Carla Kelly (11 page)

No one could think of any. Max uncapped his fountain pen and handed it to her. “Sign if you want, Miss Darling.”

“Oh, don't!”

Julia stopped, the pen suspended over the paper. Mrs. Marlowe put a hand on her shoulder, but she was looking at Mr. Otto. “I believe you should add something like this: ‘Darling is entitled to do her work in a kitchen that meets cooking school standards.’ ”

“I protest!” Mr. Otto said, but his voice was good-humored. “I told my boys before I left the Double Tipi that I expected everything to be clean. They always do what I say.” He put his hands on his hips. “Besides that, Alice, I don't believe you have ever even been to the Double Tipi, much less seen the kitchen.”

“No, I haven't, have I?” she agreed, her voice as affable as his with just the slightest edge. “All the more reason for an addition, Julia. Agreed?”

“Certainly,” Julia said.

“Quite all right with me,” Mr. Otto acquiesced. “I haven't known my hands to ever disobey an order of mine.” He laughed. “And while you're at it, add something about Darling here cooking what we want to eat.”

“That's why you hired a cooking school graduate!” Julia protested. “Very well, if you must have the last word. Certainly you can add that, although it seems a trifle redundant.”

She handed back the document, and Max added the sentences. He passed it around, everyone nodded, and then he handed the document back to her. Julia signed her name and handed the pen to her employer. He stood up, looked over her shoulder, and read the document again. “Always read'um twice, Darling,” he said before he signed the contract. “Especially treaties.” He handed it to her, and Julia continued reading.

“ ‘This document is attested to by the following witnesses, Alice Victoria Marlowe and Maximilian Marlowe.’ You sign here now,” she told Mrs. Marlowe. “And then you.”

Mrs. Marlowe seemed to be entertaining more second thoughts. “Are you certain this is a good idea?” she asked Julia, the pen poised over the paper.

“Alice, it will keep me out of your kitchen and alive for an entire year,” Mr. Otto said, his impatience evident. “Didn't you think it was a good idea in the first place?”

“Very well,” she replied, her voice equally pointed. “Although I don't think it
is
a good idea until Miss Darling sees your kitchen.”

“I told you the boys were cleaning it up,” Mr. Otto said. He set the document in front of Mr. Marlowe. “Sign, Marlowe.”

They left a half hour later, after Julia showed Mrs. Marlowe how to make coffee with an egg. The men left the door open when they went outside to hitch up the team, and Julia watched her employer as he peered under the tarp again, picked up the bunch of bananas, and inspected each one. They were still far too green to eat, but he almost pulled one from the stalk anyway, until he saw her watching him.

“I can make him the most wonderful side dish with those,” she said as she sat down and let Mrs. Marlowe twist up her hair and anchor it with her own hairpins. “It's called Bananas Thorndyke and involves deep frying the entire peel.”

“He might prefer them plain,” Mrs. Marlowe said, with a note of caution that Julia could not overlook.

Then why on earth did he hire me?
Julia asked herself. “Is the kitchen as frightful as Mr. McLemore seems to think it is?”

“Well, if he told the hands to clean it…,” Mrs. Marlowe began, but seemed unable to complete the thought.

Julia leaned toward Alice Marlowe, keeping her eyes on Mr. Otto, who appeared to be thumbing through the Book of Mormon in the crate again. “Should I worry about Mr. Otto's other employees?” she asked.

“No,” said Mrs. Marlowe quietly. “Paul will take very good care of his cook.”

Julia was silent in her turn. She watched Mr. Otto put the book away and tap down the lid on the crate again. After another inspection of the bananas, he secured the tarp over her baggage. “I gather from something those men in Gun Barrel said … he had a wife?”

Mrs. Marlowe nodded. “It was before anyone else lived around here. His parents were already dead, I believe. But how do we know?” She hesitated.

“Please,” Julia said. “I think I should know.”

