Praise for award-winning author Carla Kelly:

‘A powerful and wonderfully perceptive author.’

—New York Times bestselling author Mary Jo Putney

‘It is always a joy to read a Carla Kelly love story.

Always original, always superb, Ms Kelly’s work is a timeless delight for discerning readers.’

—RT Book Reviews

‘Kelly has the rare ability to create realistic yet sympathetic characters that linger in the mind. One of the most respected … Regency writers.’

—Library Journal

‘These two have seen each other at their best and at their worst. Have been tried and tested in the flames yet come out stronger for it.

I certainly enjoyed the trip …’

—Dear Author on MARRYING THE ROYAL MARINE

‘Taking her impetus from Robinson Crusoe and the film Castaway, Kelly crafts the story of a shipwreck survivor readjusting to civilisation … Kelly presents a clear portrait of the mores and prejudices of the era, and demonstrates how to navigate through society’s labyrinth with intelligent, sharp repartee. This alone is worth the price of the book.’ —RT Book Reviews on BEAU CRUSOE

The Major went inside, and there was Susanna Hopkins at the ticket window. He had no doubt it was her: medium height, blonde hair. He couldn’t discern her figure because of her overcoat, but she looked surprisingly tidy, considering her days on the train from Pennsylvania.

Interested, he watched her. The station master pointed to the fare chart. Joe watched as she took another look into her wallet. The station master shrugged his shoulders, then gestured for her to move aside. She sat on the bench by the potbellied stove.

He saw her face when she turned around and it was a sweet face, heart-shaped. Her blonde hair had a dark blaze by her temple. Gold-rimmed spectacles were perched on her nose, but they could not hide the bleakness in her eyes. He knew he was looking at a fearful woman.

Joseph Randolph’s heart went out to the woman who sat, terrified, on a bench in the dirty stage depot. She may be divorced, but what drives a woman to this? he wondered, even as he loosened the muffler about his neck, removed his hat, and started to unbutton his greatcoat. Whatever her marital woes, Mrs Susanna Hopkins looked like she needed good news.

About the Author

CARLA KELLY has been writing award-winning novels for years—stories set in the British Isles, Spain, and army garrisons during the Indian Wars. Her speciality in the Regency genre is writing about ordinary people, not just lords and ladies. Carla has worked as a university professor, a ranger in the National Park Service, and recently as a staff writer and columnist for a small daily newspaper in Valley City, North Dakota. Her husband is director of theatre at Valley City State University. She has five interesting children, a fondness for cowboy songs, and too many box elder beetles in the autumn.

Novels by the same author:

BEAU CRUSOE

CHRISTMAS PROMISE

(part of Regency Christmas Gifts anthology)

MARRYING THE CAPTAIN* THE SURGEON’S LADY* MARRYING THE ROYAL MARINE* MARRIAGE OF MERCY THE ADMIRAL’S PENNILESS BRIDE

*linked by character

Did you know that some of these novels are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

Her Hesitant

Heart

Carla Kelly

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Captain Andrew and Elizabeth Burt, Ninth Infantry.

Prologue

December 31, 1875

Dearest Tommy,

I am somewhere in Nebraska. I am told by other travelers on the Overland Express that when the sun comes up we will see Chimney Rock, that prominent landmark to settlers and gold seekers years ago.

Be diligent in your studies. It is my fondest wish that you will do well in your schooling and be a blessing to all who know you.

I think of you constantly and would give the earth to see you. I wish you well with all my heart.

Love,

Mama

On a separate sheet she wrote,

Frederick,

If you have commandeered this letter like all the others, rest assured that I will continue to write to Thomas, even when I arrive at Fort Laramie. Should some spark of sympathy enter your heart, send his letters to me, care of Captain Daniel Reese, Company D, Second Cavalry, Fort Laramie, Wyoming Territory.

Please, Frederick!

Susanna

Susanna Hopkins sealed the letter, and tried to make herself comfortable. Her back ached from sitting upright since she had boarded the Pennsylvania Central some days ago. Her coach ticket had been a gift from her uncle. He had not mentioned a Pullman berth and she had been too shy to ask.

Susanna knew her relatives were relieved to send her to a place so distant that it wasn’t even a state yet. She knew her aunt was overjoyed to have her gone from the house in Shippensburg, where she had fled from Carlisle for refuge more than a year ago. Now her aunt could invite her friends into her home again, without the presence of an embarrassing niece.

Susanna waited for the steward to turn out the lamps. Apparently the Union Pacific felt that if its less well-heeled clients could not afford a sleeper car, they should sit in the dark, contemplating the sin of poverty.

The trip had been pleasant enough, except for her hunger. Quick stops at cook shacks along the route were designed for aggressive men who snatched pie and coffee before the train whistle blew. The last stop had found her with only a piece of corn bread. Just as well. She had no idea how much the Cheyenne-Deadwood stage would cost, once she reached Cheyenne, and she needed to save her money.

Susanna regarded her reflection in the glass. Her eyes were only the barest outline, but she removed her spectacles and fingered the bone under her left eye, seeking out the ridge where the occipital bone had almost reconnected, leaving her with a little droop.

“You’re lucky to have an eye, Mrs. Hopkins,” her physician had told her, prescribing a mild correction to the lens. With the lights out, she would be able to rest her eyes. It was treatment the doctor would have ordered, and apparently the Union Pacific agreed.

Susanna turned her attention to the full moon. As her eyes accustomed themselves to the dark, she saw large, dark shapes in the near distance. She touched her cheek. I could have dodged his hand, she told herself for the hundredth time. It was the sight of Tommy, rushing to grab his father’s upraised hand, that had surprised her. Tommy, you should have stayed in bed! The blow had driven her face against the mantelpiece.

She closed her eyes against the memory of her son’s efforts to help her, and then his cries of protest as his father carried him upstairs. It had been her last glimpse of her son. Some instinct had warned her that to remain this time would be to die.

“Pardon me, ma’am.”

“Y-yes?”

“If you have two cents, I’ll take that letter to the mail car,” the porter whispered.

She handed two pennies and her letter to the porter. He came back later with a blanket and pillow.

“I cannot afford those.”

“No one’s using them” was all he said.

She nodded, still surprised at unexpected kindness.

“Ma’am …”

“Yes?”

“Happy New Year.”

Chapter One

Emily Reese, not the brightest lady, had been unable to furnish Major Joseph Randolph, Fort Laramie’s post surgeon, with a working description of Susanna Hopkins, her older cousin. “I think she is thirty-two,” Emily had said. “Old, anyway.”

Joe smiled at that. “I doubt traveling females will be thrilled if I ask if they are thirty-two,” he had told her. “Give me a better description, Emily. She’s your cousin.”

He knew her well enough to call her Emily. Almost five years ago he had delivered her son, Stanley, in an army ambulance between garrisons. Emily Reese had been neither his best patient nor his worst one.

Emily obliged with a better description. “She is of medium height, average figure, and her hair is blond.”

She became serious quickly. “I appreciate this, Major,” she told him. “If you can take her in the ambulance, so much the better. She does not have much money.” She thought a moment, then whispered, “Susanna is divorced.”

“That is not my business,” Joe said.

“You’re a surgeon,” she countered. “Anything I tell you is confidential.”

He sighed, wondering how Emily Reese’s husband managed to keep from drinking himself to death. Some men must prefer stupid wives. Come to think of it, Captain Daniel Reese wasn’t the brightest company commander in the army. “Emily, I’m not a priest. I keep medical matters confidential.”

She couldn’t seem to stop. “She abandoned her son. I can’t imagine that, but she is a relative, and my parents had to help her.”

“I’m certain she had her reasons,” Joe replied. Good God, what kind of relative would blab such a scandal? he asked himself. They sound as horrible as mine. “I hope you won’t reveal this to anyone else,” he said, not sure how much force to apply to a scold. “You know what gossips army people are.”

“Should I make up a story?”

“Say nothing. All anyone wants is a teacher.”

“I know! I will say she is a war widow!”

Joe sighed. “Emily, don’t. Can’t you imagine how distressed the veterans would feel about such a lie? We saw our friends die from Bull Run to Appomattox Court House! Please, please don’t.”

Joe hadn’t minded the diversion of looking for a lady on the train. General court-martial duty in Cheyenne right before Christmas was never pleasant, unless those presiding thought to catch the eastbound Overland Express for home. He probably wouldn’t have been involved in this unshirkable army duty, except that one of the defendants was a major, and there must be majors and above weighing him in the balance.

Joe had no plans. His former home was a plantation west of Richmond and his two widowed sisters residing there had long ago turned his portrait to the wall, and returned his letters, except the one containing a bank draft for taxes on the place. No wonder I am a cynic, Joe told himself on more than one occasion.

Unexpectedly, the court-martial had dragged on much longer than anticipated, and the officer board watched its holiday plans turn to gall and wormwood. The defendants—officers who should have been cashiered years ago—had argued long and eloquently to avoid removal from the army.

The matter had ground on, each officer on the board growing surly as the likelihood of Christmas at home vanished. To no one’s surprise, revenge came as both defendants were cashiered.

Major Walters, a single fellow like himself, was in no hurry to return to dreary Fort Fetterman. The officers’ mess at Fort Russell, near Cheyenne, was better and Joe had time to meet the westbound train in Cheyenne that afternoon.

But there was no Susanna Hopkins. He rode the three miles back to Russell, arriving in time to watch Walters dress in his better uniform for the evening’s New Year’s festivities.

Immune to parties, Joe walked to the post hospital. It wasn’t his hospital, but he knew the surgeon well. Sitting close to the heating stove, they toasted the season and swapped gory stories from the late war until the hospital steward came on duty in the morning.

As a consequence, Joe was late to the depot; the train had already departed. Joe directed the ambulance driver to the Cheyenne-Deadwood Stage depot, a noisome place with sawdust on the floor to absorb tobacco juice and spittle.

The major went inside, and there was Susanna Hopkins at the ticket window. He had no doubt it was her: medium height, blond hair. He couldn’t discern her figure because of her overcoat, but she looked surprisingly tidy, considering her days on the train from Pennsylvania.

Interested, he watched her. The stationmaster pointed to the fare chart. Joe watched as she took another look into her wallet. The stationmaster shrugged his shoulders, then gestured for her to move aside. She sat on the bench by the potbellied stove.

Joe saw her face when she turned around, and it was a sweet face, heart-shaped. Her blond hair had a dark blaze by her temple. Gold-rimmed spectacles perched on her nose, but they could not hide the bleakness in her eyes. He knew he was looking at a fearful woman.

Joseph Randolph’s heart went out to the woman who sat, terrified, on a bench in the dirty stage depot. She may be divorced, but what drives a woman to this? he wondered, even as he loosened the muffler about his neck, removed his hat and started to unbutton his greatcoat. Whatever her marital woes, Mrs. Susanna Hopkins looked like she needed good news.

Susanna felt tears behind her eyelids. She raised her spectacles and pressed her fingers hard against the bridge of her nose to stop the tears. Crying in front of strangers would only lower her further into that class of pitiful women without purpose or goal. I am not there yet, she reminded herself.

She had passed a Western Union office on her short walk from the depot to the stage station. Perhaps she could wire Emily at Fort Laramie and explain her plight. Maybe she could leave her luggage at Western Union. Surely some establishment needed a temporary dishwasher, or even a cook.

