“You’ll want to talk to this one,” Chase stated and turned to motion Buck forward, but he was already on his way.
Bending, he crouched directly in front of the rocker. “Hey, Pop, it’s me, Buck.”
The old man rocked forward and peered intently at the white-haired man before him. “Is that really you, boy?” he demanded with wary doubt.
“It’s me, Pop. White hair and all,” Buck replied with a flash of his old grin. “I told you I’d come as soon as I got out.”
A kind of wonder stole through the old man’s expression. Reaching out, he clasped Buck’s face with both hands. “It is you,” he breathed the words, then released a sound that fell somewhere between a laugh and a sob. With tears shining in his eyes, he let go of Buck’s face and excitedly fumbled around in his shirt pocket before he finally succeeded in pulling out a slip of folded paper. He showed it to Buck. “You wrote you would come. I’ve been carrying your letter with me ever since. I was afraid to hope.” His voice had a quaver to it. “I just knew that sunavabitchin’ Calder would find some way to keep you there. But—you’re really here.”
“I’m really here,” Buck repeated in emphasis. “I’m a free man, Pop. I did my time and there is nothing anybody can do to send me back there.”
“You’re free.” Tears ran down the hollows of Vern’s cheeks. “If only your mother could have lived to see this.”
“I know.” Buck nodded then patted the old man on the knee. “Look, Pop, I rented a small little house in town, the old Kromke place. Do you remember it?”
“Yeah, I know the place.”
“It isn’t much, but it’s big enough for the two of us. I want you to come live with me.”
In answer, Vern began to frantically grope around the chair arms looking first one way then the other. “Where the hell did that damned woman hide my cane this time?”
Straightening, Buck retrieved the cane that had been hooked on the windowsill. “Here it is, Pop.” He pressed it into the man’s hand.
Immediately, Vern struggled to rise from the rocker, using the cane for leverage and support. “Give me a hand, will you?” he said with impatience.
As Buck assisted him to his feet, Chase spoke up. “You don’t have to live with him, Vern. You are more than welcome to stay right here.”
“And just why the hell would I want to do that?” Vern challenged with vehemence. “This ain’t my home, and the Atkinses ain’t any kin of mine. Why would I want to stay in a place where I’ve gotta eat when they say, and I’m not allowed to smoke or drink? She won’t even let me have a chew now and again.”
Made self-conscious by the criticism, Ruby defended herself, “But you can’t see well enough to spit into the cup, Vern. You had tobacco juice all over the place.”
Vern either didn’t hear her protest or didn’t care. Leaning on the cane, he took a shuffling step toward the closet. “I’ll just get my clothes and we’ll get out of here.” He took another step then stopped to glare at Ruby. “Don’t just stand there, woman. Go get me something to put my clothes in.”
Hesitating, she glanced at Chase. He nodded. “If Vern wants to leave with Buck, that’s his choice.”
Vern’s belongings were few. In less than twenty minutes, all of them were stowed in the back of Buck’s used truck. Buck was the only one to thank Ruby for looking after his father. Vern never offered so much as a goodbye to any of them.
From the northeast came the rumbling roar of a plane taking off, its engines at full power. The noise of it masked the sound of Buck’s pickup when it pulled away from the house. Chase lingered long enough to express his own gratitude to Ruby for the care she had given Vern, then rode back to The Homestead with Logan.
“That went smoothly,” Logan remarked.
“I didn’t expect any trouble,” Chase replied grimly. “Buck is smarter than that. If you can, keep an eye on him.”
“I will.”
Ty stood by the desk in the den, sifting through the stack of morning mail, when Chase walked in. He looked up, running a searching glance over his father’s face.
“How did it go?”
“Vern left with him.” That closed the subject as far as Chase was concerned.
“Maybe that’s best,” Ty said as Chase walked around the desk and sat down in the big chair. “Logan left, did he?”
Chase nodded. “I invited him in for coffee, but he said he had a mountain of paperwork waiting for him. Anything in the mail?”
“Bills mostly.” Ty resumed sorting through it, then paused when he came across an envelope bearing the return address of the federal government. “Here’s one from the BLM.” He idly passed it to his father. “I asked Sally to bring us some coffee.”
“Good. I could use some.” Chase tore open the flap and pulled the letter out of its envelope as approaching footsteps echoed from the outer hallway.
It was Jessy, not Sally, who walked into the den, carrying a tray with an insulated coffee carafe and three cups. “Who wants coffee?” she said brightly and set the tray on the occasional table between the two wing-backed leather chairs in front of the desk.
Ty glanced at the three cups. “Are you joining us?”
“Actually the third cup was for Logan, but—since he’s not here—I thought I would have a cup with you.” Jessy proceeded to fill all three cups.
“What the hell!” The near roar of outrage from Chase whipped Ty’s attention back to him.
“What’s wrong?”
Chase looked up from the letter in his hand, eyes blazing. “They revoked our grazing permit. We have three days to remove all our livestock. Here. Read it for yourself.” He shoved the letter to Ty and picked up the phone, angrily punching in a series of numbers.
The coffee forgotten, Jessy was at Ty’s side in an instant, needing to see the words for herself. There they were, plain and blunt and final.
“They can’t do this,” Jessy murmured.
“The government can do anything it damn well pleases,” Ty replied, the anger in his voice tightly leashed.
“But—why?” Jessy frowned in confusion. “Why would they do it after all these years?”
Behind the desk, Chase spoke into the phone, his voice hard and clipped. “Get me Justin Farnsworth.” After a small pause, he erupted, “I don’t give a damn if he’s in a meeting. You tell him Chase Calder is on the line. I need to talk to him, and I need to talk to him now!”
Distracted by the contents of the letter, none of them heard the front door open or the approaching thud of booted feet. Not until Ballard walked into the den did they become aware of his presence in the house.
