Plots and Pans (26 page)

“I can tell you don’t want to pray, Jess.” Desta squeezed the words through a too-small windpipe as the fear she’d fought over the past few days finally found a voice and worked free.

Never seen the girl pray more than bowin’ her head to someone else’s words. Doesn’t talk about God neither. Lord, I know Simon raised his children in the Word, and he swore those schools kept chapel. How is it my niece shies away from You now? Is it grief over her papa, or does it go deeper?

“Not so much.” Jess went quiet—something Desta already knew was a bad sign. Since her niece arrived, she talked about anything and everything with a speed and passion Desta found endearing.

But she didn’t talk much about Ed until he came home. And she didn’t like talking about her papa—though that could come down to fresh grief. Most of all, she didn’t have much to add if Desta brought up the scriptures or when anyone engaged in prayer.

Didn’t take much to pin down the pattern: when it was something or someone she was supposed to put her trust in, Jess balked. Faith made her shy away quicker than a greased hog.

“And it’s not just now that you don’t want to pray, is it?” she ventured, voice soft so as not to set up Jess’s defenses. It looked like she’d managed to slip past them in her niece’s excitement over visiting roundup. Desta planned to make the most of the chance before they drove out and left the opportunity behind.

“I don’t see much reason to join a chorus of voices asking the same thing.” Jess hitched her shoulders as though she wanted to shrug the question away, but left the motion half undone so she sat hunched, folded in on herself. “God’s not an old man with an ear trumpet sticking out the side of His head, trying to catch the meaning of what people say to Him. I’d imagine all those prayers about the same things, over and over again, are a lot like gnats circling around. Irritating. The sort of thing He’d want to slap away instead of lend a helping hand to, after a while.”

The horror of that picture caught Desta and held her fast. After Jess’s description, she could practically envision the entire scene, and it was enough to make anyone who didn’t know better feel hopeless and unloved. But her niece knew better—or at least she once did.
And Lord willing, she’ll know the truth again
.

There was a time when a hurt soul needed a healing touch. Those times called for gentle sympathy, hot tea, and hugs to warm the soul back to life—much like reviving someone who’d been caught in a blizzard.

This wasn’t that time. Her niece had let lies and doubts poison her thoughts. Like a man who’d had too much liquor, Jess needed to be startled back to her senses. Since she didn’t have a bucket of icy water handy, a dose of harsh truth would have to do.

“That’s pure foolishness, and deep down you know it, Jessalyn Culpepper,” Desta barked. “The great loving Lord doesn’t want to swipe us down like bugs, though hearing you talk like that near enough makes me want to swat you. Whatever’s keeping you from connecting with yore Maker, it’s not on His end and you can’t just brush it aside.”

Jessalyn pulled her shoulders straight so fast it almost seemed as though the words had slapped her upright. “Wouldn’t you get annoyed if someone kept asking you the same thing, again and again, without accepting they might not get their way?”

“You ain’t been listenin’ very well to the prayers around here.” Desta kept her words sharp, goading her niece into defending her views. “We pray for His will, we offer thanks for His blessings, and ask for His help with what lies ahead, knowing full well we might not like His answer once He gives it. But we ask anyway.”

“Why?” Jessalyn burst out. “Why bother asking Him for something you need when He already knows everything?”

“‘Cuz by asking, yore acknowledgin’ His power to give it.” Desta sensed the time had come to soften. She’d gotten past the armor of excuses and now needed to be careful with what lay beneath it. “‘Cuz you know He’s in control over it already.”

“Yeah, I know He’s in control. He already has a plan made up and set in place. That just makes me worry
more
.”

Desta sat in silence, stunned by the bitterness pouring from her niece. God’s Word promised that He did not give His own a heart full of fear, but Jess was flooded with it. The living water within her niece had swollen with sorrow until what should sustain Jess’s faith made it falter instead.

“Those verses yore talkin’ about, like the one sayin’ God knows the plans He’s made for us, they’s some of my very favorites.” When she finally spoke, she relied on God’s words. Her own would be unequal to the task ahead. “It goes on to say they’re plans to prosper us and not harm us. I always found comfort in knowing I was important enough for Him to take note of. It’s a powerful blessing to know I can rely on His provision. Why would that make me worry?”

