Carla Kelly (17 page)

“He
is
gasping a bit,” Doc replied, more amused than alarmed. “Julia, just hold him like that, and I'll whack him. Ready?”

She wasn't, but she tightened her arms around Mr. Otto. Doc casually tugged out the rancher's shirt and felt his ribs through his union suit. “Don't you think you should…?” she started.

“Who's the doctor here?” he asked mildly.

“I have no idea,” she snapped, not even trying to hide her irritation and worry. When Doc thumped his employer's back, Julia felt the blow right through her body too.

Mr. Otto gasped and started to breathe again. Julia started to breathe along with him, so great was her own relief. Doc knelt beside her and tugged up Mr. Otto until his head rested against her shoulder. “Can't let him think too many naughty thoughts,” he said companionably as she blushed fiercely but did not loosen her grip.

She also wished he would take another breath, but he seemed to have forgotten. “Mr. Otto, do breathe again,” she pleaded.

“Lord love you, he will, Miss Darling,” commented Matt Malloy, coming up to enjoy the show. “He's just embarrassed because every one of us—and the new cook—saw him pulling leather.”

“What on earth are you talking about?” she burst out.

“You don't grab the saddle horn,” Matt said as he squatted beside her and took a good look at his boss. “That was my first lesson here at the Double Tipi. He's not pinking up much, Doc,” he observed. “Looks more like plumber's putty.”

“He
doesn't
pink up, Malloy,” Doc said wearily. “You wouldn't either, if you were some part Injun. That's better, boss. In and out.”

Julia could have sobbed with relief. Doc sat next to her and reached for Mr. Otto. “Julia, let me have him now. When he regains his senses, he's going to be more irate than you've seen him yet, and I can't vouch for his language.”

She did as he said and walked away. Not looking back and stopping only to grasp the culprit stovepipe with the end of her apron, she gave it a good shake. Creosote and the relics of many a failed dinner oozed out into an oily rainbow that puddled on the ground at her feet. She felt Mr. Otto's eyes boring into her back as she crossed the yard. The kitchen step was only a stride away when he spoke to her.

“Darling, I have only one suggestion in the future,” he called out.

She turned around but was too afraid to look at him.

Matt Malloy was beside her, having followed her. “You'll probably hear words you've never heard before, miss,” he whispered out of the corner of his mouth. She nodded and gritted her teeth. She held her breath as she looked at Mr. Otto and then let it out slowly. There was nothing in his face to frighten her. He didn't glare or even frown.

“Just … just warn me next time, Darling,” he said, and then let Doc help him up.

That was all, and the effort of so many words left him trying to breathe. She tried not to stare as he accepted his hat from James and mounted his horse again. Julia watched until he and Doc were just specks on the other side of the pasture. “I didn't expect that,” she said to Matt. “I certainly didn't deserve it.”

She wanted to be by herself then, to clean in peace, to wear herself out with work so she could point to some progress by the time Mr. Otto returned that evening, but the Irishman appointed himself her assistant and stayed with her the whole, long day. James bounced in and out, sticking mouse tails in the mason jar and pointing out each new addition until she felt distinctly queasy. Or her nausea may have been caused by the fumes that came in waves from the cookstove as she doggedly scraped down through the layers of grease and burned food.

The first shock was the worst. She opened the oven door to find a roasting pan inside. Lifting the lid cautiously, she gasped to see the desiccated remains of baby chicks. At her exclamation, Matt left the storeroom where he was working and peered over her shoulder. “So that's where they went,” was his only comment.

Hours later, covered with soot, her eyes red-rimmed and sore, Julia shook her head when Matt offered to bring her some dinner from the bunkhouse. “I just can't face it,” she told him, and continued scraping soot and ashes from the Queen Atlantic. She flayed herself with her thoughtlessness in blowing out the stovepipe, reliving it again and again until finally she could only kneel before the open oven and rest her forehead on the door.
I could have killed him,
she thought.

She wanted to cry, but Matt was in the storeroom. She sat up to look at all he had accomplished—the room swept out, the stale food tossed into a burlap sack, and the moribund mice transported outside on a shovel and left for James to discover. Matt must have sensed her need for silence because he hardly said a word all afternoon. And here he was now with wet cloths to wipe down the shelves.

