by Carla Kelly
The officers burst into laughter, and Ramsay knew he had been set up. Maybe this would satisfy them and his indoctrination would be over. He had to smile because it was funny, and because he liked Mrs. Pitcher.
“Not so easy in Wyoming, sir,” he said, regretting his statement the moment such a lame excuse came out of his mouth.
“Beg to differ,” his own former captain said. “Stiles, there are women all over this park in the summer. Major Pitcher told me only this morning that we’re anticipating a record crowd of more than ten thousand visitors, some of whom will be female and unencumbered.”
Ramsay put up his hands. “I surrender, sirs. A wife?”
Major Pitcher gave him another kindly look; drat it if the man wasn’t full of them. “At least get started, Sergeant Major. That is all, gentlemen. You are excused.”
Chapter Four
Ramsay hoped that Captain Chittenden, always a busy man, was waiting for him when he finally escaped from the laughter and jibes of the officers, and he was.
“I thought you wanted to say something to me, Sergeant Major,” the captain said, pocketing his watch.
“Thank you for your letter of commendation, sir,” Ramsay said, after his salute.
Chittenden may have looked like the most spit and polish officer in the army, but appearance were deceiving. He touched one finger to his forehead in a lazy returning salute. “I may have languished in Alabama doing piddly stuff during the war while you were with the glory boys, but I heard plenty about your exploits in that cave.”
“My men and I, sir,” Ramsay amended. “Wish I could have got them all out.”
“Only thoughtless, careless men would wish otherwise. When the major asked several of us to add to his letter of recommendation for promotion, I had no qualms. You’re splendidly qualified, Sergeant Major.”
Chittenden started walking. With his clipboard, he beckoned Ramsay to join him, which pleased the sergeant major as nothing else could have.
“I feel amazingly inadequate, sir,” Ramsay admitted.
“So you should, but it doesn’t follow that you can’t do all the major requires.” The engineer smiled then, more to himself than to Ramsay, or so it seemed. “Sorry about the ribbing at your expense, but that’s what we do.”
“I thought as much, sir. I do want to tell you that if you find yourself stretched thin, I can usually rout out men for extra duty. They might grumble, but they don’t mind an extra fifty cents a day.”
“I will call on you if I need them. I’m still amazed that Congress coughed up the money I asked for. Once they all arrive, I should have enough men for once.”
Chittenden paused on the front steps of his nearly completed residence, a steep-roofed house with a surrounding porch. “Watch your step there when you leave. I’ve staked out the dimensions for an engineering office that might also get done this summer. The house came first. Mrs. Chittenden loves Sioux City, but she wants to see my sorry carcass.”
“You have so many projects, sir. How far ahead do you plan?” Ramsay asked impulsively.
“As far as I can, Sergeant Major,” came the reply Ramsay expected from an officer who didn’t seemed surprised at a question another officer might consider impertinent. “I’d advise you to do the same thing.” Chittenden sighed. “And now to work.”
Where was this impulse coming from? Ramsay touched Chittenden’s sleeve to detain him, realized his error, and stepped back, ready to apologize. The captain shook his head. “Say on, Stiles.”
“It’s this, sir,” Ramsay said, taking the man at his word. “I am out of line and I know it. I intend to take Major Pitcher’s assignment to heart, only I will include the enlisted men and officers, if I see a necessity. Sir, lights burn here so late at night, and by the end of the summer, I see how tired you are.”
Chittenden’s slight nod seemed to give Ramsay permission to continue. “I’ve observed that projects big and small always seem to be there next season, sir. Don’t wear yourself out completely, Captain Chittenden. I worry.”
“You and my wife.” Chittenden looked at the house, which appeared to only lack trim and glass in the upstairs windows. “Nettie will be here in a few weeks, and she’ll tell me the same thing. Thank you for your concern.”
“Captain, there’s not a man on post who knows less than I do on the matter,” Ramsay said, plunging forward because it was his nature, “but I encourage you to listen to her.”
Chittenden laughed at that. “You keep up such comments, and you’ll be the best husband in history!”
