This Calder Range (7 page)

A smile pulled at the corners of Benteen's mouth as he shook hands with the boy. That thirst for excitement and adventure ran hot in the young. Despite Joe Dollarhide's inexperience, there was something about the boy he liked.

Dollarhide started to turn the draft horse's head and ride off, then seemed to remember something and kept the animal parallel with Benteen.

“I meant to say that I was right sorry to hear about your pa, Mr. Calder.” There was a stiffness to his words as he tried to show proper respect.

Benteen's eyes narrowed to become hard and probing.
“My pa? What do you mean?” He had a way of looking at a man that made him wish he was somewhere else, just as the boy was wishing now.

“Just that … him fallin' over dead was so suddenlike and all.” The movement of the boy's shoulders was an uncomfortable gesture.

Benteen showed nothing in his face, but the blood inside him ran quick and cold. A heaviness pushed on his chest until he couldn't breathe.

Dimly he heard Dollarhide say, “I'll be here at daybreak.”

The nod of his head was automatic, and the kid dug his heels into the broad sides of the big chestnut horse and rode away. For several more minutes Benteen struggled with the icy unreality of the news. There was a mix-up. The kid hadn't meant his father. Everything in him fought against accepting it.

The uncertainty was intolerable. He wheeled his horse around and cantered it back along the herd to where Jessie Trumbo was riding flank. Reining his mount in, Benteen kept the tension on the bit and the horse skittered along in a dancing walk.

“I'm riding to the Cee Bar,” he informed Jessie without explanation. “You're in charge till I get back.”

“Sure.” Jessie eyed him with sharp curiosity. Trouble was always riding nearby in this land. His instinct sensed its closeness now. He'd seen that look in Benteen's face a few times before, and it never meant anything good.

A twist of the reins and the goad of a dull work spur sent Benteen's horse bounding into a gallop, veering away from the herd. Benteen kept the mustang at a run, driven by a sense of urgency. When the ranch buildings came into sight, a tightness wound inside him like a clock spring.

His horse was snorting and blowing hard as Benteen pulled it down into a slower gait and approached the house at a cantering trot. A bad feeling ran along his spine. It didn't get better when Benteen spotted the
roan horse in the corral. A Ten Bar brand was burned in its hip.

He started to ride over to the corral for a closer look, when the front door opened and a man stepped onto the porch, a rifle held at the ready. Benteen swung his horse around to face the man.

“You're trespassing on private property, Benteen.” The man's voice rang out harsh and clear.

“Since when is this Ten Bar land?” Benteen challenged. He thought he knew most of Boston's riders, but this bearded man was a stranger.

“Since Mr. Boston said it was.” The rifle was shifted to turn its black muzzle on Benteen. “I got orders to shoot trespassers if they won't move on.”

“More of Boston's orders?” There was nothing reasonable in Benteen. He was all cold and reckless inside as he walked his horse straight at the rifle barrel. “You know who I am—and you knew I was coming.”

“I was told to expect you, Calder.” The man with the rifle didn't waver. “This ranch belongs to the Ten Bar now. Mr. Boston felt you might need some convincin' of that.”

“And how did he convince my pa?” Benteen demanded, flicking a cold glance at the rifle. “With that, too?”

“Can't say.” There was a small negative move of the man's head, but he didn't take his eyes off Benteen for even a fraction of a second. “No more talk. I ain't paid to talk. Ride out, Calder.”

Benteen felt a hard, raw desire to charge the man and ram that rifle barrel down his throat. He never took kindly to a gun pointed at him. He liked it even less now.

But it would have been a stupid move. He stopped the mustang. It grated hard on his pride to turn his horse away and ride out of the yard. But there were too many questions unanswered. Benteen swung his horse onto the road to Fort Worth.

Benteen's herd wasn't the only one being held outside of Fort Worth that early spring. The cattle town was crowded with rowdy cowboys and trail outfits stocking up with supplies for the drive north when Benteen rode in.

