by Carla Kelly
“It is a bit frightening, Sergeant,” she whispered, and turned slightly. “Is the baby asleep?”
“Yes. And call me Hiram.”
She rose slowly and sort of glided out of the room, which kept the baby asleep, but also set her skirts to swaying in a manner so pleasing he had to look away to maintain any composure.
She soon returned to the parlor and sat beside him. He wasn’t certain what to do until she looked at him with those beautiful brown eyes. His arm went around her shoulder. Since she didn’t bat him away and cry foul, he continued breathing.
Without any encouragement, Hiram told her about his hard life on that Iowa farm, and his even harder eighteen months in the Union Army, beginning with the Battle of the Wilderness, and ending with the surrender at Appomattox. He handed her his handkerchief after the Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse when he told her about stepping on top of still-writhing wounded men to continue firing into the Bloody Angle.
She handed it back for Cold Harbor as he blubbered and wiped his eyes. “Six times, Birdie. Why would any general make us charge six times?”
Her head rested on his shoulder through the Grand Army Review in Washington and then his Indian Wars years. He wanted to hear her life story next, and she began, but it ended quickly when they heard booted feet stamping off snow on the front porch. In a flash she was up and opening the door for the major and his wife, and then Miss Hinchcliffe with two lieutenants trailing behind her, one of them his own.
No one said anything about his presence in the parlor, but Hiram hoped what he noticed in Major Dunlap’s one good eye was a little twinkle. Everyone said good night to everyone else and he found himself on that porch now. The door closed, then opened again and there stood Birdie O’Grady.
She gave him another serious look, the kind that meant business of a sort he had hoped for all his life, even if he did live in a dry-bone garrison in a territory full of testy Indians and earned thirty dollars a month.
She didn’t say anything, but mouthed the words, “Please write to me,” then closed the door.
And he had. Now he waited like Lieutenant Shaw, eager for a word from a lady, and wondering why in tarnation the US Mail had forgotten Fort Fetterman.
A
Two days later, Hiram knew it was not his place to say anything to his superior officer, but he wasn’t surprised when Lieutenant Shaw moped around the guardhouse while Hiram released a C Company miscreant, and waited for the room to clear out.
“Sir?” Hiram asked, knowing that was enough to get his lieutenant to bare his soul, a somewhat shallow mechanism, as far as the sergeant could tell.
“Sergeant, did I mention to you that in my last letter to Miss Hinchcliffe, I hinted I would be asking her an important question?”
So you told me; the more fool you, Hiram thought, amused. He probably knew even less about courtship than his lieutenant, but Hiram did not think it wise to mention something so vital to a man’s future happiness in a letter, or even to be so coy about it. “Brave of you, sir,” he replied, because Shaw seemed to expect a comment.
“Brave? Brave? I wrote that letter eight weeks ago, and have I heard a single word from her since? D’ya think she has a clue what I meant? Has she rejected me?”
Hiram considered how to answer. Birdie O’Grady had remarked unfavorably on Miss Hinchcliffe’s mental acuity, so that was one consideration. Maybe she truly was clueless. Or maybe she had rejected this lieutenant and didn’t know how to put it in writing. An even more unhelpful scenario rose: perhaps Miss Hinchcliffe had already scarpered off to Ohio, dragging the dutiful Birdie along.
“We … I mean you … just won’t know until a letter comes through, sir,” he said finally.
Shaw swore long and fluently, which suggested too much time spent in the company of teamsters. Hiram could have done the same, because he was desperate to hear from Birdie, but he had better manners.
There the matter rested for nearly the entire month of May, with Lieutenant Shaw becoming increasingly sarcastic and morose in turns. Hiram was an expert at keeping his own counsel, but he longed to hear from Birdie. On a day with no wind and not much to do, he had walked to the non-commissioned officers’ quarters and noted one empty duplex. He had looked in all the windows, putting imaginary furniture here and there.
He felt his own hopes begin to fade along with his lieutenant’s, but he kept his misery to himself. News of the coming of the paymaster brought army business to the forefront over real or nonexistent affairs of the heart. The army was supposed to pay its soldiers every two months, but it had been six months since the ambulance carrying any paymaster of any kind had pulled up to the fort with his strong box full of heavily discounted greenbacks and a list of what was due every man, from Captain Coates, commanding, to the greenest private.
