Chapter 2 - Breakfast at Six
Cyrus Algate stayed inside Reed Callaway’s office for forty-three minutes.
Dora knew because she timed the second batch of bread by the wall clock, and because every ranch hand found at least one unnecessary reason to pass close enough to the house to glance toward the closed door.
No one asked questions.
That told Dora more than questions would have.
Hank repaired a hinge that had functioned perfectly well the previous day.
Amos carried the same coil of rope from the barn to the corral twice.
Young Eli Mercer filled the horse trough until water ran across the packed dirt.
Whatever Cyrus Algate represented, the ranch already knew to be nervous about him.
Dora kept chopping onions.
She was not interested in joining other people’s fear before she understood its shape.
The office door finally opened.
Cyrus stepped out first.
His expression was pleasant.
Reed’s was not.
“June first,” Cyrus said.
“You’ll have your paperwork.”
“Not paperwork.”
Cyrus slid his gloves onto his hands.
“Payment.”
“You know cattle don’t turn into cash because you pick a date.”
“You’ve had dates before.”
“And every assessment gets higher.”
Cyrus looked almost sympathetic.
“Then perhaps Callaway Ridge has become more valuable.”
“Or perhaps your arithmetic has.”
Silence moved through the yard.
Dora stopped chopping.
Cyrus did not lose his smile.
“You should be careful, Reed.”
“About arithmetic?”
“About accusing territorial officials of mistakes.”
“I didn’t say mistake.”
For the first time, Cyrus’s eyes cooled.
Then he noticed Dora watching from the kitchen.
His smile returned instantly.
“And you have a new cook.”
“Dora Vance,” Reed said.
Cyrus tipped his head.
“Mrs. Vance?”
“Miss.”
“From around here?”
“Recently Portland.”
“A long way to come for kitchen work.”
Dora wiped her knife.
“A person goes where there’s work worth doing.”
Cyrus’s gaze dropped to her apron pocket.
The corner of her inventory notebook showed above the fabric.
“What sort of work?”
“Feeding hungry men.”
“Nothing more?”
Dora smiled politely.
“Usually that takes most of the day.”
Cyrus laughed once.
Not because anything was funny.
Then he mounted his horse.
“June first, Reed.”
Reed said nothing.
Cyrus rode away.
The ranch did not relax until he disappeared beyond the south rise.
Dora returned to her onions.
Reed entered the kitchen ten minutes later.
“What did he ask you?”
“Whether feeding your men takes most of my day.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s all he said.”
Reed leaned against the table.
“He notices things.”
“So do I.”
“That is exactly what concerns me.”
Dora turned toward him.
“You hired me to run a kitchen, not become blind whenever somebody rides into the yard.”
“I hired you to cook.”
“You hired me to manage your food budget.”
“That doesn’t include my tax business.”
“No.”
She picked up an onion.
“But if your tax business is stealing my salt, it might.”
Reed’s expression sharpened.
“You think Cyrus took twelve pounds of salt?”
“I think men rarely steal twelve pounds of salt because they’re hungry.”
That shut him up.
Dora went back to work.
Salt mattered on a cattle operation.
Not simply for cooking.
It preserved meat.
Supported livestock.
Could be traded.
Could be quietly moved into someone else’s account.
And because every ranch needed it, missing quantities were easy to excuse.
She had learned that lesson in Portland when a hotel supplier skimmed flour for almost a year by altering delivery weights half a pound at a time.
Nobody noticed until Dora began weighing every sack.
The hotel manager had called her suspicious.
Two weeks later, he called her correct.
That afternoon, Dora inspected every storage area she had authority to enter.
The smokehouse.
Root cellar.
Pantry.
Kitchen shelves.
She compared current quantities to invoices Reed reluctantly produced.
Most matched.
Some did not.
The inconsistencies were small.
Six pounds of coffee here.
Three tins of molasses there.
A sack of flour recorded as delivered that looked suspiciously absent.
Individually, nothing proved anything.
Together, they bothered her.
At supper, she watched the hands.
Hank ate quietly.
Amos complained that Dora had ruined him for every biscuit he might eat elsewhere.
Eli asked if there would be blackberry pie once berries ripened.
“Depends whether anybody leaves berries after I find the bushes,” Dora said.
Laughter moved around the table.
Even Reed smiled.
Then Hank reached for salt.
Dora watched him shake it onto his potatoes.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“You’re looking at me.”
“I look at everybody.”
“That sounds unpleasant.”
“It keeps people honest.”
The table laughed again.
But Dora noticed one man did not.
Caleb Fenn.
Caleb had worked Callaway Ridge for only nine months.
