Her Hesitant Heart - By Carla Kelly Page 0,87

to the envy of his classmates.

Even in her classroom, the talk centered around the coming campaign. “I’m astounded what my students know about pincer movements and a three-pronged attack,” she said to Joe early one morning when neither of them felt inclined to get up.

“What have they told you?” he asked.

“They tell me Colonel Gibbon has already started east from western Montana, General Terry is eventually going to move west from the Dakotas, and our own dear General Crook will head north from here and Fort Fetterman.”

“Your students are already strategists.” He kissed her breasts, which ended the discussion for a while. She made it to school on time, but Joe was late to the hospital.

Her own cherubs practiced their poems, with one little prodigy happy to learn Longfellow’s lengthy Hiawatha. He came to class disgruntled, saying it made his father, an infantry sergeant, groan and assure him that Plains Indians bore no resemblance to anything created by the New England poet.

“Everyone is a critic,” Susanna grumbled to her husband, trying to make him laugh.

He laughed a little, but she knew it was just to humor her. General Crook had arrived from Omaha to lead this expedition, and the general turned Joe silent. She made no comment, but made sure her husband had his favorite baked oatmeal for breakfast, and she took hot meals to the hospital on those evenings he was too busy to come home.

“Soldiers are everywhere,” she remarked to Anthony Benedict on the morning of their school program.

“No one’s bothering you, are they?” he asked as he handed a student the telegrapher’s key. “There you are, Mr. Morse.”

“No. In fact, as I crossed the parade ground, three soldiers rushed to help me carry baked goods and costumes! Of course, that meant I had to dip into the cookies in payment.” Susanna took a deep breath. “Anthony, I’m going to miss you. Please be careful.”

Private Benedict sent another student behind the canvas curtain. “I’ll be careful, Mrs. Randolph.” He took a piece of paper from his uniform pocket. “If anything happens, here’s my special girl’s address.”

She didn’t argue that nothing would happen, or put on die-away airs. These weren’t men to fool with silliness. “I’ll take care of it, Anthony.”

Private Benedict peered around the edge of the stage. “We have a full house, Mrs. Randolph. Think how they will exclaim over that McCormick Reaper that the guardhouse crew constructed. Good thing no one invented a flying machine in this century. We’d have needed a bigger stage!”

Thanks to Emily, Susanna had located a portable pianoforte on Officers Row, which Mrs. Burt obligingly played, Captain Andy Burt turning the pages for her. Susanna stood beside the stage, looking with pride at her students, their parents, all smiles, and a phalanx of officers along the back row, her husband among them. Her smile faded. There on the opposite end from Joe was General Crook himself. She resisted the urge to march to him and give him a generous helping of her mind. Instead, she took her seat in the front row next to Private Benedict.

She knew Maeve and Maddie had finished painting Fort Laramie on the curtain late last night, using the fort’s endless supply of quartermaster red. The elegant scrollwork was a fitting testament to Maeve’s confidence with letters and words. She was backstage with Mrs. Hanrahan, ushering each group of thespians forward for their part in the program. Susanna wasn’t surprised that the star of the production was Samuel Morse and his telegraphic key, which tapped out the sentence “Fort Laramie will defeat the Northern Roamers.” Children holding placards with each syllable came across the stage as though sprung from the key. True, “will defeat” was transposed by two children frozen with stage fright, but the sentiment received its due applause.

After a brief intermission, the students sat cross-legged on the floor and took their turns onstage for recitations. “The boy stood on the burning deck,” as interpreted with true martial fervor by the son of an Arikara scout, drew such applause that he stared at Private Benedict in wide-eyed alarm, then ran to his mother.

Susanna took turns with Private Benedict, coaching where needed and nodding her encouragement when that was called for. She remembered other assemblies at the elegant girls’ school where she’d taught, or the quality academy where Tommy had given his own rendition of that boy on the burning deck. Here she was in a commissary storehouse, the audience seated on planks and cracker boxes, with a