A Gentleman for Dry Creek

A third man snorted derisively. “That test was given twenty-some years ago before he got us out of that mess in Asia. What do we know about Garth Elkton today?”

There was a moment’s silence.

The man with the folder set it down on the table. “Not much. He pays his ranch hands well. Health benefits even. That’s unusual in a ranch community. He’s widowed—he’s got a grown son. His neighbors respect him. Closemouthed about him, though. Our agents couldn’t get much from them. Oh, and he has a sister who’s visiting him.”

“Sister?” one of the men asked hopefully. “Maybe we could get to him that way—if he likes the ladies.”

“No, the sister is really his sister,” the young man verified.

“That’s not much to go on.”

“He’s our only hope,” the young man said. “We have more leaks around there than Niagara Falls. They’ve picked off every agent we’ve put on the case. If we assign another agent, we might as well send along the coroner. If we want someone who isn’t with the agency, he’s it. Besides, he knows how to handle himself in a fight—he was in a special combat unit in the army. He missed the main action in Vietnam—too young—but he went deep into ’Nam with his unit, five, six years later to get some POWs. Top secret. Bit of a problem. The operation turned sour and he took the hit for the unit. He spent six months in a POW camp himself. Barely made it out alive. We’ve checked out all the ranchers in Montana—he’s the only one who could pull it off.”

The third man sighed. “I guess you’re right. We may as well offer again. Most likely he’ll say no anyway.”

“I don’t think so.” A man who sat apart from them all spoke up for the first time.

The other four men looked at each other uneasily.

“What have you done?” one of them finally asked.

“Nothing yet,” the man said as he rose. As if on cue, his cellular phone rang in his suit pocket. The rest of the men were silent. They knew a call on that phone was always important and always business.

“Yeah?” the man said into the phone. “Did you get it set up?”

The man started to grin as he listened. “What did I tell you? Some of these things go down easy.” The man snapped his cell phone shut. Revenge was sweet. “I’ve taken care of it. If Garth Elkton’s anything like his old man, he’ll say yes.”

“You know the family personally?” The stocky man removed his cigar.

“About as personal as it gets.”

The stocky man grunted. “Well, see that it doesn’t get in the way.”

The man with the phone didn’t answer. He couldn’t stop grinning. Leave it to Mrs. Buckwalter to make the deal sweeter. He’d sure like to see Garth Elkton stumbling around a dance floor. Let him see how it felt to be clumsy in love with no hope in sight.

Chapter Three

Sylvia stood on the steps of the Seattle police station, as close to swearing as she was to weeping. She’d almost gotten them away. If she’d taken Mrs. Buckwalter at her word and gathered the kids under her wing yesterday and run off to Montana, she wouldn’t be climbing these steps now on her way to try and bail them all out of jail.

The irony was she’d worked through her resistance to the idea of staying on Garth’s ranch and decided she would do it. She had no other options for the kids.

She’d take the kids to Montana she decided—at least the ones for whom she could get parental consent. Likely, that would be all of them as long as she promised to only keep them for a month. A month wasn’t long enough to interfere with any government support their parents were getting for them. And they’d get permission from the schools. Both of her staff were teachers as well as counselors and gave individual instruction to the kids.

Even a month would let the kids start to feel safe. She’d learned early on that a month’s commitment was about all the kids could make in the beginning. They couldn’t see further into the future than those thirty days. So that’s how she started. Once one month was down, she’d ask for another. Lives were being changed one month at a time.

But the kids getting arrested made everything so much more difficult. Some of the boys were on probation. A couple of the girls, too. The others had probably walked close enough to the edge of juvenile problems to be placed on probation with this latest episode. They might not have the freedom to decide what they wanted—not even for a month.

What, she thought to herself in exasperation, had possessed these kids to tackle a dangerous gang? But she knew—gang thinking was vicious. It made war zones out of school grounds and paranoid bush soldiers out of ordinary kids. She was lucky it was the police station she was visiting and not the morgue.

Sylvia swung open the heavy oak doors that led into the station’s waiting area. There were no windows, but the ceilings were high and supported a dozen fans that slowly rotated in an attempt to ventilate the place. Even with the fan blades buzzing in the background, the cavelike room still smelled slightly on days that weren’t wax days.

