A Bride for Dry Creek (11 page)

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 run
ning 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.

T
he 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 pickup.

“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.”

“A man doesn't need friends to commit a crime. Nor does he need to be particularly intelligent.”

Francis began rolling down the pickup window again. The crank was stiff and she bent her head as she moved it. She stopped when the window was a third of the way down and called to the old man who was just a little ahead of the slow-moving pickup. “Don't worry. We'll send someone back for
you. And you should have a scarf in weather like this. Is there one in your pockets?”

The old man scowled. The woman in the pickup sounded like his mother. Scolding him for forgetting something like he was a little kid.

He'd show her who was a little kid, the old man thought in satisfaction.

“I don't need a scarf,” the old man said as he took the barrel of his rifle and slapped it against the rump of the horse so that she nervously jumped into the middle of the road and reared up.

Flint swore as he pushed his foot hard into the brake pedal. Honey was practically on top of the pickup hood when she reared up like that. “What in blazes?”

The pickup stopped, and Flint instinctively put his right hand out to push Francis down in the seat.

“What—” Francis resisted the shove, more out of bewilderment than anything else.

But it was enough. The time he'd taken to try to shield her behind the metal of the pickup cost him. He should have gone for his gun first, he told himself later. By the time he brought his hand to his holster the harmless old man had swung his rabbit-hunting rifle around and had drawn a bead on Francis.

“Easy now,” Flint murmured. Francis was staring at the rifle. “Don't move.”

“Throw the gun out of there.” The old man sat on the horse and yelled.

Flint put his hands up in plain view. Next time, he'd trust his spine. “Let me step out first.”

The first thing Flint needed to do was to put some distance between himself and Francis. Guns went with guns, and he'd bet the old man would swing the barrel of that old rifle around to follow him if he stepped outside the pickup. At least then, if there were any bullets fired, Francis would have a chance. An old rifle like that probably wouldn't hold more than one bullet. If Flint could get the man to fire at him, Francis would be safe.

The old man snorted and steadied his gun. “I ain't that stupid. You've got to the count of three.”

Francis was frozen. She told herself she should know what to do. She'd taken a hostage negotiation class at work. She was supposed to know what to do. But her mind was blank.

“One.” The old man called out the number with a certain amount of satisfaction.

“I'm putting it out now,” Flint said as he slowly moved his hand toward the holster. The defroster had been off long enough that the windshield on the pickup had a thin film coating it. In another five minutes, the view would be fuzzy from where the old man sat on the horse. But Flint didn't have five minutes. “I'll need to open the door to throw it.”

“Stick it through the window,” the old man ordered.

So much for that idea,
Flint thought. He'd considered opening the door and swinging down to shoot at the old man from there. He'd be far enough away from Francis that the bullet from the man's rifle wouldn't be coming in her direction.

Francis was cold. She could feel her teeth start to chatter.

Flint could hear her teeth start to chatter. He didn't dare look at Francis, though. He kept his eyes on the old man.

“Two.” The old man counted loudly.

Flint touched the butt of his gun as he unsnapped his shoulder holster smoothly. “Take it easy. It's coming.”

“Handle first,” the old man instructed.

Flint drew the gun out with the fingertips of one hand. “No problem.”

Flint squeezed the barrel of his gun as he swung it around to the side of the pickup. The cold made the gun slippery, and he had to hold it tight.

“I need to roll my window down.”

The old man shook his head slightly. “Push it through the other window by Francis.”

Flint didn't like reaching across Francis with his gun. It would keep the eyes of the old man focused on her. But Flint didn't hesitate. He reached over to the few inches of open space in Francis's window.

The gun slipped over the side and clanked against the side of the pickup on the way down.

The old man lowered his rifle a little. Not much, but enough so that Flint began to breathe again.

“It's not too late to let us go, you know,” Flint called out the window to the old man. “Whatever it is that's bothering you—we can talk about it.”

“Ain't nothing bothering me,” the old man said. “I just need to get out of here.”

“Well, why didn't you say so?” Flint forced his voice to relax. The safe period in any hostage situation was the setting of the terms. “I'd be happy to take you someplace. Just put the gun down and we'll see that you get where you need to go.”

The old man slid off the back of the horse right next to the pickup. The barrel of his rifle wavered, but Flint didn't make any sudden moves. A gun in the hands of an amateur was always a potentially deadly thing. It was too easy to underestimate someone.

“I'm sure the boys in the bunkhouse have something to drink, as well,” Francis offered quietly. “Whiskey, for sure. Maybe some Scotch. I'm sure you'd like a little drink for the road.”

