Courting Carrie in Wonderland

by Carla Kelly

  Carrie took his hand and tugged him upright. “We have to get to Canyon now. One thing more, Sergeant Major Stiles: you and I made a foolish wager that we both won. If there is a dance tonight at the hotel, we’re going to be there and we’re going to dance.”

  He turned the hand holding into a hand shake. “You’re on, Caroline.”

  They started back to the carriage where he saw Mrs. LaMarque watching for them. He could hardly bear to glance at Carrie, but he saw serenity on her face, her chin up, her shoulders proud. He knew he was watching a woman forged in a fiery furnace equal to any of Yellowstone’s hot springs or geysers. He knew she deserved someone far better than him. Before he left for Texas he would leave a note for Jake Trost. He smiled inside. Not that Jake Trost needed a note.

  Halfway to Canyon on the cutoff from Norris, he stopped the carriage and dismounted. He ignored Mrs. LaMarque’s sharp look and his heart broke to see tears on Carrie’s face.

  “Give me a minute here, ladies, and let me hand you down,” he said. He pointed north, across the road. “Off that trail is my favorite place to look for wolves. I want to see it again.”

  Praise heaven, Mrs. LaMarque gave him no argument. He took the binoculars from his saddlebag and led the way, with Dave Lassiter curious and bringing up the rear. Moving slowly for Mrs. LaMarque’s benefit, he led them to a clearing. He heard Carrie’s satisfied exclamation, which made the whole trek worthwhile.

  “We’re on the Solfatara Plateau,” he said and pointed north. “This was one of my favorite places to watch wolves last winter. I’d ski here and sit until my bum froze. It was worth it. Want to sit a while?”

  No one objected. Mrs. LaMarque’s only comment was that she would need help getting up. He sat next to Carrie, rested his forearms on his upraised knees and glassed the landscape. Nothing yet, but he was a patient man.

  No one said anything. He felt his heart leap and then settle comfortably in his chest again when Carrie ran her hand down his arm.

  “Will you forgive me for being stupid?” he whispered, even though he knew Mrs. LaMarque could hear him.

  “Forgiven,” she said promptly, with some of her usual spark. “We’re dancing tonight, remember? Louise said she could take a few tucks here and there in her evening dress.”

  “Louise?” he asked, somehow not surprised.

  She nodded, her eyes on the nearer distance. She clutched his arm. “Look. Over there by that single tree.”

  Eyes to his binocs, he followed where she pointed and let out a sigh he had been holding since last March, when he came this way through the snow and cold, determined not to encourage the use of strychnine. He nodded in satisfaction and handed her the binoculars. “Count them for me, will you? Something’s in my eyes.”

  She looked. “Two large ones, and other wolves about as big. My goodness they have long legs. And one, two, three little ones.”

  “There were five pups last March. Ah, well. Hand the binocs to Mrs. LaMarque.”

  “Louise,” he heard from the lady he thought he would dislike forever, until he didn’t.

  “Louise. Hand off to Dave when you’ve had a look.”

  “I never imagined a sight like this,” the grand dame of Broadway and secret admirer of Thomas Moran said.

  “Enjoy it now.” He couldn’t help the quaver in his voice and didn’t try. “In ten or fifteen years there won’t be a single wolf in this park. The coyotes might last longer, and who knows about mountain lions? They march to a different drum.”

  When the glasses came back to him, he watched a few more minutes. The pups fake-charged each other and tumbled in the tall grass, almost out of sight. Mama Wolf sunned herself on a warm rock and watched her brood, while Papa began to edge out and around, looking toward the plateau where they sat.

  “He’s onto us,” Ramsay said. “Watch what he does now.” He handed the binoculars to Carrie.

  “He’s nosing Mama Wolf,” she reported, “and look, they’re retreating into the trees. They sort of fade away, don’t they?”

  “Ghosts on the wind,” Ramsay said. “That’s what Jack Strong calls them. I wish you could have met him, Carrie.”

  “Maybe I will yet, Ram,” she said. “Don’t be such a nut.”

  He smiled at that, aware how lucky Jake Trost was going to be if he was as smart as Ramsay thought he was.

