Back in her cabin, Rose dressed for the evening’s gala. She’d decided on a two-piece silk traveling suit, trim and well cut, midnight blue in color with a black silk braid on the cuffs and mandarin collar. Finally, she took from her trunk a maroon velvet pouch that was tucked away under her linen underthings. Inside was the rope of pearls her Uncle Randolph had given her as a wedding gift, a string of large, perfectly matched pearls with a silver, mirror-like luster. The necklace was long enough to twice encircle her slender neck. She had not worn the pearls since leaving St. Louis, and she had forgotten how beautiful they were. Opening her collar, she studied her reflection in Mark’s shaving mirror, feeling the pearls’ cool smoothness against her skin. She was too thin and had too many freckles, but still, she was pleased with the way she looked. Her hair was almost shoulder length now, and the paleness of the pearls enhanced her complexion, even though it was darker than it should be. A glance down at her feet, however, brought Rose firmly back to earth. She wore the same worn-out kid shoes with curled toes she had worn every day since leaving Nebraska Territory. They were the only pair she had.
It was dusk when she and Mark left the cabin. The post was bathed in soft red light. Couples greeted each other as they crossed the parade ground to Carrington’s quarters and, for this one evening, all fear and thoughts of Indians dissolved and Rose could almost believe she was back in St. Louis, walking by the mansions of Portland Place. Margaret and her sons had decorated their home with wreaths and ropes of fragrant pine. Inside, garlands with red berries framed the doors and windows and the walls were draped with swags of colorful ribbon. Margaret’s best embroidered white cloth covered the food table, which was laden with delicacies. Rose’s tall stack cake finished even better than she dared hope. In the center of the table Margaret’s cut glass bowl, filled with red wine punch, sparkled like a giant ruby in the candlelight. The band’s string musicians played softly in a corner.
Rose and Mark joined a group that included Frances Grummond. She looked like an overstuffed French confection, Rose thought, in a dress of pink silk and white netting caught up at the waist and shoulders with artificial pink roses. She gave Mark a dimpled smile and Rose understood that Frances would happily take Rose’s place in bed that night. Many women felt that way, she was sure, but Rose no longer cared. It would do no good to lie to herself. Had this happened because of Daniel Dixon or would her feelings for Mark have eroded anyway? Was this permanent or would her love for Mark return? She wished she had some way of knowing.
Mark excused himself to join the men smoking cigars by an open window. Grummond and Brown, she noticed, appeared to be already in their cups. Dixon was on the far side of the room talking to Carrington and Sam Horton. Rose thought Carrington looked angry.
“You look lovely tonight.” Startled, she turned to see Harry Carrington offering her a glass of punch.
“Thank you, Harry,” she said. “You read my mind.” The wine and brandy punch was syrupy but she drank it down at once anyway, feeling its warming effect immediately. “Delicious,” she said, smiling at him.
“That’s a pretty dress you’re wearing,” Harry said. He was unusually bold, having helped himself to a large glass of punch when no one was looking.
“Thank you,” she said, trying not to smile at the cherry redness of his face, “but it isn’t right for evening. I wish I had something fancier.”
“Oh, it doesn’t matter.” Harry soldiered on. “You’re by far the prettiest woman in the room.”
“I agree.” Daniel Dixon stood behind her. She had not heard him approach. “By far the prettiest,” he said with a smile.
Rose laughed. “You two will give me a big head.” Her heart was thumping wildly as she tried to think of something charming and witty to say. It had been so long since she’d talked to him, there was much she wanted to tell him, but circumstances weren’t right. They were never right. “Did you enjoy the ceremony?” It was lame, she knew, but nothing else came to her. “The colonel worked very hard on his speech, Margaret said.”
“I’m afraid I didn’t hear it,” Dixon said.
“It was too long,” Harry said. His words came out in a punch-fueled rush. “And it was boring. No one was listening.”
Rose looked at him with amused surprise, then changed the subject. “So, what were you and the colonel talking about just now, Dr. Dixon? He looked upset.”
Dixon fixed his hazel eyes on her. He was not smiling now.
