Calder Pride Read online

“What made you ask that?” Cat stalled, trying to decide what she should tell him.

  His slender shoulders rose and fell in a diffident shrug, a look of uncertainty entering his gray eyes. His response forcibly reminded Cat that children were much more sensitive and observant than adults realized. His question had been forthright, but her response hadn’t been, and Quint knew it.

  Determined to repair the damage, Cat captured his hand and drew him to her, gathering him into the loose circle of her arms. “Repp wasn’t your father, Quint, although I know he would have liked to be,” she told him truthfully. “You’re just the kind of son he would have wanted. I know he would have been the proudest dad to take you on roundup with him. And he wouldn’t have let the men tease you about taking a nap, either. He would have told them to keep quiet, that a person deserves to rest after they’ve worked hard. There’s no doubt he would have loved you a lot. And you would have loved him, Quint.”

  He listened with solemn care, but Cat couldn’t tell what he was thinking. Nerves raveling, she braced herself for direct questions about his father. But it soon became apparent that she had been granted a reprieve. But for how long?

  Monday marked the first day of spring roundup on the Triple C. By tradition, the north range was the starting point. It was a fact known to any and all, and one that Lath Anderson counted on as the four-wheel-drive truck traveled along a dirt back road, its lights out. Clouds shrouded the moon, turning the night pitch black. A high-powered rifle rattled in the gun rack behind his head. The case with the infrared night scope lay on the seat beside him.

  “This is crazy.” Rollie crouched over the wheel, peering into the blackness ahead of them. “I can’t see where I’m going.”

  “Just keep aiming for that butte straight ahead.” Lath pointed to the landmark, discernible only by the faint star-glitter that outlined it.

  “What butte?” Rollie grumbled. “I don’t see why the hell I can’t turn the headlights on. As of yesterday, the whole crew is over on the north range. You said yourself they wouldn’t finish up there until Thursday at the earliest.”

  “Just the same, there’s no point in advertising ourselves.” He leaned forward, expectantly scanning the blackness ahead of them. “Slow down. We should be coming up to the gate.”

  “How can you tell?” Rollie muttered, dryly sarcastic, and reduced speed.

  Lath chuckled. “You’re worse than a bitchy old woman. Next you’re gonna be wantin’ to stop somewhere and ask for directions.”

  “Very funny.”

  “You know, what we really need is a couple pairs of night-vision goggles,” Lath mused idly, all the while closely watching the side of the road. “I had me some once. Man, they were wild.”

  “What we need is some light.”

  The slow-moving clouds rolled past a corner of the moon. The sliver of light gave shape and form to the surrounding landscape, glinting on the metal of a fence gate. Lath hee-heed a laugh and punched Rollie’s shoulder.

  “’Ask and ye shall receive,’ brother. That’s all you gotta do,” he declared.

  But Rollie didn’t think God had any part in their night’s venture. He swung the truck off the road and stopped in front of the gate. Lath hopped out, unlatched the gate, and dragged it open, waving Rollie through. As soon as the truck cleared the gateposts, Lath left the gate standing open and scrambled back into the cab.

  “Head for the base of that bluff over there,” Lath told him, pointing to their right. “There’s always a bunch of cattle bedded down in that grassy gulch.”

  “How do you know?” With more of the moon shining down to light the way, Rollie set out toward the spot.

  “Because I been scouting this while you’ve been off playing in the coal pit every day,” he added the last on a note of derision. “Ma wants some beef for the table, and I aim to see that she gets it—and take a few pokes at the Calders while I’m at it.”

  The roughness of the uneven ground made for slow going. After what seemed an eternity to Rollie, they arrived at the bluff and maneuvered the truck into position to block the gulch, formed by an outreaching foot of the high bluff.

  Somewhere around a half dozen cows with young calves lumbered to their feet, snuffing in alarm. Two stood their ground to eye the intruders warily while the rest trotted to the back of the gulch.

  “Was I right or what, little brother?” Lath lifted the rifle from the window rack, attached the night scope, then loaded the ammunition.