  She handed the glasses to Louise, who watched a long while, then handed them to the carriage driver. Dave shook his head. “I don’t need them. Take another look, Sarge. I don’t think Dad’s so concerned about us.”

  Ramsay didn’t need glasses to see a lone male bison making his stately way from Grebe Lake toward the trees. He wondered if this was one of the bison of the paltry twenty-nine remaining that Captain Chittenden had counted one fall.

  “I was going to help Jack Strong’s cousin round up a few more bison this fall and try to coax them north, closer to Fort Yellowstone,” he said and put the caps on the lenses.

  “Maybe you’ll be back from Fort Clark in time to do just that,” Carrie said.

  “I doubt it. I really do.”

  “Maybe you need to have more faith, Sergeant Major Stiles,” she replied. “Am I the only one who wants to fight a little harder?”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Unless you want me to pin your ribs to this dress, stop wiggling.”

  “I am not wiggling,” Carrie insisted. She held still for a second but then craned her neck to see the clock on the mantelpiece in their suite of rooms in Canyon Hotel.

  Louise LaMarque thumped Carrie with the thimble on her finger. “Do you want to fall off this footstool, break your ankle, and be forced to stay in bed tonight? Hold still!”

  “Is it really five o’clock?” Carrie asked, certain she was going to have a forest of bumps on her head from that thimble. “Is he going to be back in time for the dance?”

  “I doubt it. He probably took a fast, er, moose or elk to Gardiner and is waiting for a train to whisk him far from young women who fidget. Don’t cry, Carrie!” The thump was more of a tender pat on her head this time. “I doubt there are enough cucumbers in the hotel to help you if your eyes start to swell. That’s better.”

  Carrie stood still, her head down, feeling every single day of her twenty-three years. Here she was, standing in an evening gown with the discreet label, Worth, sewn in the lining, and all she could do was sniff back tears.

  “He said he wasn’t going far,” she said, trying to convince herself. “Only to that bridge construction site by the upper falls. Captain Chittenden is working there.”

  “That nice bearded man from the party at Major Pitcher’s?” Louise mumbled, pins in her mouth. “Raise your arm. Higher.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Carrie said as she raised her arm. “Ram said he likes to spend time with the Chittendens. What kind of advice can the captain possibly offer? Ram knows what’s going to happen.”

  “Don’t you have anyone to confide in when things are at their worst?” Louise asked. The pins were in place, and she began to sew.

  Carrie thought of Bonnie Boone, the Willow Park cook, and wished herself back there making pies. It seemed a pity that a person couldn’t reset a summer and begin it again, without a sergeant major this time. No, that would be worse.

  She wanted to mope and feel sorry for herself as Mrs. LaMarque sewed and hummed, but that would never do. It was also nearly impossible to mope, standing in front of a mirror and admiring what an understated but obviously expensive evening dress could do for an ordinary mortal.

  “Mrs. LaMarque, I’ve never worn anything like this,” she said. “No matter what happens tomorrow, I intend to enjoy this evening.”

  “That is more like it,” the lady said. “Make a quarter turn. Other arm up. You have a fine bosom. I’ve noticed Sergeant Major Spit and Polish taking little peeks at you. I don’t think he’s mooning over your non-existent cheekbones.”

  Carrie knew Louise LaMarque well enough that there was no point in denying su
ch a statement. Better to forge ahead. “I admit to too much enjoyment in watching him sit a horse.”

  “You are not alone there, missy,” Mrs. LaMarque teased.

  “Mrs. LaMarque!” Carrie declared but then giggled. “I needed that,” she said, serious again, but not quite so melancholy. She looked down at the dress and Mrs. LaMarque’s sure eye for alteration. “You’re good at last-minute stitching.”

  “Just a little something I learned from that first Broadway revue: If a dress tears, you’d better be able to fix it fast. Turn around slowly. Now back the other way. I think we’ve done it.”

  “I am perfection in a gown worth more than half of Bozeman.” Carrie joked.

  “Silly! Every lady in that ballroom will know you are wearing a Worth dress,” she said. “The trick is to act like you don’t care at all.”

  “I don’t really,” Carrie said. “I just want to see Ramsay right now. Louise, he’s leaving us after we see the falls!”

