Laura Abbot

by Into the Wilderness

  “Here we are.” She set a tray on a nearby table. After she had served him his lemonade, she took her own drink and sat on the sofa facing him. Without preliminary, she said, “I understand you will be leaving the army late this summer.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “It’s just the two of us, dear. You don’t need to ‘ma’am’ me. I’m Effie. Besides, we’re just two friends having a cozy tête-à-tête.” She paused to sip from her lemonade. “What are your plans after you muster out?”

  He told her about working with his father and brother on the ranch.

  “Then you should not be too far from here.”

  “About one hundred-fifty miles as the crow flies.”

  “Do you plan to marry and start a family?”

  “Eventually, but that’s down the road a long ways.”

  “Why?”

  Her bluntness set him back. “I’m not ready yet. I need to get settled.”

  “Forgive an old woman’s candor, but I think you’re fooling yourself.”

  A trickle of perspiration worked its way down the small of his back. This was more inquisition than polite chat. “I’m sorry, but I don’t understand.”

  “It’s simple. Why are you waiting when golden opportunity is knocking at your door? You’ll be hard-pressed to find the likes of Lily Kellogg again.”

  The light dawned. Just as he’d originally deduced, Effie Hurlburt delighted in matchmaking. “I do not dispute that she is a fine young woman. I value our friendship, but a friendship it must remain.”

  “Poppycock!” Effie pursed her lips. “I do not understand why you are deluding yourself when you are so clearly in love with Lily.”

  He couldn’t have been more shocked if she’d suddenly turned into a lioness. He sputtered, searching for a response. “With all due respect, wouldn’t I know that better than you?”

  “Not at all. You young people can be oblivious to what’s right under your nose.” She fixed her eyes on him. “Are you going to sit there and tell me you’ve never thought of Lily as a potential wife?”

  There was no satisfactory answer to that question. “No matter, because she would never regard me in that light.”

  Ellie’s tinkling laughter unnerved him. “Are you daft, boy? She is crazy about you. She just hasn’t admitted it to herself yet.” She stifled a giggle. “And you? You big galoot. Whatever nonsense you tell yourself, you are in love with Lily Kellogg as all the world can clearly see.”

  In love? He couldn’t be. He wouldn’t be. Not after Rebecca’s betrayal. “You mock me, ma’am.”

  “On the contrary, I’m trying to knock some sense into that thick head of yours. If you let Lily Kellogg get away, you’ll regret it the rest of your life.” She sat back, leaving the idea suspended in the silence. Then in a gentler tone, she said, “Now then, young man. Something is holding you back. What is it?”

  He swallowed against the bitterness rising in his chest. “Love? It’s not all poetry and moonlight.” He bit off the words threatening to pour out of him. He’d already said too much.

  “I see.” Effie’s expression softened. “So you’ve been hurt.” She nodded in apparent sympathy, gazing at him with such affection that he felt embarrassed. “I understand you don’t want to put yourself in that position again. And, yes, love involves risk. But are you convinced you want to let the woman who hurt you control your destiny?”

  He looked at her quizzically. “What do you mean?”

  “As long as you fail to act when love presents itself, you permit what she did to you to determine how you respond to new women in your life. Women like Lily. Tell me this. Was it Lily who hurt you? Lily who rejected you? No, so why do you make her the scapegoat for your past disappointments?”

  Dumbfounded, he could scarcely take it all in. Effie Hurlburt had spared nothing in trying to open his eyes. “I hardly know what to say.”

  “No need to say anything. You could, of course, call me a romantic meddler, but I’d prefer you think of me simply as one holding up a mirror to what is already in your heart.”

  Desperate to avoid her penetrating gaze, he rose to his feet. “I appreciate your interest, but if you will excuse me, I really must take my leave.” As she stood to usher him out, he relented and took her hand. “I have no mother, but if she were still alive, I know she would like you.”

  “That’s a fine compliment, Captain.” She squeezed his hand. “I’d like to think that she would say to you exactly what I’ve just said.”

  Over the next hours, he vacillated between irritation at Effie Hurlburt’s interference and an attempt to probe the nature of his feelings for Lily. Could it be that others were seeing what he could not? Certainly Will Creekmore had come to the conclusion he was courting. Every time Caleb saw Lily it was as if his heart outpaced his brain. He was a soldier. Discipline was his stock-in-trade. Where Lily was concerned, though, he’d failed at governing himself. Even admitting his affection for her, could she ever accept a man flawed by the violence of battle? Yes, he had some serious thinking to do. He must face his reservations and come to a conclusion. Either court Lily or break off their friendship. While he would hate to end the latter, perhaps that was best. She could go her way, and he could leave the fort with a clear conscience and no encumbrances.

  Once he’d decided that courting was out of the question, he spent the next day filled with relief. He’d made a decision. Now he merely had to act upon it.

