This Calder Sky (39 page)

Ty was frowning. “Not a lot, no.”

“I didn't think so.” His mouth quirked in a hard way. “Tell me about school,” he prompted, changing the subject, and listened quietly while Ty talked about his school, his friends, and his life in general.

In the distance, there was a very faint glow in the sky
that grew steadily brighter as they approached it—the well-lit headquarters of the Triple C. When the main buildings came into sight, illuminated by yard lights, with a sprinkling of smaller lights shining from the windows of houses, Ty stared in vague bewilderment.

“Is this a town?”

“Almost.” Chase smiled faintly and made a wide turn with the car to stop in front of the porch steps of The Homestead. “This is the headquarters of the Triple C,” he said, switching off the engine and opening his door.

While Ty hauled his backpack out of the rear seat, Chase walked around the car to the porch steps. Ty lagged behind to stare at the sprawling cluster of ranch buildings. Chase waited for him at the top of the porch steps. When Ty realized it, he hurried guiltily to catch up. Once the boy was level with him, Chase swung his gaze to the buildings that comprised the Triple C headquarters, aware that Ty was staring, too.

“Take a good look, son,” Chase advised. “It's all going to be yours someday.” When he felt the quick glance, he turned his head to meet the look, pride gentling his brown eyes. His mouth twitched in a faint smile as he clamped a hand on the boy's shoulder. “‘Course, you've got a lot to learn between now and then—a helluva lot to learn.”

Applying pressure to Ty's shoulder, Chase turned him toward the front door and led the way into the house. The lights had been left on in the living room and entryway, but Chase could have found his way if it had been pitch-black. Not a stick of furniture had been changed since his childhood; some of it had been reupholstered, but it was old, solid furniture that would last for centuries with the right care. He noticed the way Ty looked around, taking everything in. Remembering the lone hamburger Ty had eaten, Chase realized
it probably hadn't satisfied a growing boy's appetite. When he'd been Ty's age, there had never been enough to eat.

“Hungry?” he questioned.

“Yeah, kinda,” Ty admitted a little self-consciously.

“I'll see if I can't rustle up a snack from the kitchen. Look around. Make yourself at home.” He left the boy free to explore the house on his own.

There was cold roast beef in the refrigerator. Chase sliced it and mounded a plate with sandwiches. There was half of a chocolate layer cake left, so he added it to the tray along with a couple glasses and a pitcher of milk. When he returned to the living room, Ty was just wandering into the den. He started to retreat, but Chase nodded for him to continue into the room.

“We'll eat in there.” He carried the tray in and set it on the coffee table.

“Are those real horns?” Ty was studying the mounted set above the fireplace mantel.

With a strange feeling of
déjà vu,
Chase told him the story of Captain, the brindle steer, and the long cattle drive that had brought the first Calder to this land. Listening with rapt attention, Ty managed to devour the plateful of sandwiches and three glasses of milk, while Chase had only one. When Chase got up to show him the old map on the wall, Ty cut himself a wedge of cake.

“Where did my mother live?” Ty kept one hand cupped under the cake to catch the crumbs.

Chase pointed out the location of the Shamrock Ranch in relationship to the Triple C headquarters. “It sits here.”

“It's a lot smaller than the Triple C, isn't it?” he questioned.

“Yes.” Chase was reluctant to discuss the O'Rourkes, and the impression was transmitted to Ty in the shortness of his answer.

“Are there … bad feelings between you and Mom?”

“I doubt if she likes me very much,” Chase admitted.

“How do you feel?” Ty frowned at him anxiously, trapped somewhere in the middle.

“I …”—Chase turned away to walk back to his leather chair—“… have no ill feelings toward her.” Absently, he rubbed his left forearm where his shirtsleeve covered the long, diagonal scar.

Ty sensed there was more. “What happened to break you and Mom up?” He remembered his father had said earlier that it had been beyond their control. His father's closed expression made him uneasy—that, and the long, measuring look he was receiving.

“That”—a lazy veil seemed to fall over his father's features, dispelling the impression as he rose from the chair—“is another long story, and it's getting late. I'll show you which room will be yours. You must be tired.”

