by Janet Dailey
“Cat,” he repeated, thinking that it hadn’t been that far from the truth when she called herself Maggie the Cat.
“Cathleen, actually, but everyone calls her Cat. Her father owns the Triple C,” she said, then laughed at herself. “Look at me explaining that to you, like you haven’t been here long enough to have heard all about the Calders and their ranch.”
“Hard not to,” Logan agreed. The ranch was the largest in the state, practically a country all by itself. In a community as small as this, the ranch and its owners were popular topics of conversation. Truthfully, he hadn’t paid a lot of attention to it beyond garnering the simple facts that Calder was a widower with a son and a daughter. It had never crossed his mind that the daughter might be the woman who had haunted him all these years. He tried to remember some of the things that had been said about her, then pushed such thoughts away.
“Thanks.” He pocketed the change the clerk handed him, and gathered up the tobacco can to head for the door.
“Take care of yourself, Logan,” the woman called after him.
He answered with a wave. Outside the store, he paused, lifted his hat and settled it back lower on his forehead, brim tilted down. Shaking his head, he laughed at himself with a kind of twisted humor. “You do know how to pick ’em, Logan.”
As simply as that, he put aside any hopes he might have had in Cat Calder’s direction, and walked back to his patrol car. Experience had left him with few illusions about his place in today’s world. Lawmen of every kind were treated as a breed apart, hated by a lawless few, needed by the respectable many, and welcomed in the home of almost none.
Cat had looked at his uniform and walked away. If he had any doubts, she had removed them. Sending no more glances to locate her whereabouts, Logan slid behind the wheel, turned the key and reversed away from the store, then swung north onto the highway, needing the release speed could give him.
THIRTEEN
A mile north of Blue Moon, Lath dug a cold can of beer from the plastic sack and popped the top on it, the sound sharp and distinctive in the truck cab. Rollie threw him a startled look, then darted an anxious glance at the rearview mirror, scanning the road behind them.
“Jeezus, Lath, are you crazy?” he blurted. “What if Echohawk comes along and pulls us over?”
Undeterred, Lath chuckled and chugged down another long swallow. “I thought prison might have changed you, but you’re still the cautious one, always careful not to get into trouble.” His sidelong glance glittered with amusement.
Rollie’s mouth tightened at the jibe. “Lord knows, you got into enough trouble for both of us.”
“Yeah, the old man was always on me for settin’ such a bad example.” He nodded at the memory. “Like workin’ himself from dawn to dusk on that farm with nothing more to show for it than a bunch of calluses and aching bones was a better one.” He took another swig of beer, then drained the can, crumpled it, and tossed it out the window, then reached in the sack for another one. “Do you want one?”
“No.” Rollie shot another look at the rearview mirror.
Lath noted it and laughed derisively. “Quit worrying about Echohawk. He won’t be following us. His kind counts on intimidating you.” He snapped the tab on a second can.
“I wouldn’t be too sure of that.” Another check of the rearview mirror showed an empty road behind them.
After taking a short sip, Lath held the can in his lap and stared thoughtfully into the middle distance. “I swear you coulda knocked me over with a toothpick when you told me Echohawk was here. I wonder what made him pick a godforsaken part of the country like this?” he mused. “Nothin’ ever happens here. Maybe that’s what he was counting on—handling nothin’ more serious than an occasional drunk, a rustled cow, or some domestic dispute.”
This prompted Rollie to recall, with a curious frown, “Back at Fedderson’s you said something about Echohawk getting shot up?”
“It was about a year or a year and a half ago. Echohawk and some of his ATF buddies got into an old-time shoot-out with a paramilitary group down in southwest Texas. He got hit in the leg and took another bullet in the chest. It punctured a lung. It was touch-and-go for a while, I heard. I know of a few boys who were pulling against him.” Lath paused, turning thoughtful again. “He must have decided to call it quits after that. Probably figured he had used up all his luck.” He grinned suddenly. “It just could be that he has. Yes, sir, it just could be.”
