Courting Carrie in Wonderland

by Carla Kelly

  “I do too, Sergeant Major Stiles,” Chittenden said promptly and straightened up. “Yes, you have my permission. Let me see how it turns out, and come to me if you have any questions.” He laughed. “If you can find me. I’ll be wearing my oldest clothes and mucking about on that east muddy bog we laughingly call a road right now.” His eyes took on a thoughtful gaze. “I will also be at that bridge site over the Yellowstone.”

  “Thank you, sir. I will stop by.” Ramsay hesitated. How well did he know this man? Might as well blunder ahead and blurt it out. “Sir, I’m not sure how to say this, but I … well, I met a girl at the Wylie Willow Park Camp.”

  He sighed and looked at the engineer, who was staring at him in frank astonishment. As he gazed back, Captain Chittenden’s expression mellowed into what appeared to be genuine, kindly interest.

  “Say on. Don’t leave me dangling.”

  “First stop on my Grand Loop tour, sir,” Ramsay said. “There she was.”

  Chittenden pointed to one of the chairs against the wall. He sat in one and Ramsay sat in the other. “I’m impressed,” the captain said. “You didn’t squander a minute dealing with Major Pitcher’s suggestion, did you?”

  Ramsay could tell Captain Chittenden was teasing him, but he took it in stride, as a noncommissioned officer should, with humor of his own. “Guess I’m just in the habit of following orders, sir.”

  “Perhaps. Maybe the major was right; maybe you needed a little prodding to be reminded that man does not live by bugle calls and paperwork alone,” Chittenden told him. He shrugged and his eyes grew thoughtful, as if thinking of his own life. “Or maybe it was just the right time. How old are you?”

  “Thirty-four, sir.”

  “I succumbed at twenty-six. I met Nettie when we were sixteen and studying at the same academy near my father’s farm.” He smiled at the memory. “We wrote to each other for years and married when I graduated from West Point. How did you meet your Wylie girl?”

  My Wylie girl, Ramsay thought, struck by the notion. “There she was, and so pretty. I rescued her from a privy where a bear had apparently been sitting earlier, blocking her exit.”

  Chittenden laughed until he had to wipe his eyes. Ramsay smiled in embarrassment first, but then he couldn’t help joining in.

  “That’s one for the books, Sergeant Major,” Chittenden said when he could speak again. “Tell your children some day! Where does it go from here?”

  “That’s my concern. I have to return a pie tin when it’s empty, but what then? She’s eight miles away with her duties, and I have mine, sir. She might as well be on the moon.”

  The engineer seemed inclined to give the matter serious consideration. He gave Ramsay a long look.

  “Think creatively, Sergeant Major Stiles. That’s an order.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Buried under his own mound of early-season paperwork, Major Pitcher was only too happy to agree to an educational pamphlet and send Ramsay on his way.

  “With your permission, Major, I’ll pay that visit to Jack Strong now. His cousin Sam Deer Nose left some suggestions about an assistant with the clerk.”

  “Do it.” The major rubbed his hands together. “Nothing this spring gave me more satisfaction than to fire Buffalo Jones, the old prissy meddler. Sam’s better. And do ask Jack about remounts. We could use some.”

  Ramsay went back to the stable and requested a remount. The sun was high and spring days were long. He could take along that pie, eat it in the saddle, and get to Jack’s ranch by late afternoon. Maybe he’d even save a piece for Jack, a man who never saw too many of life’s frills.

  A private led out a sorrel that Ramsay rode occasionally. Ramsay had to walk right by Xerxes in his loose box and knew if his personally bought-and-paid-for companion could speak, it wouldn’t be pretty.

  “Xerxes, take a break for the day. You took me everywhere this past week,” he said, making an overhand catch of a carrot another stable boy, grin on his face, tossed his way. “Thank you, Private Angelo. Xerxes takes offense too easily.”

  Ramsay gave the carrot to his horse, who lipped it delicately and then turned away to eat, not ready to be placated. “I swear, Xerxes, you’re touchier than a cat.”

  “Horses know, Sergeant Major Stiles,” Private Angelo said.

  “Indeed they do. Do me a favor and distract him until I’m out of here.”

