Courting Carrie in Wonderland

by Carla Kelly

  “No! Not necessary! I can see just fine from the center of the road,” Mrs. LaMarque said, in tones not so round and declarative this time. “Seriously.”

  “It’s a great view, ma’am,” the sergeant major said.

  Carrie couldn’t even look at him as the carriage passed ahead and he rode Xerxes closer to the edge. If I start to laugh I’ll never stop, she thought. Somebody should smack that man.

  Mrs. LaMarque started to whimper when a freight wagon began its approach to Golden Gate from the other end.

  “No fears, Mrs. LaMarque,” Ramsay said, cheerful to a fault as he edged Xerxes beside the carriage. “You should have driven this road when it was wooden and butted way out over the river. Come to think of it: Dave, did we ever lose a wagon on this stretch of highway?”

  “I’d rather not say,” the driver replied, sounding to Carrie like the soul of rectitude.

  “True. I don’t want to worry anyone. Captain Chittenden and his crew built this beauty a year or two ago. As you were, Dave.”

  With that, the cavalryman and thorough joker moved Xerxes ahead on the beautiful viaduct that cantilevered over the Gardner River far below.

  Carrie felt Mrs. LaMarque’s arm twine through hers and clutch her close.

  “You really should open your eyes, ma’am,” she said, feeling wicked and vindicated at the same time. “There’s such a long drop that if you look down, you’ll see eagles swooping below us on the air currents. Imagine that.”

  “I’d rather not,” Mrs. LaMarque whimpered, her eyes squinted shut.

  Carrie patted her hand and enjoyed the view. Mrs. LaMarque gasped when Carrie leaned forward to take Dave’s worn out copy of Haynes Guidebook from the front seat. “Oh, now, now,” she soothed. “I suppose you don’t have to look if you don’t want to. Let me read to you from the guidebook, so you won’t miss anything.”

  She took a strangled yelp as agreement, and turned to page twenty-two. “You’ll find this interesting,” Carrie said as the freight wagon thundered by and Mrs. LaMarque scrunched down in the seat. “We’re at Rustic Falls now. Let’s see: ‘… adds a charm to this beautiful spot …’—You really should open your eyes, ma’am. No?—‘ . . , and when seen in the early part of the season is especially fine.’ ”

  I should be ashamed of myself, Carrie thought, but the guilt lasted no longer than the sight of swallows swooping and diving in and out of the canyon. She stopped reading and leaned against the seat, pleasantly tired and inexcusably happy. Mam would have scolded her and called her exhibition the revenge of the little people. It was enough, coupled as it was with the equally satisfying sight of a uniformed man on horseback. Can’t stare at him too long, she thought. Puzzling how the day had grown so warm, even in the shade of the canyon.

  She convinced Mrs. LaMarque to open her eyes once the carriage left the Golden Gate viaduct and drove through Swan Lake Basin. “You might see some deer and elk,” she coaxed, and the singer opened her eyes, first one then the other. Gradually the woman loosened her grip on Carrie and looked around at elk in the distance, and a moose heading with some purpose toward the Gardner River, her baby gamboling along.

  “Goodness, those are ugly creatures,” Mrs. LaMarque said, leaning out for the first time to stare at Mama Moose, who stared back.

  “One of my professors at Montana Ag says moose look like deer designed by a faculty committee,” Carrie said.

  Mrs. MaLarque laughed that wonderful laugh of hers, which caused Ramsay to swivel in the saddle and stare. She glared at him. “I do laugh, young man,” she said. “Maybe you need to loosen up a bit yourself.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said and turned back around.

  Mrs. LaMarque focused her attention on the moose. Carrie put her hand over her mouth to keep from laughing out loud when she saw Ramsay’s shoulders shaking with silent laughter of his own.

  The terror of Golden Gate was followed by the serenity of Swan Lake Basin. One would think the park’s civil engineers had planned it that way. Carrie relaxed and leaned back again, enjoying the rare luxury of doing nothing, while her seatmate appropriated the guidebook and stared across the meadow, looking for whatever Mr. Haynes claimed she might see.

  Her reverie ended when the sergeant major called a halt at the Willow Park Wylie Camp. He dismounted and came back to the carriage when Dave set the brake.

