Lauraine Snelling (10 page)

Cassie did as Gretchen showed her, managing to slice the dill pickles into a dish and fork the beet pickles into another. The fragrances that came from the oven, and then the stove, made her mouth water.

“Ransom, will you carve the meat, please?” Mrs. Engstrom asked when the two men came into the kitchen. “Lucas, do we have any cider left out in the springhouse?”

“We do, but it’s probably pretty hard by now.”

What could he mean that the cider was hard? Another one of those things that confused her.

“That’s a shame.”

“No it’s not. Now is when it’s the best.”

“I should have canned that leftover, so it wouldn’t turn.” She handed Lucas a bowl of potatoes and another of carrots, onions, and turnips. The squash took up a platter of its own. When all the food was set on the table, the dog’s barking announced that Cassie’s people had arrived.

“You want to go meet them?” Mavis asked, smiling at Cassie.

“Of course.” Cassie went to open the front door and welcome the others into the house. “You’re just in time. Everything is on the table.”

Runs Like a Deer nodded and followed Cassie to the kitchen, where they took the chairs assigned to them.

“We’re glad to have you here,” Mavis said with a warm smile. “We should always have company around the table for Sunday dinner.” When they were settled, she bowed her head. “Gretchen, it is your turn to say grace.”

After grace was said and the serving dishes were all passed, Cassie looked at her plate. She’d not had such a variety of food on her plate for a long time, if ever. And never food that had been grown right there on the land they called home.

“This is elk meat,” Gretchen informed her. “Lucas shot it right out in our pasture.”

“Have you had elk before?” Mavis asked.

“I . . . I don’t know. We shot a deer on our way down here but not elk.” She cut a piece of the meat and put it in her mouth. The rich flavor of meat and gravy sank into her tongue and made her smile. “This is delicious.”

“Good. Maybe we’ll get another one tonight.” Lucas smiled at her.

“I thought hunting wasn’t allowed on Sundays.”

“Sunday morning is for church, and then dinner and chores, and then we can go hunting if we want.”

“I see.” But she didn’t really and looked to Mavis for confirmation.

“If you’ve shot a deer . . .” Lucas was looking at her.

“That was hard. He was so beautiful, with huge warm eyes, but we were getting hungry and tired of beans all the time. Chief kept us in rabbits too, with his snares, so we had enough to eat. He and Runs Like a Deer smoked a lot of the deer.”

“We call deer meat
venison
,” Gretchen told her.

“Why?”

“I don’t know, but that’s the way it is.”

“Just like pig meat is called pork.” Lucas grinned at her from across the table.

Cassie just nodded. There was so much to learn. She glanced at Ransom, who kept on eating as if no one were talking. Did he dislike her and her friends so terribly much that he couldn’t even be polite? Was there anything she could do, other than leave the ranch behind forever, that might help this situation?

Probably not, and that saddened her. The last thing she wanted was to cause a rift in this family.

M
avis stood up with her empty plate in hand. “We’ll have dessert in the other room.”

While the men rose and followed Ransom out, the women began clearing the table. Runs Like a Deer scraped plates and stacked them while the others put the food away and Cassie set out the plates on the counter for the apple pie.

The plump brown pies smelled wonderful. “When did you have time to bake apple pies?”

“Oh, yesterday, when you were all working at the cabin. This is Lucas’s favorite dessert; the apples came from the trees up by the cabin. In fact, we planted the apple trees before they finished the cabin. Ivar built a high fence around them at first to keep the deer and elk out. Had to do the same with the garden.”

“Will I be able to have a garden next spring?”

“I don’t know why not. It would be good if we could get it plowed before winter, so the snow and frost can help break down the sod. You’ll have to take those young trees out. Digging out the roots is hard, so the easiest way to is just to pull them out with the team. It doesn’t take the forest long to take over a field again. Some of them will make good corral poles, the straight ones.”

