by Regina Scott
The clapboard building listed slightly to the west, or perhaps that was because it had been constructed on uneven ground. He rather hoped it wasn’t on her list for him to fix. It would take more than him and all his men combined. He stepped through the wide, open door into the shadows, the scent of hay and manure heavy in the air. A voice called overhead, and he glanced up into the hayloft to find Danny staring down at him, straw sticking out like a piece of his pale hair. He ducked back out of sight.
“Can I help you?”
He dropped his gaze to meet that of a slender man with skin as dark as the shadows of the barn. His coat was off, sleeves of his gingham shirt rolled up. The cock of his head was friendly, but the look in his brown eyes was assessing.
“Lieutenant Prescott,” Will said. “Mrs. Tremaine sent me for tools to fix the steps.”
His black brows shot upward. “That a fact? Well, I don’t mind seeing the Army work. How about you, Caleb?”
A lanky youth stepped out of one of the stalls, brown hair partially covered by a battered cap. He stared at Will a moment before shaking his head even as he pulled up his dun-colored britches.
The other man, likely the Elijah Mrs. Tremaine had mentioned, stepped aside and waved to the wall of the barn, where a bench held any manner of tool. “Help yourself.”
Will moved past the stalls for horses and cows and selected a hammer and a keg of nails. But as he turned, Danny slid down from the loft.
“What are you doing, Lieutenant Prescott?” he asked, eying the tools in his hands.
“Lieutenant Prescott is going to fix the front steps,” Caleb told him.
“Are you going to help?” Danny asked.
Caleb shook his head again, this time so sharply his cap slid off to cover his dark eyes.
Elijah chuckled. “Looks like you’re on your own, Lieutenant.”
Danny skipped over to Will. “I’ll help you.”
Will took a step back. “You should play.” He started for the door.
Danny scrambled to keep up with him. “Can I at least watch?”
“Why?” Will asked, making for the inn.
“So I’ll know how to do it next time.”
A logical response, but one of the reasons he was doing this was so he could give the boy an opportunity to enjoy himself. He ought to order him to leave be, but he had no authority over Danny. And he had no heart to turn him away.
They reached the steps, and Danny climbed to the top and sat. Will reached the second step from the bottom and bounced experimentally.
Danny winced. “It sure squeaks.”
“I’m more concerned about the way it moves,” Will said. “Steps should be hard as rocks.”
“Why?” Danny asked.
Will dropped back to the ground. “Think how many people climb these every day. Would you want the steps to crack on them?”
Danny shook his head. “No.”
“Then they need to be fixed.” Will bent to look through the open backs of the stairs. He hadn’t much experience with carpentry, his father having worked in a livery stable before enlisting in the Army, but even he thought there ought to be a middle brace on so wide a set of steps.
He glanced up to find Danny still watching him. “Isn’t there something else you’d rather be doing?”
His thin shoulders rose and fell in a shrug. “I should stay close to the inn. Ma might need me, like she needs Alberta and Pansy and Elijah and Caleb.”
The boy had more of a sense of duty than Will had had at that age. He resigned himself to be the diversion of the moment. “What does Elijah do here?” he asked, reaching for the hammer.
“He drives the stage and brings us visitors. He brought six more today. One’s a real lord. He’s met the Queen of England. I wish I’d met a queen.”
Will glanced back at the steaming geysers. “You live someplace even lords come thousands of miles to visit. I’d say that’s pretty good.”
Danny nodded. “That is pretty good.”
Just then the door opened, and the fellow Will had seen yesterday by the paint pots came out. Ponsonby, Mrs. Tremaine had called him. He started down the stairs with a nod to Danny.
“Fetch me a horse,” he ordered Will. “That stage won’t be returning until tomorrow, and I have decided to leave now.”
The fellow didn’t notice Will was wearing a military uniform? “You’ll have to fetch your own horse,” Will said. “I don’t work here.”
Ponsonby raised one brow as he glanced from the hammer in Will’s hand to his face. “Do tell. Very well, I’ll make do with that one.”
Will put his free hand on the fellow’s shoulder before he could start for Bess. “She’s taken.”