  “Mrs. LaMarque, I propose that we drop off Carrie here and …”

  “Oh, no,” Mrs. LaMarque said in her frostiest tone. “She is mine for another four days at least.”

  He held up a placating hand. “… and see if she will make us a cherry pie and have a meal ready. You and I, Mrs. LaMarque, ably assisted by your estimable driver, will continue to Apollinaris Spring for a look and a drink. We will return to Willow Park, eat, and continue to Fountain Hotel.”

  “I prefer to remain here for the evening. Will you arrange that, Carrie?” Mrs. LaMarque said. “I suppose you can stay in your own tent here, although I wonder—could we share a tent?”

  “Possibly, depending on if there is a spare tent,” Carrie said warily. “It will cost you.”

  Mrs. LaMarque arched her eyebrows and fixed Carrie with her patented stare. She fished in her purse and handed Carrie a ten dollar bill. “I cannot imagine it will cost more than a dollar to stay in …” She looked at the row of red and white striped tents as if they were medical school specimens. “… these things.”

  “We can continue on,” Ramsay reminded her. “We could be at Fountain Hotel by seven and it will still be light. You do have a reservation there tonight.”

  “Inconsequential,” the lady said. “I am tired now, not in three or four hours.” She did something then that Carrie would never have dreamed of, not after the fury of last night. She patted Carrie’s hand and touched Ramsay’s arm, connecting the three of them. “I think we are all tired, sergeant major.”

  “I think we are,” he agreed. “No one got much sleep last night.”

  “No, we didn’t,” Mrs. LaMarque said, her voice soft with no threat in it. Carrie glanced at Ramsay and saw a half smile. She wondered if he was thinking her same thought: Mrs. LaMarque was on the verge of apologizing. It didn’t happen.

  “Carrie? Can you follow through?” Ramsay asked.

  “Sir, yes sir,” she said, which made him laugh. “I can engineer pie, secure some dinner, and procure suitable lodging.”

  “Give me a salute and I’ll think you’re making fun of me,” he said in amused protest. “Do I really sound like that?”

  Carrie and Mrs. LaMarque looked at each other. “Bravo, Carrie,” the lady said. “Yes, you do, Sergeant Major. If I must be forced to do without my steamer trunk, and Carrie must … must keep me in line …” Again that half-apologetic glance “… then you can loosen up too.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said promptly.

  Carrie opened the carriage door, pleased when Ramsay put his gauntleted hands around her waist and swung her down. “Go work your magic,” he told her.

  “Which would be …” she began, not too tired to tease a little.

  “Making my world a better place,” he said, without a single blush. She watched his eyes lose their hard squint—he probably didn’t even realize he did that—. “I can loosen up too. Madame LaMarque demands it.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  While Carrie admitted to vast relief to see Mrs. LaMarque ride away, she knew better than to pretend it was permanent. “Four days,” she murmured, thinking it might cheer her up after last night. All it did was remind her that when the four days were up, Ram Stiles would be back to his business as usual, and so would she.

  She watched until the carriage with its US Army escort continued toward Apollinaris Spring, then she went in search of Betty Lackey, camp manager, a well-seasoned Wylie employee who spent her winter months teaching English at Bozeman High School.

  “Two dollars for a two-compartment tent, and one dollar for her dinner,” Miss Lackey said as she took three of Mrs.
LaMarque’s ten dollars. “You tell Mrs. LaMarque if I hadn’t had a cancellation, there wouldn’t be anything for her.”

  “I’m not brave enough to tell Louise LaMarque any such thing,” Carrie said as she pocketed the money.

  The militant light in her eyes suggested to Carrie that the teacher was just warming up to a favorite topic. “Some people just expect the rest of us ordinary folk to do what they want, without your leave,” Miss Lackey said.

  “Some people do,” Carrie replied. “Thanks, Miss Lackey. You’re a total peach for helping me.”

  The no-nonsense woman rolled her eyes. “No peaches! Go make us all some cherry pie,” she directed. “You realize you’ve created an unhealthy dependency.”

  On an average day, Carrie knew she would have blushed and denied. For some reason, the days weren’t so average now. “Thank you,” she said simply.

