return address—Pinkerton National Detective Agency—and hurried to the hospital.
She stood in the entrance to the ward a moment, catching her breath. Wordless, she held out the letter to Joe.
“It’s addressed to you, but I couldn’t have opened it anyway.”
He certainly knew his hospital steward. All it took was a look in Ted Brown’s direction for the man to take over. His arm around her waist, Joe headed her toward his office, closing the door behind them. He opened the envelope and offered the letter to her. He took it back when she shook her head.
“Calm down, Suzie,” he admonished, then sat with her on his lap. “This better?”
“Just read it, then tell me.”
She closed her eyes and rested her head against his chest while he read the letter.
“This is the damnedest thing. No, it’s not bad news. I’m not sure what it is. Go ahead. It won’t bite.”
She took the letter from him and read. When she’d finished, she just looked at him. “He thinks he saw a tall man and a blond boy around Omaha, and they gave him the slip?” she asked, hardly believing it.
Joe was silent a moment. “We’ve been underestimating Nick Martin,” he said finally. “If I’m reading this right, Nick knows he’s being tailed, but he doesn’t know by whom! Do you think I should call off the Pinkertons and just trust Nick to get Tommy to us?”
After some consideration, Susanna nodded. “I think you’d better, else Nick might go to ground and we’ll never find Tommy.” She started to cry.
Her husband’s arms were around her then, holding her close. “I’ll send a telegram today.”
“Pray Nick won’t try to get here on foot!” she said, wiping her eyes. “There are so many Indians between here and Omaha.”
“We have to trust him.” Joe kissed her hair. “This is another moment when you’re going to have to be brave a little longer.”
“It’s so hard,” she whispered.
“Good thing you’re equal to it.”
“Not at this moment.”
“No shame in that. See my cot over there? Curl up, take a nap, and I’ll walk my best girl home for supper.”
The contract surgeon arrived, fresh out of school and greener than grass, which meant more supervision rather than less. Joe tried to make light of it, making her smile with his description of the new doctor, who went through four methods to determine death, where one would do.
“I swear his eyes turned into saucers when I leaned over, put two fingers against the patient’s neck and covered his face with his sheet.” Joe shook his head at his colleague’s afternoon antics. “Shame on me, but I peeked back in the ward later, and there was Dr. Petteys, making really sure that the dead man I’d pronounced dead really was dead.” He gave Susanna his tired smile when she massaged his back. “Maybe I used to do that, too.”
The nights were long. She feigned sleep after they made love, just so Joe would sleep, too, and not stay awake worrying about her. The sick, and those wounded by carelessness or other accident on the march north, came dribbling back to the fort to be evaluated, cured or buried. Joe looked almost as tired as the men of Company K, riding their ceaseless patrols.
Susanna lay awake long into the night, wondering where Tommy was, and if Nick Martin had the slightest idea what he was doing. She was awake when someone banged on the door in the middle of the night. She leaped from bed, tugging at her nightgown, even before Joe had raised his head from the pillow.
Bobby Dunklin stood there, his eyes wide with fright. Susanna grabbed him to her and pulled him inside, kneeling by him, her hands around his face as he began to cry. “It’s my mother,” he said.
Susanna sat him down in the parlor and ran to shake her husband awake. “It’s Mrs. Dunklin. Bobby’s here.”
Joe was dressed in a moment and hurrying into his home office for his medical bag. “Keep Bobby here,” he ordered as he ran outside, his suspenders down around his hips, and wearing his moccasins with no stockings.
She took Bobby into the kitchen, talking with him about summer, and the pony she knew he loved to ride, and the games of catch he and his friends played near the stables. She dried his tears, made him blow his nose, then held him on her lap with no protest as he ate the cinnamon rolls she had promised Joe for breakfast.