by Carla Kelly
He looked around and led her toward one of the rustic benches lining the front of the hotel. “I rode over to the bridge Captain Chittenden is building,” he said, not relinquishing her hand. “It’s a marvel, Caroline. It’s poured concrete, which means his crew is building a wooden framework to hold the concrete in place when it’s poured sometime in August. I don’t know how he’s going to do it, except that I know he will.”
Silence. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and she took it without a word. “I told him what had happened. He’s writing a letter tonight too, but I did a bad thing and it’s come back to bite me.”
She leaned against his shoulder, silent, the handkerchief tight in her fist.
“Nothing to say?”
She shook her head and they sat quietly together.
“One thing,” she said, her voice so shaky. “Just tell me you care about me.”
How kind is this woman, he thought in anguish. She could rail at me for being stupid and ruining everything, but she isn’t doing that.
“I love you more than I can say,” he told her. “I never thought something like love would happen to me, but it did.”
“Fight a little harder then,” Carrie told him, and he heard the fierce core to her soft-spoken words.
“It doesn’t work like that in the army,” he told her. “There is no gray, only black or white. I disobeyed an order. If I were a pea-green private, things might be different. I’m almost as high-ranking as a man can get and still remain a noncommissioned officer. I have absolutely no excuse and I cannot pretend one.”
“You have nothing to offer me?” she asked, her voice rising.
“Nothing. By the end of this month I will either be in the stockade, eventually busted to private, or out of the army, disgraced, and unemployed. Who would hire me?” He closed his eyes as she shuddered and burrowed closer. He wished he could blend into the trees and fade away like the lone wolf he was destined always to be.
“You want me to consider this whole crazy month as an experience and nothing more?” she asked, her voice soft again. “I’m to forget you, even though I wouldn’t mind if you were unemployed? All I know are hard times. You know you can find a job. I’m sure you have savings …”
“Forget me, Caroline.” He hated to say it, but he had to. The last thing he wanted was for the shame of what he had done to taint her in any way.
“I’ll start right now. Stop calling me that, Ramsay,” she whispered into his sleeve, the one with all those hashmarks that were probably going to be ripped off one at a time by an officer.
He had watched men drummed out of the army and it was not a pretty sight. At least no one would lash his back, something he had seen too, in the old army. She didn’t need to know that.
“You’ll be in school in September,” he reminded her. “Your path is smoother now.”
“I thank you for that,” she said formally. She stood up. “When bad things happen to me, I get quiet. I usually throw myself into hard work so I can sleep from exhaustion at night. I’ll study hard this year and mind my own business. It’s going to take me awhile to forget you.”
She turned away and he watched her shoulders shake. If the earth could have swallowed him right there, on the porch of Canyon Hotel, he would have counted it a tender mercy he did not deserve.
“Hopefully not too long to forget me,” he said, and felt like an idiot saying something so vapid. He made it worse, of course. “I’m probably somewhere high on your list of cads right now, and more easily forgettable.”
“Maybe by the time I draw my last breath, I’ll think of you only every other minute. Good night, my dear. We’ll be ready at eight tomorrow morning. Let’s give Louise LaMarque an excellent day.”
She walked away, her beautiful gown making a swishing sound that he knew he would hear until he drew his last breath.
Sleep was out of the question. Ramsay lay in bed and stared at the ceiling, then he remembered something he could do, which gave him some relief. When he took the train to Bozeman before transferring to a southbound line, he would stop at his bank and move his funds into an account for Carrie McKay, care of Montana Agricultural College. He had always been frugal, not a hard thing, considering the isolated garrisons he lived in, far from ways to spend money. In more recent years, he had dallied in stocks and bonds thanks to Captain Bouvier, who knew how to invest. Granted, Ramsay had lost a fair amount during the Panic of ’93, but he had recouped modestly. However things came out at Fort Clark, he didn’t want the army to garnish any of his money in further retaliation. Better it went to gallant Carrie McKay.
