Chapter 2 - THE DEAD COOK’S NOTEBOOK
2
Katrina did not chase the rustlers.
That surprised Wilmer.
He expected her butcher knife to mean anger.
It didn’t.
A good butcher never cut before knowing where the bone was.
Instead, Katrina climbed into the supply wagon and began taking everything apart.
“Bell,” she called.
The doctor appeared at the rear flap.
“Tell me exactly what’s missing.”
He handed her a list.
Medicine.
Charcoal.
Two bottles of spirits.
One packet of powdered salts.
Several clean bandages.
A syringe kit.
Katrina read it.
“Would any of those things help poisoned men?”
“Yes.”
“Could any make them worse?”
“Yes.”
That mattered.
“Then whoever stole your medicine knew what they were taking.”
Bell nodded grimly.
“Likely.”
“Doctor?”
“Yes?”
“How many men on this drive understand medicine?”
“Enough to misuse whiskey. Not enough for this.”
“Anyone travel with hospitals?”
“Army veterans, maybe.”
Katrina thought.
Then opened Samuel Quinn’s notebook again.
His entries began six days before his death.
Inventory short by four coffee tins.
New man says Cross Tie owner wants separate stores.
Who was “new man”?
Further down:
Hale says don’t count reserve crates.
Hale.
A name.
“Wilmer!”
Trail boss appeared.
“Who is Hale?”
His face tightened.
“Silas Hale.”
“Who?”
“Cross Tie’s business agent.”
“On the drive?”
“Was.”
“Was?”
“He left before we crossed the Red.”
“Why?”
“Said he had to meet buyers in Dodge.”
Katrina showed him the page.
Wilmer swore quietly.
Silas Hale represented one of the two ranching outfits.
He handled contracts.
Supplies.
Payroll.
He had personally arranged Samuel Quinn’s hiring.
And Katrina’s?
No.
Wilmer hired her after Hale left.
Interesting.
“Did Hale order these reserve supplies?”
“Yes.”
“All of them?”
“Most.”
Bell leaned closer.
“Then he had access to my medicine shipment too.”
“Who packed your chest?”
“Myself.”
“Who transported it?”
Bell went still.
“Hale’s freight wagon.”
Katrina looked at Wilmer.
There it was.
Opportunity.
But Hale was supposedly days ahead.
Unless he never went to Dodge.
Outside, gunfire cracked near the north ridge.
Wilmer looked toward the sound.
“I need to ride.”
“Go.”
He hesitated.
“You’re not armed.”
Katrina lifted the butcher knife.
“That isn’t what I meant.”
“I know what you meant.”
He handed her a revolver.
Katrina shook her head.
“No.”
“Katrina.”
“I know knives.”
“That’s a gunfight outside.”
“And a poisoning in here.”
He stared, then nodded.
“Bell stays with you.”
Bell objected.
“I’m a doctor.”
“Exactly.”
Wilmer rode.
Katrina continued.
She inspected coffee tins.
Only one contaminated?
Maybe not.
Three reserve tins remained.
Their seals looked intact.
She set them aside.
Then flour.
Salt.
Sugar.
Beans.
Nothing obvious.
The poisoned coffee had probably been prepared specifically.
Bell asked:
“What are you looking for?”
“A pattern.”
“What kind?”
“The kind men miss because they think kitchens run themselves.”
Her father used to say thieves underestimate cooks.
Everybody enters the kitchen eventually.
Hungry men talk.
Angry men talk louder.
People hide things in kitchens because they think food smells cover secrets.
Katrina began remembering.
Who had fetched supplies?
Billy.
Jeb sometimes.
A quiet rider named Amos Pike.
Cross Tie foreman Vernon Coyle.
Wilmer.
Then something struck her.
The coffee tin had not been brought from the supply wagon by Katrina.
She had asked someone.
Who?
The storm had been roaring.
She had shouted:
“Jeb! Bring me the next coffee tin!”
Jeb refused.
Called himself a cowboy, not a kitchen boy.
Then someone else volunteered.
Vernon Coyle.
Cross Tie’s foreman.
A man in his forties.
Polite.
Never mocked Katrina.
Almost invisible in camp because he did everything competently.
He brought the tin.
Was it already contaminated?
Or had Coyle done it?
She searched Quinn’s notebook.
Initials.
J.R.
Could mean Jeb Rollins.
Or someone else.
No Coyle.
Then another line:
V.C. asks whether north ridge route still planned.
V.C.
Vernon Coyle.
Her skin prickled.
“Bell, where is Coyle?”
“Riding with Wilmer.”
Of course.
If he was part of the theft, he now rode toward the rustlers.
Maybe to stop them.
Maybe to join them.
Then one of the sick cowboys began convulsing.
Bell ran.
Katrina followed.
It was Tomas Herrera, a nineteen-year-old drover.
His limbs jerked.
His jaw clenched.
Bell shouted for men to hold him carefully.
Katrina knelt.
Tomas’s breath came in broken gasps.
“What did he eat?”
“Same.”
“What did he drink after supper?”
Another cowboy answered:
“Coffee. Then some of Jeb’s whiskey.”
Jeb.
Katrina looked at Jeb.
He lay under a blanket nearby.
Pale.
Sweating.
Awake.
“Where’s your whiskey bottle?”
He glared weakly.
“What?”
