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“He don’t want your charity any more than I do. But don’t take my word for it. Come along and ask him yourself,” Buck challenged with some of his former cockiness.
“Don’t think I won’t,” Chase retorted. “He’s an old man, Buck. We can take better care of him than you.”
Buck shook his head. “You can tend to him better, maybe, but you won’t care about him more than I will. He’s my father, the only family I got left. Now that I’m out, his place is with me,” he stated. “He wrote that he was staying with Walt and Ruby Atkins. Is he still there?”
“He is.”
“Then that’s where I’m going.” Buck swung around and jerked open the pickup door, then paused to fire another look at Chase. “Are you coming along or not?”
“I’m coming,” Chase answered grimly. “I’m not about to let you bulldoze an old man into leaving here.” He shot a quick look at Ty. “I’ll handle this. You go ahead and take Tara to her plane.”
Logan spoke up. “Why don’t you ride with me, Chase? I’ll tag along just to keep things peaceable.”
“Suit yourself.” Changing directions, Chase headed for the patrol vehicle. He didn’t expect any trouble from Buck, convinced that the man knew Chase would grab any excuse to throw him behind bars again.
Through it all, Tara had been a silent but interested observer. She gazed after the departing vehicles, trying to piece together the tidbits of information she had gleaned from the exchange, but there were too many blank spots.
“Who was that, Ty?” she asked curiously.
“Buck Haskell.”
At that instant it all came together. “Ruth’s son,” she murmured with the certainty of knowledge.
“Yes.” Ty’s answer was short. Just as abruptly, he said, “Are you ready? What about your luggage?”
“It’s already been taken to the plane. I’m ready if you are.”
Out of habit, Ty took Tara’s arm and escorted her to the truck, opening the door and giving her a hand into the cab, but he was preoccupied, his thoughts on his father and Buck Haskell.
The At
kinses lived in one of the houses the ranch provided for its married hands. Buck was waiting by the front stoop when Logan and Chase arrived at the house.
“I figured you’d want to be the one to do the knocking,” Buck said by way of explanation when they joined him.
Making no response, Chase walked past him and rapped lightly on the front door. After a brief interval, Ruby Atkins opened the door, a stout woman in her early forties. She stepped back in surprise when she saw Chase,
“Mr. Calder, I didn’t expect it to be you at the door.” Her glance darted past him, touching on Buck and lingering an instant on Logan. “If you’re looking for Walt, he’s at the calving shed.”
“No. We’re here to see Vern,” Chase stated.
“Oh.” She blinked in surprise and backed out of the doorway. “Please come in. He’s in his room as usual. He seems to prefer it there.” She held the door open while the three men filed through, then hurried ahead of them to lead the way. “His room is right through here. Honestly, given a choice, I think Vern would stay in there all the time. But I have insisted that he join us for our meals. The minute he’s finished, though, right back in the room he goes.” Ruby paused outside a closed door and knocked twice. “It’s me, Vern,” she said and walked in.
Shriveled and old, Vern Haskell sat in a cane-backed rocking chair in the corner, his gaunt face turned toward the bedroom’s only window. A space heater glowed a few feet away, raising the room’s temperature to an almost suffocating eighty degrees. Yet he was bundled in a turtleneck and heavy flannel shirt with an orange and brown afghan draped over his bony legs.
Without pause, Ruby crossed directly to his chair and bent close. “Vern.” She spoke in a deliberately loud voice. “Mr. Calder is here to see you.”
The announcement roused him, bringing his head around to stare with vacant, cataract-clouded eyes toward the doorway. Chase moved forward as Ruby swung away from the rocker, pausing long enough to bend down and switch off the heater.
“You’ll have to speak up,” she warned Chase when she passed him. “He has gotten very hard of hearing.”
Chase nodded and continued on to the corner. “Vern, it’s Chase Calder.”
The old man craned his neck back to look up at him. “What do you want?” he demanded in a crotchety tone, then waved a skeletal hand at the others. “And who’s that with you? You’re figurin’ on cartin’ me off to a nursin’ home, aren’t you?”
“No. I brought you a visitor,” Chase began.
“Tell ’im to go away. There ain’t nobody I want to see.”
