Carla Kelly (27 page)

He sobered quickly. “Thanks for doing that and reminding me of something I was forgetting.”

She looked at him, inquiring with her eyes. He shook his head. “It's a little thing. Maybe a silly thing. Just a scrap I found in my mother's possession. Something about, ‘that ye may walk guiltless before God. I would that you should impart of your substance to the poor.’ “ He paused and shook his head. “I forget. Something about feeding the hungry. Well, I needed to be reminded.”

I've heard that before,
Julia thought.
Where?

“I've been reading and rereading the Bible for years, because it certainly sounds like scripture. Haven't found it yet, but I'll keep looking.”

He looked at her, embarrassment in his face now. “I'm just rambling.” He slapped his knees and stood up. “I need an early start tomorrow. Back to eating dust again.”

Julia rose too, and they went in opposite directions. She stopped at the door to the kitchen.

“Will you look in Cheyenne for a cat?” Julia almost smiled at his pained expression.
Someone doesn't like cats,
she thought, amused.

“I suppose.” He sighed. “Anything else?”

“One thing.” Julia went into the parlor again, shy now but willing to seize the moment. “Could you … would you check around and see if there is a Latter-day Saint Sunday School organization in town? My father thinks Cheyenne is probably too small for a full-fledged Mormon ward, or even a branch, but there might be a Sunday School.”

“And if I find one?”

“Maybe I could go to Cheyenne once a month, if the weather is good,” she said in a rush. “I … I didn't think I would miss it, but I do.”

Mr. Otto gave her that assessing look again, as if trying to understand her. “Which do you want? Sunday School or a cat?”

“Both,” she told him, on firm ground now because his expression was benign.

“You're a lot of trouble,” he said, but she could tell he was teasing her.

“That's what my father says,” she told him serenely. “Good night, Mr. Otto.”

ext morning, the hands approached the table with what looked like stealth, as though expecting an ambush. Relieved, Julia watched them tuck in all the flapjacks she could make. More confident, they took the edge off what remained of their hunger with bacon in thick slabs and eggs, sopping up the yolk with lightly browned and delicate biscuits.

“I trust that will tide everyone over,” she commented, as she poured coffee all around.

“Precisely,” Mr. Otto said, holding out his cup. “We're joining up with another rancher farther down who brings his chuck wagon and his wife. We'll be in Cheyenne six days, tops.”

“And then I suppose you boys will hoorah the town,” Julia said, amused.

She got a tableful of innocent stares for her pains. Mr. Otto just smiled benignly. “ ‘Hoorah,’ Darling? Do you read the
Police Gazette
or the more antique, lurid dime novels? This
is
the twentieth century.”

Her gaze was just as benign. “Mr. Otto, I have two older brothers. I don't think my parents ever knew, but my sister Iris and I used to read their old raggedy dime novels in the closet under the back stairs.”

He got up from the table, reaching for the canvas duster he had slung over the rafter yesterday. “Cheyenne's too civilized now, what with churches and schools. There were days, though…” He left the thought unfinished. “Hurry along, gents. Our cows are waiting. Darling, walk with me.”

She dried her hands and did as he said, remembering the last time he had made the same request. He shortened his stride as they walked toward the corral. He draped his arms over the top rail and stared at the horses. Julia did the same, wondering briefly what her mother would say if she could see her daughter.

“Mr. Otto, I've already broken all your rules, so there probably isn't much you can tell me this time,” she said when he seemed disinclined to talk.

She could tell he was amused because the wrinkles around his eyes deepened. “You're a smug soul, Darling! You're leading me in a merry dance—something I hadn't anticipated. I just wanted to tell you that I went out earlier this morning and rode down to Rudiger's, just for a look at the shack. He did a really good job. No wonder McLemore was so exercised.”

“Good for Mr. Rudiger.”

“My sentiments precisely,” he told her. “And wouldn't you know it? I practically stumbled over a deer on the way home, so I shot it and left it on Rudiger's door.”

Julia turned to face him, not shy anymore because something had changed. “You are now as officially guilty as I am,” she said.

“Without a doubt,” he replied cheerfully, his back to the railing too. “If you want to keep testing the Queen Atlantic, I think that bread you served yesterday was a mite tough. Another ten or twelve loaves should fix any deficiencies.”

“Ten or … it was nothing of the kind!” she burst out, slapping him on the arm, as though he was one of her older brothers. She looked at his face then and hit him again. “Mr. Otto, you are a trial! But, yes, I'll work on that deficiency, if you don't think the Rudigers will mind.”

“They won't mind a bit,” he said, serious again.

“Even if it makes Mr. McLemore angry?”

They started back to the house. “No fears. I'll always stand between you and him.”

He said it in such a matter-of-fact way that Julia felt any fear dissolve. “You mean that, don't you?” she asked before she let her own awe of Mr. Otto restrain her.

“Indeed, I do,” he replied. “So that's my order: keep feeding the Rudigers with any threadbare excuse that comes to mind. I'll send my hands back, but I'm taking the train to Fort Collins. See you in a couple of weeks, Darling. I know better than to ask you to behave yourself…”

“Mr. Otto,” she said, “I am the soul of circumspection.”