If not that, perhaps she could find a church, and pour out her troubles to a minister. Her optimism faded. If she had to tell her whole story to a minister before he would help her, she would fail. Her own minister in Carlisle had counseled her to return to the man who had abused her. When she refused, he had shown her the door without another word.

“Mrs. Susanna Hopkins?”

Startled, she looked up at a tall man in uniform. His greatcoat was unbuttoned, and she saw gold braid and green trim on his collar. She glanced at his face and then looked away, shy, even though her brief glance took in a kind face. “Do … do I know you?” she stammered.

“No, ma’am, you don’t, but I have been sent by Mrs. Emily Reese. She said you were medium height and blonde, and I’ve been looking.”

She took a deep breath. “You’re from Fort Laramie?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He gestured to the bench. “May I sit?”

“Of course, uh, Captain …” She paused, not sure of his rank.

“Major, ma’am, Major Joseph Randolph, with the Army Medical Corps.”

They shook hands. Before she could stop herself, Susanna blurted out, “I’m three dollars short of the fare for the Cheyenne-Deadwood Stage.”

“It happens,” he told her, unperturbed.

He was a big, comfortable-looking man, his hair dark but graying. Fine lines had etched themselves around his eyes and mouth, probably from the sun and wind. Susanna thought his eyes were brown, but she gave him only a glance.

“When Emily heard I was to be in Fort Russell, she thought I could spare you a trip on the Shy-Dead.”

“How kind of you!” She stopped, embarrassed.

She could tell her exclamation startled him. “It’s easy, Mrs. Hopkins, if you don’t mind keeping company with men in an ambulance.”

“An ambulance?” she asked doubtfully. “Someone is ill?”

“We travel that way in the winter, when we can.”

He had a distinct Southern drawl, stringing out his words in a leisurely way, and saying “ah” instead of “I,” and “own” instead of “on.” She hadn’t thought to hear a Southern accent from a man in a blue uniform.

“I was planning to meet the train, but New Year’s interfered,” he said.

She had to smile at that artless declaration. “Too much good cheer?”

He smiled back. “Medicinal spirits! Fort Russell’s post surgeon and I refought Chattanooga and Franklin, and before I knew it, I was late. We’re leaving tomorrow morning, ma’am. There’s room for you.”

“I’m obliged,” she said. “I’ll be ready.” She stood up, as though to dismiss him, unsure of herself.

He stood, too. “I can’t just leave you here until tomorrow morning,” he told her. “I’ll take you to a hotel.”

She shook her head. “I’ll be fine.” She looked around at men sitting on benches, a cowboy collapsed and drunk in the corner, and an old fellow muttering to himself by the water bucket.

“A modest hotel,” he insisted.

She could tell he wasn’t going to leave her there. “Quite modest, Major Randolph,” she replied.

“Cheyenne has only modest hotels,” he informed her. “There is a pathetic restaurant close by, and we’ll stop there, too.”

“That isn’t necess—”

“I’m hungry, Mrs. Hopkins,” he said. “So is my driver. Be my guest?” He peered at her kindly. “Don’t argue.”

“Very well,” she said quietly.

“Excellent,” he said, as he buttoned his greatcoat and put on his hat. “You’ll find it a relief from those cook shacks along the UP route.”

“I never got close enough to the counter,” she said, then stopped, embarrassed.

“In two days?” the major exclaimed. “Mrs. Hopkins, you are probably hungry enough to chew off my left leg.”

She had the good sense to capitulate. “I am famished, but not quite that hungry!”

He picked up both of her bags. “This all your luggage?” he asked.

“I left a portmanteau at the depot.”

“Then we’ll get it.”

He helped her into the boxy-looking wagon with the straight canvas sides. The vehicle was unlike any other she had ever ridden in, with leather seats along each side, and a small heating stove. “This is for wounded people?” she asked, after he got in and seated himself opposite her.

He nodded. “You can take out the seats and stack four litters in here. Wives and children in the garrison generally travel this way.”

The major fell silent then and she was content not to make conversation with someone she barely knew. At the depot, the private retrieved her portmanteau and stowed it beside her other luggage in the rear of the ambulance. She was soon seated in the café with the major, the private having found a table in the adjoining bar.

She ordered soup and crackers. The major overruled her and chose a complete dinner for her. “You’re my guest,” he reminded her, “and my guests eat more than that, Mrs. Hopkins.”

She was too hungry to argue. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. How would it look if you starved while in my company? The Medical Corps would rip off my oak leaf clusters and kick me down to hospital steward.”

He left her at the Range Hotel, but not without making sure the clerk put her in a room between two families. “This town’s just a rung up from Dante’s inferno. Never hurts to be careful,” he told her.

She gave him the same startled look that had puzzled him in the stage station, but he understood now—Susanna Hopkins was unused to kindness.

He would gladly have paid for her room, and she must have known that. Before he could say anything to the desk clerk, she took out the money she must have reserved for the stage, and laid it on the counter. She hesitated for a moment.

She kept her voice low. “Major, do I pay something for my transportation?”

“No, ma’am, that’s courtesy of the U.S. Army.”

“How kind,” she said, and returned to the desk clerk. Joe was struck again at her wonder, as though good fortune had not been her friend, or even a nodding acquaintance recently.

He reflected on that all the way back to Fort Russell. He had learned from childhood that women were to be protected and cherished. Hard service in the war had showed him the other side of that coin, when he saw too many thin, tight-lipped women, unfamiliar with kindness. Susanna Hopkins had that same wary look, and he wondered why.

Chapter Two

Susanna waited in the lobby the following morning. Breakfast had been amazingly cheap: a bowl of porridge and coffee for a dime.

The major arrived before the sun rose, wide-awake this time. “You’re a prompt one, Mrs. Hopkins,” he told her.

A glance from the major sent the desk clerk hurrying to carry her luggage to the ambulance. Susanna let the major help her into the vehicle, which was already warm. Bundled in overcoats, two other officers nodded to her.

There was space next to one of the men, but someone had left a book there. The only other seat was a rocking chair—close to the little stove—that had been anchored to the wagon floor and covered with a blanket.

“That’s for you,” the major said.

“But …”

“For you,” he repeated. “Let us come to a right understanding. We take good care of the ladies in the army.”

The other men nodded. “They’re scarce,” said one about Major Randolph’s age.

Susanna seated herself on the rocking chair, grateful for the warmth.

“Let me introduce you, Mrs. Hopkins,” Major Randolph said. “Major Walters, who understands the scarcity of ladies, is from Fort Fetterman.”

The officer tipped his hat to her. The surgeon indicated the other man. “Captain Dunklin is from Fort Laramie. This is Mrs. Hopkins, gentlemen.”

“For God’s sake, close the door,” Captain Dunklin demanded.

Major Randolph closed the door behind him and latched it. He picked up his book and took his seat, and she heard the driver chirrup to the mules.

Susanna pulled the blanket close around her. She glanced at Major Randolph, who was staring at her with a frown. She looked at him, then realized he was staring at the blanket. She stared at it, too, wondering.

“Mrs. Hopkins?”

She looked at Major Walters. “Your blanket is too close to that stove,” he whispered.

She looked. The blanket was not close to the stove, but she pulled it to her anyway. “Better?”

“Perfect.”

She glanced again at Major Randolph, who sat back with a relieved expression on his face. I don’t understand what just happened, she thought. I should say something. “Captain, uh … excuse me ….”

“Dunklin,” he offered, as if relieved to break the charged silence.

“Captain Dunklin, you have children who will be attending school?” She glanced at Major Randolph, who stared straight ahead, as if seeing something no one else saw. In another moment, he settled back with a sigh.

“I have one son, aged nine. High time he went to school.”

She couldn’t hide her surprise. “My cousin wrote that there is a school already.”

“Yes, one run by the private.”

Susanna heard the disdain in his voice.

“The army requires that children of enlisted men must be educated, but officers’ children are merely invited,” Major Randolph explained.

“Not required?”

“No, ma’am,” he said. “Strange to you?”

“A little. Surely an officer’s child could learn something from a private.”

“We try not to mingle,” Dunklin said. “Joe, you’d understand if you had children.”

Susanna could tell from the post surgeon’s expression that he understood no such thing. I should think any school would be better than no school, she thought. Captain Dunklin was already reminding her of Frederick, because he seemed so certain that he was right. “Probably the private does his best,” she said, defending her profession.

“He does,” the surgeon said. “Private Benedict has eleven pupils now, all ages.” He must have noticed her expression of interest. “I head the post administrative council, and one of my responsibilities is the school.”

“Is there a schoolhouse?”

“No. They meet in a room in the commissary storehouse.”

“Between the salt pork and the hardtack,” Dunklin interjected. He laughed, but no one joined him.

From the look the post surgeon exchanged with Major Walters, Susanna suspected Dunklin was not a universal favorite.

The silence felt heavy again, but Dunklin filled it. “Where are you from, Mrs. Hopkins? Your cousin mentioned Pennsylvania.”

“Shippensburg, originally,” she said, afraid again. Major Randolph glanced at her. It was the smallest glance, but some sixth sense, honed to sharpness by years of fear, told her he knew more.

“My wife is from Carlisle!” Dunklin exclaimed. “She won’t waste a moment in making your acquaintance.”

Please, no, Susanna thought in a panic. “I … I didn’t get out much in society,” she stammered.

Dunklin nodded, his expression serious. “Your cousin told us of your loss. Too many ladies are war widows.”

Her heart plummeted into her stomach. She wondered what story her cousin had started, in an attempt to make her more palatable to the people of Fort Laramie. Suddenly the twenty miles between Shippensburg and Carlisle seemed no longer than a block.

“Mrs. Hopkins?” Major Walters asked, concerned.

“I shouldn’t have brought it up,” Dunklin said.

“No, it’s just …” She stopped. Do I explain myself to these men? she thought in desperation. Do I say nothing? She sat there in misery, trapped. “Don’t worry, Captain Dunklin,” she said, becoming an unwilling party to a lie. “I am resigned to my lot.”

Dunklin nodded. He placed a board on his knees, took out a deck of cards and was soon deep in solitaire.

Major Randolph regarded her, and she realized with a shock that he knew she lied. What had Emily done? I must explain to him at the first opportunity, Susanna told herself. Drat Captain Dunklin for having a wife from Carlisle.

They stopped midmorning, which felt like an answer to prayer. For the past hour she had been wondering how she could delicately phrase the suggestion that they stop for personal purposes. And if they did stop, what then? A glance through the canvas flap revealed no shielding trees or even shrubs.

Without a word, the men left the ambulance. A shift of weight told her that the driver had followed them. Major Randolph was the last man out. Without a word, he lifted the seat where Captain Dunklin had been sitting, nodded to her and left. Speechless with embarrassment, she stood up and looked down at a hole and the snowy ground beneath. “That’s clever,” she murmured.

She peeked out the canvas flap to make sure no one stood nearby. There they were, standing off the road, their backs to her. By the time they returned to the ambulance, the seat was down again, and she had returned to her chair.

“We’re stopping tonight at Lodgepole Creek stage station,” Major Randolph informed her as they started again. “I have a little errand of mercy, a small patient.”

They stopped at a roadhouse for luncheon, which turned out to be a bowl of greasy stew and a roll amazing in its magnitude and excellence.

“This joint is famous for the rolls, but you don’t get one unless you suffer the penance of the stew,” Major Randolph joked.

Susanna ate quickly and excused herself, wishing for solitude, even if solitude meant cold. She was scarcely out the door when she heard someone behind her. She turned around, dreading to see the post surgeon, but it was Major Walters.

