by Janet Dailey
There was hesitation as the three of them glanced at each other. Jessy swung the rifle barrel to the right, took aim on a red flag just beyond them, and felt the butt jump against her shoulder when she squeezed off a second shot. The whang of the bullet snapping off the head of the stake convinced them. When she put a third one at their feet, they were assured she meant business.
“You crazy woman,” the man in khaki muttered angrily as the other two hastily began assembling their equipment and picking up the sack of flagged stakes.
Already the roar of gunned motors had reached Jessy’s hearing. It was only a matter of minutes before three more pickup trucks manned by Triple C riders rolled onto the scene. There was an ample escort to usher the survey crew off the land.
When Jessy reached the main road, more Triple C personnel had converged on the spot, including Ty and Cathleen. While two of the pickups accompanied the surveyor’s Jeep to the east gate, the rest stayed to hold an impromptu meeting.
“At a guess, I’d say they were just feeling us out to see how we’d react.” Ty supposed their strategy was to find out just how strongly he intended to oppose them, if at all.
“Hey, Ty!” Tiny Yates shouted to him, one row of trucks back, standing beside the open door of his cab. “I just heard on the CB that they think Ruth Haskell had a heart attack. They’re rigging up the plane so they can fly her to the hospital.”
“Nanna Ruth!” Cat gasped the name of the woman who had been the nearest thing to a grandmother to her. Her green eyes were huge and liquid when she glanced at her brother.
30
In a grave next to the Calder family plot, they laid Ruth Haskell to rest and the Triple C turned out en masse to pay its final respects to the quiet woman who had been woven into the background of the Calders for so long.
When the graveside services were over, Jessy continued to stand in the shaft of hot sunlight, wearing the same blue dress she’d had on at Maggie Calder’s funeral. She remembered sitting with Ruth, remembered Ty’s visit to the house. Beyond the heads of the milling throng, she had a clear view of Ty pausing to have a few words with the minister. His arm was around Cat’s shoulders, silently comforting the pale and emotionally drained girl. Compassion welled tenderly in her breast for Cat, who had lost the two women she had been closest to, and in such a short span of time.
Moved by this pity for Ty’s sister, Jessy worked her way through the crowd to offer her condolences. She approached Ty for no other reason, although her eyes observed the tense, preoccupied lines that made his features appear hard and unforgiving. Rumor had it that Tara had left him because of this pending fight with her father. Since he had offered no explanations for her absence, no one asked. Although Jessy could understand the problem of divided loyalties, she still thought Tara was a fool for leaving Ty when he needed her, if that’s what she’d done. But Jessy didn’t seek to reestablish her relationship with Ty. That was in the past. He had made his choice and she accepted that.
There was a brief moment when she met his dark eyes; then she turned her attention to his sister. “I’m sorry, Cat,” she murmured. “It must seem that something bad happens to everyone you love. But it isn’t really that way. Life is just harsh sometimes. But that’s what makes the good times better.”
“I know.” Cat sniffed back the tears that were constantly trembling on the edge of her eyes and managed a small, tight smile. Her eyes made a long, slow swing over the crowd, then returned to her brother. “I really thought Tara would come to the funeral,” she said in a low voice that indicated how betrayed she felt.
His gaze flickered briefly to Jessy, the set of his jaw showing a hard pride. “I’m supposed to go after her. It’s another one of her games.” It was a half-muttered explanation, dry and emotionless.
“Then that’s what you’ll do.” Jessy said it very simply.
Her hazel eyes were equally direct in their regard as Ty looked at her. Finally he slowly nodded. “That’s what I’ll do,” he said.
“Ty.” Cat nudged him and looked pointedly at the two men approaching them.
Their arms swung in unison, at first glance concealing the handcuffs that bound one wrist to the other. The prison had permitted Buck Haskell to attend his mother’s funeral in the company of a guard. His hat was in his hand, revealing the curly hair that age had silvered, but his features had retained much of their youthful quality, rather like a high-spirited child that refused to grow up. He faced Ty with a humble air.