He nudged her shoulder and kept walking. “And I'm Catherine the Great.”

A little while later, hat in hand, Mr. Otto came back into the kitchen while she was cleaning up. “Any last rebuttals?”

“Just remember the cat, and see if you can locate me a Sunday School.”

He made a face at the word
cat
but nodded and put on his hat. “A Presbyterian Sunday School won't do? A Methodist one? They're as plentiful as fleas.”

Julia shook her head.

“Why does it matter?”

Why, indeed,
she asked herself.
A few weeks ago, I thought I could manage a year away from the Church. Well, I can't.

He must have seen something in her expression. “Is that something I'm not supposed to ask about?”

“Not at all,” she replied, determined not to drive him off this time with her stupidity. She dried her hands. “I think I get lonely without Mormons around. We believe different stuff too.”

“All those wives.”

“No! My father never had more than one wife, and the Church doesn't hold to polygamy anymore.” She dried her hands again.

“I think they're dry by now,” he teased. “I'll look. I promise.” He nodded to her. “Leave me alone now! I'm going to be late!” He winked at her and closed the door behind him. He opened it immediately. “Maybe sometime you'll tell me what those differences are, if it's not a secret.”

“It's not,” she assured him. “Mr. Otto, go away now!”

He laughed and closed the door. She opened it almost immediately, so he hadn't gone far.

“Mr. Otto, one more thing! If you stop at the Rudiger's on the way back, Ursula will probably serve you hot water. It's all she has, and I know you don't want to look surprised.”

“I promise I won't, Darling,” he said, his expression kind. “I like hot water. Why muddle it up with tea?”

I wonder why I ever thought he was frightening,
Julia told herself as she closed the door quietly.

She opened the door a few minutes later to watch the men leave. James joined her in the door, and her hand went automatically to his head. After a moment, he ducked away from her and went into the yard, his hands deep in his pockets. She could tell how much he wanted to go with Mr. Otto.

Maybe Mr. Otto was one of those people susceptible to scrutiny, just like Iris. As she watched his back, he turned around to look at her again from halfway across the yard, as if he knew she was watching him.

“I promise to feed the Rudigers,” she said softly. She knew he couldn't hear her, but something must have satisfied him because he turned around and occupied himself with the business at hand: getting cows to Chicago. His attention to duties left her ample time to admire the effortless way he mounted his horse and his ramrod straight posture in the saddle. “Longtime rancher looks good on horseback,” she murmured. “Mature cook had better find some way to cook what she wants and make sure everyone thinks they are getting what they want. So there, longtime rancher.”

Julia was less lonely during the week before the hands returned from Cheyenne. Taking Mr. Otto at his word, she baked more bread for the Rudigers. She made no pretense any more of trying to pass off her cooking as an attempt to improve her skills. She fixed the best she knew how, considering the contents of the pantry, and the side of beef still hanging mostly undisturbed in the smoke house.

While James and Danila played near the little stream that fed into the river farther below, Julia brought along her knitting needles and knitted soakers for the baby to come, sharing her yarn cache with Ursula. Karl Rudiger expertly turned Mr. Otto's venison into sausage, giving James a large link to take back to the Double Tipi for their own supper.

Mr. Otto had given her permission to look through the clothes piles in his room for something Karl Rudiger could wear. She took James with her, so he could chase out the mice that had made nests in the lower layers. Three boiled white shirts seemed worthy of saving, but most ended up as rags, minus their buttons. She looked a long time at a cheerful calico shirt she could never imagine Mr. Otto wearing, crisscrossed as it was with ribbons, some sewed down, and others flowing free.

“Have you ever seen this before?” she asked James, holding it up as they sat on the floor, now that the mice were gone.

He shook his head.

She traced her finger across the ribbon, noting the tiny stitches that held it in place. She decided it was something his mother must have made and brought from her home on the Fort Washakie Reservation. “I'll wash this and save it,” she said.

When the hands returned a week later, accompanied this time by Mr. Otto's two Indian relatives from the Fort Washakie Reservation, Julia had a meal waiting for them that she knew no one would question: beefsteak broiled, not fried; mashed potatoes so fluffy that Matt Malloy put down his fork and sighed; apples stewed with cinnamon and butter; biscuits so light that Willy Bill cupped his hands over the four on his plate (”So they won't fly away”); and deviled eggs that made Doc sit back with an entirely satisfied expression and murmur something about “home in Indiana.” Even Kringle smiled, which astonished the other hands.

Julia enjoyed every moment. When she whisked out the apple pie from the warming oven and topped it with whipped cream, the chorus of sighs that rose from the table soothed her heart. She held up her hand when Matt finished and scraped back his chair, ready to rise.

“Just a moment, gentlemen,” she said, coloring a bit when everyone looked at her. “I told Mr. Otto that I would happily fix what you want, but that I had to be allowed to try new things once a week.”