Her Hesitant Heart

chapter Seventeen



Joe helped her into one of his nightshirts in such a matter-of-fact way that she couldn’t feel embarrassed. Worn out with worry, she was asleep before he even joined her.

Susanna woke up once in the middle of the night. She had thrown one leg over the post surgeon. She tried to slide away, but he pulled her back, kissing her neck.

“I’m not ready for any more than a kiss,” she whispered.

“Good thing,” he replied, surprisingly alert for the middle of the night. “Neither am I.” He sighed and pulled her close again. “I did not want to sleep alone, either. I’ve been a long time without a woman, Suzie, but it doesn’t follow that I’d ever do anything to you against your will. I couldn’t.”

“Frederick never minded, especially when he was drunk,” she said in a small voice. “What could I do? I was his wife and that was my duty.”

“Suzie, I’m sorry for that,” Joe answered, his voice equally soft. “I don’t care if the marriage ceremony says ‘obey.’ No wife should be forced against her will. It’s not something I could ever do, and I suspect most men feel the same way. Frederick was an aberration.”

She nodded, and returned to sleep in his arms. When reveille roused her, Joe was sitting in the chair he had vacated last night, observing her.

“You are such a pretty woman.”

“Best seen in low light,” she teased.

“Any light. I confess I never was partial to blondes until …”

“You saw me? How romantic.” Keep it light, Susanna, she told herself.

He looked handsome in a nightshirt; maybe it was the stripes. She watched him sitting so close to her now, and held back from touching his leg, even though she found herself moved by the capable solidity of him. She took a chance then, and rested her head against his leg. His hand seemed to go automatically to her hair, his fingers twining her curls.

“There’s no time, as usual, but I was sitting here, debating whether to tell you a thought I have,” he said finally. “It might get your hopes up, but remember, it’s only a supposition.”

“As long as it doesn’t break my heart,” she said.

“Your heart’s been broken enough,” he told her. “Mine, too.” He looked at his hand. “I wore my wedding ring a long time. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I used to hope I would turn a corner, and there M’liss would be.” He shook his head. “Barmy, eh? I’ll tell you how she died. Sit up, Suzie. It’s probably better.”

She did as he said. He put his arm around her. “I think you know what happened to her. After a day of seeing her suffer in horrific pain—my God, this was the woman I loved!—I administered a huge dose of morphine and killed her. She didn’t live ten more seconds.”

Susanna felt the breath go out of her. Her arm went around his back, until she had encircled him with both arms.

“Theodore Brown watched the whole thing. He just nodded and covered her face, because I couldn’t. Is it any wonder that he is still my hospital steward? Ted told me years later that if I hadn’t done that, he would have the next time I left her side. I know what a broken heart feels like.” Joe looked at her, as if gauging her heart. “No one knows that except you now, and Ted. Am I a monster?”

“A monster to save your wife one more second of excruciating agony?” she whispered to him. “Oh, no.”

He seemed to relax in her arms. “I wanted to tell you.”

“It must pain you to even speak of such tragedy.”

“It does,” he admitted. “Doctors can get inured to suffering. Husbands? Never.”

“I used to think no one could hurt worse than I do. How foolish I’ve been,” she told him. “I look at the Rattigans, and now Mrs. Hanrahan …”

“But now the Rattigans are happy.” Joe kissed her hair. “M’liss was carrying our child. Oh, damn … it’s still almost too much to talk about.” He collected himself. “I know you wanted to keep Maddie. In fact, Fifi told me that before Claudine died, she made her promise that the schoolteacher would have her daughter.”

“Joe, I wanted her with every fiber of my heart!” Susanna cried, unable to stop her tears at this news. They just held each other until her tears stopped.

“Every step I took toward the Rattigans with Maddie broke my heart,” Susanna said when she could speak.

“I thought it must have.” He kissed her hand. “I’m not sure I’m that brave.”

“But I did the right thing with Maddie,” she said finally.

“I know you did, but I have some idea what it cost you.” He shifted a little and she found herself on his lap. “Here’s what I am thinking. Whether it’s wise to tell you, I don’t know.”

