Lone Calder Star (6 page)

"What tipped the scale?"

"Hay " Empty replied. "My cattle kept mysteriously getting into my hayfield. First time a gate was open; then a fence kept

down. One time it looked like a rotten fence post, and another rusted-out wire-the sort of things that could lead you to think you were having a streak of bad luck. Anyway, you add the drought in and I didn't get enough hay out of the field to feed my cattle through the winter. When I started looking to buy some, there wasn't any to be found within fifty miles. Seems the Slash R

had bought it all up, claiming they needed it to winter-feed their cattle. The cost of importing hay from up north was more than I could afford. Which meant I had to sell off part of my herd.

A lot of other ranchers were doing the same, driving the price down. There I sat without enough money to pay the note payment, and the bank refusing to give me an extension, when up walks Rutledge's son Boone, offering to buy the place. That's when I started seeing his hand in all that had gone on before."

Quint couldn't help observing, "That's not much to hang your hat on."

Empty released a contemptuous snort. "I told you Rutledge was cagey."

"Just the same, that's a stretch."

"Think so, do you?" He threw Quint a look of disgust. "I guess I didn't mention that I told him to take his offer and stick it where the sun don't shine. That's when the meanness started-the dog crawling off to die from a bullet wound, the sugar in the gas tank, places where I'd had credit for years suddenly demanding cash on the barrelhead, banks turning me down all over the place when I tried to refinance, wells getting poisoned, cattle rustled. I managed to hold out for another year-" His voice tightened up on him. He paused, dragging in a deep breath, and continued.

"Rutledge bought it out of foreclosure. The Homestead law let me keep the house. It galled me to wake up every morning and see Slash R cattle out the window grazing on my grass. When I found out Rutledge wanted the house for one of his hired hands to live in, the strangest thing happened." A dark light danced in his eyes. "The house caught on fire. Musta happened shortly after I left for town."

"What did the insurance company say?"

"They wouldn't pay up," Empty admitted. "Called it suspicious. Naturally everybody figured Rutledge was to blame. Now folks around here are even more afraid to cross him."

The pickup rattled to a halt alongside Quint's rental car. The old man draped his left arm across the top of the steering wheel and angled around to face Quint.

"Understand, now, Rutledge isn't what you'd call a greedy man," Empty said. "He only wants
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land that butts up to his. And it looks like he's after the Cee Bar. So you might want to let your boss in Montana know what he's going to be coming up against. Right now all the squeezing is the subtle kind, aimed at making the operation too costly to keep going. Rutledge probably figures your boss won't want to hang on to a ranch that's a losing proposition, 'specially one located so far from the home spread."

"I'll pass the word." Quint reached for the door handle and smiled crookedly. "Between you and me, though, if you push a Calder into a corner, he comes out swinging every time."

The old man's chin came up a notch, his gaze sharpening as he considered Quint's words. "You know," he began thoughtfully, "there isn't anywhere I need to be for a while. If you want, I can give you a hand unloading that grain. Seeing how I'm the one who turned your horses out, I could catch them up for you, too."

Quint accepted. "I'd appreciate the help."

A few minutes before five o'clock, Empty Garner swung the pickup into the feed store's parking lot and pulled up in front of the door. The chalky white dust had barely settled to the ground when Dallas walked out of the metal building and climbed into the pickup. She flung herself against the backrest and pulled off the feed store cap that trapped her hair atop her head. She dropped the cap on the seat and dug her fingers into her scalp.

"I itch all over from that grain dust," she muttered. "I can hardly wait to get in the shower."

"Guess I don't need to ask how your day was," Empty surmised and pointed the truck at the highway.

"It wasn't all that bad, I guess," she replied.

But the minute Dallas let her thoughts drift over the day's happenings, only one incident stood out from any others. The weariness that comes at the end of the day kept Dallas from considering the wisdom of relating it to her grandfather.

"Remember that cowboy I told you about," she said, "the one that came into the cafe last night?

Well, John Earl had to have been wrong. Evans must still be working at the Cee Bar, because that cowboy came into the teed store today. He's working at the Cee Bar."