“Of all people, you should know the answer to that. I worry because the die is cast. The path is laid, and I have no choice but to follow. You say you look at that and see His provision. Well, I look at it and see how helpless it leaves me. How alone.” Her niece’s eyes shone bright with anger and betrayal.

“He doesn’t leave you helpless or alone because He is always with you, no matter if you don’t feel it. He’s our ‘very present help in trouble,’ the Bible tells us.”

“No. He left me alone, far away … and He never gave me help.” Jess shook her head. “No matter how I asked, it made no difference. All the words in the world won’t change His mind. His plan. His choice. Never mine.”

Heart aching for the desperation and isolation her niece had suffered, Desta suddenly understood the source of her niece’s pain. The question was, did Jess?
I don’t think she sees, Lord. And I don’t think she’ll stand much more talk about it right now. Help me reach her—without pushing her further away
.

“I see what yore saying, and how it chafes to feel you don’t have a choice in yore own life. I know that better than most folks you could talk to. And I know how much it hurts to feel lonesome.”

“Then how can you sit here and tell me to take comfort in God, when He’s let you feel all that hurt for all that time?”

“Because God ain’t never been the one to do evil in this world. He lets us make our own decisions. Every time I been knocked down, it’s another human being standing there with a raised fist. Never God.” Desta flexed her fingers, trying to dispel a sudden tremor. “And I bet if you think it over, you’d see the same is true in yore life.”

Silence, brittle and flaking like a sugar glaze, cracked between them. Desta let it settle, giving her niece time to test the notion before she pressed any harder. Finally, she figured Jess’s temper should have cooled enough to take another serving of insight.

“Now, I’m gonna ask you to think over a question—not answer it now, but really chew this question over until you taste truth in yore answer. Can you do that?” Her niece’s nod was the signal for Desta to aim her only arrow.

She took a breath and let fly. “When you talk so much about not being able to change ‘His’ plan no matter what you said or how hard you tried … which Father were you really talking about? The one waiting to bring you home to heaven … or the one you were waiting on here, to bring you home to the Bar None?”

B
oth.” Tucker watched as the new chuck-wagon cook plumped a biscuit and a crumbling square of corn bread atop the heap of pork and beans mounded in his tin, then slapped a pat of butter atop each one. Truth be told, he could’ve said two of each, he’d worked up such an appetite.

But a tin couldn’t hold half as much as a working man’s stomach, so Tucker figured he’d start with one plateful and work his way back if his stomach demanded and time allowed. Even if time didn’t allow, he could always snag a couple more biscuits or hunks of corn bread. That was why it seemed like a good idea to try both now.

Usually he would’ve just gone for the corn bread. Biscuits were all well and good—well, not all of them were actually good, but even the worst could be choked down with a thick slather of butter or a ten-second soak in coffee. But corn bread, when it was made right, was the sort of thing that made Tucker more inclined to take Ralph’s talk about food changing the world seriously.

He hadn’t heard any complaints about the chuck, and not much grumbling over the new cook providing it, but Tucker believed in forming his own opinion. Particularly when the research was so rewarding. He settled himself down in a likely patch of grass, offering a short prayer of thanks before digging in.

Disappointingly, the biscuits trumped the corn bread, which didn’t boast the hint of sweetness Tucker expected. Crumbly and somewhat mealy, it stirred into the beans just fine and would stick to a stomach, but it wasn’t the sort of thing that made a man mosey back for more. As he finished his tin—it hadn’t taken long to get through the beans, though they’d been on the chewy side—Tucker looked around with a satisfaction that had nothing to do with a full belly. Or at least, very little.

Men scattered around the campfire and chuck-wagon area, which formed the hub of the roundup. Nobody lingered too long over the midday meal—there was too much work to be done and too many men waiting their turn to fill their stomachs. And, if he were completely honest, the grub wasn’t the sort of meal a man let eat up his afternoon.

Tucker spotted Ralph joining the end of the line. It was always entertaining to watch someone the first time they met Ralph Runkle, but cooks in particular put on a good show. First came astonishment, then incredulity, then inevitable mutters as they dug up an extra tin so he didn’t have to eat his food while standing in line for the next helping.

