Shepherds Abiding in Dry Creek. Janet Tronstad

jacket on the coatrack by the door.

      “Well, a little girl wouldn’t have done that,” Mrs. Hargrove said as she smoothed down the long sleeves on her dress. “Mark my words.”

      “Little girls can get into just as much mischief as boys.”

      One thing Les had learned in his reserve deputy sheriff training was that a lawman shouldn’t make assumptions based on stereotypes about people. There were all kinds of stories about mob men who loved their cats and sweet-looking grandmothers who robbed banks in their spare time.

      “Still, I say no little girl took that shepherd,” Mrs. Hargrove said as she walked over to a chair next to Charley and sat down. “If she couldn’t get the angel unhooked, she’d take the baby Jesus. What would she want with a smelly old shepherd?”

      Les frowned. “Just because a man works with animals and lives alone, it doesn’t mean he smells bad.”

      Les had a few sheep on his ranch, but the only full-time shepherd he knew was Mr. Morales, who lived in the foothills of the Big Sheep Mountains north of Dry Creek. Les figured bachelor ranchers needed to stick together. Once in a while he invited Mr. Morales down for breakfast. Les decided he needed to do that again soon. Smelly, indeed!

      “Well, no, of course not,” Mrs. Hargrove agreed and had the grace to blush slightly. “But still, I can’t see that a little girl would—”

      “Whoever took the shepherd wants to trade him for a Suzy bake set—the deluxe edition.” Les walked over and gave the note to Mrs. Hargrove. “That sounds like a little girl to me. You recognize the writing?”

      Mrs. Hargrove taught Sunday school and she knew all the kids in and around Dry Creek. When she finished reading the note, she looked up and shook her head. “I don’t recognize it, but whoever wrote the note probably tried to disguise their writing, anyway.”

      Everyone was quiet for a minute.

      “Are any of the classes in Sunday school memorizing the nineteenth verse of some book?”

      Mrs. Hargrove shook her head. “Not that I know of. They wouldn’t write it that way, anyway, would they? XIX? That’s roman numerals.”

      “I wonder about the Curtis twins,” Elmer said as he reached for his cup of coffee. “I don’t think they’d mess around with numbers, but they like cupcakes.”

      “They like to eat cupcakes. Those boys don’t want to bake cupcakes,” Linda said. “Besides, they’re too busy with their new sleds to think up a scheme like this.”

      Les shrugged. “I don’t know. Those boys live close to the church. I can’t see any of the ranch kids coming into Dry Creek on a night like last night. For one thing, we would have seen tire tracks over by the church.”

      Les lifted his eyebrow in a question to Elmer and the man shook his head.

      “Since there were no tracks, it means it had to be someone who was already in town last night.” Les let his words sink in for everyone. Somebody in the center of Dry Creek had taken that shepherd. If there were no tracks, they couldn’t blame it on a stranger passing through.

      “Pastor Matthew won’t like it if his sons stole the shepherd,” Charley finally said, and then glanced over at Mrs. Hargrove. He must have seen the frown on her face. “Of course, I don’t believe it was the Curtis twins. Not for a minute. They don’t even know about Roman numerals. They can barely add up regular numbers.”

      “Nobody added the numbers,” Les muttered before Charley could get himself in a spin. “They just put them out there.”

      “Well, the only other kids in town are those two new kids.” Elmer stared down at his cup. “And what would they want with a shepherd? They’ve never even been to church.”

      There was another moment’s silence.

      “They’ve never been anywhere,” Charley finally said. “We’ve heard there are two new kids, but has anyone ever seen either of them?”

      Everyone just looked at each other.

      “Just because no one’s seen them doesn’t mean they’re thieves,” Mrs. Hargrove protested. “We need to have open minds here.”

      “Still, you have to admit it’s peculiar,” Elmer said after a moment’s thought. “We’ve all seen the mother, but she must keep those kids inside. The only reason we know about the kids is because there are three names on their mailbox and we know the woman is a widow, so it has to be a woman and her two kids.”

      The mailbox had sprung up next to the driveway of the old house when the woman and her children moved into town. Les figured they had not realized that everyone in Dry Creek collected their mail at the counter in the hardware store, so no one had any need for an individual mailbox by their house. The mailman made just one stop for the whole town, even though he’d started going out to some of the ranches this past year.

      Les frowned. Now that he thought about it, he would have expected the woman to have taken her mailbox down by now. Surely she must know how useless it was. And another thing was coming to his mind. The woman hadn’t seemed all that familiar with the hardware store the day he’d seen her there, either. Which all added up to only one possibility. “Somebody must be taking the woman’s mail to her.”

      Les looked around. He’d bet it was one of the people sitting right in front of him.

      “Well, I don’t see what’s wrong with that,” Elmer finally said defiantly. “I figure it’s only neighborly. Besides, it’s no trouble to drop their letters in that box. They don’t get many of them, anyway. The boy got a letter from Los Angeles, but it wasn’t heavy. No two-stamper. And they don’t get catalogs to speak of, either. Just the J. C. Penney Christmas catalog.”

      “The mail is protected by federal law. You shouldn’t be touching anyone’s mail without their permission.” Les wondered if the sheriff’s department should put out a book of rules for people. He wondered if anyone in Dry Creek would read it if they did issue one.

      Elmer jutted his chin out. “All I’m saying is that there are the two kids, and if we haven’t seen them, maybe it’s because neither of them needs to go farther than their driveway for the mail. That’s all.”

      “They could even be sick,” Linda added softly. “It’s flu season. They’d stay inside for sure if they were sick. Maybe they have colds.”

      “And I can’t see sick kids stealing a shepherd,” Mrs. Hargrove said. “Especially not in this weather. Their mother probably wouldn’t let them go outside if they were sick, and they wouldn’t be able to see the Nativity set from the windows in their house, so they wouldn’t even know the shepherd was there. They can’t steal what they don’t even know about, now, can they?”

      Les wondered how long the people of Dry Creek would protect a real criminal if one showed up. He hoped he never had to find out. “Forget the shepherd. Nobody said anybody wanted that shepherd. It’s the bake set that seems to be the goal. If I remember right, one of those names on the mailbox is Becky. Sounds like a little girl to me. Especially since we know the mother’s name is Marla Something-or-the-other.”

      “It’s Marla Gossett. Remember, I told you about her? Said it would be a good idea for you to get acquainted with that new woman,” Elmer said as he looked up at Les. “Didn’t I say that just the other day?”

      Les grunted. “You didn’t say anything. What you did was break the law by calling in a false fire alarm. That was a crazy stunt. And just to get me over to the hardware store while Mrs. Gossett was there.”

      “Well, it would have worked if you’d stayed around to talk. She’s a nice lady. Charley and I both knew you wouldn’t come over if we just said there was an eligible woman we wanted you to meet. When have you ever agreed to do something like that?”

      “I have a ranch to run. I can’t be running around meeting people