These hands

             The wet snow clung to my soaked, pink gloves. Dad smiled and offered me his big hunting gloves but I pursed my lips and shook my head; they weren’t pretty. I let the screen door slam behind me as I walked over to the fire and pulled off the gloves. My hands would have been as warm if I had no gloves at all. At least then they would have been dry. 

             I had to go to the bathroom but I wasn’t about to use that out-house half buried in snow. I’d have to wait until we got home. Currently Mrs. Lewis was standing over the fire with me telling me all about her childhood. I smiled and nodded occasionally but otherwise paid no attention. She was the only person in the room who didn’t remember the story from five minutes before.

            Then for a moment, she stopped talking and looked at my hands. They were bright red from cold and I was still shivering. So she promptly took both my small hands in hers and held them closer to the fire while rubbing them for friction.   

             I was very surprised; not by her actions, but by the hands themselves. They were large, rough and strong. She was shorter than me by inches, though I was only twelve and very thin, but her hands weren’t frail; come to think of it, neither was her character.

            These hands had raised children and grandchildren with switch and gentle touch. These hands had roped cattle and held newborn babies. These hands had helped build the cabin where I stood; and now they were warming mine. Written on her hands was the story of her life.

My first winter in Montana

Surreptitious continued... again

      Coleen stopped the car and handed Thomas her coat.

“Wait here.” She walked across the muddy street to an older style building and disappeared inside. Ten minutes, twenty, twenty-five, a half hour. He grumbled and got out of the car. From the street, the building didn’t look like much; a sign in the window read “closed”. He stepped through the door and looked around.

 Across the room was a bar with drinks and mugs behind it.  Card tables were scattered in no kind of order around the rest of the room. Empty. He moved past the bar and slipped through a small door. A storage room; no good. But there was a small window up high. He stood on a stool from the bar and looked into a narrow alley.

There were crates and pallets of junk stacked in the alley on either side of the window making visibility limited. Standing with his back to the wall of the opposite building there was a large man talking to someone just out of sight. The man was wearing some sort of work uniform and he kept getting interrupted by whoever he was talking to. Thomas watched one side of the silent conversation with interest as the man started to get angry. Suddenly he shook his head, smiled, and started to walk away. A slender hand on his shoulder slammed his back to the wall.

Coleen.

The man sneered and grabbed the slim wrist but suddenly his face changed from contempt to fear as Coleen said something in his ear. Then she brought her gun butt down hard on the man’s head and he fell to the dirty pavement at her feet. She searched his pockets, pulled out a wallet and stuffed it in her purse. Then she started back.

He scrambled to get out of the little closet, but realized escape was impossible, so he tried to look unconcerned as he stepped around the corner into Coleen’s path. She stopped but didn’t act threatened. He knew it was the other way around; she was a cornered rat, and dangerous.

“Thomas, I told you to wait.” She took a step further to his right, trying to get around him.

“I would ask you who that guy was but you might knock me out, too.” She ignored his last comment.

“He was trying to back out of a deal we’d made. Unfortunately he has a fiancée he doesn’t want hurt. Are you close to anyone Thomas?” She smiled sweetly.

“I get the point. Shall we go?” She tossed the man’s wallet to him.

“You never got out of that car. Understand?” Again, she smiled.

“Right. Let’s go.”

(I really need to think of a more creative title for this thing.)

Surreptitious continued

        At 6:30 she met Thomas in the hall. “You look like a lady,” he commented dryly.

        “That’s what I’m supposed to be today.”

        “What’s your name today?”

        “Natalya Ryan.”

        Thomas walked around to the street side of the car and climbed into the driver’s seat. “I’ll drive.”

        “No you won’t.”

        He sighed and walked back around to the passenger’s seat.

        Coleen started the car and then shut it back off. She pursed her lips and nodded at Thomas.

        “You know, we only keep you kids around if you can get the job done.”

        “What are you talking about?”

        “You don’t have a gun.”

        “What?”

        “You’re not carrying a gun on you anywhere.”

        “There’s one in the-”

“I know that, but the briefcase isn’t good enough.”

Thomas took a pistol out of his briefcase and sullenly stuffed it into his shirt. His eyes narrowed and he looked angrily at Coleen.

“How did you know I wasn’t carrying?”

“Do you really expect me to answer that? You’re not my problem and I’m not about to help you out with something you can solve yourself. If you want to know how I could tell, you’re going to have to tell me how many guns of what size I’m carrying and where.” Thomas stared at her for a minute.

“How am I supposed to figure that out?”

“How did I?"

Freckles

My sister was a flower girl when she was eight.

I drew this when I was ten.

Caripha

This mermaid has fins that she tied in knots.

A cross

My amazing brother, Ricky, drew this.

For the babies

    I scrubbed hard at the black grime on the high-chair tray while I chatted with the director of the pregnancy support center.

    
    “Do you ever know who is giving the clothes and stuff or is it all anonymous?” She typed for a minute before answering.

    
    “A lot of people just drop things in the back door, but sometimes they come in with questions about what we do here. Or they come in to get things they need from the boutique.”  

    “There’s an elderly lady who comes in about twice a month… She won’t even look at me.” She stopped talking and looked thoughtfully at nothing for a minute. 


    “Every time I see her it looks like she’s on the verge of tears and she won’t talk to me except to hand me a beautiful, handmade blanket and say ‘This is for the babies,’ then she leaves.”