Carla Kelly (26 page)

“Maybe you didn't notice it in the kitchen too, what with all of my culinary distractions.” She clasped her hands together. “Without your permission, obviously, I gave Mr. Rudiger some tar paper gathering cobwebs and mouse nests in your barn. In exchange, he tacked up these rolls of building paper rolled up in that corner. I think Mr. McLemore and Mr. Marlowe have just been by the Rudiger shack and seen the improvements.”

She hurried to confess her felony before the men stormed into the ranch house. As she did, she felt her heart give a little lift. “I haven't been here long, but everyone has made it amply clear that the Rudigers are not to be helped. I helped them. When you left me here with James, you told me I was in charge. I only did what I would have done back in Salt Lake City. I also took them food, because they're hungry. I did everything you told me not to do. I wish I felt worse about it, but I don't.”

“That's an honest answer.” Mr. Otto regarded her and then looked around the parlor, a half smile on his face. “Jeepers, he did a nice job.”

“This isn't covered under any clause in the contract. I went against everything you told me to do,” Julia said simply. It was easier than she thought to confess, even as she heard McLemore and Marlowe bang on the door before coming into the kitchen. “Don't defend me, Mr. Otto, if you're so inclined. I was wrong.”

“You sure about that?” he asked, and turned to the doorway. “Darling, I think we have company. McLemore and Marlowe, I thought you'd gone. Forget something?”

McLemore hardly glanced at Mr. Otto as he barreled into the parlor, his face red. He shook his finger at Julia, advancing toward her with such a look that she felt her blood run in chunks. Mr. Otto stepped between her and McLemore's rage.

“That's far enough, McLemore,” he said, his voice the quiet menace Julia remembered from the restaurant.

McLemore stopped, but he peered around Mr. Otto to glare at Julia. “No one's supposed to help them!” he roared. “You knew that! Guess you obey your employer about as well as you cook!”

That stung. Julia looked away, humiliated.

“There's nothing wrong with her cooking,” Mr. Otto said in that same controlled voice.

“I wouldn't have her in my kitchen now,” McLemore said, his voice softer, more menacing.

“Then it's a good thing you'll never have that problem.” Mr. Otto gestured to the settee. “Have a seat. Tell me what you think of this parlor.”

Neither man sat. Julia glanced at Mr. Marlowe, still in the doorway, looking indecisive as his own indignation faded.

“Seriously. Look around. When you barged in here, McLemore, and upset my cook, she had just told me that she traded a roll of tar paper in my barn to Karl Rudiger, if he would put up the building paper that's been gathering cobwebs in this parlor for eight years.”

Still keeping himself between Julia and McLemore, Mr. Otto gazed at his parlor. “He did a wonderful job. Darling now has a good place to sit in the winter. Shoot, I could probably even read my paper in here and put my feet up. The kitchen looks better too.”

He walked closer to McLemore. Mr. Otto was several inches shorter, but it didn't seem to matter. McLemore backed up toward the doorway. “Did Rudiger do a good job on his shack?”

McLemore swore.

“Not in my house, McLemore,” Mr. Otto said, and there was no mistaking the steel in his voice. “Things are different here now. No swearing.” He looked at Marlowe. “Did he do a good job?”

“First rate, Paul,” Marlowe said. “He's got that shack all buttoned up for winter.”

“That's the problem, Paul! What's the matter with you?” McLemore glared at Julia again. “She's probably been
feeding
them too!” He flung the word at her.

“I hope to heaven she has,” Mr. Otto replied, his voice even softer now. “They're all too thin because they've been subsisting on
our
charity. That adds up to a mean supper.” He turned to look at her. “Thanks for reminding me of something I shouldn't have forgotten. Gentlemen, this conversation is over.”

And it was. With another filthy look in her direction, McLemore swore again and stomped out of the parlor. When he slammed the kitchen door, Julia heard a glass break.

“Temper, temper,” Marlowe said, as he looked after his companion. He straightened up from the parlor doorway, where he had been leaning. “Paul, you know it's in the Rudiger's best interest to be forced off this land. You said so.”

