This Calder Range Read online

  The buggy pulled up close to the livery stable, the escort of riders fanning protectively along the street side. Other ranchers rode into town alone, but Judd Boston never went anywhere without a mounted guard. It was another thing that raised questions in Benteen’s mind. Was it a guilty conscience, or did the banker-rancher like the implied importance of possessing a retinue of underlings?

  “Calder!” It was a stiff command for him to approach the buggy.

  The ordering tone straightened his shoulders slightly, but Benteen allowed no other resentment to show. He walked to the buggy with the loose, unhurried stride of a rider, each step accompanied by the muted jangle of his work spurs. He stopped beside the buggy, saying nothing because he had nothing to say.

  His silence didn’t set well with Judd Boston. The man had eyes as black as hell. They burned with what he saw as rage. “Where the hell have you been?” he demanded. “I expected you back two months ago.”

  “I had some personal business.” It was a flat answer, showing neither respect nor disrespect. Benteen was aware of the man’s dangerous patience. It was the cunning kind, content to wait until the right moment. Benteen was reminded of an alleycat he’d once watched while it played with a mouse.

  “I hired you to do a job, Calder.” The statement insinuated that he had failed to do it.

  It ran raw over his travel-weary nerves. “Your herd was delivered to the Snyder outfit with only ten head lost on the drive.” His sharp glance picked out Jessie Trumbo among the escort of riders. “I sent the money from the sale back with Jessie. You’ve got no complaint coming.”

  “It was your responsibility to bring that cash to me. Not Jessie’s,” Boston insisted coldly.

  “It was my responsibility to see that you received it,” Benteen corrected the phrasing. “You did.” There was a rare show of irritation. It didn’t seem to matter anymore whether he offended Judd Boston or not. “I hired out to boss your herd and drive it through to Wyoming. After that I was to pay off the drovers with the proceeds of the sale and return the balance to you. The job’s done. You may have paid my wages, Boston, but you don’t own me. No man owns me.”

  A coldness hardened Boston’s broad features. “The job is done and you are done, Calder,” he stated. “I have no use for a man who disappears for two months. You aren’t going back on the payroll.”

  “Good.” A half-smile skipped across his face. “It saves me the trouble of quitting.”

  Their eyes locked, hardness matching hardness. Then a glint of satisfaction flickered in Judd Boston’s eyes. “Baker,” he called to one of the riders. “Those two horses in front of the stable are carrying the Ten Bar brand. Catch them up and take them back to the ranch.”

  The order seared through Benteen like a hot iron. “You damned bastard.” His voice was low and rough. “In this country, you don’t take a man’s horse and leave him on foot. I’ll bring them out to the ranch myself in the morning.”

  “I want them now.” Judd smiled. “I could report them as stolen, Calder.” Without taking his eyes off Benteen, he prodded the hesitant rider. “You heard me, Baker.”

  Benteen shot a hard glance at the young rider reining his horse back to walk it behind the buggy. Jessie Trumbo swung his horse to follow him. “I’ll give you a hand, Baker,” he murmured. Whether the men agreed or not, they were obliged to obey orders. It was part of riding for the brand. Benteen knew that, and didn’t hold their part in this against them.

  His attention swung back to the man in the buggy. “I’ll get my gear off the horses so you can take them,” he said. “Maybe now I’ll have the time to check some of the brands on your cattle. I’ve always thought how easy it would be to change my pa’s brand from a C-to a 10. A running iron or a cinch ring could handle that in nothing flat.”

  Judd Boston stiffened. “You’re finished around here, Calder. If I were you, I’d clear out.”

  A remote smile slanted his mouth. “I planned on it, Boston.”

  With a flick of his wrist, Judd Boston snapped the buggy whip close to the ears of the chestnut mare. Benteen stepped back as the harnessed mare lunged forward and the wooden wheels of the buggy began their first revolution. The two remaining riders of the escort fell in behind the buggy.

  Turning back to the stable, Benteen walked to the packhorse to unload it first. “You made yourself an enemy, Benteen.” Jessie Trumbo spoke quietly. Benteen still counted the rider as a friend.

