Calder Pride (24 page)

“Probably a week.” Emmett hobbled after him, puffing a little at the swift pace he set. “It’s mostly for storage.”

The shed sat off by itself, about twenty yards from the store. Built of wood, its white painted boards chipped and coated with prairie dust, it had the look of an old two-car garage. Rusted wheel rims and old tires were piled along one side of it, half-hidden by the tall weeds and wild grasses that grew around the shed.

Following a narrow path through the weeds, Emmett went around to a side door that appeared to be secured by a large steel padlock. He gave it a downward yank, and it sprang apart. Unhooking it, he pushed the door open and stepped inside, flipping on a wall switch. Three bare light bulbs flashed on, illuminating dusty stacks of boxes, spare engine parts, an assortment of hubcaps, and the truck in question.

A weighty sigh of relief spilled from Emmett. “There it is. You had me thinking it wouldn’t be.”

“See if the keys are still hanging up.” Logan surveyed the windowless interior. Heat hung heavy in the airless shed, musty with the smell of dust and mildew.

Turning, Emmett took two shuffling steps to the right and ran his hand along a stud, then looked down, checking the concrete floor at his feet. “They’re gone,” he said in a dumbfounded voice. “That don’t make any sense. The truck’s still here.”

Still playing his hunch, Logan walked over to the
truck and glanced through the passenger window. A set of keys dangled from the windshield wiper lever, the silver shine of them somehow taunting.

“They’re in the truck, Emmett.”

“The hell you say,” he murmured, momentarily stunned. Recovering, he hustled to the truck, his body pitched forward with his degree of haste. “They belong on the damned wall. Who—”

“Leave them where they are, Emmett. And don’t touch anything else.” Crouching down, Logan examined the right front tire, studying the tread pattern and the bits of dirt and gravel lodged between them.

“Don’t touch it? Why?” He stopped a good three feet from the vehicle.

“I think your truck might have been—borrowed, shall we say?” he suggested with an ironic lift to his mouth.

“Borrowed? You mean, somebody took it without asking first?”

“It’s possible.”

Straightening, Logan began a slow, inspecting walk around the truck, taking special note of the long stalks of grass trapped between the running board and the truck body. At last he came to the rear of the truck and stopped. “What do you use this canvas tarp for, Emmett?”

“What tarp?”

“This one.” He motioned for Emmett to come over and take a look.

“I don’t keep any tarps in that truck. Never had any reason to,” he muttered. Confusion creased his face when he saw the stained and rumpled canvas on the floor of the truck bed. “Why, that looks like one of those paint tarps we used a few years back when we enlarged the store and repainted the walls. I had a half dozen of ’em stacked over here in the corner. I
wonder who put it in the truck, and how did it get all that grease on it?”

“I don’t think that’s grease, Emmett.”

“What else could it be?” he scoffed.

“Blood.” Logan saw the color drain from the old man’s face and added, “Cow’s blood. I haven’t looked, but I’d be willing to bet we’ll also find strands of cow hair on that winch cable.”

“You mean…you think somebody butchered a beef and used my truck to haul it away?”

“That’s exactly what I think.” His mouth curved, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes.

“Calder—those cattle of his that got killed—”

“You’re quick, Emmett.”

“And they used my truck to do it.” His expression fell halfway between astonishment and outrage.

“And they didn’t make any attempt to conceal their use of it. On the contrary, they’ve flaunted it,” Logan murmured thoughtfully, recalling the grisly scene of the slaughtered cattle.

“It’s that damned Lath Anderson.” Emmett all but spat the name. “It’s just the kind of dirty stunt that arrogant bastard would pull.”

“You think he did it to implicate you?” Logan arched an eyebrow in skepticism.

“He did it to sign his name to the deed, the same way he slashed those pump hoses and rolled my own tires to the island, drenched ’em in my gas, and set the whole thing on fire.”

Logan couldn’t deny the two incidents bore similar signatures. Still he shook his head. “But what’s the connection between you and Calder?”

