“Well, my God,” she said suddenly, staring past him at Alex. “What happened to you?”
“Just shut up,” Alex hissed. Lifting a ladle, she flung a splash of dinner onto Freddy’s plate. “You look like a filthy ragamuffin yourself!”
Freddy blinked down at the chunks of bacon and vegetables floating in grease. Puzzled, she looked at Dal then back to Alex. “What the hell is this?”
“It needs lots of salt,” Drinkwater commented from near the fire, “but it ain’t too bad.”
Charlie Singer poked a fork at a dumpling. “This is bad,” he said unhappily.
“Stew needs pepper, too,” Peach said. “Ma’am, you got to put some seasoning in. Salt, pepper, whatever other seasonings you got.”
Alex whirled on them and bared her teeth. “When I want a critique, gentlemen, I will request one!” Furious tears glittered in her eyes.
“Just offering a few suggestions, that’s all,” Drinkwater said hastily.
Charlie Singer stared mournfully at his plate. “She’s got the temperament of a cook. Now if she’d just learn to cook like a cook.”
Dal watched Freddy carry her dinner a few yards away from the others. She looked around like she was searching for a chair, then she sighed and sat on the ground to eat. There was something wildly erotic about a woman wearing a pair of man’s pants, he decided. Usually a man could only speculate about the shape and size of a woman’s hips, thighs, buttocks, and legs. Now he could see how she was put together, and the sight of shapely slender curves made his muscles tighten and his thighs burn. Clamping his lips together, he turned a frown toward the herd, sending his thoughts out where they ought to be.
“Dal?”
“Yes?” Looking down at Les, he wondered why the sight of her wearing male trousers didn’t make his mouth go dry.
“I don’t know if I have to ask permission, but I’m going to the observers’ camp to have a word with Ward.”
Glancing over her head, he spotted Hamm leaning against the side of his wagon, tapping a boot in impatience. “You can eat or you can go visiting,” Dal said, looking back at Les, puzzled by the anxiety in her eyes. “You don’t have time to do both.”
Indecision puckered her eyebrows, then she sighed deeply and straightened her shoulders. After replacing the plate she’d been holding, she walked toward the observers’ camp, dragging her boots. When she reached the wagon, she called a greeting to Luther and Caldwell, then Hamm grabbed her arm and led her behind the team, where they wouldn’t be observed. Something wasn’t right about that relationship, Dal decided, watching, but he didn’t know what it was. Unless it impacted the drive, he guessed it wasn’t any of his business.
Alex dropped a ladleful of stew on his plate and gave him a look that dared him to comment. He grinned, then walked over and sat down beside Freddy.
“This is the nastiest stuff I ever ate,” she said, making a face as he lowered himself to the ground. “The vegetables are all right, I guess. But the liquid is part grease and part pond scum.”
“Tell me something.” He didn’t look at the material stretched tight across her crossed legs. “Whose idea was it for Hamm to come on this drive? Was it his idea or Les’s?”
She tasted the coffee and rolled her eyes in disgust. “How should I know?”
“She didn’t tell you?”
Freddy stared at him then laughed. “The last time my sisters and I shared any confidences, we were all wearing our hair down.” A humorless smile faded from her expression. “Once this drive is over, my sisters and I will go our separate ways, and I doubt we’ll ever see each other again. Believe me, none of us will consider that a great loss.” After looking at her plate, she turned it upside down on the ground. “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
“Ellie is married and lives north of New Orleans. My brother died early in the war.”
“Were you close to your brother?” Freddy asked curiously.
“Yes and no. Mac was ten years older, so we didn’t have a lot in common during the growing-up years. I guess I idolized him the way younger brothers do.” The drovers had called it right. The stew was bland and tasteless, the dumplings soggy, half-cooked lumps. Dal glanced toward the chuck wagon and reminded himself this was only the first day.
“It’s odd to think of you as a little boy idolizing someone,” Freddy said. “When I was a lot younger I used to wish that my sisters and I got along better. But I outgrew the feeling.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Why would you care?”
“We’re just making conversation here,” he said irritably. “I never saw a woman bristle the way you do.” She had an annoying way of appearing sociable one minute, then slamming the door in a person’s face the next minute.