“It’s too warm in there,” she said.

The major extended his arm, so she had no choice but to tuck her arm in his. “Let’s walk.”

She let him lead her away from the roadhouse toward a line of trees, stopping by a frozen stream.

“Does it ever warm up?” she asked.

“With a vengeance,” he assured her. “One day it’s like this, then everything starts to drip and thaw.”

They stared down at the stream, where Susanna thought she could see the shadows of fish. She pointed to them. Major Walters nodded. “Everything’s just waiting for better days.”

So am I, she thought.

Major Walters seemed in no hurry to turn back. Hesitant, she said, “Major, I have to ask …. Why did Major Randolph seem so intent on that blanket and the stove? It wasn’t close.”

“No, but that doesn’t matter to Joe,” the major said, starting back now. “As you might have noticed from his accent, Joe is from Virginia.”

She nodded.

“He was part of the Medical Corps before the war, and stayed in when others went to the Confederacy. Good surgeon, from all accounts.” Walters sighed. “A pity he couldn’t save the one person he loved.”

The major stopped, even though the other officers had left the roadhouse and were looking in their direction.

“He met Melissa Rhoades in Washington—her father was a congressman from Ohio—and they married after the war. He continued in federal service.” They started walking again. “On the regiment’s march to Fort McKavett in Texas, Melissa’s skirt brushed too close to a cooking fire.”

“God,” Susanna whispered.

Major Walters lowered his voice. “She suffered agonies for nearly a day, and there wasn’t a thing he could do to help her.” The major gave her a wry smile. “That’s why he gets concerned when any woman is close to a fire.”

Susanna nodded. “He hasn’t remarried?”

“No. Perhaps ten years hasn’t been enough to erase that sight from his mind.” Walters shook his head. “I shouldn’t dredge up sad memories of the war for you, Mrs. Hopkins. My apologies.”

Aghast that her cousin’s lie was sinking her deeper into falsehood, Susanna held her breath, then let it out slowly. To her shame and confusion, her kind escort took her silence as agreement.

Major Randolph stood by the ambulance, looking at her with a frown. He knows I am a liar, she thought miserably. She looked at the roadhouse, and back down the snowy track that led to Cheyenne. There was nowhere to run.

Joe stared at his book for much of the afternoon as the ambulance trundled forward, reading and then rereading each page until it made no sense. What he really wanted to do was reassure Mrs. Hopkins.

He hadn’t mistaken the fright in her pretty eyes. She seemed to sense that he knew more than the others. He had to assure her that her secret was safe with him.

He watched the clouds over the bluffs, threatening snow but going nowhere, much like his own life. He dutifully returned to his book, but his mind was on Susanna Hopkins.

She was pretty—maybe some seven or eight years younger than he was. What intrigued him the most were her eyes, large and brown behind her spectacles. He wanted to look closer out of professional interest, because one eye appeared slightly sunken, as though the occipital bone was damaged.

He knew he needed to put her mind at ease. His opportunity came when they stopped at Lodgepole Creek stage station. He reached for his medical saddlebag as the other men left the ambulance.

“Mrs. Hopkins, come along with me. I delivered a premature baby four weeks ago, on our way to Cheyenne.”

Before he allowed her time to consider the matter, he closed the door after the others, and the private in the wagon box clucked to the horses. She sat there in silence. It made him sad to think how hard she worked to keep her composure.

“We’re only going a short way. Jonathan is the mixed-blood son of the man who runs the stage station, and Betty is Cheyenne.”

A month ago, he had been yanked away from supper at the stage station when the owner recognized him as a surgeon. A few hurried words, a grab for his medical bags and they were on horse-back to the cabin. He owed the successful outcome more to Betty’s persistence than any skill of his.

When the ambulance stopped, Joe helped Mrs. Hopkins out. The door to the cabin was already open, with the young father motioning to him, all smiles. Inside, Joe sighed with relief to see the baby in a padded apple crate, warm as it rested by the open oven door. Mrs. Hopkins went to the woodstove to watch the infant. She held out one finger and the baby latched on to it.

“Since he was so small, I told them to keep him warm,” Joe said. “He appears to be thriving. What did you name him, Betty?”

Her husband put his hand on Betty’s shoulder. “We were waiting for you to come back. What’s your name?”

“Joseph,” he said, touched.

“Joseph, then,” Jonathan said. “What about a middle name? Does this kind lady have a favorite name?”

“Thomas,” Mrs. Hopkins said.

The Cheyenne woman nodded and handed the baby to Mrs. Hopkins, who took him in her arms. Joe watched in appreciation as she put the baby to her shoulder with practiced ease. She moved until the infant’s head was cradled in that comfortable space in the hollow of her shoulder that all mothers seemed to know about.

Mrs. Hopkins rubbed her cheek against the baby’s dark hair, then handed him over when Joe nodded. He ran practiced hands over the small body, then held him up to listen to the steady rhythm of his heart.

Joe’s prescription was simple. “Keep Joey warm by the oven for a little longer, maybe until it warms up or until he gains another pound or two.” He nodded to the parents. “You’re doing fine.”

The father put his son back in the apple crate. Joe ushered Mrs. Hopkins out the door. He looked at the ambulance and then at the stage station in the near distance.

“Private, go ahead. We’ll walk.”

He didn’t dare look at Mrs. Hopkins, but he could feel her tension. There was that feeling she was weighing her options and finding none.

“It’s not far.”

He started walking, hoping she would come along, but knowing she had no choice. After walking a few feet, he heard her footsteps and he let out the breath he had been holding, and wondered why it mattered to him.

He eased casually into what he had to say. “Mrs. Hopkins, who is Thomas?”

He heard the tears in her voice.

“My son.”

Chapter Three

Somehow, Susanna hadn’t expected that question. Better to forge ahead, even if her teaching career at Fort Laramie ended in the next five minutes.

“Major Randolph, I think my cousin told you that I am divorced. I have a son, name of Tommy, who is in the custody of my former husband. There was nothing I could do. And when Captain Dunklin assumed that …”

“Wait.” The major took her arm, and she needed all her resolve not to draw back from him in fright. “Just sit down on this stump a minute.”

He increased the pressure on her arm, then he stopped suddenly and released her. Susanna remained upright, unsure.

“I’m not going to force you to sit if you don’t want to,” Major Randolph said.

She heard the apology in his voice, which also baffled her. No one in recent memory had apologized to her. She wasn’t even sure she liked it.

“I couldn’t help noticing that look you gave me when I agreed with Captain Dunklin that I was a widow,” she said. “It was a lie and you know it. Please believe me. I did not start that lie.”

“I know you didn’t. I heard the beginning of that pernicious fable, and I thought it was a foolish idea. The fault lies with your cousin.”

Susanna sat down. “Why would Emily do that? All I ever said in my letter to Colonel Bradley is that I was Mrs. Susanna Hopkins, and available to teach.”

The cold from the stump defeated her and she stood up. She looked toward the roadhouse, wanting the warmth, but not wanting more questions from Captain Dunklin.

“If we walk slowly, we won’t freeze,” the major joked. “Why would she do that?” he repeated. “Let me tell you something about army society. It is close-knit, snobbish and feeds on gossip. There is an unhealthy tendency to hold grudges.”

“That sounds as bad as Unity Methodist Church back home,” Susanna murmured.

The major threw back his head and laughed. “It’s this way—the army unit is a regiment, which travels together when it can, but generally finds itself spread over a large geographic area. Many a promising career has withered and died on a two-company post. I could include my own career, I suppose, but I like what I do.”

She didn’t know how it happened, but the major had tucked her arm through his as they strolled along.

“I was a state regimental surgeon during the late war, on loan from the regulars,” he said. “The Medical Department has placed me in the Department of the Platte. There are three companies of the Second Cavalry at Fort Laramie, plus more companies of the Ninth Infantry.”

“You are everyone’s surgeon?”

“I am. The number of surgeons varies. One surgeon, the estimable Captain Hartsuff, is on detached duty at Fort Fetterman, and the contract surgeon—he’s a civilian—is hoping for furlough as soon as I return to Fort Laramie. He’ll be lucky to get it. Contract surgeons have less seniority than earthworms.”

Susanna smiled at that.

“I tend to anyone’s needs—from the garrison, to teamsters, to sporting ladies at the nearest cathouse, to any Indian brave enough to try white man’s medicine.”

He peered at her, and she saw nothing but kindness in his expression.

“But this surgeon is digressing,” he said. “Fort Laramie—a run-down old post—is full of social climbers, backbiters and talebearers. That’s what happens when people live in close quarters and know each other’s virtues and defects.”

She couldn’t help her sigh.

“Yes, it’s daunting. They are a censorious bunch.” He glanced at her again. “If you just do your job, you should brush through this awkwardness with Captain Dunklin.”

“I’m an expert at keeping my head down,” she assured her escort. “But the captain worries me.”

“Dunklin is a tedious bore,” the post surgeon told her. “Let me engage him in conversation so you can escape to your room, which I doubt will be anything fancier than a blanket serving as a sort of amateur wall. A warning—we all snore.”

Major Randolph was as good as his word. She took a bowl of stew from the kitchen to her blanketed-off corner of the sleeping room, while Major Randolph, an efficient decoy, chatted with Captain Dunklin.

Her tiny corner was frigid, the small window opaque with ice, the logs rimed with frost. Huddled on the bed, she drank her soup, which cooled off quickly.

She debated about removing her clothes, then decided against anything beyond her shoes and dress. She drew herself into a ball, her arms wrapped around her knees, wishing for warmth.

There was a gap in the blanket wall and she looked into the main room at Major Randolph’s profile. He was reading now, looking up occasionally to add his mite to the conversation between the other officers. He had an elegant mustache, which he tugged on as he read. She could see no obvious military bearing there; he looked like a man built more for comfort than warfare. He looked like someone she could talk to.

They observed rank even in bed on the men’s side of the curtain: two majors in one bed, and Captain Dunklin in the smaller bed. The two privates who took turns driving the ambulance rolled in their blankets and lay down in front of the cookstove, which looked to Joe like the warmest place in the roadhouse. He hoped Dunklin was cold, sleeping by himself.

John Walters was soon asleep beside him. Joe closed his eyes and did what he always did before sleep came. Starting with South Mountain in 1862, when he had been a new surgeon, he performed a mental inventory of his hardest cases. If he was tired, he never got much beyond South Mountain, because it had been the worst, for reasons that continued to plague him.

The cases that stood out were the ones where he still questioned his decisions. For years, he had wondered if he was the only surgeon who did that. Just last year, he had asked Al Hartsuff if he ever rethought his Civil War cases. Al nodded, drank a little deeper and replied, “All the livelong day, Joe.”

On a bad night, he rethought the whole war. On the worst nights, he relived the death of his wife, as her skirts caught fire on a windy evening by a campfire, and she blazed like a torch. No amount of rethinking ever changed that outcome. Her screams had echoed in his head for years.

He didn’t get that far tonight; he had Susanna Hopkins to thank. After all his companions started snoring, she must have felt secure enough to cry, knowing she would not be heard.

He was on the side of the bed closest to her flimsy partition. First he heard deep gulps, as though she tried to subdue her tears. As he listened, he heard muffled weeping.

All he knew of Susanna Hopkins was that she was divorced and her son taken from her. He knew she was a lady looking for a second chance. He listened to her, wondering how to best alleviate her suffering. Medically, he had no reason to throw back his covers, pick up his greatcoat and tiptoe around the partition, but he did it anyway.