  “I hope you will sing at the campfire tonight,” she said. “Sophie is too shy to sing alone, and you know that Jake Trost’s magic tricks are stretched pretty thin.” She looked out the open door of the Wylie Store, where she worked and kept the camp books. “He’s over there by the kitchen, touching up the paint. Jake told me the place is no fun without you.”

  “Without me?” she asked in amazement. “I’ve never impressed anyone as the life of the party.”

  “Maybe you’re not paying enough attention to you. Scat now. You have pies to make and I need to get ready for a tour.”

  You might be right, Carrie thought. She relished again the realization as they rode through Swan Lake Basin that she had nothing to do except ride in a carriage and see Wonderland, just like a tourist. When did I last take a moment for myself?

  Bonnie Boone listened to Carrie’s greatly shortened account of the last two days. She quickly cleared the prep table and set out pie tins. The bin of flour came next, followed by lard.

  “The menu is beef burgundy, served on sourdough bread,” Bonnie announced. “I hope that is grand enough, even if Her Highness expects to eat dinner before everyone else.”

  “Bonnie, you’re a peach too.”

  “Silly! It’s on the menu. Get busy with those pies!”

  By the time the carriage with its one elegant rider came in view two hours later, the pies were done and cooling, and Carrie’s arm was stiff from whipping cream. Bonnie had scrounged up a nicer tablecloth than usual, and even found brass candlesticks.

  The four o’clock arrivals had just finished staggering through the dining hall for tea and whatever restoratives would keep them going until dinner at six, so the place was blissfully quiet—no banging of cutlery and clicking of thick white coffee cups to disturb the empress.

  Carrie hurried forward when they entered the dining hall. With the sergeant major on one side and the carriage driver on the other, Mrs. LaMarque looked suddenly small and supremely exhausted. When she reached them, Dave Lassiter relinquished his hold on the lady and muttered something about horses to grain and groom.

  Carrie took her arm, dismayed to feel the tremor. “I have tea ready to pour,” she said. “It’s your old friend Earl Grey.”

  “You’re always going to be snappy and impertinent, aren’t you?” Mrs. LaMarque asked, with just a shadow of her usual tart commentary.

  “Probably,” Carrie replied, after a worried look at Ram Stiles, who returned the look with a half smile. “I’m not always going to be a kitchen flunkie, but that’s what I am right now. Here we go. Have a seat.”

  She went for the tea and returned with it bearing the weight of a lump of sugar and a small slice of lemon, just as Mrs. LaMarque had demanded in her manifesto.

  Mrs. LaMarque sighed and took a sip. Another sigh. She looked around, and her gaze landed on Carrie. “Still that regrettable braid down your back?” she asked, with something resembling her usual asperity.

  “Yep. I like it,” Carrie replied. “Ramsay, can I get you some tea or maybe coffee?”

  “Just water.”

  “My dear Miss McKay, he is Sergeant Major Stiles,” Mrs. LaMarque reminded her.

  The tea was working wonders. Carrie didn’t falter. “He’s Ramsay to me,” she said. “I’ll bring out some water for the sergeant major, and then the beef burgundy,” she said.

  To her delight, Ram followed her back to the kitchen. He tugged on her braid. “I like it too,” he said.

  “Good.” She undid the clasp on the service ribbon and pinned it back on his uniform. “I might not even need this anymore,” she said.

  She poured him a glass of water from an industrial strength metal pitcher. He drank it down and held out the glass for more. “What happened to you in two hours?” he asked. “You were getting pretty tight-lipped in Gardiner.”

  “I decided to be kind and enjoy the journey,” she replied. “How many opportunities do I have to see the park through a tourist’s eyes?” She nodded her thanks to Bonnie, who brought out a tureen of beef burgundy. “I love this stuff. You carry the bread.”

  “Sir, yes sir,” he replied.

  She served Mrs. LaMarque and Sergeant Major Stiles and returned to the kitchen for stewed tomatoes with chunks of bread soaking up the tomato goodness, and applesauce, reconstituted and boasting cinnamon and raisins.

  “I’ve never eaten this combination before,” Mrs. LaMarque commented, but she didn’t stop eating. “You would never see this at Delmonico’s.”

  “Nope. This is a national park and we’re doing this the Wylie Way,” Carrie said. “When you spend the night at the Fountain Hotel, and certainly Lake Hotel, it’ll seem just like you’re back East.”

