White Christmas in Dry Creek

* * *

Rusty Calhoun just lay there and looked at the angel kneeling beside him. She looked stressed, but in a vague, delicate way. He’d had concussions before in the eight years he’d spent in the army and he’d seen his share of hallucinations, but nothing like this. The woman’s skin was so translucent it looked like a white South Seas pearl—the expensive kind. Her hair floated around her like a halo. Sometimes, when she moved her head, a speck of gold would fall from her like a star coming down to earth. He took that as a sign from the heavens that she wasn’t real.

“You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” he finally said, deciding he could say that because she was a figment of his imagination. And a man should be able to say anything he wanted to a vision he’d created in his own mind.

The woman made a dismissive sound, but he didn’t care. Not when her skin shone the way it did. It made sense that any hallucination he had would look like a pearl. His mother had loved pearls. And his nightmares in Afghanistan had been littered with them.

When he’d rambled on about a pearl necklace in his delirium on that awful night when his platoon had been bombed in the Wardak Province, the doctors searched through his belongings until they found the strand he carried with him. When they gave it to him, he’d cursed and thrown it across the room. That was when they’d called in the chaplain.

“Are you awake?” the woman asked now.

Rusty barely had time to wonder if he should answer his hallucination before a lawman took her place. Or was it two lawmen? Rusty wasn’t sure. But he figured whether they were one or two, they were real enough.

“He’s awake,” the lawman said with authority and the two images of him slowly merged into one. “Tell me your name.”

“U.S. Army ranger Rusty Calhoun, sir.”

“What happened?”

The clipped voice of command sounded familiar. Voices like this had demanded his report when he had been returned to safety that dark night in Afghanistan.

“I was the only one left.” The medics had pulled him out of the rubble. He hadn’t wanted to leave. Not with the others lying around him.

“Who else was with you?” the voice asked.

“My platoon. The eleventh mountain division, sir. It was a trap.”

There was silence after that. Rusty closed his eyes and saw the flashes of the bombs. He’d failed them all.

“Tonight?” The man’s voice had softened, but it was persistent. “Here in Montana?”

Rusty felt the pounding in his head and opened his eyes. He remembered the snow now.

“Where am I?” he asked.

He smelled Christmas. The scent of pine trees and popcorn.

The doctors hadn’t wanted to release him yet, but his younger brother, Eric, had called to say he needed him. Rusty had let down so many people already that he was determined to save his brother from whatever trouble he was in. The doctors said they wouldn’t release Rusty until next week, but he had pressed them and left early. He hadn’t called Eric and told him that he was here, though.

“You’re in Montana, son. You were out riding a horse—”

“Annie. Is she all right? And my dog?”

“There was no dog,” the woman said. “Maybe the wolf chased it off.”

“Not a wolf. It’s my dog.”

“Goodness,” the woman gasped.

“I—” Rusty paused. His felt sweat on his forehead, but it was cold. He’d picked up Annie and the dog from the Morgan ranch this afternoon. After his family lost the ranch, he’d paid the Morgans to board his horse and dog along with his brother until he could get back here.

“Take a minute. Think about tonight,” the man’s voice urged.

Rusty took a ragged breath and offered up a prayer for strength. Thanks to that chaplain, he and God had forged a truce of sorts in Afghanistan. Rusty wasn’t sure the connection was going to hold in Montana, but he wasn’t ready to give it up, either.

“There was a pickup.” Rusty forced his mind to leave the old battles and remember the past few hours. The wind had been frigid, but he’d welcomed the bite of the snow as it hit his face.

He’d been riding on the south section of his family’s ranch. His father had died while he was overseas, and riding on the land was the only way Rusty knew to say goodbye to the man. He’d been out for hours and was ready to turn back when a large black pickup seemed to emerge from the night as it came across the fields.

The pickup went off-road and into a ravine. When Rusty rode to the top of the ravine and looked down, he saw another pickup was already parked at the bottom, sitting there with its lights off. Someone stepped out of the smaller pickup, leaving the door open. The small overhead light let Rusty see enough. He knew it was Eric standing there because the boy was wearing his brown baseball cap backward. It was unlikely anyone else around here would wear a cap like that, especially when the wind was so strong.

