Authors: Nancy Radke
“I didn’t have any eggs,” I told her.
“You should get some chickens,” she replied. “There’s nothing
like a pan full of eggs and some flapjacks to make your belly happy.”
“Amen to that,” said Alvin as he and the crew filed in.
Samantha had been cooking while we were talking and put out a
big pile that they demolished in no time. The syrup hit the spot, adding just
enough sweetness that we all felt we’d died and gone to heaven.
She started to wash up, and I let her, while I went and counted
out a half-dollar for her day’s work.
I debated giving her more, but didn’t want to encourage her. She
took the money, said “Thank you,” handed me the dishtowel and walked out the
door. Bear followed at her heels.
The men were laughing and talking and working with great energy,
but when she saddled up and rode away, with Bear loping ahead, they seemed to
lose all interest.
“Couldn’t we keep her, boss?” Pete asked.
“No,” I said. He reminded me of a kid wanting to keep a stray
for a pet.
They resumed work, but the joy was gone from the morning. Sam
had taken it with her. The men worked slower, more methodical, and the laughing
and joking was gone.
I followed the men outside, and we started the afternoon work,
getting the bunkhouse built. We put it on the north side of a tree which would
give it some shade at the hottest part of the day. We trimmed the logs flat on
one side with a bucking saw and finished them with a draw knife, then laid the
logs down to form a floor. It worked well. We went in for a lunch of beans and
coffee.
I’d sent Joe in ahead to set out the lunch fixings. When I went
in, he was standing besides Sam, holding a pan of biscuits. The smell of fresh
biscuit was wonderful.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded.
“Well, I was on my way back to town, and this grouse was running
beside the road, and I got to thinking about chicken and dumplings.”
“Yes.”
Why would that bring her back?
“So I shot the grouse and boiled me some water, and took off the
feathers, just like I do an old hen, and put in in a pot. It’s cooking right
now. Should be ready for supper.”
“Sure smells good,” said Joe.
I sputtered. “I don’t—”
“I started to make some dumplings, but that should wait until
the grouse is cooked more. I’ll need to pull the meat off the bones, then
finish with the dumplings. So I just made some biscuits to go with the beans
for lunch. That and a little ham I threw in.”
“You—” I looked at her and didn’t know what to say. “Thank
you. But you can’t stay. It’s not right.”
“Oh, I know. I’ll have lunch with you.”
“Then you go.”
“We’ll have to wait until Bear brings the cows back.”
“Bear?”
“When I got back with the grouse, I knew it would take some time
to cook, so I sent Bear out with the cattle. They won’t be happy staying in
that corral all day, without much to eat.”
I didn’t even know the cattle were gone.
“Bear will watch them until evening, then he’ll bring them back
in. He was owned by a stockman before I got him.”
“How did you get him?”
“He was payment for a toddler, that father saved. It had fallen
in a well. The parents got him out, but father brought him back to life. He’d
stopped breathing. They lived close to us, or Dad wouldn’t have made it in
time.”
“So they gave you Bear?”
“He was always over at our house anyway. The young couple didn’t
have much money, so they gave us Bear. I don’t think they could afford to feed
both him and a child, so we all came out ahead. He’s great for cutting out an
animal that Dad has to work on.”
“And herding cattle by himself.”
“That too.”
The men came in, saw her and cheered. “Good food!”
They grabbed their plates and lined up to be fed. Sam dished up
the beans and Joe handed them biscuits. I washed up and joined them. The
biscuits and beans with the ham in it just hit the spot, and she’d done
something to our pot of coffee to make it taste less bitter.
“When Bear comes back with the cattle,” I said, “you’ll have to
leave.”
“Of course. As soon as I fix the chicken and dumplings for
supper.”
I left her with the dishes and went back outside with the men.
They were casting sidelong glances at me.
“That Sam, she can be a stubborn woman,” Mickey said.
“Can’t stop her once she’s set her mind on something,” Pete
added.
“I’d rather have a stubborn woman than a flighty one any day. A
stubborn woman won’t change her mind much, and once she decides you’re her man,
she won’t leave you,” Joe added.
“Wonder what she’s got her mind set on,” Alvin said. They all
looked at me and grinned.
“Back to work,” I told them. “We need to get the bunkhouse fixed
and start on the barn. We’re burning daylight.”
A log cabin goes up in no time at all. I’d found a big cedar log
that I had split shingles off for my cabin. Joe had used some for his, and I
sent him to make some more for the bunkhouse. He took Pete with him to help him
saw off some rounds, thick enough to split off shingles. The rest of us put up
the cabin and fixed the roof poles.
It was all done except for the shingles when we went into the
house.
Sam had supper ready. Chicken dumplings and some fresh baked
soda bread. The boys spread a little bit of salted grease on it, since we
didn’t have butter. It was enough to make a body stand up and salute.
“What was that,” I asked, bringing my train of thought back to
what they were discussing.
“Why Sam said there’s a beehive less than a mile away. In a
hollow log. She found it when she went out to check on Bear. If we take some
fire, and make a smoky fire next to it while those bees are asleep tonight, we
could get us some honey to go on our biscuits. And our pancakes.”
“You go,” I said. “If you get stung, you’re going to have to
work anyway.”
I watched Pete and Sam and Alvin put on extra layers of
clothing, and a thin shirt under their hats for veils, then they all left.
I stretched out before the fire, but couldn’t relax. What if Sam
got stung, badly?
I got up, walked three times around in a circle, then set off
after them. They had built their fire by the time I got there and were waving
hats to force the smoke into the bee tree. A few bees came out, but not many,
and they used a small shovel to scoop out some of the honeycomb and drop it
into a bucket.