“It’s obvious,” Emmett declared. “He’s trying to get even with both of us. Me for closing his ma’s account and Calder for sending Rollie to prison.”

A puzzled line creased his forehead. “How did Calder do that?”

“He didn’t, really, but that’s not the way old Emma Anderson tells it. Rollie caused the accident that killed Repp Taylor. Repp worked for Calder and was fixing to marry his daughter. Rollie was stinking drunk at the time. Emma went to Calder and pleaded with him to speak up for her son and ask the judge to go light on him. Calder must have refused. Rollie got slapped with the maximum sentence and the Andersons ended up losing their farm. She puts the blame for all of it at Calder’s door.”

Logan considered that. “That sounds like a slim reason to me.”

“You wanta talk about slim, what about me?” Emmett turned indignant. “I’ve been carrying that Anderson account on my books for better than ten years while they been paying me ten dollars one month, maybe fifty the next, then only five. Every once in a while I’ll see a hundred dollars, but with them always charging, they never made a dent in the balance. After they lost the farm, the dang thing doubled. What was I supposed to do? It was business, damn it. I had to cut her off.”

“I can see that.”

“Yeah, but you’re thinking there’s more to it than what I’m saying, but I’m telling you there isn’t,” Emmett insisted on a defensive note. “And I’d bet it’s the same for Calder, but you’ll have to ask him that.”

“I plan on it,” Logan said with a nod. “First, though, I need to use your phone and get Berton out here. We’ll need to bag up that tarp and send it off to the lab for analysis to see whether this is cow blood. I’ll want that cable checked for any hair follicles and the truck dusted for prints. The boldness of this whole thing makes me believe they wore gloves, but there’s always the chance they slipped up somewhere. We’ll need to compare the tread pattern on
these tires with the photo of the ones I found at the Triple C, too.”

“Are you going to arrest them?” Hope blossomed in his weathered face.

“Not unless we can lift a matching print,” Logan told him. “Without that, it’s your shed, your truck and your canvas tarp. Which reminds me, Emmett, do you own a rifle?”

“A rifle? Sure, I got a Winchester thirty-thirty to home. I haven’t used it in years, though. You don’t think—” He got a stricken look. “Oh my God, what if they used my rifle?”

“As soon as I get Berton over here, we’ll go by your place and see if it’s still there.” He wasn’t ready to eliminate Emmett. He had learned long ago not to be quick about closing doors.

As if sensing that, Emmett fell silent and followed him outside, then turned to close the door and slip the padlock back in place. Watching him, Logan smiled wryly. “If I were you, Emmett, I’d get a padlock that works. I’d hate to have someone ‘borrow’ your truck again.”

“I’ll be doing that.” Sincerity was heavy in his voice.

Leaving the shed area, Logan struck out for the store to make his call to Berton. Emmett plodded along after him. As they rounded the building, Lath was just pulling away from the store. He stopped and poked his head out the driver’s side window, a broad, taunting grin on his face.

“I wondered where you’d taken off to. Never guessed you were having a big powwow behind the store, Echohawk.” Laughing, he pulled his head back inside the cab, gunned the motor, honked, and took off, the tires squealing as he turned onto the highway.

“It’s him, I tell you,” Emmett said in low anger.
“He knows just what we found back there, and he’s laughing, knowing we can’t prove a thing.”

Logan could believe that about Lath. Problem was, acts of petty revenge just didn’t strike him as Lath’s style. He had always pegged him as a man without scruples, motivated mainly by greed. He didn’t see where Anderson profited from killing a bunch of cattle and torching some gas pumps.

A
fter Logan made the phone call to his deputy Berton Rouch, he drove Emmett to his home. The Winchester was in the closet. Judging by the dirty barrel, it hadn’t been fired—or cleaned—in years. Besides a shotgun he kept at the store and a handgun he had in the drawer of his nightstand, Emmett insisted he had no other guns.

