Elizabeth got very little sleep for the next week. At first the puppy merely whimpered outside the door, but when that didn’t bring him any company, he started crying in earnest. Thomas was tired enough from his day’s work to turn over and go back to sleep, but Elizabeth couldn’t stand the heartbroken yowling and she would get up several times a night and sit the pup down on her lap and pet him until he went back to sleep. Then she would lay him down gently in the old basket that was his bed and they’d both sleep for an hour or so before he started again.
After a night or two she snuck him into bed with them, but when Thomas saw him in the morning, he put his foot down.
“Absolutely not, Lizzie.”
“But, Thomas, at least he slept last night.” And so did I, she added to herself. She daren’t complain about him, since he was her idea.
“It is a bad habit to develop, my dear. I guarantee, you will not want him in our bed when he is full grown and has been rolling around with the other dogs.”
So she continued to get up and thought she was going to die of exhaustion until, finally, Mrs. Taggert from next door gave her some advice.
“Wrap a hot water bottle in a towel, Mrs. Woolcott, and put it in his basket with him and he will do fine.”
It worked, thank God, and finally things were back to normal in the Woolcott household. More or less. For as the puppy got bigger, he set out to explore everything and chew everything, including Thomas’s favorite sheepskin slippers.
Thomas was furious when he found the puppy worrying at them, but when he pulled the slippers away and started to yell at the little dog, both the puppy and his wife gave him such pleading looks that he could only laugh.
“Take it then, you little monster. This one is ruined anyway,” he said ruefully.
“Thank you, Thomas, for hot making me get rid of him,” his wife said later as they curled up in bed together, “He is very bright, and as he gets older, he’ll understand things better, I am sure.”
But Elizabeth was a pushover for the puppy’s apologetic looks. When she would chastise him gently, he would sink down on his fat little stomach and wag his tail and look at her beseechingly, as though to say, “I know, and I’ll never do it again.”
As he got older, he grew more out of control, but Elizabeth was not yet willing to admit she had a problem with him, although the whole fort was by now aware of what havoc the little dog was creating in the Woolcott household. The enlisted men were now betting as to when the lieutenant would shoot the little bugger, and those that had bet sooner rather than later were greatly optimistic when he came to parade one morning with a hole chewed out of his best hat.
“I don’t know what to do,” Thomas confessed to his commanding officer one afternoon. “He is a charmer, I have to admit. And she is crazy about him. But she hasn’t the least idea how to discipline him and then when I try, she looks at me as if I were a monster.”
“I’ve seen women like that with their children.”
“But you can’t drown children, sir, and I hate to say it, but I am ready to take the little bastard and drown him in the horse trough where his brothers died!”
“How soon were you thinking of doing this,” asked the colonel with a big smile.
“Oh God, they’re betting on it!” groaned Thomas.
“A few, here and there.”
Thomas gave a disgusted groan and stalked out. Tonight he was going to lay down the law: either she was firm with the little dog, or else.
It was unfortunate, then, that the puppy chose that very afternoon to pull Thomas’s best blouse down from the laundry line and start chewing off the brass buttons. When Elizabeth looked out the kitchen window and saw him, she felt her heart sink. This would be the last straw, and she wouldn’t blame Thomas if he came home and wrung the puppy’s neck as he had threatened to do.
She walked out the back door slowly, a crumbled piece of bacon in her hand. “Here, puppy, here you are.” The little dog stopped worrying at the buttons and cocked his head. Wagging his tail, he started to prance over to get his favorite treat. Elizabeth sprinkled some bacon in front of him and darted for the shirt. He saw her out of the corner of his eye and reached it before she did. He ran off, dragging the blouse through the dust, with Elizabeth after him. At first she crooned to him in a sweet, low voice, the voice she usually used with him. He would turn around and come close and she would think she had him and just as she’d reach for the shirt, he would scamper out of the way, his eyes dancing.
She had left the kitchen door open, and she grabbed desperately for him as he ran through the house and out the front door, dragging Thomas’s blouse and looking back at her over his shoulder as though to say, “There’s much more room to play this game out here.”
