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Supper! She hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and her stomach felt as hollow as an empty barrel. Oh, yes, supper! She’d be there before five. Perhaps she would go down to the cookhouse early and help out. In the meantime, she had to think.
What can I possibly do in this wilderness to earn money?
By the time she had made up the bed, hauled a bucket of cool water from the creek fifty yards from her porch, and used a dampened handkerchief to sponge the travel dust off her face and neck, she had made up her mind. If Colonel Tom Randall raised any objections, why she would…Never mind. She’d think of something.
She tidied her hair under the crocheted black netting and gave it a nervous pat. All she would require was a bit of ingenuity, a generous helping of elbow grease and God’s forgiveness. Plus a dollop of luck when she went down to supper.
Her heart flip-flopped at the prospect before her. Perhaps the colonel would be busy giving orders to his crew and wouldn’t notice. Maybe the cook…
She dared not think about it too much. To keep her mind occupied she set about unpacking the rest of her things. She laid the tin of candles on the cot, stacked her underclothes on the sink counter, then slid her father’s revolver underneath and covered the pile with a tea towel Charlotte had embroidered for her. A line of poetry was stitched around the perimeter. “Cleave ever to the sunnier side of doubt.”
Tears stung her eyelids. She must write to Charlotte, must write to all her sisters, and assure them that she was safe and…and not the least bit frightened.
On second thought, she wouldn’t lie. “Safe” would have to suffice!
She ran her hand over the mound of clothing covering the revolver, smoothed down her skirt and headed for the door. At the last minute she whipped the tea towel off the pile of garments and stuffed it into her pocket. She would need it.
Tom watched the black-clad form moving down the path from the cabin to the cookhouse and narrowed his eyes. She seemed to float slowly over the earth, and when he realized why, he grinned in spite of himself.
With extreme care she pushed one foot ahead of her, waited a second, then shifted her weight onto it. Only then did she move her other foot forward. Testing for rocks, he guessed. Or snakes. She looked like a miniature black-sailed ship skimming the ground.
You are one helluva fool, Tom Randall. He’d never get her out of his mind if he didn’t stop watching her.
He wrenched his attention back to the open accounts book on his desk. Devil’s Camp wasn’t near breaking even, much less making a profit. Payroll was high. The men made good wages, and they deserved it; he’d hand-picked most of them when he mustered out of the army. Logging was dangerous, and he needed a seasoned crew. But lumber prices were dropping.
He wondered sometimes why he’d taken on this operation. Maybe because the first thing he saw when he’d ridden away from Fort Riley was trees, tall Douglas firs so thick a man couldn’t reach around them. After years of killing Johnny Rebs and then Indians, felling timber seemed like a good, clean thing to do. Trees made lumber, and lumber built houses and barns and churches and stores. Civilization. He liked being part of things that would have a future, things that would live on after his own days on earth were over. He guessed he was like his father in that way.
Maybe that was how Walt Peabody felt about that cabin he’d built for Miss Hampton. At the thought of her, he glanced up to see a black skirt vanish into the cookhouse.
He massaged his tight neck muscles and got to his feet. Great balls of fire, a woman at supper. He’d best go over and keep order.
Meggy craned her neck to peer through the screen door of the cookhouse. No sign of activity. No cook. No crew of hungry men. She lifted the watch pendant at her breast. Exactly five o’clock.
But she heard the clatter of pots and lids, and wonderful, tantalizing smells wafted from inside. She’d just step in and—
A slight figure in a black cotton tunic bustled out a doorway, swept onto the long, narrow porch outside and banged an iron spoon against a metal triangle. The sound jangled in her ears, and when it stopped another sound took its place. Marching feet.
Her blood turned to ice water. Yankee soldiers.
“You stand back, missy,” the bell ringer warned. His long pigtail swung behind him as he sped noiselessly across the rough floor. “Men come,” he called over his shoulder. “You come with Fong.”
Meggy took a step in his direction, but in the next instant the screen door slapped open and a herd of jabbering men, all sizes and shapes, poured into the room, climbing over benches and even the long trestle table, to jostle a place for themselves.
Quickly she followed Fong to the sanctuary of the kitchen, then peeked back around the corner and released a sigh of relief. Not one of them looked like a soldier.
The hulking blond Swede she recognized from the burial this morning. And the Irishman. Two gangly youths with identical patches of freckles scuffled over the space next to the Swede until a man with long, straight black hair separated them with one arm and took the place for himself.
More men tumbled in, pushing and shoving and shouting good-natured insults at each other that made her cheeks warm.
“You help, missy. Bullcook quit yesterday.” The Oriental shoved a huge bowl of mashed potatoes into her hands, turned her about and gave her a little push. “Hurry. Colonel Tom not like to wait.”
