“Uh-huh.”
The cook offset her exaggerated shrug with a glimmer of a smile and went back to kneading. “You have somewhere else you need to be?” she asked. “Or is it your intention to hide out here?”
“I’m not hiding out.”
“Sure, and you always prefer the kitchen to the outdoors.”
“Sometimes I do.”
“Then you can peel the taters and cut up some onions. We’re having stew. I’ve got the beef stock simmering.”
Peeling and chopping were hardly Laurel’s preferred tasks, but she couldn’t very well back away from them now without proving the cook’s point. Mrs. Lancaster’s quiet chuckle followed her into the pantry. She ignored it. By the time she returned with the vegetables, the cook had sobered and Laurel was on even footing.
7
Call introduced himself to Dillon and Hank Booker in the barn, where they were tending the horses. They stopped what they were doing to pepper him with questions. He answered enough to temporarily satisfy them while he cared for Artemis. After she was watered and fed, he left the boys so he could take his belongings to the bunkhouse. They would have followed if he’d given them the least encouragement, but he remembered Laurel’s caution about not letting them get underfoot and recognized the wisdom of it.
He put his clothes in the trunk at the foot of the bunk he judged to be the most comfortable out of the ones that were available. It was close to the door, which he preferred. After spending almost two years in confinement, exits were important to him.
Rooster was struggling to set a ladder against the back of the house when Call came across him. “I can help you with that,” he said and started forward.
“I got it.”
Call stopped. He recognized stubbornness in a man who refused to give ground. Call let him have his way, prepared to step in if the ladder proved too unwieldy, and was glad that he waited when Rooster managed on his own.
“There.” Rooster gave the ladder a shake to be sure it was grounded and steady. “You can hand me that box withthe hammer and nails,” he said, pointing to the wooden box close to Call’s feet. “And that roll of tar paper.”
“Why don’t you go on up and I’ll carry it to you? Miss Morrison said I should make myself useful. Seems this is as good a way as any to start.” Call waited to see if Rooster would take his suggestion as an insult, but it seemed that invoking their employer’s name into the offer made it palatable.
“All right. That’d be fine.”
Call picked up the box by its handle and put the short roll of roofing felt under an arm. He waited until Rooster had transferred from the ladder to the roof before he began to climb. The rungs were sturdier than he’d thought and he was climbing with more confidence by the time he reached the top. He stepped onto the roof and followed Rooster up the incline. He stopped when Rooster did but stayed standing when Rooster dropped to his haunches.
“I’m figuring the leak is about here. We’re above the kitchen. Mrs. Lancaster had a conniption last time it rained and her hot cinnamon buns took a drubbing. Not something I want to see or hear again.” Studying the wooden shingles, he held out his hand.
Clearly Rooster expected him to know what he wanted. Call gave him the hammer and took Rooster’s grunt to mean he had chosen correctly. Rooster pulled up half a dozen oiled shingles and set them to the side. He didn’t make Call guess that he needed the tar paper next; he asked for it. He unrolled it, eyeballed the size he needed, and took a knife from his back pocket to score and cut it.
“Tacks,” said Rooster.
Call handed them over one by one, studying Rooster as he secured the felt to the roof, laying it over the weathered tar paper that had been put down years earlier. The man had a steady hand, deftly and accurately tapping the tacks in. It didn’t take him long to put the shingles back, setting them in place with roofing nails. When he was done, he looked up at Call.
“Reckon you can do that?”
“I’ve never done it before but I think so.”
“You were watching, weren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Then I reckon you can do it.” He held out his knife to Call. “Go on up three feet higher and four feet to the left. Pull up the shingles and add new felt. That should take care of the other damp spot I noticed. Always hard to tell about leaks so that’s my best guess.”
There was no possibility of Call refusing. “I have a knife,” he said, patting his boot as he stooped to pick up the toolbox. “Three up and four to the left.”
“Right.”
Call went five feet on the diagonal to reach the point. On his own, the incline seemed steeper than it had when he was standing beside Rooster. He tried hunkering as Rooster had but learned quickly he was better off kneeling. Removing the shingles was more difficult than Rooster had made it seem. He struggled enough with the hammer’s claw that Rooster felt compelled to warn him not to crack the shingles. Call eased up on pulling and worked the shingles loose by twisting the claw and tugging at the same time.
Call estimated that it took him twice as long to accomplish the same work that Rooster had done, and he couldn’t help but think Rooster had been showing off a little, proving once again that he had a lot of years to work left in him.
