White Christmas in Dry Creek

by Janet Tronstad

  He leaned down slightly and she was sure he was going to kiss her.

  But he didn’t. Instead, he looked away, his hand falling from her face.

  He was silent for a moment and then spoke. “The suit belongs to Pete. He lent it to me.”

  “His funeral suit?” Renee asked, trying to pull herself back to earth. Fortunately, thoughts of that suit brought reality fast enough. “He doesn’t wear it much.”

  Rusty opened the suit and examined the lining. “It does smell a little like mothballs. Oh, well. Eric insisted I wear one if I’m going to church this morning. He’s got this thing in his head that the people there are going to be looking at me to see if he’s good enough for his girlfriend.”

  “Oh.” Renee swallowed. That would be her fault.

  “I’m surprised Eric isn’t going, too,” she said. That would be a better idea. More what she had in mind.

  “Yeah, well, he says he’s not ready to do that,” Rusty said. “Afraid the sheriff will try to get him to tell him who was with him the other night in the ravine.”

  “I don’t suppose he’s told you.”

  Rusty shook his head. “Said he didn’t want to put me in any danger.”

  “That man tried to kill you,” she protested. “I don’t see how knowing his name could make it any worse.”

  “That’s what I told my brother,” Rusty said. “He didn’t agree. Said this man is sneaky. And has friends in high places.”

  Renee wished she knew if there really had been another man out in the darkness the other night. Maybe the two Calhoun men were just trying to hide their crimes under a cloud of general suspicion about an unnamed, faceless stranger.

  “Well, I hope Eric appreciates that you are wearing this suit for him,” she finally said. They seemed to trust each other, so she guessed that meant Rusty didn’t believe his brother would have shot him. Whether he was right or not, she didn’t know.

  “I can’t think of anything more ridiculous than me trying to impress people by wearing a suit,” Rusty said as he brushed off the front of his jacket, even though there was no need. “But Eric was intent on it and, well, I haven’t done enough for my brother over the years.”

  “I know you said you hadn’t been to Dry Creek since you left,” Renee said, trying to get the full picture of their relationship. “But I don’t understand why.”

  Rusty shook his head. “The old man promised to make trouble for the kid if I came back. It was his way of punishing me. Keeping his two sons apart helped him control us. I only called Eric on the phone when I knew he was alone. If my father answered for some reason, I hung up.”

  “Eight years is a long time,” Renee said. “Maybe if you had called and talked to your father he would have changed his mind. People do.”

  Rusty shrugged. “Not my old man. It was what it was with him.”

  She was disheartened. Rusty hadn’t made enough effort to see his brother in the years he was gone. Any closeness he showed now could be feigned. She didn’t know why she was always drawn to the wrong kind of men, but apparently she was. One good turn did not make a trustworthy man. Rusty might not be nearly as caring as he appeared. Maybe she just didn’t give the good guys a chance—like Betty’s candidates. Barry Grover might be a very nice man. At least he wouldn’t draw her and her daughter into a life of crime.

  “Well, we better go,” Renee said as she stepped over to the closet at the side of the foyer. She pulled out Tessie’s purple parka and her own black one. Then she added wool scarves for both of them.

  She eyed Rusty. “Don’t you have a coat?”

  “I only have my denim one and it’s got that hole in it from the bullet,” he answered. “I didn’t think it was good for church.”

  “Here.” Renee reached into the closet and pulled out another parka. “It’s a spare Mr. Elkton told me I could use when I go out to the barn. There’s a rip on the right sleeve, but it’s warm. And I keep it clean.”

  “I don’t need that sleeve anyway,” Rusty said as he took the coat from her. “Thanks.”

  He slid his left arm into the coat and draped the rest over the arm with the cast.

  “I wouldn’t mind getting there early,” Renee said as she helped him adjust the coat. “Eugene Wells and his wife have been driving out from Miles City to services. He’s the lawyer I’d like to talk to.”

