A half-dozen pronghorn antelope bounded out of the smoke, saw the men on the fire line, and veered off. “We have got livestock trapped over there,” Jessy realized.
“It can’t be helped.” Chase threw a look over his shoulder. “I told Ballard to load up some horses.”
“He’s parked over there.” Jessy hooked a thumb in the direction of the stock trailer. “I rode with him.”
“Get yourself some riders and start making a sweep. Push any cattle you find toward the river. I don’t want to lose any more than we have to.”
“Right.”
Aware that it was a job that didn’t require an experienced hand, Jessy made her pick from among the teenagers on the fire line. All were young enough to be glad that a different task had been found for them, one that would take them away from the heat and choking smoke.
Ballard had all the horses unloaded when Jessy returned with her four young riders. She gave each of them a specific area to cover and climbed into the saddle herself. As she reined her horse away from the trailer, she noticed Ballard was still on the ground just putting a foot in the stirrup.
“When you make your sweep north, don’t forget to check that big coulee,” she told him.
“I won’t.” Ballard swung into the saddle.
Satisfied, Jessy rode away. Not thirty yards from the wash, she came across a half-dozen cows. Already snuffy from the pungent smoke smell in the air, they spooked immediately at her approach. But they were headed in the right direction and Jessy let them go and continued along her parallel course with the wash.
She hadn’t traveled far when she was surprised by a trio of young steers that bolted across her path. Not far behind them was a cowboy on a bay horse. A faded blue bandanna sat high on his nose, filtering out the ever-thickening smoke.
The minute he caught sight of her, he pulled up and shouted, “Seen Chase?”
“Back on the fire line,” she answered. Unable to recognize him, Jessy assumed he was from a neighboring ranch.
The man sketched her a salute and loped off in the direction she indicated. Still puzzled, Jessy watched him a moment then started her horse forward. Yet she felt uneasy without knowing why. A little frisson of alarm shot through at the possibility the man had been Buck Haskell.
In a flash she wheeled her horse around and set out after him.
Smoke hung over the dry wash like a fog, burning eyes and scratching throats, but there was a blackened stretch of fire-scorched ground five feet wide on the other side. It was a good start on a firebreak, but that was all.
Like most of the men, Chase had shed his suit jacket and loosened his collar. Already the flying ash and cinders had grayed his white shirt and deposited a coating of soot along the brim of his cream-colored dress Stetson. Those with large kerchiefs had tied them across their faces, but not Chase.
He moved along the bank of the dry wash, constantly checking on the main fire, measuring its speed and distance. He knew if he could stop its advance here, the road to the north could contain it with only a handful of men, allowing him to shift the bulk of his manpower to the south.
When he paused to wipe the sweat from his face, Chase noticed a tiny tongue of flame licking through the dry grass on this side of the wash. Moving quickly, he stomped it out with the heel of his boot then slid down the bank to the floor of the dry wash, scooped some sand and gravel into his hat, carried it back up, and dumped it on the blackened patch to smother any remaining embers. Worried now, he made a quick scan for more such hot spots.
“Chase! Chase, over here!” The shouted call came from somewhere behind him and to his right. Turning, Chase saw someone wave an arm then cup his hands to his mouth and call, “My horse is down! Can you give me a hand!”
The swirling smoke made it difficult for Chase to make a visual identification, but the voice sounded like Ballard’s. Unwilling to pull anyone off the backfire to help him, Chase went himself.
When he was closer, Ballard yelled, “He’s down here.” Then he turned and half walked and half slid down an embankment. Almost immediately Chase heard the panicked whinny of a horse.
The minute he reached the gully’s edge, Chase saw the problem. The horse was lying on its side, its legs tangled in a length of the rope and thrashing wildly despite Ballard’s attempts to calm it.
“What happened?” Chase slithered down the bank a safe distance from the horse’s flailing legs.
“He stepped wrong or somethin’ comin’ down the bank. We took a tumble,” Ballard explained. “How the hell he got his legs tangled in the rope, I’ll never know. I tried to cut him loose but he damned near kicked me to death. Straddle his neck for me, will ya? And hold him down. Maybe he’ll stop fighting long enough that I can cut him loose.”
Obligingly Chase circled around to the horse’s head. “Easy, boy. Easy,” he murmured to the wild-eyed gelding, then swung a leg over its neck and carefully lowered himself onto the animal.
The horse made one frightened attempt to throw him off then subsided into shudders. “If you’re ready, I’m gonna work on the rope,” Ballard said, knife in hand.
“Go ahead.” Chase gave a sharp nod and glanced back as Ballard lowered himself onto the saddle skirt and cautiously swung a leg over the horse’s belly. Then he was out of sight.
