Page 69 of Boy Blue
“Yes,” I said as he came over to me.
He held out his hand, and I took it, and he pulled me to my feet and into his arms. Soothing me with his warmth, his solid form, his hand in my hair.
“How about we bundle up and show them the workshop?” Wolfe asked, which shocked me. The workshop was hissanctum sanctorumand, as far as I knew, I was the only other person who’d ever been in there. “Then we can go look at the stars.”
In a flurry of movement, Jack reached for his parka and helped Morgan with his. Wolfe led the way out the back door, all of us bundled for the short walk between the buildings, the outdoor light snappy and sharp in the cold. I was close behind Wolfe, and quite soon we were all huddled in the small space formed by the two tables, the smell of leather thick in the air, of paint and of oil.
“Holy cow.” Jack just about whistled as he scanned the room, the shelves on top of the table. At the saddle in the corner and the bridles on the wall. At the tools and scraps of leather. At the samples laid out, as though for inspection. “These are good. They’re for the bazaar, right?”
“Yes,” I said. “The ones on the left are, along with the lanyards. All Christmas themed. The ones on the right, Wolfe says are too fancy and would take too long to make too many.”
“Didn’t say we couldn’t,” Wolfe said. “Just that it would be impractical for the bazaar.”
“We could sell them in the feed and grain, like I said,” Morgan said.
Morgan moved forward and took up one of the key rings I’d done of a red heart, with the stamp painted in with white and silver paint, which I’d meant to represent flakes of snow. Then he picked up a second one, of a lodgepole pine, again flecked with snow, green and white and brown. Simple lines, strong colors. I heard Jack sigh, deep in his throat, and remembered his new truck.
“You want this one, Jack?” I asked, pointing at it in Morgan’s hand.
“You mean it?” Jack’s face lit up.
“I do,” I said. “Take that one. Morgan, do you want one? Do you want the heart?”
“Yes, please,” he said, delight in his voice. He clasped it in his fist as he looked at me, as though worried I might take it back. “You should make a ton of these,” he said. “Handmade stuff always sells.”
“Spoken like a true shopkeeper,” Wolfe said. There was a smile in his voice, a relaxed air about him, even as we all stood in the room that Wolfe considered sacred. “Now, let’s get some fresh air down by the river. It’s plenty dark, and the sky is clear. We should get a good view.”
“Can you make it, Morgan?” Jack asked, moving to Morgan’s side, as if he meant to prevent him because the way was snowy, slush melted into hard lumps.
“I’ll make it,” Morgan said stoutly. Then he added, “If we walk slowly.”
Jack hooked his arm in Morgan’s, and Wolfe turned to look at me, up close, his eyes bright.
“Stars,” he said.
“Stars,” I agreed.
Wolfe made sure to turn off all the lights in the workshop, and then went to turn off the back door lights, leaving us in total darkness in the nippy, nighttime-cold air. I heard Morgan’s rumble of protest and could imagine him asking if we should take flashlights, but Wolfe knew better.
After a moment, a few heartbeats, with no lights around, the sky took on a kind of glow. Not from any nearby city or other light source. But because of the stillness and the darkness, the ambient light, sheer, sifting silver, made the sky not quite so dark. But blue, dark blue.
Along the horizon as we slowly marched our way, footsteps crunching beneath us, the cottonwoods appeared, stark leafless branches shadowed against the sky as if they’d been drawn there, the spaces between filled in with black ink. Overhead, the stars popped against their backgrounds, as though the same artist used a steel punch to create their shapes and applied silver paint to make them stand out.
At the top of the hill, before the ground spread down to the Yellowstone River, we paused. This was the best spot, after all.
“This is beautiful,” Morgan said in a quiet voice. “I had no idea when I first came here how much I would grow to love this place. And now, having seen a view like this makes me love it even more.”
With his arm linked with Morgan’s, Jack eased his arm through mine. Then he looked at me, starlight glinting in his eyes. With a nod, I linked my arm through Wolfe’s, and together the four of us stood there, a warm line in the cold dark air, strong against the colder wind coming up from the half-frozen river.
We were still missing one, but we would find him. And in the meantime, we had found each other.
epilogue - wolfe
There was a storm on the day of the wedding, which meant that Morgan and Jack were married by a judicial officer at the Treasure County Courthouse in Hysham, rather than at the romantic setting in the mountains that the happy couple had envisioned. The reception was held at the feed and grain, with everyone in town bundling up to bring casseroles and hot dishes to celebrate with.
Morgan even made hot cider—that he gave away forfree—and though he complained, I sensed he enjoyed himself. Jack was everywhere, making sure of Mabel and her bridge-playing friends, and Mister Rocket was underfoot, begging for scraps of tater tot hot dishes, and the famous (or infamous) Montana Casserole. His belly was round by the time he fell into a food coma at Mabel’s feet.
Then, at the end of November, we got a spate of good weather. I put the word out around town that I was willing to sell my snowmobile for three-thousand and five-hundred dollars, half of what I paid for it.
