by Carla Kelly
The major fell silent then and she was content not to make conversation with someone she barely knew. At the depot, the private retrieved her portmanteau and stowed it beside her other luggage in the rear of the ambulance. She was soon seated in the café with the major, the private having found a table in the adjoining bar.
She ordered soup and crackers. The major overruled her and chose a complete dinner for her. “You’re my guest,” he reminded her, “and my guests eat more than that, Mrs. Hopkins.”
She was too hungry to argue. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. How would it look if you starved while in my company? The Medical Corps would rip off my oak leaf clusters and kick me down to hospital steward.”
He left her at the Range Hotel, but not without making sure the clerk put her in a room between two families. “This town’s just a rung up from Dante’s inferno. Never hurts to be careful,” he told her.
She gave him the same startled look that had puzzled him in the stage station, but he understood now—Susanna Hopkins was unused to kindness.
He would gladly have paid for her room, and she must have known that. Before he could say anything to the desk clerk, she took out the money she must have reserved for the stage, and laid it on the counter. She hesitated for a moment.
She kept her voice low. “Major, do I pay something for my transportation?”
“No, ma’am, that’s courtesy of the U.S. Army.”
“How kind,” she said, and returned to the desk clerk. Joe was struck again at her wonder, as though good fortune had not been her friend, or even a nodding acquaintance recently.
He reflected on that all the way back to Fort Russell. He had learned from childhood that women were to be protected and cherished. Hard service in the war had showed him the other side of that coin, when he saw too many thin, tight-lipped women, unfamiliar with kindness. Susanna Hopkins had that same wary look, and he wondered why.
Chapter Two
Susanna waited in the lobby the following morning. Breakfast had been amazingly cheap: a bowl of porridge and coffee for a dime.
The major arrived before the sun rose, wide-awake this time. “You’re a prompt one, Mrs. Hopkins,” he told her.
A glance from the major sent the desk clerk hurrying to carry her luggage to the ambulance. Susanna let the major help her into the vehicle, which was already warm. Bundled in overcoats, two other officers nodded to her.
There was space next to one of the men, but someone had left a book there. The only other seat was a rocking chair—close to the little stove—that had been anchored to the wagon floor and covered with a blanket.
“That’s for you,” the major said.
“But …”
“For you,” he repeated. “Let us come to a right understanding. We take good care of the ladies in the army.”
The other men nodded. “They’re scarce,” said one about Major Randolph’s age.
Susanna seated herself on the rocking chair, grateful for the warmth.
“Let me introduce you, Mrs. Hopkins,” Major Randolph said. “Major Walters, who understands the scarcity of ladies, is from Fort Fetterman.”
The officer tipped his hat to her. The surgeon indicated the other man. “Captain Dunklin is from Fort Laramie. This is Mrs. Hopkins, gentlemen.”
“For God’s sake, close the door,” Captain Dunklin demanded.
Major Randolph closed the door behind him and latched it. He picked up his book and took his seat, and she heard the driver chirrup to the mules.
Susanna pulled the blanket close around her. She glanced at Major Randolph, who was staring at her with a frown. She looked at him, then realized he was staring at the blanket. She stared at it, too, wondering.
“Mrs. Hopkins?”
She looked at Major Walters. “Your blanket is too close to that stove,” he whispered.
She looked. The blanket was not close to the stove, but she pulled it to her anyway. “Better?”
“Perfect.”
She glanced again at Major Randolph, who sat back with a relieved expression on his face. I don’t understand what just happened, she thought. I should say something. “Captain, uh … excuse me ….”
“Dunklin,” he offered, as if relieved to break the charged silence.
“Captain Dunklin, you have children who will be attending school?” She glanced at Major Randolph, who stared straight ahead, as if seeing something no one else saw. In another moment, he settled back with a sigh.
“I have one son, aged nine. High time he went to school.”
She couldn’t hide her surprise. “My cousin wrote that there is a school already.”
