Calder Pride Read online

  After he left and the pain subsided, Cat sagged back against the tire again, the contractions sapping her strength, each time leaving her feeling a little more weak, a little more exhausted. Compassion was in Jessy’s eyes as she smoothed away the damp strands of hair from Cat’s face.

  “Scared?” she asked.

  “A little.” Cat didn’t mind admitting that to Jessy.

  “So am I,” Jessy replied. “I have handled the birthing of hundreds of calves in my time, but this will be my first baby.”

  Cat smiled at that, as she was meant to do, and worked to regulate her breathing. “Mine, too.”

  “I think it’s time we got some of these clothes off and saw how you’re doing. What d’you say we start with the boots?”

  As she started to move away, Cat clutched at her arm. “First you have to get me a rope or a piggin’ string, something I can bite on to keep from screaming.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Cat.” Jessy frowned at the request, her voice sharp with disapproval. “You go right ahead and do all the screaming, yelling, and cussing you want.”

  “No!” Temper blazed in her eyes, along with a wildness, and her grip tightened on Jessy’s arm. “I am not going to scream with all these men to hear me. I am not!”

  “That’s crazy,” Jessy declared in exasperation. “Over half of all the men here are married with children running around. They’ve heard their wives in labor.”

  “But I’m not them,” Cat replied forcefully. “If you aren’t going to find me something, I’ll do it myself.”

  When she started to clamber to her feet, Jessy pushed her back against the tire and pulled a large bandanna from her jacket pocket.

  “Here, tie some knots in this and use it. At least it’s clean, which is more than can be said for a rope or a piggin’ string.”

  Twenty minutes later, a pickup roared toward the noon camp, bouncing along the tracks of pressed-down grass made earlier by the trucks hauling the stock trailers to the site. The ranch nurse, Amy Trumbo, was behind the wheel. She would later explain that four-year-old Buddy Martin had come down with the measles. She had been on her way to the north camp to check on him when the call came over the radio about Cat.

  By the time Amy arrived, they had rigged up a makeshift tent, using blankets for side screens and stretching a piece of canvas over it for a roof, anchoring one side to the stock trailer and the other to a pair of tent poles. Jessy had washed the table down with a bottle of alcohol from Tucker’s first-aid kit, and Cat had forsaken her plaid shirt and maternity denims in favor of one of Tucker’s clean white shirts, size extra-large, which hung almost to her knees. An extra set of clean dishcloths from the cookshack covered the bedroll that had been called into use as a mattress, and two more bedrolls served as propping pillows. It was a considerably more sterile environment than Amy had expected under the circumstances.

  She shooed Ty out, telling him, “Your turn will come when Jessy has hers. If we need you, we’ll holler.” She glanced at Chase and saw that he wasn’t about to leave his daughter’s side. She said nothing and set about examining Cat.

  When she finished, she raised an eyebrow. “I was going to suggest taking you to the Goodmans’ house, but you’re right. I don’t think you would make it. It won’t be long now.”

  “I hope not,” Cat murmured, already drenched with sweat.

  Amy laughed. “Consider yourself lucky, girl. I was fourteen hours in labor with my first one, and seventeen with my second—and last—baby.”

  At the moment, that was an ordeal Cat didn’t want to even think about. Her own was enough as another contraction bore down on her, spiraling through her insides with white-hot savagery. Her teeth sank into the cloth knots. Wadded and saliva-wet material clogged her mouth, smothering the groaning cry the pain ripped from her throat. She grabbed hold of her father’s hand and squeezed with all her might.

  Away from the birthing site, Culley hovered in the shadowed edges next to the cookshack, his gaze glued to the trailer area while he chewed on the already raw cuticle of a thumbnail. The second shift of riders were in camp, finishing up their noon meal in a rare silence, their glances straying constantly to the trailer.

  When Ty came around from behind the trailer and paused to light a cigarette, Art Trumbo grinned knowingly. “Amy chased you out, didn’t she? She was quick enough to tell me how useless I was in the delivery room when our kids were born,” he remarked, then asked with studied casualness. “How’s your sister doin’?”

