The coughing changed the sound of the cattle camp.
Before the blizzard, mornings had begun with saddle leather creaking, horses snorting, cowboys cursing cold coffee, and Jeb Rollins shouting louder than necessary about whatever irritated him.
Now coughing came from every direction.
Deep coughs.
Wet coughs.
Painful, rattling coughs that left grown men curled beneath blankets trying to breathe.
Katrina moved among them carrying hot water.
She had never seen so many strong men become helpless so quickly.
Doc Abernathy had traveled with the combined outfit because Wilmer believed an expedition of a hundred men and three thousand cattle was too large to trust entirely to luck.
The doctor was sixty-three, wiry, silver-bearded, and usually sarcastic enough to offend almost everybody before breakfast.
Now he had stopped joking.
His medical chest sat open beside a canvas shelter.
Nearly empty.
Quinine.
Gone.
Laudanum.
Almost gone.
Whiskey.
Gone except for half a bottle.
Mustard powder.
Low.
Bandages.
Running out.
The nearest settlement with meaningful supplies was days away in good weather.
The roads were buried beneath ice.
Nobody was going anywhere quickly.
Katrina knelt beside Otis Bell, whose lips had developed a gray tint.
"Drink some broth."
"Can't."
"You can."
"My chest hurts."
"I know."
"Feels like a mule kicked me."
"Then make the mule angry and drink."
Otis managed half a cup.
Katrina moved on.
Jeb Rollins lay ten feet away.
Two days earlier, he would have made some remark about her body.
Now he couldn't sit upright.
He was soaked with sweat despite the cold. Each breath produced a terrible bubbling rattle.
Katrina crouched beside him.
Jeb opened his eyes.
He seemed embarrassed.
"Miss Foster."
"Don't talk."
"Didn't think you'd bother with me."
Katrina wrung a cloth in cool water.
"You think I decide who deserves soup?"
A faint shadow of his old grin appeared.
"Figured maybe you'd poison mine."
"If I intended to poison you, Mr. Rollins, I'd have done it before wasting good onions nursing you."
His lips moved.
Maybe it was a laugh.
It turned immediately into coughing.
Katrina steadied him until it passed.
Across camp, Wilmer watched.
He hadn't slept properly in three nights.
Dark stubble covered his jaw.
Ice had split the skin across two fingers.
He walked toward Doc Abernathy.
"Tell me the truth."
The doctor did not look up from Nathan Pike's chest.
"I usually charge extra for that."
"Doc."
Abernathy sighed.
"We got men with lung fever. We got men weakened by exposure. Some are dehydrated. Some aren't eating. Those who keep their strength may pull through."
"And the others?"
Abernathy finally looked at him.
"If we can't get heat and nourishment into them, we're going to lose men."
"How many?"
"I don't know."
"Guess."
"I don't like guessing."
"Neither do I."
Abernathy glanced across the camp.
"Half the sick could die if this worsens."
Wilmer's face hardened.
"Half?"
"And the healthy men aren't healthy, Wilmer. They're exhausted. Another cold night, bad food, and they'll start dropping too."
Wilmer walked away without answering.
Katrina was lifting a pot when he reached the wagon.
"We're losing them, Katrina."
She turned.
Something in his voice frightened her more than the words.
It was the first time he had called her Katrina.
Not Miss Foster.
Not cook.
Katrina.
"How bad?"
"Doc says if we can't get heat and strength back into their blood, half the camp could be dead by Sunday."
Sunday.
Three days.
Katrina stared at the men lying beneath frozen canvas shelters.
Cowboys who had laughed at her.
Cowboys who had eaten her food every night.
Young men.
Old men.
Fathers.
Sons.
Brothers.
Mexican vaqueros.
Former soldiers.
Drifters who had nowhere else to go.
Jeb Rollins, who had called her a sow.
She felt no satisfaction.
Not even toward him.
Only responsibility.
Her father had taught her that too.
Once, when Katrina was fourteen, an old drunk who regularly insulted Samuel Foster collapsed outside their butcher shop during a winter freeze.
Samuel carried him inside.
Young Katrina had asked why.
"He hates you."
Samuel covered the unconscious man with blankets.
"Maybe."
"Then why help him?"
Her father had looked at her as though the answer were obvious.
"Because what he is doesn't get to decide what I am."
Katrina remembered those words now.
She looked at Wilmer.
"Move."
"What?"
"Move out of my way."
Wilmer stepped aside.
Katrina pulled her heavy canvas apron around her waist.
She opened the chuck wagon stores.
Salt pork.
Dried beans.
Onions.
Potatoes.
Garlic.
Cornmeal.
Flour.
Coffee.
Dried peppers.
Some preserved tomatoes.
Bones saved from previous meals.
She calculated rapidly.
Enough food to maintain the camp.
Not enough concentrated nourishment for forty dangerously ill men plus sixty exhausted ones.
Her father had taught her food wasn't simply something that stopped hunger.
Under the right circumstances, it restored people.
Stock made from bones.
Marrow.
Organ meat.
Rendered fat.
Vegetables cooked until everything useful entered the broth.
The poor understood such things because poverty made waste impossible.
Samuel Foster had called it winter medicine.
