Santa Fe Woman by Gilbert Morris Page A

looked up as Jori entered and saw at once the young woman’s face was stiff and unnatural. She’s grieving and sad to leave home. Ignoring the thought, Kate smiled and said, “You came just in time to help with breakfast.” She saw Jori’s eyes go over the mountain of scrambled eggs and the platters full of biscuits piled high like small mountains and the bacon laid out on platters.
    “What in the world is all this food for!” Jori exclaimed.
    “It’s for the mule skinners and the men on the train.” Kate flipped over six pieces of bacon with a spatula expertly, and they sizzled on the frying pan, sending up the strong odor of meat cooking. “We couldn’t take all the groceries with us, so I thought we might as well fix a breakfast.”
    Leland entered from the door and said nervously, “Is the breakfast about ready?”
    “All ready,” Kate nodded. “Everybody lend a hand, and we’ll take it out and feed them.”
    Mark and Leland helped Kate and Jori take the meal outside. A table was set up, and the men were sitting around smoking and laughing as Kate made the preparations. She lifted her voice and said, “All right, you men, line up here and get your breakfast.”
    Kate watched as the men shuffled over and thought again of her earlier days. She had been accustomed to rough men then, but for the past years, since she had been Leland’s housekeeper and had watched over his children, that memory had faded. It came back strongly now along with the smells of tobacco, leather, and even alcohol from the mule skinners. “Pick up a plate and bring it to me.” Grat Herendeen was the first man, a huge man with his bull whip coiled and over his shoulder seeming almost a part of him. He grinned at her as she filled his plate with the eggs and motioned toward the bacon. “Help yourself, Grat.”
    “Smells mighty good, Miss Kate,” Herendeen said. He moved down and picked up a cup that Jori had filled from the large coffee pot. He winked at her and said, “Going to be a nice trip. Not used to having ladies along on freighting trains.” He waited for her to respond, but she didn’t, and he moved on.
    They loaded their plates, and finally the last man in line came to stand before Kate.
    “Good morning,” Kate said. She had not met this man before. He was no more than average height but trim and strong looking. His curly brown hair escaped from the cap he was wearing, and he had warm brown eyes. She put an extra portion of eggs on his plate and said, “Help yourself to the bacon and the biscuits.”
    “It looks mighty good, ma’am.” He hesitated and then stood before her, holding his plate in one hand and his cup in the other. “Are you born again by the blood of the Lamb, ma’am?”
    Kate was surprised but suddenly she laughed. “Yes, I am.”
    “Well, I reckon I knowed that before I asked. I could tell you’re a handmaiden of the Lord.”
    “My name’s Kate Johnson.”
    “I’m glad to know you, ma’am. My name’s Brown—Good News Brown.”
    “Good News? That’s not your real name.”
    “Yes, ma’am, it is. My ma was a real Christian, ma’am, and she wanted to give me a name to let people know where I stood with God. So, she took part of that Scripture out. She’d been readin’ the story of the birth of the Savior in Luke the day after I was born, so she told me. You know, she read that verse that says when the angels said to the shepherds, ‘Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy.’ My ma always said that sounded like the angels are saying I’ve got good news for you. So she named me Good News. Fellows mostly call me News. That’s all right.”
    “Are you a preacher?” Kate asked.
    “Me? No, ma’am. Just a voice in the wilderness.”
    Kate found herself liking the man. He did not have the roughness about him that some of the other men had. “Maybe we can have services on the trail.”
    “I reckon I’d like that a lot, ma’am.”
    “You’d better watch