“No, you aren’t. You are going back to camp now. And that is an order!” He was deliberately harsh with her. Ignoring the angry glare of her eyes, Chase fired his next order at the young Garvey boy. “You go with her. And get Amy Trumbo here on the double.”
Every instinct told Chase there was too much blood on that saddle. If they were lucky enough to find Ty alive, he would need medical attention as fast as they could get it to him. A registered nurse was the closest he could get to that, and Amy was a damned good one.
“Yes, sir.” Jed immediately urged his horse forward and gave a tug on the reins to the lame bay. It took a hobbling step forward.
“Leave the horse,” Chase ordered as his own mount shifted restively under him, catching the high tension of its rider and the blood smell in the air. “It will make its own way to camp. When it does, make sure no one goes near it. Logan will want to examine it.”
“Logan?” Jobe echoed with a puzzled frown. “Why—”
“There’s too much blood for this to be an accident.” It was a truth Chase had already faced. He spoke it now, with no feeling in his voice. Emotion was a luxury he couldn’t allow himself, not until he found his son. “Let’s go,” he said to the others and reined his dancing horse around the injured bay.
Out of the corner of his eye, he had a glimpse of Jessy as she angrily hauled her horse around and pointed it toward camp. He had a momentary regret that he had been so harsh with her. In his heart, Chase knew she was not a woman who needed to be shielded from the sometimes brutal realities of life. But he had been raised otherwise, and he hadn’t wanted her along.
The small band of riders bunched close to Chase as they rode off. Behind them, the bay horse issued a forlorn whinny and limped gamely after the two riders headed for camp.
The Broken Butte range was rugged foothill country, its rough terrain offering a thousand hiding places. Three Fingers was a name given to an area where three brush-choked coulees emptied into a shallow valley.
A half-mile from the entrance to the first, Chase raised his hand, signaling a halt, and reined in his horse. It sidestepped impatiently under him, swinging its rump into the horse on its right.
“We’ll fan out here,” Chase ordered. “Stumpy, you and Jobe check out the first finger. The rest of us will take the second. If we still haven’t found him, we’ll all look in the third.”
Acknowledging the order with a nod, Stumpy reined his horse to the left and sent it forward at a walk. Jobe swung his mount farther to the left, creating a good twenty feet of space between himself and Stumpy.
“Keep your eyes peeled,” Chase called after them. “And not just for Ty. You see anything, you holler.”
Stumpy responded with a lift of his hand, signaling that he had heard and understood. Maintaining his position in the center of the small search party, Chase walked his horse forward, resisting its head-tossing tug on the bit. As anxious as he was to find Ty, he knew a slow and thorough sweep was better than a hasty one. On either side of him came the dull
thud
of hooves on the hard ground and the rustling
swish
of dry grass against the horses’ legs.
The morning breeze carried to him the high-pitched bark of a prairie dog, alerting the rest of its town to the presence of riders. But Chase had no interest in them. He was intent on the area before him, searching for any sign that a rider had passed this way. But the hard, dry ground held few impressions, and none that resembled a hoofprint.
Periodically he lifted his gaze and scanned the countryside ahead of him, alert for any movement, anything that didn’t look as it should. He spotted a buzzard floating in the sky to the north on the lookout for carrion, as always. Its mere presence overhead was enough to twist his stomach into knots.
In a rare burst of impatience, Chase pulled up and bellowed, “Ty! Ty! Can you hear me?”
Startled, the other riders reined in, then waited and listened. The morning breeze whispered through the dry grass, but it was the only sound in the stillness. Chase hadn’t expected a response. The shout hadn’t been for Ty’s benefit. Chase wanted whoever was out there to damn well know he was coming.
Again he started his horse forward, traveling at a walk as before. He was on a straight course to the entrance of the middle coulee. Brush hugged the sides of its floor, their withered leaves showing the effects of the drought.
The last hundred yards to its mouth were long ones, made longer by his reluctance to see what might be waiting for him. At the same time he was pushed by an inner feeling of urgency. Picking up on it, his horse shifted into a jog-trot.
As Chase approached the coulee’s wide mouth, the other two riders swung in behind him. Brittle, sun-yellowed grass grew in a thick mat along the mouth floor, leaving not an inch of soil uncovered. Chase pulled up to study it, searching for the telltale gouge of a hoof.
