by Carla Kelly
The odorous policing of the fort had begun, which meant the post surgeon was out at all hours, making sure the prisoners from the guardhouse scooped, shoveled and limed the ground. This led to a flaming row when one of the more lax infantry lieutenants took exception to his company’s participation, and the major thought otherwise.
“I always win those discussions,” he told her later as he passed the Reeses’ quarters, headed for his own. “Amazing how rank can sharpen even a second lieutenant’s intellect.” He held up his hands playfully to ward her off. “Close enough, Suzie! I reek.”
From a distance, he told her he had left the Carlisle newspaper for the Dunklins’ perusal, but Susanna had no expectations. The only difference she noticed was that Mrs. Dunklin avoided her eyes now, the gloat gone. Susanna didn’t look for more, especially since it was more pleasant to exchange a few words with Mrs. Burt, or spend an evening laughing with her night school students, some of whom could read better than their husbands now.
I could worry myself into an early grave, Susanna decided after a week of tension. It was a rare night. The house was her own, since Emily and Stanley had adjourned to the Burt quarters for an evening of cards and games—anything to create a diversion. Susanna had been invited, too, but that was a step she wasn’t prepared to take yet.
She had adjourned to the kitchen table to write her weekly letter to Tommy, when she heard banging at the door. Her nerves practically humming, she listened. No, someone was kicking at the door. Her heart in her mouth, Susanna leaped to her feet, her mind crowded with Tommy first, as always, then Captain Reese, and now Nick.
“Yes?” she quavered, not about to open the door.
“Ma’am, it’s Sentry Number 4. There’s someone who needs you.”
Confused, she opened the door. Her coat a mess and her shoes muddy, Maddie Wilby was held tight in the arms of a sentry who juggled his gun on one shoulder.
“Maddie!” she exclaimed, taking the sobbing child from the soldier, who stepped back in obvious relief.
“I found her on the flats by the Rustic Hotel,” he said, his eyes full of concern. “I think she must have walked from Three Mile Ranch.” He touched her head. “When I called out the password challenge, she started to cry. I have a little sister back in Indiana ….” He shouldered his rifle again, nodded to them and left the porch.
His voice came out of the darkness. “Mrs. Hopkins, she told me you would help her, because you are her teacher.”
“I am, Private. Thank you,” she told him, then called after him. “Before you return to your post, could you please inform Major Randolph?” She turned her attention to the child in her arms. “Maddie, my dear, is your mother …”
Maddie nodded, clutching her tighter. “Everyone was crying. I couldn’t see her. I knew you would help me.”
“Yes, but mercy, you took a chance getting here,” Susanna said, sitting down with her, trying to calm herself so she wouldn’t show fear to a distressed child. She sat still a long moment, holding Maddie, wanting to hold her forever, since her own dear child was out of reach, perhaps never to be seen again. As her mind cleared, she knew she had to be brave. Someone else needed Maddie even more.
“My dear, I know just the place for you. Let me get my coat.” She yanked it on, knowing that if she hesitated for another moment, her resolve would fail her. There was only one place for Maddie Wilby, one refuge. She picked up the child and ran toward the footbridge, running from herself, maybe, because she wanted the child for her own. Halfway across the parade ground, she wasn’t sure if she had closed the door behind her. She hesitated and nearly turned back, but from some forgotten reservoir of courage deep inside her, she found determination.
Chapter Sixteen
Joe joined her at the footbridge, plucking Maddie from her arms. With another sob, the child wrapped her legs around him, her face in his shirt. He hadn’t bothered with his uniform jacket or overcoat. Susanna looked down. His shoes were off and he wore moccasins. He must have been relaxing in his quarters when the sentry burst in.
“Joe, she walked from Three Mile Ranch!” she said, hurrying to keep up.
“Good God.” He held the child close. “She has a guardian angel working overtime, this one.”
“Are we doing the right thing?” she whispered.
“The rightest thing anyone has ever done, my dear,” he assured her. “We’re about to cure the common heartache.”
