Montana Creeds: Tyler

Somebody had hurt him, though. Now that the kid was up off the floor, and dusty light from the high window illuminated his face, Tyler saw bruises along his jawline, fading to a yellowish purple.

Again, Tyler flinched. Either Davie McCullough had been in a tussle with some other kid recently, or an adult had beaten the hell out of him. Having had an alcoholic father himself, Tyler tended toward the latter theory.

“What happened to your face?” Dylan asked, poking wood into the stove to boil up some java, as soon as Davie edged out of the bathroom, past both Tyler and the dog.

Davie kept a careful distance from everybody. Quite a trick in a cabin roughly the size of one of those clown cars that spill bozos at the rodeo.

“You’re really going to build a fire on a day like this?” Davie countered.

“I asked my question first,” Dylan responded, setting the dented enamel coffeepot on the stove with a thump.

Davie scowled. With a temperament that prickly, Tyler thought with grim amusement, he should have been a Creed. “My mom’s boyfriend was in a mood,” he said, peevish even in an indefensible position. “Okay?”

Tyler felt another pang of sympathy—and an urge to find the boyfriend and see if he was inclined to take on a grown man instead of a skinny kid who’d probably never lifted anything heavier than a laptop computer.

“Okay,” Dylan answered affably. He reached right into one of Tyler’s grocery bags, pulled out a package of chocolate cookies and tossed it to Davie. Davie caught the bag and promptly tore into it.

“I ate that canned meat you had in the cupboard,” he told Tyler, spewing a few cookie crumbs in the process. “You don’t keep much food around here, do you?”

“McCullough,” Tyler said, and this time, he didn’t bother trying to hold back a grin. “I don’t think I’ve run across that name around Stillwater Springs. You new in town?”

Clearly torn between bolting for the door, which Dylan had opened to let out some of the stove heat, and staying because he didn’t have anywhere else to go, Davie hesitated, not sure how to answer, then drew back one of the four rickety chairs at the table in the center of the cabin and plunked down to scarf up cookies in earnest.

He’d obviously been hiding out at the lake for a while, if he’d run through the several dozen cans of congealed “ham” Tyler kept on hand for intermittent visits.

“My mom lived here a long time ago,” Davie said, after considerable cookie-noshing. “Before I was born.”

“Who is your mom?” Dylan asked mildly. Mr. Subtle. Like an idiot wouldn’t know he was planning to find the woman and give her some grief for letting the boyfriend pound on her kid.

“You a social worker or something?” Davie asked suspiciously.

“No,” Dylan replied, finding mugs on the shelf, peering into them and frowning at whatever was crawling around inside. “Just trying to be neighborly, that’s all. Your mom must be pretty worried, though.”

“She’s too busy schlepping drinks out at the casino to be worried,” Davie scoffed. “Roy’s been out of work for a year, so she’s been pulling double shifts, trying to save up enough to get us our own place.”

Another look passed between Dylan and Tyler. Neither of them spoke. Now that the kid had some sugar and preservatives under his belt, he’d turned talkative.

“We live out at the Shady Grove trailer park, with Roy’s grandma. It’s pretty crowded, especially when he’s on the peck.”

Jake Creed had been known to throw a punch or two, when he was guzzling down a paycheck, and both Dylan and Tyler had been in Davie’s shoes more often than either of them would admit. They’d taken refuge at Cassie’s place, sleeping on her living room floor or in the teepee out in her yard. Only Logan had been immune to Jake’s temper, maybe because he’d always been the old man’s favorite—the one who might “amount to something.”

The coffee started to perk.

Kit Carson ambled out onto the porch and lay there letting the sun bake his bones, like an old dog ought to be allowed to do.

“I’ll give you a ride back to town,” Dylan told Davie, once some time had gone by. “The new sheriff’s a friend of mine. There might be something he can do about Roy.”

Davie’s face seized with fear, quickly controlled, but not quickly enough. “Nothing short of a shotgun blast to the belly is going to fix what’s wrong with Roy Fifer,” he said. “Why can’t I just stay here? I can sleep outside, and I’ll work off the food I ate, chopping wood or something.”