Rollie didn’t like the sound of that. He started to ask what Lath meant by it, then decided it was better if he didn’t know. Ahead the highway began its climb into the broken country, leaving the flatness of the prairie behind it. A scattering of pine trees marched along the stony footslopes of this Rocky Mountain outlier, joined here and there by clumps of aspen.
Uneasy with the silence that had fallen, Rollie sought to break it and direct his brother’s thoughts away from any scheming he might be doing. “I told you, didn’t I, about meeting up with Buck Haskell while I was in prison.”
Lath responded with a disinterested nod. “You mentioned he took you under his wing, so to speak.”
“Yeah, he said he was paying back a debt he owed the family.”
“A debt? How’s that?”
“You’re gonna like this one, Lath,” Rollie said with a stretching smile. “It seems the old man got drunk one night, and Buck knocked him over the head and rolled him, took every dime he had.”
“He rolled the old man?” Lath barked out a laugh. “When the hell was this?”
“Before he married Ma, I guess.”
“If that don’t beat all,” Lath murmured, still grinning at the thought. “As tight as he was with a nickel, don’t you know he must have been crazy mad when he came to?”
“Every time I think about how dead set he was against drinking, it makes me smile.”
“By God, we owe Buck one,” Lath declared.
“That’s what I told him.”
“Haskell must be getting up there in age now.”
“Must be.” Rollie shrugged and negotiated the curve in the road. “He told me he was born just a few days before Chase Calder.”
“I just realized, you two had something in common,” Lath remarked. “You both wound up in prison thanks to Chase Calder. I gotta tell ya, Rollie, I never thought you got a fair deal. Maybe you did have too much to drink, but it was still an accident. You’re sure as hell no criminal. They shouldn’t have sent you there.”
There was little about those years that Rollie wanted to remember. He moved his big shoulders, trying to throw off the thought of them. “Prison wasn’t so bad.”
Lath gave him a knowing look, then faced the front again and offered a succinct comment, “Shi-it.”
After an instant of silence, Rollie broke into a somewhat sheepish laugh. Lath joined him. In that moment of laughter, a thousand unspoken experiences were shared, everything from the humiliation of a strip search to the ominous and echoing clang of lockup. Rollie felt closer to his older brother than he ever had in his life.
A lodgepole gate marked the entrance to the former S Bar Three Ranch. The long cross-member that had once connected the two posts hung drunkenly against the farthest one. Catching sight of it, Rollie slowed the truck to make the turn onto the rutted track that wound away from it, curling back into a crease in the broken hills.
This time Rollie’s glance at the rearview mirror was an automatic one, born out of driving habit. Shock froze the half smile on his face when he saw the reflected image of a vehicle rounding the curve behind him, the familiar light bar of a patrol car on its roof.
He threw a look over his shoulder, needing to confirm it with his own eyes. “Jeezus, it’s Echohawk. I told you he’d follow us.”
Lath wheeled around in the seat to look, his eyes agleam as if it were some kind of game. “I figured him wrong. That’s one for him.”
He checked to see how close they were to the gate, and looked back to measure the distance to
the approaching patrol car, then squared around in the seat. “We’ll make it.”
Sure enough, the patrol car was still a quarter mile distant when Rollie swung the pickup onto the rut-riddled lane. Grinning widely in secret triumph, Lath turned sideways and waved at the vehicle, silently watching to make sure Echohawk drove past the gate. When he did, Lath laughed softly and settled back in the passenger seat, lifting the can of beer to his mouth. Rollie eyed him warily, unable to remember a time when his older brother hadn’t enjoyed flirting with danger. It was clear he hadn’t changed in that.
The dirt track snaked a three-mile long path into the rugged foothills and culminated at the site of the old ranchstead. After years of standing empty, scoured by the elements, the buildings stood on the verge of collapse, their rotting boards weather-bleached an ancient gray. There was a huge hole in the barn roof, and one side of the house had caved in. The stumps of old posts marked the former location of a corral. Near it, repairs had been made to an old lean-to, and a milk cow grazed inside an electric fence beyond it.
