of course, so I just saluted with a pair of scissors in my hand—so military—and said hello.” Joe tugged her back to rest against his chest, his hand on her hair. “It was funny, but I didn’t feel tense, or defensive, or … or anything, really. I just said hello, and went back to work.”
“Did he say anything?”
“Not a word. He just stood there a little longer, then left.” Joe kissed her cheek. “I wonder … maybe it’s too hard for some people to apologize, if that’s what he was trying to do.”
They sat close together in silence, until Susanna closed her eyes and slept, content in her husband’s arms.
Chapter Twenty
All the regiments except Jim O’Leary’s troop left Fort Laramie four days later, leaving behind a scattering of infantry borrowed from other posts. The infantry marched out first, and the cavalry later that afternoon, heading to Fort Fetterman to rendezvous with other regiments. Susanna felt tears in her eyes as she watched Private Benedict march away with his company, and Sergeant Rattigan with his. And there were the other fathers of her students; it was really too much, and she told her husband so that night in bed.
“I envision a long campaign,” he said. “I sent Al with everything we could spare from the hospital.”
“Emily is crying in her quarters, and even Katie looks grim, although Jim and his troop are still here.”
“Katie’s a veteran campaigner. She knows how busy he will be, patrolling between here and the Black Hills. She’ll barely see him, and when she does, he’ll be so worn down that it will break her heart every time.”
Susanna thought about that, as her husband pulled her closer. “You’re saying maybe it’s better the ladies don’t know how their husbands will look by the time this is done?”
“I probably am.”
She raised herself up on her elbow for a good look at her man. He was tired, too, but she didn’t state the obvious, beyond asking if he was going to get any extra help.
“A contract surgeon is coming, Suzie,” he told her. “The wounded who survive the transport back here will come to us. We’ll be busy.”
She stayed in their quarters the next morning, watching the under-strength garrison carry on guard mount with a ghost crew. There was constant activity at the Rustic Hotel as more miners headed for the gold fields. The post felt deserted, which gave her no peace of mind, considering all the local Indian activity recently. The Indians who hadn’t fled the reservations to join the Northern Roamers considered it their duty to disrupt life elsewhere.
She spent the afternoon with Emily, soothing her dear cousin, who cried and worried like every other woman on Officers Row. Then Susanna played jackstraws with Stanley. A welcome walk took her to Maeve Rattigan’s quarters, where Maeve and Maddie tended Mrs. Hanrahan’s children.
“Your husband has even hired Eddie to sweep floors for him,” Maeve said. “He says he has a discretionary fund.”
Susanna smiled at that. He does, indeed, she thought as she took a crying baby from Maeve. He’ll be in the poorhouse someday and no man will be happier.
She looked at Maeve, healthy and smiling, color in her cheeks again, where last winter she had been ghost-pale.
“You’re looking ever so good, Maeve. I know Maddie agrees with you.”
She nodded. “It’s more than that, Susanna. Ask your husband.”
Susanna asked Joe that night over supper. “Is she anticipating, and just too shy to tell me?”
He reached for the last roll. “No. The blessing is that she’s not. I sometimes get to experiment, and Maeve’s the beneficiary.”
Susanna listened, fascinated, as he told her of the article by George Drysdale, and his theories about fertility at certain times of the month. “If the Rattigans could time their lovemaking to keep her from getting pregnant, she might have time to heal, grow less anemic, and stay alive. I doubt she will ever carry a child to term—some women can’t—but at least she won’t suffer from miscarriage after miscarriage. It was killing her, Suzie, in her mind and in her body.”
She thought about that all evening, after Joe returned to the hospital, then thought about Louis Pasteur and his Paris lycée. If ever a physician was suited for scholarship, it was Joseph Randolph. Too bad they had heard nothing from France.
There was a letter for them the next day, delivered in person by Captain O’Leary, back from patrol, standing on their porch and practically swaying with exhaustion. She thanked him, looked at the