Carla Kelly (24 page)

“It's so much better since Mr. Rudiger put up this lovely building paper and—”

Alice sucked in her breath. “Julia, you didn't ask them for help!”

“Well, yes. They're my nearest neighbors. Alice, you should see how poor their shack is. Ursula only had hot water with a swish of mint to serve me.”

Alice put her hand on Julia's arm. “I'm sure Paul told you not to have anything to do with them.”

“He did, but—”

“The ranchers are trying to starve them out of the valley,” Alice said. “It's for their own good.”

You can't mean that,
Julia thought.
If you only could have seen Ursula's eyes, so deep set, and how they lit up when I brought oatmeal and a little loaf cake.
”I was being neighborly,” she said lamely.

Better spill all the beans. “I made a bargain with Mr. Rudiger. He put up the building paper in here, and in what I can honestly call a parlor now. In exchange, I … I gave him a couple rolls of tar paper that were just gathering dust in the barn.”

“You did
what?”

Looking at the dismay on Alice Marlowe's face, all of Julia's misgivings returned. “No one was using it,” she said in a small voice. “You've seen how they have tacked tin cans over the walls. It must be freezing in the winter.”

Alice glared at her. “That's the whole point, Julia! Those people have to leave. You're just prolonging the agony!”

“No, I'm helping people who need my help. It's what my mother would do,” she said quietly after a moment considering it. “It's the way I was raised.” Some spark in her made Julia keep going, despite the militant look in Alice's eyes. “It's what I learned in church, too.”

Alice said nothing for a long moment. “Maybe that's how Mormons think, but you're not in Utah now, and Paul Otto is going to be really bothered by this.” She sipped her hot chocolate in silence while Julia stared straight ahead, embarrassed.

The moment passed. Alice sighed and held out her tin cup for more. “Julia, you're young. Life is so hard here, and the Rudigers are in over their heads. What you did is not a kindness.”

“Maybe Mr. Otto will fire me,” Julia said as she poured more hot chocolate.

“He might,” Alice said, offering her no reassurance. “I know. It's hard to see them starve. I don't know what they are living on now.”

A lot of my stew and bread and rolls,
Julia thought,
but you don't need to know that.
Alice said nothing else, but she didn't need to. The silence thickened in the kitchen. With an effort, Alice changed the subject. “I guess what you did can't be helped now. I also came to tell you that I am going to Gun Barrel tomorrow. If there is anything you want, I can get it.”

“There is,” Julia replied, grateful to move on. “I'm planning a most excellent dinner for when Mr. Otto and his men return.”

“Make me a list. I'll charge it to Paul's account.” Alice's face was thoughtful. “I wouldn't do anything too elaborate. They like their fried steak and hash browns.”

“He didn't hire me to do steak and hash browns,” Julia said.
I thought Alice would understand,
she told herself. “Alice, he did title that ad ‘Desperate Rancher.’ “

“I know! He was at my kitchen table when he wrote it. Julia, he had just spent the morning suffering from eating extremely mature canned peaches, following an evening of Little River's Vienna sausages in tomatoey goo.” She shuddered. “He just wants a decent, home-cooked meal.”

Julia didn't feel like surrendering. “But he specifically asked for a graduate of the Boston Cooking School,” she reminded Alice.

Still looking thoughtful, Alice finished her hot chocolate. “I guess you know best.”

Julia could hardly overlook her dubious tone of voice. “Alice, I know what to do. I truly do. I'm going to start with cream of watercress soup and follow it with a string bean salad, then beefsteak with an oyster blanket. Which reminds me: I'll add more canned oysters to my list. I have some, but probably not enough.”

“An
oyster
blanket?” There was no mistaking Alice's skepticism.

“It's delicious. They'll love it. You'll see.”

As the week passed, Julia began to doubt herself. Determined to assuage her fears, she sent James to the river to gather watercress. She chopped it fine and added it to her white sauce, bubbly and thick. She filled a bowl for James.

“Blow on it. It's hot,” she admonished.

He did as she said, blowing until half of it flew off his soup spoon. He took a bite, his face giving away nothing.

“Well? How does it taste?” she asked.

He thought a moment, rolling the mouthful over his tongue. “Green.”

She took a sip from her bowl. Delicious. “It's nutritious, James, just what men need after a hard time on the range.”

He was more enthusiastic the afternoon she experimented with Duchess Potatoes. She took out her pastry bag and tubes, selecting the flower tip and loading the bag with mashed potatoes generously fortified with three eggs. James stared in amazement as she piped a mound of delicate potato flowers on a platter, brushed them with egg white, and then sent them into the Queen Atlantic's oven for a brief sojourn. James cleaned the platter when they were done and looked around for more.
That's a relief,
Julia told herself.
It's hard to go wrong with Duchess Potatoes.

He wouldn't have anything to do with the string bean salad, beans doused in French dressing and arranged like a bonfire, surrounded by croutons. “I don't think they need that,” he told her, pointing to the orange dressing.

“It's one of Miss Farmer's signature salads,” Julia assured him. “I've seen members of the Massachusetts state legislature sit in her test dining room and demand more.”

James only shook his head.

“Well, they did,” she told him feebly.

Not happy with the look on his face, Julia flipped a few pages in her cookbook. “If string beans won't do, what about warm liver salad with perry vinegar dressing?”

James stared at her with a shocked expression. “Mr. Darling! No!”

It was hard for her to keep a defensive tone out of her voice, but she tried. “James, when it comes to cooking, I really do know best. This recipe never fails to please. That's why Mr. Otto hired me.”

“Not for warm liver,” James persisted doggedly.