  “Fine.” Ty took another quick puff on his cigarette and struck out toward the cookshack. “Did you boys leave any coffee in the pot?”

  “There should be a cup or two,” Art told him, then tossed another knowing grin to the others. “Now the three p’s begin.”

  “The three p’s?” one of the bachelors questioned.

  “Yeah, puffin’, pacin’, and pourin’,” Art explained. “When you aren’t pacing back and forth puffing on a cigarette, you’re pouring yourself another cup of coffee.”

  There were a few smiles and, here and there, a nod of agreement, then a tense silence again settled over the camp, all ears tuned to the muffled sounds coming from behind the trailer. A rider reined in his horse close to camp, asked the status, and received a shrug for an answer. He carried it back to the herd.

  “I thought there was supposed to be a lot of yellin’.” Nineteen-year-old Perry Summers glanced uncertainly at the older married riders.

  “Usually is.” Art Trumbo nodded.

  “I hope to tell you.” Tiny Yates rose to his feet, shaking the dregs from his coffee cup. “When Buddy was born, Pammie yelled and screamed and cussed me eight ways to Sunday the whole time. Why, she called me names I never knew she knew. Somewhere she come up with a whole new vocabulary when little Ellen was born. And her screams gained a couple octaves.”

  “Sure is quiet,” Perry murmured in a worried way.

  Ty echoed that sentiment. The difference was he knew the effort his sister was making to throttle any outcries. He had seen her face twisted white with agony, seen the knotted bandanna her teeth ground against and the way her head thrashed from side to side. He had seen it, and he cursed her for it. But that was Cat—always dramatic. She had changed in a lot of ways these last few months, but not in that.

  Irritated and more worried about his sister than he cared to admit, Ty took a long drag on his cigarette, eyes squinting against the smoke. Soundlessly O’Rourke appeared beside him, a forefinger crossing over the chewed and bloody base of his thumb.

  “Cat ain’t gonna die, is she?” Anxiety riddled his voice.

  “Of course not,” Ty snapped with impatience, the question grating nerves that were already raw.

  But his answer didn’t ease any of Culley’s fears. “They’d tell us if anything was going wrong, wouldn’t they? They’d let us know?”

  Ty wasn’t sure about that, and it showed in his eyes.

  Suddenly there was a new tenor to the murmurs coming from behind the trailer, a note of urgency entering them. Everyone in camp caught it and went instantly still, gripped by a tension they couldn’t have explained.

  The full-blown wail of a baby broke it, drawing smiles that were quickly hidden by hurriedly adopted expressions of nonchalance. Art Trumbo tugged on his gloves and proclaimed to no one in particular, “My Amy knows about as much as any doctor does.”

  “When do you figure Grandpa Calder’s gonna be passing out the cigars?” Tiny Yates wanted to know.

  None of their talk was of any interest to Culley. He moved away, taking a circuitous route around the motorized chuckwagon toward the makeshift tent behind the stock trailer. The bawling infant may have reassured the others, but he had only one concern, and that was Cat.

  Moments earlier, Cat had been certain she hadn’t an ounce of strength left in her body. But her baby’s strident cries brought a fresh surge of energy to her. She pushed onto her elbows, eager to see her child, impatient to hold this wondrous squalling
miracle that was her son.

  “Would you just look at how long his arms and legs are,” Cat marveled softly as the baby waved and kicked and stretched, fending off Amy’s efforts to bundle his newly washed body in a towel.

  “He’s gangly as a colt,” Jessy agreed and readjusted the bedrolls behind Cat, propping her in a half-sitting position.

  With both arms, Cat took the swaddled infant from Amy and gathered him to her. He stopped crying at once and looked directly at her with round and darkly blue eyes. She gazed at the reddened face, the wet mop of glistening black hair.

  “You are so beautiful,” Cat whispered, completely losing her heart to him.