He knew such a gift was the only concrete thing he could do. On a whim, he got up and looked through his saddlebags, which he had brought to his room, much to the eye-rolling amazement of the room clerk. He pulled out the confounded etiquette book Mrs. Pitcher had given to him. He knew there was a chapter on letter-writing.
His first instinct was to chuck the blamed thing out of the window. Knowing his luck, some well-meaning soul would find it and return it promptly to him. He thumbed through the book, a wry smile on his face, wondering how an initiation prank had turned so serious, then gone so wrong. He had found a woman; he had found the woman, and here he was, mooning like an idiot over something that wasn’t going to happen.
He turned to Courtship and Marriage, laughed out loud at the heading, “Proper Manner of Courtship,” and shook his head as he read silently, It is impracticable to lay down rules as to the proper mode of courtship and proposals. The customs of different countries differ greatly in this respect.
Obviously the experts had no idea of the rules of courtship. And if Yellowstone Park could be viewed as a “different country,” he had always been on shaky ground. Visitors came and went; Wylie girls cooked, cleaned, sang, and then departed for their real lives. He stayed here, off and on for several seasons, studying wolves until he knew their habits were of no serious danger to animals in the park. No one cared to listen to what he had observed.
On the other hand, no one knew how watching the wolves at play through the snow had calmed his heart, still racing wildly after a bad time in a faraway country and suffering through a serious injury. The wolves, bears, elk, and even noisy magpies and uppity chipmunks had soothed his mind. Carrie McKay had put the heart back into his body.
“ ‘There may be such a thing as love at first sight, and if there is, it is not a very risky thing upon which to base a marriage,’ ” he read out loud, then read again, surprised at the absence of vague superiority, which filled the other 417 pages. He turned to the title page and wondered which of the four professors and three additional experts who had come together to write this ridiculous book had fallen in love at first sight.
“Good for you, whoever you are,” he said. “I did the same thing. I hope your results were better. Now where is your equally useless chapter on letters?”
Knowing sleep resided on some distant asteroid in another galaxy, he dressed, pulled up a chair to the desk and rummaged in the drawer. He stared at the Canyon Hotel stationery and tried to compose a letter to Carrie, just a factual one stating he was creating an account for her and transferring his savings into it. At a loss, he turned to the book once more, and came to, “The Love Letter.”
Ramsay swore under his breath and frowned at the silly statement: A love letter should be dignified in tone and expressive of esteem and affection. It should be free from silly and extravagant expression. Mercy, it was a wonder anyone ever wrote a letter or courted a lady or married the same. How in the world did anyone ever get around to having babies? Hogwash.
Holding the book between thumb and forefinger, he lifted it high over the wastebasket by the desk and dropped it, well past needing to read one more word. He had already agonized over the section on gift-giving which suggested nothing fancier than flowers or a book. He was giving Carrie McKay his life savings, along with his whole heart.
He crumpled the letter that so far said no more than “My dea
rest Caroline,” and tossed it into the wastebasket too. In the Bozeman bank, he could write a businesslike note, stick it in his savings book, and add her account number, once he secured one. If he sent the packet to Gardiner, care of the Wylie summer office, Carrie would get it.
Saddlebags repacked, his dress uniform in its own satchel, he made his way downstairs and out to the stable, where Dave Lassiter harnessed the horses and Xerxes looked on with some interest. He strapped the satchel behind his saddle and spent a moment with Dave, thanking him for his help.
“I have to ride ahead on fort business after we get to Lower Falls,” he told the driver. “Just get’um to the National Hotel and Mrs. LaMarque on the train.”
“Happy to, Sarge,” Dave said. “I expect I’ll see you out and about the fort in the next day or so.”
Don’t count on it, Ramsay thought. “I expect you will,” he lied. “I’ll move the ladies along now.”
