Calder Born, Calder Bred Page 4

  “Why?” Ty demanded to know. “I’ll never be the man my father is.”

  “You damn well won’t,” Stumpy agreed coldly. “And if that’s what you’re trying to do, that’s your first mistake. You are Ty Calder and no one else.”

  “Being Ty Calder isn’t a whole lot to brag about,” he muttered. It had been foolish to think Stumpy would understand.

  “You are a Calder, ain’t ya?” he challenged. “I think that would be a whole helluva lot to brag about. What are you going to do? Sit there and feel sorry for yourself? Or get up off your butt and get back on the job?”

  With his challenge finished, Stumpy downed the hot coffee in the asbestos-mouthed tradition of a veteran cowboy and set the empty cup by the thermos. He didn’t so much as glance in Ty’s direction as he walked away with quick, short strides. He’d said his piece. Now the decision was up to Ty.

  For a lonely minute longer, he sat on the bale with his head bowed. All that stuff was easy for Stumpy to say. He wasn’t going through it. Ty wavered indecisively, searching for some other alternative.

  “Hell,” he muttered and tipped back his head to throw the coffee down his throat. It had cooled considerably, but that didn’t make it any more palatable.

  Rising to his feet, he left his cup by Stumpy’s and headed down the calving shed in a scuffling walk. His attitude hadn’t changed. He still felt rotten and miserable. If there was any conscious decision, it was simply to get it over with, but Ty wasn’t entirely sure what “it” was.

  “Hey, kid!” somebody called to him before he was halfway back to where he’d left Jessy. “Give me a hand.”

  Tiny Yates, one of the married cowboys, had his arms around a wobbly newborn calf. Its mother was eyeing the man and the calf with wary alarm, anxious and uneasy. Ty hesitated, wondering what the prank was this time, then altered his course to join them.

  “The damned calf doesn’t know what the tits are for and keeps buttin’ her bag,” the cowboy muttered with disgust. “And she’s got so much milk in there she’s in agony. I’ll get the calf over there and you reach under there and squeeze some milk out of a tit. That oughta give him the idea.”

  The plan didn’t appeal to any of the four participants, but after much cursing, calf bleating and cow lowing, and maneuvering in the straw, the desired result was achieved. Ty rubbed his leg where the cow had kicked it and watched the bull calf nurse aggressively while the cow washed its brick-red coat with her tongue.

  “Helluva sight, isn’t it?” Tiny declared, then slapped Ty on the back and moved away.

  There was no “Thanks for the help.” That wasn’t the custom. A man did the job that was expected of him, because it was what he should do. There wasn’t any reason to thank someone for doing his job. A long sigh spilled from Ty as he turned away and started down the line again.

  II

  It’s not that I’m wanting to hurt you,

  I just can’t walk the path that you tread.

  Don’t stand between me and what I can be

  ’Cause you’re Calder born—and Calder bred.

  3

  The house seemed unnaturally quiet when Maggie entered it. She paused in the foyer, listening to the midafternoon silence. A smile touched her mouth as she started forward, her high heels clicking on the hardwood floors.

  There was a stack of mail on the cherrywood table waiting to be sorted, ranch correspondence separated from the personal mail. She stopped beside it and slipped out of her springweight suede coat, laying it over the back of a living-room chair for the time being. Beneath it, she wore a classically simple dress in a wine-colored watered silk. Its style gave the impression of height to her petite build and discreetly flattered the mature curves of her slender figure.

  One of the envelopes was addressed to iy. Her glance flicked curiously to the return address and stayed. A quiver of anticipation darted through her when Maggie saw it was from the Admissions Department of the University of Texas in Austin. She nibbled anxiously at her lower lip, wanting to open it and find out if Ty was being accepted for the fall term. With all her attention focused on the envelope, she didn’t hear Ruth Haskell come in from the kitchen.

