songs to Tommy far away. “Be a good son,” Susanna whispered, as she always did before closing her eyes.
Joe Randolph couldn’t help but feel that his constituents had failed him greatly that night. Not one of them came asking for help with babies due, or croup, or any little or large ailments that often kept him busy in those winter hours when Fort Laramie slept. After four years with Sherman’s army, and then Melissa’s shocking death, he had grown used to sleepless nights. Here he was, wide awake, and the only person who needed him would never ask.
Joe lay in bed, still dressed and still aghast at the coldhearted ruin of Susanna Hopkins. The monstrosity of what he had witnessed in the Dunklins’ parlor made the bile rise in his throat, until he had to get up and walk it off. Back and forth, from room to room, he tried to wear himself out. Instead, he revisited his own role in the deception, wondering if he should have gone immediately to Major Townsend and spelled out Emily Reese’s original lie. He concluded it would have made no difference, once Mrs. Dunklin—damn the woman!—had found a tale to bear and a bone to gnaw on.
Joe concluded that all he could do in the morning was go to Major Townsend after guard mount and lay the whole nasty matter before him.
“What will he do, Joe?” the post surgeon asked himself out loud as he made another circuit of his own parlor. “He will say it is none of his business, that this was a matter between a few families and the educator they contracted. He is right. God, how it galls me!”
Joe walked until his feet began to hurt. He threw himself down into his favorite armchair, relieving his legs—oh, surgeons and their legs—but getting him no closer to sleep than he had been hours ago. Grim, he watched dawn come, relieved to hear reveille finally.
Silent, he shaved and changed his shirt, then made his way up the hill for sick call. He was not inclined to suffer fools gladly that morning, which meant that the malingerers whose creativity he sometimes secretly admired found themselves snapped at and returned to duty almost before they had a chance to recite their ordinarily diverting symptoms.
Guard mount offered none of its minuscule attraction. Since even colder weather had clamped down, the band remained in the music hall and the time-honored ritual of guard relief and guard mount seemed to go in double-quick rhythm, to Joe’s tired eyes. Scarcely anyone moved across the parade ground, once the morning business concluded. Joe watched Sergeant Rattigan, in company with his corporals, hurrying toward the footbridge to Suds Row and their own families for breakfast.
A few minutes after the new guard had retired to the guardhouse and the cold soldiers had retreated to their mess halls, Joe saw Nick Martin leave Old Bedlam, where he must have started the usual fire, to warm up the classroom. Hands shoved deep in his pockets, Joe stood at his front window and watched Mrs. Hopkins leave the Reeses’ quarters and make her way along the icy sidewalk to Old Bedlam. A few minutes later, both Captain and Katie O’Leary left their quarters, Rooney between them. From habit, Joe regarded Katie professionally, and decided he would be called upon soon enough to usher another army dependent into the world. God bless the O’Learys to give him his favorite army duty.
He stood by the window as the O’Learys returned. Joe noticed Katie’s head against her husband’s shoulder, his arm around her, consoling her. The sight made him angry all over again, which was probably a better emotion than the grim disgust at meanness that left him so hollow. Maybe it was more. Joe felt a strong urge to console Susanna Hopkins much as Captain O’Leary was consoling his wife.
“But here I stand, a coward,” he remarked to no one except himself.
He watched as Jim O’Leary left his quarters and went down the row to Captain Burt’s home. He wondered what business Jim had there, and shook his head. The Burts had signed that pernicious letter, too.
Next he watched Mrs. Dunklin leave her quarters and stride with great purpose toward the admin building. Joe sighed to see all that misguided umbrage on the loose. He watched until the woman returned to her quarters, then it was his turn.
The snow squeaked and crunched underfoot, advertising just how low the mercury had retreated. He looked up at