There was a leaden anger inside him as he slowed the mustang to a stop in front of the Pearce house. Dismounting, he tied the reins in a half-hitch on the post ring and walked to the front porch. His footsteps sounded heavy as he crossed the board floor and knocked twice on the door. When it opened, Benteen let his hard gaze search Lorna's face.

After an instant of startled recognition, she went white. “You know,” she whispered.

“Pa's dead.” His voice was flat as he read the confirmation in her expression.

Lorna nodded once, her lips parting, but no words came out. Benteen lowered his gaze to the door's threshold, physically numbed to the fact. He clenched his hands into fists, trying to accept the truth of the words he'd said, but protest raged inside him.

“When?” The one-word question rumbled from a deep pit within himself.

“The first week of January.”

Benteen shut his eyes briefly, barely conscious of the rustle of her long skirt. He stiffened at the touch of her hand on his arm, the quiet offer of sympathy. Briskly he moved to reject it.

“Come inside,” she invited.

He brushed past her to walk inside, burning with a raw kind of energy. There was a noise from the dining room. Benteen turned and saw Lorna's mother. She took one look at him and didn't have to be told a thing.

“Come into the kitchen, Benteen, and have some coffee,” she invited calmly, as if this visit from him were no different from any other.

It seemed automatic to follow her into the scrubbed freshness of the kitchen. His blank gaze watched her pour a cup from the metal pot on the wood range. She set it on the table.

“I don't imagine you've eaten anything, have you?” Mrs. Pearce guessed.

His hand lifted in a vacant gesture that said food wasn't important. “What happened?” Benteen continued to stand, making no move to sit in the white enameled chair at the table or drink the coffee.

Behind him, he heard Lorna's footsteps as she entered the kitchen. His mind wasn't able to think about her, perhaps because his heart was incapable of feelings at this moment. He had to keep them shut out.

“The doctor said it was his heart,” Mrs. Pearce replied with a somber attention to the fact without embellishment. “By the time the doctor arrived, it was already too late to help him.”

“Where was he when it happened?” Benteen questioned.

“He had come to town for supplies—to my husband's store,” she answered, being more specific.

“Was your husband with him when he died?” He jumped on the information. Instinct told him that Judd Boston had played a role in his father's death, and Benteen was determined to find out how significant it had been.

“Well, not exactly.” Mrs. Pearce displayed patience in the face of his sharp cross-examination. “Your father had given my husband a list of the items he wanted. Arthur thought your father didn't look well, so he suggested that your father use his office in the back
room where he could sit and rest while the order was being filled.”

“Then he was alone?”

“Yes.” She nodded. “He'd taken a cigar and told my husband to include it on his bill. Arthur said your father was in the back room only a few minutes when he heard a loud noise—like something had fallen. When he went back to see what had happened, your father was lying on the floor by his desk. Arthur immediately sent someone for the doctor, but of course it was too late.”

“Did he say anything about Judd Boston?” There was a cold cynicism in the question.

Clara Pearce showed a trace of unease at the question. “It wasn't until later that we learned Mr. Boston's bank had instructed the sheriff to serve a foreclosure notice on your father's ranch … for nonpayment of notes that were due.”

“And Pa didn't mention anything about it to your husband?” The ridgeline of his jaw stood out sharply.

“I …” She hesitated, then reluctantly said, “I believe my husband did make a comment about the amount of ammunition your father wanted. He jokingly asked if he intended to start a war. Your father smiled and said only a small one.”

Turning his face from her, Benteen swore savagely under his breath. He'd known the day was coming when his father's situation would come to a head, but this wasn't the way he had expected it to end.

“Please sit down and drink your coffee, Benteen,” Mrs. Pearce urged. “It's getting cold. You're probably hungry, too. Let me fix you something to eat.”

“No.” Impatience thinned the hard line of his mouth. He was irritated with her female belief that food could solve things and provide solace to something that was inconsolable.

An inner rage made him leave the kitchen and the feminine attempts to comfort him. He didn't want a soothing hand to ease the hot grief burning away his
numbness. A seed of anger was growing inside him, and he wanted to feel it. Again he walked past Lorna as if she wasn't there, and kept going until he reached the parlor.