  “I thought I heard someone but I didn’t know it was you, Maggie. I didn’t think you’d be back till later in the afternoon.” When Ruth’s voice broke the silence, Maggie turned with almost a guilty start, the envelope in hand. Ruth noticed it and apologized with a nervous quickness that had become a part of her speech pattern. “I’m sorry. I meant to sort the mail earlier and leave it in the den, but I was doing something else and didn’t get back to it.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Maggie smiled an assurance at the woman, who had once been housekeeper and cook at The Homestead. Now she came only occasionally to sit with the newest addition to the Calder family when Maggie had to be away.

  Like so many others, Ruth was descended from one of the original drovers who had trailed cattle north from Texas to Montana with the first Calder and had stayed on to help build the ranch. It gave the ranch a tradition and a continuity of bonds forged long ago and still remaining strong.

  As Maggie studied the woman, she couldn’t help noticing how Ruth was showing her age. Her blond hair had faded to gray, and a network of age lines had withered her face. Her gentle blue eyes had lost their sparkle. Once Ruth had been on the plump side, but nerves had eaten away until she was thin. There was a perpetual tremor in her hands now, agitation making it worse at some times than others.

  To those who knew her, as Maggie did, the source of her decline could be traced directly to her son. After last summer’s attempt to kill both Ty and herself as part of a wild plot to obtain control of the ranch, Buck Haskell had been tried, convicted, and sentenced to a long prison term. In the way of these hard-core western people, his name had been dropped from all conversation. Even though Ruth visited him regularly, no one asked about him or even referred to her absences from the ranch. It was part of the tradition of this land, the same as when a person died. No one mentioned the deceased because deep feelings, especially sorrow and grief, were to be kept inside. To do otherwise was to show weakness.

  Sometimes Maggie thought it would help Ruth if she could talk about her son, to bring out in the open the sense of failure and guilt she probably felt, as well as the all-forgiving love of a mother for her child. But as much as she pitied Ruth, Maggie had no compassion at all for her son. Because she couldn’t find it in her heart to forgive him, she didn’t mention him.

  Regretting that she’d let her thoughts take that unpleasant turn, Maggie swung her attention back to the mail and reluctantly set the envelope addressed to Ty apart from the other stacks.

  “Is Cathleen upstairs taking her afternoon nap?” she asked Ruth, giving her a quick smile.

  “Oh, no, she’s with her daddy.”

  Maggie lifted her head, turning to the woman with mild curiosity. “She must not have taken a very long nap.”

  “She hasn’t had her nap yet this afternoon,” Ruth informed her anxiously. “Chase left shortly after lunch and took her with him. She cried so when he got ready to go that he just didn’t have the heart to leave her. You know how he dotes on her.”

  “I know,” she murmured dryly. Her strong, tough husband was little more than putty in the hands of their two-year-old daughter. “Where did they go?”

  “Out to the drilling site in the Broken Butte range. He had some messages to deliver to the rig foreman.” She glanced nervously at the watch hanging loosely around her wrist. “He said he wouldn’t be gone long.”

  Maggie sighed and fell to sorting the rest of the mail again. “I’m sure he didn’t intend to be gone this long.”

  The front door opened, bringing forth a high-pitched, bubbling giggle. “Duck your head, Cat,” Chase’s voice warned as Maggie turned to see father and daughter enter the house. Cathleen was riding on his shoulders, her little hands crushing the silver-belly felt hat on his head. His hands had a firm hold on her cordur
oy-covered thighs so she wouldn’t fall. When he spied Maggie, his leathery tan features broke into a dazzling smile. “Didn’t I tell you your mother was home?” he said to the raven-haired tot on his shoulders.

  As he crossed the foyer to join her in the living room, Maggie’s impatience at him for depriving Cathleen of her afternoon nap faded to a mild exasperation. His face radiated such strength, as if it had been sculpted from the raw elements of this Montana land he loved so much. With Ruth present, Chase didn’t kiss her. Instead, he hooked an arm around the child and swung her off his shoulders and onto his hip as she shrieked with delight.

  “Give Momma a kiss,” Chase instructed and watched with satisfaction as the two leaned to each other, their hair equally black, and green eyes the emerald color.

  “Look at you.” Maggie surveyed the dark circles of dirt ground into the knees of Cathleen’s corduroy pants and the grime on her ruffled white blouse, not to mention the dirty face and hands. “She looks like she’s been playing in a pigpen.”

