Forget Me Not (6 page)

J.D. went around her, pausing in the doorway to say, “Have supper ready by five.”

An ambush of trepidation struck Josephine, and she had to force herself not to read the time on the delicate chatelaine watch pinned to her bodice. “I will.”
Five o'clock
 . . . How much time did that leave her to rectify errors?

Rather than leave, J.D. lounged against the jamb. Her gaze darted to the window, the ceiling, and the floor until she could no longer avoid looking at him. She couldn't deny he was a striking figure, with his long coat unbuttoned to his calves revealing the slim fit of his denim pants and the soft fabric of his shirt. Not to mention, he was quite tall. In boots and hat, he filled out the height of the frame. She imagined that even in his stockinged feet, his bare head would nearly touch the underside of the doorway.

“You never asked how much the job paid,” he drawled, dragging her from her imprudent thoughts.
It was just as well that he had. She was no longer inclined to romantic daydreams that would prove false anyway.

When his question registered, she felt foolish and inept, the full awareness of her inexperience slapping her on her burning cheeks. “I assumed it paid a cook's wage.”

“Which is?”

He was abominable. She could say nothing, because she didn't know—and he knew it.

“Thirty dollars a month,” J.D. supplied. “Unless somebody comes down the road. Since the duration of your stay is questionable, I'll pay you once a week.”

Stoically, she nodded. She'd have to work at least a week and several days more to earn enough to buy a train ticket. She hoped nobody else would show up until then.

“I'll have one of the boys bring you some loin beef for supper.” J.D. pushed his hip away from the jamb and straightened. “We'll need fresh meat for the drive anyway. We're leaving the day after tomorrow, so that doesn't give you much time to get the wagon in order.”

“I don't need but a few minutes' notice,” she replied in an accommodating tone. “I have no special travel requirements that would have to be taken into consideration when arranging the wagon. But just the same, perhaps it would be better if I stayed here. I can't see how much use I would be.”

J.D. gave her the first crack of a smile that she could put a label on. It made her uncomfortable. “Do you know what a cattle drive is?”

“Of course I do.” But suddenly she wasn't sure. Why was he talking about bringing meat along? The Beadle's No. 478,
Colorado Charlie's Escape and the Young Desperadoes
, had touched briefly on cattle management. Charlie Macready was assigned to go along with a shipment of cattle by rail cars. She'd
assumed that Mr. McCall had been referring to taking his cows to the train station. Be that the case, they would be back here in a few hours.

“I'm glad you aren't green. But just the same,” he said, using her words and smiling while he spoke them, “I'll tell you how it'll go. I'll be moving out twenty-five hundred head of cattle and fifty-seven cutting horses, with ten cowboys and one wrangler to keep the animals from stampeding. We'll be covering fifty miles to get to the summer range. If we're lucky and don't hit any rough spots, that'll take us five ten-mile days. Boots'll come along. There's no keeping him here. He'll drive the wagon so you don't have to. Rio will cut your firewood, assist with the dishes and the grind coffee. All you have to do is have the grub hot and ready when it's supposed to be.”

She tried to keep the waver of alarm from her tone. “I'm to cook out on the open range over a fire.”

“You're right, cookie, you aren't green. You know exactly how it goes.” With a dip of his head, he parted with, “See you at supper.”

•  •  •

Josephine's first reaction to a crisis was to do nothing. There had always been someone available to cope with whatever it was that needed coping with. To do nothing had been part of her childhood training. Only now there was no one, and to do nothing wouldn't suffice. She had to make her own decision about how she was going to handle the cattle drive. So she did what came naturally to her.

She put off making a decision until she had to.

In the meantime, since she had nothing to unpack that could be of any immediate use to her, she wanted to make up her bed and lie down a moment to collect herself before tackling the process of figuring out the evening's menu.

Outside, signs of the weather turning were apparent in the budding greenery. A high sun shone brilliantly
from a cloudless sky. The day was beautiful and windless. Josephine wandered toward the clothesline. Removing the sheets from their wooden pins, she gazed around for a basket. There was none. She put the pins in the bedclothes, then bundled them up in her arms.

Several yards behind the clothesline was a small graveyard fenced in by gray pickets. One mound of earth appeared to be freshly turned. Curious, she walked to the slated gate and let herself in. There were several markers, but the newest read:

Sacred to the memory of

Luis Francisco Escalante

Cook and Friend

He was buried by his friends and fellow cowboys on April 2, 1874.

A bouquet from a slender plant with oblong leaves and light blue flowers with yellow eyes had recently been placed at the base of the cross. Josephine couldn't explain the sudden wave of sadness that passed through her as she quietly stared at the resting place of her predecessor. She wondered how he'd died.

Her gaze roamed to read the other graves in the well-tended tiny plot. Those that intrigued her the most were markers with single names on them. Some female, some masculine.

“Ginger”

May we all meet and have some good rides again.

It had never occurred to her to bury a pet. Perhaps because she'd never had one. Having not been around them, she wasn't much for dogs and cats, and neither was she fond of domestic animals. The Beadle's
volumes she chose to read were more centered on Wild West adventures and romance rather than livestock. Let alone cattle drives. How purely unenlightened J.D. McCall must think her.