“I believe I need a wife first, sir,” Ramsay joked.
Captain Chittenden turned serious quickly. He patted his heart. “Sergeant Major Stiles, I am forty-three years old. My father died when he was forty-eight. Who knows how much time we have? You might think about that. Mrs. Pitcher’s admonition is worth considering.”
To Ramsay’s continuing surprise, the engineer held out his hand. Ramsay shook it. He saluted smartly, and turned on his heel, wondering at his effrontery and, thinking about time, himself. He was thirty-four, an army man since the age of fourteen, six feet tall and mature for his years. He knew a lie about his age would go unnoticed and free him from the tyranny of an Iowa farm where he had watched his parents, who struggled with drought and grasshoppers, wither and die. His uncle, who bought the farm for unpaid taxes, made it clear Ramsay could leave anytime.
One enlistment had turned into two, first in Arizona, then in Montana, then back to chasing Apaches in Arizona, followed by a wrenching summer giving battle to Nez Perce and taking some lumps, other assignments, then on to the blessing that was Fort Yellowstone.
The US Army threw the Philippines and fierce jungle warfare at him, and then a welcome return to Fort Yellowstone, which suited Ramsay Stiles right down to the ground. He smiled inside to recall that bit of army doggerel, patched together from a sentimental poem: “Backward, turn backward, O Time in your flight, make me a child again just for this fight!” He had fought his fight, and now it was Yellowstone again, to his great relief.
He sniffed sulfur in the air and looked toward the massive calcium carbonate formations of Mammoth Hot Springs, often the first sight of what the tourists called Wonderland and what Ramsay knew as the majesty of land set aside for the benefit of America’s citizens. The view never got old. Looking at it now, he reminded himself how he had slept in jungle mud in the Philippines, dreaming of travertine terraces, wolves howling, and the splendor of the few remaining bison, anything but where he was then.
He had a moment of leisure. From the sounds of Major Pitcher’s plans for the summer, he wouldn’t have many. Mess call was coming, and then a private afternoon interview with the major. He followed another impulse and turned to Officers Row again instead of the barracks where he usually ate, because he wasn’t much of a cook.
He climbed up a short flight of steps and he knocked on a door. He knew Tillie Jackson would open the door, and he had a smile ready for her. Her broad face brightened to see him, and she tugged him inside the house.
“What’s your title again now, chile?” she asked, with no waste of words.
“Sergeant major,” he replied. “But it’s still Ramsay to you.”
The housekeeper-cook threw back her head and laughed, a deep, rich sound that never failed to warm him. “And you remember that it’s Tuesday and I always make cinnamon buns on Tuesday, rain or shine.”
Truth to tell, he had forgotten, but he wasn’t about to admit it to the Negro servant as tall as he was who outweighed him. He wanted to remember, even though his year in the Philippines had scrubbed the fun out of him. Or had it?
He knew better than to fib. “Tillie, I didn’t remember,” he said frankly. “It’s been a tough year.”
To his dismay, tears came to her eyes. “Poor, poor chile. I know you got a fancy medal, but they don’t make up for much, do they?”
Ramsay shook his head, and then his native optimism resurfaced. It always did, if a bit slower now. “
Not much, but I can still smell cinnamon buns.”
On surer ground apparently, she steered him toward the kitchen. He stopped her.
“If you’ll give me a minute with Mrs. Pitcher, I’ll be more than happy to separate a cinnamon bun from the pack and take it with me,” he said.
Tillie nodded and gestured him toward the parlor instead. He stood there and heard her ponderous footsteps on the central stairway. In a matter of minutes, Mrs. Pitcher appeared in the doorway of the parlor. It amused Ramsay that her expression was entirely unrepentant.
“Yes, I did tell the major over breakfast this morning that you needed to find a wife,” she began, also without any small talk. It hardly surprised him that the entire Pitcher household didn’t waste time on inane pleasantries; he sensed the major’s influence. “I hope I am not in your black book now, Sergeant Major.”
“No, ma’am,” he replied. “Only thing is, I haven’t the slightest idea how to go about finding such a commodity. If you’re going to give me an order, then give me advice.”
