Page 17 of For This We Are Soldiers
“No,” she said out loud. “I can’t go. Iwon’tgo.”
Embarrassed, she looked around. Private Jones was deep in his letter, and someone in Private Henry’s traveling circus had broken out a deck of cards. His face placid, his eyes kind, Lysander Locke watched her. She was on her feet even before he gestured to her. She sat down and handed him the note.
He read it and handed it back. “Regiments move around all the time, Miss Washington.”
“Yes, but—”
“You’ll make new friends there.” He folded his hands on his belly. “I always do when I travel from theatre to theatre.”
“But I don’t want to leave.”
“Put away the cards, lads, or I’ll put you on report. Faith, now, who’s leaving?”
She couldn’t help her tears at Colm’s familiar voice. Quiet on his feet, his eyes exhausted, he stood by Private Jones’s bed, rolling down his sleeves.
“I’m leaving,” she said, handing him the note as she leaped up and ran into the hall. She looked around. There was nowhere for her to go. Colm had to sleep, and she had promised to stay. She hurried up the stairs and sat down on the top tread. For years she had worked and moved with no complaints, but now it was too much. She put her head on her knees, wishing to be somewhere else, but desperately wanting to stay right here at Fort Laramie.
Why had she ever offered to help Colm Callahan? All she had done was discover just how much she loved him, and how impossible that was. The man was shy, and she was a woman of color. She shivered against the knowledge that nothing would ever change in her life. Was this freedom?
“It’s too much, isn’t it?”
She looked down the stairs to see Colm looking up.
“I’m just tired,” she told him. That was no lie. She would never tell him how she had tossed about last night, teased by the odor of camphor, wondering how long it was possible to love a person before he could be decently forgotten.
There now, Audra, he has enough to do without worrying about you, she scolded herself. Brace up. When she thought she could, she stood up. Colm was so tired, he looked like he was swaying on his feet. He didn’t need her drama. It was time to give her greatest performance.
“You’re the one who has had too much to bear,” she said, keeping her tone light. “It’s your turn to sleep, or … or …” She laughed and nearly convinced herself. “Or you’ll end up in the dead house.”
“It won’t come to that, but I could use a nap,” he admitted, even though the worried look didn’t leave his face.
“A nap of about five hours,” she insisted.
“All right, all right.”
Silent, she walked down the hall with him as he reeled off instructions.
Check: the sergeant of the guard was sending a wagon to take the coffined stagecoach driver to the fort cemetery.
“We haven’t heard from the Shy-Dead office yet, so we’ll bury him on the end, where they can retrieve him, if need be.”
Check: Private Henry was released to ride in the same wagon, and park his bones back in the barracks. “I’ll check him tonight. He’s with the Fourth, so he’ll be packing soon too.”
Check: He would take a good look at Private Jones’s forearm, decide whether to debride the burn, then send him on his way rejoicing tomorrow.
Check: After that, Lysander Locke would be their only patient, and little trouble. Just this one night more, and he’d release her to the Chambers again. “If the hospital matron still isn’t spry, I can get one of the barracks cooks to send us what little Mr. Locke and I will need.”
Check: Captain Dilworth would be back in two days, according to the telegram remembered at last by one of Private Henry’s partygoers. “If I were a wagering man, I’d bet that nothing at all will happen after he returns.”
Then he ran out of steam. “I’m going to sleep, Audra.”
“No lunch?”
“Later.” A wave of his hand and click, the door to Captain Dilworth’s office closed.
Working silently, her jaw clenched against tears, Audra made vegetable soup and sandwiches from leftover sausage for the patients, and for Private Henry’s friends too. Lunch was followed in short order by the arrival of the sergeant of the guard and his minions. The coffin left the dead house, taking Private Henry too, perched on the coffin with a pair of crutches and looking more cheerful than when he’d arrived a day ago. He even blew her a kiss, which demanded a smile, however forced.
Private Jones slept the sleep of the blissfully content, letter in hand, so Audra could not ignore Lysander Locke any more. She sat beside him at last, content at least to rest her feet.