  She tried not to cry, she really tried, but there was no way to convince her tears. Mrs. LaMarque held her close. “Somehow this is going to be all right.”

  “You don’t know that!” Carrie cried.

  “No, I don’t,” Louise said quietly. She held off Carrie and gave her a measuring look, the kind Carrie knew her own mother would have given her just then, if she could have. “He’s heading into the unknown, and you had better buck up and not make it worse, Miss McKay.”

  Carrie nodded. She held the handkerchief to her eyes and kept it there until her eyes were dry.

  “That’s better,” Louise said. “Let me help you out of this little piece of heaven. Lie down and I’ll bring a washcloth for your eyes.”

  Carrie held still as Mrs. LaMarque unhooked the dress. “You need a better corset, missy,” she scolded.

  “I really want one of those gorgeous lace brassieres I see advertised in McCall’s,” she said.

  “Don’t we all! You have the figure for one. I used to.” Mrs. LaMarque kissed her cheek. “Earn that degree next spring and you’ll get a good job so you can buy a black lace brassiere that will take Sergeant Major Stiles’s breath away! Lie down now.”

  Carrie went into the smaller bedroom in the suite. She looked around at the comfort, even in this rustic place, and still wished herself back at the Willow Park Wylie Camp, among people more like herself. This hotel was pleasant, to be sure, but it wasn’t home, wherever home was. Her determination to enjoy herself seemed to float away like steam from a hot spring.

  The window was open and she went closer, careful to not show herself in her camisole and petticoat. Ramsay said she could hear the falls from the hotel, and he was right. Tomorrow he was leaving, riding ahead to catch the train out of Gardiner. Tomorrow was also Mrs. LaMarque’s day to see what had inspired Thomas Moran, an artist she met at a low ebb in her life, and who put the heart back in her body when she needed it.

  She lay down and closed her eyes, wanting a home of her own, one with Ramsay Stiles in it. How could she possibly sleep with Ramsay on her mind, in her heart, crowding aside every careful plan she had made in the last few years, when she had dared to start making plans? Exhausted with worry, she thought about the stories she read in women’s magazines, with their happy endings for ordinary people, or even ladies who wore Worth gowns—all those happy endings. Why did writers even dare write drivel like that? Didn’t they know how hard life really was? Maybe she would write a letter to the editor about the matter. Right now, she was tired right down to her soul.

  When she woke, the sun was still barely above the mountains. Her stomach signaled that she was hungry, so she knew it was late. She raised up on one elbow and stared at the bedside clock, which registered small hand on the eight. She listened, nerves alert, to hear Ramsay Stiles talking with Mrs. LaMarque in the sitting room. She got out of bed and opened the door a crack.

  My goodness, there he sat in what had to be his best uniform, holding a gold medal on a red, white, and blue ribbon.

  “I’ll hurry and get my dress on,” she said, the door open a crack.

  “You’d better, Caroline. I’m depending on you to fix this ribbon just so for me.”

  Mrs. LaMarque stood up and walked to the door. “Shoo! I’m coming inside to help you into that gown.”

  She blinked back tears. Mrs. LaMarque took her by the chin and gave her a little shake. “That’s enough now. I could help him with that medal—heaven knows it would be an honor—but he insists you must.”

  Carrie dressed in record time, then fixed her hair in a simple bun at the back of her neck. It was old-fashioned and probably out of place, but she knew no one would look at her, not with a sergeant major in blue and gold standing beside her.

  She borrowed the one pair of useless shoes Mrs. LaMarque had insisted upon, back at the National Hotel in Mammoth, which seemed like months ago, and not just days. I must remember this entire evening, she thought. This will probably never happen again.

  “Ready?”

  She nodded, and Mrs. LaMarque opened the door with a flourish. Ramsay stood up. She was suddenly too shy to look at his face, and stared down at his shoes. She had never seen him in ordinary shoes before; it was either boots or moccasins. They were shined to a blinding polish.

  “They’re wonderful shoes, Caroline, but I’m up here,” he said.

  Full dress uniform was precisely that. From his shoes to his tight collar with the crossed swords insignia, he left her nearly unable to breathe. Medals, gilt buttons, and those intimidating chevrons and rockers on his sleeves and hash marks galore, to the yellow stripe on his trousers—she gazed and admired, then walked into his arms because it was all too much.