Ponsonby shook him off. “Really, sirrah. Do you know to whom you are speaking?”
“That’s Mr. Ponsonby,” Danny put in helpfully.
“Don’t much care,” Will said. He jerked his head toward the inn. “There are horses in the barn, but I suggest you talk to their owner before making off with one. Horse stealing is theft, inside the park and out.”
With a huff, the fellow stomped back into the inn.
Mrs. Tremaine passed him on her way out onto the porch, flowered skirts swinging. If she’d noticed the scowl on Ponsonby’s face, she ignored it.
“How’s it coming?” she asked Will.
“Slowly,” he admitted. “We may need to add braces. I’ll have my men cut the timber.”
She clucked her tongue. “Think again. There’s no cutting of timber in Yellowstone. Your captain even agreed.”
She was right. Any lumber needed, even to repair a set of stairs, had to be freighted in, unless special permission was granted by the Army Corps of Engineers, which operated a small sawmill at Mammoth Hot Springs. And it was doubtful he could get permission to fix a civilian building. Will blew out a breath.
“Do you know to whom you’re speaking?” Danny demanded of his mother.
Mrs. Tremaine’s gaze dropped to the boy on the step. “I know to whom I’m speaking now, and he had better reconsider his attitude.”
Danny wilted. “Yes, ma’am. Sorry.”
“Alberta says two of the pumpkins you planted are ready. Would you like to see if she needs help cleaning them?”
He nodded as he rose. “I sure would.” He ran for the door and into the hotel.
“Maybe I should follow him,” Will said. “I might be more use cleaning pumpkins.”
Her smile warmed him. “I wouldn’t waste my lieutenant on pumpkins.”
Her lieutenant. Why did that make him smile?
She pressed both hands to her lips, and Will spun to see what had so amazed her. None of the geysers was going off. Steam drifted across the basin, giving him glimpses of the trees beyond.
He returned his gaze to her. “What are you looking at?”
She lowered her hands. “You. You should smile more often.”
Maybe I would, if I stay here long enough.
He inclined his head. “Ma’am. I should get back to work. My employer is a demanding sort.”
“But she offers considerations, like huckleberry pie,” she reminded him. “If Danny finishes the pumpkins before you leave, I’ll send him back out. He’ll have to take over the hotel one day. He could use a good example.”
Will couldn’t respond with anything that would allow her to keep her admiration of him. Still smiling, she turned for the hotel.
The sooner he finished his part of the deal, the better. He didn’t want to be around when she discovered he was no sort of man to serve as an example, to anyone.
4
At least he was willing to work.
Kate grimaced as she checked the dining area for issues before dinner. Why was she comparing Lieutenant Prescott to Toby? They had little in common. The lieutenant was controlled, cautious, in command of every situation. Sometimes she thought Toby had been nothing but an overgrown boy. He would set out to prune the apple trees planted by the hotel’s original manager, and she�
�d find him with Danny watching the paint pots bubble. He’d ride for supplies and return with an armload of wildflowers and stories of how he’d followed the bison herd. He’d brought chaos and wonder, uncertainty and delight into her life. And he’d given her Danny.
Gray dots appeared on the white linen of the dining table. Kate wiped her cheeks with her fingers before more tears could fall. Toby’s curiosity, kindness, and eagerness to explore had been some of his charms. They had also led to his death. She was not about to let Danny follow in his stead. Better that he copy Lieutenant Prescott than his father.
She was helping Pansy set the tables for dinner when Danny came out of the kitchen a few minutes later.
“I’m all done with the pumpkins,” he said as he passed. “I want to see what Lieutenant Prescott is doing.”
So did she. Funny that the pull was so strong. Kate followed her son to the door and onto the veranda, the scent of Alberta’s savory soup drifting out with her.
Lord and Lady Cavell and their party were sitting on the benches, watching the geysers. At least, the older couple was watching the geysers. Sir Winston was watching Miss Cavell, as if entranced by her shiny blonde curls. Miss Cavell was watching Lieutenant Prescott.