Elizabeth lost her composure. Here was this damned little dog she had saved from certain death and there he was, gleefully making a fool of her.
“Come back here, you little devil,” she screeched, running after him.
He tore off down the line with the usually prim-and-proper Mrs. Woolcott screaming after him. Officers’ wives opened their doors at the noise and looked at each other and laughed. They had been wondering how long it would take for Mrs. Woolcott to break.
Luckily most of the men were out on patrol, but the wood detail was just returning as the puppy ran toward the stable, Elizabeth red-faced and shouting behind him.
The four men and Michael were dumbfounded at first at the sight of a lieutenant’s wife running with her skirts hiked up, and screaming like a bean sighe, thought Michael. Then Fisk started to laugh and the rest were almost falling off their mules when Michael turned to them. “That’s enough, men,” he ordered. It took all his self-control to hold back his own laughter, but he couldn’t let his detail be disrespectful to an officer’s wife. “Private Elwell, have the men lead the mules into the corral and unsaddle them there.”
“Yes, sir,” said Elwell, straggling not to smile.
Michael dismounted and handed his reins to Elwell.
“And take my mule, would ye, Josh.”
“Yes, sir.”
The puppy was headed straight for him, head turned, watching to see if his mistress was still part of this glorious game and Michael had no problem scooping him up. He pried the pup’s jaws open with his fingers and made him drop the shirt, just as Elizabeth rounded the corner.
“Come back, you little bastard.” She was crying now, tears of anger and frustration and at first she only saw that her husband’s shirt was lying there on the ground. In front of some soldier’s boots. In front of Master Sergeant Michael Burke’s boots. She stopped, her hand flying to her mouth, and realized what she must look like. What she must have sounded like.
“I’d say the wee ‘bastard’ has been thriving under your care, Mrs. Woolcott. He’s certainly grown since the last time I saw him.”
Elizabeth stood there, still holding her skirts up in her hand, until she noticed the sergeant’s quick and appreciative look at her ankles. She dropped them instantly and nervously smoothed them and tried to straighten her hair and regain some sense of dignity.
Why did it have to be the goddamned Irishman seeing her out of control like this? And where was such language coming from, Elizabeth Jane Woolcott. A young lady from Mrs. Compton’s would not be using words like ‘damn’ and ‘bastard’!
“Give me that damned puppy, Sergeant Burke,” she blurted out.
Michael’s eyes twinkled, but he managed to keep his face straight.
“Don’t ye want the lieutenant’s blouse first, ma’am?”
He reached down and shook some of the dust off before he handed it to her. It was filthy with dust and dried manure and missing two buttons.
It was the shirt that did it. She buried her face in it and began to cry. “I should have let Mr. Cooper drown him,” she sobbed.
“Drown this fine little fellow? No, no, ye did the right thing then. But ye’ve been goin’ wrong somewhere, Mrs. Woolcott. Here, come into the stable with me and we’ll pop this wee devil into a stall for a minute and talk about it.”
Michael had to grab her hand to get her moving, but he wanted her inside and not exposed to the ridicule of whoever might come along.
He dropped the puppy into the nearest empty stall and turned back to Elizabeth.
“Here, sit down, ma’am,” he said, guiding her to a bale of hay.
She let him push her down. Looking up at him, her chin quivering, she held out the blouse. “Look at this, Sergeant. Ruined. Like Thomas’s slippers. And my best bonnet.”
“And there was also that wee bite out of Mr. Woolcott’s hat, don’t forget,” teased Michael gently.
He had hoped she would laugh, but instead, the tears poured down. “Thomas will kill me,” she sobbed.
“Mr. Woolcott has always seemed an understanding and devoted husband,” said Michael, comforting her as best he could.
“You are right. He is the best of men. He’ll kill the puppy!”
And Mahoney and Fiske will be richer by a week’s pay, thought Michael.
“And I will help Thomas,” she added, anger mixed with the despair in her voice. “I am a complete failure with the dog.”
“Now, now, Mrs. Woolcott, ye still have time.”
“But I don’t know what to do,” she wailed. “I’ve told and told him that he is a ‘bad dog’ when he does something wrong, but it doesn’t seem to work.”
