Carla Kelly (27 page)

“The same. We can leave, if it goes south.”

Julia had watched this group earlier in the day, some of them riding and roping, like her husband, others sitting in chairs under the cottonwoods, the only men at the cow gather with chairs. She remembered some of them from last summer's range fires, sitting at her old kitchen table, some of them bleak, and others indignant, as though blaming God for making their empires vulnerable.

“Gentlemen, you wanted to meet Mrs. Otto,” Paul was saying as she looked around the little circle. All they needed was a round table in front of them, a deck of cards, and poker chips. “Here she is. Some of you remember her.”

The men nodded. A few of them stood up. Y
our mothers raised you right
, she thought, linking her arm through Paul's again.

They were looking at her, expecting something. Maybe she should remember her manners too. “Gentlemen, it's a pleasure to meet you,” she told them. “You are always welcome to our home on the Double Tipi, if you're in the neighborhood.” She wanted to cross her fingers behind her back, thinking how rude they had been to her husband.

Some smiled, some did not.

“You're a good cook,” Malcolm Clyde said. He poured amber liquid into his shot glass and held it up to her, as if in salute. She felt Paul's arm stiffen.

“Thank you, sir,” she said. “Now if you'll excuse me, I have to do a mound of dishes for Cookie.”

“Maybe
you
should stay awhile. The black man can do his own dishes,” Clyde said. “We'll fill you in on your husband's Denver exploits. Paul ever tell you about his checkered career at Mattie Daw's?”

Julia felt the blood drain from her face. This was worse than flies. She hadn't the courage to look at Paul, but from the startled expressions on some of the smug faces in the circle, she knew he was giving them his squinty-eyed stare.

“Let's go, Julia,” he said, through clenched teeth.

“In a moment, my dear.”
Help me, Heavenly Father
, she prayed. “Of course he told me about Mattie Daw. He also told me about Jennie Rogers and her House of Mirrors.” If Paul could glare to good effect, she could see what serenity did to this group of men she hoped never to lay eyes on again. She forced herself to look around that smug circle, stopping for a moment on Mr. Kaiser's stricken face. She smiled at him, grateful all over again for his help at the river. “Mattie Daw is old news, gentlemen, and it's over. So is this conversation. Good day.”

“One more thing. You're making SOB stew tomorrow?”

She flinched at the baldness of the word. “I wouldn't miss it,” she said. One of the ranchers laughed. She dug her toes into the soles of her shoes. “You're still welcome at our home, every one of you.”

“Not if it's warm liver salad.”

Julia suddenly remembered large indignities and small ones in Boston during cooking school, and thought about Paul's comment last year about Mormons being fair game. “That warm liver salad is destined to follow me to the ends of the earth, I suppose,” she told them. She could feel Paul relaxing slightly. “Nothing much has changed at the Double Tipi, except that neither of us holds with cussing…” She glanced at Paul. “… In the house, anyway,” she added, relieved to hear some chuckles now. “And one or the other of us always asks a blessing on the food.” She sighed. “Even on the warm liver salad. Good night. So pleased to make your acquaintance.”

She forced herself to walk slowly with Paul.
Never show fear, never show fear
, she thought until she heard her husband take a deep breath.

“I hate those men now,” he said, his voice ragged.

“They don't know any better. I hope I killed them with kindness.” She leaned against his shoulder as they walked steadily away from his former friends. “Paul, do you have the feeling that this roundup isn't just my initiation as a greenhorn, but yours too as a Mormon?”

“Are we passing?” he asked her, and his bleak tone pained her heart. He was a proud man, not used to such treatment.

“Probably the only person who could answer that would be Mr. Kaiser. He looked pretty shocked.”

“Odd. He's the one who told me I wasn't welcome anymore. I don't know, Julia.”

She washed dishes in silence, while Paul talked with Doc and Matt. When she finished, he walked her to the river. They stood there a long time, watching the water.

“Sonofagun stew looks dreadful, and I can't prepare you for that,” he told her finally. “You'll be on your own.”

“I'm never on my own, Paul,” she said quietly, then stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. She laughed. “Have I told you before that I like the way your moustache tickles my nose?”

“Boy howdy, can you change a subject, sport.” He patted her. “That hickey of mine is starting to fade.”

