For This We Are Soldiers: Tales of the Frontier Army Page 13

  “We’re discussing my future happiness,” Shaw said, and Hiram let out a little of his held-back breath. Was his lieutenant weakening?

  “Mine too, sir,” Hiram said. He took a deep breath. “I was going to propose to Birdie O’Grady. I love her.”

  The two men stared at each other. For the first time, Hiram saw the potential in his lieutenant, a spoiled man from a wealthy family, who might, just might become the officer C Company deserved. It could go either way. Certainly the escort would grouse, but they would chase after five of their number who thought to escape the army. They would also follow their lieutenant’s orders and go to Laramie first, if that was the decision. Hiram knew the troops had heard the first exchange between him and the lieutenant. He also knew that if Shaw disobeyed his commanding officer’s order, the men would talk about it to other men. In a matter of days back at Fetterman, everyone would know they could not count on Lieutenant Shaw, not in small matters as this one probably was, and certainly not in larger matters of survival on a harsh frontier. Shaw would be finished, Hiram knew. Did Shaw know?

  “Consider the men you lead, sir,” Hiram said quietly. “That’s all I ask.”

  Shaw turned his horse away. He stayed that way a long time. When he turned around, Hiram saw resignation, but also heretofore unseen resolution.

  “Let’s go find those miserable sinners, Sergeant,” he said and they moved together toward the escort.

  A

  It took them two days, but they found four of the five miscreants, terrified now because one of their number had been killed by Lakota braves frisky after a winter on the reservation. They found them because Lieutenant Shaw had thought through the matter and gathered his little escort about him.

  He showed them the memo, which impressed Hiram. “Gaither, O’Neal, Hales, Carter, and Wizner. Do any of you know these men?”

  Fort Fetterman was a small garrison. Everyone knew the deserters as recent recruits from Eastern cities. “They don’t know as much as we do about Indians and for sure not horses, sir,” the corporal said. The other troopers laughed in that superior way of horsemen.

  Hiram smiled to himself, pleased to know that C Company’s veteran troopers had just included their Boston-bred lieutenant into the fraternity of battle-tried western soldiers, whether he knew it or not.

  “What do you think they’ll do?” Shaw asked the corporal, then included the privates in his question by looking around the little group.

  Hiram knew. A glance at his corporal assured him that the men knew their sergeant knew too. They also seemed to understand what was at stake here in the education of an officer becoming fit to lead.

  “They’ll head for the Laramie Mountains, sure enough, sir,” the corporal continued, as the troopers nodded. “That’s the quickest way to the railroad.”

  “And the stupidest, sir,” offered a private. Everyone laughed and the bond deepened.

  “But they don’t know horses and they don’t know Indians,” the corporal continued. “We’ll track them easy enough and find them afoot, sir.” His face grew serious. “If we’re lucky, we’ll find them before any reservation jumpers do.”

  And so they left the easy road to Fort Laramie and turned west and then south toward the mountains. Lieutenant Shaw took a moment to acquaint a more-sober Captain Perkins with the change of plans. He came back to Sergeant Chandler, plainly disgusted.

  “That paymaster is a disgrace to the uniform, Sergeant,” he said. Hiram gave a silent cheer to hear such a sentiment from the man he had almost been ready to discount as a disgrace, as well.

  They made a dry camp that night and rose early in the morning, quiet and determined. An hour after sunrise, following Indian sign now, they heard gunfire to the south at the base of the mountains. It was short work to ride down a handful of hostiles biding their time taking occasional pot shots at four men in a buffalo wallow, most of their horses dead around them, and one of their number. Two Lakota went down under a few well-aimed carbines—C Company was noted for its marksmen—and the rest scattered, gone for good, or at least for now.

  Captain Perkins had taken real exception to storing the dead man in his ambulance. Hiram quietly suggested to his lieutenant that they bury the man deep and leave a stone as a marker. Shaw agreed.

