This Calder Range (Calder Saga 1)

“I stopped to see Ely and Mary the other day, did I tell you?” He knew he’d forgotten. Lately he’d been doing a lot of riding, studying the lay of the land and exploring different parts to fill in the blank areas on the canvas map hanging on the cabin wall. “They’re coming down in a week to visit. Mary’s anxious to see the baby she helped bring into the world.”

There was no response as she turned more toward him and began tracing the line of his jaw with her fingertips. Benteen frowned, finding her behavior curious.

“Didn’t you hear what I said? Mary’s coming.” He had expected her to be overjoyed by the prospect.

She ran her finger over his lips, outlining their male curves. “I was thinking about range bulls again,” she said, “and wondering if they are as potent as you are.” When she lifted her glance from his mouth, there was amusement in her eyes at his puzzled expression. “We’re going to have another baby.”

A soaring lift of inexpressible pride and emotion filled him. Benteen spread his hand across her flat stomach where the life they’d created now lived.

“It’s going to be a boy,” he stated huskily. “I can feel him.”

“Benteen, it’s too soon for any movement.” Lorna laughed softly.

“It’s going to be a boy, just the same,” he insisted.

They had made love not twenty minutes ago, but he was growing hard for her again. He kissed her, moving his mouth over her lips and parting them with the hard insistence of his tongue. His hand took the weight of a full breast, shaping itself to its plumpness. He bent his head to kiss the milk-sweet nipple, then nuzzled the roundness of her breast.

Her hands pressed and urged him as her body writhed in excitement. She was eager to satisfy him, and be satisfied, as she was so many nights. She was warm and giving, hot and taking, all at the same time. When he mounted her, her nails raked his back.

A light sighing groan of pleasure came from her. “Be wild with me, Benteen,” she whispered.

He shuddered, and his flesh’s need became all entangled with his soul’s need. This blending created grace and made perfection out of something bestial. They were not two, but parts of one thing, alternately thrusting together until the pressure left them and they lay content.

“Did you like it, Benteen?” Lorna asked in the silence.

She was warm-flanked beside him. “My God, what the hell kind of word is that for it?” He was irritated, unable to express in words how she affected him, and wary, too, of the power she had.

“You never say anymore,” she murmured. “You used to.”

A long time ago—when they were newly wed—before she’d said those words, “I’m leaving you.” They haunted him still, a nightmare that wouldn’t be forgotten. Even now he couldn’t erase them from his memory.

“I guess that’s what comes from being an old married couple.” He made light of her observation. “You just forget to say things.”

“I am not old, Benteen Calder,” she retorted quickly. “I am nineteen.”

“With a little one on the way,” he reminded her. “You’d better close your eyes and get some rest.”

In the following silence, he sensed a change in her. She was motionless, waiting for something from him, but he didn’t know what. When it didn’t come, she turned on her side, facing away from him.

Jessie Trumbo and the boys arrived with the herd of Texas Longhorns the early part of August, on the same day that Mary and Ely came to visit. The reunion of old friends and trailmates turned into a party that lasted well after nightfall. The brindle steer, Captain, stayed close by.

“The world’s about to go crazy,” Jessie told Benteen that night. “It’s like everybody back East an’ in Europe is just discoverin’ there’s cattle in the West and fortunes to be made with ’em.”

The newly arrived cattle were in fair to good condition. The weaker ones Benteen culled out to be sold with the steers ready for market when they made their fall roundup.

Demand was high, sending the prices up. Benteen turned most of the profits back into building and grading his herd. He sent Jessie and Rusty back down the trail to bring more Longhorns from Texas the next year, with the brindle steer tagging along behind the chuck wagon like a puppy dog. Bob Vernon went west to purchase more Western stock. And Barnie was sent to Minnesota to buy a purebred bull, a “pilgrim” to the open range.

The winter was a bad one. The temperatures plummeted and the snows were deep. In the middle of a February blizzard, Arthur William Calder was born, with Benteen’s help. Calm through it all, he had jokingly assured Lorna that he had aided many a cow and horse give birth, and a woman couldn’t be much different. After the healthy baby boy had its first feeding, Lorna had fallen into an exhausted sleep, so she hadn’t seen Benteen’s hand shake when he poured a glass of whiskey and downed it.

The spring thaw revealed the extent of the winter losses. Coulees were dotted with dead cattle, which Benteen and the men skinned for their hides. There were signs that the losses weren’t solely attributable to winterkill. The wolves that had often serenaded the ranch on dark, lonely nights had taken their toll of cattle.

The big yellow-eyed wolves weighed upward to 150 pounds, with a lot of brains and cunning to go along with the brawn. Their source of food had been the buffalo herds. Bringing down a massive buffalo was routine to them, but the decimation of the plains herds forced them to turn to the cattle.

The Longhorns weren’t exactly easy pickings for the wolves. Benteen found a few carcasses of wolves gored to death by a battling Longhorn. But working in packs, the wolf usually wore down its prey quickly—if winter had weakened the cow.

More bothersome than the loss to the wolves and the winter was the number of cattle missing. Indians wandered on and off their reservations in Dakota, Montana, and Canada practically at will. With their buffalo herds eradicated by white men, the Indians felt justified in killing or driving off any cattle they found. Indian trouble was something Benteen didn’t need.

In all, he’d lost somewhere around a thousand head of cattle, but there remained nearly ten thousand head with a Triple C branded on their hips, comprising his original herd and its offspring, the second, larger herd Jessie had brought, and the Western stock purchased. And it was just the beginning.