“They shot me,” Rusty added, remembering that much from his scramble up the side of the ravine. “It hurts pretty bad.”

He’d signaled his dog to stay silent so it wouldn’t be shot and the animal had obeyed. Rusty marveled that even though he had been gone so long, his dog still saw him as master. They’d been through some tough times together, he and that dog.

“Who shot you?” the sheriff asked as he took a small notebook out of his pocket.

Rusty hesitated. “I don’t know.” Fearing that might not be enough, he added, “It was too dark to see any faces.”

He waited for the accusation to come. He had never lied—not even by withholding information. Until now. He knew he’d seen Eric tonight even though he hadn’t seen his face. And he wasn’t willing to give up his brother that easily. Not until he heard the other side of things.

The sheriff didn’t press and Rusty breathed deep. Maybe the doctors were right that he merely needed some rest.

He turned to search for the woman’s face. If the lawman’s voice was real, she must be, too.

Just then he heard the soft sounds of slippers on the hardwood floor and he saw the woman turn to look behind her. She had a lovely neck, he thought with a smile.

“No,” the woman whispered in horror as she looked at something.

Rusty tried to raise himself up to defend her from whatever was coming, but he had no strength. Then he saw the woman was merely worried about the girl who ran from behind her and stood in front of him with her little hands on her hips. Her angel wings were crooked, but her face was beaming.

“Have you seen my daddy?” she demanded to know.

Rusty felt as if the room was spinning. “What’s he look like?”

He’d known too many fathers who had died in Afghanistan. “Was he an army man? In my platoon?”

“No, he’s a king,” the girl replied proudly as she stepped a little closer.

“British?”

“No, he’s a king in Montana,” she insisted with a guilty look at her mother. Then she leaned forward and whispered, “With a crown. My mommy doesn’t believe, but—”

Rusty smiled, finally realizing she was pretending. He had no idea that kind of innocence was still alive anywhere in the world.

He was going to answer her when he was struck with a sudden worry. The girl must have a mortal father, too.

“Does your father wear an orange parka?”

That would describe the tall man who had been in the ravine waiting for Eric. The man must have been using night-vision goggles, too. He wouldn’t have been able to see Rusty without them.

“My father always wears a purple robe,” the girl said firmly. “Purple is for kings. Never orange.”

He relaxed. “I haven’t seen him, then.”

Rusty wondered if his brother knew the man in the orange parka had taken a rifle out after the taillights on Eric’s pickup disappeared from view. In the dark, Rusty wouldn’t have known the man was aiming the gun at him except that he’d seen a small white beam of light a second before the shot was taken.

“Tessie, sweetheart,” the woman said as she stepped forward and wrapped her arms around the girl, “the sheriff needs to ask the man some questions. And you need to go back to the bedroom.”

The woman released her daughter and gave her a nudge in the direction of the hallway. All three adults watched as the girl dutifully walked down the hall and went through a door.

“Sorry about that,” the woman said.

The lawman nodded and then moved closer so Rusty could see him and the notebook in his hand.

“Where were you when you got shot?”

Rusty thought a minute and then decided there was no harm in telling the lawman. “The ravine that is a quarter of a mile from the gravel road that intersects with the road that goes up to the Morgan ranch.”

Rusty had been fortunate he’d been able to scramble to the top of the ravine and get on his horse before the man in the orange parka could walk over to where he had been shot.

“So you were on your father’s old place? The one the bank foreclosed on?”

Rusty nodded and the slight action made him wince. “I was just looking around. No harm in that.”

“An ambulance is on its way,” the sheriff said as he stood up and put the notebook back into his pocket.

The sheriff had a gray Stetson on his head and it shaded his eyes, but there was no doubt where he was focused next. “I recognize you now. You were a scrawny little kid last time I saw you. That ranch of your father’s was bigger than the Elkton ranch here. Got put up for sale by the bank in the past month or so. Some corporation bought it. It wasn’t handled right—I’ll give you and your brother that much.”

