Lynna Banning - Western Spring Weddings

“Well...”

“How ’bout I pay you a salary, say three dollars a week, to cook for me. In a month or two you could save up enough for a train ticket back to Boston.”

“A month!”

“Yeah. Somethin’ wrong with that?”

“Could—could we stay in your attic bedroom? I feel safe there.”

“Sure.” He stood up, lifted the iron skillet off the hook on the wall and pointed to a red-checked apron hanging on a nail by the back door. “Lesson number one, comin’ up. Emily, you want to help this old cowboy fry up some bacon?”

“Can I have an apron, too?”

“Yep.” He handed her a ruffled Maria-sized yellow garment. “And here’s the one for your mama.”

Clarissa looped the apron around her neck and tied the ruffled part over the dark blue travel skirt she’d put on that morning. Other than the garish green taffeta dress and her bombazine travel suit, she had only three other garments—a striped calico skirt, a white muslin shirtwaist and her nightrobe. Because she couldn’t sit down, she stood by the stove and watched Gray fry bacon and then crack eggs into the pan, then slice bread and toast it in the oven. It didn’t look too difficult, but every step she took made her wince.

Emily managed to push three blue-flowered plates across the round wood table and plop a jumble of forks and knives at each place. Gray added a platter of scrambled eggs and bacon and Clarissa steeled herself to perch on one of the straight-backed kitchen chairs. When she emitted a little groan as she sat down, Emily brought a soft cushion from the settee in the parlor to pad the hard surface. Very gingerly Clarissa sank onto her backside and picked up a fork.

Through the window over the dry sink, she watched the sun come up, turning the sky peach, then gold, and then such an intense blue it looked painted. She prayed it was a good omen. She was frightened right down to her knickers, stranded in a strange, wild place she didn’t understand or even like and thinking about agreeing to a job she had not the remotest idea how to undertake. She imagined her brother’s laughter. Cook? Sis, you can’t even boil water!

Gray ate without talking until the platter of eggs was empty, then he poured them both a second cup of coffee and answered Emily’s endless stream of questions. “What do horses do at night? Does Missus Maria have a little girl I could play with? How far can you see at night? Do you like red flowers better than yellow ones?”

Finally Clarissa shushed her and asked a question of her own. “Why do you dislike Caleb Arness so much? I know you do, because of the way your face looks every time his name comes up.”

Gray set his coffee cup down and leaned back in the chair. “Well, for starters, last night you saw the kind of man he is. Then there’s my ranch. I busted my—worked hard for almost twelve years to buy it and build it up. It’s the most important thing in my life, and Arness wants it. My land sits between his spread and the river, so he’s hurtin’ for water.”

“Go on,” she said quietly.

“Arness has nasty ways of tryin’ to drive me off. He’s cut fences and poisoned my well so now I’m havin’ to dig another one. My hands find dead cattle on the range—poisoned, the sheriff says. And I suspect the rustlers that plagued every mile on my drive to Abilene work for Arness. Cows disappear from my herd here at the Bar H, too. I’m losin’ stock and money, and I’m getting stretched pretty thin. If I can’t stop it, I’m gonna lose my ranch. And I’ll damn well die before I lose this ranch!”

She listened in complete silence, not drinking her coffee, just looking at him, her face grave and her eyes soft with understanding. Made him feel kinda warm inside.

“So,” she said after a long silence, “I could help in a small way by being your cook.”

Gray stared at her. Yes, it would ease things a bit—maybe a lot—but mostly he was touched by her recognition of how important the Bar H was to him. Even Emily seemed to grasp what was at stake.

“I’m gonna plant a garden an’ grow ice-cream cones,” the girl announced. “That would help, wouldn’t it, Mister Gray?”

Gray’s throat was suddenly so tight he couldn’t answer.

Chapter Six

Clarissa opened the front door to find a beaming Maria standing on the porch. “Señorita, I bring gift.” She held up the headless body of a chicken.

Clarissa recoiled. “Oh, I, um, thank you, but I don’t think—”

“Is nice fat hen,” the Mexican woman explained. “Make very good dinner.”

Clarissa gasped. Dinner! Oh, heavens, she’d forgotten her agreement. If she worked as Gray’s cook, then of course she must do just that—cook! And that meant not only breakfast but midday dinner and supper each evening. And not next week or tomorrow, but now. Today.

She stared at the bird clutched in Maria’s brown hand. “Maria, wh-what do I do with it?”

“Is easy.” Maria lifted her hand and folded Clarissa’s slim fingers around the scaly yellow legs. “First chop feet off, then take off feathers. To do this, boil water and give bath, then—”

“Chop off...?”

“Feet,” Maria reiterated. “Then pull out pinfeathers and clean out insides. You know what are pinfeathers?”

“Maria, might I borrow your cookbook?”

“Que? Never have I used a book of cooking, señorita. I have learn everything from my mama—tortillas and frijoles, even flan and pan dulce. The rest—American food—I teach myself.

Clarissa swallowed hard. Could she do that? She must have frowned because the Mexican woman suddenly reached out and patted her hand. “Do not worry, señorita. You will learn.”

“Th-thank you, Maria. I will try.”

Chop off the feet? A shudder went up her spine. She retreated to the kitchen, plopped the bird in the sink, and stared at it. I haven’t the faintest idea how to do this.

On the back porch she found a small hand ax, laid the chicken on the back step, closed her eyes tight and whacked off the legs. Then, recalling Maria’s instructions about the bath, she filled the teakettle and set it on the still-warm stove. Finally she shoved more wood into the firebox. At least from watching Gray she knew how to make a fire and heat water!

When the teakettle sang, she dumped the boiling water over the bird and discovered she could strip off the wet feathers quite easily. But the smell made her gag, and she tried not to breathe. When the naked bird sat looking at her, she thought about Maria’s next direction—clean out the insides.

Oh, God, how did one do that? She paced around and around the kitchen, steeling her nerves. Then she grasped a butcher knife and made a tentative incision at the thickest point of the chest, between the two wings. No entrails. Then she poked the tip of the knife between the drumsticks, and voila! She slashed in under the skin and—oh, Lordy—she couldn’t bear to look. All kinds of awful, ropey-looking things tumbled out. Hurriedly she looked away and gulped in air, then sucked in a deep breath and steeled herself to pull out all the innards and plop them in a bucket.

She would never be able to do this again. Whatever had she been thinking to agree to employment as a cook? Tears rose in her eyes. She had made another impulsive, ill-advised decision, like traveling out West to marry Caleb Arness, and now she was paying the price. She hated the West and everything in it—especially chickens!

She studied the eviscerated chicken on the counter. She’d already done the hard part—hadn’t she?—cutting off the legs and stripping off the smelly feathers. And pulling out the—she shuddered again—guts. How much more difficult could it be to shove it in the oven and bake it?

She rinsed the bird out, sprinkled salt and pepper over the skin, and laid it in a deep-sided pan. After an hour, the kitchen began to smell surprisingly good—so good, in fact, that her stomach rumbled. And by eleven o’clock, Emily was alternately dancing about the kitchen and complaining about being hungry.