Her expression softened, reminding him of his mother, gone so many years now he could barely remember what she looked like, beyond that same kindness in her eyes.
He knew he could trust this woman not to blab anything throughout the fort. He had been garrisoned at other isolated posts where anyone’s news quickly became everyone’s news. Fort Yellowstone was not such a place, or he would never have said anything.
She motioned to a chair and he sat. She went to the bookcase, stood there a moment with her head cocked, then pulled a volume from a low shelf. She handed it to him and he looked at the title—Rules of Etiquette and Home Culture, he read. The subtitle made him smile: Or What To Do and How To Do It.
“I gave that to our son James before he went to West Point,” she said. Her expression turned wistful. “It was returned with his other personal effects after the battle for Manila. I want you to have it.”
Her concern touched his heart. He ruffled through the pages, and stopped at her inscription. “To my son, James William Pitcher—May you always know what to say, when, and to whom. Your loving mother.”
“I’m sorry for your loss, ma’am,” he told her. “It was a nasty war. Still is.”
She nodded and stared out the window for a moment. When she looked back, she was in control of her emotions again. “Thank you, Sergeant Major. You’ll find everything in there you need to know about how to meet ladies and what a gentleman should say to them.”
“I’m not a gentleman,” he reminded her. “I grew up on a farm with more weeds than corn and went barefoot to school.”
“Of course you are a gentleman,” she said firmly. “You always have been, no matter what your rank or where you came from.” She leaned forward and touched the book, her finger tracing the raised lettering. “It’s small enough to fit in your saddlebag. If my husband is determined you will travel about the Grand Loop this summer, you have time for a little reading. Life is not all duty and dispatches, in spite of what he says.”
She stood there, silent, and he knew that was his signal to thank her for the dubious gift, and leave. He knew that much etiquette already. “I’ll take good care of it, Mrs. Pitcher,” he assured her.
“Read it,” she said, and it didn’t sound like a suggestion. Obviously life as wife of a field officer who was now acting superintendent at America’s first national park knew something of command herself. “Keep it, please, and someday pass it on to your sons.”
He couldn’t help himself. “Is that an order, Mrs. Major Pitcher?”
“Most certainly,” she replied. “As much a one as I can issue.”
She turned when Tillie came from the kitchen with a cinnamon bun wrapped in waxed paper. “Tillie, I’ve told this nice young man to find a wife.”
Ramsay waited for the housekeeper to laugh, but Tillie merely nodded and handed him the sweet-smelling package. “You’d better do what Mrs. Pitcher says,” she told him, and again, it was no suggestion, not with that militant gleam in her eyes. This was an army household through and through.
“It’s a conspiracy,” he said as he took his hat from Tillie. He nodded to them both and found himself on the porch. There was no dignified way for a sergeant major to carry both a book and a cinnamon bun too far, so he returned to his office, closed the door, and ate the cinnamon bun.
It was the first one baked by Tillie that he had eaten in more than two years and it went down easily. He ate slowly, appreciating the rare treat and mulling over the Philippines and the cave of Palong Batan.
His little office afforded him a view of Mount Everts behind Fort Yellowstone. Officers got the view of the parade ground, but all things considered, he liked watching the storehouses, the horses grazing in their corrals, the foothills, and the mountains.
As he ate and watched, he saw two big horn sheep picking their careful way from rock to rock. He smiled to see two little ones booming along behind, fearless and leaping about with the vigor of the young. For a small moment, he wondered where his own energy had gone. As he watched, he felt his shoulders relax. Yellowstone could do that to a person, even a person tired from war. He leaned back in his swivel chair, enjoying the comfort, savoring the last of the cinnamon bun.
He licked his fingers—surely an activity frowned upon in what he reached for—and picked up Mrs. Pitcher’s etiquette book, given first to a son who died too young in a distant land, and now to him, a sergeant too old for his thirty-four years.
He landed first on “Chapter Seven—Introductions.” It seemed a good place to start, so he turned the page and scanned it. Circumstances often determine the beginning of an acquaintanceship without an introduction, he read. He shook his head, wondering how a soldier on horseback was going to meet anyone, casually or otherwise.
