by Carla Kelly
He shook his head. “Bet you never met such a coward.”
“Burns are difficult.” She paused, then had to ask, “Do you get many letters from her?”
He grinned, looking happy for the first time since his arrival. “Every week, without fail. In fact…” He glanced over at the party on Private Henry’s bed. “Could one of you miscreants go to the post office to see if I have a letter?”
One of the “miscreants” gave him a friendly thumbs up, stood, and sauntered out the door. He was back in ten minutes, waving two letters. He dropped one in Private Jones’ lap, and handed the other to Audra, along with a folded note.
“Mrs. Chambers flagged me down and gave this to me,” he said. “She had fire in her eyes.”
“Oh, dear.”
Audra knew the letter was from herself, but she stared at her familiar handwriting a moment, wondering why on earth she had ever thought a fictitious letter from a mother she barely remembered could make up for the real thing.
I have been living in shadows, she thought, tucking the letter in her apron pocket, determined not to look at Private Jones and his real letter.
Mrs. Chambers’ familiar scrawl leaped out at her when she unfolded the note. “The Fourth is moving out in four days for Fort Assiniboine, Dakota Territory. Ozzie, we must pack! Only this day and night at the hospital!! That is all!!!”
“No,” she said out loud. “I can’t go. I won’t go.”
Embarrassed, she looked around. Private Jones was deep in his letter, and someone in Private Henry’s traveling circus had broken out a deck of cards. His face placid, his eyes kind, Lysander Locke watched her. She was on her feet even before he gestured to her. She sat down and handed him the note.
He read it and handed it back. “Regiments move around all the time, Miss Washington.”
“Yes, but—”
“You’ll make new friends there.” He folded his hands on his belly. “I always do when I travel from theatre to theatre.”
“But I don’t want to leave.”
“Put away the cards, lads, or I’ll put you on report. Faith, now, who’s leaving?”
She couldn’t help her tears at Colm’s familiar voice. Quiet on his feet, his eyes exhausted, he stood by Private Jones’ bed, rolling down his sleeves.
“I’m leaving,” she said, handing him the note as she leaped up and ran into the hall. She looked around. There was nowhere for her to go. Colm had to sleep, and she had promised to stay. She hurried up the stairs and sat down on the top tread. For years she had worked and moved with no complaints, but now it was too much. She put her head on her knees, wishing to be somewhere else, but desperately wanting to stay right here at Fort Laramie.
Why had she ever offered to help Colm Callahan? All she had done was discover just how much she loved him, and how impossible that was. The man was shy, and she was a woman of color. She shivered against the knowledge that nothing would ever change in her life. Was this freedom?
“It’s too much, isn’t it?”
She looked down the stairs to see Colm looking up.
“I’m just tired,” she told him. That was no lie. She would never tell him how she had tossed about last night, teased by the odor of camphor, wondering how long it was possible to love a person before he could be decently forgotten.
There now, Audra, he has enough to do without worrying about you, she scolded herself. Brace up. When she thought she could, she stood up. Colm was so tired, he looked like he was swaying on his feet. He didn’t need her drama. It was time to give her greatest performance.
“You’re the one who has had too much to bear,” she said, keeping her tone light. “It’s your turn to sleep, or… or…” She laughed and nearly convinced herself. “Or you’ll end up in the dead house.”
“It won’t come to that, but I could use a nap,” he admitted, even though the worried look didn’t leave his face.
“A nap of about five hours,” she insisted.
“All right, all right.”
Silent, she walked down the hall with him as he reeled off instructions.
Check: the sergeant of the guard was sending a wagon to take the coffined stagecoach driver to the fort cemetery.
“We haven’t heard from the Shy-Dead office yet, so we’ll bury him on the end, where they can retrieve him, if need be.”
Check: Private Henry was released to ride in the same wagon, and park his bones back in the barracks. “I’ll check him tonight. He’s with the Fourth, so he’ll be packing soon too.”
