Nothing Short of Wondrous

by Regina Scott

  He shrugged. “Then I’m going fishing.” He stalked out of the room.

  Mrs. Pettijohn turned to Kate. “We shall borrow your pony cart and young fellow Caleb, and go out the bridle path to see the geysers to the east of us.”

  Miss Pringle clapped her hands. “Excellent notion! The guidebook says one is pink.”

  Kate made sure to warn them and Caleb of the potential dangers before sending them off. She and Danny were out on the porch, Danny jumping from one step to another, when Will rode in. As Kate set aside the broom she’d been using, her son froze on the middle stair.

  “Where’s Private Smith?” he asked as Will reined in. “I like him. He’s funny.”

  “Private Smith will be patrolling both morning and afternoon,” Will told him, dismounting. “I’m afraid you’ll have to make do with me.”

  Danny glanced at Kate. “Can I ride with Lieutenant Prescott?”

  “No one’s riding,” Kate said. “We’re walking.”

  Will held out the reins. “But you could ride my horse to the barn for me.”

  Danny’s eyes widened. “Can I, Ma?”

  His legs would never reach the stirrup cups, but the cavalry horse seemed well trained, and it was only a little distance. “All right,” Kate said. “We’ll wait for you.”

  Will lifted him up into the saddle and watched as his horse walked toward the outbuilding. “When did he become so fond of Smith?”

  When did I become so fond of you?

  Kate made herself answer his question. “Ever since we spent the night at Norris, apparently. Private Smith was kind to Danny.”

  “I wish I knew why.” He turned to Kate. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. Anyone with any sense could grow fond of Danny. It’s just that Smith tends to keep to himself. I’m not even sure Smith is his real name.”

  Kate frowned. “Doesn’t the Army generally know who they recruit?”

  “No,” he admitted. “He showed up at Fort Colville one day. Only Captain Harris seems to know his particulars. Being in the cavalry in Indian Territory isn’t the most sought-after position. We take debtors, criminals.”

  Kate stiffened. “You let a criminal near Danny?”

  “Not willingly,” he assured her. “And I don’t know that Smith is one.”

  “Are there other cavalrymen I should worry about?” she asked.

  He hesitated, and her heart sank. She could not imagine the clever Private Franklin or the big-boned Private Lercher as criminals. She couldn’t imagine any of them as criminals!

  Then he shook his head. “No. All my men are handpicked, even Smith. Most I’d trust with my life. I took Smith because I wanted to give him a chance to prove himself. Every man deserves that.”

  Normally, she would agree, but not when it came to influencing her son. Danny tended to mimic anyone he found interesting. She didn’t like thinking what he might pick up from a criminal. But Danny was running back from the barn, and she didn’t want to discuss the matter in front of him.

  Still, she couldn’t help thinking. She had welcomed these men to the park, to her kitchen. They’d be staying all winter. Did they pose a greater danger than to her reputation?

  Will followed Kate onto a narrow trail directly west of the hotel.

  “You can also reach the falls around the hillside to the south on the circuit road,” she said as they walked through the field toward the Firehole River. “But this is the best route from the inn and the main geyser area.”

  It was a pretty place, low grass waving in tufts against a bone-white soil. A weathered footbridge with a handrail on one side allowed them to cross the rushing waters of the river. Once they reached the other side, Danny took the lead, humming to himself. He glanced back over his shoulder. “Can we show him the big spring too, Ma?”

  “Bigger than what’s by the hotel?” Will asked.

  Danny turned to walk backward and spread his arms as wide as they could go. “Huge!”

  “Pay attention,” Kate ordered him, and he swung back around and loped forward.

  “If you look in the guidebook you brought,” Kate told Will as they skirted a hill covered in pine, “you’ll likely find something called the Grand Prismatic Spring. I’m not sure whether it falls in your jurisdiction or in the area patrolled by the detachment at Old Faithful.”

  He wasn’t either. “Popular stop for tourists?” he asked as they reached a bridle path leading south.

  “Not as much as Old Faithful, and not all stages stop there, but it should be protected too.”

