Beyond the Christmas Star (Elkhorn, Colorado #3)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Elkhorn, Colorado

The hackles rose on Caleb Marlowe’s neck and a chill prickled his scalp. In his fist the hammer hung poised, ready to strike home the nail. He rolled his broad shoulders and raised his eyes from the barn roof he was about a day from finishing.

This was the way with him. Caleb sensed trouble before it barreled through the door. The instinct had kept him alive more times than he could count.

Near the edge of the rise where the ranch buildings were taking shape, Bear was on his feet and looking to the southeast. The large yellow dog had smelled something on the crisp, mid-morning breeze.

The speck of a distant rider appeared at the crest of a far-off hill and then disappeared. A moment later, he came into view again. He was coming hard.

Caleb knew instantly who it was. He’d know Henry Jordan in a dust storm a mile away.

His partner had gone off this morning to round up two stray steers that had wandered downriver.

And the only time he’d ever seen Henry push a horse this hard, the fellow had a Cheyenne war party pounding along behind him.

Caleb stared out beyond the approaching rider, but he could see no one on his tail.

Henry was one of those people who trouble trailed after like a hungry wolf.

He didn’t have to go out looking for it.

He’d just turn around, and there it was.

Once that happened, Henry’s fierce temper blazed to the surface, and the customary good nature went up in smoke as quick as dry prairie grass in a lightning storm.

He was strong and fast and deadly as a rattler once he got started.

All kinds of mayhem generally broke out then.

Surprisingly, nobody died in the fight he’d won in a saloon in Denver this past winter, but the damn thing had cost him six months in jail. And Caleb had to deal with the devil himself to get Henry out.

He glanced over at the bucket holding his gun belt and twin Colt Frontiers. Laying down his hammer, Caleb worked his way over. Keeping his eyes on the far end of the valley—as far as he could see, anyway—he strapped on his guns and started for the ladder.

He'd promised Sheila he'd try to stay out of trouble.

Granted, she had delivered that instruction with her chin lifted and those blue eyes fixed on him as if she expected obedience. Keeping a straight face, he'd pointed out that trouble generally arrived without asking permission first. She'd informed him that was a poor excuse.

Looking at Henry now, riding as though the world were ending, Caleb suspected he was about to disappoint her again.

There was also the matter that disappointing Sheila Burnett had become increasingly unpleasant for Caleb.

The doctor's daughter had come west from New York with city manners, a sharp mind, and absolutely no talent for minding her own business when people needed help.

She was stubborn enough to argue with judges, brave enough to stand up to killers, and compassionate enough to see good in men who sometimes doubted it existed in themselves.

Somewhere along the way, she'd become the person Caleb most looked forward to seeing whenever she headed to Elkhorn.

Whatever was bringing Henry back without those steers, he had a good idea the roof was going to have to wait.

Caleb picked up his Winchester ’73 from against the barn wall and stalked over toward the corral. As he reached the gate, Henry roared in like an Express rider bringing bad news from the battlefield.

“We got trouble, partner,” he shouted breathlessly as he reined in. Henry pointed at the line of forested bluffs that formed the eastern border of their property. “Up there near the waterfall.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“There’s fellas up there working our land.” He pulled his black, wide-brimmed hat off and ran a hand through the long brown hair that hung nearly to his shoulders. “At least, I think it’s our land.”

“This side of the ridge?”

Henry nodded.

“It’s our land.” Caleb peered at the black cattle grazing along the river in the valley below them. “You think they’re after the herd?”

“They’re prospecting.”

Even after months of trying to carve a ranch out of this valley, Caleb had not quite settled into the idea that owning a piece of God’s country meant you had to protect it.

But he was learning. A while back, when six rustlers decided that they could just take his cattle, he’d suggested otherwise.

That little incident didn’t turn out quite the way those boys reckoned.

They were now residing on Elkhorn’s Boot Hill.

And every time he rode into town since then, Sheila looked at him with that mixture of worry and exasperation that somehow made him feel worse than any bullet wound.

“On our land?”

“How many times I got to say it, Marlowe?”