“You’re probably cold,” he whispered as he lowered the overcoat on her bed. She had gathered herself into a tight little ball—whether from fear or cold, he had no idea.

“Go to sleep,” he whispered. “I’m of the opinion that most things generally turn out for the best.”

Joe tiptoed back to his side of the partition and lay down again. He was warm enough, because Walters radiated body heat. Joe closed his eyes, listening. Soon he heard a small sigh from the other side of the blanket, which told him she was warmer now. He remembered that Melissa used to sigh like that, when she was tucked close to him and content.

For a change, the memory of Melissa soothed him to sleep. I miss you, M’liss, he thought.

Two more days and they arrived at Fort Laramie, not a minute too soon for Dr. Randolph. Ignoring the startled expression from Major Walters, Joe had kept up a running commentary with Captain Dunklin any time the man had so much as looked in Susanna Hopkins’s direction to make a comment.

Joe knew Major Walters was puzzled. He said as much during a break, when they stood next to each other and created circles of steaming yellow snow.

“Joe, I like conversation as well as the next man, but with Dunklin?” Walters commented.

Joe finished his business and buttoned up. He spoke cautiously, not wanting to expose the real reason. “Dunklin is a busybody.”

“The whole Ninth Infantry knows that,” Walters replied, amused.

“I think Mrs. Hopkins would rather keep her late husband to herself,” Joe said, cringing inside as he continued the lie begun so stupidly by Emily Reese.

“I think you deserve a medal,” Walters teased.

Joe’s heart warmed to watch Susanna Hopkins, who quickly discerned what he was doing and why. She still sat too close to the ambulance’s stove for his total comfort, but she kept her nose in her book, giving Dunklin no reason to speak to her.

Joe’s head well and truly ached by the time the ambulance stopped at the fork where Major Walters’s escort from Fort Fetterman waited, walking their remounts to keep them warm. Joe helped Mrs. Hopkins from the vehicle.

The three of them walked toward the patrol and Major Walters took Mrs. Hopkins by the hand. Joe noticed her slight hesitation, followed by a deep, careful breath, and he wondered how hard it was for her, in this world of men. He was beginning to understand her wariness.

“Mrs. Hopkins, so pleased to have made your acquaintance,” Walters said.

He turned to Joe. “Do you figure you’ll take part in the spring campaign, probably being planned in Washington as we speak?”

“It’s unlikely,” Joe replied, as his face grew hot. “You’ll recall who heads the Department of the Platte. General Crook has no use for me.”

“Maybe someday he’ll change his mind.”

“When pigs fly,” Joe said, wishing now for the conversation to end, as much as he liked Walters.

Walters mounted the horse waiting for him, and the patrol loped away to the north and west. Mrs. Hopkins seemed in no more hurry to return to the ambulance than Joe was. He wondered if she would ask him what the major had meant.

What she said surprised him. “You have a headache.”

“I do, indeed,” he told her, touched at her discernment.

“All in the service of distracting Captain Dunklin,” she said. “That’s not written anywhere in Hippocrates’s oath.”

Her concern touched him, she who had bigger problems than he did. Perhaps she wouldn’t mind a tease, since she seemed brave enough to voice her own.

“I’m certain Hippocrates intended it,” he told her. “The gist was perhaps lost in translation.”

To his pleasure, she smiled at his feeble wit. “Would it help if I feigned sleep this afternoon? That way, he won’t try to talk to me, and your headache will abate.”

She did precisely that as the ambulance bumped and rolled toward Fort Laramie, feigning sleep so expertly he wondered if she really did doze off. If she wasn’t actually asleep, then she knew precisely how to pretend.

He thought suddenly of his late wife, who had never feigned sleep because he never gave her reason to. He recalled Melissa’s pleasure at waiting up for him in the tent on that fatal march to Texas. Not for Melissa the hope that he would think she slept, and not trouble her with marital demands. She’d waited up for him, and showed him how quiet she could be as they made love in a tent. He couldn’t help smiling at a memory that used to sadden him.

They spent the last night out from Fort Laramie at James Hunton’s ranch, a more commodious place with actual rooms for travelers. Joe gratefully turned the entertainment of Captain Dunklin over to James, a gregarious fellow who had close ties to Fort Laramie. After dinner, neither man even noticed when Joe and Mrs. Hopkins quietly left.

“Is your headache gone?” she asked, speaking to him first, which made him hope she was beginning to trust him. It was a small thing, but Joe Randolph noticed small things.

“Yes, thank you.”

He only glanced at her, but it pleased him to see her smile. I can’t be certain—God knows she hasn’t said—but why would any man dare beat a woman like this? he asked himself. He could imagine no other way for her occipital bone to have a dimple in it. He knew it was not something he could ever bring up. He glanced again, and she looked as though she wanted to say something.

“Yes?”

“What is this spring campaign Major Walters mentioned?”

They had reached the edge of the ranch yard. Mrs. Hopkins turned around and he offered her his arm again. This time, she took it.

“I will give you a short course in the dubious business of treaty making, Mrs. Hopkins. If it is so boring that your eyes roll back in your head and you feel faint, let me know.”

“I am made of stern stuff,” she assured him.

“According to the Treaty of 1868, the Sioux and Cheyenne have been assigned reservations on the Missouri River, but also given a large tract of western land over which to roam, in search of buffalo.”

“That sounds fair enough.”

“Treaties always sound fair,” he said. “Included in that land, never actually surveyed, is the Black Hills. It’s sacred to the Sioux, and wouldn’t you know, someone has discovered gold there.”

“Oh, dear,” she murmured. “Prospectors want it, and the Indians are not happy.”

“They are not. President Grant offered to buy it, but Lo the Indian is not interested.”

She stopped. “Ah! I have heard that before. ‘Lo! The poor Indian, whose untutored mind, sees God in clouds or hears him in the wind.’” She grinned at him. “Alexander Pope, who probably never saw an Indian. I ask you, shouldn’t poets write about what they know?”

“They should, but don’t. ‘Lo’ is our nickname for hostiles.” Joe stopped, certain that her feet must be cold, but unwilling to continue this conversation inside, where Captain Dunklin would interrupt. “The plan now is to insist that Lo, Mrs. Lo and the Lo kiddies who traipse about in the unceded area—we call them Northern Roamers—be forced onto the reservations. Then Uncle Sam will turn that land and the Black Hills into one large For Sale sign.”

“If they won’t?”

“They have until the end of January, but I ask you, how easy is it to move a village in this cold? Very few Roamers have come to the reservations.” He sighed. “That is precisely what General Sherman wants—he’s general of the army. By February, I am certain a campaign will begin, to round up the Northern Roamers. You will see troops on the move this summer. Sherman is hoping for a fight.”

“All I want to do is teach school,” she said. “That sounds so self-centered, but it is the truth.”

“You’re not asking much.”

“I never do,” she replied quietly.

“Maybe you should,” he said on impulse.

She just shook her head and started for the roadhouse. It was his turn to stop at the door, thinking of another day of talking to Captain Dunklin, and feeling appalled by the idea.

Mrs. Hopkins must have been a mind reader. “Captain Dunklin reminds me of a pompous hypochondriac who taught in a school where I once worked. To shut him up, I would look at him with great concern, tell him I was worried about, oh, whatever I could think of, and suggest he see a doctor.”

“But I am the doctor!” Joe declared in humorous protest. “How can that work?”

“Who better to tell him that he should really rest his throat, because you’re concerned about that raspy, irritating sound he makes when he wants to get someone’s attention? You know the one I mean! You’ll have to be more diplomatic, but you understand.”

“I believe I do. We are now official conspirators.”

Her smile this time was genuine and made her eyes light up. Even if their precariously cobbled plan didn’t work, the major knew he would cherish the look in her eyes, a combination of gratitude and mischief that stripped away years from whatever burden she bore, at least for the moment.

He considered it a fair trade.

Susanna slept no better than usual, coming awake with that instant of terror, wondering how lightly she would have to tiptoe that day, before her conscious, rational mind reminded her that she was nowhere near Frederick Hopkins.

She followed her morning ritual, thinking of Tom first, hopeful that Frederick’s housekeeper had gotten him off to school with a minimum of fuss. Tommy had become adept at calling no attention to himself, so he wouldn’t upset his father. It was no way to live, but that was his life now.

“Tommy, I miss you,” she whispered.

When she came into the kitchen, she witnessed Dr. Randolph’s creativity. Captain Dunklin was dressed and wearing his overcoat, even though the kitchen was warm. Around his neck the surgeon must have wound a gauze bandage. She smelled camphor.

Susanna almost didn’t have the courage to look Major Randolph in the eye, not from fear, but from the conviction that she would burst into laughter, if she did.

The doctor made it easy. With a frown, he motioned her into the room.

“Don’t worry. Captain Dunklin isn’t contagious.”

“What could be wrong?” she asked, knowing she could play-act as well as anyone.

“I mentioned to the captain that he has a raspy way of clearing his throat that concerns me.” The major touched Captain Dunklin’s shoulder. “I wrapped his throat.”

“Major, I …” Captain Dunklin began, but the major shook his head.

“Don’t trouble yourself. I’m happy to help. When we get back, I’ll give you a diet regimen that should solve the problem. I gave him a stiff dose of cough syrup.” He sighed. “He’ll probably doze, but at least he won’t strain his vocal cords.”

“Captain, you may have my place by the stove, so you can be warm.”

Captain Dunklin looked at her with so much gratitude that Susanna felt a twinge of guilt. It passed quickly. “Thank you,” he whispered.

“That’s enough, Captain,” Joe admonished. “I would be a poor doctor if I advised you to eat anything more than gruel for breakfast. Would you like me to help you?”

“I do feel weak,” the captain whispered.

Susanna turned away and stared at a calendar until she regained her composure. “Let me feed him,” she whispered, when she turned around. “Women’s work, you know.”

It amused her that the doctor couldn’t meet her gaze. She took over the task of feeding a patient who had nothing wrong with him besides pomposity. When Dunklin looked at her with gratitude and tried to speak, she only shook her head and put her finger to her lips.

Swaddled in another blanket and seated in her chair by the ambulance’s stove, Dunklin promptly fell asleep, thanks to that dose of cough syrup. Susanna took his former place next to Major Randolph, who said nothing until they were under way.

“How will you treat him at Fort Laramie?” she asked, still not trusting herself to look at her partner in medical crime.

“I’ll prescribe bed rest and a low diet for five days,” he whispered. “His much-put-upon lieutenant will thank me, if he dares.”

They continued the journey in peace and quiet. Afternoon shadows began to gather as the ambulance stopped, and Major Randolph opened the door to look out. He opened the door wider. “The bridge is almost done.”

As she looked out the door, interested, the major left the ambulance to speak with a corporal wearing a carpenter’s apron. The cold defeated her, so she closed the door, only to have the post surgeon open it and gesture to her. Captain Dunklin muttered something, but did not wake.

“We’ll walk, but the driver will take Captain Dunklin across.”

She looked down dubiously at the frozen water under the few planks that spanned the bridge.

“You’re looking at the only iron bridge between Chicago and San Francisco. It will be the only bridge across the Platte, so it opens up the Black Hills from Cheyenne. Say goodbye to the buffalo and Indians. Here comes the gold rush.”

She took his gloved hand and crossed the river. When they were safely across, the corporal waved to the driver and he crossed.

“Of course, I can also say goodbye to drownings from the ferry,” the post surgeon said. “I hate those. Up you get. Next stop is Fort Laramie and your cousin.”

