by Carla Kelly
He described the wolf pack, noting subservience among younger males, and then the rejection of a low-on-the-totem-pole male. The top wolf and his mate drove him out with nips and bites, she read. Tail down, dejected, he slunk away to try his luck with another pack, if he can find one. He is a lone wolf, and I understand him.
Her heart increasingly tender, Carrie read of Ramsay’s own struggles through the past winter, when he lamented the eradication of wolves by troopers stationed at isolated cabins. No one seems to understand the role of the wolf here, she read. When the packs are gone—I give them twenty years—the elk and deer will overpopulate Wonderland. I have to wonder what else will change. The water? The landscape? The trout in the streams and lakes? I wish I knew more.
She read one section over and over, the page in early spring of this year where Ramsay Stiles seemed more at peace with himself. I woke up one morning thinking of wolves, as I often do, he had written. I laid in bed and realized I haven’t been in that awful cave in a long time. I rejoice. I thank the wolves.
His final entry called out those silent tears again. He must have written it just before he turned his field notes over to Major Pitcher and left for Fort Clark and likely punishment. The entry told of his last sight of the wolves, seen with Carrie McKay and Louise LaMarque. We watched in silence as the meadow below us turned into a wolf playground, with the pack at ease and enjoying the fellowship of wolf companions. I have watched this pack for three years. I suspect that wolves mate for life. I was in the same mood, as I sat by Miss Carrie McKay. I can write no more.
It seemed so unromantic, callous even, but as she sat up in her cot, Carrie felt her stomach growl. She was hungry, she was wide awake, and she wanted to work. She neatly shuffled and tapped the papers until they were orderly, because she needed order. She put them in her cubbyhole to be close at hand. Even a touch in the middle of the night might be soothing.
She washed her face and dressed, content to be in her shapeless work dress with the big apron. She subdued her tangled hair with a stiff brush and then braided it into one braid. She couldn’t help laughing when she realized that Mrs. LaMarque still had her better pair of sturdy shoes, the no-nonsense brogans that had taken her through the park. Mail them back, Mrs. LaMarque, she thought and then realized when she returned to Bozeman, she could splurge for a new pair.
The Medal of Honor went under her pillow. She put Ramsay’s note and bankbook in a spare envelope and took them to the Wylie office where Miss Lackey put them into the safe.
Without saying a word, Carrie took her place in the kitchen, helping with the last-minute preparation of tonight’s Idaho baked potatoes and homely meatloaf and gravy that always seemed to vanish because everyone liked it, especially the wealthier visitors who came to the Wylie Camps because they wanted to rough it. The crusts on someone else’s apple and peach pies didn’t survive Carrie’s critical scrutiny, which meant her job as pie maker was secure for the remainder of the season, starting tomorrow morning at four o’clock.
She worked silently and efficiently, grateful for the peace that cooking never failed to give her. By the end of the dinner shift, Carrie found herself laughing at the latest foible of one of the tourists, reluctant to leave her three cats in cages in Bozeman while she toured the park.
“She brought them along, and one of them escaped. It was an awful sight,” Bonnie told her as they scraped leftovers into a bucket for the bears. “He climbed out on a tree limb. One of the Norris soldiers fetched him back, but not without scratches. I think all of us learned new words.”
Dressed in black trousers, white frilly shirt, and sporting a red sash, the Great Trostini made a special kitchen visit, asking if she felt up to singing tonight after his performance.
“Only if you feel like it, Carrie,” he told her. He glanced at Bonnie and moved closer. “Sergeant Major Stiles stopped here and told me to keep an eye on you the rest of the summer. Said he didn’t want to hear of any more tall tales. I told him we’d be vigilant. It did put a smile on his face.”
“He’s been kind to me. I’ll sing, but I won’t sing ‘Why, No One to Love’ anymore,” she said, too shy to say more.
Singing was harder than she thought it would be. She faltered on the chorus, ‘Home, home, sweet, sweet home,’ thinking of Ramsay in shackles staring up at a postage stamp sky through iron bars.
