Shifting Calder Wind (Calder Saga 7)

She turned to Chase. “If there isn’t anything else, I really need to be getting back to the ranch.”

“I have just one more question,” Chase inserted.

“What’s that?”

“Who is Captain?”

A smile lit Jessy’s face. “You remembered him.”

“Only the name. I don’t know who he is.”

“Captain is a longhorn steer, famous for leading the first trail herd from Texas to Montana, and all the subsequent herds that came after it. He has become something of a Triple C legend. When he died of old age, his horns were mounted above the fireplace mantel in the den.”

“A longhorn.” He was amused to learn the name that had nagged him belonged to a steer. At the same time, in some inner part of him, it rang true. “So the Calders moved here from Texas. Whereabouts in Texas?”

“Somewhere outside of Fort Worth. I know your great-grandfather, Seth Calder, is buried in an old cemetery in Fort Worth. Ty visited his grave site while he was attending college there.”

“Do we still have any family ties in Texas?”

“None that I ever heard about,” Jessy replied.

Later, as she drove away, Laredo remarked to Chase, “I would like to know more about this Monte fella. He seems to be the only new card in the deck. That may mean something—or nothing at all.”

The brown horse moved at a lazy, shuffling trot, each stride marked by the swish of the summer-dry grass. Culley O’Rourke sat loose and relaxed in the saddle, his gaze making its idle comb of the broken country before him.

Earlier that morning he had ridden to the Circle Six and had a cup of coffee with Cat. Leaving there, he had swung south onto the Triple C range, skirting the rough foothills where it would be too easy for his horse to end up with a stone wedged under its shoe. That small section was the only part of the Triple C that wasn’t fit for man or beast.

As usual, the direction he took was a whim of the moment, a decision sometimes made by his horse and sometimes by Culley. But always he maintained a natural alertness for his surroundings. Age may have stolen some of his strength, but it hadn’t yet dulled his senses. He knew every sight, every sound, every smell that should be there, making him quick to catch any that were out of place.

The sudden, staccato bursts of a vehicle’s horn somewhere in the far distance was an alien sound, one that instantly grabbed Culley’s attention. He reined in the brown gelding, his head snapping up. The horn blasts didn’t last long, just long enough for Culley to determine they were out of place.

The Triple C had a seldom used ranch road west of him that trailed off short of the north boundary line. He couldn’t imagine why anybody would be traveling along that road unless they were checking fences. It was a question he had to answer for his own peace of mind.

Laying the reins alongside the gelding’s neck, he swung the horse westward and lifted it into an ambling trot. It was a detour made to satisfy his curiosity but pushed by no sense of haste.

The road was almost a mile distant as the crow flies, but as Culley’s trail wound, it was a little more than that. About the time he got within sight of it, he heard the steady hum of an engine. He rode to a vantage point, reaching it as a ranch pickup came into view. It was pure luck that Culley spotted long strands of tawny gold hair whipping out of the driver’s side window.

“Has to be Jessy.” Even as he muttered the words, a puzzled frown knitted the creases in his forehead. “What’s she doin’ way out here?” He snorted in skepticism, remembering. “The last time I asked her, she fed me a line ’bout fixin’ fence. What d’ya want’a bet she was meetin’ that cowboy again, Brownie? Wonder where their rendezvous was this time?”

No longer interested in the pickup, Culley aimed his horse toward the road and the slow-to-settle dust cloud the truck had left in its wake.

Chapter Seven

Hot and tired after the dusty drive, Jessy entered The Homestead and automatically headed for the den. But her thoughts were still on the meeting with Chase. Since learning that Chase was alive, she had found it difficult to focus on the ranch and its operations. She kept getting sidetracked with thoughts of the dilemma his amnesia posed. She was heartened, though, that he had remembered Captain. Admittedly it wasn’t much, but it was a beginning.

As she reached the doorway to the den, she caught a movement in her side vision and glanced toward the living room. When she saw twelve-year-old Beth Trumbo grab the newel post to start upstairs, for a split second Jessy couldn’t think why the girl was in the house. Then it hit her that Beth was there to look after the twins. At almost the same instant, Jessy noticed the unusual silence in the house and realized the twins must be taking their naps.

“Are you going up to check on the twins?” she asked Beth, feeling a twinge of guilt at how little time she managed to spend with them lately.

The red-haired, freckle-faced girl bobbed her head in acknowledgement. “They’ve been asleep a long time.”

“I’ll do it. You go ask Sally if she would fix me a sandwich. Anything will do. I’m starved.”

“She said you would be when you missed lunch.” Beth flashed her a shy smile and reversed her course to head for the kitchen.

Jessy crossed to the wide oak staircase and ran up the steps, her expression softening with a mother’s affection at the thought of her sleeping children. When she reached the top of the stairs, there was a telltale turning of the doorknob to Chase’s bedroom. When the door moved a fraction of an inch, Jessy knew immediately that Trey wasn’t asleep—and he wasn’t in the room he shared with Laura.

Altering her course, Jessy swung into the hallway and started toward Chase’s room. As if sensing the jig was up, Trey opened the door.