Meggy gulped. A blob of butter the size of her fist melted in the center of the steaming potatoes. She was so hungry! She inhaled the delicious aroma and felt another nudge at her back. “Go now. Eat later with Fong. Not good one missy with dozen misters.”
Quiet fell like a sheet of chilling rain when Meggy stepped into the dining room. No one moved. No one spoke. Twelve faces stared at her in complete silence.
She forced her feet to carry her forward to the table, where she set down the bowl of potatoes.
The Irishman rose and swept off his cap. “Boys, I’m presentin’ to you Miss Mary Margaret Hampton. She’s Walt Peabody’s next of kin.”
She tried to smile. “Gentlemen.”
“That they aren’t, lass. Some of ’em haven’t seen the likes of a lady up close for six months, so I wouldn’t be fraternizin’ too much.”
“Aw, come on, O’Malley, be reasonable,” a man shouted. A chorus of similar protests followed.
“Gosh, she shore is a purty one. She kin set on my lap and fraternize all she wants!”
“We want to hear her talk! Been a long time since we heard a woman’s voice.”
“Let’s have us a chiv—”
“Hold it!” a voice boomed from the doorway. Tall and lean, Tom Randall strode toward her, his eyes shooting sparks. Meggy’s heart began to skip beats.
“Thought I told you not to bother my men,” he said just loud enough for her to hear.
She swallowed. “I was not ‘bothering,’ Colonel. I was serving potatoes.”
He turned away from her without a word. “Boys, we’ve got us a problem. Maybe one of you can solve it.”
A murmur of interest hummed through the room. Meggy noticed how he used his body to shield her from view. Fong was right; one missy and a dozen misters not good! She edged backward toward the kitchen.
“The problem,” Tom continued, “is this. We’ve got no meat.”
Meggy stopped still and heard her stomach grumble. No meat? What smelled so good, then?
“We haven’t had any meat for weeks, Colonel. How long is this gonna go on?”
“That’s not exactly true, Price. We’ve eaten a rabbit or two, and a squirrel.”
“And some scrawny little pigeons,” someone ventured.
She saw what he was doing—drawing the men’s attention away from her—but she was so interested in the meat problem, she hovered near the door to listen.
Tom reached into his bulging back pocket, pulled out a bottle of amber liquid and thumped it down on the table. “This is fine whiskey, boys. One full quart.”
Every eye studied the bottle.
“Now I’m going to tell you how one of you can claim this joy juice. It’s plain we need meat. Fong tells me a deer’s been nibbling his tomato plants at night. I’ll give this bottle of liquid fire to the first man who shoots us some venison!”
“Hurray for the colonel!”
“I’m one crack shot,” yelled the Swede. “We haf meat by tomorrow.”
“A whole bottle for just one deer? Wouldja give me a gallon of rum if I kill an elk?”
“Elk meat tastes funny,” the man called Price said. “Least it did back in Kansas.”
“Hell, that weren’t no elk, that were a beef cow. Are all Kansans that stupid?”
Tom held up one hand and a hush fell. “Let’s get on with supper so we can be rolling into the timber at first light.”
Fong scurried past Meggy with an oval platter of sliced tomatoes in each hand. He plopped them down to the accompaniment of groans.
“Not more vegetables,” Price moaned. “I’m gonna turn into a carrot before this season’s half over!”
Tom slid onto the end of the bench and tapped the whiskey bottle with a ring he wore on his little finger. “Just a reminder, boys. We need meat to go with the potatoes.”
Meggy had to laugh. The man was a master at guiding people in the direction he wanted. Her father, minister of the Methodist persuasion until his death in the field at Shiloh, had been similarly persuasive. The difference was that Papa fought for men’s souls; Tom Randall cared about men’s stomachs.
Such a man surely lacked depth.
She tore her thoughts away from him and tried to focus on the mission she had set for herself. She calculated she would need about ten minutes to do what she had to do.
She spied two blue china plates loaded with food and set aside on a small kitchen table. First, she decided, she would eat her supper.
And then she would use the very trick Tom Randall had just showed her to benefit her own cause.
She did hope that God would forgive her.
Chapter Three
Meggy adjusted her position at the small kitchen table so she could see into the dining hall where the men were eating. As she lifted forkfuls of mashed potatoes and boiled carrots to her mouth, she watched Tom Randall out of the corner of her eye.
He sat facing her, speaking to the tall, dark-haired man across the table, the one who had stopped the freckle-faced boys’ scuffle. Tom’s blue eyes steadily surveyed the dark man’s face; Meggy studied Tom.