On Thursdays, when the janitors did an early-morning wax job on the brown linoleum floors, the room smelled of disinfectant. On other days the odor was people—too many, too close together and stuck there for too long.

Benches lined the room and there were two barred cashier cages on one side. The other side funneled into a long aisle that led into the main part of the police station. Sylvia’s friend, Glory Beckett, worked as a police sketch artist and her workroom was down that hall and off the main desk area.

Sylvia started in that direction.

Glory might know a shortcut to get the kids out. The two of them had worked the system before. Sylvia said a quick prayer that Glory would be in her office. Yesterday morning Glory had called, worried about having dinner last night with Matthew Curtis, the minister who’d come to Seattle from Dry Creek to ask—Sylvia sincerely hoped—Glory to marry him. In Sylvia’s opinion, it was about time. Glory hadn’t been herself since they’d come back from Dry Creek after Christmas.

The door to Glory’s workroom was closed and a note had been taped to the front of it. “She’ll be in later today—try back again. The Captain.”

Well, Sylvia thought, so much for some friendly help. She glanced at the police officer who was sitting at the desk in the open area across from Glory’s workroom. She wondered how late Glory would be. It was almost ten o’clock now.

“Do you know—” she began.

“I don’t know anything, lady,” the officer said, clearly busy and exasperated. “All I got is what you see. I can’t be answering questions every five minutes. You’ll have to wait just like the other guy.” He glared down the hallway.

“The other guy?” Sylvia’s eyes followed his gaze.

The bench was at the end of the hall and a square of light shone in through a side window. That was the only natural light. In addition a row of ceiling lights burned weakly, leaving more shadows than anything. A man sat on the hall bench, staring at the brown wall across from him. Sylvia was too far away to see his face. But she didn’t need to see it to know who he was. How many gray Stetson hats were there in Seattle in February?

The hall seemed far from the hub of the station and the noises that filled the rest of the building were muffled here. Sylvia was aware of the sharp snap of her heels as she marched down the hall.

Garth Elkton was the last person she wanted to face today. Correction. He was the second to the last. Mrs. Buckwalter was the absolute last, and as friendly as the two of them had been when they parted yesterday, she wasn’t sure that what one discovered wouldn’t be shared soon enough by both of them.

Ordinarily she wouldn’t mind. She didn’t have anything to hide. But this… She shook her head. She knew it would not look good to their potential sponsor to find all thirty-one kids from her center behind bars this morning.

As eccentric as Mrs. Buckwalter appeared, even she could hardly think this was a good beginning to their plans. Sylvia only hoped the woman wouldn’t find out about the arrests. The older woman had made a verbal commitment yesterday. But nothing had been put in writing. Everything could change if Mrs. Buckwalter knew about the kids being in jail and had sent Garth to find out whether the arrests were justified.

Sylvia was halfway down the hall when the hat moved.

Garth didn’t know why someone would put a stone bench in the hall of a police station. He’d perched on mountain rocks that were more comfortable. Not that anything about the building had been designed for comfort. Made a man feel as if he was locked up behind bars already. Guilty before he was even sent to trial.

The only good thing about the building was the hard linoleum floor. He loved the sounds of a high-heeled woman walking across a hard surface. Something about the tip-tap was thoroughly feminine. He hoped Sylvia would walk right up to him before she started to talk.

She didn’t.

“What are you doing here?” Sylvia was a good five feet from him. The question could have been friendly. But it wasn’t.

Garth eyeballed her cautiously. Sylvia had more quills than a porcupine and, unless he missed his guess, she’d just as soon bury them one by one in his hide. Slowly. He’d seen what tangling with a mad porcupine could do. He’d just as soon save his skin.

“Glory called me,” Garth answered quietly. That much he could tell her. He wasn’t sure her pride would want to know Glory had asked him to help keep Sylvia calm until she got there. “Asked me to meet her here.”

Garth watched Sylvia’s face. She might have porcupine quills, but her eyes were the tenderest blue he’d ever seen. And right now he wasn’t sure whether they were snapping with anger or tears. Maybe both. Her cheeks were red and he noticed she hadn’t pinned her hair back, instead sweeping her coal-black tresses back into a scarf.

