Her Hesitant Heart

by Carla Kelly

  When the news came, it hit hard. There was no school on Saturday, and Petteys was on duty, two reasons for Joe to lie in bed and explore his wife’s body thoroughly. He had taken his leisurely time providing sufficient foreplay to earn a final objection from Suzie, in her own eagerness, who was ready and getting impatient. She typically climaxed twice, so the third time came as a testimony to the rare leisure of Saturday, leaving them both calm and content.

  At least they would have been if the bugler hadn’t blown officers call. In a fort so understaffed, it was a summons closely akin to a fire bell in the night. Joe got up quickly, doing a quick wash while Suzie watched him, her blond hair so pretty and disheveled around her face, and her eyes drooping, tribute to his amazing prowess.

  “What’s that call?” she asked. “I can’t remember.”

  “It’s trouble, Suzie.”

  “Comb your hair,” she called after him as he ran down the stairs, his mind already off Venus and centered on Mars.

  He ran his fingers through his hair and hurried to the admin building, joining the small cadre of officers still at Fort Laramie. No one looked too soldierly, so no one commented on his own dishevelment at an hour when proper gentlemen were more sedately clothed.

  Major Townsend, his eyes two coals in his head, cleared his throat. “Bad news, gentlemen. General Crook suffered a defeat at Rosebud Creek last Saturday and has withdrawn to the Big Horns. The wounded are at Fetterman now and headed our way.”

  No one said anything; they had been expecting battle. But defeat? Good God, Crook had twenty companies in his part of the pincer movement. Joe looked around, and knew every man there was thinking the same thing.

  Training took over. Townsend told the cavalry lieutenant on loan from his Nebraska post to saddle up two fast riders and locate Jim O’Leary and K Company. “If they’re near enough, tell them to ride to Fetterman and offer support,” Townsend ordered. The lieutenant left on the run, not bothering to salute.

  Townsend issued orders that sent everyone moving, then looked at Joe, the only officer remaining. “Do what you do, Joe,” he said, sounding infinitely weary. “They’ll be here Monday. Expect the worst and be ready to transport.”

  Monday turned into the blur he remembered from the Civil War, with his ward full of dirty men and dirty wounds. He dismissed ambulatory patients to make room for hard cases. His hardest case was a captain of the Third Cavalry, shot through the face, maybe blind and with teeth missing. Joe tended him in Ted Brown’s quarters behind the hospital, desperate to keep the man nearby, but in a quiet place.

  Without asking, Suzie and Mary Hanrahan took over his ward, washing the men and sitting with them. Joe steeled himself for Suzie’s gasp when she saw Private Benedict, his leg ruined and full of gangrene. She was a novice around that kind of gross wound, but he still had to pry her away so he could remove Anthony’s leg below the knee.

  He and Petteys, a veteran overnight, doctored for two days straight, taking turns sleeping on his cot. Suzie brought food for both of them, then sat with Anthony Benedict, just holding his hand. Joe watched her droop and knew it was too much, but he needed her.

  Other wives came, too, unable to stay away, some more useful than others, but all a cheerful presence. He spent more time in his hospital steward’s quarters, watching the captain suffer in silence, his iron will evident.

  Finally the ward was quiet, filled with clean, well-fed men who lay half awake, half asleep, in that curious somnolence of the wounded. The ward was just the way he wanted it, so the steward could watch tonight. Joe went to Anthony Benedict’s bedside and tapped Suzie’s shoulder.

  She looked up, pleased to see him.

  “Private, I’m taking my wife home. Go to sleep, and that’s an order.”

  To his amusement, Anthony snapped his eyes shut.

  “You’re a faker,” Suzie told the private, but she let Joe lift her to her feet.

  They strolled down the hill hand in hand, silent. Inside their quarters, he took her in his arms.

  “You know, Suzie, after two days of the three Ds—death, dirt and dismemberment—all I want to do is make a baby.”

  She understood exactly what he was trying to say. Her clothes came off at the bedroom door, and she helped him out of his.

