by Carla Kelly
“No, they don’t just disappear,” Joe said as they walked back to the hotel. “I’m convinced Nick had a hand in it.”
“We’re putting a lot of trust in a man who showed up from nowhere, thinks he’s Saint Paul, and stole two hundred dollars from your medical fund,” Suzie replied.
Joe put his arm around her, even though it was a forward thing to do on a public street. “I just have a good feeling about Nick Martin. Always have. He was helpful and very much your champion.” He pressed the worry line between her eyes. “And now I’m your champion.”
In shy silence, they ate roast beef far better than government issue in the hotel dining room, with mashed potatoes and gravy.
“Can you make gravy as good as this?” he asked at last. It seemed such an inane filler, “And mashed potatoes?”
“Better,” she assured him, then laughed softly. “Joe, anything I cook will be better than what you’re used to.” She leaned closer. “I fibbed about the nightgown. I did bring one, but it’s just old flannel.”
It was just old flannel, faded from numerous washings. Without her usual armor of corset and stays and petticoats, she looked smaller and almost fragile, but he knew looks were deceiving. She was going to braid her hair before bed, but he stopped her, sat her on his lap and brushed her hair. It crackled in the dry air and turned into a blond nimbus around her face. He took off her spectacles and left them on the bedside table. He touched the dimple below her eye.
“What do you see out of this eye?”
“Not much. Blurry images.” She folded her hands in her lap like the well-mannered lady he knew she was. “The physician said that was all I could hope for.”
“I expect he was right. Magnification from the lens doesn’t make much difference, does it?”
“None that I can tell,” she confided, leaning against him. “It seemed to make my physician happy to think he was doing something, so I didn’t argue.”
“You don’t need to wear spectacles then, do you?”
“Probably not.”
“Then don’t. If you feel eyestrain, then you should wear them.”
“Yes, Doctor.”
His lips were close to hers now. “Yea or nay tonight, Mrs. Randolph?”
“How about hallelujah?”
He grabbed her around the waist, breathing in the wonderful fragrance of her hair, which excited him as much as her softness. Her arms were tight around him, and she kissed him. He wondered at first if she would feel like M’liss. She did, in the basics, but she didn’t. Melissa had been tall and well-built, and Suzie wasn’t. He decided to be as gentle as possible, because he knew Frederick, drunk or sober, hadn’t cared much about the niceties. Joe realized after a mere minute that Suzie was as hungry for him as he was for her.
He wasn’t sure where her nightgown went; probably in the same corner as his nightshirt. He lay on top of her, almost giddy with the feeling, smoothing her hair back with both hands as he kissed her neck and her breasts. She shifted a little, raised her hips, murmured his name, and the mating dance began. He hadn’t forgotten any of the choreography and neither had she. Her breath came as rapidly as his, her hands warm on his back, then caressing him in a way oddly gentle, in the middle of tumult. It soothed him as much as it excited him. His last coherent thought before he climaxed was that perhaps he should reserve the hotel rooms on either side of them. Thank God his quarters at Fort Laramie were freestanding, and he shared no walls with anyone.
She came right after him, and her sigh went right to his heart. She kissed his lips so gently then, her legs tight around him, her hands, sweaty now, still caressing his back. He didn’t move for a while, but raised up on his elbows to allow some lung expansion. She made no move to release him, so they stayed as they were until his eyes started to droop. He fought it; the last thing he wanted to do was sleep right now, even though biology made men so susceptible.
It was her turn to say something incoherent when he finally moved—easy enough, because her legs felt boneless. Totally content, he lay beside her, knowing he should tidy himself up a bit, but not inclined to that much exertion.
He discovered Suzie was more practical. She sat up. After a massive stretch that reminded him of a cat, she padded to the washstand and the pitcher of water the management had thoughtfully provided. He admired her backside and the marvelous slope from her shoulders to her waist. As he watched, interested, she took care of herself, and returned to bed with a warm cloth for him. He reached for it, but she did the honors.
