Sugar Plums for Dry Creek & At Home in Dry Creek

by Janet Tronstad

  She was fine with having a quick morning today though because Mrs. Hargrove had happily agreed to take her into Miles City at ten o’clock when she went for her dental appointment. The children had both caught the school bus at seven-thirty and it was a good day for Barbara to go to Miles City. Mrs. Hargrove had even offered Barbara the use of her car while she was in the dental office so that Barbara could do her errands.

  Barbara was determined to find a pawnshop in Miles City so she could ask about selling the ring set she had. Ever since Amanda had voiced her prayer for a house, Barbara had been determined she’d do what she could to let the children know that a house was coming soon. She didn’t want them to worry. Barbara didn’t want just to give them a promise, either. They’d both heard too many promises in their lives from their father, and none of them had come true. No, she wanted to show the children that she was serious.

  Barbara walked over to the oven and pulled a coffee cake out of the oven. That was the last of the baked goods. Everything needed to cool for a minute and then she’d be ready to go. In the meantime, she’d go see how the weather looked outside.

  Barbara didn’t even bother to lie to herself as she stood in the open doorway to the outside. She was looking down the road to see if Carl was driving by anytime soon. There were several pickups parked in front of the hardware store, but there was nothing else coming down the road into town. The sheriff must have driven by earlier.

  Oh, well, Barbara told herself, she had better things to do today than keep an eye out for the sheriff.

  She needed to change clothes before Mrs. Hargrove picked her up in fifteen minutes, and Barbara didn’t know whether to dress poor or rich. If she dressed poor, she might get more from a pawnbroker for the rings she was willing to sell. But if she dressed too poor, the pawnbroker might think the rings were stolen.

  In the end, Barbara settled for wearing jeans and a sweater. She looked just like what she was, a young divorced woman who was trying to do something better for her children.

  The sheriff had to go out to the Elkton ranch the first thing this morning to take a report on a fight in the bunk house. The two ranch hands had both been tight-lipped about the fight and the sheriff didn’t see much reason to do a report when he could see the two men would be at each other when he left anyway. But the foreman insisted.

  “See that you keep it to fists,” the sheriff told the two men after he’d written down the notes for his report. “Remember, any knives or broken bottles—anything like that and it becomes assault with a deadly weapon.”

  Both men gave him a curt nod and the sheriff told himself he’d done all he could.

  “I hope this isn’t over a woman,” the sheriff gave a guess before he walked to the bunk house door.

  “How’d you—?” one of the ranch hands said in surprise.

  The sheriff shrugged. “It’s usually either money or women. I figure you both get paid about the same, so it had to be a woman.”

  The sheriff turned and walked back to the men. “The pity of it is that she’s going to pick the loser in the fight instead of the winner anyway.”

  The men looked up at him in astonishment.

  “Well, think about it,” the sheriff said. “How do you figure it’s going to go?”

  The men stopped being so closemouthed soon enough as they thought about just who would end up with the woman if they kept fighting. The sheriff felt he’d done his job and he left.

  All of the way back into Dry Creek, the sheriff wished he knew an easy answer to the questions about the woman who was troubling him. He wasn’t worried any more that she might be breaking the law by hiding some of her ex-husband’s stolen money. But he was worried that he’d be setting himself up for a deep disappointment if he kept on dreaming the way he was.

  It was almost eleven o’clock before the sheriff drove into Dry Creek for the second time that morning. He’d swung by earlier around seven o’clock and checked that Mrs. Hargrove’s kitchen light was on. Then he’d gotten the call to go to the Elkton ranch and had ended up there. The sheriff knew that Barbara was going into Miles City with Mrs. Hargrove, so he didn’t really expect her to answer the door when he knocked on the outside of the building that housed the dance studio and bakery.

  The sheriff didn’t get an answer to his knock, but he decided to walk around the building anyway. The fact that someone had left that money for the cake on the porch here without anyone hearing or seeing anything made him realize how vulnerable Barbara and the children were. It wouldn’t hurt to be sure all of the windows closed securely and the door at the back was sturdy.