“I know, and shame on me,” Mr. Otto replied. “It's more my problem than anyone else's, because his little piece of property abuts mine.” He turned around to look at Julia. “Darling, I've been going at this all the wrong way. You've reminded me that there might be a simpler solution.” He nodded to Marlowe. “We'll trail the beeves past your doorway tomorrow by mid-day. See you then?”

“You will,” Marlowe said, the tension gone from his voice. He tugged at his hat brim. “G'day, ma'am. See ya, Paul.”

Mr. Otto didn't move from his stance in front of Julia until she heard horses’ hooves receding down the valley. “Well, that could have been worse,” he told her, his tone mild again. “Have a seat in this nice parlor.”

She sat, mainly because her legs felt unequal to the task of maintaining her upright. “James and I fixed the rest of the room when Mr. Rudiger finished,” she said. “He was so helpful. Even Mr. Rudiger said so.”

Mr. Otto sat next to her, and she leaned toward him, suddenly alarmed. “I hope Mr. McLemore doesn't cause you any trouble. I'd feel bad about that.”

He laughed. “I believe you would! Don't worry about ol’ McLemore.” He looked around again. “Yep. It's a nice job. Are those feed sack curtains?”

She nodded. “I bleached most of the writing out. If you look really close, you can still see ‘Big Chief Flour.’ “

“Hardly noticed. What did you do around the edges?”

“Crocheted scallops.”

“Mighty fine ones.”

Julia couldn't help but smile at that.

Mr. Otto got to his feet. “I'll talk to those prima donnas in the bunkhouse. No reason why we can't compromise, if you're willing to bend a little, and they are too.”

She nodded. He gave her a small salute and left the parlor. When she thought she could stand again, she went into the kitchen and surveyed the ruin of her beautiful dinner. She tried to look at the lovely oyster blanket, the warm liver salad—sagging now—and the wilted string beans through different eyes.
Papa would tell me Rome wasn't built in a day,
Julia reminded herself as she gathered up the mostly unused tin plates and carried them to the sink.

With fewer pangs than she would have thought possible, Julia consigned the oyster blanket to the garbage can, following it with the liver salad. She sat down and ate some of the string bean salad, still happy with it, even if no one else was. Mr. Otto was correct: the roast was done just right. The creamed peas had made the potato nests soggy, but she ate one anyway as she wondered how her Duchess Potatoes had fared in the bunkhouse.

Dusk had come and gone before the kitchen met her standards again. Humming to herself now, she cut into the crusty loaves of bread she had baked yesterday and made enough roast beef sandwiches to fill her largest enamel basin. Propping it on her hip, Julia took a quart jar of dill pickles and carried them to the bunkhouse.

Doc opened the door even before she knocked, and there was no overlooking the penitence in his eyes. “Don't worry,” she said quietly. She set the sandwiches on the table, left the pickles, and quietly closed the door after her.

Sandwich in hand, James joined her before she reached the ranch house. She ruffled his hair. “Tired?”

He nodded.

“Wash up, and I'll read to you.”

“Me too?”

She turned around and laughed at Mr. Otto. “Only if you can find another book that James will be interested in.”

He walked with them to the house, held open the door for her, took a towel from the pile she had folded yesterday, and a bar of soap. “James, you have her all to yourself.”

“We can wait,” James said.

“No, no. Tell you what though, Darling. When you get James all tucked up, wait for me in the new and greatly improved parlor, and I'll give you a report from the bunkhouse.” He looked her right in the eye. “Don't look so wary! I think you can live with it.”

In another moment he was out the door. She heard him whistling as he headed into the dark. “I would think it's a little cold for the river now,” she murmured.

“He's tough,” James said, and yawned.

He was also quick in cold water. Mr. Otto was seated in the parlor, his hair wet and slicked back, when she finished reading to James, making up yet another ending to the scrap of a book, and singing “Sweet Evalina.”

“Nice rendition,” he told her as she came into the parlor.

