This Calder Sky (24 page)

Chase bristled. “My father wouldn't have lifted a hand against you. He wouldn't intentionally harm a woman.”

“That's where he made his mistake!” She shook with fury, her hand tightening on the scissors. “You should have gotten rid of all of us! All of us! Do you hear?!!”

Something warned him at the last second. Perhaps it was the steel blades of the scissors flashing in the sunlight or the slight movement of her head that signaled her strike. But as her hand arced toward his stomach, Chase hunched away from it and flung up his
arm to knock the scissors off target. The blade points ripped into his shirtsleeve and raked a diagonal slash the length of his forearm. It felt as if a hot iron had been laid across his skin, but there was no time to consider his wound.

He grabbed the wrist of the hand holding the scissors and wrenched it backward until he heard her gasp of pain mixed with the animal sounds of cornered rage, and then her fingers unwillingly loosened their grip. A wide band of blood was already staining his shirt red and running onto the back of his hand when he took the scissors from her and pushed her backward, away from him.

A violent swing of his arm threw the scissors to the far side of the room. The action sent a raft of pain shooting up his arm. It produced an involuntary grimace as he clamped a hand over the throbbing wound and felt the blood pulsing from it to seep between his fingers, warm and sticky.

“You crazy little fool!” He glared at Maggie, holding his bloodied arm. In the state she was in, there was no hope of reasoning with her, but he couldn't blame her for the bitter hatred she felt over what they'd done. He scooped his hat off the floor and jammed it onto his head as he turned and walked out, blood dripping from the ends of his fingers.

In the cab of the truck, Chase pulled the handkerchief from his back pocket and wrapped it around his arm just below the elbow. Holding one end in his teeth, he pulled the knot tight in an effort to apply pressure to the wound and stem the flow of blood. His whole arm felt like it was on fire.

When he finally arrived at the Triple C, he was gritting his teeth against the pain. He drove directly to the first-aid dispensary and parked in front of it. The bleeding had practically stopped, but the bottom half of his sleeve was saturated with blood and it had started to
cake on his hand and fingers. He climbed out of the truck, gingerly holding his forearm.

“Hey, Chase!” Buck came trotting toward him. “Webb's been looking for you. Where have you been?” Then he noticed Chase's arm and the questioning smile was wiped from his face. “Holy shit! What did you do to your arm?”

Chase ignored the questions and continued on his way to the first-aid office. “Come on inside and help me get it fixed up.” Buck hurried forward to open the door and Chase walked directly to the sink, tugging at the knotted handkerchief. When it was loose, he turned to Buck. “Rip the sleeve off at the elbow. The shirt's ruined, anyway.” The front of it was all smeared with blood.

The material tore easily at Buck's pull and fell around his wrist. Chase unbuttoned the cuff and tossed the blood-wet sleeve into the wastebasket. Turning on the faucet, he held his arm under the water to wash off the worst of the blood. The force of the water beating against the ragged wound rekindled the fiery pain. Chase was white around the mouth before he was through, and a little shaky in the knees.

Grabbing a chair, he pulled it up to the sink and sat down, resting his arm on the counter. “You can finish it,” he told Buck and took off his hat to hook it on the spindled top of another chair. Blood had started to ooze slowly from the jagged slash.

Buck looked at it and shook his head. “What did you do? Get in a knife fight with somebody?” He dabbed at the ugly wound.

“Will you just shut up and take care of it?” He ground out the demand, fighting the waves of weakness that washed through him.

“This looks deep, Chase.” There was a worried look of concentration on his friend's face. “Maybe I should take you into the doc and have it stitched.”

Chase flexed the fingers in his hand and made a fist. It hurt like hell, but he couldn't feel any damage to the muscles or nerves. “If it has to be sewed, you can do it. You've stitched up enough animals; you should know how it's done.”

Buck hesitated, uncertain. “You might need a shot for tetanus.”

“No, the scissors were clean.” Besides, he'd bled enough to eliminate any risk of infection.

“Scissors?” Buck looked at him with raised eyebrows. “A woman did this?”

“Would you get the damned sutures out of the drawer and sew this up! And stop asking questions!” Chase snapped.