  Once he finished looking around this building, he might even step over to the old Gossett place and have a good look at that house. Mr. Gossett had asked him to keep an eye on the place for him, and it had been a couple of months since the sheriff had made an inspection of the house to be sure everything was still locked up tight. Unless he was wrong, he thought the Gossett house would be a much sturdier building. It needed some paint, but that didn’t weaken the house any.

  The sheriff had finished his inspection of the building Barbara was living in and found it was in the same condition it had been in the last time he looked. It would do for the time being, but not for long.

  The sheriff looked down the street a little at the Gossett house.

  Mrs. Hargrove had told the sheriff that Barbara was interested in renting that house, but he hadn’t given it much thought until lately. He was sure old man Gossett would want to rent the house. Why would he pass up some good income?

  The sheriff left his car parked where it was and walked down the street to the Gossett house. When he came to the wooden fence surrounding the house, he reached for the lock on the inside of the gate. That was odd, he thought, as he saw that the lock was undone. The sheriff frowned; he didn’t like the thought of someone nosing around the old Gossett place. It was probably just kids, but still—

  The sheriff walked around the house carefully and checked that none of the windows were unlocked. No one had tampered with the two doors either. The sheriff decided he had been right and that it had been curious kids who had unlocked the gate when he noticed the papers behind one of the pine trees.

  These weren’t left by kids, the sheriff told himself, as he picked up the wrappers for several rolls of antacid tablets.

  The sheriff thought a moment and decided that whoever had been standing here hadn’t been interested in vandalism because nothing had been disturbed. There was something about an un painted place that just attracted trouble, he finally decided. It wouldn’t hurt for him to put a coat of white paint on that fence. Maybe that would stop anyone from making them selves at home in the backyard.

  Barbara stood at the counter of the pawnshop and opened up the envelope that held the three rings she was selling. She was surprised that she didn’t have some feelings of sadness as she rolled the rings out onto the counter of the pawn shop so that the man could look at them more closely.

  Maybe she wasn’t more upset about giving up the rings because she had had such a hard time finding a pawnshop. When she’d told Mrs. Hargrove that she wanted to go to a pawnshop when they got to Miles City, the older woman had said she didn’t think Miles City had any pawn shops. Then Mrs. Hargrove had offered Barbara the use of her car so she could drive to Billings.

  Barbara was reluctant to drive Mrs. Hargrove’s car, but the older woman had finally convinced her to borrow it.

  “There’s some kind of a pawnshop just this side of Billings,” the older woman had said. “You can be there and back before I’m through with my appointment. It’s a long one today.”

  Barbara hadn’t told Mrs. Hargrove that she was selling the rings. She wasn’t al together sure that the older woman would approve. There seemed to be something cold about selling wedding rings. Maybe it just reminded Barbara of all that she had lost, she thought. It wasn’t just the years that she had used up being married to Neal; it was also the reluctance she felt now to trust
any man with her well-being or, even more important, the well-being of her children.

  She might date again, Barbara admitted. But it would have to be a casual friendly thing with no expectations by her or anyone else that it would deepen into a real romantic relation ship.

  And, she thought, smiling to herself a little as the man in front of her kept looking at the rings, the only reason she was even willing to date a little was because she was hoping Carl would want to have dinner with her every so often. That would be nice.

  “I’ll give you five hundred dollars for all of them,” the man behind the counter finally announced. “And I’ve got to be a fool to go that high. If you were a man, I’d give you four.”

  “I don’t think that the fact that I’m—” Barbara started and then shut her mouth. Instead, she smiled. “Thank you. That sounds fair.”

  Barbara was grateful to get that much for the rings. She would have to pick up a newspaper and look at the classified ads. Someone surely had a sturdy dining table for sale. Maybe she would even have enough to buy some dishes and silverware as well. And a small rug for the bathroom.