To her relief, Sophie sitting on the front row leaped to her feet and joined Carrie. Soon everyone was singing, and Carrie knew two things: she had friends, and she could manage.
Day by day, Carrie settled into camp routine again. She cooked, she smiled, she was polite about tourists’ sometimes-odd questions, and she even sang a much tamer version of “Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay” with Sophie. She did her best and fooled even herself, until she could retire to her tent, prepare for bed, and take the Medal of Honor out from under her pillow for a long look.
If sleep wouldn’t come, she had permission from Bonnie Boone to go into the dining hall, light a lamp, and write a letter to Fort Clark. She poured out her heart to Ramsay Stiles, writing how she missed him and loved him. She didn’t mention his bank account and medal, because she feared someone in a position to do him further harm might open his letters first. She told him the stories of odd questions and strange doings that constituted a season with tourists.
She wrote every other day, because during one long night she woke up, tears on her face, convinced that only her letters were keeping army justice at bay. It was irrational, but she couldn’t help herself.
As August edged toward the downward slide to September, she received her first mail from Fort Clark, three letters that arrived on the same day.
“It’s not your imagination that everyone in the Wylie Company wants to know when you hear from your sergeant,” Mr. Wylie said when he dropped off the mail for Willow Park. “Humor your boss. Open it and at least reassure Old Man Wylie that he’s not behind bars yet.”
Carrie did as he asked, breathing her own sigh of gratitude that after the words “ ‘My Dearest Caroline,’ ” fast becoming her favorite salutation in the history of writing, Ramsay wrote, “ ‘I’m still twiddling my thumbs in my room and not the guardhouse.’ ”
Mr. Wylie waved her to a stop. “That’s all I need to know,” he said. “Every stop I make, the savages want to know how he’s doing.” He thought a moment. “Come to think of it, the soldiers at the various stations have been flagging me down for news from Texas.”
He took her letters to mail to Fort Clark and went on his way. Since it was early afternoon and all the evening’s prep work could wait a half hour, Carrie took her letters to her tent, kicked off her shoes, and lay down to read in comfort.
My Dearest Caroline. There were only three thin letters, so she rationed them to last her the entire half hour before she had to report to Bonnie Boone for dinner. She read those three words over and over until they blended into one word: Mydearestcaroline. Mydearestcaroline. She said them softly until the little trio began to hypnotize her in much the same way Coleridge’s perhaps better-known poem did: “InXanadudidkublaikhanastatelypleasuredomedecree,” which made her laugh.
As much as you worry, I am not shackled and in chains, although I am confined to barracks, he wrote in the first letter. At least I am until one of the officers gets permission to take me to one of Fort Clark’s classrooms, where I instruct brand new lieutenants in the art of war in the Philippines.
“My goodness,” she said out loud, and read the words again slowly, thinking of her darling man, there for punishment, teaching others because he had experience they needed. “I can’t imagine that pleased the colonel too much.”
She read more. Colonel Ward was upset in the extreme when he found out what his captains were doing, but then he stayed and listened. That can’t hurt my cause.
She finished the letter, reading over and over the last two paragraphs where he asked her to go to Solfatara Plateau if possible, and check on his wolves. Dave Lassiter shouldn’t be too hard
to convince. Take along Jake Trost too.
“You keep pushing Jake on me, Ram,” she told the letter.
In the second letter, he grew more serious, telling her of the humiliation of a monumental dressing down from Colonel Ward in front of the entire garrison. I was the prize pig, the bad example, he wrote. It was a blistering scold, administered with me standing at attention on the parade ground in the Texas heat and everyone listening from the shade of the porches.
She read through a film of tears, wondering if the army was the cruelest organization in the world since the Inquisition. She did hear the triumph in his final words, at least before he started those last few paragraphs telling her how much he loved her. I took his abuse for an hour and was marched back to my room in the barracks. I closed the door, then threw up all over the place. What a mess, but at least I didn’t embarrass myself in front of the entire garrison.