“I gave Sam Horton my resignation today. When my contract’s up next month I’m going north, to the Gallatin Valley. I’ve been thinking about it for a while.”
“You did what?” Rose felt as if she’d been kicked in the stomach. “You can’t mean it.”
“Do you remember Nelson Story, the cattleman who came through a few weeks ago? He wants me to go halves in a dry goods store up in Bozeman City. He thinks I should open a medical practice there too, and I’ve decided to do it. Bozeman sounds like a good place to start over. Sometimes a person has to do that, Rose, admit a mistake and start over. There’s no sin in it.”
She could not believe he would leave her. He couldn’t, not now. She heard a woman’s loud laughter. Rose looked across the room, seeing Frances Grummond lean toward Mark, touching his arm with her gloved hand.
“Life is short, Rose,” Dixon said, calling her back. “Too short to postpone happiness. If there’s anything these last five years have taught me, it’s that. You and I could be happy together and you know I’m right. Come with me to Bozeman. You won’t be sorry.”
Harry stood as if nailed to the floor. He felt sick, and not because he had drunk too much punch. His two favorite people, the people he most admired in all the world, were considering something unthinkable. It would ruin them, certainly it would ruin her! He looked at Rose, and she also appeared stunned. She and Dixon were in their own separate world. They had forgotten about him.
A woman screamed. On the far side of the room George Grummond drunkenly grabbed his wife by the arm, spilling red punch down the front of her pink dress. He said something to Mark and though Harry could not make out his words their meaning was obvious. The room went silent; even the musicians stopped playing.
Mark smiled and spoke to Grummond in a low voice. Grummond hesitated, then threw back his head with a surprised shout of laughter. The tension broke and the musicians struck up a waltz. Dixon took Rose in his arms and led her onto the dance floor, moving her about the room with an easy grace. He was a fine dancer, another of his many talents. As Harry watched them, and just for that moment, he hated the surgeon with a passion that was equaled in intensity only by his love for Rose.
Chapter Thirty-two
Jerusha died one November morning following the miscarriage of a child. No one, not even Rose, knew of the pregnancy. Jerusha went to her grave without naming the father, despite questioning from Sam Horton and even Colonel Carrington himself.
“Might it have been our George?” Carrington wondered as the family sat at the dinner table. “He denies it, of course, but he lies.”
“No, it wasn’t George,” Margaret said. “I’m quite sure of it.”
Harry was too. He remembered the day George went calling on Jerusha with a bouquet of wildflowers and how she laughed at him and sent him away. Harry and Jimmy, watching secretly, were embarrassed for him.
“Well, who then?” Carrington said. “Reynolds’s striker? What’s his name—Timson?”
“No, I can’t imagine that either,” Margaret said. Despite the sad circumstances, she could not suppress a smile at the thought of “Timid” Timson trying to woo the ferocious Jerusha.
“Do you boys have any idea?” Carrington said, looking at Harry. “Have you seen anything? Heard any gossip?”
“No, sir.” In fact, however, Harry did remember a night, some weeks before, when, on his way to the sinks, he saw a man leaving Jerusha’s tent. He thought he recognized him but did not want to believe it and therefore said nothing.
B
rown, officer of the day, ordered that Jerusha be buried next to the post cemetery in a burial ground set aside for Negroes, Indians, and Chinamen. When he learned of his, Mark flew into a rage.
“That woman was with me during the meanest days of the war,” he said. “She cooked meals for me and my men with bullets flying around her like bees and never complained. Not once. I won’t let her be cast aside.”
Brown tried to calm him. “I understand your feelings, Reynolds. I’d probably feel the same way if I were you. She was a fine woman, I’m sure, and handsome too, for her kind. But I can’t do what you ask. The men wouldn’t stand for it.”
Mark took the matter directly to Carrington, whose abolitionist views were well-known. He overruled Brown, demanding that Jerusha be buried in the post cemetery at the base of Pilot Hill. Despite Brown’s claims, not one of the men objected, though few mourners attended the service. Halfway through it started to rain. Droplets driven by a mean wind cut into the skin like shards of glass. Chaplain White read from his Bible a little faster.
