Carla Kelly (13 page)

ulia cried then, wailing like a child in front of her startled employer, unable to stop herself. Mr. Otto whipped a frayed handkerchief out of his pocket and pressed it into her palm as her lips trembled and her hand shook.

Someone else came into the kitchen. Humiliated, Julia turned away and sobbed into the handkerchief. Whoever it was backed out the door. In another moment, she had the kitchen all to herself; even the scrabbling under the pile of clothes ceased. With the instinct that men—and mice?—possess, Mr. Otto and James chose discretion over valor.

Not one of the chairs was clean enough to sit on, so she stood in the middle of the kitchen, her skirt still tight against her ankles, and wailed into her employer's handkerchief. She could not recall a bout of weeping as profound as this one, interspersed with pity for herself, followed by so much anger at Mr. Otto that she even found herself looking around for a knife block.

She cried until her eyes burned. The only thing that eventually stopped her tears was the realization that her throat was as dry as alum. She made herself sit in a hide-backed chair, waiting for bugs to march over her in ranks. Nothing happened. “I have even frightened off the vermin,” she muttered.

The men had certainly disappeared. Julia felt another wave of embarrassment crash against her.
Julia Darling, even if you wouldn't keep a goat here, this is Mr. Otto's home, and you have frightened him away from it!
she scolded herself.

When she took a moment to think through her emotions, she had to admit only a fool would suppose that single men would keep an orderly kitchen.
There are four or five busy men on this place,
she thought as she looked around,
and no woman to insist on cleanliness.

She looked around the room, taking in the dust-covered icebox and the range. The range. Her eyes widened. “It can't be,” she said, scarcely breathing. “Not here. I'm dreaming.”

Julia got to her feet, moving slowly as though she did not wish to startle the object of her sudden interest.
Was I so agitated when I came in here that I overlooked this?
she asked herself in amazement. Keeping her dress tight around her, she squatted decorously in front of the massive cookstove. The afternoon light was going quickly, but she ran her finger over the raised letters on the oven door.

“The Queen Atlantic,” she whispered reverently. She stood up, admiring the beautiful lines of the range and thinking of the visit that the plain cooking class had made to the Portland Stove Showroom on Union Street. Miss Farmer had extolled the Queen's virtues right down to the keep-ash pit. “This is the last word in kitchen ranges,” Miss Farmer had pronounced. “I doubt we shall ever see a finer one.”

The gloss was long since gone from the Queen's surface. One claw foot curled under itself like a deformity with a block of wood to level the range. Julia tried to lift one of the stove lids, but it was anchored shut by a rim of grease, which had solidified and turned to concrete. She peeked in the water reservoir, but there was only a handful of bones. She shuddered and dropped the lid.

The warming oven contained the mummified remains of what might have been a loaf of bread. Someone had stuck a jar of grape jelly next to it. Greasy streaks formed a deckle around the splashboard and matched the solid fat covering the range. She wondered if someone had just cooked on the stove top, without benefit of pans.

Julia walked to the side of the range. Leaning over, she tapped on the stovepipe, listening for the echo found on a healthy specimen. “Your Majesty, that stuffy sound tells me you have far exceeded the Wyoming state creosote limit,” she announced, on sure footing now. “One good blaze in the firebox, and you would burn down this wonderful house. Oh, I am tempted.”

Could it be that this range has never been cleaned?
she asked herself. She pried the knife from the jelly jar, ran the blade around a stove lid until she could lift it, and peered inside. “My stars!” she exclaimed, staring at ashes that were level with the stove hole. She replaced the stove lid slowly, careful not to stir up ashes.

She peeked in the oven instead and coughed.
No one has ever cleaned this range,
she thought. She backed away from the range as the enormity of the work before her became amply clear.

It was a daunting thought, and one best not contemplated for too long on an empty stomach, she decided. She turned around, wishing the problem away. She opened the door next to the stove, into a small room that must be hers. She saw a bed frame with a fairly new mattress, a limp curtain on a string pulled back to reveal a row of clothes pegs next to a bureau with a drawer missing, and a washstand. “Home, sweet home,” she murmured and shut the door. “I don't know how I shall bear to part with all this in a year and return to Salt Lake.”

She opened the other door off the kitchen, which turned out to be the pantry. Julia sucked in her breath at the sound of scurrying feet and closed it quickly, but not before seeing kegs and barrels and smelling the pungent aroma of dried fish and mouse nests.

She opened the outside door and took a deep breath. There was no one in sight; the men must be hiding. No matter. The sun was going down in a flame of red and gold. Hand on the latch—there wasn't even a doorknob—she stood still and watched the sun set behind the tin can mound that distinguished the bunkhouse from the other nondescript outbuildings. The air was redolent with the fragrance of wood smoke: Mr. Otto's odor minus the bay rum.

Julia remembered where she stood and hurried away from the step beside the house's tower of cans. It was still light enough to read some of the labels. Probably the rest had been chewed off by glue-eating rats. Peaches and pears seemed to be the favorites in the ranch house, plus green beans and bully beef. She wondered if her employer had been eating his meals cold from the cans and surprised herself by feeling sorry for him. The moment passed.

She sniffed the air and salivated at the smell of meat cooking. She started toward the bunkhouse and then stopped, wondering at her effrontery. Her resolution wavered and then strengthened again.
I will not return to that … that shack with all those resident rodents,
she told herself.
At least, not alone.