“Guess I'd better give you a new one, when we get home.”

If there was a worse mess than sonofagun stew, Julia wasn't sure what it could be. Her stomach lurched when some of the cowboys brought her a heaping bucket of what Cookie called innards, after the noon meal. She was struck by the serious looks on the men's faces. There was none of the joshing and ribald commentary that accompanied the Rocky Mountain oysters yesterday. Word of her treatment by their bosses must have leaked out. The very air at the cow gather seemed charged now.

“I'll do my best,” she told them.

“We thought you would, ma'am,” the bravest among them said, tipping his Stetson to her.

“Cookie, this might defeat me,” she said, after they walked away. “What on earth do I do?”

“How about ‘we’?” he growled, which touched her heart. “I'll stay by you.”

Her knees felt weak as Cookie poured off most of the blood, then started pointing at the various parts in the pan. “Sweetbreads, lung, liver, brain, marrow gut—that's important—tongue, heart, kidney. You'll want to boil that tongue first, and pull off the skin. They left you the skirt steak too. Let's—”

“Cookie!”

They both looked up, startled. Angus and Malcolm Clyde came striding toward the chuck wagon. Malcolm pointed to the ground in front of him.

“We need you here, Cookie.”

“Yessuh. Just let me show—”

“Now!”

“They're going to make you leave me alone,” she whispered. “Just tell me what to do.”

She watched the strain on his face, sorry he had been put in such a position.

Cookie opened his mouth, and Angus Clyde shouted, “Now! She can ask God to help her!”

“I hate them,” Cookie whispered. “I never knew how much until now, but I have to work, Miz Otto. You understand.”

“I do,” she said clearly, her head up. “I cut it up small? What about the brains?” She gulped as her gorge rose.

He was walking away from her now, leaving her alone. “Put the brains in last, about fifteen minutes before you serve it,” he called. “Squish'um.”

The Clyde brothers laughed. She looked at them, calling on every ounce of calm she had ever possessed, and nodded. The cowboys standing around looked at each other. No one spoke.

She found the biggest pot and tried to lift it, until she felt a sharp pain in her shoulder that made her wince.

“She can't do that!” Cookie shouted. “Let me lift it for her!”

“No, Cookie. I'll be fine. Just get Paul.”

“He's not getting anyone. Your Mormon doesn't need to do woman's work.”

There it is
, she thought.
Now I know
.

One of the cowboys swore and started forward.

“Take another step, Wagner, and you're off my crew,” Malcolm Clyde shouted. “No one will ever hire you again on this range.”

“You're on the Double Tipi payroll as of right now,” Paul snapped, and he walked toward Julia, coming from the direction of the branding area, an iron smoking in his hand.

With a grin, the cowboy beat him there, lifting the pot for Julia. “Name's Colby Wagner, ma'am,” he said. “I'm a good wrangler, Mr. Otto.”

“You're a gentleman too. Find Matt Malloy and give him a hand with my beeves. We're finishing up. I'll help the cook. You're riding for my brand now.” He handed Wagner the iron. “In fact, here it is.”

“You okay, sport?” Paul asked.

She nodded, rubbing her shoulder. “I did need some help, but you're not going to do my work. I have to do this myself. Just tell me how small to cut these parts.”

“Really small. Put in just enough water to cover them and let'um boil. Save the brains for last.”

“Seasonings?”

“Salt. Pepper, if you're adventurous.” He kissed her cheek, then rubbed the frown between her eyes. He whispered so their audience couldn't hear him. “Don't worry about the Clydes! They've never been my friends, so there's no love lost.” He looked around. “No Alice? No Elinore?”

“Alice and Max already left. I'm not sure where Elinore—”

“Right here!”

Julia looked around and clapped her hands. “Bravo! But didn't you faint over Rocky Mountain oysters once?”

“What a ninny I was. Shoo, Paul. We'll be fine.”

The flies came back in abundance, but Julia kept her head down, cutting quickly. She had trimmed many a tongue of its skin back in Boston in the cooking school, so she spared the very green and wobbly Elinore Cuddy that experience.
You've done this all before in Boston, just not in these amounts
, she told herself over and over, as she diced and minced her way through the endless afternoon, until everything except the brains was bubbling in the pot.