Throughout the service Harry stole glances at Rose, even when he was supposed to be praying. Her face was pale and expressionless though Mark wept openly. Toward the end of the ceremony, a spontaneous cheer erupted from the stockade as the Pilot Hill sentry signaled the approach of a long train. Soon a column of uniformed horsemen appeared on the Fort Reno Road. At last, the cavalry companies had arrived. White hurried through the last of the service so Jerusha’s mourners could join the throng gathering at the quartermaster’s gate.
The newcomers were sixty-three men of the Second Cavalry, Company C, under the command of Captain William Judd Fetterman. Three additional officers came with him: Lieutenant Horatio S. Bingham, a round-faced farmer’s son from Minnesota; Major Henry Almstedt, the officer who replaced the disgraced Ranald Henry as paymaster for the Department of the Platte; and Captain James Powell, a well-respected veteran who carried two rifle balls in his body, a souvenir of his service with Sherman in Georgia.
Fetterman was warmly welcomed by his fellow officers, especially Bisbee, who embraced him like a long-lost brother. They fought together in Tennessee and later with Sherman in Georgia and the Carolinas. Even the enlisted men lined up to shake Fetterman’s hand for they knew him as a humane officer, one who was concerned with the needs of his men.
Harry remembered Fetterman too. He met him in Columbus at the start of the war when Fetterman was an ambitious young officer learning the ropes at Colonel Carrington’s School for Instruction for regimental officers. Harry was only eight years old at the time and did not expect the distinguished officer to remember him.
“Harry Carrington!” Fetterman said, clasping his hand. “My God, son, you’ve become a man.” Despite the cold rain, Fetterman’s hand was warm and dry, his smile genuine. “Why, you’re almost as tall as I am,” he said. “Finally growing into those feet of yours. So, how old are you now? Seventeen? Eighteen?” He winked at Captain Powell.
Harry was pleased though he knew he was being humbugged. “Thirteen, sir. Just turned.”
“You don’t say! Well, you look older. Still planning to become an army man, I hope?”
“Well, actually I’m thinking about training as a surgeon.” This was true but Harry had never said it before.
“A sawbones?’” Fetterman shuddered. “No glory in that, lad, standing up to your knees in gore all day. No, Harry, I see you at the head of a company of cavalry, waving your saber over your head while your enemy turns tail and skedaddles.”
Powell laughed. “Sounds like Custer.”
“Bah,” Fetterman said, “Custer’s a rooster with his nose up Phil Sheridan’s ass. No, sir, our man Harry, here, will be the real thing. Tell you what—tomorrow morning we’ll go riding. You can show me around. What do you say?”
“I’d like that, sir.” Harry was not about to tell Captain Fetterman his parents wouldn’t allow him outside the stockade. Surely they would make an exception in this case and if not, he might go anyway. After all, he was thirteen now and too old to be pushed around.
As it turned out, Fetterman did not come for him in the morning. Harry was disappointed but he knew the new captain had many demands on his time. The officers sought him out and the enlisted men seemed to regard him as a kind of savior. Within days of his arrival, Harry started hearing talk that Fetterman would take command of Fort Phil Kearny and Powell would go north to replace Kinney at Fort C. F. Smith.
“Is it true?” Harry said. He and Margaret sat in the kitchen eating a midday meal of venison stew. She hesitated.
“Well, it’s true the War Department plans to create a new regiment of infantry,” she said. “General Cooke wrote to your father about this some time ago. All the units here at Phil Kearny will be part of that new regiment but whether Captain Fetterman commands remains to be seen. It seems he expects to.”
Harry was surprised and angry. “What about Father?” he said. “Where will we go? Why is Cooke doing this?” Harry did not want to leave Fort Phil Kearny, especially now that Dixon was leaving. Rose might need him—for what he wasn’t sure—but she might. Not only that, he could not bear the thought of going back to gray and gloomy Columbus. Not after living here, in this open country with its towering mountains and endless skies. True, he was confined to the fort now but that was only temporary. The Indian threat wouldn’t last forever, he was sure of that, and then he and Rose could ride for miles, over the hills and through the forests.
