Chapter 5 Claire
Riverside, Montana
Claire woke up alone after a restless night and her gaze fell on the packed suitcase next to Jenny’s crib. Of course she couldn’t run home to Minnesota. If she went home—without Red—Dad would get it all wrong, just like he did about the bear.
When Claire first settled into Riverside, she wrote long letters to Dad and Bridget and Frannie twice a week.
She told them all about Marigold and the river out their back door.
She described how she and Red fished for their dinner, and how she helped Red skin and cut up an elk that would feed them all winter.
Claire thought maybe Dad would finally understand how she loved her new life, the new person she’d become—and he’d see how wrong he was about Red.
Then she’d made the mistake of writing about the bear.
Dad had telephoned her in a panic in the middle of the day. “What’s wrong?” she asked him, her heart climbing into her throat at the long-distance call during daytime rates. It had to be an emergency. “Is it Frannie?”
It was about the letter he’d just opened. “I’m coming out,” he said, his voice tense. Claire could practically see the anxiety in his eyes, the deep furrow on his brow. “We’ll find you a new place to rent, a safer place—I’ll pay for it myself if Red can’t afford it.”
She winced at the very thought. “Dad, don’t be ridiculous.”
“You were alone, Claire,” he went on. “You could have been mauled—killed. What were you thinking?”
“Red taught me how to shoot.”
“So you shot a bear?” Dad shouted down the line.
“I shot toward a bear,” Claire corrected.
“And it was just a black bear.” She’d been home alone while Red led a six-day elk hunt for Wormsbecker.
It was a stupid mistake, leaving a bushel of apples on the back porch overnight, and when she heard the bear grunting and crashing around, she knew she had to scare him off.
She didn’t want a bear thinking her house was his cafeteria.
She grabbed the loaded shotgun, cracked open the back door, and shot at the sky.
The bear wailed and clattered down the steps, hightailing it back to the river.
It took twenty minutes on the telephone to calm Dad down.
Claire couldn’t let him come out and humiliate Red—not after what happened at the wedding.
Since then, she’d kept her letters short and sweet—the weather, thank-yous for the gifts of dresses and shoes, and inquiring about Bridget and Frannie. Nothing to worry about. And when she couldn’t pay the telephone bill, it was a small mercy that Dad couldn’t call to check on her.
She slipped out of bed as Jenny started to wake.
She’d wait to go home with Red, when they could afford to buy the tickets themselves.
She shoved the suitcase under the bed and went to make coffee and warm a bottle.
An hour later, when Jenny was fed and dressed and Claire had started on the laundry, Red finally walked in the door.
He looked terrible. His copper-colored hair was tousled and his eyes were shadowed with fatigue. She glanced at his hands and saw that his knuckles were red and swollen. He swallowed and looked down at his feet like a student caught cheating on a test. “I’m sorry, Claire.”
Claire picked up a basket of wet diapers. Was that all he was going to say?
Jenny let out a squeal.
“I’ll get her,” he said, the relief on his face obvious.
Claire carried the basket out the back door.
She’d had a dozen conversations in her head while she’d waited for him.
Had he been at the Slippery Otter on Sunday?
What did he know about Dell’s death? And what on earth had happened last night to land him in jail?
But now, her tongue seemed to be stuck to the roof of her mouth.
Red followed her outside, Jenny in his arms.
She put the basket on the grass and turned to see Red watching her like he might watch a skittish horse. They never fought, not in the year and a half they’d been married. She didn’t want to fight now. Not when he was looking so miserable. Not when his friend had just died.
“I heard about Dell,” she said, instead of giving him the third degree. “I’m sorry.”
Red looked past her toward the river. Emotion played over his face, something Claire couldn’t read. Grief and regret, perhaps. “He was a good man.”
She waited for him to tell her more. About his friendship and how he felt about Dell’s death. To open up to her and let her in. To tell her why he’d got in a fight and what secrets he was keeping from her.
She wanted to know his heart, but he was hiding it from her.
