by Carla Kelly
He straightened up again to receive the private’s salute and the hand off of memo. Another salute followed, and he went inside to read the message.
Ted Sheppard’s heart took a nosedive. He was to report immediately to the commanding officer’s house for an assignment that could not wait. He left a note on his desk, and accompanied the private, who waited for him outside the small building.
“The CO was in a rare pelter,” the private commented.
“What’s the emergency?” Ted asked, wanting as much warning as he could muster.
“The hospital is in big trouble,” was all the man would say, but his grin was impossible to ignore.
The grin suggested it wasn’t Lakota—Sitting Bull’s shabby band had been slipping back across the Canadian border for months—and probably not road agents. Something was brewing at the hospital. Ted thought briefly of Millie and trusted no harm had come to her. He wasn’t about to ask the private anything so personal. A man had to hold his cards pretty close to his vest at Fort Buford, an isolated post where any hint of rumor was chewed over like an old bone.
Suddenly, Ted understood the private’s grin. Grazing between two of the officers’ duplexes were three cows: two Holsteins and a Jersey, the sum total of the hospital’s herd, allowed because invalids needed nourishment not ordinarily found in a typical soldier’s diet.
From lifelong habit, the corporal of the guard looked down and narrowly avoided contact with cow flop. This was no typical cow flop, but the kind that comes from cows clandestinely grazing in deeper grass far superior to their regular diet of hay. Too bad the cows didn’t understand that one of Major Brotherton’s great prides was a grassy parade ground. Unmindful of the official storm of memos descending upon them, the hospital cows grazed with the unconcerned nonchalance that bovines had cultivated through centuries of domesticity.
“Just how angry is he?” Ted asked the private, who also watched where he walked.
“Red of face, but he’s not swearing yet,” the private answered. He chuckled. “Better you than me, Corporal Sheppard.”
Corporal Sheppard eyed the cows for a long minute. His gaze softened to see Millie Drummond standing between the double row of officers’ quarters, hands on her hips. Happy to postpone a visit with an incensed field officer, Ted walked toward her.
“They escaped,” she said. “I don’t think I can get them back by myself.”
“I’ll help you, Miss Drummond,” Ted told her, wondering at the workings of fate. “First I must see what the major has to say.”
“It won’t be pretty. This same thing happened two weeks ago when your company was on the mail run to Bismarck,” she told him, coming closer and watching her steps too. “He even issued a special order.”
Flattered that Millie Drummond even knew his company had served as escort to the steamboat making the twice-monthly mail run to Bismarck, Ted stood beside the pretty lass, noting her height, or lack thereof, and nice shape. He forced his mind back to the cows, one of which had lowered herself with a soft oof! to begin chewing her cud. Another cow squirted, and the remaining cow grazed. This was no romantic scene, but Ted knew from long experience in the US Army to take the good times when a man found them. He chose to overlook the cow fragrance and admired Millie’s dark hair in its single loose braid.
Discipline overrode desire all too soon to please the corporal. He gave Millie a little one-finger salute, which she returned with a shy smile, and crossed the row to the major’s quarters, where the man also maintained his office.
Major Brotherton wasn’t precisely tapping his foot impatiently on his porch, but he did mutter something about corporals of the guard who took their sweet time. Ted executed a much smarter salute than the one he gave Millie and stood at rigid attention.
“You can see the problem, corporal,” his commanding officer said, with no little sarcasm. “Smell it too, I’ll wager.”
“Yes, sir. You would like me to return these cows to their grazing area behind the hospital, sir?”
“Oh, no. Impound them in the quartermaster corral, pursuant to Order Number Twenty-four, then deliver this memo to the post surgeon.” The major held out a dispatch, folded twice lengthwise, one of many he probably sent and received each week. Brotherton’s current temporary adjutant—a poor, long-suffering second lieutenant—did double duty with his own company, and had less time than usual to do the major’s dirty work. The man was nowhere in sight and Corporal Sheppard could scarcely fault him.