“I want her, but I know she will be better off here,” she said simply.
“Then bless your heart, Susanna Hopkins,” he whispered. “You’re one in a million.”
While Joe soothed Maddie, Susanna knocked on the Rattigans’ door. In his shirtsleeves and socks—Susanna had never seen him so casual—Sergeant Rattigan opened the door almost immediately, Maeve at his shoulder, her eyes anxious.
The moment she saw Maddie, Maeve held out her arms. The child practically leaped into them, causing her to stagger backward until John Rattigan steadied them both. In a moment she was seated in her chair, rocking back and forth, crooning to the child.
“Thank God,” Susanna whispered, finding herself in the post surgeon’s grip now. As Maeve practiced her magic with Maddie, Susanna told the men everything she knew. “The sentry thinks she must have walked in the dark from Three Mile Ranch.” She reached out to Sergeant Rattigan and he grasped her hand like a lifeline. She took a deep breath. “Sergeant, she needs to be here with you and Maeve.”
Susanna never dreamed she would see a sergeant with tears in his eyes. “You thought right,” he told her. “We’ll keep Maddie.” He bowed his head over her hand, unable to continue.
She looked at Joe, who was having his own struggles. “What a congregation of watering pots,” she said. No need for them to know of her tears.
“I have to ride to Three Mile,” Joe said.
“I’ll come with you, sir,” Rattigan said.
“As much as I love the infantry, you’re not much of a horseman, Sergeant.”
“No, I’m not, sir, but I can stay in the saddle and you shouldn’t ride alone. Let me get my shoes. We’ll stop by the barracks and pick up a squad of other terrible horsemen.”
The men left in a few minutes. Susanna sank down on the sofa, her eyes filled with the sight of mother and daughter. She closed her eyes against her own pain of wanting to be with her son. Maybe Joe had spoken truly. As painful as it was for her, this did feel like the rightest thing anyone had ever done.
When she opened her eyes, surprised that she had slept, she heard Maddie and Maeve in the postage stamp of a spare room, moving boxes. She went to the doorway and watched them as Maeve made a pallet on the floor.
“We’ll have a cot for you tomorrow, my love,” Maeve said. She kissed Maddie’s untidy hair. “Or maybe we won’t worry about this now. Let’s just go to my room.”
Maddie nodded, her serious self again, possessed of years beyond her childhood. “I’d rather not sleep alone tonight.”
“Neither would I,” Maeve said softly.
Nor I, Susanna thought. She knelt by Maddie. “Sleep tight, dearest.”
Maeve followed her to the door. “You have done the kindest thing,” she whispered. “I know you must want to keep her yourself.”
Yes, a thousand times, Susanna thought. “I have a son. You needed a daughter.”
Susanna stood a long time on the footbridge, watching the flowing water, seeing in her mind Maeve and Maddie cuddled together in bed. When Sergeant Rattigan returned, if there was still time before reveille, he would likely join them. They would probably sleep three to a bed, tight as mussels in a basket, until Maddie was ready to sleep alone.
The ice was breaking up and she knew there were fish below, freed from their winter prison and eager for spring. She had heard taps earlier, so it must be ten o’clock now, because the sentries were calling their “All’s well” around the post. Her heart was troubled, but spring settled around her, anyway.
The front door was closed whe
n she came home. She went inside to see Emily knitting. Susanna sat beside her cousin and told her what had happened.
“Maddie will have a good mother now,” Emily said.
She had a good mother before, Susanna thought. She knew Emily wouldn’t believe her, so she just nodded.
Emily resumed her knitting as Susanna hesitated a long moment, weighing the consequences of what she wanted to do. In an evening of deep breaths, she took another one.
“Emily, I’m going to Major Randolph’s quarters. He is the worst cook ever, and I’m going to make him some muffins and coffee. He’ll be famished when he returns.”
To her surprise, Emily continued knitting. “I rather think you should,” she said. “Don’t put any of those everlasting raisins in the muffins. I’ve been hoarding a handful of dried apricots. Let me get those. Just soak them a little while before you add them to the batter.” She went into the kitchen.
