The Measure of Katie Calloway,: A Novel (6 page)

As they drew closer, he pointed. “That long building to the left is the bunkhouse.” He pointed to a smaller structure. “That’s the blacksmith’s shop, and that place built into the hillside is the barn. The building over there is a combination office and store. Beside it is my cabin. The largest building is the cook shanty. The cook’s quarters are built onto the back. That’s where you and Ned will be living.”

A sound of spluttering erupted from the back of the wagon as Jigger strangled on a wad of tobacco. She heard him spit and cough until he was breathless.

“What did you just say, boy?” the old man demanded.

Robert’s voice was stern. “Katie and Ned will be living in the cookhouse.”

“Over my dead body! That’s
my
home!”

“It’s not your home, Jigger. You can stay in the bunkhouse with the other men.”

“It ain’t fair!”

“It’s more than fair.”

Katie felt sick. She was taking the old man’s living quarters? Had she known that was part of the deal, she would never have agreed. Or—at one time in her life, she would never have agreed. At the moment, she didn’t have a choice. They were all at the mercy of Robert’s decisions. She wanted to protest but knew she had little choice. She and Ned couldn’t exactly move into the bunkhouse with the men, or sleep in the barn, or live in the woods.

Sam pulled the wagon up to the door of the cook shanty, and she and Ned set foot on the springy, pine-needle-covered soil where they would be living and working for the next few months.

Robert and Jigger appeared to be involved in a silent test of wills. They were staring at each other, motionless. Jigger’s jaw jutted out like he was ready to fight.

“It won’t hurt you to bunk with the men,” Robert finally said.

“I’m the cook, son,” Jigger complained. “How can I keep order at mealtimes if you demote me to bunking with the men? They won’t respect me, and you don’t think they’re going to pay attention to
her
, do you? They’ll be too busy cutting up and making moon eyes at her. Besides, I gotta get up at two in the morning just to get breakfast ready. You don’t want this old man stumbling around in a dark bunkhouse waking up all the loggers, do you? Them men need their rest.”

Two in the morning? Katie remembered Delia’s warnings about how hard she would work. No one got up that early—not even the dairy farmers she had known.

Jigger’s injured arm was cradled against his chest, his sparse hair combed straight back over a liver-spotted scalp. To her astonishment, tears trickled down his wrinkled cheeks. Jigger dashed them away and glared at Robert.

A muscle in Robert’s jaw twitched. He fidgeted, obviously uncomfortable with Jigger’s despair.

“Oh, all right. You win—you ornery old coot. She can have my cabin. I’ll bunk with the shanty boys.”

She started to protest, but Robert cut her off with a look.

“You need to get supper on. We have men to feed.” With that he strode toward the small cabin he had pointed out as his own.

“Come on, woman.” Jigger, rejuvenated by winning the argument, headed toward the cook shanty. “Time to earn your pay.”

Robert surveyed his living quarters from last year. So
he
would be the one living in the louse-infested, crowded bunkhouse. If it was anyone but Jigger, he would never have given in—but he figured he owed the old man. It had been Jigger who had kept him out of trouble when he was a boy poking his nose into every inch of his father’s lumber camps. Then later, when he had crawled back home, a grown man so broken by war and the loss of his wife that he despaired of ever being able to support his own children—it was Jigger who had reminded him about this section of timber his father had invested in back when the rest of the world was still under the impression that Michigan was nothing more than a swamp.

His small savings and this section of timber had been enough to put him back on his feet. If this season went well, there should be enough in this year’s harvest to support his sister and two children for another year.

“Name’s Ernie.” A sturdy young woodsman stood in his open cabin door. “Heard you was hiring.”

“I might be.” Robert took in the young man’s appearance. He was dressed in the uniform of a Michigan lumberman: gray britches cut off several inches above the ankle, heavy boots, suspenders, knit cap covering longish black hair, and a bright red flannel shirt—the better to be seen in the woods. An old flour sack, tied with thin rope and filled with his few possessions, hung over one shoulder. A double-bit axe with a straight hickory handle was held loosely in his right hand.

“Cletus and me are a good axe team, or we can swamp if you want,” Ernie said. “This here’s my twin brother.” He stood aside, and another young man, dressed identically but with sandy-colored hair and gentle blue eyes, appeared. “We can ride the logs good too,” Ernie announced.