“Let me judge.”

“Very well. I looked everywhere for Nick Martin after he went missing. Finally I went to his cubbyhole off the storage room again and took another look. He had obviously cleared out, but under his cot was one of the letters you wrote to Tommy.”

She considered the implication. “He has Tommy’s address!”

“Precisely. I didn’t say anything to you sooner, because it just seemed to be one more oddity about Nick. Now I’m wondering if he went back to Pennsylvania to retrieve your son, or maybe protect him.” He smiled at her. “Nick always was your champion.”

“You think Nick can even find Pennsylvania?”

“Hard to say.” Joe shrugged. “We know so little about Nick Martin.” He loosened his grip on her. “We’ll just have to wait and see. Up you get now. You’re going to dress and take that discreet route through the backyards.”

She had to know. “Do you think Nick set fire to my house?”

Another shrug. “We’ll have to wait and see.”

That was no answer to reassure a woman who had lost everything, and Joe knew it. His own heart drooped lower when he told Susanna she had probably better not risk returning to his quarters again. “You know the gossips here,” he reminded her.

The light went out of her eyes, but she nodded. “Emily and I had this discussion earlier,” she said. “She understands, but we can’t expect others to.” She dressed quietly and let herself out the back door.

He missed sick call that morning, but it hardly mattered, because Al was there. Guard mount came and went, and still he sat on the end of his barren bed, staring down at the photograph of Melissa that he had tucked away with his wedding ring. He put his ring on again, looked at it, then removed it and replaced it next to the photograph. He lay down again and stared at the ceiling, trying to fathom how a man in love with his wife reconciles taking another wife.

That he was lonely, he had no doubt, but he had been lonely before. He had been a young man when he’d courted and won Melissa in the middle of a war, when he had even less time than now. He had yearned for Melissa Rhoades with a passion that surprised him, but there she was, lovely in her wide-hooped dresses that swayed so sensually when she walked. There was no more guile in her than in him, and she’d showed her heart on her sleeve, the same as he did.

After her death, his work had ferried him through a tidal wave of grief. The medical department mercifully reassigned him to reconstruction duty in Louisiana, away from Texas, where she had met her death. He took more risks there than he should have, not hesitating to volunteer for yellow fever duty. Truth to tell, it wouldn’t have bothered him to have contracted the disease that seasonally roved up and down the Mississippi. He was almost relieved when he caught it, but damn, he survived. What was worse, he was now immune. Where was the justice?

He hadn’t been eager to transfer to the Department of the Platte, but the transfer came with an overdue promotion to major. He had bowed to duty, as he always did, mainly because it didn’t matter to him where he served or what his rank. His assignments took him to several forts, where friends tried to pair him with sisters or other relatives from back East who had come West specifically to find husbands among the officer corps. After a few years, no one tried anymore.

Joe dressed and walked slowly toward the hospital. For a change, the wind wasn’t blowing. The small bird sounds he had imagined yesterday were real now. There was still the bite of winter in the air, but he had already walked past the post trader’s store before he realized he had left his overcoat behind.

The sound of children reached him so he glanced toward the commissary storehouse, smiling to see Suzie outside with her class. He watched as she jumped rope, her skirts flying and her blond hair quickly loosed from its moorings. There would probably never be enough hairpins to anchor those curls. He knew how soft they felt, twined around his fingers. He had the strongest impulse—and he was not impulsive—to walk over there and turn one end of the rope, or jump with her.

He swallowed once and then again, and knew he loved Susanna Hopkins, the bravest woman he had probably ever met. He had tentatively suggested it earlier, then backed away from the idea. Only this morning he had watched the hope in her eyes dim when he’d said it wasn’t wise of them to help each other through another night. It may have been proper, but all he wanted to do was discard duty and jump rope with his darling.

There she was, lovely and brave and funny. He thought about his feelings when they were together, and realized Suzie made him brave and funny, too. M’liss was gone now and not coming back in this life, at least. He was still alive, a healthy man. As he watched his newest darling, he knew in his heart that his first darling would be terribly disappointed in him if he wasted his life mourning her.