Josephine let herself out of the grave orchard, the stiff sheets still wadded in her arms. At the far corner of the yard stood a small corral with a single, reddish cow in it. Seeing her, the cow mooed. She gave the animal a critical inspection from a far distance and came to the conclusion its face wasn't that displeasing to look at. Its eyes were mild in a face that resembled the panda bear's she'd once seen in a world atlas of nature book.

Two cowboys exited a shed that was connected to the corral. They each held a rope; one carried an ax. The cow shuffled but didn't try to run away; it merely stood there working its mouth in circular chewing motions. The taller of the two men threw his rope and caught the cow by its head; the other roped its hind feet, threw it down, and stretched it out. The animal struggled, now mooing with a pitiful sound. The ax was retrieved, and Josephine felt the saliva thicken in her mouth.

Unable to watch any further, she ran back to the house, slammed the kitchen door, and pressed her back against the panel. The sheets fell from her arms as she brought her hands to her face to shield her eyes from the thought of that stupid cow being killed with an ax. She felt a headache coming on. A delicate glass of sherry was needed to calm her nerves. If only there was some sherry to be had.

Stepping over the sheets, she began to rummage through the cupboard and the shelves, searching for the telltale shape of a slender liquor decanter. There was nothing. Not a drop of spirits to be had in the whole room. What kind of cowboys were these, that a little indulgence was not allowed?

Josephine went into her room and slumped down
on the bare mattress. She shouldn't be so upset. She ate beef. As a matter of fact, beef Wellington was one of her favorite dishes. Only she'd never had to see the cow's face before its meat was served up on her china plate with
pâté de foie gras.

A wave of desolation swept over her as she stared at the cracks in the floorboards.
What am I doing here?

3

T
he answer came simply inside Josephine's head, and in the form of her mother's voice. “One way of finding out whether a risk is worth taking is
not
to take it, and see what you become in the long run.” Throughout the imprisoning years of her marriage, Josephine had taken her mother's advice. But she heeded it no longer. That was why she'd given up assorted snobberies, tedium, and fossilized rules of conduct and had ended up in Mr. J.D. McCall's house working for thirty dollars a month.

Thirty dollars
. It seemed like a fortune, yet on her twenty-first birthday she'd been worth more than four million dollars.

Grudgingly, Josephine rose, went to her valise, and opened the catch. She removed a deep blue canvas-bound book entitled
The Kitchen Companion and Housekeeper's Own Book
. In smaller print beneath the title it read:
Containing All the Modern and Most Approved Methods in Cookery, Pastry & Confectionery with an Excellent Collection of VALUABLE RECIPES.

Josephine might not have known the first thing about cooking, but she knew what would
not
be on the menu tonight. Panda-faced cow. She couldn't possibly
face the meat, much less touch it or slice it with a butcher's knife.

Thirty minutes later, Josephine stood at the stove, book in hand. She'd taken off the smart jersey to her suit and refastened her gold watch by its pin to the thin fabric of her underblouse. She followed through the instructions for lighting a cooking fire, improvising when she wasn't clear on the exact meaning of the directions. The section on dampers thoroughly confused her. Rather than concern herself over something that she didn't have to worry about until the fire was hot, she skipped that part.

When she was finished, her hands and patches on her pristine cuffs were the color of coal. She hadn't had the foresight to pump water into a bucket before beginning. Helplessly looking about for something to wipe her hands on, she could find nothing. Earlier, she hadn't come across an apron or a towel, so she ransacked what turned out to be a moderately sized larder. Everything she touched got smudged with black dust: the knob, the inside of the door, the shelf, the stack of flour sack towels with faint traces of the brand name still dyed on them.

After wiping off her hands, she remained standing in the modest pantry. She scanned the shelves for the ingredients she would require. There was a barrel of molasses, a half-bag of Arbuckle's coffee, peppercorns, mace, nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, salt, a tin of baking powder, and flour. Then came the meager supply of canned goods: milk, sardines, tomatoes. But there was an open case of canned corn on the floor, with a full case beneath it. Boots hadn't been kidding about the creamed corn on toast.

Despite the scarcity of staples, milk and tomatoes were exactly what she needed to get started on the soup. Though she couldn't understand why they'd need canned milk on a ranch when there were all those cows to be milked. With a shrug, she juggled five No. 2 cans of tomatoes, the dented tin of baking
powder, and a couple cans of milk that were supposed to add up to one quart.

Depositing them on the counter in a heap, she skimmed through the recipe once more.
Heat the tomatoes, add the baking powder, and allow to effervesce.
She wasn't all that sure what
effervesce
meant, but she'd heard of champagne referred to as effervescent. So that must mean to cook the tomatoes until they bubbled up.

She picked up a can and read the label. There were no instructions on how to open it. A dilemma was brewing. She couldn't make tomato soup if she couldn't get the can open. Her headache began to pulse anew at her temples. She put the can down and went into her room to get a butterscotch candy so that she could think better. Once the sweet tidbit was melting against her tongue, she approached the can at a different angle. Perhaps if she gouged it with a knife . . .