Susanna took the apricots and kissed her cheek.
“And for goodness’ sake, do try to return before reveille, and use the back door. You know how people like to spread rumors here. I, of course, will be as silent as the grave.”
“Cousin, you know what I’m doing isn’t right and proper,” Susanna said.
Emily thought a long moment before she spoke. “We’re grown women. Maybe life isn’t just black-and-white, is it?” She held out her hand for Susanna to grasp.
Susanna walked two doors down to the major’s quarters. She knew his door wouldn’t be locked. Funny how a house with only a man in it could feel so empty. The lamp in the parlor still burned, so she sat in his armchair, tired to her bones. To her amusement, she saw he had tacked up the French words for chair, table, bookcase, books and rug by their namesakes. She went into the kitchen, and re-acquainted herself with French for sink, cookstove and a variety of edibles. She laughed out loud to see the word merde scrawled on the wooden box containing raisins. Good thing Emily had given her apricots.
The rest of his quarters were wreathed in shadow, but enough moonlight showed her an orderly bedroom, where the dining room should have been. She shook her head over the strips from an army blanket tacked over the windows, probably to ensure darkness for daytime naps after nighttime duty. She knew she was the only one in the house, but she still tiptoed down the hall to peer into the clinic for dependents. There were other rooms upstairs, probably empty.
She went into the parlor again. No pictures, no paintings, only a calendar. The books were mainly medical texts, with some Dickens and Victor Hugo, battered and looking much like a veteran of the late war, when Les Misérables had been all the rage. Still, the armchair was comfortable. She curled up in the big chair, her legs tucked under her, and fell asleep.
When she woke, dawn had not yet come. She hurried to build up a fire in the cookstove, which would have received a failing grade in her own kitchen back in Carlisle. At least he had the basic army food: dubious sowbelly, but enough flour and sugar to make muffins with Emily’s apricots. By the time Susanna found the baking powder, the small oven was hot enough. She knew better than to look for a muffin tin. She let herself out the back door and found one in Emily’s kitchen.
While the muffins baked, Susanna brewed coffee, breathing in the soothing aroma. She located three cups, one with a drastic chip in it, which she threw away. She poured herself a cup, sipping and staring at a mysterious furry mound that might have been bread once. She wondered what on earth he ate.
The kitchen was filled with the aroma of cooling muffins and hot coffee when she heard the front door open. Suddenly shy, and doubting the wisdom of her good intentions, Susanna considered darting out the back door. “Tell me this isn’t a mirage,” spoken in the dark with a Virginia drawl, stiffened her spine.
“It’s not,” she said, coming out of the kitchen. “I thought you might want something besides horrid oatmeal.”
He was indistinct in the dark because she had doused the parlor lamp. She came closer, still hesitant, taking her time. Joe hadn’t moved from beside the door, although he had closed it. Maybe he thought he was in the wrong quarters.
“You know, the muffins in the kitchen won’t stay warm forever,” she suggested, hoping to jog him into action.
“I’m so tired, Suzie.”
That was all she needed to know. She unwound his muffler and unbuttoned his overcoat, helping him shrug out of it. She steered him toward the kitchen, where he sat down heavily.
“There isn’t any butter, but I did find some honey,” she said, putting four muffins before him and a cup of hot coffee, which he sniffed, then sipped cautiously. His smile was her reward.
The four muffins disappeared and were replaced with two more, and then one. He downed one cup of coffee and was starting on his second when Susanna decided he was patched together enough to talk.
“Well?”
He gazed at her now as though she registered in his tired brain. “I can’t tell you how nice it was to open my front door and take a whiff of someone cares.”
She smiled at that and sat down in the other chair, after removing the medical journals. She dribbled honey on her muffin, and he held out another for the same treatment.
“The … oh, let’s call them ladies … were frantic with worry, so I reassured them that Maddie was in a good place and wouldn’t be returning.” He picked up his cup and stared into its depths for a moment. “No one objected to that. I wouldn’t have cared if they had.”