Rusty tried to answer, but the pain in his head stopped him from doing more than giving a slight nod. He was surprised anyone from Dry Creek would remember him. He’d joined the army when he turned eighteen and hadn’t come back until he’d gotten off the plane in Billings early this morning. That was eight long years and he’d changed.

“I keep track of your brother,” the sheriff continued, his broad face looking almost sympathetic. He pushed the brim of his hat back so his eyes were no longer hidden.

Rusty nodded. “Eric is supposed to be staying with the Morgans and going to school. But they said he got temporary work on another ranch, so he wasn’t there. He thinks I’m coming next week.”

He heard another feminine gasp from behind his shoulder. He tried to turn, but his shoulder twisted in pain. He could barely hear what the sheriff was saying.

“I don’t know about any job, but your brother’s been causing trouble,” the lawman continued. “Claimed the bank cheated you all somehow. Seems your dad had a heart attack and died before he could prove he paid off the mortgage on that ranch of his. That might make your brother mad enough to steal cattle.”

Rusty didn’t say anything. He’d talked several times on the phone these past weeks with his brother and he had his own suspicions about what was happening around here. He knew his brother would never steal anyone’s cattle. Rustling had prompted their father’s need for the loan that had ultimately taken the ranch away from them all. But he feared the boy was in deeper trouble than he had thought.

“If my father says he made the payment, he did,” he finally said. That much he knew for certain. His father might have been a mean, cantankerous man, but he was honest to the point of plain stubbornness.

The sheriff looked at Rusty some more, as if weighing the words Rusty was holding back as well as the few he’d spoken. Finally, the lawman squinted at the notebook in his hand. “Anyone we can contact for you, son?”

“Just my brother, Eric. He’s the only family I have.”

Rusty felt the sweat collecting on his forehead—which made no sense, because the air was chilly.

Another shadow flitted over him, and when he blinked, he saw the woman again. He hoped he wasn’t going to pass out.

“Your brother’s Eric? Eric Calhoun?” the woman demanded, clearly upset.

The woman’s eyes were wide and he couldn’t help but notice they were the color of warm honey with flecks of cinnamon in them.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said.

“You tell your brother to stay away from Karyn McNab,” the woman said with some steel in her voice. “She’s too young to get married.”

“Married?” Rusty repeated, stunned. “Who’s getting married?”

“Your Eric wants to marry my Karyn,” the woman said, the challenge obvious in her voice even before she added, “and I’m doing my best to stop them from making the worst mistake of their lives.”

He looked at the woman, trying to form a reply. His mouth wouldn’t work, though.

“It didn’t help that Mrs. Hargrove said they could be Mary and Joseph in the church pageant,” the woman added, putting her hands on her hips just as her daughter had done earlier. “They promised to come up with a donkey.”

Rusty closed his eyes. He used to know a Mrs. Hargrove. But now he’d lost so much blood he must be light-headed. The odd thing was that the series of sharp pains had pushed away from him, leaving the constant dull pain behind.

“Must be some other Eric,” he managed to mutter. Eric had spoken indignantly about people hinting he was involved in the cattle disappearing around Dry Creek, but he’d never said anything about a girl. “We don’t have a donkey.”

Of course, Rusty thought to himself, they didn’t have a ranch now, either.

The woman frowned at him. “Will you tell your brother what I said?”

Suddenly, Rusty tried to answer, but hesitated and then couldn’t seem to remember the question. He thought he might be going under again. He couldn’t do that. Eric needed him.

Rusty took another look at the woman as he started to fall back into the darkness. She had such a sweet face, especially now that her frown was gone and she looked as if she cared whether he faded away or not.

“Look after Annie for me,” he pleaded. “My horse. She’s pregnant.”

He wanted to see the woman again, but he couldn’t find the words to say that. He wondered if she could see inside his mind and know that he was drawn to her.

“I’ll do what I can,” she said, her voice growing increasingly distant as he felt the room tilt.

“And my dog, too?”

Rusty tried to stay conscious to hear her answer and he thought he caught a faint echo of a yes. She might not want to do a favor for him, but he was pretty sure she would go to the aid of a pregnant animal and a dog, even one who was part wolf. He would see her again, he told himself in satisfaction as he started to drift away. Now if he could only figure out what his brother was doing.