  “You could use a bath, but I don’t care,” was all she said as she took care of his needs, her own, and proved to him how competent was woman—specifically, his woman.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “I’d like to think we made a baby,” his charming wife whispered in his ear as she sent him off to Fort Russell with an ambulance and three wounded soldiers. “It’s our turn to get lucky.”

  When the ambulance stopped that night near Hat Creek, the courier riding the mail from Fort Russell to Fort Laramie recognized Joe and handed him a letter postmarked Omaha. After tending to his patients, Joe leaned against an ambulance wheel and opened it.

  It was from Will Pinkerton. “I thought we asked you to stop,” he murmured as he scanned the lines, then reread them, impressed with the equally clever son of the detective he remembered from the war. He read the part again about Will preparing to leave for Chicago, and coming upon what he thought was Nick Martin in the army wagon yard.

  “He led me a merry chase,” Joe read. “It was as though Nick was drawing me away from the wagon yard, like a mother bird from her chicks. I finally lost him, but resolved to search the yards in the morning, when I could see better. When I did, the wagons had already pulled out, heading for Fort Russell. I was advised not to follow, because of Indians. Major, keep your eyes open. Tommy’s heading right to you, I think.”

  Joe closed his eyes in relief, then opened them, to look in the envelope. He sighed with gratitude. Will had included the photograph of Susanna’s son. “I’m going to find you,” he murmured.

  His patients were silent for the most part, as contemplative as Trappist monks, except when the ambulance hit a particularly bad spot. Then they sucked in their breath, hissing in pain. He knew the sound from years of experience, but it always unnerved him.

  By the time they arrived at Fort Russell, the captain’s wife, alerted by telegraph, waited by the hospital entrance. Joe held her as she sagged against him, aghast at her husband’s wounds, then straightened and followed the stretcher into the hospital, her tread firm. Joe could only admire that much resolution, even though he knew Susanna was her equal. For some reason, he thought of foolish, faulty Emily Reese and her own devotion to her captain, and then Maeve, so loving, and now adored by a daughter as well as her sergeant. Perhaps it was just as well that Louis Pasteur had not answered his letter. He belonged with these intrepid souls.

  It was a bracing thought that kept him awake long enough to hand over his patients and their charts, and find a bed in Russell’s orphanage, the army nickname for temporary quarters for those officers casually at post. Joe soaked in a cramped tin tub, then crawled between sheets that lacked one key ingredient in his life—his wife.

  He went to breakfast, pleased to see Jim O’Leary and his men in the mess hall. He sat with them, listening to Jim’s stories of patrol and rumor.

  “Gossip says Crook is holed up at Goose Creek, fly-fishing and determined not to move forward without ample reinforcements,” Jim told him in disgust.

  Joe listened, wondering again why Crook had come to his hospital to stand there in silence. He was about to say something when someone dropped a pan and all the men at breakfast whipped around to look, some with their hands on their sidearms.

  “We’re on edge,” Jim commented.

  Joe looked beyond the mess tables toward the source of the noise, where a boy was picking up the pan. “Army’s getting younger every year, or I’m getting older,” he said.

  “You’re getting older, Major dear,” O’Leary said, familiar in his Irish way. “The cook told me he’s so shorthanded, with all soldiers in the field, that he’s practically snatching civilians and throwing them in the kitchen.”

  Joe
looked at the boy, on his hands and knees now, wiping up porridge. He looked again. He felt his face drain of color, then shook his head to clear it. The boy was tall and thin. His hair might have been blond, but it was dirty. Look at me, lad, he thought, suddenly alert. Just look at me.

  He got up slowly, his attention focused on the child, who was mopping up the mess he had caused, while the cook scolded him. Just look at me.

  The boy did. His eyes were brown and he looked very much like Susanna Randolph, with her heart-shaped face. Joe held his breath to observe the mole under the boy’s eye.

  The cook swore and the boy looked in his tormenter’s direction. Joe let his breath out in a whoosh. The boy had a patch of much darker hair by his temple. This was the boy in the photograph that Susanna had treasured, and surrendered so reluctantly. Will Pinkerton was right; Tommy had been making his way west, set on this path by Nick Martin.

  “Tommy,” Joe said, tentative and still unsure.

