A Bride for Dry Creek

by Janet Tronstad

  Francis heard the hard footsteps on the hallway floor before she saw the outline of Sam entering the kitchen.

  “You’re wearing a gun to church?” Sam gave a pointed, reproving look in Flint’s direction.

  Flint felt the joy of the morning harden. Sam looked all starched and pressed. Since when was Sam planning to come to church with them? “I’m on duty.”

  “Flint’s been kind enough to agree to let me attend the services,” Francis said stiffly. She had never noticed before just how much of a pain Sam was. Had he always been this self-righteous? “It’s been a lot of extra work, especially since he still has his responsibilities.”

  Sam grunted and adjusted his silk tie. “I doubt there will be many people at the service anyway, the way the snow has covered the roads.”

  “I’ve checked with the sheriff,” Flint said. “The roads are passable with a four-wheel drive.”

  Flint had made arrangements for the sheriff and the inspector to both attend the services. One man would sit on each end of the pew where he and Francis sat.

  Sheriff Wall had said he didn’t usually attend, but he’d wanted to go and check the furnace in the old church, anyway. He was somewhat of a self-taught electrician, and the folks of Dry Creek often called on him for an odd piece of electrical work. He’d told Flint he’d check out the furnace early Sunday morning. That way he’d be there to see if anyone was snooping around the church building before the regular members got there.

  “Anyone want some toast?” Flint said as he slipped two slices of bread into the toaster.

  “I thought I’d take Francis to breakfast in Dry Creek before church,” Sam said smugly as he adjusted his suit jacket. “Give her a break from all of this business.”

  Flint pushed in the button on the toaster. He studied Sam out of the corner of his eye. The man’s face was innocent as a lamb’s. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t capable of betraying someone. Flint wondered if someone could have gotten to Sam. The man certainly seemed intent on getting Francis away from anyone’s protection. “You can take her to breakfast when we’ve caught all the rustlers. Until then, you’ll just need to be patient.”

  “Of course,” Sam said smoothly. “I wouldn’t want to do anything that would put Francis in danger. Although—” Sam paused “—she wouldn’t be defenseless with me around. I have my cell phone. I could call the sheriff in a heartbeat.”

  Flint grunted and bit back his words.

  “Anyone like jelly on their toast?” Francis asked from the corner of the kitchen where she was bending to examine the shelves in a lower cupboard. “The kids have used all of the jelly Garth had, so Mrs. Hargrove brought us some she had canned.” Francis pulled up a jar. “I think this is apple jelly.”

  “Does everyone around here make their own apple jelly?”

  “Well, maybe not everyone.” Francis opened the jar with a pop to the lid. “Some folks make choke-cherry jelly instead—or rhubarb jam.”

  Flint let himself imagine what it would be like to live in a place where everyone had the time to make jelly. It certainly wasn’t anything like the cities he’d lived in over the past ten years, where people didn’t even take the time to smear jelly on their toast let alone make the stuff.

  “I’ll have my toast dry,” Sam said as he sat down at the breakfast table. “I wouldn’t want to get jam on my suit.”

  For once Flint was glad he could claim official business. He wouldn’t have to offer Sam a ride into church with him and Francis, and in ordinary circumstances there would be little he could do to avoid it.

  It was an hour later before it was time to leave for the church service. Garth and all of the kids had had a pancake breakfast while Francis was upstairs taking a shower and getting ready.

  Francis lingered in the hot spray of the shower. The air inside the house was cold even though the steam from countless showers upstairs and the cooking downstairs were warming it up. When Francis stepped out of the shower, she wrapped a thick towel around her head and quickly slipped into her robe for the dash to her room.

  She might as well not have dashed, Francis thought. Ten minutes later, she was still shivering, standing in front of her closet, wondering what to wear.