“That’s the only reason?” Sylvia eyed him doubtfully.

Garth smiled. “Well, she did tell me they had coffee here. I haven’t seen any yet, but she said she’d get me a cup. Almond flavored.”

Sylvia seemed to relax. “Glory does like her flavored coffee.”

Garth decided disarming a porcupine wasn’t such a difficult task. He moved over on the bench and Sylvia sank down beside him. He took a deep breath. How was it she always smelled of peaches? Made him think of a summer orchard even though it was raining outside and the humidity was so high that the concrete walls were sweating.

If it wasn’t for the echo in the hallway, Garth would whistle a tune. He was that happy. Sylvia was sitting down beside him. She hadn’t thrown any barbs at him. Life was good. Forget the echoes in the hallway, he thought. A good whistle would cheer everyone up. Garth drew his breath and then it came.

“I thought maybe Mrs. Buckwalter had sent you,” Sylvia said quietly. “I thought she’d asked you to spy.”

Garth choked on the whistle. “What?” His tongue was still tangled. How did she know about Mrs. Buckwalter? The older woman hadn’t told him until he walked her to her car yesterday that she had a message for him from the FBI. She’d asked him again about infiltrating the rustling ring as a spy. He was going to dismiss the idea just as he’d done before—when she reminded him of the kids. The kids made him pause. Still, Sylvia could not know about the FBI’s offer. He himself was sworn to secrecy. That was the way these things worked. Anyone who watched television knew that much.

“I don’t know anything to spy about,” Garth answered carefully. He wondered if Mrs. Buckwalter had told Sylvia. He always thought it was a mistake for the FBI to use civilians. They never knew when to keep quiet.

“So Mrs. Buckwalter doesn’t know?” Sylvia said, relief evident in her voice.

Garth eyed her. Sylvia had leaned against the bench’s stone back and actually appeared comfortable. Garth decided there was one advantage to the stone. The pitted beige texture made Sylvia’s hair look silken in contrast. The black strands softly caught in the roughness of the concrete and flew around her head like a halo.

“About—?” Garth left the question to dangle.

Sylvia straightened up and looked at him critically.

Garth nervously tipped back his hat. He’d taken it off earlier, but then put it back on.

“If I tell you, you have to promise not to tell,” Sylvia said seriously.

Garth half smiled. She reminded him of a school-child when she said that. He raised one hand in oath. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

Sylvia smiled back faintly, so quick and slight Garth would have thought he’d imagined it if her eyes hadn’t flashed, too.

Then she was solemn and worried. “The kids have been arrested.”

Garth wished he could take the worry off her face. Taking care of some thirty kids was too much for anyone, even Sylvia. “Glory told me there was trouble,” Garth said. “Actually, Matthew told me—he seemed in a hurry and didn’t tell me much. He’d called from the hotel lobby before he left this morning.”

Sylvia nodded. “I’m waiting to see the kids. But first I wanted to talk to Glory and see what chances we have—maybe a kindhearted judge will help us.”

Quick footsteps came toward them and Garth heard them before Sylvia. “Help is on the way.”

“We’ve got to hurry,” Glory Beckett said as she rushed down the hall and stood beside Sylvia. “I’ve got ten minutes on Judge Mason’s calendar—now.”

“Well, let’s go.” Sylvia stood. She and Glory had been through this drill before.

Judge Mason sat behind the bench in his courtroom. On another day, Sylvia would have appreciated the carved mahogany molding in the room. The court reporter was present as well as a lawyer from the D.A.’s office.

“Just so we’re clear.” Judge Mason looked over a list he held in his hand and then looked directly at Sylvia. “We’ve got an assortment of assault charges. Aiding and abetting. You want to post bail for all thirty-one of these juveniles?”

Sylvia nodded. “If I can. I have this.” She held up the watch Mrs. Buckwalter had given her yesterday. “I’m hoping it’ll be enough.”

“A watch?” The judge looked skeptical.

“Diamonds,” Sylvia assured him as she twisted the watchband so it would sparkle.

The judge grunted. “Doubt it’ll be enough for all thirty-one. But I tell you what. I’m going to keep it low—ten thousand dollars apiece on the assault and five thousand dollars on the rest. I’m going to overlook the probation violations. You can bail half of them out with the watch.”