  No reaction. I’m a fool, Joe thought, and turned away. He turned back. The cook had set up a scold so shrill that Joe could barely hear himself. He walked closer, giving the cook such a glare that the man went silent.

  “Tommy Hopkins,” Joe said, distinctly this time.

  The boy looked up, startled, poised for flight. He balled up the rag in his hand, which dripped porridge, ready to throw it if Joe took one step closer.

  Joe stopped. He took a deep breath and spoke softly. “Tommy Hopkins, your mother’s been missing you.”

  The hard eyes of a boy too soon old softened as he turned into the child he was. Slowly he lowered the rag to his side, then dropped it, which made the cook raise his big spoon.

  “Don’t!” Joe ordered.

  If the boy had any doubts, that ended them. With a sob, he stepped over the mess he had made on the floor. Joe knelt and held open his arms as the lad came closer, hesitated, then threw himself into the embrace of a man he had never seen before.

  “Tommy, we’ve been looking for you,” Joe murmured as the boy wept in his arms. “Your mama’s at Fort Laramie and that’s where I’m going.”

  “He told me Mama was alive. I hoped, but it’s been so long,” Tommy Hopkins said when he could speak.

  Joe took his hand and led him back to the bench where Jim O’Leary sat, his eyes big.

  “This is Susanna’s son?” he asked. “Have a seat, lad. Have some porridge.” The captain pushed Joe’s barely eaten porridge closer.

  “I’m not supposed to eat until I finish cleaning pans,” Tommy said, his eyes on the cook, who still glowered by the kitchen door.

  “You’re through cleaning pans,” Joe said.

  The other troopers from K Company gathered around their commander, their expressions of amazement mirroring their captain’s. “When are you heading for Fort Laramie?” Joe asked O’Leary.

  “In an hour or two.”

  Tommy was eating Joe’s porridge now, his economy of motion telling Joe worlds about how rough he had been living lately. Joe sprinkled more sugar in the bowl and got a fleeting smile for his thanks.

  “Take us with you, Jim. I’m supposed to collect more supplies here, but they can come in the ambulance with the escort heading north tomorrow.”

  “I can do it,” Jim told him. “Lad, can you ride?”

  The fleeting smile returned to stay. “That’s what we’ve been doing, all across the country.”

  “You’re probably a better horseman than I am by now,” Joe said. “I’m a post surgeon.”

  The smile grew larger, reminding Joe forcefully of Tommy’s mother at her most impish. “Then I know I’m a better horseman than you are!” His voice became more confidential. “Aaron told me you weren’t too handy in the saddle.”

  “Who?”

  “Aaron Belknap.”

  “Not Nick Martin?”

  “Who’s that?”

  Joe sat back. “No one, I guess.” He looked at O’Leary, who seemed to be enjoying the whole exchange hugely. “Jim, you have a son. Take a good look at this lad. Will you go to the stores and get him a pair of trousers and a shirt?” He looked at Tommy’s broken shoes. “Maybe some shoes? Bring them to us at the orphanage, and we’ll ride with you.”

  He looked at Tommy again, seeing relief in his eyes now. “Do you trust me to get you to your mother?”

  The boy nodded. “Aaron told me someone would come,” he said simply. “I believed him.”

  Tommy had no objection to a bath. Joe scrubbed him from hair to heels while he sat silent, a dazed expression on his suntanned face. By the time Joe finished, O’Leary showed up with clothes. Everything was too big, but a belt with new holes helped.

  “My word, he is blond,” the captain said. “How on earth did you know?”

  “Don’t even ask, because I couldn’t explain,” Joe replied. “There was something about the set of his shoulders. And when I saw his eyes … Susanna all over. The mole and blaze clinched it.”

  Tommy was suitably impressed with Captain O’Leary’s K Company, which boasted the only matched grays in the regiment. He needed a boost into the army saddle, but then sat with the ease of an intuitive horseman. Joe shortened the boy’s stirrups, then swung onto his own horse.

  When they were clear of Fort Russell and riding with that steady lope that O’Leary’s grays were famous for, Captain O’Leary motioned them forward.

