“If you’re suggesting that I enjoy feeling helpless and dependent, that isn’t true!”
The color blazing on her cheeks and the ice in her eyes told him that if she’d been able, she would have jumped out of the buckboard. Her chin came up, and she turned her face away from him. “I don’t wish to discuss personal matters with you.”
“You don’t have to talk about your leg if you don’t want to,” he said. “But you do have to get out of your chair, Mrs. Mills. We’ll measure you today for a crutch, and I’ll have one of the boys make it for you. Or could you manage with a cane?”
“You have not been listening, Mr. Frisco, so I will repeat myself. I will not use a crutch. I will not use a cane. I can’t think of any way to make my position clearer. It would be a sacrilege for me to walk again when my husband is in his grave.”
She had a voice that could freeze water when she wanted it to. Clenching his jaw, he peered into the distance, relieved when he spotted the chuck wagon and noticed there was no one in camp. He set the wagon brake, then fetched her chair and lifted her into it.
“All right, there’s your kitchen. Take a good look.” Leaning against the side of the buckboard, he crossed his boots at the ankle, found a cigar in one of his pockets and lit it.
The ground wasn’t too rough here, but she still had a difficult time rolling herself forward over small stones, bumps, and the dry winter grass that caught in the spokes of her wheels. Face grim, she shoved herself forward and stared at the utensils hooked on nearly every inch along the sides of the chuck wagon. There wasn’t one of them that she could reach without standing.
“Come around back,” he said, not offering to assist her though her arms were shaking from exertion. This entire demonstration was a waste of time if she wouldn’t get out of the chair.
He dropped the hinged face of the chuck box and propped the support leg on the ground. She could see above the work surface, just barely, enough that he could show her the drawers and storage bins, none of which she could reach from her chair.
“There’s room behind the chuck box to store the outfit’s bedrolls and any large items the cook needs,” he said, showing her the space. He touched the hoops curving over the wagon bed. “In bad weather, there’s a canvas cover.” He wasn’t sure if she was listening. She was looking at the water barrel hung high on the side of the wagon. It was something else she couldn’t reach. “All right, Mrs. Mills,” he said, crushing the cigar under his bootheel. “Pretend that you’re going to make bread. Go through the motions and show me how you’re going to do it.”
“You know I can’t,” she said in a low angry voice. “I can’t reach the flour bin.”
“That’s right.” Raising his arm, he lifted a spade from a pair of hooks on the side of the wagon, then handed it to her. “Let’s try another exercise. Eleven hungry punchers are coming in for supper and the first thing they want is their coffee. Dig a pit and make a fire.”
Pale eyebrows lifted, and she looked at him as if he were insane. After a moment, she drew a breath, then lifted the spade and poked at the ground. Her chair rolled forward, and she juggled the spade awkwardly. After observing several attempts, Dal sighed.
“Isn’t there a brake on that thing?” When she shook her head, he swore. “There will be by tomorrow morning.”
“I can’t dig a fire pit,” she said after another couple of tries. She threw the spade on the ground. “I can’t do this at all.”
“Here’s what is expected of a trail cook.” Lifting a hand, he ticked down his fingers. “You’re the first up, before dawn. You make coffee and breakfast, then call the hands out of their bedrolls. You wash the dishes and pack them away. You make sure all the boys have put their bedrolls in your wagon. You drive the wagon ahead to the noon camp and make dinner. You wash the dishes and pack them away. You drive the wagon to the bedding grounds and make supper. You wash the dishes and prepare for breakfast. If the wrangler doesn’t have time to do it for you, you collect wood or chips for fuel, and you refill the water barrel. If any doctoring needs to be done, the cook does it. If there’s sewing to be done, the cook does that, too.” He hooked his thumbs in his back pockets and rocked back on his boots, staring at her. “Can you handle those duties without getting out of your chair?”