In the midst of all this decay and neglect stood a mobile home, its base skirted with bales of straw to block the tunneling of winter’s cold. The area around it had been shorn of weeds, giving the chickens a place to scratch and peck. One flew out of the pickup’s path, squawking a protest.
“I know it doesn’t look like much,” Rollie said, seeing the place through his brother’s eyes. “But I got the trailer cheap, and Littleton is renting us the land for practically nothing. Ma’s got her milk cow and chickens, and the ground behind the barn was pretty fertile, so I plowed that up so she could plant some vegetables.”
“As long as Ma’s happy, I wouldn’t care if it was a hog lot.” Lath reached over and pushed the horn on the steering wheel. The blare of it scattered more chickens as the pickup rolled to a stop just yards from the front steps. “We need to pick up some guinea hens. As much as I hate their racket, they’re the best damn watchdogs a body could have. If anybody comes sneakin’ around, they’ll let you know about it.”
The door to the house trailer popped open, and out stepped Emma Anderson, an apron tied around the plain housedress she wore. Her long gray hair was wound in its habitual coronet of braids atop her head. A smile of welcome rearranged the lines that seamed her thin face.
“Lath. I mighta known it was you making all that noise,” she declared with mock sternness before descending the steps.
“Hey, Ma. How’s my best girl?” Long, loping strides carried him to her. He promptly picked her up and spun her around, laughing at the protest she made.
“Latham Ray Anderson, you put me down this instant,” she scolded, but for all the sharpness of her voice, the sparkle in her dark eyes was that of a young girl.
Seeing it, he laughed again and gave her a big smack on the cheek, then set her down. A little breathless, she pulled primly at the dress his hands had hitched up, and raised a smoothing hand to her hair.
“You are such a scamp,” she admonished, then succumbed to the upswell of affection and clasped his face between rough and liver-spotted hands. “It is so good to have you home, Lath. Why didn’t you come sooner?”
“Now, Ma, you know I was on parole and couldn’t leave until now,” he chided gently, capturing her hands and pressing a kiss against them. “But that’s all over with and I’m as free as the wind.”
“That wind better not be blowin’ anywhere but right here,” she informed him, then stepped back and waved a hand toward the pickup. “Now, you go get your things and bring ’em in the house while I see to dinner. From the looks of you, you haven’t had a decent meal in months.”
Turning, she grabbed onto the handrail and climbed the wooden steps to the door, without directing a single word to Rollie. He wasn’t surprised by that; he had always known Lath occupied a special corner of her heart. The years he’d been away had only solidified it.
Inside the house trailer, Rollie helped himself to a cup of coffee and sat down at the old Formica-topped table. After stowing his gear in a back bedroom, Lath sauntered into the trailer’s compact kitchen and dining area. Emma stood at the range top, laying pieces of batter-dipped chicken in an iron skillet, the hot oil sizzling and popping in the stillness of the room.
“Is that fried chicken you’re fixing?” Lath stopped to grab a can of beer out of the refrigerator.
“Yes, and it’s fresh chicken, too,” Emma replied. “I killed and dressed it myself this morning.”
“There’s only one thing I know that would taste better than your fried chicken and that would be a big juicy steak.” He crossed to the table and pulled out a chair.
“A steak.” She paused in her task, considering the word, then shook her head and laid another piece of chicken in the skillet. “I can’t recall the last time I had fresh beef to put on the table. Not since we lost the farm, that’s for sure.”
“Guess we’ll have to do something to change that.” Lath leaned back in the chair, hooking an arm over a corner of it as he grinned at Rollie. “Seems to me, Calder owes us a beef or two for all the hardness he showed this family.”
“They owe us a lot more than that,” Emma snapped, making no secret of the ill will she bore them.
Rollie stared at the black surface of his coffee, aware he should have seen this coming. It wouldn’t be the first time his family had butchered a Calder steer. And from the sounds of it, it wouldn’t be the last.
