Chapter 2 - Six Hundred Pounds of Ruined Flour
By supper, Dorothy’s purchase had acquired a name.
Dorothy’s Mud Pie.
By bedtime, the name had spread through every saloon, bunkhouse, boarding room, and card table in Copper Jack.
By breakfast the next morning, men were taking bets.
Three days before she left town.
Five days.
A week.
Red Neckerchief—whose name Dorothy eventually learned was Tom Rusk—put fifty cents on four days.
His tall companion, Caleb Wade, refused to bet.
That interested Dorothy.
Caleb had laughed on the porch.
He had laughed beside the creek.
But when Dorothy pulled clean flour from the center of the damaged sack, something in his expression had changed.
Not respect.
Not yet.
Curiosity.
Dorothy spent her first night behind Bellamy Mercantile beneath an awning because Bellamy refused to let wet flour into his storage shed.
She worked beneath lantern light.
Her system was simple.
Sacks fully submerged went into one pile.
She cut them open, inspected them, and immediately rejected their contents for cooking.
Sacks with deep moisture went into another.
Those were mostly useless too.
But sacks with limited external wetting were different.
Dorothy sliced one open.
She removed the wet shell.
Then another layer.
Then she reached the protected center.
Dry flour.
Not perfect.
Not marketable.
But untouched.
She placed it into a clean pan.
Then she smelled it.
Rubbed it between her fingers.
Checked for clumping.
Checked for sourness.
Repeated the process.
Hour after hour.
By midnight, she had several pounds worth saving.
By two in the morning, she had nearly forty.
A voice came from the darkness.
“You planning to sleep?”
Dorothy looked up.
Caleb Wade stood beyond the lantern.
His hat was tilted backward.
“I’ve slept before.”
“So I’ve heard.”
She continued working.
Caleb stepped closer.
He looked at the three piles.
“You separating it.”
“No.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“I’m teaching it piano.”
A smile threatened his mouth.
He glanced at the rejected flour.
“What happens to that?”
“Depends.”
“On?”
“What it’s good for.”
“It’s wet flour.”
“And?”
“And wet flour ain’t good for much.”
Dorothy wiped her knife.
“Paste.”
Caleb looked confused.
“For labels. Paper repairs. Temporary sealing. Fire gap packing if mixed thick enough.”
“You planning to wallpaper the mountain?”
“No.”
“Then why buy all of it?”
Dorothy looked at him.
“Because Bellamy wouldn’t sell me the useful sacks separately.”
Caleb considered that.
“So you bought six hundred pounds to get maybe a hundred pounds?”
“Maybe more.”
“That’s still expensive flour.”
“Depends what I make from it.”
“What are you making?”
“I’ll know when I have a kitchen.”
Caleb glanced toward Bellamy’s dark store.
“He won’t hire you.”
“He offered.”
“You turned him down.”
“He offered twenty dollars.”
Caleb whistled.
“My horse eats better than that.”
“So does Bellamy.”
That earned a quiet laugh.
Then Caleb surprised her.
“There’s an empty shed behind Ortega’s livery.”
Dorothy stopped.
“What?”
“Used to be a tack room. Roof doesn’t leak much.”
“Doesn’t leak much is an interesting selling point.”
“Better than sleeping beside flour.”
“Why are you telling me?”
Caleb shrugged.
“Because Tom’s convinced you’ll be gone by Thursday, and I’d enjoy watching him lose fifty cents.”
Dorothy returned to her work.
“Very charitable.”
“I have my moments.”
He started to leave.
“Mr. Wade.”
Caleb turned.
“How much does Ortega charge?”
“If you clean it yourself? Probably two dollars a month.”
“Thank you.”
Caleb nodded once.
Then disappeared into the dark.
The next morning, Dorothy visited Miguel Ortega.
Two hours later, she had rented the shed for a dollar and seventy-five cents after pointing out three missing roof shingles and a wall that leaned west.
By noon, she had turned it into a workshop.
Not a kitchen.
Not yet.
She scrubbed every surface.
Boiled utensils.
Hung clean cloth over shelving.
Separated usable flour from everything questionable.
She purchased two covered tins.
That cost another dollar and fifteen cents.
Every coin hurt.
But each decision had purpose.
On the second day, Tom Rusk appeared with three miners.
They stood in the doorway.
“Morning, Mud Pie.”
Dorothy kept sifting.
Tom leaned against the frame.
“Heard you got yourself a bakery.”
“No.”
“What is it?”
“A place where I work.”