“Half?” Sylvia’s hopes sank. She couldn’t take half of the kids and leave the rest.

“I’ll cover the other half,” Garth said quietly.

Sylvia turned. She’d forgotten he’d followed her and Glory.

“You’ll need collateral.” The judge frowned slightly. “A few hundred thousand.”

“I’ve got it,” Garth said.

“But I can’t repay you if—” Sylvia protested. She was used to risking everything on kids that might or might not come through. But she couldn’t be responsible for someone else losing money. “The kids mean well, but there’s no guarantee.”

“I know,” Garth said, and then grinned. “But since they’re going to be on my ranch, I’ll have a pretty good say in whether or not they show up for their court hearing.”

“Which will be six weeks from now,” the judge said. He peered over his glasses at Sylvia. “I know how you feel about these kids. We’ve covered that ground before. I don’t need to tell you how important it is that they are back here for court.”

“I know.” Sylvia felt the rubber band inside of her relax.

“And get them out to that ranch in Montana as soon as you can,” the judge said as he stood. He then turned and left the room.

“Thank you.” Sylvia turned to Garth. “I can’t thank you enough.”

“Well, jail is no place for kids,” Garth muttered.

“And you—” Sylvia turned to Glory.

Glory just smiled. “I’d best get back to work.”

Sylvia looked more closely at her friend. Glory looked different. Her auburn hair was loose and flowing, instead of pulled back. But that wasn’t everything. Then Sylvia realized what it was. Glory was happy. Beaming, in fact.

“Have a nice evening last night?” Sylvia asked cautiously. Yesterday, when she’d talked to Glory about her date with Matthew Curtis, Glory had been grim.

“Mmm-hmm,” Glory said, lifting her hand to sweep back her hair.

“A diamond!” Sylvia saw what her friend was flaunting. “You’re engaged!”

Glory laughed with glee and nodded.

“Oh, my!” Sylvia reached up and hugged her friend. “Congratulations!”

“Finally,” Garth muttered. “Glad to see he had the nerve.”

“Nerve?” Glory looked over at Garth, puzzled. “Why would he need nerve?”

Garth snorted. That’s how much women knew about the whole business.

Chapter Four

The leather work gloves on Garth’s hands were stiff from the cold. He was twisting a strand of barbed wire to see exactly where the cut had been made. Not that it made much difference. This time the rustlers had succeeded. His crew counted twenty cows missing.

“Might be they’ll show up on the other side of the Big Sheep,” Jess, one of his new hands, offered. Jess was nearing sixty, too old to be out riding the range in most outfits, but Garth had hired him five months ago, after all the other big outfits had turned the man down. In Garth’s eyes, every man deserved the right to prove himself, and Garth assigned him to light duty in the calving barn. Jess had been pointedly grateful ever since.

“They must have hit last night and it’s already late afternoon. I should have been paying more attention,” Garth muttered as he pulled his Stetson down farther. The air around him was so cold it hung like smoke. A wet frost had hit last night and the barbed wire had stayed iced all day. Garth had thought he was safe from the rustlers in weather like this. The thieves must be desperate to get back into operation if they’d work in this cold.

“You can’t check all your fences every day,” Jess protested loyally. “Not with the land you have. No, you couldn’t have known.”

Garth grunted. He’d never know if he could have known or not. He wasn’t concentrating like normal on business at hand. For the past two days he’d thought of little else but the camp he had promised to Sylvia. The bubble of euphoria—that Sylvia was coming to his ranch—had slowly deflated as he drove back to Montana.

No, he’d given almost no thought to his cattle. He had bigger worries. He had a three-day head start. What was he going to do with thirty teenagers? And, worse yet, what was he going to do with Sylvia?

He’d assigned every hand on his place something to clean and he’d put his sister Francis in charge of the inspections. He missed his son, but the boy had gone to Chicago to visit an old friend. Garth wished his son were here to help keep the men happy. Except for Jess, the men had all threatened to quit. They said they’d hired on to ride herd on cattle, not scrub walls. Even after Garth promised them a bonus, they still muttered. But they cleaned—cowboy-style—using a broom like a shovel and a rag like a whip.