“Don't have time for a drink,” the old man said as he reached out and opened the door beside Francis. “Move over. I'm coming in.”

The old man grabbed the inside back of the cab and started to pull himself in. He must have remem
bered Flint's gun, and bent down to pick it up from the ground.

“If you want me to drive you somewhere—maybe Miles City—I'd be happy to,” Flint said calmly, not commenting on the other gun. He was afraid of this. His own gun made the man's rabbit rifle look as harmless as a water pistol. “But we don't need Francis to come along. Why don't you let her get out and ride the horse back to her brother's ranch.”

“I'm not stupid,” Mr. Gossett snapped as he shoved himself into the cab and slammed the door behind him.

“No one ever said you were,” Flint murmured soothingly.

The heat inside the cab was beginning to warm the old man's clothes, and they were starting to smell.

The old man eyed Flint and Francis. “Nobody's leaving here, and you'll drive me where I tell you—but it won't be Miles City. The road past Dry Creek is closed. I heard Highway 89 is blocked off until the snowplows get through. Don't think a pickup will get through.”

“Maybe your best bet is the horse, then,” Flint said.
Sorry, Honey,
he thought ruefully.
You take him away, and I'll come get you both—and I'll bring you some of those apples you like. And not just the
small bunch I have in the back of the pickup. I'll shake down a whole tree for you.

The old man snorted. “Couldn't pay me to get back on that animal—she's practically worthless. Stubborn as a mule. Almost had me setting out on foot a time or two.”

Flint smiled inside. He could always count on Honey.

“If no one can drive you and the horse won't take you,” Francis said, “then you need to decide whether it is really important that you go. If it's groceries you need—or something more substantial to drink than tea—or anything else—”

“What I need is to get out of the state!”

“Then you'll need to wait,” Francis said calmly. She had hoped he was just a fool in search of alcohol. The alternatives were not as pleasant. “There's no way to go today.”

“There's the plane—the plane that flew in to bring the lobsters for the party,” the old man said with satisfaction in his voice. “The plane that that millionaire fellow owns. That's where I want you to take me.”

“I don't know where the plane is.” Flint stalled. “He might have even flown it out of here.”

“Just follow them tracks,” the old man said as though that settled the matter. “I was starting to follow them when I spotted you. Decided no point in riding on that old horse. Especially when you've got a warm pickup that'll get us there just as good.”

Flint looked over to see the wide tracks of the plane that ran on the other side of the fence. Why couldn't Robert Buckwalter have driven his plane deeper into the pasture instead of along the fence?

The old man nodded. “You can go now.”

The roads were frozen, bumpy, and Flint needed both hands to control the steering on the pickup. But he still curved his shoulder slightly away from the seat so that Francis could nestle close to him. Francis sat with her legs on the driver's side of the stick shift. Flint knew her decision to be so close to him was made because she wanted to be as far away as possible from the old man, but he welcomed her presence anyway. It felt right to have her sandwiched in next to him.

 

Francis watched Flint's hands on the steering wheel. He'd taken off his gloves so that he could grip the wheel more securely, and the cold made the skin on his hands whiter than usual. They were strong hands, the fingers big and agile.

She had a sudden recollection of the last time they'd sat this close in a pickup.

“Whatever happened to that old pickup of yours?' Francis asked softly.

The old man hadn't said anything since he climbed into the pickup. He'd just sat there with one hand holding Flint's gun and the other steadying the rifle against his leg closest to the door. Francis tried to pretend he wasn't there.

“My grandmother finally sold it to some other kid.” Flint smiled. Until he'd met Francis, he'd poured his heart into that old pickup. “Wonder if he ever got our initials off the door.”

Francis smiled. She had forgotten about the initials Flint had painted on the door. Two swirling black
F
s with lots of extra curlicues.

“He did.” The old man surprised them both by speaking. “Jim Jett bought it—painted it black all over. That took care of the initials.”

“I don't suppose there's much in Dry Creek you don't know,” Flint began tentatively. He wondered how the man would respond to flattery. “You being a pillar of the community and all.”

The old man snorted. “You know I ain't no pillar of nothing.”

“Well, your father was,” Flint continued the conversation and prayed the old man had liked his father. “I heard what he did in the big drought—getting people to stay and make a town. He was a real hero in these parts.”

“He was a fool. He should have left Dry Creek when he had a chance. The whole town never amounted to anything. And my father—all he ever had to his name was his few acres in Dry Creek, Montana.”

“He had friends,” Francis added softly. “And the respect of his neighbors.”

“It took me two years to save up enough money to buy a decent headstone for his grave,” the old
man muttered bitterly. “After that, I figured why bother.”