  Her problem was one of image. She wanted to look competent—to show Flint that he didn’t need to worry about her safety—but she also wanted to look appealing. A man like Flint must have dated many women in the years since she’d known him. Probably sophisticated women, too. The kind of woman who finds it exciting to date someone who wears a gun. The kind of woman who, if she wore a robe at all, wore a silk and lace one instead of a fuzzy one.

  Francis sighed. Her navy striped suit was the obvious choice for competency, but it seemed a little needlessly drab. Not feminine enough. It was, however, the kind of suit that made up the endless parade of suits she’d worn for years in her job. And it was the kind of suit that filled her closets in Denver, and here, as well.

  The only truly feminine dress she owned was the long ruby evening gown she had worn to the dance the other night.

  Francis wondered when the last time had been that she cared what a man thought about what she wore. She’d never asked Sam, and she couldn’t remember him ever remarking on anything she wore. Except for her old bathrobe, and that was only because it annoyed him.

  Thinking of her evening gown reminded her that she did have pieces of that outfit left. If she put on the ivory lingerie she’d gotten to wear with that sequined ruby dress, she’d at least feel desirable. The ruby dress was little more than threads in her closet now, but the accessories were still good.

  Finally, she settled on wearing the navy suit skirt and a light blue silk blouse with a pearl necklace.

  By the time Francis slipped her feet into the strappy high heels she’d also purchased to wear with the sequined dress and ran a mauve lipstick over her lips, she decided she could at least compete with women like this Rose person who apparently visited Flint in his dreams.

  “Coat?” Flint held up a parka jacket for Francis almost as soon as she came into the kitchen.

  Something about Francis was different, and Flint didn’t like the hungry look he’d surprised in Sam’s eyes. The other man might look like he was all starch and collar, but Flint guessed he wasn’t as comfortable with Francis as he looked. And who could blame him? Francis had a softness about her face that would make any man want to explore her further.

  “So soon?”

  Flint nodded. “I want us to be all set in the church before the regulars start to come in.”

  “I’ll see you after the service,” Sam said a little grimly to Francis as he looked at Flint.

  Flint nodded. Sam hadn’t been too happy about the arrangements, but Flint had insisted. There was only a remote possibility of trouble, but he didn’t want to have to worry about Sam if anything did happen.

  Everything looked white and gray when Francis stepped out of the house. She had accepted the parka from Flint and had wrapped a wool scarf around her neck, as well. It was hard to be a fashion plate in the middle of a Montana winter. The air was so cold her breath made short white puffs, and she pulled her scarf up so that it covered her chin. White snow lay softly over the yard outside the house. A few dog prints and the prints Flint had made when he went out earlier to warm up the pickup were all that disturbed the soft white blanket.

  “Garth said we got another four inches last night,” Flint noted as he opened Francis’s door on the four-wheel-drive pickup. At the same time, he looked in the back of the pickup to check that the usual winter shovel hadn’t been taken out to be used on some farm chore. It hadn’t. “The roads will be rough.”

  “Maybe some of it will melt off by the time we come home from church,” Francis said as she climbed into the pickup cab. She’d needed to take her high heels off and put snow boots on, but she carried the shoes in her hands. She’s slip them on when she got to church just like most of the other women would do. “Might all melt.”

 
“Not likely.” Flint had already become accustomed to the Montana cold. When it snowed, the air was heavy. But the rest of the time, the air was light and brittle.

  Flint opened and closed his own door quickly. The heater was working, and the air inside the pickup cab was slightly warmer than that outside.

  Flint removed his gloves and turned the heater to defrost. The windows were fogged over, but the defroster was already clearing small circles on them. He breathed in deeply. He could smell the fragrance of peaches coming from Francis. “Nice perfume.”

  “It’s just lotion.”

  Sylvia had lent her the lotion when she had heard Francis and Flint were going to attend church together.

  Francis smiled to remember the other woman standing with the bottle of lotion in her hand.

  “But it’s not a date,” Francis had protested half-heartedly as the other woman flipped open the cap to the lotion and tipped it toward Francis’s hands. “It’s just church.”

