The Lawman Said I Do Page 9

  In the middle of the square stood a table containing crocks of butter, syrup, molasses, baskets of eggs and assorted fruits, and pitchers of milk and water. In addition, there were baking staples such as flour, sugar, and salt, as well as flavorings such as chocolate, vanilla, and coconut.

  With the heat from the fires coming at them from all four directions, Cassie figured it had to be over a hundred degrees within that square. As she glanced around at the spectators shouting and clapping, she felt like a Christian about to be fed to the lions.

  To her chagrin, she spied Colt lolling against a shady tree. His amused grin was infuriating. To her further aggravation, Jeff and the Callum brothers stood nearby, applauding like bloodthirsty Romans, there to enjoy the slaughter. She picked up a wooden spoon and shook it at Jeff, which only produced more hoots from the trio.

  Well, her impulsiveness had landed her in worse pickles before, and she’d show them all! She glanced at her three partners. Undaunted by the heat, the teasing, or their lack of experience, Sam looked the crowd over like a general surveying an inferior enemy’s army. It helped restore some of Cassie’s faltering confidence.

  With a theatrical flair, Sam pulled the recipe her mother had given her out of her pocket. As she handed it to Cassie, the paper slipped through her fingers and fell on the hot grate. They watched in horror as the edges of the paper curled up, then burst into flames. The ashes dropped into the fire below.

  “What do we do now?” Cassie said, feeling the rise of panic.

  “We mix the cake and get it baking,” the general replied calmly.

  “But what ingredients do we use?”

  “I remember Mama said we use three eggs and three cups of sugar.”

  “Do you mean three cups of eggs and sugar together, or three cups of each of them separately?” Bowie asked.

  “Three cups of sugar and three separate eggs. And we need one cup of butter and four cups of flour. As soon as we get the signal, Cassie,” the general ordered, “you get the sugar. Bowie, you get the flour, and, Petey, you get the eggs. I’ll get the butter.”

  Cassie was so impressed with Sam’s memory that she felt more confident with every moment.

  A pistol blast officially announced the start of the contest, and the race was on.

  “Stampede!” Jeff called out at the top of his voice. He and the Callum brothers began to bawl like cattle when the women rushed in a thundering horde to the center table.

  Bowie and Petey squeezed between the women and were the first to get back. As soon as Cassie and Sam returned, they cracked the eggs and dumped all the other ingredients together in a bowl.

  Cassie frowned. “Seems to me that when Cathy bakes a cake she mixes the butter and sugar together first, and then adds the eggs and flour.”

  “We ain’t got time to do all that separately. Oh, I just remembered—we need a cup of milk, too.”

  With all this flour, don’t we need more than just a cup?”

  “No, I’m sure Mama said one cup.” Sam began to stir the ingredients together. “This is really hard to stir,” she complained.

  Cassie came hurrying back with the milk, only to hear Sam say, “I forgot to tell you to bring some vanilla for flavoring.” Cassie handed her the milk, which she dumped into the batter.

  “How much vanilla do you need, Sam?”

  “I don’t remember. Maybe you better bring a cupful, same as the milk. Oh, yeah, we need baking powder, too. That should be the end of it.”

  Cassie hurried back with the vanilla. “There’s no more baking powder.”

  “Then go back and get some sour milk and molasses.”

  “Sour milk and molasses!” Cassie exclaimed. “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah, Mama said that lightens the batter.”

  “I don’t see how sour milk and molasses can lighten the batter,” Cassie said. “They’re both heavy ingredients.”

  “Well, I remember for sure that’s what my mama uses when she’s out of baking powder.”

  “How much?”

  “I guess a cup of each of them should be enough. And hurry up. My arm’s getting tireder and tireder.”

  “I’m not going back for another item,” Cassie declared upon returning. “You don’t see any of the other women doing it, do you? People are laughing at me running back and forth.”

  As if reading her mind, Jeff called out, “Hey, Cassie, why don’t you get a horse? You must’ve run five miles by now.”

  Cassie gritted her teeth.

  “Okay, this is mixed up good,” Sam said. “Let’s pour it into the pan and set it to baking.”