“She ran away, apparently, and then there was a rumor about a man being found dead in a ditch with a knife where it oughtn't to be,” she said, her voice low as she watched Mr. Otto, too. “Of course, that was before our time.”

“Is everything rumors?” Julia asked.

“I suppose it is.” Mrs. Marlowe hugged her. “I'll bring you eggs and chickens, as I promised. It's about time I saw the Double Tipi. You'll be lonely.”

I'm lonely right now,
she thought after Mr. Otto helped her into the wagon and spoke to his horses. She waved goodbye to the Marlowes, tried to think of some topic she had in common with her employer, and then resigned herself to more silence. She wanted to ask him about his employees, his kitchen (which was beginning to loom as large in her mind as yesterday's clouds), and the wealth of rumors at his expense, but she knew better.
I have been raised right,
she thought,
and what a pity.

After a mile of steady climbing, when Julia thought his attention was focused on his team and she had resigned herself to a thorough study of her fingernails, Mr. Otto spoke. She jumped.

“You wouldn't consider marrying a Wyoming man?” he asked. “I'm just curious.”

“Never,” she said promptly but then amended, “unless he is a Mormon.” Mr. Otto frowned, and she knew she had not expressed herself correctly. “Mormons marry Mormons in the temple.”

It sounded so sensible right before she spoke, but when the words were out in the open, they almost smacked her with their arrogance.
I know he will ask me why,
she thought in panic made suddenly worse by the painful realization that she had no idea how she would answer him.
Oh, mercy, I either know too much or not enough. Don't, Mr. Otto,
she pleaded silently.

“Why?”

She sighed, knowing that saying, “Because they're supposed to,” would be worse than no comment at all. In real dismay, she contemplated her own ignorance.

Mr. Otto glanced at her. “I'm sorry,” he murmured. “I suppose your religion is none of my business.” He turned his attention to the team again. “Please excuse me.”

If there is a worse missionary in the entire church, I don't know who it is,
she thought, horrified with herself.
I will keep my mouth shut if I cannot say anything intelligent.
To her mortification, she blurted out, “I only came to cook.” She could have willed the earth to swallow her whole when Mr. Otto apologized again and said nothing more.

Papa would have had a good answer,
she berated herself as they jolted along in silence so profound that her ears hummed.
What is the matter with me?
She didn't like to think about her shortcomings, so her relief was almost palpable when Charles McLemore came cantering toward them. Mr. Otto stopped his team.

“We signed a contract at the Marlowes,” he said, resting his elbows casually on his knees, the reins dangling from his hands.

“Paul, I want to ask you something.”

Julia couldn't see Mr. Otto's expression, but from the way the other rancher put up both hands, she knew it wasn't a pleasant sight.

“No, no! This has nothing to do with Miss Darling,” he protested. He edged his horse closer. “When I was coming back from the Double Tipi earlier this morning, I noticed that the Rudigers were still on that claim.”

“And?”

“The Rudigers aren't gone yet!”

“It appears not,” Mr. Otto said as he sat up straight and gathered the reins.

“You wouldn't be feeding them or doing anything to encourage them to stay, now, would you?” McLemore asked.

“I want them gone as much as you do, McLemore.”

“Is it going to take some persuasion?” McLemore asked, glancing at Julia.

“They can't survive another winter here,” Mr. Otto said patiently. “Now if you'll excuse us.” He started the team again, and McLemore had no choice but to tug his horse back. “Maybe he's tough like we were, when we were his age,” Mr. Otto called over his shoulder as McLemore coughed in the wagon's dust.

They continued in silence. Julia didn't expect him to say anything, and he didn't disappoint her. She turned her attention to the view around her and wondered all over again why she couldn't have just told him that Mormons marry in temples so they can live in an eternal family union.
He would only laugh,
she thought,
or give me one of those stares he so far is reserving for everyone else. And maybe it would sound silly when I said it.
She touched her jaw right under her ear, aware that they were climbing.
Maybe I need to know more myself.

