Chapter 4 - The Road Through Widow's Cut
The first man Caleb asked laughed at him.
The second refused.
The third said Widow's Cut couldn't be opened before summer.
Abigail hired all three.
Not to build the road.
To teach her men how.
For four weeks, Whispering Pines became a construction camp.
Abigail cooked before sunrise, worked beside the crews during daylight, and returned to the kitchen after dark.
Travelers continued arriving.
Her biscuits became famous.
Then her venison pies.
Then her coffee.
Money trickled in.
A trickle became a stream.
Abigail reinvested nearly everything.
Flour.
Salt.
Tools.
Lumber.
Seed.
Two milk cows.
Six pigs.
Thirty chickens.
Caleb protested each purchase.
Then stopped protesting when every purchase produced more money.
"You ever consider running for governor?" he asked one evening.
"No."
"Why?"
"I enjoy useful work."
Caleb laughed.
By April, Widow's Cut had become passable.
Caldwell came to inspect it himself.
He stood at the canyon entrance and watched wagons move across a road he had insisted couldn't exist.
"You think this changes anything?" he asked Abigail.
"No."
His smile returned.
"Good."
"It changes everything."
His smile vanished.
Abigail walked away.
That night, somebody set fire to the new bridge.
But Abigail had expected sabotage.
Two ranch hands hidden nearby saw the riders.
One was employed by Caldwell.
This time there were witnesses.
The sheriff issued a warrant.
Caldwell disappeared before dawn.
Everyone celebrated.
Abigail didn't.
"Men like Caldwell don't disappear," she told Caleb.
"They retreat."
Three days later, a telegram arrived.
Caldwell had gone to Bismarck.
He was meeting investors.
And he was telling them Whispering Pines was insolvent.
Caleb crumpled the telegram.
Abigail smoothed it out.
"What are you doing?"
"Thinking."
"About?"
"Becoming too valuable to destroy."
She looked across the ranch.
The kitchen.
The cattle.
The travelers.
The new road.
Then an idea came.
"We're going to feed every cattle crew that crosses this valley."
Caleb blinked.
"Every one?"
"Every one."
"With what kitchen?"
Abigail smiled.
"The one we're about to build."
The cook who had saved twenty starving men was about to turn Whispering Pines into something the frontier had never seen.
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And Caldwell, watching from afar, would soon realize he had created his own worst enemy.
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