White Christmas in Dry Creek

by Janet Tronstad

  “Well, it’s not,” Eric insisted, sitting back down on the sofa and folding his arms defiantly. “You haven’t even been around for eight years and now you come back like you own the place.”

  Renee expected Rusty to remind his brother that neither of them owned their father’s old ranch. She was going to try to catch his eye so she could head him away from the logical response, but she didn’t have a chance.

  “I know,” Rusty said gently instead and Renee could hear the love in his voice. “I’m sorry for not coming back, but I thought it was best at the time.”

  Rusty walked over to the sofa and sat down. He left enough room between him and his brother so the boy didn’t need to feel trapped. Neither said anything more, but Renee could feel the battling emotions coming from them.

  She turned to Karyn. “Let’s go get the tea.”

  The girl nodded, her gratitude obvious, and Renee finished putting her boots on. She gave one last look at Rusty and his brother before she left. It was long enough to see they were starting to talk, their voices low so no one else could hear.

  Father, give Rusty the wisdom to know what to say, she prayed quickly before opening the door. The brothers needed each other. She only hoped they knew it.

  * * *

  Rusty didn’t pay any attention to the door closing. He hadn’t known Eric had this kind of pent-up anger toward him, but he wasn’t going to add to it now. He knew his father wasn’t an easy man to tolerate, but he’d always figured Eric had done better with the old man than he had. Maybe he’d only wanted to think that because it eased his conscience about leaving.

  “What can I do to make it up to you?” Rusty asked finally when Eric had been silent for a bit. “We’re brothers. I’m sorry.”

  Eric just shook his head.

  Rusty put his left hand on his brother’s back, hoping to show how much he cared. Eric flinched but Rusty knew it wasn’t because of the teen’s attitude toward him.

  “Let me see your back,” Rusty said quietly, hoping his suspicions were wrong. “No one’s in the room. You can show me.”

  The panic on Eric’s face confirmed Rusty’s fears.

  “I don’t need to show you anything,” Eric said, trying for belligerence, but sounding more afraid than anything.

  “If someone has hurt you, I want to know,” Rusty said.

  “It’s none of your—”

  This time Rusty didn’t let him finish. “Until you’re eighteen, it is my business. I’m your guardian. I suppose if I called the sheriff and demanded he come out here, he would make sure I saw the skin on your back.”

  Eric looked shocked that such a thing could happen. Rusty wasn’t sure it could, but he kept his eyes steady and firm.

  Finally, Eric stood up and lifted the back of his shirt.

  Rusty whistled silently. There were whiplash marks, some fresh and many that were old. “Who did this to you?”

  “Our father,” Eric said, spitting out the words.

  Rusty closed his eyes in regret.

  “He’s been dead for four months,” Rusty said then, realizing there was more to what happened. “He can’t have done the new ones.”

  Eric didn’t say anything.

  “Answer me,” Rusty commanded.

  “I can’t,” Eric whispered. “If I tell, he’ll kill us both.”

  “I’m not that easy to kill,” Rusty said.

  Eric tucked the back of his shirt into his jeans and sat down on the sofa again. He was silent for a while and Rusty let him rest. Whatever his brother had done, Rusty was at least partially responsible. He’d thought their phone calls were enough. He should have gone home to visit on his leaves from the army. His father would have hated it, but maybe the old man would have taken some of his anger out on Rusty instead of his brother.

  “What were you doing up in the hayloft?” Rusty finally asked. “You had to be there to see my duffel.”

  “I was looking around,” Eric said.

  “You were getting the barn ready to hide stolen cattle, weren’t you?” Rusty guessed. “I can’t think of any other reason you’d be up there with those leftover hay bales. I’d guess there are enough to keep a herd of thirty cattle for a week or so. Sparse feedings, but it would work. And the water would be in the trough—no problem there. I wondered why the barn seemed in better shape than the house.”

