Courting Carrie in Wonderland

by Carla Kelly

  “Thank you,” she said simply, which touched him again. Not for Carrie McKay the flowery denials, the simper. He liked that.

  Major Pitcher had noticed once and remarked to Ramsay that he was a great observer of people, a valued skill in a sergeant. It was true. Saying less and watching more had helped Ramsay through many a fraught situation. Maybe it was his imagination, but from their first meeting outside the backhouse, he had noticed how high Carrie held her shoulders, as though she were carefully picking her way through life and its troubles

  He had also noticed last week when they sat together for Mrs. Boone’s twenty minutes that Carrie’s shoulders dropped as she relaxed. Maybe this charming person felt she could lower her guard around him. Maybe he was imagining the whole thing. Major Pitcher had also told him that he had a tendency to overthink a situation. Better just let that observation rest among a pile of sleeping dogs.

  For a brief moment, Ramsay thought of his wolves in the Lamar Valley. He had made many entries in his journal about their watchfulness. Was this a wolf trait he had unconsciously adopted? Nothing would surprise him.

  He held out the pie tin. “The kitchen seems to be buttoned up for the night. I didn’t want you to think I wasn’t going to return it.”

  She took it from him and started to walk toward the kitchen. No, you don’t, he thought and sat down on a log in the now-deserted campfire circle. She looked back and sat down next to him, the pie tin in her lap, her hands folded across it, feet together. He had never seen a more proper woman, until he found the courage to look into her eyes, which were lively with interest.

  “I hope you shared some of it,” she said.

  “A very small slice,” he said. “I took it with me to Jack Strong’s ranch, just the other side of Yankee Jim Canyon.” He couldn’t help smiling back at those lively eyes. “He told me he’d marry you in a minute.”

  Thank goodness she didn’t blush and turn away. She laughed and set the tin aside. “My first proposal! Will I like him?”

  “If you don’t mind that he’s somewhere north of sixty and has a bum leg. Owns a nice piece of property, though.” He wanted to nudge her shoulder, but didn’t. “If I were a lady, I’d propose to him. It’s a good ranch.”

  She shook her finger at him. “That’s no reason to marry someone. I thought you liked the army.”

  “I thought I did too,” he said, then wondered where that came from. “I mean, of course I do.”

  “Mr. Wylie told me that your new rank is a pretty exalted one,” Carrie said. “Do you … do you sometimes wish you were still just a sergeant?”

  “First sergeant,” he corrected, “the perfect rank. I suppose I do wish that.”

  She nodded and stared into the coals. “When I’m studying for an English test, or trying to understand algebra, I sometimes wish myself back in the kitchen washing dishes.”

  “At the Railroad Hotel?”

  He didn’t imagine her intake of breath, or the way she moved away from him. “Did … did Mr. Wylie mention that to you?” she asked, long after he thought she was not going to say another word to him.

  “No. It was Mrs. Boone. She told me you had some hard times in Bozeman in a bad place.”

  “Still do, I suppose,” she said quickly. “Do you ever have trouble forgetting stuff you don’t want to remember? Ramsay, it’s awfully late.”

  Stuff I don’t want to remember, he thought. Now and then. He pulled out his timepiece. “Only eight o’clock. Look, I didn’t mean to make you nervous. I won’t mention the Railroad Hotel again.”

  “Thank you,” she said, with an innate dignity that was hers alone.

  “I am curious about one thing, though.” He took a breath and blew it out, knowing he was going far beyond the letter of Major Pitcher’s charge to him. “Like it or not, my new job means I am responsible for everyone in this entire park.”

  “Come now! That’s a hummer.”

  In for a penny, in for a dollar, he thought. “I mean it. The US Army, in the form of the First Regiment of Cavalry, is literally in charge of everything in this park’s three thousand and some four hundred square miles. Major Pitcher told me I am to keep an eye on the people, the geysers, and the animals. Oh, we all do that, but I’m supposed to be some sort of exalted buffer between irate campers, geysers that don’t play on cue, and … and angry bears, maybe.”

  He wanted her to laugh and she did. She moved an infinitesimal bit closer to him again.

