by Carla Kelly
“I doubt you’ve done a silly thing in your life.”
“Yes, I have. I fell in love with Thomas Moran.” She opened her eyes and sat up, full of determination again. “Fluff up these pillows, Carrie! I have a story for you, since you won’t go to bed until I tell it. Such determination! Yes, Thomas Moran, the artist who painted the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.”
“There are lithographs of that painting all around,” Carrie said. “Mrs. LaMarque, I have to hear this.”
“Then hush and let me tell you. First of all, let me state that he had absolutely no idea I fell in love with him,” Mrs. LaMarque said. “He was newly married.” She sighed again. “That’s a two-hamster sigh, my dear.”
“It will get you every time. One minute.” Carrie went into her own partitioned-off room and found her brush and comb. She came back and sat cross-legged in the chair, which made Mrs. LaMarque roll her eyes.
“You truly are a savage,” the woman scolded. “For heaven’s sake, sit on the end of my bed, if you have to sit like that.”
Carrie obliged, and started brushing her hair. “The artist Thomas Moran. Keep going.”
Mrs. LaMarque made herself comfortable. “When your sergeant …”
“He’s not my sergeant,” Carrie said softly.
“He is too! Don’t be a goose.” Mrs. LaMarque cleared her throat. “When your sergeant took me to that smelly spring …”
“Apollinaris Spring …”
“Be quiet. How can I concentrate? He told me about the Railroad Hotel and your hard times. He insisted that I never raise my voice to you.” Mrs. LaMarque reached to the end of the bed and touched Carrie’s knee. “Talk about determination! He was absolutely adamant that I never raise my voice to you.”
What a kind man, Carrie thought. She attacked her hair and brushed it vigorously. “He looks out for me, doesn’t he?”
“It’s obvious to everyone on the planet, I think,” Mrs. LaMarque said.
“He told me that every trooper in Yellowstone Park is responsible for every animal, geyser, hot spring, and every person, except maybe poachers.” She touched her warm face. “It’s his duty.”
Mrs. LaMarque rolled her eyes. “Carrie, did he or did he not kiss you on the porch before you came in here? That is not part of his duty.”
“How did you know?”
The lady laughed. “What a pair of sillies! I heard you two talking, then it got quiet for a few moments, and then you came inside. I wasn’t born yesterday. Whether you’re aware of it or not, he stood on that porch a while before I heard him leave it.”
“My goodness.” At a total loss, Carrie cast wide for the thread of conversation and to her relief, reeled it in again. “We were talking about you, missy,” she said, which brought a smile to Mrs. LaMarque.
“All right then! Can’t a lady have some fun? Here’s my story: After that unfortunate war started with those ridiculous Southerners, I was living rather hand to mouth in Philadelphia.”
“I thought maybe you had some hard times,” Carrie said. “There is something about the way you straighten up and try to look taller that reminds me a bit of me. We do that to protect ourselves, I think.”
“I suppose we do,” Mrs. LaMarque said, and her voice was kind. “You’re an observant girl, Carrie.”
“Mostly just trying to get through life like you,” she said. “I’m sorry. I keep interrupting. Hard times in Philadelphia.”
“I was singing in a saloon.” Her eyes grew bright. “Come to think of it, do I get a share of those tips tonight?”
Carrie laughed, happy to tug the conversation farther away from Sergeant Major Stiles. “I already gave the Great Trostini half the jar, so you and I can split the five dollars remaining.”
“Silly goose.” That sigh again. “There was a time when half of five dollars would have looked really good.”
“I know,” Carrie said softly. “It still looks good.”
“There I was, hungry and it was January.” Her face hardened. “The saloon owner had suggestions about how I could earn more money upstairs.”
“I know about second floors,” Carrie said. “I couldn’t do that, and you couldn’t either?”
Mrs. LaMarque shook her head. “I came so close. I had already agreed to … to go upstairs. That morning, I spent my last nickel on a buttered roll and coffee. Someone at the lunch counter had left behind an Inquirer and it was opened to the classified ads.”
She looked at Carrie, her expression gentle. “Child, you want this to end well don’t you?”