Lorna had expected Benteen to be upset, but not like this. She would have been shocked if he had cried, yet she thought he would show more emotion than that cold anger. Instead he'd built a wall around himself that shut her out. It hurt to think he didn't want her, and that's the impression he was giving. They were to be married. She was to be his wife. It was her duty to be at his side during times like these, to try to ease his pain.

“What's wrong, Mother?” Her bewildered voice was quietly pitched. “He looks right through me and he was rude to you.”

“Do you remember the puppy you had when you were little?” The understanding that came from experience and maturity was in her mother's gentle expression. “It was kicked by a horse, and when you tried to help it, the puppy was in so much pain that it bit you. The puppy didn't mean to hurt you but it didn't know what it was doing.”

“Are you trying to say that Benteen is like a wounded animal?” Lorna was taken aback by the suggestion.

“I'm trying to say that his pain runs very deep,” her mother explained. “Men seem to think they have to hide such feelings—that we'll think less of them if we see they can be vulnerable, too. Benteen doesn't want to admit it, but he needs you, Lorna.” She silently encouraged her daughter to go to him.

Lorna hesitated and finally accepted the risk of being rebuffed again. She didn't have her mother's insight into a man's thinking, but it was something her mother had probably obtained after years of living with her father.

When she entered the parlor, she saw Benteen standing next to the boxes of personal belongings that she and her mother had taken from his ranch. Judd
Boston had given them permission to remove the personal articles from the house. They had kept them here for Benteen's return.

Lorna was struck by how old Benteen appeared. His sun-browned features looked haggard and drawn, showing an age that came from brutal experience rather than the accumulation of years. Even when the dirt and dust from the trail were washed away, it would still be there.

Lorna felt dreadfully innocent and naive. How foolish she had been to think she knew the words that would comfort him, when Benteen had seen so much more than she had. What did she know about death and hardship? It had all happened on the periphery of her life.

His dusty, lowcrowned hat was held at his side. The tight hold of his gloved fingers was curling the stained brim. He reached down to pick up the framed daguerreotype lying on top of the folded clothes and various other articles that had belonged to his father. Lorna crossed the room to stand slightly behind him. Her tenderly compassionate gaze wandered over the jacket, stretched tautly across the wide set of his shoulders. The air was almost electrified with his tension.

“We tried to find you when your father died,” she told him, and was cut by his hard glance. “Mr. Boston sent out a couple of his men, but they weren't able to locate you.”

“I don't imagine he tried too hard.” Benteen's voice was stiffly dry as he continued to stare at the tintype.

“Daddy said it would be hard to find anybody in that rough country,” Lorna murmured, and glanced at the picture of the woman in the frame, barely visible from her angle. “That's your mother, isn't it?” Lorna remembered one of his neighbors mentioning it. So many had come to the funeral and offered their sympathy that she didn't recall which one. “She was very beautiful.”

“Yes.” It was a clipped answer.

In an effort to understand what Benteen was feeling, Lorna tried to put herself in his place, imagining what it would have been like to be raised without a mother, then losing the one parent that remained. She had been so loved by both her mother and father that she couldn't imagine a life without them.

“Your mother died when you were very young, didn't she?” she commented, in the hope he might talk about his mother and eventually release some of the grief for his father bottled inside him.

When Benteen swiveled to look at her, Lorna was shocked at the bitter hate in his dark eyes. “She isn't dead.” His mouth curled over the words like a snarling animal. “She ran off with another man and left us.”

“I didn't know.” Lorna recoiled a little from this frightening side of him, so utterly ruthless and unforgiving.

That look was finally directed at the daguerreotype. “Pa kept waiting for her to come back, but she never did.” The pitch of his voice was absolutely flat, containing no emotion. “He never heard from her once in all these years, but he waited anyway.” There was a slight tremble in the gloved hand holding the picture. It was in his low voice, too, when Benteen spoke again—a tremble of anger. “He doesn't have to wait anymore.”