  Cassie heaved a sigh of relief when they finally slid the cake tin into the oven. She threw her arms around the girl and hugged her. “We did it, Sam! We did it!”

  Cassie’s elation was short-lived when Sam’s freckled face puckered and the girl began to tap her chin with a finger, deep in thought.

  “What’s wrong?” Cassie asked. “Did you forget to put something in the cake?”

  “I don’t think so. I can’t remember exactly what goes into the frosting. I know Mama said to cook it until it caramelizes.”

  “What does that mean?” Bowie asked.

  “’Til we can spread it, I guess. If I remember right, we need syrup, butter, and salt. I think that’s all.”

  “How much?”

  “I think it was four cups of butter and a cup each of syrup and salt. Or maybe it was four cups of syrup and one cup of butter and salt?”

  “Usually the first thought is the right one,” Cassie advised.

  “Well, since I don’t remember exactly, let’s be safe and use the same amount for all the ingredients.”

  After collecting the syrup, butter, and salt, they poured the ingredients into a cast-iron kettle on the hot grate. In a short time the mixture was bubbling, and Cassie began to stir it.

  “This is getting very thick and harder to stir. It’s sticking to the bottom of the pan.”

  “Hmmm,” Sam said. “Maybe we need some more liquid. What have we got in there so far?”

  “Four cups of syrup, butter, and salt.”

  “Now I remember—Mama said a pinch of salt.”

  Cassie groaned. “We used four cups.”

  “Must be the salt that’s making it stick. Too late now to change it; just keep stirring.”

  “Maybe if we put in some more syrup, that will help.”

  “Okay, but just a couple more cupfuls. We don’t want it too sweet.”

  Sam glanced over at the station next to them in time to see them drop a spoonful of their mixture into a glass of water.

  “Bowie,” Sam said, “go over and find out what Emily is doing with that water.”

  Bowie scampered away and returned within minutes. “They’re making fudge, and she said that if it forms a ball when they drop it into the water, the fudge is done.”

  “Maybe we ought to try that,” Cassie said. “Quick, get a glass of water.”

  They dropped a spoonful of the bubbling mixture into the water. It formed a rock-hard ball.

  “It must be done,” Sam said.

  Suddenly a burning odor permeated the air. “Oh, look,” Cassie cried, “the frosting’s boiling over.” The hot, syrupy mixture was rolling over the top and down the sides of the kettle.

  The odor stung their nostrils as the girls grabbed spoons and tried to catch the liquid and scrape it back into the kettle. It continued to roll down the sides onto the grate and the fire below.

  “We have to get the kettle off the fire!” Cassie cried through the smoke that was rising from the grate.

  “The handle’s too hot to lift,” Sam yelled, drawing back a burned finger.

  Cassie bunched up the bottom of her apron and used it to lower the kettle to the ground, where it continued to gurgle and spit random bubbles.

  “Everyone get back,” Jeff shouted. “The volcano’s about to erupt!”

  The nearby crowd broke into laughter.

  “I’m going to k
ill him when this is over,” Cassie murmured.

  “What do we do now?” Sam asked desolately.

  “I guess we’re supposed to spread it on the cake.”

  Cassie reached for one of the wooden spoons that were sticking out of the mixture like flagpoles. It would not budge. Sam tried to pull out the other one. It, too, was stuck solid.

  They each grabbed the end of a spoon and yanked. When that didn’t work, they raised the kettle by the spoon handles and tried to shake them loose. In desperation, they finally pounded the side of the kettle against the ground. Neither spoon nor mixture budged.

  Now hysterical with laughter, Jeff shouted, “Try using a hammer, girls. If that don’t work, you can always saw through it.”

  “If you don’t shut up, Jeff Braden, I’ll throw this kettle at you,” Cassie shouted.

  In their struggle with the kettle, they’d forgotten about the cake. Black smoke began to billow from the reflector oven.

  The girls rushed over to the oven and extracted the cake tin, then stared down forlornly at the charred remains.

  “I guess we’re not going to win,” Sam said woefully.

