Carla Kelly (31 page)

His name was Reverend Levi Pierson. From the look on Matt Malloy's face, Julia could tell that the trip from Gun Barrel to the Double Tipi, with Pierson riding along beside the wagon, was about six hours too long.

“I tried to convince him to stay at the Marlowes’ ranch, but he likes to give us the benefit of his wisdom,” Matt whispered to her as she put the finishing touches on dinner.

“He's been here before? Is he a friend of Mr. Otto's?” she whispered back.

“Probably not. We see him every year, about this time.” He sighed. “Mr. Otto is too polite to turn down someone who looks like he could use a meal.”

There was no denying that Levi Pierson had the look—tall and thin, with sharp features and squinting eyes. He was dressed in rusty black, and his hat had seen better days. The only thing that kept him from looking like a derelict was the Bible he clutched to his chest and a certain purposeful air.

His own expression inscrutable, Mr. Otto introduced the preacher to Julia. “Pierson, this is my cook.”

Pierson reached for her hands, holding them in his bony ones. “You're a serious improvement to the Double Tipi,” he said, blasting her with bad breath that came from rotten teeth. “She the wife of one of your hands?”

“No. She just answered an ad in the paper, and I hired her,” Mr. Otto said, indicating a chair for the reverend.

Pierson looked closer at her before he sat down. Julia felt her skin crawl. He shook his finger at her. “Being a weak vessel, you wouldn't do anything to tempt these men now, would you?”

Julia stared at him.

“She's my cook,” Mr. Otto said firmly. “Not your concern, Pierson.”

The preacher gave her an arch look. “If you say so.”

“I most emphatically do,” Mr. Otto replied, clipping off his words. The ranch hands looked at each other, but any warning was lost on the reverend, who picked up his spoon and blew on it, rubbing at an imaginary spot.

Her lips tight together, Julia brought the fried chicken to the table, setting it in front of Mr. Otto. The mashed potatoes followed, and then the cream gravy, along with stewed tomatoes with toasty hunks of bread in it, and creamed peas. She started to pour coffee when the minister held up his hand.

“Stop right there,” he ordered. “It is time to return thanks.”

Julia set down the coffeepot and folded her arms. The hands looked at each other and then at the reverend, who glowered back.

“I can see I ought to visit here more often,” he said, glaring at each man in turn. “Bow your heads, you heathens.”

He began to pray, one hand upraised like an Old Testament prophet, droning on and on. He asked the Lord to bless the food and then went into a tangent, calling down warning on sinners, some of whom might be seated around that very table. Julia opened one eye and looked at Mr. Otto. A nerve seemed to be twitching in his jaw.

The food was getting cold, and still Pierson held them captive to his diatribe, as far as Julia could tell, against nearly everything. He seemed to wind himself tighter and tighter, somehow working in plagues and pestilence and the evils of drink and evil women and disease.

“Amen.”

Julia opened her eyes in surprise. Mr. Otto had spoken firmly. There was no mistaking the relief on the faces of his men as they settled back. Matt reached for the rolls, and Doc passed the mashed potatoes. Julia let out a tiny sigh and spread her napkin on her lap.

Pierson wasn't about to surrender without a protest. “I wasn't quite finished,” he said.

“I was,” Mr. Otto said. “We've had a long day, Pierson, and I've been looking forward to this meal for at least half of it.”

Maybe Pierson realized he had gone too far. Or maybe he was hungry too. He forked out several pieces of chicken and passed on the platter. He ate with loud smacking noises that made even Willy Bill look sideways at him and slide his chair away.

Chewing with his mouth open, the preacher kept up a running commentary on the general state of affairs in Wyoming, which he referred to as the “Devil's playground.” His comments earned only noncommittal grunts from his fellow diners as they tried to eat and ignore him.

Julia couldn't decide if it was worse to hear him going on and on about the evil around him or to hear him complimenting her for the excellent dinner, which was turning to ashes in her mouth just having to sit at the same table with him.

