This Calder Range Page 3

  “No. Thank you,” he refused, and Lorna felt his eyes on her.

  “I’ll help clear the table tonight, Clara,” her father volunteered. “I’m sure Benteen and Lorna have a lot to talk about.”

  “Yes, of course,” her mother agreed.

  The others were already standing by the time Lorna pushed out of her chair. Almost immediately, Benteen was at her side, curving a hand under her elbow. “Shall we sit in the parlor?” He took her agreement for granted and escorted her into the adjoining room.

  Once inside the room, Lorna turned to face him. “Are you really serious about going to Montana, Benteen?”

  He seemed slightly taken aback, a dark brow arching. “Yes.”

  “But …” Agitation and uncertainty twisted inside her. “Don’t you think we should talk about it?”

  “What is there to talk about?” He frowned, his gaze narrowing on her. “We’ve already discussed that I was going to look for a place.”

  “Yes, but you didn’t say anything about Montana,” Lorna protested. “I thought you were going to buy a place in Texas.”

  “There’s nothing around here, Lorna,” he stated. “Up there, the sky’s the limit—and what a sky it is! Wait until you see it. It’s beautiful country.”

  “I’m sure it is,” she murmured. “It’s just that it’s so far away.”

  A smile touched his mouth. “You have to leave your parents sometime.” He was beginning to understand her hesitation. He’d forgotten she was so young. Her attachment to her parents was still very strong. That would change once they were married. Her loyalty would shift to him then.

  He reached out to take her in his arms. She offered no resistance but she didn’t come to him as eagerly as she had in the past either. But Benteen took no notice of that. It had been too long since he’d seen her, and his body was hungry for the feel of a woman’s softness.

  The numbness caused by his announcement didn’t last long under the demand of his kiss. His mouth moved hotly over her lips, a vague roughness in its possession. When his encircling arms pulled her body against him, she felt the burning heat of his hard flesh. Little tremors quivered through her, shaking her. The intimacy of the embrace alarmed her, because it was arousing desires that seemed sinful.

  With an effort, she turned away from him, her heart thudding heavily against her ribs. “I don’t think you should kiss me like that.” She sounded out of breath.

  He curled a finger under her chin and turned it so she faced him. “You’re going to be my wife,” he reminded her lazily. He seemed amused by the flush in her cheeks. “Aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” Lorna whispered. Suddenly she was filled with all sorts of uncertainties about the intimacy marriage would bring.

  Did it mean he would kiss her like that? How was she supposed to act when he did? She tried to calm her jittery nerves and regain control of the situation. After all, she was an adult—soon to be a married woman. She had to start behaving like one. It was perfectly natural for a future bride to be nervous about the wedding night. It wasn’t as if she didn’t know all about the birds and the bees.

  But she didn’t know the answers to all her questions. Surely she could discuss this with her mother. Maybe she was supposed to feel the kinds of sensations she had when Benteen kissed her. Maybe it wasn’t wrong.

  “Is something wrong, Lorna?” Benteen studied the changing expressions that crossed her face.

  “Wrong?” She had the uncomfortable feeling that he was reading her mind. “No, of course not,” she lied. “We should decide on a wedding date.”

  “You pick it. I’ll be there.”

  The promise sent her pulse spinning again.

  3

  It didn’t seem to matter how close her relationship was to her mother, Lorna had difficulty bringing up the subject of the way Benteen made her feel sometimes. She had so little to use in comparison, since she hadn’t been attracted to any of her other suitors. She had fallen in love with Benteen right from the start.

  “What was it you wanted to talk to me about, Lorna?” her mother prompted.

  Lorna turned from the window, a little startled by the question. She had been searching for a way to lead up to the subject. “I … was thinking about what Benteen said last night—about moving to Montana.” It seemed the best place to begin.

  “It seems so far away, doesn’t it?” Her mother’s eyes looked misty. “Your father and I are going to miss you terribly.”

  “I think I’m a little scared,” she admitted. “I thought we’d live close by. I’m not sure I want to go there.”

