“I’ll give you one minute to turn the herd,” Chase warned.
“Or you’ll do what?” Culley taunted and glanced at the drawn rifles. “Start shooting at us?”
“No.” Chase felt the curious glance that Nate darted at him. “I don’t need to shoot at you. You brought your cattle here to save them. If you want them alive, you’ll move them off Calder land.”
“Are you threatening to shoot our cattle?” Bill MacGruder sat straighter in his saddle, frowning in disbelief.
“If you don’t start turning them in—thirty seconds, I will,” he stated and watched the three ranchers look at one another.
Then Culley scoffed, “You’re bluffing.”
Chase said no more, shifting with his horse as it stomped at a biting fly. Mentally, he counted off the seconds while he watched the uncertainty on the faces of the three men. Finally, he lifted his rifle and sighted it on a white-faced cow. He squeezed the trigger and didn’t wait to see it drop as he pumped another shell into the chamber and dropped a second animal. The other cows around the downed pair scattered in a brief panic at the explosion of shots.
“You murdering bastard!”
Out of the corner of his eye, Chase saw the horse and rider charging him and swung his horse in a rearing spin to avoid it. He glimpsed the spilling rage in Culley O’Rourke’s expression as he tried to grab for the rifle. Chase reversed the direction of the barrel and clipped his attacker on the jaw with the rifle butt. The blow knocked Culley out of the saddle. Behind him, he heard the lever action of rifles as his men turned their muzzles threateningly onto the remaining two ranchers, whose hands had gone down for the rifles they were carrying in their scabbards.
“Are you going to turn the herd?” he challenged them, aware that Culley was groggily pushing himself to his feet.
“Dammit, Chase! These animals are starving!” MacGruder appealed to him.
“Nate, I want ten more head to join those two on the ground,” Chase ordered without looking at the foreman. “And ten more for every minute they wait.”
A mixture of shock and outrage entered the expressions of the two ranchers as there was the immediate crack of a rifle, followed by the grunt of a falling animal. Chase counted off the shots in his head while the dazed ranchers watched their cows fall one by one. Even Culley was staring in grief-stricken shock.
“You can’t do this!” Hensen protested when silence finally followed the tenth shot.
“Turn them.”
The fools continued to hesitate until they heard the click of a rifle bullet being levered into the chamber. “All right!” Bill MacGruder shouted and raised a hand for them to hold their fire. “We’ll drive them back. For God’s sake, don’t shoot anymore!”
Culley glared his hatred as he caught the trailing reins of his horse and remounted to join his partners. They moved quickly to bunch the herd and push it back through the gap in the fence while Chase and his men watched.
Nate eyed the man sitting so tall in the saddle, unyielding in the way of the Calders, and murmured in a voice that no one heard but himself. “The king is dead. Long live the king.”
Chapter XXIV
Chase climbed the porch steps of The Homestead and paused to look over his shoulder. Pride unconsciously registered as his gaze swept the headquarters of the Triple C. Running the ranch had become second nature to him in the five years since his father’s death. During the first few months, he had been tested at every turn. Concealing whatever self-doubts he had, he had faced every challenge and the Triple C was intact, and operating smoothly and efficiently. This was the job he’d been born and bred to do, and he did it well. If some regarded his pride as arrogance, then it was an earned arrogance.
He squared around and walked to the front door, his measured strides sounding loud on the wooden floor of the porch. Swinging the door closed after he had crossed the threshold, he started directly toward the den.
“Chase?” Ruth Haskell’s hesitant voice made him pause and turn to glance in the direction of the dining room. After his father’s death, she had begun to show her age. There always seemed to be a haunting sadness lurking in the shadows of her blue eyes.
But it wasn’t Ruth his gaze fell on. There was a moment when Chase thought he was seeing a ghost as he stared at the pale-faced man standing beside her. He was holding his cowboy hat nervously in front of him, exposing curly, dark blond hair. There was hardly any light shining in the blue eyes, certainly not the dancing gleam Chase remembered.
“Hello, Chase.” The voice was subdued and hesitant, unsure of his welcome.
But it was Buck’s voice. For a fleeting moment, Chase was consumed by the urge to cross the space that separated them and clasp the hand of his long-lost friend. Then he remembered the circumstances under which Buck had left the ranch, and he remained where he was.
“Hello, Buck. I didn’t know you were out.” His voice was as expressionless as his face. His gaze slid to Ruth, noting the way she was biting her lip. She had known, he realized, and simply omitted mentioning it to him.
“They released me yesterday, reduced my sentence on account of ‘good behavior,’ if you can imagine that!” His laugh rang hollow and Buck lowered his head, nervously fingering his hat. “I know to say ‘I’m sorry’ probably doesn’t mean much, Chase, but I want you to know I am.”
The line of his mouth thinned as Chase pressed his lips together. He disliked seeing Buck humble himself and was glad when Ruth slipped out of the room to leave them alone. Since he didn’t know what to say, he remained silent while Buck walked awkwardly into the entryway.
“There’s nothing I can say that will excuse the way I behaved toward you,” Buck continued, “or make you forget the things I said. When it hit me that I was going to jail for what I’d done, I panicked. Have you ever been scared, Chase—I mean really scared, all the way down to your toes? I was like an animal caught in a trap that turns and starts biting himself.” He paused and sighed heavily, finally lifting his gaze to meet Chase’s unwavering eyes. “I had a lot of time to think about all this in prison. I just wanted you to know how I feel. And I was sorry to hear about your dad. I know it must have been rough on you. The two of you were always close. Well”—he fingered his hat again and smiled stiffly—“I won’t keep you. I know you’re busy, so … I’ll be going.”
There was a conflict raging inside Chase as he watched Buck start to turn away. Half of him was saying to let him go, but the stronger side was remembering the good times.