  Sylvia had smiled and squeezed some lotion into Francis’s outstretched hands. “You’re going to a church, not a convent. Lots of romances start there.”

  Francis had smoothed the lotion into her hands and arms and now, talking to Flint, she was glad she had. “Winter is always hard on the skin.”

  Flint shifted from park into reverse and looked in the rearview mirror.

  “It’s the cold moisture in the air,” Francis muttered as she watched Flint back the pickup away from the ranch house. He’d shaved since last night. His skin was smooth, and the lines of his face were more pronounced than when he had a little stubble. He’d put a suit jacket over his shoulder holster, and his gun blended into the contours of his chest so that it wasn’t noticeable. His head was turned so that he could look back while he steered the pickup past a snowdrift. Francis had never noticed what a strong neck he had. Of course, when she’d known him, he’d been a young man of twenty. His neck had had plenty of years to change since then. They’d both changed in those years.

  “And the wind,” Francis continued. “It’s been windy for the past few months. Must be El Niño or the drought or something,”

  Flint had turned the pickup around, and he was heading down the gravel road that ran down Garth’s property to the main county road. The road was bumpy. The November rains had filled the road with ruts. Those ruts had frozen solid in December and stayed that way.

  “The drought makes it hard for the ranchers around here,” Flint said. He had listened to the ranch hands at Garth’s place. The men talked about the weather first thing in the morning and the last thing at night. Last summer had been dry, and although the winter had been cold, the snowfall in the mountains had been below normal.

  “Some of them are on the verge of selling out,” Francis said. “One more dry summer could do them in. The cost of feed gets too high, and they can’t afford to run as many cattle.”

  Flint grunted in sympathy. “They need to diversify. Ranch part time and then do something else.”

  “Don’t think they haven’t tried to do that,” Francis said. “But there’s no business around here. Only three or four jobs—the post office, the job Matthew does at the hardware store, and then the café—but Linda and Duane run that.”

  “It’d be a pity for anyone to leave,” Flint said. The morning sun was fading from red to pink as it inched its way up the sky. When he looked to his right, he saw the foothills of the Big Sheep Mountain Range covered in a thick collar of snow. Snow hadn’t collected on the sides of the mountains, and they were a gray-brown. “It’s a beautiful, restful place to be.”

  Flint was surprised at the sentiment he felt. He thought he’d grown more callused than that over the years. A home was only a place to hang one’s hat. He would have bet he’d learned that lesson. Any land was the same as any other. Each plot of dirt the same as any other plot.

  “Everyone has been thinking of business ideas,” Francis said. “From dude ranches to quilting factories. Even jelly making—Mrs. Hargrove said folks might pay for some of the homemade jelly folks around here make.”

  “I still can’t believe everyone around here makes jelly,” Flint said incredulously. “What century is this, anyway?”

  Francis only smiled. “We’ve lived through long, hard winters in Dry Creek. Makes us appreciate home-canned jellies and fruit. Nothing tastes better when the snow is deep than something you’ve grown yourself. Brings back the smell of summer.”

  For the first time, Flint began to think about those five acres his grandmother had left him in her will. He hadn’t given them any attention for years. Maybe now, before he left, he should plant something. He didn’t need to plant fruits or vegetables on them, but some kind of plant would be nice. Maybe some rosebushes would do well down by the trickle of a creek that ran through his grandmother’s land during the spring months when the snow ran off the mountains. Wild roses might grow without extra water. Or a tree. A tree would surely grow. He suddenly realized he’d never planted anything anywhere before.

  The sun had lost its pink and was a thin bright yellow that hovered over the day.

  The pickup cab was warm enough, and Flint turned the defroster off. The steering on the four-wheel drive was stiff and required all of Flint’s attention. Still, it was cozy inside the cab as he and Francis bumped along the county road. On each side of the narrow country road were wide ditches that caught the snow. Beside each ditch was a fence running along the road, dividing the grassland. The road rose and then dipped along with the low, rolling countryside.