Corporal Sheppard took the memo and saluted. “Very well, sir. Should I wait for a reply, sir?”
“No. I am certain this will bring the post surgeon here in fine feather.”
Sheppard saluted and turned to leave, but Major Brotherton called him back. “When you return to the officer of the guard building, get four inmates to police these grounds.”
“Yes, sir!”
Before he enlisted in the post-Civil War army and left to find adventure on the northern plains, Ted Sheppard had been an Indiana farm boy himself. He had led many a cow from the pasture to the milking barn, in fact, too many. Joining the army had come as a relief.
Here he was, herding cows again, but this time with the assistance—or at least the concern—of a pretty girl he yearned to know better. He kicked the Jersey to her feet and was rewarded with a wounded look from both pairs of brown eyes, cow and human, as if the Jersey wondered what she had done wrong, and Millie had a soft heart for disobedient cows. He pointed the critter toward the quartermaster stables.
“Not to the hospital?” Millie asked.
Ted felt only relief that she seemed willing to overlook his brisk handling of the Jersey. “Not the hospital. I think the major wants to make an example of these felons and miscreants,” Ted told her. He winced inwardly to think how silly he sounded, but Millie only dimpled up as though he truly was a witty man.
What do I say now? What now? he asked himself with some desperation as Millie ambled along with him to the quartermaster stables, blessedly some distance away. “Um, uh, how do you like working at the hospital?” he asked, at a loss.
“Well enough,” she replied, skipping to keep up with him. He slowed down. “I like to cook, and we do have better ingredients to work with.”
“What would you make with the milk?” he asked, curious now.
“Butter, and perhaps cottage cheese. Probably a creamed stew involving canned oysters,” she replied, with no hesitation. “Creamed chipped beef on toast points.”
Ted started to salivate. He wiped his mouth and hoped she didn’t notice.
She did; he watched her dimple play about in her cheek after she glanced his way. “Perhaps you had better come down with an epic disease and find out,” she teased, which made him want to wriggle like a puppy.
“Nope. Strong as an ox,” he said. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been sick. Obviously hard tack and sowbelly on the march agreed with him. His palate must be immune to the tender ministrations of constantly revolving enlisted men in E Company who took their turn cooking, no matter what their culinary skills.
Bless Millie Drummond’s heart, but she seemed to understand he was just one more corporal, healthy or not, rendered tongue-tied by her presence. As they herded three cows from the parade ground to the stable, she told him about the various garrisons she had lived in, and her last two years spent in Minnesota attending school and living with a beloved aunt.
“She said I could easily find a husband among all the lumberjacks,” Millie said, “but I missed the West. She gave me her blessing to leave.”
Ted silently uttered his own prayer of gratitude to a woman he had never met, who hadn’t held Millie hostage. The men of Minnesota could snoop about among their own to find brides. Out here in Dakota Territory, the pool of bridal material was so miniscule as to be nonexistent.
The cows were duly turned into the corral behind the quartermaster storehouse to serve out their sentence. Ted looked down at the memo in his gloved hands, won
dering what storm was about to break over Captain Crampton’s head. Ted knew him as a surgeon who never minded making house calls to either Officers Row or Suds Row. Hopefully he would take the memo in good grace and end the matter.
He wanted Millie to talk with him back to the hospital, and he waited as she stood a long moment, arms on the corral fence, just watching the hospital cows. When she turned, her expression was thoughtful.
Taking a cue from Millie, he told her about his own route to Dakota Territory, admitting he hadn’t enjoyed farming or cows much. Soldiering suited him well enough and he said as much to the pretty miss walking by his side, now that he was smart enough to shorten his stride to accommodate her.
“Papa likes soldiering too,” she told him.
Might as well ask. “Do you mind moving from place to place?” he asked. A man ought to know that much, if he planned any sort of campaign involving a sergeant’s daughter.