Logan drove a very relieved Emmett back to the combination grocery store and gas station, arriving a few minutes after Berton Rouch, a round, beetle-browed man, completely devoid of humor, pulled in. Together, Logan and Berton bagged the canvas tarp for later shipment to the lab, unrolled a five-foot section of cable, lopped it off with a hacksaw, bagged it as well, then photographed the tires for comparisons and collected the floor mats inside the truck cab to have them checked for blood. When it came time to dust for prints, Logan left the job to Berton. The man was infuriatingly slow but always thorough.

Leaving the airless shed, Logan walked back to the store and conferred briefly with the fire marshal. Beyond confirming the cause was arson and the gaso
line from the pumps themselves had likely been the accelerant, Frank Truedell could offer little else. After promising to fax Logan a copy of his report, he climbed in his car and left.

Logan paused beside the barricades. The acrid smell of smoke was keen and strong tainting the clean air that drifted off the prairie. With a small lift of his head, he swung his glance to the restaurant parking lot, his thoughts coming back to the things Fedderson had said about Calder and the Andersons. His glance touched the pickup that carried the Triple C brand on its doors, its presence confirming the Calders were inside, Cat included. But there was no avoiding that.

His bronze features took on a remote cast as he struck out toward the restaurant. A dozen yards from the building, Logan heard the grating creak of metal rubbing against metal and noticed the slow back-and-forth sway of the chains suspending a wooden swing from the restaurant’s porch roof. Drawing closer, he saw the boy sitting on the swing, one hand loosely holding a supporting chain. It was Calder’s grandson.

Unbidden, O’Rourke’s suggestion came back to him that he should take a closer look at the boy. There was a lean kinking of muscle along his jaw as Logan rejected that idea out of hand. The boy was a Calder; there was nothing more he needed to know about him.

Head down, he made for the steps, intent only on going inside and asking his questions of Chase Calder. His boot touched the first tread and a young voice reached out to him, adultlike in its greeting.

“Evening, Sheriff.” There was a child’s hope for recognition in the look young Quint Calder gave him.

Logan hesitated, but it wasn’t in him to show the
boy the rough side of his temper. Stifling his irritation, he nodded. “Evening, Quint.”

There was a little leap of pleasure in the boy’s eyes that Logan had remembered his name. It was a small thing, Logan knew, but it gave the boy a sense of importance. And his reaction to it gentled something inside Logan and gave a softening warmth to the line of his mouth.

“Out here getting some air, are you?” Logan paused on the top step and glanced over his shoulder to see the view the boy had.

“My mom said I could come out here as long as I stayed on the porch.”

Logan turned back. “That’s good advice. There’s a lot of traffic at this time of day. It might be hard for someone in a truck to see a boy your size.”

“Yeah.” Quint shifted sideways in the swing, scooting ahead a bit and letting one coltish leg dangle. “Did ya find who shot our cattle?”

“Not yet. I was just going inside to talk to your grandfather about it. I guess your dad’s still out with the roundup,” Logan said and sensed an immediate withdrawing of the boy.

“I don’t got a dad.” Something flickered across the gray surfaces of his eyes, dulling the shine of them.

Logan drew his head back in surprise, his gaze instantly narrowing on the boy. “What do you mean?” The thoughtless question was out before Logan considered the wound it could inflict. He cursed himself for not remembering sooner his own fatherless childhood, even as the ramifications of Quint’s statement began registering.

“I don’t have a dad,” Quint repeated with a downward tip of his head, his slender shoulders lifting in a helpless shrug. “I don’t know why. I guess I never ever had one.”

If Quint wasn’t the son of Ty and Jessy Calder, then—“Your mother’s name is Cat, isn’t it?” Logan took a step toward the boy, something hard and savage twisting through him at the thought of Cat lying in the arms of another man. He recognized it as jealousy, which made it all the more galling.

Quint shot him a quick, hesitant look and nodded that she was.

Something in the tilt of his head, his quietly serious expression had Logan taking a closer look at him. His straw cowboy hat sat on the back of his head, showing Logan the shock of black hair beneath it.

