Courting Carrie in Wonderland

by Carla Kelly

  She relished again in Sergeant Major Stiles’s evident appreciation of her dried apple pie with that nearly obscene mound of whipped cream on it. When she had whispered to Bonnie Boone that there was a really spiffy-looking trooper in Mr. Wylie’s office who had been thinking about pie for ages, the cook had done the honors herself. “Give this to him, dearie,” Bonnie had insisted. “He won’t turn it down.”

  She had watched his face grow serious when he talked about bears and park duties, and she wished he could take her around the park some day, just to show her more animals than she saw at Willow Park Camp. She knew it would never happen, but just thinking about it put a smile on her face.

  She slept then, only waking up once when one of the camp men banged a metal spoon on a frying pan to scare away bears. Once the camp filled up with horses and wagons, tourists and more summer help, Carrie hoped the bears would retreat more to the edge of the camp.

  She knew how much the visitors from the Midwest and back East yearned to see bears, photograph and feed them, but Sergeant Major Stiles was right. Feeding bears Vienna sausages and bread fried in lard probably wasn’t a way to keep them healthy.

  Once the spoon on the frying pan clatter stopped, Carrie closed her eyes, thinking that it wouldn’t be hard to convince Bonnie Boone to let her make a cherry pie every other day, on the chance that Sergeant Major Stiles might actually stop on his return to Mammoth Hot Springs and Fort Yellowstone.

  After all, a girl can dream, and Carrie McKay did precisely that.

  Just as an experiment—nothing more, mind you—Ramsay Stiles tested the pie at Fountain Hotel when he delivered Major Pitcher’s letter there, and again at Lake Hotel the following day. He was scrupulous about paying for the food he ate, and then remembered he hadn’t even offered to pay for that apple pie at Willow Park.

  Fountain Hotel did have cherry pie, but the crust lacked the feathery lightness of Carrie McKay’s dried apple offering. Lake Hotel’s rendition of black bottom pie, something he hadn’t eaten since B Company was garrisoned in Texas, did give him pause. He told Mr. Marsh, the manager at that grandest park hotel, that he would happily give the cook a peck on the cheek. He had a good laugh at his expense when Mr. Marsh told him the author of all that magnificence was a Hungarian chef who probably wouldn’t take kindly to a kiss.

  The pastry chef at Canyon Hotel specialized in sponge cake, but he ate a slice anyway and came away suitably impressed with the bits of lemon and orange peel in the glaze. Ramsay also realized that if he kept sampling the wares at each hotel, he would have to trot alongside Xerxes so he could continue to button his trousers without straining.

  Never one to shy away from stories that put him in a less-than-glorified light, he told his fellow cavalrymen at every soldier station where he spent each night about his quest for cherry pie. He did it for the reason that had become obvious to him at the first stop in Norris. The men of the First Cavalry Regiment, garrisoned here and there in the West, had known him for years as a first sergeant, someone they called Sarge. This sergeant major was a horse of a different color, and so was the hero—oh, that word—wearing the Medal of Honor ribbon Major Pitcher insisted upon. The men knew Sarge; they didn’t know the sergeant major yet.

  Ramsay had explained the whole matter to Xerxes on the boring ride from Norris to the Lower Geyser Basin and the Fountain Hotel, where the only view was one lodgepole pine after another for many miles. Maybe he could even twit Captain Chittenden about a stretch of Yellowstone Park that verged on dullness. He could tease him that he expected better from a Corps of Engineers road builder and get that slow smile and then a good laugh from an officer who knew his worth and didn’t mind a joke.

  Ramsay’s horse was always a useful sounding board, if no one was around except ravens and chipmunks. “Xerxes, the men have to know me as the same sergeant if they’re ever going to let me mold them into serious guides who will want to educate tourists instead of prey on their gullibility with tall tales.”

  Xerxes had no comment beyond a shake of the reins. “My men knew they could trust Sarge,” Ramsay said. “They have to trust Sergeant Major Stiles too, don’t you think? They already know I expect them to be the best troopers. Now I want something more.”