Check: He would take a good look at Private Jones’ forearm, decide whether to debride the burn, then send him on his way rejoicing tomorrow.
Check: After that, Lysander Locke would be their only patient, and little trouble. Just this night, and he’d release her to the Chambers again. “If the hospital matron still isn’t spry, I can get one of the barracks cooks to send us what little Mr. Locke and I will need.”
Check: Captain Dilworth would be back in two days, according to the telegram remembered at last by one of Private Henry’s partygoers. “If I were a wagering man, I’d bet that nothing at all will happen after he returns.”
Then he ran out of steam. “Go to sleep, Audra.”
“No lunch?”
“Later.” A wave of his hand and click, and the door to Captain Dilworth’s office closed.
Working silently, her jaw clenched against tears, Audra made vegetable soup and sandwiches from leftover sausage for the patients, and for Private Henry’s friends, too. Lunch was followed in short order by the arrival of the sergeant of the guard and his minions. The coffin left the dead house, taking Private Henry, too, perched on the coffin with a pair of crutches and looking more cheerful than when he’d arrived a day ago. He even blew her a kiss, which demanded a smile, however forced.
Private Jones slept the sleep of the blissfully content, letter in hand, so Audra could not ignore Lysander Locke any more. She sat beside him at last, content at least to rest her feet.
When she thought she could look at him, she gave her attention to the actor, wanting to hate him, because he had told Colm Callahan what she had said. She had bared her soul to an actor, of all people, telling him her real name, of the letters from her mother, of her dreams about a clothing shop in Cheyenne.
But she was too generous of heart to be angry with the old busybody. All she saw when she looked at him was a shabby man down on his luck, heading to what couldn’t be a good venue for Shakespeare in Deadwood. He was at the end of his career, and it didn’t look sanguine. She realized with a tug at her heart that she was looking at herself in thirty years, and probably Colm Callahan, too. Alone.
“Mr. Locke, why have you never married?” she asked. “It’s the man who does the asking, so you have the advantage. Was there never a pretty actress?”
“Plenty of those,” he said, reminiscence in his eyes. “My dear, I gave all for the theatre, and the theatre is a jealous mistress.”
“Suh, will you be lonely later?”
He looked her in the eyes. “No lonelier than you, Miss Audra Washington.”
They sat together through the afternoon, Audra knitting a pair of socks for the actor because she feared he had no others. Her dusty heart began to heal a bit as, using different voices, he read A Midsummer Night’s Dream to her and Private Jones. It was a lovely performance, something to treasure in her heart from Fort Laramie. She wondered how much longer the Grand Old Dame near the junction of the Platte and the Laramie would be around, because the frontier was closing. Everything was changing, and she was helpless before circumstance. She even tucked away the dream of her own dress shop in Cheyenne, because she was too tired to make any more effort.
She prepared more flapjacks and eggs for supper and was finishing the dishes when she heard the door to Captain Dilworth’s office open. She thought Colm might come into the kitchen, but she heard his footsteps on the stairs. When he came down, he looked in the kitchen.
“I saved some for you.”
“You are a peach, Audra,” he told her. “I’ll eat after I give these crutches to our actor to practice with. I can’t do anything else for him, and there is a stage leaving for Deadwood tomorrow morning.”
“I’m worried about him,” she said. And about me. Oh, yes, me, she wanted to add.
“I needn’t do any more for him here. He’s ready to go.” He brightened up. “And now, my dear Miss Washington, you have earned a good night’s rest.”
Colm did not see Audra in the morning. Still complaining loudly, the hospital matron puffed her way up the hill and reestablished ownership of the kitchen. Private Jones had been a total stoic as Colm tweezed away bits of burned skin, dabbed saline solution, and wrapped the burn in damp gauze. He knew his handiwork was equal to or better than anything Captain Dilworth could do. From a determined drummer boy in a burning aid station at Gettysburg to a competent hospital steward had been the education of nearly twenty years. He knew he could pass the state medical examination in Wyoming Territory, and he liked the high plains.
