Montana Creeds: Tyler

CHAPTER ONE

TYLER CREED SUPPRESSED a grin as the old guy in the Wal-Mart parking lot stared, dumbfounded, at the fancy set of keys resting in his work-roughened palm. Blinked a couple of times, like somebody trying to shake off an illusion, then gave the brim of his well-worn baseball cap an anxious tug. According to the bright yellow stitching on the hat, his name was Walt and he was the world's greatest dad.
Walt looked at his ten-year-old Chevy truck, the sides streaked with dry dirt, the mud flaps coated, and then shifted to stare at Tyler's shiny white Escalade.
"I thought you was kiddin', mister," he said. "You really want to trade that Cadillac, straight across, for my old rig? It's got near a hundred thousand miles on it, this junker, and every once in a while, a part falls off. Last week, it was the muffler-"
Tyler nodded, weary of Walt's prattle but not about to show it. "That's the idea," he replied quietly.
The aging redneck approached the Cadillac, touched the hood with something like reverence. "Is this thing stolen?" Walt asked, understandably suspicious. After all, Tyler reflected, a man didn't run across a deal like that every day, especially in Crap Creek, Montana, or whatever the hell that wide spot in the road was called.
Tyler chuckled. "No, sir," he said. "I own it, fair and square. The title's in the glove compartment. You agree, and I'll sign off on it right now, and be on my way."
"Wait till Myrtle comes out with the groceries and sees this," the old fella marveled, hooking his thumbs in the straps of his greasy bib overalls, shaking his head once and finally cutting loose with a gap-toothed smile. Walt needed dental work.
Tyler waited.
"I still don't understand why any sane man would want to make a swap like this," Walt insisted. "Could be, you're not right in the head." He paused, squinted up into Tyler's impassive face. "You look all right, though."
Involuntarily, Tyler glanced at his watch, an expensive number with a twenty-four-karat-gold rodeo cowboy riding a bronc inlaid in the platinum face. Diamonds glittered at the twelve, three, six and nine spots, and the thing was as incongruous with who he was as the pricey SUV he was virtually giving away, but he'd never considered parting with the watch. His late wife, Shawna, had sold her horse trailer and a jeweled saddle she'd won in a barrel racing event to buy it for him, the day he took his first championship.
"I don't know as I'm eager to trade with a man in a hurry," Walt said astutely, narrowing his weary eyes a little. "You're runnin' from somethin', and it might be the law. I don't need that kind of trouble, I can tell you. Myrtle and me, we got ourselves a nice life-nothin' fancy-I worked at the lumber mill for thirty years-but the double-wide is paid off and we manage to scrape together ten bucks for each of the grandchildren on their birthdays-"
Tyler suppressed a sigh.
"That's some watch," Walt observed, in no particular hurry to finalize the bargain. The wise gaze took in Tyler's jeans and shirt, newly purchased at rollback prices, lingered on his costly boots, handmade in a specialty shop in Texas. Rose again to his black Western hat, pulled low over his eyes. "You win it rodeoin' or somethin'?"
"Or something," Tyler confirmed. His own brothers, Logan and Dylan, didn't know about his marriage to Shawna, or the accident that had killed her; he wasn't about to confide in a stranger he'd met in the parking lot at Wal-Mart.
"You look like a bronc-buster," Walt decided, after another leisurely once-over. "Sorta familiar, too."
You look like a forklift driver, Tyler responded silently. He looped his thumbs in the waistband of his stiff new jeans. "Deal or no deal?" he asked mildly.
"Let me see that title," Walt said, still hedging his bets. "And some identification, if you don't mind."
Knowing it wouldn't matter if he did mind, Tyler fetched the requested document from the SUV, pausing to pat the ugly dog he'd found half-starved in another parking lot, in another town, on the long road home.
"Dog part of the swap?" Walt asked, getting cagier now.
"No," Tyler said. "He stays with me."
Walt looked regretful. "That's too bad. Ever since my blue tick hound, Minford, died of old age last winter, I've been hankerin' to get me another dog. They're good company, and with Myrtle waitin' tables every day to bank-roll her bingo habit, I'm alone a lot."
"Plenty of dogs in need of homes," Tyler pointed out. "The shelters are full of them."