  A reply didn’t seem necessary, but he stared after the buggy disappearing down the street. Most of the men at the Ten Bar were his friends, but there were some who weren’t. It was this tangled weave of friendship and enmity in a rough, short-tempered land that kept the aloof interest in his dark eyes. “Is it all right if I stow my gear inside, Stoney?” he asked the stablehand instead.

  “Sure.” The aging, semi-crippled man nodded.

  Benteen carried the pack inside the stable and into a small office dusty with hay chaff. Opening the pack, he slung the holstered revolver over his shoulder for the time being and removed his rifle. He went back outside to unsaddle the chalk-faced bay.

  “Where’s Barnie?” Jessie asked, leaning over his saddle horn. “I thought he went with you.”

  “He did.” Benteen hooked the stirrup over the saddle horn and began loosening the cinch. “I left him up in Montana Territory north of the Yellowstone. He’s lookin’ after my homestead claim until I can bring a herd up in the spring.”

  “Montana.” Jessie sat up, whistling under his breath in surprise. “Then you are pulling out. You didn’t just tell Boston that to be talking.”

  “Nope.” Benteen lifted the heavy saddle off the horse’s back, a glint of pride flashing in his dark eyes.

  “Where you gonna get a herd? Are you takin’ your pa’s?”

  “I thought I’d spend the winter beating the thickets and putting together a herd of mavericks.” Benteen wasn’t counting on his father pulling up stakes and going with him, taking what was left of his herd. “I could use somebody good with a rope to come along.”

  Jessie grinned. “It’ll be pure hell chasin’ down longhorns in all that scrub, but it sounds better than ‘yes-sirring’ Mr. Moneybags.”

  Benteen hefted the saddle onto his shoulder and carried it into the stable to leave it with the rest of his gear. When he came out, Jessie and the young cowboy had ropes around the necks of his two horses and were leading them away. Stoney limped up to stand beside him.

  “You can have the gray gelding in the first stall,” he said. “Jest turn him loose when you’re through with him. He’ll find his own way back. Always does.”

  “Thanks, Stoney.” He picked up the rifle he’d leaned against the side of the stable and started down the dusty street.

  Several blocks down the street, he came to one of the few wooden sidewalks. His footsteps were heavy with fatigue, his spurs rattling with each leaden stride. Although his body was bone-weary, his eyes never ceased their restless scanning of the streets. But they paid little attention to the store buildings he passed, except to note customers going in or out.

  “Benteen?” a female voice called out to him, uncertain.

  He stopped, half-turning to glance behind him. A rawly sweet wind rushed through his system as he saw Lorna poised in the doorway of the milliner’s shop. The hesitancy left her expression and a smile curved the soft fullness of her lips. She seemed to glide across the sidewalk to him, the lightness of her footsteps barely making any sound at all. A blue ribbon swept the length of her long dark hair away from her face and left it to cascade in soft curls down her back. She was like spring, fresh and innocent in her long dress of white cotton with small blue flowers.

  The top of her head barely reached his shoulder. Her brown eyes sparkled with the pleasure of seeing him. “I thought it was you.” Her voice sang to him.

  His eyes drank in the essence of her like a thirsty man long without water. He’d forgotten what a little thing she was. Not so little, perhaps, Be
nteen corrected as his gaze noticed her firm young breasts pushing at the demure front of her gown that covered her all the way to her neck.

  “Where have you been?” she asked as she scanned his haggard and disreputable appearance. “I was beginning to worry about you. The others came back from the drive months ago. Where have you been all this time?”

  A surging warmth gentled his rough features. Benteen stroked her smooth cheek with his forefinger, wanting to do more than just touch her. “You sound just like a wife already,” he teased softly. He was conscious of his trail grime and unshaven face. The public street didn’t make this meeting any easier.

  His remark made Lorna lower her gaze, betraying her excited shyness. At times, Lorna Pearce seemed to be a living contradiction. There was a Madonna-like quality to her features, yet her brown eyes could be bold and spirited, revealing an intelligence that she usually concealed in a womanly fashion. She was sometimes as gay and full of laughter as a young girl, and other times, very calm and self-confident. At the moment, she looked incredibly young—too young to be a wife; but she was seventeen, soon to be eighteen, definitely a marriageable age.