  A shaft of sunlight fell across the baby’s face, the brightness startling both of them. Cat quickly shielded his eyes from the glare of it and looked up. Culley stared at her, one hand still holding aside the draped blanket. She saw the deepening look of worry in his eyes, and guessed that she looked a sight, with her hair all wild and disheveled, still damp with sweat. But she was beyond caring about her appearance; her cup was too full with the joy she felt over her beautiful new son.

  “Uncle Culley, come see my baby,” Cat invited.

  He hesitated, then moved closer, his gaze never ceasing its study of her. “Are you okay?”

  “Oh, yes,” she replied with unmistakable fervor, glancing up at him, green eyes shining.

  Culley looked at the delicate pallor of her skin, the smile on her lips, and the radiance of her face. When he had first seen her, so ghostly pale with her hair all snarled in clumps, he had thought she was at death’s door. Now she reminded him of the picture of the Madonna in his mother’s Bible.

  “Isn’t he beautiful, Uncle Culley?” She gazed adoringly at the bundle in her arms.

  In his thinking, babies were something women were to fuss over, not men. But he peered dutifully at the infant. “Kinda red, isn’t he?”

  She laughed softly. “All babies are when they’re first born.”

  “Oh.” He searched for something good to say. “He don’t look like a Calder.”

  To Culley’s surprise, Chase remarked, “With all that dark hair, I have a feeling he’s going to take after his mother.”

  “Have you decided on a name for the little guy yet?” Amy asked curiously.

  Cat nodded. “Since he will be part of the fifth generation of Calders on the Triple C, I’m going to call him Quint. Quint Benteen Calder.”

  The baby waved a tiny fist in the air.

  PART 3

  Trouble comes from nowhere.

  Now you will have to decide

  If the son should know of the father

  At the loss of that fierce Calder pride.

  TWELVE

  A pickup carrying the Triple C logo on its doors swung off the highway, splashed through a puddle left by a recent spring rain, and rolled to a stop in front of Sally’s Place. Behind the wheel, Chase switched off the engine while Cat opened the passenger door, then turned back to the boy seated between them.

  Four days away from his fifth birthday, Quint Calder had that slender, coltish look of a boy trying to grow into his long arms and legs. Beneath a battered and much-worn straw cowboy hat, his hair gleamed blue-black in the sunlight. There was already a hint of high cheekbones showing in the softness of his face. Head bent, a furrow of concentration marring the smoothness of his forehead, Quint worked to unfasten his seat belt.

  “Let me get that for you.” Cat reached to help him.

  “I can do it myself, Mom,” he asserted quite calmly.

  “Of course.” Cat drew her hands back, exchanging an amused glance with her father.

  Quint’s remark was typical of a boy seeking to establish his independence. But in other ways, her son was far from typical. Rowdy and boisterous he was not. By nature, he was serious and quiet, a trait that many mistook for shyness. But there wasn’t a bashful bone in his body. On the contrary, Quint was absolutely fearless, a fact that had caused Cat many an anxious moment. He was slow to anger, but when sufficiently provoked, he had a temper to rival hers, although Cat could count on one hand the number of times Quint had displayed it. He was a thinker and a doer rather than a talker. The ranch hands called him “little man.”

  As always, when Quint succeeded in unbuckling his seat belt, he didn’t look to Cat for praise. In his way of thinking, such a simple task wasn’t worthy of it. Aware of it, Cat swung out of the truck and held the door open for him, while Chase climbed stiffly out the other side.

  Quint scooted forward in the seat, stood, then paused and reached down to pick up the cane lying on the floor. “Here’s your cane, Grandpa.” Matter-of-factly he passed it to him.

  “Thanks.” Chase took it.

  Turning, Quint headed out the passenger side, the tail of his shirt hanging out of his jeans. Noticing it, Cat stopped him at the door. “Let’s tuck your shirt in.” With a deftness that came from long practice, she proceeded to push the material inside his jeans.

  “What d’we got to do in town, Mom?”

  “I have some shopping to do first, then—”

  “Are you shopping for my birthday present?” Quint wanted to know, excitement sparkling in his gray eyes, gray eyes that never failed to remind Cat of another pair of eyes equally gray. It was a sight she still found a little disconcerting.