“I wanted to thank you for lookin’ after my mother, and for the real fine funeral you gave her.” He glanced at the open grave. “I only wish they’d let me come home while she was alive.” The sad look, the smooth words, came too easily to the man.
“As far as I’m concerned, you killed her.” Ty could find no pity in his heart for the man. “Every time she visited you in prison, she died a little more inside for what you’d become. If I have my way, you’ll rot in that cell.”
A sudden blaze of hatred flared in Haskell’s blue eyes. “I heard someone’s grabbed a bunch of your precious Calder land and there isn’t a damned thing you can do about it. You ain’t so big anymore.”
“You’ve buried your mother. Now get off my land,” Ty ordered coldly.
Haskell took a threatening step toward him, only to be brought up short by the jerk of the handcuffs. The guard said something to him and took hold of his arm. Haskell jerked it free, the metal bracelets clanging, as he glared again at Ty, then turned stiffly to let the guard lead him away.
There wasn’t time for the relaxing of tension as the brittle atmosphere was shattered by strident honkings of a horn. Ty swung toward the sound, all his muscles and nerves coiling again. A racing pickup came to a screeching stop, tires skidding on the gravel of the cemetery road.
“They’re coming!” Repp Taylor stepped out of the cab as far as the running board to shout the warning. “There’s a bunch of them—trucks, road graders, the works!”
Before the second announcement was made, Ty was pushing away from Cathleen and breaking into a run for the closest vehicle. He cursed himself for not guessing Dyson would choose this particular time to make his move while the bulk of the Triple C was attending the funeral of one of their own. He had to stop that equipment while it was on Calder property. Once it reached government land, his chances of getting it removed were substantially lower.
No orders had to be given as men piled into vehicles, scrambling into cabs and truck beds. All were in their best suits and hats and pearl-snapped white shirts. In less than five minutes, the cemetery was choked with dust kicked up by the fast-departing vehicles. The women who stayed behind, including Jessy and Cathleen, were busy organizing themselves into groups. Although theirs was temporarily a waiting lot, they would play a role, depending on the outcome of the confrontation and how quickly it occurred.
A dozen trucks barreled over the road, traveling in a high, thick dust cloud that limited visibility to the bumper of the truck ahead of it, but there was no slackening of pace as the pickups loaded with men raced blindly to intercept the opposition. With eyes smarting from the dirt particles in the driven air, they strained for a glimpse of anything moving in the distance.
There was a pickup in the ditch, a long, scraping gash dented into its side. A cowboy limped into view beside it and waved his hat, motioning the convoy off the road and up a coulee.
“They just got by me!” he shouted as the trucks slowed and made the turn, each finding its own rough route.
Less than a quarter mile off the road, they came upon the slow-moving vehicles, led by a road grader, still on Calder land. The pickups encircled the elongated band of trucks and machinery, using the high walls of the coulee to box them in and blocking both ends. The road grader ground to a stop and sat idling noisily while the Triple C riders piled out of the trucks.
“You’re on private property!” Ty placed himself in clear view of the bunched vehicles. “Back ’em up and clear out!”
“
We’ve got a right to access!” came an answering shout.
The road grader’s diesel motor was revved, huffing and snorting like a range bull pawing the ground before a charge. The long, angled blade was inches off the ground, less a battering ram than an effective tool to push obstacles out of its way. It gathered power and began to rumble forward, taking aim on the two pickups in its path, intending to eliminate their barrier the same way it had gotten rid of the pickup they’d passed in the ditch by the road.
Ty retreated behind the first truck in its path. “They’re hard of hearing,” he said to Wyatt Yates and glanced at the rifle in the wrangler’s hand. “Maybe you can open their ears.”
