“Amen,” Rowland said, reaching for the bread. “But you can’t let the weather bother you. It’s just a part of this region. What with us being so far north and Superior sitting just over from Duluth, we’re going to be at the mercy of it all. I’ve been up here three years now, and one thing has always been the same.”

“What’s that?”

“Ain’t nothin’ the same. It changes all the time up here.” He laughed, and Luke joined in.

“What a comfort.” Luke sampled the stew and was pleasantly surprised. He’d expected a bland combination of meat and vegetables, but someone here truly understood the technique of blending flavors. This stew was the best he’d ever had. Was that a hint of burgundy he tasted?

“Good, huh?” Archie asked.

“It is. It’s marvelous. I would never have expected to get something this masterful out here.”

“Jessie, that’s the gal who waited on us, her mama is quite the cook. She married a Frenchman who was a chef at a fancy restaurant in Montreal. He died, but not before teaching her a thing or two about cooking. Wait until you taste her blueberry pie.”

“Don’t you mean the ‘world-famous’ blueberry pie?”

Archie chuckled. “I see Jessie set you straight, but it truly is world-famous. One of those German princes was over here hunting and demanded the recipe one year. The next year, we had a couple of gentlemen from Switzerland who had eaten it while visiting the prince, and when they asked for the recipe, he told them he wasn’t at liberty to give it and they would have to request it from the cook herself and told them about Rush City. So you see, it truly has caused a sensation all the way to Europe.”

“Well, the moniker seems truly earned. I look forward to sampling this delectable pie.”

They finished the stew and let Jessie refill their coffee as they continued to discuss the future of the railroad.

“What takes the longest,” Archie began, “are the trees and the water. They’re everywhere, and it’s a job to work around them. We’re getting there, though, and both are necessary for the line, so I can’t bring myself to curse them. Building a higher foundation for the track has been the trick. In places where the water saturates the ground, we lay a bed of gravel and build up from there. It’s working to make a solid foundation. We’ve got a lot of good wood from the trees. Some is great for ties, but a lot of that fine oak would probably make a fella some good money if sold to the furniture makers back east.”

Luke had never considered such a thing. “Seems it would be easy enough to ship the wood by train. I’ll let Mr. Cooke know about it and see what he thinks.”

Jessie returned and placed a plate of pie in front of each man. The pieces were huge, and blueberry filling oozed out from some of the flakiest crust Luke had ever seen.