This Calder Sky (10 page)

“No problem,” his father replied smoothly. “I'll send word out for Nate to bring it when he comes in.”

Chase lost his taste for the cigar and irritably stubbed it out in the car's ashtray. His hard jawline was thrust forward as he gazed out the window, a grimness pulling down the corners of his mouth.

“You don't look too happy. Is something bothering you, son?”

“No.” The denial came sharp and quick. Chase tempered it, turning an emotionless face to his father. “What could be wrong?”

“I thought you might tell me.”

The astuteness of his father's eyes made Chase turn to the front again. “There's nothing to tell,” he shrugged.

“Not even about the O'Rourke girl—Maggie?” The quietly worded challenge wasn't permitted a response as Webb continued. “When a man needs the satisfaction of bedding a woman, it's understood that he stays away from young girls and those from decent families. There are plenty of whores and experienced women around to satisfy a man's appetite for sex.” He paused to run a glance over Chase. “Take some fatherly advice
and think on it, son.” But something told Webb that his advice had come too late. Immediately, he began considering the options if there were a backlash. Meanwhile, he lined out the tasks he wanted Chase to accomplish that day.

That night, Chase found his bedroll and saddlebags in his room. Among the clothes was the shirt he'd lost. He stared at it, knowing the questions it must have raised, and knowing that none of them would ever be asked. He lay in bed that night and stared at the ceiling for long hours, knowing his father was right. Maggie was a child, not even sixteen yet. He had no business messing around with her.

Leaning on the counter in the commissary section of the warehouse, Webb went down the list of supplies included on the purchase order. “You're ordering a lot of sugar, Bill. Are you sure someone isn't operating a still on the side?” Even as he questioned the amount in a joking manner, he signed the authorization at the bottom, and smiled at the man in the wheelchair behind the counter.

Bill Vernon was fourth-generation at the Triple C Ranch. Except for five years which he'd spent training and working as a computer programmer, he'd spent all his life here. He'd returned seven years ago, disenchanted with city life despite the higher pay, to cowboy again. Three short months later, a fall from a horse had left him paralyzed.

The Triple C took care of its own. When Bill had recovered, Webb had put him in charge of the commissary, expanding the responsibilities to include the warehouse stock and making Bill into a bookkeeper of sorts. He and his wife, and their two children, lived in one of the houses furnished by the ranch.

There was a sense of family among the descendants
of those who had stayed with the first Calder. They were all tied to the land and tied to one another, not like the drifters who worked a month or year and moved on. They were a hardcore band of followers whose first loyalty was to the brand.

“It looks like a lot of sugar, I admit,” Bill Vernon replied with a quick smile. “But with summer coming on, the women will be canning, so we'll need more than usual on hand—or so Marlyss tells me.” His smile broadened into a grin. Marlyss was his wife, a saucy, freckle-faced girl from the Montana wheat country up north. They'd met and married at computer school. She helped him out in the commissary, working behind the counter and stocking shelves, while he did the paperwork.

“I'm sure Marlyss knows what she's talking about.” She was quite the homemaker, from what Webb had heard and seen. “Where is she, by the way?” He glanced around the small shop area.

“Over at the house, checking on Timmy. His tonsils are inflamed again.”

“Boss!” One of the hands called to him from the sun-brightened doorway, and Webb turned. “O'Rourke's outside here, askin' to see you.”

For a split-second, Webb held himself motionless. These last four days he'd been expecting something without being sure what it would be. Now it had come. He straightened from the counter, accumulating his thoughts and formulating his contingency plans.

“Tell him I'll be right out.” He gave the message to the cowboy and glanced at Bill. On the surface, he retained a calm and casual expression. “Was there anything else we needed to go over?”

“No, I don't think so.” Bill Vernon shook his head and wheeled his chair at a right angle, taking the purchase order Webb had signed.

With a curt nod, Webb took his leave. “Take care.”
He turned and walked out the commissary door into the bright sunlight.