“The bottle.”
“Why?”
“Because Tomas drank it.”
Jeb pointed.
“Bedroll.”
She found it.
Half empty.
Bell smelled it.
Nothing unusual.
Katrina poured a little into a tin cup.
Something floated.
Tiny dark particles.
Not enough to identify.
Jeb saw her expression.
“I didn’t put nothing in it.”
“You refill this bottle?”
“Sometimes.”
“From where?”
“Company stock.”
“Who gives it out?”
Jeb hesitated.
“Coyle.”
Again.
Katrina stood.
Jeb grabbed her wrist.
His grip weak.
“I’m an ass, Cook.”
“Yes.”
“But I ain’t a killer.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“If you planned this, you wouldn’t have drunk three cups.”
He closed his eyes.
“Good point.”
The first useful thing Jeb Rollins contributed.
Bell returned to Tomas.
Katrina searched further.
Whiskey.
Coffee.
Two different delivery routes.
Common handler?
Coyle.
Then she remembered Quinn’s note:
Saw J.R. near reserve wagon.
Maybe J.R. wasn’t initials.
Maybe “J.R.” meant Junction Rock.
Trail shorthand?
She asked Jeb.
“What’s J.R. mean on trail maps?”
He frowned.
“Could be Juniper Ridge.”
Wilmer had mentioned Juniper Ridge ahead.
A rocky rise where the trail narrowed.
Good place for ambush.
Quinn may have seen someone near reserve wagon at Juniper Ridge.
Not initials at all.
She flipped pages.
No periods.
Just J R.
Could be location.
If Quinn saw something near the reserve wagon at Juniper Ridge, maybe Hale and Coyle had loaded supplies there.
Then outside the gunfire stopped.
Too suddenly.
Katrina listened.
Silence in a cattle camp is rarely peaceful.
Then hoofbeats approached.
A dozen riders.
Wilmer first.
Blood on his coat—not his.
Behind him, healthy cowboys.
Vernon Coyle was not among them.
“Where’s Coyle?” Katrina asked immediately.
Wilmer dismounted.
“Gone.”
“Dead?”
“No.”
“Then where?”
“Rode toward the rustlers.”
“Chasing?”
Wilmer’s expression answered.
“No.”
Coyle joined them.
Proof enough.
Wilmer continued.
“They pulled back.”
“Why?”
“Not enough healthy men expected.”
Because the poison affected fewer than planned.
Night riders missed the coffee.
Remuda handlers too.
And Katrina.
The plan relied on disabling most camp.
The storm made chaos but also changed meal timing.
The thieves miscalculated.
“Can you hold the herd?”
“Tonight.”
“And tomorrow?”
Wilmer looked toward the sick.
“If these men don’t recover, no.”
Bell shook his head.
“I need charcoal.”
Katrina thought of her father.
Butcher shops.
Burned bones.
Wood coals.
Her eyes moved to the cooking fire.
“Can ordinary charcoal help?”
Bell frowned.
“Clean hardwood charcoal, powdered. Not ideal.”
“But something?”
“Yes.”
Katrina stood.
“Then stop telling me what you don’t have.”
Bell stared.
She pointed at the fire.
“Tell me how clean you need it.”
They spent the next hour making crude emergency charcoal from clean hardwood burned under low oxygen, then Bell prepared it cautiously for the worst cases.
No certainty.
No miracle.
But some men stabilized.
Katrina boiled water continuously.
Mixed simple rehydration drinks.
Kept men warm.
Bell handled medicine.
She handled survival.
By dawn, no one else had died.
One cowboy had, though.
Tomas Herrera.
Nineteen.
Katrina closed his eyes.
For a long moment nobody spoke.
Then Jeb Rollins began crying quietly beneath his blanket.
His whiskey had been part of Tomas’s last hours.
Not his fault.
But guilt does not always wait for logic.
Katrina stood.
One dead.
Forty sick.
A cook before her murdered.
Rustlers waiting.
Coyle gone.
Silas Hale somewhere ahead.
She looked at Wilmer.
“We don’t continue north.”
“We have buyers waiting.”
“We’ll have graves waiting if we do.”
“The storm blocks south.”
“Then east.”
“To where?”
Bell answered.
“Adobe Wells.”
A settlement perhaps two days away in normal weather.
Four in this.
Small army outpost nearby.
Medicine.
Telegraph.
Law.
Wilmer shook his head.
“Three thousand cattle through frozen draws? We’ll lose hundreds.”
Katrina looked at Tomas’s body.
“Better cattle than men.”
The trail boss followed her gaze.
Then nodded.
“We go east.”
A voice came from the blankets.
Jeb.
Weak.
“Cook.”
She turned.
“Yeah?”
“I heard Coyle talking two nights ago.”
Everyone listened.
“With Pike.”
Amos Pike, the quiet rider.
“What about?”
“Something about Adobe Wells.”
Wilmer’s face tightened.
“What exactly?”
Jeb swallowed.
“Coyle said, ‘Make sure Morales never reaches the telegraph.’”
Silence.
They had anticipated retreat.
Adobe Wells was not safety.
It was part of the plan.
Katrina looked toward the eastern horizon.
Somewhere beyond the white plains, somebody already waited for them.
The cattle drive had not merely been poisoned.
May you like
It had been herded.
And now Katrina understood the true shape of the trap.
