The Cowboy Way: A Creed in Stone Creek / Part Time Cowboy

“Have you been watching those spooky reality shows on TV again?” Steven asked, pushing open the back door. There was no need for a key; the lock had rusted away years ago.

“I wouldn’t do that,” Matt said sweetly. “It’s against the rules and everything.”

Steven chuckled. “Far be it from you to break any rules,” he said, remembering Zack. Matt’s father had lived to break rules. In the end, it seemed to have been that trait that got him killed.

The kitchen was worse than Steven remembered. Cupboards sagged. The linoleum was scuffed in the best places, where it wasn’t peeling to the layer of black sub-flooring underneath. The faucets and spigot in the sink were bent. The refrigerator door was not only dented but peeling at the corners, and the handle dangled by a single loose screw.

“Are we going to live here?” Matt asked, sounding a little worried now. So much for his interest in ghost hunting.

“Not right away,” Steven said, suppressing a sigh. This place wasn’t even fit to camp in, let alone call home. The thought of returning to the Happy Wanderer Motel depressed him thoroughly, but there weren’t a lot of choices in Stone Creek, and the next town, Indian Rock, where there was a fairly good hotel, was forty miles away.

“Good,” Matt said, sounding—and looking—relieved. “The people at the shelter probably wouldn’t let us adopt a dog if they knew we were going to bring it here to live.”

Steven laughed. It seemed better than crying. He crouched, so he could look straight into Matt’s face, and took him gently by the shoulders. “We’ll make this work,” he said. “I promise.”

“I believe you,” Matt said, breaking Steven’s heart, as he often did with a few trusting words. “Can we look at my room before we go back to town?”

“Sure,” Steven said, standing up straight.

Matt, always resilient, was already having second thoughts about leaving. “Maybe we ought to stay here,” he said. “It’s better than the motel.”

Steven grinned. “I won’t argue with you on that one,” he said, “but the Happy Wanderer has hot water, which is a plus.”

“We could skip taking showers for a couple of days,” Matt suggested. Unless he was going swimming, the kid hated to get wet. “Where’s my room?”

Steven led the way through the dining room. Although there was a second floor, there was no way anybody would be sleeping up there before the renovations were finished and the fire alarm system had been wired and tested.

“Here you go,” he said, opening a door and stepping back so Matt could go inside. It was, as Steven remembered from his visit with the Realtor a few months before, a spacious room, with lots of light pouring in through the tall, narrow windows.

“Where’s your room from here?” Matt wanted to know. He stood in the middle of that dusty chamber, his head tilted back, staring up in wonder like they were visiting a European cathedral instead of an old ranch house in Arizona.

Steven smiled. Cocked a thumb to his right. “Just next door,” he said.

“Can I see?” Matt asked.

Steven ruffled the boy’s hair. “Sure,” he said.

His room was smaller. There was a slight slant to the floor, and the wallpaper hung down in big, untidy loops.

Steven thought of his expensive condominium in Denver and wanted to laugh. There, he’d had a fine view of the city, skylights and a retractable TV screen that disappeared into the ceiling at the push of a button.

What a contrast.

“It’s not so bad,” Matt decided, taking in the results of years of dedicated neglect.

Steven rubbed his chin, considering options. “I guess we could go back to town and buy ourselves a tent,” he said. “The weather’s good, so we could take baths in the creek. Carry our own water, cook over a campfire, sleep under the stars. Back to the land and all that.”

Matt grinned. “Awesome,” he said. “Let’s go buy a tent.”

“Better unload the camping gear and the grub first,” Steven answered. “If we don’t, there won’t be room in the truck for a tent.”

“They don’t come all set up, silly,” Matt informed him as the two of them headed back through the house, toward the kitchen door. “They’re sold in boxes.”

“Thanks for bringing me up to speed on that one,” Steven said, mussing Matt’s hair once again.

Matt supervised while Steven carried in suitcases, supplies of dried and canned food, sleeping bags and the camp stove, piling everything in the kitchen.

He returned to find Matt standing in the bed of the truck, one hand shading his eyes from the sun, following a trail of dust down on the road.

“Look,” the boy cried, sounding delighted. “Somebody’s coming!”

Steven was relieved when the rig, a big, fancy red truck, turned in at their driveway. Matt would have been pretty disappointed if they’d gone on by, whoever they were.

He recognized his cousin Meg right away. She leaned out the window on the passenger side and waved, beaming, her bright blond hair catching the dusty light. Her husband, Brad, was at the wheel.

As soon as the truck came to a stop, Meg was out, sprinting across the yard to throw her arms around Steven’s neck. “You’re here!” she cried.

Steven laughed. It had been a while since he’d felt this welcome anyplace.

Matt scrambled down out of the truck bed, eager for company.

Brad unfolded his long, lanky frame from the interior of the pickup and approached, and the two men shook hands while Meg bent to look into Matt’s eyes and smile.

“You must be Matt,” she said.

Matt nodded. “And you must be Steven’s cousin,” he replied. “I forget your name, though.”

“Meg,” she said gently.

Brad, looking like a rancher in his old jeans, long-sleeved chambray work shirt and ancient boots, jabbed a thumb in the direction of the house and said, “Looks like this place is in even worse shape than I thought.”

Meg surveyed it with her hands resting on her trim, blue-jeaned hips. Her white cotton top was fitted and sleeveless, and it didn’t seem possible that she was old enough to be married, let alone the mother of a couple of kids.

She could have passed for seventeen.

“Brad O’Ballivan,” she scolded, sounding wholly good-natured, “I’ve told you a thousand times that it’s a train wreck over here.”

Brad grinned. “It’s better than the barn, though,” he drawled.

Matt had recognized him by then. “Are you that famous guy who’s on TV sometimes?” he asked. Before Brad could answer, he went on. “We know somebody else with the same last name as yours. Melissa.”

“Melissa is my sister,” Brad said, obviously enjoying the exchange.

“You have a sister?” Matt made it sound like the eighth wonder. He was an only child, of course, and so was Steven. Did the child long for a sister, the way Steven himself had, growing up?

Brad crouched, so he could look directly into Matt’s face. “Actually,” he said, “I have three sisters. There’s Olivia—she’s a veterinarian and she can talk to animals. And Ashley—she and Melissa are twins.”

Steven felt a pang at the mention of twins, the way he always did when the subject came up. It made him think of his cousins Conner and Brody and their complex family history. They were a matched set, those two.