We will have to agree to disagree on this matter,
she thought as she sat at the wonderfully clean and stick-free table in the kitchen she was rapidly coming to think of as her own and outlined a menu that would prove to Mr. Otto that she knew what she was doing.

Her doubts returned at the end of the week, when Alice Marlowe returned with three letters—one each from Iris, her mother, and her father—more eggs, and all the canned oysters she could locate in Gun Barrel. She also carried news that the men would be returning from the roundup by Tuesday, trailing the cattle bound for Chicago's stockyards, and hungry.

“There is a note for you from Paul,” Alice said, handing her the eggs, cushioned in salt in a small wooden box. “I stuck it in with the eggs.”

Julia set the eggs on the table and directed James to put the cans of oysters in the pantry. She shook the salt from the note and sat down to read it.

She didn't mean to frown over the note, but she couldn't help herself. “He says he is sending Matt Malloy on ahead to butcher a yearling. He says he likes his steak medium rare.” Julia shook her head. “ ‘Lots of red, but no moo,’ he says.” Julia put the note in her lap. “Matt can just as easily carve me off a big roast.”

“Julia, I've told you they like their steak. Fried,” Alice added more firmly.

It stung her to hear Alice speaking so slow and cautious, but Julia tried not to let it show.
I have to live on this ranch for a year, and I need a few friends,
she reminded herself.

After reading the note again, she took a deep breath. “When they finish the dinner I'll prepare, they won't even think about something as boring as steak and greasy potatoes.”

Alice's eyes were kind. “I'm certain Mrs. Farmer could never envision the Double Tipi, but Julia…” She stopped. “Well, do your best,” she concluded. “I'm certain no one will ever forget this dinner.”

“They won't,” Julia assured her. “Not in a million years.”

Matt carved off the roast she wanted, hanging it in the meat room to drip and age. He also sliced a huge platter of steaks. To humor him, she fried a well-done steak at his request, cringing inside as the beautiful meat curled and darkened. He seemed pleased with the results, tucking in at the table after slicing off a generous hunk for James. Tentatively, she tried the Duchess Potatoes on him, and he nodded his approval. “Make lots of these,” he told her, wolfing down all the delicate rosettes she had prepared for the three of them. “This too,” he told her after he inhaled nearly half the dried apple pie she had thrown together at the last minute.

“Actually, I'm making a Queen Cake with opera caramel frosting,” she told him. “I'll make it tomorrow.”

“Plenty of biscuits too,” he suggested, wiping his mouth with the napkin she hastily handed him when he started going for his sleeve.

“I'm making bow-knot rolls,” she said, as he stood up and stretched, patting his stomach. “They're really dainty and pretty.”

Matt laughed. “Julia Darling, you're a source of amusement,” he told her, exaggerating his brogue. “Big baking powder biscuits. Willy Bill told me two days ago he's been dreaming about that.” He winked at her. “Better than eating his bunkie, eh?”

Julia shuddered.

“Probably just a rumor, anyway.” Matt put on his hat and looked at James. “Come on, lad. Mr. Otto said specifically that you were to help me check the fence, ‘cause a big herd's coming.” He tipped his hat to Julia. “That steak was perfection. Come on, James. Mr. Otto is counting on you.”

She cooked all day, starting with the bow-knot rolls when the Queen Atlantic was hottest and then moving to the Queen Cake, long and luscious in a loaf pan. When it had cooled, she set it on a slab of wood she had covered with a bit of green oilcloth she had found in the pantry, since Mr. Otto had no serving dishes.

She made ornamental frosting instead of opera caramel, applying it in dainty whorls and then using her frosting tubes to create delicate rosettes all over. She centered a silver candy dot—one of the many treats she had brought from Salt Lake—in each rosette until the whole cake shimmered. The cake went in the pantry, carefully covered with a large pot.

By the time night fell and Matt and James returned, Julia was too tired to cook more than steak and fried potatoes again. Neither man nor boy objected, which delighted her, thinking how much happier everyone would be tomorrow evening when she unveiled the meal of her dreams. Matt left in the morning to return to the roundup crew, assuring her that the men and cattle would be at the Double Tipi by suppertime. Julia sent James to the river for watercress, overlooking his dubious frown. “Watercress is good for you,” she told his retreating form.

The oyster blanket for the roast was even better than the one she had made for her Boston final examination. Miss Farmer would frown, but Julia couldn't help peeking in the oven at the roast, all crusty with spices and bubbling. When she took it from the oven, she would cover it with the oyster blanket and then set it aside to harden.

She sniffed the kitchen's aromas, a far cry from the noxious fumes that had made her burst into tears—so unprofessional—on her arrival three weeks ago. The bloody calving ropes overhead were long gone; the Queen Atlantic gleamed; even her feed sack curtains gave the room a certain dignity. Best of all was the soft grey of the building paper Mr. Rudiger had attached so well in exchange for the tar paper.

There wasn't a thing in the kitchen Julia wasn't proud to display. Earlier in the week, she had boiled an extra sheet into submission, turning it white again, like Mr. Otto's shirts. After stitching up some holes, she ironed the sheet and spread it on the table.

“Mr. Otto, now you'll see what I can really do,” she murmured, hand shading her eyes as she watched for the men.

She was shaping grated potatoes into miniature birds’ nests when James ran in to say he could see the dust from the cattle. She nodded to him, her eyes on the potatoes. A mound of Duchess Potatoes was in the oven now, but after watching Matt demolish the whole pile last night, she had decided to augment the meal with Potatoes en Surprise. The peas in their cream sauce simmered on the back of the Queen, while she deftly rolled the potato nests in flour and eggs and deep fried them.