As Caleb considered it, he knew that the last thing they wanted was to have prospectors find anything out here. When they discovered gold on Sutter’s land in California, the poor bastard lost everything. Trying to keep 49ers off his land was like trying to keep fleas off an old dog.

“How many?”

“Four that I saw.”

“Recognize any of ’em?”

“Nope.”

“Talk to ’em?”

Henry shook his head. “I was thinking about running ’em off. But then I recalled what you been saying about me staying clear of law problems. So I came back for you.”

“Well, that was damn thoughtful, partner.” Caleb pulled his saddle off the fence and swung it up onto Pirate’s back.

The buckskin had been watching and listening, and Caleb was certain he already knew they were heading out.

“Glad you were able to keep in mind that this ranch will require the both of us.”

Caleb and Henry rode south across the grass-covered valley for over an hour, then turned east and moved up into forested foothills. Ahead of them, the long, rugged ridge rose above the tall pines, forming the boundary between the ranch and land belonging to Frank Stubbs, their neighbor.

Beyond the ridgeline, the Stubbs claim consisted of large areas of forest and open range, but their neighbor was only interested in the precious minerals that could be carved from the earth.

Caleb had already had a few brushes with Frank Stubbs, and he knew him to be a tough, grasping, miserable bastard—a hard drinker with a penchant for bullying.

The property border was clear, however, and good ridgelines made good neighbors. More or less.

When the two partners reached a ravine that led roughly southwest, they followed a creek that twisted and tumbled toward the valley lowland.

Caleb’s plan was to approach the trespassers from above.

He knew the terrain. He’d been hunting here since he’d picked up the papers at the land office in Elkhorn back in January.

He knew where the groves of cottonwood and aspen had fought to establish their space amongst the pines and other evergreens.

He knew every ravine and wash and gulley, every mountain spring and creek.

The ponds and small lakes formed by the lay of the land and the industry of beavers.

The rocky bluffs and ledges where cougar and bear found shelter.

The grassy meadows dotted with wildflowers in spring, now yellow as autumn encroached.

Soon, it would all be covered by the deep snows of the long mountain winter.

And, for the first time in his life, Caleb found himself looking forward to winter.

Not the snow. Not the cold. He'd had enough of both to last three lifetimes. It was everything else.

The ranch house and barn would finally be finished. Cattle safely sheltered. Long evenings by the fire. Christmas coming to Elkhorn.

And Sheila.

The thought of her appeared with surprising ease these days.

She had a way of doing that to a man. One minute he was thinking about fencing and cattle and whether the roof would be finished before the first snows fell.

The next, he was wondering whether she'd be riding out this afternoon or what she'd think of the new barn.

He wasn't entirely comfortable with how often it happened.

“We’re getting close,” Henry told him when they reined in at the edge of the creek. The stream here was wide and shallow, with round, gleaming stones protruding from the surface of the rippling water. “I saw ’em where the gulley broadens out by the pond just before it drops over the waterfall.”

Caleb nodded. Sure as hell, these fellas had to be panning for gold. Not three miles north of their ranch, miners were busily digging silver out of the hills that ringed Elkhorn, but he’d heard some talk of gold occasionally showing up as well.

He looked back at the ridge and then gestured downward at the muddy edge of the creek. Hoof prints.

“Guess those would be our boys,” Henry said.

“Yep. From the looks of things, these fellas came down onto our land from the ridge.”

“From Frank Stubbs’s land.”

“These are fortunate men. If Stubbs spotted these knotheads on his side, he’d already have their carcasses nailed to his barn door.”

Henry grinned. “If’n you ever finish that barn, we’d have a door to nail ’em up on.”

Giving him a look, Caleb nudged his buckskin forward. But they hadn’t even crossed the stream when two gunshots rang out.

Immediately, Henry had his rifle out of its scabbard and looked around.

“A revolver. A quarter mile that way,” Caleb said.

“Maybe our trespassers decided to shoot one another. That’d save us some work.”

“Too much to hope for.”

The two men dismounted on the other side of the creek, tied their animals, and approached on foot.

The forest floor was a carpet of pine needles, and they moved through the forest silently. The land began to drop off, and it wasn’t long before the sound of voices reached them, along with the smells of a dying campfire and burnt coffee.