Hiram liked to be paid as well as the next soldier, but he was a provident fellow, and always hung onto enough salary to tide him over during financial drought. He loaned a little here and there if he knew the need was great, but never at moneylender rates. He preferred the good will of his men.
Amazing how a garrison could perk up at the dry announcement that the paymaster had arrived and would give every man what was due him directly after Guard Mount tomorrow. Years of experience assured Hiram what would follow, once the men had finished their day’s duties. Those who owed the bloodsuckers would end up forking over a large amount of their pathetic salary to those who had loaned, with bitter words often exchanged, and occasional mayhem.
Even though excess was forbidden, someone always managed to get hold of beer and harder stuff, and the drinking commenced, accompanied by fierce gambling until the garrison was broke again. The guardhouse would be full of many sinners.
The barracks fairly buzzed with anticipation that night. Hiram shook his head at the noise and went to his own room, probably the best perquisite attached to his rank. He didn’t have to share his space with bunkmates.
He was reading Huckleberry Finn on his bed, boots off, moccasins on, when the barracks grew quiet. The sergeant raised himself up on one elbow, suddenly alert.
Without even knocking, Lieutenant Shaw burst into his room, waving several letters that looked well-traveled, maybe even stomped on by buffalo. He slammed the door shut behind him and slumped into the room’s only chair, his face a study in desperation. Hiram feared the worst from Miss Hinchcliffe.
“Sir?” he asked finally, when Shaw seemed unable to form words.
The lieutenant waved the letters again, but more feebly. “The paymaster handed these to me,” he said finally. “He had got them from Fort Robinson, where they went astray, heaven knows when.” He held them out dramatically. “Here are the two letters I sent to Miss Hinchcliffe. She hasn’t heard from me in three months, Hiram, three months!”
“Well, uh …”
Shaw was far from done. He held out another letter, this one open, but bearing few signs of travel to and from Fort Rob. “Then this just arrived! Read it and weep.”
Trying not to smile, Hiram took the letter from his lieutenant’s shaking hand. “Are you certain, sir? I’d rather not read a lady’s correspondence.”
“Hang it all,” Shaw snapped, grabbing back the letter. “I’ll boil down the nasty thing. The love of my life, the future mother of my children, has assured me that if she doesn’t hear from me or see me before June 4, she is taking the Shy-Dead to Cheyenne and walking out of my life forever.”
As if on cue, both men’s heads swiveled to look at Hiram’s calendar, with each day neatly marked off down to May 30.
You are such a pup, Hiram thought, remembering their captain’s admonition to keep Lieutenant Shaw out of trouble and learning his duties. “Sir, we’ll be escorting the paymaster to Fort Laramie,” Hiram reminded the lieutenant. “He’ll pay the officers and men tomorrow. If we leave early the following day, I believe we’ll make it to Fort Laramie on time. It takes three days, if we move along smartly. We’ll get there at sundown on the third, and you
’ll have time to kneel at her feet and propose.”
Shaw gave him a hard stare, then began to relax. “I believe you’re right. There won’t be time for spectacle. I had hoped to make an occasion of it, with champagne and perhaps the Fort Laramie glee club to serenade her.”
“You probably still can, sir,” Hiram said, at his soothing best. He had noticed another letter. “Sir, you have another letter.”
“Yes, yes. It’s for you. Here.”
Shaw stood up. He opened up the door to Hiram’s potbellied stove and tossed the unread letters into the flames. “I am going to speak to the paymaster, and do my dead-level best to convince him to quit this place with our escort as early as possible the day after tomorrow, or even tomorrow. Sergeant, have six men ready to ride on June 1 or sooner.”
“Aye, sir,” Hiram said with a salute which Shaw did not return, because he was already out the door and off on his mission to move the paymaster along.
Shaw lay down again, Huck Finn forgotten. He opened Birdie O’Grady’s letter, wondering as he did so if she was the sort of woman to declare ultimatums like her mistress.