  Oh, Barbara thought as she took the stack of twenty-dollar bills that the man handed to her, there were so many things that she and the children could use. If she had time today, she’d try to buy a few of them.

  Floyd Spencer didn’t feel too good. He was sitting at his desk at the bank, but he wished with all his heart that he was home in his bed.

  “How are you doing there, Floyd?”

  Floyd looked up to see his manager standing beside his desk. “I’ll get those reports soon.”

  Fortunately, he’d kept no records of the times he had tried to transfer that money to the offshore accounts for Harlow and Neal, so he had nothing on his desk he needed to hide.

  His manager was frowning at Floyd anyway. “How are you feeling these days?”

  “Ah, fine,” Floyd mumbled. He hadn’t slept for six days straight, but he didn’t want to look like he was falling down on his job. He needed this job.

  The manager nodded. “The Human Re sources division at corporate is worried that the staff here has been suffering from stress related to that bank robbery. Even though it didn’t happen here, it was close.”

  Floyd was worried that he might stop breathing. Was this a clue that someone suspected something? “I’m not stressed.”

  “It’s nothing to be ashamed of.” His manager sat on a corner of Floyd’s desk. “I’ve noticed you seem a little more tired than usual. Have you been sleeping okay?”

  “Ahhh.” Floyd sat there like a deer in the headlights. He didn’t know which way to turn.

  “If you need to take a couple of days off to get some rest, don’t be shy about asking. Just fill out the form,” the manager finally suggested as he stood up. “You haven’t taken much sick time this year.”

  Floyd waited for his manager to leave before he started to breathe again. He sure could use a couple of days off. Maybe he could even get his stomach to settle down.

  Chapter Fifteen

  When Barbara arrived at the dentist’s office to meet Mrs. Hargrove, the older woman’s jaw was still frozen, and she nodded in relief when Barbara offered to continue driving the car through to Dry Creek.

  “’Hank ’ou,” Mrs. Hargrove mumbled.

  Barbara stopped at the grocery store before leaving Miles City and bought a bag of frozen peas so that Mrs. Hargrove could hold their coldness to her cheek.

  “I always got frozen peas for the kids when they had dental work done,” Barbara said as she came back from the store, carrying a bag with the vegetables and a few other items. She handed the peas to the older woman through the open window in the car.

  “’Onderful,” Mrs. Hargrove said as she gratefully took the peas.

  At least Mrs. Hargrove let her help some, Barbara reflected as she walked around to the driver’s side of the car, stopping to put the rest of the grocery bags in the back seat. Barbara was glad she could do some small service for Mrs. Hargrove. Maybe a person needed to work up to coffee-pouring around here, she reflected. Maybe it would start with a bag of frozen peas.

  When Barbara slid into the driver’s seat, Mrs. Hargrove reached for her purse and pulled out a five-dollar bill. “’Et me ’ay ’ou.”

  “You don’t need to pay me for a bag of peas,” Barbara said. “Neighbors borrow things like that. It’s like a cup of sugar.”

  Mrs. Hargrove shook her head and offered the bill to Barbara again. “’Or the children.”

  Barbara shook her head, too. “The children and I are fine.” Barbara reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out the stack of twenties. “See? We’re fine.”

  “Ah,” Mrs. Hargrove said as she lowered her five-dollar bill into her lap.

  Mrs. Hargrove slept on the way back to Dry Creek, with the bag of peas pressed between the side window and her cheek. The ride was peaceful for Barbara. One thing she never got used to was all the space that there was here in southern Montana. She liked looking at these empty vistas filled with browns and grays and the blue of the sky. There wasn’t much traffic on Interstate 94, so she watched the gray cloud formations in the sky as she drove. It was restful.

  It was three o’clock before Barbara drove the car into Mrs. Hargrove’s driveway. The sky had grown increasingly full of gray clouds as the hours passed. It felt like it should rain, but no drops had fallen.