  That good intention prevailed only until the poetry reading. About half the troops turned out and were generally more attentive than he’d predicted. Some relished the poetry while others listened in bored stupefaction. Caleb had been well received, but he attributed that more to Milton’s magnificent words than his own elocution.

  As soon as the readers had presented their offerings, they took their seats in the audience. After a dull rendition of “The Destruction of Sennacherib,” Lily came to the center of the stage for the finale. Lantern light cast an aura around her, creating a halo of her hair. She wore a misty sea-green dress, which made her resemble the beautiful lily for which she was named. Quiet settled over the audience. Then she began.

  “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

  I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

  My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

  For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

  I love thee to the level of every day’s

  Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.”

  Caleb clenched his hands. He was unmanned by her words. By her. Then in a voice that spoke to his soul, she continued.

  “I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;

  I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.

  I love thee with the passion put to use

  In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.

  I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

  With my lost saints—I love thee with the breath,

  Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose,

  I shall but love thee better after death.”

  Caleb heard neither the hushed silence when she finished, nor the thunderous applause which followed. Stunned, he choked back the sobs threatening to tear from his throat. Pain. Promise. Where did one end and the other begin? He had no answer. All he knew was that, come what may, for good or for ill, he was desperately in love with Lily Kellogg.

  * * *

  After the poetry reading, Lily was surrounded by well-wishers, eager to comment on her emotional delivery of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s sonnet. She caught a glimpse of Caleb across the room and hoped to find him later to congratulate him on his masterful reading of Milton. Given the fiery nature of the lines he read, she doubted even the most insensitive of his fellows would ever mock him.

  “Miss Kellogg?” She’d noticed the private, barely out of his teens, waiting to speak with her and yielding his place to officers and their wives. Finally, the others had dispersed and he approa
ched. “You don’t know me, but I’m Private Sydney Long. I, well...” He ducked his head. “I wanted to tell you how moved I was by your poem.”

  “Private—may I call you Sydney?—I’m grateful for the compliment.” The lad looked up, and she was astonished to see tears pooling in his eyes. “Dear me, are you all right?”

  He pulled a handkerchief from his coat, turned aside and blew his nose. “I’m sorry, it’s just that—”

  “So you have a sweetheart, Sydney? Is that it?”

  “Had, miss. Had. She died of the diphtheria.”

  “Mercy, I’m so sorry. Is there anything I can do for you?”

  “You already did it, ma’am.” Then, in a mournful tone, he recited, “‘and, if God choose, / I shall but love thee better after death.’”

  When he finished, Lily touched him gently on the shoulder. “Your young woman was lucky to have you, even for so short a time.”

  When the private moved toward the door, Lily studied the nearly empty room. She caught a glimpse of Caleb in the company of Lieutenant Creekmore. She considered hurrying after him to compliment him, but she didn’t want to make a spectacle of herself or give rise to rumors. Just before Caleb left, he turned in her direction, but without raising a hand in greeting or otherwise acknowledging her. On his face was the strangest look—serious, yet detached, and more puzzled than welcoming. Almost as if he were a man she didn’t know.

  Thinking about it that night and most of the next day, she felt a prickly sense of uncertainty. Theirs had been an open and pleasant friendship, but that impression had been sorely compromised by his distancing stance at the reading. Had she done something wrong? Had something changed? And why did she permit such questions to plague her throughout the day?

  Arriving home from her work at the hospital, the distraction of a letter from Aunt Lavinia pushed all thought of Caleb to the back of her mind.

  Rose handed her the envelope, then stood wadding her apron in her hands. “Open it, Lily, or I shall die of curiosity.”

  “I’m almost afraid. What if she thinks I’ve been presumptuous to write her and practically invite myself? Maybe I’ve offended her.”

  Rose, ever practical, harrumphed. “Quit stalling. No amount of fretting will change by one whit what’s in that letter.”

  With a silent plea heavenward, Lily slit the envelope and extracted the letter, written on heavy stationery embossed with Lavinia’s monogram.

  My dearest niece,

  I received your recent letter and am gratified by your interest in our fair city and your eagerness to visit Mr. Dupree and me. My understanding is that it is only you and, alas, not also your sister, Rose, who entertains the notion of traveling to St. Louis for what I hope can be an extended stay.

  At this time, it is impossible for me to offer you firm plans for your trip. For a month this summer we will be traveling to New York City where Mr. Dupree has business and then on to stay with friends in Newport, Rhode Island, a welcome respite from a Missouri summer.

  When we return from that trip, I shall have my husband’s secretary investigate suitable means of transportation and establish a travel schedule for you. I regret the uncertainty of my response, but you may tentatively plan to leave Fort Larned sometime in August. It will be my pleasure to attend to the financial arrangements for your trip. We may anticipate September for your possible arrival, which will thankfully give us sufficient time to work with the dressmaker to sew you up a new wardrobe more suitable to the demands of the social events you will attend.