“Puppies…all animals, need to know who is the master or mistress, as the case may be, ma’am. They are not very intelligent, after all, and need our guidance.”
“He is a very smart dog, I’ll have you know, Sergeant!”
Michael smiled at her instant defense of the little ‘bastard.’
“I am sure he is, ma’am. Smart enough to know how to wheedle his way around you. But not smart enough to know how to stop on his own. You need to be firm, Mrs. Woolcott.”
“I’m ready to be firm, now, Sergeant, I can tell you,” she said, the anger taking over again.
“Em, surely there is something in between ‘bad dog’ and ‘ye little bastard’?” Michael did an excellent imitation of Elizabeth’s most proper tones and her screeching, and she didn’t know whether to laugh or be angry. It was safer to be angry.
“A gentleman would not remind a lady of her unfortunate lapse into vulgarity, Sergeant.”
“Ah, but I am neither an officer nor a gentleman, am I, Mrs. Woolcott? Just a dirty, ignorant Irishman,” said Michael, stung into replying with anger too. Here he was, trying to help the damn woman and she went right back to her eastern snobbery.
Elizabeth heard the anger, and also the pain behind it. Had she actually called him that to his face? She was sure not, but had thought it often enough about him and others at the fort. Yet what had Sergeant Burke ever done but be helpful to her? He was neither dirty or ignorant, but a good-looking man and a respected noncommissioned officer. He was known to be a talented scout, yet he had taken on the wood detail with great dignity and commanded his small troop of four as though they were a company. Most at the fort respected and liked him and here she was holding on to phrases that had been taught to her years ago. It was hard to let go of them, she realized as she struggled to make her perceptions fit the stereotype that had been handed to her. Something deep inside her had shaken loose and she felt like she had drifted away from a mooring. If all the Irish weren’t dirty or ignorant, then what of all the other things she had learned and held on to over the years?
“I am sorry, Sergeant Burke,” she said in a low, shaking voice. “You have never acted anything but the gentleman with me. It is just that I was taught to be a lady and my language and behavior were certainly not ladylike. I felt utterly humiliated and took it out on you.”
Michael had felt annoyed by Mrs. Woolcott and very attracted to her, but he hadn’t really liked her, he realized, until that moment. She could have continued to take refuge in rank and background. But she had chosen to make herself more vulnerable and he respected her for that.
“Only a real lady would have the courage to admit her weakness, Mrs. Woolcott. I appreciate and accept your apology,” Michael responded formally.
“Thank you, Sergeant Burke.” Elizabeth looked up at him and felt that inner shift again. He was looking at her with warmth and appreciation. It was different from Thomas’s loving glances. Thomas made her feel cared for and protected. It was also different from Mr. Cooper’s appraising gaze. From him she felt only a kind of hunger and no acknowledgment of her individuality at all. But Sergeant Burke was looking at her as a human being who had done something worthy of his respect. It felt strange, but also very good, to receive that from a man.
As Michael looked down at her, he had to put his hands behind his back to keep from reaching out and pushing a strand of hair away from her face. He cleared his throat and said, “Now, Mrs. Woolcott, you must decide if you are going to keep this little terror….”
“I am, Sergeant,” said Elizabeth with a hint of defiance in her voice.
“Let me finish. Keep this little terror in line,” he added. “He is in the army too, ye know, and has to learn to follow orders.”
“Yes, Sergeant. I understand, Sergeant,” said Elizabeth in a good imitation of a young recruit.
“First of all, does the wee bugger have a name?”
“I haven’t been able to think of one that feels right. Although Satan is beginning to seem very appropriate,” she added with a smile.
“We have to give him a name to live up to,” said Michael. “A name to be proud of. Now, his mama is a hunting dog. What do you think of Orion?”
“Orion the Hunter.” Elizabeth thought about it for a minute. “It seems like a very big name for such a small troublemaker.”
“Sure and it is a name he’ll have to grow into, but that’s precisely my point.”
“I think I like it, Sergeant.”
Michael chuckled.
“What is so funny, Sergeant Burke?”