Joe stood there a moment longer, enjoying the sun finally warm on his neck. He counted Suzie’s little class, picking out Maddie in her pretty red coat, probably cut down from something of Claudine’s. He wasn’t surprised to see Eddie Hanrahan. No doubt he had insisted he not miss school, because his mother had women to comfort her, and Eddie knew Mrs. Hopkins loved him.

Joe looked down. Soon there would be dandelions everywhere. For the first time since Texas, he knew that spring had truly come, because he felt it inside.

Claudine Wilby was buried in the military cemetery a half mile north of the fort. Susanna walked with the Rattigans, Maddie between Maeve and James. To her surprise, she felt a little hand in hers halfway there, and looked down to see Eddie Hanrahan.

“My dear, you were sweet to come,” she said, kneeling by him and tucking his muffler into his coat. “Does your mama know?”

“She said I should be here,” he said. “Maddie’s my friend.”

Before they reached the post trader’s store, all of her pupils walked with her, some with a parent, and others alone. She thought none of the residents of Officers Row would join their little procession, but there was Katie O’Leary with Rooney.

“I left Mary Rose with Emily,” Katie said. “Rooney insisted we come.”

Susanna knew Joe would be there, and he did not disappoint, coming to stand beside her. She didn’t think she moved, but soon they were touching. She glanced at Maddie in Sergeant Rattigan’s arms, her face turned into his uniform coat, her shoulders shaking.

Susanna hadn’t meant to cry, but Joe had a handkerchief ready. “Believe me, Claudine is better off. And so is Maddie, although she might not know it yet.”

“What about you, Joe?”

The question came out before she even realized it, and she knew she had startled him. Startled herself, too; she had never called him Joe except in private, and her question was impertinent. Or maybe it wasn’t; she wanted to know.

He thought a moment before he answered, but she knew Joe was a deliberate man not given to impulse. A smile started to play around his lips, and she felt the rest of the callus around her heart dissolve. All the slights and vitriol, the humiliation and sorrow paled in significance as she watched his dear face relax, even though they stood in a military cemetery.

“I’m better off, too. Unlike Maddie, I already know it.”

He said it so simply. He turned his attention to a corporal from Company H, Ninth Infantry, an ordained minister, who recited the Twenty-third Psalm, and the passage from Job about “men born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward.”

“That would be Claudine,” Joe whispered. “Come to think of it, none of us are wholly good or completely bad.”

“I think you’re wholly good,” Suzanna said, discarding every fear that had ever controlled her. She made herself vulnerable.

Such a light came into the post surgeon’s eyes that she stepped back, wondering at her own temerity. He came closer again, such a small distance to move, but one that made her heart beat faster. She knew her cheeks were red, but it was cold out. No one would notice.

“Wholly good? Not so, Suzie. Before you arrived with Eddie, I was admiring Fifi’s assets.” He looked straight ahead then, the very image of military deportment, as she struggled not to laugh at a funeral.

Only by bowing her head and cramming her fingers against the bridge of her nose could she control herself. Susanna looked up when she was firmly in charge again, this time to observe the four women who stood between Jules Ecoffey and a man who must be Adolf Cuny, his partner in commerce and vice. Fifi was easy to spot.

“Someone should take out your eyeballs and wash them with pine tar soap,” she murmured out of the side of her mouth, and it was his turn not to laugh at a burial.

By the time the brief service ended, the wind had picked up, tossing around dead cottonwood leaves from last fall. She looked around for Eddie, but Katie O’Leary had his hand now, and Rooney’s. They walked away, leaving her to stroll down the hill toward the hospital with the post surgeon only. He held out his elbow a little and her arm went naturally into the crook of his arm.

“I’m supposed to read tomorrow night at the hospital, but I don’t have a book. We finished Little Men last week.”

He shook his head. “Not this week, Suzie. We’re expecting the wounded from the battlefield any hour now, and I know there will be frostbite cases, too. Al picked up a telegram from Fetterman’s post surgeon to warn us what’s coming. Looks like we will be performing at least one amputation, maybe two. Better you stay away for a few days. I’ll be sleeping at the hospital.” He sighed. “It was easy enough during the late war. Maybe I’m getting old.”