His third letter was a restless one, full of doubts as the time dragged on and still the colonel didn’t assemble the officers for a court martial. The only bright spot was her letters, and the whispered word from a fellow sergeant who brought Ramsay an evening meal and told him, “You should see the letters coming in from everywhere in your favor.”
So that’s where it stands, dear heart, he concluded. I walk back and forth in my room, and up and down on the veranda when I can wangle permission. I clean out latrines and scrub floors, and police the parade ground with my burlap sack and sharp-pointed stick. I’m becoming immune to humiliation, especially when some of the lieutenants and their sergeants walk along with me and ask me about the Philippines, and jungle warfare. They know they must understand what to expect before they ship out, and I oblige them. I think of my lieutenant and want these men to come home in one piece. I am doing my duty. It could be worse, dearest Caroline.
Campfire singing was purgatory that night, fearing every moment that her cheerful façade would rub off and expose her pain, sorrow, and longing to people who were here for an adventure in Wonderland. She forced herself to warble Stephen Foster’s sentimental tunes, flirt a little and belt out “Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay” with Sophie, determined to please. All the while, her mind and heart remained centered on a brave man in Texas, suffering daily shame all because he could not kill wolves.
That was the last of the letters. Nothing followed nothing, until the August afternoon when one of the drivers tipped his hat to her and dropped off a box with a Washington, D.C., address. All the housemaids, kitchen staff, and laundresses hanging around the Wylie store for mail call gasped in unison as Carrie pulled out a dark blue traveling suit wrapped in tissue paper. It was simple, elegant, and understated. So was the light blue silk blouse that practically slithered from a smaller box.
Everyone chuckled over Carrie’s work shoes, which the grand dame returned. The darling dark blue hat with its small feathers and curled brim was greeted with open-mouthed wonder. More sighs—Carrie’s the loudest—greeted the froth of silk drawers and two silk nightgowns.
“It’ll take more than silk to keep you warm in Montana,” one of the savages teased.
“That’s what Carrie is hoping,” another maid said. Everyone laughed and Carrie blushed.
Silent astonishment accompanied the last item, a black lace brassiere that sent Bonnie Boone into an excellent imitation of a swoon.
The attached note read, I think you’ll have your sergeant major’s full attention with this little number. Love, Louise.
There was a post script in the lady’s increasingly small handwriting that Carrie saved until her friends trooped away to read their own mail.
She held it up to the light, her heart full with gifts that had come exactly when she needed them.
Don’t lose hope, she read. This isn’t over.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Hopeful, Carrie waited for more letters. None came. Tired of tears, she started walking Willow Park meadow alone, humoring Jake and Bonnie by taking along a pot to bang on and a wooden spoon. “Sing too,” Jake said. “Bang that pot and scare those bears.”
No idiot, she did as they said and was rewarded with bears seen at a distance and no closer, even though she knew she had a good voice—Jake laughed over that when she told him. She sat on a small boulder and watched distant mama bears and cubs grown fat on cutthroat trout and berries, as she imagined Ramsay used to watch the wolves.
She knew it was the time of late summer when bears started eating everything in sight, bulking up for a long winter’s hibernation. She contemplated hibernation, wondering if she could eat a lot, sleep all winter, and wake up to find Ramsay Stiles back in Yellowstone.
No letters. Then came the day when two of her letters were returned, stamped “Not At This Address.” Wordless, she showed those to Bonnie as they were prepping dinner and then threw herself into Bonnie’s kind embrace. Sophie sang in her place that night as Carrie lay in bed, the Medal of Honor in her hand and Ram’s wolf observation field notes on her stomach. Her eyes were dry; she was finally beyond tears.
Before dinner on the following day, Captain Chittenden surprised her in the kitchen as she banged out yeast rolls, kneading with ferocity aimed at the evil US Army that didn’t know how to treat a good man with sense. She jumped when he tapped her on the shoulder, then she forgot herself and grabbed him by the arms.