He didn’t meet her gaze. He kissed the top of Jenny’s head and put her into Claire’s arms. “I need to get cleaned up and get to work.”
Claire had eggs ready for Red after he took a shower and changed into clean clothes.
He sat down at the table, but didn’t look at her when she put a steaming cup of coffee in front of him.
“Jenny slept through the night again,” Claire said to break the silence.
She didn’t say she’d hardly slept a wink.
Jenny, as if she knew they were talking about her, squealed from the spot on the couch where Claire had propped her. Red took a gulp of the hot coffee and nodded as if everything was normal.
She put his eggs on a plate and brought them to the table. They were burnt at the edges and the yolks were hard, but he bolted them down.
“Good eggs,” he said.
The white lie made her bristle. She took a sip of her coffee and gathered her courage for one more attempt to get him to talk. “I’m going to the Henshaws’ today, to give them my condolences.”
His fork stopped halfway to his mouth and his gaze shifted to her. “You don’t have to do that, Claire.”
She didn’t have to, or she shouldn’t? “It’s the polite thing.”
He put down his fork. “They’re not that kind of people, Claire. Best to leave them be.”
His face was blank, and she was positive now that he was keeping something from her and it had something to do with Dell Henshaw. She picked up his dirty plate and empty coffee cup and brought it to the sink without answering. Suddenly, going to the Henshaws’ seemed like just the thing to do.
Red put on his hat and kissed her cheek. “Left Rosie at the ranch. Got to catch Bucky to get a ride to work.”
Claire went to the bedroom and settled Jenny on the bed to kick her legs and roll from her front to her back like the Better Homes & Gardens Baby Book said she must do at least twice per day. Claire pulled her suitcase from under the bed and began to unpack her dresses.
When she’d first met Red, his quiet nature struck her as romantic—like Gary Cooper or John Wayne in the movies.
She’d found out when they married that his silence was also frustrating.
Red didn’t like to talk about certain things—money, her father, his past. When they came up, he found a reason to see to the horses, or go to work, or just go quiet.
Whenever he avoided her eyes like he had today she got a tight uneasiness in her stomach.
Claire opened the top drawer of the dresser to put away Jenny’s things. Best to leave them be, Red had said about the Henshaws. But why? Beth was grieving, and Claire could offer her the hand of friendship. She put the suitcase back on the top shelf and picked up Jenny.
After fiddling with the carburetor, Claire got the truck started and drove to Eagle’s for a condolence card.
“We can’t show up at the Henshaws’ empty-handed,” she said.
Jenny squealed in what sounded like agreement.
She left the truck running and picked out the first pretty card she saw.
Helen Eagle looked at her purchase with raised brows.
“That will be ten cents, Mrs. Wilder.” Jenny squirmed in Claire’s arms as she slapped the dime on the counter and asked for her mail.
She shoved the two bills and a letter from Bridget into her purse and left with a polite thank-you to Helen Eagle.
Back in the truck, she wrote a short message inside the card.
If there’s ever anything I can do to help, anything at all, let me know.
She drove with one hand on the steering wheel, the other on Jenny, to the Henshaws’ place on the north end of town.
When she reached the dilapidated two-story, the curtains were closed and no laundry hung on the clothesline.
If it wasn’t for the red Ford truck in the driveway, she would have thought the house deserted.
Claire felt the prickle of gooseflesh on her bare arms. Best not poke the bear.
Her heart sped up as she carried Jenny up the uneven sidewalk.
The front door opened as she reached it.
Claire had seen Iris Henshaw in passing, but other than the streak of white running through her dark hair, Claire hardly recognized the woman looking out at her.
Her skin was sallow, her cheeks sunken, grief was written on her face and in the droop of her shoulders.
Claire cradled Jenny close as a swell of compassion pinched her throat.
To lose a child, she couldn’t imagine. Two children was unthinkable.
“Mrs. Henshaw,” Claire managed to say, “I’m so sorry about Dell.”