It’s time, he thought. No more reenlistments. Mine company doctor, Indian agency doctor, railroad doctor, small-town doctor— he could choose.
After Sick Call, Colm sent Private Jones on his way, aided by the other baker’s assistant and bolstered by Colm’s promise to visit twice a day to change his dressing.
Quietly competent in all things, he arranged for a horse and buggy to take Lysander Locke, Shakespeare tragedian of Drury Lane, Broadway, Denver, and Deadwood to the Rustic Hotel down on the flats. He needed no urging to accompany the old toot.
They hadn’t long to wait. They sat together in companionable silence, both of them with their faces raised to the morning sun. Soon August would become September, and all bets would be off as winter peered around the corner. By cold weather, the Fourth would be shivering in drafty barracks at Fort Assiniboine.
Maybe I’ll set up practice in Green River, Colm thought. It’s an ugly town, but even ugly towns need physicians.
He glanced at Lysander Locke, worried for him. “I owe you such a debt,” he said, as the Shy-Dead stage came into view. “Could I… could I loan you some money? I’m worried that Deadwood won’t—”
“Stuff and nonsense,” Lysander Locke interrupted. “Actors always land on their feet.” He chuckled as he looked down at his plaster cast, new that morning and whittled down to walking size. “Shake my hand, boy, and do what you promised.”
Colm took his time writing the perfect letter to Audra Washington. Maybe there was enough of the Irish rascal inherited from his scamp of a father to make it easy to declare himself to the loveliest, best woman he knew. He hadn’t enough courage to ask her in person, but he couldn’t be the first man in the universe who ever proposed via the U.S mail.
The hospital was blissfully empty, tidied just so, with every bed sheet squared away, pillowcases creaseless, and floors swept. After the matron left, he bathed in the fort’s only actual bathing room, soaking and thinking. That night, he slept like a virtuous man in his lumpy bed.
In the morning, he put on his best uniform and left a note on Captain Dilworth’s desk, informing him that he was not planning to reenlist in September. He had done his duty well enough.
He ambled down to the Rustic Hotel, thinking that Captain and Mrs. Dilworth might like some help with their luggage. They did. He smiled to see that Mrs. Dilworth had two hatboxes she hadn’t left with, and she wore a smart new traveling coat.
They hitched a ride with the mail cart, which let them off in front of the surgeon’s quarters.
“I suppose the Fourth is packed and ready,” Captain Dilworth said.
“Leaving tomorrow, sir.”
Since he had been so helpful, Captain Dilworth invited Colm inside. Over malt whiskey that made Mrs. Dilworth frown, Colm described his patients, saving the best for last.
“We even had an old, run-down actor on his way to Deadwood. Broke a leg, but we didn’t shoot him.” Funny how malt whiskey loosened his tongue.
“Name of…?” the post surgeon prompted.
“Lysander Locke, Shakespeare tragedian,” Colm declared, striking a little pose.
Captain Dilworth gaped at him. “Holy Hannah, you’re joking.”
“Who would joke about someone named Lysander Locke?”
Captain Dilworth started to laugh. He leaned back and howled at the ceiling while Colm stared at him, suddenly sober.
“Rundown old actor?” Dilworth said when he could speak. “The Lysander Locke?”
“Aye, captain,” Colm said, smelling a rat.
“To Deadwood, you say? That I can understand.”
Colm just stared.
The captain must have decided that his hospital steward needed some enlightenment. “Lysander and Abigail Locke and their two sons own the best theatre in San Francisco.”
“But he’s alone and nearly destitute!”
“Hardly. He’s a rich man with a talented family! They have performed before Queen Victoria, I hear, and a president or two.”
“But he was shabby and going to Deadwood,” Colm insisted.
The captain leaned forward and whispered, so any road agents within forty miles wouldn’t hear him. “He owns a gold mine there called The Merchant of Venice. He was probably just checking on his business interests. Apparently he is eccentric that way.”