He was a sight. He’d removed his cavalry coat and rolled up the sleeves on his cream-colored cotton shirt to reveal muscular arms. They, like the rest of him, glistened with sweat that molded the shirt to his form. He wiped perspiration from his brow with a handkerchief, spiking his short-cropped hair, and glanced up at Kate as Danny ran down the stairs to his side.
“Take a turn and see what you think,” he suggested.
She couldn’t notice any difference by looking at the steps, but she lifted her skirts and descended cautiously. Nothing gave.
“It stopped squeaking,” Danny marveled, peering at the steps.
Kate reached Lieutenant Prescott’s side and glanced back at the steps, surprised. “What did you do?”
He bent at the waist and pointed under the steps. “I couldn’t fix the boards themselves, so I shored them up from below.”
Danny dropped to his hands and knees, and Kate bent as well. In the recess under the steps, she sighted the pale shape of rocks, arranged so that they supported the steps at either side and the middle. Danny scuttled forward as if to touch them.
“Where did you get those?” she asked, straightening.
Lieutenant Prescott straightened as well. “Found them in a pile near your necessaries. I figured it would only help nature to remove some of the debris.”
The pile of rock had been left when the privies had been dug, before she and Toby had come to manage the hotel. She’d never had time to scatter the ugly things. Yet he’d used them to fix the steps without taking from Yellowstone.
“There may be hope for you yet,” Kate teased.
His stern lips hinted of the smile she’d seen earlier. “Enough for a chance at that meal I smell?”
“Enough,” Kate agreed. “But you should probably eat in the kitchen with Danny.”
Danny popped to his feet. “Yes, please!”
That smile blossomed, warmer than the rays of the sun through the pines. “I’d be delighted.”
“You might want to wash up first,” Kate warned Danny before he could pelt up the steps. “You too, Lieutenant Prescott. I’m not sure my guests would appreciate the other aroma.”
He glanced down at his damp shirt. “I’ll put my head under the pump before joining you.”
There was a pump in the kitchen, but she didn’t want to think how Alberta and the maids might react to seeing him like this. She nodded toward the side of the hotel. “Danny, show Lieutenant Prescott the pump near the barn.”
“This way, Lieutenant,” Danny sang out, already on the run.
“Meet you in the kitchen shortly.” He headed after Danny.
Someone, most likely Miss Cavell, puffed out a sigh.
Kate climbed the steps and smiled at her guests. “Enjoy the scenery while you can. Dinner will be ready in a few minutes.” She sailed into the hotel.
The maids had the tables set and were adding steaming tureens of beef and barley soup and baskets of plump, crusty rolls.
“But no more than eight pats of butter per table,” Pansy was reminding them. “Mrs. Guthrie says we must economize, as the cows stop producing for the winter.”
That was true enough. Good thing Captain Harris had been persuaded to be reasonable when he had declared there would be no grazing of domestic livestock in the park. If the Yellowstone Park Association could keep sheep on the mountain meadows to feed their guests, she was surely allowed her two cows and four horses.
Still, she put four of the little squares Alberta cut from the creamy butter in front of Danny and Lieutenant Prescott when they sat at the big worktable in the middle of the kitchen to eat.
He must have done what he’d promised, for now all of his head was wet and the collar of his military jacket looked damp, as if the water had dripped on it. He shoveled down Alberta’s soup so quickly he might have thought Kate intended to steal it from him.
Of course, Danny copied him.
“Easy,” Kate said, ruffling her son’s hair, so unlike hers in color and texture. “You can have more, you know.”
Danny nodded, soup running down his chin. “And apple pie for dessert. We’ll have pumpkin tomorrow. Alberta said so.”
“Now, there’s a feast,” Lieutenant Prescott said, spoon pausing.
“I helped,” Danny bragged. “I scooped out all that stringy stuff. The pumpkin seeds too. Alberta salted and toasted them. She’s going to put them in the oatmeal tomorrow for breakfast.”
“Makes me sad I won’t be here for breakfast,” Lieutenant Prescott said.
