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“And Calder?”
“He’s in very critical condition.”
Stricklin reached for the telephone. “HI contact our pilot and make arrangements for us to fly up there.”
“Yes, do that.” Dyson nodded absently.
Ty called Stumpy Niles at the ranch and apprised him of the situation; then he made a separate call to the Haskell house. Jessy answered, and he repeated again the words he’d said so often that they’d lost meaning to him.
“How’s Ruth?” he asked in a voice that was heavy.
“I don’t know,” Jessy admitted on a troubled sigh. “She keeps demanding that Vern take her to the hospital so she can be there to look after your father, insisting it’s what Webb would want her to do. She talks about your grandfather as if he were alive yet. Then she rambles about all the illnesses she nursed Chase through as a child.” There was a slight pause. “The doctor’s given her a sedative, so hopefully she’ll rest.”
Ty rubbed his forehead, trying to erase the dullness. “Has anyone been to O’Rourke’s place to notify him about the accident? I should have done it before I left but . . .” A broken sigh came from him as he left the sentence unfinished. Too many other things had crowded any thought of his uncle from his mind.
“No, I don’t think so. I’ll go see him,” Jessy volunteered.
“Thanks.” Just the sound of her voice was somehow oddly reassuring. It was the one steady thing in this upheaval that surrounded him.
Few stars were shining in the inky black of a moonless night when Jessy drove into the yard of the Shamrock Ranch. The house was darkened, no light showing from its windows. Her headlights failed to pick up any sign of life in the yard; the usual tall yard light was not lit.
When she stepped from the pickup cab’s warm interior into the chill of the night, her breath billowed in a steamy vapor. She hunched her shoulders against the sudden drop in temperature and looked around, searching the dark shadows of the barn and corral. At this hour, she doubted that O’Rourke would be out riding. She turned toward the house, and a voice jumped at her out of the shadows.
“Are you looking for me?”
Jessy swung around, staring into the darkness, barely able to make out the motionless black form against an equally black background. No sound betrayed his presence, and he offered her no silhouette against the faint stars in the sky.
“Yes, I am.” She took a step in the direction of the voice, then paused. For reasons of his own, he didn’t want to be seen clearly, or he would have come forward. So Jessy didn’t press him. “I’m sorry, but I have some bad news.” No sound prompted her to tell him. There was only a waiting silence. “There was a plane crash.” It was an uncomfortable feeling to talk without being able to see the person she was addressing. “Your sister . . . was killed.”
There was a trace of gray against the black; a breath that had been long held was released. It was the only reaction as the silence lengthened.
“She’s coming home tomorrow.” Her voice gentled with compassion. In this, she couldn’t be blunt, “Ty asked me to tell you that the funeral is being scheduled for the day after. He would have come himself, but he’s at the hospital. His father is badly injured, and they aren’t sure he’s going to make it.”
“He’ll make it, all right.” There was a leaden sound to the voice that came from the shadows. “Them Calders have as many lives as a cat.” The statement seemed tinged with bitter acceptance.
“I’m sorry about your sister, Culley. I know how close you were to her.” Jessy felt a reluctance to leave him. She frowned slightly, trying to penetrate the shadows and gauge how well he was handling the news. “Would you like me to stay awhile? Maybe fix some coffee?”
He was a long time answering. “I’d rather be alone,” he said finally.
There was nothing left to do but crawl back into the truck. As she reversed the pickup onto the rutted lane, the beams briefly swept the motionless figure of a man, hands thrust in the pockets of his dark coat and the brim of his hat shading his face.
For a long time, Culley didn’t move from his position. The sound of the truck had faded into the night and silence enclosed him before his motionless stance was finally broken. He lifted his face to the heavens, the wetness of tears glistening in his dark eyes. A groan came from his throat.
With a mournful cry, he wailed her name. “Maggieee!” Guilt bore down heavily on him, driving him to his knees.
23
The throng of people attending the funeral had thinned out until only family was left at the gravesite. All the headstones bore the name Calder, including the newest, inscribed with the words Mary Elizabeth Calder, My Beloved Maggie. Ty felt keenly the absence of his father, the one who mourned her passing the most.
A slim, softly gloved hand slipped inside the crook of his elbow. Ty roused himself to glance at his wife, a dramatic vision in her ebony fur and a turban-style hat. The cold had rouged her cheeks with color, giving an added vibrancy to her looks.
“It’s time we went home. Cathleen’s already at the car waiting for us,” she prodded him softly.
“Yes,” he agreed on a heavy breath and lifted the Mack Stetson to put it on his bare head, pulling it low.
Together they turned to walk across the frozen ground to the car. “I wondered whether he would show up here since he didn’t attend the church service,” Tkra murmured.
Ty located his Uncle Culley O’Rourke, the object of her remark, as he angled across the small cemetery to the pickup parked all by itself. The black suit he was wearing made him appear a slim, dark shadow. His head was bowed, and there was a look of utter loneliness about him.
