Plots and Pans (32 page)

That said, she took one of her hands away from the edge of the seat, holding on with only one as she reached up to finger her bonnet strings. She insisted on wearing one, and no amount of arguing on Jess’s part convinced her to try a Stetson. She declared they were “made for men” and weren’t going to help an “old woman like her” look any better.

When Jess asked whom an old woman might need to look nice for, Desta harrumphed and turned away—but not before stifling a small, secretive smile that told her niece everything she needed to know. Today confirmed it.

I made the right decision, swallowing my pride so Ralph and Desta could have a chance to get to know each other
. Jess settled herself at a more comfortable angle.
If nothing else, she feels safer and more secure when he’s around
.

The sudden image of a mean little man wearing a tin of beans popped into her thoughts and made her smile.
Then again, having Aunt Desta around probably makes Ralph feel more secure, too
.

A wistful thread wound around her thoughts, pulling at her earlier conviction that she could rely on Tucker.
It’s the same thought I had when I knew he and Aunt Desta wouldn’t let me face Ed if they believed I’d need support. I just didn’t fully recognize it then. But thinking something—even more than once—doesn’t make it true. Can I really rely on him?

Then, equally important but even harder to answer, another question crept out and latched on to the first.
If I can, will he ever come to rely on me in return?

“I’m relying on you.” Tucker’s vote of confidence as he helped her and Desta strike up camp for the first time made Jess wonder if he’d somehow picked up on her earlier thoughts.

Maybe we’re starting to think alike?
Jess couldn’t decide whether or not that could be called a good thing.
Hm … so long as he’s starting to see things my way and not the other way around
.

“We’re relying on you, too.” She made a wide arc with her arm to indicate the surrounding area, and particularly the river offshoot running a couple hundred yards to the side. “This looks like a great spot for our first campsite.”

He grunted. “We usually camp another four miles down the trail for the first night.”

Jess paused, wondering if she imagined the hint of accusation in that statement. “Desta and I had the wagons ready yesterday.” Well, mostly. She and her aunt had also been waiting for the men to load up their tools and bedrolls to see if they could squeeze in any more provisions. They’d managed to tuck in quite a few little luxuries that way … but still they’d been ready to ride out for hours ahead of the men.

Now, having waited so late in the day, Tucker left precious little time for her and Desta to prepare the midday meal. She’d planned something special, but now she’d have to settle for something quick, simple, and ordinary. She needed to scrape every minute in order to get supper started afterward—it should’ve already been in the oven.

“Wagon
s
.” The way Tucker emphasized the plural left no doubt about his disapproval.

“Cook
s
.” Desta didn’t miss a beat as she returned with the younger Creevey brother, toting firewood and fresh water to make the afternoon and evening meals. Towheaded Quincy didn’t seem to say much, but he followed orders with alacrity and proved to be much stronger than he looked.

“One extra person should not equate to an entire extra wagon,” he muttered wearily.

“It’s not for one extra person. The Studebaker Company made the chuck wagon to accommodate a crew of ten men. We have two cooks, nine men, and Ralph.”

“Count him again.” Quincy cleared his throat and looked down at his boots. “Twice.”

“I always do.” Jess chuckled and sent Quincy to water the wagon teams and pen them for the night in a makeshift rope corral. She saw Desta already mixing up a batch of dough for biscuits, and Jess hunkered down to dig a substantial fire pit.

“It doesn’t need to be that deep.” Tucker’s criticism rankled—particularly since he stood there, cool and calm, while Jess scrabbled in the dirt trying to make up for his schedule change.

Somehow she managed not to fling a handful of dirt at him. Instead she settled for asking, “Do you know what we’re serving for supper tonight, Tucker?”

“No.” Interest livened his tone. “What?”

“If you don’t know what we’re cooking, you don’t know what we’ll need. But if you’re inclined to sample the fare later, I’d suggest you keep your comments encouraging.” The supper she planned needed a deep layer of red-hot coals from a fire burned in the pit. It held heat longer and more evenly than coals pulled from a cook fire and dropped in a pit later.

“Fair enough.” Tucker sounded amused. “I’ll be back in an hour or two to get that sample.” With that, he rode back the way they’d come, off to keep man and cattle moving at a quick pace.

Jess picked up the pace of her own preparations to match. Finished digging, she reached for wood, swiftly constructing a fire in the pit before moving closer to the chuck wagon and setting up an above-ground cook fire for Desta’s dutch-oven baking.

“Fire’s started,” she called to her aunt, moving back to the pit fire. “Shouldn’t take too long to get a mound of embers to heat your ovens.”

“Thanks.” Desta laid a towel over her mixing bowl and headed toward Jess. “Good thing we went ahead and stewed beef this morning. We wouldn’t have time to pull dinner together otherwise.”

“Our preparations will all come in handy,” Jess promised as she laid a cast-iron bar across the mouth of the pit, attached a hook, and hung a massive stewpot. “Slumgullion takes no time if the meat’s already stewed.”

“My kind of cooking.” Desta grinned and listened, grabbing things from the wagon as Jess issued a steady stream of instructions and explanations.

“Toss it in a larded pot with onions, wait for it to warm. Then add a can each of corn, tomatoes, green beans, and peas. If we had more time I’d chop some potatoes very fine and throw them in, but an hour’s not long enough to be sure they’ll cook through.” Once they had everything simmering, Jess straightened up and saw her aunt’s smile.

“Should go good with those sourdough loaves I baked last night. For later this evening, I’ve got two batches of biscuits ready to bake—I can shape them now. I reckon the fire and ovens will be hot enough by the time I’m through.” With that, Desta returned to the back of the chuck wagon and resumed her baking.

