The building would need to be stone or good, thick timber. Ovens take heat, and heat means fire risk. You'd need a chimney that draws properly. She turned the dough. And enough traffic on the road to make it worth the supply cost.
There's traffic, Jaime said. The supply road goes to Laramie and Casper both. Where did you learn that? Mateo told me. He said, "Blackthorns on the old freight road, and in springs and summer there's a wagon a day sometimes." She looked at the dough in her hands.
She was not going to think about this. She thought about it immediately. Across the table she was aware of Gideon very still over his paper, and she did not look at him, and he did not say anything, and neither of them acknowledged the conversation that had just happened in the room. Later, when she was shaping the loaves, she heard him fold the paper and push his chair back. He stood at the kitchen entry for a moment.
The stone building, he said. She looked up beside the ranch road. The one we used for storage. He looked at the wall, not her. It's empty mostly.
Good chimney. We put it up 5 years ago, thinking we'd expand the storage, but we never needed it that size. She waited. It would take work, he said. But the bones are there.
She stared at him. He looked at his hands. If that were something worth considering, I'm not saying it is. I'm saying the building exists. He put his hat on.
Good night. He went out. Jaime looked at her. Emmett looked at his arithmetic. Neither of them said anything, which was how she knew.
They had both been paying complete attention to everything. She shaped the last loaf and put it in the pan and covered it to rise overnight. She did not sleep much that night. She lay in her bed and looked at the ceiling and thought about a stone building beside a ranch road with a good chimney and a view of the supply route to Laramie and Casper. She thought about what a kitchen in a building like that could produce in a week if properly stocked.