He was thirtyish, quiet, capable, and handsome in the polished way that made Dora instinctively distrustful only because he seemed to know it.
He ate without looking at her.
Later that evening, she found muddy heel marks beside the smokehouse.
Everybody on the ranch wore boots.
The prints meant little.
Except these had a narrow, triangular repair on the right heel.
Dora crouched.
She memorized it.
Then continued walking.
The next morning she began changing the system.
Nothing dramatic.
She tied thin strings across certain shelves.
Marked flour levels inside barrels.
Drew tiny pencil lines beneath labels.
She recorded each piece of preserved meat.
She also stopped keeping her full inventory in the kitchen.
One copy remained in her apron.
A second disappeared beneath the loose floorboard under her bed.
At breakfast, Reed watched her count eggs.
“You planning to interrogate the chickens next?”
“If production drops.”
“Do they get legal representation?”
“Depends whether they cooperate.”
Amos nearly choked on coffee.
Reed’s mouth twitched.
Dora noticed.
She did not mention it.
The ranch owner was easier to understand when he forgot to be worried.
And he was worried almost constantly.
His clothes were clean but repaired.
His boots needed replacing.
He read invoices twice.
He delayed purchases.
Yet the ranch itself did not look like a failing operation.
Cattle moved across good pasture.
The spring calves appeared healthy.
The horses were serviceable.
Equipment was worn but cared for.
The problem was not that Callaway Ridge produced too little.
The problem was that money seemed to disappear after it was produced.
Three days after Cyrus’s visit, Dora discovered the first hard proof that something was wrong.
A supply wagon arrived from town.
The driver handed her an invoice.
“One hundred pounds flour,” he said.
“Forty beans. Twenty coffee. Thirty salt.”
Dora frowned.
“I ordered fifteen pounds of salt.”
The driver checked.
“Paper says thirty.”
“Whose handwriting?”
“Store clerk.”
Dora weighed the sacks.
Twenty-nine pounds and six ounces.
She signed only for fifteen.
The driver refused to leave.
“I can’t take half back.”
“You can take all thirty back.”
“But—”
“I did not order them.”
Reed emerged from the barn.
“What’s the problem?”
Dora handed him the invoice.
He read it.
His face changed.
Just slightly.
There it was again.
Recognition.
“You’ve seen this before,” she said.
“No.”
“You’re a poor liar.”
The driver pretended to study his horses.
Reed lowered his voice.
“Sign it.”
“I ordered fifteen.”
“Take the thirty.”
“Why?”
“Because we’ll use it.”
“That isn’t the point.”
“Dora.”
“No.”
Something in her tone brought Hank toward them.
Reed stared.
She stared back.
Finally he said, “Take the salt.”
Dora signed the invoice.
But beside her signature she wrote:
Received thirty pounds. Fifteen ordered. Excess accepted by owner instruction.
Reed read the note.
His eyes hardened.
“You always make everything difficult?”
“Only dishonest things.”
The wagon left.
That evening, Reed came into the kitchen carrying the invoice.
“You embarrassed me in front of a supplier.”
“No. Someone ordering goods in my name embarrassed you.”
“There could have been a clerical error.”
“Then why did you recognize it?”
He said nothing.
Dora folded a towel.
“How much do you owe?”
His head snapped toward her.
“I’m not asking because I want your ranch.”
“That’s fortunate.”
“I’m asking because whoever is confusing your accounts knows you won’t examine them too closely.”
Reed stepped nearer.
“You have been here ten days.”
“And I found a problem in seven.”
“You think that gives you the right to pry through everything?”
“No.”
She lowered her voice.
“It gives me the right to decide whether the man paying my wages will still own this place next month.”
The words landed harder than she intended.
Reed looked away.
For the first time, Dora saw exhaustion rather than anger.
“My father died owing money,” he said.
“How much?”
“I still don’t know.”
“After how long?”
“Three years.”
Dora stopped.
That was impossible unless the records were disorganized.
Or deliberately kept unclear.
Before she could answer, Hank appeared in the doorway.
“Reed.”
Something in his voice made them both turn.
Hank held an old leather account book.
“Found this behind the loose boards in the feed shed.”
Reed took it.
“Mine?”
“No.”
Hank opened the cover.
A name had been written in faded ink.
Silas Callaway.
Reed’s father.
Beneath it, in newer handwriting, somebody had added three words:
Assessment adjustments — C.A.
Dora looked at Reed.
Reed stared at the initials.
Neither of them had to say the name aloud.
Because the man whose initials were written across Silas Callaway’s hidden account book had ridden through the ranch gate only three days earlier.
May you like
And Cyrus Algate had promised to return for payment.
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