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I

Wanting to belong isn’t easy

When they’re h instead

And the hardest of all is knowing

They’re all Calder born—and Calder bred

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The ept Montana plains rolled with e a fence line that stretched into the far-flung horizon, old snow for wind had brushed clean the brown carpet of frozen grass that covered the rough-and-tumble roll of the plains and held the thin layer of soil in place

There was no rooh country for anyone not wise to its ways To those who understood it, its wealth was given But those who tried to take it eventually paid a brutal price

Its primitive beauty lay in the starkness of its landscape The vast reaches of nothingness seeo on forever Winter came early and stayed late in this lonely land where cattle outnumbered people The cattle on this particular e carried the brand of the Triple C,them as the property of the Calder Cattle Company

A lone pickup truck was bouncing over the frozen ruts of the ranch road, just one of some two hundred miles of private roads that interlaced the Triple C Ranch A vaporous cloud froray-white plu nowhere There was no destination in sight until the truck crested a low rise in the plains and came upon a hollow that nature had scooped into the deceptively flat-appearing terrain

The caround, one of a half-dozen such ca circle around the nucleus of the ranch, breaking its vastness into eable districts The term “camp” was a holdover from the early days when line camps were established to offer crude shelters to cowboys working the range far fros

There was a weathered solidness and pers at South Branch, structures built to last by caring hands Stued this district of the ranch, lived in the big log ho squatty building set into the hillside, was not far fro sheds in the hollow

The truck stopped by the ranch buildings Chase Calder stepped from the driver’s side and unhurriedly turned up the sheepskin collar of his coat against the keening wind Like his father and his father’s father, the reins of the Triple C Ranch were in his hands His grip had to be firh to direct the operations, and steady enough to ride out the rough patches

Authority had rested long on his shoulders, and he had learned to carry it well This land that bore his fa his face to a leather tan, creasing his strong features with hard experience, and narrowing his brown eyes which had to see the potential trouble lurking beyond the far horizon Chase was on the wrong side of thirty, pushing hard at forty, and all those years had been spent on Calder land It was ingrained in his soul, the sarained in his heart

The slalance swung idly to the tall, lanky boy co idle about the inspection behind that look This sixteen-year-old was his son Ty had been born a Calder, but he hadn’t been raised one, soretted ie and hio

Those had been long years, a time forever lost to them Her father’s death had aroused toothe Calder name He hadn’t tried to stop her when she left; and he had made no attempt to find out where she went There had been no reason to try—or so he had thought at the time But he hadn’t known of the existence of his son until the fifteen-year-old boy had arrived, claiie, at odd mo their years of separation, Ty had grown to near manhood in a soft environment of southern California

All this land would be Ty’s so had been lost Chase was nagged by the feeling that he had to cram fifteen years o

f experience into Ty in the shortest period of time possible The kid had potential He had try, but he was only greenbroke, like a young horse that wasn’t sure about the rider on its back or the bit in its mouth—or as expected from it

With school out of session for spring break, Chase was taking advantage of the time to expose Ty to another facet of the ranch’s operation—the ordeal of spring calving For the regular cowboys, it was a seven-day-a-week job until the last cow had calved in all the districts of the Triple C Ranch Since Stuht Ty to help out and, at the sa more about the business

As he stopped beside hiainst the bitter March wind rolling off the unbroken plains In a coesture, Chase threw a hand on his son’s shoulder, heavily padded by the thick winter coat

“You met most of the boys here when you worked the roundup last fall” Chase eyed his son with a hint of pride, not really noticing the strong fahly planed features It was the glint of deter thrust of Ty’s chin

Ty’s memory of the roundup wasn’t a pleasant one, so he just nodded at the information and held silent on his opinion of “the boys” They had made his life miserable The worst horses on the ranch had been put in his string to ride When “the boys” weren’t throwing their hats under his horse, they were hoorahing hi or they were slapping his hands with a rope If he forgot to recheck the saddle cinch before , it was a sure bet one of them had loosened it They had told him so many wild tales about the tricks to catch a steer that Ty felt if they had told hih to believe them

They had pulled more practical jokes on hi up onea rattlesnake coiled on top of his chest It had been hibernating and the cold , but Ty hadn’t known that He had damned near crapped his pants, and all “the boys” had stood around and laughed their sides out

It was like being the new kid on the block Of course, Ty never used that phrase around his father His father had the opinion that city lifeelse, Ty wanted to prove to his father that he wasn’t weak, but he didn’t knohe could take A couple of the old-timers, Nate Moore for one, had told hih this, but it see an extra job on him

The hand on his shoulder tightened as his father spoke again “Stuet you settled in”

“Okay” Stirring, Ty reluctantly lifted his gaze to the sheds where there was a suggestion of activity

A pigtailed girl about ten years old crawled between the railings of a board fence and ambled toward theave bulk to her skinny frame, as did the double layer of jeans tucked inside a pair of run-down and patched boots A wool scarf tied her cowboy hat on her head, a pair of honey-brown braids poking out the front