“I hope it does,” Carrie replied. “Too many things don’t.”
“I won’t argue that. The Philadelphia Academy for the Arts was hiring live models. I answered the ad and that afternoon, I found myself wearing nothing more than a wrap you could see through and a smile. I did this three times a week for art students. Every few mornings they hired me to clean paint brushes. In the evenings I kept singing in that saloon.”
“I don’t think I could be that brave,” Carrie said, feeling her face flame. “I mean … I don’t mean that to sound, well, the way it sounds.”
“I don’t think you could, either,” Mrs. LaMarque said. “The only man who ever sees you in the altogether is going to be a husband. You already suspect who I think that should be.”
“Yes, but … ”
“Yes but, yes but! You’re trying my patience! Where was I? Ah, yes. Thomas Moran was one of the students, even though he was already painting with his older brother, Edward, who had a small gallery. Edward told Tom he needed to improve his human figures, so there he was.”
“Did he talk to you?”
“None of them did, not at first, but it was always Tom who made sure there was coal in the stove and the window was closed. He didn’t want me to be cold.”
She looked into the distance, and Carrie knew Mrs. LaMarque was back in a drafty classroom, wearing next to nothing, while students sketched her. Life is hard, she thought. When someone does something nice … She couldn’t finish the thought, because it was going to make her eyes fill with tears, and that wouldn’t do.
“You are such a softy,” Mrs. LaMarque said, also the observer, but with no unkindness in her voice. “One day class dismissed early, and both brothers invited me to eat lunch at the restaurant next door.” She laughed at the memory. “I dressed, and waited out front. They both walked right past me, then Thomas stopped, turned back, raised his hat, and said, ‘I almost didn’t recognize you with your clothes on.’ ”
Carrie laughed and Mrs. LaMarque joined in. “I still remember we ate beef sandwiches and soup with pearl barley in it. The menu proclaimed it was lamb stew, but Tom said the lamb must have run through on stilts. He had a lovely English accent.”
“You said he was married?” Carrie asked.
“Both brothers were. Imagine this, Carrie: neither of them wanted anything from me except friendship. Don’t look so skeptical, you prude!” she declared.
“Can’t help myself,” Carrie admitted, thinking of the Railroad Hotel. “Are artists different from other men?”
“I rather think they are, Carrie,” Mrs. LaMarque said. “They see a different world. Where was I? Ah, yes. Friendship like that had never happened to me before.” She raised her knees under the covers and hugged them. “Come to think of it, maybe I was more in love with that idea than I was with Thomas Moran. He was kind and he was a friend.”
“What happened when the class ended?”
“It was spring, and my life improved,” Mrs. LaMarque said. Carrie sensed the woman felt she was on more sure ground. “I answered an ad for a singer in an upper drawer supper club. An impresario from the New York City musical stage heard me and put me in the chorus of his latest Broadway revue. Such a tiny role! When that ended, he put me in another show, with two songs to sing this time. Another year and my name was on the marquee.”
“How glamorous,” Carrie said.
“I suppose. I was making two hundred dollars a week.”
She sat back, her eyes in the distance again, seeing something Carrie couldn’t see. “All that meant to me was that I wasn’t going hungry ever again and I didn’t have to work on anyone’s second floor.”
Carrie nodded. She looked down at the hairbrush in her hand. “I … I … always take some crackers to bed, or a handful of dried apples. It used to be I would wake up in the middle of the night, panic, and gobble them down.”
Mrs. LaMarque made a sound deep in her throat, and reached for Carrie’s hand this time. She squeezed it, then she let it go.
“Now I think it’s a luxury to wake up and see those crackers still on the nightstand. It means I made it through the night,” Carrie told her.
They both sat in silence. Carrie knew she should let Mrs. LaMarque go to sleep. She had an overpowering urge to snuggle next to her as she used to sleep with her mother, just the two of them against Bozeman, Montana, and every injustice practiced on a deaf woman and her child.
“Did you ever see Mr. Moran again?” Carrie asked, not ready to go to her solitary room, even if it was only on the other side of the canvas partition.