  His notebook was full of commentary from hoteliers about his men, and how they could improve. The concessionaires at the lunch counters had some thoughts on soldiers who liked handouts, which made Ramsay even more conscientious about paying for every bite he ate on this little jog around the park. His men at each station had their own opinions about tourists trying to knock off bits of geyser cones to take home, or to bottle the water from hot springs. This vandalism invariably led to burns, which meant the soldiers were to blame for letting them get that close to danger in the first place. Everyone had a side to take, and each side was valid.

  By the time he returned to Norris Soldier Station, his head ached from the accumulation of praise and complaints and good ideas and bad ones. He soaked in the hot water again, fished for his dinner, wrote down more ideas from the Norris soldiers, and slept fitfully, wondering why he had agreed to this promotion in the first place. Could a soldier request a reduction in rank that had nothing to do with felonies or misdemeanors? He thought not, and kept his worries to himself.

  Before he swung into the saddle in the morning, he sat on the porch, watching the Gibbon River sparkle in the sunlight and listening to magpies picking a fight with each other. He heard something crashing through in the willows near the river bank and assumed a moose was blundering by. Surrounded by so much beauty, his late-night doubts returned to their crypt, much like the actor portraying Dracula in the play he saw last winter while in Washington, D.C. He was pretty sure other men doubted, even though most never spoke of their moments of real uncertainty. Maybe that was another good use for wives. The poor things had to listen; maybe they even enjoyed it.

  He smiled to himself, thinking that a wife would at least answer him, unlike Xerxes. In his next breath he thought of Carrie McKay and wondered how in the world he could ever see her again without appearing like a bumbler or an opportunist.

  Then it hit him, and he nearly laughed out loud. He hadn’t even offered to pay for that magnificent piece of apple pie he had gulped down like a drowning man taking on water. Some leader he was. He had just finished advising companies of soldiers to be more scrupulous about paying for food at the hotels and lunch counters. Sergeant Major Hypocrite owed a debt to the Willow Park Wylie Camping Company.

  “Xerxes, we have a stop to make,” he told his horse as he mounted and started at a sedate pace to Willow Park. “A gentleman always pays his own way.”

  Chapter Nine

  I’m going to be out of a job before the tourists even arrive, if Mr. Wylie finds out what a pastry maker you are,” Bonnie Boone teased as Carrie lifted her fourth cherry pie in as many days out of the oven.

  “Bonnie, your job is safe,” Carrie teased back. “I have so much to learn.”

  “Seriously, let’s change your title from kitchen flunkie to assistant cook,” Bonnie told her.

  “That has a certain ring to it, but probably the same salary,” Carrie teased back. She put the second cherry pie of the morning into the oven, then held her hand there. “If my fingernails don’t start to tingle, then I need to add another stick of wood?”

  “Or two. Between you and me, Mr. Wylie likes cherry pie as well as your sergeant,” the cook said.

  “He’s not my sergeant,” Carrie said quickly, hoping Bonnie would blame her red face on a cook stove. “You should have seen the wistful look on his face when he said he’d been thinking about cherry pie for a whole year in the Philippines. I … I … took pity on him. That’s all.”

  “How do you know he’s not your sergeant?” Bonnie countered, not one to give up an interesting line of inquiry. “You might not have noticed, because you were sweeping the steps as he rode off, but he looked back several times.”

  “Oh, Bonnie, he didn’t! Did he?”
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  Bonnie patted her cheek. Carrie put up her hand to keep it there. “Mam used to do that,” she said softly. “I like it.”

  “I had a daughter once,” Bonnie said. She patted Carrie’s cheek again, then turned to the prep table. Carrie noticed that the cook didn’t do anything except stare at the table and then sigh, before she reached for a cookery book.

  We all have our stories, Carrie thought. Who is ever brave enough to tell them? Who cares enough to listen? She set the finished pie on a window ledge, the pie for Sergeant Major Stiles, should he ever return in a million years.