“Where else have you worked?” Robert asked.

“Dempsey’s camp over on the Tittibiwassee last year,” Ernie said. “And the year before that.”

“Why aren’t you going back?” Robert asked. “Dempsey runs a good camp.”

Ernie looked at him as though the answer ought to be obvious. “We heard you’d hired a redheaded girl camp cook who makes a good apple pie.”

“Ah.” The word was getting out. Loggers, like Napoleon’s army, marched on their stomachs, and most had an uncanny ability to ferret out the best cooks. “Put your turkeys in the bunkhouse and grab a bed. Then head on over to the cook shanty and help the new cook with whatever she asks you to do.”

Both men looked as though he had just given them a Christmas present.

“Thanks, boss!” They hurried away.

Robert stood in the doorway of his cabin, looking out at the receding forest. The clean air of the pine woods filled his lungs, and he breathed deeply, grateful that he had this work to turn to. It was going to be a good year—he could just feel it.

Other men would hear about Katie. Hopefully they were already walking through the woods, down the various tote roads, with their turkeys and axes slung across their shoulders. A ten- to twenty-mile hike was nothing to true woodsmen. Soon, they would begin to arrive.

Some, like him, would still be recuperating from the nightmares of battle. Some would be raw farm boys supplementing income wrestled from thin-soiled farms springing up in clearings that the timbermen left behind. Some would be true axe men following the lumber industry as it worked its way across the country. Some would be immigrants struggling to understand English. Some would be scoundrels. Few would be saints. If he was lucky, at least one would own a fiddle and know how to play it. A lumber camp needed a fiddler and a storyteller to keep the men’s spirits up.

He refocused his attention on his cabin, making note of the things he would need to take to the bunkhouse with him. He had tried to keep the vermin out of his own living space, so at least he wouldn’t be putting that woman and her brother into a nest of lice and bedbugs.

He yanked up the straw-tick mattress and gave it a shake. It smelled moldy and felt damp. He was grateful he already had commissioned plenty of fresh straw and hay to be delivered to the barn.

The last thing he had expected to do when he awoke today was to ready his cabin for a woman—but it was now his first order of business. Her life would be hard enough the next few months—but he would help her as much as he could.

The sight of the hen’s egg hidden in a nest beside the barn made Harlan’s mouth water. It had been a long time since he had eaten an egg.

Then he remembered that he hadn’t seen a chicken on the place since the day Katherine had abandoned him. There was no telling how long the egg had been there. He picked it up and flung it against the trunk of an ancient magnolia tree. It burst open, filling the air with a sulfurous smell. The stench caused his eyes to water, which soon turned into self-pitying tears. Everything was rotten these days—ruined. His beautiful home had been destroyed. Fallen Oaks was a wasteland of brambles. He had become less and less welcome at the table of old friends.

The hunger in his belly added fuel to his fury at the Yankee wife who had scurried away. Without even one slave to rely on anymore—who was going to cook for him now?

6

’Twas all the fault of Old Joe, our dirty greasy cook,

for fixing up the grub for us no pains at all he took.

Hot biscuits were nothing but raw dough and heavy as stone;

and often times we had to make a meal of them alone.

“Driving Logs on the Cass”
—1800s shanty song

The silent, burly teamster unloaded boxes as Katie and Jigger entered the cook shanty. It smelled of pine, stale men, and hundreds of meals of beans and bacon. A long table made of rough pine split the room down the middle, with benches on either side. Looming at the far end was the kitchen, which held a giant woodstove. Wires ran the length of the cooking area, hung with cobweb-covered dishcloths. Rough shelves were filled with bowls, plates, and cooking pots. The whole place was covered with a thick layer of dust. A dead bird lay on the floor.

Ned pressed close to her side as they surveyed the workplace that would be their home for the next several months. She instinctively put her arm around his thin shoulders.

“Where do you want this?” The teamster appeared in the doorway with a case of canned tomatoes balanced on his shoulder.

“On the floor, over there.” Jigger gestured toward a far corner of the cook shanty.

Katie approached the cast-iron stove. It was the biggest she had ever seen and must have taken enormous effort to get here. Robert obviously took feeding his men very seriously if he dragged a monster like this into the woods. Nearby, a huge square table created a work surface large enough to roll out any number of piecrusts.