  Barbara was glad she’d sent the children to school with jackets today. It was still another hour before they’d get here on the school bus, and it might be raining by then.

  One would think, she told herself, with all the rain they had had lately that some grass would be starting to grow beside the road and in the spaces between the houses around here. The ground still looked like gray and brown mud though. There weren’t any leaves on the few oak trees around, either. Only the sturdy pine trees held their green needles.

  Barbara helped Mrs. Hargrove into her house. Ordinarily the older woman wouldn’t need any help getting anywhere, but today she seemed a little wobbly after her dental appointment.

  The house was cold and Mrs. Hargrove asked Barbara to turn on the heat, so she did. The thermostat was located in the dining room.

  Mrs. Hargrove’s house wasn’t anything special. It had a big lived-in kitchen on the first floor, along with a small living room and dining area. Upstairs, Barbara guessed, there were two large or three small bedrooms and a bathroom. Many of the walls had floral wall paper on them, and the paper didn’t always match the curtains at the windows or the rugs on the floor, but together everything looked cozy.

  Barbara dreamed of having a house like this. She’d never demanded a fancy place with designer furniture. What she wanted instead was a house that had more artwork on the refrigerator than on the walls. A place where everyone felt at home and guests didn’t have to take off their shoes to walk on the kitchen linoleum. A place like that would be a happy place for her children.

  Maybe, she decided, she should walk past the building where she lived and go down a few houses to take another look at the old Gossett house. She needed to do something to make her dream seem as if it could happen.

  The sheriff hoped the rain would hold off enough for him to finish painting at least the front of this fence. He’d bought a gallon of white outdoor paint and a couple of brushes from the hardware store an hour or so ago. He always had some old clothes in the trunk of his car for the days when he needed to do a quick chore for Mrs. Hargrove. Once he’d slipped an old sweat shirt over his uniform, he’d started painting up and down along the spikes of the old picket fence.

  Surprisingly, the wood seemed to be in good shape, except for the places where a nail had come loose and the board was swinging. The sheriff would fix those later. Maybe with a coat of paint and some nails, it would stand up for another year or so until old man Gossett’s nephew decided what to do with the house.

  For the time being, the sheriff hoped Barbara would be able to rent the place.
It wasn’t the house he figured she wanted eventually, but it would be good for the children to have something now. They needed a place to run and scream and be kids.

  The sheriff had never thought much about houses until the last few days. Mostly, a house to him was just some place to sleep and keep his things. The trailer had suited him fine. Oh, a year or two ago, he had bought plans for a three-bed room log cabin from some ad he’d seen in a magazine. He’d thought about building that log house and tucking it next to those trees on his place so the huge porch it showed in the picture would have lots of shade in the summer.

  He had enough in his savings account for a down payment on the kit they sold to build the house. It included all of the materials; all he’d have to supply was the work. He already had a well and septic system on the property. Electricity, too. It wouldn’t take much to actually make that log house a reality.

  But something held him back. Maybe it was just that since it was only him, he’d rather rattle around in a tin box instead of setting himself up in a house that was meant to be shared. A man could get awfully lonesome sitting on that big porch all by himself.

  The sheriff wondered if that was why old man Gossett hadn’t kept up his house. Maybe it had become depressing to the man when he was living all alone in it. Some things were just meant to be shared and a house was one of them. The sheriff thought about the old man as he kept painting the fence boards. Too bad Mr. Gossett hadn’t started going to church, the sheriff finally decided. That would have made him feel better.

  The sheriff had to admit there was something that drew a person to the church two doors down from where he stood. For the life of him, he didn’t know what it was. He knew that Matthew gave some good advice in his sermons. Even if he hadn’t gone there yesterday to hear one for himself, the sheriff had talked with Matthew enough over the years to know that the man had a good head on his shoulders. But just good advice didn’t seem like it covered the reason why so many people seemed so content to be there.