  “Dad always did take care of the barn more than the house,” Eric said, his voice sounding flat and defeated.

  “Why’d you get involved in stealing cattle?” Rusty asked then. The Eric he remembered had been a nine-year-old boy, more interested in fishing than crime. And to listen to him talk about his enraged sense of justice over what had happened to their family in losing everything, he found it strange his brother would be willing to rob other ranch families.

  “I didn’t get involved,” Eric said, his voice low. “I mean, I will be with the new shipment. But it wasn’t my idea. I was staying in my old room at the house—” He looked up at Rusty defiantly. “The corporation that bought the place wasn’t even around. No one’s even seen them. It was still my room. But one day when I was there, this man came by. He tried chasing me off, but I’d just been out to the barn and seen the strange cattle penned up there. I made the mistake of telling him I knew what he was doing. He made me mad because—” Eric stopped and swallowed.

  “Anyway, he threatened to kill me if I said anything. When I told him to try it, he said he’d kill Karyn after he did me in.”

  Eric sat quiet for a minute. “I couldn’t risk it.”

  Rusty put his hand on his brother’s arm. “We’ll have to go to the sheriff with this, you know.”

  “We can’t.” Eric stood up, his whole body showing his panic. “The man will kill all of us for sure if we bring the law into this.”

  “I’ll tell the sheriff we need a safe place for you and Karyn to stay,” Rusty assured him as he rose, as well. “You’ll need to tell us who this man is, though.”

  Eric shook his head.

  Rusty looked down at the floor and saw his duffel. “Is that why you brought this back here? So he wouldn’t know I’d been there, too?”

  Eric nodded. “You only just got back. I didn’t want—”

  Rusty stepped a little closer and gave his brother a quick hug. “Don’t worry about me. I plan to be around for a while.”

  The door to the bunkhouse opened again. Renee and Karyn were not using the cart this time, but each carried a dish. Snow was mixed in their hair and their noses were red. But they were safe and Rusty felt another jolt of sympathy with his brother. A man liked to protect the woman he loved, no matter what kind of laws people were breaking around them.

  The ranch hands were coming down the hall, too.

  Rusty turned to his brother. “Where have you been staying? Not in your old room, I hope.”

  Eric shook his head. “I did go out there this morning. But I’ve been staying in the barn at Karyn’s place. Her parents don’t know. She has an old diesel pickup she can drive if she wants. She doesn’t like to drive it, but I do. The thing is like a tank and goes through snow drifts like you wouldn’t believe. After I went to our old place, I swung by and got Karyn. I don’t intend to have her out of my sight until that man—until he finishes with his cattle.”

  “We’ll find a place where you can be protected,” Rusty assured his brother. He didn’t even want to get into all the other laws his brother was breaking by staying in an older couple’s barn uninvited and using their pickup without their knowledge.

  By that time, the ranch hands were all seated around the table. Karyn was passing around plates and bowls and silverware. Renee had just come back from the kitchen with four big thermos bottles, likely filled with coffee and tea, and a large pitcher of milk.

  “Oatmeal with raisin
s and cinnamon rolls,” Renee announced as she put the last thermos on the table. “Extra butter for the rolls and bananas to slice into the oatmeal if you want.”

  “Where’s Tessie?” one of the ranch hands asked as he looked around the table.

  “With my father,” Renee said. “Likely playing checkers with him.”

  That seemed to satisfy the ranch hand. “She’s good at them checkers.”

  Rusty let the warmth of the morning settle into his bones. The fire was giving off good heat and the mood around the table was friendly. He had people sitting here whom he wanted to protect.

  Renee led the prayer before they ate, and Rusty joined in. He wasn’t sure what his official relationship was with God, but he found he liked being surrounded by the faithful.

