“He’s not hurt that bad. And his burns are healing.” Jane sent her brother a challenging glance and stirred the stew.
Travis Hart, the brother who was a doctor, had ridden out the morning after the fire and looked over Pa’s wounds. He had put a dressing on Pa’s left hand and asked him a lot of questions about his eating habits and his breathing and if his chest ever hurt. Then he’d told Jane he guessed her pa was in as good shape as could be expected.
She wasn’t sure what he meant by that. Maybe he meant that Pa was a drinking man, and drinking men were sick a lot. She glanced sharply at Ben.
“Has Pa asked for any liquor?”
“He asked the doc if he had any whiskey along, and the doc said no. He’s probably asked some of the ranchmen, too, but so far as I know, none of them has brought him any.”
“I hope they won’t.” Jane’s face felt hot, whether from the cook fire or her thoughts. It would be too embarrassing to tell the neighbors outright not to give her pa any strong drink. She’d found a couple of jugs and a whiskey bottle in the cave when they first decided to sleep up there. Mercifully, they were all empty, and she’d been able to get rid of them before the Hart gals came to visit and help her arrange things in the cave.
She’d left the money she found where it was hidden. If Pa knew it was there, she figured he wouldn’t miss the one bill she had given to Crockett. That seemed the most likely explanation to her—after all, Pa had used that cave to stash his jugs. Crockett had told her today when he’d come by to help Ben haul logs to the sawmill that his brother Chisholm was away. He was the one who was a Ranger. That was all right, Jane thought. She could wait.
“That stew gonna be ready soon?” Ben asked.
“It needs to simmer another hour or so.”
Ben nodded. “Guess I’ll pack another load of burned wood.”
They had decided to build the new house in a fresh spot, but even so, they needed to remove the debris or the smell and soot would continue to plague them. Jane also thought they might still find a few usable things if they went through all the trash carefully. They had precious little money to spend on anything new.
Hays and Emma, along with Houston and Coralee, who had their own homes now, came to supper at El Regalo, the Hart family home.
“So, you went to school with Jane Haymaker?” Emma asked her husband at the Harts’ supper table.
“Yeah,” Hays said. “She’s really smart.”
“Ben’s smart, too,” Crockett said. “He would have done well in college, but Boyd’s got no money to send him to school.”
“That’s a shame,” Emma said.
Travis hadn’t come home from town yet, and Crockett figured he was making rounds of his patients.
Caro, Chisholm’s wife, looked up from her meal. “Does Jane still need clothes?”
“I don’t think she has even one dress,” Emma said. “Annie took her a skirt, but it’s pretty short. I doubt mine would fit her…”
Caro looked toward her father-in-law, GW, who sat at the head of the long table. “Papa Hart, do you think we might give her some of Mrs. Hart’s things? Your wife’s, I mean. You still have a lot of her clothing in a trunk, I’m told.”
Pa shot her a sharp glance. “I don’t think that would be a good idea, Caro.”
Crockett saw the hurt on Caro’s face and felt bad for her. Chisholm should be home soon, but without his solid presence, Caro might be feeling a little out of place. Her Mexican heritage set her apart from the rest of them, and he knew her beauty and fiery personality intimidated some of her sisters-in-law. But she was a Hart now, and Crockett felt protective of her. His father had a way of making a person feel small.
“Pa, it might not be such a bad thing,” he said. “Ma’s been gone a long time, and that stuff is going to waste. Jane could make over a few things. Really, Pa, they have nothing.”
His father hadn’t been over to the Haymakers’ place yet. He didn’t begrudge the young people going, so long as it didn’t interfere with the boys’ work on the ranch, but so far he hadn’t offered his own labor.
“I said no.”
Crockett sighed and went back to his roast beef. Some of the girls had helped prepare it. They often helped the cook out, which was probably a good thing now that they had so many people to feed. The new potatoes and fresh chard went down especially well.
He didn’t like to argue with his father, but this time he was sure Pa was just being stubborn. Ma’s things ought to go to good use, to help someone less fortunate.