Page 3 of Protecting the Flame

Chapter 2

For once,the weatherman was right about that storm, which just proved what his grandpa said: even a broken clock told the right time twice a day. Why, all any fool needed to do was go outside, look at the leaden bellies of those clouds, and get a good snootful. One whiff of that scent of chilled aluminum, and Judd knew the storm sweeping down from Canada he’d been tracking on his weather radar for the past week was going to be a doozy. In fact, he’d told all his neighbors about it, too, though they hadn’t believed him until the weatherman came out and said so, which went to show some men needed somebody else to tell them what they ought to think. (Although, yes, Jess had been right to nag him into joining the 21st century, even though that had taken almost two decades. He wasn’t against progress. He was against being bullied into it, was all.)

By three o’clock, the day was already graying out, and dense curtains of clouds had descended to cloak the already snow-shrouded Whitefish to the west and Black Wolf Mountains to the north. As he headed for his cow barn—stumping through snowpack, his dog, Carson, pogoing up and down—his bum knee yammered and complained. Well, no help for it. He clamped his Stetson to his skull. A pregnant cow didn’t care about the weather, and he was sure Brett was going to drop her calf by in the next couple of days. Then it was gonna be Bart and Aaron and Jordy and Randall and pop, pop, pop all down the line until Christmas.

That was something Jess never understood, him naming his cows after football players. He was partial to the Packers, primarily because Green Bay owned them and not some rich hotshot. But they’re girls, Judd, Jess said. Well, he knew that. But what difference did it make? Brett was better than Daisy any damn day. Although, well, he’d hemmed and hawed about Randall. Cobb going to the Cowboys was just wrong, like when Favre hopped over to the Jets—anyone coulda told the man that would be a disaster—before settling down for that last, almost glorious season with the Vikings. Soon as Brett let fly that last pass in the playoff game, he’d known it’d be intercepted and that would be the end. But what a wild ride it was.

As he neared the barn, blasts of icy, wind-driven grit and balloons of fresh snow buffeted and snatched at his clothes. He’d bet those ski people up at those fancy places like Big Sky were popping bottles of champagne, beside themselves with relief. After last year’s scant snow, it had been a white September. Going to the Sun Road over to the west in Glacier had closed early, and they’d endured an even whiter Thanksgiving. With nine days before Christmas, he bet the resorts were cranking up Bing Crosby and ho-ho-hoing all the way to the bank. Not that he blamed them one bit. The last five years had been hard. Dry when it should be wet, the streams and rivers swollen to bursting when the levels should be low, first frost coming later and later, and not enough snowmelt to sneeze at for the spring thaw.

They had seen no real warmups in the past month. This meant the forest service people had been busy setting off charges to bring down floods of sun-softened powder before some fool skiers got themselves into trouble. He’d read somewhere that California used a vintage 105mm howitzer loaned by the Army for avalanche control. My, he wouldn’t mind seeing that bad boy in action, though Jess opined he’d surely gotten enough of that in Vietnam, hadn’t he?

She wasn’t wrong. Still, he wouldn’t mind watching the park service people lob some of those bad boys. Watch all that snow blow up, he thought, kicking aside drifted snow so he could lever open the door. Big white geysers and then it’d be like a river, a flood, all that snow barreling down the slopes with a—

A faint boom grumbled to his right.

What? At the sound, Judd stopped kicking and turned from the barn door, blinking against icy bits that nipped at his cheeks and pecked at his eyes. That had come from the north, probably the Black Wolf. Unless he was hearing things? He cast a quick glance down at Carson. The big shepherd had gone still, ears pricked, snout snuffling in huge draughts of air as if he might parse the sound by scent alone.

Not his imagination, then. Odd noise. What had that been? He listened, ears straining against the whistle of the wind and he caught…yes, there was the slightest echo as the sound banged around and against the mountains.

To his right, Carson stamped and turned him a worried look.

“Beats me.” He didn’t know if his dog was spooked or wanted to be off because he sensed trouble. “If I had to guess, I’d say dynamite, but I’ll be honest, boy. Not enough of a boom. More like a bang. Like something breaking, the way mountains will sometimes calve in a rockslide. Know what I’m saying?”

Carson whined in agreement.

“Yeah, that’s what I think.” Judd cocked his head and concentrated. “Let’s see if it comes again.”

The sound did not. He listened for another two minutes, long enough for the wind’s fingers to stroke his neck and make him shiver, but heard nothing more. Even Carson’s stance relaxed. Whatever had happened was clearly over.

“All right, then, let’s get back to it,” he said, pulling open the door, and sighed with pleasure as the barn exhaled an aroma of warm hay and manure. Inside, the cows were crunching and grumbling over their dried grass. He liked that sound. Found it a comfort, even.

At his entrance, Brett lowed from her birthing stall.

“How you feeling, girl?” A single glance at that kinked tail of hers answered the question. His own dad, Darren, always said keep an eye on that tail: Cow goes into labor, she’s gonna get restless, start turning around looking for a place to lie down, and that tail’s gonna kink out to the side instead of hang straight down. In all his years of ranching, he had yet to find a reason to doubt his father. To his practiced eye—straw wasn’t wet, so her water hadn’t broken, and she hadn’t set to trembling or huffing like a blown horse yet—he thought Brett had a ways to go. Maybe another day and then all his girls would follow, possibly right up to Christmas. That made him chuckle. Talk about away in the manger. He wondered what his pastor would say if he missed the eleven o’clock service on Christmas Eve. Somehow, Judd thought his pastor would have a hard time seeing the poetic justice. Jess, who sang in the choir, loved the candles, the music, even the breathy toots from the church’s anemic organ. If he missed the service, she might not speak to him again until after the New Year. Some men his age might not find that a loss.

He wondered now if he would mention that odd crack in the distance to her. It was…off, an almost familiar sound at a strange time. He was no expert, but he knew snow and these mountains, and if that was the avalanche control people setting off a charge, well, you didn’t do that as a storm got going. That was plain futile.

What had that crack been then? Not a rifle, though the sound had been almost sharp enough, and not a shotgun either. Neither weapon was big enough to carry twenty, thirty miles. He felt in his bones that the sound was far away, which meant whatever had caused it was big.

You are not going to solve this, you old fool. That sounded suspiciously like Jess, and, for once, he decided she was right.

So, for the time being, Judd gave himself over to caring for his eight girls and because that odd cracking sound did not come again—because he was a busy man with worries and calves coming out of season—Judd put it out of his mind and forgot about it.

For a time.

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