“You’re going to spoil me.”
“No. We’ll take turns. Women can vote here, you know, and I intend to.”
He growled, grabbed her and held her in a bear hug. “That makes absolutely no sense.”
“I don’t care, Joe,” she said. “Maybe I just want you to know from the start that this is a partnership.”
“That does make sense,” he agreed. “How about you just make yourself comfortable. Oh, yes, like that.”
Suzie pillowed her head on his chest and put her leg over him. Both his arms were around her. He knew from experience that he’d have to shift eventually before his arms grew numb, but that was a while off, and he loved the feel of her bare body against his. He figured one of the mysteries of science was how soft women’s bodies were, compared to men.
“Satisfied?” she asked.
“Need you ask? I’ve exceeded the legal limit of satisfaction. You’re, uh, inspiring.” He kissed her sweaty head. “My bed’s not very comfortable at home, but we’re probably stuck with it until we change duty stations.”
“Or go to Paris.”
He smiled in the dark. “You married me because you want to travel,” he teased.
Her response was so serious that he almost felt a chill. “I married you because I love you. I don’t even know when it happened.”
He thought about his own epiphany. “I was watching you jump rope, and I wanted to jump with you. Silly, yes, but I knew.”
She said his name so softly. He knew she felt safe with him, which aroused every protective instinct in his generous nature. This was a wife to treasure, just as M’liss had been.
Susanna was silent for a long moment. He knew she wasn’t asleep, because he felt her eyelashes opening and closing against his chest.
“Yes, my lovely Suzie?” he asked finally.
“I’ll try not to, but … but I usually end up crying myself to sleep or crying myself awake. I think of Tommy, and that’s what I do. Now I don’t know where he is, and I can’t seem to help myself.”
Joe felt her tears on his chest and he held her close. “I understand. I’ll let you in on a secret—I cried myself to sleep for a long time after Melissa died. Tears don’t scare me. I’ve seen plenty.”
Her tears stopped in a few moments. She sat up, looking down on him. He scarcely breathed as she touched his face, outlining his nose and lips, her finger ending at his throat. She pressed her hand against his chest, as if checking him for soundness; maybe she was. She felt his stomach, lingered over his genitals, and ran her hands down his legs. He laughed when she tickled his foot.
“I’ll be a good wife. I can’t be Melissa, but I’ll be a good wife,” she said simply.
Tears started in his eyes then, and it wasn’t from sorrow or wishing Melissa back. It was from the absolute certainty that he was the most fortunate man who had ever lived. He wanted to tell her that, but he didn’t know if she set much store by mere words. She had probably heard plenty of them. He would just have to show his appreciation.
“You already are a good wife,” he whispered back. “Better go to sleep, because I intend to wake you up later on tonight.”
“If I don’t beat you to it,” she said. “Remember? Partners?”
She beat him to it.
As she thought about the matter a week later, still in Cheyenne, Susanna decided that the greatest blessing of marriage to Joe Randolph so far was the certainty that no matter what happened, she wasn’t by herself in t
imes of trouble.
When she woke up in tears that first morning, he held her close, singing a ribald song he must have learned in the late war, so vulgar that she gasped and then laughed.
“It takes no imagination to rhyme luck and pluck,” he joked. “Those Ohio regiments were full of farm boys with saucy tongues and vivid imaginations.” His eyes grew distant. “I wish I could have saved more of them.”
“You saved all you could, didn’t you?”
“I did.”
She knew Joe was a man of duty, but she had to chuckle to herself how he had to drag himself out of bed every morning to ride his borrowed horse to Fort Russell for the court-martial of a captain that Crook had found wanting during the Powder River campaign.
“I’d rather spend two hours just staring at your nice ankles than listening to fifteen minutes of why the army should slap this poor captain’s wrist because he decided to dismount his men for a while on a freezing cold morning to boil coffee. It made no difference in the outcome of the battle. He convinced me; hell, he convinced all of us. Court-martial duty is a pain,” Joe told her one evening, as he lay with his head in her bare lap.