  “I don’t see any steers.” Rollie judged, mainly by the calves mothering up with grown cows.

  “No, but if it’s the same bunch, there’s a couple of heifers that’ll make good eatin’.” He climbed out of the truck and leaned atop the hood, using it for a stand. Rollie moved out of the line of fire, coming around to the passenger side while Lath put his eye to the scope and scanned the choice of targets. “This is better than a shooting gallery.”

  He picked out a cow, took aim and squeezed the trigger, the sharp report echoing off the bluff walls. A dark shape crumbled to the ground as a calf bawled. Confusion reigned, the bunched cattle rushing about in panic, seeking escape. There was none.

  Lath fired again, then again. Rollie saw a second animal stumble to its knees. For an instant, he was too stunned to react. The rifle cracked again, breaking that grip of surprise.

  “What the hell are you doing, Lath?” Another cow crashed to the ground while the second one struggled to rise. “We haven’t got room in the back of that truck for more than one carcass, not with that winch back there. Have you gone crazy?”

  Lath never took his cheek away from the rifle. “What’s the fun of stealing one of Calder’s beeves if he don’t find out about it?”

  Buzzards glided in lazy circles along the thermals rising from the bluff. More were on the ground, some too gorged from their feast of dead flesh to do more than flap their wings and lumber out of the riders’ way while others roosted in the trees.

  Flies swarmed over the bloated carcasses, the hum of their beating wings a steady drone that filled the grim scene. The heat of the noonday sun intensified the stench of rotting flesh. Ty’s horse snorted and tossed its head, not liking anything about this place.

  Neither did Ty as he stared at the carnage before him, a cold anger welling. “You said they’d been shot?” he fired the question at the middle-aged cowboy Mike Summers.

  “I didn’t check all of them, but I’d say so,” Mike replied stiffly. “We saw the buzzards circling, then found that calf, hobbling on three legs, half-dead with fever—hell, he was so weak, Shane and me walked right up to him. That’s when we saw the bullet hole. We figured the buzzards were waiting for him to die. Then we smelled this.” He nodded at the bodies of the slain cattle, frozen in death and partially mutilated by scavenging vultures and coyotes. “It was deliberate, Ty. There ain’t much doubt of that. I wish to hell I could get my hands on the bastard that did this.”

  “We will,” Ty stated in a hard, flat voice. “First, we’ll need to file a report. Ride back to camp and call the sheriff’s office on the mobile phone. Get him out here.”

  “Right away.” Mike backed his horse a few paces, then wheeled it around and pointed it toward camp. The horse broke into a canter on its own, eager to be away from the place that smelled so strongly of death.

  Ty’s horse made a swing to follow, but Ty checked the movement and surveyed the area a minute longer, then rode over to the shade of some scrub willows where the two injured calves were being held.

  Around noontime, Chase rode out from camp at Broken Butte to look over the first batch of cattle that had been brought in. Quint followed, astride a short-coupled bay mare renowned on the ranch for her ability to mollycoddle the greenest rider, hence earning the name Molly. Having ridden since the age of two, Quint was far from green, but neither was he an old hand, especially in the occasionally explosive arena of roundup.

  When Chase halted his sturdy buckskin gelding a short distance from the small her
d, Quint reined the mare around to come alongside him. The tractable Molly obeyed and stopped of her own accord abreast of the buckskin.

  Copying his grandfather’s pose, Quint folded both hands over the saddle horn and surveyed the scene. A cow and her calf attempted to break from the bunch, only to be turned back by the day-herder.

  “They’re a bit snuffy,” Quint observed, quick to use one of the terms he’d picked up from the older hands.

  “A bit,” Chase agreed with a touch of drollness.

  Hoofbeats drummed somewhere behind them. Frowning, Chase swiveled in the saddle, his gaze narrowing at the sight of a horse and rider galloping into camp. His haste clearly signaled trouble of some sort.

  “Come on, Quint,” he said to the boy. “Let’s see what’s up.” He swung the buckskin around and lifted it into a canter. Quint followed suit, pounding his heels against the mare’s sides, urging her to close the gap with the buckskin. They arrived in camp at the same time as the approaching rider.