“I wish I could see more,” she grumbled, as the ambulance trundled along.

“Nothing simpler,” the major said. “You pull on that cord and I’ll pull this one. Makes it frigid in here but maybe we ought to revive the captain.”

“We’re coming in behind the shops and warehouses,” the major said. He pointed to the hill. “There’s my hospital, still standing. A good sign, when you leave a contract surgeon in charge.”

They came over the brow of the hill and Fort Laramie sprawled below. In the light of late afternoon, more forgiving than the glare of midday, the fort was a shabby jumble of wooden, adobe and brick buildings.

“Why is everything painted red?” she asked.

“Apparently some earlier commander noted in a memo to Washington that the old girl was looking shabby. Next thing you know, there was a gigantic shipment of what we call quartermaster red. For reasons known to God alone, we also have a monstrous supply of raisins. Welcome to the U.S. Army.”

Chapter Four

“It’s so shabby,” Susanna said. “This is it?”

Joe laughed, which made Captain Dunklin flutter open his eyes. “As forts go, Fort Laramie is old. Forts out here are built for expediency, not permanence. When Lo is on reservations and the frontier shifts, this old dame will disappear.” He pointed to a row of houses. “We’ll let out Captain Dunklin first.”

The ambulance slowed, then stopped in front of an adobe double house. Captain Dunklin croaked out his thanks as the post surgeon helped him from the ambulance.

Susanna watched with interest as doors opened along Officers Row. On the other side of the largest building on the row, she thought she saw her cousin standing on a porch. She squinted, impatient with her bad eye.

The post surgeon shook his head when he rejoined her. “Captain Dunklin thinks he’s on his deathbed. Mrs. Dunklin is sobbing. Who knew he was so susceptible to diseases of the imagination?”

The ambulance continued down the row, passing the largest building.

“That is Old Bedlam, built almost thirty years ago.”

“Old Bedlam?”

“It’s been used as a headquarters, officers’ apartments, but most often as quarters for bachelor officers, hence the name.”

She wondered what the building with its elegant porch and balcony would look like, painted sensible white. To her Eastern eyes, Old Bedlam was grandiose and totally out of place, even painted red. “Do you live there?”

“No. Rank hath its privilege. I am two doors down from your cousin, in quarters with six rooms, as befits a major. I know. It hardly seems fair I should have so much space—two rooms more than Captain Reese—but I use one room as my clinic for women and children. Ah. There is Emily Reese.”

He helped Susanna from the ambulance. The Reeses lived in one half of a duplex, with what looked like a half floor above. Susanna stood beside him, gazing up at her cousin, whom she had not seen since Emily’s wedding five years ago.

Emily Reese was as pretty as Susanna remembered, with the family blond hair. Uncertain, Susanna stood where she was, expecting her cousin to come down the few steps to welcome her. As she waited, she felt dread settle around her.

Major Randolph seemed to sense her discomfort. He took her by the elbow and steered her toward the porch. Susanna saw the door on the other half of the duplex open and a lady with red hair step onto the porch, smiling more of a welcome than Emily. Susanna smiled at the other lady, who gave a small wave, then stepped back inside her own quarters, closing the door quietly. Someone is glad to see me, Susanna thought. Too bad it is not my cousin.

“Mrs. Reese, here is your cousin,” the major said. “You should invite her in.”

It was gently said, and seemed to rouse Emily to do more than stand there. She came no closer, but took Susanna’s hand when she and the major climbed the steps.

“So good to see you,” Emily murmured.

I wish you meant that, Susanna told herself. “It’s good to see you, Emily,” she said, wanting to shake off her well-honed feeling of dread, but not sure how. “I appreciate this opportunity you have given me.”

She wondered how long her cousin would have kept them on the porch, if Major Randolph hadn’t taken matters into his own hands and opened the door. “Emily, you’ll catch your death out here,” he chided, as though she needed reminding.

Once inside her own house, Emily Reese took charge. She indicated that the ambulance driver should take Susanna’s luggage upstairs.

The major took Susanna’s hand. “I’ll leave you two now. Good night.”

Susanna was left with her cousin. Take a deep breath and begin, she told herself, smiling her company smile at her cousin.

“It’s good to see you, Emily,” she said. “I hope …” Actually, I wish you would look me in the eye, she thought in alarm. What now? “It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”

“Five years,” her cousin said, making no move to take the overcoat that Susanna had removed.

Embarrassed, Susanna cleared her throat. “Emily, where should I hang this?”

Emily opened a narrow door under the stairs. “Next to the mop. I’m sorry we haven’t more pegs in the hallway, but the captain’s overcoat and hat take up room.”

Susanna nodded, amused to hear her cousin-in-law, Daniel Reese, referred to as “the captain.” She wondered if Emily was equal to a little tease about relegating relatives to the broom closet, and decided she was not.

When Emily just stood there, Susanna prodded a little more. “Where did you have the private take my belongings?”

“Upstairs. Let me show you where you’ll be staying.” Emily smiled her own company smile. “Come along. It isn’t much.”

Emily was right; it wasn’t much, just a space behind an army blanket at the end of the little hall. At least I have a place to stay, Susanna reminded herself as she and her cousin stood on the small landing. One bedroom door was open, and she looked in, charmed to see her little cousin, Stanley, stacking blocks, his back to the door.

She glanced at Emily, pleased to see some expression on her face now, as she admired her son.

“Stanley is four now,” Emily whispered.

“I’m certain we will get along famously,” Susanna assured her, thinking of her own son at that age—inquisitive, and beginning to exert a certain amount of household influence.

As Stanley stacked another block, the wobbling tower came down. The little boy put his hands to his head in sudden irritation and declared, “That’s a damned nuisance!”

Emily gasped and closed the door. “Cousin, this is the hardest place to raise children!”

“I imagine there are plenty of soldiers who don’t think much of letting the language fly,” she said, putting a real cap on her urge to laugh. “Must be a trial.”

“It’s not the soldiers,” Emily snapped, the portrait of righteous indignation. “It’s the no-account Irish living next door!” She lowered her voice slightly. “You’d be horrified what we hear through the wall.”

Susanna stared at her. “Here on Officers Row?”

It was obviously a subject that Emily had thought long about, considering that she never thought much of anything. “That’s what happens when the army promotes a bog Irishman from sergeant to captain of cavalry. So what if he earned a Medal of Honor in the late war? They’re hopeless!”

“I have a lot to learn,” Susanna murmured, hoping that the unfortunates on the other side of the wall were deaf. She thought of the pretty redhead who had given her a welcoming wave, and decided to form her own opinion.

Emily pulled back the army blanket strung on a sagging rod, revealing an army cot and bureau obviously intended for someone with few possessions. That would be me, Susanna thought.

“You should be comfortable enough here. I had a private from the captain’s company hammer up some nails to hang your dresses.”

“I am certain it will do,” Susanna replied. “I am grateful. Major Randolph said something about captains being alloted four rooms, not including the kitchen.”

She quickly realized this was another unfortunate topic, because Emily sighed again. “I think it’s … it’s unconscious for a widower to have six rooms!”

Do you mean unconscionable, Cousin Malaprop? Susanna thought, remembering Emily Reese’s bedroom back home. “I suppose that’s the army way. Now I’ll unpack ….”

Emily was just warming to the subject. “There are captains here with five rooms.”

“Why not Dan?”

“We came here at the same time as another captain and his wife who have no children, but this is what we have.” Emily frowned. “He was even in Dan’s graduating class!”

“Why did you get this smaller place?” Susanna asked, interested.

“Because Dan was academically lower in his class,” her cousin said. “Is that fair?”

I suppose that’s what happens when you marry someone no brighter than yourself, Susanna thought, amused. “What happens if someone comes to the fort who outranks the man who outranks … your husband?”

“We all move up or down, depending,” Emily said, “and the Major Randolphs just roll merrily along in their excess space.” She sniffed. “I didn’t know about this when I married the captain.”

No, you were mostly interested in how grand he looked in uniform, Susanna thought, remembering the wedding five years ago, where Tommy had been ring bearer. That was before Frederick started drinking each night. “There is a lot we don’t know, before a wedding,” Susanna murmured.

“Maybe it’s just as well,” her cousin said, with another noisy sigh.

No, it isn’t, Susanna almost said. If I had known …

No matter that it had been ten years since Melissa’s fiery death, Joe Randolph never opened the door to his quarters without the tiny hope that this time she would be there to take his coat, kiss his cheek and ask how his day had gone. As a man of science, he knew it was foolish, but that little hope never left him.

He had been gone nearly a month this time on court-martial duty, but he had learned that whether left empty three weeks, two months or two days, houses without women in them soon felt abandoned. He still missed Melissa’s rose talc.

“I’m not busy enough, M’liss,” he said out loud to her picture, when he looked up from unpacking. There she was, smiling at him as much as she could, considering how long she had to hold that pose for the photographer in San Antonio.

On that journey to Texas, he had pillowed her head on his arm as they whispered plans for the future. Their last night had its own sweetness, as they made plans for the baby she was carrying. He was no ignorant physician; he had picked up on signs and symptoms before M’liss overcame her natural reticence and spilled those particular beans. He smiled now, remembering how she had thumped him when he had said, “I kind of suspected. I did graduate first in my class at medical school.”

She had kissed him, rendering the thump moot, and snuggled close in a way that made him feel like Lord Protector. Too bad he couldn’t protect her that next morning, when she stood too close to a campfire and went up like a torch.

Even four years of war had not prepared him for that horror. There wasn’t even a bucket of water close. Burned, blind, swollen beyond recognition, Melissa Randolph had suffered agonies until nightfall, when, jaw clenched, he’d administered a whacking dose of morphine that killed her immediately. The steward standing by never said a word to anyone.

There she was in the frame, forever twenty-four. Joe admired her for a long moment. “M’liss, what would you have me do?” he asked her picture. “I am thirty-eight and I am lonely.” He looked down at his wedding ring. He had never taken it off his finger since she’d put it there.

He took it off now. Her wedding ring had gone with her into Texas soil, mainly because he would have had to amputate her swollen finger to release it, and he could not. She had earlier removed a ruby ring he had given her. When he could think rationally again, he’d put the ring on a chain, and he wore it around his neck.

Joe lifted the delicate chain over his head now, unfastened the clasp and slid his wedding ring onto it. After another long moment he put the necklace and rings in his top drawer, under his socks.

His bedroom seemed too small after he closed the drawer, so he put on his overcoat again and went outside. He looked up Officers Row and saw lights winking in windows of houses with families. He stood there until he had formulated a good enough excuse to visit the Reeses again, and walked two houses down.

He chuckled to think of Emily Reese forced to live next door to the far kinder O’Learys. He would suggest to Mrs. Hopkins that she might find their Irish company enjoyable. Katie O’Leary had more brains than both of the Reeses, and Mrs. Hopkins would appreciate her.

Pipe in hand, Dan Reese opened the door to Joe’s knock. “Come in, Major,” he said, then called over his shoulder, “Mrs. Reese, is someone sick?”

What a blockhead, Joe thought, not for the first time. “Captain, I just wanted a moment with your cousin.”

The captain gestured him inside. “Is Mrs. Hopkins sick?”

“Not that I know of,” Joe replied, wishing he could laugh. “I’m current president of the administrative council and Mrs. Hopkins needs to make a visit to our commanding officer tomorrow. She has some credentials to show him.”

