The Measure of Katie Calloway,: A Novel (4 page)

4

Then he took me to cook camp

and rigged me out neat:

an old stove and two kettles,

a full rig complete.

“Budd Lake Plains”
—1800s shanty song

“We’re staying in a hotel?” Ned asked as they left the restaurant. “Isn’t that expensive?”

Katie fingered the greenbacks folded into her pocket and wondered if Robert Foster would truly come for them tomorrow morning. Or would he change his mind and ask for his money back?

As she hesitated on the crowded wooden sidewalk, someone accidentally bumped into her. She found herself thrust against a bejeweled and heavily powdered woman whom she almost knocked down.

“I’m so sorry!” She grabbed the woman’s arm to steady her.

“Oh, that’s all right, honey.” The woman winked, and Katie saw that she was older than she had first thought. “This isn’t the first time I’ve been knocked around.”

Katie caught her breath. Although she was certain the woman didn’t mean anything by what she said, the words still cut to the core of her own experience.

“You all right?” The woman peered at her. “You look kinda pale.”

It was strange, Katie thought, to hear such common words coming from such a well-dressed personage. The bustled dress was watered purple silk, the gloves immaculate white, the large diamond earrings dazzling in the bright sun.

The woman looked as though she could have presided over one of the finest pre-war mansions in the South—except that the colors of her clothing were a mite loud, and the sound of her voice a bit coarse, and her décolleté a little too revealing.

“I—I’m all right,” Katie said.

“Are you new in town, honey?”

“We just got off the train.”

The woman’s eyes swept her up and down. “You looking for work?”

“I was.”

“I got a place over on Water Street. Real nice. Classy joint. I can always use another good worker. I pay good too. We could find a place for the boy—maybe helping out in the kitchen.”

“Really?” Katie was stunned. Her gamble in coming to this busy town had been inspired. Two job offers in one day! Things were certainly different in the North.

“Some of my clients would pay big money for a pretty little redhead like you.” She glanced down at the bundle Katie held. “Of course we’d have to do something with those hands of yours. Our clientele don’t fancy rough hands.”

Katie gaped as the woman’s meaning became clear. She ran a bordello and was offering her a job as a—a . . .

“Oh, honey.” The woman smiled. “Now I’ve gone and shocked you. I’m sorry. There was just something in your eyes that made me think you’ve been through some rough times your own self. A lot of girls who come to work for me have that beaten-down look. My mistake.” She shrugged, but her eyes were calculating. “Of course, if you’d like to come on over to Water Street, you could rest your feet and we could discuss things over a nice cup of tea.”

The words, spoken in a grandmotherly voice, felt like a slap.

“Hello, Delia,” a cool, masculine voice spoke up. “You aren’t trying to hire Mrs. Smith away from me, now are you?”

Katie whipped around and saw Robert Foster standing beside her. A cigar was clenched between his teeth.

“Long time no see, Foster. Where you been keeping yourself?” Delia rocked back on her heels and smiled up at him as though she were an old friend. “This girl is working for you?” She gave a great belly laugh. “I can’t see
her
bucksawing logs.”

He glanced at Katie and removed his hat. “Mrs. Smith, let me introduce you to Miss Delia Flowers. She runs one of Bay City’s better known houses of . . .” He looked at Ned and scratched his head as he searched for a proper word. “Ill repute.”

“Ill repute?” Delia scowled. “I resent that. My place is classy.”

“And I resent you lifting a year’s worth of paid labor off my men each time the spring river drive comes in.”

“They get their money’s worth.”

Robert took the half-chewed cigar from his mouth. “No, Delia. They don’t. Half of them end up drugged and rolled for every nickel they’ve got.”

Delia’s face turned red. “Not at my place.” Her fists clenched.

It was an odd thing, Katie thought, to see such lovely clothes on a woman who appeared willing and able to engage in fisticuffs with Robert right on the spot.

Again Robert glanced down at Ned, who was watching the scene with rapt attention.

“A truce for now, Delia. Please.” He dropped his cigar and ground it out with the heel of his boot. “Mrs. Smith is my new camp cook. A respectable widow from Ohio who, no doubt, has just been shocked right down to her toes by your offer.”

“Not as shocked as you might think.” Delia looked at her, assessing her like a prime side of beef. “But Mrs. Smith might have to get a lot hungrier before she accepts my offer.”

Katie was mortified and concerned for Ned. She considered putting her hands over his ears. And eyes.

“Come along, Mrs. Smith.” Robert took her elbow and firmly steered her away from the angry prostitute.

