Carla Kelly (21 page)

She closed the door behind her, set the cake into the wagon by the porch, and showed James where to put the can of oatmeal. The sun was high overhead now.

“I need a hat,” she said out loud, wishing she had brought her straw hat from home.

“Mr. Otto has one. I'll get it.” He ran back inside.

“No, James!” she called, but he was gone. He came back with a straw hat with a pink ribbon tail and silk rose on the brim. “My goodness,” she said as he held it out to her.

“It's in his room,” James said. “I think there was a lady here once.”

“I believe you're right,” she said and took the hat from him. It fit perfectly. She knew she should have put it back, but she didn't want to disappoint James. “This is just right,” she announced.

Tugging the wagon behind her, she and James walked to the river, which was so low that they crossed easily on the stones without getting their feet too wet. “Is it always this low?” she asked.

“In the fall. After it snows and spring comes, there's lots of water. Mr. Otto won't let me play here in the spring.”

“You always do what he says, don't you?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Mostly.”

They crossed the river, steadied the wagon, and continued on the trail worn smooth by years of horses and wagons. James skipped a little ahead of her, whacking at the buffalo grass with a stick he found. She watched him, a smile on her face, and remembered doing just that with Iris when her mother went visiting teaching years ago and took them along.

I suppose this is my visiting teaching itinerary now,
she thought but then brushed away the idea with a pang of guilt.
Except that I believe Mr. Otto would be angry if he knew I was taking food to the very people the ranchers want to starve out of this valley.
She stopped, wondering if she should continue. James skipped ahead, oblivious to her guilty conscience. She started walking again, after assuring herself that Mr. Otto would be so pleased with the renovation in the parlor that he wouldn't ask how it had happened. She didn't think it was more than a half mile from the ranch to the turn-off to the main road. The day was warm, but there was just enough nip in the breeze to remind her that it was September.

James joined her on the main road, a little less exuberant as they approached the bend before the Rudiger's shack. “Do we know them, Mr. Darling?” he asked. “Do you think they will be angry?”

“No, I do not,” she replied. “We're paying a friendly visit, and we need Mr. Rudiger's help. Besides, we have to return their wagon.”

Ursula Rudiger was pumping water beside the house when they came into the clearing. The wagon made plenty of noise, so she looked up, startled, but then set down the bucket and ran into the house, closing the door behind her.

“Uh-oh,” James said under his breath. “Is she afraid of us?”

“I think so,” Julia replied, her voice equally low. “She must think we're angry about the cans. Chin up, James. We have a good deed to do.”

She didn't feel confident as she crossed the yard, tugging the noisy wagon, and knocked on the door. After a long moment it opened, and Mr. Rudiger stood in the doorway, his arms folded. “Good afternoon, Mr. Rudiger,” she said, and held out her hand. “We wanted to return your wagon.”

She didn't think he would shake her hand, but eventually he did. He looked at her silently, and in a panic, she wondered if he spoke any English.
Forge on, Julia,
she told herself.
If an idea seemed good two miles away, it ought to still be good.
”Mr. Otto's cousins didn't mean to frighten her this morning. Oh, my name is Julia Darling, and this is James.”

Rudiger smiled then, and she felt herself relax. “I told her not to worry, Miss Darling, but she's afraid of men on horses.”

“I can understand that,” Julia said.

They stood there in the doorway awkwardly until Mrs. Rudiger spoke in German from the shack's dim interior. Mr. Rudiger nodded and motioned her inside. “It's hot in the sun. Come in.”

Julia opened Mr. Otto's wooden box. She carefully took out the loaf cake, which she had placed on a piece of heavy cardboard. “James, bring the can, please.”

She squinted in the dim light of the single room. There was one window, but it was small and had only two panes of glass. She looked around at the single bed, pallet on the floor—probably for Danila—table and chairs, and steamer trunk against one wall. Everything they owned must be in this room. A pan of water simmered on the pot-bellied heating stove, and she could see no kitchen range. Mrs. Rudiger must cook on that small surface.

She set the cake on the table. “I didn't want to visit without bringing you something. Besides, I just cleaned the kitchen range and must practice cooking on it before the men return.”

She stopped, realizing that she was talking too fast. “That's oatmeal. I … I made too much this morning, and it won't keep. I…”

She stopped again and realized that the Rudigers were staring at the cake. She stared too, hoping that a bug hadn't dived into it. It looked fine. Mrs. Rudiger gave a small sigh and then turned away in tears.

Julia appealed to Mr. Rudiger. “I hope I didn't hurt her feelings! It isn't really too festive, I suppose, and it did get jostled in the wagon.”

He raised a hand to stop her. “Miss Darling, the cake is fine.” He paused and swallowed, and she looked at him in panic too, wondering what was the matter. “It … it's just that we have not seen anything like this in a long time. No one comes here.”

“Oh,” was all she could think of to say. “I wanted to visit,” she said simply.

His face red, Mr. Rudiger indicated one of the three stools in the shack. “We use the cans for siding. That's why my wife was there.” Julia saw the humiliation in his face. “We don't have anything else.”

Mr. Rudiger spoke to his wife in German. She nodded, skirted around the room, and added a stick of firewood to the heating stove. She looked directly at Julia for the first time and pantomimed drinking tea.

“Oh dear, I don't drink tea,” Julia said to Mr. Rudiger.

“You can drink this tea,” he told her with that same look of humiliation.

The silence seemed to hum in the small space. Julia indicated the cake. “Do you have some plates and forks?” she asked. “A slice of this would be really good, you know, to go along with tea.”

