His speech finished, the man tucked back into his pie.
Shocked, she plumped down into the seat beside him, her mind whirling. If the good Lord had picked her up and set her down on the other side of the moon, she couldn’t have been more surprised. This was so much better than she had dared hope. Even the isolation of the camp would be a gift from God—a perfect place to hide from Harlan.
“What is your name, sir?” she asked.
The man glanced up from his pie, which he seemed intent on consuming in one sitting. “Robert Foster at your service.”
His eyes, she noticed, were a light hazel rimmed with black. His lashes were thick and dark. They were handsome eyes, but she didn’t give a fig about the man’s looks. Harlan had been the most handsome man she had ever known. No, it was kindness that she was looking for, and it was kindness she saw there.
“And your name, ma’am?”
It occurred to her that it would be a mistake to give her real name. She cast about for a made-up name. Unfortunately, she wasn’t good at lying, and her mind went blank. Then her eyes caught on a Smith Brothers Cough Drop advertisement on the wall.
“Smith,” she said. “My name is Katie Smith. And this is my brother, Ned.”
“It’s good to meet you.”
She felt so guilty about lying that she expected Mr. Foster to see straight through her—ferreting out the lie she had told about her name, seeing the still-living husband looming in the background. She held her breath, waiting for him to withdraw his offer.
Instead, he seemed impatient to be finished with their conversation. He plucked his bowler hat from a vacant chair. “Do we have a deal, Katie Smith?”
She released her breath. The job was hers. She had no idea if she could trust the man or not, but she needed a job and she was a good cook.
Two dollars a day! She made some quick calculations. For seven months of work, she would receive nearly four hundred dollars! It was a staggering amount of money.
“Yes, sir. We have a deal.”
“My men call me Robert, and you will too.” He laid thirty Union greenbacks on the table in front of her. “The hotel across from here is clean and safe. You should be able to do the shopping you need to do this afternoon. I’ll come for you with the supply wagon tomorrow morning at dawn.”
“But tomorrow is the Sabbath.”
“The men will start showing up by Monday evening. Some may already be there. I’m already behind schedule. It will take us the bigger part of two days to get there. If we start early tomorrow, we might be at the camp in time to feed them. I hope you won’t change your mind. I’m depending on you.”
“I won’t change my mind,” she said. “You have my word.”
He stared hard at her, as though evaluating her.
“Your word is good enough for me.” He paid up, set his bowler hat firmly on his head, and departed, leaving one slice of pie untouched. She wondered if he had known she was hungry and had deliberately left it behind for her. She doubted that Robert or any other man would be so thoughtful. In spite of the kindness she had read in his eyes, her faith in men was not high.
It occurred to her that she had just agreed to live in the middle of the woods with a camp full of them. Goodness.
She picked up her brother’s fork and took a bite straight from the pie plate. Yes, the pie had turned out very well.
“Do you trust that man?” her brother asked.
“No. I don’t trust anyone except you and me.” She laid her hand over his. “But we will work hard for Mr. Foster. I don’t want him to regret his decision to hire us.”
Ned toyed with his napkin, avoiding her gaze. “Will you ever marry again?”
“No.” The question shook her. “I’m still legally bound to Harlan.”
“But what if he dies?”
The idea of Harlan dying had never crossed her mind. He had made it unscathed through four years of war. He seemed immortal. But even if he did, she would never remarry. Never again would she give another man control over her mind and body. Never again would she put herself through seeing the disgust on a man’s face each month when he found out she was not with child.
“No.” She shook her head. “Never.”
Her brother released a sigh. “I’m glad.” He captured a stray crumb and licked it off his finger. “You lied to Mr. Foster. More than once.”
“I know.” She folded up the money he had given her and tucked it deep into a pocket of her cape. “I’m sorry I had to do that.”
“Aren’t you afraid of going to hell?”
She gave his question the weight it deserved. “I think that is where I have been for a very long time.”
Harlan stared at the massive beam balanced above where Katherine set her milk pails every morning and evening. The beam—balanced just so—was heavy enough to crush her. The death he had arranged would have appeared to be an accident. Now that she was gone, he was in legal purgatory. No wife, but no legal right to remarry.
This was highly inconvenient. There was only one way out of the heinous poverty in which he found himself. Carrie Sherwood, a local widow, had managed to hang on to a few loyal servants and was reported to be quite wealthy. Her elderly husband had possessed the foresight to invest in Northern textile mills before the war. That woman’s money, which would be under his control were they to marry—would help him turn Fallen Oaks back into the paradise it had been before Sherman destroyed it.
The problem he had was that he knew absolutely that Carrie would never consent to marry him until he was, in truth, a grieving widower.
It was imperative that he find Katherine, bring her back here, make his terrible “grief” a reality, and accept the rich woman’s condolences very soon.
He had not fought a war only to come home and live like a pauper.
4
Then he took me to cook camp
and rigged me out neat:
an old stove and two kettles,
a full rig complete.