He stood in the entrance to the dining room, only because Carrie hadn’t spotted him yet, and he wanted to watch her, maybe memorize her. He smiled at the way she cocked her head a little to one side when she listened to Mrs. LaMarque, and how she leaned forward with conversation. Her little straw hat was perched a bit forward, which meant the mass of hair in the back glowed with its blond and red highlights as the morning sun moved into the room.
His fingers almost itched to tug out the hairpins he knew were poised here and there, and watch the beauty of unconfined hair cover her shoulders. He sighed, knowing that would be another man’s happy task in the future, when Carrie found someone of like mind far more suitable than he was. He thought of Jake Trost, hating the engineering major for a brief moment, and then reminded himself that Carrie already liked the amiable fellow. Something could happen there.
Was this harder than taking a cave full of angry insurrectionists? Quite possibly. He pushed away from the doorframe where he leaned and crossed the dining room. Carrie pulled out a chair for him and he sat next to her.
“Some coffee?” she asked, still not a girl for preliminaries. “Here’s an egg, bacon, and toast.”
He nodded and let Carrie capably organize him. “Do you know what’s really good?” she asked, looking at him, but not letting her eyes linger.
Bravo, Carrie, he thought. You’ll forget me soon enough.
Deftly she sliced the toast and the egg, and laid the halves on the toast. The bacon went down on top, and she sprinkled some grains of salt from the salt cellar. The other half of toast went down. “An egg sandwich,” she announced.
He smiled at her. For a small moment, all the uncertainty and pain he had seen last night crossed her face. She returned her attention to Mrs. LaMarque while he ate his sandwich.
When he finished breakfast, he looked closer at Carrie. He knew he was never going to enjoy the fragrance of Jergen’s lotion again, because it would only mean Carrie.
She gave him a businesslike glance. “Shall we go? Mrs. LaMarque isn’t getting one second younger …”
“… Carrie …”
She grinned at the lady in question. For the smallest second he saw the hurt in Carrie’s eyes that even a joke couldn’t hide. He wanted her to start forgetting him, because he hadn’t given her any other choice.
“And you have business elsewhere, Sergeant Major Stiles.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
After Carrie took off the beautiful dress last night, picked out the alterations, and returned it to the suitcase, she and the woman who had begun a journey in animosity had talked and cried until the early hours, arriving at no conclusions.
In the early hours, she began to feel the deepest gratitude for the woman whom she thought would plague her very existence, and all for the promise of one hundred dollars by the time the ordeal was over. Where she had sobbed over Ramsay’s intractable situation, Mrs. LaMarque had comforted with serenity, and even an element of good cheer that, while startling Carrie at first, ended up soothing her to sleep, her head resting in the socialite’s lap.
Carrie knew she had turned some cosmic corner when she woke in the morning to see Mrs. LaMarque watching her with the deepest concern. For a moment, she forgot her own sorrow when the lady gently rested her steady hand against her cheek.
“You know, my dear, I never wanted children,” Mrs. LaMarque said.
Carrie managed a weak laugh. “After my ridiculous lamentation, you must be supremely grateful you never had a daughter. I should apolo—”
“No, no. Don’t misunderstand me,” Mrs. LaMarque said. “I realize I might have been good at this.” She showed a spark of her former starch. “I know I could have managed a daughter, you silly child.”
Carrie sat up, her heart filled with affection. Maybe Ramsay was right. Maybe she would eventually forget all about him. She could allow him a corner somewhere in her heart, but there was room for others too, even difficult people who might become excellent friends, if given a chance to blossom.
“There is no doubt you have managed me nicely through a trying time,” she said. “I will be all right now.”
“Not until your … that … sergeant major is a little farther away,” Mrs. LaMarque said firmly. Barely suppressing a smile, she raised her hand that shook and waved it at Carrie. “See here, I’m shaking my finger at you.”
Carrie stared at her and then joined in Mrs. LaMarque’s laughter. They both laughed until they had to wipe their eyes.