The setting sun skimmed the mountains and then seemed to steel itself for the descent. Night was coming, and Julia debated her options. She took a deep breath and crossed the yard, with its dirt packed solid by years of feet, horses, and wagons. She looked back at the ranch house, thinking how it cried out for a row or two of zinnias to disguise its worst deficiencies. Really tall zinnias.

She stopped, realizing that it would never do to go inside without a plan. She thought of Miss Farmer, sitting at her desk and advising her soon-to-graduate students on the importance of confidence in the kitchen. “ ‘You are in charge,’ ” Julia remembered, and spoke the words softly. “ ‘Always have a plan, and remember that cooking in someone else's kitchen is only a business.’ ”

She thought it through, shivering a little as the sun dipped lower and the valley was cloaked in early darkness. “I will not cry,” she reminded herself. “This is a business. I doubt Mr. Otto cries for his cattle buyers when prices are low.”

The idea of Mr. Otto prostrated by tears was so ludicrous that she laughed, covering her mouth with her hand so no one in the bunkhouse would hear. She smiled to imagine her father at his desk in the bank, weeping when interest rates plummeted.

She took another deep breath and knocked on the bunkhouse door.
Now let us see what a diplomatist I am.

A man scarcely taller than she was opened the door and greeted her with a smile that displayed much enthusiasm but few teeth. He nodded and bowed. “Willy Bill, ma'am,” he said.

Touched in spite of her shyness, Julia held out her hand. “Mr. Bill, I am pleased to meet you.”

The man stared at her hand as though she had disconnected it from her wrist. James laughed from across the room when Willy Bill wiped his own hand on a vest no cleaner than the stove top. “I've never shook a lady's hand before,” he temporized.

“I've never been in a bunkhouse, sir,” she said. “I suppose there is a first time for everything.”

Willy Bill blushed beet red and looked over his shoulder. “Mr. Otto, she's got a hand like little bird bones! If I press too hard, will I break it?”

“I know, Bill,” her employer replied, and got up off the table where he was perched. “But Darling appears to be made of sterner stuff. She's still here, isn't she? Have a seat, Darling?”

I won't look before I sit. It's rude,
she thought, as she sat on the Nabisco box he offered. “Thank you, Mr. Otto,” she said with what she hoped passed for serenity. “Here it is: I am not of stern enough stuff to manage your kitchen in its present state.”

That's enough, Julia,
she advised herself as she waited for him to speak.
I will not say another word until my employer says something.
She held her hands tight together, so they would not shake.
Key West will freeze before I speak again. The Tower of Pisa will stop leaning.

Mr. Otto was in no hurry to speak. She thought for a moment that he was going to wait her out, but a glance into his eyes indicated some concern.
Either that or his stomach aches,
she told herself. Julia looked at the table where she sat, noticing all the tin cans.
I think it is the latter.

“Do you mean you won't stay?”

Something in the way he asked the question and some instinct of her own told her that she could leave, if she chose, despite the silly contract they had both signed. Maybe it was the tight way he held his lips; she couldn't help but think of her sister Iris as a child, when she expected some disappointment.

Whatever the expression meant, she gave her own interpretation. “Of course I will stay,” she replied quietly. “I signed a contract. Tomorrow morning you and your hands must move away every can beside the door of your house.”

Mr. Otto shook his head. “Can't. We have to stretch some fence in that west pasture right away before we—”

“No, Mr. Otto,” she interrupted, speaking no louder than before and drawing herself up to her full height. “When the cans are gone, and that … that pile of clothing is out in the yard, then you can tidy your fence and fetch your cattle.”

The redhead with the accent—it had to be Malloy—started to laugh but then clamped his hand over his mouth and turned away, his shoulders shaking. Willy Bill coughed until Julia wondered if she should thump him on the back. She hoped he would recover on his own; the idea of touching his greasy vest was almost more unpalatable than staring down Mr. Otto.

“And you will also find me a mouser,” she continued steadily.

“No cats.”

“A cat, Mr. Otto,” she repeated, wondering where all this courage was coming from. “One with long ears. Mama says they make the best mousers.”

Mr. Otto glared back at her, and no one moved in the small room.

Willy Bill had stopped coughing. Without taking her eyes from her employer, she spoke to him. “Mr. Bill, is there rat poison in the barn?”

“Mebbe.”

“I want it in the pantry tonight. You can sweep out the carcasses in the morning.”

“All them little corpses? That's women's work,” he protested.

“Do it,” Mr. Otto said abruptly.

“Yessir.”

Thank you, Heavenly Father,
Julia prayed silently.
I didn't think I could stare at him one more moment.
“The cans and the clothes?” she asked.

“Tomorrow morning.”

She couldn't tell if he was angry, but she thought he must be. “The cat?” she pressed.

“No promises.” He nodded to her then, and she knew she was dismissed. “Don't let us keep you up, Darling.”

I'm not high on your list right now,
she thought. She noticed James, who had been watching the whole exchange from the warmth and safety of a stool by the stove. She held out her hand to him. “It's too late for you to be up, James,” she said. “Come along with me.”

James looked at Mr. Otto, as she knew he would. To her relief, her employer nodded to him, then sat down and was soon in quiet conversation again with the men still seated at the table. She had no reason to remain there; she was being ignored. Her footsteps seemed loud as she crossed the room and let herself out the door, James clutching her hand.