He stopped in the doorway.
“What is that?”
Audra looked over.
“Supper.”
“No.”
She frowned.
“No?”
“That smell.”
“Onions.”
He looked almost emotional.
“You put onions in beans?”
“Yes.”
“Can you do that?”
Audra stared.
“Who raised you?”
He laughed.
“Jasper.”
“Audra.”
“I know.”
He stepped closer.
“Can I have one biscuit?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because supper is at six.”
Jasper looked toward the tray.
“It's five fifty-two.”
“Then suffer eight minutes.”
Another man entered behind him.
Dark-haired.
Younger.
Perhaps twenty-two.
“What’s happening?”
Jasper whispered:
“She made biscuits.”
The second man crossed himself.
Audra laughed despite herself.
By six, all eleven men sat around two long tables.
Reed took his usual place near the end.
Boyd sat opposite him.
Nobody spoke while Audra served.
That silence was different from the one at the wagon.
Hungry.
Suspicious.
Hopeful.
Jasper tasted beans first.
His eyebrows rose.
Saul, the dark-haired young man beside him, tore a biscuit open and stared at the steam rising from it.
Then bit.
“Oh.”
Boyd looked at him.
“What?”
Saul shook his head.
“Nothing.”
He reached for another.
The basket had not even completed its first trip around the table.
Within four minutes the room became noisy.
Spoons scraped bowls.
Men asked for more.
Someone laughed.
Someone else swore because Jasper took the final biscuit from the first pan.
Audra brought out another.
Jasper looked at her as if she had raised the dead.
“You made more?”
“I counted.”
Reed ate quietly.
That bothered her.
Everyone else reacted.
He observed.
When supper ended, men carried dishes toward the wash basin without being asked.
Another miracle, apparently.
Reed remained.
Audra was scraping leftovers into a small crock when he approached.
“Better than I expected.”
She did not turn.
“I’m relieved your expectations survived.”
He ignored the barb.
“How’d you make those beans?”
“Cooked them.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yes.”
She looked over.
“Tomorrow will be better.”
Reed studied her.
“You always this confident?”
“No.”
“Only when I’m right.”
He almost smiled.
Then left.
The next morning Audra discovered the camp woke at four thirty.
She woke at three forty-five.
By the time the men arrived, there was coffee, fried potatoes, biscuits warmed from the night before, and oatmeal sweetened with dried apple.
Boyd looked into his bowl.
“What’s that?”
“Oatmeal.”
“It has fruit.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Audra leaned toward him.