Carla Kelly (20 page)

She stopped in the parlor and sat down in what she was already calling the lady's chair. It was pulled up companionably close to a larger chair, but both were dust covered. With the saddle and bits of harness gone from the settee … she stopped her imagining and shook her head. “It will still be very much a sow's ear,” she announced to no one. And there was that building paper leaning next to the bookcase full of what must be ranch ledgers. She wished she knew how to tack the paper onto the walls but then reminded herself that Mr. Otto was interested in a Fannie Farmer graduate, not a contractor.

Julia was up long before James. Humming to herself in the clean kitchen, she laid a fire in the Queen Atlantic and soon had a pot of oatmeal on the edge of a well-mannered simmer. She would wake up James soon, and they could have the wash done before mid-morning. But maybe that was James now, she thought, as the floorboard vibrated.

“What'd you do, lady? Kill Paul and throw his old bones behind the smokehouse?”

Julia gasped. She clenched her hand around the wooden spoon and froze. The floorboard vibrated again.

“Aw, Dan! I think you scared her! Here she's come back, and you scared her. Hey, it's okay, Mrs. Otto.”

Julia turned around slowly, and stared—eyes wide and mouth open—at two Indians standing just behind her. “I … I'm not Mrs. Otto,” she managed to squeak. “I'm cooking oatmeal.”

As frightened as she was, even Julia had to wince at the silliness of what she just said. One deep breath, and then a second, and she looked again at the two men—Indians obviously, with their long hair in braids, but dressed much like Mr. Otto—both of whom were smiling at her now.

“Naw, I guess you're not Mrs. Otto,” said the man who had spoken first. “Don't think she ever cooked.”

She looked at him and then remembered what Mr. Otto had said before he left. “Oh, go ahead and laugh,” she said, hoping that her voice still didn't sound shaky. “You must be Dan Who Counts…” She looked at the other man. “ … and Mr. McLeish. Mr. Otto's cousins?”

“Curtis,” the other Indian supplied. “I'd like some oatmeal.”

She dished up two bowls and set them on the table. “Do you want me to make coffee?”

Dan nodded, his eyes on the oatmeal. “If you have it. Indians like lots of sugar,” he hinted.

The water in the reservoir was almost simmering, so it was only a matter of a few minutes to have coffee in the pot and then on the table. Julia sat down with them and ate a small bowl of oatmeal. “Mr. Otto wanted me to tell you that they are working north of McLemore's place,” she said when she had finished and wiped her mouth.

McLeish nodded and pushed himself back from the table. Dan spoke, “We'll be going then.” He looked at her but glanced away quickly. Julia decided he was either shy or Indians didn't think it polite to stare. “Anything you need doing, before we go?”

Happy for their help, she directed them to fill the cauldron in the yard with hot water. Dan did as she directed while Curtis pumped cool water into the other pot. She put the white clothes into the cauldron and added a generous sprinkling of Ivory soap flakes she had brought with her from Salt Lake.

“Anything else we can do?” Curtis asked.

She found a length of rope in the barn next to the tar paper and had them string her a clothes line between the smoke house and the tack shed. She looked for a broom handle to stir the wash around. “Anything else?” Dan asked when they finished.

She shook her head, suddenly shy. They were both so tall. She looked for some resemblance to Mr. Otto but could see none. “Thanks for your help.”

Dan nodded, tugged on his hat brim, and swung himself into the saddle again, gazing around the yard. He leaned forward then and edged his horse toward the bunkhouse. Curtis smiled at her. “Good food, ma'am.”

She smiled back and thought of something. “When he came in, your brother called me Mrs. Otto. Do … do I look like her?”

Curtis gave her another quick glance but looked away, polite even when scrutiny was allowed. “She was taller and had kind of a grim look.” He mounted his horse and tipped his hat to her. “But I only saw her once.” He gathered the reins in his hands.

“What happened to her?”

He tugged gently on the reins and his horse backed up slightly. “All kinds of stories. Someone said she killed a man. Someone said Paul killed a man. Someone else told me that he saw her all trussed up in a backward shirt with long arms.” He shrugged. “Lots of stories.”

“Goodness,” she said faintly, backing away a little herself. “Does … does anybody know?”

He shrugged again. “Maybe Little River knows, but she doesn't say.”

He started out of the yard, but Dan still sat motionless, looking past the bunkhouse. With a small gesture, he motioned to her. “Someone's in your can dump.”

“What on earth?”

He motioned again. “Can you see them?”

She came closer to him, shading her hand against the rising sun. After a moment of squinting, she could just make out two figures, one a woman, the other a child. She knew it was the Rudigers and remembered the smashed cans on the side of their shanty. So this was where they got their siding.

“I could shoo them away,” Dan offered.

“Oh, no, that's not nec—”

But Curtis had spotted them as well. He kneed his horse in the direction of the can pile and dug in his spurs. The horse leaped forward. The woman shrieked and ran from the can pile, tugging her child after her.

“Oh, wait!” Julia called, dismayed to see them scatter and run. “He didn't mean anything!”

