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Nevada Barr - Bittersweet.docx
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Imogene smiled at her earnestness.

            “I don’t want to hunt anymore. Is that okay? I’ll cook.”

            “Of course.”

            The door banged behind them and the tall angular wagoner joined them on the porch. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “I’m going to hit the hay. Dan’ll be up awhile longer, but he said to tell you he won’t be needing nothing. Good night, ladies.” He ambled down the steps and out toward the barn.

            “Good night, Curley,” Imogene returned. “When are we going to have the honor of having you as an overnight guest inside?”

            “When Farmer’s Feed and Grain pays their drivers a decent wage and pigs fly,” he called back good-naturedly.

            They watched his lanky silhouette fold down out of sight in the high grasses beyond the spring as he bedded down for the night.

            “I don’t mind killing chickens,” Sarah said suddenly. “I used to wring their necks better than Walter, Mam said. And I had some chickens at Sam’s. They were all mine, I took care of everything. Chickens are different, they’re just to eat.”

            “We’ll order some chickens from Reno tomorrow when the stage comes,” Imogene decided. “Is there a time of year for chickens?”

            “I don’t know. We’ll want grown ones anyway; baby chicks might die on the way. Some hens and a rooster. Do we have money?”

            “No. We’ll ‘run our face,’ as Mac says. We may as well order some saplings too. In for a penny, in for a pound. I’m hungry for trees, shade trees.”

            “Are we too poor?”

            “No, dear. I just worry. We’re doing quite well. We should have most of the equipment I took over from the Van Fleets paid off by next year.”

            They ordered the chickens and the saplings the following day, and as soon as the passengers off the southbound coach for Bishop had been fed and settled into their lodgings, they set about constructing a chicken coop, assisted by two young men. Neither was yet thirty years old, adventurers from the shattered South, cadging rides from freight wagons to try their luck in California. One was lean and blond, his eyes aged by the war; the other was shorter, darker, and spoke very little. Attracted by Sarah’s fragile good looks and a chance to break the tedium of an idle summer afternoon, they had offered their assistance with the building project. Dubbing Sarah “straw boss” because she was the chicken expert, they carried the motley assortment of lumber Imogene ferreted out from the piles of refuse behind the stable and shed. The Southerners would have built the coop by themselves if Imogene hadn’t insisted they instruct her and Sarah in the fundamentals of carpentry, in return for which supper would be on the house. By evening an adequate coop was erected, Imogene and Sarah wielding the hammers, the two boys looking on and shouting directions and encouragement.

            When it was finished, Sarah patted the corner of the low, sloping roof; she’d been too busy to be shy and now the new structure took her mind up completely. “We’ve done it,” she said with delight. “And next time we’ll be able to do it by ourselves.”

            Long after supper was over, while Imogene was still tending bar, Sarah sat by the window of her bedroom, looking out at the dark mountains and the small black hump on the north end of the stable that was her chicken coop.

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