  “A little dirt won’t hurt her. Besides, it’s good Calder soil,” Chase insisted with a small grin. “It was kinda muddy around the drilling site. She got a kick out of playing in it. You should have seen her before I cleaned her up.”

  “I’m glad I didn’t,” she retorted.

  “Want down,” Cathleen demanded and gave her father one of those level green looks as she wiggled in his tight hold, determined to be set on the floor.

  “Come to Nanna Ruth, Cathleen.” She held out her palsied hands to the child. “We’ll go upstairs and get you washed up.”

  “No.” The offer was firmly rejected, a lower lip jutting out in defiance.

  “Wouldn’t you like to take a bath? I’ll put lots of bubbles in the tub,” Ruth coaxed.

  The little girl considered the offer for a long minute before she finally held out her hands to the older woman. Chase surrendered her into the woman’s care, pride transforming his usually hard features as he listened to his daughter jabbering to the woman carrying her up the stairs.

  “She knows exactly what she wants, doesn’t she?” he murmured to Maggie.

  “And you see to it that she gets it,” she murmured dryly in return.

  “That’s a father’s prerogative,” Chase insisted as he bent his head to roll his mouth across her lips. “How was your visit with Culley?”

  “Fine.” It was always a wrenching experience to see her brother in that institution, but she took comfort from the knowledge he was being helped. “They let me show him a picture of Cathleen today. Culley insisted she looked just like me when I was a toddler.”

  “He was bound to notice the resemblance,” he replied. “She’s you all over again in miniature.”

  “But I was never spoiled the way she is,” Maggie retorted. “Someday you’re going to be sorry for letting her have whatever she wants. She’ll grow up thinking the world is hers for the taking.” Realizing she had allowed the mention of their daughter to sidetrack her, she returned to her original topic. “Getting back to Culley, the doctor was encouraged by his reaction to Cathleen’s photograph. It didn’t seem to faze him at all that she’s a Calder.”

  “That’s probably because she looks like you instead of me.” His mouth slanted in its familiar hard smile.

  “Maybe,” she conceded. “But it’s a beginning.”

  “For your sake, Maggie, I hope it is.” Her brother had never given him anything but trouble, so he didn’t pretend to have any personal interest in the prospects for Culley’s recovery. He knew how twisted with hatred Culley had been toward the Calders, infecting Maggie with it for a long time. Ultimately Buck Haskell had used that malice her brother had felt and made him a pawn in his deadly plot. It was something he couldn’t forget, although he kept his silence on it.

  Maggie knew his feelings and smiled faintly at his response as she looked again at the remainder of the mail to be sorted. “Ruth said you went to Broken Butte. What’s the status on the drilling?”

  “They expect to reach the desired depth in two weeks.” He peered over her shoulder as she separated the ranch-related correspondence from the personal letters. “Don’t expect a gusher this time either,” he advised her mockingly. “The results from the first well and the tests that have been completed indicate it’s a shallow field, maybe capable of supporting a dozen wells, so there’s little chance that we are going to become oil tycoons. Hopefully we’ll earn enough off the barrels being pumped to make some improvements on the ranch. All the roads need work, and there’s some sections that need new fencing. And we do need better housing for some of the married men.”

  “I was thinking more along the lines of a new car, or new drapes for the upstairs bedrooms.” So few of the profits from the Triple C were used for their personal lives. All of it seemed to find its way back to the ranch. It always amazed Maggie how greedy the ranch was—not that she lacked for anything, but personal items were certainly far down the list of priorities.

  “And I was thinking if there was anything left over, I might buy a helicopter. It would certainly be an asset during roundup,” he teased.

  “You’re kidding right now, but when the time comes, you’ll probably be serious,” Maggie retorted.

  “Why is this letter by itself?” The idle inquiry was followed by his hand reaching to pick it up.

  Maggie tensed at his action. “It’s for Ty.” Out of the corner of her eye, she watched him stiffen as he read the return address on the envelope.

  “What’s this?” A frown narrowed his eyes as he shot an accusing look at her. “Why is he getting a letter from a university in Texas?”

