“Stew?”
“Yes.”
“Bread?”
“Good.”
“Pastry?”
“Better.”
“Biscuits?”
Evelyn stared at tray.
“Apparently not.”
Mary laughed.
Evelyn looked wounded.
“No.”
Mary said quickly.
“Not at you.”
“My mother used to say nobody should be hired because of biscuits.”
Clara looked over.
“Audra was not your mother.”
Mary smiled.
“Close enough.”
They hired Evelyn.
Not out of pity.
The woman really could cook.
Within a month she improved roast preparation, reorganized cold storage, and introduced a savory meat pie that became so popular travelers started asking ahead whether it was on the menu.
Her biscuits remained mediocre for almost a year.
Nobody cared.
The lodge moved forward.
That was how Audra’s absence began changing shape.
At first it had been a hole.
Then a memory.
Then gradually a set of decisions other people made because she had once made similar decisions and explained why.
Mary began to understand something Clara had said.
Audra had not built all of Blackwater.
If she had, Blackwater would have died with her.
The fact that it continued meant she had built something better than dependence.
She had built habits.
Not perfect ones.
But durable.
Two years after Audra’s death, Blackwater faced its first major crisis without either Audra or Reed.
A corporation based in Vancouver approached the family trust.
Northwest Leisure Holdings.
They owned hotels near rail routes and mountain resorts farther south.
Their representative, Charles Wetherby, arrived wearing a tailored charcoal suit and shoes utterly unsuited to Blackwater mud.
Mary disliked him immediately.
She tried not to make decisions based on shoes.
Audra would have mocked her.
Wetherby sat in the lodge office with Mary, Samuel, Clara, and the employee-trust representative.
He placed a leather portfolio on the table.
“We’re prepared to make a very serious offer.”
Samuel leaned back.
“How serious?”
Wetherby named the number.
Nobody spoke.
Even Mary’s heart jumped.
It was enough money to make every family member wealthy.
Enough for Clara to retire comfortably.
Enough to fund pensions for current employees.
Enough to remove the constant anxiety of maintaining an old mountain property whose winters destroyed roofs, pipes, roads, and budgets.
Wetherby smiled.
“We believe Blackwater could become one of the premier destination resorts in western Canada.”
Mary looked out the window.
Snowy cedar.
Old camp foundations.
Creek.
“What changes?”
“Expansion.”
“Obviously.”
“How?”
“New main building.”
“Luxury rooms.”
“Hot baths.”
“Private dining.”
“A golf course eventually.”
Samuel laughed.
“Here?”
“In summer.”
Wetherby continued.
“We would retain historical branding.”
Mary’s jaw tightened.
“What does that mean?”
“Mrs. Mackay’s story has tremendous commercial value.”
Clara’s face hardened.
Wetherby opened another folder.
“Our preliminary marketing concept.”
A painted illustration.
An enormous cheerful frontier woman holding tray of biscuits while muscular lumberjacks crowded around her.
Above:
AUDRA’S BLACKWATER — WHERE LEGENDS ARE FED
Mary stared.
Clara slowly removed her glasses.
Samuel whispered:
“Oh no.”
Wetherby misread the silence.
“We believe the founder story gives us extraordinary authenticity.”
Mary looked at the illustration again.
Audra reduced to novelty.
Her body exaggerated comically.
The men all smiling like children around a mother.
No lodge.