This Calder Sky

by Janet Dailey

  “He went upstairs to his room to get ready,” Ruth Haskell replied.

  “The man is slow,” Buck complained with a grin. “I’ll go hurry him along. Don’t wait up for me, Mom. We might not come back ‘til morning.” Pure devilment danced in his eyes as he left the dining room doorway and crossed to the staircase, familiar with the way to Chase’s room.

  There was an unconsciously soft quality to the smiling glance Webb sent to Ruth. “We have waited up many a night for our boys, haven’t we, Ruth?” He tapped the ash from his cigar into a crystal ashtray.

  “We certainly have,” she agreed and let her gaze wander toward the doorway. “I expect we’ll stay awake a lot more nights even when they say we shouldn’t.”

  “Leave the dishes for a minute and have a cup of coffee with me,” Webb suggested impulsively.

  She hesitated, then shook her head in refusal, not looking at him. “Virg is waiting for me at home.” Regret flickered in the faintness of her smile. “I hadn’t better dawdle over the dishes.”

  “No, of course not.” The gruffness of his answer held understanding and a vague irritation with himself for making the suggestion. He rose from his chair. “I’ll finish my coffee in the den. I have some paperwork to do.”

  As he crossed the foyer that separated the dining room and den, Chase and Buck descended the stairs to the living room. He glanced at his son, aware that this was the time in Chase’s life to be wild and carouse with the boys. Soon enough these days would be behind him and he would have to assume a man’s role in the ranch operation.

  “Behave yourselves, boys,” Webb advised, using the plural, but looking at his son.

  “Yes, sir.” Buck sketched him a salute while Chase nodded. “Don’t you be worryin’ about Chase. I’ll look after him like he was my little brother.”

  “If you’re looking after me, who is going to keep you out of trouble?” Chase mocked.

  “Hell, I am trouble!” Buck bragged with a laugh as he opened the front door and motioned Chase to walk ahead of him to the pickup parked in front.

  “Who’s driving?” Chase wanted to know.

  “I am, since I may not be sober enough to drive home,” Buck declared and hopped behind the wheel. “That’s going to be your problem. I’ll get us there and you can bring us home.”

  “Okay.” That was the way it usually worked out.

  “Man, am I glad we didn’t pull patrol duty tonight.” Buck started the engine and revved it to a roar before shifting into gear, spinning the tires. “I thought it might be exciting riding shotgun on those roads at night, but it is boring as hell! I’ll be glad when the Old Man calls it quits. Those rustlers are probably clear into the next damned state by now.”

  “They could be,” Chase conceded.

  There were already a dozen Calder riders, as well as a few other local customers, at Jake’s when they arrived. A poker game was in progress in the back room. Chase took a beer back to watch, and eventually sat in for a few hands, but he couldn’t concentrate on the cards, and luck was against him, so he wandered into the main saloon again.

  Through the room’s dim, smoky haze, he spotted Buck sitting at one of the tables with his arm around the neck of a sultry brown-haired “niece” named JoBeth. Buck was smiling, nuzzling and whispering things in her ear while his hand wandered inside the plunging neckline to fondle a heavy breast.

  Aware that his buddy would not welcome his company at this point, Chase strolled over to watch a couple of Triple C riders playing pool. He dropped some quarters in the jukebox and punched a selection of records to add to the raucous din of cowboys letting loose. Dolly came around with a tray of beers and Chase paid for another.

  It was half-gone when he noticed Buck walk to the end of the bar closest to the staircase, the dark-haired girl pressing herself all over him, scarlet lips always upturned. Buck shouted for Jake and slapped his hand on the bar top to gain the man’s attention. Jake was a spare, big-boned man with thinning hair bushing into tufts at the sides.

  “We need the key to the upstairs room,” Buck demanded. There was an exchange of folded money for the key.

  “Don’t be too long. We’re busy tonight,” Jake informed his “niece.”

  Buck laughed and squeezed the girl. “As long as it takes, Jake. Only as long as it takes.” Then the two of them were mounting the stairs to the second floor.

