A Dry Creek Courtship. Janet Tronstad

      Edith drew in her breath. “What do you mean by that?”

      Maybe Charley knew more about the past than she thought. Did he know about Jasmine?

      Charley looked at her. “Just what I said. When you consider the muffler and the battery and the windshield wipers that don’t work. Harold would not expect you to keep the thing.”

      “Oh.” Edith put her hand up to steady her hat against a breeze. The movement made her feet slip a little along the side of the coulee.

      “But that’s why you keep that old car, isn’t it? Because it reminds you of Harold?” Charley didn’t know why it annoyed him that Edith was so loyal to her dead husband. She even had that locket the man had given her tied to the rearview mirror in the car. Charley knew it had both of their pictures in it because that’s what lockets were for. He had grieved for his wife deeply when she died, but he hadn’t set up any memorial for her in his pickup.

      “There’s nothing wrong with my car,” Edith said. “I keep it because it gets me where I’m going.”

      “Barely.”

      Edith lifted her head. “The world would be a better place if people didn’t throw away things that still worked. Just look at how many landfills there are in this country. People need to fix things instead of throw them away.”

      “I don’t think they put old cars in landfills.” Especially not around here, Charley thought. He didn’t even think there was a landfill within a hundred miles of where they stood. Probably not even within two hundred miles.

      “You don’t know what they put in those things. Some of it’s toxic, too.”

      Charley didn’t want to talk about garbage problems.

      “Well, my nephew, Conrad, is opening a used car lot in Miles City next to his garage. He’d move his business to Dry Creek if he thought he could get enough customers. Talk to him and maybe he can put you in a newer car for reasonable payments.”

      “I’m certainly not going to start buying things on credit at this stage of my life,” Edith said. She looked up at Charley. “You remember the problems we all had that year when hail destroyed the wheat crop and most of the men had to work in Billings over Christmas just to make ends meet?”

      “I sure do,” Charley said. “I know Harold went. I thought it must have been hard on him. He didn’t talk much about it though when he came back.”

      Edith took a deep breath and looked down slightly. “He wasn’t proud of everything he did that winter.”

      “Oh?”

      “I don’t suppose he told you about it?” Edith looked up again.

      “Not much. He said he had dinner with Elmer a few times.”

      “I’d forgotten Elmer was there that winter, too.”

      Charley thought he saw a tear starting to form in Edith’s eyes.

      “Don’t worry,” he said as fast as he could. “I’ll go check on the Morgan place and see if there are any chokecherries.”

      Edith turned and started walking back up the coulee. “I don’t need any chokecherries this year. All that jelly isn’t good for us anyway.”

      “But what are we going to put on your biscuits at the harvest dinner?” Charley said as he took a couple of quick steps to bring himself even with Edith. He reached out and took her elbow without asking. The woman shouldn’t be walking these coulees without even a stick to balance herself.

      “There’s no need for me to make any biscuits,” Edith said and he heard her take another quick breath. “Not when we don’t have the jelly.”

      “Oh, boy,” Charley said. He was in trouble now. All of the men he sat with around that old woodstove looked forward to Edith’s biscuits as much as her jelly. They claimed they were the lightest, fluffiest biscuits they’d ever eaten. Charley figured he’d have to drink his coffee at home until spring if he didn’t get some chokecherries.

      He couldn’t help but notice that Edith was upset about something. She’d let him take her elbow and help her on the climb, but she kept her arm stiff, as if she didn’t want his help even though she knew she needed it.

      It must be the chokecherries, Charley finally decided. She kept saying she didn’t need any berries and she wouldn’t make any jelly this year. But she didn’t speak with the free and easy style she usually had when she talked to him.

      Charley suddenly realized what was going on. Edith was being polite to him.

      “I’m sorry,” Charley repeated softly for lack of anything better to say. He’d already apologized three times in as many minutes, but he would do it again if it would make Edith talk to him like she used to. It made him feel lonesome, her being so polite.

      Edith waved his words away. Charley wasn’t sure if that meant she’d already forgiven him or that there was no way she’d ever forgive him. They finished the walk up the coulee in silence.

      They reached their vehicles at the top of the incline before Charley got a good clear look at Edith.

      “What’d you do to your hair?”

      “It’s just falling down,” she said, lifting a hand to her neck. “Doris June was going to cut it, but we decided not to.”

      “Oh, well, it looks nice.”

      Edith didn’t answer.

      “I’ll wait to see that you get it started,” Charley said as they reached the door of Edith’s car.

      “Thank you,” Edith said as she slid under the steering wheel of her car. Charley closed the car door for her.

      “It should start fine,” Edith said as she rolled down her window. “I took the car out and let the battery recharge after Pastor Matthew helped me with it yesterday.”

      Charley grunted.

      “He said I should get a new battery. Maybe your nephew has a used one.”

      “He sells used cars, not used batteries. No one buys a used battery. That’s something that needs to work right in a car.”

      “Well, Pastor Matthew fixed mine.”

      “Temporarily,” Charley said as he started to walk toward his pickup.

      “It’s fine right now,” he heard her say.

      Charley climbed in his truck before Edith had a chance tell him that he didn’t need to coast along behind her. He felt protective of her and that was just the way it was. He’d started feeling that way even before Harold had died.

      Charley’s wife Sue had started it all, asking him one day if he thought Edith hadn’t looked a little sad the last time they’d seen her. His wife had assumed the Hargroves had been arguing and she’d asked him to talk some sense to Harold. Not that Charley ever did. He’d given Harold every chance to talk to him about any problems, but the man kept quiet. The only thing Charley had known to do was to suggest his wife invite Edith over to visit more often.

      Charley wondered what his wife would think if she could see Edith now, driving so slowly and deliberately down the gravel road leading back to Dry Creek.

      Now, of course, no one—probably not even Edith—remembered those days when she’d seemed so vulnerable. Both Sue and Harold were dead. But that left Charley. He knew. Everyone, including Edith, might think she was well able to take care of herself, but he knew better. Sometimes she needed help, just like everyone else.

      Charley looked down at his gas gauge. He was going to need to keep his tank full if he intended to continue following her car around like the fool that he was.

      Chapter Three

      Edith had forgotten