  “A woman’s place is with her husband,” her mother reminded her gently. “You still want to marry him, don’t you?”

  “Yes.” Lorna didn’t have to hesitate about that. “It’s just that …” She touched her fingertips to her lips, remembering the rough pressure of his kiss. “There’re so many things I don’t know,” she sighed at last.

  “Every bride feels the same way.” Her mother smiled. “And we all seem to have to learn on our own. I remember I was the worst cook when your father and I were married. It’s a miracle he survived that first year.”

  “I think I can manage to cook and keep house. But what about when we have a baby?” That uncomfortable feeling ran through her again. “I mean, presuming that we do have a baby.”

  “I hope you will. I hope you have several.”

  “I don’t know.” Lorna turned away in vague agitation. “Sometimes when I think about…” She stopped, unable to finish the sentence.

  “It probably won’t be easy in the beginning,” her mother said. “But after you are married awhile, I think you’ll be more able to accept the idea, especially if you want children.”

  “I … suppose.” Lorna was troubled by her mother’s reply. It seemed to confirm the girl talk at school. Sex was something a proper lady endured. There wasn’t any enjoyment in it, not unless the girl was immoral.

  It was better if she didn’t mention to her mother the way Benteen had made her feel. The excitement that sent those funny little tremors through her body. She’d simply have to learn to overcome them. She wanted to be a proper wife.

  It was midmorning when Benteen reached his father’s Cee Bar Ranch. Once they’d talked about a partnership, but the Crash of ’73 had wiped out that dream. The hard facts of earning a living had forced Benteen to work elsewhere while his father continued his attempt to save the ranch. Last winter’s blizzards had virtually written the end to that dream—the blizzards and Judd Boston.

  Benteen had had only a vague suspicion about worked-over brands until he’d voiced it yesterday to Boston. Benteen was fairly sure now that the banker had been taking a cow here, a steer there. There were a couple of unscrupulous characters on his payroll, and Benteen believed he’d found the reason why. It was unlikely he could prove it. He wasn’t even sure how much difference it would make if he could. At the most, his father had probably lost fifty head over the past five years. The trouble was, his operation was so small, fifty head hurt him. Numbers—that was the secret.

  Benteen had observed closely Judd Boston’s operation at the Ten Bar. He’d learned a lot, and he knew cattle. Judd Boston had inadvertently taught him business sense, growth, and markets.

  Halting the gray gelding in front of the barn, he dismounted and stripped his saddle and gear from the horse. He slapped it hard on the rump, sending it down the rutted lane they had just traveled. The horse would show up in a couple of days at the livery stable, wanting its ration of oats and corn.

  After putting the saddle and bridle away, Benteen carried his gear to the house, a simple white frame house that was beginning to show its age. There were only four rooms—a kitchen with a wood-burning range and an inside well pump to provide running water in the house; a front room with a stone fireplace for heat, a pecan desk, and a horsehair sofa; and two small bedrooms.

  Benteen set his rifle in the rack by the desk and took his bedroll and saddlebags into the
smaller of the two bedrooms—the one that had always been his. There was no sign of his father, but he hadn’t expected to find him home in the middle of the day.

  It had been months since he had been home, yet nothing had changed. He looked at the picture occupying the honored position on the fireplace mantel. The ease went out of him as he walked over to the blackened hearth and took down the ornately carved oval frame containing the photograph.

  The woman was beautiful. There was no doubt about that. Benteen suspected that the prim pose and the faded daguerreotype didn’t do her justice. Her hair was blond—the color of wild honey, his father had claimed —and her eyes were as dark as her hair was light. It was a bold combination that was even more striking when combined with her strong, yet feminine features.

  But Benteen didn’t see the beauty of the woman who was his mother when he looked at the picture. He noticed the self-centered determination and the hunger for something more out of life in her eyes. Was he bitter? Yes.

  If it had been his choice, the framed photograph of Madelaine Calder would have been used for kindling a long time ago. But it hadn’t been his choice. He returned the picture to its proper place on the mantel and entered the kitchen to boil some coffee.