  Chase watched them go and downed the rest of his beer. His gaze swung slowly around the dirty, smoky place, taking note of the laughter and bantering voices. Something was wrong with him. Here he was in the middle of a bar and bawdy house, and he was bored.

  The beer tasted flat so he walked over to the bar to have a fresh one drawn from the tap. Clay Vargas, a cowboy who had drifted from Colorado to work at the Triple C, was standing at the bar, talking with two other non-native ranch hands. They made room for Chase to join them. It was a silent invitation issued out of deference to his position as heir, a respectful gesture which Chase accepted for the same reason.

  Hooking a boot heel over the brass footrail, he ordered a beer and listened to the trio trying to top each other with wild stories of past places of employment. Jake set a glass in front of Chase and took his money, all in the same motion. Although Chase laughed in all the right places, his mood didn’t improve with either the beer or the company of tall-tale tellers.

  Albert was the drifter with two chipped front teeth, broken when a horse kicked him in the mouth a year ago. He lowered his head to whisper to Clay Vargas. “Do you see the way that Dolly gal is giving me the eye?”

  “You? Hell, she’s looking at Chase!” Clay laughed.

  Albert looked again and considered that he could have been mistaken. “I wish she’d look at me that way.”

  Chase glanced around as the brassy blonde slowly looked him up and down, and turned away, unaffected by the obvious invitation. “She will … for a price.”

  “Yeah, but you’re getting it for nothing,” the drifter protested. “Aren’t you going to take her up on it?”

  “Not interested.” He lifted his glass to take a swallow of beer.

  “Chase has hisself a little Lolita who gives him all he can handle,” Clay Vargas drawled. “This must be his night of rest. What happened, Chase? Wouldn’t her daddy let her come out tonight?” Clay slapped him on the shoulder and laughed.

  All in one motion, Chase set the glass down, turned to knock the man’s hand off his shoulder, and swung his fist into the relaxed midsection. The air whooshed from Vargas’ lungs, doubling him up and throwing a look of stunned shock into his expression. Blood sang through his veins. The jarring, violent contact was just what Chase needed. He felt good for the first time all night. As he started to finish off Vargas with an uppercut to the jaw, the drifter on the other side of him grabbed his elbow.

  “Hey! What the hell are you doing?!!”

  Chase didn’t attempt to shake free of the hold. Instead, he rammed his elbow backward into the man’s stomach, then pivoted to plant his feet and swing at the next of Vargas’ buddies coming to his rescue. His leading punch was blocked; then someone grabbed his arms. A fist exploded against his mouth before Chase could shrug aside the man holding him. He tasted blood and shook his head to stop the ringing in his ears, turning in time to see Vargas coming at him.

  He ducked the first swing, but the second bruised his shoulder. Then the two were grappling, heaving and twisting, grunting like animals while they butted and gouged at each other before springing apart. Vargas caught him above the eye with a clumsy swing, but Chase got in three hard, fast blows to the body and clipped the point of his chin with an uppercut. Vargas came at him swinging wildly, one blow glancing off his cheekbone, but Chase stepped in instead of away from the attack and buried a wicked right in the man’s belly. A quick left, followed by a feint with his left that had Vargas raising an arm to block it, and Chase went under it with a stiff left to the chest. Vargas landed a wild swing, but Chase hit him with another left and knocked
him to the floor with a hard right.

  The killing instinct was strong. Chase grabbed Vargas by the shirt collar to lift him from the floor, but a pair of arms circled him to pull him off. Chase pivoted into his new assailant, breaking the hold with an upward sweep of his arms and swinging to knock the man backward before he bothered to see who it was. The two fighters were encircled by a ring of cowboys, one of them supporting an off-balance Buck.

  “Dammit, Chase!” Buck cursed him. “What the hell did you hit me for?” He rubbed his jaw, working it as if to make certain it was operational. “You damned near broke my jaw!” Chase glanced back at the man on the floor. “Vargas is out cold. I was trying to keep you from beating him to a pulp.”

  “Sorry.” His breath was coming in hard rushes, labored and aching. He weaved slightly, his fight-numbed body beginning to feel the blows that had landed. He turned to the two drifters who were buddies of Vargas. “Tell him … when he comes to … to watch the kind of remarks he makes about people.”