  Rusty raised an eyebrow. “I hope you’re not planning to sue me for passing out the other night in front of your house.”

  Renee shook her head and then indicated Tessie, who had just come back. “I want to get custody arrangements all spelled out for someone special in case something happens to me.”

  “Oh.” Rusty nodded and glanced down at Tessie. “Very important.”

  Renee finished pulling the hood on her daughter’s head and then straightened. “If I’m going to see my ex-husband, I want to have the papers so he can sign right then. I don’t want to make another trip.”

  “Will the attorney be able to draw them up by tomorrow? I was hoping we could leave then. I don’t know what the sheriff has planned for my future, but I want to be sure we make this trip before anything else happens.”

  Renee’s heart sank. He expected to be arrested. That should tell her something. She’d have to ask the sheriff if it was even safe for her and Tessie to drive to Deer Lodge with Rusty. She didn’t want to say anything about that now, though.

  “Knowing Eugene, he’ll do the papers this afternoon,” Renee said instead with a determined smile. “I don’t know how he does it, but he’s fast. Plus, he has some information already. We started the process when my ex-husband sent the divorce papers. I planned to have Eugene finish the documents in a few months, so he probably has them at least half-completed already.”

  Renee opened the door and ushered the three of them out. The pickup she was driving was right off the porch. Five inches of snow had fallen in the night and the only breaks in it were two sets of footprints from Rusty and his wolfhound. She looked over to where Dog had been sitting, but he was gone.

  Renee was almost to the pickup when she noticed something.

  “You scraped off the windshield!” she exclaimed to Rusty.

  He nodded and reached over to open the door for her.

  “You ever hear about the gangster who liked cats?” she asked as she slid into the driver’s seat.

  Rusty shook his head. Then he strapped Tessie into her booster chair in the backseat before climbing into the cab himself.

  “Anything I should know?” Rusty asked when she turned the ignition.

  She glanced over at him. “About what?”

  She hoped he wasn’t going to ask her what the sheriff thought.

  “Churches,” he said, surprising her. “I know sometimes they have different customs.”

  “Nothing unusual,” Renee said as she backed up and made a loop onto the lane leading to the edge of the ranch property. “The Dry Creek church is like other traditional churches.”

  Rusty was silent, but he seemed so nervous she looked over at him. He was stoic, looking straight ahead. If it wasn’t for the tenseness of his jaw, she wouldn’t have suspected anything was wrong.

  “You have gone to other churches, haven’t you?” she asked as she made a turn onto the gravel county road.

  He shook his head.

  “Never?” she asked in astonishment, thankful the snowplow had been through already.

  Rusty shrugged. “No.”

  Tessie’s voice came from the backseat. “You can come to my Sunday school class with me. We have animal crackers and juice. Not grape juice because we might spill. But apple juice. And Mrs. Hargrove tells us stories from the Bible. There’s no wolf dogs, but they have kings. And there’s a lot of sheep. And some camels. I’ve never ridden a camel.”

  Re
nee noticed the grin on Rusty’s face. He likely had never heard a young girl chatter away without pause. Nor did he realize it meant Tessie liked him.

  “The adults meet with coffee at the back of the church,” Renee informed him when her daughter took a breath. “We have a Bible study going on the book of Psalms. Talking about how to praise God when times are hard.”

  Rusty nodded. “My chaplain gave me a copy of the Psalms.”

  Renee put her foot on the brake and looked over at him. “You have a chaplain?”

  She tried not to be surprised. But she didn’t think many criminals had a chaplain before they were sent to prison.

  “He’s the army’s chaplain,” he said with a slight smile. “He—helped me.”

  Renee knew that pause told a story, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to know what it was. She put her foot on the gas and the pickup started moving again. She needed some distance between herself and this man. She was having a hard time remembering why he was so unsuited to her. Even if he had been stealing cattle, maybe it was a onetime thing. Maybe he could change. Maybe— She made herself stop.