  “Tommy, you ride between me and Major Randolph,” he instructed. “I’m going to pop if I don’t hear this story, too. How on earth did Nick Ma—Aaron Belknap find you?”

  Before he could begin, Joe put up his hand. “Let me start with our end. Tommy, we called him Nick Martin because he never told us his real name. He just disappeared one night, taking some money and a handful of letters your mother had written to you. She used to give them to Ni … to Aaron to mail for her.”

  “I wondered. He never said how he came to Carlisle.” Tommy shrugged. “He never said much of anything.”

  Joe looked over Tommy’s head to Captain O’Leary. “That’s our Nick.” He looked at the boy, who rode with such ease. “Did he just show up?”

  “I guess,” Tommy said, unsure. “He’s kind of secretive, but you might know that.”

  “Do I ever.”

  Tommy laughed, and the sound punched Joe hard. It sounded just like his mother’s full-throated laugh. “He said you talked funny. Where are you from?”

  “Virginia, lad, and you’re the one who talks funny.”

  Both the captain and the boy smiled at each other, humoring him, obviously.

  “I was walking to school one morning and noticed a bit of paper in the low branch of a tree. I stopped to look at it.” Tommy’s eyes filled with tears, and he expertly moved his horse out of the line.

  Captain O’Leary halted the troop and called dismount and walk. They all dismounted and Joe walked beside Tommy, his arm on his shoulder now.

  “It was from Mama,” the boy said, tears on his face. “I read it, and then read it again, and hid it in my books.”

  “She wrote you every week, son.” Joe hadn’t meant that to slip out, but Tommy didn’t seem to mind. He leaned closer. “Every week, without fail.” Then it was Joe’s turn to falter. “She … she still does.” He glanced at O’Leary and noticed the captain having his own struggle.

  “There was another letter the next morning, a little farther on, and then another farther on. By the end of the week, I was out of sight of my house and my father. Aaron stepped out from behind a shed then.”

  “He’s quite a hulking presence. Did he frighten you?” Joe asked.

  “A little,” Tommy admitted, “but he had another letter in his hand, and I wanted it.” He spoke to Captain O’Leary. “We can ride now, sir. I don’t mean to slow you down.”

  They mounted and rode steadily on. Tommy was silent then, and Joe respected his silence. When they stopped briefly at noon, the boy sat cross-legged and close to Joe, eating his hardtack and cheese.

  “After that, Aaron walked me to
school every morning, once we were out of sight of the house. He told me I wasn’t to say anything to anyone, and I didn’t. He also said he’d take me to Mama when the time was right.”

  Joe nodded, the time right for something else. “Lad, I married your mother in April.”

  He decided that Tommy was probably going to amaze him as much as Suzie did. “Aaron thought you might do that if …” He stopped.

  “If what, lad?”

  “If you worked up your nerve. Sorry, sir, but that’s what he said.”

  Captain O’Leary shouted with laughter and flopped back on the grass. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Major, Nick Martin had your number, same as the rest of us!”

  “Was I that obvious?” Joe exclaimed.

  “Aye, even to a crazy man.”

  Tommy grinned and looked away. When he turned back, his face was serious, the grown man painfully evident in the child’s face. “You’ll treat her kindly,” he said, and it was no question.

  “Cross my heart, Tommy. I can do no less.”

  With a sigh, the boy leaned against Joe, and the post surgeon felt the last callus drop away from his own hesitant heart.

  They rode into the afternoon, Tommy having no trouble with the steady but rapid pace. In midafternoon, a small party of Cheyenne decided to get surly, which meant dismounting and hunkering down while the troopers fired back, not wasting a single bullet. Joe wrapped himself around Tommy, who clung to him, frightened but determined not to show it.

  When a sadder but wiser war party rode off, Joe enlisted Tommy to hold a trooper’s hand while he slit the man’s pant leg and doctored a flesh wound. Tommy turned pale as Joe worked, but hung on.

  “We’re a little hard on you,” Joe apologized, wiping his hands on the grass when he finished. He signaled for the trooper’s bunkies to help their comrade back into his saddle.