Stands a Calder Man Read Free Page A

was just a pup, playin’ around with my boy. Now both of them is full-growed men.”
    Benteen sighed irritably. “I wish I knew where I went wrong with him.”
    â€œWebb?” Barnie frowned at him. “There isn’t a better cowboy on the ranch than him.”
    â€œIt isn’t a cowboy I want,” Benteen replied, but didn’t confide the doubts he had about Webb’s ability to become the ranch’s leader. “How many more carloads of steers do we have left?”
    Barnie took the cue to change the subject. “About eight or nine, I’d say.” When he noticed the haggard lines etched in Benteen’s features, he concealed his concern by casually rolling a smoke. “No need for you to stick around. We can handle the rest.”
    Benteen hesitated, but the constant din at the railroad pens grated on nerves that were already raw. “I’ll be at the hotel if you need me.”
    Barnie nodded acknowledgment, although he didn’t look up as he tapped tobacco from the pouch onto the trough of cigarette paper.
    When Benteen stopped at the hotel desk to pick up the key to the suite, there was a message waiting for him. “Your wife said to tell you she’d gone shopping, Mr. Calder,” the clerk informed him.
    Annoyance flickered across his expression as heclosed his fingers around the key and clipped out an automatic “Thank you.”
    â€œBe sure to let us know if there’s anything you need,” the clerk offered, not wanting the hotel to be responsible for the displeasure of a guest as important as Benteen Calder.
    â€œHave someone bring up a bottle of your best whiskey,” he ordered.
    A quick smile spread across the clerk’s face. “Your wife has already seen to that, sir. It’s waiting in your room.”
    As he climbed the stairs to the suite, Benteen made a silent wager with himself that there would be a fresh cigar waiting for him in addition to the bonded whiskey. He won the bet. It was his wife’s thoughtfulness that softened the hard curves of his mouth more than the cigar and the sipping whiskey. Shrugging out of his jacket, he dropped it and his hat on a chair in the suite’s sitting room and sat down in the second chair, stretching out his legs full length in front of him.
    Although the whiskey he’d splashed in the glass was barely touched, the cigar was half-smoked when Benteen heard the soft laughter of female voices in the hotel corridor. A key was turned in the lock and the door was pushed inward. His instinct was to stand, but a lethargy seemed to have control of his muscles as Lorna swept into the room with a rustle of skirt and petticoats.
    Her arms were laden with packages. The young, blond-haired girl who followed her into the suite was similarly burdened. Benteen couldn’t help noticing that Lorna didn’t look that much older than the teenaged girl. She claimed there were gray strands in her dark hair, but they were so few that they didn’t show. Her figure retained its slim, youthful curves and her complexion was china-smooth, showing only fine hairline cracks of age—thanks to the lotions she used to combat the effects of Montana’s harsh climate. No one looking at her would guess at her inner strength, or thehardships she’d suffered in the early years. Her struggle to come to grips with this land had been as great as his own. With Lorna at his side, Benteen felt there was nothing he couldn’t handle.
    â€œI hope Daddy won’t think I spent too much,” young Ruth Stanton declared with a trace of apprehension.
    Neither woman had noticed Benteen yet. He didn’t mind. He liked the opportunity to watch Lorna unobserved. After setting her packages on the table just inside the room, she was unpinning the feathered blue silk hat.
    â€œYour father wanted you to buy nice things for yourself,” Lorna insisted, still addressing the daughter of her late