“I don’t mind,” she said, after favoring him with a shy glance. “It might be fun to settle down sometime, but so far I haven’t found a spot I minded leaving.”
He felt more or less the same way, but he couldn’t think of another question, not with the hospital right in front of them. Duty called and he could not ignore it, as much as he wished to. He held up the memo.
“This might be an ugly scene,” he said. “Thanks for keeping me company, Miss Drummond,” he said.
“It’s Millie,” she said quietly. She touched his arm with light fingers, then hurried toward the back of the hospital from whence kitchen fragrances originated. He went down the hall and knocked on Captain Crampton’s door.
“Come in,” he heard and opened the door. He saluted, and handed the memo to the surgeon, who read it and frowned. The post surgeon stuck his head out the door and called, “Corporal Roach!”
In a moment, the hospital steward appeared, wiping his hands on an apron with questionable yellow stains.
Captain Crampton showed him the memo. The hospital steward frowned too. “I am certain they were grazing behind the hospital, last time I looked,” he said.
Captain Crampton tapped the memo. “Obviously not now.” He looked at Ted. “Major Brotherton is really going to fine me three dollars for this silliness?”
“I believe he is, sir,” Ted replied, wishing he had a better answer. “One dollar per cow.”
“My steward here says they were grazing behind the hospital,” the post surgeon said, obviously not a man to yield gracefully.
“They may have been at one time, sir,” Ted told him, “but I found, um, evidence on the parade ground, and they were definitely between the houses on Officers Row when I apprehended them.”
The post surgeon rummaged in his desk and pulled out a prescription pad. “Give this to Major Brotherton,” he said, ripping off his own memo.
Ted took it and stared down at handwriting so illegible that he turned it sideways for a better look. Captain Crampton snatched it back and tried again. He gave the second memo to Ted. “It says I will be down to see him later on, after I debride a burn, stitch a laceration, and recast a leg.”
Ted knew better than to turn this memo sideways, even though it looked no more readable than the first. He saluted and left the hospital, resisting the urge to smile until he was well down the boardwalk path.
He watched Major Brotherton turn the memo sideways before telling the man just what the post surgeon had written. Another smart salute, and Ted beat a dignified retreat. He left orders with the sergeant of the guardhouse to send a detail with bucket and shovels to do justice to the parade ground, then returned to his temporary domain in the officer of the guard building.
Ted made his own entries in the day’s record book, wondering if Millie Drummond would be interested in civilian life. During a glorious afternoon of free time recently in Bismarck after picking up the upriver mail at Fort Lincoln, he had wandered to Gilhooly’s Photography. He had spent several hours watching the man work, and even assisted in the darkroom. The Irishman assured Ted he had a knack for developing and told him to stop by when he was next downriver, and try the actual camera.
“I could use a dependable assistant with a sure eye and temperate ways,” Martin Gilhooly told him when they shook hands and parted. “Too many drunks in Bismarck.”
“I never really thought about a career besides the army,” he had said to Mr. Gilhooly.
“Maybe you should, boyo,” had been the Irishman’s reply.
That “maybe you should” followed him around for the rest of the afternoon in Bismarck. Floating a few feet off the ground, Ted Sheppard had even stopped at Larsen’s Jewelry and Fine Goods and looked at wedding rings, the delicate kind that would appear to good advantage on the finger of a lass with red hair. He found just the ring, because he had that sure eye, but those temperate ways kept him from buying it.
He closed the record book and wondered if Millie Drummond preferred the moveable life of a sergeant’s wife to something more settled in a place like say, Bismarck, married to a civilian with ambitions to open his own photographic studio someday. Ted knew he would make sergeant if he re-upped in two years for another five-year enlistment, but the idea of a future other than the army intrigued him. Would it intrigue Millie Drummond? And how would he really know if she cared for him? A man couldn’t just ask, after all, or could he?