  He balanced the cherry pie on his lap and finished half of it long before he reached Gardiner, not his favorite little town in the world, mainly because it was filled with poachers of even thinner skin than Xerxes. He kept a weather eye out for any familiar-looking ones. There wasn’t a thing he could do but give the one he recognized a hard glare, but Ramsay felt some satisfaction, anyway.

  During an earlier duty in the park, Captain Chittenden and his road crew had built the macadam road from Gardiner north through Yankee Jim Canyon. Ramsay passed the railroad crew at work farther south of Cinnabar.

  He saw the crew chief, so he stopped to inquire about completion.

  “Everyone wants to know, Sarge,” the chief said, wiping his hands on an oily rag that did no discernible good. “I’m thinking end of June.” He looked back down the tracks. “Then poor old Cinnabar, whish! Gone.”

  “Life in the West,” Ramsay said with a shrug. Once the NPRR reached Gardiner, who would need a seedy hotel, general store, and blacksmith shop three miles from the town boasting a new terminus?

  Ramsay looked for Yankee Jim in the canyon already bearing his name, but the old rip wasn’t in sight. James George, more properly, had squatted there for years and operated, from all accounts, a pretty good toll road into Yellowstone Park. Captain Chittenden and then the railroad ended that, but Yankee Jim was a philosophical sort and continued serving food to travelers and railroad men. No telling what kind of lies vaguely described as the truth he had been spinning for unwary tourists.

  Ramsay felt his heart lift when he passed through the canyon and turned west toward Jack Strong’s ranch. The old mixed blood Mountain Crow had been there long enough to claim the best land in what was increasingly coming to be known as Paradise Valley. Ramsay stopped his well-mannered gelding with a word and raised up in the saddle, happy to admire a fine piece of ground with cattle grazing on tender grass. There weren’t any flies on Jack Strong. He had been the first to ranch there, and the first to bring in good Hereford stock tough enough for Montana winters—they were in Montana now—tough, but, me oh my, what tender beef.

  Ramsay admired the young calves strutting around on stiff legs, as if still getting the hang of ambulation. Some came right up to the barbed wire as if to question his right to be there. Others hung back behind their mothers, who looked mean enough to tangle with even a sergeant major, if he thought to threaten their little ones. “No thank you, ma’am,” Ramsay said to one mama pawing the ground. “I didn’t get a medal by being stupid.”

  He was greeted at the ranch house by the same yellow dog Jack claimed had been hanging around the place when Jack first rode into the valley. Like many of Jack’s declarations, it may have been tinged with truth at one time. The old gent waved his feathery tail and pointed his nose up, waiting for the scratch under the chin that well-informed visitors knew to administer. Ramsay was no exception.

  “Brute, you’re a good old lad,” Ramsay said, and scratched in the right place. “Where’s the rascal that you own?”

  “Sarge, is that you?” he heard from inside the cabin.

  “No one else, Jack.”

  He dropped the reins and waited to see what Brute would do. Sure enough, the yellow dog took the reins in his mouth and led the horse into the pasture. Smart dog.

  He ducked his head and went inside the log cabin, pleased to see how well-kept everything was. A person might imagine the fine hand of a woman in Jack Strong’s life, but it wasn’t so. Jack just ran a tidy house and ranch.

  Jack sat by the fire. He started to rise, but Ramsay waved him down. He knew what effort that took
and couldn’t help but think of the first time he saw the rancher nearly dead from a broken leg left untended. He and his little patrol had wasted not a minute in draping him over a placid horse, leaving behind one of their number to tend to the ranch, and trotting back to Fort Yellowstone. After hours of additional agony for the played-out man, the post surgeon was able to set the leg. It never worked as well as before, but at least the leg was still attached to its owner.

  Without a word, Ramsay plunked down the rest of the cherry pie into Jack’s lap. He went in search of a fork, and found one just as Jack was about to skirt around the niceties and pick up the pie with his hands. He ate the slice and smacked his lips.

  “That’s the best thing I’ve had in years. You get married, Sarge?”

  “No such luck,” Ramsay said as he took the tin and set it on the table. “I’ve been advised by Major Pitcher to do that. He also wanted me to tell you he’d be by in a month or so to look at horses you might want to sell.”

