Chapter One

The grass ocean rippled gold under a strong summer Sun. The dirt track that cut a straight line through the heart of it was a small portion of the mile-upon-mile of private roads that crisscrossed the ranching empire 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 claim to nearly six hundred square miles of this grassland.    Its size was never something Chase Calder bragged 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 more weight if he wasn't the one doing the telling.

To a few, the enormity of the Triple C was a thing of rancor.    The events of recent weeks were proof of that. The freshness of that memory accounted for the hint of grimness in his expression as Chase drove the ranch pickup along the hard-packed road, a rooster-tail of dust pluming behind it.    But the past wasn't something Chase allowed his mind to dwell on.    Running an operation this size required a man's full attention.    Even the smallest detail had a way of getting big if ignored.    This land and a long life has taught him that if nothing else.

Which is likely why his sharp eyes spotted the sagging wire caused by a tilting fencepost.    Chase braked the truck to a stop, but not before the pickup clattered over a metal cattle guard.    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 some of the spring from his step, added a heavy dose of gray to his hair and grooved deeper creases into the sun-leathered skin around his eyes and mouth, giving a 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 problem.    With distances being 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, matting close to the ground-native buffalo grass, drought-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 minute his gloved hands closed around the post in question, it dipped drunkenly under the pressure.    The three, spaced strands of tightly strung barbed wire were clearly the only thing keeping it upright at all.    Chase kicked away the matted grass at the base and saw that the wood had rotted at ground level.

This was one fence repair that wouldn't be a fifteen-minute fix. Chase glanced 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 time with regret for the lack of a spare post. Instead he ran an inspecting glance along the rest of the fence, following its steady march over the k rolling grassland until it thinned into a single line. In that one, cursory observation, he noticed three more places where the fence curved out of its straight line. If three could be spotted with the naked eye, there were undoubtedly more. It didn't surprise him. Fence mending was 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 view with the same ease that an ocean conceals its swales and troughs.

By the time Chase reached his truck, another ranch pickup had roared into view, coming from the west.    Chase waited by the cab door,   watching 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 contemporary of his and the father of Chase's daughter-in-law.     Chase lifted a hand in greeting and headed toward the truck.

Stumpy promptly rolled down the driver's side window and stuck his head out.   “What's the problem, Chase?"

“Have you got a spare fencepost in your truck?   We have a wooden one that's rotted through."

“Got it handled."   Stumpy scrambled out of the truck and moved toward the tailgate with short, choppy rides.

“Can't say I'm surprised.    Just about all them old wood posts have started rottin'.    It's gonna be one long, endless job replacin' 'em."

'And expensive, too,' Chase thought to himself, and pitched in to help the shorter man haul the steel post as well as a posthole jobber out of the truck's rear bed.    “I don't see where we have much choice.   It's got to be done.”

“I know."   Already sweating profusely in the hot summer sun, Stumpy paused to drag a handkerchief from his pocket and mop the perspiration from his round,   red face. “It ain't gonna be an easy job.    The ground's as hard as granite. It's been nearly forty years since we've had such a dry spring.    I'll bet we didn't get much more than an inch of moisture in all the South Branch section."

“It wasn't much better anywhere else on the ranch." Like Stumpy, Chase was remembering the last prolonged dry spell the ranch had endured.....