“I did.” Mrs. LaMarque laughed, a wistful sound. “I married that impresario. He died in ’73, and I was a rich widow—not too respectable because I was a theatre person, but fine looking and well off. I sang and danced and even financed a show or two myself. I caught the eye of a Wall Street financier with some Washington ties. He married me and I became even more respectable.”
“Your own carriage and a Park Avenue mansion?” Carrie asked. “I read the rotogravure section of the eastern newspapers when I clean the library at Montana Ag.”
“You may have even seen me promenading with my distinguished husband,” Mrs. LaMarque said. “We were quite the couple. It wasn’t all stocks and bonds with Harry Lyndon; he had another side. He was interested in art. He heard about a government-sponsored expedition to this area.”
“Yellowstone?”
“Among other places. We went to an exhibit of some of the paintings, and there were Thomas Moran’s watercolors, sketches, and that one magnificent painting. The photographs of another expedition member by the name of William Henry Jackson formed part of the exhibit too.”
“Was Mr. Moran there? Did you see him?”
Mrs. LaMarque’s eyes filled with tears. “He was and I did.” She dabbed at her eyes. “He didn’t recognize me.”
“Surely he had heard of Louise LaMarque,” Carrie said, feeling irritated at a man she had never met. “That should have rung a bell somewhere.”
“Perhaps. Mind you, I was Elsie Krank in Philadelphia, Louise LaMarque on Broadway, and now Mrs. Harold Lyndon.” She chuckled, and leaned forward to tug Carrie’s hair. “Silly! My hair was a different color too.”
“Didn’t you … didn’t you say something?” Carrie demanded. She felt tears welling in her eyes. To her horror, they spilled onto her cheeks and she cried, “I want you to tell me you said something!”
She put her hand over her eyes, embarrassed, ashamed. She may have been tired, but Mrs. LaMarque threw back her covers and sat closer to Carrie, taking her in her arms, as no woman had done in years, not since her mother had comforted her when she was little. “You were supposed to say something,” Carrie cried.
“Oh, my dear, plans change, people change,” Mrs. LaMarque crooned, her voice soft and gentle, a far cry from the woman who had frightened her in the National Hotel.
“I want to know that things got better. I have to know.”
Mrs. LaMarque held her off and then pulled her closer. “Go ahead and cry. It’s hard being alone, and hungry, and afraid, but still determined, isn’t it?”
Carrie nodded, unable to speak. The humiliation and embarrassment left her as she clung to a woman who knew precisely how hard life could be, how unforgiving to women.
Finally, she relaxed in Mrs. LaMarque’s kind embrace. “Goodness. You thought you were going to get a tour of Wonderland, and you end up with at least one silly.”
“Two,” Mrs. Lamarque said. “Your sergeant major is going to give me a case of the fantods! Well, maybe three sillies. I should have told him right up front that all I wanted to see was the Lower Falls of the Yellowstone.”
They laughed together. Carrie blew her nose and straightened her dress. “I still have to know more.”
“And you’ll hear it,” Mrs. LaMarque said. “I’m a proud woman, and I only want to say it once. Go get your sergeant major, and that’s an order.”
“He’ll be asleep. It’s too late.”
“I doubt it. That quiet time on the porch went on long enough to tell me that he’s probably wide awake and wondering what to do now.”
Chapter Thirty
The dispatch from Major Pitcher was waiting when he walked back to Tent Twenty after kissing Carrie McKay. It was a short walk from one end of the Wylie camp to the other, but the revelation that he had been in love with Carrie probably since his first visit to Willow Park and her rescue took no time at all. It was simply a matter of admitting it to himself. After that heartfelt kiss, who was he kidding?
There it was, the dispatch he had half been waiting for since his return to Fort Yellowstone last winter. There was a note from the Norris soldier station scribbled on it from the corporal in charge, reading, Hope this finds you. Major P’s adjutant brought it here, and he didn’t look happy.