“Yo!” The shout came from Stumpy.
Instantly Chase wheeled his horse in Stumpy’s direction. “What have you got?”
“Hoofprints coming out!” Stumpy shouted back. “And they’re dug in deep!”
Chase knew with certainty there was no reason to look in the middle coulee. The search would end in the first. With dread in his heart, he rode over to join up with Stumpy and Jobe.
Ten yards inside the mouth of the first wide ravine was a large patch of bare ground where a heavy runoff had at one time scoured away all the grass. Right through the center of it, hooves had gouged out a set of deep tracks. They were the kind of prints a horse left when it was digging for speed.
Chase studied them for no more than a few seconds then swept a hard glance over his men. “All right, we’ll go in.” All feeling was flattened from his voice. “But we’ll keep to the left. If there are any other tracks, we don’t want to mess them up.”
Taking the lead, he walked his horse into the coulee. The branches of a tall scrub brush raked across his leg. The dry rattle of it sounded unnaturally loud. Ears swiveling, his horse snorted. Chase could feel its muscles bunching under him. There was something up ahead it didn’t like. Steeling himself, Chase continued on.
Twenty yards in, the going got rough. Brush and small boulders crowded in from the walls of the coulee, forcing Chase to steer his horse into the center.
Ahead the coulee widened out to make a sweeping turn northward. When Chase rounded its bend, he saw Ty lying near some brush on the right. Blood soaked the front of his shirt, coloring it a dark scarlet. Braced as Chase had been for the sight, it was still a blow that ripped a deep, guttural moan from his chest.
“Sweet Jesus, no,” Stumpy murmured behind him as Chase piled out of the saddle.
Pain and rage welled up together, but Chase knew this was not the time to release either of them. He was a Calder, and there were orders to be given.
He barked them out even as he moved to Ty’s side. “Jobe, ride to camp. Tell them we found him. The rest of you, stay where you are.”
Already he had noticed the dead calf lying only a couple feet from Ty, half hidden by a bush. He guessed it had been the lure to get Ty on the ground.
Chase had no memory of crossing the space to Ty. One minute he was swinging out of the saddle and the next he was sinking to the ground beside his son, on legs that felt like rubber. Flies swarmed and buzzed all around as he bent over the ashen-faced Ty.
Instinctively he gathered Ty into his arms, never once noticing the limp heaviness of him. The back of Ty’s shirt was as wet with blood as the front. Chase’s searching hands quickly discovered the broken edge of a knife blade embedded in Ty’s chest. His skin was warm to the touch. Whether from the life or the sun, Chase couldn’t tell.
“Is he—is he alive?” Jobe had yet to leave. Despite Chase’s order, he lingered to learn what word he should carry.
Chase never heard the question. At that moment his only world was the man in his arms. “Ty.” Emotion choked his voice as his eyes swam with unshed tears. “Can you hear me, son?”
There was a traitorous quiver to his chin. Squeezing his eyes shut, Chase fought to get control of himself. When he opened them, his eyes were clear—clear enough to see a fluttering lift of Ty’s lashes.
“Ty.” Desperation made his voice rough with demand as Chase experienced the first spark of hope.
“Knew . . . you’d . . . come.” Ty’s voice was soft as a breath, so faint Chase wasn’t sure if he heard it or imagined it.
Unconsciously he dug his fingers into the sodden shirtfront, wadding the wet material into a ball in his fist.
“Who did this to you, son? It was Buck, wasn’t it?” Chase guessed as rage crowded to the front of his thoughts.
“Jes—” Ty never quite got the word out, but he said enough of it for Chase to know he meant Jessy.
Then he was gone. Chase knew the exact instant he died. It was something he felt in his heart. There was no need to check for breath or pulse. His son was dead.
Slowly, almost woodenly, he laid his son’s body back on the ground and remained there, too numbed with grief to move.
“Chase?” Stumpy’s questioning voice was slow to penetrate his consciousness.
Chase knew what he was asking. “He’s dead.”
It was the word Jobe Garvey had been waiting to hear. He reined his horse away from the rest and sank his spurs into him, taking off at a fast gallop for camp.
The discordant jangle of a horse chewing on its bit filled the silence that followed. For a long minute, no one said a word. Then Stumpy cleared his throat.
“Did he say who killed him?” Stumpy’s words were stiff with repressed feeling.