“Budd Lake Plains”
—1800s shanty song
“We’re staying in a hotel?” Ned asked as they left the restaurant. “Isn’t that expensive?”
Katie fingered the greenbacks folded into her pocket and wondered if Robert Foster would truly come for them tomorrow morning. Or would he change his mind and ask for his money back?
As she hesitated on the crowded wooden sidewalk, someone accidentally bumped into her. She found herself thrust against a bejeweled and heavily powdered woman whom she almost knocked down.
“I’m so sorry!” She grabbed the woman’s arm to steady her.
“Oh, that’s all right, honey.” The woman winked, and Katie saw that she was older than she had first thought. “This isn’t the first time I’ve been knocked around.”
Katie caught her breath. Although she was certain the woman didn’t mean anything by what she said, the words still cut to the core of her own experience.
“You all right?” The woman peered at her. “You look kinda pale.”
It was strange, Katie thought, to hear such common words coming from such a well-dressed personage. The bustled dress was watered purple silk, the gloves immaculate white, the large diamond earrings dazzling in the bright sun.
The woman looked as though she could have presided over one of the finest pre-war mansions in the South—except that the colors of her clothing were a mite loud, and the sound of her voice a bit coarse, and her décolleté a little too revealing.
“I—I’m all right,” Katie said.
“Are you new in town, honey?”
“We just got off the train.”
The woman’s eyes swept her up and down. “You looking for work?”
“I was.”
“I got a place over on Water Street. Real nice. Classy joint. I can always use another good worker. I pay good too. We could find a place for the boy—maybe helping out in the kitchen.”
“Really?” Katie was stunned. Her gamble in coming to this busy
town had been inspired. Two job offers in one day! Things were certainly different in the North.
“Some of my clients would pay big money for a pretty little redhead like you.” She glanced down at the bundle Katie held. “Of course we’d have to do something with those hands of yours. Our clientele don’t fancy rough hands.”
Katie gaped as the woman’s meaning became clear. She ran a bordello and was offering her a job as a—a . . .
“Oh, honey.” The woman smiled. “Now I’ve gone and shocked you. I’m sorry. There was just something in your eyes that made me think you’ve been through some rough times your own self. A lot of girls who come to work for me have that beaten-down look. My mistake.” She shrugged, but her eyes were calculating. “Of course, if you’d like to come on over to Water Street, you could rest your feet and we could discuss things over a nice cup of tea.”
The words, spoken in a grandmotherly voice, felt like a slap.
“Hello, Delia,” a cool, masculine voice spoke up. “You aren’t trying to hire Mrs. Smith away from me, now are you?”
Katie whipped around and saw Robert Foster standing beside her. A cigar was clenched between his teeth.
“Long time no see, Foster. Where you been keeping yourself?” Delia rocked back on her heels and smiled up at him as though she were an old friend. “This girl is working for you?” She gave a great belly laugh. “I can’t see her bucksawing logs.”
He glanced at Katie and removed his hat. “Mrs. Smith, let me introduce you to Miss Delia Flowers. She runs one of Bay City’s better known houses of . . .” He looked at Ned and scratched his head as he searched for a proper word. “Ill repute.”
“Ill repute?” Delia scowled. “I resent that. My place is classy.”
“And I resent you lifting a year’s worth of paid labor off my men each time the spring river drive comes in.”
“They get their money’s worth.”
Robert took the half-chewed cigar from his mouth. “No, Delia. They don’t. Half of them end up drugged and rolled for every nickel they’ve got.”
Delia’s face turned red. “Not at my place.” Her fists clenched.
It was an odd thing, Katie thought, to see such lovely clothes on a woman who appeared willing and able to engage in fisticuffs with Robert right on the spot.
Again Robert glanced down at Ned, who was watching the scene with rapt attention.
“A truce for now, Delia. Please.” He dropped his cigar and ground it out with the heel of his boot. “Mrs. Smith is my new camp cook. A respectable widow from Ohio who, no doubt, has just been shocked right down to her toes by your offer.”
“Not as shocked as you might think.” Delia looked at her, assessing her like a prime side of beef. “But Mrs. Smith might have to get a lot hungrier before she accepts my offer.”
Katie was mortified and concerned for Ned. She considered putting her hands over his ears. And eyes.
“Come along, Mrs. Smith.” Robert took her elbow and firmly steered her away from the angry prostitute.
Delia fired one final shot as they walked away. “You’ll work like a slave in that camp, honey. You’ll get up at two in the morning to make breakfast for a bunch of stinking shanty boys. You’ll put in sixteen hours of hard labor before you fall into bed each night. Then you’ll do it all over again. Day after day. For two measly dollars a day. At my house you’d sleep till noon and other people would cook for you!”
“I think I’d better accompany you to the hotel before someone else tries to hire you away from me,” Robert said as Delia’s voice faded.
“Was that woman . . . serious?”
“Yes. Being a camp cook is hard work.”
“No, I mean about . . .” She swallowed hard. “About . . . that other thing.”
“She was dead serious. Michigan is the lumber capital of the world. Loggers are arriving from all over.”