“Of course.” He looked over his shoulder again. “Susanna?”

It wasn’t a fluke. He saw relief in Susanna Hopkins’s eyes when she came out of the parlor, cousin Stanley riding on her hip, reaching for her spectacles. Captain Reese wandered back into the parlor, obviously the possessor of a shorter attention span than his son.

Susanna set down Stanley and cleaned her spectacles on her apron. Spectacles off, she looked at him, and he was struck with her mild beauty. He probably shouldn’t have—it smacked of the grossest impertinence—but Joe touched that dimpled spot under her left eye. She stepped back, startled.

“Beg pardon, ma’am. I am curious—can you see out of that eye?”

He supposed she could have ordered him from the house, but she didn’t. She put her glasses back on. “I have a corrective lens in that side. The other lens is plain glass.”

He had his suspicions, but he wanted to ask how she had come by such an injury. Yet he knew he should beg her pardon. She held up her hand, maybe knowing what he intended.

“Don’t apologize. I know your interest is medical.”

He nodded, wondering if she was right.

“I’m a blockhead,” he said simply. “Will you come with me tomorrow morning after guard mount to see Major Townsend? He needs to see your certification. Since I am president of the administrative council, you are my responsibility.” Good Lord, you sound like a jailer, he thought, disgusted.

Susanna Hopkins didn’t see it that way, apparently. “Certainly! The sooner I offer my credentials, the sooner I can get out of …”

She blushed, which he found charming.

“This house?” he asked in a whisper. “Tell you what, Mrs. Hopkins, after we visit the colonel, I’ll introduce you to your next-door neighbor. She’s clever, witty and …”

“Not what my cousin has already said?” Susanna finished. “I thought as much. I would like that. But tell me, what is guard mount?”

He was on sure ground now. “It’s our one daily affair, when the night guard goes off duty and the day sentries come on. In the summer, when there is no danger of trumpeters’ lips freezing on their mouthpieces, the band plays and the companies and troops go through the manual of arms.” He bowed. “Mrs. Hopkins, I will meet you on this porch at nine of the clock.”

“You don’t march?”

“Doctors don’t have to, thank God. And now I’d better go see if the hospital is still standing.”

It was a feeble witticism, but she nodded as though he had said something profound, and held the door open for him. Joe wasn’t going to look back at the Reese quarters as he started toward the hospital, but he turned around and there she was, watching him.

It was a small thing, but it gratified him as he walked to the hospital on its knoll behind the cavalry barrack. Not since Melissa had another female paid him any attention—at least, not that he was aware of.

The hospital was still standing. According to Theodore Brown, his steward, the contract surgeon had done no harm, all a man could hope for. Ted’s notes and files were impeccable as always, and much easier to read than Joe’s own scrawl. There was nothing to do but take an unnecessary ward walk, and return to his empty quarters.

Most of the quarters on Officers Row were dark now. He glanced at the Reeses’ duplex again, even though he knew it was silly to think that Mrs. Hopkins would still be standing there. To his surprise, she was.

I will be her friend, he thought as he went into his quarters. He knew someone as pleasant as Susanna Hopkins would make friends soon enough. From habit, he pressed the extra pillow next to him, and was soon asleep.

Chapter Five

“Can’t you sleep, cousin?” Emily asked Susanna, coming downstairs after closing the door to her own room. She came to the window to stand beside her. “Is there something unusual outside?” she asked. “Indians? Coyotes? Should we raise an alarm?”

Susanna sighed inwardly, certain that her cousin had never been inclined to stand at a window and think. She had just watched Major Randolph return from the hospital.

Touch me, Emily, she thought. Just put your hand on my shoulder. We used to be close, and now we are not. She tried to think of the last time anyone had touched her, until she realized that it was an hour ago, when Major Randolph had touched her eye out of professional curiosity. His fingers had been gentle.

Her cousin made no move. There had been a time when they had shared secrets, and a bed when they went to visit their mutual grandmamma, a tough old boot from Gettysburg who had spent that battle frying doughnuts for whichever army happened to control the town on any particular day and tramped near her kitchen.

One of them had to speak, and Susanna knew she was the one with both gratitude and grievance. “Emily, I appreciate your arranging this teaching position,” she said, before the silence between them reached an awkward stage.

Emily turned startled eyes on her. “I had nothing to do with it,” she exclaimed. “Mama knows a lady in town who is a sister of the colonel of the regiment. Mama inquired about any teaching positions out here, and word eventually got to the colonel. Mama contacted me.” There was no ignoring her tiny sigh, until Emily put on her company face again. “I told her we didn’t have room, but you know my mama.”

“I appreciate your sacrifice,” Susanna said. She knew her aunt’s expertise in twisting Emily’s arm, even through the U.S. mail. “This is a fresh start for me.”

She should have left it there, but she couldn’t, not with her anxiety about Captain Dunklin and his wife from Carlisle. “Why did you tell people I am a widow?”

Emily’s company face vanished as her eyes grew smaller. “Do you think I want anyone to know that you abandoned your child, and your husband divorced you for neglect?” she whispered.

Susanna gasped. “Emily, what have you heard? If I hadn’t left the house, Frederick would have beaten me to death!” She closed her eyes, remembering the pain and terror, and Tommy’s mouth open in a scream on the other side of the window as he watched her stagger down the walkway. “I didn’t abandon him! I had to save myself!”

“The newspaper Papa sent me said abandonment,” Emily told her, sounding virtuous, superior and hurt at the same time. “Such a scandal! I had to say what I did, or you never would have been hired. You should thank me for thinking of it.”

“What the papers printed was a lie. My former husband—when he sobered up—hired a good lawyer and paid all the other lawyers in a fifty-mile radius not to take my case,” Susanna said, trying not to raise her voice. “You never had to say anything. I am just Mrs. Susanna Hopkins. All they want is a teacher.”

Emily looked at her with sad eyes. “What did you do to make him so angry?”

“I didn’t do anything,” Susanna replied, wanting to end this inquisition, because her cousin’s mind was already made up. Pennsylvania may have been miles away, but nothing had changed. “About five years ago, Frederick’s business began to fail and he started drinking to excess. After that, nothing I did was right. Nothing.”

She stopped, thinking of those afternoons she had come to dread, waiting for Frederick to return home. She’d always tried to gauge his attitude as he walked up the front steps. Was he going to be sober and withdrawn, ready to sulk in his study? Or would he be drunk and looking everywhere for something to touch off a beating or more humiliating behavior, once Tommy was asleep? She never knew which it would be.

For all his simplicity, Susanna knew Emily’s husband was a kind man and her cousin would never suffer such treatment. Emily hadn’t the imagination to think ill of Frederick, who could put on a company face as good as her own.

“I’m certain you meant well,” she told her cousin. “Captain Dunklin informed me that his wife is from Carlisle, too. Suppose she writes someone back home and mentions Susanna Hopkins?”

“Carlisle is so far away,” Emily said, locating it somewhere next to Versailles. “I’m sorry if I did the wrong thing, but you don’t know these women, Susanna! They’re so superior. If they knew you were a notorious divorcee, no one would receive me, and Captain Reese’s career would suffer. I had to tell that little lie!”

“Notorious divorcee?” Susanna said, stunned. “Emily, I am nothing of the sort! I have been wronged in the worst way, whether you believe it or not.”

They stared at each other, her cousin with a wounded expression, and Susanna wondering how Emily had become the victim.

“When did you start wearing spectacles?” Emily asked, obviously wanting to change the subject.

“After Frederick pushed my face into the mantelpiece and fractured the bone under my eye,” Susanna said, not so willing to let Emily off the hook. “I don’t see too well out of that eye.” Susanna touched Emily’s arm. “We’ll hope that Captain Dunklin’s wife has no curiosity about doings in Pennsylvania.”

“I won’t give it another thought.”

I don’t doubt that for a minute, Susanna thought as she said good-night. After she closed the army blanket around her quasi room, Susanna sat still, her mind in turmoil. As she contemplated the gray blanket that constituted a wall, she felt a chill more than cold seeping into her bones.

She undressed in the cold space, then did what she always did, closed her eyes and thought of her son. Usually she got no farther than that, but this time she added Major Randolph to her mental inventory. It was not a prayer, because she had given up pestering God.

A bugle woke her in the morning, followed at an interval by a different melody. After the second call, she smiled at a massive groan from the Reeses’ bedroom, which suggested to her that Emily’s lord and master was not an early riser by inclination.

Captain Reese eventually clumped downstairs, swearing fluently, which told her the true source of his son’s salty language, rather than the family through the wall. Susanna heard Captain—O’Leary, was it?—go down his own set of stairs on the other side of the wall, and decided there wasn’t much privacy in army housing.

As Susanna lay there, she heard Mrs. O’Leary, in her bedroom through the wall, reciting the rosary. Her low murmur sent Susanna back to sleep.

When she woke again, Stanley had pulled back her blanket and was staring at her. She remembered the times when Tommy had done the same thing: same solemn stare, same lurking twinkle in his eyes. With a laugh, Susanna pulled him down beside her. Stanley shrieked, then giggled as she snuggled with him.

“Did your mama send you to wake me up?”

“Damn right,” he said, the twinkle in his eyes daring her.

Time to nip this in the bud, Susanna thought.

“Do you know what I used to do to your cousin Tommy when he said things that he knew would shock me?”

Stanley shook his head. “Mama usually shakes her fist at the wall.”

Susanna sat up, her arms around Stanley, who had settled in comfortably. “I reach for a bar of pine tar soap, shave off a handful and make Tommy chew it.”

Stanley’s eyes grew wide. “You would do that to a small child?” he squeaked, which made her cover her mouth and turn her head slightly, to keep her amusement private.

“Yes! Tommy never cusses anymore. I would advise you not to, either,” she said, looking him right in the eye.

Stanley considered the matter. “Would you make my father chew soap, too?”

“I’ll leave that to your mother. But as for you …” Susanna reached around him into her carpetbag and found a bar of soap.

Stanley flinched but did not leave her lap. With that dignity of children that always touched her, he eyed the soap and said, “I’ll tell Mama that you will be down to breakfast directly. Major Randolph is waiting, too.”

Oh, he is, she thought, flattered. “I’ll hurry. Stanley, no more cussing. Promise?”

He nodded. She put the soap back in her carpetbag and hugged him, then set him on his feet. “Stanley, I knew you would see the good in doing right.”

He nodded in that philosophical way of four-year-olds and went down the stairs at a sedate pace that lasted for only a few steps. Susanna dressed quickly, wishing that everything she owned wasn’t wrinkled. She had no washbasin, so she went into her cousin’s room and washed her face, hoping Emily wouldn’t mind.

Major Randolph sat in the dining room, frowning at a bowl of oatmeal. “My mother always told me it was good for me.”

“It is, Major,” Susanna said, standing in the doorway.

“Very well. I’ll eat it if you’ll join me,” he said, indicating another bowl of oatmeal.

She sat down beside the major and picked up her spoon. “Race you,” she said.

He smiled and started to eat. Emily came into the room and sat down, too, a stunned look in her eyes.

Susanna put down her spoon. “Emily?”

“Stanley told me he will never swear again. What did you do?”

“I threatened him with pine tar soap, then appealed to the better angels of his nature, to quote our late president,” Susanna told her.

Emily’s eyes were wide with puzzlement. “Our late president?”

“Abraham Lincoln. Stanley knows his limits now. I am fond of little boys.”

Susanna glanced at the post surgeon, who was smiling at her. She returned her attention to her oatmeal, pleased.

