The Chili Queen Read Online Free PDF

out the window again. Addie didn’t know if Emma followed her advice, because she was looking out at the countryside when Addie woke up in the morning. The train was at a standstill.
    “Breakdown,” Emma told her. “We’ve been here”—she opened the watch pinned to the jacket she had put back on to ward off the prairie cold and peered at it—“two hours and twenty-seven minutes.”
    “Oh, hell-damn!” Addie said, then glanced at Emma to see if she’d heard, but Emma was watching a workman walk down the track, swinging his lunch bucket.
    “I wanted a bath and a good supper before I opened up tonight. If this train doesn’t hurry, I won’t have time for even a quick wash,” Addie complained. She straightened up and smoothed the golden dress, rubbing a soot stain on her satin sleeve where it had brushed against the window. The stain turned blacker. “I should have worn black. Who cares if I look like a farmer?”
    Emma chuckled. “There’s something to be said for ugly,” she replied, smoothing her own skirt.
    “Oh, I didn’t mean—”
    “It’s all right. I never paid much attention to clothes before. Perhaps I will now. Is there a dress store in Nalgitas?”
    Addie snorted. “No dress store, no bonnet shop, just a general store with a shelf of calico, red mostly. I myself shop in Kansas City.” Addie liked the way that came out. It made her sound cosmopolitan, and she repeated it. “I buy in Kansas City. They got nice stores.”
    Emma stretched her arms then stood up and said it was her turn to forage for food. As Emma walked down the aisle, Addie took in the woman’s slim waist and hips, wishing she herself weren’t spread out in back like a cold supper. Emma returned in a few minutes with two apples and a handful of walnuts.
    Addie hadn’t seen them at the train butcher’s the night before and asked where Emma had acquired them.
    “Off a track worker. They were in his dinner pail. He wouldn’t sell his sandwiches or the pie but said he’d take a dollar for the rest. They’ll have to last us to Nalgitas, I guess, since the train butcher’s out of food,” Emma said. She took the scissors from her bag and gave one of the walnuts such a sharp crack with the handle that Addie’s head jerked back. The nutmeat inside was withered. “Well, damn!” Emma said.
    Addie smiled at the swear word, but Emma didn’t notice because at that moment the train jerked, then jerked again and began to creep down the tracks. Addie ate her apple, then fell asleep again against the window. She slept most of the day until, in the late afternoon, Emma nudged her to say the train was approaching Nalgitas—six hours late.
    Addie squirmed, then stretched, letting her arms hang in midair when she saw Emma. The woman sat rigidly in the buttoned-up black suit. The brooch was pinned to the neck of her shirtwaist, the watch secured to the jacket. She looked just as she had when Addie first saw her—except for the pink hat on top of her head. Addie stared as she slowly lowered her arms.
    Emma’s face turned the color of the hat. “Do I look too bold?” Emma asked.
    “Oh, no.” Foolish, addle-brained, Addie thought, but not bold.
    “I’m a plain woman, as plain as homemade soap. I wanted to make a good first impression.”
    “It’s a nice touch,” Addie told her. She was too good-hearted to tell the woman how silly she looked. Instead, Addie retied the bonnet strings so the bow was on the side of Emma’s face, not under her chin. And she adjusted the hat to sit on the back of Emma’s head.
    By the time Addie was finished, the train was slowing. Addie tried to see the town through Emma’s eyes. It was mud brown, dusty—the streets, the storefronts, the houses. Even the cottonwoods seemed dirty, their leaves listless in the still air. The two blocks of false-front buildings that made up the main street needed paint. Several structures were boarded up, a few ready to fall down. Spread out from the street were