Stands a Calder Man (Calder Saga 2)

As her attention swung to the street, Lillian saw the half-dozen riders that were escorting a buggy into town. Two women were riding in it.

Suddenly she found herself staring at a familiar face. A little rush of pleasure tingled through her at the sight of that cowboy she had spoken to the day they’d arrived here. He seemed taller than she remembered, but maybe it was the added height of the horse that created that impression.

When his slowly roving gaze wandered her way, Lillian unconsciously held her breath. She was sure that he looked right at her, but he gave no sign that he recognized her. She felt crazily deflated when his eyes failed to linger on her.

Then his head suddenly jerked around to look in her direction. She could almost feel the probing search of his gaze. Hard, male features that appeared cast in bronze took on a warm, gentle quality of recognition. Her pulse seemed to pick up its tempo, beating a little faster.

There was a hint of a smile about his mouth as he raised his hand and touched the rolled point of his hat brim. It was the same gesture he’d made when they’d first met. With a small nod of her head, Lillian acknowledged the greeting. Then he was past her and the eye contact was broken as he continued with the group of riders escorting the buggy, apparently to the train depot.

She darted a quick glance toward the well, picking out Stefan from the other homesteaders, then looked back to the entourage of cowboys. They were all riding horses, marked with three C’s on their left hips. Lillian remembered the marks were called brands. She wondered what the three C’s meant, but it was simply another way of wondering about the cowboy.

“Did you see that?” A homesteader in a billed cap had also noticed the passing of the riders. He offered the question to anyone who would listen, and immediately captured Lillian’s attention. He turned his head and spat at the ground. “They ride into town like they own it.”

The man talked as if he knew who they were, what ranch they were from. Lillian leaned forward in her seat, a question forming even while she bit at the inside of her lip to hold it back.

But it came out anyway. “Who was that?”

“Calder.” Dislike shimmered in the man’s blue eyes as he said the name. “He owns the biggest ranch in this area. There are lords in America just like in Russia.”

Others were listening, some of them craning their necks to see the band of riders that had passed. Lillian’s gaze traveled after them and lingered on the wide-shouldered cowboy.

When her attention returned to the well, she looked around at the other homesteading families. These were proud, working people with backgrounds of poverty and struggle very similar to hers. She didn’t think the cowboy had suffered as they had.

“How do you know them, Kreuger?” another homesteader questioned the Russian.

“My place touches his land. One of his men comes by when I was plowing my field and warns that harm might come to my family.” He paused to inspect the hushed reaction around him and stood a little straighter, adopting a swaggering pose. “I told him I have rifle and I would shoot it.”

A voice rose above the hum of whispers that followed. “What happened then?”

“He made more threats, then rode off.” He addressed his words to the men. “We must stick together, all of us. These ranchers think because they were here first that they own everything. We must show them we can’t be frightened.”

The phrases seemed echoes from the past. Lillian’s gaze drifted downward to the blue gumbo of wet earth around the well. It was caked on Stefan’s high-topped shoes. In the New York tenement where they had lived, she’d heard that kind of men-talk before—the angry grumblings to organize so they could stand united against the robber barons. Despair always seemed to give birth to violence.

This was a new land. It should be the place for a new beginning, where a person could build something with the pure sweat of labor—without hostility or fear. But this empty-looking land wasn’t as serene as it appeared.

At the train depot, Webb dismounted with the other riders and tied the horse’s reins to an upright post. Stepping up to the wooden floor of the roofed platform, he stamped the sticky mud off his boots. Restless surgings were creating a tension inside him, putting him on edge. The other riders shifted around him, making way for Benteen Calder as he joined them.

“Curley, check with the agent and find out when the train’s due,” Benteen ordered.

“Right, boss.” The rider angled toward the depot office with the typical rolling gait of a cowboy.

Then Benteen’s cool glance fell on Webb. “Give your mother and Ruth a hand over that mud.”

With a nod, Webb turned to the horse and buggy parked within a couple feet of the platform. There was a split-second hesitation when he caught the warmth of Ruth’s gaze directed at him. A ripple of unease flowed through his muscles as he approached the buggy, but it didn’t show in his face.

“Need some help to keep your skirts out of the mud?” He smiled at the quiet, blond-haired woman standing in the buggy with one foot resting on the outside step.

“Please.” Ruth returned his smile, but in her own reserved way.

His gloved hands gripped her slim waist and lifted her in a gentle, swinging motion that spanned the two feet of muddy ground and deposited her on the wooden floor of the platform. He felt the lightness of her hands on his shoulders for balance and the slow way they were withdrawn. Then he was turning away to help his mother out of the buggy.

“I can’t recall when I’ve seen so many people in town,” his mother declared as she straightened the fall of her caramel skirt.

“They’re mostly drylanders,” Webb stated. “The rain’s driven them out of the fields into town, I imagine.”

“This sun is going to dry the ground in a hurry,” she said with a frown. “They’ll need a chisel instead of a plow to get back into their fields tomorrow.”

Webb smiled in response to her observation. Montana mud did become rock-solid when it dried. The rains came so seldom that he tended to forget that.