Paul came back when she was stirring the mess. He looked in. “Ah, you added an onion,” he said. “One's enough. No sense in muddling up a good stew. Want to visit the river again?”

“I've run out of clean clothes. I'll just wash my hands and keep going.”

“Why aren't you puking over this?” he asked.

“I owe it all to Fannie Farmer,” she told him as she pushed up her sleeves and washed her hands and face, driving away a few flies. “We spent a whole week on sweetbreads. My classmates dropped like flies.” She couldn't help a glance at the brains, covered in a bloody cloth, with flies circling overhead like vultures. “Not so sure about brains, except the Clyde brothers must share one between the three of them.”

Paul laughed. He looked around. “Where's Elinore?”

“Lying down. She was looking puny.”

“I almost hate to ask: have you tasted it yet?”

She shook her head. “I'm not that brave, Paul, no matter what you think.”

He took a spoon. She flinched as he sampled the grayish-green mess in the pot.

“It's missing something.” He lifted the cloth over the brains, which upset the flies. “Ah! Sport, you left out the marrow gut.”

“It didn't look like anything I've ever seen before,” she said, highly dubious.

He brushed away the flies and set the tube of marrow gut on the slimy cutting board. He handed her the knife. “It's a part found in unweaned calves. Cut it in small rings and add it. Marrow gut makes all the difference.”

She did as he said, trying not the think about the little calves she enjoyed watching as they cavorted almost like lambs in the pastures on the Double Tipi. She held her breath as she added it to the stew, trying not to retch. It was one thing to cut up all the innards, but quite another to stir them around.

Before he had been ordered away, Cookie had produced an enormous pot of chili. Through the hot afternoon, she stirred the chili and kept an eye on the sonofagun stew. None of the cowboys said anything as they trailed by the chuck wagon for coffee and the last of the lemonade, but she felt the sympathy in their eyes. One of them got brave enough to whisper, “He… heck, Mrs. Otto, we all started out green on the trail.” He blushed fiery red, but none of his bunkies teased him.

“How does this work?” she asked Elinore, as suppertime approached. “Is it like all the other meals?”

“Pretty much. The bosses always go first. Since the Clydes are the gather bosses this year, they go first.” Elinore took a deep breath and puffed out her cheeks. “You can't avoid it, Julia. You have to put in the brains.”

Julia managed a tiny smile, if only because Elinore was looking green again. “I'll toss you for it,” she joked. “Heads, I put it in; tails, I put it in, and we both go lie down and die.”

Elinore put her hand to her mouth and started toward her tent. As Julia watched, she stopped, her hand still to her mouth, and turned around. With what looked like a massive attempt to control her insides, Elinore started walking back to Julia. Her eyes narrowed as she stared at the pan. “I can't abandon you to this mess,” she declared.

“Elinore, believe me, I understand if you don't want to—”

“Here goes, Julia,” Elinore said, a study in grim determination. She pulled back the cloth, stared at the convoluted gray mass, and squished it between her fingers.

“Bravo,” Julia said and joined Elinore, shuddering as she worked her fingers through the brains.

“Tomorrow I am back to the Double Tipi and my own bed,” Julia said, more to herself than to Elinore, whose resolve had stiffened her. As she tightened her lips, Julia felt that peculiar drooling that always preceded a good puke and forced it down.

When the brains were reduced to small particles, Julia picked up the pan and dumped it into the larger pot. The smell that rose like an evil cloud made her dizzy. She turned away to wash her hands and sank to her knees. Elinore reached her quickly and helped her to her feet.

“I think I stumbled into a hole,” she said, embarrassed. “Thank you.”

She washed her hands, wretched with humiliation, wondering why none of the cowboys waiting for supper laughed. She turned slowly around to face the Clyde brothers, watching her and gloating. “Give it another minute or two,” she told them, digging down deep and finding dignity somewhere.

Julia stood behind the trench fire, hands clasped tight together. She sighed in relief as Paul approached. He started toward her, but one of the Clydes reached out to stop him.

“We're the gathering bosses,” Malcolm Clyde said. “Where are your manners?”

Paul just gave the three men a withering look. He walked behind the trench fire. “Sorry I couldn't be here sooner. Angus and Malcolm sent me on a tomfool errand. Is it done, Julia?”

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.