And so it went. She recalled him to duty each morning, laughed when he grumbled, sent him out the door, and slept for another hour or two. A court-martial honeymoon was not for the faint of heart, she decided, at least for the major. For her part, it was idle luxury to lie in bed, think about the night before, then take a long soak in the tub down the hall and think about the night to come. She decided her husband had a certain talent. Maybe that came from knowing more about female anatomy than most men.
She spent her afternoons with more purpose, writing to her uncle in Shippensburg, asking to be kept abreast of attempts to find Tommy. Joe suggested that she compose a notice to be sent to Pennsylvania, Illinois, Iowa and Nebraska papers—following a probable path to Cheyenne—asking for the whereabouts of a tall twelve-year-old with a dark blaze in his blond hair, and brown eyes, with a mole on his cheekbone, answering to the name of Tommy Hopkins.
One night, lying satiated with her equally sated husband, Susanna composed the announcement, pausing a long time over Nick Martin’s description. “We daren’t mention Saint Paul, or no editor will print this, no matter how much money we send,” she told her husband, who looked nearly comatose. “Joe, you are surely the most satisfied-looking man in the territory.”
“I expect I am,” he told her, all complacence. “Certainly the happiest man at the court-martial table. I show up every morning with a big grin on my face. They all hate me now.” He took a nip of her neck and looked over her shoulder at her announcement.
“‘Tall, silent, long dark hair’ should do it. We dubbed him Nick Martin. I wonder what his name is.”
She took the announcement to the newspaper editor, who promised to send it out. He looked at her with some sympathy. “Your son, ma’am?” he asked.
She nodded, unable to help the tears that welled in her eyes. She left the newspaper office as quickly as she could, and spent the next hour composing herself by feeding pigeons in a straggly park that was Cheyenne’s attempt at gentility. The sun was warm on her face, now that it was nearly May.
She walked back to the hotel, suddenly wishing to return to Fort Laramie and the post surgeon’s house, to cook for him, to smooth his way however she could, and to teach her pupils in the commissary storehouse. It was time to plan a year-end program for the parents, before the fathers had to mount up or march out for Montana Territory and a summer of campaigning. There would be recitations and maybe a play, and refreshments. She would plan and work and love her husband and try not to think about Tommy any more than most of everyday.
She calmed herself, grateful that every night she would be in the capable arms of a man who knew her sorrows, knew his own, and who seemed to have no trouble comforting her. She couldn’t help smiling.
He was waiting for her in the hotel room when she returned, surprising her. She was grateful she had spent some time composing herself, but he seemed to see right through what she thought was her calm demeanor.
“I thought it might be hard for you to go to the newspaper office,” he said, putting down the paper he was reading and holding out his arms for her.
She sat on his lap. “How on earth did you get away early?” she asked.
“I requested an early adjournment,” he replied, and chuckled. “You can imagine the ribbing I got, complete with suggestions on how I should spend my extra free time! They’re so envious.”
She poked him in the chest, then kissed him. “You’re going to make it hard for me to ever meet these gentlemen without blushing. Why are you early?”
“I have an idea. I was sitting there, bored, doodling little blonde ladies with big eyes, when it occurred to me that I possibly have an ace up my sleeve—Allan Pinkerton.”
“Of the detective agency?”
“The same. I knew him as Major E.J. Allen, when he was doing undercover work around Atlanta in ‘64. He had a rather nasty case of diarrhea.”
“You are descriptive.”
“Ah, yes. He owes me one or two. Mr. Pinkerton isn’t active in the agency now, but his sons are. I came home early to get a bank draft—over there on the desk—and write a letter. We’ll put the National Detective Agency on Tommy’s trail.” Joe kissed her. “Don’t cry, Suzie. I’m just sorry it took me this long to think of it.”
They put their heads together over the letter. An hour later Susanna had finished writing it, because she knew her penmanship was better than a physician’s. Joe looked at the letter a long time.
