Read Green Calder Grass Online
Authors: Janet Dailey
Green Calder Grass (36 page)
During the long drive back to the Triple C headquarters, Chase made a mental list of anyplace on the ranch that might afford Buck an out-of-the-way hiding place, both the obvious and the not-so-obvious ones. The size of the ranch made for a long list.
The doors of The Homestead opened to a steady stream of callers that evening as townspeople and neighboring ranchers stopped by to express their sympathy. It was close to eleven o’clock before the last one left and the family had the house to themselves once more.
With the silence pressing on him from all sides, Chase retreated to the den. Aware that sleep would be a long time coming to him this night, he went through the telephone messages that had come in for him. The stack was a tall one. About halfway through them, he became conscious that he was being watched. Glancing up, he saw Jessy in the doorway.
“Turning in?” he asked.
“Soon.” She ran her gaze over the fireplace. “Every time I go by this door, I keep expecting to see Ty standing by the fireplace. It’s always such a shock not to see him.”
“I know.” Chase rarely looked in its direction.
“Sorry.” Jessy knew it was not the way of the Calders to talk about the loved ones they had lost. Tonight it had been unavoidable.
“I understand.”
Restless and reluctant to go upstairs to an empty bedroom, she wandered into the den. “Did you have a chance to talk to Logan tonight?”
“Just for a few minutes. Long enough to learn he had nothing new to report,” Chase admitted.
“He mentioned that he alerted all the border guards to be on the lookout for Buck. He seems to think he might try to slip into Canada.”
Chase shook his head. “I don’t think so. I’m certain Buck is hiding out somewhere on the Triple C. He knows everybody will expect him to make a run for the border. He’ll lie low for a while until some of the heat is off. Then he’ll make his move.” But Chase didn’t think it would be north to Canada.
Caught by surprise, Jessy said, “You don’t really think he’s here on the ranch, do you?”
“I do,” he stated. “It’s the kind of clever plan he would come up with. But this time he has outsmarted himself.”
“But where?” Jessy looked at the yellow map on the wall for answers.
“That
I don’t know,” Chase admitted. “But I intend to scour every inch of this ranch until I find him.”
I don’t know,” Chase admitted. “But I intend to scour every inch of this ranch until I find him.”
“When?”
“After the funeral.”
On Sunday, private aircraft crowded the hangar area of the Triple C landing strip. The ranchyard itself was a parking lot for the multitude of vehicles that had brought a host of mourners to the graveside service. The huge turnout spoke both to the far-reaching power of the Calder name and to the esteem in which Ty was held by those who had known him.
It was standing room only in the small cemetery near the river. Folding chairs were provided only for the immediate family and the more distinguished mourners. Wearing a dress of unrelieved black, Jessy sat next to Chase, her tawny head bared to the sun. Laura sat quietly on her lap, fingering the petals of the red rose in her hand, entranced by their velvety texture. Chase held Trey, who had yet to fidget restlessly as if sensing the solemness of the occasion.
When the last murmured “Amen” faded to silence, Jessy lifted her head. Grief was locked deep inside, too private and too painful to share. Cat and her family were the first to rise and step to the bronze casket, gleaming in the sunlight. One by one, each of them laid a single red rose atop it. Chase touched a hand to her elbow, signaling it was their turn.
Her legs felt wooden beneath her when she stood, but Jessy managed to step up and laid her rose on it. Wordlessly she let her fingers trail over the casket in a farewell caress.
“Leave your rose for Daddy,” she murmured to Laura and held her forward, watching as she carefully placed it with the others.
Moving to the side, Jessy waited for Chase. Tight-lipped with pain but otherwise without expression, he deposited his rose with the rest. Without being told, Trey stretched forward and dropped his flower onto the casket.
“Bye-bye, Daddy.” His innocent voice rang out, clear and poignant.
For the first time in two days, Jessy choked up. Fighting back tears, she turned away and allowed Logan to draw her into their circle.
Other mourners filed past the gravesite. Those who had yet to speak personally to the family continued on to pay their respects. It was a moment before Jessy could no more than nod in a response.
Tara was among the last to approach the grave. Wearing a black hat, black veil, black dress, black gloves, and supported by her houseman Brownsmith, she made a tragic figure. Recalling Tara’s last display of hysteria, Jessy braced herself for another such exhibition of it. But it didn’t come.
Without a single audible sob, Tara placed something on the casket, but Jessy wasn’t able to see it until Tara moved out of the way. There, atop the bright red roses left by the family, lay a single Texas-yellow rose. In many ways, it was a galling sight, but Jessy refused to give rise to the anger she felt.
Just the same there was a bitter taste in her mouth when Tara paused before her. The black veil’s thick screen failed to conceal the haunted flatness of Tara’s eyes. The absence of their lively black gleam was a kind of shock.
“I know how deeply you grieve, Jessy,” Tara said in a lifeless voice that revealed her own pain. “I don’t know what role I played in his death, but I will wonder until the day I die whether Ty might still be alive if I hadn’t come back. I wanted him to hurt just as I hurt. But I didn’t want this. I swear I didn’t.” Giving Jessy no opportunity to reply, she turned to Chase. “I will use every means I have to see that his murderer is found.”
Then she was moving away, her place taken by the lieutenant governor and his wife. Others were lined up behind them. Jessy understood that this was all part of death’s ritual, but she was eager for it to be over even though it would almost be worse to be alone with her memories.