  His father rode in just before sundown. Not a demonstrative man, Seth Calder greeted his son with reserve, despite the long separation. There was a strong resemblance between the two in their height and coloring, but Benteen had a lot of rough edges yet; his father had been worn and polished smooth.

  Few words were exchanged while his father washed up and Benteen put their supper on the table. Not until the meal was over and his father had leaned back in his chair was there any serious attempt at conversation.

  An occasional cigar was one of the few luxuries Seth Calder permitted himself to enjoy anymore. He lit one now and puffed on it, rolling it between his lips in a silent savoring. His attitude and appearance seemed to indicate prosperity rather than the edge of bankruptcy. No matter how futile Benteen considered the struggle to keep the ranch, he admired his father’s lack of self-pity—the front he continued to display even if it was false.

  “How was the drive?” Seth Calder took the cigar out of his mouth long enough to ask the question.

  “Fine.” Benteen swirled the black coffee in the tin mug. “How many head did you end up losing this past winter?”

  “By tally, it came out to thirty missing. I found the carcasses of half that number,” his father admitted.

  “Did you check any of the Ten Bar herds to see if some of your cattle might have strayed in with theirs?” Benteen didn’t want to come right out and voice his suspicions, not yet.

  “I did.” It was a simple answer, yet its tone encouraged Benteen to continue along the same track.

  “It sure would be easy to work over a Cee Bar brand into a Ten Bar. It would be hard to spot.” He eyed his father over the rim of the mug as he took a swig of the strong coffee.

  A dry smile twitched one corner of his father’s mouth. “Not if somebody botched the job.”

  “Then it’s true?” Benteen lifted his head, regarding his father with narrowed surprise. “I only guessed it yesterday. How long have you suspected what was going on?”

  “I happened across a steer with a fresh Ten Bar brand over an old Cee Bar this fall,” he said through the cigar between his teeth.

  Benteen’s expression darkened with a narrowed look that was hard and uncompromising. “Why didn’t you do something when you found out? Go to the sheriff.”

  “How could I?” His father removed the cigar from his mouth and studied the gray ash building on its tip. “When my own son was working for the man rustling my cattle.”

  “I’m not drawin’ Ten Bar wages now.” Benteen set his cup down on the table. “You should have said something to me. Told me what you found.”

  “You’d left for Wyoming on the drive. And I didn’t have any proof that it wasn’t the work of some overzealous cowboy, done without Boston’s knowledge.”

  “Nothing goes on at that ranch that he don’t know about. No order’s given without his knowledge,” Benteen stated.

  “That’s the way I figured it.” But he seemed unmoved by it. “He ain’t laid his hands on any more. I’ve kept what’s left of the herd close in where I can keep an eye on ’em and run a daily count. The next time one comes up among the missing, I’ll know who to see.”

  “Sell out, Pa,” Benteen urged, and leaned forward to make his point. “What’s this place ever brought you but grief? I staked out a piece of range in the Montana Territory that makes Texas look like a picked-over cotton field. Barnie’s sittin’ on it now till I can come back with a herd. We can trail the Cee Bar stock up there and turn ’em loose on all that free grass.”

  Seth Calder shook his head. “Nope. I ain’t quittin’ just ’cause things got tough.”

  Impatient and irritated with his father’s blind stubbornness, Benteen held in his temper. “You don’t understand, Pa,” he replied with contained force. “Up there, we can carve out a spread that will make the Ten Bar look like a squatter’s camp. It’s all there for the taking, and it can be ours!”

  “It may look green to you, but it looks like runnin’ to me.” There was no give in him, and his eyes were dark with disapproval. “No one’s gonna drive me off this place, least of all a carpetbagger like Boston.”

  The chair legs scraped the floor as Benteen shoved away from the table and walked with restive energy to the cast-iron stove, refilling his cup with coffee from the metal pot.

  “How much longer can you last?” he demanded. “Another bad winter, a dry summer, and you’ll be finished. Boston won’t even have to lift a finger. Time’s gonna do it for him.” It was so obvious, even a blind man should be able to see it.

