This Calder Sky (Calder Saga 3)

“Sorry for the delay, Mr. Calder.” There, he’d done it again, Angus realized in frustration—humbled himself to the man. “We’ll be on our way now.”

Webb Calder made no comment. His gaze swept to the Shamrock cattle bunched beyond him to his left, deliberately drawing attention to them. “I count thirty-seven head, plus calves. That’s quite a number to stray onto Calder grass.”

Nervous sweat was forming beads on his upper lip, but Angus forced out a smile and a laugh. “You know how it is, Calder. A cow sees grass on the other side of the fence and finds a way to get to it. They don’t respect such things as boundaries.” His gaze skittered away from the hard stare to look at the thick grass he stood on. There was enough graze on this range to support half again as many cattle on it than Calder ran. The man should share his plenty with those who had less. “My few head didn’t deprive your herd of any graze,” he added resentfully.

“I don’t graze my pastures to the roots,” Calder snapped and carried the statement no further, but Angus understood the implications of it. He bristled at the inferred criticism that he was mismanaging his land, never admitting the observation was justified. “I’ll buy your story this time that all those cattle strayed. You start riding that fence line, O’Rourke—or my men will do it for you. If you can’t keep your cattle on your side of the fence, I will.”

He paled at the threatening tone. “Culley and I are going to make that fence tight first thing tomorrow, Mr. Calder. You don’t need to have any worry on that score. It’s been a hard winter, and being short of help like I am, I had to let some things slide to take care of others, but you can rest assured, Mr. Calder, that you aren’t going to have any problems with my fence.”

“I know I won’t.” Webb reined his horse away and urged it into a canter toward his herd.

Angus turned his horse in a quarter-circle to watch Calder leave. The quaking was replaced with anger. He spat onto the ground. “The greedy bastard. So high and mighty.” His mouth curled in bitterness. “My day will come. You just wait and see.” He slammed his spurs into his mount and sawed roughly on the reins, spreading the horse’s mouth to keep it from bolting into a gallop toward the bunched Shamrock cattle.

“What did Mr. Calder say to you?” Culley blurted out the question the instant Angus reached them.

“He was just throwing his weight around.” He shifted in the saddle, avoiding his children’s eyes. “Let’s get these cows drifting home.”

Maggie glanced from her father to the disappearing rider and made her own guess about the conversation. Slapping the coiled lariat against her thigh, she started her side of the cattle moving east, while her brother worked the other flank. They would turn them north later, at the river crossing.

Hazing the herd toward home ground required little conscious attention. Maggie’s actions were almost automatic, leaving her a lot of free time to ponder the day’s events. The incident with Chase Calder stood out sharply in her mind, partly because she had been so embarrassed to have taken that spill in front of so many expert riders, and partly because they’d come to her aid because she was a girl, thus, supposedly less able to take care of herself.

But mostly it was because of those fleeting seconds when Chase Calder’s hand had inadvertently closed on her breast. The strangeness of the sensation had tingled through her like an electric shock, exciting in the frightening kind of way that something forbidden usually is. Her initial anger had been a direct result of that rush of panic.

Then, when she’d looked into his face and seen the recognition of her as a woman, she’d been hurt because he hadn’t seen it before. Had she been beneath his notice? She’d seen him more than half a dozen times in the last couple years when she’d gone to town for supplies. Hadn’t he ever looked at her before?

She would have been less than honest with herself if she hadn’t admitted that she had watched him with a certain amount of interest. After all, he was a rich, young, rancher’s son, the object of a lot of girls’ fantasies. Even discounting who he was, Chase was roughly good looking in the Calder way.

Her glance strayed down to the baggy Levi’s she was wearing. She wasn’t always going to wear somebody else’s clothes. She wasn’t going to live the kind of life that her mother had known with her father. She was going to be somebody—the lady her mother had always wanted her to be—someone important. People were going to go out of their way to speak to her on the street and not shake their heads in pity when she went by.

Her mother. She had been such a gentle woman, so slim and fragile, old before her time. Maggie had been only twelve when she died. The cause of death had officially been attributed to pneumonia, but Maggie knew her mother had literally worked herself to death. She could remember her clearly—always working from the dark of morning to the dark of night, always struggling to maintain a decent home for her family, always defending her husband’s failures, and never complaining. Maggie had grown up protective of her mother, quick to defend her when her father complained that dinner wasn’t on the table the minute he walked in. She didn’t condemn her mother for her self-effacing attitude; rather, she considered her mother had been misguided. There was nothing self-effacing about Maggie.

Ambition burned in her. Not the dreamy kind her father had. Hers was fierce and consuming, driving her to obtain an education even without regular schooling, and to secret away nickels and dimes she had squeezed out of the slim amount her father gave her to buy their food. Someday she’d have the money saved to leave, and no one was going to stop her.

Maybe she would come back someday, wearing one of those elegant dresses like the models in the fashion magazines. She’d love to see the looks on people’s faces. She smiled just thinking about it.

The point where they would ford the river was just ahead on their left. Maggie fell back to the rear of the herd as they angled the cattle toward the bank, bunching them closer together. The river was as high as it was ever going to get. Winter run-offs and spring rains made it chest-deep, except where there were deeper pockets. At the ford, the river ran wide and shallow, from ankle-deep most of the year, to thigh-deep in the spring.

The clean, clear sight of it winking at her through the cottonwoods on the banks reminded Maggie how grimy and sweaty she was. They’d been without running water in the house for almost two weeks since the pump to the water well broke down. Her father had been tinkering with it—with no success. She’d been hauling what water they needed from the barn, which was supplied by a different well. The prospect of hauling and heating enough water for a bath seemed daunting in light of the chores to be done and the supper still to be prepared when they reached home.

The riverbank began to slope gently to the water, worn down by years of crossings. They turned the cattle down the slope, bunching them tightly. The leading cows balked at entering the water. Yipping and whistling, they pushed the rear ones forward, forcing the leaders into the water. The crossing was accomplished with little fuss, the sluggish current offering no problems.

Maggie dropped back to ride beside her father. From this point on, it was an easy mile’s ride to the fence line. Between her father and Culley, they could handle the cattle with no difficulty. Having risen at daybreak to help with the morning chores and working every hour since, Maggie felt entitled to a half-hour or more of respite and the chance to actually immerse herself in water instead of merely sponging off the day’s dirt.

“You and Culley can take them on from here,” Maggie said.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Her father shot her a challenging look.

“Swimming.” She tossed t

he answer over her shoulder as she reined the horse away from him and back toward the river.

“There’s work to be done!” he shouted.

“I’m sure it will be waiting for me when I get home.”

“I didn’t keep you home from school today so you could swim in the river,” he called after her.

As she rode away, Maggie didn’t look back or give any sign that she’d heard him. Angus shook his head in frustration. He just didn’t understand that girl—always talking back to him, never showing him any respect. She was the image of his dear, sweet Mary Frances, but she had neither her gentleness of spirit, nor her softness.