Chapter 10: Snedeker’s

The tower family, Joe thought with a smile, had never been as well off as it was right now. Baby Emma had come through her illness, and was thriving. They hadn’t been assigned an orderly, but most of the time among the soldiers who were off duty, they had from four to fifteen. Joe’s smile widened and his eyes sparkled. Some of the officers and noncoms had their wives with them and some of the enlisted men had squaws to whom, Joe presumed, they were married.

But Laramie was an isolated fort. Most of the soldiers were young, out for a taste of adventure, and they found little enough. Even patrols into Indian country became monotonous after one made a sufficient number of them, and winter duty at the fort was routine.

Bringing Barbara among so many lonely youngsters who hadn’t expected to see a girl until emigrant trains started coming through in the spring created a situation which had all the explosive potentialities of a match held too near an open powder keg and was, at the same time, amusing.

Wood was the fuel used at Laramie, but Joe hadn’t had to cut or carry any. The wood box was always filled, and at least five times a day some youngster who had elected to wear his country’s uniform dropped in to see if the Towers didn’t need any more. The water pails invariably brimmed over, and they were always full because the men of Laramie had decided that nothing but the freshest water was good enough. When Barbara went to the sutler’s store, she was always attended by an escort large enough to form a good-sized patrol and she could not carry even the smallest parcel back. Every evening, until Emma shooed them out, their quarters overflowed with soldiers eager to do anything at all as long as they could be near Barbara.

Joe did not worry about her; any soldier who offered an insolent remark, or even an insolent look, to Barbara, would have been overwhelmed by a sufficient number of her protectors. But, aside from the fact that Joe wanted to winter at Snedeker’s and not at Laramie, the affair had its more serious aspects. Only last night Privates Haggerty and Jankoski, vying for the honor of walking closest to Barbara when she went to the store, had left each other with blackened eyes and bleeding noses and they’d promptly been clapped into the guardhouse for their pains. Probably there would be other fights; Joe understood that Private Brown did not gaze with a kindly eye on Corporal Lester. Lester had filled the water pails just as Brown was on his way to do it.

Joe chuckled out loud. Sitting across the breakfast table from him, Emma raised an inquiring eye.

“I was thinking of those two crazy kids, Haggerty and Jankoski, and the fight they had over Bobby last night,” he explained.

“Sh-h.” Emma nodded toward the bedroom in which Barbara still slept. “She’ll hear you.”

Joe lowered his voice. “I didn’t mean to talk so loud. It looks to me, if we don’t get Bobby out of here, as though the Army will be at war with itself.”

“Yes, dear,” Emma smiled abstractedly and Joe saw that her mind was elsewhere. He leaned back in his chair, looking idly at his empty plate. Then he rose to get his coat.

“Are you going out?” Emma asked.

“Yes. I’m getting the wagon back into shape.”

Emma asked casually, “Joe, do you know anything about this young man, Hugo Gearey?”

Joe shrugged. “I’ve seen him around.”

“But you don’t know where he came from?”

He was a little surprised. “Why should I?”

“Can you find out?”

“Now look, I can’t just walk up to Gearey and ask him where he comes from and what he did there.”

“You might,” she pointed out, “ask Sergeant Dugan or Sergeant Dunbar.”

He looked closely at her. “Why do you want to know about Gearey, Emma?”

She avoided his eyes. “Just a woman’s curiosity. Will you find out?”

He said reluctantly, “I’ll ask Dugan or Dunbar.”

Joe left, and Emma sat alone at the table. After such a long time on the Trail, the past three days at Laramie had been unbelievable luxury. Their quarters were warm and snug, with adequate housekeeping facilities. The roof was wood instead of canvas. Best of all, there had been three days of blessed relief from worry and tension. For the first time since leaving Independence Emma slept restfully because she was positive that they would have to respond to no alarm in the middle of the night. Because they did not have to rise with the sun and travel all day, there was leisure for sewing, washing, and preparing meals as Emma thought they should be prepared. However, though Laramie provided surcease from the rigors of the Trail, it brought its own problems.

Emma did not agree with Joe’s notion that there was no reason to worry about Barbara. Most of the young men who overwhelmed her with attention were more amusing than otherwise. Except that some of them were a little older than the swains who had so awkwardly wooed Barbara in Missouri, they did not differ greatly from the Tenney’s Crossing youths. They blushed easily, sometimes stumbled over their own feet, and while they devoted themselves to Barbara and wanted to admire, they were content to do so from a distance. Barbara could wither them with a frown, or send them into ecstasy with a smile. Emma poured a second cup of coffee, a blissful extravagance, and thought about Private Hugo Gearey.