Julia rolled her eyes. “I auditioned three or four new songs while you were gone. The only one with any appeal was ‘What Do You Do with a Drunken Sailor.’ “ She sighed. “But here we are again at ‘My love for thee will never, never die.’ “

“Blame me,” he told her cheerfully. “It was the only song my father knew, and he willed it to me, apparently.”

She sat where he indicated, across from him in the little rocking chair. “I hope your hands ate the roast beef sandwiches.”

“They did. They saved one for me, which I enjoyed after my attempt to clean off two weeks of trail dust.” He took the notebook from his shirt pocket. “They added a few more items to their wish list. Let me read it to you.” He cleared his throat. “Mind, now, we're not too sophisticated when it comes to grub. Hash browns. They like'um real thin and crispy, kind of like those little bird nest things. Fried beefsteak.” He looked closer at his list and then moved the kerosene lamp toward him. “Doc really likes fried chicken. I know he'll shoot you some grouse and call it good. And he says that's best with white gravy over mashed potatoes.” Mr. Otto laughed. “Doc has the sophisticated palate.”

Julia smiled at that. “Would I dare throw in some peas?”

Mr. Otto was in the swing of her humor. “That might be a bit too advanced, depending.”

“On what?”

“If you need to cover them with creamy stuff. Peas all naked and bare would stick really good to mashed potatoes.”

“True.” Julia sat back, enjoying the list now.
Remember how Papa told you in his blessing to look at people and things with new eyes?
she reminded herself.

He flipped the page. “Here are a couple of additions. Apple pie. Everyone agreed to more of your bacon and eggs, and they want to know if you make good flapjacks. You know, with butter oozing out and maple syrup in rivers.”

“Mr. Otto, you are poetic,” she teased.

There was no denying the relief in his eyes. He looked back at the list. “They rounded it off with saleratus biscuits and fried fish. James already volunteered to drown a worm anytime anyone asks.”

She smiled again. “What about you, Mr. Otto? Any preferences, beyond those listed?”

He looked at the list again. “I'm pretty much in agreement with my men.” He tore out the little sheets and handed them to her. “I know, I know. There's no accounting for some people's tastes.”

“That's what you want me to cook?” she asked, looking at his precise printing.

“Yep. Will you do it?”

“Of course I will, since you and I have a year to get it right,” she told him. Julia thought a moment. “I'll do this, but you have to do something for me.”

“It's only fair. Shoot.”

“Once a week, I'll make something from Miss Farmer's cookbook, and you and your hands have to at least try it.”

Julia didn't think it was too much to ask, and the way Mr. Otto smiled at her, with the weather lines crinkling around his eyes, assured her he agreed.

“Done, Darling.”

She stood up then, ready to go to bed and put the day behind her. Mr. Otto motioned for her to sit down again. He leaned closer in conspiratorial fashion, which made her lean closer too.

“I got an idea about what to do about the Rudigers. Tell me what you think. We'll trail the herd to Cheyenne and get the stock on the train to Chicago. I'll send the hands back to Gun Barrel. I have a friend in Fort Collins. He's a builder, and only last spring he was griping to me how hard it is to find good carpenters.”

He looked at her, his eyes bright, and she caught his excitement. “You're going to tell him about Mr. Rudiger.”

“Better than that. I'll guarantee Rudiger a job, because my friend will take me at my word.”

I don't doubt that for a moment,
Julia thought.
You're not a man someone says no to.
”You're persuasive,” she told him.

“I know it,” he replied, his tone matter-of-fact. “I'll stop at Rudigers’ on the way back, give him the good news, and offer to buy his place for far more than it's worth. It'll get him out of here and give him employment he can be proud of. What do you think?”

He was asking her, as though her opinion mattered. “I think it's a wonderful idea, Mr. Otto.”

“So you're guilty of feeding hungry people.” He leaned back then, regarding her from more of a distance, as though assessing her. “I'd bet my best horse that you told them you were trying out that cooking range and had to do something with all that old food lying around.” He laughed—he could read her expression like a book. “That's what I thought!”