Chapter Two

Renee stared at the man, willing his chest to rise with another breath. A thick Persian rug lay beneath him—the one she’d used to help pull him inside. It had been under the man this whole time, keeping his back warm and giving him some softness. She exhaled when she saw him inhale. She hadn’t even realized she was holding her breath until then.

She wondered what kind of trouble he had known. Had it all been from Afghanistan or had he gotten some of those bruises closer to home?

Not that it was her business, she reminded herself. She braced herself and turned to the sheriff. “I suppose you’re going to arrest him now?”

The man was unconscious again, so she didn’t think he’d mind her asking.

“Arrest him?” The sheriff looked over in surprise. “We can’t do that. Even if cattle are missing—and it looks like they are—there’s no proof Rusty Calhoun has done anything wrong. It’s all circumstantial.”

The front door was still open, but Renee barely noticed the sting of the cold air. The snowflakes had slowed. Earlier, there had been a full moon, but the clouds had come out since then to make everything dark except where the porch light came through the windows and door of the house. The stranger’s horse was standing patiently by the porch rail. The man’s black Stetson had been pushed against the corner post by the wind. There was no sign of his dog.

“I didn’t think you needed all that much proof around here to arrest someone,” Renee finally said. She tried not to let her feelings show. “He was shot in a place where cattle are almost certainly missing. Ranchers are going out on patrol—like as not with their rifles. It’s circumstantial, sure, but you didn’t have that much more when you arrested me.”

The sound of a distant television let her know Tessie was securely in the bedroom and would not hear them. Yet neither she nor the sheriff said anything for a good minute.

Finally, the lawman shook his head. “You still hold that against me? I don’t know how many times I’ve explained that I arrested you for your own protection. You had been part of the theft at that gas station. We didn’t know at first that you’d been forced into it by your abusive husband. A blind man could see that he was setting you up to take the fall on those armed robberies he was pulling off. Even after we picked him up, that accomplice of his was still running around free and he was dangerous. I wanted to keep you safe from him. You were never even brought to trial. And it all happened a year ago. It’s not like you have a record from it or anything to hold you back.”

Renee nodded, but she didn’t meet the sheriff’s eyes. “I’d just never been arrested before. Not even a parking ticket.”

She had no quarrel with the law. The legal system might be a little black-and-white at times, but every criminal had some sad story in his background. She’d certainly had hers. And this man wouldn’t be the first wounded veteran to do something impulsive. All people needed to be held accountable for their actions. Except that she hadn’t done the crime.

“I don’t go around arresting people for no reason,” the sheriff continued gruffly, his face turning slightly pink.

“Well, I suppose I could have done better, too.” Renee had to give him that. “I didn’t help my ex-husband with those robberies, but I sure didn’t know how to stop him, either.”

When Renee had seen that her husband was robbing gas stations, she’d finally been desperate enough to come look for her father. She’d ended up at Gracie Stone’s nearby house, in as bad shape as this man was tonight.

“That doesn’t make you guilty of anything,” the sheriff said. “Stopping him was my job. What you should have done was come tell me what he was doing. Sooner than you did.”

Renee nodded. After Gracie and her father married, they welcomed her and Tessie into their family along with Gracie’s three grown sons. But Renee wouldn’t let herself lean on the Stone family. She needed to find strength inside herself if she and her daughter were ever going to have a good life. Now that she was a Christian, she believed she could do that.

“I’m not saying you should arrest this man,” she finally said. “It’s just that if you are going to arrest the guy tonight, I want you to do it now, before Tessie has a chance to come back. She thinks he’s a prince. It would break her heart to see you put handcuffs on him.”

“I wouldn’t do anything to hurt that little girl,” Sheriff Wall responded. “You know that.”

The sheriff leaned back on his haunches and continued, “And while we’re on the subject, I know Tessie is not particularly comfortable with any of the men around here. Well, except for her grandfather.”

“Tessie and men are—” Renee paused, searching for the right word “—complicated.”

The sheriff nodded. “But she seems to really like this guy. At least enough to talk to him and call him a prince. She’s not afraid of him, either. That’s something for her. He needs to be checked out better, but he sounds like he’s single. I wouldn’t rule him out completely. For all their faults, the Calhouns were honest people. And Tessie sure needs a better father than the one she’s got.”

