This Calder Sky (Calder Saga 3)

Her eyes smarted with tears she wouldn’t shed as he turned and left the room. In angry gestures, she brushed them from her lashes and began jerking off her clothes to go to bed. She knew worry would keep her from sleeping. She wouldn’t have a restful minute until Culley and her father came back from their night’s escapade—if they came back.

It was pitch-black. Shapes were only distinguishable by varying degrees of darkness. A cloud-covered sky hid the stars. If there was a moon, Culley hadn’t seen it. All his senses were honed to razor-edge sharpness, magnifying the combined thud of hooves of trotting horses and cattle to a loud drumbeat. The jangle of bits and spurs and moaning saddle leather competed with the grunting breathing of moving horses and the lowing protests of the cattle. Culley glanced to the side, trying to make out the shape of his father against the night-darkened landscape. He was a shadowy, indistinct form, outlined briefly, then melting into the background.

Some distance ahead of them, a diesel motor idled impatiently where the semi-truck waited to load up the cattle they were driving. He had heard it arrive and maneuver into position not ten minutes before, its roar shattering the night’s quiet. Culley was certain they were making enough noise to wake up the whole state.

It seemed they had been here forever, but Culley knew the apparently slow passage of time was another exaggeration of his nerves. When they had arrived, they had fanned out swiftly, flushing whatever cattle they found toward the center until they had gathered this bunch. It was the nervousness of guilt that had tied the sickening knot he felt in his stomach. There wasn’t any fear as such, although he could hear the hammering beat of his heart pumping adrenaline through his system.

His constantly roaming gaze saw the black rectangular shape of the semi outlined by the lighter darkness of the road. They were almost there. Relief wavered through him that this ordeal was almost over. He let his guard down for an instant. His horse stumbled, throwing his relaxed body against the saddle horn before he could right himself. His heart catapulted into his throat and stayed there even after his horse regained its stride.

A pair of bright lights bounced into his peripheral vision. An alarm sounded in his head as his gaze jerked around to identify the source of the lights. A cold finger of fear ran down his spine.

“Pa, there’s a pickup coming down the road!” His voice rang out strong and clear.

There wasn’t time to panic, only to react. His warning had barely been issued when a whistle and a yell came from the direction where Culley believed his father to be. It started the cattle into a run, and his horse leaped into a gallop to follow their headlong flight. They had been less than thirty yards from the semi when the discovery had thrown the operation into wild confusion, and abandoned their plans.

The ground vibrated with the thunder of stampeding hooves and the air was filled with shouts and the bellowing of frightened cattle. Overhead, the sky exploded with light and Culley saw the black opening of the trailer yawn before them. Then his ears were deafened with the resounding report of rifle fire. He whipped his horse with the ends of the reins, his mind void of any conscious thought, operating now on pure instinct. The artificially lighted sky permitted Culley to see his father racing with him across the long stretch of open ground.

“Get the horse trailer out of here!” his father shouted to Tucker and the semi driver. “We’ll ride in the truck!”

Culley realized there wasn’t time to load the horses if they hoped to get away. He had a glimpse of Tucker’s massive form running for their pickup and horse trailer parked on the road, the jackknifed semi hiding it from view. Red bursts of light punctuated the rifle fire being exchanged between the pickup and the semi. One of the pickup’s headlights was already out, the other beam illuminating the slatted sides of the long stock trailer.

A few of the cattle veered away from the black opening of the trailer and the downed gate that formed a ramp to it. The rest stampeded into it, cloved hooves clattering on the trailer’s floor. His father’s horse lunged up the ramp ahead of Culley. He waved him to follow him inside, but the steer running beside Culley balked at the ramp and spun into his horse. It knocked his mount sideways, its flank hitting a fence post, but his wild-eyed horse kept its balance. Culley ignored the scrape of the saddle against the post as he urged his horse after his father’s and plunged into the black bedlam inside the trailer.

The cattle were spilling back toward the opening, bawling in panic, the clatter of hooves mixing with the frightened whinny of the horses. Charging animals turned Culley’s horse sideways, effectively blocking the way out and turning the cows back. He was conscious of the whine of bullets and rifle shots, but his attention was focused on controlling his plunging and half-rearing mount as it danced in place. Somewhere in the darkness of the trailer, he heard his father cursing. Part of him knew that if either one of them went down, they would be trampled to death.

“Cover me!” a voice shouted beside the opening Culley blocked.

He glanced down as a stranger tossed him a rifle, the metal barrel gleaming briefly in the headlight. Lightning reflex allowed him to make a one-handed grab on the gun. The man left the protection of the trailer side to raise the tailgate they had used for a ramp, thus exposing himself to the rifle fire from the pickup.

Kicking and pulling, Culley forced his horse to swing around broadside to the trailer wall. Spooked animals battered his legs and he banged a knee painfully against the side of the trailer. Hemmed against the side by the cattle, Culley pushed the rifle muzzle through the openings between the slats and aimed it at the bright headlamp of the pickup. After the first bruising recoil of the rifle butt against his shoulder, he was numb to the pain as he sprayed the hood of the truck with bullets. He could have been shooting at a coyote for all the thought he gave to what he was doing. Self-preservation dictated his actions.

The revving of the diesel engine was followed by a shifting of gears that jerked the trailer. His horse crouched low and Culley had

to grab for the saddle horn as the horse shifted frantically beneath him to keep its balance in the moving vehicle. The splat of a bullet ruptured a wood board near his head. Another shot and something collapsed on the truck floor with a heavy thud. Fear raced through his veins. It might have been his father who had fallen.

“Pa?”

“I’m all right.” His father’s reply contained only a thin echo of its former confidence. “They shot one of their own cows.”

The semi was moving swiftly down the road and there weren’t any more sounds of gunfire. Culley strained his eyes, but he couldn’t see any vehicle pursuing them. They were going to get away, after all. For a while there, he had thought that Maggie was going to be right. Until this minute, he hadn’t been sure they would succeed in their escape. The same thought seemed to occur to his father as he laughed.

“We made it, Culley!” Angus declared triumphantly. “They tried to spring a surprise on us with that patrol, but we outsmarted them and got away clean!”

“Yeah.” He was hesitant at first in his agreement, then gained confidence with a building sense of victory. “Yeah, we sure did!” He let out a shout that started the cattle milling again.

The elation didn’t last long as reaction set in and he began to shake uncontrollably. It was a combination of the closeness of their brush with danger and his own action that aided their escape. What if he had shot somebody? True, he hadn’t been aiming at a human target, but a bullet could have ricocheted. It was a very real possibility.

He sat on his horse in a state of shock, barely conscious of the truck’s grinding gears and the whooshing of air brakes as it began to slow down. It came to a stop, the diesel motor idling while a cab door slammed. There was a pounding on the tailgate.

“Are you all right in there?” It was Tucker’s voice that called to them.

“We’re okay!” his father replied, but Culley felt badly shaken.

“Hold on. We’re going to get you out of there.”

The cattle stirred as his father worked his horse slowly toward the rear of the truck. His own horse pricked its ears and snorted at the noise of the gate being lowered. Bob Tucker’s big hulk was in the opening to shoo aside the cows. While his father filed out, Culley waited, then nudged his horse to follow him. He wasn’t aware that his hand had retained a death grip on the rifle until the truck driver reached for it.

“I’ll take my rifle back now. You did a good job of keeping him pinned down, kid.” The man’s face was in the shadows, but he glimpsed the white of his teeth when he smiled and took the rifle from his stiff fingers.