The slanting sunlight was full on his face, exposing the thinness of it and the outline of strong bones beneath boyish-soft skin. But it was the pewter gray color of the boy’s eyes that had another thought streaking through Logan.

“How old are you, Quint?” He had to work to sound casual and keep the demand out of his voice.

“Five.” He held up his left hand, spreading his fingers and thumb wide.

“When’s your birthday?”

“I just had one last week.”

And it would be six years ago in August that he had been with Cat. Mathematically, it worked. It was a real possibility that this was his son. The thought dazzled and stunned him.

Logan refused to let the idea take root, not until he could either confirm or disprove it. He knew of only two ways to do that. One would be infinitely quicker.

“Five is a good age to be, Quint,” he said and moved toward the restaurant door.

When he opened it, Quint hopped off the swing and hurried after him, slipping inside before the door closed. Logan paused to take off his hat, his glance
cruising the room. Quint ran to the table. “The sheriff’s here.”

Cat didn’t need to be told that. She had seen Logan the instant he entered the restaurant. His gaze locked on her and never wavered as he came toward their table. She felt the quick, uneven thudding of her heart and the sudden shallowing of her breathing, his presence again causing a definite disturbance.

His expression was unreadable when he stopped by her chair. “I would like to have a word with you in private, Cat.”

He knew. The suspicion briefly rattled her, but she covered it from long practice, her lips curving in a show of amusement. “That’s a bit difficult here, don’t you think?”

“What’s this about, Echohawk?” Chase eyed him with a sharp frown.

Logan gave no sign that he’d heard him. “Would it be all right to use your office, Sally?” he asked without looking at the gray-haired woman seated at the table.

“Of course,” she murmured with obvious hesitancy.

He nodded his thanks, then lifted a hand, palm up, in the direction of the rear office. “After you.”

Rising, Cat turned and stepped ahead of him, wisdom convincing her this was a discussion better held in private. In one step, he was beside her, and she felt the intimate pressure of his guiding hand low on her back, directing her toward the hallway. The touch of it was much too familiar and warm, a sensation she didn’t want right now, when she needed all her wits about her.

But he didn’t take his hand away until they reached the door marked
PRIVATE.
He turned the knob and gave it a push inward, again letting Cat precede him. Walking over to the desk, she resisted
the urge to twist her fingers together and kept them at her side in a pose of calmness.

When he pushed the door shut, the dimensions of the room seemed to shrink. Cat fought off the feeling of claustrophobia and made a slow turn to face him, her glance traveling up his wide, flat chest to the unexpected gunmetal gray of his eyes. Tension licked along her nerve ends.

“What is it you wanted to discuss?” she asked, conscious of the mad drumming of her heart and confident none of this inner agitation showed in her expression.

“I just realized a few minutes ago that Quint is your son.” He watched her face. “Who is his father, Cat?”

She managed a laugh, albeit a shaky one. “Is this part of your investigation into the slaughter of our cattle?”

“It has nothing to do with it, and you know it.” There was something lazy and dangerous in the way he looked at her.

Trapped, she searched for a way out. “Does it matter? Does it really matter to you, Logan?” The edginess of desperation crept into her voice.

“It matters.”

“Because of Quint—or because of all that Calder money he represents?” Her anger came out, hot and tinged with bitterness.

“Then he is my son.”

“I never said that.”

“No. But a DNA test can prove it. Or had you overlooked that detail?”

“Damn you.” Her hands were still at her sides, but they were fisted now.

There was no warning knock before the door swung open, and Chase stepped through and stopped, one hand still gripping the knob, his hard
glance divided between Cat and Logan.

“What’s going on here?” He spoke with the conviction of a man accustomed to having his questions answered and his orders obeyed. “What do you want with my daughter?”

“This is between Cat and myself.” Logan spared him a brief glance, then centered his attention back on her.

“Anything that concerns my daughter concerns me,” Chase stated.

“I can’t argue with that.” Amusement curled the corners of his mouth as he looked at her. “Do you want him to stay, Cat?”