“Yes, one run by the private.”
Susanna heard the disdain in his voice.
“The army requires that children of enlisted men must be educated, but officers’ children are merely invited,” Major Randolph explained.
“Not required?”
“No, ma’am,” he said. “Strange to you?”
“A little. Surely an officer’s child could learn something from a private.”
“We try not to mingle,” Dunklin said. “Joe, you’d understand if you had children.”
Susanna could tell from the post surgeon’s expression that he understood no such thing. I should think any school would be better than no school, she thought. Captain Dunklin was already reminding her of Frederick, because he seemed so certain that he was right. “Probably the private does his best,” she said, defending her profession.
“He does,” the surgeon said. “Private Benedict has eleven pupils now, all ages.” He must have noticed her expression of interest. “I head the post administrative council, and one of my responsibilities is the school.”
“Is there a schoolhouse?”
“No. They meet in a room in the commissary storehouse.”
“Between the salt pork and the hardtack,” Dunklin interjected. He laughed, but no one joined him.
From the look the post surgeon exchanged with Major Walters, Susanna suspected Dunklin was not a universal favorite.
The silence felt heavy again, but Dunklin filled it. “Where are you from, Mrs. Hopkins? Your cousin mentioned Pennsylvania.”
“Shippensburg, originally,” she said, afraid again. Major Randolph glanced at her. It was the smallest glance, but some sixth sense, honed to sharpness by years of fear, told her he knew more.
“My wife is from Carlisle!” Dunklin exclaimed. “She won’t waste a moment in making your acquaintance.”
Please, no, Susanna thought in a panic. “I … I didn’t get out much in society,” she stammered.
Dunklin nodded, his expression serious. “Your cousin told us of your loss. Too many ladies are war widows.”
Her heart plummeted into her stomach. She wondered what story her cousin had started, in an attempt to make her more palatable to the people of Fort Laramie. Suddenly the twenty miles between Shippensburg and Carlisle seemed no longer than a block.
“Mrs. Hopkins?” Major Walters asked, concerned.
“I shouldn’t have brought it up,” Dunklin said.
“No, it’s just …” She stopped. Do I explain myself to these men? she thought in desperation. Do I say nothing? She sat there in misery, trapped. “Don’t worry, Captain Dunklin,” she said, becoming an unwilling party to a lie. “I am resigned to my lot.”
Dunklin nodded. He placed a board on his knees, took out a deck of cards and was soon deep in solitaire.
Major Randolph regarded her, and she realized with a shock that he knew she lied. What had Emily done? I must explain to him at the first opportunity, Susanna told herself. Drat Captain Dunklin for having a wife from Carlisle.
They stopped midmorning, which felt like an answer to prayer. For the past hour she had been wondering how she could delicately phrase the suggestion that they stop for personal purposes. And if they did stop, what then? A glance through the canvas flap revealed no shielding trees or even shrubs.
Without a
word, the men left the ambulance. A shift of weight told her that the driver had followed them. Major Randolph was the last man out. Without a word, he lifted the seat where Captain Dunklin had been sitting, nodded to her and left. Speechless with embarrassment, she stood up and looked down at a hole and the snowy ground beneath. “That’s clever,” she murmured.
She peeked out the canvas flap to make sure no one stood nearby. There they were, standing off the road, their backs to her. By the time they returned to the ambulance, the seat was down again, and she had returned to her chair.
“We’re stopping tonight at Lodgepole Creek stage station,” Major Randolph informed her as they started again. “I have a little errand of mercy, a small patient.”
They stopped at a roadhouse for luncheon, which turned out to be a bowl of greasy stew and a roll amazing in its magnitude and excellence.
“This joint is famous for the rolls, but you don’t get one unless you suffer the penance of the stew,” Major Randolph joked.
Susanna ate quickly and excused herself, wishing for solitude, even if solitude meant cold. She was scarcely out the door when she heard someone behind her. She turned around, dreading to see the post surgeon, but it was Major Walters.
