Oh, but Indians are cunning. He’d seen their schemes at work before, when he cooked for the repair crew on a section of rail on the other side of these fearsome mountains. The darn weasels would squat alongside the rails watching the men working, staring straight at them without talking or moving, and unnerving them so that they were given gifts of food and clothing to make them go away. They knew what they were doing all right, and this concoction about spirits and ghouls was the same kind of conspiracy. Yes, he was sure of it.

The disappointment was that a man like Angus McEwan hadn’t put a lid on it. Saul had heard about what he did to the Kinchuinicks’ religious ceremony. About time, thought Saul, and had secretly applauded him. The unhealthy thing was that the men talked about the incident as though McEwan had transgressed. In fact they talked about it as though they were afraid of unspoken consequences.

A thick lazy bubble surfaced in Saul’s broth and burst with a splatter. Boiling at last.

He stirred it with a copper spoon and a smile, tasting it with a small pointed tongue. More salt. He’d made it from some ham that had been frozen in the larder, lentils, and the last of the onions. And it was delicious. Mr McEwan liked his broth, and this was day three of the thick soup’s life, but he didn’t come to supper last night. That was unusual. It took a lot of food to keep the big bearded engineer going, and he hadn’t even requested a meal in his cabin. McEwan had just failed to show. This morning too, no sign of him at breakfast.

If the engineer didn’t make it out of his quarters for lunch, Campbell would go over there with a bowl of this broth and make him eat. Sometimes you had to act like these men’s mother, and when Saul was most cranky and impatient with them he was teased that he stopped just short of picking them up after a meal and making them break wind. No matter. It was his job.

He watched the bubbles start in earnest now. He would wait until the cauldron was at its hottest, cover it with the copper lid and drag it up to the tunnel mouth on the big sled, where Jamie would have the fire going to reheat it. A daily ritual, but an exhausting one.