Calder Born, Calder Bred (Calder Saga 4)

Ty pushed out of the armchair and walked to the black telephone on the desk. With the receiver in one hand, he started to dial the operator, then hesitated. The approach of footsteps made his decision, and he grimly replaced the receiver.

“There you are, Ty. I thought you were still upstairs,” his mother exclaimed as she entered the room. “We were waiting until you came down to open the presents.” When he turned to face her, she noticed his hand come away from the telephone. “I’m sorry. Were you on the phone?”

“No.” The quick negative response sounded false. “I was going to call someone, but I changed my mind.” He picked up the brandy snifter and swirled its contents, studying the action with grim interest.

There were only a few things that could put that troubled look on a person’s face, and Maggie took a mother’s guess at the reason. “A girl?”

His head lifted, wary and aloof; then a sudden, slanting smile gave a wryness to his expression. “Yes, a girl.”

“If you were considering calling her on Christmas Eve, she must be someone special.” She felt a twinge of apprehension, mixed with a little bit of amusement.

“She is.” His smile lost its wryness to become warm and soft. A determination was running through him. “As a matter of fact, I’m going to marry her.”

“What?” Maggie stiffened in vague alarm.

“Not to worry, Mother.” Ty laughed softly at her. “It won’t be any time soon. We both have college to finish.”

“What’s her name?” There had been no mention of a steady girlfriend in his letters home. Of course, his letters had been few and far between, and typically short epistles at that. “I suppose she’s one of those Texas beauties E.J. is always bragging about.”

“Yes, she is,” he admitted without telling her the girl was E. J. Dyson’s daughter. He downed the small amount of brandy that remained in his glass, then set it on the desk and crossed the room to put an arm around his mother’s shoulders. “Do you know she’s just about your size? Her hair is dark, too, the color of mink. But her eyes are brown, almost black—not green like yours. She’s darn near as pretty as you are, too.”

“That last part I don’t believe.” She laughed, finally put at ease by his flattering comments. They came so glibly from him anymore. Yet it remained difficult for her to regard him as a grown male. He would always be her son, so she would probably always see the child in him. With a mother’s eye for detail—like dirt behind the ears—Maggie reached up and smoothed the shaggy ends of dark hair at the back of his neck where his shirt collar had pushed it up. “You need a haircut.”

“It’s right in style, Mom,” he assured her with a teasing wink. “Some of the fellas on campus wear their hair shoulder-length.”

“You’d better not come home with it that long, or your father will have a heart attack.” It was meant as a joke, but neither of them could manage a smile. Both knew such an incident would only harden his bias against college.

“Speaking of Dad”—Ty tactfully changed the subject—“we’d better go into the living room before he and Cathleen start opening the presents without us.”

The branding iron gleamed white-hot, with a red glow showing in the heart of the C-shaped iron. Even through her gloves, Jessy could feel the heat traveling up the rod and into her hands. But she was used to it—just as she was used to the choking dust, the bawling noise, and the milling confusion of riders and animals. There had been too many roundups in her young life for her to find anything unusual about this one.

The dusty red flank of the Hereford calf was exposed for the iron. There was a trick to making a clean brand. Jessy had finally got the hang of ii two years ago, and now she wielded the iron like an expert. Hair sizzled and stank up the air already ripe with the smell of manure, blood, and sweat. She didn’t even wrinkle her nose.

She pressed the hot iron firmly onto the flank, not deep enough to injure the flesh but deep enough to burn a clear print into the hide. Anything less, and the hair could grow back and obscure the brand. The action was repeated twice more to make three C’s on the calf’s flank. Jessy stepped back and nodded to the man holding the bawling, frightened calf on the ground.

“You can let ’im up,” she said.

At a trot, Jessy headed for the branding fire, dodging horses and riders and swinging ropes, as well as other members of the hustling ground crew. When she reached the fire, she jabbed the iron into the hot coals to reheat and took another that glowed white-hot tinged with red.

Individual members of the ground crew converged on a roped bawling and bucking calf, each with a task assigned. One man flanked the calf and put it on the ground while another man ear-tagged it and a third jabbed it with a vaccinating needle and castrated the bull calves. Lastly, the brand was burned onto its hip. They worked slickly and efficiently, putting a calf on its feet almost before it had recovered from the terror of being half strangled by the rope around its neck.

The number of calves seemed unending as Jessy trotted to the next. A hefty bull calf was giving the men trouble, kicking and refusing to lie out straight. In deference to Jessy’s supposedly delicate ears, most of the cursing was muttered under the breath, although she had long since heard every swear word imaginable and used a few herself, but not in front of her father. It would have been the surest way to be banished to the house, and Jessy loved the ranch work no matter how physically demanding it was.

She stood back, waiting until the others had finished their tasks and were ready for her to wield the iron. She listened absently to the run of conversation between the men, interrupted by grunts of exertion and muffled curses.

“Heard Ty’s due home next month,” one offered and swore at the calf when it kicked him in the shin. At the mention of Ty Jessy

was all ears.

At thirteen, she was at the age to think about boys, and Ty was the ideal choice, since he was older and roughly handsome—and absent, which enabled her to weave little fantasies about him. Her ideas of what was romantic were naturally colored by her personality. She imagined Ty and herself riding the range and working cattle together. He would be impressed with how skilled she was. So far, her dreams hadn’t taken her past the point of holding hands and a small, chaste kiss.

“Be home for the summer, won’t he?” Les Brewster held a red ear and snapped the tag in place. Jessy caught the affirmative nod of the first.

At the other end of the calf, a castrating knife was being wielded. “Heard he let his hair grow.” He didn’t look up from his task as he made a slicing incision to remove the testes. “Probably come back here lookin’ like Jesus.”

“Ty wouldn’t do that,” Jessy was shocked into protesting.

“Hauled hay to some cattle with him over Christmas,” Les inserted. “Didn’t seem to me like college had given him any uppity notions.”