  She wasn’t going down that road with another man. Her ex-husband had been enough. No more making everything look better than it was. Of course, her ex-husband had never read a Bible or considered going to a church except for the time he tried to figure out how he could rob the collection plate when it was being passed. His plan involved Tessie tipping over the plate, and Renee had never forgiven him for even thinking of involving their daughter in a crime. At least Rusty had that much in his favor; he’d never tried to use Tessie.

  Of course, she forced herself to consider, Rusty might not be telling the truth about everything. He might not have a chaplain. Might not care about Tessie. Or Dog. Maybe it was all just a cover for the crimes he and his brother had committed.

  She didn’t even know if he was telling the truth about not visiting Eric in the past eight years. Maybe they’d spent months together preparing to rustle the cattle that were missing around here. If the sheriff was right, they both had reason to resent the local ranchers after their own ranch had been taken away. She’d heard low whispers in the hardware store that some ranchers might suffer foreclosure if the rustling wasn’t stopped soon. Maybe the Calhoun brothers were out for revenge.

  “Okay, we’re in Dry Creek,” Renee announced, the cheer in her voice so artificial she almost winced. She realized suddenly that, even if she didn’t know this man’s past or future crimes, she knew someone who did.

  Father, give me wisdom around him, she prayed silently, her eyes open and watching the road. I need to protect Tessie. And my own heart. Give the sheriff the knowledge he needs to arrest Rusty if he has done something wrong or is planning something illegal. And above all, keep my Tessie safe. Amen.

  “Everything looks the same,” Rusty said as he looked down the street.

  Fortunately, he seemed focused on the church building and she didn’t think he was aware of how stressed she had suddenly become.

  * * *

  The white church was just as Rusty remembered it, although it must have been painted at least once since he’d left Dry Creek, because it seemed brighter than the other buildings around it.

  The church was set on a cement basement, and ground-level windows were scattered along the walls. Tufts of dried grass poked up from the layer of snow by the basement walls. A half dozen cement stairs, with black metal handrails, led up to a square landing outside the weathered oak double doors. More windows were set in the upper part of the building. Renee parked the pickup beside the church and Rusty automatically stepped out and opened the back door so he could get Tessie and take her inside. There was no sidewalk from the parking places to the steps and with all the snow and slush around, Tessie would get her shiny black shoes dirty if he didn’t carry her.

  A few flakes of snow were still falling as he climbed the stairs with Tessie in his arms. Renee opened the door for them all. A burst of warm air greeted them when they stepped inside. A rack for coats ran along one wall, complete with a bench beneath it for people to sit and take off their snow boots. Colorful mittens and scarves were piled on a shelf on top of the rack.

  Instinctively, he checked for an orange parka among the coats, but didn’t find one. There was one with an orange lining, but it looked like a woman’s coat since it had a fluffy knit scarf tucked under the collar—the kind of scarf, with huge billowing ruffles down the side, that no man would ever wear.

  Rusty put Tessie down and took his hat off. That was been one thing he’d learned about churches from his mother. She always said a gentleman never wore a hat when he had tea with the queen or when he visited a church. Rusty couldn’t imagine doing either as a boy, so he’d kept his hat on his head most of the time.

  Renee took Tessie’s parka and found a hook for it before he pulled off her red mittens.

  Suddenly Rusty became aware that the noise level had dropped and he turned around. A good number of the people in the church had stopped milling around and were looking at him.

  “They’re damp,” he assured everyone as he lifted up the small knit mittens. “And I am going to lay them flat on the rack up there.”

  Apparently, the sight of a Calhoun male in their church was astonishing to people. They certainly were staring. Not looking unfriendly, exactly, just dumbfounded.

  He wondered if the boys had spread the word about his mean face. Or maybe it was the mittens. Surely some of the men standing there helped their children take their mittens off at times like this.