“Look out, Chase!”
Startled by the sudden shout from atop the gully, Chase turned, catching sight of a horse and rider above him. Then something hot stabbed his side. It took Chase a split second to realize it was the knife.
The overwhelming instinct for survival numbed him to the agonizing pain in his side. He threw himself around and grappled to seize Ballard’s knife hand.
Suddenly a shot rang out. Ballard grunted, his expression freezing in shock, his back arching stiffly. Then he sagged against Chase, fingers clutching at him for support.
Chase pushed him off, pain stabbing at his side. He put a hand to it, felt the warm wetness of blood, and looked up. Buck Haskell stood at the edge of the embankment, a blue kerchief down around his neck and a rifle in his hands, a faint trail of smoke curling from the barrel.
“Any debt I owed you, Chase, is squared now.” Buck’s mouth crooked in a near smile.
Chase was too stunned to reply. In the next breath, a rope sailed out of nowhere, its noose falling around Buck. It was tightened in a flash, and Buck was jerked off his feet, the rifle falling from his grip.
“No!” Chase shouted and scrambled up the bank of the gully.
There was Jessy, wrapping the rope around the saddle horn and backing her horse to keep it stretched taut. “Chase, you’re alive,” she cried in relief when she saw him climb out of the gully. “I heard the shot and—”
“Let him up,” he ordered. “He just saved my life.”
“Haskell,” Jessy repeated in disbelief and belatedly urged her horse forward, putting slack in the rope. “But the gunshot?”
“He wasn’t shooting at me.” Chase crouched beside Buck, clutching his side with one hand and tugging the encircling rope loose with the other one. Eyes shut in pain and mouth open, Buck strained to get air into his lungs, a sure sign the wind had been knocked out of him. “He was shooting at Ballard.”
“Ballard?” Jessy peeled out of the saddle, dropping the reins to hurry over to them.
“Yes, Ballard. He tried to kill me.” With Jessy’s help, Chase propped Buck into a sitting position. “Just like he probably killed Ty.”
Buck choked down a couple gulps of air and murmured hoarsely, “That’s the way I figure it.”
Shocked and confused, Jessy stared at Chase. “But—why? I don’t understand.”
“You’ll have to ask him,” Chase replied and jerked his head toward the gully, “if he’s still alive.”
In a daze, Jessy moved toward the gully. A sudden surge of caution made her pick up the rifle. She paused at the gully’s edge and looked down, seeing first the horse, then the prone figure of Ballard, lying facedown. Unwillingly she recalled all the times Ty had expressed his lack of trust in Ballard. That made the pain of losing him all the worse and the anger all the deeper until she shook with it, her fingers tightening their grip on the rifle, knuckles showing white.
Why?
The question screamed in her mind.
Then she saw the slight, small movement of Ballard’s fingers digging into the gravel. He was alive. Jessy threw herself into the gully, determined to have her answer.
Falling to her knees beside him, she grabbed his shoulder and rolled him onto his back, indifferent to his sharp groan of pain and the big smear of blood on his shirtfront from the bullet’s exit wound.
“Ballard, can you hear me?” She gave him a hard shake. “Ballard.”
His eyelids fluttered open, those blue eyes that she had always thought of as kind slowly focusing on her. “Jessy.” His voice was faint, the corners of his mouth lifting in a smile before a grimace of pain twisted his features. “I . . . failed . . . didn’t I?”
“Chase is alive, if that’s what you mean,” she answered tightly. “Why did you kill Ty? Dammit, I have to know!”
His mouth moved, but Jessy could only catch snatches of his answer. “Tara . . . clutches on . . . him . . . hurt you . . . ’gain.”
“And Chase?”
“. . . old. You . . . ’n me . . . ranch together . . . swear . . . didn’t know you . . . in truck.” He coughed spasmodically, blood pouring from his mouth. Then he was limp and silent.
She had her answers, but they didn’t explain what made Ballard think she would turn to him after Ty was gone. But it was obvious the thought had gotten into his mind. It only made Ty’s death seem all the more tragic and senseless.
With a knot in her throat as big as a fist, Jessy pushed to her feet and climbed out of the gully into the smoke haze. Buck was on his feet, but hunched over, still struggling to fill his lungs with air. Chase had a hand on his back.
“How did you know about Ballard?” Chase asked him.
“I saw him settin’ the fire,” Buck replied then twisted his head to peer up at Chase, a trace of his cocky grin showing. “I was holed up over in that old buffalo wallow by the west road. I figured you would never look for me in plain sight. I heard this vehicle stop, travel a little ways then stop again. I got curious and took a look-see. There Ballard was, crouched by the roadside, using his hat to fan a wisp of smoke into flames.” Buck straightened and dragged in a good, deep breath. “It was easy to put two and two together at that point. I knew I hadn’t killed Ty. I just couldn’t prove it. And I knew he wouldn’t have started the fire if he didn’t have a plan. I decided to see if I could figure out what it was. I got lucky.”