  A shiver went down Lily’s spine. Now that her dream was on the verge of being realized, she was overcome with trepidation. The fantasy of lovely gowns and sophisticated soirees had always been blessedly in the future; the genuine possibility now seemed daunting. What did she know of high society? Of ball gowns and coiffures? Caught up in the moment, she had nearly forgotten Rose, rooted to the spot, her face pale, her freckles prominent. “I can’t believe it,” Lily whispered. “It may actually happen.”

  “I want to be happy for you, I really do.” Sniffling, Rose reached in her apron pocket and withdrew a handkerchief.

  Lily wrapped her sister in her arms, and they clung to one another for several moments. Then Lily patted Rose’s back. “Nothing has been decided,” she said. “I won’t count on anything until I have the tickets in my hand. We will simply wait to see what God has in store for me.”

  “Yes, that is best.” Rose stifled a half giggle, half sob. “I am not about to question the Almighty, even though His ways can be mysterious.”

  A new thought struck Lily. “What shall we tell Father?” She worried about leaving him, especially since he’d already lost David and her mother.

  “The truth. If and when it happens, your departure will trouble him sorely, even as he will understand it’s the right course for you. Perhaps the longer he has to anticipate your leaving, the less painful will be the actual fact of it.”

  “Or will it just give him more time to fret?”

  “There is no easy answer, Lily, but honesty is best.”

  Later as Lily sat darning her father’s socks, she pondered the question of honesty. Of course, she wanted the adventure she’d always longed for, but leaving her father and sister was painful to contemplate. She had always blithely assumed they would flourish without her, but Private Sydney Long’s loss had reminded her that nothing could be taken for granted or wished away.

  * * *

  Keyed up, Caleb repeatedly tapped the toe of his boot against the fence post. In the corral, horses milled, snorting and pawing as if sensing the onset of action. Behind him, men checked saddles and harnesses, while in the armory, weapons were being cleaned and oiled and ammunition stacked for transport. The anticipation of their upcoming mission coupled with the need for careful preparation set his nerves on heightened alert. This would be no ordinary foray into the prairie. Instead, they would be marching over fifty miles to engage a massing force of hostile Indians intent on protecting their tribal lands.

  Although a small contingent would remain at the fort for protection, most of the troops would be leaving at sunrise the next day. Caleb wished he could share in the elation and bravado of his men, itching for a fight. Instead, he was experiencing nightmarish reservations about the looming engagement with a motivated and desperate band of Indians.

  He shut his eyes against the remembered stench of the horses and smell of blood. He prayed this would be his final assault before leaving the army. August couldn’t come soon enough. He had done his duty—and would do it the upcoming days—but his soldier’s heart had deserted him. He knew that spelled trouble. He could ill afford to become overly careful or protective. A leader carries the charge to his men—skilled and fearless, an example of courage under fire.

  He turned away from the corral. When had cynicism replaced idealism? Sadly, he knew, almost to the minute. On a winter’s day at the Washita River. Determined to rid his mind of such grim phantoms, he walked briskly toward the officers’ briefing with Major Hurlburt, resolving to focus on business.

  Passing by the hospital, he flushed. All his best intentions of bravery in battle were one thing. Confronting his feelings for Lily was something else, strangely akin to cowardice. Effie Hurlburt had shot an arrow squarely into his heart. Listening to Lily read Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s sonnet had opened the wound. How was it possible for him to be in love? How could he again expose himself to rejection? But with the swiftness of an eagle came his next thought. How could he leave Lily? Or imagine a life without her?

  He had deliberately avoided her over the past week, knowing that until he could master his feelings, it would be unwise to see her, even as he longed to do that very thing.

  Nearing headquarters, he paused, glancing up at the flag atop the pole. He had sworn loyalty to his country. How could he deny his feelings for either country or Lily and still regard himself as honorable? In that moment, he made up his mind. When he returned from this mission, he would declare hi
s love for her. After he spoke with her, he would know one way or the other—either she returned his feelings or she didn’t.

  * * *

  All day the atmosphere at the fort had been bustling, the troops purposeful as they made preparations for their departure the next morning. In the hospital, Lily heard much grousing among the men confined there. “I can’t believe I’m missing this” and “My fellows need me, and here I am, laid up with a bum leg.” Privately she was appalled by their appetite for warfare, but she supposed battle was part of their culture.

  In the late afternoon, a young corporal suffering from a serious case of poison ivy tugged at her sleeve. “Miss, please, talk to the doctor.”

  “Pray tell, what for?”

  “I can go with my men. I know I can.” The urgency of his plea was a tribute to his sense of duty.

  “Corporal, Dr. Kellogg has told you how dangerous it would be for you to leave and risk further infection.”

  “But it’s cowardly to remain here.”

  “Never. The cowardice would lie in your possibly endangering others during the mission. The honorable course is for you to remain here, heal and be fit for the next call to duty.”