“Yes,” she rushed, then just as quickly changed it. “No!” She caught back a sob of frustration and swung away, cursing again, “Damn you, Logan.”

Releasing the door, Chase moved to her side, an arm protectively circling her as he glared at Logan. “Just what the hell is going on here? What is this all about? Exactly what is it you think Cat has done?”

“I’m not here in any official capacity, Mr. Calder. My business with your daughter is strictly personal.”

“Personal?” He was taken aback by that. “What’s he talking about, Cat?”

She closed her eyes for a long second. “Logan is Quint’s father.”

In the thick silence that followed her announcement, Chase stared at the man before him, then slowly ran his gaze over the office. It was in this very room that he himself had first learned he had a son. Chase remembered the shock of it and the ensuing rush of emotion. Oddly it didn’t seem that long ago.

“We’ll finish this discussion at the ranch,” he stated quietly.

“Dad—” Cat began.

But he heard the beginnings of an argument in her tone. “At the ranch, Cat.”

“There is nothing to discuss,” she protested.

“You’re wrong,” Chase replied. “There is a great deal to discuss.” His gaze swung to Logan. “I’ll ride with you. Cat can follow with Jessy and Quint.”

“That’s fine with me,” Logan stated.

“Well, it’s not fine with me!” Cat blazed, now in full temper. “This is my life and my child. I am not some schoolgirl anymore to be told where to go and when. No one decides my life but me.”

“That wasn’t my intention,” Chase told her.

“Really? It sounded very much like it to me.”

“Maybe it would be best if Cat rode with me,” Logan suggested. “We do need to talk. Assuming”—he paused, a mocking arch to his eyebrow—“that’s agreeable with you.”

At the moment, nothing was agreeable with her. But she knew that they needed to talk. Riding back to the ranch with him appeared to be the only opportunity.

“I think that’s an excellent suggestion,” she said at last.

Cat lifted her chin a little, in her trademark gesture of pride, and returned Logan’s look of long appraisal. Observing them, Chase felt the raw and wild currents that surged between these two strong and proud and self-willed young people. It stirred him, and made him remember what youth was like—the fire and the flash of it—and what had been taken from him when Maggie died.

Thinking of Maggie, he felt old and tired and alone. But there were decisions to be made, and he knew what they would be. He also knew Cat would fight him every inch of the way.

Turning from them, Chase said, “I’ll get Jessy and Quint, and we’ll be on our way.”

The sun rode low in the western sky, prolonging the hours of daylight into early evening and pouring its rays through the windshield of the speeding pickup. Reaching up, Logan lowered the visor to block the sun’s blinding glare. Cat turned her head from it and stared out the opened side window. The inrushing air whipped at the ends of her long black hair, blowing strands around in a corkscrew of motion.

A charged silence filled the cab of the pickup, broken only by the roar of the wind and monotonous whine of wheels. Logan deliberately let the pressure of it build, well aware that silence was a highly effective interrogation tool. He slowed to make the turn at the ranch’s east gate, the road surface changing from pavement to gravel.

On either side of the road, the wide-flung plains rolled in uneven dips and swells, capped by a gigantic sky.

“What is it you want, Logan?” Cat scraped a stray lock of hair from her cheek.

His glance observed her action, then skimmed her profile. “What any father would want: some time with his son.”

“He doesn’t need you.”

“I was raised without a father, Cat.” He rested one hand on the top of the steering wheel, his gaze fixed on the road ahead, his eyes narrowed slightly against the sun’s brightness. “I asked my mother about him once. But she couldn’t tell me his name. It turned out that she had been with a number of men, some she knew and some she didn’t. I never asked about him again, but I always wondered.” He waited a beat, then added, “So does Quint.”

“He has never asked about you.”

“Maybe he hasn’t, but he’s wondered about me.”

“You don’t know that,” Cat insisted curtly.

His mouth quirked in a humorless way. “When I
asked Quint where his father was today, do you know what he told me?”

“No.” Resentment turned her stiff.