Lone Calder Star (Calder Saga 9)

“We have nothing to do with your grandfather being gone,” Boone cut in, all cool and composed. “You’re talking to the wrong person.”

“Then where is he?” she demanded.

“Ask Echohawk,” he replied with a shrug.

“Quint?” Dallas frowned in surprise. “What does he have to do with this?”

“Your grandfather works for him.”

“That’s a lie.” Her denial was quick and heated, an instant reaction to the shock of his statement.

“Believe me, it’s true,” Boone stated.

“He couldn’t—he wouldn’t—” Dallas felt sick inside, knowing it was exactly the kind of thing her grandfather would do. Yet parts of it made no sense. “I don’t understand. I mean, how—” She couldn’t finish the question, finding it somehow disloyal.

Boone guessed at the question. “How did he get back and forth to the Cee Bar when you have the truck? Echohawk picks him up around eight o’clock in the morning after you’ve already left for work—and brings him back between four-thirty and five.”

Dallas withheld any comment, her thoughts spinning so fast she couldn’t separate them into anything coherent. The silence stretched a little longer as Boone waited, clearly expecting her to say something. But there was nothing she could say. And she certainly wasn’t going to offer any apologies or excuses for her grandfather’s actions, not to a Rutledge.

“Your grandfather is a very foolish old man,” Boone said at last.

For all the ease in his voice, there was an unmistakable note of threat in it. Dallas felt cold to the bone. It was fear that gave birth to fury.

A long line of big, round bales stood caterpillar-like along the pasture fence, one hump flowing into the next. The length and bulk of them dominated the view from the Cee Bar’s ranch yard.

The hay bales were the first thing Quint saw when he emerged from the barn, one arm hooked around the half dozen steel posts balanced on one shoulder. He crossed to the rear of the black pickup, hoisted the posts off his shoulder, and slid them across the lowered tailgate into the truck bed next to the roll of fence wire.

When he stepped back from the truck, the loud clanging of a rod being struck against an old iron triangle shattered the stillness. Quint automatically glanced toward the house, knowing it had to be Empty Garner. The minute the old rancher had come across the triangle hanging behind a half-rotted leather harness in the barn, he’d held it up triumphantly.

“I was getting danged tired of wearing myself out hollering for you to come eat,” he’d declared. “You can be a mile away and still hear this.”

Quint had yet to be a mile from the ranch yard, but, as loud as that clanging was, he was convinced the sound would carry that far.

He spotted the old rancher standing at the end of the porch. Before he could raise a hand, acknowledging that he’d heard the signal, Empty Garner cupped a hand to his mouth and shouted, “Soup’s hot.”

Answering with a wave, Quint turned and struck out for the house, absently tugging off his leather work gloves. Empty waited for him at the top of the porch steps, hands on his hips and a serenely pleased expression on his weathered face as he gazed at a point beyond Quint’s shoulder.

“Pretty sight, isn’t it?” Empty gestured at the hay when Quint joined him on the porch. “And just about as satisfying as watching those cows tear into the one I hauled out to them yesterday afternoon.”

Automatically turning to survey the row of bales, Quint idly tucked his gloves in the rear pocket of his Wranglers. “We’ll need more before the winter’s over, but this gets us on our way.”

“It sure enough does that,” the rancher declared and grinned. “Don’t you know Rutledge is over there in that big house of his gnashing his teeth in frustration?”

“Probably.” Quint allowed a small smile of satisfaction to curve his mouth.

“Savor this while you can.” Experience wiped the grin from the rancher’s face. “’Cause you’ve got to know Rutledge is over there cooking up something else. And chances are it won’t be anything you’ll expect.”

Quint didn’t dispute the truth in Empty’s statement, aware that Max Rutledge wouldn’t be quick to give up the fight. It would take him a while to realize that he had come up against somebody who wouldn’t bow to pressure. It wasn’t part of the Calder makeup to back down.

“Whatever it is, we’ll handle it when it comes,” Quint stated with certainty.

As he started to turn toward the house, he caught the distinctive rumble of a vehicle’s engine. It sounded close, too close to be anything traveling on the road. His glance instantly swung to the ranch lane.

“I think we’re about to have company,” he said to Empty when the rumble grew louder.

“And coming fast, too,” Empty added, like Quint, fixing his gaze on the bend in the lane that would offer their first view of their noonday visitor.

Within seconds, a battered white pickup, traveling a little too fast, careened around the curve, straightened itself out, and accelerated again toward the ranch yard, dust pluming behind it. Quint’s eyes narrowed on it in a mixture of surprise and uncertainty.