“Where is he?” she demanded but let go and stepped back, appalled at herself.
Apparently not an easy man to ruffle, the engineer took her hand and led her into the empty dining room.
“I don’t know where he is,” he said after she apologized profusely and sat down. He had an envelope tucked under his arm, labeled like her most recent letters, with that pernicious, we-know-but-you-don’t stamp. He opened the envelope and took out a photograph of a major portion of his summer work. “I had Jack Haynes develop this right away and I mailed it to Ramsay. Look at it.”
Her own social error forgotten, she gazed in open-mouthed delight at the graceful bridge that was labeled “Melan Arch of the Yellowstone.”
“Melan?” she asked.
“An Austrian engineer. I admire his work and I wanted that shallow arch,” he said.
“This is beautiful, Captain Chittenden,” she said, thinking of the bridge work she had observed with Louise LaMarque. She mentally moved on because it was either that or dissolve into a puddle. So much for her resolution on no tears. “You know what Ramsay would say.”
“I think I do.”
“ ‘Captain, you can call it what you want, but people here will name it the Chittenden Bridge, whether you like it or not,’ ” she said, imitating her dear man’s clipped speech. “You know that’s what he would say.” She took a deep breath. “Where is he?”
“I wish I knew. I’ll be honest, Carrie, because you deserve that—he’s probably en route to Fort Leavenworth.”
She nodded, unable to speak but unwilling to cry. “Will he be allowed letters eventually?” she asked when she could talk without choking up.
“Eventually.”
She tried to hand back the photograph, but he shook his head. “Keep it. Send it to him when you get his address. I’m on my way to see Nettie and our children. I’ll be another four days on the corkscrew road toward Cody and then back to Mammoth to accompany them to Sioux City.”
“If you hear anything, let me know,” she said. “I don’t care how bad the news. I have to know.”
“Absolutely. When I get to Fort Yellowstone, I’ll ask Major Pitcher what he knows.”
She walked with him to his horse, waved good-bye, and stood there until he was out of sight, going home to his family. For a moment she imagined herself standing on a porch at Fort Yellowstone, watching for Ramsay coming home from hearing tourists’ complaints, advising the troopers under him, observing wolves—whatever Yellowstone threw at him. She would sit him down in the kitchen, give him hot buttered bread or maybe pie, and listen, chin in hand, while he described so meticulously what he had done that day or week in Wonderland.
“ ‘Why, No One to Love’?” she said softly and returned to her kitchen duties.
In a hurry, Mr. Wylie stopped by on his weekly circuit of his tourist camps, telling his assistant manager to begin dismantling one row of red-and-white-striped tents. “It’s been a good summer with satisfactory numbers for us,” he told all his Willow Park savages assembled in the dining hall. “You’ve done your best. I’d like to hear from you this winter, if you wish to return.”
He promised them a little bonus in their last paycheck next week, which brought cheers, and he ate cherry pie with the housemaids, kitchen flunkies, and camp men who were headed back to the college grind, or classrooms of their own.
“No word, Carrie?” he asked when he held out his plate for another slice.
“Not even a paragraph, Mr. Wylie,” she said. “If I’ve learned nothing else this summer, I’ve learned patience.”
“You’ve learned more than that,” he said, gesturing her to sit down. “Mary Ann told me about Mrs. LaMarque’s generous tip. You’re going to have a good final year. I hope you’ll still find time for Sunday dinner at the Wylie house.”
Her smile was genuine. “I wouldn’t miss it. Thanks for everything, sir.”
“Any time.” He started to rise but then sat down again and leaned closer. “Here’s some news that might interest you—Millie Thorne resigned from the Lake Camp a month ago and headed back East to stay with her cousin.”
“I honestly hope she’ll be careful,” Carrie said, unwilling to imagine any sort of proximity to the terrifying man who tried to ruin her in the Railroad Hotel kitchen. “She won’t be at Montana Ag?”
“No. You sound surprisingly charitable to Millie Thorne, who did her best to make your life miserable,” Mr. Wylie said.