“No.”
“I thought, maybe . . .” Stumpy let that die unfinished. “Did he say anything?”
It required much effort, but Chase looked Stumpy in the eye and lied, “He was already dead when we got here. Stabbed.”
Just as he had once withheld his father’s dying words, Chase did the same with his son’s. It was better that he lived with the pain of them since he had been the one to order Jessy back to camp. Her grief would be enough to bear without adding such bittersweet knowledge to them.
“You’d better ride back to camp, Stumpy,” Chase said with great weariness. “Jessy will need you. The rest of you go, too.”
Stumpy hesitated, compassion welling up. His daughter was alive, but Chase had lost his only son. “What about you?”
“I’ll stay here with Ty.”
One by one the riders turned their horses around and rode out of the coulee, leaving Chase alone on the ground beside the body of his son.
Chapter Twenty
T
ension hung over the camp with all the thickness of a heavy fog. Only the twins were immune to it. Trey played his own boisterous version of tag with Quint while Laura sat on Jessy’s lap and made eyes at the cook. The twins’ innocence gave a look of normalcy to the scene that was taken away by Cat’s restless pacing. As usual, she made no attempt to conceal the anxiety that gripped everyone.
Cat made a few attempts to occupy herself with the children, but after a short while the edginess took hold and she wandered off, usually to stare in the direction of the Three Fingers, watching for a rider to return with news of Ty.
After another fruitless vigil, she walked back to the cookshack and refilled her coffee mug. It was not the coffee she wanted as much as it was something to do with her hands. Worry clouded her green eyes when she darted a look at Jessy.
“Just because there was blood on the saddle, that doesn’t necessarily mean he is badly hurt. You can bleed a lot just from a nasty cut.” Cat seemed to gain some reassurance from voicing the thought aloud. “That’s probably all that happened, Jessy.”
“I know.” Jessy had told herself the same thing, but she had trouble believing it.
A ranch pickup came roaring toward camp, traveling at a reckless speed. Its approach brought Jessy to her feet as Cat hurriedly discarded her cup in the wreck pan and moved toward the oncoming vehicle.
“That must be Amy,” Cat murmured.
But it was Ballard who emerged from the cloud of dust that swallowed the truck when it came to a stop. His first few strides toward camp had a frantic quality about them. Then he saw Jessy and relief visibly sagged through him.
“There you are.” He walked straight to Jessy, a faint smile lifting the corners of his mouth. “I’ve been half out of my mind since Sally told me you’d come out here to roundup. How did you manage to sneak away without me seein’ you leave?”
“I didn’t sneak away. I rode with Chase,” Jessy replied, her attention already straying.
“I never gave it a second thought when he left this morning. It never crossed my mind to check and see if you were with him. I’ll know better next time.” His lazy smile was full of self-reproach.
“When we saw your truck, we were sure you were Amy.” Cat glanced toward the road and chewed absently at her lower lip.
“Amy Trumbo?” Ballard asked with a frown. “Why are you expecting her? Is somebody hurt?” His glance made a lightning sweep of the camp area as if searching for an injured rider.
“Ty is missing.” Cat’s jumbled nerves needed the release of words. “They found his horse.”
“Don’t tell me he got thrown?” Ballard reacted with a half-smile of disbelief then shook his head. “Naw, his horse probably stepped in a prairie dog hole and took a spill.”
“There was blood on the saddle.” In Cat’s mind that negated any thought that Ty would be found walking back to the roundup site.
After a slight pause, Ballard darted a look of concern at Jessy then insisted, “That doesn’t mean anything.”
Cat took heart from that. “I said the same thing to Jessy not two minutes ago.”
“I guess they’re out lookin’ for him now,” he surmised. “Is Chase with them?”
“Yes.” Cat nodded. “He made Jessy come back to camp when they found Ty’s horse.”
He eyed Jessy with a measuring glance. “Knowin’ you, that was bound to gall a little. But I wouldn’t hold it against him. It was the way he was raised.”
“I know that,” Jessy confirmed.
“It’s the waitin’, though, isn’t it?” Ballard guessed. “It would be a lot easier to take if you were out there with them.”
The answer to that was too obvious to be spoken. Idleness had never suited Jessy. The circumstances only made it worse.
