Shepherds Abiding in Dry Creek. Janet Tronstad

a load of hay out to the cattle he was wintering in the far pasture. The little town of Dry Creek wasn’t much—a hardware store, a church, a café and a dozen or so houses—but the regular sheriff guarded the place as if it was Fort Knox, and Les, who was the town’s only volunteer reserve deputy, had promised he’d do the same in the sheriff’s absence.

      Just thinking of the sheriff made Les shake his head. Who would figure that a man as shy as Sheriff Carl Wall would ever have a wedding, let alone a belated honeymoon to celebrate with a trip to Maui?

      It was all Les could do not to be jealous. After all, he was as good-looking as Carl, or at least no worse looking. Les even owned his own ranch, as sweet a piece of earth as God ever created, and it was all paid for. Not every man could say that. He should be content. But for the past week every time he thought of Carl and that honeymoon trip of his, Les started to frown.

      If Sheriff Carl Wall could get married, Les figured he should be married, too. He was almost forty years old and, although he enjoyed being single, a man could spend only so much time in his own company before, well, he got a little tired of it. Besides, it would be nice to have a woman’s touch around the place. Les knew he could hire someone to do most of the cooking and cleaning. But it wouldn’t be the same. A woman just naturally made a home around her, like a mother bird making her nest. A man’s house wasn’t a home without some nesting going on.

      Of course, Les told himself as he pulled his pickup to a stop beside the café, the sheriff had gone a little overboard with it all. He had completely lost his dignity, the way he had moped around until Barbara Strong agreed to marry him. Les would never do that. He had already seen too many tortured love scenes in his life; he had no desire to play the lead in one himself.

      His parents were the reason for his reluctance to marry. They had had many very public partings and equally dramatic reconciliations. Les never knew whether they were breaking up or getting back together. The two of them should have sold tickets to their lives. They certainly could have used some help with finances, given the salary his father earned in that shoe store in Miles City. Half their arguments were about money. The other half were about who didn’t love whom enough.

      His parents were both dead now, but Les had never understood how they could be the way they were. They were so very public about how they felt about everything, from love to taxes. As a child Les had vowed to stay away from that kind of circus. It was embarrassing. Growing up, he never even made a fuss over his dog, because he didn’t want anyone to think he was becoming like his parents.

      No, Les thought as he stepped up on the café porch, if he was going to get married there would be no emotional public scenes. It would all be a nice sensible arrangement with a nice quiet woman. There was no reason for two people to make fools of themselves just because they wanted to get married, anyway.

      “Oh, good. You’re here.” Linda’s voice greeted Les as he opened the door.

      The café floor was covered with alternating black and white squares of linoleum. Formica-topped tables sat in the middle of the large room, and a counter ran along one of its sides. The air smelled of freshly made coffee and fried bacon.

      Elmer and Charley were sitting at the table closest to the door and they both looked up from their plates as Les stepped inside. They had flushed faces and excitement in their eyes.

      “They already went over to the church,” Linda whispered as she closed the door behind Les. “They snuck out when I was in the kitchen making their pancakes.”

      Les could tell the two men were primed to tell him something. It hadn’t stopped them from eating their pancakes and bacon, though. All that was left on their plates was syrup. Les walked closer to them. Fortunately, no one had ever suggested people should have soup for breakfast, so that meal had always been safe.

      “It’s a crime,” Elmer announced from where he sat. He had his elbows on the table and his cap sitting on the straight-backed chair next to him.

      “We thought maybe you were right about the light just burning out,” Charley explained as he pushed his chair back a little from the table. “We didn’t want to bother anyone if that was all that happened, so we went over to take a look.”

      “Looks like a kidnapping to me,” Elmer declared confidently, then paused to glance up at Les. “Is it a kidnapping if the kidnapee in question is plastic?”

      “No,” Les said. He didn’t need to call upon his reserve deputy sheriff training to answer that question. “It’s not even a theft if someone just moved the figure. That’s probably what happened. Maybe the pastor decided the Nativity had too many figures on the left side and put the shepherd inside the church until he could set it up on the other side.”

      Les reminded himself to get these two men a new checkerboard for Christmas. A dog had chewed up their old cardboard one a month ago, and now, instead of sitting in the hardware store playing checkers, they just sat, either in the hardware store or in the café, and talked. Too much talking was giving them some pretty wild ideas. He couldn’t think of one good reason anyone would steal a plastic shepherd, not even one that lit up like a big neon sign at night.

      Charley shook his head. “Naw, that can’t be it. All of the wise men are on the other side. The pastor wouldn’t think there are too many figures on the left. Not even with the angel on the left—and she’s a good-sized angel.”

      “Besides, we know it’s not the pastor moving things around, because we found this,” Elmer said as he thrust a piece of paper toward Les. “Wait until you see this.”

      Les’s heart sank when he saw the sheet of paper. He had a feeling he knew what kind of note it was. It had a ragged edge where it had been torn from what was probably a school tablet. There must be a dozen school tablets in Dry Creek. The note was written in pencil, and he didn’t even want to think about how many pencils there were around. Anyone could have written a note like this.

      Les bent to read it.

      Dear Church People,

      I took your dumb shepherd.

      If you want to see him again, leave a Suzy bake set on the back steps of your church. It needs to be the deluxe kind—the one with the cupcakes on the box.

      P.S. Don’t call the cops.

      P.P.S. The angel wire is loose. She’s going to fall if somebody doesn’t do something.

      XIX

      Well, there was one good thing, Les told himself as he looked up from the paper. There weren’t that many people in Dry Creek who would want a Suzy bake set. That narrowed down the field of suspects considerably. He assumed the XIX at the bottom was some reference to a biblical text on charity. Or maybe a promise to heap burning coals on someone who didn’t do what they were told.

      “So it looks like the shepherd is really gone,” Les said, more to give himself time to think than because there seemed to be any question about that fact, at least.

      Elmer nodded. “The angel is just standing there with her wings unfurled looking a little lost now that she’s proclaiming all that good news to a couple of sheep. You don’t see anything standing where that shepherd should be.”

      The door to the café opened briskly and an older woman stepped inside. She had a wool jacket wrapped around her shoulders and boots on her feet. Les thought she still had to be cold, though, in that gingham dress she was wearing. Cotton didn’t do much to protect a person from a Montana winter chill.

      “Mrs. Hargrove, you shouldn’t be walking around these streets. They’re slippery,” Les said to the woman. The older people in Dry Creek just didn’t seem to realize how hazardous it was outside after it snowed. And they’d lived here their whole lives, so if anyone should know, they should.

      “Charley told me some little girl was in trouble.” Mrs. Hargrove glared at Les as she unwound the scarf from around her neck and set down the bag she was carrying. “Something about kidnapping and theft. I hope you’re not planning to arrest a little girl.”

      Les