The cowboy grinned briefly and began snapping off shots at the oncoming grader, bullets ricocheting off the metal blade with an angry whine. Other cowboys in the front circle joined in the black-powder discussion, armed with rifles from the pickups’ gun racks. The minute a bullet came close to the cab of the road grader, the diesel motor growled into silence as the driver bolted from the cab and raced back to the other vehicles. At a signal from Ty, the shooting ceased.
“Go back and tell Dyson he’s not crossing my land!” Ty yelled.
“He’ll cross it! Maybe not this time, but he’ll cross it!” The admission of defeat carried a warning.
It became obvious when the last vehicle had been escorted through the east gate where the ranch lane intersected the highway that the next confrontation wouldn’t be long in coming. As soon as they left Calder property, the trucks and machinery began pulling off onto the side of the road and stopping.
Ty was in the pickup Repp Taylor was driving. Repp turned to frown at him. “They aren’t leaving.”
“Neither are we,” Ty stated. For the time being, it was a standoff. But it couldn’t last for long. Neither he nor Dyson could afford to tie up men and machinery for a long period of time.
All through the afternoon and early evening, the vigil was maintained. As soon as word of the stalemate was relayed to the headquarters, the wives gathered at the cookhouse to send sandwiches, coffee, and desserts. Changes of clothing began arriving, along with bedrolls.
Ty paid little attention to the comings and goings of vehicles on his side of the fence. Restlessness pushed at him as he dragged on his cigarette and expelled the smoke from his lungs in an impatient rush. He kept watching the activity around the machinery.
“Ty?” The anxious call of his name disturbed his concentration. He glanced around as Cat came running up to him. “Are you all right? What’s happening?”
“Nothing. What are you doing here?” He gripped her shoulders to keep her from running pell-mell into him. “You’re supposed to be home.”
“I couldn’t stay there.” The determined lilt in her voice warned him that she wouldn’t be ordered back.
His hard glance flicked past her to take in the sight of Jessy just coming up to him. Her dress had been replaced by jeans, boots, and a hat.
“Coffee?” She handed him a cup, steaming fragrantly with the hot brew. “I brought Cat with me,” she admitted.
“Since you’re here”—his attention reverted to his sister—“make yourself useful and get me a sandwich.” He waited until Cat had moved out of hearing before pinching more smoke from the short cigarette. “This is no place for her.”
“That’s a man’s opinion,” she returned evenly. “But he usually isn’t the one who’s sitting home and worrying. Cat was really afraid something was going to happen to you. You’re just about all she has left. Besides, I figured it would be just as hard for her to sleep alone in that house as it would be in the back end of one of these trucks.”
“Maybe.” Ty grudgingly conceded the point, his attention running again to the machinery parked on the roadside. “Were there any calls or messages from Silverton, the attorney?”
“No. Someone at headquarters would have contacted you by radio if there were.” Jessy understood that patience was something Ty had learned, but it didn’t always ride well with him. Now it was coiling in him.
“Silverton’s trying to get some sort of temporary injunction or restraining order barring Dyson from the land. The suit’s been refiled, contesting the land title.” He explained the things that were being worked on, things out of his hands.
“What do you think Dyson’s going to do next?”
“I don’t know.” The cigarette was smoked down to his fingers. Ty pinched out the fire and ground the butt under his boot. “This might be a diversion to keep us occupied here while he slips in somewhere else.” With a turn of his head, he measured her with a glance. “What are you doing here, Jessy?”
The smooth composure of her strong features was beyond a man’s reading. So calm and resolute, accepting her fate either good or bad; but still, that was not all he saw in her. There were other things he couldn’t name, yet he sensed them, like feeling the vague brush of glory pass close to him after searching long years for it.
“I thought someone should keep an eye on Cat,” she said, removing that concern from him.
“Right.” An evening star twinkled in the purpling night sky. It reminded him of Tara. She should be the one looking after his sister. Jessy noticed the change in his expression, the faraway look of a man troubled by his dreams. Guiltily, she moved away.
