A Dry Creek Courtship

“You’re not worried about something yourself, are you?” Edith thought her daughter was combing her hair longer than usual.

“Nothing big,” Doris June said a little cautiously as she kept combing. “It’s just that, if you want your hair that short, it needs to be cut by someone who knows what they’re doing. I think we should go to the beauty place in Miles City.”

Edith turned around. “But you always cut my hair.”

“Yes, and I can do a straight cut with the best of them. But that’s just getting things even. What you want is a whole lot more complicated. Your hair has to curve to go over the ear.”

Edith had gone to that beauty shop with Doris June so they could both get their hair styled for the wedding. Doris June had married Charley’s son, Curt, some months ago. They’d been high school sweethearts who’d been apart for over twenty-five years before Edith and Charley brought them back together. Edith thought it was the best thing she and Charley had ever done. It was also the last thing they’d done together.

She wondered who Charley was hoping to impress with his moustache.

Doris June kept combing. “It wouldn’t hurt you to get that deep oil treatment they offer. It’s good for your hair follicles.”

“My hair follicles are doing just fine, thank you.” Maybe he had met someone in Miles City. He’d been driving there a lot for one reason or another lately.

“Hmm, maybe,” Doris June said as she parted her mother’s hair and clipped half of it back. “But something isn’t right. You feeling okay?”

“Of course.” There was that new woman at the beauty shop.

“Have you been sleeping okay?” Doris June asked. “I know sometimes when people get to your age they have to keep getting up during the night to—”

“I sleep just fine.” Charley might even be having that woman trim his moustache. What better way to get to know someone?

“Good.” Doris June finished combing one side of her mother’s hair. “Are you taking your vitamins? I read the other day that—”

“For pity’s sake, I take my vitamins.”

“Well, I’m only trying to show that I’m here to help you with your problems, whatever they might be.”

“I’m sorry.” Edith supposed she did owe her daughter some kind of an explanation. She could hardly mention the letter or Charley’s moustache. She could talk about the feelings they both prompted, though. “It’s just…It’s the dead leaves outside. And making the same old kind of jelly. I’ve been feeling like my life just isn’t very exciting.”

It might be selfish, but she didn’t want Charley to date someone. When Harold died, she’d vowed no other man would ever make her feel the way he had. That’s why she liked her friendship with Charley the way it was. She thought they were both past all that dating business.

“But everyone loves your chokecherry jelly. The whole church raves about it at the harvest dinner. It’s practically a town tradition to have it.”

Edith brought herself back to the conversation. What Doris said was true. Everyone in the congregation tried to provide locally grown food for the harvest dinner and Edith had brought homemade chokecherry jelly and baking powder biscuits for decades. People said they loved her biscuits and jelly.

She’d always been a good cook—in fact, that’s how she’d gotten to know Harold. She’d been a teenager when she cooked for the thrashing crew that cut the Hargrove wheat one fall. Harold was nineteen; she was seventeen. She’d been speechless with awe just looking at him. He was a laughing, sculpted work of art like she saw in her textbooks. She’d thought a miracle had happened when he proposed. After they became engaged, he used to joke that he’d fallen in love with her cooking first and then with her.

She’d never dreamed at the time that there was anything wrong with what Harold had said. She’d told herself that just because a man liked her cooking, that didn’t mean he didn’t love her completely. Those doubts came later.

After Harold told her about his affair, she’d spent days making chokecherry jelly from the raw juice she’d canned the fall before. The bitter tartness of the berry matched the sourness of her soul. The chokecherry was one of the few fruits that grew wild in the southeastern plains of Montana and it was able to survive in the drought in a way something sweeter and softer, like a peach, couldn’t.

From that winter on, Edith had always pictured Jasmine as the exotic peach and herself as the sturdy chokecherry. She was the one who belonged; she was the one who could endure the dry days with or without Harold’s love.

“If it’s the jelly that’s troubling you, I can help you with that,” Doris June said. “Just pick the day and I’ll arrange my schedule. But it’ll have to be soon. The harvest dinner comes up on the tenth.”

That was a little over a week away.

“Charley hasn’t brought me the berries.”

Summer was already moving into early fall and chokecherries didn’t stay on the bushes forever. Edith could already detect the musty smell of grass turning brown. The berries would be ending soon.

If she hadn’t been so worried about that letter, she would have thought to remind Charley about the berries. According to the calendar, she should be making that jelly now. She wished she had finished the jelly before she got the letter. The satisfaction of seeing all those jars of dark red jelly would have eased some of her nerves.

