Page 1 (1/2)

PART ONE

Montana green grass is what done it

It brought that first Calder here

He staked a claim

In the Calder name

But there’s an area where the title ain’t clear

Chapter One

The grass ocean rippled gold under a strong suh the heart of it was a small portion of theempire of the Calder Cattle Company, better known in Montana as the Triple C

It was a land that could be bountiful or brutal, a land that bent to no man’s will, a land that weeded out the weak and faint of heart, tolerating only the strong

No one knew that better than Chase Benteen Calder, the current patriarch of the Triple C and a direct descendant of the first Calder, his namesake, who had laid clairassland Its size was never soed about; the way he looked at it, when you were the biggest, everybody already knew it, and if they didn’t, they would soon be told And the knowledge would carry

To a few, the enor of rancor The events of recent weeks were proof of that The freshness of that ri the hard-packed road, a rooster tail of dust plu Chase allowed hisan operation this size required a etting big if ignored This land and a long life had taught hi else

Which was likely why his sharp eyes spotted the sagging wire caused by a tilting fence post Chase braked the truck to a stop, but not before the pickup clattered over a uard He shifted into reverse, backed up to the cattle guard, stopped, and switched off the engine

The full force of the sun’s rays beat down on him as Chase stepped out of the truck, older and heavier but still a rugged and powerfully built man

The sixty-plus years he carried had taken soray to his hair, and grooved deeper creases into the sun-leathered skin around his eyes anda crustiness to his face, but it hadn’t diminished the mark of authority stamped on his raw-boned features

Reaching back inside the truck, Chase grabbed a pair of tough leather work gloves off the seat and headed toward the section of the sagging fence six posts from the road Never once did it occur to Chase to send one of the ranch hands back to fix the proble what they were on the Triple C, that was the quickest way of turning a fifteen-minute job into a two-hour one

With each stride he took, the brittle, sun-cured grass crackled under foot Its stalks were short and curly, ht-tolerant and highly nutritious, the kind of feed that put weight on cattle and was a mainstay of the Triple C’s century of success

The loved hands closed around the post in question, it dipped drunkenly under the pressure The three spaced strands of tightly strung barbed ere clearly the only thing keeping it upright at all Chase kicked away the round level

This was one fence repair that wouldn’t be a fifteen-lanced toward the pickup parked on the road There was a time when he would have carried steel fence posts and a roll of wire along with other sundry items piled in the truck bed But on this occasion, there was only a toolbox

Chase didn’t waste tiret for the lack of a spare post Instead he ran an inspecting glance along the rest of the fence, following its steady le line In that one, cursory observation, he noticed three ht line If three could be spotted with the naked eye, there were undoubtedlywas one of those never-ending jobs every rancher faced

When he turned to retrace his steps to the pickup, he caught the distant drone of another vehicle Automatically Chase scanned the narrow road in both directions without finding a vehicle in sight But one was approaching, of that he had no doubt

It was the huge sweep of sky that gave the illusion of flatness to the land beneath it In reality the terrain was riven with coulees and shallow hollows, all of them hidden from vieith the sahs

By the time Chase reached his truck, another ranch pickup had roared into view, co as the other vehicle slowed perceptibly then rolled to a stop behind Chase’s pickup The trailing dust cloud swept forward, briefly enveloping both vehicles before settling to a low fog

Squinting against the sting of dust particles, Chase recognized the short, squatly built man behind the wheel as Stumpy Niles, a contehter-in-law Chase lifted a hand in greeting and headed toward the truck