As darkness settled over the land, the tension diminished. Voices were pitched softer. Nightwatches were assigned and bedrolls spread out in and around the pickups. It was nearing midnight and Jessy was cocooned in a blanket, propped in the corner of a truck’s rear bed. From her vantage point, she could make out Cathleen’s dark shape, sleeping in Repp Taylor’s arms. But Ty had not rested, and she doubted that he’d try to before morning.
Around midmorning the next day, a horse and rider cantered in from the north to approach the ranch pickups clustered around the gate. Ty walked to the edge of the outer vehicles before ascertaining the rider was Culley O’Rourke and not one of his men.
“Trouble?” Culley stepped out of the saddle, looking around.
“Some.” Ty nodded shortly, his gaze running over the man. “Cat mentioned you hadn’t been feeling well.” He looked healthy, although he seemed to move with care.
O’Rourke betrayed himself with a startled look for an instant, then said, “I’m okay. This business with Dyson coming to a head?”
“It looks that way.” There was nothing to be gained by discussing the situation with his uncle. He angled away from the man to head back where he could keep watch on the gate. “Help yourself to some coffee.”
“I will.” O’Rourke hooked a stirrup on the saddle horn and tugged to loosen the cinch a notch. He was relieved when he noticed Cathleen. “So this is where you got to? I been lookin’ all over for you,” he declared gruffly.
“Uncle Culley”—her tone was earnest and insistent—“we’ve got to tell Ty. He’s got to know what we suspect. Both of us together, we’ll be able to convince him.”
“It’s no use, I been tellin’ you that,” he reminded her.
“But there’s going to be trouble here. There’s been some shooting already. If Dyson and his partner really tried to kill my father, what’s stopping them from trying to get rid of Ty? We have to warn him, just in case.”
The shrill wail of a siren wobbled through the air, breaking the quiet that had held the morning. As it approached, growing louder, there was a stirring of movement toward the east gate. Cat grabbed her uncle’s hand and pulled him along with her.
A car bearing the sheriff’s insignia turned off the highway onto the lane, stopping short of the cattle guard. Ty leaned a shoulder against the tall gatepost that marked the entrance and waited while Blackmore hefted his barrel-chested body out of the car, followed by two uniformed deputies. He hitched his pants up by the waistband, adjusting his holstered gun on his hip, then strolled to the cattle guard with a faint swagger.
“Times have changed, Calder,” Blackmore declared with a satisfied look. “You can’t have things your way
anymore.”
“Is that a fact?” Ty didn’t change his slouched position as he struck a match head on the rough post and lit a cigarette.
“You’ve heard of an easement, haven’t you? I’ve got a piece of paper here, all recorded and legal, which says the government has an easement to that property they own west of here.” He produced the stamped and sealed document for Ty’s inspection. “It gives them and their assigns access across your ranch.”
A grimness edged his mouth as Ty unfolded the recorded document. He hadn’t thought Dyson would be able to obtain one so soon. Somewhere along the line, he had shortcut the system and eliminated a lot of red tape.
“It’s an easement grant, all right,” Ty agreed smoothly. “Thirty foot wide, but this legal description doesn’t give me a clear idea where it’s located. I’m sure you’ll agree, Sheriff, that we want this legal. The government wouldn’t want its people traveling over a road they don’t have a lawful right to be on. I’ll hire a surveyor to come out and verify exactly where this easement is located. Of course, that’s liable to take some time.”
Blood vessels stood out in the sheriff’s neck as he struggled with his anger. “You think you’re so damned smart, don’t you?”
At the moment, all Ty had accomplished was to buy some time. “I’m just abiding by the law.”
“A real respectable citizen, aren’t you?” the sheriff mocked and turned smug. “In addition to that paper you’ve got in your pocket, I have another one. It’s a warrant for your arrest.”
His chin lifted a challenging inch. Behind him, Ty could hear the rumble of protest from his men. “On what charge?” he demanded.
“Assault with a deadly weapon, malicious destruction of property, inciting violence—I have a whole list of them,” the sheriff assured him.