“I’m afraid you’re not quite old enough to be drinking camp coffee.” His mouth crooked in a suppressed smile, but his eyes beamed with a mixture of pride and approval.
He had missed out on being part of Ty’s formative years, but Chase intended to be part of his grandson’s. He liked the idea of passing on the wisdom and range lore he had learned from his father. Chase didn’t fault the way Ty had turned out. Maggie had done a good job of raising him. But Ty didn’t have the same understanding of the land and this life that he would have if he had been raised with its legacy from birth the way Trey would be.
“You see that sky, Trey.” Chase looked up at the vastness of it. “That’s a Calder sky. My daddy told me a long time ago that it takes a big chunk of land to fit under it.”
“Horse, G’mpa.” Trey pointed instead to a pair of riders, pushing a half-dozen cows with their calves toward the gather site.
Chase recognized the short-coupled bay mare and the small rider on its back. Which made the identity of the second rider obvious. “Looks like that’s Quint and your Aunt Cat.”
Trey’s eyes got big with the news. “Kint.”
“Yup. You’ll see him in a little bit. How about some coffee, Joe?” he said to the thirty-year-old cook, a new man by the name of Joe Johns, who had taken over the job from Tucker when he retired a year ago.
Johns was a mountain man, born and raised, and looked the part with his stocky build and bushy beard. Although he was a stranger to the plains country, the Triple C riders had gladly overlooked that flaw the first time they tasted his coffee.
“You want a cup, too, Miss Jessy?” He filled a tin mug for Chase and reached for another.
“Are you kidding?” Jessy smiled. “I would never turn down a cup of your coffee.”
As they drifted away from the cookshack on wheels, cups in hand, Chase told her, “The men have taken to calling him Coffee Joe. As far as they’re concerned, the job is his for life.”
“Let’s hope he agrees.”
Chase sat down on one of the collapsible campstools, but Jessy remained standing, breathing in the familiar roundup smells of horses and cattle, saddle leather, and strong coffee. A scan of the riders holding the gather failed to locate Ty among them, but Jessy was quick to recognize her own father when Stumpy split away to ride into camp with Cat and Quint.
“I saw we had some special visitors this morning.” Stumpy chucked a finger under Laura’s chin, drawing a giggle from her. “Ty never said anything about you coming by this morning.”
“That’s because he didn’t know.” When Laura stretched out her arm to her other grandfather, Jessy handed the child over to him. “Where is he, anyway?”
“He was with me.” Cat pulled a kerchief from her pocket and wiped at the dust film on her face. “He sent us back with the cattle and went to make a sweep through the area by Three Fingers butte. I swear I ate a pound of dust that last mile. It is really dry here, Dad.”
“It’s bad everywhere.” Chase let Trey down to play with Quint and stood up to look northward in the direction of Three Fingers, gripped by an unease he couldn’t name. “I wonder what’s keeping him.”
“If he came across any cattle that found some decent graze, he’ll have his hands full trying to get them to leave it,” Cat replied. “I was just telling Stumpy that if Ty doesn’t show up soon, I’ll ride back and give him some help.”
She had no more than finished her sentence when the distinctive crack of a rifle shot sounded in the distance. Chase whipped his h
ead around in instant alertness. After a short pause, it was followed by two more quick shots. On the Triple C, such a spacing of shots meant only one thing—a rider was hurt. It was a sound that chilled Chase all the way to the bone.
“Watch Trey.” He threw the words at Cat. Unaware of dropping the full mug of coffee, he headed for the nearest saddled horse.
Fighting a sick feeling in his stomach, Chase jerked the reins loose and swung into the saddle. Both Jessy and Stumpy were right on his heels. But Chase didn’t waste time waiting for them, leaving camp at a swift canter. Every inch of him strained in anticipation of the next shot that would guide him. In the meantime, he pointed his horse in the direction of the rock butte Cat had mentioned, hoping against hope that he was wrong.
Hoofbeats pounded the ground behind him as Jessy and Stumpy galloped after him. Two more riders came from the east, abandoning the bunch of cows they had gathered.
The rifle cracked again, the sound coming from somewhere ahead of him, but a little to the east. With a twitch of the reins, Chase altered his course. The other riders did the same. All five riders converged on a high knoll and reined in to make use of the land’s vantage point.
“There he is.” An out-of-breath Stumpy pointed to a rider, visible against the skyline about a half-mile away, an upraised arm waving the rifle. Behind him was a riderless horse, its head hanging low and a foreleg raised, suggesting an injury.
It was Jobe Garvey who spoke the words Chase dreaded. “Isn’t that the big bay Ty was riding?” The minute he finished, he froze and shot a quick glance at Chase.
There was no reaction from Chase. With a nod, he signaled everyone forward and led the way, keeping his mount to a strong lope.
Riders were always getting thrown, even the best of them, and Chase ranked Ty among that group. An accident—that was likely what had happened. His horse spooked or stepped wrong. There were a hundred possible scenarios that might have separated Ty from his horse. It didn’t have to be the one that was making his throat go dry.
The waiting rider was another of the Garvey boys. It was the youngest one, Jed, not much more than twenty-four. There was a clear uneasiness about the young man. Chase was quick to identify it in the way the rider had trouble looking him in the eye when Chase pulled up before them.
Instead the Garvey boy focused on his older brother. “I came across Ty’s horse back there.” He gestured over his shoulder. “It looks like he mighta bowed a tendon.”