“Don’t worry. Chase will find him,” Ballard stated. “He’ll move heaven an’ earth until he does. Isn’t that right, dark eyes?” He grinned at Laura and tickled her under the chin. She giggled with delight. He held out his hands to her. “Wanta come with me while I fetch myself a cup of coffee? I’ll bet your momma’s arm is about broke from holdin’ a big girl like you.”
Without hesitation, Laura stretched out her arms to him. At a year-and-a-half, she was already eager to make a new conquest. Jessy passed her into Ballard’s arms.
“You’re a Calder, that’s for sure,” Ballard told her as he headed toward the cookshack. “I remember when your aunt used to flirt with all the cowboys at roundup. She wasn’t but a few years older than you are then.” Laura made a grab for something in his shirt pocket, but he stopped her. “Don’t you go stealin’ my makings. In case you don’t know it, you’re too young to smoke.”
“Mine,” Laura stated.
“Nope, it’s mine. I’ll tell ya’ what, as soon as I get my coffee, you can sit on my lap and watch while I roll me a smoke. How’s that? Okay?”
“ ’kay.”
“He’s good with children.” Cat watched the pair, almost glad of the distraction. But it didn’t last. Turning, she dragged in a worried breath and gazed toward the Three Fingers. “Surely they have found him by now.”
“It’s rough country.” Jessy visualized it in her mind, trying to recall all the hard-to-see places.
“And if he’s unconscious—” Cat bit down on her lip, shutting off the rest of that thought.
An engine droned behind them. Turning, Jessy saw another pickup traveling across the open ground, but at a sensible pace. “Here comes Amy.”
“Thank God.” Cat’s voice vibrated with feeling. With brisk efficiency, Amy Trumbo stepped out of the truck, carrying her medical emergency kit. Her sharp glance searched both their faces.
“They haven’t found him yet, have they?” Amy guessed, empathy softening her expression.
Before Cat could confirm that, the cook Joe Johns hollered, “Riders coming in.”
Her heart in her throat, Jessy swung around and immediately saw a handful of riders in the distance, approaching camp at a slow lope. Exhibiting a rare show of emotion, she gripped Cat’s arm.
“Do you see Ty with them?” She strained forward, her gaze scouring the riders in search of Ty’s familiar high and wide shape.
Mutely Cat shook her head. “I don’t understand,” she murmured. “If they haven’t found him, why are they coming back?”
Jessy had a feeling she knew the answer, but she refused to say it. She picked out her father’s short, stocky shape and fixed her gaze on him.
It was an unwritten rule of ranch etiquette that a man didn’t ride his horse into camp and possibly foul the ground where other men were to eat and drink. But this was one time when the rule wasn’t observed. Instead of swinging away to the picket area, the band rode straight into camp.
“Where’s Ty?” Cat’s voice had a trace of panic in it. “Didn’t you find him?”
The other riders glanced at Stumpy. Jessy knew at once he had been the one chosen to break the news. When he ducked his head, avoiding her gaze, and climbed out of the saddle before answering, Jessy took a step backward, going cold all over.
“We found him all right.” There was such utter sadness in his eyes when he finally met her look. “I’m sorry, Jessy, but—” Stumpy tried, but he couldn’t get the words out.
“He’s dead, isn’t he?” She said them for her father.
Stumpy nodded, his mouth tightly compressed, a kind of pain in his eyes.
“That’s a lie!” Cat screamed, an underlying sob to her voice. “He isn’t dead. Not Ty. Not my brother!” Amy Trumbo stepped up and attempted to wrap her arms around Cat in comfort, but she was rigid in them. “It can’t be true,” Cat protested. “It can’t be.”
“We don’t want it to be,” Amy murmured. “But we both know Stumpy wouldn’t lie.”
A horrible moan of pain came from Cat as she sagged against Amy and sobbed brokenly. All the while Jessy stood beneath the heat of the sun’s full glare, cold to the bone. A hand moved onto her shoulder, but she barely felt it. It was almost as though the person behind her were touching someone else.
“You’re white as a sheet, Jessy.” It was Ballard’s soft voice that came from somewhere near her shoulder. “You’d better sit down.”
“No.” She rejected that suggestion out of hand and looked straight at her father. “How? How did he die?”
Stumpy knew better than to pull any punches with his daughter. “Chase thinks he might have been stabbed.” He passed the reins to one of the other riders and moved to Jessy’s side, wrapping a fatherly arm around her. “Ballard’s right. You need to sit down.”