“Smells like creek.”
“That’s you.”
The miners laughed.
Tom’s smile tightened.
“You really think anybody’s eating that?”
Dorothy stopped sifting.
“No.”
That surprised him.
She pointed at the clean covered tins.
“They might eat that.”
Tom peered toward them.
“What’s the difference?”
“That’s dry flour removed from protected sections before moisture reached it.”
Tom folded his arms.
“Still came out of wet sacks.”
“So do you when it rains.”
The miners laughed harder.
Tom’s cheeks colored.
Dorothy returned to work.
“You want to stand there all morning, charge yourself admission.”
Tom left.
The miners remained.
One was a broad Welshman named Owen Pritchard.
He watched Dorothy working.
“You cook anything with it yet?”
“Not until I’m satisfied.”
“What’s satisfied mean?”
“That I’d eat it myself.”
Owen nodded.
That answer mattered.
The next afternoon, Dorothy borrowed Ortega’s small iron stove.
She heated it until the room became unbearable.
Then she began testing batches.
Some smelled wrong.
Rejected.
Some clumped strangely.
Rejected.
Others performed exactly like ordinary flour.
Dorothy mixed one test with salt, rendered beef fat, and water.
She kneaded it hard.
Rolled it thick.
Cut a round with the biscuit cutter she had carried for eleven years.
Then baked it longer than a normal biscuit.
The result was not elegant.
It was dense.
Dry.
Hard along the edge.
Dorothy bit into it.
Chewed.
Waited.
Made another.
Then another.
Caleb appeared at sunset.
He looked at the tray.
“Those biscuits?”
“Technically.”
“Why do they look like wagon wheels?”
“They aren’t supper biscuits.”
“What are they?”
“Travel bread.”
He picked one up.
Dorothy slapped his hand away.
“Not that batch.”
Caleb immediately dropped it.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I’m testing ratios.”
“For what?”
“Food that lasts.”
He frowned.
“Why?”
Dorothy looked toward Copper Jack Mountain.
“Because mining towns get snowed in.”
“Not in September.”
“No.”
She looked back at the biscuit.
“But winter has a habit of arriving whether men are ready or not.”
Caleb picked up another only after Dorothy nodded permission.
He bit.
His eyebrows rose.
“Hard.”
“Yes.”
“Dry.”
“Yes.”
“Needs coffee.”
“Most useful things do.”
He chewed again.
“How long will it keep?”
“That’s what I’m figuring out.”
Caleb stared at the biscuit.
“Army hardtack?”
“Better if I can manage it.”
“For cattle outfits?”
“For whoever pays.”
That evening, Dorothy made her first sale.
Owen Pritchard bought twelve biscuits for an overnight prospecting trip.
He paid eighteen cents.
The next morning, he returned.
Tom happened to be outside the livery.
“Well?” Tom called. “Still alive?”
Owen entered Dorothy’s shed.
He placed another twenty-five cents on the table.
“Give me twenty.”
Tom stopped laughing.
Dorothy looked at the money.
It was not much.
But it was the first money she had earned in Copper Jack.
By the end of the week, she was supplying travel biscuits to seven miners, two freight drivers, and Ortega.
Men still joked.
But they joked while buying.
Bellamy noticed.
On Saturday afternoon, he entered Dorothy’s shed.
He looked at the clean tins.
Then the oven.
Then the neat stacks of hard travel biscuits.
“You’re competing with my kitchen.”
Dorothy did not look up.
“You don’t have a cook.”
“I have applicants.”
“Then hire one.”
Bellamy stared at her.
“Twenty-four dollars.”
Dorothy paused.
He continued.
“Room included.”
“No.”
“Twenty-six.”
“No.”
“Twenty-eight.”
Dorothy finally looked at him.
“Thirty-five, and I control the menu.”
Bellamy nearly sputtered.
“My kitchen.”
“My cooking.”
“Thirty.”
“Thirty-five.”
“You’re impossible.”
“So I’ve been told.”
Bellamy left.
Dorothy smiled.
The smile vanished when a deep boom rolled from Copper Jack Mountain.
The windows rattled.
Men outside stopped walking.
Dorothy stepped into the road.
A brown cloud rose above one of the upper mine entrances.
Caleb came running from the direction of the shaft.
“What happened?”
Dorothy asked.
“Blasting.”
“Scheduled?”
Caleb looked back.
His face had changed.
“No.”
Then the mine whistle began screaming.
May you like
And for the first time since Dorothy arrived in Copper Jack, nobody laughed.
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