  Chase took one look at the grim expression on Mike Summers’ face and demanded, “What happened?”

  “We got about a dozen head of dead cattle and a couple wounded calves. Ty sent me back to notify the sheriff, says we’ll need to make a report.” The horse shifted restlessly beneath him, the bridle bit clanking against its chewing teeth.

  “Wounded? How?”

  “Looks like they been shot.” Repressed anger laced the terseness of his reply.

  Chase’s own lips thinned. “Where is this?”

  “Over at the bottom of the bluff, where those buzzards are congregating.” Mike motioned to the northeast. “Not far from Three Mile Gate.” With that information passed along, he rode over to use the mobile phone in the truck to call the sheriff’s office.

  Off to the northeast, some three miles distant, circling buzzards made black dots in the sky. Chase studied them with hard eyes. His fingers tightened on the reins, and the buckskin shifted, gathering itself in anticipation of a signal to move forward. But Chase glanced at his grandson, who had never seen death. Young as Quint was, he would be doing him no favor to shield him completely from it.

  “Are you and Molly up to a long ride?” Affection gentled the grimness of his expression.

  “Sure.” Quint had heard the exchange between Chase and Mike Summers, and now wore the avid look of a boy about to embark on a kind of adventure.

  “Let’s go.” But Chase regretted the hard lesson Quint would learn.

  As he pointed the buckskin toward the distant bluff, Mike yelled from the truck, “They’re sending someone out. Tell Ty to keep watch for a patrol car.”

  Chase nodded and touched his spurs to the buckskin. The horse set out at a jogging trot, and Chase didn’t increase the pace. He had a fair idea of what they would find when they reached the site, and he wasn’t in any hurry to see it.

  There was no hope for one of the calves, Ty discovered. The bullet had shattered the right shoulder socket. The outlook wasn’t so grim for the second calf. A bullet had gouged a deep crease across the top of its neck, but had failed to sever its spinal cord. The danger now was from the infection that had already spread through the animal’s system.

  Shane Goodman was at work, doing what he could with water and his kerchief to break the hard scab and crusted blood caked over the wound. Ty stepped in to help him, a muscle coming to life in his jaw at the sight of the pus that seeped through the first cracks. It was slow work, but the fever-drained calf was beyond caring.

  After the wound had been cleaned and the raw, inflamed flesh exposed, Ty walked to his ground-hitched horse and rummaged through his saddlebag for the tube of antiseptic salve to slather on the wound and protect it from flies. Over the cantle, he spotted the approaching riders. Even at a distance, there was no mistaking his father. And he had Quint with him.

  Ty swore under his breath and turned, tossing the tube to the cowboy with the calf. “Here. I’ll be back.”

  He gathered up the trailing reins, looped them over the sorrel’s neck, and stepped into the saddle. With a touch of the spur, he sent the horse forward and rode out to intercept them. A fresh breeze swirled off the grass, but its clean scent couldn’t erase the death stench that had been burned into him.

  Chase greeted him with the message, “The sheriff’s office has a car on the way.”

  “Good.” Ty nodded briskly. “We’ve got one calf we might be able to save, but we’ll need a trailer for him. He’s too weak and too sick to make it on his own.”

  “And the other one?”

  Ty shook his head. “We’ll have to put him down,” he said, aware of young ears listening intently.

  Chase nodded his acceptance of the verdict and looked beyond him toward the bluff area, gathering the reins in an obvious signal that he intended to look the situation over himself. Ty swung his horse half a step to the side, blocking his path, and glanced pointedly at Quint, then back to his father.

  “It’s bad,” he said.

  Chase lifted his head, then nodded and turned to his grandson. “I have a job for you, Quint. We need someone to keep a lookout for the sheriff’s car and direct him back here. This is very important, now. Do you think you can do that?”

  “Sure.” Bright-eyed and eager, Quint sat straighter in the saddle.

  “Come with me.” A hundred yards away, the rough, rolling ground lifted to a high swell. Chase rode to the top of it and waited for Quint to draw alongside of him. “Do you see that gate by the road?”