  “Robert moved his plane,” Flint noticed. The small plane had been parked beside that far fence for the past three days. Now a thin path made by the plane wheels ran through the snow. “Must be desperate if he’s thinking of taking off in this kind of snow.”

  “I hear the café needed supplies and he was having some airlifted in. I think they’re just dropping the supplies by the old plane. That’s why he moved it—so the drop would go smooth.”

  “Must be nice to be rich.”

  Francis smiled. “I hear he’s bringing in crates of frozen asparagus and caviar. His mother is determined to bring the finer foods to Dry Creek for the kids. It’s almost a cross-cultural experience for most of them to tackle something like caviar.”

  “They can live full lives without caviar,” Flint said.

  Francis shrugged. “It doesn’t hurt them to try new things.”

  Garth’s ranch buildings were behind them as they drove, and Flint saw another ranch off to the left in the distance. The house and outbuildings were sheltered by a small grove of trees, their branches leafless and stark on a winter day. Someone had planted those trees in some past hopeful time.

  Flint was looking for the low-lying outline of a small plane, but instead he saw something else low on the horizon. He could see a horse and rider from a distance coming down the road.

  Now what is some fool doing out with a horse on a morning like this? Flint thought, forgetting that it had not been that many mornings ago when that rider would have been him.

  Chapter Ten

  The horse grew more familiar as Flint drove closer to it. Finally, he even recognized the man riding the horse.

  What had possessed that old man to strike out on horseback with the snow from last night’s blizzard still fresh on the ground? If the old man didn’t care what happened to himself, he should at least be more considerate of Honey.

  The last Flint had seen Honey she’d been cozy in the old chicken coop on his grandmother’s place. He’d made arrangements for Duane Edison to bring her back to the café and keep her in the shed behind the place. Flint planned to visit Honey there after church and take her a few of the apples he’d gotten from Mrs. Hargrove. He’d discovered the horse had a fondness for them.

  The ruts in the road were deeper, and Flint needed to slow down as he came closer to the old man. The pickup wasn’t going more than five miles an hour. The old man crossed the road so that he would be riding past the passenger side of the p
ickup.

  “What’s he up to?” Flint asked.

  Francis started to roll down her window. “Must be rabbit hunting. He’s got his rifle with him. Mr. Gossett,” Francis called cheerfully. “Good morning.”

  The old man was still in front of the pickup when he stopped riding.

  A warning prickle ran down Flint’s spine. Something about the determined set of the old man’s shoulders made him uneasy. “Don’t open the door. And roll that window back up.”

  Francis turned to him in disbelief. “You’re going to leave him here?”

  “Yes.”

  “But he’s an old man and it’s freezing out there,” Francis protested. “Look at him. He might even be senile. Wandering around without a scarf on his head. He’ll catch pneumonia.”

  Flint hesitated. He didn’t want Francis to think he was heartless. The old man did look almost senile. Maybe Flint’s spine had known too many bad men over the years so that he couldn’t tell the bad from the simpleminded. Still. “I didn’t tell him to saddle up and play cowboy on a morning like this.”

  “But he’s on Honey,” Francis added as though she and the horse were now fast friends. “You know she isn’t enjoying this romp through the snow. Look at her. She looks hungry.”

  “She’s had plenty of oats. She just wants one of those apples I have in the back of the pickup.”

  Francis looked through the cab window to the bed of the pickup. There they were—a dozen apples tied in a red mesh bag.

  “Tell him I’ll send someone back for him,” Flint said to Francis as he pulled closer to the old man. “But then roll up that window. We can’t be too careful.”

  “You suspect Mr. Gossett?” Francis asked in surprise as she eyed the old man through the windshield dubiously. “Surely he’s harmless. I wouldn’t think he’d be—you know—”

  “Bright enough?”

  Francis nodded. “And he doesn’t know anyone but a few people in Dry Creek. Never has any visitors or anything. No friends. No family.”