His voice was rough and tired. "Good. " She took his hands and hers and looked at them, checking the fingers, the color. Not frostbitten, barely. "Can you tell me your name? " He looked at her. "You know my name?
I need to know you know it. " Gideon Samuel Rusk. A pause. Blackthornne Ranch, Red Hollow, Wyoming. Another pause. You're Rosalie Hartwell.
You've been feeding my family for 3 weeks and you just came out in a blizzard to find me, which is the strangest thing anyone's done for me in a long time. She let go of his hands. She sat back. Stay awake, she said. I mean it.
For the next 2 hours, stay awake. All right, he said. He watched her stand up and then he said rosily. She looked at him. Thank you.
She didn't answer that. She went to check on the status of the whiskey. Roy produced a bottle from somewhere she didn't ask about. She cleaned the cut on Gideon's temple, which was deeper than she would have liked, but it stopped bleeding properly on its own, and she bandaged it with strips of clean cloth, and he sat through all of it without complaint, which was either stoicism or the kind of exhaustion that leaves a person too tired to object to things. Jaime had appeared at some point and was sitting on the floor near the sto leaning watching his father with the focused quiet of a child who has been frightened and is not over it yet.
Gideon looked at him. Hey, hey, Jaime said. You all right? You weren't here, Jaime said very simply in a tone that contained considerably more than the words themselves. I know, Gideon said.
I'm sorry. The kitchen was quiet around that for a moment. Then Gideon said, "Who kept the stove going? " "EMTT," Jaime said. "And me. " "Rosalee told us before she left. " Gideon looked at the stove at the fire working steadily behind the iron door at the kettle beginning to steam on the burner. He looked at Rosali's back at the counter.
"She told you before she left," he repeated. "She left us instructions," Emmett said from the doorway. He had come back in without anyone noticing, which was either his disappearing trick or just how quiet the house got when important things were happening. She said to keep the stove up and Roy to add wood an hour from when she left. He looked at Rosalie.
"Roy is going to want to know if that timing holds for tonight. " "Tell him yes," she said. "I'll reassess in the morning based on what the storm does. " EMTT nodded and went to find Roy. She made supper from what was available, less than she would have liked, but she worked with what the day had left her. Thick porridge with the last of the dried apple, biscuits from the morning's remaining dough, a strong stock from the bones she'd been simmering all day. Simple, hot on the table.
Gideon ate at the kitchen bench instead of the table, because moving him again seemed unnecessary, and he seemed disincclined to argue about it. She set his bowl beside him, and he ate steadily, which was a good sign, and the color was coming back into his face, which was a better one. Matteo came in for supper and sat at the table with the boys, and Roy leaned in the doorway and ate from a bowl he held in his hands, which was how Roy ate, regardless of the circumstances, apparently. The kitchen held six people, and the warmth from the stove and the smell of the stock, and it was crowded and un beautiful, and nothing about the evening was graceful, but it was functional, which Rosalie had learned was actually more than most things managed. Afterward, when the boys had gone up, and Matteo and Roy had gone back to the bunk house, she sat across from Gideon at the kitchen bench with the ledger and her ration list.
"I need to talk to you about provisions," she said. He looked at the ledger. Now you should know where we are before you sleep. She turned the ledger so so he could see the numbers. We have enough to manage through March on current consumption.
If this storm keeps the supply road closed past 2 weeks, we start cutting portions. I'd like to start the rationing plan now before we have to so the adjustment isn't drastic later. He looked at the columns she'd written. He was quiet for a moment. This is very organized, he said.
I've been at it all afternoon. While you were also, he stopped, looked at her. The ledger needed doing, she said. He was quiet again in a different way. Not the flat evaluating quiet of the first week.
Something more like someone working out how to say something. They don't have the right words for the men won't like the ration cuts, he said finally. No, but they'll like getting to April less if we don't manage it now. She closed the ledger. I can handle the kitchen side of it.
I need you to back me with the men. Same as Coats and Briggs. Same as Bellard. He looked at her steadily. You're asking me to tell my hands that the cook decides how much they eat.
I'm asking you to tell them that the person managing the winter food supply has made an assessment and you trust it. She met his eyes. Do you? The question sat between them. He said, "Yes. " It was one word.
She received it the way she received most things he said without visible reaction. and she stood up and put the ledger back on the desk. Get some sleep, she said. Stay on the ground floor tonight. The stairs are narrow if you're unssteady, and I'd rather not find you at the bottom of them in the morning. There's a cot in the study.