She could see him in the fire light, working with his men, doing the thing he'd been doing his whole life, which was managing catastrophe through physical labor and force of will. The kitchen was damaged. The chimney housing was gone. A section of roof approximately 8 ft across had fallen in, and everything within a certain radium is a section destroyed the ceiling boards, a section of the ceiling boards, a section of the counter beneath, the window frame on the north wall, which had cracked from the heat. But the fire was out and the south counter was intact.
The crock was still on it. She found this out when the smoke had cleared enough to go back in. Wrapped in a proper coat someone had thought to bring out her feet finally in boots. She stood at the doorway of the damaged kitchen and looked at the destruction, the blackened hole in the ceiling, the debris on the floor, the ruin of 6 weeks of work in this space. And then she looked at the south counter and the crock sitting on it undisturbed.
Jaime was right behind her. He went past her to the counter and put his hand on the crock. "It's warm," he said from the fire. "But it's okay." She looked at the crock at the kid standing in front of it in the ruined kitchen in his half-on sock, one hand on the clay, making sure she had rules about what she was allowed to feel. She suspended them for about 30 seconds.
Then she said, "We need to move the kitchen operations to the bunk house tonight. The men will need breakfast at the regular time. Tonight, Emmett said from the doorway. The morning comes whether we're ready or not, she said. She looked at the damage and the workable space and did the calculation she was always doing.
Mateo, is the bunk house stove large enough to heat a pot for 12? It's not made for Matteo started. Is it large enough? She said. He looked at the stove.
He looked at her with the right pots. Then we start moving. Then we start move. They moved through the remainder of that night with the particular efficiency of people who are too tired to do anything except the next necessary thing. The she set up a working kitchen in the bunk house with what could be salvaged from the damaged room.
Organized the undamaged provisions back into a temporary storage arrangement. And by the time the sky outside was going gray with early morning she had porridge on the bunk house stove and coffee proper coffee. Her coffee not terrible in the pot. The ranch hands came in for breakfast and did not complain once. Decker set his bowl down and said, "Tell us what needs doing today." She told them.
She had a list. Of course, she had a list. The morning after the fire was also, as it happened, the morning Gideon Rusk said the second important thing he'd been not saying, and this time he said it better. She's in the makeshift kitchen washing the breakfast bowls, her back to the bunk house door when she heard him come in. She knew his walk by now.