In spite of her exhaustion from the trip and being fairly overwhelmed by all the changes that had taken place in her life, she felt a small thrill of excitement. The cook shanty had a bare bones utilitarian simplicity that would make cooking for a crew of men quite possible and in some ways even enjoyable.

“Are you just gonna stand there?” Jigger asked.

“What do you want me to do?” They had been inside for less than a minute.

“You’re the new cook.” He spat a stream of tobacco juice directly onto the wooden floor. “And none of us et since morning. Cook us something, woman.”

“What is there to fix?”

Jigger sat down on a bench and shrugged his scrawny shoulders, abdicating responsibility for anything to do with food.

Sam brought in a fifty-pound sack of flour. “Where do you want this?”

“Over against the wall with the canned ’maters,” Jigger said.

“Put it on the cook’s worktable,” Katie ordered. “I don’t want the flour sitting on that dirty floor.”

Sam looked back and forth between them. He chose to compromise and set the sack down in the middle of the long dining table—between the two locations—and returned for another load.

“You must have a better place to store food than against the wall,” Katie said.

Jigger spit on the floor in answer. The contempt in his action got on Katie’s last nerve. She was tired and hungry too.

“Quit doing that!”

“You ain’t gonna last long around here, girlie, if you can’t stand a little tobacco juice,” Jigger said with satisfaction.

Sam carried in two buckets of lard, set them beside the sack of flour, and returned for another load.

“I’m hungry,” Ned whispered, tugging on her sleeve.

“You heard the boy,” Jigger sneered. “He’s
hungry
.”

If there was one thing she hated, especially after living with Harlan, it was a bully. And Jigger, although probably incapable of physically hurting her, was definitely a bully. She tried to decide what to do about him as she watched Sam carry in two cases of corned beef and return with sacks of onions and potatoes.

As though disinterested in the entire proceeding, Jigger sat on the bench, staring out of one of the fly-specked windows.

“I saw a stream in back.” Katie grabbed a bucket from a shelf and handed it to Ned. “Bring me as much water as you can carry. I’ll fix us all something to eat soon.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Ned scurried away with the bucket.

Katie approached the huge stove. She had cooked plenty of meals on her mother’s stove before her marriage, and many more at Fallen Oaks after their cook disappeared. The principle was the same, regardless of the size. Wood went into the stove’s firebox and heated the oven and the smooth cast-iron top. The temperature was regulated by the type and quantity of firewood. Fortunately, a pile of split hardwood lay beside the stove. A box of dry wood shavings to use for tinder sat nearby.

“Where are the lucifers?” she asked.

Jigger nodded toward a jar on a shelf, within which were stored the wooden matches she needed to strike a flame. Soon, she had a crackling fire started in the belly of the stove, and the oven was warming up.

Sam brought in boxes of sugar and tea. Ned struggled in from outdoors, sloshing a bucket of cold, clear creek water against his pants leg. Still, Jigger did not move from his seat.

“Thank you, Ned.” She set a dishpan on top of the stove and poured the water into it. “Could you bring me another?”

“Sure.” Her little brother ran off.

On a hook, there was a large, white apron that appeared relatively clean. She shook the dust out of it, tied it on, and rolled up the sleeves of her dress. Dipping a rag into the pan of water, she began wiping off the worktable. She had expected at least a few minutes to pull herself together before her work began, a few moments to get her bearings in this new environment—but that was not how things were working out.

She could deal with it. She had dealt with worse.

Even with Jigger glaring at her from across the room, the familiarity of being back inside a kitchen was comforting. The growing mountain of foodstuffs seemed miraculous to her after the privations of the past few years.

“Is this enough?” Ned carried in another bucket.

“For now.” Grasping the ice-cold pail of water, she grabbed a broom and marched toward Jigger. There was something she needed to tend to before she could stomach fixing dinner.

“Excuse me.” She sloshed water across the floor directly in front of him, soaking his pants legs and saturating the tobacco-stained floor.

“Hey! Watch it!” Jigger leapt to his feet and sidestepped out of her way.

“More water, please.” She handed the bucket back to Ned, grabbed the broom, and began to sweep the water and tobacco debris out the door.