“How in the world do you know all this?” Colm burst out.
“Mrs. Dilworth reads all the gossip in Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly.”
Colm wasn’t a man to surrender without a fight. “He told us— Audra Washington and me— that he had no family, and he led us to think that he was one step from ruin.”
“Callahan, he’s an actor,” Captain Dilworth said, his eyes lively.
Colm sat back as understanding washed over him. And he has convinced me to be brave and propose to the woman I love, he thought. He preyed on my sympathy until I knew I didn’t want to be a lonely man like him. The old rip! He probably did the same thing with Audra.
He had one more question. “Do you know… Is he really English?”
“Ames, Iowa.”
Colm stood. “I’ve been fair diddled,” he said with a smile. “Excuse me, sir, but I have a letter to deliver.”
It was only a few steps down Officers Row to the sutler’s store and adjoining post office. The sun was warm, and it was a good day to whistle, which caused a head or two to turn. He took a deep breath when he looked in the store and saw Audra standing there with a letter in hand.
God is good, he thought to himself.
He waited until she walked the few feet into the adjoining post office, a closet-sized box with an iron railing. He cleared his throat, and she turned around.
Wordless, terrified, he held out his letter, the one with all the love in his heart on two close-written pages. She took it as she handed him a letter.
This wouldn’t do. He looked at the sutler, who watched them with some interest.
“Mr. London, is the enlisted canteen open yet?”
“Too early, Steward,” he said with a smile.
“Could you… could you let me have the key? We’ll only be a few minutes.”
Mr. London handed it over. Colm took Audra by the arm, but that suddenly wasn’t close enough. He put his hand on her waist, and with a sigh, she sort of melted into his side. Mr. London’s back was turned, so he kissed her cheek.
The canteen was dark and cool, smelling of stale beer, trapped smoke, and spittoons that needed attention. It was no place to propose, but that was army life. Silent, he sat them both down. Her breath came a little fast, but he didn’t think she would hyperventilate. If she did, he could find a paper bag for her to breathe in.
Her fingers shook, but she took out his letter and spread it on her lap. He took out her letter and did the same. He read quickly and let out a deep breath. Maybe it was worth a lifetime’s famine to read “beloved,” and know he was the one beloved. His clinical mind almost suggested to
him that “adore” was over the top, but for once, his heart overruled his brain.
She finished first. “Yes, Suh,” was all she said, but it said the earth, moon, planets and a galaxy or two.
No expert, he kissed Audra Washington. She kissed back, no expert either. They were both in good health; they had years to improve.
In the cool of the enlisted men’s canteen, he told her of his plans to take the medical boards in the fall, and to find a little town that needed him in a territory with nothing but little towns. “I’ve saved for years. I can set up an office.”
“I’ve saved too. We can have a house with running water.”
She was on his lap then, both arms around him, head pressed to his chest, where his heart was doing things that, in a big city, would have landed him in a cardiac ward.
“I wish… I wish we could tell that dear old man. Would you mind… If Deadwood doesn’t work out for Mr. Locke, we could find a place for him with us, couldn’t we?”
“Certainly.”
Lysander Locke could wait. Colm Callahan wanted to kiss Audra Washington a few more times before Mr. London got curious. Maybe they could honeymoon in Deadwood. Colm did like to check up on his discharged patients.
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What to say about Carla? The old girl’s been in the writing game for mumble-mumble years. She started out with short stories that got longer and longer until— poof!— one of them turned into a novel. (It wasn’t quite that simple.) She still enjoys writing short stories, one of which is before you now. Carla writes for Harlequin Historical, Camel Press, and Cedar Fort. Her books are found in at least 14 languages.
Along the way, Carla’s books and stories have earned a couple of Spur Awards from Western Writers of America for Short Fiction, a couple of Rita Awards from Romance Writers of America for Best Regency, and a couple of Whitney Awards. Carla lives in Idaho Falls, Idaho, and continues to write, because her gig is historical fiction, and that never gets old.
Chapter One
