Chapter 14
They did not heal me.
They did not break me.
They were simply true.
"I know," I said.
He walked away.
The next morning, a Brandt Ranch wagon came before sunrise.
The driver was a freckled man named Eli who talked enough for three men.
By the time we reached the ranch, I knew his wife's name, his mother's rheumatism, the reason he distrusted geese, and the entire history of a feud between two bunkhouse hands over a red scarf.
Then the Brandt place came into view.
I had imagined wealth.
I had imagined polish.
What I found was work on a larger scale.
Barns.
Corrals.
Dust.
Men shouting across fences.
A windmill creaking over a tank.
Horses tied to rails.
Calves bawling.
The main house was broad and plain, built of weathered timber, with a deep porch.
Nothing glittered.
Everything had purpose.
Adrien stood near the kitchen door.
He took one look at the basket in my lap.
"What's that?"
"Starter."
"For what?"
"Cheese."
He nodded as though I had said ammunition.
The kitchen nearly sent me home.
A pot of gray beans sat on the stove.
Bread hard enough to shoe a mule lay under a towel.
There was flour on the floor and salt in the sugar tin.
The cook was a wide man named Harlan Briggs.
He looked at me as if Adrien had brought in an occupying army.
"I've been cooking for men twenty years."
Adrien stood behind him.
"Poor men."
Harlan glared.
I bit my lip.
Adrien looked at me.
"You see the situation."
"I do."
"Can it be saved?"
"Possibly."
Harlan folded his arms.
"That woman going to tell me how to cook?"
I put down my basket.
"No."
He looked surprised.
"I'm going to tell you how to stop ruining milk, butter, cheese, biscuits, beans, coffee, potatoes, and probably anything else unlucky enough to enter this room."
Adrien made a sound suspiciously like a cough.
Harlan stared at me.
Then, unexpectedly, he grinned.
"All right, Mrs. Dunore."
By noon, we had an understanding.
By supper, the ranch had biscuits.
By dark, I had earned my first dollar and fifty cents.
When Eli drove me home, I found Oscar sitting on the porch.
Alone.
My heart sank before I asked.
"Did your father come?"
He shook his head.
"Maybe he's late."
The words came automatically.
I hated myself for them.
Oscar looked down at the wooden horse in his hands.