muffler about his neck, removed his hat and started to unbutton his greatcoat. Whatever her marital woes, Mrs. Susanna Hopkins looked like she needed good news.
Susanna felt tears behind her eyelids. She raised her spectacles and pressed her fingers hard against the bridge of her nose to stop the tears. Crying in front of strangers would only lower her further into that class of pitiful women without purpose or goal. I am not there yet, she reminded herself.
She had passed a Western Union office on her short walk from the depot to the stage station. Perhaps she could wire Emily at Fort Laramie and explain her plight. Maybe she could leave her luggage at Western Union. Surely some establishment needed a temporary dishwasher, or even a cook.
If not that, perhaps she could find a church, and pour out her troubles to a minister. Her optimism faded. If she had to tell her whole story to a minister before he would help her, she would fail. Her own minister in Carlisle had counseled her to return to the man who had abused her. When she refused, he had shown her the door without another word.
“Mrs. Susanna Hopkins?”
Startled, she looked up at a tall man in uniform. His greatcoat was unbuttoned, and she saw gold braid and green trim on his collar. She glanced at his face and then looked away, shy, even though her brief glance took in a kind face. “Do … do I know you?” she stammered.
“No, ma’am, you don’t, but I have been sent by Mrs. Emily Reese. She said you were medium height and blonde, and I’ve been looking.”
She took a deep breath. “You’re from Fort Laramie?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He gestured to the bench. “May I sit?”
“Of course, uh, Captain …” She paused, not sure of his rank.
“Major, ma’am, Major Joseph Randolph, with the Army Medical Corps.”
They shook hands. Before she could stop herself, Susanna blurted out, “I’m three dollars short of the fare for the Cheyenne-Deadwood Stage.”
“It happens,” he told her, unperturbed.
He was a big, comfortable-looking man, his hair dark but graying. Fine lines had etched themselves around his eyes and mouth, probably from the sun and wind. Susanna thought his eyes were brown, but she gave him only a glance.
“When Emily heard I was to be in Fort Russell, she thought I could spare you a trip on the Shy-Dead.”
“How kind of you!” She stopped, embarrassed.
She could tell her exclamation startled him. “It’s easy, Mrs. Hopkins, if you don’t mind keeping company with men in an ambulance.”
“An ambulance?” she asked doubtfully. “Someone is ill?”
“We travel that way in the winter, when we can.”
He had a distinct Southern drawl, stringing out his words in a leisurely way, and saying “ah” instead of “I,” and “own” instead of “on.” She hadn’t thought to hear a Southern accent from a man in a blue uniform.
“I was planning to meet the train, but New Year’s interfered,” he said.
She had to smile at that artless declaration. “Too much good cheer?”
He smiled back. “Medicinal spirits! Fort Russell’s post surgeon and I refought Chattanooga and Franklin, and before I knew it, I was late. We’re leaving tomorrow morning, ma’am. There’s room for you.”
“I’m obliged,” she said. “I’ll be ready.” She stood up, as though to dismiss him, unsure of herself.
He stood, too. “I can’t just leave you here until tomorrow morning,” he told her. “I’ll take you to a hotel.”
She shook her head. “I’ll be fine.” She looked around at men sitting on benches, a cowboy collapsed and drunk in the corner, and an old fellow muttering to himself by the water bucket.
“A modest hotel,” he insisted.
She could tell he wasn’t going to leave her there. “Quite modest, Major Randolph,” she replied.
“Cheyenne has only modest hotels,” he informed her. “There is a pathetic restaurant close by, and we’ll stop there, too.”
“That isn’t necess—”
“I’m hungry, Mrs. Hopkins,” he said. “So is my driver. Be my guest?” He peered at her kindly. “Don’t argue.”
“Very well,” she said quietly.
“Excellent,” he said, as he buttoned his greatcoat and put on his hat. “You’ll find it a relief from those cook shacks along the UP route.”
“I never got close enough to the counter,” she said, then stopped, embarrassed.
“In two days?” the major exclaimed. “Mrs. Hopkins, you are probably hungry enough to chew off my left leg.”
She had the good sense to capitulate. “I am famished, but not quite that hungry!”
He picked up both of her bags. “This all your luggage?” he asked.