  “The major can order you to get married?” Jack asked.

  “I think it was a joke,” Ramsay replied, wishing he hadn’t said anything, because it was time he got his mind off pretty ladies with strawberry blond hair, and back on duty. “Besides, who’d marry an army man?”

  “More women than you’d think. You do have an annual income,” Jack pointed out.

  “That I do.”

  A man of few words, Jack pointed to a brown jug on the table and requested two glasses, his only two glasses, from the apple crate cupboard. Ramsay fetched the glasses and popped the cork stopper. Jack Strong’s apple jack—famous in some circles, notorious in others—went down raw and harsh, only to puddle peacefully in the stomach and create a peculiar, if brief, sense of well-being.

  Lubricated sufficiently, Ramsay answered Jack’s questions about the Philippines, and how he won that little scrap of light blue material with five stars embroidered into it. He brought Jack up to date on his new promotion and what a trial it was proving to be and then sat back to take another sip.

  “Your turn, Jack,” Ramsay said. Pleasantly tired, he closed his eyes to listen to his old friend describe his winter, with too much snow, too much isolation, too many beans and beef. He also heard the affection in Jack’s voice and noticed how steady his hand was on the yellow dog’s big head.

  “All in all, okay then?” Ramsay asked, opening his eyes.

  “Pretty much,” came the reply, followed by a laugh. “I don’t have to deal with tourists, so better’n you!”

  Ramsay couldn’t argue with that. He came right to the point, reminding Jack of Captain Chittenden’s bison count a year or two ago that had returned a dismal twenty-nine.

  “You’ll like this,” he said. “Major Pitcher finally fired that old priss Buffalo Jones, and your cousin Sam Deer Nose has proved to be a good replacement.”

  Jack spat in the fireplace. “Buffalo Jones can’t help but muddy his nest. Good for Sam.”

  “I got Sam to suggest his brother David as a possible assistant, now that Sam’s in charge. He also suggested Wesley Plenty Coups. Major Pitcher wants your opinion.”

  “Either one’s good,” Jack said. He leaned back and shook his head. “Nice to know someone wants an old man’s opinion, even a man part Crow. Ramsay, I probably stole some of Pitcher’s horses when he was a skinny lieutenant and I was a bit of a warrior.”

  “You probably did. Some of mine too, maybe. Plans change and so did the West.”

  They both stared into the fireplace then, Ramsay thinking about Carrie McKay and Jack thinking about whatever it was Indians liked to reflect on, considering the kind of West they knew now, and what went before.

  Ramsay looked out the still-open door to watch dusk move into Paradise Valley. “Mind if I hole up here tonight, and maybe do a little practice roping in the morning?”

  “Suit yourself. You’re one soldier who’s always going to have a welcome here, but you know that already.”

  He did. Jack never talked much about that bad time when Ramsay and his troopers found him nearly dead. He had grabbed Ramsay’s hand once and kissed it, which told him all he ever needed to know about gratitude.

  They spent the evening in restful talk, none of it involving medals or the Philippines. Jack Strong seemed to have an innate sense of what suited the moment, for which Ramsay was profoundly grateful. He talked mainly of the ranch, and how he had grown it into an outfit large enough to run three hundred cattle, if he wanted to. Ramsay enjoyed listening, stretched out in his favorite canvas-backed reclining chair, a glass of apple jack close by but only sipped from now and then. The foul stuff made him burp.

  He didn’t know at what point his eyes finally closed, only that Jack shook him and said it was time to wake up so he could go to bed. He followed his host down the hall to the bedroom reserved for what few visitors came to the J Bar 81. He took his boots off, wondered how he would get to sleep after slumbering through most of the evening, fell back, and promptly returned to the comforting arms of Morpheus.

  His roping practice in the morning didn’t begin well. He had been too long away from a rope, and needed to be reminded how to ride Jack’s nimble—but patient—cutting horse. A few reminders from his host set his hips swaying with his mount in cow-cutting fashion. By the time the sun was high overhead and his stomach was starting to rumble, Ramsay had scored a few good tosses.

  “Come back more often, if you can,” Jack told him after they took care of the horses and Ramsay saddled his army remount. “You might amount to a rancher yet.”