Making no objection this time, Jessy let him guide her to a campstool. Somebody put a cup in her hand.
“Drink this,” the cook ordered.
Almost trancelike, she took a sip then drew back in distaste. “It has sugar in it.”
“It’s good for shock,” the cook told her. “Drink it.”
Shock, was that what she was feeling? It felt like a great raging emptiness—with a giant ache where her heart should be.
“Where’s Chase?” The sudden and sharp question came from Ballard.
“He stayed with the body,” Stumpy replied.
The body.
It was a cold and final phrase. Pain closed around her throat, briefly shutting off her air. In desperation Jessy gulped down more of the disgustingly sweet coffee.
“You left Chase out there by himself!” Ballard thundered. “That was a fool thing do. What if Haskell’s still out there?”
Jessy’s head came up, his question slicing through her own emotional haze. “You have to go back,” she said to her father. “You can’t let Chase stay out there alone. It might not be safe.”
When Stumpy wavered, equally concerned for her well-being, Ballard spoke up, “You stay here, Stumpy. I’ll take some of the boys and ride back.”
“You do that.” There was deep-felt gratitude in the look Stumpy sent him. Turning, he called to the others, “Jobe, Hank, Ben, you ride with Ballard back to the Three Fingers and keep an eye on Chase.”
Ballard hesitated, watching as Trey toddled up to Jessy and patted her knee for attention. “Mama?” Young though he was, Trey sensed the change in atmosphere. It showed in the uneasy worry in his expression.
His eyes were the dark brown of a Calder. For an instant, Jessy saw Ty in them and gathered Trey into her arms. Here was the tragedy—that Trey would grow up without ever knowing his father. She hugged him close. For once, Trey didn’t object.
“You might want to take Jessy and the twins back to The Homestead,” Ballard suggested. “There is really no reason for them to stay here. It’ll be another hour or more before Logan shows up. Once he’s here, it’s probably gonna take him a long time to check everything out.”
There was truth in what he said, and more in what he had left unsaid. The investigation into Ty’s death had yet to begin. Which meant it would be hours before the body would be taken away. Jessy would accomplish nothing by staying. And she had two very good reasons for leaving—their children.
Rising to her feet, she shifted Trey to her hip. “Come on. Let’s find your sister and go home.” Her voice was thick with the tears she hadn’t allowed herself to shed.
Trey scowled. “See Daddy.”
His innocent demand ripped through her. Jessy struggled to find her voice, at last managing to utter a choked, “Not today, sweetheart.”
Not ever again.
A purpling dusk pressed against the windows of The Homestead, something bleak in its darkness. Chase stood in front of the fireplace, a booted foot propped on its raised hearth, a hand gripping the mantel. He stared into the blackened opening, the heaviness of his loss weighing on him, his mind turning back.
“Chase?” Logan’s questioning voice penetrated his reverie.
Rousing himself with an effort, Chase threw a glance at his son-in-law. “Sorry,” he said and dragged in a long breath. “My mind drifted.”
“You were thinking about Ty, weren’t you?” Logan guessed.
Chase nodded. “I was remembering the night Ty showed up in Blue Moon and informed me I was his father. I brought him back here.” He lifted his gaze to the sweeping set of horns mounted above the mantle. “He asked about the horns, wanted to know if they were real. I told him the story of the brindle Longhorn steer called Captain that led the first cattle drive to this site. The same story my father told me.” After a long pause, full of memory, his big chest lifted on a deep breath and Chase turned from the fireplace. “I feel old, Logan, older than this land.” Grief haunted the darkness of his eyes. “A man shouldn’t outlive his children.”
“There can’t be many things harder to bear.” Logan’s glance slid to the dried bloodstains on the front of Chase’s shirt. It made for a poignant image of this powerful man.
During his years in law enforcement, Logan had observed similar things before. But it had more impact on him this time. He had come to know and respect both Ty and Chase Calder as more than just his in-laws.
Avoiding the desk, Chase walked over to the drink cart and poured a shot of whiskey into a glass. “What was it you were saying earlier?” he asked crisply, making it clear the time to reminisce was over. That he had made any expression of grief to Logan was a measure of the trust Chase had in him. Logan was counting on that, heavily.