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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. Idon’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.