Renee turned to the lawman in astonishment.

“He’s absolutely the worst kind of man we could get involved with. Look at him.” She gestured. “Only a violent man gets that many wounds. He spouts all kind of romantic nonsense about angels just hoping some woman will be foolish enough to fall for it. He might have Tessie wrapped around his little finger, but I’ll never budge. He and my ex-husband are enough alike to be brothers. I hope I never see him again after tonight. He even has a wolf for a dog. What kind of a father would he make for a little girl?”

“Ah,” the sheriff said. “Well, that’s too bad.”

They were both silent again.

“You’ve been talking to Betty, haven’t you?” Renee finally asked.

Sheriff Wall pushed his hat down farther on his head. “Betty’s the dispatcher. I talk to her all the time.”

Renee gave the sheriff a stern look. “Just so you know—I’m not looking for a husband. She thinks I need one. I don’t. Tessie and I are doing just fine.”

“Understood,” the lawman said with something like relief in his voice. “I like to help, but I’m not much good as a matchmaker anyway.”

“No, you’re not,” Renee agreed with a smile.

The sheriff was silent for a moment and then he pointed to the phone Renee held in her hand. “Speaking of Betty, is she still—”

Renee grimaced in dismay and held out the phone. She’d forgotten all about it.

The lawman took it and put it to his ear. “You still on here, Betty? Could you call Havre and see if they have anything on a Rusty Calhoun? They probably don’t, but it’s a place to start.”

Renee could hear the ambulance as it stopped in front of the house. The sound of boots announced the arrival of two uniformed men as they came through the open doorway. The thin worker had a tattoo on his hand and the stockier one had a beard.

“This must be our patient,” the tattooed man said as he knelt and put his fingers over the pulse on Rusty’s throat. “He’s doing better than I thought he might from what Betty said.”

Renee felt relief wash over her as the two men loaded Rusty onto a gurney and wheeled him out of the house.

The sheriff hung up the phone. “They’ll take Rusty to the clinic in Miles City. There’s nothing for you to worry about. You and Tessie can go to bed.”

“Oh, that reminds me,” Renee said as she reached into her jeans pocket and pulled out the slip of paper. “I took this out of the man’s pocket. It has a phone number on it.”

The sheriff took the paper and studied it. “Not a local number. Looks like something back east. I’ll have to give it back to him, though. No permission for a search.”

“He was unconscious,” Renee said.

“All the more reason.” The sheriff started walking toward the open door. “If I end up arresting him for anything, it could jeopardize the whole case.”

Renee could see the taillights of the ambulance through the side window on the house. A gust of cold wind blew inside before the sheriff could close the door. Renee wrapped her arms around herself. She felt the chill and shivered. She suddenly realized she’d have to see that man again. She had his horse and that beast he called a dog. She’d have to call over to the bunkhouse to see if anyone was awake to help her. She didn’t want to walk out to the barn in the dark with that animal around. Just because the man called him a dog didn’t make him one.

* * *

Early the next morning, Rusty sleepily noticed the antiseptic smell around him while his eyes were still closed. This place felt familiar, but he wasn’t ready to wake up. It was not full light yet and he heard the rumble of voices in the distance. Slowly he remembered and his entire body tensed. He started to reach for the knife he kept in his right boot. Then he realized his toes were bare. He wore no socks. His boots were gone.

He opened his eyes and tried to rise on his elbows to look around. He had trouble because he had a bandage around his chest, and one arm was tangled up somehow. He wasn’t in the humble hospital where he’d spent weeks after being wounded that last time in Afghanistan, though. The knowledge made him relax. The walls here were painted a light pink and the windows were intact. His boots were beside his bed. He slumped back against the pillows. He even smelled a hint of coffee in the distance.

A cotton blanket had been draped around him, but the air was cool. There was no hint of food and he wondered if he had missed breakfast. He had a headache, but he could easily move his left hand and reached over to the bandage on his side. His arm was in a sling. He remembered now that they’d brought him here in what seemed like the middle of the night.