When Emily returned to the lean-to kitchen, Major Randolph whispered, “After sick call this morning, I went to Captain Dunklin’s quarters, prescribed a moderate diet and praised him for bearing up under the strain of what I am calling erobitis.”

“Erobitis?” she repeated. “I am afraid to ask. I know that ‘itis’ means inflammation of, or disease of.”

“I expected a teacher to know that. Just spell ‘erob’ backward and you have it.”

“Where is this erob located on the body?” she asked when she could speak.

“Somewhere between the spleen and the bile duct, I should think, right next to the coils of umbrage,” he said serenely. “More coffee?”

“If I drank coffee right now, I would snort it out my nose,” she joked.

“Bravo, Mrs. Hopkins,” the doctor replied with a grin. “I have never heard anything resembling wit come out of Captain Reese’s quarters.”

“Hush,” she whispered. “You will get us both in trouble.”

Before the major could say anything, the bugler blew another call.

“Guard mount,” Major Randolph said. “To the porch.”

He gestured toward the front door as Stanley ran in from the kitchen. The major scooped up the little boy and carried him outside. He set Stanley on the porch railing and held him there, then pointed toward the end of the parade ground. “The bugler stands in front of the adjutant’s office, or post headquarters.”

“And the bugle calls?”

“Rubbing the sleep from his eyes before any of us—unless I have some calamity to deal with in hospital—the bugler starts with reveille first call, which is followed by reveille, and then assembly, when all the men line up in front of their barracks to be counted.” Major Randolph touched Stanley’s head. “What comes next, lad?”

“Breakfast call,” the child said promptly. “My favorite.”

“That is followed by surgeon’s call,” the major continued, “my favorite, Stanley. The infirm, lame and malingering stagger to the hospital, or I am summoned to the barracks. I just came from surgeon’s call, so the call that followed was guard mount.”

Susanna looked at the other porches down Officers Row, where other women and children watched.

“Usually the band performs for guard mount. They won’t play outdoors until at least the end of February. The night watch will pass—here they come now—and be replaced by the day watch, which means the guard for a twenty-four-hour period is mounted. Right now, the new guard is being inspected by the sergeant major—see? Over there in front of the old guardhouse.”

She looked. “I gather the sergeant major is someone to be obeyed.”

“I never cross him, even though I far outrank him,” Major Randolph joked. “Now he is giving the new guard their assignments. Here comes the officer of the day, Lieutenant Bevins of Company D. That means I am on high alert today, because his wife is about to present him with a child. He will be unbearable if I do not stop by his quarters a few times today.”

“You know these people well.”

“There are few secrets in garrison, and I am privy to most of the sordid details,” he told her.

Let’s hope my fake widowhood remains a secret, Susanna thought, returning her attention to the parade ground. “What is Lieutenant Bevins doing? He’s the one with the bright red sash?”

“Indeed he is. He’s inspecting the guard now, and will probably lead them through a short version of the manual of arms. Before frostbite sets in, he will give them the new password and the guard will take positions inside the guardhouse. Done for another morning. What comes next, Stanley, my man?”

“Fatigue call,” the little boy piped up, making the same sounds as the bugler, his fist to his mouth. He looked at Susanna for approval, and she kissed the top of his head.

“That means work detail,” the post surgeon explained, as he helped Stanley down from his perch. “They’ll work at various duties until the bugler blows recall, and then it’ll be mess call, Stanley’s other favorite call. There are other calls. You’ll learn them, because this is how we tell time at a fort. Now let us visit Major Townsend.”

“But it was Colonel Bradley who wrote to me about the teaching position. Is he not here?”

“He’s back East and Major Ed Townsend is commanding officer until he returns in a few weeks. Your credentials, madam?”

Susanna retrieved her credentials. Major Randolph waited in the parlor for her.

“Are you ready to sign a contract?”

She was, but Susanna only nodded, not trusting herself with words, because she wanted that contract so much. This will be a fresh start, she told herself as they walked along the row.

Major Randolph interpreted her silence correctly. “All the major wants is a schoolteacher,” the surgeon said. “He has a garrison to run, and more important concerns than your cousin’s lie.”

“I don’t relish pretending I am someone I am not, but Emily has already baked my cake for me, hasn’t she?” Susanna asked.

“Yes, sad to say,” he agreed. He stopped. “Should we say something to the major about Emily’s lie? It makes me uneasy, but would talking about something that might never happen make it worse?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Let’s … let’s not.”

They went to the adjutant’s office, a small building located between two double houses. A corporal seated at a high desk stood and saluted, then knocked on an interior door and went inside.

“Major Townsend is second in command of the Ninth Infantry,” Major Randolph explained. “Because there are more companies of the Ninth Infantry here than of the Second Cavalry, Major Townsend also commands this garrison. That’s the army way.”

When the corporal came out, he ushered them into Townsend’s office. Her former husband would have described Townsend as someone built like a fireplug, and so he was, Susanna decided. His hair was white and his smile genuine. He gestured to a chair in front of his desk and she sat. With what she thought was real impertinence, Major Randolph perched on the edge of the desk.

“We are friends of long acquaintance, Mrs. Hopkins,” Townsend said, correctly interpreting her expression. “It took only a brief stay in Joe Randolph’s aid station during the siege of Atlanta to form a friendship.”

Townsend nodded to his corporal, who brought another chair into the small space, so Major Randolph could sit.

Susanna took out her teaching certificates. “You’re a busy man. I won’t take up much of your time.”

“That makes you more efficient than most of my company officers,” he said, taking the papers from her. “Let us see here. Hmm, a second grade certificate, and you attended Oberlin College for three years.” He put down the paper and looked at her over his glasses. “This already makes you more intelligent than most of my officers. All they did was go to West Point and accumulate demerits.”

Susanna laughed. “Major Townsend, I doubt that!”

“I exaggerate only slightly,” he admitted. “Most served with distinction in our late war. You will teach a four-month school, ending in mid-May, for which the officers with schoolchildren have contracted to pay you forty dollars a month?”

“That is my understanding,” she replied. “My certificate is valid only in Pennsylvania, but the closest examination site here is Denver.”

“No matter. Pennsylvania’s loss is our gain.”

“Thank you, Major Townsend,” she said. “I believe there is a contract …”

“… which I have right here.” The major took a paper from his corporal. “Women and children in garrison come and go, but right now, you have ten students ranging in age from seven to fifteen. Each classroom day will begin following guard mount. Mess call will be observed, and then you will resume teaching until an hour before stable call.”

The major correctly interpreted her perplexed expression. “Let’s make that from nine-thirty to noon, and then one to three o’clock. Four and a half hours to educate a collection of children not used to school.” He leaned back in his chair. “My children are being educated in the East, with my dear wife. Army life often means separation. Your being here means officers’ children will be able to stay with their families. I doubt the children will be grateful, but I am. Sign, Mrs. Hopkins.”

She signed. He took the contract from her and stood up, ending their brief interview. “Joe can show you our idea for a classroom. Good day.”

She nodded to Major Townsend and was almost through the door when he stopped her.

“Mrs. Hopkins, I am sorry for your loss,” he said simply. “It always seems that war is hardest on those who don’t wage it.”

Red-faced, Susanna nodded and let Major Randolph usher her out. “I hate deception,” she whispered, when they were outside in the cold again. “Maybe I should have said something. You know him well. Should I?”

The surgeon remained silent for a long moment, then shook his head slowly. “I think the moment for that passed when Emily told her lie,” he whispered back. “I confess I am not certain what to do. What do you think, Mrs. Hopkins?”

I think this will not end well, she told herself.

Chapter Six

She let him take her arm on the icy steps outside. The cold air felt good on her face; too bad it could not calm her conscience.

“I think this the best place for school,” the major was saying as they continued around the parade ground until they stood in front of Old Bedlam, with its bizarre red paint. “The front room used to be headquarters, during the late war,” he said, careful with her on the steps. “It’ll be a good classroom. As you will see, we’ve been accumulating desks.”

He opened the door and it swung on creaky hinges. He went to the window and pulled back the draperies, which made her cough.

“God, what a firetrap,” the surgeon said mildly. “What do you think?”

When the dust settled, Susanna walked around the room, admiring the mismatched but suitable desks. She looked at a connecting door.

“Bachelor officer’s quarters,” he said. “Some overworked second lieutenant with no family lives there. We call them orphans. This building is referred to as the orphanage.”

He walked to a small desk with delicately turned legs, the best desk in the room. “This will be yours. Well?”

“This will do,” she said, feeling her spirits rise as she began to see a classroom in the dust, mouse nests and cobwebs. “I’d like to start school on Monday. Is there time for a miracle?”

“That’s barely a challenge for the U.S. Army,” Major Randolph said. “I probably have half a dozen stools in the hospital for the desks, and we can find more. The officer of the day is always looking for work projects for his guardhouse jailbirds, who can clean this room.”

He must have interpreted her dubious look correctly. “Mrs. Hopkins, you are in no danger! When I finish organizing this little work party, I’ll introduce you to Nick Martin. There is no prisoner who will do anything other than what he is told, once Nick fixes the stink eye on them.”

She looked in the post surgeon’s eyes. “You’re going to keep me safe, aren’t you?” she asked.

“To quote your cousin, the profane Stanley, ‘Damn straight,’” he told her. “I doubt we’ll ever have another teacher with three years’ matriculation at Oberlin College. You’re valuable.”

With a nod, Major Randolph left her in the dusty room. She watched his jaunty stride to the adjutant’s office, and then across the parade ground to the guardhouse, a man on a mission. The room was cold, but she took off her coat anyway, and her bonnet. Standing on the stool, she unhooked the draperies from the metal rods and sent them to the floor in a cloud of dust. “‘You’re valuable,’” she repeated out loud. “Major Randolph says so.”

By the time the corporal of the guard quick-marched a half dozen soldiers dressed in coats with a large P on the back into her classroom, three privates from the quartermaster department clattered up with brooms, buckets, mops and scrub brushes. The corporal found a keg somewhere and sat on it, as she handed each prisoner a broom and issued her own orders for the removal of the draperies.

No one had anything to say—Susanna didn’t know what was proper with prisoners—so they worked in silence until the bugler blew what must have been recall from fatigue, because the men put down their brooms and mops. The corporal stood up and spoke for the first time.

“We’ll be back here in one hour, ma’am,” he told her, as his prisoners lined up and marched out.

“Amazing,” she said, looking around at the bare room, which smelled strongly of pine soap now. She knew it was time for luncheon; the bugle said so.

Her stomach growled, but she sat on the stool, reluctant to return to her cousin’s quarters because she felt no welcome there. Probably Major Randolph had returned to his hospital.

Funny she should think of him. A moment later, she heard a man clear his throat and then tap on the open door. “Meditating? Nurturing second thoughts? Hungry?” the major asked, standing there.

“Two out of three,” she replied. “I quit second thoughts somewhere around Chicago.”

“Excellent!” He turned around. “She’ll be pleased to see you, Katie.”

As Susanna watched, the surgeon ushered in the woman who’d been on the porch yesterday. She was in an advanced stage of pregnancy, and possessed of lively green eyes and red hair.

Susanna stood up and gestured to the stool. “Please have a seat.”

The lady glanced at the surgeon. “Should I sit before I actually admit who I am?” she asked him, humor evident in her lovely brogue.

“I suspect she knows who you are,” Randolph replied. “Let me introduce Katie O’Leary, your neighbor through the wall.”