“You could be,” Kate offered. “I’ll have Alberta make extra. My guests should be done by eight. Bring your men at half past, and they can eat right before I show you around the geysers.”
Now, that was an offer too good to refuse. So, at a quarter past eight the next morning, his men mounted up.
All except Smith. Someone had to stay behind to guard the camp from scavengers, four-footed and two. To Will’s surprise, the cavalryman had volunteered.
“I have never been overly fond of oatmeal,” he’d said by way of an excuse.
Will couldn’t imagine anyone liking hardtack better, but they’d left the fellow making coffee and headed out.
The weather had been fine since they’d ridden into Yellowstone in mid-August. Today was no different. Sunlight seemed to want to linger like any other tourist. The sky was an endless blue over the spikes of pine as they rode into the yard of the hotel, steam from the geysers and pools rising to form their own clouds.
“All clear?” Will asked as Mrs. Tremaine and Danny came out onto the porch to greet them. The boy was as eager as always, a cowlick sticking up in his pale hair like a flag as if he’d already been out running. His mother looked more like she’d joined the Army—navy jacket over a navy skirt so long on one side she’d had to button it up on her hip.
“All my guests have breakfasted,” she reported. “Elijah will be taking the Cavell party north shortly. And the Wakefield and Hoffman stage came through for their group and carried away my other guests. The hotel is yours.” She spread her hand toward the door and stepped aside.
His men didn’t need another invitation. They hitched their mounts to the post and hurried up the stairs into the hotel. He caught Lercher gazing up at the beams in the salon and Franklin studying the layout with an appreciative eye. Waxworth and O’Reilly beat them to the tables, where the cook had bowls and spoons waiting.
“My, what fine gentlemen we have visiting today,” she said, lashes fluttering as she started ladling thick oatmeal into the bowls.
Someone giggled. Will glanced toward the door to the kitchen, where two young ladies and an older woman were peeking out at them. Waxworth and Franklin sat a little taller.
“Will you say the grace, Lieutenant?” Kate aske
d.
Hand on the silver spoon, he paused. His men were all watching him, spoons anywhere from stuck in the oatmeal to steaming in front of their open mouths. He looked to Waxworth.
“Private Waxworth, do the honors.”
The spoon plunked back into the bowl as Waxworth clasped his boney fingers together and aimed his pointed nose and gaze skyward.
“Heavenly Lord,” he said so loudly he might have thought God needed an ear trumpet, “thank you for this glorious meal, for the kind hands that prepared it, and the good soil that grew it. May it be a blessing to our bodies. Amen.”
An answering amen rumbled around the table, and spoons commenced flying.
Like everything else he’d consumed at the Geyser Gateway, the oatmeal was filling and tasty. Besides pumpkin seeds, the cook, who insisted they all call her Alberta, had thrown in walnuts and raisins and served it with heaping bowls of sugar. Lercher piled on eight spoonfuls alone. And he’d never seen his men drink so much coffee.
“I could make it this good,” Waxworth said, eying the china cup, “if I had a stove at my disposal.”
Somehow, Will doubted that.
Still, even with the number of bowls of oatmeal put away, he and his men were out front by nine with Mrs. Tremaine.
She had led a horse from the barn to join theirs, sidesaddle conspicuous on its back. “May I trouble one of you gentlemen for help?” she asked as she reached the porch.
Waxworth leapt into action, barely edging out O’Reilly to her side. He took the reins with one hand and swept her a bow with the other. Smirking at his comrade, the Irishman cupped his hands and bent.
“If you’d be putting your foot here, milady, I’ll boost you up.”
Waxworth glowered at him.
One hand on the saddle, Mrs. Tremaine slipped her foot into O’Reilly’s keeping, and he pushed her up and into place. She anchored her leg about the pommel and unhooked her long skirt to drape it over the side.
“Thank you both.” She looked to Will. “Lieutenant Prescott, perhaps you should introduce your men. It doesn’t seem right to shout ‘Ho, Private!’ every time I want their attention.”
“You can call us anything you like,” Waxworth assured her as she gathered her reins. “We’ll always come a-running.” That grin would have melted butter.