Shepherds Abiding in Dry Creek. Janet Tronstad

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      Les wasn’t even wearing a uniform that day. He’d had cowboy boots on his feet and a plaid flannel shirt on his back. The only thing that had marked him as a reserve deputy sheriff was a vest and, from what the other men said, he didn’t even always wear that. Of course, everyone must just know he was the lawman on duty; it was such a small town.

      Marla watched Les step off the café porch and start walking down the street. He must be making his usual morning patrol. Fortunately, the sun was starting to lighten up the day, so he might even be able to see while he did it.

      Les felt the snow crunch beneath his boots as he moved down the one street in Dry Creek. Usually he thought it was an advantage to have only one street in town. Today, though, he would have liked a million other directions to turn.

      He stopped when he got to the church. The Nativity set was still all lit up even though the sun was beginning to rise. The wise men stood to one side with their hands overflowing with gold baubles. The blond angel was hanging from a wire attached to the rain gutters of the church. Les took a minute to look closely at the rain gutters and note that whoever had written the note was right. Someone did need to add another wire or the angel would eventually fall.

      Les looked back at the wise men and wondered why one of them hadn’t been taken instead of the lone shepherd. They certainly looked more exciting than the missing figure. Everyone he knew, except himself, would pick flash over something drab any day. Strangely, it didn’t make him feel any easier in his mind about the theft.

      When he could delay no longer, Les walked farther down the street and then started up the path to the Gossett house. Until Marla and her children moved to town, the house had been closed up. Old man Gossett had spent some time in prison before he died and no one had taken care of the house. Someone had enough civic pride to paint part of the picket fence that faced the street so the property looked somewhat cared for if an outsider happened to look at it on a casual drive through town. None of the people in Dry Creek liked to see the town buildings look neglected and Les couldn’t blame them.

      As he walked up the path, Les saw how the weather had started to flake the white paint off the house until there were large sections of exposed gray boards. Even the snowdrifts couldn’t disguise the fact that the yard had gone to seed. Only the pine trees in the back of the house had flourished, growing together in thick clumps of muted green.

      Les was halfway up the walk when someone turned off the light inside the house. For the first time, Les thought maybe the little girl really had stolen the shepherd. What else but guilt would make someone turn off the lights when a visitor was coming to the door? Usually people turned a light on when someone was walking toward their house.

      When Les stepped on the porch, the door opened a crack. It was just enough for Les to see a small portion of a woman’s face. There was one brown eye and a hand holding the side of the door. The hand covered up most of what face would have shown in the crack. The room behind the face was in darkness. Les wouldn’t have recognized the woman even though he had met her that day in the hardware store.

      “Mrs. Gossett?”

      The woman nodded.

      Les wished she would open the door wider. Regardless of what he’d told himself, he was looking forward to seeing more of the woman’s face. He hadn’t taken a very good look at her the other day in the hardware store and he’d like to see her better. There was no particular reason to ask her to open the door wider, though. Especially because it was cold out and she was probably just keeping her heat inside like any wise Montana housewife would do.

      “I brought something to eat,” Les said as he held up the white bag. “For the kids. And you, of course.”

      He had a feeling he could express himself a lot better if the woman didn’t keep eyeing him as if she was going to slam the door in his face any minute now.

      At his words, her face stiffened even more. “We have enough to eat. You don’t need to worry about us.”

      Les had coaxed frightened kittens out of their hiding places many times and he reminded himself that patience usually won out over fear.

      “It’s only a few doughnuts,” Les forced his voice to be softer. “Linda, at the café, thought the kids might like them.”

      The woman’s face relaxed some. “Well, I guess doughnuts are different.”

      The woman opened the door and Les gave her the bag. He waited a minute in hopes she was going to ask him inside. It would be easier to talk to her if she was relaxed and not looking at him through the crack in the door. But once she took the bag, she closed the door so it was back in its original position.

      “Please tell the woman—Linda—thank you for us. We haven’t had a chance to get over to the café yet, but it’s a very nice gesture.”

      Les was afraid the woman was going to think he had just come by to bring her the doughnuts, so he said his piece. “I’m doing a search of houses. We’ve had some property stolen from the church.”

      The woman frowned. “We don’t go to church.”

      The woman turned a little as if she heard something inside the house.

      “You don’t need to go to church to take something.”

      The woman snapped back to look at him. “Are you accusing me of stealing? From a church?”

      “No, ma’am.” Les ran his finger around his shirt collar. “It’s just that I did think that maybe your daughter—well, do you know where your daughter was last night?”

      The woman turned again to look inside the house.

      Les figured it was one of the children who had been distracting the woman, so he wasn’t surprised when he heard her whisper to someone. “Just be patient. Mommy will be right there.”

      The woman turned back to look at Les. In all of the turning, the door had opened a little farther. “Becky was here with me last night.”

      The woman was wearing an old beige robe that was zipped up to her neck and she didn’t have any makeup on her face. She had strong bones, Les noticed. And a weariness to her that made him think she’d come through a long patch of hard times. He couldn’t let his sudden sympathy for her change what he needed to do, though.

      “Was your daughter with you for the entire night?” Les could see into the rest of the large room behind the woman. The windows were all covered so the room was in shadows, but he could make out most of it. Not that there was much to see. Except for a wooden sitting chair, there was nothing there. Maybe the family’s furniture was still coming on a moving truck.

      “Of course, all night. Where else would she be?” The woman was looking straight at him now. “I don’t even know why you’re asking me these questions. You came straight to my door. I saw you. You’re not asking everybody. Just because we don’t have blond hair and blue eyes like everyone else around here, it doesn’t mean we stole something.”

      “No, of course not.” Les was bewildered. Did everyone around here have blond hair? He hadn’t noticed. Still, he’d come to do a job and he might as well get it done. “I’m talking to people because someone stole one of the Nativity figures from the СКАЧАТЬ