  “E. J. Dyson happens to be an alumnus of the University of Texas. When he was here this last winter, he talked to Ty about it. Ty expressed some interest in possibly going to college there.” It was impossible to explain casually when she was so conscious of the gathering thunder in Chase’s expression. “E.J. pulled a few strings to see if he could get him accepted. I imagine that letter is the answer.”

  “Why wasn’t I told?” he demanded, his voice dropping to a dangerously low pitch.

  “You were there when the discussion took place,” she reminded him tensely.

  This clash of wills had been brewing for a long time. Maggie was determined to have Ty obtain a college education, and Chase was just as adamantly opposed to it. This was an issue to which she doubted they would ever find a mutually acceptable compromise. She had dreaded this moment for a long time, but she had no intention of backing down now.

  “I was there,” Chase admitted roughly. “But I wasn’t aware that it had gone beyond a mere discussion.” His hand tightened on the envelope, bending it in half. “Dammit, Maggie. There are experts on the Triple C who know more than a bunch of damned college professors. This is where he needs to be!”

  “He is entitled to the best education we can give him,” she countered with equal force. “And that doesn’t mean just the kind you get from the back of a horse. And he needs time just to have some fun—something you and I never had! It was always work—work and struggle and hardship of one kind or another. I don’t want Ty to grow up as fast as we had to.”

  “You want to make him soft,” he accused. “He can’t be soft and run the Triple C! A man almost has to be born on this land to have an adequate knowledge of managing it. Ty didn’t have that advantage. All he’s had is three years, and it’s only been within this last year that he’s developed enough skill to be considered even an average ranch hand. He needs a lot of seasoning and training and experience in the operations of a ranch this size. How the hell do you expect him to get it out of a book!”

  “There is a lot that can be learned from books.” Maggie trembled, but she refused to give rein to her temper. “Some member of the Calder family believed that, too, or all those shelves in the den wouldn’t be lined with books!”

  “It’s too soon, Maggie,” Chase insisted grimly. “It’s too soon for him to be leaving the ranch. Practically all tha
t he’s learned will be lost. Let me have him here year-round for at least three more years. Don’t take him from me now.”

  “If I listened to you, in three years you’d come up with some other reason why he should wait. No. I won’t do it.” Her head shook firmly, her eyes glittering with defiance. “If he goes to college, I want him to start with this fall’s term.”

  “Maggie—”

  “Four years ago, you gave me your word that when the time came, you would abide by Ty’s decision about college. I’m going to hold you to that,” she stated.

  Chase reared his head back, breathing in deeply and holding it. His grim visage was hard and impenetrable. There was a rawness in the air, a tension almost palpable.

  “You know damned well I keep my promises,” he roughly informed her. “And I’ll keep that one, too. But if he goes to college”—Chase put the emphasis on the if—“it will be here in Montana, not fifteen hundred miles away.”

  “It will be his decision.” Maggie refused to give ground even on that point and rescued the envelope from his crumpling grasp.

  “Don’t try to influence that decision, Maggie,” Chase warned.

  “And don’t you try to influence him either,” she flashed. “You know that he regards you as some sort of god. It would only take a word from you, Chase. Please, don’t say it.” It was her own form of warning.

  The split was there. Either way the ax fell, it would be there. Chase swung away, his long, loping stride carrying him to the front door. Maggie winced as he slammed out of the house.

  When Ty entered the dining room that evening, he knew something was wrong. The atmosphere seethed with tension and the silence was heavy. He paused a minute, studying the man and woman so steadfastly avoiding each other’s gaze. He had a pretty good idea that this had something to do with the letter he’d found lying on top of his dresser when he’d gone to his room to clean up for dinner.

  At Ty’s approach, Maggie looked up and watched her son walk to his chair at the table. Broad-shouldered and firmly muscled, he had grown to a height well over six feet. The slow, swivel-hipped walk peculiar to cowboys had become natural to him. And his sun-browned face had acquired that leathery texture that came from long hours outdoors in the sun and the wind. His features, still showing the freshness of manhood, had the Calder look about them, raw strength in their hard-boned structure.