She was so intent on her job she almost swept it right into the face of Sam, who, startled, danced out of the way while holding two fifty-pound bags of dried beans, one on each shoulder.

“What the . . .” He opened his mouth to say more, thought better of it, shut it tightly, and grimly stepped over the threshold. “Where would you like these, ma’am?” he asked meekly.

“Put them on the table. In fact, would you mind putting everything you’ve brought in on the table for now? I want to give this floor a good scrubbing.”

“Can’t I put things in the kitchen storage shed or down in the cellar?” It was the longest sentence he had uttered in the past two days.

Storage shed? Cellar? What kind of game was Jigger playing with her, anyway?

“Yes, please,” she said. “That would be lovely.”

He tracked over her wet floor, straight toward the back of the cook shanty and out the back door. She leaned the broom against the wall and started to follow him.

“Where you going?” Jigger asked.

“Apparently, the storage shed.” She turned to look at him, her hands on her hips. “When were you going to tell me?”

“I was fixin’ to.” Jigger held up his drenched pants leg with his good hand, his pinky stuck up like a finicky lady. “Afore you started dumpin’ water on me.”

Her pique of anger evaporated. Sloshing the old man with water was extreme, and she regretted doing it. But really! Spitting tobacco juice on the floor! Even Harlan hadn’t had that filthy habit.

“I apologize for getting you wet, but from what I can see, there’s too much work for us to be fussing with each other. Could we just call a truce and get on with it?”

“Sure thing, missy.” The old man grinned evilly and held out his gnarled hand. “We’ll just have ourselves a little truce.”

She had watched that same hand dig a plug of tobacco out of his cheek not fifteen minutes earlier. Steeling herself, she shook it, determined to wash her hands the minute his back was turned.

Sam, his previous load stashed in the storage shed, returned with two wooden barrels of sorghum. “Storage shed or cellar?”

“Storage shed,” Jigger said at the same moment Katie said, “Cellar.”

Yet again, the teamster stood with his burden, undecided whose instructions to obey.

“Put it in the cellar,” Robert said, coming in the door. His eyes swept around the cook shanty, taking stock of the wet floor, the teamster’s pained expression, and Jigger’s bedraggled pants.

“This isn’t going well,” Robert observed.

“No, it ain’t,” Jigger said.

Katie held her peace.

“Obviously, we need a line of command here. Jigger, until you get your strength back and your arm heals, Katie is head cook. She makes all the decisions. You can keep your room here in the cook shanty, but you’ll take your directions from her.”

“But you said—”

“I know what I said, Jigger, but this isn’t working. Katie, this man, in spite of what you might think from his recent behavior, is a seasoned lumber camp cook. You can learn some things from him.”

“Yeah.” Jigger scowled at her. “You can learn some things from me.”

“That’s enough.” Robert slammed his fist down on the table, and both Katie and Jigger jumped. “I don’t want to hear another word out of you, Jigger!”

The anger in his voice, the impatience on his face, were all too familiar. She felt an old, familiar panic. She backed away, until she bumped against the rough-sawn wood wall.

“You know what’s at stake here, man.” Robert’s voice was raised as he shook a finger under Jigger’s nose. “It was your idea for me to come out here in the first place. Everything I have is invested in this venture. You said you would help me.”

“I have helped you.”

“Yes—right up until you picked that crazy fight in the saloon. The rest of my crew will be arriving soon. Two are already over at the bunkhouse. They’ll need to be fed. How exactly do you plan to cook for them with a broken arm?”

Jigger stared down at the damp floor.

“Don’t make our lives any harder, old friend. I hired Katie because she was our best chance at making this camp turn a profit.” As though Robert suddenly realized she was watching, he turned and saw her pressed against the wall. He frowned as though trying to puzzle out what she was doing, but he didn’t apologize.

“The new men’s names are Ernie and Cletus.” His voice softened, but she didn’t trust it. “They’ll help you get this place ready. In the meantime, I would appreciate it if you could start getting something together for supper.”

She nodded, afraid to say anything that might set him off again. The best way she had found to placate Harlan was to do everything he asked without question.

Once again, she had misjudged a man. Robert had a temper that she was going to have to be careful not to ignite, but at least she was getting paid for her work this time—and he hadn’t tried to hit her.

At least not yet.