  “The fight ain’t over till the shootin’ stops.”

  “What then?” he challenged with thinned lips. “What happens when it’s over and you’ve lost?”

  “I’m not leavin’ here.” Seth Calder held firm to his convictions. “I built this ranch for Madelaine and me. I’ll be here when she comes back.”

  Bitterness splintered through Benteen. “She’ll never come back,” he snapped. “Not today. Not tomorrow. Not next year. You’re lying to yourself if you think she will. If she’s not dead, then she’s probably somebody’s whore.”

  Seth came to his feet, anger burning in his face, the cigar gripped between his fingers. “I won’t have you talking like that about your mother!”

  Benteen closed his mouth on all the things he would have liked to say. They were wasted on his father, who wouldn’t allow a bad word spoken against her. There was a silent battle of wills that ended when Benteen backed off and looked away.

  “I’ll be spendin’ the winter in the brush making myself a herd from the wild stock. A couple of boys from the Ten Bar are going to help,” Benteen announced flatly. “Come spring, I’m going to marry Lorna and move north with the cattle.”

  It was a statement of his decision, not a request for his father’s approval or his blessing. He’d already asked him to come along once, and Benteen wasn’t about to repeat himself. His father had to do what he thought was right—just as he did.

  In the dining room of the Ten Bar ranch house, Judd Boston held a private court with his foreman, a narrow, spare-fleshed man named Loman Janes. Loman had the huge hands of a man good with a rope and the weathered toughness to his pocked complexion that spoke of his hours in the sun. His light gray eyes were flat with resentment at the rebuking tone of the man who possessed his unswerving loyalty.

  “I’m telling you”—Judd’s voice had a hard edge to it—” there has to be a reason for Calder to suddenly suspect something after all this time. Someone let it slip about those brands. One of your so-called hand-picked men, probably while he was likkered up.”

  “No.” Loman Janes stood gaunt and tall in the middle of the room, his pride unbending. “They know better than to breathe a word if they want to ke
ep their tongues. He was only guessing when he said that to you.”

  Judd Boston didn’t like that answer. All his plans had been flowing along smoothly until Chase Benteen Calder had muddied the waters with his suspicions.

  “I had the feeling the old man had gotten wise to what was going on when he bunched his herd close in to the ranch.” His mind went back over the recent events before he turned the force of his hard eyes on his foreman. “He waited until Benteen came back before showing his hand. Now you say Shorty Niles and Trumbo are drawing their pay to go to work for Calder.”

  “They claim he’s putting a herd together to take north,” Loman explained stiffly. “As many trail drives as he’s made, he’s probably got his eye on makin’ a big profit with a herd of his own.”

  “And if he makes a bundle, what will he do with it?” The question was asked aloud, but Boston wasn’t interested in Loman’s opinion. He didn’t trust any man’s judgment but his own. “Dump it into the Cee Bar,” he concluded grimly.

  “Trumbo was spreadin’ talk about Calder stakin’ claim to some land in the Montana Territory,” the foreman inserted.

  “Talk.” He showed his contempt for cowboy gossip. “There’s nothing up there but Sioux and Cheyenne. It’s only been two years since they wiped out Custer and his men. He’s just trying to throw us off the track.” That’s what Boston would have done in his place, so he could believe nothing else.

  “They’re talkin’ about free grass up there.” Loman knew cattle and cattlemen—and the magic of that phrase.

  “And they’ve got grass right here—and water and cattle,” Boston retorted. “I’ve waited ten years to get my hands on that water on Calder’s ranch. With it, I’ll have the whole area sewed up.”

  He had directed a lot of behind-the-scenes maneuvering to get Seth Calder in his present desperate situation. Judd Boston had coveted the Cee Bar land since he’d arrived, but he had soon learned that no amount of gold could buy it. Long ago, he had learned to bend with the wind or run with it. He knew when to push and when to bide his time. Patient and inscrutable, he had waited. The Cee Bar was on the verge of collapse. This was the time to push.