I went closer to watch. This looked like it was going to work.
We could come back ever so often and get fresh honey.
They put out the fire, carefully, so as not to start a forest
fire, then carried the bucket home. I followed along, enjoying the moment. The
men acted like young college kids out for a prank. I had to admit, it had been
fun.
That was, until I went to take my shirt off and found a bee in
it. I’d gone too close without the right layers of clothing on, and got stung.
I grabbed some soda, got it wet, and smoothed it over the sting. Stupid bee.
I went out to check on Sam that night, to make sure she was
settled into Joe’s house, and that Bear was with her. It was too late by now
for her to go home tonight. “You can’t stay,” I said. “You need to leave
tomorrow.”
The next morning we had biscuits and honey, along with apple
fritters for breakfast. That honey was some of the best I’d ever tasted
“It’s the fireweed,” Sam said. “It gives it that special
flavor.”
“Where did you get the apples?” I had to ask.
“Oh, I found an old apple tree alongside the road and was busy
picking them when I saw the grouse. I just grabbed enough to make fritters. But
there are plenty there. We could have some pies. And dry some apples for the
winter.”
“You’re going to have to leave,” I said. “You can’t stay here.
It isn’t right.” I wanted the men to hear it too, so that they would stop
encouraging her to stay.
“Of course,” she said. “As soon as I make a chicken coop.
Wouldn’t you fellows like some chicken and dumplings again?”
They all nodded.
“And eggs for breakfast? Fresh eggs every morning?”
They all nodded again.
It sounded awfully good to me, for I’d been cooking for myself
for some time now, and couldn’t make a pie, or dumplings, or biscuits. I’d need
to hire a man to come out and cook for us, I decided. One who didn’t have
violet eyes that challenged me. And lips as red as the sunsets.
“No coop,” I said.
The men all looked at me like I’d killed Santa Clause.
“Joe can build one,” I added.
“Don’t know how, boss,” he said.
I looked at the others, all shaking their heads.
“Fresh eggs,” Samantha said.
“All right, a coop,” I said. “Then you’re gone.”
The men nodded happily and wisely left the room.
“You can’t stay, you know,” I told her.
“I know. How’s the bee sting?”
“How did you know…?”
“You keep scratching it. Did you put anything on it?”
“Yes. Baking soda.”
“Mud works fastest. Also the membrane off a chicken egg. If you
had chickens. But soda is good. Put on some more so you stop scratching. Did
you pull out the stinger?”
“No.”
“A bee leaves its stinger. It dies afterwards, but you need to
pull out the stinger. It could get infected.”
I pulled my shirt up and she looked at it.
“It looks like you scratched the stinger out.” She made some
more soda paste and put it on. “Watch it. You don’t want it to get infected.”
“I will.”
I left her to the dishes and went out to join the men. Two of
them were putting up the shingles while the other was splitting them.
Joe walked up to me. “I think we should put the chicken coop
over there,” he said, pointing to a spot where I was going to put the barn.
“They can go into the barn in the winter if it gets real cold, nest in the hay.
You need to fix it so no coyotes can get to them.”
“You mean Sam will. Next thing she’ll want is a milk cow.”
“Now that’s a good idea. Fresh butter. And cream in our coffee.”
It did sound good.
This time I spotted Sam as she sent Bear off with the cattle.
She sure was a good-looking woman.
Like Becky. I wished Becky were here. She’d be able to do all
the things Sam did. I think.
I watched Sam start the chicken coop. She used small willow
branches and slender saplings, weaving them into a small hutch. She built a log
base that she put up on legs, getting it off the ground. After a lunch of beans
and more biscuits and honey, she built nests, like baskets, and put dry grass
in them. “In the winter you can move it into the barn,” she told me.
My parents had always had milk cows, with butter and cheese and
cream. Now that I thought about it, I decided I’d get a milk cow, and put a
milking area in the barn. It didn’t need to be very big. Just one cow should do
my small crew. And it would give the cook I hired more to cook with.
That evening Sam made five apple pies to go with our food. We
ate three of them.
“Good thing I cooked a few, or you wouldn’t have any for
tomorrow,” she said.
The next morning she finished the coop, adding a door we could
shut the hens in with at night and a small ramp they could walk up, to get
inside.
I paid her for the days she’d worked. Then she got on her horse
and rode away again. I hated to see her go, and I could tell the men did, too.
She sure could take the sunshine with her.
The bunkhouse was finished. I had brought a small stove out from
town, and we put it up right in the middle, with a tin collar circling the
smokestack to keep out the rain. We built the bunks around the walls, but each
was close enough to the stove to get heat in the winter. There was a small
table for the men to play cards, and some shelves and pegs for their clothes.
Each man took a length of the small rope I’d got for the
purpose, and wove themselves enough of a bottom on their bunk to hold a
mattress stuffed with straw. They tossed their blankets on top and were all set
up.
We started the barn. Two hours later, Mickey was helping to lift
a beam into place, when it slipped and knocked him flat. The others grabbed the
log and lifted it off him. For a moment I thought he was dead, but then he
opened his eyes and groaned.
“My ribs.”
They looked caved in. “Get the doctor,” I told Pete. “Take the
blue, he’s our fastest horse.”
Mickey tried to move. “Stay where you are,” I told him, worried
that if he moved he would puncture a lung, if he hadn’t already. It was a good
fifty miles to town. Under normal conditions I could do it in five hours. Five
hours in and five hours back. I wished we had a telephone, but it was very
expensive to run it out to rural homes, even when you got your neighbors to go
in with you on a party line.