Page 17 of Ellen Found
THE SILENCE WOKE her. Ellen sat up, startled, then relieved to see sunlight streaming through the gap in the curtains. She dressed quickly, still brushing her hair when she opened the door.
“We didn’t want to wake you,” Mrs. Quincy said as she handed the graniteware coffee pot to Mr. Wilson.
“I can help,” Ellen said. “I need to keep busy.”
And she did, all that day and the next, and the one after as the rescuers—nearly all the carpenters—hitched up teams and wagons to clear the road. The telephone lines were up by the third day as soldiers from Fort Yellowstone indicated they were doing the same. “We’ll meet somewhere in the middle,” Dan Reeves told her.
The sun shone bitter cold for two more days, then spring returned. Ellen woke to ice melting off the roof. Fickle, daunting Wyoming. She doubted the new state would ever have much population.
“We’ll know more soon,” Mr. Wilson told her as his road crew started out. He left behind the best carpenters to continue finishing the rooms. Mr. Reamer quietly directed Charles’s work. He took Ellen aside to assure her that she would always have employment with Harry Child and the YP Company. “There’s a place for you here.”
She understood. No one commented about yesterday’s telephone call before the line went down again. Searchers from Fort Yellowstone had found one horse dead in the Gardner River, not far from Golden Gate.
Gwen didn’t need to know. She still cried herself to sleep at night, but so did Ellen, who’d told her that no matter what, she was never to worry about what would become of her. “We’ll stick together,” she said.
Ellen should have known that the whole terrifying ordeal would end with no fanfare, no bells, no one scattering rose petals, just the sound of the big door opening.
Gwen was more attuned to her father’s footsteps than anyone. She looked up from sewing hems on napkins for summer guests. “Ellen,” she said uncertainly, her eyes wide.
Then came the sound of other footsteps and Sergeant Reeves’s cheery, “Guess who’s home!”
Gwen ran into the lobby. Ellen followed, then sagged against the doorframe as father and daughter came together with shouts of joy. She watched in utter relief, then began a checklist. He was thin. He hadn’t shaved in a week and his beard was scraggly. Red eyes. The tips of his ears looked chewed up, maybe frostbitten. He was alive. She loved him.
“Got him back to you.”
She took a good look at Dan Reeves, who also looked chewed up. This was the sergeant who had saved her life and hinted at marriage. “What do you mean? Don’t tease.”
“Just that,” he said cheerfully. “We spent a night holed up with Charles and the driver. He assured me he would take good care of you. I told him I could too. He said no, that was his job.”
She couldn’t help a smile, her first in a week. “Thanks for getting him back alive, Dan.”
“You’re welcome.” He looked at father and daughter. “Drat his hide! Besides, I have orders to Fort Clark, then a return to the Philippines. Orders.” He kissed her cheek. “He has something else I don’t have.”
She gave him an inquiring look.
“He’ll show you.” He kissed her again and not on the cheek this time. “I told him if he didn’t take good care of you, I’d know. God bless you both, Ellen.”
She turned to see Charles set his daughter down and whisper to her. Gwen skipped into the kitchen, calling, “Mrs. Quincy, he’s really hungry!”
Sergeant Reeves gave her a push in Charles’s direction, then headed for the kitchen. In another moment she was held tight by a man who needed food, a bath, and a shave. She felt his breath against her neck. She kissed him at precisely the same moment he had the same notion, then tightened her hands across his back, pulling him close.
His week-old beard scratched her face; she didn’t care. “All I could think of was you,” he said finally. “I froze and starved and realized that I have a big heart with room for others. I know you want to be a front desk clerk here, but I’d rather you married me instead. I love you.”
Gwen gestured to them from the dining room. “Coming in a minute, Daughter,” Charles said. “I went to Butte for the machinery, not Bozeman,” he said as the others left the lobby. “The Mercury Street Café burned down a month ago.”
“Too bad it wasn’t sooner,” she said, then gasped, “ Really ?”
“Who jokes about that? I found a souvenir for you in the alley though. Put your hand in my overcoat pocket.”
It was one thing to agree to marriage, but Ellen was proper. She shook her head.
“Knothead! Do it.”
She pulled out a kitten who looked deep into her eyes, then cocked its head, as if wanting to know her better .
“I named him Socrates. When pickings got slim there at Golden Gate, I told him that he would eat when I did and starve with me, too.”
“I told Plato that,” she said softly.
“Socrates shared some of his canned milk, but I am never going to like sardines.”
They sat down close together, hips touching, Ellen content to cuddle Socrates. She watched her man wolf down apple pie and nod when the cook brought in a bowl of stew. He shared his bowl with the kitten, which turned Ellen’s vision misty.
Soon the dining room filled with workers, listening as Charles told of cold nights and days wrapped in blankets and rugs intended for the inn and burning some of the furniture for warmth. “I wouldn’t wish that ordeal on anyone,” he said simply.
“You must write about it, Da.” Gwen ran into the room she shared with Ellen and returned with her father’s journal. “I kept this close. Do you mind?”
“Not at all.” He glanced at Ellen. “Did you read any of it?”
She nodded and spoke softly to him alone. “I understand your love for Clare. I will never intrude on your memories.”
“They’re wonderful memories,” he told her, his lips close to her ear, “but I live in the present.”
Ellen remembered. She took the journal from him and turned to the last entry, hers. “I added this. I forgot to erase it. I was presumptuous.”
“Let’s see. This is mine: ‘Can I- or may I- love her, too?’” He pointed to Ellen’s penciled addition and nodded. “‘April 16, 1904. Yes, you can love me. I won’t forget Plato, but I want another cat.’”
He nodded, his tired eyes brighter. “Precisely. How about you get an ink pen and make this permanent? You know, like us.”