  He held her close. “You look splendid,” he said. “I never saw a prettier Carrie McKay, but I miss the single braid.”

  “You’re a fine specimen yourself, Sergeant Major Stiles,” she said.

  He held her off for a better look. “I’ve been telling Mrs. LaMa … Louise … about our bet at the Golden Gate.”

  “It seems so long ago,” she said to Louise. “We were both pretty sure you’d want me to sit beside you, once Dave Lassiter took you through Kingman Canyon. The wager was a dance.”

  “You are both rascals and should be chained up in a side show,” Louise declared. “Stick that bauble on his chest, Carrie! There’s a dance going on and you’re both standing here with a shaky old dame.”

  In deadly earnest, Ramsay handed Carrie the Medal of Honor. “For a little thing, some days it weighs too much.”

  She looked at the medal for a long moment, thinking about a brave man in a frightening place. “Where did you find the courage, Ram?” she asked softly.

  “I dug deep, same as I am doing right now. You’d better dig deep too, Carrie.”

  She put her hand on his shoulder to steady herself. “I promise I will. Hold still now.”

  She centered the medal where he pointed, then fiddled with it until the medal looked perfectly squared away.

  “Every single man in my patrol earned this,” he said. “I wear it for them and for my lieutenant. It should be his.”

  He stood up and crooked out his arm. She put her arm through his, then she took it out when Louise LaMarque handed her a pair of long evening gloves. They wrestled them on while Ramsay watched, amused.

  Finished with the glove struggle, Mrs. LaMarque stepped back and eyed them both. “You’ll do,” she said, sounding haughty as ever, but betraying the condescension with her eyes bright with unshed tears. “Go on and have a good time. Don’t stay out too late or I will worry.” She clasped her hands to her heart. “I must be a doddering idiot, but I feel as though I am sending my children to a cotillion.”

  “Do you like the feeling?” Ramsay asked.

  “I believe I do,” she said. “Go on now.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Ramsay said, and clicked his heels together. “We’re headed for the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone tomorrow at eight in the morning sharp.”

  “I’ve
been looking forward to this all my life,” she said. The starch returned. “Scram now! I have some letters to write tonight. I am shockingly overdue on some correspondence. Take his arm, Carrie, hold him close.”

  “Yes, Mam,” Carrie said. She thought to tease her, but it didn’t feel like a joke in her heart and it didn’t come out of her mouth in a flippant way. She meant it with all her heart.

  Mrs. LaMarque blew her a kiss and held open the door. “Scram, I say,” she said softly.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Don’t look now, Caroline, but everyone is staring at me and wondering how on earth a guy with a wind-scoured face ever managed to find such a peach of a lady.”

  His dear Caroline looked up at him and frowned, which meant she pursed her lips. My word, what an invitation, he thought.

  “You’re a nitwit,” she replied. “Everyone is staring at me and wondering how some little snip with dishpan hands managed to snare such a prize. Just so you know.”

  “You have on gloves. They can’t see your hands,” he whispered in her ear. “You smell like almonds.”

  “Jergen’s lotion, ten cents a bottle,” she replied and laughed. “Just something to go along with this evening gown worth more than Captain Chittenden’s new bridge he’s building. Ramsay, I’m scared to death.”

  “No need. You know I’m a good dancer, and by all that’s holy, we look pretty impressive. A waltz, ma’am?”

  “I thought you would never ask,” Carrie replied. “We earned this in our devious little way.”

  His hand firmly on her waist, he pushed off. “By deliberately frightening the dragon? The one we’ve grown surprisingly fond of?”

  “My goodness yes,” she said. She gripped his hand tighter and looked into his eyes, unable to speak. He hauled her in closer so he didn’t have to stare into her beautiful, sorrowing eyes. They danced in silence.

  A polka and another waltz and then Ramsay escorted her off the dance floor. He took her hand and walked her to the veranda. The air was cool, after the ballroom. Arms around each other’s waists, they stood in more silence. He knew she was close to tears, by the way she drew in one shuddering breath after another. He had never been more grateful for darkness.