  She slanted him a look, a sauciness behind her proper air. “If I were your wife, Chase Benteen Calder, I’d take after you with a rolling pin for being away so long without writing me a single word.”

  He chuckled softly at the threat, not believing she was capable of anything that remotely resembled violence. His features were so solidly composed that when he smiled, the change in his expression was always complete and surprising. He looked over at the shop she’d come out of. “What are you doing here?” Her father’s general store—Pearce’s Emporium—was several blocks down the street. “Spending your father’s money on another hat?”

  “No. I’m waiting to spend your money,” Lorna retorted. “I was visiting a friend.” She glanced toward the door, where a rather plain brown-haired girl was standing. “You remember Sue Ellen, don’t you? We went to school together,” she reminded him, and discreetly motioned for her girlfriend to come forward. “Her mother owns the millinery shop.”

  The girl approached them timidly. “Hello, Mr. Calder,” she greeted him in a slightly breathless voice.

  “Benteen,” he corrected, and wondered what the two girls had in common, besides Miss Hilda’s School for Young Ladies. “How are you, Sue Ellen?”

  “Fine, thank you,” she murmured, barely opening her mouth.

  Lorna confidently faced him and challenged, “You still haven’t told me where you’ve been all this time.”

  “It’s a long story. I’ll come by the house tonight and we’ll talk.” He rubbed a hand over his chin, whiskers scraping his rough palm. “Right now, I need a shave and a bath.”

  “Come for dinner,” Lorna invited.

  “Six o’clock?” That was the usual time the Pearce family dined.

  “Yes,” she nodded.

  The smile he gave Lorna was for her alone, but he turned and politely touched the brim of his hat in deference to her girlfriend. His stride wasn’t quite so heavy when he continued down the street.

  The first time he’d seen her was two years ago in her father’s store. Even then Benteen had been attracted to her, but of course she’d been too young. From that day on, he’d become a regular customer of Pearce’s Emporium, hoping to catch glimpses of her. During trailing season, her parents didn’t allow her to come to the store. Cowboys on the town, even those with the utmost respect for the gentler sex, could sometimes get offensive when they’d had one too many glasses of red-eye. The Pearces naturally wanted to protect their daughter from such regretable advances.

  When Lorna had turned sixteen, Benteen had asked her father’s permission to come calling. With some initial reservations about his ability to provide a good living, his request had been granted. Benteen had never doubted from the moment he saw her that he would someday make Lorna his wife.

  Before he’d left on the trail drive last spring, he’d asked for her hand in marriage. He hadn’t wanted to set a wedding date until he’d found a place for them. Benteen had always known his father would have welcomed him and his bride at the ranch, but there was no future. The Cee Bar was gradually being squeezed out by Judd Boston. It was only a matter of time before Boston acquired it on a tax sale. The ranch couldn’t support his father, let alone Benteen and Lorna.

  For the last three years he’d been saving every dime he could. He’d rounded up mavericks and added them to the trail herds he’d taken north. He’d managed to put almost a thousand dollars aside, with the thought of buying a place where they could build a future. Now that money could go into putting together an outfit to trail north with a herd of maverick longhorns from the Texas brush, since the land in Montana Territory was going to cost him only a filing fee.

  Lorna would make him the perfect wife. Her head wasn’t filled with dreams about big cities and fancy clothes like his mother. She was sensible and practical —and beautiful. The blood ran strong through his veins.

  Lorna’s nerves were all ajumble when she heard the footsteps on the front porch. She didn’t have to look at the clock to know it was Benteen. Her pounding heart told her to run to the door to meet him, but a girl shouldn’t appear too anxious. It wasn’t proper—and, Lord knew, there were times when Benteen made her feel very improper.

  She pretended to straighten a setting of silverware on the table, covered with her mother’s best linen cloth. There was a knock at the door. She caught her father’s faintly amused glance as he looked up from the day’s issue of the Fort Worth Democrat.