“Miss, uh, Darling, is it? Where did you learn to cook?”

She had to answer. He had asked her a direct question. “At Miss Fannie Farmer's School of Cookery in Boston,” she said, wiping her mouth delicately, in the hopes that he might take the hint.

“All the way from Boston? Mr. Otto, you cast a wide net.”

“Not so wide. Darling's from Salt Lake City.”

She could have told Mr. Otto that was the wrong thing to say. Maybe it was an inborn caution that warned her when he started to pray, that this preacher would have no truck with Mormons. Julia thought of little slights and barbs that had come her way in Boston and kept her eyes on her plate as she heard Pierson gasp.

“Mr. Otto, you are harboring a spawn of the devil in your employ!”

Mr. Otto looked up, startled. “I beg your pardon, Pierson?”

“This is worse than I thought,” the preacher said primly. “You aren't aware of the danger you're in.”

Julia kept her eyes on her plate, humiliated and wishing the floor would open. The room was silent.

She had to give Mr. Otto credit. After all, the Reverend Pierson was a guest at his table and apparently worth the benefit of the doubt. He executed a masterful change of subject, talking about the recent cattle drive to Cheyenne. Julia ventured a glance at the other men around the table, all of them as transfixed as she was to hear their boss talking during dinner.

Pierson wouldn't be denied. “Mr. Otto, you'd be wise to send her packing. There's no telling what evil she has already engineered. I pity you all.”

Julia felt her stomach begin to hurt. The room was hot, and she wanted to run away. She looked at the others, and they were looking at Mr. Otto, waiting to take their cue from him. He gazed calmly at the preacher, but still that muscle in his jaw twitched.

“Darling, we could use some more of your gravy, if there's any left. And then you might want to see if Blue Corn is ready for dessert.”

Eyes down, Julia mumbled something and reached for the gravy boat he held out to her, wishing he would defend her. With shaking hands, she filled it, remembering the time in Boston when one of the class members had refused to partner with her on a project. Miss Farmer had not been pleased, but she had done nothing about it. “Let it roll off,” Papa had always told her. “They pay in the end.”

She had her back to the minister. He was like a dog with a bone; he had a good subject now and he was determined to gnaw it clean.

“Ask her about Golden Plates, and venal polygamists, and missionaries who steal innocent young women, and—”

“That's enough, Pierson,” she heard Mr. Otto say over the roaring in her ears. “She's my cook, and we have no quarrel with her. I'll remind you that you are a guest at my table, but that doesn't give you a license to wound.” He had snapped out the words, and the air became electric.

“You need to be warned,” the man replied almost prissily this time, oblivious to the tension. “Miss Darling, how about your father? How many wives does he service?”

Julia gasped and felt the anger rise from deep inside her. It was one thing to attack her, but her father and mother—the best people in her universe—that was different.

She heard Mr. Otto's chair scrape back at the same time she turned around and poured the gravy on Pierson's head. Mr. Otto stared at her. “That's my limit,” she said quietly. “Mr. Otto, I'll leave in the morning. I know he's a guest at your table.”

Pierson just sat there, gravy over his greasy hair and running in smooth rivulets down his face, parting like lava around his nose and rejoining under his chin, to drip into his lap. It was a good gravy too; what a shame to waste it on a bigot.

Pierson tried to rise, but Kringle and Willy Bill, her mostly unlikely champions, slapped meaty hands on his shoulder and forced him to remain in his gravy puddle. She turned on her heel, snatched up her shawl from its peg by the door, and left the house, closing the kitchen door behind her.

She stood in the yard, transfixed by what she had done. Thoughts of “I just embarrassed my employer” chased the defiance of “Reverend Pierson deserved that” around in her brain until all she could do was put her hands to her ears to block out her own misdeed. She could never go into that kitchen again, not in this lifetime.