  “You don’t sound too happy about that,” she observed, her chin on her palm now as she stared into the fire.

  “I need to get used to more responsibility,” he said, “but you’re right. Life used to be simpler.”

  “It’s simpler now for me.” She glanced up. “I wondered if anyone would come back.”

  He looked to see couples returning to the logs with long forks and plates.

  “Mrs. Boone makes marshmallows. Sugar syrup, gelatin, and egg whites,” Carrie said. “Six per customer. They’re a little too sweet for me, but tourists like them.”

  To Ramsay’s gratification, the couples sat on the other side of the fire circle. He didn’t know Carrie well, but he was pretty sure she wouldn’t leap up and run, now that others were close by.

  “It’s just something I noticed when I was here last, and again tonight,” he said, keeping his voice low. “Why does Millie … Millie …”

  “… Thorne … stare daggers at me?” she finished, and gave a gusty sigh. “We’re back to the Railroad Hotel.”

  “Then you’d better tell me what happened there,” he said, suddenly aware he was taking the biggest chance of his life, even bigger than crawling into a muddy, dark cave after his lieutenant was killed, when any sane man would have backed out and declared the task impossible.

  “Why do you need to know?” Carrie asked, as he knew she would. “You can say what you want, but it’s not your business, Sergeant Major Stiles.”

  Ouch, that hurt. Might as well plunge ahead and fulfill the objective, whatever it was. “You looked wary around Millie. You also told me that she makes a point to turn everyone against you.”

  “I did, didn’t I?”

  “Why does she do that?”

  She resumed her position, chin in hand. As he watched her, she put her face in the palm of her hand, covering eyes suddenly seeing too much. He thought for a long moment, then lightly touched her shoulder. She turned to look at him. “Are you telling me I am not alone?”

  “I think I am, Carrie.” He couldn’t help his smile, because he knew she saw right through him. “It’s for the good of the US Army.”

  “Liar, liar pants on fire,” she said softly. “What time did you say it was?”

  “A little after eight now.”

  “I go to bed at nine,” she told him. “I’d better start at the beginning. You need to know something right away.”

  “All right,” he said. “How bad can it be?”

  “I nearly killed Millie’s cousin.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  He didn’t mean to swear, but she surprised him. “I’m sorry,” he apologized.

  “Do you want to hear this or not?” she asked. Ramsay heard her irritation, but he also heard the dignity.

  “Tell me.”

  “My parents came from Scotland—Mam from Dumfries and Papa near Gate of Fleet,” she said, sitting up straight now, but not looking at him. “Papa got work on the Northern Pacific and we ended up here when I was nine or so.”

  “What did he do?”

  “He switched cars in the roundhouse,” she said. “He also spent most of his spare time drinking with his buddies. Mam called it Cù Dubh.”

  “Koo doo?”

  “Close enough,” she said and edged closer to him. “It means black dog, but it also means foul moods. We never knew where we stood, Mam and I. Sometimes Papa would come home cheerful. Sometimes he would yell at us. Usually he beat us both, but Mam the hardest, until he made her deaf.”

  Shocked, Rams
ay thought of his own parents, Mama always singing, and Pa with a joke even when times were hard, as they often were on a farm. He realized Carrie had moved even closer.

  “Papa said he was going out with his friends. We never saw him again.” Carrie sighed. “I admit it was a bit of a relief, but there we were, evicted from railroad housing. Millie’s uncle owns the Railroad Hotel and her father is a banker with some connections to the Northern Pacific. They got Mam a job washing dishes—me too—and doing some cooking at the restaurant. We slept upstairs at the back of the hotel.” Her head went up and he heard the defiance in Carrie’s voice. “Kept that door locked too, I assure you! The second floor was not a good place.”

  “Neither is the first floor,” Ramsay said. “There was a shooting in the bar a few years ago. The previous superintendent at Fort Yellowstone declared it off limits to all soldiers.”

  “The restaurant was good,” Carrie assured him. “We worked together. Mam taught me to read, but I didn’t have much to read except food labels.”

  “No school for you?”

