The hard eyes of a boy too soon old softened as he turned into the child he was. Slowly he lowered the rag to his side, then dropped it, which made the cook raise his big spoon.
“Don’t!” Joe ordered.
If the boy had any doubts, that ended them. With a sob, he stepped over the mess he had made on the floor. Joe knelt and held open his arms as the lad came closer, hesitated, then threw himself into the embrace of a man he had never seen before.
“Tommy, we’ve been looking for you,” Joe murmured as the boy wept in his arms. “Your mama’s at Fort Laramie and that’s where I’m going.”
“He told me Mama was alive. I hoped, but it’s been so long,” Tommy Hopkins said when he could speak.
Joe took his hand and led him back to the bench where Jim O’Leary sat, his eyes big.
“This is Susanna’s son?” he asked. “Have a seat, lad. Have some porridge.” The captain pushed Joe’s barely eaten porridge closer.
“I’m not supposed to eat until I finish cleaning pans,” Tommy said, his eyes on the cook, who still glowered by the kitchen door.
“You’re through cleaning pans,” Joe said.
The other troopers from K Company gathered around their commander, their expressions of amazement mirroring their captain’s. “When are you heading for Fort Laramie?” Joe asked O’Leary.
“In an hour or two.”
Tommy was eating Joe’s porridge now, his economy of motion telling Joe worlds about how rough he had been living lately. Joe sprinkled more sugar in the bowl and got a fleeting smile for his thanks.
“Take us with you, Jim. I’m supposed to collect more supplies here, but they can come in the ambulance with the escort heading north tomorrow.”
“I can do it,” Jim told him. “Lad, can you ride?”
The fleeting smile returned to stay. “That’s what we’ve been doing, all across the country.”
“You’re probably a better horseman than I am by now,” Joe said. “I’m a post surgeon.”
The smile grew larger, reminding Joe forcefully of Tommy’s mother at her most impish. “Then I know I’m a better horseman than you are!” His voice became more confidential. “Aaron told me you weren’t too handy in the saddle.”
“Who?”
“Aaron Belknap.”
“Not Nick Martin?”
“Who’s that?”
Joe sat back. “No one, I guess.” He looked at O’Leary, who seemed to be enjoying the whole exchange hugely. “Jim, you have a son. Take a good look at this lad. Will you go to the stores and get him a pair of trousers and a shirt?” He looked at Tommy’s broken shoes. “Maybe some shoes? Bring them to us at the orphanage, and we’ll ride with you.”
He looked at Tommy again, seeing relief in his eyes now. “Do you trust me to get you to your mother?”
The boy nodded. “Aaron told me someone would come,” he said simply. “I believed him.”
Tommy had no objection to a bath. Joe scrubbed him from hair to heels while he sat silent, a dazed expression on his suntanned face. By the time Joe finished, O’Leary showed up with clothes. Everything was too big, but a belt with new holes helped.
“My word, he is blond,” the captain said. “How on earth did you know?”
“Don’t even ask, because I couldn’t explain,” Joe replied. “There was something about the set of his shoulders. And when I saw his eyes … Susanna all over. The mole and blaze clinched it.”
Tommy was suitably impressed with Captain O’Leary’s K Company, which boasted the only matched grays in the regiment. He needed a boost into the army saddle, but then sat with the ease of an intuitive horseman. Joe shortened the boy’s stirrups, then swung onto his own horse.
When they were clear of Fort Russell and riding with that steady lope that O’Leary’s grays were famous for, Captain O’Leary motioned them forward.
“Tommy, you ride between me and Major Randolph,” he instructed. “I’m going to pop if I don’t hear this story, too. How on earth did Nick Ma—Aaron Belknap find you?”
Before he could begin, Joe put up his hand. “Let me start with our end. Tommy, we called him Nick Martin because he never told us his real name. He just disappeared one night, taking some money and a handful of letters your mother had written to you. She used to give them to Ni … to Aaron to mail for her.”
“I wondered. He never said how he came to Carlisle.” Tommy shrugged. “He never said much of anything.”
Joe looked over Tommy’s head to Captain O’Leary. “That’s our