  Perkins also objected to filling his personal ambulance with saddles from dead horses and two of the deserters, but Shaw ignored him. The remaining two deserters, hands tied together, sat on the one surviving horse. They were quiet, chastened, and relieved to be alive.

  A

  Fort Fetterman’s escort of the paymaster arrived at Fort Laramie in the late afternoon of June 6. Swearing all manner of recriminations for abuse to his person and vowing lengthy letters to department headquarters in Omaha, and other luminaries higher up the chain of command, Captain Perkins took his leave. No one complained.

  The deserters went to the guardhouse. A quiet word from Sergeant Chandler to the duty sergeant sent four other jailbirds under a guard to sluice out the ambulance. A few words with the guard led to a note for a laundress, who took away Mrs. Coates’s soiled bedding to launder. Sergeant Chandler paid for her services out of his own pocket.

  “Sergeant, care to walk with me to the Dunlaps?”

  “Not certain I’m that brave, sir,” Hiram said honestly.

  “Well, walk a little ways with me,” Lieutenant Shaw said, and it sounded more like an order.

  They started across the parade ground to Officers Row, but the lieutenant stopped by the flagpole. Hiram looked around, suspecting that Shaw wanted to be out of hearing of the others. He braced himself for the tirade to come. He knew he had worked over the lieutenant and knew that other shoe was destined to drop.

  Lieutenant Shaw looked down at his boots. When he raised his eyes to Hiram’s, the sergeant saw something else, and took heart.

  “I could have been really stupid two days ago,” Shaw said. “Thanks to you, I wasn’t.”

  Hiram made some motion with his hand, startled to hear Shaw’s apology. “It’s part of my job, sir.” He chuckled. “Captain Harvey told me to keep an eye on you.”

  “He told me that too,” Shaw continued, following his words with a rueful expression. “He told me, by gadfreys, to listen to my sergeant, because he knew more than I did.” Shaw ducked his head again. “I’ll confess that his words stung.”

  He looked up and Hiram saw the resolution he had noted so briefly, back down the trail. “I wanted to ignore you, but you wouldn’t let me.”

  He held out his hand and Hiram shook it, surprised down to his socks, but more cheerful than he thought he would be, standing there staring at the Dunlap duplex over Shaw’s shoulder and knowing Birdie O’Grady was gone for good.

  Shaw grinned then, and he became the boyish, care-for-nobody fellow that Hiram knew even better. “When you write to Captain Harvey, tell him there’s hope, will you? I mean, assuming that our captain wants a report from you now and then.”

  “Yes, sir, I will, sir,” Hiram said.

  Hands on hips, Shaw asked, “How many letters has that been so far?”

  “Only one, sir,” Hiram lied. “You’re better than you think.”

  Shaw turned to look toward Officers Row. “I suppose I’ll go find out just how much bad odor I am in at the Dunlaps. See to our escort, will you? I’m sure they’d like to bed down for a few hours.”

  “Yes, sir,” Hiram said, thankful to have a task that took him away from what he suspected would be a fraught time for the lieutenant. Maybe the man really did love Miss Hinchcliffe, with her flighty, frivolous ways and unremarkable brainpan.

  He found the C Company escort grooming their horses in the cavalry stable, and tidied up his own faithful remount, even though the men said they would do it. He noted with quiet pride that the men had already groomed and grained Lieutenant Shaw’s horse, who was steadily munching through hay in a nearby loose box.

  He sent the men to the cavalry barracks when they finished, where he knew the
y would find spare cots for a nap. He assured them he would join them soon. He was tired beyond belief and weary more in his heart because he wanted Birdie O’Grady as he had never wanted another woman in years. He was even more tired of duty, even though it had been the right thing, the honorable thing, the means of molding Lieutenant Shaw’s character into someone who would be a leader eventually.

  He dawdled his way toward the cavalry barracks, wanting to veer toward Officers Row, until he saw Lieutenant Shaw dawdling along too, head down, the portrait of rejection. Hiram waited by the sutler’s store, willing to provide consolation, because that was what a good sergeant did, even as his own heart broke.