  “Uh-huh.” Quint nodded, his gaze fixing on it.

  “I want you to ride down there and wait at the gate. When you see a police car coming down the road, I want you to wave your hat so he’ll know where to stop. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “I’ll be over by that bluff. When the officer gets here, you’ll need to show him where we are.”

  “I will.” Quint booted the mare forward, clicking his tongue in encouragement.

  Chase waited atop the rise until Quint reached the gate, then rode back to rejoin Ty. “How bad is it?” he asked when he reined in.

  “Bad. From the looks of it, they were killed a couple days ago,” Ty told him. “The buzzards and coyotes have already been at work on them.”

  “Are you sure it’s not the work of scavengers?” Chase questioned, then raised another possibility. “There’s been some cattle mutilations reported over in the Dakotas.”

  “I’d bet on the coyotes here.”

  “Let’s go look.” He lifted the reins. Side by side, they rode to the scene of the slaughter.

  A rooster tail of dust plumed behind the fast-traveling patrol car as it sped along the isolated dirt road that traversed an outflung section of the Triple C Ranch. Just ahead the road made a wide, sweeping curve to swing around a hill. Slowing the car to make the turn, Logan checked the crudely drawn map on his clipboard and located the curve in a road that ran otherwise arrow-straight. He glanced one last time at the directions scribbled in the right-hand margin of the map, then laid the clipboard on the passenger seat.

  It couldn’t be much farther. Leaning forward, Logan peered upward through the top half of the windshield, scanning the sky. Off to the west, buzzards drifted on rising air currents. Rounding the hill, the road straightened again. He brought his gaze back to it and the fence line that crowded close to it. Slowing again, he watched for the gate.

  Logan saw the rider first—a small boy on a full-grown horse, waving his hat in sweeping arcs over his head.

  Given a choice, Logan would have steered clear of the Triple C and anything that had to do with the Calders. But duty hadn’t allowed him that luxury. When the call came in, he had been the only one available. All the rest of the deputies had been either off duty, too far away, or tied up on other calls.

  Seeing that the pasture gate was shut, Logan stopped the car on the road and stepped out, automatically adjusting the holstered gun on his hip. The boy had his hat back on his head, the overhanging brim shadowing a face that
couldn’t have been more than five or six years old.

  “Afternoon.” Logan touched his hat in greeting.

  “Afternoon, sir.” The boy sat as tall as he could in the saddle, his shoulders squared with adultlike importance. “I waved my hat so you’d know where to stop.”

  “Good thing you did,” Logan acknowledged. “I might have driven past the gate before I saw it.”

  The dozing mare flicked a curious ear at him as Logan approached the gate. When he went to unlatch the gate, his glance fell on a set of tire tracks. Close to a dozen cattle had been reported killed, a number that represented a sizable loss to any outfit, and one that couldn’t be taken lightly. Logan crouched down to study the tracks.

  “Whatcha looking at?” the boy asked, the saddle creaking as he leaned forward, trying to see.

  “Some tire tracks.” Logan straightened and turned his thoughtful gaze on the boy. “You don’t know whether anybody’s come through this gate in the last couple days?”

  “No. Is it important?”

  “It could be.”

  “I’m supposed to take you over to that bluff where my grandpa is. That’s where the dead cows are.”

  “Mind if I swing up behind and ride with you?”

  The boy shrugged. “Molly won’t care, but what about your car? Are you just going to leave it there?”

  Logan nodded. “Until I know something more about those tire tracks. Just give me a minute to radio in and let them know the situation here.” He went back to the patrol car, made the call and returned.

  Grabbing hold of the saddle horn, he swung up behind the cantle and settled into a semi-comfortable position on the leather skirt.

  “We’re all set,” he told the boy.

  “Let’s go, Molly.” He clicked to the mare.

  “Is Molly your horse’s name?” Logan guessed as the mare broke into a shuffling trot.

  “Yup.”

  “I guess we never got around to introducing ourselves. My name’s Logan. What’s yours?”

  “Quint.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Quint.”