“When I first got to New York, I only knew the names of the constellations in Irish. The first time I heard of Orion the Hunter I thought to meself: now isn’t that marvelous, to be namin’ a constellation after an Irishman.”
“An Irishman, Sergeant?”
“Sure and I thought it was O’Ryan, Mrs. Woolcott,” he explained as he spelled it out.
Elizabeth laughed. “It is funny, isn’t it, how we can hear and read things. I remember once when I was in school and someone spilled hot soup all over the lunch table. I said, in my most sophisticated voice—I was so proud to be able to use the word in conversation—What a catastrophe! Instead of what a catastrophe. And I wondered why the teacher laughed.”
“You must teach him his name right away,” said Michael. “And what have ye been doin’ to him when he misbehaves?”
“Talking to him. Rather gently, until today!”
“There must be truth and consequences for him, Mrs. Woolcott. If he gets into mischief, out he goes. Does he have a leash or a pen?”
“No, I wanted him to have his freedom.”
“He’ll have more freedom in the long run if he also has a little discipline. Ye can say all the sweet things you want to him when he does something right But when he disobeys, then you must speak sharply and put him outside. And don’t be telling him the same thing over and over without making him do it. If ye want him to sit, ye just press that little bottom of his down while ye’re saying it.”
“That is just what Thomas has been telling me,” Elizabeth admitted. “And what he does with the dog himself. I am the one who has been spoiling him.”
“He’s not spoiled yet. I am sure you will do a fine job with him. Think of it as forming a partnership with him.”
Michael walked over to the stall and, opening the door, lifted the puppy out. “He’s tired himself out, creating such a brouhaha,” said Michael with a grin. “He’ll sleep tonight.”
“You are a devil,” Elizabeth said to the puppy, “but a sweet little devil.” The little dog had sunk so affectionately against her shoulder that she couldn’t resist dropping a kiss on the top of his head.
Michael cleared his throat.
“Oh, yes, Orion, I am taking you home.” She giggled. “It sounds so formal, Sergeant.”
Michael had a hard time resisting the impulse to drop a kiss on Mrs. Woolcott’s head. Her giggle had made her sound like a carefree young girl instead of the reserved officer’s wife he had encountered up until now. He remembered the story he had heard about her family. Maybe her primness was as much a result of that tragedy as of her schooling in the East. Maybe she hadn’t had much chance to be a carefree young girl before becoming a woman.
“He’ll grow into it, ma’am.” They were at the stable door and Michael stepped back to let Elizabeth through. She turned and gave him a grateful smile.
“Thank you very much for your help, Sergeant Burke.”
“Don’t ye forget the lieutenant’s blouse,” said Michael, handing it to her.
Elizabeth wrinkled her nose. “I hope I can get the smell out of it.”
“Ye’ll do a fine job on the shirt and the dog, ma’am,” said Michael, and he gave her a quick bow and walked off to the corral.
When Thomas got home that night, the puppy was nowhere to be seen and his wife was sitting by the sitting room lamp, sewing buttons on his best blouse.
“I heard there was a little problem with the puppy today, Lizzie.”
Elizabeth lifted her face and said with tart humor, “I am sure the whole fort was aware of it, Thomas.”
He couldn’t help grinning. “And where is the little troublemaker?”
“He is outside on a line, Thomas. And he will stay there tonight.”
“A line?”
“Yes, I had Private Stack help me rig one up near the back door. Orion must learn that certain things are off limits to him.”
“Orion?” Thomas was tempted to laugh, but his wife looked so delightfully responsible and serious that he controlled himself.
“Sergeant Burke convinced me that he needed a name to inspire him. He was very helpful to me today, Thomas. The line was his idea.”
“Sergeant Burke is a very competent man,” Thomas agreed. Whatever Burke had said, he was grateful. Maybe their little household would be peaceful and sane again.
* * * *
It didn’t happen overnight, but within a month Elizabeth and Orion had both learned who was to be in charge. The dog responded to his name, he would sit and stay on command, and the next thing she was determined to do was to teach him to heel when she was walking with him and to keep a safe distance from her horse when she went out riding. When the dog was old enough, it would be wonderful to have him around for protection and would enable her to ride out a little farther from the fort.