“Here, you need this, too,” he said as he squatted on his haunches beside the oven door.

Gratefully, Julia wiped her face and arms with the wet towel he handed her. She sat on the floor then and leaned against the Queen Atlantic.

“Doc made up some boric acid for winter blindness,” he said. “I'll get you some and a little cotton wadding.”

She nodded her thanks and sat there, wordless with exhaustion and regret until he returned. She dabbed the solution around her eyes and sighed with relief.

“If you stop every now and then and wash your face and do your eyes, you'll feel better,” he murmured as he pushed the cork back in the bottle. “No sense in flogging yourself anymore.”

“I could have killed him, Matt,” she said, fighting back the tears, “but he didn't even raise his voice.”

“Don't think he was able, miss,” Matt began, “not after a tumble from a horse that tall.”

“Don't joke about it,” she begged. “That was more forbearance than I deserved.”

Matt nodded and leaned against the icebox. “Can I tell you how I met Mr. Otto?”

She nodded, wondering what it had to do with her own private purgatory but too tired to ask.

“It was winter, and I was rooting around in the garbage behind the Trail Cafe. You know, right there by the U.P. depot in Cheyenne?”

She nodded again, remembering the worn out building. The café had looked none too prosperous, and she could not imagine that a tour through that garbage would yield anything edible.

“I'm Irish, and no one would hire me,” he said simply. “I'm sure you've seen those signs too where you come from, right?”

She had, even in Salt Lake City. “I thought the Irish stayed in big cities like Boston or—”

“Not me,” he interrupted, as if he wanted to finish his story. “I got to Chicago, found my uncle, took one look at his two-room flat and six little ones…” His voice trailed off.

“You couldn't impose,” she finished, rubbing the wet cloth around her neck.

“I couldn't. I went to the depot, handed the agent all my money, and asked how far it would get me,” Matt said. “Cheyenne or maybe New Orleans, he told me, if I wanted to go south on another line and wasn't too particular. I went west.”

She couldn't help smiling. “After Nauvoo, Illinois, my own relatives weren't too particular about where they ended up, either.”

“So there I was in Cheyenne, seventeen, more hungry than I had ever been … even in Ireland.” He shook his head. “It was winter, of course. There were cowhands all over town looking for work. Why should anyone hire me?”

“Why, indeed?” she murmured.

He sat at the table and leaned forward. “I don't know how long he stood there at the alley mouth, watching me—he's kind of quiet when he walks.”

“I've noticed.”

“The morning train from the East had pulled in. Something he said later told me he must have been in Chicago, but I do not think it was the Chicago I knew. He had on a handsome overcoat and a really nice suit and gent's hat. Shoes too, and they were shiny.”

Julia couldn't picture it, but she said nothing. James stood in the doorway, eager to show her his mason jar again, but Matt waved him away.

“He squatted down right by me in that muddy alley and offered me a job,” Matt concluded. “He didn't ask if I could rope, or … or even sit on a horse.” He looked at the floor then. “I told him I was Irish and didn't know anything about stock. All he did was ask if I thought I could learn.”

Julia nodded, remembering Mr. Otto's question about the coffee. “You took the job,” she said, wanting him to continue.

“Aye, miss, I did.” He looked at her then, and she was struck by the amazement in his eyes, as though the incident had happened only last week. “I'm sure I looked like a cadaver, and I know I stunk, but he took me into a really nice restaurant—”

“Not the Trail Café!”

“No! I ate until I was full. Then he bought me clothes and even some leather gloves. He said I would need those for riding.” He stopped, looked at her, and then swallowed and continued. “I couldn't help it. I started crying on the train ride to Gun Barrel, but all he did was hand me a handkerchief, tip his hat over his eyes, and go to sleep.”

“I've already cried in one of his handkerchiefs,” Julia confessed.

He smiled then, his melancholy gone. “I'd be betting that most of us here have, Miss Darling.”