Emma thought he was about twenty-six, not old, but still older than most of the other privates. There was about him a fine courtliness and courtesy which within itself spoke of background and good breeding; he knew exactly what to say and exactly when and how to say it. His was a charm that attracted men and captivated women. Emma had never before met such a person, and she knew that all of Gearey’s charm and courtliness had been fully noticed by Barbara.

But though Emma was old enough, and wise enough, to base her final appraisal of anyone at all on other than outward characteristics, she could not suppress an uncomfortable feeling that Gearey’s eyes were cold and that they betrayed an inner weakness. Most of all, with no war on, she wondered what a person of his obvious breeding and background was doing, as a private, in a fort like Laramie. She conceded that he might be out for a bit of adventure, but most of the youngsters who were at Laramie for that reason alone were from three to seven years younger than Gearey. Though there were a few older privates who kept their own counsel and doubtless had their own reasons for being where they were, most of the enlistees who were making the Army a career were non-commissioned officers by the time they were Gearey’s age.

The bedroom door opened and Barbara appeared, sleep-disheveled but lovely.

“Good morning, Mother.”

“Good morning, dear. Did you sleep well?”

“Oh!” Barbara stretched her young arms for the sheer pleasure of doing so. “I had a heavenly rest!”

“I’ll get your breakfast.”

“I’ll get it, Mother.”

Barbara washed, put two slices of bacon in a skillet and knelt before the fire place. She broke an egg over the sputtering bacon, brought it to the table and buttered herself a piece of bread. Emma smiled at her daughter.

“Have you reflected upon your ardent suitors’ fist-fight of last night?”

Barbara said scornfully, “Yes, and it was so silly! I couldn’t stop them, and I was just mortified when they insisted on fighting that way!” Her face clouded. “Do you think they’ll keep them in the guardhouse very long, Mother?”

“I suppose they’ll be out before they’re both old men.” Barbara grinned, and said happily, “It’s been such fun!” “It would be,” Emma admitted dryly, “with fifty or more unattached young men ready to grovel at your feet every time you make calf’s eyes at them.”

She laughed, “Oh Mother, none of them are serious—it’s really all fun!”

“I don’t know about that. How many proposals have you had?”

“Only seven so far. Johnny Parr, Michael Dilling, and Pete Robbins want to come to Oregon just as soon as their enlistments are up. Albert Johnson asked me to go to Baltimore with him, after we’re married of course! His father has a store there, and I can be a clerk in it. Rodney Burr, he’s from Maine and he talks so strangely, has wonderful plans for starting a shipyard in San Francisco. Robert Smith and Dan Jankoski want to get married right here.”

“What did you tell them?”

“Mother, what would I tell them? I don’t want to marry any of them.”

“I hope you didn’t hurt their feelings.”

“I refused as nicely as I could.”

Emma looked down at the table, gratified. Barbara was no longer the half-child half-woman who had left Missouri. The Oregon Trail had given her a new maturity and poise. Barbara finished her meal and folded her hands thoughtfully under her chin. She stared across the table and for a moment she did not speak. Then,

“Mother, there’s a dance tonight in the mess hall. May I go?”

“Do you mean you can single out just one escort?”

“Hugo asked me,” she said dreamily. “He—he’s so different. I—I just can’t explain it. He simply makes the others seem like children. His home is in New York City, and it will take me at least a year to tell you all the things he’s told me about it.”

Emma murmured, “Hugo must talk fast.”

“He does, Mother!” she said eagerly, missing entirely the double meaning in Emma’s remark. “He’s the most interesting young man I’ve ever met!”

Because she knew she dared say nothing else, Emma said, “Yes, dear, you may go.”

“Thank you, Mother.”

Though Emma would not have left her youngest children alone on the prairie, she felt safe to leave them in Tad’s care at the fort. That night, to the music of a very good five piece band, she danced in Joe’s arms. She waited for him to tell her anything he might have found out concerning Hugo Gearey, and when he said nothing she knew that he had forgotten to ask. In turn Emma danced with Sergeants Dugan, Dunbar, and a variety of others. She watched the young men trying desperately to dance with Barbara.

Emma noted that she was with Hugo Gearey for two dances out of three. She did, then, want to dance with him. Soldiers watched the pair, jealous and suspicious. Emma danced again with Joe, and she knew that he was very tired. She smiled at him, clasped his hand a little more tightly and glanced again at Barbara.