“All right. You don't have to bite my head off.” Buck recoiled with mock exaggeration and walked over to a cupboard where the sterilized needles and suture thread were kept. Before he started to sew up the wound, he glanced at Chase. “This is going to hurt. You know that?” At the glaring answer he received from Chase, Buck shrugged to indicate he'd been warned and inserted the needle into the flesh to make the first stitch.

Sweat broke out on his forehead as Chase clamped his teeth shut against the waves of pain. His arm quivered with the effort of trying to remain motionless, aided by the iron grip Buck kept on it. Each breath bordered on a groan.

“Did you hear Angus O'Rourke hanged himself yesterday?” Buck inquired to make conversation.

“Yeah, I heard.” Chase wished he'd chosen a different subject. “Damn it, I could use a drink.”

“They oughta keep some whiskey in here,” Buck mused, then spared a second to grin. “‘Course, these cowboys would come running in here every time they bruised their finger.”

“Aren't you finished yet?” Chase asked through his
teeth and glanced over to see Buck tie off the last stitch and step back to admire his handiwork.

“I bet I would have made a good surgeon,” he declared as he began expertly bandaging the wound.

“Not with your bedside manner,” Chase denied. “You get too much pleasure out of other people's pain.”

The door opened as Buck applied the last strip of adhesive tape to hold the gauze pad in place. Chase glanced over his shoulder, then let his gaze slide away without meeting his father's.

“I saw the truck outside.” Webb Calder wore a frown at the bandage running the length of Chase's forearm. “What happened?”

“I cut myself. Buck overdid it in the bandage department.” Chase attempted to make it sound like a minor wound, but he was slow rising to his feet, unsure of their support. “I guess he's practicing to become a doctor.”

Buck took the hint and discreetly gathered the instruments before Webb noticed them, concealing them in the folds of a towel. He carried them to the far side of the room to stash them for the time being. He heard Webb question Chase about where he'd been and strained to catch the low answer.

“I went to see Maggie.” Chase picked up his hat and examined the inner sweatband. “She was there—both she and Culley. They saw us—all of us.”

Webb breathed in deeply and let it out in a troubled sigh. “I didn't know.”

“No.” Chase put his hat on, setting it on his forehead first, then pushing it down on the back of his head. “I'm going away for a week or two.”

His father let the statement ride for a minute or two, then asked simply, “Where?”

“I thought I'd take a packhorse and head up into the mountains, maybe check some fences.” Chase studied
the pattern of the floor tile. “I guess it never would have come to anything. Maybe I knew that from the beginning.”

It took Buck a minute to realize Chase was referring to Maggie O'Rourke. He pursed his lips in a silent whistle as he guessed she had been the woman with the scissors. The other part about her seeing them, he hadn't figured out yet. At first he had thought Chase meant the girl had seen her father hang himself, but when he'd added that she'd seen them, it hadn't made sense. What would Webb and Chase be doing there? But he'd said “all of us.” Webb and Chase had gone somewhere yesterday morning. He'd seen them load up their horses and leave together. Nate had taken off, too—and Stumpy. Buck decided it might be interesting to find out who else had disappeared at the same time.

“If you feel it's necessary to go away, I won't try to stop you.” But Webb didn't sound pleased.

“I need some time to think things through.” Chase didn't back down.

“When will you leave?”

“Now—this afternoon, as soon as I get some things packed.” Cradling his injured arm against his waist, Chase moved past his father and out the door of the dispensary.

By four o'clock that afternoon, he was riding out of the ranch yard on a liver-colored chestnut, a bedroll tied behind his saddle and supplies loaded on the spotted packhorse he was leading. He headed toward the small range of mountains that intruded on the western edge of the Triple C.

The next day was Thursday, the day that Doc Barlow regularly had his clinic opened. When Maggie walked out of his examining room, nobody thought it was odd that she looked so white and strained or that she didn't speak to anyone. The poor child was burying her father
the next day. Wasn't it terrible that Angus had committed suicide, leaving two youngsters orphaned? Their tongues wagged in pity.

