When they saw the star, they were overjoyed.” –Matthew 2:10 (NIV)
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What a Thanksgiving it was. If Nick Parsons hadn’t come with Thompson’s steer there wouldn’t have been enough food. It seemed like two-thirds of the town showed up plus all of the out-of-work miners. Thompson even allowed his crew to come in save a few that had to be at the ranch. It also caught my attention that several teamsters happened to find themselves in town for the festivities.
Father Cisneros jumped right in to help with Parson Chapman and his wife. Not all of the beef provided by Thompson and Winfield was made into stew. The ladies decided to offer steaks at a price. The stew was free, but other menu items could be purchased. What was made off that would be split between the Father’s parish and the Parson’s church.
Parsons along with Reese Donovan, Thompson’ cook, worked long and hard cooking up the beef. It seemed that the people of Durango were truly thankful this November. There had been some hard times, and to look on the face of some of those miners, well, they needed help. I understood that the mines couldn’t keep them with the winter hours, but the men were desperately hungry. Part of it was due to their indiscretion in spending their hard earned wages, but that doesn’t mean we give them a kick while they’re down and hurting. At least these men didn’t have families with them.
I was pleased to see the Peabodys working with the crew. Lois went right into the kitchen and began to help Emelda while Marshall made sure a pot of stew was ready to put on the stove when the big pot was getting empty. He did his time cutting up onions, carrots, cabbage, and potatoes.
The town council helped us out by ordering all of the saloons closed for the day. That way the four of us lawmen didn’t have to worry too much about drunks. There were a couple of rowdies that Mateo had to thump that started a ruckus because of the closures. Because of the closures of those establishments, there were added a number of people of ill repute that gained the attention of the Parson. See, one of the requirements for the free dinner was to listen to the Parson preach. Now, he doesn’t get all eloquent, but preaches a solid salvation message in ten minutes. ‘Course he does it about every two hours.
It was just before we shut down the feeding that Joe Dixon approached Molly and Marta. I saw Molly wipe something from her eye as Joe left. He owns a poultry farm outside of town. Walking over to me, she was still dabbing at her eye. “Joe said that he’s preparing a turkey for all of us,” she told me. “He’s going to bring it by tomorrow when we close the diner.”
“Turkey!” I almost shouted, then looked around to see if anyone heard my exuberance.
She nodded. “He’s adding some turkeys to keep along with the chickens and he wanted to share his blessings with us.”
Maybe I shouldn’t have been thinking so hard about the fixin’s and the festivities and the fun. Maybe I shouldn’t have had my mind on a turkey dinner. Maybe, just maybe then I wouldn’t have gotten myself in the fix I was in. The snow had started falling and I was moving down next to the park from the office to the diner when, if maybe I had been more aware…