But they were gone, running quickly toward the river. Curtis looked at her and then at the two. When she waved him over, he turned away from the river. She could see the reluctance in his face, but he slowed his horse to a walk and went closer to the dump. He leaned down and picked up a small wagon, the kind a child might own.

Julia sighed in dismay. “They didn't mean any harm!”

Dan called in Shoshone to his cousin, who placed the little wagon across his lap and joined them in the yard again. He dangled the wagon by the rope that served as a handle and lowered it to the ground. “Sorry, ma'am, but you don't need trouble from nesters.”

“They aren't trouble,” she replied. “I think they smash the cans and use them for siding on their house.” The sun was coming up, but it was still low on the horizon. She shivered. “Winter's coming.”

Dan tipped his head back, as though he could see something in the sky that she couldn't. “Well, maybe he ought to do a little more than send his women for cans. Come on, Mac. It's a day's ride.”

With another nod to her, the Indians left the property, traveling north, away from the clearing and the river. Julia looked down at the wagon, unpainted and with high sides. She picked up the rope and tugged the sorry little vehicle after her, remembering a red wagon with flowers painted on it that Iris used to tug everywhere with all her dolls inside. The wagon rolled after her, noisy in the quiet morning.

Halfway to the house, she stopped and looked back at the barn, thinking of the roll of tar paper inside, obviously not of use to anyone.
You know Mr. Rudiger will never take charity,
she told herself. She looked at the house then, thinking about pleasant winter evenings ahead in the parlor with gray building paper on the walls, and curtains hanging in the windows. “I wonder, will you barter with me, Mr. Rudi-ger?” she asked aloud, just to hear her idea. “And you can be certain I'd never dream of stopping by for a visit without bringing something to eat.”

he first load of wash was on the line before James woke up. She had made another pot of oatmeal too, larger than the first, and set it to warm on the back of the Queen Atlantic, after she dumped out the remaining coffee and opened Miss Farmer's cookbook to her favorite chapter.

I could never visit the Rudigers without bringing along a cake,
she thought as she turned the pages.
Besides,
she reasoned,
I have to experiment with this oven a few times before I dare prepare anything for Mr. Otto and his men.
Cornstarch Cake was white beyond belief and amazingly consistent, but it took five eggs. She decided on Snow Cake, which only needed the white of two eggs. It would probably travel the best too in the little wagon because it was a loaf cake.

Practicality triumphed again, and she stirred together a simple confectioner's frosting. White Mountain Cream frosting was her favorite, but she knew from experience that it didn't travel well. Besides that, its soft mounds would probably attract every fly and gnat between here and Cheyenne. She could depend on confectioner's frosting to harden into an effective, but sweet, barrier to bugs. She knew it was child's play, when she thought of all the towering post-dinner delights that she planned to conjure up for Mr. Otto and his crew. Even Iris, a reluctant cook at best, was able to make Snow Cake; it was no challenge.

James wandered into the kitchen a half hour later, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He sniffed the air. “I want some of that.”

“You'll have to settle for oatmeal with cinnamon in it,” she said, ruffling his hair. “What you're smelling is the cake I'm making right now to take to the Rudigers.”

“I don't think Mr. Otto takes food to them.”

“Nobody does,” she said, “but this is different. We're paying a social call and asking a favor, so a cake doesn't count.”
Will you buy that?
she thought.
I know Mr. Otto wouldn't, but he isn't here.

“I suppose you're right,” he said finally, but he sounded doubtful.

“I am,” she told him firmly. “Good manners say that we should do this.”

“Why are we going to see the Rudigers?” he asked as she ladled him some oatmeal.

“Mrs. Rudiger and her daughter were here really early to gather cans, and they were scared away by Mr. Otto's cousins from the reservation. She left behind the wagon, and we're going to return it.”

He ate silently, like Mr. Otto and the hired hands. When he finished, she sent him to get dressed while she removed the loaf cake from the oven. She set the cake outside on the front step to hurry its cooling.

James watched the cake intently as she carried it to the table and prepared the frosting. As Julia worked, it struck her that he was not eyeing the frosting bowl with the notion that it was his to lick when she finished. She was sure the thought had never occurred to him because this was probably the first cake he had ever seen in his life.

“There. I'm done,” she said. Julia handed James the knife and pushed the frosting bowl closer to him. “You can eat what's left, if you'd like.”

His eyes grew wide. He licked the blade tentatively and grinned at her. In another moment, the blade was clean. He dipped it into the bowl, careful not to miss a single swirl of icing.

“Mr. Otto will like this when he comes back,” James announced, setting down the knife.

“I'll make him a much grander cake,” she told him. “Can you find me a small box? I'll set the cake in it, and we'll be on our way.”

He came back with a wooden box with a hinged lid. “Mr. Otto keeps his writing paper in this, but I dumped it on his bed,” he said, opening the lid. “He won't know we used it.”

“Indeed, no,” she agreed as she gently set the frosted loaf cake inside. “We're just borrowing it. Take the can of oatmeal and follow me, James.”