Delia fired one final shot as they walked away. “You’ll work like a slave in that camp, honey. You’ll get up at two in the morning to make breakfast for a bunch of stinking shanty boys. You’ll put in sixteen hours of hard labor before you fall into bed each night. Then you’ll do it all over again. Day after day. For two measly dollars a day. At my house you’d sleep till noon and other people would cook for
you
!”

“I think I’d better accompany you to the hotel before someone else tries to hire you away from me,” Robert said as Delia’s voice faded.

“Was that woman . . . serious?”

“Yes. Being a camp cook is hard work.”

“No, I mean about . . .” She swallowed hard. “About . . . that other thing.”

“She was dead serious. Michigan is the lumber capital of the world. Loggers are arriving from all over.”

“But I would never, ever . . .”

“I know.”

“But . . .”

“Don’t let Delia get to you.” He gripped her elbow more tightly. “Let’s just get you safely settled in the hotel. It might be best if I made you a list of things you’ll need. It’ll make your shopping go faster. You only have a few hours before the stores close, and as I said, we leave at dawn.”

“You hired a dad-blamed
woman
?” The wiry old man was so furious he was shaking. His sparse gray beard trembled in indignation.

Robert hadn’t seen this coming. He had forgotten just how territorial Jigger could be about the cook shanty, which he ruled with an iron fist. It had been foolish to hire another cook without factoring in the old man’s pride.

“I had no choice. You aren’t fit.” He glanced around the tiny room that was situated above one of Bay City’s many saloons. Jigger had once again managed to spend an entire season’s pay in one glorious and ill-conceived splurge after finishing the spring log drive. Even though he was past seventy, he had fought and sung his way through all the dives of Bay City, challenging men twice his size to battle. Now, he was broke both physically and financially and had been living on Robert’s generosity ever since May, waiting for October when he could go back and preside over the cook shanty again.

It was a feast or famine mentality that most loggers possessed and which Robert understood only too well. The work was hard, the dangers great, the pleasures few. Most of the shanty boys, the term with which loggers referred to themselves, spent every dime they made within two or three weeks after the spring river drive—mainly, in Robert’s opinion, from sheer relief that they were still alive.

Robert didn’t indulge in the shanty boys’ three “B’s”—bars, brawls, and brothels—something Bay City was entirely too quick to provide. He had responsibilities, a business to run, and two children to support.

“I don’t need a stupid woman cluttering up my kitchen.” Jigger spit a stream of tobacco juice at a clay spittoon sitting in the corner—and missed. “I still got me one good arm.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Which you will
use
to help Mrs. Smith learn the ropes of cooking for thirty men.”

“I ain’t gonna to teach her nothin’, except . . .” Jigger wriggled his bushy eyebrows.

Robert bristled. “She’s a decent woman. A widow. You’ll treat her with respect or you will be working in some haywire camp so quick it’ll make your head swim—if you can find one to hire you.”

The leer on Jigger’s face was replaced by sober reflection. No one wanted to work at a haywire camp. The term had been coined because of the wire teamsters saved from the bundles of hay they shook out for their horses and oxen. Too much haywire holding things together meant a badly run camp and probably a dangerous one. Owners of haywire camps were so desperate that they sometimes kidnapped shanty boys and forced them to work at gunpoint.

“I could find work somewhere else besides a haywire camp.”

“Not with a broken arm, and you’re not getting any younger.”

Jigger scowled. “I’ve
forgotten
more about feeding hungry men than most camp cooks learn in a lifetime.”

“You were one of the best.”

“Were?” Jigger’s voice rose in indignation. “Were?” He rose to his full height, which came to Robert’s chin. “I’ll have you know that I can still run faster, spit farther, jump higher, and belch louder than any sorry-eyed shanty boy in the business!”

Robert smiled inwardly. He had hoped to rile Jigger enough to keep him sober until they got back to camp.

“Pull yourself together, Jigger. I need you. The woman I hired will make your work easier—that’s all.”

“She won’t be boss cook?”

Robert considered. “Not unless you want her to be.”

“I’ll still be the boss?”

“You’ll rule the roost—as long as you treat her with respect.”

“I’d never lay a hand on a respectable woman, you know that. Neither would any of the rest of the boys.”

“I’m counting on it. Now help me check over the provisions I’ve ordered. We’re leaving tomorrow morning.”

The old cook drew himself up with dignity, a broken-down racehorse anxious to get back to the track. Jigger knew the lumber business inside and out, and he knew how to cook for a crew of hungry men. It was about all he knew, but he knew it well.

“I’ll pack up my turkey.” The old man dredged a worn feed sack from beneath the sagging bed. “You’re gonna need me real bad if all you got is a dad-blamed woman workin’ in the kitchen.”