It had belonged to her grandmother before it belonged to her mother, then to Rachel. The iron was smooth from half a lifetime of grease and flame. She set it on the stove to heat. Behind her, the clock reached midnight.
Rachel measured cornmeal into the bowl, then buttermilk, a spoonful of sorghum, salt, and melted bacon drippings that hissed when they touched the hot skillet. She stirred until the batter fell heavy from the spoon. Outside, snow tapped gently against the window. Rachel opened the oven.
Heat rolled across her face. She lifted the skillet with both hands, slid it onto the iron rack, and shut the door. For a moment, there was nothing to do but listen. The stove ticked.
The wind moved under the eaves. Upstairs, the boarding house slept. Rachel stood alone in the warm kitchen with 14 possible loaves, 22 impossible ones still to invent, and less than six hours before the biggest rancher in Cold Water came back expecting what she'd promised.
Then the first smell of browning corn rose from the oven. Rachel pulled another bowl toward her and started the next pan. By one in the morning, the kitchen smelled of hot iron, bacon fat, and toasted corn. Rachel worked without wasting motion.
She kept the 14 wheat loaves going in one part of the oven while she mixed the corn batter in batches on the long pine table. Each pan came out with a dark golden crust and a soft center that gave beneath her thumb when she tested it. The first batch cooled on overturned tin sheets near the window. The second sat under clean flour cloths.
By 2:30, her shoulders had begun to ache. By three, the floor around the worktable was dusted yellow. At 3:15, June Keen appeared in the doorway wearing a wool robe over her nightdress and holding a lamp. She stared at the kitchen.
"Merciful heaven."
Rachel did not stop stirring. "You should be asleep."
"So should you."
"I have 22 pans to finish."
June stepped closer and lifted one corner of a cloth. "This isn't what he ordered."
"I know."
"He paid for bread."
"I know that too."
June looked toward the ruined flour sacks, now tied shut beside the back door. "And if he refuses these?"
Rachel scraped batter from the spoon. "Then I return what money I can and figure out how to pay you for the cornmeal."
June folded her arms. "You haven't even been paid yet."
Rachel set another hot skillet on the stove. "That doesn't change what belongs to who."
June studied her face for a moment, then sighed. "You always did make trouble harder than it needed to be."
Rachel almost smiled. "Peter used to say the same thing."
The name changed the room. June's expression softened, but Rachel turned toward the oven before sympathy could settle between them. At 4:10, snow was falling steadily. At 4:40, Rachel stepped into the yard and packed clean snow into a basin to cool the last wheat loaves faster without setting them directly in the cold.
At five, she counted everything. Fourteen wheat loaves. Twenty-two pans of cornbread. Thirty-six.
Not what Matthew Holloway had asked for. But 36. She arranged them in wooden produce crates lined with clean cloth. The cornbread was heavier than the wheat loaves.
Solid food. The kind that could sit beside beans or beef and make a hungry man feel he'd been given supper instead of an excuse for one. Rachel looked at the clock. 5:30.
She poured herself half a cup of coffee, took one swallow, and realized it had gone cold. Hoofbeats sounded outside. Not long after came the jingle of harness and the creak of wagon wheels turning into the frozen alley. June came downstairs fully dressed this time.
Matthew entered through the back door with snow on his shoulders and ice caught in the seams of his boots. He looked first at Rachel. Then at the crates. Then at the clock.
"You did it."
Rachel wiped her hands on her apron. "Not exactly."
His eyes shifted back to the crates. "What happened?"
She pulled the cloth from the first one. The wheat loaves sat there in two neat rows. Then she uncovered the second crate.
"Cornbread."
Matthew's face changed. Not much. But the relief that had begun to settle into it disappeared.
"You said 36 loaves."
"I did."
"And that's 14."
"Yes."
June moved toward the front of the room as though preparing to explain. Rachel spoke before she could.