Stands a Calder Man (Calder Saga 2)

The neighing of frightened horses surrounded the second explosion of the rifle. This time the bullet was buried in the frozen beef carcass that Webb had instinctively used as a shield when he’d heard the clicking of the rifle’s lever action. He knew he’d been shot, but shock kept him from feeling any more than a burning sensation in his side.

Defenseless against the attack, Webb knew he had to get out of the corner. He could hear Lilli screaming for her husband to stop. When he saw her struggling for the rifle, a shutter clicked in his mind to hold the picture in his memory. He lunged toward the pair as Reisner pushed Lilli out of his way. The rifle was swinging around to bear down on Webb again when he slammed into his assailant and drove him against the shed wall. He grabbed for the rifle to disarm Reisner.

Something cracked against the back of his head, sending an excruciating shaft of pain through his body. Exploding lights blinded him; then all was blackness.

“Webb!” Lilli gasped in horror as he crumpled to the ground, felled by Franz Kreuger’s blow. She rushed to his still form, falling to her knees beside him. The left side of his shirt was wet with blood, its stickiness reddening her hand when she touched it. Relief quivered through her when she saw he was still breathing, even though it was frighteningly shallow. “He’s alive.”

“Stand avay from him,” Stefan ordered.

She looked up at him, consumed by fear. “No,” she refused in a half-plea, then saw the rifle Stefan was pointing at Webb and reinforced her refusal with defiance. “No, I won’t let you kill him.”

“Come away from him, woman.” Franz Kreuger added his harsh command to Stefan’s and moved to enforce it by taking Lilli by the shoulders to pull her away. “This is a man’s business. It is no place for a woman.”

“No!” She struggled wildly, frightened of what Franz Kreuger might goad Stefan into doing. “You can’t kill him in cold blood! For God’s sake, listen to me, Stefan!” she stormed through her tears, straining against the iron talons of Kreuger’s fingers.

“No one vould convict a man of defending his wife’s honor.” Stefan flashed her one brief look.

“Oh, Stefan,” she sobbed in defeat, forced to condemn herself. “If there is any guilt, I must share in it. He did nothing I didn’t want him to do.” She saw the shattering effect of her confession and wanted to die for hurting Stefan that way. He stared at her, a broken man. And, most shaming of all, the man whose respect he sought above all others’ was there to witness the ultimate humiliation, his wife’s faithlessness.

“You have done this to me?” his voice murmured.

“Stefan, please let me explain?” Lilli asked to be given the benefit of a doubt. “I won’t leave you. I wouldn’t have done that to you.”

“You make of me a cuckold and I am to forgive?” he replied in a flat voice. Then he lifted a weary hand and turned his face from her. “Go to the house.”

Lilli had stopped fighting Kreuger’s restraining hands. At Stefan’s last statement, he let her go. But she made no move to leave the shed, her gaze searching Stefan’s averted profile.

“What are you going to do with him?” she asked, glancing briefly at Webb’s motionless form. “He’ll bleed to death if he doesn’t get help.”

“I don’t know.” His shoulders lifted in an impatient shrug at her continued concern for this other man. “I vill take him to his family.” The decision was difficult for him.

“But there’s a doctor in town,” Lilli argued weakly.

His head came up with a semblance of his old pride. “I do not vish the whole town to know of vhat transpired here,” he informed her coldly. “Go to the house.”

There was no need for him to explain that he was not concerned about the town knowing of the shooting, but rather the cause of it. At this point, there was nothing else Lilli could do except obey him. She paused at the shed door and took one last look at the crumpled body on the straw, her eyes clouded with tears.

Not a single word was exchanged between the two men as the team of horses pulled the wagon through the blowing snow. Metal harness pieces and chains jangled loudly in the cold morning air, wagon runners slicing through the crusty surface of the snow. Stefan Reisner looked neither to the right nor to the left as he drove the wagon-sled into the heart of the Triple C headquarters. In the back of the wagon, the unconscious man was wrapped in a quilt, not having stirred or made a single sound during the journey to the ranch.

There was little activity around the ranchyard. Those that were out and about stopped and stared at the drylander’s wagon that never wavered from its course to The Homestead, the big two-story house rising atop the knoll. Stefan drove the team right up to the front steps of the long porch and stopped.

Showing no haste, he climbed down from the wagon and walked to the rear. Franz Kreuger was there to help him lower the tailgate. Stefan reached and dragged the quilt-wrapped body to the edge, where he hefted it onto his shoulder like a sack of grain. With Franz leading the way, he walked up the steps to the front door and pounded on it with his gloved fist.

From the window in his den, Benteen Calder had already noted the wagon’s arrival and was on his way to the solid wood door, reaching it before it stopped vibrating from the hard pounding. He pulled it open, a frown gathering on his face at the sight of the bearded homesteader and the boots sticking out of the quilt he carried on his shoulder. There was no friendliness in the man’s cold-reddened face as he carried his bundle inside, uninvited.

“It’s your son. Vhere you vant me to put him?” The statement was made in a flat voice, as calmly as if he were announcing he had a rug to deliver.

“My son,” Benteen repeated in shock, his gaze racing back to the boots, which was all he could see of him. But the drylander was already walking past him to the living room.

Benteen turned to follow, ignoring the second man, who also entered the house. Lorna was just coming out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron.

“Who was—” She never finished her question as she watched the old but massively strong man dump his quilted bundle on the living-room sofa.

The ends of the quilt fell away to reveal Webb’s bloodless face. By then, Benteen was already there, raging inside at the thought that he’d lost his only living child. Long ago, he had taken the lifeless body of their youngest son, Arthur, from Lorna’s arms. No man should live to see the death of all his children. He heard Lorna’s broken cry, but first he had to know. His hand went to Webb’s throat, seeking a pulse, while his gaze began to travel his son’s length. It went no farther than his blood-soaked left side and the hole in the material.

“He’s been shot.” Benteen turned on the man who had brought him, hard demand mixing with his rage. “Who did this?”

There was no reaction in the man’s expressionless features. “I caught him vith my vife and I shot him,” he stated without blinking.