“Just Julia.” She stood up and began applying the putty knife again to the stove top. “What did you do all winter here?”

Matt went back into the storeroom with the wet cloths, and she heard him wiping down the shelves. “He taught me to read, and we practiced roping in the barn.” He stepped into the kitchen to look at her. “When he finished practicing with me each day, I kept going until I had blisters on my blisters, even through the gloves.”

She looked at her hands and the spots that already felt tender and then wiped the grease in the lard bucket that Matt had provided earlier. “You've been here a while then?” she asked.

“Going on eight years now,” he said. “Fancy this, Julia. I even get offers from other stockmen at every roundup. Some offer me more kale to work for them, but could I leave here?”

No, you couldn't,
she thought, as she directed her attention to the cookstove. “The others?” she asked finally. “No one would hire them either?”

“I suppose.” He came out of the storeroom, looked at her, and took the putty knife away. “I'll do that for a minute. You sit down.”

She didn't but took the cloth from him and went into the storeroom to continue his task. “Not even Willy Bill? He looks like he has always known what to do.”

Matt laughed. “Especially Willy Bill!” He came to the storeroom door. “No one wanted him at all.” He came closer and lowered his voice. “He and a partner spent the winter of ‘86 snowed into a line shack at the Two Bar. When spring came, there was just Willy Bill and the other gent's heels and palms left.”

Julia shuddered. “He didn't…?”

“Old Willy claims the man died of starvation.” He shrugged. “Maybe he did. Anyway, he didn't waste a morsel. Boss hired him anyway. We made him promise that Willy Bill wouldn't do any of the cooking.”

Julia laughed and applied herself with more vigor to the shelves.
What on earth do I dare write my parents about this place?
she thought. She heard the Irishman scraping some more, until even he had to stop. He looked into the storeroom. “Clean enough for you?” he asked.

She nodded, wondering what she would use for shelf paper and what would air out the odor of mice. “Thanks, Matt.”

He nodded. “Boss told me to help you, but I was going to anyway.” He handed her the broom. “He's probably already told you how James came here.”

“Yes. What about the old German who doesn't say anything?”

“Kringle? He can't ride much anymore, but he's a genius with making and repairing harnesses,” Matt said as he took the dirty cloths and added them to the lard bucket. “He rides in the wagon at roundup, and everyone uses his services. I don't even know if Boss was aware of that skill when he hired him.”

“Then why…?” Julia swept the scraps from the floor onto the piece of shirt cardboard that Matt held down for her and began a mental list of things to look for on her next trip into Gun Barrel—a new stovepipe, dustpan, more resolve.

“I asked Boss once,” he said, dumping the contents in the bucket. “I think it embarrassed him. He mumbled something about the fact that we're all beggars, one way or another, and that was all he would say about it.”

“Odd,” Julia agreed, but she surprised herself by returning to the Queen Atlantic with a little more enthusiasm than she had felt before their conversation.
I am most definitely not a beggar,
she told herself as she scraped away.
I don't need this job like Mr. Otto's other employees.

He glanced out the open door. “Willy Bill's calling. Are you far enough along here?”

“Yes.” She smiled at him. “Thanks, Matt.”

Her conversation with Matt Malloy was enough to fuel her through the rest of the afternoon. Standing upright with her hand on the small of her back, Julia stopped only long enough to direct the unloading of the wagon, with her crates and the supplies from Gun Barrel.

Brave words,
she chided herself later as the late afternoon sun slanted into the kitchen and she felt herself no farther along on the Queen Atlantic than she was hours ago when she started. After a carefully superintended washing of his hands and the promise never to bring that jar full of mouse tails into the kitchen again, James had done as she directed and replaced the storeroom items that Matt had so carefully cleaned for her. While she watched, unwilling to touch the staples herself in her present state of sootiness, he filled the sugar canister and the flour bin and lined up her purchases on the shelves. She could only shake her head over all those maraschino cherries, which looked remarkably out of place now. Her hands were too dirty to touch her extra copy of the Book of Mormon—smelling sweetly of cloves—so she had James set it on the shelf too. The bananas, still relentlessly green, went on a hook by the window.