“It’s too warm in there,” she said.
The major extended his arm, so she had no choice but to tuck her arm in his. “Let’s walk.”
She let him lead her away from the roadhouse toward a line of trees, stopping by a frozen stream.
“Does it ever warm up?” she asked.
“With a vengeance,” he assured her. “One day it’s like this, then everything starts to drip and thaw.”
They stared down at the stream, where Susanna thought she could see the shadows of fish. She pointed to them. Major Walters nodded. “Everything’s just waiting for better days.”
So am I, she thought.
Major Walters seemed in no hurry to turn back. Hesitant, she said, “Major, I have to ask …. Why did Major Randolph seem so intent on that blanket and the stove? It wasn’t close.”
“No, but that doesn’t matter to Joe,” the major said, starting back now. “As you might have noticed from his accent, Joe is from Virginia.”
She nodded.
“He was part of the Medical Corps before the war, and stayed in when others went to the Confederacy. Good surgeon, from all accounts.” Walters sighed. “A pity he couldn’t save the one person he loved.”
The major stopped, even though the other officers had left the roadhouse and were looking in their direction.
“He met Melissa Rhoades in Washington—her father was a congressman from Ohio—and they married after the war. He continued in federal service.” They started walking again. “On the regiment’s march to Fort McKavett in Texas, Melissa’s skirt brushed too close to a cooking fire.”
“God,” Susanna whispered.
Major Walters lowered his voice. “She suffered agonies for nearly a day, and there wasn’t a thing he could do to help her.” The major gave her a wry smile. “That’s why he gets concerned when any woman is close to a fire.”
Susanna nodded. “He hasn’t remarried?”
“No. Perhaps ten years hasn’t been enough to erase that sight from his mind.” Walters shook his head. “I shouldn’t dredge up sad memories of the war for you, Mrs. Hopkins. My apologies.”
Aghast that her cousin’s lie was sinking her deeper into falsehood, Susanna held her breath, then let it out slowly. To her shame and confusion, her kind escort took her silence as agreement.
Major Randolph stood by the ambulance, looking at her with a frown. He knows I am a liar, she thought miserably. She looked at the roadhouse, and back down the snowy track that led to Cheyenne. There was nowhere to run.
Joe stared at his book for much of the afternoon as the ambulance trundled forward, reading and then rereading each page until it made no sense. What he really wanted to do was reassure Mrs. Hopkins.
He hadn’t mistaken the fright in her pretty eyes. She seemed to sense that he knew more than the others. He had to assure her that her secret was safe with him.
He watched the clouds over the bluffs, threatening snow but going nowhere, much like his own life. He dutifully returned to his book, but his mind was on Susanna Hopkins.
She was pretty—maybe some seven or eight years younger than he was. What intrigued him the most were her eyes, large and brown behind her spectacles. He wanted to look closer out of professional interest, because one eye appeared slightly sunken, as though the occipital bone was damaged.
He knew he needed to put her mind at ease. His opportunity came when they stopped at Lodgepole Creek stage station. He reached for his medical saddlebag as the other men left the ambulance.
“Mrs. Hopkins, come along with me. I delivered a premature baby four weeks ago, on our way to Cheyenne.”
Before he allowed her time to consider the matter, he closed the door after the others, and the private in the wagon box clucked to the horses. She sat there in silence. It made him sad to think how hard she worked to keep her composure.
“We’re only going a short way. Jonathan is the mixed-blood son of the man who runs the stage station, and Betty is Cheyenne.”
A month ago, he had been yanked away from supper at the stage station when the owner recognized him as a surgeon. A few hurried words, a grab for his medical bags and they were on horse-back to the cabin. He owed the successful outcome more to Betty’s persistence than any skill of his.