“Yeah,” Ty admitted. “I haven't slept in a bed for two days. Mostly, I slept bouncing around in a truck cab.”

“You'll sleep tonight, then.”

Chase paused in the living room while Ty retrieved his backpack, then led him up the stairs to the bedroom that had been his father's. All the rooms were kept in readiness for guests, so there were plenty of towels in the bathroom and clean sheets on the bed. When he was satisfied that Ty was settled in, Chase took a notepad and pencil from his jacket pocket and handed it to him.

“Write down your mother's telephone number,” he instructed.

“You aren't going to call her?” Ty protested with an anxious frown. “Not for a few days yet, please?”

“You know she's worried about you.” The statement held a subtle criticism.

“Yeah, but—” He pressed his mouth together grimly. “She'll just want me to come home. And I don't want to go home.”

“I'll handle that,” Chase stated. “You just give me her phone number and I'll talk to her.”

“Okay.” Ty wrote down the number and handed the pad and pencil back to him. “Be sure to tell her I'm all right.”

“I will.” Chase moved to the door, opened it, and paused. “Some advice for you to sleep on. City life breeds weakness into a man. Out here we don't have any traffic lights telling you when to stop and when to go, when to walk or when to wait. There aren't any streets with arrows telling you that you have to go one way. In the city, everything is orderly—soft—governed by a woman's idea of the way it should be. Out here, it's still a man's country, where you're expected to keep your word and never ask for favors. It will be harder on you, not just because you are new to our ways. People are going to expect more from you because you're my son, so”—Chase smiled faintly because the next words were so familiar to him—“you're going to have to work harder, be smarter, and fight rougher than any man in the state. If you haven't got what it takes, then you're better off to go back to California and be with your mother, because otherwise this land will break you. You might want to think on that these next few days.”

“Yes, sir.” It was a sobered sound, tinged with just a hint of skepticism.

Chase smiled, bemused, because he'd always believed his father had exaggerated a lot, too. “Good night, Ty.”

“Good night.”

Returning to the den, Chase sat down in the chair behind the desk and reached for the phone, dialing the number Ty had given him. It was answered on the third ring.

“Gordon residence.” It was a woman's voice, stiff and haughty, not Maggie's.

“I want to speak to Elizabeth Gordon,” Chase requested.

“I believe she has retired for the evening. This is her sister-in-law, Pamela Gordon. May I help you?”

“Would you check to see if she has? Tell her I'm calling in regard to her son.”

“Ty? Have you found him? Is he all right?” The woman threw a flurry of anxious questions at him.

“Tell Mrs. Gordon that I want to speak to
her.”
He stressed the last word to make it clear he would speak to no one else.

“Just a moment.” There was a clunk of the telephone receiver being laid down. In the background, he could hear the woman calling to “Elizabeth.” Chase waited, fingering the slip of paper with the phone number on it.

The sleeping pill Maggie had taken in an effort to get some rest after so many sleepless nights worrying about Ty made her uncoordinated. She felt groggy when she came to the phone and pressed a hand to her forehead to eliminate the dullness.

“This is Elizabeth Gordon.”

Her voice had changed slightly, a variation in the accent, but it stirred his memory. For an instant, the years rushed away and he could see her green eyes, green as the lush Calder grass, and her hair black as midnight. His hand tightened on the phone, as if to bring her closer to him.

“Hello, Maggie.”

No one ever called her that anymore except Culley. It didn't sound like him, yet telephones sometimes distorted people's voices. Maggie clutched the receiver with both hands. “Culley? Thank God, you called. I tried to call you, but the operator said your phone had been disconnected and I—Ty has run away. I think he's—”

“Maggie, this is Chase,” he interrupted. “Ty is here with me. He wanted you to know he was all right.”

She recognized his voice the minute he started speaking again. The floor seemed to rock under her feet. There was that same gentle persuasive quality in it. She was thrown into confusion, and the drugging effect of the sleeping pill didn't help her to sort through it quickly.