Iris Henshaw’s expression didn’t change, but her red-rimmed eyes riveted on Jenny. The door swung open a few more inches and Beth appeared behind her mother-in-law.
Beth looked nothing like the laughing girl Claire remembered meeting. Her heart-shaped face was deathly pale, her caramel-colored hair fell limply over thin shoulders. “Mrs. Wilder?” she said, her voice uncertain.
“Please, call me Claire.” Jenny squirmed and made a stuttering cry as Claire tried to think of something more to say.
Iris broke the silence, her voice a painful-sounding rasp. “Is this your baby?” She reached a trembling hand out to Jenny, who stopped wiggling and regarded her with a round-eyed gaze. “So pretty.”
“Would you like to hold her?” Claire said without thinking, wanting to offer what comfort she could.
She held out her arms and Claire set Jenny in them. Iris clutched her close. Jenny let out a squawk of complaint. Suddenly, the door opened wide and Mr. Henshaw loomed over Beth and Iris. He was a big man, bald with heavy dark brows and a fleshy face.
Beth shrank back a step, her eyes downcast.
“Mr. Henshaw,” Claire said quickly. “I’m Claire Wilder, and I—”
“I know who you are,” he interrupted with a growl. “You’re not welcome here.”
Claire took a half step backwards, the contempt she saw in Pete Henshaw’s gaze sparking a flicker of fear.
She was only trying to be kind. She straightened her shoulders and leveled her gaze at him.
“I came to see Beth,” she stated firmly.
Claire held out the card to Beth, half expecting Pete to snatch it out of her hand.
Beth took it with a murmur of thanks and slipped it into her dress pocket.
“Iris”—Pete Henshaw’s voice went from disdainful to gentle as he spoke to his wife—“give the baby back.”
Claire reached for Jenny, but Iris’s arms clenched, holding Jenny closer. “Dell is such a good baby,” she crooned.
Claire’s pulse sped up. Jenny stuttered a cry.
“Iris.” Pete Henshaw’s voice was soft as if he were talking to a child. “You aren’t thinking straight. This is Red Wilder’s baby.”
The woman loosened her hold and Claire snatched Jenny back, stepping out of Iris’s reach. Iris’s arms fell limply to her side and her face crumpled.
Pete Henshaw turned a furious gaze on Claire. “Can’t you see you’re just making it worse?” He crowded Beth and Iris out of the doorway. “Leave us be, Mrs. Wilder.”
Claire stepped back, more than ready to leave Pete Henshaw’s unjustified animosity, Iris with her vacant gaze and how she’d clutched Jenny so tightly. Now she saw what Tom Eagle had meant. She’d poked an angry bear.
The door slammed shut in her face.
Claire walked back down the steps, as dignified as she could manage with a baby squirming in her arms and beginning to wail. She settled Jenny in the seat and thanked the Lord she’d left the truck running. She’d hate to have to wrestle the carburetor in the Henshaws’ driveway.
As Claire pushed in the clutch and ground the gears into reverse, the front door opened and Beth slipped out. She looked over her shoulder as she hurried toward the truck. “Mrs. Wilder,” she said quickly. “I just wanted to—”
“Claire,” Claire said, as if that were important in this moment. “Please.”
Beth nodded and glanced back at the house. “Claire, I’m sorry about Pete. And, well . . .” She swallowed. “About what happened with Red and Dell.”
Was she talking about the falling-out Red mentioned?
Beth rushed on. “I told Dell he had to come clean, but he—”
Claire didn’t see Pete Henshaw come out of the house until he was right beside Beth. “Iris needs you, Beth.” His hand went under Beth’s elbow and he jerked her away from the truck.
Claire watched as the man practically dragged Beth back to the house and shut the door behind them. She sat for a moment, looking at the empty-eyed windows and the sagging porch. What was that about?
The truck wheels threw gravel as Claire backed out of the driveway. She drove through town and turned toward Riverside, her thoughts spinning as fast as the truck’s tires. What did Beth—and apparently everyone else in West Yellowstone—know about Red that Claire did not?