  “It must be Benteen,” she murmured.

  “Must be,” he agreed dryly and managed to keep the pipe clenched between his teeth as he spoke.

  The long skirt of her china-blue dress rustled softly as she moved slowly toward the door. When she passed the oval mirror in the small foyer, Lorna stole one last glance at her reflection. Her dark hair was swept atop her head, making her look much more adult than she had when he’d seen her that afternoon. She hated for him to think her immature, as he sometimes did, she knew. She definitely looked older—all of eighteen, at least.

  When she opened the door, Benteen stood for a minute just looking at her. The bold inspection disturbed her in a way that Lorna wasn’t quite sure she should feel. Or maybe it was the change in his appearance that was affecting her.

  His hat was in his hand, leaving his head uncovered. Thick brown hair gleamed with polished mahogany lights in the rays of the setting sun. His lean cheeks were freshly shaved, revealing the natural strength of his features. He was wearing a clean white shirt and a string tie. But nothing seemed able to dim that innate power she sensed in him.

  “You’re a little early,” Lorna said. She felt the need to conceal her pleasure, and she knew the clock hadn’t chimed the hour yet.

  “Shall I leave and come back?” Benteen mocked her.

  “Of course not.” She reached for his hand to draw him into the house.

  She was conscious of the pleasant roughness of his fingers as they closed around her hand, holding it firmly. His dark eyes continued to focus on her. Their intensity was something she was never certain how to handle.

  “Daddy’s in the parlor.” Lorna walked with him to the doors. “You can talk with him while I help Mother in the kitchen.”

  “Don’t be too long,” he said. “I’m starved.”

  He released her hand without objection. As Lorna slipped away, she had the crazy feeling he wasn’t talking about food. It excited her the way he looked at her sometimes. Other times, she was glad her parents were in the next room. Even now that she and Benteen were engaged, they were seldom left alone for any long period of time. Usually they sat on the front porch while her parents sat in the parlor. Anytime there was a lull in their conversation, her mother invariably came out to offer them lemonade or refreshments of some sort. Lorna was glad that Benteen respected her too much to suggest they go anywhere without the chaperonage of her parents, p
artly because she was afraid she might be tempted to agree.

  They sat across the table from each other at dinner. At times like this, it was easy for Lorna to imagine how it would be when they were married and lived in a house of their own. She looked forward to having her parents over to dinner.

  “Did you say you went up into the Montana Territory, Benteen?” her father inquired as he passed him the bowl of potatoes.

  “Yes.” He helped himself to an ample portion. “They’re opening up the Indian country to the east. The grass up there is stirrup-deep, ideal cattle range. I’m staking a claim on a choice section of it.”

  “You are?” Her father studied him with interest and apparent approval. Lorna brightened with pride.

  “It’s just what I’ve been looking for—a place where Lorna and I can build a future,” Benteen stated, sending a brief glance at her. “I figure we can be married in March and leave with the herd I’m driving north in April.”

  “Leave?” Lorna repeated. She had the feeling she had missed something. “Where are we going?”

  “I just explained,” Benteen replied with a patient smile. “I’ve found a place in Montana for us. I even have the spot all picked out where we will build our new home.”

  “Oh.” It was a small sound to mask her confusion. She pretended an interest in the food on her plate, hardly hearing any of the discussion between her father and Benteen.

  Part of her couldn’t believe that he was really serious about living in Montana Territory. It was so far away. She couldn’t imagine leaving Texas. Benteen had never mentioned this to her before. The idea was more than a little frightening.

  Benteen didn’t appear to notice her silence or her lack of enthusiasm for his plan for their future. Lorna was conscious of her mother’s gaze, but she wasn’t willing to meet it. Not yet. Not until she was clear in her own mind.

  “That apple pie was delicious, Mrs. Pearce.” Benteen leaned back in his chair, his dessert plate empty.

  “Lorna made it,” her mother appropriately gave her the credit, but this was one time when Lorna wasn’t proud of her cooking accomplishments. Her mind was too preoccupied with this Montana news. “Would you like more coffee, Benteen?”