“That you have eleven men, including yourself, who think salt pork is a food group.”
Someone behind them laughed.
Audra looked past Reed.
The man who had made the crane remark stood near a woodpile.
Broad shoulders.
Dirty blond hair.
Heavy jaw.
Maybe thirty-five.
His grin was not kind.
Reed lifted the trunk.
“Boyd.”
The blond man straightened.
“Yeah?”
“Help.”
Boyd looked at Audra’s trunk.
Then Audra.
“Her luggage?”
“Yes.”
Boyd walked over.
He took one handle while Reed took the other.
The trunk nearly dragged both arms downward.
Boyd looked at Audra with new irritation, as though her possessions had personally insulted him.
“What’d you bring, a stove?”
“No.”
Audra smiled.
“But if the one here is as bad as I’ve been told, I may regret that.”
Two younger men laughed.
Boyd did not.
They carried the trunk toward a low log building at the edge of camp.
Audra followed.
Inside, she stopped.
For several seconds she genuinely had no words.
Reed noticed.
“What?”
Audra slowly looked around.
The cook shack was a crime scene.
Grease coated the iron stove.
A flour sack sat open beside the wall.
One shelf held six dented tins without labels.
A frying pan hung from a nail with enough burned fat inside it to qualify as geological sediment.
The preparation table had deep knife marks blackened with old food.
A large stockpot had been repaired twice with crude solder.
The only proper knife on the table was dull enough to spread butter but not cut it.
Audra walked toward the pantry.
Three sacks of beans.
Two sacks of flour.
Salt pork.
Molasses.
Dried peas.
Potatoes beginning to sprout.
A barrel of dried apples.
A small crate of onions.
Coffee.
Very little else.
She turned.
“You feed eleven working men from this?”
Reed folded his arms.
“We've been managing.”
Audra looked at the pan.
“Barely.”
“Men work.”
“That’s what matters.”
She stared.
“Men work better when properly fed.”
“That's not philosophy.”
“It’s anatomy.”
Reed looked amused.
“Dinner’s at six.”
“I read your letter.”
“So?”
“So I know dinner is at six.”
“You've got three hours.”
“I know.”
“Eleven men.”
“Still know.”
Reed’s expression cooled slightly.
Audra removed her coat.
Underneath she wore a plain deep burgundy frontier dress with no pattern, a low cream-trimmed neckline, and three-quarter sleeves. She tied a brown leather apron around her broad waist.
Then she rolled her sleeves.
Reed watched.
Audra pointed toward the doorway.
“If you’re going to stand there, sharpen that knife.”
He blinked.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
For the first time, one corner of his mouth moved.
He picked up the knife.
Audra began.
By five forty-five, the smell had changed the entire camp.
It began with onions.
Then pork properly rendered instead of boiled into gray misery.
Then beans simmered with salt, pepper, dried herbs, and a spoonful of molasses.
Then biscuits.
Hot.
Golden.
Soft enough to tear apart with two fingers.
The first lumberjack entered early.
A young man with narrow shoulders and sandy hair.