  “Gone like the wild goose in winter,” Shaw said, when they stood side by side. “Oof! Major Dunlap said his sister-in-law threw a fit worthy of royalty and flounced away on the Shy-Dead three days ago.”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Hiram said, and he meant it.

  Shaw nodded. “I’ll miss her.” He laughed, and Hiram heard no sarcasm. It was a genuine laugh. “Major Dunlap said to me, ‘Laddie, she wouldn’t have fared well on the frontier. A woman has to be flexible.’”

  “I’m sorry for you all the same,” Hiram said, and still meant it.

  “I am going to drown my sorrows in some single malt whiskey,” Shaw said. “I think the sutler will open the officers’ bar for me. Get some sleep, sergeant.”

  Hiram saluted and walked to the cavalry barracks. A sergeant in the stable had already told him to lie down on his cot in the barracks, so Hiram wasted not a minute in locating the room. With a sigh of profound gratitude, he closed the door behind him and flopped down on the iron bedstead. He sat up long enough to remove his boots and unbutton his trousers, then he dragged a blanket over him and promptly fell asleep.

  He may have slept for hours, or maybe only minutes, when a knock on the door brought him awake immediately. He had no jurisdiction at Fort Laramie, but the person knocking wouldn’t go away. He stood up and buttoned his trousers, but didn’t bother with his boots. The soldier on the other side of the door would soon realize his mistake in sergeants and go away.

  He opened the door on Birdie O’Grady. Her blushing face told him she had never been near a barracks before. Her obvious uncertainty suggested she wasn’t convinced she should be here now.

  Her look lasted only the bare second it took for him to gather her close in a tight embrace. Her hands came up under his arms and circled his back. He could feel her clasping her hands together, and knew she had no plans to ever let him go.

  They stood that way a long moment until he pulled back so he could see her face. He kissed her for the first time, and knew right away it was going to be a kiss he repeated many times in the coming years. She seemed no more experienced in kissing than he was, but her hands went to his neck and into his hair. She pressed her lips into his with real intent, purpose, and ownership.

  They each pulled away at the same moment. He suspected her look of wide-eyed disbelief at her spontaneous action mirrored his own.

  She spoke first. “I thought you didn’t want to see me, but I had to know for myself.” She spoke the words so soft and low, her lips still nearly on his.

  “What … what do you mean?” he asked, smelling rose talcum powder. He took a deeper breath and another until he caught the scent of Birdie herself underneath.

  “Lieutenant Shaw didn’t tell you I was still here?”

  Hiram sucked in his breath, then started to laugh. He pulled Birdie into the room and closed the door, not wanting any chance spectators to see her there and speculate. He sat her down on the cavalry sergeant’s bed. He sat beside her. Trust Lieutenant Shaw, in his self-centered misery, to forget a minor detail like Birdie O’Grady. The man might be on his way to success as a leader of men—all signs pointed that way now—but he had a ways to go yet. Shaw was still a work in progress.

  “I think he was too bowled over by Miss Hinchcliffe’s rejection to mention it,” he said, willing to give Arthur Shaw the benefit of the doubt.

  “I can imagine,” Birdie said. “Glory be to all the saints, she threw quite a tantrum. And then when I stood there in front of her and resigned …”

  Hiram took Birdie’s hand in his and kissed it. “You did what?”

  “I resigned. Dropped her flatter than a Shrove Tuesday pancake.”

  Hiram took it all in, relieved at the constancy of some women. “You hadn’t heard from me in several months,” he murmured into her hair, because she sat so close and he wanted her. “We learned later that the mail went astray.”

  She turned to him and kissed his forehead like a benediction. “I knew your heart, Hiram Chandler. I knew you would come for me.”

  “How did you find me here?” he asked, curious now, since his lieutenant had failed him.

  “I went to the stable and inquired as to your whereabouts,” she said, her face rosy again.

  Or her face might have already been red from whisker burn. He hadn’t shaved in several days. He sniffed himself, and knew he was currently no prize. “I need a bath,” he told her, stating the obvious.