  “I’ll work that out with the corporal in charge at Old Faithful.”

  Up ahead on the right, across the trickle she’d called Fairy Creek, the meadow lapped into a draw between two hills. “What’s in there?” Will asked.

  She turned her back on the space and nodded to their left. “It’s what’s over there that should concern you: a series of small lakes—Goose Lake, Feather Lake, and the Goslings.”

  Will chuckled. “Someone liked geese.”

  She glanced at him with a smile. “I’m not sure why. But they are a popular destination for those who like a good stroll.”

  They followed the western edge of Goose Lake, the murky waters dark and brooding. Danny sped up as they continued south. Will thought Kate might order him back, but she didn’t appear too concerned. Her gaze was bright, smile pleasant. Well, the grasslands did make it easy to keep an eye on the boy.

  “This way!” he called, stepping off the path to start up a hill dotted by pines.

  Will and Kate followed. The way was steep and slick with fallen needles. Will turned to help Kate. She passed him without comment.

  “What, are you part mountain goat?” he asked her back.

  Her laughter floated down to him. “Having trouble keeping up, Lieutenant?”

  “I’m in the cavalry, not the infantry,” he reminded her, but he managed to reach the top without slipping more than twice.

  “Look,” Danny said, pointing, as if Will could have missed the rainbow of colors below.

  Will’s first thought was that Danny was right. The formation was huge. Its silver-gray deposits spread out over yards below him. The center of the massive pool was a blue so deep it was nearly purple, melding into rings of lighter blue, green, and yellow. At the edge, plumes of orange streaked out like the rays of the sun. Smaller pools huddled around it, dwarfed by its magnificence. And the entire area gave off a curtain of steam that fluttered on the breeze.

  Will shook his head. “How does something like that come to be?”

  “Men of science travel through now and again,” Kate said, voice soft. “They talk about hot water and minerals and rocks reacting to each other. Doesn’t make this one whit less amazing.”

  “I want to throw a rock in it,” Danny said dreamily. “Right in the middle.”

  “Daniel Tobias Tremaine,” Kate scolded. “We do not throw anything in the thermal features.”

  He hung his head. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Will nudged his shoulder. “Maybe we could see whether the Firehole River needs a few more rocks some evening.”

  Danny looked to his mother. “Could we, Ma?”

  “The banks are lined with rocks that used to be in the river,” Kate acknowledged. “Putting them back in shouldn’t hurt anything.”

  Danny grinned.

  They descended the hill, all three of them sliding at times, and set off on the path once more.

  “Is that something all men grow up wanting to do?” Kate asked as Danny ranged ahead once more. “Throw rocks and sticks?”

  “Into things, over things, onto things,” Will said. “I’ve never known a man or boy who didn’t.”

  “No wonder we have to protect Yellowstone,” she muttered.

  “Now, you can’t tell me you never had the urge,” Will said, glancing her way. The walk had loosened her hair. The braid had come free of the bun and was hanging down her back, tendrils of black curling against her cheeks.

&nb
sp; “Never,” she said, nose in the air.

  “And you never stuck your finger in Alberta’s cooking either, I suppose.”

  Pink climbed in her cheeks. “Well, maybe once or twice.”

  “Thrown a snowball at someone?”

  She grinned at him. “Guess you’ll find out this winter.”

  All at once, he wished for snow.

  “Up here!” Danny called, and Kate and Will hastened their steps.

  The trail came out at the foot of a rough gray cliff. Steep hills covered in pine narrowed in on the bowl at the cliff’s base. Over the top tumbled a thin line of water, which plunged into a pool below. Behind the spray, the cliff had been eroded into a cave.

  Danny ran to stand in the mist, the silvery drops all but obscuring him.

  Kate stopped near the edge of the pool, and Will paused beside her, watching the water fall.

  “You can see why they named it Fairy Falls,” she said. “The water’s so fine and misty, not like at the Falls of the Yellowstone. Those have power. You can hear the roar a mile away. This has its own quiet beauty.”