So he stewed and fretted, and did his duty when called upon that afternoon. Not until shadows were lengthening across the buildings did the matter of the hospital cows come to Corporal Sheppard’s attention again.
He was filling in at the guardhouse next door while the sergeant of the guard hurried to some unnamed crisis in K Troop’s barrack. The prisoners sent to clean up the parade ground after the hospital cows’ indiscretions had returned to their cells. At ease, Corporal Sheppard stood in the doorway, watching another messenger from the general vicinity of Major Brotherton’s quarters head his way, his stride purposeful and no smile on his face this time.
After a salute, Ted opened the latest memo, where the words, “Report to me at once!” fairly leaped off the pale blue paper.
“The hospital?” Ted asked the orderly, who nodded, and finally permitted himself a smile.
“What a bumble broth this has become,” the orderly said. “Less than an hour ago, the hospital steward showed up here with three dollars. Major Brotherton had me release the cows from debtors prison—”
“Which should have ended everything,” Ted finished, ever hopeful.
“Only beginning! Captain Crampton had sent along his assistant steward to milk the ex-convicts right there.” He gave an empty-handed gesture. “Only one quart for the three of them.”
“Someone else milked the cows,” Ted filled in.
“Captain Crampton is practically jumping up and down on his desk. He fired off a memo to the CO, and here I am,” the orderly said. “The major wants you on the double, and I am to stay here and fill your position until you return.”
Ted didn’t feel the matter demanded a dead run, but he did hurry the long distance to the field officer’s quarters. He was met at the door by Major Brotherton, looking as cold-eyed as Ted had ever seen the man.
The major nearly threw the dispatch at the corporal of the guard. “Take this to that … that quack who calls himself a surgeon!” Brotherton fairly shouted. “You are excused from retreat ceremony!”
“Sir?” Ted asked, startled at this hiccup in the day’s order of business.
“I am ordering you to go from company mess hall to company mess hall. Check every pot and see if you can figure out who milked the surgeon’s cows.” The major gestured to the dispatch in Ted’s hand. “I’ve told Captain Crampton to prefer a charge of falsehood against his steward and send the man to the guardhouse. On your way, Corporal.”
The headache began before Ted covered half the distance to the hospital. It grew quickly worse when the post surgeon read the latest memo, cursed and swore and summoned his steward, a circumspect fellow and a bit of a
priss.
As Corporal Sheppard tried to make himself small in the corner of the surgeon’s office, Captain Crampton demanded to know exactly when the steward had seen the cows behind the hospital and not on the parade ground, as Major Brotherton claimed and all signs pointed.
Corporal Roach stammered, hemmed and hawed, and admitted he might have been wrong about his assertion.
“I’d prefer not to satisfy the major by charging you with anything, Roach,” the post surgeon said finally, his voice more calm. “Might you have been mistaken about the time you claim to have seen the cows behind the hospital?”
“Quite likely, sir,” Roach replied, not a man to press a highly charged issue, whatever the truth. “I must have been wrong.”
“Dismissed,” Captain Crampton said. “Go … go empty a bed pan.”
Roach left with a salute and showed a clean pair of heels in his rapid retreat. The post surgeon scribbled another dispatch, looked at it, and printed a return message. “If he can’t read my writing, tell the man my steward was mistaken,” he said, leaning heavily on the desk and looking much older than he had looked only this morning. “I still want to know who milked those cows and where the milk is.”
“Major Brotherton has ordered me to check every company mess kitchen and see what I can learn, sir,” Ted assured him. “I’ll find your culprit.”
Captain Crampton gave him a wan smile and sent him packing too. After a swift return to a seething commanding officer, and an even quicker report to the sergeant of the guard, who had returned to the guardhouse, Ted Sheppard began his search for the criminal who had milked three hospital cows. He also wondered when the army had gone from a fearsome arm of the government’s will to a carnival sideshow, at least at Fort Buford.