  And then it hit him. Of course they had helped their children, but Tessie wasn’t his daughter. He’d forgotten how these subtle things were noticed in a small town. And he hadn’t intended his actions to proclaim any feelings for Renee, because he knew she wouldn’t like it. And he wasn’t in a position to be attached anyway. But he could hardly put the mittens back on the girl’s hands.

  Finally he saw Mrs. Hargrove across the room. She was talking to someone, but she waved and started to walk toward him, a large brown paper bag that had a red logo from a store in her hands.

  He waved back at her and quickly put the mittens on the shelf.

  When he turned around, he saw most people had stopped looking at him directly, but he could tell they were keeping an eye on him. He stared right back at the few who were still openly watching. But he could see all of them. Men in denim jeans and buttoned-up cotton shirts, some with vests and some with ties. Twenty or so women dressed in casual slacks and sweaters.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t have worn a suit,” Rusty whispered to Renee. “Nobody else here is wearing one.”

  “Pastor Curtis wears one.”

  Rusty nodded. “Great. Now they’re all going to think I’m putting on airs.”

  Mrs. Hargrove stood in front of Rusty and Renee. Tessie had warmed up by now and was on her way to her basement Sunday school class.

  “I’m so glad you came,” the older woman said as she looked up at Rusty.

  Rusty nodded. “Everyone’s staring at me.”

  “Oh, that,” Mrs. Hargrove said with a light laugh. “They’re waiting for me to give you your costume. They want to be sure you’re still going to be King Herod.”

  “I said I would,” Rusty assured her.

  “I was going to try your costume on in our practice this afternoon,” Mrs. Hargrove said as she turned to rummage in her bag. “But we have to cancel practice because a big storm is coming this way. And Beth Ann, who is the one making alterations on the costumes, needs to get your measurements so she can make any adjustments this afternoon. We want you to be comfortable. Ah!” she exclaimed as she started pulling something out of the bag. “Let’s see how this fits.”

  Mrs. Hargrove held out a shining purple bathrobe.

  Rusty stepped back. “You can’t— I can’t— I mean, that’s a woman�
�s robe.”

  “Well, not anymore,” the older woman said calmly. “I believe it belongs to the church.”

  “The church wears black lace?” Rusty asked doubtfully as Mrs. Hargrove held one arm of the purple robe up to him. It wasn’t just the collar that had lace, either, Rusty thought. There was lace on the cuffs and a big patch of the stuff on the back of the robe. This wasn’t just a woman’s robe; it was a lady’s garment.

  “I’m pretty sure kings wore lace once upon a time,” Mrs. Hargrove explained. “Remember that and you’ll be fine.”

  Rusty looked out at the crowd that had gathered by now. He could see the amusement in the eyes of the men and the pity in the eyes of the women. He gave them his mean look.

  “I’m going to wear my hat,” Rusty declared. He wasn’t going to let Mrs. Hargrove down, but he wasn’t going to let them add anything more to his misery. “No crown jewels or anything like that. If I put jewelry with that robe in front of the whole town, I’ll never be able to drive down the street in Dry Creek again.”

  “So you’ll wear it?” the older woman asked. “For the pageant.”

  Rusty had no choice. He kept his promises. “That’s the way it looks.”

  A spattering of applause broke out among the people watching him. Before he knew it, a young woman with a tape measure in one hand and a book of pins in the other was standing behind him. She pressed the back of the robe against him shoulder to shoulder and muttered something about inches.

  “I think I can make it fit,” she announced. “If we need more room, we can always cheat and cut a small slit in the neckline where the collar is.”

  Beth Ann gave the robe back to Mrs. Hargrove and the older woman put it back in her bag.

  “I’ll keep it for our Tuesday morning practice,” Mrs. Hargrove said as she opened her purse slightly and raised her voice. “Remember everyone—I’m canceling our practice for today.”

  “We only have one more practice, then?” Renee asked as she stood beside him in silence.

  Mrs. Hargrove had looked down to search her purse. Finally, she pulled out a white sealed envelope that she held out to Rusty. “Here. These are your lines. Renee will help you learn them.”