Tyler knew he couldn’t keep the boy; he was a loner, for one thing. And for another, Davie was a minor child, no older than thirteen or fourteen. For good or ill, his living arrangements were up to his mother. “That wouldn’t work,” he said, with some reluctance.

What would he and Dylan have done, all those nights, if Cassie had turned them away from her door? If she hadn’t faced Jake Creed down on her front porch and told him she’d call Sheriff Book and press charges if he didn’t go away and sober up?

“I’ll work,” Davie said, and the desperation in his voice made Tyler’s gut clench. “I could take care of the dog and chop firewood and catch all the fish we could eat. I’ll stay out of your way—won’t be any trouble at all—”

“I might not be around long,” Tyler said, his voice hoarse, unable to glance in Dylan’s direction. “And you can’t stay here alone. You’re just a kid.”

Davie looked as near tears as pride would allow. “Okay,” he said, shoulders sagging a little.

Dylan pushed back his chair, stood. Sighed. He had to be remembering all the things Tyler remembered, and maybe a few more, since he’d been the middle son, not the youngest, like Tyler, or the smart one, like Logan. No, Dylan had been wild, the son who mirrored all the things Jake Creed might have been, if he hadn’t been such a waste of skin.

“I’ll have a word with Jim,” he told Tyler.

Tyler merely nodded, numb with old sorrows. Shared sorrows.

As kids, he and Dylan and Logan had fought plenty, but they’d always had each other’s backs, too. Logan, mature beyond his years, had made sure he and Dylan had lunch money, and presents at Christmas.

When had things gone so wrong between the three of them?

Not at Jake’s funeral. No, the problem went back further than that.

Passing Tyler’s chair, Dylan laid a hand on his shoulder. “You know my cell number,” he said quietly. “When your truck’s ready to be picked up, give me a call and I’ll give you a lift to town.”

L ILY AWAKENED at sunset, to the sound of familiar voices—her daughter’s and her father’s, a novel combination—chatting in the nearby kitchen. Outside somewhere, perhaps in a neighbor’s yard, a lawn sprinkler sang its summer evensong— ka-chucka-chucka-whoosh, ka-chucka-chucka-whoosh.

Sitting up on the narrow bed in what had once been her mother’s sewing room, Lily smiled, yawned, stretched. Slipped her feet into the sandals she’d kicked off before lying down. She’d intended to rest her eyes; instead, she’d zonked out completely, settling in deeper than even the most vivid dreams could reach.

For a little while, she’d been mercifully free of ordinary reality.

The guilt over Burke’s death.

The wide gulf between her and the man she had once called “Daddy.”

The gnawing loneliness.

She sat for a few moments, listening to the happy lilt in Tess’s voice as she told her grandfather all about story hour at the library. It had been too long since Lily had heard that sweet cadence—Tess was usually so solemn, a little lost soul, soldiering on.

Hal chuckled richly at one of Tess’s comments. He’d always been a good listener—until he’d simply decided to stop listening, at least to Lily. When she’d called him, after the divorce, desperate for some assurance that things would be all right again, he’d brushed her off, or so it had seemed to a heartbroken child, grieving for so many things she could barely name.

Lily stepped into the kitchen, found Tess and Hal setting the table for supper. Spaghetti casserole—the specialty, Lily recalled, of Janice Baylor, her dad’s longtime receptionist. Tess’s small face shone with the pleasure of the afternoon’s adventure at the library with Kristy.

Lily bit back a comment about the fat and cholesterol content of Janice’s casserole and smiled. “Something smells good,” she said.

“Mrs. Baylor brought us sketty for supper,” Tess said cheerfully.

Hal watched Lily, probably expecting a discourse on the wonders of tofu. “You look a little better,” he said. “Not so frazzled.”

Lily nodded. She needed a shower and more sleep—would she ever catch up?—but she needed a hot meal more, and her father and daughter’s company more still.