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Turning, he looked down the barn’s long alley as Cat came out of the stall and propped the pitchfork against its wooden side. Unaware her actions were observed, she paused and rubbed at the soreness in her arm muscles, her shoulders slumping in weariness. When she noticed him waiting outside the barn, she immediately squared her shoulders and threw off the aching fatigue to stand taller. With lithe, effortless strides, she walked toward him.
“Ready for breakfast now?” Chase asked.
Nodding her answer, Cat fell in step with him and began the walk to The Homestead. Conversation was minimal, all of it small talk to cover a silence that would have been awkward. Halfway to the house, Cat noticed an approaching plume of dust traveling along the road that came from the east gate. “Someone’s coming. It must be Ty and Jessy.”
Chase swung his gaze to the traveling dust cloud. “It can’t be, not from that direction. They stayed at the old Stanton cabin this weekend.”
Cat thought it a singularly unromantic choice. She and Repp had always planned to honeymoon in—Pain sliced through her, cutting off the thought with the cruel reminder that Repp was dead. They would never honeymoon in Hawaii. She would never lie beside him in the night, never know the fulfillment of his embrace. Anger came, anger that Repp had denied her so much because of his ridiculous code of honor and his desire to do right in her father’s eyes. She wasn’t sure she could ever forgive him for that.
Even worse, she wasn’t sure she could forgive herself. Why had she let it happen? Why
had she allowed all of them—Repp, her father, everyone—to tell her what she could do and when she could do it? Why had she allowed them to dictate how she would live her life? The injustice of it twisted itself in with the grief and the anger.
“Probably a feed salesman.”
“What?” She caught the sound of her father’s voice, but his words didn’t register.
“I said it’s probably a feed salesman,” he repeated.
Cat nodded an absent agreement, not altogether sure his assumption was accurate. Even from this distance she could tell the vehicle was a pickup, and from the humped shape of it, an old one, which was hardly the kind a salesman would drive. Still she could summon little curiosity about its occupant.
The old Chevy pickup bounced and rattled along the dirt lane, its scarred sides pocked with rust. The exhaust pipe spewed the telltale smoke of an oil burner. It mixed with the road dust churned up by nearly bald tires.
Neil Anderson was in the driver’s seat, his rheumy eyes fixed on the collection of buildings and the imposing house that grew steadily larger in almost direct proportions to his misgivings. Easing up on the accelerator, he fumbled a moment, then finally pulled the faded red kerchief from the pocket of his bib overalls and mopped at the watery discharge from his eyes. It was a simple task made difficult by the arthritis that gnarled his hands and bent his fingers at an odd angle. He hooked an end of the kerchief back in the overalls pocket and stuffed it inside, then turned a gaunt and bony face toward his wife of nearly fifty years.
Emma Anderson bore little resemblance to the stout, buxom bride she had once been. Years of hard living and unending labor had whittled at her until she was wiry and thin. Now, her once-plump cheeks were sunken and hollow, and her fair skin was leathered and seamed with lines like an old worn-out saddle. The gleam in her dark eyes had long ago become a hard thing that too often reminded him of his failure to provide.
Her bland expression reflected none of his doubts about the mission before them. It bothered him that she could sit there like that, her callused hands calmly folded in her lap while he squirmed with uncertainty.
Unable to keep silent about his concern any longer, Neil finally voiced it. “Coming here is a mistake.”
“What other choice do we have? You know what that lawyer told us. If we want to help Rollie, this is the only chance we got.”
“It’s a waste of time,” he stated, gruff with his opinion. “He won’t listen.”
“He’ll listen,” Emma replied with confidence. “Calder likes to think of himself as a fair man.”
“Listening don’t mean he’ll help,” he muttered, then got to the crux of his unease. “I’ve never needed no man’s help before. Tough as it’s been for us at times, I’ve never had to go to any man with my hat in my hand.”
Pride. That’s what this talk was all about, Emma thought, smiling none too pleasantly. A man’s foolish pride. Life might have been easier if her husband hadn’t been so stiff-necked with it. She remembered his anger the first time she and Lath had killed and butchered a Calder steer. She also remembered that with hunger gnawing at his belly, he hadn’t been too proud to eat it, not that first time or any time since. Course, he never lent a hand to the killing or butchering, which made it all right, she supposed, her lips pursing in sour sarcasm.
“I don’t expect you to beg for his help, Neil.” If there was any begging to be done, she would do it without hesitation. Rollie, her youngest, was her baby. Where he was concerned, pride be damned. “You just explain the situation to him, tell him what the lawyer told us, and ask if he’ll help.”
“He won’t,” he grumbled.
“We’ll see.” Determination pushed the point of her chin a fraction higher.
He slowed the pickup as they entered the main ranch yard. The swirling road dust dissipated, leaving only the roll of dark smoke trailing from the pickup’s exhaust pipe. Emma sat a little straighter and took great interest in her surroundings. In all her years in Montana, this marked her first visit to the headquarters of the Triple C Ranch. She had heard it described often enough, but this was the first she had seen it with her own eyes.
She scanned the sprawling cluster of buildings—a mix of barns, machine sheds, small warehouses, welding shop, gas station, commissary store, and modern houses for the married help. All of it was neat and tidy. She thought of their own big old drafty farmhouse with its leaky roof and sides that badly needed a coat of paint. The farm was not a place she could point to with pride and say, This is our home. It was a place of hardship and physical labor with little monetary reward and a future that promised more of the same. She didn’t blame Lath for leaving it as soon as he could, rarely returning to visit.
Emma looked, at last, at the two-story house atop the commanding knoll. With its pillared front porch, it stood big and white and grand against the blue Montana sky. Two people approached the porch, an older man and a young, dark-haired woman.
“There’s no more need to wonder whether Calder’ll be home or not. That’s him and his daughter walking up to the house now.” Emma nodded at the pair.
“I see ’em,” Neil said, a trace of dread in his muttered reply.
Ignoring him, she studied the two, who now waited at the bottom of the porch steps, watching the ancient pickup coming toward them. Both were dressed in typical ranch gear—boots, jeans, and work shirts.