“If a body can’t laugh at a little tremor, then what’s the point in having Parkinson’s palsy?” Mrs. LaMarque said. “Maybe I should look at things in a different light too.”
Carrie put out her hand and they shook together, then they laughed some more. Her resolve to put her feelings for Ramsay Stiles into some dark corner of her mind had lasted no longer than the moment after breakfast when he helped her into the carriage.
She looked into his tired, serious eyes and knew she was seeing a reflection of her own eyes. She met his gaze as long as she could bear and then turned her attention to Mrs. LaMarque, who was already seated and needed no assistance. “Are you comfortable, ma’am?” she asked, not willing to say anything more to the sergeant major because she knew her tears would fall again. Better he should think she was going to do exactly what he told her to do and forget him.
She looked down at her hands until he spoke to Dave and mounted his horse.
“Louise, may I hold your hand? I’m having a hard time,” Carrie said, her eyes now on the horse and rider in front of the carriage. Without a word, the tourist from Hades who had become so dear twined her fingers through Carrie’s.
“Brave talk is easy in the middle of the night, isn’t it?” she whispered to Mrs. LaMarque.
“There is hardly anything simpler,” the lady replied. “You should have heard my late-night conversations with Tom Moran through the years. It’s like writing a heart-felt letter and then not mailing it.”
Carrie nodded, aware that in her own misery, she had forgotten the sole purpose of Mrs. LaMarque’s trip was this visit to the Lower Falls of the Yellowstone. She glanced at her companion’s self-possessed, calm face, knowing she should model herself after such courage and serenity. Sometimes all a woman could do was forge ahead, never forgetting, but at least not remembering relentlessly, when there was no other alternative.
The enormity of the task ahead of her made Carrie quail inside. Love could be a dreadful burden. Maybe that was the summer lesson. As they came closer and closer to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, her heart ached for the man on horseback, heading toward court martial, the stockade, and humiliation he did not deserve, simply because he had disobeyed an order that made no sense. Unlike everyone in the Department of the Interior, he had made a personal study of wolves, perhaps even a scientific study, and arrived at different conclusions.
She knew she couldn’t think of the years ahead because that was too hard. Better to take the rest of the summer day by day, minute by minute if she had to. After a while, the false front of serenity might beco
me easier to wear. She glanced at Mrs. LaMarque, who had covered up her love for Thomas Moran until it turned her hard. I don’t want that, Carrie thought suddenly. Although I greatly admire her now, I dare not become hard and brittle.
Carrie looked up, startled to see they had stopped. She was alone in the carriage and Ramsay Stiles was holding out his hand for her to step down from the carriage.
“We’re here?” she asked, feeling like an idiot.
“We have been for several minutes,” he said, so serious. “Mrs. LaMarque told me to leave you alone until you … you felt like getting out. Do you?”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “Goodness, this was the whole purpose of this trip, wasn’t it?”
“I’m not sure anymore,” he said, and helped her down.
What could she say to that? Standing next to the one man in the world who could make her completely happy, she knew she could hide behind that façade she needed to build, similar to Mrs. LaMarque’s façade, or be honest. She chose honesty.
“I’m not sure either, Ram,” she said, raising her voice to be heard above the sound of millions of gallons of water pouring over a ledge. “I wish I could carry some of your burden. Since I can’t, or you won’t let me, just know I’ll be writing you in Texas.”
Not for me the midnight letters I never send, she thought. I can’t do that.
“Not the wisest use of your time, Caroline,” he said as they walked toward Mrs. LaMarque, who waited with less than stellar patience at the top of the gently sloping trail.
“It’s my choice,” she said simply. “Whether you read them or not is your business. She doesn’t look very patient. Let’s move it.”
He smiled at that, as she hoped he would. She told him to hurry ahead and take Mrs. LaMarque’s arm to steady her on the path, and Carrie took her time. Above and beyond her own misery, she knew this was a moment to relish and remember from the summer when she fell in love and learned that life, while not fair or easy, was worth the trouble of living right.