  Birdie was a worthy match for him. She gave him that clear-eyed look again, which suggested she would keep him in line and love him more than he deserved. “You don’t need a bath to propose to me, Sergeant Chandler,” she said. “I’ll take you as you are.” She touched her forehead to his. “Major Dunlap says that is a very fine quality for women who follow the army.”

  What could he do except propose?

  “Don’t go down on one knee,” his practical woman said. “That’s silly and belongs in bad novels. Just ask me.”

  He asked and she said aye. He kissed her hand again, then walked her out of the barracks and onto the parade ground, his arm around her waist now because she fit just right.

  “There’s a vacant non-commissioned officer quarters at Fort Fetterman,” he told her as they strolled along, generally heading in the direction of the admin building, where he knew Fort Laramie’s chaplain could usually be found.

  “Any furniture?”

  “Not a stick,” he told her cheerfully. “We can probably find some odds and ends in the quartermaster storehouse.”

  “I have sheets and blankets and one pillow,” she said, leaning against his shoulder now.

  “Same here. That’s a start. Ammunition crates stack well and make good shelves.”

  They laughed about their lack of furniture and rugs and dishes and cutlery. Hiram couldn’t think of a time in recent memory when he had ever felt happier about having few possessions. He glanced toward the sutler’s store to see Lieutenant Shaw, leaning against the wall as though holding it up.

  To Hiram’s amusement, Shaw saw the two of them standing so close to each other and slapped his forehead, obviously remembering he had forgotten to deliver the whole message from the Dunlaps. He shrugged and went back inside.

  “You’ll like C Company,” Hiram said as they cut across the corner of the parade ground closest to the admin building. “My captain is on furlough now, but he’ll be back this summer. Lieutenant Shaw is learning. He’ll be a leader of men yet.”

  “As good a leader as you?” she asked.

  “Hard to say,” he replied, so pleased with such a compliment from the woman who was going to be his wife by nightfall. “Ask me again in a few years, dear Birdie.”

  About the Author

  Photo by Marie Bryner-Bowles, Bryner Photography

  T HERE ARE MANY THINGS THAT Carla Kelly enjoys, but few of them are as rewarding as writing. From her short stories about the frontier army in 1977, she’s been on a path that has turned her into a novelist, a ranger in the National Park Service, a newspaper writer, a contract historical researcher, a hospital/hospice PR writer, and an adjunct university professor.

  Things might be simpler if she only liked to write one thing, but Carla, trained as a historian, has found historical fiction her way to explain many lives of the past.

  An early interest in the Napoleonic Wars sp
arked the writing of Regency romances, the genre that she is perhaps best known for. “It was always the war, and not the romance, that interested me,” she admits. Her agent suggested she put the two together, and she’s been in demand, writing stories of people during that generation of war ending with the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.

  Within the narrow confines of George IV’s Regency, she’s focused on the Royal Navy and the British Army, which fought Napoleon on land and sea. While most Regency romance writers emphasize lords and ladies, Carla prefers ordinary people. In fact, this has become her niche in the Regency world.

  In 1983, Carla began her “novel” adventures with a story in the royal colony of New Mexico in 1680. She has recently returned to New Mexico with a series set in the eighteenth century. “I moved ahead a hundred years,” she says. “That’s progress, for a historian.”

  She has also found satisfaction in exploring another personal interest: LDS-themed novels, set in diverse times and places, from turn-of-the-century cattle ranching in Wyoming, to Mexico at war in 1912, to a coal camp in Carbon County.

  Along the way, Carla has received two RITA Awards from Romance Writers of America for Best Regency of the Year; two Spurs from Western Writers of America for short stories; and three Whitney Awards from LDStorymakers, plus a Lifetime Achievement Award from Romantic Times. She is read in at least fourteen languages and writes for several publishers.

  Carla and her husband, Martin, a retired professor of academic theater, live in Idaho Falls and are the parents of five children, plus grandchildren. You may contact her at www.carlakellyauthor.com or mrskellysnovels@gmail.com.