“I know you’ve described him down to the mole under his eye, but I wish you had a photograph,” he said finally.
She almost didn’t want to tell him. She had promised herself she would never let it out of her sight. Do you want him found or not? she asked herself.
“I do have a photograph,” she told her husband. “I carry it everywhere with me.”
“We need to send it to Will Pinkerton, Suzie.”
“It’s all I have,” she said as she took it from her carpetbag and handed it to him. “It was taken just before Frederick nearly killed me, and thank God Frederick had forgotten all about it.”
Joe looked at the photograph a long time, a smile playing around his lips. “He looks so much like you.” He pointed to the picture. “That’s interesting—he really does have that same blaze of dark hair on his temple like you.”
“He’s my son,” she said simply. “Just make sure Mr. Pinkerton knows I must have the photograph back.”
The court-martial ended two days later, to her husband’s obvious relief. He came into the hotel room carrying a large pasteboard box and wearing a grin from ear to ear. “General Crook will be so disappointed,” he told her, setting down the box. “All we did was issue a rather tepid reprimand, because that was all the matter deserved.” He followed the trajectory of her expression. “And what is this, you’re thinking?”
“It’s too big for flowers, and you hardly seem like someone who would waste money on flowers,” she said.
“It’s for you, and you don’t even need to do anything extraordinary for it.”
When she said, “I already did that last night,” he laughed and handed her the box.
She felt her breath catch when she took off the lid. Nestled inside were two dresses, one a dignified royal-blue and the other made of summery lawn, little purple flowers on a pale green background.
“You dear man,” she whispered, shaking out the blue dress. It was simple, with long sleeves and a plain round neckline.
“There’s a lace collar in the box, too,” her husband said, his eyes lively. “I really liked the one you borrowed from Mrs. Burt for our wedding. I have a very nice opal necklace in my quarters that should go fine with the dress and collar.”
“Only if you really want me to wear it,” she said quietly.
“I do. One Mrs. Randolph wore it, and now another one should.” He touched her fa
ce. “I have other pieces, too. What I have is yours.”
She wrapped her arms around both dresses. “I don’t have anything special for you!”
“You’re my something special, Suzie. I don’t need anything else. Try it on.”
He didn’t need to ask twice, unbuttoning the plaid dress she had worn several days now, and helping her step out of it. The blue dress buttoned up the front, but her fingers were shaking, so he helped her. It fit perfectly.
“How did … how did …”
“I asked Emily for your measurements.” He was unbuttoning the blue dress now, his hands inside the tight-fitting basque, gentle on her breasts. “Perfect. Want to try on the other one, or do we go right to the payment?”
She gave him such an arch look that he burst out laughing. “All right! Let me help you into the next one.”
The summery dress fit as beautifully as the dark one. “Oh, my,” she breathed, looking in the mirror. “I’ve never had such a pretty gown.” She stopped and turned to him. “How on earth did you find a dressmaker in Cheyenne? That can’t have been part of your general wisdom.”
“Certainly not.” He looked all around the room, anywhere but at her. “Fifi and Claudine suggested her.”
Susanna gasped, then put her hand over her mouth as the implication sank in. “If Claudine was still alive, that had to have been before you proposed!”
“It was.” He began unbuttoning the dress, pulling it down from her shoulders and kissing them. “I guess I was just waiting for a romantic spot to propose, like a ward full of wounded men. Oh, Suzie.”
He didn’t say any more; he just held her.
Chapter Nineteen
They left in the ambulance early the next morning, sharing it this time with Major Townsend, who had also been part of the court-martial board. If Susanna thought she would feel uncomfortable around him—she had barely spoken to him since the Dunklins’ house—it never happened.
The weather was a far cry from the bleak January when she’d made this same trip, sad, defeated and trying to start over. This time she sat close to her husband, deriving so much simple comfort from the pressure of his arm that she had no fear of the man who had commanded Fort Laramie.
