Making Christmas

“More people? More darned people?” came a harsh voice from behind the counter near the door. “Already bursting.”

“It’s these folks and the earlier two, other than your family.” The trooper’s hat tipped toward a group gathered by the opening at the right rear, presumably leading to the other half of the building.

Another man in his mid-thirties, also attractive yet of an entirely different type, stood there with four kids. He wore old, working jeans, with an open jacket showing layers of clothes beneath it. He held a cowboy hat with damp marks spotted on it and a puddle beneath it, signaling it had carried a crop of snow.

The kids ranged around him. A lanky boy barely in his teens. Two girls half the boy’s age who looked enough alike to be twins. One of them held a toddler of two, maybe three years old.

“His family. He’ll tell you so soon enough,” the voice from behind the counter said in apparent reference to the man holding his hat.

Bexley leaned forward to look past Kiernan and saw the voice came from an older man with clashing plaid flannel shirts, one atop the other, patches of solid white and salt-and-pepper hair sticking out at even odder angles than her first ever attempt with styling gel produced, and a slightly lighter-colored beard bushing out from his cheeks, then scraggled toward two uneven points down his chest.

Tension seemed to zing from the man behind the counter to the family group and back.

“What the he— heck’s with this snow anyway? Weren’t supposed to get this storm for another twelve hours,” the older man grumbled.

“Still coming,” the trooper said. “This is a bonus, not the main storm. Some front moved in when it wasn’t supposed to and met up with another front and—” He held his hands together, palms up, then jerked them apart, allowing whatever mythical something they’d held to drop. “—bloop.”

“These are the last of the eastbounders,” he continued. “All other vehicles accounted for. I’m going back west to check if anyone’s stranded.”

“And because your family’s there,” the shopkeeper said cynically.

“That, too. Gives me a chance to be home for Christmas,” he said cheerfully.

Home for Christmas.

The hope got Bexley into the vehicle with Kiernan, made him plan to drive three-quarters of the way across the country, brought them here.

Oh-so-far from home for Christmas.

The trooper had a question for the shopkeeper. “How’re you situated on propane? Got enough?”

“I got plenty for me. Could run right through it with the battalion you’ve dumped on me.”

The older woman came toward them, tightening the top on a thermos with quick, competent movements.

“You’ll have to make do. Maybe ration it out. You all—” The trooper’s gaze went from the woman offering the thermos, to the blond man with her, then to Kiernan, over to the family group by the door, finally to Bexley. “—stay here until we get you word it’s safe to go.”

“Stay here. Stay here. Like I’m running a ritzy hotel at Grand Central Station,” the bearded shopkeeper grumbled.

“Yeah. Exactly like that,” the trooper said dryly. Then he looked at the man with the cowboy hat. Bexley, following his gaze, saw shadows under the man’s eyes, grooves dug in around his mouth. Weariness, worry, and worn down. “Everybody stays here. It’s too dangerous out there to try to get anywhere. Won’t be anybody can get to you to help if you go in a ditch.”

The man said nothing. Nor did he meet the trooper’s gaze. The trooper muttered something, put his hat and gloves back on, took the refilled thermos from the woman with a nod, and left without another word.

For a long moment, no one moved.

Then the woman who’d filled the thermos, extended a hand to Bexley. “I’m Pauline Ohlrich and this is Eric Larkin. We’re stranded, too. Couldn’t get far enough east fast enough to miss the storm. And our charming host said everyone calls him Gramps. I suspect he mis-heard them calling him Grump.”

She not only said it loud enough for the man behind the counter to hear, she made a point of looking at him as she said it.

A faint ripple showed in his unruly beard which might have been from a grimace. On the other hand it might not have been aimed at the woman named Pauline.

As Bexley and Kiernan completed introductions with Pauline and Eric, the shopkeeper stomped over to the family group.

The two men’s voices didn’t rise, but the intensity came through.

“—you’re the last person on earth I’d want to see here, Hall Quick. And with all them in tow.”

“Last place on earth I’d want to be or to bring them to. No choice.” The father of the family group jerked his head in the direction of the window. “Can’t risk taking them further in this.”

“You’re worried more about those animals than—”

“If I don’t get them to where I can sell them—” He stopped, clearly not willing to consider it. “I’m going. No choice. I’ll be back for the kids as soon as I can.”

“I don’t want—”

“Don’t worry. They won’t look to you for anything more than you’d give a stranger.” He turned to his family. “Dan—”

The teenage boy didn’t look up. “I know.”

“—you’re responsible for the others.”

“But, Daddy,” said one of the girls, “we have to be home for Christmas. You’ll be back to get us and take us home for Christmas.”

The lines by his mouth deepened. He jerked his head in a sharp negative. “Don’t see how that can happen, Molly.”

Tears came to the other girl’s eyes. “But you’ll be back here by Christmas, even if we’re not home, you’ll be here with us for Christmas, won’t you?”

“Probably not.” His voice went even grimmer and rougher. “We’ll have to let Christmas go by this year, Lizzie. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

He cupped his hand over the head of the three younger children, one by one, started his hand toward the oldest, then drew it back when the boy called Dan recoiled. He gave his son a nod.

The man clapped the hat on his head, then fastened his jacket as he walked to the door. Did his boots make his footsteps sound like they belonged to a much heavier man? Pulling the door open, he hesitated an instant, then, without looking back, he disappeared into the opaque world beyond.

No one had moved when they heard, under the wind, the low sound of a truck engine laboring to life.

The truck with a trailer.

The familiar sound she’d heard had come from cattle in the trailer, Bexley realized.

She hadn’t spent a lot of time in Wyoming, but knew that wasn’t the regulation size cattle transport trailer. It wouldn’t carry many head. For the man to risk going out in this because he absolutely had to get those few head to market must mean a precarious financial situation.

The storekeeper turned his head to look out the window. “Well, by the lights, he’s made it onto the highway. Doubt the fool will make it much farther.”

The boy named Dan glared a hole in the back of the older man’s head.

Oblivious, the shopkeeper said, “No use waiting around to see. How about some coffee?”

The last was not an offer to the rest of them, but was directed at the older woman with a jerk of his head toward a cup on the counter as an apparent request for a refill.

“Get your own. We need to settle these newcomers in. And considering what you didn’t do for us or your relatives by way of welcoming and settling in, I’ll see to that.”