“Stop it,” she hissed.
“Me? What am I doing?”
Zeb looked from one to the other of them. Then he clapped his knee and hooted with laughter. “Well, I’m mighty pleased ta see you two been workin’ those bed ropes. I jist knew you two would settle yer little spat quick-like iffen me and Hector gave you some time ta frolic a bit,” Zeb whooped.
“You’re right there, too, Zeb. Helen surely does love her… frolicking.” He dazzled her with one of his sweet smiles. “Ain’t that right, honey?”
“That’s enough!” She slammed her hand on the table and stood, almost knocking her bench over. “I’m going to start dinner.” She flashed Rafe a meaningful glare. “And we’re having liver and onions. With carrots on the side.”
“Um um!” Zeb said, rubbing his stomach with anticipation.
Rafe looked a little green.
She turned her back on them then, pulling out the iron kettle to begin dinner.
“Tarnation, boy, what you doin’ with yer feet on the table? My Effie woulda whacked me with a broom iffen I ever done that.”
Helen didn’t want to look, but she couldn’t help herself. Rafe had taken off his boots and pushed the bench up against the wall. Leaning back, his legs were crossed at the ankle, propped on the table, and he was wiggling his toes in their wool socks. “Liver and onions, didja say, honey- bunch?” He gave his big toe an extra jiggle in warning. Foot sex! “Better close your mouth, babe. You might catch a fly.”
Dinner that night turned out to be trout, which Hector brought up from one of the fishing lines, small browned potatoes, which Zeb had purchased in Rich Bar for an exorbitant price (not that they couldn’t afford it now), and a sweet custard made with eggs and milk and raisins from their new extended family. Zeb sheepishly explained, “Growin’ boys need their milk, and I had a yen fer fresh eggs.”
“Where in the world did you find a cow? And chickens?”
“There wuz this down-‘n-out family from the states what needed some gold ta go home. Good thing you struck gold whilst I was gone, though, ’cause I jist ’bout spent my whole poke.”
She patted his hand indulgently.
Zeb picked up a sleepy Hector and laid him lovingly on the blankets before the fire.
“Tell me some more ’bout how you shot that buck. And the bear… Give me the whole story agin,” Zeb exhorted. “Spec’ly the gold. I love ta hear you talk on yer first glimpse of the gold.”
Rafe had already told Zeb three times, but Helen could see that he liked to talk about his adventures. Even the deer slaying had lost some of its repugnance for him in the retelling.
When Rafe finished, she sat next to him on the bench and he pulled her close, with an arm resting loosely over one shoulder. Zeb’s eyes teared a bit, watching them.
“Give us the gossip from Rich Bar,” Helen encouraged then.
“Well, I already gave you the Godey’s Lady Magazines what Mary sent,” he told Helen. “She said that Yank feller over on Smith’s Bar gave ’em ta her, and she don’t have no use fer such fripperies. She’d druther read them dime novels of hers.”
She smiled. “Are she and Yank a couple now?”
“Lordy, no. She gave ‘im a black eye las’ Sabbath when he tried ta kiss ‘er.”
They all laughed.
“And what other news?” Helen prodded.
“Well, I brought a copy of the Sacramento Transcript. Plenty of news in there. Of course, everyone’s celebratin’ statehood.”
“California just became a state?” Rafe asked in awe.
A chill ran over Helen, realizing that such an historical event was taking place around them. Rafe’s wide eyes told her he shared her feelings.”
“Yessirree. We’s the thirty-first state ta join the union,” Zeb went on. He lit up the pipe with some fragrant tobacco he’d been given by Yank. “Anyways, President Fillmore signed the bill on the ninth of September, but word din’t reach San Francisco till October eighteenth, when the steamer Oregon brought the good tidings. There’s celebratin’ goin’ on from one end of the state ta the other. Lordy, lordy, I never seed so much corn liquor drunk in all my born days.”