  He didn’t realize until the cinnamon rolls were passed for a second time that he wouldn’t have all of this much longer. Somewhere inside his heart, he had started to hope for a life with Renee and Tessie. Oh, he had figured he’d need to work on the ranch as foreman for a year or so to prove they could trust him, but he was happy to do that. A woman like Renee deserved to be courted long and well.

  But when Rusty talked to the sheriff, and he had no choice but to do so, all of his plans would be dashed. While a court might find his brother less guilty than charged when it came to rustling, people would suspect there was more to the story than Eric was telling.

  Ranchers did not forgive cattle rustling. And this man Eric spoke of wasn’t even named. Which meant the Calhoun brothers would shoulder the guilt in their neighbor’s eyes.

  Renee would never marry a man she thought might be a criminal. No matter what the people of Dry Creek said to their faces, he’d guess some would always believe he and Eric had known that rustlers were using their old barn. Others would believe there was no one else involved and that it was just the two of them. In the eyes of some, the Calhouns would even have motive—trying to put other ranchers out of business because they had lost their own place.

  Almost all of the people around here would say it was no wonder the brothers ended up the way they had. They had not been raised in a proper home and their only influence was a mean-spirited father.

  Rusty knew in his heart Renee was lost to him even if he never had the nerve to ask her to marry him. The suspicion would destroy any feelings she might have for him.

  The second cinnamon roll on his plate didn’t interest him any longer. The only hope they had, he finally concluded, was to find the man Eric refused to name. Rusty was going to have to let the sheriff set him up to go into the prison tomorrow. He’d do his best to get Renee’s ex-husband to talk about anyone he knew in this area that he suspected of rustling. The rumors the sheriff would spread hardly mattered now; they were true enough and people would find out before long anyway.

  Rusty looked across the table at his brother. The first thing was to call the sheriff and find a place to keep Eric safe. Then he’d make arrangements for the sheriff to attach a microphone to him.

  Renee stood up and started collecting the empty pans. Rusty figured he had one more day before she knew everything. Maybe two. He intended to make the most of them.

  Chapter Nine

  Renee watched the blizzard through the windows in the Elkton house kitchen and knew when the snow stopped falling late that morning. A thin pile of flakes sat at the bottom of each window frame, frost swirling up farther on the glass. Minutes after the snow stopped, the clouds parted and sunlight broke through.

  “I think we’ll be able to go to Deer Lodge tomorrow,” Renee said as she glanced over at Rusty. They were standing at the island counter in the middle of the kitchen and had been for the past ten minutes. The oven was preheating and she’d mixed up two batches of gingerbread dough several hours earlier. Rusty was examining the cookie cutters Mrs. Elkton had invited them to use. The rolling pin was sitting on the counter next to the dish of raisins to be used for eyes, and she had a sifter filled with flour ready to sprinkle on the marble countertop.

  “So this is how you make gingerbread men,” Rusty said, a note of awe in his voice. “I always thought people whittled them by hand with knives or something.”

  “Haven’t you ever made cookies before?” Renee asked as she set a small bowl of dried cherries by their work area.

  “Not like this,” Rusty said with a grin.

  She was making her final check of what they needed, but spared him a smile. They’d use the cherry pieces for lips. She’d put an apron on, but she was none too sure she hadn’t gotten some dough on her face. She wondered if they needed to put out walnut pieces for noses. Or maybe she could use the black jelly beans she’d purchased.

  She was glad to see Rusty relaxed again. He’d rolled the sleeve of his denim shirt up to his elbow on one side and tucked a dish towel into his belt. He wouldn’t be able to roll the dough with one arm in a sling, but he would have fun cutting out the gingerbread men.

  She’d been worried about him.

  After breakfast, he’d taken the bunkhouse phone into his room to make some calls. Eric had gone with him and the brothers hadn’t come back for a half hour. By that time she and Karyn had finished washing the breakfast dishes and set the beef stew cooking for the noon meal.

  “It’s too bad Eric and Karyn couldn’t join us,” Renee remarked cautiously. Voicing general support was one thing, but she didn’t want to pry. She knew Eric was upset and could only hope there had been some reconciliation.