  He moved toward the bar with a lurching stride. Something trickled into his eye. He wiped at it, thinking it was sweat, but there was blood on his hand from the cut above his eye. His lip was split, too. It burned when he took a drink of the whiskey Jake shoved into his hand. He winced and pressed the back of his hand to the cut.

  “You’d better wash those cuts.” Dolly was at his side, pressing a towel to the cut above his eye. “Why don’t you let me do it?”

  Chase submitted to her ministrations without protest, yet totally indifferently. It was strange how good the physical hurt made him feel. The tension that had been knotted in him for days was gone.

  Looking in the mirror behind the bar, he saw his own bruised reflection and Buck helping the other two Triple C cowboys lift Vargas to his feet and drag him over to a table in the corner. Then Dolly was turning his head to dab the towel on his mouth and someone came to return his hat.

  “What started the fight?” Buck draped a limp arm over his shoulder while Albert did the same with Clay’s other arm. Together they carried him to the chair at the empty table.

  “One minute we were talking about Dolly. Then Clay said something about Chase having a girl friend named Lolita. The next thing I knew, fists were flying.” Albert helped to prop up the unconscious man in the chair.

  Something fell on the floor and Buck crouched to pick it up. “Clay’s hat is out there on the floor. Do you want to get it before someone steps on it, Albert?” he suggested.

  The third cowboy had already gone to wet a towel to wash the bloodied face. There wasn’t anyone around to see the leather wallet or the folding cash that had slipped from it. Buck hesitated, then picked the two up, slipping the money into his own pocket and the billfold into Clay’s hip pocket.

  “It ain’t right to tempt a man by carrying around a month’s pay in your wallet, Clay,” Buck scolded the unconscious man in a very low murmur.

  Albert came back with the hat and looked anxiously at his friend. “Do you reckon he’s hurt bad enough to need a doctor?”

  “Now, I don’t know.” Buck sharply slapped the man’s cheek a couple of times and Vargas stirred, his hands coming up heavily. Buck stepped back. “He’ll be all right. Probably’ll even look human when you get that blood washed off him.”

  Shifting out of the way so the returning cowboy could do just that, Buck lingered for a minute, then sauntered toward the bar, where Chase was leaning. The cash was a hard lump in his pocket, but he rationalized that Vargas was only a drifter, not one of Calder’s own. Besides, it was a proven fact that a fool and his money were soon parted. Vargas was obviously a fool, or he would have known better than to take on a Calder. The Old Man had taught both Buck and Chase every dirty brawling trick in the book. Buck walked up behind Chase and dug his fingers into the shoulder muscle.

  “What the hell is the idea of starting a fight while I’m otherwise occupied?” he accused. “A guy can miss out on a lot of excitement that way.”

  Chase took the towel from the blonde’s hand, signaling he had no more need for her assistance. “I’ll try to remember that the next time.” His injured mouth worked stiffly as he spoke.

  “What happened?” Buck eyed his friend, already knowing the answer.

  There was a lift of his shoulders in a dismissing shrug. “You know how it goes. Somebody says something that happens to rub you the wrong way—and that’s it.”

  “Sometimes it’s just one word,” Buck agreed and paused deliberately. “Like Lolita.” Chase slashed him a hard look. Buck grinned. “Pretty soon folks are going to realize how touchy you are about her. Somebody might use that against you if you aren’t careful.”

  Chase took a long, slow breath and realized that Buck was right. He had to start learning to control this. He couldn’t fight every man who mentioned her name. Glancing in the mirror, Chase saw Vargas leaning on the table and holding his forehead.

  “Jake.” He pushed away from the support of the counter bar. “Give me a bottle of good whiskey and a couple of glasses.”

  The instant he started toward the table where Clay Vargas sat, the place became hushed. Albert poked Vargas in the ribs to warn him of Chase’s approach. The cowboy looked up, battered and wary. Chase stopped in front of the table and set the empty glasses on top.

  “I’d like to buy you a drink, Clay,” he said and uncapped the whiskey bottle to wait for an answer.