Susanna offered her hand, and Katie shook it before sitting down. She handed Susanna a sandwich wrapped in waxed paper. “It’s only bread and butter with a lump of government beef that I mangled with my food grinder to make it less intimidating. That is, if you’re hungry.”

“I am. Did you bring a sandwich for yourself, Mrs. O’Leary?”

Katie nodded and pulled a second sandwich out of a cloth bag. “I have carrots for later.” She frowned. “Major, I didn’t prepare a morsel for you.”

Randolph held up his hand. “No worries. I think there is some kind of mystery chowder lurking in my quarters. I wanted you two to meet. I’ll be back later.”

He turned to leave. “Major …” Susanna began.

He looked back, with a kind expression. “Mrs. Hopkins, make no bones about this—I respond better to Joe.”

“I couldn’t possibly,” Susanna said automatically.

“Try it sometime,” he told her. “Until then, yes, what can I do for you?”

“I doubt this fireplace draws well.”

“I’ll have the quartermaster clerk send over our nearest approximation to a chimney sweep.”

“And that would be …”

He shrugged. “I have no idea, but I doctored two of the clerk’s children through a fearful round of diarrhea, and he will help me, by God. Good day, ladies.”

With another nod in their direction, he left. Susanna looked at Katie O’Leary. “What do you make of that?” she asked.

“It is simply Major Randolph,” Katie replied. She put her hand to her mouth as though trying to stop a laugh. “I don’t know that I’ve seen him quite this animated before.”

“I couldn’t possibly call him Joe.”

Katie shrugged, and eyed her sandwich. “I never knew Major Randolph not to mean what he says.”

“But you call him Major Randolph!” Susanna exclaimed.

“I do,” the woman replied simply. “He never suggested I call him Joe.” She laughed. “Let’s eat.”

Katie unwrapped her sandwich and took a bite, rolling her eyes. “My husband, Jim, loves Fort Laramie,” she said. “There’s nowhere nearby he must run to, to satisfy my midnight food cravings.”

“I take it you have other children,” Susanna said, enjoying the pleasant lilt to her companion’s voice. She took a bite of the sandwich and decided the government beef had been helped along magnificently by sweet relish. “Nice sandwich, Mrs. O’Leary.”

“It’s Katie,” the other woman said. “Surely we can stand on less ceremony than you choose with Major Randolph. I suppose your cousin has other names for me.”

Susanna felt her face grow warm. Before she could comment, Katie touched her arm.

“No fears! Jim is certain she calls us the trolls through the wall. We have one son, Rooney.” She patted her belly. “And another soon.”

“Your son …”

“… is home with my servant,” Katie finished. “Your cousin envies me because servants are hard to keep. Mary Martha is a corporal’s wife who helps me during the day.” She winked. “She’s Irish, too. I have it on good authority that she prefers me to your cousin.”

“Will you have any children in my school?”

Katie nodded. “Rooney is six, and he will go. I’ve taught him his letters and he can count to twenty-five.” She ate the last of her sandwich and pulled out a sack of carrots. “Yes, I can read and write, and no, we don’t swear through the walls to trouble little Stanley.”

“Emily has always enjoyed an exalted opinion of her own gentility,” Susanna said. “Stanley and I have had a few plain words about his bad habit, which you and I know can be blamed on his father!”

“That expression ‘swear like a trooper’ had to come from somewhere,” Katie joked. “What should I do? You may have my afternoon.”

That’s a charming way to put it, Susanna decided. No one except Katie O’Leary and Major Randolph have given me anything lately.

They decided Katie would sweep the floor while Susanna washed the windows. The corporal of the guard returned with two prisoners who wiped down the desks, then left. Susanna perched on a ladder to reach the top of the tall windows, balancing a bucket of ammonia and water on the crosspiece.

“If you make it too clean, some lieutenant will claim it for his own quarters and eject you and your pupils,” Katie told her as she scrubbed.

“Over my dead body!” Susanna looked around, satisfied at the work of one day.

She sat on top of the ladder, already seeing her pupils studiously applying themselves at their desks. Katie had finished her sweeping and was sitting on the stool again, her hand against the small of her back.

“I’ve kept you here too long,” Susanna said as she climbed down. “Tell me about the families whose children I will be teaching.”

“I can sum up the families in two words,” Katie said, as she stood up. “High sticklers. They will expect far too much of you.”

“Daunting,” Susanna murmured.

“The children of the garrison are charming enough, but their mothers … They’re another matter.” She lowered her voice. “Remain above reproach and you will have smooth sailing.” She touched Susanna’s sleeve shyly. “I know you will do well.”

Until someone finds out I am not who they think I am, Susanna thought as she closed the door behind them. Joe, please be right. Let nothing come of Emily’s lie.

Joe Randolph glanced at his watch and pocketed it again, pleased with his timing. The ladies stood on the broad porch at Old Bedlam. He had come from the quartermaster storehouse, followed by a dubious private with a long-handled brush.

“I hope you did not mop any floors,” he told Susanna as he joined them on the porch. “You see here Fort Laramie’s answer to a chimney sweep. Go to, lad. Be brave. Come, ladies.”

Katie O’Leary took his arm, but Mrs. Hopkins hung back. “It seems so early to return to quarters,” she murmured.

It’s that difficult there? he thought. “It’s almost time for recall from fatigue,” he told her. “I’ll squire Katie home, and take you to meet your fellow educationist for the enlisted men’s children.”

“I’d like that,” she said, and sat down to wait for him.

Home for Katie was only two doors from Old Bedlam, but he would always be a Virginian, and prone to good manners. “What do you think?” he asked Katie, when he knew the two of them were out of earshot.

“She’s sweet, but there is such sadness in her,” Katie said, as she opened her front door. “I remember how I used to worry about my Jim before every battle, but he always came home. I’d hate to be a widow, and on my own.”

He returned some answer, writhing inside to continue perpetuating a lie to such a kindly woman. He toyed briefly with telling her the truth, but only tipped his hat and thanked her for her time, so generously given.

Mrs. Hopkins was shivering on the porch when he returned to Old Bedlam. “You’d be warmer in Emily’s house,” he said.

“I know, but I’d rather meet the teacher,” she said quickly, then glanced over her shoulder. “The chimney sweep must have found a bird’s nest. He swears better than Stanley.”

So you want to change the subject? he asked himself. They walked across the parade ground to a storehouse by the bakery, where children were coming out. Susanna watched them, and he noted the interest on her intelligent face.

“Where does Fort Laramie find teachers for enlisted men’s children?” she asked.

“From the ranks. It’s fifty cents a day extra duty pay,” he told her. “Sometimes it’s a malingerer wanting to get out of more arduous fatigue detail. I’ve even seen prisoners, clinking about a classroom in chains. Seriously.” He gestured to the open door. “Sometimes we get lucky, as we did with Private Benedict.”

He watched her expression as she stepped into the commissary warehouse, where barrels of victuals lined the walls. The room smelled of raisins and apricots, pungent dried herring, and vinegar. Her smile grew as she saw the blackboard pretty much where Captain Dunklin had so snidely described it, leaning on top of bags of wheat.

“Not fancy,” he said, feeling apologetic.

“No, but I like raisins.”

“You won’t after a winter of nothing but raisins,” he assured her.

Seated at a packing crate desk, Private Benedict looked up as they approached. He was on his feet at attention then, snapping off a smart salute, which Major Randolph returned.

“Private, let me introduce Mrs. Hopkins, teacher for the officers’ children.”

She extended her hand with no reticence, to Joe’s pleasure.

“I’m delighted to meet a fellow teacher,” she told Private Benedict.

“Where’s your classroom, Mrs. Hopkins?”

“A place not nearly as pleasant-smelling as yours,” she said. “It’s that first floor room in Old Bedlam, complete with a chimney probably full of bats or birds, and maybe a ghost or two, if I can believe the corporal of the guard.”

They laughed together, comrades already. With a friend in Katie O’Leary and a colleague—however improbable—in Private Benedict, Mrs. Hopkins would rub along at Fort Laramie, Joe thought. Now if he could convince her to give him some spare time at the hospital …

The private offered Mrs. Hopkins his chair, and in no time they were deep in conversation. Joe perched himself on an apple barrel, content to watch her. He knew she must be tired after a day’s hard labor in an old building, but she had found a friend in Private Benedict.

He had admired blondes before, but Melissa’s brunette glory had always stirred him, especially the sight of her wavy dark hair spread on his pillow. He folded his arms and decided that Mrs. Hopkins’s blond hair, coupled with her brown eyes, could prove endlessly fascinating. He liked the trimness of her figure. Mrs. Hopkins was also tidy and impeccable of posture. She had a full, deep laugh, not ladylike, but so infectious.

They were both looking at him now, as though waiting for a reply to a question he had not heard, so busy was he in admiring Mrs. Hopkins. “Beg pardon?” he inquired.

Private Benedict asked again, “Sir, may I walk Mrs. Hopkins back to her quarters? I’d hate to keep you from work.”

Hell, no, he thought. He took a few deep breaths, surprised at his resistance to a kind offer. “Actually, I had hoped to quick march Mrs. Hopkins to my hospital and introduce her to the redoubtable Nick Martin.” Joe paused, hoping Susanna Hopkins would see his interest. He was not a man to encroach; blame his Virginian upbringing. “Mrs. Hopkins, it’s your choice.”

Please choose me, he pleaded silently, yearning for her approval like a schoolboy.

He realized he was holding his breath until Mrs. Hopkins replied. “Private, I trust we will have plenty of occasions to discuss both your pupils and mine.”

Private Benedict sketched a charming bow to her. “We will.”

“Good day, Private. We’ll speak again soon. Major, shall we go?”

When he was a boy, living on his father’s plantation, Joe Randolph had had a one-eyed dog. Brutus belied his name, being most tame and possessed of a self-effacing nature, at least until the post rider happened by.

Brutus became a different dog then, considering it his duty to give chase. The post rider always managed to escape Brutus’s retribution, until one day when the energized dog latched on to the horse’s tail.

The horse stopped, looked around at this source of discomfort, and did nothing. Joe remembered watching, eyes wide, as Brutus sank to the road and also did nothing. Once he had caught the post rider’s horse, he had no idea what to do with it.

Joseph Randolph, grown now but possibly no wiser, had no idea what to do with Mrs. Hopkins. He had never supposed she would abandon a conversation with a fellow educationist. But here she was, probably with nothing on her mind beyond avoiding her cousin’s house for another hour. That thought channeled him toward his best efforts to relieve at least some of her anxiety. He couldn’t call it a smooth recovery, but Mrs. Hopkins probably knew better than to expect miracles from men.

“Yes, I promised you Nick Martin and I suppose you are wondering why,” he said, as they left the warehouse.

“True. I can control a classroom,” she assured him. She ducked her head against the wind that roared down the parade ground, and staggered with the force of it.

He steadied her automatically. “Some ladies in the regiment sew lead shot into their hems, to keep the wind from, well, doing what it does to skirts,” he told her.

“I’ll remember that.”

As they walked toward the hospital, the bugler in front of the guardhouse played recall from fatigue, or tried to play it, considering that the wind grabbed the notes and hurtled them toward Omaha as soon as he blew them.

“Soldiers have been known to commit suicide from too much wind,” he commented, then could have smacked himself. Do I not remember a single bit of idle chatter? he asked himself.

“One can scarcely blame them,” Mrs. Hopkins said. “Now, sir, Nick Martin.”

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