Not medicine in the physician's sense.
Food made for bodies too weakened to manage ordinary meals.
Katrina looked toward the herd.
Then toward the icy plain.
"Wilmer."
He stepped closer.
"How many cattle did we lose?"
"Seven confirmed. Maybe eight."
"Where?"
"Scattered south of the bedding ground."
"Frozen?"
"Likely."
"How long dead?"
"Since the storm."
Katrina's eyes narrowed.
"If they're frozen promptly and uncontaminated, portions may still be usable."
Wilmer understood immediately.
"What do you need?"
"Bones. Shanks. Tails if they're sound. Hearts. Livers only if the carcasses are clean and the doctor approves. Fat. Anything useful."
Abernathy had overheard.
He approached.
"You planning surgery?"
Katrina looked at the doctor.
"I'm planning supper."
"For forty men who can't swallow bacon."
"Exactly."
Abernathy studied the ingredients.
"What are you making?"
"Something my father used when workers got sick during hard winters."
"A cure?"
"No."
Katrina's answer came immediately.
"I'm not a doctor. Food doesn't cure pneumonia."
Abernathy's expression softened slightly.
"Good answer."
"But you said they need heat, liquid, salt, and strength."
"I did."
"Then that's what I'll give them."
She took out the largest butcher knife.
"Provided you tell me which carcasses are safe."
Abernathy nodded.
"I can do that."
Katrina pulled two enormous iron pots from beneath the wagon.
Then she looked around camp.
"Wilmer, get me every healthy man who can still hold a knife."
Within fifteen minutes, twenty-six cowboys stood around the chuck wagon.
They looked confused.
Katrina looked at them.
They fell silent.
Some had mocked her.
Others had quietly tolerated it.
A few had been decent.
None seemed interested in jokes now.
Katrina pointed.
"Tommy, Nathaniel, Luis, Harris—you'll go with Mr. Morales and Doc Abernathy to inspect those cattle."
Four men moved immediately.
"You two gather every clean bone we've saved this week."
They obeyed.
"Otis's brother—what's your name?"
"Caleb."
"Peel potatoes."
"How many?"
"Until I tell you to stop."
Caleb grabbed a sack.
Katrina pointed toward Jeb's closest friend.
"Onions."
The cowboy hesitated.
"How many?"
"All of them."
His eyes widened.
"All?"
"Do I appear uncertain?"
"No, ma'am."
"Then start peeling."
Wilmer covered a smile.
Soon the camp looked like a field kitchen.
Cowboys accustomed to handling ropes and revolvers were chopping vegetables under Katrina's supervision.
Katrina organized washing stations to prevent contamination.
Clean water was boiled.
Knives were scrubbed.
Cutting surfaces were separated.
She ordered any questionable meat discarded immediately.
When Wilmer's party returned, they brought usable sections from five storm-killed cattle that Abernathy believed had frozen quickly enough to remain safe.
Katrina examined every piece herself.
Her father's butcher training returned instinctively.
Texture.
Smell.
Color.
Condition.
Anything questionable went into a discard pile.
She took the best marrow bones and broke them open.
A young cowboy stared.
"Why smash 'em?"
"Because what your body needs is inside."
She roasted bones near the fire until browned.
Then into the enormous pots they went.
Water.
Beef shanks.
Marrow.
Onions.
Garlic.
Potatoes.
Dried beans already soaked.
A little tomato.
Salt.
Pepper.
Dried herbs Katrina had carried since leaving Texas.
She skimmed impurities carefully as the liquid heated.
Hours passed.
The smell changed.
At first it smelled like boiling beef.
Then richer.
Deeper.
The kind of aroma that made exhausted men lift their heads from blankets.
Jeb opened his eyes.
"What is that?"
Katrina stirred.
"Your dinner."
"Smells expensive."
"It cost us a blizzard."
By sunset, both pots simmered.
Katrina removed meat, chopped it finely, mashed vegetables for men unable to chew, and strained broth for the weakest.
Abernathy tasted a spoonful.
His eyebrows lifted.
"That's good."
"Of course it is."
He looked offended.
"I was complimenting you."
"I know."
Katrina began filling cups.
"Then help carry them."
The first servings went to the sickest.
Not too much.
Small portions.
Slowly.
Some men could manage only broth.
Others accepted softened potatoes and shredded beef.
Katrina moved from bedroll to bedroll, coaxing.
"Three more sips."
"I can't."
"Two, then."
"Miss Foster—"
"One."
The cowboy drank.
"Another."
"You said one."
"I lied."
Near midnight, she reached Jeb.
He looked worse.
His breath rattled heavily.
She helped him raise his head.
"Drink."
Jeb swallowed once.
Twice.
Then turned away.
"Enough."
"Again."
"No."
Katrina's voice softened.
"Jeb."
He looked at her.
It was the first time she had used his first name.
"You can hate me tomorrow."
His eyes filled unexpectedly.
"But tonight you drink."
He finished half the cup.
Outside, snow began falling again.
Wilmer stood near the fire.
"How long can you keep doing this?"
Katrina looked at the two iron pots.
"As long as they keep breathing."
"And if Sunday comes?"
She looked across the camp.
"Then I intend for every one of them to see it."