Chapter 5 #3
For the first time, Cassie realized that Red was very young.
He carried himself with such ease, and he was treated with deference by a lot of men and as an equal by the others.
For some reason, she’d been thinking he was Griff’s age.
But the twisted hat and the stuttered speech made her think differently.
Now she wondered if he wasn’t about her age.
He had to be twenty-one to file a homestead.
But if he’d been here two years like Griff and her, Red could be twenty-three, a barely grown boy striking out on his own in the West.
If only she had the nerve to ask him his age. That wouldn’t be too forward a question for a wife to ask. Or would it? Too bad Griff wasn’t here to tell her.
She explored the cave she now lived in, and somehow the combination of realizing her husband was hardly more than a boy and finding out she lived in a cave made her feel young and adventurous. She’d gotten to thinking of herself as the same generation as Griff, but she was only eighteen.
The bedroom was large and very dark. There was a good-sized bed.
Only one. Not two smaller ones like Griff said was appropriate for a married couple.
In fact, at Griff’s house, she’d had her own room.
Heat rushed into her face as she realized what she’d been offering when she told Red he could join her in the bedroom.
If he suggested staying in the front room again, she’d agree.
She found the little notch in the back of the room. The passage winding away into the heart of the mountain caught her imagination, and she was sorely tempted to explore. She stepped away from it. She had to ask Red first. She didn’t want to start her marriage by being disobedient.
She left the bedroom and went into the cooler. Amazing, the drop in temperature. She followed the pleasant trickle of water, careful not to trip over anything. She was clumsy, and she’d gotten worse with the baby on the way. Griff had rebuked her for it many times.
There was a brisk little spate of water pouring out of a crack in the rock. It landed in an overflowing pail on the floor and disappeared into the ground. She touched the water and shivered from the frigid temperature. Cold water. What if it stayed cold in summer? What a luxury that would be.
Her eyes had adjusted to the dim light and now focused on food piled everywhere. Hams hanging over her head. Eggs! Cassie hadn’t eaten an egg since she came west. It was all she could do not to grab one and take it directly to the fireplace to cook.
Red must have chickens and pigs. There was butter, and a pail of milk hung on a nail on one wall.
A milk cow too? She found potatoes, carrots, onions, and beets.
There was flour, salt, sugar—both brown and white—honey, and cakes of yeast. She couldn’t begin to search through all of the crates and barrels packed in that room.
She had lived in a beautiful home with Griff, but food had sometimes been a problem.
There was the spring near their home, and he’d had good luck fishing.
But they’d eaten a lot of trout. Griff wouldn’t let Cassie help in the garden, although as a child she’d enjoyed working by her mother’s side.
Griff had helped her understand how crude her mother had been to do man’s work.
How long had Red been here to be so established?
And how much time had she spent dreaming over the food? She hurried to work on supper.
The fire blazed cheerfully now in the small main room and cut the chill in the kitchen.
The sink was simply a hollowed-out log split in half, with a hole in the center of the bottom and a bucket under the hole to catch draining water.
A small but well-built table with two sturdy chairs sat near enough to the fireplace to make a meal cozy even on a cold night.
The floor was dirt, and a handmade broom stood in one corner.
How exactly was she to know when she was done when she swept a dirt floor?
Except for a few pots and pans, there was nothing in the house that wasn’t handmade.
Red had created this strange house with his bare hands.
How much pride a man would have if he could care for himself as Red did.
She started a rising of bread. They would have fresh-baked bread for breakfast. She warmed the ham in a cast-iron skillet and hung it from a hook in the fireplace.
She pared potatoes, careful to waste as little white flesh as possible, put them in the covered pot full of water, and tucked the pot into the corner of the fireplace.
She made biscuits. The heat was uneven, and she feared things would burn, so she kept a careful eye on everything.
Ham, potatoes, and biscuits. If she could get a good gravy from the ham, it would be a simple but tasty meal.
If only she could figure out an excuse to fry eggs with the meal.
She’d do it for breakfast, she promised herself.
The bread had risen. She’d punched it down and shaped loaves which were rising again.
The table was set with one tin plate and one chipped china plate, the only plates she could find.
The food was done. Even the mashed potatoes were whipped high with butter and milk and set in a pan of warm water, waiting for when Red came back.
The door swung inward, and Red entered, looked at her, and smiled rather abruptly.
Had he forgotten he was married?