  “No, I have already bought your present.” Smiling, she gave his hat brim a playful tug, pulling it down onto his forehead.

  He quickly righted it and jumped to the ground. “What did you get me?”

  “You don’t really want me to tell you, do you?”

  “No. Surprises are better,” Quint stated with adultlike certainty, then walked to the front of the truck where Chase waited for them. “Are you going shoppin’ with us, Grandpa?”

  “Nope. I’m gonna have a cup of coffee and visit with Sally.” He nodded toward the building that housed the combination restaurant and bar. “Would you like to join me? Maybe have a soda or some hot chocolate?”

  The suggestion of hot chocolate had Quint’s eyes lighting up, but he turned first to Cat. “Is it okay if I go with Grandpa?”

  “Sure. Just behave yourself and mind your manners,” Cat told him.

  “I will,” he promised solemnly, then trotted forward and automatically took his grandfather’s outstretched hand.

  At this early hour of the afternoon the lunch crowd had already left and the coffee drinkers had yet to arrive, leaving the restaurant virtually empty of patrons. Chase and Quint had their pick of tables; Chase chose one near the counter and sat down, hooking his cane onto the back of a white-painted chair.

  Quint crawled onto another one and peered around the empty restaurant. “Where’s Miss Sally?”

  “Back in the kitchen, I imagine,” Chase guessed from the clank and clatter of silverware and dishes coming from the direction of the batwing doors. “She’ll be out directly.”

  Quint nodded in sober understanding and sat back to wait. It was a short one, as the proprietress, Sally Brogan, pushed through the swinging doors into the restaurant proper. Age had thickened her waistline and turned her once copper-red hair a snowy white, a color that intensified the serene blue of her eyes.

  Sally stopped in surprise when she saw the pair at the table. A look of pleasure leaped into her eyes, a look that became hungry as she ran her gaze over Chase. She had been in love with him more years than she cared to count. Once she had believed she had a chance with him. Since Maggie’s death, however, she had seen even less of him than before. She had finally come to accept that he would never offer her more than his friendship.

  “I didn’t realize I had customers.” Approaching the table, Sally smiled a warm welcome. “Have you been here long?”

  “Just sat down,” Chase told her.

  “This can’t be Quint.” She turned to the boy. “You are growing as fast as the spring grass.”

  “Kids do that, Miss Sally,” he explained.

  Her smile deepened in amusement. “I
guess they do at that.”

  “Quint has a birthday coming up this Thursday,” Chase informed her.

  “A birthday? How exciting. How old will you be?”

  “Five.”

  “Have you decided what you want for your birthday?” Sally asked.

  Quint contemplated that for a long minute, then sighed. “I guess I got just about everything a boy could want.”

  Sally laughed in amazement. “I’ll bet your mom was happy to hear that.”

  “I guess.” He shrugged the answer, then volunteered, “Mom went shopping. Grandpa and me decided to come visit you. He’s gonna have some coffee, but I want hot chocolate.”

  “Would you like a marshmallow with that hot chocolate?”

  “Please.” A rare smile curved his mouth. “Can I drink it at the counter if I’m careful not to spill?”

  “Of course you can.”

  “Thanks.” Still beaming, Quint scrambled off his chair, raced over to the counter and hauled himself onto one of the stools.

  Sally had set his hot chocolate, topped with two fat marshmallows, before him, then brought two cups of coffee to the table and sat down with Chase. “He’s quite the boy,” she remarked.

  “Sometimes it seems like he’s four going on fifteen. He’s definitely not the harum-scarum type.” Chase studied his grandson with pride.

  “I should say not,” Sally agreed.

  “So, what’s been happening in Blue Moon?” Chase sipped at his coffee.

  “Sheriff Blackmore had triple bypass surgery on Monday. He took sick over the weekend, I guess. They rushed him to the hospital in Miles City.”

  “How’s he doing?”

  “They say he came through the operation in fine shape, but it’ll be a while before he’s back on the job.”