was plain German hymns whispered in monotone voices. But this music, though offered by the rough voices of trail-weary men, refreshed her soul in a way the chants of her Amish brothers and sisters did not.
“Amen.” Luke’s deep voice at the end of the song concluded the service.
Emma looped arms with Rebecca, who was curiously subdued, and headed back toward the campfire with the rest of the funeral-goers.
“After Mama’s funeral,” Emma whispered to her sister, “there was a big meal. That was the first time you tasted Mrs. Beachy’s apple pie. Though only a babe, you ate it as though you’d been starved for weeks.”
Rebecca smiled up at her and hugged her arm close. “I liked the music at this one,” she whispered.
“Me too,” Emma confessed, her voice low so as not to be overheard by Maummi or Papa. “And I like the way they spoke of Willie’s life. I feel as though I knew him and Kirk now.”
“Me too.”
They arrived at the campfire to find an argument in progress between Maummi and McCann.
“Spice!” Maummi’s voice rang out over the prairie. “’Tis the difference between a plain cook and a good one.” She raised her finger and pointed in the cook’s face. “Merely plain you are, and not in the Amish way.”
McCann drew himself up, his face a mottled purple, and stared her down with bulging eyes. “I’ll have you know I’ve been feeding cowpokes on the trail for more than twenty years and never had a single complaint. I’m the best trail cook west of the Mississippi!”
“Starving men, their tongues dulled from dust and numb from cow stink.” Maummi stiffened her spine. “Little skill it takes to satisfy them.”
McCann looked apoplectic. He cast around wildly for support from his fellow cowboys, but no man would meet his eye. Emma turned her head to hide a grin. She would not like to confront Maummi over the craft of cooking.
She sucked in a gasp when the cook lifted a hand and shook a finger in Maummi’s face. “Leave me to do my job, madam. Stay away from my beans.”
If Emma had dared to shake a finger at Maummi, no doubt she would have lost it within three seconds. McCann, however, escaped with all ten digits intact when he turned and glared at Luke. “Keep that woman away from me,” he shouted before stomping away to disappear within the confines of his chuck wagon.
Luke spared a respectful glance toward Emma before escaping toward his horse.
The moment McCann was out of sight and Luke’s back was turned, Maummi whipped a jar of spice out of her apron pocket. She rushed to the pot of beans simmering over the campfire and dumped the contents in. Then she picked up the long iron spoon and gave the contents a quick stir. By the time McCann reappeared, banging pans and glaring all around, Maummi was seated once again in her rocking chair, her hands busy with a mending project.
Emma turned away again so the cook wouldn’t see her smile.
“We’ll form up in two groups of three,” Luke told his strange little group of riders. “Nobody goes off alone, understand? Four of those rustlers are still out there somewhere, and a single man on horseback is an easy target.”
“Or woman,” Rebecca added from the opposite end of the loose circle they had formed between the cook’s wagon and the Switzers’.
The truth of her words brought grim concern to the face of every man. Luke glanced at Emma, who stood nearby, watching him. If anything happened to her, he’d never forgive himself. For that reason, he didn’t intend to let her out of his sight. Nor would he leave Rebecca’s safety to chance, either.
“Or woman,” he agreed, solemn. “I’m counting on the fact that those surviving rustlers scattered nearly as widely as our cattle. It’ll take them a while to regroup and even longer to round up the strays, but if those strays are as tired as the bunch Griff and Morris brought in earlier, they won’t have run far. We might find a good number of them nearby.”
Morris nodded, and Griff’s expression settled into one of agreement. Jonas’s eyes fixed on him with an unblinking stare, his expression as unreadable as ever. At least it was obvious where Emma inherited her intent focus.
“Regardless, even if you don’t find a single steer, you get back here before nightfall. Come daybreak, we’re breaking camp with whatever herd we have. Griff, you, Charlie, and Jonas head north. We still have