To his relief, but not his surprise, Birdie was not. There was no feminine vitriol on the closely written pages, no complaint because letters had not been forthcoming. It was only another kind letter, this one asking how he did, and telling him a little more about herself. He read it through twice, pleased that he would see her soon. He had roughly the same plan in mind as his lieutenant, but without champagne or singers. If she said yes, that empty duplex at Fetterman would be soon inhabited. Miss Hinchcliffe would fire her servant, but as he had pointed out to Birdie at Christmas, what did it matter? He slept soundly that night, with Birdie O’Grady’s letter under his pillow.
Following Guard Mount the next morning, no one dispersed to the day’s fatigue duties and drill. Anticipation writ large on many a face, the garrison with its two companies of infantry and one of cavalry, assembled in front of the adjutant’s office, where the paymaster, a pale, glum-looking fellow name of Captain Perkins, had set up his table.
Since the men were paid in the order of their company commander’s seniority, C Company came in dead last. As Sergeant Hiram Chandler stood at attention with his troops, Lieutenant Shaw sloped over to chat, not at his sparkling best.
“I tried to get that dratted man to leave right after he finishes here, but Captain Perkins is a milky boy with dyspepsia and vertigo,” he whispered out of the corner of his mouth. “He says it has been a trying month of travel and he must rest today.”
“We’ll still make it, sir,” Hiram said, in his soothing best. He wondered just how many more five-year enlistments he could tolerate before officers drove him crazy. Maybe Birdie O’Grady would have some wisdom about the future.
No trooper in C Company wasted a minute when it was his turn at the desk. Each man knew to sign the payroll, remove the white glove from his right hand, receive his handful of greenbacks, and salute with the left hand. Fetterman’s company laundresses stood to one side, ready to receive their payment from each soldier, because it was the law that they be paid before any sprees.
Sergeant Chandler took a good look at Captain Perkins, gauging the paymaster’s fitness and hoping the man wouldn’t drag his feet and insist on another day at Fort Fetterman. He thought it unlikely, because no one wanted to spend one more day at that unfortunate post than he had to.
That evening, Hiram joined the other sergeants in keeping some sort of order in a post that hadn’t been paid in half a year. He watched men stagger about from too much beer, oversaw a few card games, broke up several fights, and escorted members of the garrison to the guardhouse. He slept less soundly.
A
The morning brought overcast skies threatening snow, even this late in May, and a trembling Captain Perkins, who appeared scarcely better off than the men in the guardhouse sleeping away the remnants of payday.
“Sergeant, don’t even give him a chance to cry sickness and spend another day here,” Lieutenant Shaw said through tight lips.
Hiram soon learned that Captain Perkins had no intention of prolonging his stay at Fort Fetterman, but he did intend to complain and scold about such a desolate piece of US government property, as though anyone in C Company could make it better.
Help came from a surprising source. As the escort mounted and waited more or less patiently—less patient was Lieutenant Shaw—for Captain Perkins to wind down his complaints and climb back into the ambulance that had brought him to Fetterman, Minnie Coates bustled up, followed by two servants bearing blankets and pillows. The wife of Fort Fetterman’s commanding officer took over for Sergeant Chandler, listening and shaking her head as the paymaster continued to bemoan his very existence.
While she was engaged, her servants entered the ambulance and quickly converted the horsehair seat into a tolerable bed. Sheets and blankets followed, and then a pillow, as the redoubtable Mrs. Coates edged Captain Perkins toward the vehicle. Before he even knew it, the paymaster was inside and the door closed.
“You just rest, Captain Perkins,” the woman said. “You’ll be at Fort Laramie before you know it.”
She turned to Sergeant Chandler and made a washing motion with her hands as though she were Mrs. Pontius Pilate. “You get him out of here,” she whispered to Hiram. “All he did was complain last night! Over dinner he informed me that anyone who would eat reconstituted apricots would probably drink his own bath water.”
“He didn’t, ma’am!” Hiram exclaimed in amazement. He had to turn away, hoping that the paymaster wasn’t peering through some break in the canvas.
“He did, and right to my face! I thought Ed was going to choke on his string beans! The water was too alkaline, the bed too hard, our children too ill-mannered, the coyotes too noisy. You name it, he disliked it.” She moved closer to the sergeant. “My husband told me to get rid of him. Just make sure I get the bedding back.”