“We’ll go wherever we’re sent,” Margaret said. “We are army. Still, I must say one would think Sherman and Cooke could show a bit more gratitude.”
Her mouth compressed into a fine line and Harry knew the conversation was over. After dinner he helped the men spread red gravel on the walkways around and through the parade ground. Mined from the sandstone bluffs near Lake De Smet, the rock got its brick-red color from iron oxides in the soil and brought a cheery bit of color to the garrison.
His mood improved as he worked in the cold November sun. Already he was stronger than some of the soldiers and growing stronger every day. Sometimes he thought the happiest men in the regiment were the carpenters, laborers, and smiths, the fellows who worked in the fresh air and sunshine from dawn until dusk and then slept like the dead. They didn’t worry about politics, promotions, and the stupid stories newspapermen wrote. They weren’t at the mercy of ungrateful generals.
Despite the cold, Harry was sweating and his mouth was dry as cotton. He dropped his shovel and walked to the water barrel by the headquarters building. The water was sweet and cold and he filled his cup again. As he drank he heard Fetterman’s voice from his father’s open office window.
“After dark we’ll hobble eight or ten mules between the Big Piney and the main gate. Then Brown, Grummond, and I will take fifty men and hide in the scrub. When the Indians come for the bait, we’ll open up on them. Simple as that. I’m surprised it hasn’t been done before.”
Harry peered in the window to see Fetterman and Brown standing before his father’s desk.
“No disrespect, Captain Fetterman,” Carrington said, “but you’ve been here what, two days? The Indians don’t fight like Confederates. They don’t behave as you’d expect them to. What you propose is dangerous. I won’t allow it.”
Fetterman answered impatiently. “I may be new to the frontier, Colonel, but I know combat.” He did not say, “Unlike you,” but he may as well have, Harry thought. “Moreover, I know the men of the Eighteenth Infantry and what they can do. A single company of regulars could whip a thousand Indians and a full regiment could whip the entire array of hostile tribes. Why, with eighty men I could ride through the whole Sioux nation!”
“He’s right,” Brown said. “It’s high time we show them something.”
A long quiet followed. Harry sensed his father was backing down and his next words confirmed it. “If I permit this, Fetterman, you must promise to exercise the utmost caution. If the Indians flee, do not pursue them over the ridge. This i
s important. I’m short men already. You must do nothing to diminish my forces even further.”
“Agreed,” Fetterman said. “If—that is, when—the Indians run we won’t go after them.”
“Very well,” Carrington said. “I will prepare the howitzers personally. This fight—if it comes and I’m not convinced it will—must take place within range of our cannon. Again, do not, under any circumstances, pursue them. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir,” Fetterman said. “Completely.”
Within an hour, every man, woman, and child in the post knew of Fetterman’s plan and most, including Harry, planned to watch the action. He passed the early evening hours playing solitaire with a sticky, worn deck. At midnight he climbed to the observation deck on top of the headquarters building where his father and Ten Eyck were waiting, field glasses in hand. Fetterman and his men already were hidden in the cottonwood thicket next to the Big Piney and the hobbled mules grazed nearby. It was a cloudless night with a bright moon that flashed on polished gunmetal and, occasionally, the flat lenses of a soldier’s eyeglasses.
“I believe Captain Fetterman underestimates our opponent,” Carrington said. Ten Eyck grunted in agreement.
The temperature dropped as the hours passed. Harry froze, even in his thick woolen coat and buffalo mittens with the fur on the inside. He pitied the poor men in the thicket so close to the water where surely it was even colder. The hours passed without incident. After what seemed an eternity, pale blue fingers of light reached across the horizon. If the Indians were going to strike they would do it now, in that half-formed moment between darkness and daylight when man and beast begin to let down after an anxious, watchful night. But the dawn came cold and gray and quiet. No Indians appeared. After another thirty minutes, Fetterman’s men straggled out of the scrub and headed back to the fort.
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