Mr. Rudiger spoke again, and Ursula turned to the cracker box shelf, much like the one in her own kitchen at the Double Tipi. She brought four tin plates to the table and spoke to her husband.

“Ursula said she and Danila can eat from the same plate,” Rudiger translated, telling Julia all she needed to know about the state of the crockery in the shack.

“That is excellent,” Julia said. “Who wants to wash too many dishes?”

Rudiger smiled and nodded, content to keep up the fiction of normality, if he could. He handed her a knife, and Julia sliced the loaf cake, deeply aware how closely everyone in the room was watching her. She slid each slice onto a plate and two on the plate for Ursula and Danila.

There they sat. Ursula went to the pot-bellied stove, where she added what looked like a bedraggled green twig to the simmering water. As Julia watched, she swirled the stick around a few times and then removed it, placing it back on the cracker box shelf. She ladled the hot water into two tin cups and one small can and brought them to the table, using a corner of her apron in place of a pot holder. She sat down, a slight smile on her face.

“It's … it's mint tea,” Rudiger explained, his embarrassment painfully obvious.

“Then I will be happy to have some,” Julia assured them both.
Dear God, these people have nothing, and I have only served to remind them,
she thought in horror. She looked at the Rudigers’ patient faces and changed her mind.
No, they are offering me the best they have, to complement what I have brought.

“Please tell your wife that mint tea is the perfect accompaniment to a loaf cake,” Julia said as she handed around the slices.

Ursula pushed a tin cup closer to Julia, who picked it up, even as she felt tears well in her eyes.
Don't you dare cry,
she scolded herself. She took a sip and smiled at Ursula. “Exactly right.”

The Rudigers ate quickly, not leaving a crumb anywhere. Without a word, Julia sliced off larger pieces for the second helpings, and watched those disappear just as fast.
I wish I had made a layer cake,
Julia thought.
Two layer cakes. Maybe a torte. Where are loaves and fishes when you need them?

When she finished, Julia held out her tin cup. “A little bit more, if you please?” she asked.

Ursula beamed as she added another ladle of hot water and returned the cup to Julia. Rudiger held out his cup for more too. Julia glanced at James, relieved to see him taking the matter in stride, as though he drank hot water every day. In another moment, he and Danila left the table and went to the red wagon, where he brought in the leftover oatmeal. In another moment, he and the little girl were playing in the dirt beside the shack.

Julia turned her attention to Rudiger. “Mr. Rudiger, I have come to ask a favor.”

If the German was surprised, he didn't show it. “Whatever I can do,” he told her.

Taking a deep breath, Julia told him about the building paper rolled up in what was Mr. Otto's parlor. “I think there is enough to paper that room and probably the kitchen too. I don't think I can do it myself, but if you could help me, it would look so nice.”

Mr. Rudiger was silent for such a long moment that Julia feared she had not made herself clear. “Mr. Otto and the others … they don't want us here,” he said finally.

Julia writhed inside; nothing could have been more true. She chose honesty. “I know that, but Mr. Otto left me in charge, and I want that place to look better. Here's what I can do.” She leaned closer and lowered her voice, as though Mr. Otto stood over her shoulder, glaring his disapproval. “If you will help me, I will give you the tar paper in the barn, so you can side your home.” She overrode his skeptical look. “Mr. Rudiger, it's just lying in there, covered with cobwebs and bugs. No one is using it.” She was pleading with him now. “It will make your house warmer for Danila.”

Rudiger's glance wavered, and he looked out the open door, where his daughter was running a small wheeled cart down a sandy road James was building. “Warmer for Danila,” he repeated. He sat back, crossed his arms, and thought a moment.

“We begin this soon,
ja?”
he asked.

“Tomorrow, if you wish,” Julia replied, feeling Mr. Otto's eyes boring into her back even though he was miles away by now.

“You will not get in trouble?”

Julia thought about the contract she and Mr. Otto had signed.
The party of the first part expects a decent kitchen to work in,
she reminded herself. “Mr. Rudiger, I signed a contract with Mr. Otto saying I would remain his employee for one year. In exchange, he is contracted to provide me with a decent kitchen to work in. Once the building paper is up in the kitchen, he will fulfill his side of the contract. It's in writing.”

Rudiger nodded, his face thoughtful now. “And if we paper your parlor, that is also in the contract?”

“Not precisely,” Julia hedged. “Yes, it is! I am to have a comfortable place to sit in the evening. It's all part of the agreement he signed.”
Sort of,
she thought. “Everyone is entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, Mr. Rudiger. Thomas Jefferson said so in the Declaration of Independence.”

That seemed to clinch the matter for the immigrant. “Thomas Jefferson,” he said. “Ah,
ja.
It must be so.” He held out his hand. “I will do it,
Fraulein
Darling. Tomorrow is soon enough?”

She held out her hand and they shook while she stashed all her misgivings into that elastic corner of her brain. “Tomorrow is fine. If you want, let Danila and Ursula come, too. She can help me bake bread.”

Rudiger gave her a calculating look.
”Fraulein,
anyone who can make a cake this good doesn't need help with bread.”

Julia crossed her fingers. “I strained my shoulder, cleaning my cooking stove. I can use her help.”
Heavenly Father, that is a useful, all-purpose lie,
Julia thought.
If I must repent of it, then I don't know thee very well, do I?

“Very well,
Fraulein,
we will see you tomorrow morning,” Rudiger said.