“I think I’m the one who was lucky.” Chase hesitated, then held out his hand to the man who had once been his best friend.
Epilogue
T
he bright September sun looked down from its perch in the never-ending sky and spread its light over the Triple C headquarters. Autumn’s crispness was in the air, invigorating the senses and bringing a sharpness to the scene.
Chase stood outside the open doors of the old barn. Garbed in a Western-cut suit, string tie, and a new Stetson, he looked every inch the patriarch of the Calder Cattle Company. He gazed at the collection of vehicles parked in orderly rows a short distance from the barn and smiled when he caught sight of two dusty pickups among the Cadillacs, Mercedes, and BMWs.
The ranch’s first livestock auction was scheduled to begin in twenty minutes, and the turnout for it was huge, bigger than Chase had expected. A steady hum of voices came from inside the barn, where most had already gathered, but a few continued to stroll past him. Chase recognized few of them by name although there were many faces he recalled seeing before at some function of the cattlemen’s association. And in his opinion, few of those qualified as “cattle ranchers.”
Ben Parker wasn’t one of them. Chase eyed the Wyoming rancher now approaching him, the same man who had unwittingly sparked the idea of this livestock auction with his purchase of a young Triple C bull. The man with Parker, however, was definitely a stranger.
“Good to see you again, Chase.” Parker greeted Chase with a typically hearty handshake. “Judging from this turnout, I won’t be getting a bargain on any of your young bulls this trip.”
“You can’t win every time, Ben,” Chase replied.
“But you can try,” the rancher countered with a grin then gestured to the man at his side. “I thought your auction could use a little international flavor so I brought along a friend of mine. Chase, I’d like you to meet John Montgomery Markham, brother to the Earl of Stanfield in England. This is Chase Calder. I don’t think I would be wrong in calling him one of the last of the cattle barons.”
“I have heard of you by reputation, of course, Mr. Calder.” His handshake was firm. “A pleasure.”
“Welcome to the Triple C, Mr. Markham,” Chase said with a nod.
“My friends call me Monte,” the Englishman replied with an easy smile. “Ben tells me this is exceptional cattle country.”
“Monte’s looking to buy some land. I’ve been trying to talk him into buying that spread I’ve got over in the Wind River range.”
“Going into the cattle business, are you?” Chase surmised.
“Nothing the scale of your operation,” the Englishman replied. “I don’t imagine there are many ranches like it still left these days.”
“I guess not,” Chase replied, although he suspected there were few if any that still encompassed their original boundaries. The Triple C did—thanks to the woman approaching the barn with Buck Haskell at her side. “Enjoy the auction, gentlemen,” he said to the two and turned to await Tara’s arrival.
He touched his hat to her when she paused before him, resplendent in a sparkling Western jacket, embroidered with stone-encrusted yellow roses. A month ago Tara had presented him with a free and clear title to the entire ten thousand acres of Wolf Meadow with the provision that she retained a life estate to the home she had built on it, Dunshill.
“I had to come, Chase,” Tara said. “We worked so hard on this.” She paused, pain flickering in her eyes. “I wish Ty could be here to see what a huge success it is.”
“He knows.”
“Of course,” Tara murmured and glanced around. “Where is Jessy?”
“She’ll be here shortly.”
“I guess I’ll see her later.” She turned to Buck. “We had better go inside and find ourselves a seat.”
With a lift of his hand, Buck gestured for Tara to precede him, then nodded to Chase. They exchanged no more than a glance, but there was no longer any animosity or distrust in it.
After the fire Chase had offered Buck a job, but Buck had refused, saying, “I think that would be pushin’ it for both of us. Let’s just take what we got for now.”
The relief that Chase felt at his answer only confirmed the wisdom of Buck’s decision. Maybe they would never be as close as they once were, but at least they were no longer enemies.
Moments later Chase saw Jessy coming across the yard, tall and strong and straight. His head lifted, a faintly stunned look to his expression at the sight of his daughter-in-law. There was nothing eye-catching about the suede shirt and pants she wore, both the same tawny gold as her hair, with matching boots and hat. But Jessy was eye-catching in her outfit, a slender column of gold, tall and lithe, moving with that long, free-swinging stride that was so natural to her. She emanated strength and steadiness and something else he hadn’t noticed before, a trace of authority.
Chase smiled. When the day came for him to hand over the reins, they would be in good hands. And he strongly suspected that when they walked in that barn together, everyone else would see it, too.