Julia ran across the yard, her eyes blurred with tears, and into the horse barn, finding an empty stall and crouching there, her shawl tight around her. Her humiliation at Pierson's attacks; her fierce, hot anger toward the man; and her shame at her reaction made her shake as though she had the palsy. Miserable, she hugged herself.
I have been nothing but trouble and too immature to work for anyone. I can't even swallow an insult from a fool. I should have known better.

Julia pulled the shawl even tighter. Cold, she made herself as small as she could, with her feet tucked under her. She would wait everyone out, and when all the lights were extinguished in the ranch house, she would go back inside. Contract or no contract, she knew she would be gone in the morning. Mr. Otto would never tolerate such rudeness from one of his employees.

Time passed; how much, she had no idea. Julia listened to the horses and tried not to hear the little rustlings in the hay that made her yearn for Two Bits to hurry up and grow into a mouser. She tensed when she heard the men heading to the bunkhouse, but to her relief, no one came into the horse barn.

“I brought you a blanket.”

Julia gasped, her heart racing.
If I don't turn around, maybe he will go away,
she told herself.
If facing Heavenly Father on Judgment Day is anything likefacing Mr. Otto, I am in deep trouble.

“Darling, it's cold out here. Lean forward a bit.”

Without looking at him, Julia did as he said, mainly because there was still that compelling way he spoke—a man not to be argued with. He draped a quilt around her, resting his hand for a moment on her shoulder. He sat down beside her in the hay. She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. He looked calm as he leaned back against the stall.

He's not goingto leave me alone,
Julia told herself drearily. She cleared her throat. “I don't know what to say,” she admitted finally.

Mr. Otto sat close to her but not touching her. “I think we all discovered you needn't say much to create an impact,” he said finally.

“Mr. Otto, I'm so sorry,” she said in a rush, looking at him and then looking away because she couldn't bear his strange serenity. “I promise to be off the place tomorrow morning. In a few weeks—days, maybe minutes—you'll forget I was ever here!”

He put up his hand to stop her torrent of words. “Hey, let me complete my thought! You can sure be talkative.”

She closed her mouth in a firm line and looked away.

He must have noticed her struggle because he did the one thing she never expected. He put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close to his chest.

It was too much. She discovered she had tears, after all. As she sobbed into his shirt, his grip tightened. She could not imagine why he was tolerating this, but she cried and let him take some of the pain too.

“I'll wash your shirt and handkerchief before I leave tomorrow,” she said.

“You're not going anywhere, Darling.” There was nothing in his quiet reply that hinted of anger or condescension or any of the reprisals she knew she deserved.

She couldn't think of a thing to say, but he had more on his mind. “I think if you hadn't done that, I would have.”

“Mr. Otto?”

He loosened his hold on her. “Let me explain. I tried to be polite to a guest. That's what we do out here in the range, where ranches are so widely scattered. I never turn down anyone in need of a meal. But after you ran out, I told Pierson that he could spend the night in the bunkhouse, if the boys would have him. I told him to be on his way in the morning at sunrise. I owe
you
the apology for not stepping in sooner.”

She could barely believe her ears. “Oh, Mr. Otto, that's kinder than my actions deserve. Papa tells me I should just let words like that run off my back.”

Mr. Otto turned slightly so he could see her better in the low light from the lantern he had set near the stall's opening. “Why do people think Mormons are fair game?”

Julia pursed her lips and thought a long moment. “I think we all ask ourselves that. Maybe people don't know too much about us.”

He took just as long in replying, and she heard the tentative nature of his comment in his tone of voice. “Maybe you're not so willing to share.”

Julia couldn't deny the fairness of his thought. “You asked some questions when we met, and I was vague, wasn't I?”

He nodded. Again he picked his words with care. “I got the feeling—correct me if I'm wrong—that maybe you don't know as much as you wish you did. Or as you should know, perhaps.”