After four days of ranting and raving, mostly to himself, and being goaded by Maggie's taunting insistence that he would do nothing more than talk, Angus O'Rourke had worked himself into a fever pitch of hatred that had finally brought him face to face with Webb Calder. He had stayed outside the ranch store deliberately to make Webb Calder come to him, as if this small thing would give him a psychological edge.

If it did, it was taken away when Webb stopped before him, tall and barrel-chested, forcing Angus, who was half a foot shorter, to tip his head back in order to look into Webb's face. Angus detested people looking “down” at him, especially Webb Calder. His mouth curved in smug contempt at the way this mighty man was going to squirm before he was through with him.

“Hello, O'Rourke. You wanted to see me?”

Angus lifted his chin a belligerent inch higher. “Yeah, I want to talk to you.”

With a brief nod of willingness to listen, Webb Calder said, “I was just on my way to the house. Why don't we talk there?”

Angus had just taken a deep breath to let fly with his accusations. The offer of hospitality took the wind out of his sails. The rare times that he'd been at the Triple C headquarters, he'd never been invited to the house. It was a grand-looking structure. Just for a minute, he was uncomfortable at the thought of being inside. Then he reassured himself with the knowledge that he was finally being treated as an equal, something he felt he justly deserved.

It was impossible to talk while crossing the yard. The man's long strides forced Angus to walk faster than he usually did. He was puffing slightly when they reached the house and was irritated because Calder didn't appear to be out of breath.

Entering the house, Angus couldn't keep from staring at the huge living room with all its fine, comfortable furnishings—strong, solid furniture built to last. It was a man's house, possessing none of the dainty touches of a woman. His own home seemed a shack in comparison. His dream of living in a place like this seemed further away now that Angus realized how far he had to go. It filled him with a sense of wild desperation.

Calder was opening wide a set of double doors to his left, and Angus realized their discussion was not going to take place in the spacious living room before him. He turned to follow Webb into the library. There was a cavernous fireplace with the wide, sweeping horns of a longhorn steer mounted above the mantelpiece, and furniture covered with genuine leather. Bookshelves held bound volumes of works ranging from the masters to animal husbandry. Behind a huge desk, a framed map hung on the wall, yellowed with age and outlining the boundaries of the Triple C. Angus stared at it as Calder walked behind the desk to sit in the stuffed armchair.

“It's the first map of the ranch,” Calder explained, noting Angus' interest in it. “Almost a century old now.”

Angus was choked again by the feeling that it was wrong for one person to own so much. It festered inside him, an infected wound that poisoned him. The map, the house, the man—all made him feel small.

“What was it you wanted to speak to me about, Angus?” Calder inquired, so calmly, so authoritatively.

“My daughter, Maggie. Your son forced himself on her. He found her swimming in the river and took advantage of her.” He rushed his words, the heat building in his voice. “It's a fact. She told me so herself, so there's no use in you denying it.”

“I wouldn't presume to call your daughter a liar,”
Calder replied smoothly. “My son is a healthy young male, and your Maggie is just coming into womanhood. I wouldn't deny it's conceivable that there might have been a liaison between the two of them.”

He'd expected an argument, a flat denial that a Calder would do such a thing. His anger was temporarily without direction until his mind played back Webb's statement in which nothing was admitted and no blame assumed.

“Your son isn't going to get away with ruining my little girl. I'm here to see to that,” he stated. “It doesn't matter how you want to twist it. What he did amounts to statutory rape. She's fifteen, under age. He can go to prison for that.”

There was the briefest pause, during which Webb Calder regarded him steadily. “I'm sure you have considered that if you press charges, your daughter would have to appear in court. Her testimony would be public record. It's unfortunate, but only too true, that in cases where rape is charged, it's the girl who suffers the loss of her reputation. No father wants to see his daughter publicly shamed.”

The shame would touch all of them. A trial would have this whole part of the state talking. Wherever any of them went, people would whisper behind their backs and point. It was something that Angus had thought about over and over again. His face became mottled with frustration because Calder knew they would suffer more than he and his son.