“There you are, Ty,” he said. “I’m glad I caught you before you headed to the calving sheds. You never told me what you decided about using a concrete stain on the floor. If you’re—”
“Later,” Ty abruptly cut across his words. “I’m tied up right now. Before I leave, I’ll swing by the barn and go over it with you.”
Darting one quick glance at Chase’s grim face with the phone to his ear, Ballard immediately picked up on the room’s charged atmosphere and nodded, backing toward the door. “I’ll talk to you then.”
“Wait. There was a phone call for you early this morning,” Jessy remembered and retrieved the message slip from the desk. Taking it to him, she explained, “It’s from the supplier of the light fixtures that were back-ordered.”
“Justin. It’s Chase Calder here,” Chase said behind her, finally making the connection with the lawyer.
Jessy smoothly steered Ballard out of the den. “The supplier promised that the shipment would go out yet this week. We should have it by the first of next week at the latest.”
“We better.” Ballard glanced briefly at the message before tucking it in his shirt pocket. “Until they get here, the electrician is pretty much at a standstill.”
“I know.” Jessy kept walking, escorting him to the front door.
Ballard lagged a bit and threw a glance over his shoulder when he caught the sound of Chase Calder’s raised voice. “It sounds like somebody is on the receiving end of a chewin’ out from the Old Man. It takes a helluva lot to make him blow, which tells me there’s some big trouble somewhere.”
Jessy felt the curious probe of his gaze and knew Ballard had an ear tuned to the one-sided telephone conversation coming from the den. She had little doubt that he had gleaned enough from it to make an accurate guess. And with the order contained on the letter, to remove any and all livestock within three days, its contents would soon become common knowledge of necessity.
“We lost the grazing lease on Wolf Meadow,” Jessy admitted. “We have three days to remove all our cattle.”
“Three days,” Ballard repeated, then whistled softly. “There’s something like ten thousand acres in that chunk, isn’t there?”
“That’s right.”
“That’ll take some doin’ to comb that much country in only three days,” Ballard mused aloud. “A lot of it will have to be done from the air.”
“More than likely,” Jessy agreed.
Even if Chase was eventually successful in getting the order rescinded and the grazing permit reinstated, it was highly unlikely he could accomplish it within the three-day deadline. And a failure to remove their livestock within that time frame would result in the imposition of stiff fines for every day they failed to comply with the order. Payment of the fines would be demanded, regardless of the final outcome. She stood by the front door, the full ramifications of the letter sinking in.
“Say,” Ballard began, his forehead creasing in a thoughtful frown. “Isn’t that the same piece of land Dy-Corp had its hands on a few years ago?”
“Yes, but Dyson relinquished all rights to it a long time ago.”
“Maybe he did, but now that he’s dead, that’s not to say that whoever heads up his company now didn’t decide to grab control of it again. And there was a time when they wanted the coal under it pretty bad.”
His suggestion stunned Jessy into a protest. “They wouldn’t.”
“Why?” Ballard countered with a scoffing tone. “Because of what happened the last time? Corporations don’t have a conscience, not where money and profits are concerned. And there’s a lot of both to be made from all the coal under that ground.”
Jessy stiffened, horror-stricken by the thought of that rich grassland being ripped open by bulldozers to expose the coal beneath it, destroying its productiveness forever, leaving it scarred and ugly.
“Good god, Jessy, you’re white as a sheet.” Ballard gripped her shoulders as if expecting her to crumble any second.
Lowering her head, she gave it a small shake to dismiss his concern while she struggled to throw off the sick fear that gripped her. “I’m all right.”
He bent his head, trying to get a look at her face. “You don’t look all right.”
“They can’t be allowed to get their hands on that land,” Jessy said with the force of conviction.
“Hey.” He crooked a finger under her chin and lifted it, his mouth curved in a coaxing smile. “I never said they would succeed. We both know the Old Man would fight that to his last breath.”
“Take your hands off my wife.” Ty’s ominously low voice sliced between them like a knife.
Ballard stepped back in surprise, his hands automatically falling away from her when Jessy turned to stare at Ty. She was stunned by the look of icy rage in his expression.
“Ty, it’s not what you’re thinking,” she began.
But he didn’t allow her to finish. “If it was, Ballard would never set foot again on the Triple C,” he stated and shifted his gaze to Ballard. “You have work to do. Go get it done.”
For a long, cool second, Ballard held his gaze. “You’re makin’ a mistake, Calder,” he said easily. “But I reckon you’ll find that out for yourself.”
Stepping past Jessy, he went out the door, pulling it closed behind him. She waited until she heard the
clump
of his boots on the front steps, then let her own temper fly.
“Don’t you ever do that again, Ty Calder!”
Ty came right back with equal heat. “If you think for one minute that I am going to stand by and watch while that Romeo puts his hands all over my wife, you can think again!”
“You don’t own me.” Jessy’s voice vibrated with anger. “I am your wife, not one of your possessions. I am the only one who has the right to say who touches me, and who doesn’t! You better remember that.”
“And you better remember that I run this ranch and the people who work on it,” Ty fired right back. “I decide what behavior is acceptable and what isn’t. Ballard was out of line.”
“You are the only one who is out of line here.”
When she started past him, Ty caught her arm. “Dammit, Jessy—”
“Let go of me.” The demand was calmly voiced, but as determined as the look Jessy gave him.
Male pride wouldn’t allow him to release her. Instead, Ty turned Jessy toward him, catching hold of her arm. “What are we arguing about anyway?” he demanded in exasperation.
“This isn’t an argument. It’s a fight. And you started it.”
“Dammit, Jessy, I don’t want to quarrel with you. I had enough of that with Tara.”