Tucker headed toward the line and rounded the wagon just in time to see the new cook—Rick, if he remembered right—spot Ralph. The man’s mouth fell open, and if the cowpoke in front of him hadn’t been quick enough, he would’ve slopped a ladleful of beans straight onto the ground. Snapping his mouth shut again, he swiftly served the men until Ralph reached the front of the line. He also happened to be the end of the line, but Tucker doubted the cook could tell that. Ralph wasn’t an easy man to see around.

“I don’t know which outfit you come from, boy.” The scrawny cook didn’t stand much higher than Ralph’s elbow, but waggled his ladle at him all the same. “But you best be goin’ straight back there to tell yer boss I didn’t find it funny to see half a mountain moving up my chuck line.”

“Half a mountain, but I does a mountain worth of work,” Ralph rumbled good-naturedly, extending his pan. He noticed that he’d just about clipped the cook’s nose and hastily bent his elbow to lower the plate. “So Boss reckons I’m worth the extra feed.”

“I didn’t ask yer opinion of yer boss’s opinion,” Rick sneered.

“Fact is, I don’t care. Anyone who’d take a payin’ job and waste it on a darkie like you ain’t worth listenin’ to. Go back and tell him to bust out that feed bag. You ain’t eatin’ from my wagon.”

Rage, dark and cold, crept over Tucker and kept him frozen for a beat longer than he would’ve wanted. But it took Tucker a moment to process the ugliness behind Rick’s words, and another minute to think it through. Much as he wanted to send the idiot packing after the roundup, he didn’t have the time to find a replacement for the cattle drive. It stuck in his craw worse than that mealy corn bread, but Tucker had to set the man straight without sending him down the road.

“Hey, Rick.” He stepped from behind the water barrel and tried to look calm and collected. “You wanna tell me what’s goin’ on here?”

As if I don’t know full well
. Starting out by saying he’d eavesdropped weakened his position. Tucker just wanted the man to repeat it to his face so he could set him down with as little fuss as possible.

“One of the outfits here ’bouts sent this behemoth to my wagon as some kind of joke.” Rick whined through his nose. “I don’t take guff from no one and don’t truck with those kinds of jokes, so I’m sending him back with a bug in his ear and letting him know he’s plumb lucky not to be gettin’ a boot to the backside in the bargain.”

“What makes you think it’s a joke?” Tucker gave the man another chance, reminding himself how many problems he’d reap if he sent away this cook. Aside from this snag, Rick garnered few complaints and didn’t cause problems, which meant the chuck could be just this side of edible and Tucker would’ve kept him on.

Stark truth of the matter was, old Cookie back at the mess hall didn’t have any more long drives left in him, and the contract Ed arranged meant they should’ve pulled out this past week. They’d probably still make it to market on time, but Tucker preferred to pad the timetable for detours and problems. More cropped up each year.

Which meant he had to take the time to iron out this wrinkle. He didn’t suffer fools gladly, but the alternative was suffering no food … and none of the men would go along with that.

“I don’t bow and scrape for no ni—” Rick jumped back when Tucker took a huge step forward into his space.

“Don’t say it,” Tucker warned. “You can call him Ralph. You can call him sir. You can call him mister. But call him any other name, even when you’re talking to someone else, and we’ll have us a problem. Do you understand me?”

“No.” The little tyrant stuck out his chin so the sparse wiry hairs atop it gleamed in the sunlight. “I don’t understand why yer so het up about the fact I don’t serve none but my own kind.”

“Well, we’re short on idiots around here, so you’ll have to broaden your criteria.” Tucker leaned forward until the fool almost stepped back into his own campfire. “You’ll serve anyone who steps foot on Bar None property or bellies up to the Bar None campfire while we’re on the trail. And you’ll do it with respect, or
you’ll
be sent on your way with a boot in the backside. What’s more, Ralph will be the one doing the honors.”

Tucker could’ve sworn the very whiskers on the man’s chin drooped as he started bobbing his head and babbling. “Yessir. And sir.” He sort of spasmed in Ralph’s direction, watery eyes darting from Tucker’s glare to Ralph’s massive arms. “Whatever you say.”