His gut churned just thinking about it.
“Four weeks,” he barked over an ache in his throat. “And then you’re on your way back to Tennant, you savvy?”
She nodded without opening her eyes. Tom swung out the doorway, heading for his tent and the bottle of rye whiskey he hadn’t finished last night. Maybe a drink would help get her out of his mind.
The minute Colonel Randall and the Irishman were gone, Meggy covered her face with her hands. Oh, dear God, help me. I don’t know what to do now, and I feel so awfully alone.
After a few moments, she raised her head and took a good look at her surroundings. Through the chinks in the walls she could see glimpses of green leaves and an occasional brown tree trunk. A black iron potbellied stove sat in one corner, and a smoothed plank counter ran along the adjoining wall. The single window over the dry sink was so dust-smeared it admitted only a dim gray light. Well, Meggy, you needn’t be a complete ninny. A good scrubbing will fix that.
As for the rest, sheets and soap, a lantern, tablecloths, her Bible and her secreted copy of Uncle Tom’s Cabin—all the things she had packed in her trunk to start married life with Mr. Peabody—they would not arrive until next week when Mr. Jacobs drove out from Tennant with his next delivery. She could manage until then, could she not?
She eyed the other two walls. A few nails would serve to hang up her clothes. As for a bed, perhaps she might gather some pine boughs and cover them with the extra petticoat in her satchel.
Her satchel! She’d left it in Colonel Randall’s tent. Bother! She’d have to walk back down and…
“Comin’ through, ma’am!” Footsteps thumped across the porch. Hastily Meggy rose and stood aside as the sergeant barreled through the door, balancing a cot on one thick shoulder. His other hand gripped her travel satchel, and from under his arm trailed a bundle of bedclothes. She thought she recognized the olive-green blanket. Hadn’t she sat on it in the colonel’s tent?
Speechless, she watched him plunk the cot down and shove it against the wall. “Colonel won’t mind, ma’am. He never uses this one.”
He dropped the bedclothes on top. “Had to scrounge a bit for your chamber pot.” He swung two battered milk pails into the corner. “One for haulin’ water, one for…you know.”
Her face burned.
The sergeant tipped his blue cap and gave her a wink. “Supper’s at five. Latecomers leave hungry.” With a grin he pivoted and sauntered on his way.
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.”