Jess followed, folding down the work surface she’d had the men attach to the back of the buckboard. It didn’t look pretty, but it served its purpose and held a fair amount of weight. The collapsible table didn’t so much as shudder when she plunked down the ten-pound roast of venison she’d soaked last night to remove most of the smokehouse salt.

“I’ve got the big oven larded up and tucked in yore fire pit. If you pop the meat inside, cover it, and let the fire do the work, that’s just like baking,” Desta mused. “I could do that, too. Roast and slumgullion—in one afternoon you near ‘nuff doubled my menu!”

“We’re not done yet. Why don’t you cut a good length of twine—something that could wrap around this roast twice.” By the time Desta handed the twine to her, Jess had covered the entire thing with slices from a side of bacon. Together the two women lifted the roast and lassoed the bacon tight. Then they sprinkled the whole thing with salt and pepper and dusted it with flour to seal in the flavor.

Once the roast was ready, they each took an end of the metal bar lying across the cooking pit and carefully carried it—and its hanging stewpot filled with dinner—and set it on its legs over the other fire.

Together they seared each side of the roast in the greased cast-iron oven nestled deep within the pit then let it settle inside. A sliced onion, some garlic, a can of tomatoes, and a can’s worth of water joined the meat before Jess put down the lid and they covered the whole thing with a half foot of dry dirt, stomped flat and free of any air holes.

“And when we dig it up, it’ll be cooked?” Desta looked like she harbored doubts but hoped she was wrong.

“In six or seven hours,” Jess promised. “It’ll be done right on time. Another hour, and we would’ve waited too long. This morning’s delay cut things close for us.”

“But here we are, dinner taken care of, supper simmering along, bread and biscuits seen to, and plenty of time to make a dessert worthy of our first night on the trail!” Now that it was Desta’s turn to take charge and teach, her eyes sparkled.

“Things look better now than they did this morning,” Jess agreed. “And tonight the men will be full of appreciation for our efforts. Think what we can accomplish tomorrow when we won’t be so rushed!”

“Something smells good.” Finished watering the cattle and corralling them, Quincy sniffed the air like a cat hoping for cream.

“Just you wait, Quincy! Today’s chuck will pad your belly. Tonight’s will tickle your ribs. And we’ll keep on improvin’.” Desta passed the boy a biscuit fresh from the oven while Jess unstrapped the jar of heavy cream she’d fastened to the side of the wagon earlier that morning.

The bouncing Desta found so unsettling served to agitate the cream, the wagon’s motion working as well as any churn to turn that cream into butter. Jess spooned out a bit of fresh-formed butter and dolloped it atop Quincy’s biscuit, adding a promise to sweeten the deal.

“You’ll be eating so well and smiling so big your own brother will hardly recognize you in a couple of weeks!”

T
hree weeks into the trip, Tucker cracked open one gritty eyelid, only to have it fall shut. He swallowed a groan, thinking he might need to prop his lids open with small sticks to get going again. Or he could borrow a trick from one of the old vaqueros and rub tobacco juice in his eyes. It stung something terrible and made a man’s eyes water for hours on end, but it definitely got him up and moving.

Tucker never kept tobacco—he couldn’t abide the stuff, but if he’d had some at hand, he would have seriously considered using the vile stuff. It took that much effort to roll over, brace his forearms against the ground, and lever himself out of his bedroll. He couldn’t just sit up and get his feet beneath him because he’d fallen into bed like a rooster—with his spurs still on.

Come to think of it, he should’ve done that. A quick moment squatting atop his spurs would’ve startled him awake as well as any of the other equally painful methods he’d been considering. Ah, well. He was up now, and coffee waited for him a few stumbling steps away. Tucker breathed deep, the cooler air of dawn mingled with the rich aroma of coffee strong enough to strip the hide off a lizard.

Whatever his doubts about bringing the women along, he needn’t be concerned about the way they brewed that all-important beverage. If anything, Jess steeped it stronger than just about every camp cook he’d ever hired.

Something clunked into motion in Tucker’s brain, making him wince at the unwelcome sensation. Were thoughts supposed to pound so hard against the inside of a man’s skull? He couldn’t remember at the moment, but he didn’t think so.

Lord, help me not snap at the women
. His morning prayer ranked among the shortest in recent memory—but then again, his recent memory wasn’t as reliable as usual.

Three weeks; three stampedes
. The worst drive he’d ever made there’d been five stampedes, and that was over the course of three months, from Waco all the way to Dodge City. All this trouble, and they’d barely made it from Waco to ford the Red River crossing yesterday.

Made pretty good time though
. Whatever other trouble the runs caused, at least they’d been in the right direction. Now Tucker needed to get
himself
going in the right direction. After another night spent almost entirely in the saddle, Tucker knew it wasn’t his own strength getting him out of bed in the morning.

Either God granted him grace, or he staggered on simply because he couldn’t sleep in when Jessalyn would have been up and bustling around for hours already. Given the way this drive had gone so far, forcing the men out of bed out of sheer shame might be the best contribution the women could make. Oh. They made everyone swear less, speak nicer, and smile more, too. But that still paled beside the monumental task of getting everyone up and going. No other cook Tucker ever hauled along could’ve managed that. In light of that valuable service, it didn’t much matter what they chose to serve for …

Breakfast
. His clunking thoughts ground to a halt, his brain too busy sorting out the happy messages his nose sent up.
Coffee
. Thick, rich, and black as night with twice the bite, the aroma alone perked a man up.
Bacon … mmmmm …
No way to do justice to the miracle that was a pan of fresh-fried bacon. But something else jumped into the mix and made Tucker pick up his pace, sniffing his way to the chuck wagon.

“Good morning!” Jess’s cheerful greeting sallied forth from behind the canvas flaps protecting the back half of the chuck wagon and extending into a makeshift shelter where the women slept at night.