This Calder Sky (Calder Saga 3)

Crouched in a clump of young alders growing along the corral’s dirt-walled pond, Maggie and Culley had a clear view of all that was happening through the opposite side of the barn. It was a nightmare scene unfolding before their eyes, while each waited for the other to wake them up. The reality of it finally shook Maggie out of her disbelieving trance and she started to move to her father’s aid, but Culley grabbed her and pulled her back into the cover of the young trees.

“We have to help him.” She struggled quietly against his grip.

“No. I don’t know what they might do to us, and I have to think of you, Maggie,” he insisted and held her tighter, even after she stopped trying to pull free of his hands.

Her gaze went back to the barn. “They won’t hang him.” It was a desperate hope because Chase was there, astride a liver-colored chestnut at his father’s right.

Chase wouldn’t let them hang her father—not Chase, who had taken her so gently that first time, then washed the stains from her legs; not Chase, who had picked her a bouquet of wildflowers. Her eyes clung to him, but he bore no resemblance to that gentle man. He wasn’t Chase. He was a Calder, and an icy band of steel closed around her heart.

One of the riders rode his horse into the barn while the other cowboy helped O’Rourke onto the box. Chase glanced at his father again, uncertain how far this scene was going to be acted out. His own throat was tightening as the tension mounted.

“You aren’t going to hang me, Calder.” His voice wavered without confidence as the rider stopped his horse beside O’Rourke and looped the noose around his neck, fitting it snug. Nate took up the slack and tied the free end to an upright support. Marble-white, O’Rourke held himself rigid, afraid to struggle in case he knocked the box out from under him. He stared ahead, his eyes wild and fully open. “You won’t get away with this, Calder,” he warned hoarsely.

“You hanged yourself, Angus. Everyone is going to think so, except your partners in this. The word will spread and it will be a long while before anybody will help themselves to Triple C cattle again.”

Webb Calder did not sadistically draw out the moment and wait until O’Rourke dissolved into a blubbering mass of fear, begging for mercy. He gave the signal while the man was standing straight, with a trace of weak defiance. And the signal was no obvious nod, just a mere blink of an eye.

When the box was kicked out from under O’Rourke, Chase was stunned. He heard the odd whining thump of the rope, strained by the sudden weight pulling it taut, and O’Rourke’s startled gasp. The short legs kicked, churning the air in an effort to find something solid beneath them, an action that lasted only seconds but became indelibly imprinted in his mind. O’Rourke’s face was turning gray, his eyes and tongue bulging. The kidneys and bowels had released to add to the stench of death.

Chase felt his stomach roll violently. He’d never seen a man die before. He’d never seen a man hanged. It sickened him. Chase hunched his shoulders and started to lower his head, but the claybank stallion sidled against his horse, jostling him.

His father’s voice came to him, low and heavy with disgust. “If you heave your guts in front of these men, I swear I’ll—” He ground his teeth shut on the rest of the threat, but the contempt in the words stiffened Chase, straightening his shoulders and lifting his chin. He stared at the limp body swaying on the end of the rope, no longer seeing a human being, but just a thing. The rope made a grating sound as it rubbed against the crossbeam under the pendulous weight of its burden.

“He’s dead.” The voice came from one of the three men inside the barn; Chase wasn’t sure which one.

“Untie his hands,” his father ordered, and the man on the horse rode over to remove the pigging string.

Culley’s hand was still clamped over Maggie’s mouth, placed there when the box was kicked away from their father to smother her scream. His arm was crushed around her, holding her hard against him. He had tried to turn her head so she wouldn’t see the hanging, but she had refused to look away from the horror of it.

When all the riders were mounted, they left the ranch yard at an unhurried trot, going back the way they’d come, with Calder and his son in the lead. Once they were out of sight, Culley loosened his hold on her and Maggie tore away to race for the barn, not stopping until she reached the rope tied to the upright roof support. Her fingers clawed at the knot, pulled so tight, little animal sounds of frustration coming from her throat. Her wild efforts broke and tore her fingernails all the way to the quick, trickles of blood from the cuts smearing the white rope. She was indifferent to the pain, not pausing until she worked the knot loose. As she tried to slowly lower her father to the barn floor, his dead weight pulled the rope through her hands, burning the palms. She clamped a lip between her teeth and held on, steadily lowering him.

Before his boots touched the floor, Culley had a hold on the body and Maggie let go of the rope. It slithered over the crossbeam like a treacherous white snake, following the body that Culley gently lowered to the floor. When Maggie reached them, her brother had thrown a saddle blanket over the head and shoulders of the body. She sank to her knees beside it and her fingers reached out to grasp hold of the blanket.

Culley pulled her away. “Don’t look at him, Maggie.” His voice was a harsh, anguished sound.

“I want to look at him!” She turned on him, her face deathly pale, but there was a fiercely burning light in her eyes. “I want to remember how the Calders murdered my father!”

His hands framed her face and held it tightly. There were tears streaming down his cheeks and his mouth was drawn back in a grimacing smile to control them. “Don’t look, Maggie. You’ll remember how they killed him just like I will. You don’t need to see him to remember.” Then she was enveloped in the crush of his arms. Maggie clung to him, sharing the intense pain that racked his body with shudders, but there were no tears to bring her relief. She envied her brother because he could cry. Her throat was raw and aching and her eyes burned, but no tears fell.

Finally they found the strength to stand apart from each other, brother and sister, sharing the same grief-torn expression. Culley had always been closer to her father than Maggie, had more understanding of his weaknesses, while she had condemned them. She was sorry now that she hadn’t been more forgiving of her father’s faults. He had been a weak man, not a bad one.

“We’ll have to call the sheriff.” Maggie made no attempt to turn back to her father’s body, respecting her brot

her’s wishes in this.

“Yes,” he agreed and rested a hand lightly on her arm to draw her away from the body. “I’ll call.” They began walking, slowly, leaving the death shadow of the barn for the bright sunlight. “Maggie, listen to me. When I talk to the sheriff, I’m going to tell him that we came back and found him—”

“You aren’t going to tell them that—” She interrupted in a blaze of anger, only to have Culley cut across her protest.

“No.” He stopped. His cheeks were still wet from the tears, but his face didn’t belong to an eighteen-year-old boy anymore. It was a man’s face, embittered and hard. “Who is going to believe us, Maggie?” Culley challenged. “Calder has everyone around here in his pocket. What proof do we have except our word? Nobody is going to take it against that of a Calder.”

She knew he was right, and she stared to the south, hating. “We can’t let them get away with it!”

“I won’t. The day will come when they’ll pay for this,” he vowed. “I swear it.”

When they rode away from the ranch yard, there was no doubt in Webb Calder’s mind that he had done the right thing. He had weighed the other alternatives and chosen his solution. He did not pretend that another man might not have handled it differently, but neither did he dwell on it. It had been unpleasant business without satisfaction in finishing the task.

He felt a thousand years old as they returned to their point of rendezvous on the north range. He had done what the country demanded of him, the way he’d been reared, nothing more and nothing less. What sorrow that was in his heart was reserved for O’Rourke’s son and daughter.