“But I would never, ever . . .”
“I know.”
“But . . .”
“Don’t let Delia get to you.” He gripped her elbow more tightly. “Let’s just get you safely settled in the hotel. It might be best if I made you a list of things you’ll need. It’ll make your shopping go faster. You only have a few hours before the stores close, and as I said, we leave at dawn.”
“You hired a dad-blamed woman?” The wiry old man was so furious he was shaking. His sparse gray beard trembled in indignation.
Robert hadn’t seen this coming. He had forgotten just how territorial Jigger could be about the cook shanty, which he ruled with an iron fist. It had been foolish to hire another cook without factoring in the old man’s pride.
“I had no choice. You aren’t fit.” He glanced around the tiny room that was situated above one of Bay City’s many saloons. Jigger had once again managed to spend an entire season’s pay in one glorious and ill-conceived splurge after finishing the spring log drive. Even though he was past seventy, he had fought and sung his way through all the dives of Bay City, challenging men twice his size to battle. Now, he was broke both physically and financially and had been living on Robert’s generosity ever since May, waiting for October when he could go back and preside over the cook shanty again.
It was a feast or famine mentality that most loggers possessed and which Robert understood only too well. The work was hard, the dangers great, the pleasures few. Most of the shanty boys, the term with which loggers referred to themselves, spent every dime they made within two or three weeks after the spring river drive—mainly, in Robert’s opinion, from sheer relief that they were still alive.
Robert didn’t indulge in the shanty boys’ three “B’s”—bars, brawls, and brothels—something Bay City was entirely too quick to provide. He had responsibilities, a business to run, and two children to support.
“I don’t need a stupid woman cluttering up my kitchen.” Jigger spit a stream of tobacco juice at a clay spittoon sitting in the corner—and missed. “I still got me one good arm.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Which you will use to help Mrs. Smith learn the ropes of cooking for thirty men.”
“I ain’t gonna to teach her nothin’, except . . .” Jigger wriggled his bushy eyebrows.
Robert bristled. “She’s a decent woman. A widow. You’ll treat her with respect or you will be working in some haywire camp so quick it’ll make your head swim—if you can find one to hire you.”
The leer on Jigger’s face was replaced by sober reflection. No one wanted to work at a haywire camp. The term had been coined because of the wire teamsters saved from the bundles of hay they shook out for their horses and oxen. Too much haywire holding things together meant a badly run camp and probably a dangerous one. Owners of haywire camps were so desperate that they sometimes kidnapped shanty boys and forced them to work at gunpoint.
“I could find work somewhere else besides a haywire camp.”
“Not with a broken arm, and you’re not getting any younger.”
Jigger scowled. “I’ve forgotten more about feeding hungry men than most camp cooks learn in a lifetime.”
“You were one of the best.”
“Were?” Jigger’s voice rose in indignation. “Were?” He rose to his full height, which came to Robert’s chin. “I’ll have you know that I can still run faster, spit farther, jump higher, and belch louder than any sorry-eyed shanty boy in the business!”
Robert smiled inwardly. He had hoped to rile Jigger enough to keep him sober until they got back to camp.
“Pull yourself together, Jigger. I need you. The woman I hired will make your work easier—that’s all.”
“She won’t be boss cook?”
Robert considered. “Not unless you want her to be.”
“I’ll still be the boss?”
“You’ll rule the roost—as long as you treat her with respect.”
“I’d never lay a hand on a respectable woman, you know that. Neither would any of the rest of the boys.”
“I’m counting o
n it. Now help me check over the provisions I’ve ordered. We’re leaving tomorrow morning.”
The old cook drew himself up with dignity, a broken-down racehorse anxious to get back to the track. Jigger knew the lumber business inside and out, and he knew how to cook for a crew of hungry men. It was about all he knew, but he knew it well.
“I’ll pack up my turkey.” The old man dredged a worn feed sack from beneath the sagging bed. “You’re gonna need me real bad if all you got is a dad-blamed woman workin’ in the kitchen.”
With some trepidation, Katie perused the list Robert had written out for her. She had not bought so many things since she had gathered her bridal trousseau, and that had taken her months. Now, she had exactly five hours.
“You’re growing so fast,” she said as Ned and she walked down the plank sidewalk. “We’ll need to purchase two pairs of boots to get you through the winter. Longer pants and a heavy coat as well.”
“Mr. Foster said he’ll be paying me too,” Ned boasted. “Can I buy a pocketknife?”
“A boy with his own job definitely deserves a pocketknife.” Katie glanced at her list again.
Ned opened his mouth to thank her, but she threw her arm across his chest and shoved him flat against the nearest building. Someone she had hoped never to lay eyes on again was just ahead. It was Harlan, walking with that distinctive walk, that strut that told everyone he was king of all he surveyed. His shoulders were broad, and he had strong, muscular arms that could send a woman or child flying against a wall.
She shrank against the side of the building, melting into the shadows. She and Ned could still run, could still get away.
Measure of Katie Calloway, The: A Novel Page 3