He didn't claim to know more about cooking than she did.
He didn't take over her kitchen.
He simply followed her instructions.
And somehow, that unsettled the miners more than any threat could have.
Within half an hour, the shouting had faded.
The men were eating.
The griddle was full.
And Loretta was no longer trying to manage every task alone.
She glanced toward the stranger.
He was standing beside the butcher's table, carefully wiping down the knife.
For a moment, their eyes met.
He looked at her as though he wanted to say something.
Then he glanced away.
Loretta felt a strange flutter in her chest.
She couldn't explain it.
But she had the unsettling feeling that she'd seen those eyes before.
The Copper Pot had not always been a miserable place.
When Loretta first arrived in Red Dog eighteen months earlier, the cookhouse belonged to an elderly widow who believed feeding men was honest work and that any table could become welcoming if the food was warm enough.
The widow had been a broad-shouldered woman with silver hair and a laugh that filled the room. She taught Loretta how to stretch ingredients without sacrificing flavor, how to negotiate with traders, and how to keep a kitchen working even when half the equipment broke.
She also taught her something more important.
"People will tell you that you ought to be grateful simply because they let you work," she said one evening. "Don't believe them. You make this place worth coming to."
Loretta had smiled.
But she hadn't fully believed the words.
By then, she'd spent most of her life being told she was too large, too slow, or too unattractive to expect anything better than whatever position someone was willing to give her.
Her body had always been large.
As she grew older, it became increasingly difficult to find clothing, furniture, and working arrangements that accommodated her comfortably. By thirty-five, she weighed approximately 330 kilograms. Long periods of standing strained her joints, and ordinary chairs were often too narrow or fragile to support her safely.
But she had learned to adapt.
She used a reinforced stool beside the preparation counter when she needed to sit.
She kept heavy pans at waist height.
She used long-handled tools to reach across the griddle without leaning dangerously over the heat.