  “So do you.” The words were out before he could think better of them, but he had no urge to call them back. Her eyes, as misty as the falls, widened as he bent his head toward hers.

  15

  Will was kissing her—softly, tenderly, as if she was impossibly precious. No one had ever kissed her that way before, full of wonder, awe. She wanted to bask in the moment, float in the feeling of bliss.

  “Ew,” Danny said. “You’re kissing.”

  Will broke away from her, cheeks reddening. But his gaze remained on hers, searching. He’d taken a risk, and he wasn’t sure how she’d react.

  Neither was she. She hadn’t invited his kiss, but she couldn’t regret such a marvel any more than she would regret a rainbow over the Lower Geyser Basin.

  Still, she had to say something, at least to Danny.

  “Men and women kiss to show their regard for each other,” she told her son where he stood beside the base of the waterfall. “I greatly admire Lieutenant Prescott. And he admires me.” She eyed Will.

  He nodded, still looking a bit thunderstruck. “A great deal.”

  “Oh.” Danny bent and hefted a rock at the edge of the pool. “Could I throw this in, Ma? Please?”

  “Very well,” Kate said.

  The rock sailed over the pool and plunked down into the shallow waters. Then Danny ran to the cliff and set about trying to wiggle in behind the waterfall.

  How quickly he forgot the kiss. A shame she couldn’t forget so easily. But then, did she really want to? Her lips still tingled. Her heart still sang.

  Will was rubbing the back of his neck with one hand, gaze now on the ground, as if as conflicted about what had just happened.

  “Forgive me.” His voice was barely audible over the splash of the waterfall. “I had no right.”

  “Do you want the right?” she asked.

  He dropped his hand and met her gaze. “It’s not that simple.”

  She could believe that. It wasn’t simple for her either. Some would have said she owed it to Toby to mourn longer than a year. Others would have urged her to grab the opportunity that had fallen into her lap. It wasn’t a bad thing to marry a cavalry officer. Danny could do with a father.

  A father who would stay by his side, not ride off to the next adventure.

  She raised her chin. “Don’t let it trouble you, Lieutenant. All this grandeur can go to anyone’s head.” She turned to eye the waterfall, then frowned. “Danny?”

  No one responded.

  Heart leaping into her throat, Kate rushed to the edge of the pool, looked left, right. “Danny! Danny, answer me!”

  “He was right here,” Will said, coming up beside her. He added his voice to hers. “Danny! Report!”

  From somewhere not too distant, she thought she heard a giggle. She could not find it in her heart to laugh along.

  “Daniel Tobias Tremaine!” she shouted. “Come out here right now!”

  Danny darted out from the recess under the falls so quickly the water splashed his head and shoulders. Thoroughly damp, he waded to her side.

  “You didn’t know where I was,” he said triumphantly. “That’s a really good hiding place.”

  Too good for her nerves, that was for sure. For one moment, all she could think about was another mangled body.

  “Yes, it was,” she said, willing her speeding heartbeat to slow. “But you must always come when I call, Danny. I worry too much otherwise.”

  “You don’t have to worry,” Danny said, bending to pick up another rock from the shore. “I’m smart, and I’m strong.”

  She wanted to hug him tight, pick him up and carry him all the way back to the safety of the hotel. She managed a smile for his sake. “You are smart and strong, but bad things can happen even to smart, strong people.”

  “That’s why you have a mother who watches over you,” Will said.

  Kate exhaled and inhaled slowly. “That’s right. We must look to friends and family to help us when we need them.”

  Danny smiled up at Will. “Like Lieutenant Prescott.”

  “Yes,” Kate said. “Like Lieutenant Prescott. Now, come along. It’s time to start back.”

  He let go of the rock, just far enough away from his slender body that it plopped into the pool. Boys. Men! Would she ever understand them?

  The walk back was even faster than the one out. Danny seemed as eager to reach the hotel as Kate, and Will strode along, glancing her way from time to time as if unsure what to say to her. At least she didn’t have to direct his gaze away from their special spot. They passed the entrance to the meadow without a remark, and she told herself to breathe easier.