  Still, pie is pie and everyone likes it, Carrie knew. When the tourists started arriving soon in huge numbers, she was going to ask Bonnie if she could start making the twenty or so pies a day that were one of the many reasons people liked camping—call it what you will for Eastern visitors—in what was increasingly known as the Wylie Way.

  She breathed deep of the pie and looked out the window to watch the camp men put up the last of the striped tents. The place that had been a jumble of canvas and ropes at the beginning of the week was now a colorful tent city, ready for the first tourists to arrive on a Wylie coach, tired of bumpy travel but eager for adventure because they were in Wonderland.

  Mr. Wylie had given his annual employee pep talk last night around a campfire, with everyone seated on logs and bowls of popcorn already circulating. He reminded them that tourists were their guests and deserved of every attention.

  “They have paid $35 each for our best six-day tour, and I depend upon you savages …” Everyone chuckled. They knew the park nickname for Mr. Wylie’s summertime help. “… to be on your best behavior, and show these Easterners our Yellowstone Park enthusiasm.”

  Carrie had waited for that moment when the former educator, who knew how to command a classroom, held up one finger. “Remember this, my savage friends: our little national park system is based on eight simple words. Who knows them?”

  Several hands went up, Carrie’s among them. “Say them with me,” Mr. Wylie commanded.

  “For the benefit and enjoyment of the people,” Carrie said in company with others, with all the pride in her heart, because she believed it. Never mind that stupid old Millie Thorne and her already indoctrinated tentmates snickered at her. For the benefit and enjoyment of even the little people, Carrie thought. I know who I am.

  She had done something then that was still on her mind this morning. Instead of turning away in embarrassment from Millie Thorne—a definite thorn in her side—she smiled and nodded with what must have been serenity, and enjoyed the quiet satisfaction of seeing dismay on Millie’s face.

  Maybe if she ever saw Sergeant Major Stiles again and felt courageous, Carrie could tell him she could be brave too. She knew her kind of bravery would seem silly to a real hero. It was enough to realize she could learn from someone else, whether he ever knew it or not.

  Mr. Wylie had left early this morning on horseback to give the same message to the other campsites, most of the others located close to the posh, traditional hotels of the Yellowstone Park Association. Their little camp at Willow Park stood by itself, as though announcing its independence from stuffiness and elegance.

  Carrie took another deep breath, hoped, and then turned back to preparing the dining tables for lunch in an hour. She had finished setting out knives, forks, and spoons rolled in their napkins and was starting on the plates when Bonnie stepped into the dining room, her eyes lively.

  “I’m to ask if Miss Carrie McKay has any cherry pie,” the cook announced. She stepped aside to usher in Sergeant Major Stiles, who took off his campaign hat and set it on a hook by the door, indicating to Carrie a willingness to stay a while.

  Carrie had to move her feet, but she felt rooted to the spot, weighed down by sudden shyness. When had she ever hoped for something and seen a result as positive as this one? She couldn’t remember a time, but there he was.

  “I wondered if you had …”

  “I’ve been hoping you might …”

  They laughed, which somehow seemed to make Carrie capable of movement again. She set down the plates and came closer, still shy, but determined not to waste a moment of this soldier’s time. His hat already hanging on the nail suggested that he wasn’t in a hurry.

  “I certainly do have cherry pie, Sergeant Major Stiles,” she said, wishing she didn’t sound so breathless. She couldn’t blame it on the altitude, because she already lived at altitude in Bozeman the rest of the year. She worked up the nerve to look into his honest eyes and decided she should be honest too. Somehow, it was starting to matter. “I’ve made a cherry pie every day this week.”

  “For the other employees?” he asked, and there was no overlooking his blush.

  Don’t stop now, Carrie, she advised herself. “They enjoy it, but I did it for you, because I know you wanted it, and you’ve been in tough places. Would you like some now?”

  “More than just about anything,” he replied, “but first I need to make a confession and suggest a restitution.”

  “Um …well …” That sounds intelligent, Carrie, she scolded herself. “Should I sit down, in case this is life-shattering?” she joked, relieved to think of something, no matter how stupid.