Culley was waiting for her at Tucker's café. Tucker was the only one who actually knew the truth about the way their father had died. Culley had informed him the day it had happened. Tucker had turned white as a sheet and questioned them to find out if Calder knew he had been involved. Culley had angrily denied the insinuation that his father had given Calder any names. But Tucker had seemed equally worried about what Calder might do to them and agreed that no one would believe their story.

When Maggie slipped into the booth where Culley was sitting, he asked, “Did the doc give you some pills to help you sleep?”

That had been her excuse for seeing the doctor. She wasn't ready yet to tell her brother that she was pregnant, so she let him believe the other reason for a while longer. “Yes.”

Tucker brought her a piece of apple pie and a glass of milk without bothering to ask if she wanted anything. “How are you feeling?” He had assumed the role of a distant relative, a kind of Dutch uncle to the pair.

“Fine.” She nodded and glanced uncertainly at the pie.

“It's on the house,” he assured her, then moved away as another customer entered.

“Tucker and I have been talking,” Culley began, leaning forward in a somewhat earnest manner. “And I've been doing a lot of thinking about what we're going to do now that Pa is gone. I found Aunt Cathleen's phone number in an old address book of Mom's. I called her a little while ago to tell her about Pa … and to ask her if you could come live with her.”

“What?” Maggie wasn't certain that she had understood him correctly.

“You're going away from here and live in California with Aunt Cathleen. After the funeral tomorrow, I'll put you on a bus.” He stopped looking at her to fiddle with a paper napkin. “You've always wanted to get away from here and make something of yourself. You're going to have your chance now.”

It had always been her dream, yet the present circumstances were all wrong. “But what are you going to do?”

“I'll stay here and try to keep the ranch going.”

“You can't do it alone.” Her father had failed with the two of them there to help.

“It won't be easy,” he admitted with a defensive shrug. “I can use some of Pa's money to hire me a regular hand, and Tucker said he'd help out. But I want you to take most of the money with you.” When he saw the protest forming, he quickly inserted, “If anybody asks you where you got it, just tell them Pa had some life insurance.”

“I can't go live with Aunt Cathleen,” Maggie stated firmly.

“Why not? I don't want you staying here,” Culley declared with a trace of anger.

Her mouth thinned in grim resignation. “Culley, I went to see Doc Barlow because I'm pregnant. I'm going to have Chase Calder's baby.” Her voice trembled bitterly on his name.

Culley stared at her with bleak eyes before he finally lowered his forehead to his hands, cradling his head as he rocked from side to side. “I knew it. I knew that devil bastard would plant his seed in you.” It was a long moment before he raised his head and sighed. “That's all the more reason why you can't stay here, Maggie. Did you tell Doc Barlow who the father is?”

“No. He asked me if it was Chase. He'd already heard talk that I was seeing him.” Her fingers dug into
her palms as she simmered with the remembered embarrassment. “I made him swear not to tell.”

“Everybody's talking because everybody knows—and they'll guess. Don't you see, Maggie?” Culley reasoned earnestly. “It will get worse if you stay here. Besides, Aunt Cathleen really wants you to come.”

“But will she when she finds out I'm pregnant?” Maggie questioned.

“Once you're there, how can she turn you away?” he argued. “And if she does, then you can hop on the bus and come back here. But she sounded real nice on the phone, Maggie. A lot like Mom.” He looked at her with eyes that were haunted and sad, burned with a bitter hatred that would never go away. “I'm trying to do what I think is best. I don't know if I'm right, but staying here will be no good for you. Leave tomorrow, Maggie. Leave before the Calders hurt you again.”

“I'll leave, but I'm not running from them,” she insisted.

In two days, Chase reached the mountains. For a week he rode the rocky ridges and pine-studded slopes, looked at the vast blue sky, ever-changing, ever-constant, and thought … sometimes about nothing more significant than the way the sunlight streaming through the trees dappled the ground.

Camped out under the stars wtih the horses picketed in a grassy clearing, Chase puffed on a thin cigar, stretched out on the ground with his head pillowed on his saddle. On a distant hill, a coyote barked, its call the loneliest, saddest sound in the world. The campfire had died until only its red heart was glowing. A star fell, the light of its million years leaving a white scratch in the black sky that quickly disappeared, as if it had never been.