  Impossible. Every time she looked at Will, she remembered the feel of those lips against hers, the warmth of his embrace, the tenderness in his eyes. She wanted to run toward him and away from him at the same time!

  He could well have felt the same way, for he distanced himself from her the moment the three of them crossed onto the geyser field in front of the hotel.

  Come on, Kate! You have to remember why you’re here, why he’s here. Do your duty.

  As Danny ran ahead, Kate caught Will’s arm. “Now that you know the way to Fairy Falls, you might check it and the Grand Prismatic Spring at least once a week.”

  “We will,” he promised, face so still it might have been carved of stone, “as soon as the rest of my men return.”

  Kate released him. “Very well, then.” She started past him, and now he moved to block her way.

  “Kate, I . . .” He stopped with a sigh. “I don’t know what to say about that kiss.”

  “Not much to be said,” Kate answered. “I understand. Neither of us is in a position to court. We both have responsibilities.”

  “Responsibilities, yes.” He seemed to cling to the word like a lifeline. “I just want you to know I don’t take such things lightly.”

  She cocked her head. “Do you mean responsibilities or the kiss?”

  He visibly swallowed. “Both.”

  Kate straightened. “Good to know, Lieutenant. I wouldn’t like to think you were trifling with my affections. You might find yourself near a geyser without a guide.”

  His smile inched into view. “I wouldn’t want that.”

  With a nod, she passed him for the hotel even as he headed for the barn and his horse. Perhaps they could put that kiss behind them. Perhaps things would be calmer from here.

  As if to disagree with her, Alberta came out onto the porch, door banging shut behind her.

  “Is it true?” she begged Kate, big hands wrapping themselves inside her apron. “We’re to host a fancy dinner for the Army?”

  Who kept starting these rumors?

  “I sent an invitation with Elijah to ask Lieutenant Kingman and his staff to dinner with us before he leaves for the season,” Kate told her. “This is his last summer in Yellowstone. But the dinner doesn’t have to be an
ything fancy.”

  Alberta let go of her apron and drew herself up. “Of course it must be fancy! He deserves no less. I remember all the times he and Mr. Tremaine sat in this very hotel, talking and laughing.” She sniffed, eyes filling. “It seems a long time since we heard such laughter.”

  Kate lifted her skirts and climbed to Alberta’s side. “I know, Alberta. I miss Toby too.”

  Alberta sniffed again. “When my Joe and Tommy never came home, the world seemed so dark and cold. Coming here helped. Then you and Mr. Tremaine and little Danny arrived, and I felt like I had a family again.”

  Kate hugged her, breathing in the scent of cinnamon and fresh-baked bread. “Me too.”

  Alberta hugged her back, arms like firm pillows. Then she pulled away, and her round face became more determined.

  “That’s another reason we need this dinner to be perfect,” she told Kate. “I want that ten-year lease as much as you do. We need everyone to understand the Geyser Gateway is the best.”

  Why hadn’t she thought of that? Lieutenant Kingman would have to take his leave of Captain Harris before quitting the park. He could recommend her for a ten-year lease. She had always welcomed the lieutenant. The dedicated engineer had been as bemused as Kate by her mercurial husband. This was her chance to impress him with all the inn had to offer. He’d take word to Captain Harris and his superiors in the Army Corps of Engineers. Her lease would be assured.

  “You’re right, Alberta,” Kate said, stepping back. “We must do our very utmost. If Lieutenant Kingman agrees to my invitation, we only have a short time to prepare. I suggested Friday.”

  Alberta pressed a hand to her chest. “Friday! That’s only two days away.”

  Kate put a hand on her shoulder. “We’ll gather everyone. We’ll make a plan.”

  “But Sarah and Ida just left with Elijah,” Alberta protested.

  “I know,” Kate commiserated. “But we can do this with Pansy’s and Caleb’s help. The table linens will need washing, ironing; the silver polishing.”

  “I’ll bring out the best crystal,” Alberta promised with a nod. “The pieces we save for wedding parties and anniversaries.” She raised her voice. “You’ll stick up for us, won’t you, Lieutenant?”