room at his father and challenged, "What about the hay?"

"What about it?" Max countered with annoyance.

"Since you're changing tactics," Boone began, his lip curling, "I thought that might go for the hay as well."

"As usual, you're wrong."

"I thought I'd better make sure. After all, the last I heard, you had issued standing orders that no one was to be allowed to work at Cee Bar for long. Since that's changed, I thought the one about the hay might have, too."

"It hasn't." Max removed some papers from the briefcase that Harold Barnett had placed on the desk, then issued a curt nod of dismissal to the man.

"Then what's different?" Boone demanded, unable to tolerate being kept in the dark.

"Echohawk. I don't like it that we're blind and deaf to what's going on over there." The troubled scowl Max wore gave credence to his statement. "The hay is a good example. If we had known who he was getting it from, there was a good chance we could have blocked the purchase. As it is, we're forced to react. We need somebody on the inside who can let us know Echohawk's intentions in advance. And there's only one way to do that-plant one of our own men. But we don't stand a chance of tricking Echohawk into hiring someone as long as Garner's in the picture."

"All you have to do is set back and wait for the old man to work himself to death," Boone said with a shrug.

"I have no intention of waiting that long," Max snapped in reply.

"Why not? You said yourself that Echohawk was suspicious," Boone reminded him. "If we lie low for a while, sooner or later the Calders will pull him out and send in someone else. We've waited this long to get that ranch. What's a few more months?"

"That's what you'd do, isn't it?" Max jeered. "You find yourself in a fight and you want to back off and wait until the going

gets easier. This is when you have to get tough and clamp down hard."

"I just thought-.."

"You thought," Max repeated in a voice thick with contempt. "That was your first mistake , thinking." He closed the briefcase with a snap and sank back in his wheelchair, propping an elbow on the armrest and rubbing a spot just above his eyebrow with three fingers. "Now shut up for a while so I can figure out what to do about Garner."