Francis insisted they use ammonia and now the whole ranch smelled of it. Garth took a cautious whiff of his hand. Even through the glove he could still smell the stuff. The one good thing about it all was that Francis brightened considerably as she took to her task. She’d still not told Garth what was troubling her and he knew better than to push. But it was good to have his sister smiling again, and she’d promised to extend her visit until summer.

Sound traveled clearly on a crisp cold afternoon and Garth heard the rumble of a load-pulling engine before he saw the bus crawl over the hill that led to the main house.

“We best get back,” Garth said as he walked over to the horses. Garth put his leg into the stirrup and lifted himself up. “We’ve got company.”

Sylvia stood in the long wood-frame building. So this was the bunkhouse. Late-afternoon shadows filled the corners but she didn’t turn on the overhead light. She could see what she needed to see. The plank floor was unpolished and smooth from years of wear. The small row of windows were half covered with frost and they lacked curtains. Eight cots were lined against each of the long sides of the building.

Puffs of heat came toward her, fighting the cold air. Metal grates along the wall indicated gas heating, but most of the heat seemed to be coming from a potbelly stove near the door. The stove door was closed but the bright glow of a steady fire shone through the door cracks. But as cozy as the inside of the bunkhouse was, the view out the windows of the afternoon sun reflecting off the snow-capped mountains was breathtaking. The girls would like it. They might not admit to it, but they would like it. She could hear the girls now, chattering as they walked to the ranch house from the rented bus.

Above the voices of the teenagers, she could hear Mrs. Buckwalter’s deep laugh. Sylvia had to give the older woman credit. She hadn’t just written a check. She’d spent hours shopping and packing for their camp. Finally, she had confidently asked if she could ride with them to camp. Sylvia would have refused, but she could use an extra adult on the trip, especially since Mrs. Buckwalter had a quelling influence on the rowdy teenagers. No one misbehaved around Mrs. Buckwalter; whether it was the promise of new skis or the fact that the older woman formally called each of the kids by their full name, Sylvia did not know.

Sylvia, herself, kept watching the woman cautiously, half expecting something to happen that would cause Mrs. Buckwalter’s generous enthusiasm to disappear. Surely one of the woman’s relatives would step up and say Mrs. Buckwalter wasn’t competent to donate large sums of money. That was one reason Sylvia was glad to be away from Seattle. She doubted any of the accountants would bother with them when they were so far away.

Mrs. Buckwalter had made all the arrangements. The bus had been rented for a month even though the driver would fly back to Seattle once the suitcases were unloaded. The driver would return and drive them back when they were ready to go.

Sylvia looked around the bunkhouse again, reassuring herself that she had made the right decision. She had excused herself from the others, saying she needed to change her blouse. She had spilled coffee on it this morning, but the small spot wouldn’t ordinarily stop her. No, she wanted a few minutes alone to gather her thoughts before she faced Garth again.

She remembered being in Garth’s house that morning when he’d found her half-frozen and had brought her to his ranch. She could almost picture where he must be sitting now. He’d have his boots off and his feet propped up in front of the fireplace. Garth hadn’t come to the door when the bus pulled up. It had been Francis who stood on the porch and called out, asking everyone to come up to the ranch house for a cup of hot cocoa and some cookies.

Sylvia had asked Mrs. Buckwalter to tell Francis that she’d be up soon. She had thought a five-hundred-mile bus ride would prepare her to meet anyone again. But it hadn’t.

Now here she was—hiding out in the bunkhouse like a coward. She shook her head ruefully as she set her suitcase on one of the chairs near the stove. Even with the stove’s heat, it was still a little chilly in the room. Sylvia took off her coat and opened her suitcase. She’d be quick. Maybe she’d put on her red blouse for courage.

Garth swore as he rode over the hill and looked down at his house. The bus was parked in the driveway and he could hear the sounds of voices coming from the living room. Knowing Francis, she had everyone inside thawing while she fed them cookies. Garth hoped she kept everyone there for a few minutes. He wasn’t ready to meet Sylvia. She was a city woman and he didn’t think she’d appreciate being greeted by a man whose hands smelled of ammonia and whose feet smelled of cattle. Fortunately he could slip into the bunkhouse and wash up before he headed up to the house.