  Seeing Sam’s misery, Cassie’s heart ached for the girl. Her own embarrassment forgotten, she slipped an arm around Sam’s sagging shoulders.

  “That’s all right, honey. At least now we don’t have to worry about frosting it.”

  Sitting side by side, the James brothers looked as woeful as their beloved leader.

  “Told ya it was going to be disastrous,” Bowie said sorrowfully.

  “Yeah,” Petey replied. “’Sasterus.”

  Cassie cast a disgruntled glance at Jeff and his friends. “Look at them, grinning at us like baboons.” Colt’s expression was inscrutable, but he was probably thinking the same as her loudmouth brother. “Well, I’m not giving up,” she declared with a determined lift of her chin. “We’ll just start over.”

  “But we don’t have time. The contest ends in twenty minutes,” Sam said.

  “That doesn’t mean we’ve lost. We’ll just make a little cake and spread it with icing.”

  “It takes longer than twenty minutes to bake a cake.”

  “Then we’ll make a thin one…a flat one.”

  “You mean like a pancake?

  “Yes!” Cassie cried excitedly. “Exactly! You make the cake, while I make the icing. This time we won’t use as many ingredients. Hurry.”

  They rushed to the table, which had been pretty much picked clean by now. They got the remaining four eggs and a couple cups of milk, a cup of flour and sugar each, water, and a smidgen of molasses and vanilla.

  A bottle of brandy caught Cassie’s attention, and she poured a little bit of that into a cup, then scooped up the few remaining raisins and cherries that were left into bowls. Maybe those would add to the taste of the dessert.

  Sam took the four eggs and half the sugar, flour, and milk, then mixed them into a nice, smooth batter. With time running out, she rolled the batter into a thin sheet no thicker than a pancake and put it in the oven to bake, while Cassie mixed the butter, sugar, molasses, milk, and vanilla together in a pan and set it on the grate to cook. When she added the half cup of brandy she’d salvaged, the mixture became more saucelike than thick.

  The clock was down to three minutes to go when Sam removed the cake-flavored pancake from the oven. Her face dropped in dejection when she saw the sauce. “Now what do we do with it? That icing’s too thin to spread.”

  Cassie glanced around in desperation. Only the raisins and cherries remained; there were no other ingredients to thicken it with. She dabbed a spoon into the intended icing and gingerly tasted it. To her surprise it was very tasty. And suddenly, she thought of the solution.

  “Sam, hurry and cut that pancake into six pieces,” she said. Sam quickly obeyed. With only a minute remaining, Cassie sprinkled the raisins and cherries onto the pieces and folded them over. Sam pinched the pieces closed, and Cassie scooped spoonfuls of the brandy-flavored caramel mixture over the top of the last one just as the gunshot sounded, ending the contest.

  Colt was one among the six judges who came to sample their offering.

  “These are delicious, ladies,” Don Peterson, the head judge, exclaimed. “What are they called?”

  “Ah…Samanthas,” Cassie replied with a glance at Colt.

  He grinned and winked at her.

  “Delicious,” Peterson said, marking the score sheet. “I must tell Mrs. Peterson to get the recipe from you,” he added, moving on.

  A short time later, Cassie and Sam held hands—and their breath—when Peterson announced the winners.

  “Congratulations to our gold ribbon winners, Miss Cathy Braden and Miss Rosalie Murphy, for their most delectable chocolate cake.”

  “That’s to be expected,” Cassie whispered to Sam. “No one can bake a better chocolate cake than Cathy.”

  “In second place and winner of the blue ribbon is Mrs. Sarah Starr for her banana and cherry torte.”

  “It ain’t looking too good, Cassie,” Sam whispered.

  “Keep the faith, sweetheart. At least we finished.”

  “And in third place, keeping it all in the families, the winners of the red ribbon are the Misses Cassie Braden and Samantha Starr for their raisin and cherry Samanthas.”

  Hugging and squealing, Cassie and Sam jumped up and down with joy.

  “Let’s have a round of applause for all the contestants, whose efforts we’re about to enjoy. Bon appétit, my friends,” Peterson shouted above the whistles and applause of the crowd.

