Free Montana Refuge by Alice Sharpe Page B

added, “We brought up a load of straw bales then, too. I’ll start hauling them out of the lean-to for people to sit on as soon as I get Ned and Gertie settled over yonder. There’s firewood stacked between them two trees.”
    “I see it,” Julie said, and set about hauling wood and placing it in the firebox Tyler had welded together a few years earlier. In days past, the cook would have dug a trench and staked spit hangers in the ground, leaning over the hole. Pots would be hung from these spit hangers. But because this camp was used often and had places to store supplies, the firebox came in real handy and took away the need to dig a trench. It contained the fire and hence the danger of spreading flames and provided lots of bars and structure on which pots could be suspended and a grill laid down for cooking meat or resting a pan.
    Julie found herself humming as she worked, amused when she realized it was the tune Tyler always whistled in an absentminded way. She opened up the back of the chuck wagon and hauled the iceboxes out of the bed. Andy built a more traditional campfire a short distance away, one which people could sit around once it got dark, resting on bales of straw, eating off tin plates, listening to the occasional lone coyote howl in the mountains.
    Even though she had often helped Rose with these chores, she’d never been in charge of them herself. All the work kept her mind off the mess she’d made of things in Portland and even the one she’d allowed to develop the night before when her body had reacted to Tyler’s touch and kisses with a mind of its own. Maybe after a week of hard work and quiet nights, she’d see a way to survive the life she’d left behind.
    As she chopped onions for the beans, she looked around at the river and trees and the budding camp and realized she felt safe out here. Tomorrow, they would cross the river and begin the slow, steady climb into the mountains and with each mile, they’d be leaving civilization further behind. In the past, the journey had made her feel small and insignificant and lost somehow, but today, it seemed to promise a rebirth of sorts. All she had to do was stay out of Tyler’s way.
    Ham hocks, onions and seasonings went in with the beans, then Andy helped her hang the heavy pot over the fire. Along with the beans, Rose had planned on grilled steaks and chicken, corn bread, salad and berry cobbler. A coffee grinder was attached to the side of the chuck wagon, the old-fashioned kind with a hand crank, and Julie started grinding beans. Every cattle drive was run by coffee, she knew that much, and the rule of thumb was if it didn’t stand a spoon on end, it wasn’t strong enough.
    After that she set out tubs for collecting dirty dishes. There were berries to prep, batters to measure, steak to marinate, tons of vegetables to slice. It was more cooking than Julie had done in months, but it all came back as though she’d done it yesterday, and she was actually surprised an hour later when she heard the first sounds of the approaching herd.
    The cows would be kept at some distance and downwind from the camp. The wranglers—guests, too, if they liked—would take shifts keeping an all-night vigil. Cows were skitterish animals and the threat of a stampede was always a clear and present danger, so the camp was situated to offer maximum possible protection for sleeping humans.
    One by one the guests started showing up on foot, their horses left to graze with the herd. The general mood was jovial and several people greeted the coffeepot like an old friend. They’d each been given lunches to carry in their saddlebags, so no one was hungry except Bobby Taylor who walked away with a couple of granola bars and the doctor who asked if there was anything to drink besides coffee. She handed him a juice box and explained there was always a stash of munchies and fruit at everyone’s disposal.
    “Oh, I’m not a big eater, not anymore,” he said with a