Erin stepped forward. “I’ll wash the pot.”

For a moment, she half expected Tex to bonk her. “Ain’t nobody gonna wash this here pot twice!” he bellowed. “It’s nothin’ but dad-blamed foolishness to go washin’ stuff twice when we know it’s sterile.”

Thinking quickly, Erin said, “Sterile or not, that is organic matter in the pot, and there’s nothing to say it won’t become contaminated sitting on a shelf. Have you ever had food poisoning?”

He lifted the lower plate of his dentures with his tongue and then sucked it back down over his gums, making a clicking noise. “Yes, missy, I have. You don’t eat buckboard food fer over fifty years without gettin’ the heaves and shits a few times.”

“Do you want to get food poisoning again?” Erin asked.

“No, I sure don’t.”

She reached out and wrested the pot handle from his gnarly hand. “In that case, I’ll wash it, and this quarrel will be over.”

“We ain’t quarrelin’,” he protested. “We’re just discussin’.”

Kennedy slipped past Erin to grab more plates from the dishwasher. As he turned to put them in a cupboard, he waggled his golden eyebrows at Erin. “Welcome to suppertime at the O.K. Corral.”

Erin hid a smile as she stepped over to the double-wide sink to scrub the pot. Kennedy was right; the inside was nasty. She couldn’t believe Tex had been about to stick it in a cupboard.

Wyatt noticed her standing beside him and turned his laser-blue gaze on her. “Slade must have said it’s okay for you to eat with us.”

She nodded.

“Good. That gives us one more cook and dishwasher, taking us up to six. It suits me fine to cook only once a week. Before you leave, get your name on the duty list. We rotate.”

Erin was mildly miffed that Wyatt hadn’t welcomed her, but she quickly forgot about that when another quarrel broke out between the two new hires, whom she hadn’t met. One of them was folding his laundered clothes on what she presumed was his cot when the other newbie yelled from the kitchen, “Damn it, Wade. You stole my wool socks!”

“I did not! I only borrowed ’em.”

“You boys hush it,” Tex yelled. “We got a lady on the crew now, and she don’t cotton to boisterosity! We gotta start mindin’ our manners, goddammit!”

Wade threw the wool socks at his coworker, nailing him on the chest. “There. Keep your stupid socks. I just ran out of clean ones, is all.”

And so Erin’s first meal in the bunkhouse began. Wyatt had cooked a huge pot of hamburger gravy and two baking sheets full of biscuits. When the food made it to the table, Erin noticed there wasn’t a vegetable in sight. She stood behind her chair because all the men did, and she was mildly startled when Wyatt bent his head and folded his hands.

“Dear Lord, please bless this food.”

Tex inserted, “And don’t let none of us get food poison, if you please.”