When the ambulance stopped, Joe helped Mrs. Hopkins out. The door to the cabin was already open, with the young father motioning to him, all smiles. Inside, Joe sighed with relief to see the baby in a padded apple crate, warm as it rested by the open oven door. Mrs. Hopkins went to the woodstove to watch the infant. She held out one finger and the baby latched on to it.
“Since he was so small, I told them to keep him warm,” Joe said. “He appears to be thriving. What did you name him, Betty?”
Her husband put his hand on Betty’s shoulder. “We were waiting for you to come back. What’s your name?”
“Joseph,” he said, touched.
“Joseph, then,” Jonathan said. “What about a middle name? Does this kind lady have a favorite name?”
“Thomas,” Mrs. Hopkins said.
The Cheyenne woman nodded and handed the baby to Mrs. Hopkins, who took him in her arms. Joe watched in appreciation as she put the baby to her shoulder with practiced ease. She moved until the infant’s head was cradled in that comfortable space in the hollow of her shoulder that all mothers seemed to know about.
Mrs. Hopkins rubbed her cheek against the baby’s dark hair, then handed him over when Joe nodded. He ran practiced hands over the small body, then held him up to listen to the steady rhythm of his heart.
Joe’s prescription was simple. “Keep Joey warm by the oven for a little longer, maybe until it warms up or until he gains another pound or two.” He nodded to the parents. “You’re doing fine.”
The father put his son back in the apple crate. Joe ushered Mrs. Hopkins out the door. He looked at the ambulance and then at the stage station in the near distance.
“Private, go ahead. We’ll walk.”
He didn’t dare look at Mrs. Hopkins, but he could feel her tension. There was that feeling she was weighing her options and finding none.
“It’s not far.”
He started walking, hoping she would come along, but knowing she had no choice. After walking a few feet, he heard her footsteps and he let out the breath he had been holding, and wondered why it mattered to him.
He eased casually into what he had to say. “Mrs. Hopkins, who is Thomas?”
He heard the tears in her voice.
“My son.”
Chapter Three
Somehow, Susanna hadn’t expected that question. Better to forge ahead, even if her teaching career at Fort Laramie ended in the next five minutes.
“Major Randolph, I think my cousin told you that I am divorced. I
have a son, name of Tommy, who is in the custody of my former husband. There was nothing I could do. And when Captain Dunklin assumed that …”
“Wait.” The major took her arm, and she needed all her resolve not to draw back from him in fright. “Just sit down on this stump a minute.”
He increased the pressure on her arm, then he stopped suddenly and released her. Susanna remained upright, unsure.
“I’m not going to force you to sit if you don’t want to,” Major Randolph said.
She heard the apology in his voice, which also baffled her. No one in recent memory had apologized to her. She wasn’t even sure she liked it.
“I couldn’t help noticing that look you gave me when I agreed with Captain Dunklin that I was a widow,” she said. “It was a lie and you know it. Please believe me. I did not start that lie.”
“I know you didn’t. I heard the beginning of that pernicious fable, and I thought it was a foolish idea. The fault lies with your cousin.”
Susanna sat down. “Why would Emily do that? All I ever said in my letter to Colonel Bradley is that I was Mrs. Susanna Hopkins, and available to teach.”
The cold from the stump defeated her and she stood up. She looked toward the roadhouse, wanting the warmth, but not wanting more questions from Captain Dunklin.
“If we walk slowly, we won’t freeze,” the major joked. “Why would she do that?” he repeated. “Let me tell you something about army society. It is close-knit, snobbish and feeds on gossip. There is an unhealthy tendency to hold grudges.”
“That sounds as bad as Unity Methodist Church back home,” Susanna murmured.
The major threw back his head and laughed. “It’s this way—the army unit is a regiment, which travels together when it can, but generally finds itself spread over a large geographic area. Many a promising career has withered and died on a two-company post. I could include my own career, I suppose, but I like what I do.”
She didn’t know how it happened, but the major had tucked her arm through his as they strolled along.