Page 5 of Brian and Cora (The Bachelors of Three Bend Lake #2)
B rian arrived early at the Harvest Festival, a small notebook and the stub of a pencil in his pocket. He intended to soak up every sensory experience in hopes that some detail would spark a story.
After leaving his Appaloosa gelding, Marshal—named for a white star shape on his rump—at the livery, he threaded his way through the tightly packed wagons and surrey.
Once he stopped to watch, with not a little awe, how the livery owner, Mack Taylor, his stableman, Pepe Sanchez, and a few other young men helped owners unhitch their horses and push the vehicles into closely stacked positions.
He moved on, sketching a salute in passing when Pepe beamed his characteristic wide smile in his direction before the stableman turned to calm a donkey, who, from the brays and sidestepping, was not at all pleased to be in the midst of the chaos.
People flooded the main street, flowing toward the festival area.
As he drifted with the crowd, Brian tried to catalogue this experience with all his senses.
Overhead, a few downy clouds drifted across the vivid blue sky.
The golden sunlight of Indian summer illuminated the town with balmy warmth.
Everyone displayed an air of excitement and sported happy smiles.
Sheriff K.C. Granger crossed his path, her brows slightly pulled together, and the hint of a frown on her face.
Her cool, gray gaze swept over the people, her body alert.
Dressed in men’s clothing similar to what Brian wore—pants, long-sleeved shirt, leather vest, Stetson—no one besides the denizens of Sweetwater Springs would know the sheriff was female.
He noted the Colt .45s in the double holsters at her hips and touched his own Colt .
45, which had once belonged to his soldier uncle, riding in a weathered holster worn thin from use.
He’d donned the gun belt today, not because he anticipated a need to use his pistol, but because he wanted to get into the character of his heroes.
Not that I have a character to get into.
But he’d hoped for the glimmers of one. Even better if a hero sprang full force from his head like the birth of the Greek goddess Athena from her father, Zeus.
He knew the sheriff had some volunteer deputies helping patrol, as well as Taylor Temogen, the sheriff of Morgan’s Crossing—the nearby mining town—and Rand Mather, the retired sheriff of Sweetwater Springs. But the burden of today’s safety for the crowd rode primarily on her shoulders.
Brian hadn’t known about the opportunity to volunteer until Hank had recently mentioned it.
For once, he regretted cutting himself off from town gossip.
Being deputy for the day might have been just the catalyst he needed to come up with a plot.
Maybe at another time, I can interview the sheriff, see if anything she tells me will spark a story.
For a moment, Brian toyed with the idea of putting a female sheriff named Athena into his book.
Maybe he could use some of Sheriff Granger’s real life, which he knew from Hank—how, while a deputy in Grant Hills, Wyoming, how a shootout with an outlaw gang robbing the bank had killed her father, the town’s sheriff, and her fiancé, the bank’s owner.
She’d tracked the remaining bandit to the environs of Sweetwater Springs, capturing him before he could hurt a young Kayleigh Gentry.
Should I add the girl’s goose to the story?
As Brian speculated on weaving reality into fiction, excitement stirred in him.
But almost as quickly, with disappointment, he squashed the rise of creativity.
My editor wouldn’t stand for a female sheriff, even if the character was based on a real lawwoman.
Nor did the idea sit right—to steal Sheriff Granger’s story—with all its attendant pain and grief, and change her into a man.
The majority of the festivities took place farther down Main Street toward the outskirts of town where there was room to spread out.
In no hurry, Brian sauntered along, stopping near a blockage of people to observe what he could tell was a shyster hawking miracle soap.
He watched a few fools toss away their money before he continued down the road until arriving at rows of booths—tables sheltered by canvas awnings and decorated with red, white, and blue bunting—and headed down the first aisle.
The smell of baking potatoes from the booth of Irish sisters, twins whose names he didn’t know, pulled him from his thoughts and tempted him to go over. But he wasn’t quite ready to eat yet and kept walking.
Since Brian wasn’t too interested in the booths of food and goods, he moved along, passing by and giving them only cursory glances.
He decided to mosey along to the dressmaker’s booth, where he was sure to find Hank, probably flirting with Elsie, and distracting her from the serious business of selling clothing and notions to fund the new church.
His friend rented lodgings in town in the Gordon Building to be near his beloved, with whom he slowly conducted a long courtship.