“If you swallow or yawn, you'll feel better,” Mr. Otto said, after the quickest glance at her. “It levels out soon.”

She nodded and swallowed. When her ears cleared, she heard the river that she could not see, running faster now, with more of a hum than a whisper, like the rustling of taffeta. The fragrance of cedar drenched the air and combined with the hot smell of the September sun on the tree's resin.

Mr. Otto made no comment as they passed a cultivated field of corn, too short for September and blasted almost sideways by the wind that hadn't stopped blowing since she left the train yesterday.

“You can't grow corn here,” Mr. Otto said suddenly. “I told him, but I know he thinks I'm just trying to discourage him.” He nodded toward the clearing. “Karl Rudiger.”

She looked in the direction he indicated and saw a man standing at the far edge of the field, leaning on a hoe.

“Down closer to the Platte, the Pathfinder ditches are almost done. Another year, maybe two, a man could irrigate any crop there. Maybe even get three cuttings of hay.”

“Why doesn't he move there?” she asked, her eyes on the distant figure.

“That land's already gone. He's too late.” Mr. Otto sighed, and she thought of her father, who always called a sigh like that “owning the problem.” “Maybe in Danzig or Hanover he got hold of an old railroad promotion handbill. Trouble was, he believed it. All Rudiger could buy was this spot, and he only got that because I was laid up with a broken leg and couldn't buy it out from under him when the original homesteader bailed out.”

She frowned at his matter-of-fact, spare words, even as she marveled at such a flow of language from a man she knew already was reticent. “Why would you…?” She stopped. It was too rude to ask.

“Why would I snatch some paltry acres from an immigrant with a wife and child?” He sighed again. “And another on the way, I think?”

“Well, yes, since you put it that way.” They passed the claim shack, the boards scored and wind-blasted from too many blizzards, the tar paper peeling back to expose gaps. She shivered, thinking of winter. A woman stood in the doorway, shading her eyes with one hand, her other hand on a little girl's head. Julia scrutinized her.
Mama would say that she is in an interesting condition,
she thought.

The little girl waved vigorously until her curls bounced. To Julia's surprise, Mr. Otto waved back. He tipped his hat to the woman in the doorway, but she stepped back into the shadow.

“Ursula Rudiger and Danila, who is three,” he said, when they were alone on the road again. “I don't think Ursula Rudiger trusts any ranchers. I wouldn't either.”

“Are the Rudigers your nearest neighbors?” she asked.

“Not my neighbors,” he insisted. “I want them gone, just like all the other ranchers want them gone. This is cattle country, and I own a big hunk of it. Except for Rudiger's spread. No one can make it on a homesteader's allotment, Darling. Do you know how many acres it takes to feed one cow?” He stabbed at the air for emphasis. “No? Congressmen don't either. Don't look at me like that! My father was the first man in this area. He bought and stole and got his hired hands to claim 640 acres each when the Desert Land Act was passed, and then they sold it to him. He left me a big spread, and I know how he did it, right down to the last clump of rabbit brush.” He nodded in the direction of the Rudiger's. “That's the last of it. When I own it, I won't have to watch any more immigrants living on air and paper from the government. It turns my stomach.”

Chilled to the bone, she thought about what Mr. McLemore had said. “I gather that the ranchers have vowed not to hire Mr. Rudiger for any extra work, so he'll starve out and quit?” She tried to keep her voice level, but it was difficult.

“It's a kindness, Darling. A kindness.”

She sat numb with the idea of all that premeditated calculation.
Maybe I shouldn't have signed that contract,
she thought suddenly. She looked back at the claim shanty and sighed.

“I can't think of it as a kindness,” she said.

He made no attempt to hide the bleakness in his eyes. “Spend a winter here. You'll understand more by spring.”

She knew he would not say anything else, so she turned her attention to the land, happy enough not to think about the Rudigers.