He looked to the next heading, “How to Give an Introduction.” “Me oh my,” he said out loud and tried not to laugh. In giving the introduction, one should bow to the lady, or make a slight wave of the hand toward her, and say, ‘Miss A, permit me to introduce my friend Mr. B.’
Since it was his office and the door was closed, he said something salty out loud. “This will happen precisely never,” he said and set the book aside.
Chapter Five
Never a man to put off any duty, onerous or otherwise, Ramsay was in the saddle directly after guard mount the next morning. He had stayed up too late reading the etiquette book, finding the whole thing amusing and totally useless. He stowed shaving gear, a change of smallclothes, and socks in one saddlebag. Then he thought a moment and added the how-to-do-it book to the other bag, next to the journal he used for wolf observations. The red book went in his back pocket as usual.
He stopped by the admin building to pick up the letters from Major Pitcher that Corporal Myers had prepared for the managers of the park’s hotels and concessions, each one neatly labeled.
“Major Pitcher says you are to visit each manager and hand over the letter,” Corporal Myers detailed. “Wait for them to read it and note any replies that will be helpful to you in the coming season, Sergeant Major.” Myers was a bit of a priss.
Ramsay accepted the letters and the sleeve of thicker paper to stick them into. Knowing the corporal’s eyes were on him, he carefully folded them for his saddlebag, all the time wondering why and how clerks became so superior. Arizona Territory or Wyoming, clerks were all the same.
His next stop was south of his own quarters at the buffalo corral he had heard about even in the distant Philippines. In yesterday’s afternoon meeting with Major Pitcher, his boss had invited him to visit the corral and make inquiries from the current man in charge, a remarkably taciturn Crow by the name of Sam Deer Nose.
“Give Sam a medal,” Major Pitcher had said. “I hired him last year as an assistant to Buffalo Jones and he managed to survive. You remember Buffalo Jones?”
Everyone did, and no one was sorry when the major fired him for all-around irritating behavior, even if he did understand bison.
&nbs
p; “One seldom meets a more self-righteous fellow,” Ramsay had said. “Still, he knew buffalo.”
“So does Deer Nose. Stop by and take a look. When you have time, I also want you to visit Jack Strong and see if he has any horses for us. I know Jack and Sam are relatives of some sort. Jack might recommend another cousin or uncle to assist Sam.”
“That is a pleasant assignment,” Ramsay said.
“I figure it was the least I can do, after ribbing you about a wife,” Major Pitcher had said, sounding as unrepentant as Mrs. Pitcher.
“Sam? Sam Deer Nose?” Ramsay called, stopping Xerxes outside the enclosure, which he had to admit was chosen with a practiced eye to buffalo terrain. Buffalo Jones knew his business, but why was it some talented people worked so hard to muddy their own nests? Look in the dictionary under “self-righteous prig,” and Ramsay was certain Mr. Webster had posted a drawing of Buffalo Jones.
“Over here.”
Ramsay looked around and saw a tall Indian coming from the log house that probably used to belong to Buffalo Jones. He didn’t wear his hair braided, but free-flowing as Crows preferred. Ramsay smiled to see two little ones peeking around the door, until their mother moved them inside.
He dismounted and crossed the distance between them. He held out his hand, and Sam Deer Nose gave him that familiar but always surprisingly gentle Indian handshake.
“I’m Sergeant Major Stiles,” Ramsay said. “I hear you’re in charge now.”
Sam nodded. “I hear you’re the tall horse soldier with the big medal.”
“For what it’s worth. Major Pitcher wanted me to ask if you need an assistant. I’m going to visit Jack Strong sometime soon. I can pass your recommendation on to him, and we’ll see.”
Sam nodded. “I’ll think on it. I can leave you a note in your office.”
He gestured for Ramsay to follow him. They ended up with arms resting on the top fence post, watching the bison that had started traveling slowly toward them, no one in a hurry, no sense of alarm or danger: just the way Ramsay liked to see bison.