“I want him home … with me.” On that point, Maggie wasn't confused. “Put Ty on the next plane home. I'll pay the fare.”

“No.”

“Chase, I want my son.” Her voice trembled on a warning note.

“If you want him, you'll have to come get him.”

“No.” She wouldn't go back there. “Ty is a minor—a runaway. If you don't send him back, I'll notify the authorities and they'll come get him and bring him home to me.”

“You've been away a long time, Maggie. I think you've forgotten how much territory this Calder sky covers. I am the authority here. If you want him, you'll have to come yourself. You know where to find us.”

Chase hung up the receiver, fully aware he had lived up to her bad image of him, but this had to be sorted out. And he preferred to do it face to face. He leaned heavily back in his chair and stared at the phone, wondering how much she had changed in the last fifteen years. Was she still as beautiful as she had been as a young girl? Had she kept her figure? Or lost it carrying their son? Wearily, he rubbed his eyes.

By dawn the next morning, Chase had showered, shaved, and dressed. Before going downstairs, he stopped at Ty's room and opened the door. The boy was sprawled across the bed on his stomach, his mouth
lolling open. The newness of knowing he had a son continued to amaze and delight him.

He knocked loudly on the opened door. “Time to get up, Ty!” Chase watched the teen-ager push himself groggily up on his elbows and frown as he looked around, trying to remember where he was.

“What time is it?” Ty combed a sleepy hand through his hair, trying to shake himself awake.

“Five o'clock.”

“In the morning!!” With a groan, he collapsed face down on the bed.

“We get up early around here.” Chase moved out of the doorway to the stairs. There weren't any lights, either, to
make
a boy get out of bed. He had to learn to do it himself.

Ruth had just set his plate of steak, eggs, and hashed browns on the dining room table when a sleepy-eyed Ty stumbled into the room. Chase introduced them. Ruth made an embarrassing fuss over him, her eyes misting over with tears when she murmured that she wished Webb had lived to see his grandson. Then she hurried off to the kitchen, dabbing her eyes with the corner of her apron.

“What did my Mom say when you called her last night?” he asked when they were alone.

Chase deftly avoided making a direct answer. “She'll be flying up today or tomorrow. It will depend on how soon she can get reservations.”

“She'll want me to go back with her,” Ty said glumly.

“I'll handle it.” Chase repeated the calm response he had made the night before.

When Ruth brought Ty his plate of steak, eggs, and hashed browns, he stared at it. “I don't know if I can eat all that this early in the morning.”

Chase lifted a shoulder in an expressive shrug that said it was up to him, but he said, “It's a long time until lunch.”

Ty was making a good dent in it when Buck walked in. Chase was finished and had leaned back to enjoy his third cup of coffee. He saw the puzzled look Buck gave the boy.

“Ty, I want you to meet Buck Haskell, one of my top foremen and a good friend.” He introduced Buck and watched Ty lay down his silverware to stand courteously to shake hands. “Buck, this is my son.”

“Your …
what?”
Buck shot him a look that was sharply incredulous. “But where … who …”

“Maggie is his mother.”

“Maggie O'Rourke?” At Chase's nod, Buck dragged in a deep breath and blew it out. “Well, if that don't beat all!” His face was oddly blank, a hint of exasperation in his voice. Then he was looking at Chase and grinning. “It seems a little foolish to say congratulations at this late date.”

It was nearly noon on the following day when Maggie arrived, driving a rented car. Since no one else knocked before entering The Homestead, Chase knew it was her before he opened the door. He met her cool, green eyes, then skimmed her slender figure, clad in a flattering black suit trimmed in white. Certain things he remembered about her, like her pride and strong will, were in evidence in her stiff carriage.

He glanced beyond her, his gaze settling on a ranch hand passing the house. “Charley, bring Mrs. Gordon's luggage in from the car.”

“There's no need.” She turned to countermand his order. “I'm not staying.”

“Bring them in, Charley,” he repeated evenly.

She faced him again with cool composure. “I'll only be here long enough to get Ty. Then I'm leaving.”