  “You beat me. Hell! You whipped me,” the cowboy retorted, but resentment gave way to honest defeat. “I guess maybe I deserved it for that crack I made about your girl.”

  “No hard feelings,” Chase assured him and filled the shot glasses with whiskey, pushing the first toward the cowboy. They shared another drink and talked before Chase went back to the bar.

  It was another hour before Chase and Buck left the saloon to return to the ranch, which made it well after midnight. Buck drove.

  “I though you weren’t going to be sober enough to drive home,” Chase reminded him when they started out.

  “I changed my mind.” Buck shrugged and changed the subject. “The next time we come, you’re going to have to reserve yourself some time with JoBeth. She is the sexiest damned thing—and wild! Whooeee! That damned bitch got scarlet lipstick all over my shorts before I could get them off. Can’t you just see Mom’s face when she finds them in with the dirty clothes?” He laughed and shook his head. “I tell you, Chase, that JoBeth is something else!”

  Chase made a murmuring sound of agreement and stared out the window at the midnight-black sky. It was a different dark-haired girl he had on his mind.

  The supper dishes were washed, dried, and put away in the cupboards, but Maggie was still in the kitchen, alone, staring at the calendar by the back door. She counted and counted again, unable to believe she was that late. She couldn’t be pregnant. She just couldn’t be.

  What was she going to do? She turned away from the calendar, fighting the waves of panic rushing through her. Forcing herself to think calmly and rationally, she reasoned that being three weeks late did not necessarily mean she was pregnant. There were other factors that could have affected her cycle.

  She’d go see Doc Barlow on Thursday and find out for sure. Until then, it was ridiculous to worry herself into a nervous state. After all, Chase had assured her he was careful. But what if she was pregnant? a frightened part of her mind asked. What then? What would she do? What would Chase say when she told him?

  A door slammed; Maggie spun around. There were three different sets of footsteps approaching the kitchen. Two were obviously those of her father and brother, and she realized the third belonged to Bob Tucker when she heard him talking.

  “…. It happened three nights ago, on Friday.”

  “What started it?” her father asked.

  “Jake heard them talking about Dolly; then suddenly they were fighting.” The three entered the kitchen as Tucker finished his reply. He took off his hat when he saw Maggie, smiling with his small mouth. “Hello, Maggie
. How are you this evening?”

  Tucker was always polite to her, respectful and warm. There was never any pity in his eyes, only silent approval. Although there was a certain grotesqueness in his disproportioned shape, the large body and the small head, she liked him, anyway. When he said something, she felt she could believe him.

  “I’m fine. I didn’t expect to see you around here for quite a while.” She thought they had decided to keep away from each other after Calder had seen them together. They were going to let everything cool down for a while, so her father had said. She glanced at her father. “Calder is already suspicious of you,” she reminded him and noticed the way he avoided her eyes.

  “Put on some coffee, Maggie,” he said rather than reply to her comment. “Tucker and me have some things to talk over.”

  But she wasn’t about to be distracted. “What things?” A chill ran down her spine.

  “Calder is positive that he’s scared us off with his patrols. We figure it’s time we hit him again,” her father admitted and swaggered cockily to the table. “He can be as suspicious as he wants, but he can’t prove nothing. If he could, he would have been all over us already. Tucker and me have decided to call his bluff.”

  “But the patrols!” Maggie tried to think of something to dissuade them.

  “After this much time, they won’t be as alert as they were in the beginning,” Tucker assured her. “They’ll be bored with the routine of it. Don’t worry.”

  “When?”

  “That’s what we’re going to decide. Now, put some coffee on girl, like I told you,” her father ordered.

  Two nights later, Webb Calder was asleep in his heavy-framed bed when the fire bell outside clanged its alarm. The signal awakened him instantly to full alertness. Throwing back the covers, he stepped into his pants as he rose from the bed. Out his window, he could see the faint glow of an orange flare.

  He stared at it for a long minute, standing with his pants fastened but still unzipped. He shook his head sadly, but there was no compromise in him. He’d taken his stand, made his statement; now he had to back it all up.