The colonel was a handsome man, she conceded. The skin of his face and arms was tanned from the sun, his features well proportioned. He wore a red plaid shirt, stuffed into dark-blue trousers. Even his mouth was attractive. For a Yankee, that is. Southern men generally sported mustaches.
The crew laughed and joked as they ate. Tom did neither. He kept his gaze on his men but didn’t join in beyond an occasional word. Many of them eyed the whiskey bottle Tom had set out, and a few even caressed the glass container as they finished their meal and meandered onto the porch for a smoke.
Fong bustled between the huge iron-and-nickel cookstove and the sink, pumping water into food-encrusted pots, shaving in bits of brown soap and setting the utensils aside to soak. Then the cook stood poised in the kitchen doorway, watching for the moment he could swoop down to clear the dirty plates the men had left on the table.
When the main room emptied, Fong shot forward, and Meggy laid her fork aside.
Here was her chance.
Very quietly she pushed back her chair, stood up and glided to the pantry. Inside, barrels of flour, sugar, salt and molasses lined one wall. Woven baskets stuffed with carrots, potatoes, apples and squash teetered on crude plank shelves, and bunches of drying herbs tied together with string hung upside down from nails in the ceiling.
She withdrew the tea towel from her pocket, lifted the first barrel lid and scooped up three handfuls of flour. She dumped it in the center of the towel, gathered up the four corners and then moved to the barrel marked Salt. She sprinkled a pinch on top of the flour, then searched for a container of saleratus. There, on the middle shelf!
She maneuvered the top off the square tin canister, dipped in her thumb and forefinger and added the white powder to the contents of the tea towel.
In the cooler sat a ceramic crock of pale cream-colored butter. Meggy hesitated a long moment. Did she dare? Papa would spin in his grave if he knew I was stealing butter from a cookhouse pantry.
She dug her fingers into the crock, scooped out a slippery handful. I cannot believe I am doing this!
She slid the glob of butter in on top of the flour and wiped her fingers on the towel. “Now,” she breathed. “What else will I need?”
Her gaze fell on a bushel basket of mottled gold apples by the door. Four went into the tea towel; the fifth and sixth she stuffed into her skirt pocket. Sweeping past the sugar barrel, she hesitated for a split second, then halted and plunged in her clean hand. Her fist closed around coarse brown lumps.
Fong’s voice rose from the kitchen like a trumpet call. “Missy help wash dishes?”
Her heart stopped. “Yes, I will,” she called out. She dumped the sugar into her pocket, then jiggled up and down so the lumps would sift down around the apples and collect at the bottom. Satisfied, she dusted off her hands and straightened her skirt.
Stepping out of the pantry, she slipped the bulging tea towel under her knitted black shawl and turned to the pile of pots and pans in the sink. Fong’s black eyes followed her every motion.
Trust me, she begged silently. I will pay you back.
He turned away without a word and dropped an armload of plates into the wide sink. “Fong wash, missy dry.”
He lifted a whistling teakettle off the stove. Steam arose as he emptied the kettle, then pumped cold water into the enamelware dishpan and pointed to a clumsily hemmed flour sack. Meggy snatched it up and stood ready.
The man was a wonder. Plates, mugs, pots and lids flew through the soapy wash water and into the rinse bucket. She wiped as fast as she could but could not keep up with him. Last to be cleaned were four black iron skillets in various sizes. Fong wiped out the grease with a wadded towel and hung them upside down near the stove.
Meggy eyed the smallest pan. Just perfect. But how would she get it out the door? Perhaps some conversation to distract Fong just long enough?
“How long have you worked for Colonel Randall?”
“Long time, missy. Since before war. Before that, on railroad crew. Boss find me and I cook in army, now here at Devil Camp.”
He sent her an inquisitive glance. “Ladies not allowed in camp. Why Colonel Tom let you stay?”
Meggy blinked. “Why, I don’t know, really. I guess he couldn’t very well turn me away, since Mr. Peabody willed me his cabin.”
Fong grunted and splashed the last plate into the rinse water. “Make no difference. Boss not like pretty women. Remind him of young sister.”
His sister! Not a wife or a fiancée? “Colonel Randall is not married, then?” How rude of me. First I turn thief, then inquisitor.
“No woman. Not since sister die.”
“Die! Oh, dear Lord, how did she die?”
Fong scrubbed hard at a tin saucepan. “Soldiers in Richmond hang her.”
Her hands stilled. “Hanged her! How dreadful! Whatever did she do?”
“They say she Yankee spy.”
The plate she was drying clattered to the plank floor. Colonel Randall’s sister had spied for the Yankees? Meggy couldn’t believe her ears. Of course there had been spies; she knew that. But hanging a woman? Why, it was unthinkable!
