He watched her brush the meat with a thin dark mop sauce.

“What did you put in that?”

“Coffee.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Coffee?”

“Strong.”

“What else?”

“Peach.”

“And?”

Nadine smiled.

“Patience.”

Wes laughed.

“That last one expensive?”

“More than people think.”

A maintenance cart rolled past.

The older man driving it suddenly stopped.

He climbed down slowly.

His name was Earl Maddox.

For thirty years, he had worked fairs and cook-offs across central Texas.

He smelled the air.

Then walked toward the smoker.

He did not look at Nadine.

He looked at the smoke.

Then the barrel.

Then the sauce.

His eyes widened.

“Nobody on this whole fair land cooks like that.”

Nadine turned.

Earl looked almost frightened by the memory.

“Pruitt’s Pit?”

She stopped moving.

“You knew it?”

“Knew it?”

Earl laughed softly.

“I sat at that counter when I was twenty-two.”

Wes looked between them.

“This place was yours?”

“My grandmother’s.”

Nadine pointed toward an old photograph clipped beneath the canopy.

A Black woman stood in front of a tiny barbecue restaurant with a wooden sign.

PRUITT’S PIT

The woman wore a white apron and a smile broad enough to fill the photograph.

“Lou Pruitt,” Nadine said.

Earl removed his cap.

“Forty years of Sundays.”

He looked toward the notebook.

“Lou’s book?”

Nadine nodded.

Earl whispered the phrase written inside the front cover.

“Feed everybody.”

Wes looked at her.

“What does that mean?”

“Exactly what it says.”

Nadine opened the book carefully.

Every page carried her grandmother’s handwriting.

Uneven letters.

Measurements that sometimes said things like “enough,” “a little more,” or “till it smells right.”

Coffee rub.

Peach mop.

Cornbread.

Beans.

Pickled onions.

Sauces.

Recipes for feeding twenty people.

Recipes for feeding two hundred.

“Every recipe she ever cooked is in here,” Nadine said. “Her hand. Her spelling.”

Earl smiled.

“Her stubbornness too.”

Nadine laughed.

Then Earl’s expression changed.

“Does Whitfield know who you are?”

“I don’t think so.”

Earl looked toward the dark sponsor trailers.

“Oh, he knows.”

Nadine turned.

“What do you mean?”

Earl hesitated.

Twelve summers earlier, he explained, a skinny young line cook had appeared at Pruitt’s Pit.

No money.

No real experience.

He washed dishes in exchange for meals.

Lou let him sleep in the storage room for three weeks because he was living in his car.

Then she taught him how to tend a fire.

How to trim brisket.

How to wait instead of constantly lifting the lid.

How to use coffee in a rub when everyone else thought she was crazy.

Nadine felt cold.

“Let me guess.”

Earl nodded.

“Dax Whitfield.”

Wes stopped stacking wood.

Nadine stared.

“He worked for Granny?”

“Called her Miss Lou.”