“Claudine is dead?”
“Apparently it was a more peaceful death than usual from consumption. I think her heart just gave out, which always trumps staring at blood dripping off your chin.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry.”
“Apology unnecessary, Dr. Randolph. I wish you could have told her Maddie went to a wonderful couple who will love her forever.”
He took her hand. “I did that anyway, sitting there beside her. I assured her that Maddie had a guardian angel or two. Fifi thought I was barmy. I told Jules Ecoffey he can bury Claudine here, if he is so inclined. I think he will do that. It’s better that Maddie knows where her mother is.”
Without another word, he pushed away the plate in front of him and pillowed his head on his arms, asleep in moments. Since he was asleep, she kissed the top of his head.
“You can’t be comfortable,” she murmured after a few minutes. She gently shook him awake and helped him to his feet.
He offered no objection when she steered him to his bed in the dining room and helped him out of his uniform jacket. She removed his shoes as he sat with his eyes closed. His suspenders came off next, but her nerve failed her then and she just gave him a push onto his back. He unbuttoned his own trousers, then turned on his side and extended his arm.
“Lie down a minute, Suzie,” he said, his words slurred. “There’s a coverlet somewhere.”
She found it and did as he said, cautiously resting her head on his arm. He pulled her close and sighed. He sounded so satisfied that tears came to her eyes.
“I’ve missed this,” he said quite clearly.
Susanna was content to lie beside him and enjoy his warmth. Reason told her that it was no different from the warmth Emily gave off, since they had been sharing her bed. His hand was firm against her stomach and the feeling was soothing, but with an edge she had not enjoyed in years.
When he was sound asleep, Susanna got up carefully and eased herself out of Joe’s slackened grasp, making sure he was covered. It was still dark, but she heard reveille. Joe stirred a little and muttered something, but slumbered on, to her relief. She knew Captain Hartsuff was back at the fort and available. Joe could sleep, if he would.
She went quietly out the back door again and into the Reeses’ quarters. No one stirred yet, so she tiptoed upstairs, avoiding the squeaking tread, and lay down on her cot. She felt unreasonably content, considering that nothing was resolved in her life, the fort was tense and waiting news from Powder River, and she had no idea how her son was faring. Before Susanna slept, she wonde
red if Maddie could share her guardian angel with a child in Pennsylvania, now that she had found a safe harbor.
Susanna didn’t expect to see Maddie in her classroom that morning, so took the opportunity to tell the other students her mother had died during the night. Little Eddie Hanrahan suggested they draw pictures for Maddie, so Susanna tossed out her lesson plans and they did just that. The commissary clerk dredged up a partly used ledger from 1864 and her students drew on the pages she tore out.
She hurried to the Rattigans’ quarters during mess call. Maeve and Maddie sat close together as they looked at the drawings.
“Please tell my friends I appreciate their sentiments,” Maddie said in that dignified way of hers.
“Major Randolph told me Claudine will be buried here tomorrow,” Maeve whispered when Maddie turned her attention back to the drawings. “We’ll go to that, and Maddie will be in school the day after.”
“The sporting ladies from Three Mile will probably be there, too,” Susanna warned.
“I expect they will be,” Maeve replied, unperturbed. “I guess we won’t be bothered by the ladies from Officers Row, will we?”
When school ended, Private Benedict ushered out his children and helped her with hers, telling Rooney O’Leary to wait for him this time. Puzzled, Susanna looked at him. He drew her aside.
“While you were having recitations, Major Randolph stopped in and asked me to escort Rooney today. The major needs you.”
“What … why?”
Private Benedict moved closer. “Admin has the butcher’s bill from Powder River. One of your boys’ fathers is on the list and the major wants you to go with him to the home. He said it was your choice, though.”
“I’ll go,” she said without hesitation, thinking of Joe’s dangerous nighttime ride to Three Mile, when he already knew Claudine was dead.