“Your son took my little girl and used her for his own pleasure. I'm not letting him get away with it,” Angus insisted in a tight voice. “I demand that he do the right thing by her.”

An eyebrow shot up in challenging surprise, a studied action that seemed to imply Angus wasn't too bright. “I hope you aren't suggesting marriage, Angus, because
that would be a bigger mistake than the one they made. Your daughter is much too young to be any man's bride, and my son isn't ready to settle down in married life. I know you are trying to ensure that your daughter doesn't suffer any loss of respect, but for parents to force their children to marry because of a single indiscretion would be wrong. She would be unhappy with my son, and I know that's something that as her father you want to avoid.”

Angus hated Webb for being so damned levelheaded and practical. He shifted in his chair, aware that he was being made to look like a fool and helpless to know how to change it. He clung to the one thought that burned steadily within him.

“He isn't going to get by with what he did. He's got to pay for it,” Angus repeated in steadfast determination.

“If I had a daughter”—Webb Calder leaned forward in his chair and casually rested his arms on the desk to study him—“and if I believed something of this nature had happened to her, I'm sure I would be feeling the same sense of outrage that you are. I would insist on some form of retribution, too. It wouldn't be unreasonable to expect compensation—a settlement for damages, if you will.”

“Are you saying that you want to buy me off?” Angus challenged with narrowed eyes, his pride stung by the offer. “Do you think money can erase my daughter's memory of what happened out there by the river?”

A faint smile touched Calder's mouth, hinting at shrewdness. “I'm certain there is no dollar figure that would be adequate compensation. It's merely a gesture of goodwill. You and I are reasonable men, Angus. It would benefit neither of us to have this story spread around, creating gossip and scandal. The wise thing is
to settle the matter as best we can. What other alternative do we have?” He looked across the desk, waiting for a suggestion. Unable to meet the directness of that gaze, Angus wavered. None of his threats had seemed to touch this man. All of them had been brushed aside. He'd not even had the satisfaction of making the man squirm

Before the silence became awkward, Calder reached for a pen. “Why don't I write out a bill of sale to you for, say, twenty-five head of prime stock—your choice—and mark it paid in full?” He reached for a piece of paper.

Watching Calder, Angus' mind raced. If he left this ranch empty-handed, without even the satisfaction of knowing he'd put Calder in a difficult position, then he'd accomplished nothing but to make a fool of himself. He wasn't even able to truthfully brag that he'd put Calder on the spot. His bluff had been called. Something had to be salvaged from this. It wasn't Calder's place to be dictating the terms of a settlement; it was his. Calder had already started to write.

“Make it fifty head of my choice,” Angus demanded.

Lifting his head, Calder gave him a steely glance. “Fifty head it is,” he agreed, and Angus wondered if he should have demanded more—a hundred, maybe. He cursed himself for settling too cheaply. Calder owned two hundred times that number, maybe more. But something in that hard, cold stare kept Angus from upping the ante. The palms of his hands felt clammy as Calder reverted his attention to the bill of sale he was writing, the pen scratching across the paper in bold strokes.

When it was written, Calder offered it to him, forcing Angus to rise from his chair to reach for it. Looking at the bill of sale, he was burned again with the knowledge that he'd sold too cheap. It sounded like a lot to him
because he had so little, but it didn't even make a dent in Calder's pocket. He hadn't made Calder pay—he'd been bought. He felt puny and sick inside.

Webb reached for the telephone on his desk and picked up the receiver, dialing a number. He glanced once at O'Rourke, observing the bitter regret in the man's expression. It was always that way whenever a buyer met the asking price; the seller always wondered if he couldn't have gotten more.

The ringing line was answered. “This is Calder.” Webb identified himself and didn't wait for a response. “Is Nate there?” At the affirmative answer, he said, “Tell him I want to see him at The Homestead.”

Hanging up the phone, Webb pushed the chair away from the desk and stood up. O'Rourke continued to stare at the bill of sale, not immediately noticing that he had risen until he walked from behind the desk. Then he pushed quickly to his feet.