  “They’re fine at that card table they set up in the bunkhouse.” Rusty didn’t meet her eyes. “They both have some homework they need to finish. The teacher is giving them extra time, but they’ll be docked if they don’t finish it before school starts again in January.”

  Renee nodded. “Their parents and teachers should make sure they have their homework done before they let them do anything together after school. That would help.”

  “I plan to do that,” Rusty agreed. “If Eric and I ever get back into a normal life with each other again. I always thought he was telling me the truth on the phone.”

  Renee waited for him to say something more, but he didn’t. She knew things weren’t going well with the brothers. And as the younger Calhoun was fond of saying, it wasn’t any of her business, but that didn’t stop her from caring.

  “Maybe after Christmas,” Renee added when Rusty said nothing else. “You might find a house around here to rent, or maybe something in Miles City. It would be good if Eric could finish high school here. People always say that’s important.”

  “No sense in switching in the middle of a year,” Rusty agreed. “Especially the senior year. But I’ll need to find a job if we plan to stay.”

  Renee finished rolling out their first circle of gingerbread dough and Rusty started to cut it into little men.

  “There’s an opening here on the ranch for a foreman,” Renee said. She wasn’t totally sure how she’d feel about that, but she couldn’t hold back a man who needed work. Jobs were scarce.

  “I heard,” he said. “Pete told me.”

  “Oh.” Renee might not have been sure about telling him the position existed, but she knew for sure she didn’t like it that he knew and hadn’t mentioned it to her. It made no sense. She’d like to think they were strong enough friends to confide a job consideration. Then she realized he probably hadn’t said anything about the job because he didn’t plan to apply. She supposed this area wasn’t very exciting to someone who had been away for so long.

  They were both quiet for a while and then she heard a car horn.

  “Oh, that’ll be Tessie.” Renee walked over to the sink to rinse her hands. She didn’t want to add that stickiness to the doorknob. “My father phoned a while back and said the road from their place had been plowed.”

  “Let me check first,” Rusty said as he almost ran to the door.


  Dog barked before she managed to get to the door.

  By that time, Rusty had already peeked out the crack as he slowly opened the door.

  Tessie flew into her arms when the door was fully open, snow and blond hair flying every which way. Renee smiled down at her daughter. It was good to see her happy.

  Renee looked up then at her father. “Thank you for giving her such a wonderful time.”

  “Tessie always does my heart good,” he said in return. “But I better get back. Gracie wants me to take her to the café in Dry Creek for lunch and she wants to avoid the twelve o’clock crowd. You know her—you get six people in the whole place and she thinks something is wrong because people aren’t staying home anymore.”

  Her father turned to walk back to his pickup. Renee noticed he stopped to pat Dog’s head before he climbed in.

  Renee closed the door and they all headed to the kitchen.

  She tied a dish towel around her daughter’s waist. “Wash up, now, before you start to help.”

  Tessie got the step stool she needed to reach the kitchen sink.

  “Rinse twice and use soap,” Renee instructed and then thought a moment. “Make that three rinses, since I’m sure you gave Dog a pat or two before you came to the door.”

  Tessie nodded her head and scrubbed her fingers. “Nice doggy.”

  Renee looked up to see Rusty studying her daughter.

  “They’re easier at that age,” he said as he turned to her. “They do what they’re told. Don’t go off getting into trouble and not even telling you about it. They don’t borrow cars from strangers and sleep in their girlfriend’s barn.”

  “I think they’re a challenge at any age,” Renee said and then ventured further. “Did you resolve your trouble with Eric?”

  Rusty nodded. “I’ll tell you about it later. But I’m going to wear a wire tomorrow when we see—” He suddenly stopped and looked over to where Tessie stood on the stool leaning over the sink. “Well, I’ll be wearing a microphone. That’s all.”