  “I had to work.” She laughed, the tone soft and low and so beguiling. “I read a few of the Police Gazettes the men left around, until Mam found out.”

  “You’re a woman with a checkered past,” he teased, then regretted it. “I mean …”

  “Don’t be so sensitive,” she chided. “I know what you mean.” She started to lean into him then, and he knew the hard part of a hard story was coming. “When I was thirteen, Mam took sick. Her stomach hurt all the time. I don’t know what it was, and she never went to a doctor.”

  “No money?”

  “Partly. Mam didn’t want Mr. Thorne to know she was sick. She was afraid he’d just throw us out. He’s not really kind. She didn’t want me on the streets.” She turned to face him. “Life is hard on women, in case you don’t know.”

  What could he say to that?

  She jumped when some coals dropped and set up sparks. He looked around. The marshmallow roasters had gone and they were alone again.

  “I took over Mam’s work whenever I could.” He heard a sound low in her throat. He remembered that sound from a funeral he went to for one of his mother’s Scottish aunts. It wasn’t a sound a person could forget, and it chilled him now.

  “It was February. I worked a long day and part of a night. When I dragged myself upstairs, Mam was dead. I wasn’t there for her last breath.”

  Ramsay put his arm around her shoulder without thinking about it, and she turned her face into his shirt. They sat there in silence while the coals grew dim.

  “The city of Bozeman buried her and I kept working at the Railroad Hotel. What else could I do? Two more years and then it happened.”

  Carrie leaped to her feet and walked away from the dead campfire. He started to follow her and she put her hand up. “I can’t say any more now. Maybe later. Goodnight.”

  He watched her walk away, and his heart felt completely hollow. He listened to the crunch of her shoes on the gravel by the dining hall and closed his eyes.

  He opened them when he heard her walking back toward him, with her now-familiar quick step. She stood in front of him and he could just make out the concern on her face.

  “You’re not going to go to Norris tonight, are you?” she asked. “It’s late and dark and I would worry.”

  She sounded so much like his mother that he smiled. He also realized that for the first time in many years since his parents died, someone felt concern for him. Ramsay touched the little Medal of Honor ribbon pinned to his uniform. “Carrie, I’m a hero, remember?”

  She laughed and he felt relief cover him. “I paid Mr. Wylie fifty cents to sleep in Tent Twenty with the camp men,” he told her.

  “Good! I won’t worry about you then.”

  She stood there, as if uncertain what came next. He had no idea, either, so there they were, just looking at each other. But he was the sergeant major and he thought he had better say something, even something stupid or possibly unwanted.

  “I want to hear the rest of this. What time do you go to work, Carrie?”

  “Four in the morning,” she told him in a small voice, practically a child’s voice. “If you must, come to the kitchen. Mrs. Boone knows the rest of the story.”

  “I will.”

  She turned to go, but he touched her hand and she stopped. “I have something you can borrow tonight.”

  His eyes on hers, he worked the little clasp and took off his Medal of Honor ribbon. Carrie watched, her mouth open, as he pinned it carefully to the collar of her shirtwaist.

  “I need it back before I leave tomorrow morning, but I think it’s your turn to wear it,” he said. “Where is Number Twenty?”

  Her eyes huge in her face, she pointed toward the end of the row. “I’m no hero, Ramsay,” she whispered.

  “Yeah, you are,” he said. “See you at four.”

  Ramsay thought he might not sleep, but he did. He had enough blankets, and none of the young guys he shared the tent with snored. He drifted to sleep thinking of his mother singing, “ ‘No one to love in this beautiful world, Full of warm hearts and bright beaming eyes!’ ”

  He must have been about eight and had dragged himself home from school, sad about something he couldn’t remember now, and truth to tell, had probably forgotten not soon after the incident. Ma must have noticed his bleak face, because he remembered her asking him if he was too old at eight years old to sit on her lap. He decided he wasn’t, and she sang to him. As he lay in the Wylie tent, he thought through the song, and by the chorus, his mother’s voice had changed into Carrie’s.

  Ramsay had scribbled a note and left it next to one of the tentmates, asking him to wake him up. It was still dark when he felt a hand to his shoulder and a little shake. “Sir? Sir?”