Cassie listened carefully. “You hitch the team to a tree?”

“Yes, with chains. You can use the chains off the barn wall.”

Oh, how I hope Micah or Chief knows what she is talking about.

Mavis smiled at her. “Don’t worry. Lucas or Ransom will show the others how, if need be.”

I hate feeling so stupid.
“Thank you. How will I ever repay you for all your kindness?”

Mavis paused, then came over to stand right in front of Cassie. She clasped Cassie’s upper arms. “There is no payback here. You are your father’s daughter, and in my book that makes you family. Your father, Ivar, and I were the best of friends and then partners. God put us all together for a reason, many reasons in fact, and now we are privileged to be able to continue.”

“But your son . . .”

“I must confess that Ivar and I made a terrible mistake in not telling our family about the partnership. And now we are paying the price for that. Ransom will come around. He’s a fine man and honorable. We just need to be patient with him.”

We.
What a fine word. Cassie couldn’t speak, so she nodded.

“Good. Now let’s get that pie in there. I know Lucas is dying to talk to you about his new idea.”

“I will finish the dishes,” Runs Like a Deer said as she set another plate in the rinse water.

Mavis snorted. “On second thought, the men can wait a few minutes.”

Gretchen picked up a towel and a stack of four plates. Four at once? She dried the top and bottom of the stack with a few practiced swipes. Then she slipped the top plate to the bottom and dried top and bottom again. Again. Again. The stack was done.

Cassie realized she was staring. Not only did she have so much to learn, she was going to have to learn all the little tricks like this that made long chores much simpler. She picked up the last two plates and dried them as Gretchen had, an experiment. It worked.

“Will you show us some of your trick riding?” Gretchen asked, putting away the dishes that Cassie had dried.

“Of course. I need some practice. We could use the big corral.”

“Oh good. When?”

“Is tomorrow soon enough?”

“Right after school?”

“Wind Dancer will be real happy. Othello too.”

“Is he part of your act?”

Cassie nodded. “Both in the trick riding and the shooting.”

Gretchen turned to her mother, who was dishing up the pie. “Can Jenna come too?”

“If her mother says so.”

Gretchen asked, “Are you really going hunting tonight?”

“I believe so. I’ll need to go change clothes first. How far do we have to go? Or is the morning better?”

“Lucas hunts the most here. He shot the last ones right on the edge of the pasture.”

Mavis tidied up the last of the counter. Her kitchen, as always, was now spotless, another thing Cassie would have to learn.

“He got our last deer up the hill and over the ridge from the cabin. The deer bed down in the thickets up there. I’m surprised you’ve not seen any around the cabin yet.”

“Othello was barking during the night. Maybe he chased them away.”

Mavis ordered, “You carry the coffeepot, and Gretchen, you get the tray with cups. Runs Like a Deer and I will bring the pie.” Like a parade, the four of them filed into the other room. The men looked up from the antler buttons Lucas was showing them. When everyone was served, Cassie took her first bite of the pie. If anything could be better than cinnamon rolls, this was it. “Can I learn to make pies like this?”

“Mor makes the best apple pie of anyone, anywhere.” Lucas raised his plate in salute.

“It’s all in the crust. There’s more if anyone wants another piece.”

“Who all is going hunting?” Lucas asked, scraping the last of the pie juice from his plate.

“Chief and I. Micah, are you going?”

He shook his head. “I need to learn to shoot first.”

Lucas waved his fork at him. “Good point. We can set up targets out behind the house. I put one on the barn wall one time, and my pa about took my hide off. Put holes in the wood so rot could start. Not a wise move.”

“I’d like to go.”

Wide-eyed, the two Engstrom men stared at their mother.

Mavis looked from man to man. “Is that a problem?”

“Not at all. We’ll shoot ’em, and the others can do the dressing.”

Cocky was a good word for him. Were the elk so plentiful they’d get more than one if they got any? Cassie cleaned up the last of her pie. No wonder this was Lucas’s favorite dessert.