Susanna took another chance, even though it made her blush to bring it up. “Joe, if you’re at hospital, would you mind if I slept in your quarters for a few nights? Captain Reese will be newly home in one half of the house, Captain O’Leary in the other one. The walls are thin and I’m in the middle.”

He threw back his head and laughed. “Suzie, you’re more than welcome in my ever so humble abode! I’ll be camping on a cot at the hospital. Give the lovebirds a couple of days.” He grew more thoughtful. “I hate for you to sneak around, but no one will understand, if they see you in my place. Back door and after taps, all right?”

She did as he said. Private Benedict dismissed school early the next afternoon as the troopers rode into Fort Laramie, as dismal a bunch of campaigners as Maeve said she had ever seen. Susanna stayed for supper at the Rattigans, impressed with how quickly Maddie had taken over the duty of setting the table. Bless her Gallic heart, there were the first dandelions of spring flared out nicely in a teacup for a centerpiece.

“It didn’t go well, did it?” Maeve asked John when he came home after retreat.

The sergeant shook his head, his eyes lighting up when Maddie held up both arms for his overcoat. She practically staggered under its weight as she took it into the bedroom. “She’s a help, Maeve,” he said, and kissed his wife. “No, it didn’t go well, God bless the cavalry. The rumor mill says General Crook is preferring charges and specifications against Colonel Reynolds and another officer for neglect, mismanagement, and just about everything else Crook can think of except chilblains. The Northern Roamers are still free to roam, army men are dead and some left on the battlefield, and the Cheyenne have now allied with the Lakota.” John shook his head. “It’ll be a hot summer for campaigning.”

“Must be nice to be an observer and take none of the blame, but dole out all the complaints,” Susanna grumbled.

“It’s no wonder he and his aide de camp took another route back to Omaha,” Sergeant Rattigan said, then grabbed up Maddie when she came back into the parlor. “And how’s my girl?”

Both your girls are fine, Susanna thought, as she walked back to the Reeses’ quarters, where the captain, dirty and needing a shave, had his arms around Emily. Amused, Susanna told them where she was going for the night, and heard no objections. She laughed to herself and walked two doors down, careful to stay in the shadows.

The major had left a lamp burning. Glowing coals in the parlor stove welcomed her. There was a bowl of raisins in the kitchen. “Eat these. Please. I insist,” read the note. She did just that, taking the bowl on her lap, kicking off her shoes and sinking into the major’s armchair, saggy in all the right places, sort of like the major. She read his threadbare copy of Les Misérables until her eyes grew heavy. She took a blanket from the end of Joe’s bed and made herself comfortable on the packing crate settee in the parlor again, where the stove still shed its warmth. She knew sleeping alone in his bed would have made her sad.

After the fort slept and the sentries were occupied, Susanna stayed there two more nights, enjoying the solitude after busy days of teaching. She must have slept more soundly than usual, because there was a note pinned to her blanket on the third morning. “Joe, you are silent,” she murmured as she opened the note.

“Come up tonight, sleepyhead,” she read. “I have a good book that will make the men laugh.”

The odor of carbolic, stronger than usual, tickled her nostrils as she opened the door to the hospital that evening. The single ward must have been full, because there were two hospital beds in the hall with portable partitions around them. She stood there, uncertain, until the post surgeon came out of the ward, still wearing his surgical apron, complete with mysterious stains.

It was his eyes that troubled her. He looked so tired. And there was Captain Hartsuff pulling aside one of the partitions, the same look on his face and a nearly identical apron.

“Did either of you sleep?” she asked, keeping her voice low.

The surgeons looked at each other and both shrugged. “We must have, ma’am,” Al Hartsuff said. “Can’t remember, though. I can stay, Joe.”

“Nope. Get a good night’s sleep and relieve me in the morning, Captain, and that’s an order.” Joe rubbed his hands together, and Susanna noticed how chapped they were. “Go to bed, Al.”