The late spring sun sat well up in the western sky, lengthening the hours of daylight into early evening. With tackle box and fly rod in hand, Ty waited at the bottom of the steps to take advantage of the light and get in some fishing. Jessy was beside him, a little pale after her day’s bout with nausea, yet lit with an inner glow that gave a radiance to her face. The Homestead’s galleried front porch echoed with the thud of cowboy boots as Quint ran to join them, a child-sized fly rod clutched in his hand.
At the top of the steps, Chase smiled at his grandson’s haste, but a more sober look entered his eyes when his glance shifted to a trailing Cat. These last two days he hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that something was bothering her. She seemed unusually quiet, preoccupied with her own thoughts. Lately, her smiles had seemed a little too stiff to him, her laughter a little too forced, and her silences too frequent.
“Wait a minute. Don’t I get a hug?” Her call stopped Quint.
Chase watched as she crouched down and held her arms open. Quint ran into them, and she hugged him close. For an unguarded moment, her eyes were tightly closed and a look of near desperation pulled at her face, strengthening Chase’s closely held suspicions.
Quint pulled back, forcing her arms to loosen. “You can come fishing with us, too, Mom.”
“I know, but it’s been a while since I’ve seen Uncle Culley,” she said, her hands busily adjusting the lay of his denim jacket and straightening its collar, finding reasons to touch him. “I think I should go visit him. You have fun, now, and mind your Uncle Ty.”
“I will,” he promised and off he went, clattering down the steps.
Rising to her feet, Cat watched the trio set off toward the river. She stood there for a long minute, and Chase observed the troubled light that stole into her eyes.
“I guess I’d better be going, too.” When she turned, the light was gone. But Chase was certain it hadn’t been a trick of the sun.
“What’s wrong, Cat?”
“Wrong?” Alarm flickered briefly in her eyes before she managed to laugh off his question. “Nothing’s wrong. Whatever gave you that idea?”
“Something’s bothering you,” he insisted.
“I don’t know what it would be,” she countered with a very convincing shrug, “other than wondering if I have everything ready for Quint’s birthday party tomorrow. With so many children coming, there’s bound to be something I overlooked. I just hope it isn’t something important.” Without giving him a chance to question her further, Cat moved to the steps. “I should be back in time to t
uck Quint into bed.”
“Drive careful,” Chase admonished.
“Always,” Cat replied, instantly picturing in her mind the uniformed officer she had faced three days ago. Quint’s father now had a name—Logan Echohawk. Again she was gripped by a terrible sense of foreboding.
It was an hour’s drive from the Triple C headquarters to the Shamrock Ranch. Far from being relaxed by it, Cat was wound in an even tighter ball of nerves by the time she reached the ranch lane.
When she pulled into the ranch yard itself, Cat was stunned to see a Chevy truck parked near the house. Culley never had visitors. Briefly she wondered if he had bought a new pickup, then she saw the old one by the barn.
Puzzled, Cat headed for the house. A few feet from the screen door, she caught the muffled voices coming from within, one she recognized definitely as Culley’s. She climbed the steps to the covered front porch and went inside.
The instant the door swung shut behind her, all conversation in the house ceased. “Who’s that?” Culley barked from the kitchen, his voice sharp with suspicion.
“It’s me, Uncle Culley.” She crossed to the kitchen doorway, her glance going first to her uncle, seated at one end of the table facing the door, then to the man next to him.
Smoke-gray eyes locked with hers, holding her completely motionless. Gone was the uniform of Logan Echohawk. He was dressed once again in the clothes of the man she had called Dakota.
Cat stiffened, blocking the swift rise of memories. She had locked the door to the past; she had no desire to open it.
“I didn’t figure on you coming over here tonight, Cat,” Culley said. “I was just sitting here talking to Logan. I guess you haven’t had a chance to meet—”
She cut him off. “I know who Mr. Echohawk is.”
“Hello, Cat.” He pushed the coffee cup away and leaned back in his chair with negligent ease, tipping his head back in a way that forcibly reminded her of Quint.
“What are you doing here?” Cat demanded, nerves taut.