“Need to fire up the smoker. We can do a half in there, if need be.” Lucas again.

Mavis turned to Cassie. “I salt some down, but I have canned the meat too, when we got a warm spell. Smoking is our favorite way of preserving meat.”

“In strips like Chief smoked the venison?”

“Oh no. We cut some pieces, grind some, and smoke the rest in big chunks, like the shoulder, the loins, and the hindquarters. If it turns cold enough soon enough, we can freeze a lot of it.”

Cassie thought of the cold they’d experienced in the snowstorm that stopped them for a couple of days south of Dickinson. Anything left outside would have frozen, all right. She’d been afraid they would freeze inside the wagon. She glanced at Chief, who nodded.

“May we have the hides?” Runs Like a Deer asked.

“Of course. We have plenty. What did you do with the last one, Lucas?”

“It’s down in the barn, curing.”

“Oh. No, then we don’t want that one.” Runs Like a Deer shook her head. “Not when you are intending to use it.”

Lucas shook his head too. “We don’t have any plans for it. It’s just that we were raised to never throw away anything useful. You can always find a use for hides.”

“More coffee anyone?” Cassie raised the pot.

When they shook their heads no, Runs Like a Deer gathered up the plates and took them to the kitchen.

Mavis started to object, exchanged a look with the Indian woman, and acquiesced. “Thank you. When do you want to leave?”

Lucas shrugged. “Let’s wait until a little later in the afternoon. Say four o’clock? We’ll be riding.”

Her Sunday clothes tucked away in the chifforobe and her legs back in her familiar trousers, Cassie rode down into the Engstroms’ yard as the others were saddling their horses. Wind Dancer jigged in place and tossed his head, ready for a real ride. Cassie patted his shoulder and smiled down at Gretchen. “If you want to ride him sometime . . .”

“Oh, really?” Gretchen stood in front of the horse and held out a carrot chunk on the palm of her hand. Wind Dancer crunched it and nosed for another.

“You have made a friend for life. He bribes so pitifully easy. You know who else loves carrots?” When Gretchen shook her head, Cassie continued. “George. He grew up loving carrots. Not your normal buffalo feed, but no one told him he was a buffalo for a long time. He thought he was a horse. He and Wind Dancer were buddies.”

Mavis laughed and patted her mount’s shoulder. “Ah, this feels good. I need to ride more often.”

“Do you want me to fix something for supper?” Gretchen asked.

“I thought we’d have leftovers from dinner. We’ll heat them when we get back.”

“We could have fried liver,” Lucas suggested as he joined them.

“You are just too smug.” Gretchen shook her head at her brother. “Serves you right if you miss.”

Ransom nodded and tugged at her braid. “You tell him.”

“You’ll see. Let’s go.” Lucas and Chief urged their horses forward and led the group out past the corrals.

Cassie and Mavis rode side by side, something else new for Cassie. It had been so many years since she’d ridden with another woman. Not since her mother died. Her best friends on the show cast and crew had not been the other key performers but rather people who were pressed into service for the crowd scenes. None of them seemed to care to ride for pleasure. Everyone had multiple jobs to keep the show going.

“This is so beautiful,” she said, looking up toward the western hills. The sun was already starting to coast lower and paint the scene silver with just a touch of mist. Soon, Cassie knew, that silver would turn to gold.

Mavis sounded wistful. “I know, and I ask God to keep reminding me so that I never take this for granted. One of my favorite verses is, ‘I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills.’ I see God in the beauty all around us.”

“That’s something my mother would have said. She talked about the mountains of Norway the same way. There are no mountains like these back east. She would have loved it here.”

“I know your father did.”

Cassie had been thinking about all she had to learn about ranching. She didn’t even know many important things about her own father and his life before the show. In some ways this warm and welcoming lady knew more about her own background than she did.