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It was Jessy, not Sally, who walked into the den, carrying a tray with an insulated coffee carafe and three cups. “Who wants coffee?” she said brightly and set the tray on the occasional table between the two wing-backed leather chairs in front of the desk.
Ty glanced at the three cups. “Are you joining us?”
“Actually the third cup was for Logan, but—since he’s not here—I thought I would have a cup with you.” Jessy proceeded to fill all three cups.
“What the hell!” The near roar of outrage from Chase whipped Ty’s att
ention back to him.
“What’s wrong?”
Chase looked up from the letter in his hand, eyes blazing. “They revoked our grazing permit. We have three days to remove all our livestock. Here. Read it for yourself.” He shoved the letter to Ty and picked up the phone, angrily punching in a series of numbers.
The coffee forgotten, Jessy was at Ty’s side in an instant, needing to see the words for herself. There they were, plain and blunt and final.
“They can’t do this,” Jessy murmured.
“The government can do anything it damn well pleases,” Ty replied, the anger in his voice tightly leashed.
“But—why?” Jessy frowned in confusion. “Why would they do it after all these years?”
Behind the desk, Chase spoke into the phone, his voice hard and clipped. “Get me Justin Farnsworth.” After a small pause, he erupted, “I don’t give a damn if he’s in a meeting. You tell him Chase Calder is on the line. I need to talk to him, and I need to talk to him now!”
Distracted by the contents of the letter, none of them heard the front door open or the approaching thud of booted feet. Not until Ballard walked into the den did they become aware of his presence in the house.
“There you are, Ty,” he said. “I’m glad I caught you before you headed to the calving sheds. You never told me what you decided about using a concrete stain on the floor. If you’re—”
“Later,” Ty abruptly cut across his words. “I’m tied up right now. Before I leave, I’ll swing by the barn and go over it with you.”
Darting one quick glance at Chase’s grim face with the phone to his ear, Ballard immediately picked up on the room’s charged atmosphere and nodded, backing toward the door. “I’ll talk to you then.”
“Wait. There was a phone call for you early this morning,” Jessy remembered and retrieved the message slip from the desk. Taking it to him, she explained, “It’s from the supplier of the light fixtures that were back-ordered.”
“Justin. It’s Chase Calder here,” Chase said behind her, finally making the connection with the lawyer.
Jessy smoothly steered Ballard out of the den. “The supplier promised that the shipment would go out yet this week. We should have it by the first of next week at the latest.”
“We better.” Ballard glanced briefly at the message before tucking it in his shirt pocket. “Until they get here, the electrician is pretty much at a standstill.”
“I know.” Jessy kept walking, escorting him to the front door.
Ballard lagged a bit and threw a glance over his shoulder when he caught the sound of Chase Calder’s raised voice. “It sounds like somebody is on the receiving end of a chewin’ out from the Old Man. It takes a helluva lot to make him blow, which tells me there’s some big trouble somewhere.”
Jessy felt the curious probe of his gaze and knew Ballard had an ear tuned to the one-sided telephone conversation coming from the den. She had little doubt that he had gleaned enough from it to make an accurate guess. And with the order contained on the letter, to remove any and all livestock within three days, its contents would soon become common knowledge of necessity.
“We lost the grazing lease on Wolf Meadow,” Jessy admitted. “We have three days to remove all our cattle.”
“Three days,” Ballard repeated, then whistled softly. “There’s something like ten thousand acres in that chunk, isn’t there?”
“That’s right.”
“That’ll take some doin’ to comb that much country in only three days,” Ballard mused aloud. “A lot of it will have to be done from the air.”
“More than likely,” Jessy agreed.
Even if Chase was eventually successful in getting the order rescinded and the grazing permit reinstated, it was highly unlikely he could accomplish it within the three-day deadline. And a failure to remove their livestock within that time frame would result in the imposition of stiff fines for every day they failed to comply with the order. Payment of the fines would be demanded, regardless of the final outcome. She stood by the front door, the full ramifications of the letter sinking in.
“Say,” Ballard began, his forehead creasing in a thoughtful frown. “Isn’t that the same piece of land Dy-Corp had its hands on a few years ago?”