For propriety’s sake, his room was on the third floor, while Elsie and Constance Taylor had an apartment on the second floor.
Sometimes, Hank would stay in town for a night or two, but the rest of the time he rode home to Three Bend Lake.
Only Brian, Hank, and Torin and Jewel lived on the lake, each about a twenty minutes’ walk apart.
Yet the area didn’t feel right when one of them was gone.
Eventually, I might have to get used to the feeling.
Hopefully, Hank and Elsie will continue their courtship at a tortoise’s pace.
From somewhere—he couldn’t see the smoker in the crowd—came a whiff of tobacco.
The breeze also brought the scent of nutmeg and cinnamon from the bakery booth.
The combination of smells swept him up and dropped him into the past—to his granddaddy sitting on the porch and rocking in his chair, a pipe in his mouth, while young Brian ate a generous helping of spiced custard pie.
He slowed and twisted to avoid bumping into two boys, about ten years old, racing down the aisle, which made him remember running and playing and making mischief with his friends at the Harvest Festivals of his youth.
How rich he felt with three pennies weighing down his pocket.
The air of early autumn in Georgia, still hot and humid, but more comfortable than the cloying heat of summer.
The familiar sound of honey-thick Southern accents all around him.
An unexpected ache of loneliness bloomed in his chest. Taken by surprise, he almost let out a mournful howl of pain. What the heck?
Clamping his jaw tight, Brian paused, looking around with almost desperate eyes, as if spotting familiar Montana faces to bring him into the present.
But all he saw were strangers—lots and lots of strangers.
How is it that I can live isolated, rarely seeing anyone aside from my neighbors, and be perfectly content? But I feel alone in a crowd?
At a booth on the right, a tooled-leather gun belt draped over the counter caught his eye. Grateful for the distraction, Brian veered over to check it out. His gun belt was so worn that it threatened to break.
Nodding at the heavy-set, grizzled proprietor behind the counter, he picked up the belt to examine the details, noting the stylized floral tooling and ammunition loops across the back.
The proprietor leaned over the counter. “That beauty is stitched from two one-eighth-inch thick leather sections that form a full one-quarter inch finished belt.” With one scarred finger, the man reached out to touch the area. “Will stand up well to the rigors of daily use.”
Brian let out a wry chuckle. “My pen is what must stand up to the rigors of daily use.” Then he remembered that his pen hadn’t gotten daily rigorous use for months, and his smile fell away.
The man eyed Brian’s gun belt with a questioning look. “Clerk, are you?”
“God forbid!” The very idea horrified him. “Writer.”
“You don’t say,” the man said in a marveling tone. “What all do you write?”
“Dime novels.” He braced himself for the usual scoffing reaction to his choice to write lowly novels for common consumption—his father’s exact words.
The man’s eyes lit up. “You don’t say,” he repeated. “Which ones?”
“The Robber and the Robber Baron is my best seller.” Brian reeled off the other nine titles.
“Ho!” Light leaping into his faded-blue eyes, the man smacked his leg.
“Well, gosh darn. You’re Brian Bly! Howard Hoover here.
” He reached to shake Brian’s hand, vigorously pumping his arm up and down.
“The Robber and the Robber Baron is my favorite. My copy’s so worn from reading it over and over that some of the pages are falling out.
Wish I’d known to bring that book, so you could scratch your John Hancock on it. ”
He released Brian’s hand and shoved the belt and holster across the counter toward him. “I’ll trade. Just send me a new copy of The Robber and the Robber Baron signed to me.” He pointed to his chest. “Howard Hoover.”
Brian couldn’t help but grin. “I remembered your name the first time.”
Hoover practically vibrated with excitement. “Whadya think?”
Brian reached out and clasped the man’s hand again. “Deal.”
His eyes glowing, he gave a boyish bounce that caused his stomach to wobble. “I’ll write out my address for you.” He looked around as if trying to conjure up paper, pen, and ink.
Suppressing a wry laugh, Brian pulled out his notebook and pencil. Not what I’d planned these for, but at least they’re coming in handy. He handed them over and waited while the man laboriously wrote his details in block letters.
With an expression as lighthearted as a child’s, Hoover gave back the notebook and pencil.
Oddly touched by the man’s enthusiasm for his novels, Brian made a mental note to include some of his other books in the package.