The line was still long when Jessy caught splashing sounds coming from the river, followed by the telltale pound and scrape of hooves climbing the bank. Curious, she glanced toward the deep shade of the cottonwoods along the bank as a slender rider scrambled out of the saddle and moved swiftly through the trees toward the cemetery. Jessy recognized Culley at once and wondered at his haste.
Although distracted by the next in line, she kept darting glances to keep track of Culley as he made his way toward Cat. Jessy knew instinctively that something was wrong or the shy man wouldn’t come anywhere near such a large gathering.
But it was Logan that Culley drew aside, said something to him, and pointed west. Jessy automatically glanced in the same direction. At first she saw nothing. Then she noticed the dark cloud band that hugged the far horizon. For a split second, she froze in alarm.
Turning, she reached to claim Chase’s attention. But she was too late. “Chase!” Ballard pushed his way to the front of the line. “Look! That’s smoke.”
It took only one look for Chase to confirm the sighting. He didn’t have to see the flames to know they were dealing with a grassfire, and a big one at that.
Immediately Chase began snapping out orders. “Stumpy, get the pumper truck manned. The rest of you, load up your trucks with every rake, shovel, and blanket you can lay your hands on, and fill up anything that can hold water.” He pushed Trey into Cat’s arms. “Notify the county, Logan. We’re going to need help.”
Ballard paused long enough to warn Jessy, “Get the kids to the house as quick as you can. It’s gonna get crazy around here.”
Jessy could already see the beginnings of it. Fire was a word that spread through the throng of mourners like a contagion. Those who knew what to do were already moving into action. The rest had stopped to gawk, unaware of the very real danger it presented. The drought had turned the grass plains into a vast tinderbox. Any fire that took hold would be hard to stop. And the wide swath of dark smoke warned of the fire’s momentum. Worst of all, the prevailing wind was blowing it straight toward the Triple C headquarters.
Pushed by the urgency of the moment, Jessy handed Laura to her mother. “Look after the twins for me, Mom.”
Grateful for the flats she had elected to wear, Jessy ran toward The Homestead, weaving in and out of the people and vehicles in her path. Once inside the house, she didn’t pause but raced upstairs, stripped out of her dress, and pulled on jeans, boots, and a shirt. Then she was running back outside.
It was a chaotic scene that greeted her. Vehicles clogged the yard, some attempting to leave, more trying to get to the fire. Already three pickups had broken free from the traffic jam and were speeding over a ranch road toward the ominous wall of smoke.
Not far behind them was the pumper truck. Jessy knew instinctively that Chase was in one of the pickups.
A horse whinnied near the barn area, drawing her attention to a cowboy in his Sunday suit leading two saddled horses to the ramp of a stock trailer. With a slap on the rump, he loaded them into the trailer and disappeared back inside the barn.
Launching herself off the steps, Jessy headed for the stock trailer and a certain ride to the fire. Along the way she passed her mother and Sally, each with a twin in her arms and Quint herded between them.
“Be careful,” her mother called. “And remind your father he isn’t as young as he used to be.”
Jessy didn’t bother to reply. But none was expected.
At the head of the ranch pickups, Chase sat on the passenger side, one arm braced against the dashboard to absorb the jolts of the rough ride. His gaze was fixed on the smoke wall still some distance ahead of them. Stumpy was behind the wheel, his short leg stretched stiff to keep his foot hard on the accelerator.
“What about Six Mile Road?” Stumpy said. “Maybe we can use it for a firebreak.”
“I don’t think so. It looks like it’s already on this side of it,” Chase said grimly. “We’ll have to make a stand along that big dry wash. It’s the only natural barrier left between here and the river. God help us if it gets that far.”
Stumpy muttered a few choice expletives under his breath. A half-mile farther, he slowed the truck and made the turn into the fence gate. Chase hopped out of the cab, threw the gate open wide, signaled for the rest of the vehicles to follow them, and climbed back in.
As the pickup rolled through the gate, Stumpy pointed its nose in the direction of the wash and took off cross-country. When they topped a hillock, Chase had his first glimpse of the long red line of flames that underscored the smoke clouds.
Stumpy saw it, too. “Jeez, Chase, it’s close to a half-mile wide already.”
“And spreading fast.”
When they reached the dry wash, Stumpy traveled along its bank until they reached a spot that would be roughly the midway point of the advancing flames. The minute the truck rolled to a halt, Chase piled out of it. The smoke from the grassfire had yet to reach them, but the smell of it was in the air.
“Spread out in both directions,” he shouted to the others. “We’ll start a backfire on the other side of the wash. Don’t let it get away from you.”
The dry washbed ran wide for a good distance then narrowed dangerously. Coulees emptied into the wash in three other places along this stretch, two of them overgrown with brush. All were critical points, but Chase was more concerned about the south end of the wash. He dispatched the pumper truck to that area where water would be their best weapon, maybe their only one.
By the time Jessy had arrived on the scene, flames from the first backfires were crackling through the dry grass along the opposite bank. At intervals all up and down the wash, men in suits and white shirts worked to keep the backfire contained. Most were Triple C hands, but Jessy noticed a few from neighboring ranches plus some longtime residents of Blue Moon among them. A smoke haze hung over the entire scene, scratching her throat with each breath she took.
“What’s the plan?” she asked.
“With any luck, the backfire will slow it down and give the fire trucks a chance to get here. At best, we’ll force it south, away from headquarters,” Chase replied.
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