All in Good Time (April Book 11) by Mackey Chandler

Author:Mackey Chandler [Chandler, Mackey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-01-09T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

“Hello, the house!” Was heard as clear as could be, even with the doors and windows all shut tight for the cooler weather.

Vic checked, standing well back from a window and then went out on the porch. There was a man on a fine-looking horse with a less impressive packhorse behind him led by two younger men without any mounts. They stood back some distance to be less threatening.

“Check for anybody behind the house and pull the kitchen shutters closed,” Eileen told Alice. She took Vic’s good rifle and watched over her until Alice was safely back inside and the door locked. Then, with no light behind her to silhouette her, Eileen took a stance well back from the front door Vic had left wide open to the cool day.

Vic took his time walking down to the rider. He only carried his pistol.

“Mr. Foy?” the rider asked, squinting although Vic was close now.

“Vic will do just fine.”

“I’m Dennis Locke and those are my boys with me. Mr. Mast suggested I come to arrange a trade with you. He indicated you’d trade for storable food and that he is holding salt and .22 cartridges for you. He said you might offer some other things you are holding yourself.”

“I have a bit of salvaged hardware from outbuildings, window glass, and canning jars. That’s all I have I consider trade goods. If there’s anything else we have around the house you might want, we’d consider how valuable it is to us,” Vic offered. “What are you selling?”

“I have a traditionally cured and smoked ham, two big coffee cans of lard, and two twenty kilo bags of dent corn. The bigger deal is that we raise pigs. If you can sell me enough salt you can get two hams reserved for you at the spring festival. We need to slaughter in the next month and we’re short of salt. We don’t have commercial curing salt so they won’t look as nicely pink like as folks expect, but they will keep and taste fine.”

“You didn’t get salt from the Tehama county people at the festival?” Vic wondered.

Locke grimaced. “We didn’t have stuff they wanted in trade, and running around near the end, trying to trade for stuff they did want, we only got five kilos from them. We got some rock salt promised from other people, but that will be a one-time thing.”

That was probably road salt, Vic figured. It amused him people couldn’t figure out how to purify it and crush it for table salt.

“If you have celery seed for planting, not for seasoning, we’ll buy that. Celery powder works near like pink salt for curing. We’re not experienced gardeners, and it’s hard raising it because most of it doesn’t go to seed the first year. It’s horrible to keep the bugs off of it too. We’re working on it, but it takes up a lot of our time and resources. Maybe in two years we’ll have enough because you can save the bottom and roots to grow it again from that instead of seed.

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