With that, she flounced back across the parade ground, followed by her servants.
“Give that lady a medal,” Lieutenant Shaw said to the universe at large. “Now the big baby is ours. Sergeant, lead out.”
Captain Perkins was theirs, but Mrs. Coates’s influence continued to be felt throughout the day, as the little escort and the ambulance trailed beside the Platte River. When they halted for lunch and Hiram looked in the ambulance, he saw the paymaster clutching a half-empty bottle of Kentucky sipping whiskey that Lieutenant Shaw swore he had seen on the Coateses’ sideboard.
“I have to hand it to the ladies,” Shaw said as he quietly closed the ambulance door on the snoring, sodden mess within. “I wonder, Chandler, do you think Miss Hinchcliffe would handle such a matter so cleverly?”
Hiram thought Birdie O’Grady would, but he had his doubts about the lieutenant’s light-o’-love, and hesitated.
“I rather doubt it too,” Shaw said quietly, which gave the sergeant food for thought through the afternoon, as the escort moved along with all deliberate speed, even when June snow—the wet, heavy kind—began to fall.
Looking no better than probably ninety percent of Fort Fetterman’s recently paid garrison, Captain Perkins emerged from the ambulance when they made a muddy evening camp along the Platte River. He blinked like a mole three years’ underground, and retreated to the ambulance again, which the driver swore was beginning to stink of vomit and other unfortunate leavings.
“Just two more days,” Hiram told him. “He’ll be someone else’s problem then. At least the snow has stopped.”
Lieutenant Shaw glared at him, no more communicative than the paymaster.
I am surrounded by idiots, Hiram thought, and not for the first time. He spent the rest of the evening chatting with his corporal and privates, enjoying the soldiers he thought of as his. He had trained them, fought with them, and knew their value. He saw his own value in their eyes, and it warmed him as a fire never could.
A
The paymaster was destined to be their problem for long
er than anticipated, which even gave Sergeant Chandler—a man of duty—reason to pause and swear softly.
They were two hours into the next morning’s travel when a courier rode up on a lathered horse. The courier, also from C Company, saluted smartly and handed Lieutenant Shaw a folded note. Shaw motioned Hiram closer so he could read the message too.
Hiram finished, gave himself a mental shake, and read it again, even as he saw his own dreams dribble away. Lieutenant Shaw turned a shade of red not found in nature and seemed to have trouble breathing.
“What do we do?” he managed to choke out finally.
“We follow orders,” Sergeant Chandler said without hesitation, even though his heart hit rock bottom, somewhere down near his toenails.
There it was, spread out on Lieutenant Shaw’s lap, a memo from Captain Coates, Commanding, that five idiots from A Company, infantry, had decided to take their greenbacks and five good horses and desert Fort Fetterman. A bunkie who hadn’t gone along offered the information that these lame-brained pea shooters were going south through the Laramie Mountains to catch the westbound Union Pacific. Find them, clap them in the Fort Laramie guardhouse and get Captain Perkins on the Shy-Dead stage, then bring those lunatics back, the memo read.
This ruined everything, but the lieutenant resisted, to Hiram’s discontent, but probably not his surprise. “We’ll get Captain Perkins on the stage, then hunt for the deserters,” Lieutenant Shaw said, louder than necessary, and pocketed the memo.
“Sir, with all respect, that’s not what Captain Coates ordered,” Hiram reminded his superior officer.
Thunder all over his face, the lieutenant jerked a thumb behind him and swung his horse around. Miserable, Hiram followed.
“If you think I’m going to show up too late to propose to Miss Hinchcliffe, you’re sadly mistaken, Sergeant,” Shaw hissed at him.
“It’s an order, sir,” Hiram stated.
This was precisely what Captain Harvey had warned him about, when C Company’s captain left on furlough. Guide him, sergeant. He might be a good officer someday, sounded in Hiram’s head as he stared down his superior officer, knowing that without rank, he had nothing behind him but the force of his own battle-earned experience and character. If Shaw commanded the escort to continue on to Fort Laramie, Hiram could lodge an official protest, but follow he must.