  Mrs. LaMarque smiled at that. “I can tell you’re not impressed.”

  “Not at all. I like it here and I like the way we do things. More tea?”

  “You are a scamp.”

  “Completely. We have cherry pie for dessert, with whipped cream.” She beamed at Ramsay Stiles, who looked about ready to laugh. “Bonnie said you can come back to that holy of holies—the kitchen—and slice off as large a hunk as you would like.”

  “I’ll take her up on that,” he said as he stood up. “Mrs. LaMarque, a little pie or a lot? Choose wisely here.”

  “A little,” she said. “Oh, go on. Carrie can get it for me.”

  He saluted and walked to the kitchen. Carrie stayed where she was, concerned with the severity of Mrs. LaMarque’s tremor. “If you’d like, I can help you to your tent and you can eat your pie there.”

  “I would like that,” the lady said, and managed a self-conscious laugh, the quiet kind intended to travel no farther than the two of them. “That way I can dribble and spill without a concerned audience.”

  When she went to the kitchen, Ram looked up happily from the half-pie he was consuming, whipped cream on his cheek. She took the end of her apron and wiped his cheek and cut a slice of pie for Mrs. LaMarque. A ladylike dollop of whipped cream went on top, after Ramsay made a great show of grabbing the bowl so she couldn’t have any.

  “I’m going to help her to her tent,” she said. “She’s not very steady.”

  In an instant he was a sergeant major again. “Need any help?”

  “No. She would only be more embarrassed.”

  He nodded, ready to keep eating, but put down his fork. “I’ll tell you what happened at Apollinaris Spring, but it’ll keep until I’ve had a nap.”

  “Good or bad?” she asked, wishing comments like his wouldn’t send her back upstairs to the Railroad Hotel, afraid of everything.

  “On the whole, good. Don’t worry,” he told her, telegraphing to the deepest part of her heart that he knew why she worried. “Stand back now. I’m on a mission.” He continued where he left off.

  “Don’t indulge him too much,” she teased Bonnie, as she carried the pie into the dining room. “He won’t fit into his uniforms.”

  “Will too,” he said, his voice muffled by whipped cream, but surprisingly commanding anyway.

  She returned to the dining hall, deserted except for Mrs. LaMarque, who sat with
her head bowed over the table. Too much late-night distress for all of us, Carrie decided, and felt sympathy she hadn’t expected.

  The dining hall seated one hundred visitors. Carrie felt her heart go out to the solitary figure, and wondered how many meals she had eaten precisely this way. Carrie thought of her own lonely bites of lunch and dinner in the Railroad Hotel Café, when the lunch crowd had dispersed and the evening diners weren’t expected for a few hours. Maybe they weren’t so different.

  She helped the unprotesting lady to her feet. Pie in one hand, Mrs. LaMarque leaning on the other, Carrie led her carefully across the road between the dining hall and the first row of tents. She noticed how the lady hesitated at the flap to the tent, as though it were an actual barrier, and not a piece of canvas to be flung to one side.

  The lovely alligator luggage sat in the front room, with its pot-bellied stove and two rocking chairs. Her carpetbag was there too, looking like a red-haired stepchild in such proximity to tanned and subdued reptiles.

  It was the work of minutes to get Mrs. LaMarque into that sole nightgown and robe,—thank goodness she didn’t complain about it—turn back the coverlet, and help her into the bed in the next curtained-off room.

  “Would you like to sit up and eat your pie?” she asked, then took a good look at the lady. “I suppose you wouldn’t.” She gently tugged the blanket higher, feeling surprisingly concerned, considering her rough treatment of the night before. She stood in the doorway to the partitioned room, then she sat in one of the rocking chairs, worn out, wondering if she should return to the kitchen and help out. While she was trying to decide, she fell asleep.

  When she woke up, the sun was much lower. She wanted to go back to sleep, but the sound of Wylie guests talking as they walked into the dining room across the way caught her attention. She heard footsteps on the wooden porch outside the tent and pulled back the flap.

  “Nothing to knock on,” Ramsay said. “Do I just say ‘knock, knock’?’

  “Why not?”

  “I know I ate only a few hours ago, but by golly, I’m ready to eat again,” Ram said.