With the horses loaded in the trailer, Webb climbed behind the wheel of the truck and glanced at his son. Not a word had been spoken between them since he had cursed him in the ranch yard, but it had been for the boy’s own good. He noticed the flesh stretched white across cheekbone and jaw. Chase had stood up well, never showing himself to be soft or weak. Webb had given him the time to think things through on his own during the return ride. Now was the time to speak, not to defend his action, because Webb never defended a decision. No, he wanted to talk to find out what was in his son’s heart.
“There are a lot of hard decisions a man has to have the stomach to make, some more unpleasant than others. Angus was warned and given the chance to leave the Triple C alone, but he came back to take more cattle. If you let one man walk over you, then two will, then three, then four … so many that you won’t be able to stop them. You have to stop the first man, or they’ll all eventually come. Angus made it clear that he wanted to bring the Triple C to its knees”
“It started because I had taken his daughter.” Chase spoke in a flat voice, devoid of emotion.
“No.” Webb didn’t accept that. “The farmer, Anderson, has a son about your age. If O’Rourke’s girl had started slipping off to meet him, Angus would have turned a blind eye and shrugged it off as part of being young and impetuous. But you are a Calder, and Angus used you as an excuse. You became his justification for stealing Triple C cattle. If it hadn’t been you, he would have found something else. And he would have kept on stealing because it made him feel big. Angus hated being small.”
Chase took in a breath and let it out, turning a cynical glance out the window. “I can’t say that I feel big right now … or proud.”
“There was nothing good about what happened today.” Webb felt easier in his mind. A man had to face up to things without liking them, which was what his son was doing. “You can’t go through this world without being scarred. That’s part of life. You aren’t living in a paradise. There’s always dirty work to be done, but don’t ever send someone else to do it for you.”
Webb was satisfied with his son’s attitude and lapsed into silence to let Chase think over what he’d said. So far the road to manhood had been relatively smooth for his son, but it was going to get rougher and lonelier. Webb had traveled it once himself, so he knew what he had to prepare his son for.
Just before the evening meal, the telephone rang in the den. Webb waved Chase back into his chair. “I’ll answer it.” He walked to the extension on his desk and picked up the receiver. “Triple C.”
“Webb? This is Sheriff Potter,” said the slow-talking voice on the other end of the line.
“Yes, Sheriff. What can I do for you?” Webb sat his drink down and moved behind the desk to sit in the swivel chair, leaning back to gaze sightlessly at the ceiling of the den.
“I thought you might like to know that Angus O’Rourke was found dead in his barn today. Hanged,” he drawled heavily.
“Committed suicide, did he?”
There was a long pause before the sheriff answered. “That’s the way it looks to me.”
“That’s unfortunate.”
“Yeah. Yeah, it is,” the sheriff confirmed in a sigh. “Well, I just thought you’d want to know.”
“I appreciate the call.”
“Any more problems with those rustlers?”
“No. I guess they’re going to leave us alone.”
“Good. Take care now, Webb.”
“You do the same.” He replaced the receiver with a thoughtful look, glanced at Chase, but made no comment.
Chapter XIV
The scissors lay beside her on a table, but Maggie bit the dark thread with her teeth and set the spool aside. Moistening the frayed end of the thread to a point, she ran it unerringly through the eye of a needle; then her fingers rolled the end of a thread into a knot. The button didn’t exactly match the others on the suit jacket, but it was the closest she had been able to find in her mother’s sewing basket. Her mind was empty, blessedly blank, as she held the button in place with a thumb and forefinger and ran the needle through the cloth, its silver point pushing up from the thread hole of the button. It was a simple task to sew on a missing button, requiring little concentration, something that could be done automatically, but it was infinitely better to be occupied. She could drift, feeling no pain, no grief, no bitterness or hatred, just numbness while the silvery needle flashed in and out of the button.
A pickup drove into the yard, breaking the stillness. Her gaze lifted from the suit jacket to the front window. It was probably Culley coming home from town, she thought absently. But it was a tall, loose-striding man who was approaching the porch steps. Her fingers lost their rhythm with the needle, and its sharp point jabbed into a sensitive fingertip. All the tangle of hot emotions returned to burn her into consciousness as she sucked at the red spot of blood on her finger. When Chase Calder knocked on the screen door, it thumped against its frame.
Maggie neither moved from her chair nor looked up. “Come in.” There was no trace in her voice of all that seethed inside.
The door was opened, that sound followed by footsteps entering. They hesitated, then came the rest of the way into the room and stopped by her chair. She could see the brown toes of his boots as she knotted the thread and picked up the scissors to snip it in two.
“Hello, Maggie.” His voice was quiet.
“There was a button missing on the suit.” She poked the needle and thread into the strawberry pincushion and draped the jacket over the arm of the chair. “I had to sew it on because my father is going to be buried in it. It’s the only suit he owned.” Maggie stood up, her fingers still tightly gripping the handles of the scissors.
Chase had removed his hat and was holding it in front of him. His broad chest lifted as he took a deep breath and brought his gaze up to meet the dark green of hers. “I’m sorry about your father, Maggie,” he said grimly. “If there is anything I can do—”
His hypocrisy sent the blood rushing hotly through her veins. “There is nothing you can do now! If you wanted to do something to help, why didn’t you stop them from hanging him?!!” she raged. Shock flickered across his carved features. It made her taunt him with what she knew. “I saw you with your father and the others. You didn’t think anybody else was here to watch you hang him, did you? But we saw it all!!”
He turned his head aside, showing her a hawk-like profile. A muscle worked along his jawline as he appeared to struggle to control some emotion. Then he swung back to look at her, nothing showing in his expression, neither regret nor sorrow.