  “I never figured they had a prayer of winning,” Bowie said to Petey. “It’s a miracle.”

  “Yeah, miragal,” Petey replied, with a grin from ear to ear.

  “Well, what have you got to say now, little brother?” Cassie said when Jeff joined them.

  “Samanthas!” Jeff snorted. “You didn’t actually name a dessert after that hoyden.”

  “We named the first one Jeffrey,” Sam said, “’cause it turned out to be such a disaster.”

  Cassie grinned. “I’d offer you a piece of the red-ribbon-winning dessert, Jeffrey, except that you probably won’t be hungry after all that crow you have to eat.”

  Bestowing a smug smile on him, she and Sam walked away with Bowie and Petey at their heels.

  Colt wanted to congratulate Cassie on snatching victory out of disaster, but she was always in the midst of a crowd or helping to serve food.

  After a couple of hours, he sat down under the shade of a tree to enjoy a tortilla and beer.

  Cassie and her three buddies approached him. “Colt, the children are sorry for how they’ve been acting, and they have a gift for you,” Cassie said.

  Beware of Greeks bearing gifts, Colt thought to himself, but he was sorry for his skepticism when little Petey stepped forward and handed him a small square box tied with a bright red ribbon.

  “We couldn’t find any paper to wrap it with,” Bowie said.

  “But we used one of my hair ribbons to tie it shut,” Sam added with a smile.

  Funny, he hadn’t realized how sweet she looked when she smiled. Maybe it was because she was always scowling at him. Today she wore a blue dress embroidered with tiny pink-and-white flowers at the neck and hem, and her red hair was brushed out and tied back with a blue ribbon.

  “You look very pretty today, B—…ah, Sam.”

  In lieu of her usual sharp retorts, she blushed and murmured, “Thank you.”

  “Well, thank you, children. This is quite a surprise,” Colt said, eyeing the ribboned box.

  “Go ahead. Open it,” Sam said.

  Colt winked at Petey as he untied the ribbon. The youngster’s face was glowing with expectancy.

  Cassie and the three children wore broad smiles as he removed the lid.

  He stared down at the coiled contents in the box in shock, then threw it to the ground. The snake crawled out of the box, and Colt raised his foot to trample it.

  “No!” Pete
y screamed in horror. The snake slithered away, and the youngster chased after it.

  That did it! Colt stared coldly. “I have had enough of your practical jokes. I suggest you remain out of my sight until I leave this town.”

  “Colt,” Cassie said, “I don’t think you understand. They wanted to give you—”

  “The same goes for you, Miss Braden,” he said, cutting her off. “You’re too old to be a party to these pranks, so keep a wide berth from me. If there’s a God in Heaven, I’ll never have to see you, your brother, or these three brats ever again.” He spun on his heel and returned to the jail.

  Colt fumed nonstop for the next hour before his anger cooled. He had never been one to sustain anger for very long, and he couldn’t understand why he’d reacted so angrily to the antics of Cassie and the sprouts; it was out of character for him.

  By late afternoon he had cooled down, and he returned to the social to quiet down a couple of cowboys who had indulged in too much free beer.

  Through the rest of the day he caught glimpses of Cassie, who was always busy cutting pies and cakes.

  When the sun went down, the piano from the Alhambra was lifted onto a wagon and driven to the site. A fiddler and a banjo player climbed up on the wagon as well, and the dancing began.

  Time and time again one of the women grabbed Colt’s hand and pulled him in. He danced a couple of times with Cathy, but not Cassie. He wanted to apologize first and preferred they were alone when he did.

  As the evening wore on, the crowd gradually thinned. Many of the cowboys wandered back to the Alhambra in pursuit of the services of the ladies, or to wait out the clock until midnight, when they could buy some hard liquor.

  Some of the folks packed up to return to their ranches that night. Others bedded their families down in their wagons.

  Soon the makeshift tables were taken down, the piano hauled back to the Alhambra, and the cooking fires extinguished until just a few remained for light.

  Only then did Colt go over to where Cassie and Cathy were packing up the back of a buckboard.

  “Here, let me do that,” he said, grabbing one of the baskets.