  Ramsay knew the old-timer well enough to be aware that Jack Strong administered praise with an eye dropper. “Thanks,” he replied and meant it. “If only I had arrived in Paradise Valley in 1881 like you did, and found a piece of unclaimed land …”

  Jack shrugged. “I got lucky. One of the few times, but my word, I did.” He slapped Ramsay between his shoulder blades. “Not many men with some part Crow blood can say that even now. Maybe you’ll get lucky too.”

  He considered that all the way back to Fort Yellowstone, wondering about luck and about Captain Chittenden’s admonition to think creatively. He grained and groomed his horse, even though several privates were willing to do it for him. He turned the gelding loose in the pasture, after Private Angelo promised to return him to the stable later on. A few carrots for Xerxes placated his usual horse.

  Duty loomed. Ramsay went to his office and pulled out a notepad. He opened Captain Chittenden’s book and started to read. He made some notes, knew he could do this, and settled in for an evening of reading, writing, and wondering how one officer could be so talented.

  He finished for the night after Extinguish Lights, which surprised Ramsay, because he hadn’t been aware so much time had passed. Last man out of Admin, he locked the door. He ambled back to his dark, empty quarters. He stopped a moment on the front steps, looking toward the next noncom officer’s house, small like his, but well lit. He heard Sergeant Mathieu playing his harmonica, and his wife and son singing along.

  He stood in his dark sitting room, cold because there was no one to lay a good fire in the pot-bellied stove before he came home. The only fragrance was metal polish, the only food a few carrots for Xerxes. He lit the lamp, and knew he was heading to the Willow Park Wylie Camp before the week was out. A man has to return a pie tin, after all.

  Chapter Twelve

  Patience, patience. Carrie had never been inclined to wish a week to hurry by. She knew she was a deliberate kind of person, the kind who likes to see every side to an issue. If she could look around corners, she knew she would have. There had been too many ugly surprises in her life.

  After a long look in the scrap of a mirror allotted to Tent Twenty-Six, Carrie decided to become more tidy in her appearance. There wasn’t a thing she could do about the occasional freckle—she didn’t care anyway—but she could pile her hair on top of her head into something resembling a pompadour. A single braid down the back was never going to impress anyone.


  She decided against a corset, wishing she could afford one of those lacy brassieres found in the women’s magazines that Mr. Wylie liked to spread about at one end of the Wylie Store, where there were comfortable chairs for ladies. Miss Janeway of Montana Ag’s domestic science faculty had shaken her head over brassieres, calling them “the devil’s tool to ruination,” but Carrie still wanted one.

  She had to admit there wasn’t any real need for a corset, considering that her brown dress was made of some fabric perilously close to sackcloth, without additional ashes, and decidedly shapeless. Her heavy-duty apron complete with bib meant that she wasn’t likely to jiggle. Carrie wondered if Miss Carter, a more liberal member of the domestic science department, might let her make a brassiere for her fine sewing class in the fall. It wouldn’t hurt to ask, provided she earned enough money this summer for tuition and books, and had something for extras.

  Carrie tried to remember a time she had wasted even a quarter on anything. Luckily she wasn’t one to envy others’ good fortune, or working at a tourist camp could have been purgatory. As it was, she never minded assisting some of the more helpless ladies who had never ironed a thing in their lives, because it usually meant a nickel tip. She made mental notes of stylish shirtwaists and skirts she ironed that she could create herself, now that she had passed last spring’s pattern-making class with a B plus.

  She dressed quietly, hoping not to wake her three new tentmates—two girls from other colleges, and a new teacher—who had arrived just yesterday. All she knew so far was that Sophie was destined for the Wylie Store, and that Amy and Pru would be house maids. So far they were friendly, but Carrie knew it was only a matter of time before Millie Thorne decided to inform them of her lower than low background. Then they would be polite, and probably nothing more, until the season wore on and they learned otherwise for themselves.

  I should not be afraid of Millie Thorne, Carrie told herself as she put her last hairpin in place. She stood still a moment, thinking of all the jabs and slights Millie had inflicted since that awful morning when Millie’s father and uncle had grabbed Carrie by the arms, sat her down, shouted at her, and told her on pain of jail not to breathe a word of what had happened, or nearly happened.