“Maybe Charley’s just off his schedule since he moved into his place in Dry Creek,” Doris June said. “He’s probably so busy unpacking he doesn’t even know what month it is.”

“Maybe,” Edith said. After the wedding, Charley had rented the old Jergenson house and moved off the farm, leaving the place to Curt, Doris June and Curt’s teenage son, Brad. He claimed the small town of Dry Creek was more restful than the farm and allowed him to be closer to his friends.

Edith leaned forward so she could see down the street to the hardware store. Yes, Charley’s pickup was parked out front just like it usually was unless he was out doing a small vet job. The Jergenson place was only a quarter mile from the hardware store, but Charley preferred to have his pickup with him in case he got a call about an animal.

“You don’t suppose he’s sick?” Doris June asked.

Edith shook her head. “He wouldn’t be out in public if he was sick.”

Every fall a group of men, mostly retired farmers, started to gather each morning around the potbelly stove in the middle of the hardware store. The warmth of the burning wood and the smell of the coffee brewing on the counter made these men feel right at home. The gathering was a ritual of sorts.

In the summer, the men met over at the café, where there was air-conditioning. But their hearts were with that aging stove and as soon as the fall chill was in the air, they returned like homing pigeons to the unvarnished wood chairs clustered around the old thing.

Even before Charley moved into town, he had always joined the other men around the stove when he could. That part of his behavior wasn’t puzzling. What was just becoming clear to Edith, however, was that Charley was no longer making it a point to stop by her place for breakfast before settling down with the men. And he’d never forgotten her chokecherries before.

“He’s not sick but something’s wrong,” Edith said. Maybe he knew she wouldn’t like him dating.

Of course, Charley still came by to see her. It’s just that he never came at meal time and he never quite seemed himself. It was like he was holding something back from her. Edith knew she was keeping a secret from Charley, but for the first time she realized he might be keeping a secret from her, too. Charley was her oldest friend and—until now—she’d assumed he confided in her as much as she confided in him.

She had a sinking feeling Charley had been trying to tell her something important for some time now. The last time he had come to her house, he had cleared his throat a dozen times, but all he’d done was repeat what he’d already said about her not driving her car outside of Dry Creek. Charley hadn’t come inside her house to deliver his opinion, either. He’d stood out on the porch even though he couldn’t have been comfortable in the early morning cold. She’d thought it was odd he’d come by only to tell her the same thing he’d told her many times before. He must have planned to tell her something else and couldn’t.

“So, we’ll wait on the haircut?” Doris June asked as she twisted the hair back into its usual bun.

Edith nodded. She had to pull her worries back and stop leaping ahead to conclusions. She didn’t even know why Charley had grown that moustache for sure. Maybe it had nothing to do with dating some woman.

“Good,” Doris June said as she started putting the hairpins back in place. “That gives me time to rake up those leaves for you before I head back to the farm.”

“You don’t need to.”

“I’m glad to help out. You know that.” Doris June untied the dish towel from her mother’s shoulders.

After Doris June left, Edith went out on the porch to sit. Her daughter had raked the yard and brought in the Mason jars from the garage. She’d also stored the lawn mower in the shed and checked all the windows in the small room over the garage to be sure they were tightly closed. Edith rented that room out here and there and she liked to keep it ready for use. The only fall chore remaining was the jelly.

Edith stood up. She was tired of sitting at home and brooding. There was no reason she couldn’t go get those chokecherries herself. Pastor Matthew had recharged the battery in her old car last week so she was finally able to drive. She’d begun to wonder if she’d ever get her car working again. She must have asked every man in town for help, but all of them, except the pastor, had said they had misplaced their jumper cables and couldn’t help her.

Now that she could, she’d just drive to the coulee over by the Elkton Ranch and pick a bucket of chokecherries. Everyone knew that was the best place to pick them, even this late in the season. Big Dry Creek ran through that coulee and the soil was good. There’d be chokeberry bushes alongside the coulee going down to the creek, and cattails by the creek itself.

Edith turned to walk back inside her house so she could get ready. Now that she’d decided to do it, she was looking forward to it. The exercise would help clear her mind. All that berry-picking might even ease the arthritis in her hands. She’d wear her gardening hat, of course, and her walking shoes with thick, high socks so her legs wouldn’t get scratched by the thistles that would surely be around.

Edith nodded to herself. There was nothing like a walk over some solid Montana farmland to make her remember who she was. She was a good strong woman. It was time to be reminded of that. She didn’t need to fret over the actions of any man.

Chapter Two