"I know." Gravel churned under the truck's wheels as the pickup accelerated onto the highway.

It was a full second before his response penetrated her fatigue. When it did, Dallas sat up. "What do you mean? How do you know?"

"I swung out by the Cee Bar this morning to make sure the stock had plenty of food and water.

That's when I met him." Empty was careful to omit any mention of the business with the shotgun. "And Evans is gone. This new guy is from the Montana outfit that owns the place. His name is Echohawk. Part Indian, I guess."

"I wonder how long he'll last," Dallas murmured absently, privately regarding the ultimate outcome as a foregone conclusion.

"This one's not gonna be easy to scare off."

Dallas slid her grandfather a dryly skeptical look. "You wish."

"The cowboy's got sand," Empty stated, unswayed by her cynicism. "Must be why the Calders sent him down here. You know the Triple C has a huge spread up in Montana, covering over a million acres," he added thoughtfully. "Could be Rutledge is trying to take a bite out of an outfit that's too big for him."

"But it's up there. Down here, Rutledge calls the shots-or have you forgotten?" The instant the acerbic comment left her mouth, Dallas regretted opening old wounds. Still, the truth was the truth. "And how much is a big outfit like that going to care about a measly little spread a thousand miles away? Every rancher with any business sense at all knows that sometimes you have to cut your losses and sell."

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Empty chose to ignore her latter remark. "The Cee Bar isn't as measly as it once was. It takes in close to five thousand acres now. And it's got this big creek that curls right through it. It's never been known to run dry either. It's the water; I'll bet that's what Rutledge is coveting."

"You're full of information, aren't you?" Dallas turned a suspicious look on him. "And you got all this from one brief meeting with this Echohawk?"

"It wasn't all that brief." He deliberately avoided her eyes. "1 pitched in and helped him unload the grain and catch up his horses. I knew nobody else would be making any neighborly gestures.

Lord knows I didn't have any other demands on my day except to sit in that trailer and go stir-crazy."

But Dallas refused to be diverted by his attempt to change the subject. "Just how long were you there, Empty?"

"How should I know? I didn't keep track of the time." He puffed up, all stern-looking and indignant. Not for anything would he admit that he had left the Cee Bar barely twenty minutes ago. "I don't see what difference it makes anyhow. All I did was Iend him a hand with a few things. From the way the place looks, Evans let a lot of things go slack these last few months.

Course, that ranch is too big for one man to handle by himself. That Quint Echohawk will need a hired hand. There's no two ways about it."

"We both know he hasn't got a snowball's chance in hell of finding one," she stated flatly, yet inwardly struggled with the heavy feeling of regret that washed over her.

"Watch your language, there, little gal. Why, your grandma would be rolling over in her grave if she heard you cussing like that." There was sharp reproach in the look he slanted in her direction. "You were raised better."

"I know."

Empty caught the note of defiance in her voice. "You've gotten hard, Dallas." It hurt him to see that in her. "It comes from carrying too much on those young shoulders of yours. Guess that's my fault."

"Don't be ridiculous," she said in annoyance. "It's nobody's fault. It's just life."

"Maybe so," he conceded. "But that doesn't make it any easier to watch you working two, sometimes three jobs and going to school nights to better yourself, while I sit around, twiddling my thumbs, waiting for my Social Security check to arrive. Lord knows why, 'cause it's hardly enough to pay the rental on that run down old trailer."

Dallas knew it was his pride talking. "Anyone who has worked as hard and as long as you have is entitled to a life of leisure," she reasoned. "And I'm not working any harder than you did at my age."

"I suppose you think I'm like an old horse who's supposed to be happy about getting turned out to pasture. Well, for your information, little gal, I'm not on my last legs yet."

Dallas sensed some hidden message in his statement that instantly made her wary. "What do you mean?" A frisson of alarm shot through her. "Wait a minute, Empty. You aren't thinking of taking that job at the Cee Bar?" She checked the impulse to tell him he was too old. "You can't do it," she protested instead. "We don't need any more trouble."

