Wyatt frowned.
She picked up her knife.
“I expect you to complain for another three hours, then eat two bowls.”
A few cowboys laughed again.
Wyatt stepped closer.
“Lady, I’d eat saddle leather before I ate goat.”
“That can be arranged.”
Even Caleb smiled.
Wyatt’s eyes narrowed.
“You think you’re funny?”
“No.”
Abigail looked directly at him.
“I think you’re hungry.”
Silence.
Then one of the younger hands burst out laughing so hard he had to turn away.
Wyatt’s face reddened.
Caleb stepped between them before the moment hardened further.
“That’s enough.”
Wyatt backed off.
But his eyes stayed on Abigail.
She saw the promise there.
Not violence.
Something smaller and meaner.
He wanted her embarrassed.
He wanted the story of the fat camp cook and her goat meat to end exactly how he had predicted.
Abigail looked toward the west.
The sun was still high.
“Give me until sundown.”
Caleb frowned.
“For what?”
“If they won’t eat what I serve, I’ll leave tonight.”
That quieted everyone.
One man near the horse trough muttered, “Hell.”
Caleb studied her.
“You don’t have anywhere to go.”
Abigail hated that he knew.
She had told him only because the ranch paperwork required next-of-kin information.
Her father had died six weeks earlier in Galveston.
Pneumonia.
Quick enough to leave debts behind.
Slow enough to let Abigail watch him understand what was happening.
By the time the doctor stopped coming, she had spent nearly everything they had.
The house belonged to creditors.
Her father’s little cooking business vanished with him.
The telegraph from Caldwell Ranch had been employment, shelter, and escape folded into one.
“No,” Abigail said. “I don’t.”
Caleb’s eyes held hers.
“Then don’t make stupid wagers.”
“It isn’t stupid.”
“You just offered to walk into open country after dark if thirty stubborn men don’t like supper.”
“I said if they won’t eat it.”
“There’s a difference?”
“There will be.”
Caleb looked toward the goat.
Then toward his men.
Finally he said, “Sundown.”
Wyatt smiled.
Abigail picked up the first cut of meat.
“And keep your animals out of my kitchen until then.”
That produced more laughter.
Caleb tipped his hat once.
“Men.”
The crowd dispersed.
Not completely.
A few walked backward, still watching.
Abigail ignored them.
Then she carried the meat inside.
The cookhouse changed her.
Outside, she was aware of her body because everyone else was.
Inside, there was too much work for self-consciousness.
She spread the goat across the chopping table.
Lean shoulder.
Leg.
Rib.
Neck.
Cheap cuts.
Useful cuts.
Her father had taught her that poor people understood meat better than wealthy ones.
Wealth bought tenderness.
Poverty learned patience.
Abigail sharpened her knife.
Trimmed silver skin.
Separated fat.
Cut the meat into uneven chunks large enough not to dry out.
Then she heated rendered beef fat saved from the previous day in a heavy black pot.
The fire caught.
The iron warmed.
When the surface shimmered, she added the first batch.
The sound changed the room.
Sizzle.
Smoke.
Meat hitting iron.
Abigail did not stir.
That was another lesson from her father.
Let the crust happen.