  He gestured toward the nearest bench, and sat beside her. “I’ve been traveling the Grand Loop, as I told you and Mr. Wylie. I’ve advised the troopers to make sure they offer to pay for everything they eat that isn’t an army ration.” He hung his head in mock contrition. “And here I am, a major offender, who didn’t pay a red cent for that apple pie and enough whipped cream for three slices. I came to make amends, Miss McKay.”

  Carrie laughed out loud, and stopped herself just in time from putting her hand on his arm. “As I remember it, Mr. Wylie invited you to have that piece of pie. You don’t owe a thing.”

  “You’re certain?” he asked.

  “Positive,” she said firmly. She stood up and went to the window, where the still-warm pie was sending out its come-hither fragrance. “That’ll be ten cents for this and another nickel for whipped cream.”

  He was already reaching into his pocket. “How about thirty cents, so you can have some too? I mean, if you can spare fifteen minutes with me?”

  Carrie glanced at the door into the kitchen, which was slightly ajar. “I’ll go ask the cook. I think I have time.”

  She opened the door on Bonnie, her eyes bright. She had obviously been eavesdropping, which made Carrie smile. “Can you spare me for fifteen minutes?”

  “Twenty, but not a minute more,” Bonnie said. “Hand over that pie and I’ll slice it.”

  “Fifteen minutes, and maybe even twenty,” Carrie told the sergeant major as she retrieved the pie and took it to Bonnie, who cut two pieces and put only a dignified amount of whipped cream on both.

  Carrie turned around to carry the pie back to the table, but Sergeant Major Stiles stood right behind her, his hand out. She laughed and gave him a plate and a fork, and stepped aside so he could hand Bonnie thirty cents.

  “Twenty minutes?” he asked Bonnie.

  Bonnie nodded. “I’m strict and tough,” she told him.

  Sergeant Major Stiles reached for his hat, put it on and gave the cook a smart salute, right down to a click of his heels. He crooked out his arm and Carrie did not hesitate to put her arm through his. Bonnie kindly opened the screen door and shooed them out.

  “Where’s a good spot to eat this pie?” he asked. “Somewhere not too crowded so no one will hear if I whimper in sheer delight. I’m certain there is nothing in the red book about eating pie.”

  “Red book?”

  “I’ll show you later.”

  Carrie led him toward last night’s campfire, with the logs arranged so carefully and ready for the first visitors of summer. “We had our summer pep talk here last night,” she said.

  “How to be good savages and treat the tourists as though you were related to them?”

  “That one, Sergeant Major. Even better than relative
s,” she added, and he laughed.

  When they walked past the dining room and Wylie store, she held her breath to see Millie Thorne stare at her and glower from the red and white tent where she was making beds. She waited for that familiar fear to turn around a few times in her stomach like a demon dog, but nothing happened. Maybe this was what Mam meant when she told Carrie years ago how nice it must be to have a dependable man around. Whatever she felt, she liked it and smiled at Millie, who looked away.

  To her amusement, Sergeant Major Stiles let go of her arm, took out a red bandanna and elaborately wiped the log before indicating that she seat herself. He sat beside her and removed his hat again.

  “I suppose I should make some small talk but it’s not happening, not with this bit of heaven in my hand,” he said, then took a bite, and another one. Carrie watched with lively interest.

  “Sergeant Major, your eyes might get stuck if you keep rolling them back in your head,” she teased, which made him smile and dig in again.

  Shy, delighted, and unsure of herself all at the same time, Carrie did what anyone so afflicted would do and took a bite of her own.

  Sergeant Major Stiles finished first. “Do you think I could talk the cook out of what remains of that pie?”

  “There is every hope,” Carrie told him. “She might charge you fifty cents.”

  “Worth every penny.” He pulled out his timepiece. “I have roughly another ten minutes. Let me run something by you, Miss McKay.” He hesitated, and she watched his face redden again, the curse of the strawberry blond. “Oh, hang it. I could read a library of etiquette books and never do the right thing. Let’s do this: I’ll call you Carrie if you call me Ramsay.”