  “I’m awake. Thanks,” he said as he sat up, thought a second, and remembered where he was.

  A glance out the door showed a lightening sky. A squint at his watch told him it was slightly after four. He dressed quickly, sharing the space with three college students who stared at him when he turned into a sergeant major, once his clothes were on.

  “Too dark to ride on to Norris soldier station. Glad you had a spare bed in here,” he said.

  He started to leave the tent but then looked back at the others. “Tell me something. Have you heard rumors about Miss Carrie McKay?”

  His heart sank when they looked at each other, but he plunged ahead. “From Millie Thorne?”

  One reluctant nod, and then two. “You’d be wise not to believe a single thing you hear from that source,” he said, putting enough command into his voice to make one of the students stand up straight. “Good day, gentlemen. I hope a word to the wise is sufficient.”

  All three said “Yessir,” promptly, but thank goodness no one tried to salute.

  After a stop behind the row of tents, which made him think of bears hanging out, waiting for a Wylie girl, he walked to the dining room. It was already set for early arrivals eager to snag a good seat on the Wylie coaches heading to the lower and upper geyser basins.

  The kitchen was well-lit and warm from the ovens. Mrs. Boone waved a flour-covered hand in his direction and pointed toward the long prep table, where Carrie McKay was rolling out pie dough for waiting tins. He watched a moment, enjoying the economy of her movements. He knew he was looking at a well-trained, hardworking cook. He doubted she ever wasted a single motion.

  He pulled a stool up beside the table, sitting far enough away not to impede her activity, but close enough so neither of them had to speak loud. “I came back for the rest of the story, Carrie, if you’re inclined to share it.”

  “I told myself I wasn’t going to,” she said, her eyes on the circle of dough she was rolling out now. “I changed my mind.”

  He settled in and waited for her to speak. She folded the dough over and carefully arranged it in the pan, pushing it down to line the walls. She moved quickly to the next empty tin and began the same motions all ov
er again.

  “I was fifteen and Mam was two years gone,” she began. “I was cleaning up in the kitchen after a long night. The Odd Fellows had finished their monthly meeting, and there were so many dishes. I think it was near midnight.”

  She deftly folded dough around the rolling pin and spread it across the next pie tin. “Millie’s cousin George came into the kitchen and called for me. I turned around, and he was on me before I could do anything. He stuffed a napkin in my mouth when I opened it to scream.”

  Ramsay felt a cosmic presence suck the air right out of his body. He took a deep breath to start himself going again. “Sounds premeditated. He must have been planning this.”

  “Probably,” she said and attacked the pie dough as though it was something predatory, and not just flour, water, and lard. “He had been making some suggestive comments, but I heard those from others too.”

  She turned around, her eyes angry. “Why do some men think women are fair game?” She shook the rolling pin at him. “I hope you don’t, because if you do, I’m never going to speak to you again.” Her face hardened. “And no, I’m not joshing.”

  Ramsay thought of past relationships, some successful, others soul-sucking. “My parents taught me manners,” he told her.

  She thumped the rolling pin on the dough. “Good!” She turned to the prep table. “He knocked me down.”

  Shocked, he watched her shoulders begin to shake. He thought she might be crying, but he heard no tears in her voice. She shook with anger.

  “What did you do?” He felt like a churl asking, but he wanted to know.

  Carrie turned around again to face him. She leaned back against the prep table and picked at the pilled dough on her palms. “I reached behind me to a low shelf where we kept frying pans. I grabbed the closest one by the handle and slammed it against the side of his head.”

  “Bravo, Carrie,” he said.

  “There was blood everywhere,” she said, with a look in her eyes that told him she was seeing every detail in her mind.

  He did something then that no one in Mrs. Pitcher’s etiquette book would have approved of. He crossed the space between them and put his hand over her eyes. She started in surprise, then leaned toward him until her forehead touched his chest. He did nothing to draw her closer, but kept his hand firmly over her eyes until she straightened up and took his hand away. She gazed at him out of clear eyes full of something besides fear now.