Feeling numb and nerveless, he took the dispatch out of the envelope. Never one to put off bad news, he opened it and had his fears confirmed. Major Pitcher had written his own note to the official dispatch ordering Sergeant Major Ramsay Stiles to report with all deliberate haste to Fort Clark, Texas, to explain himself. He read the major’s note and took heart, but not much: Just as we feared. Sergeant Lafferty tattled on you, as was his perfect right. As soon as you can finish your current assignment and leave for Fort Clark, the better. I’ll be sending a letter ahead that might help, but it’s a serious accusation, Ramsay. Yrs sincerely, John Pitcher.
“Goodbye, army,” Ramsay said out loud. “Hello stockade.”
Ramsay heard the light tap on the door to Tent Twenty. He had been lying there, wide awake, wondering what to do next. From the sounds of snoring, no one else was awake. He buttoned his pants, scuffed his bare feet into his moccasins and pulled back the flap, knowing who was standing there before he even touched the canvas.
“I’m making a muddle of things, but Mrs. LaMarque has ordered me to fetch you to her tent,” Carrie said, with no preamble.
He tucked in his undershirt and ran his fingers though his hair. “This will have to do.”
“You look fine. Better’n me.”
He came closer and saw the tears on her face. He touched her shoulder. “What did she do to you?”
“Nothing like that. She’s been telling me … oh, sit down a minute.”
They sat on the edge of Tent Twenty’s porch. Carrie didn’t bother with a discreet six inches from him, but sat close. He listened in sympathy, eager for something to take his mind off his larger trouble, and then in astonishment as she told an amazing tale.
“My word, she knows Thomas Moran and just wanted to see the Lower Falls? Why didn’t she tell us right away?”
“I think that’s why she wants to see you now. She’s a proud woman.”
He finished her thought. “Who never should have come here, because her health is precarious.”
“I think so. That tremor …”
To Ramsay’s gratification, Carrie leaned against his arm, which gave him complete permission to put his arm around her shoulder. Maybe he didn’t even need her permission any more. That was a matter he could stew over later, and probably stew over until dawn. Mercy, but he was a fool for this woman. Why on earth had Major Pitcher told him to look for a wife? This was more trouble and heartache than he needed right now since his affairs had suddenly turned south.
And yet there she was, depending on him. In his position, others depended on him. In battle it was a life or death dependency. Carri
e’s dependency was different. If he were to play her false, she wouldn’t die, as one of his privates or corporals might die in battle. Uneasy at the thought, he knew it would be a different kind of death, and he did not relish even the thought of so much anguish for her, or if he was honest, for him. And so he stewed.
“That’s what she told me,” Carrie concluded. “She has more to say, but she wants to say it only once. Do you mind?”
“Not at all. I wasn’t asleep. Let’s go.”
They were inside Tent One in no time. Carrie dragged in the chair from her room, because Louise LaMarque was back in bed, her eyes so tired now. He almost hated to admit it, but he felt a twinge of pity. He saw what Carrie saw, a lady worn down and tired who probably had no business touring Yellowstone Park, which, while not a hard slog, could be a challenge.
“It’s this,” she began, also with no preamble. She held out her right hand.
He watched the tremor, and his sympathy grew. He saw the irony—a woman with wealth and connections (she knew Theodore Roosevelt, after all), looking forward to a decline in health she could not control.
“What I have is named after James Parkinson, a physician in the eighteenth century, who first described the symptoms,” she said, putting her hand into her lap and covering it with her other hand. “My handwriting has gotten smaller and smaller, and I know you have both seen me hesitate to enter a room.”
“I wondered if you see a barrier than no one else sees,” Carrie said.
“Hard to describe, but that is close,” the lady replied. “I don’t know what to do when I see a doorway. You’ve seen how I can hold a spoon and it shakes, but the tremors stop once I get the spoon close to my mouth. This is a most vexing disease, and truly, these dratted tremors exhaust me.”
“You want to see the Lower Falls of the Yellowstone before such a trip would be impossible,” Ramsay said. “Thomas Moran’s painting needs to come to life for you.”
“Precisely, Sergeant Major.” She seemed to straighten up then, and the pride returned. “My husband was instrumental in arranging for the government to purchase the painting. I heard President Grant say that painting, plus Mr. Jackson’s photographs, convinced him to set aside this wonderful place as a national park.”