"Rutledge has you buffaloed, doesn't he? I thought I raised you to have more backbone than that."

Stung by his words, Dallas reacted with heat. "I only know that we have to live here while your Mr. Echohawk can go back to Montana any time he chooses."

"In the first place, he isn't my Mr. Echohawk," Empty retorted. "And in the second, Rutledge has already got my ranch. There isn't a whole lot more he can do to hurt me."

But there was, and Dallas knew it. Several months ago, while filing some papers, she had stumbled upon a sale document transferring ownership of the feed store to Max Rutledge. Sykes continued to front for him, but Rutledge owned it. She had never mentioned anything about it to her grandfather, fully aware he'd be furious if he knew she was working-even indirectly-for Max Rutledge.

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One word from Rutledge and she would be out of work. The chances of finding another full-time job in the area were virtually nil. And her chances of convincing her grandfather to move to the city were just about the same.

All those thoughts ran through her mind, but Dallas didn't voice any of them, saying instead,

"Personally, I don't want to find out what kind of trouble he might cause us. I just want to forget he exists. And I want you to forget about that job at the Cee Bar."

Empty made the swing into the driveway a little too fast. Gravel flew when he slammed on the brakes. The pickup screeched to a halt short of the steps.

"I never said a word about taking the job. You're the one who got the idea in your head. And you haven't quit harping about it ever since." He climbed out of the pickup and slammed the door shut behind him.

"Fine," Dallas snapped, slamming her own door. "Then let's both stop thinking about it."

"Suits me." He grabbed hold of the handrail and pulled himself up the steps ahead of her. "You got school tonight?"

"Yes." Her thoughts made the lightning leap to more mundane matters. "I thought I'd add some rice to that leftover chili and fix that for supper tonight. Is that all right with you?" she asked, thinking that she should have enough time to hop in the shower while the chili was heating.

"Bowl of that'll be good enough for me. Don't have much of an appetite anyway." He walked through the door straight over to the recliner and plopped himself in it.

Both were careful to avoid any further reference to the Cee Bar Ranch. But the thought of it was never out of Empty's mind. He did experience a twinge of guilt when Dallas stopped by his chair on her way out the door and brushed his cheek with a kiss.

"I'm sorry for arguing with you earlier." Her lips curved in a rueful smile even as her eyes teased him. "But you're such an old war-horse that I could easily imagine you letting yourself get talked into something."

"Nobody can talk me into anything," he insisted gruffly. "I make up my own mind about things."

"Always," Dallas agreed and crossed to the door, her book bag in hand. She swung back smiling at him. "I don't know what I was so worried about anyway. It isn't likely your Quint Echohawk would even consider hiring you."

His head came up. "Why not?"

"Because men his age never think that someone as old as you are would still be capable of doing that kind of hard work." It was a matter-of-fact statement, with no undertone of anything else.

She opened the door. "I'll be late coming home-as usual. I've got my key, so be sure to lock the door before you go to bed."

He waved a hand in answer. After the door closed behind her, Empty gathered up their supper dishes and carried them to the sink.

The pickup's headlight beams arced across the window behind it. He peered out to make certain she had pulled onto the road. The instant he caught the red flash of taillights, he crossed to the end of the counter and dug around until he located the telephone book among the clutter. He flipped through the pages and kept his finger on the number for the Cee Bar while he dialed it.

"Echohawk? It's Empty Garner," he said the minute the phone was answered. "I've been thinking about all the work needing to be done out there. It's no secret you're going to have a tough time finding a hired hand. Since I'm not doing anything but sitting around, I thought I'd offer to help till you do."

He paused and heard the silence that followed. Sensing the hesitation on the other end of the line, Empty rushed in.

"I know I'm an old man," he said. "But I'm not so weak I can't mend a fence or doctor a sick cow. And it's for sure there isn't a whole lot about ranching that I don't know. In fact, it's the only thing I do know."

"You're qualified, all right." There was a smile in Echohawk's voice, but no sound of commitment.

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