Eyes half-closed, Joe ushered her into the ward, where every bed was occupied. “Croup, bronchitis, frostbite,” he whispered. “We were a little late taking off one leg—how I wish Fetterman’s surgeon had acted! It doesn’t look good. He’s in the hall now, probably dying, so there I must be, too.”

Joe raised his voice so his patients could hear him, leading Susanna into the middle of the ward. “Here she is, gentlemen.” He produced a book from his apron pocket, brushing off some flecks better left unexamined. “Give ‘em two chapters, Suzie. That’s all these wretches deserve.”

Several of the more alert men laughed. Susanna seated herself and looked at the book, Roughing It, by Mark Twain.

“Very well, sirs! Your post surgeon thinks reading is a remedy for everything from dandruff to bunions,” she said, pleased to hear low laughter. She cleared her throat. “Chapter One. ‘My brother had just been appointed secretary of Nevada Territory—an office of such majesty that it concentrated itself in the duties and dignities …’”

She read through the first short chapter, pausing at the end to note some patients already asleep. Others regarded her with the inward contemplation of men in pain. She doubted half of them comprehended what she was reading, but she recognized their satisfied expressions, which mirrored those of her own little students when she read to them. Since the first chapter was so short, she read the second and then the third, with its stagecoach journey and camels. She looked around then; everyone slept.

“Perfect,” she whispered. She ruffled quickly through the book, reading some of the subtitles, which made her chuckle. As she did, a piece of yellow foolscap fell into her lap. She looked at it idly, then stared.

“My goodness, Joe,” she said softly. “What are you doing?”

Across the top, in his doctor’s handwriting, she could just make out “Suzie Randolph.” Her face grew hot and she put one hand to her cheek. Feeling like an eavesdropper into the most private part of a man, she looked at the page, which, to her relief, appeared to be nothing more than French sentences.

She looked closer in the dim light. It seemed that Joe had printed in English, and someone else had written in French. There appeared to be two different handwritings besides his, one firm and graceful, the other spidery and barely legible.

At the top, under “Suzie Randolph,” Joe had printed, “How do I say ‘I care for you’?”

“Je m’occupe de vous,” Susanna whispered, not even needing to read what the firm hand had written.

She looked down another line to see Joe’s printing. “More serious?” she read. It was followed by the spidery writing, “Je t’aime.”

Scarcely breathing now, she read, “How do I say, ‘Do you love me?’”

“You just ask me, Joe, and I’ll tell you,” she said softly.

“I’m not wasting my hard-learned French. Estce que tu m’aimes?”

Startled, she looked up, aware now that Joe was leaning over the chair. “Mais oui,” she said simply. “I do love you.”

His hand was on her shoulder now. She looked at his chapped fingers, probably washed over and over with carbolic as he’d treated the wounded men from the monumentally unsuccessful Powder River campaign.

“I have some salve for your hands,” she whispered.

“I can’t say that in French yet,” he whispered back, his lips close to her ear now, tickling it and causing the warmth in her chest to travel lower. “I did work on this next sentence, because it’s important. Fifi helped me, and Claudine, when she could. Mostly it made them giggle. So nice to see Claudine happy. Let me try …. Veux-tu m’épouser?”

“You have a terrible accent,” Susanna told him. “No wonder they giggled.”

“Well?” he asked, kneeling by her chair now. “After fourteen years of nothing, it took me about four months to go from ‘I worry about you,’ to ‘I care for you,’ to ‘I love you more seriously,’ and now this last question. I can’t imagine a less romantic setting, unless it might be the dead house out back, but that’s the question. What’s your answer? I’ll take it in any language.”

Susanna turned to look him in the eyes. He still wore that disgusting apron, and he had not shaved in at least three days. “How have I lived this long without you?” she murmured, both hands on his face as the book fell to the floor.

“You’re supposed to answer my question, not ask another one, knucklehead,” he said. He sounded like a man who already knew what her answer would be. He sounded like a husband. It occurred to her that all Joe knew how to be was a husband—a good one.

“It’s yes,” she said. “Soon, s’il vous plaît.”