Page 19 of For This We Are Soldiers
Funny how malt whiskey loosened his tongue.
“Name of … ?” the post surgeon prompted.
“Lysander Locke, Shakespeare tragedian,” Colm declared, striking a little pose.
Captain Dilworth gaped at him. “Holy Hannah, you’re joking.”
“Who would joke about someone named Lysander Locke?”
Captain Dilworth started to laugh. He leaned back and howled at the ceiling while Colm stared at him, suddenly sober.
“Run-down old actor?” Dilworth said when he could speak. “TheLysander Locke?”
“Aye, captain,” Colm said, smelling a rat.
“To Deadwood, you say? That I can understand.”
Colm just stared.
The captain must have decided that his hospital steward needed some enlightenment. “Lysander and Abigail Locke and their two sons own the best theatre in San Francisco.”
“But he’s alone and nearly destitute!”
“Hardly. He’s a rich man with a talented family! They have performed before Queen Victoria, I hear, and a president or two.”
“But he was shabby and going to Deadwood,” Colm insisted.
The captain leaned forward and whispered, so any road agents within forty miles wouldn’t hear him. “He owns a gold mine there called The Merchant of Venice. He was probably just checking on his business interests. Apparently he is eccentric that way.”
“How in the world do you know all this?” Colm burst out.
“Mrs. Dilworth reads all the gossip inFrank Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly.”
Colm wasn’t a man to surrender without a fight. “He told us—Audra Washington and me—that he had no family, and he led us to think that he was one step from ruin.”
“Callahan, he’s an actor,” Captain Dilworth said, his eyes lively.
Colm sat back as understanding washed over him.And he has convinced me to be brave and propose to the woman I love, he thought.He preyed on my sympathy until I knew I didn’t want to be a lonely man like him. The old rip! He probably did the same thing with Audra.
He had one more question. “Do you know … Is he really English?”
“Ames, Iowa.”
Colm stood. “I’ve been fair diddled,” he said with a smile. “Excuse me, sir, but I have a letter to deliver.”
It was only a few steps down Officers Row to the sutler’s store and adjoining post office. The sun was warm, and it was a good day to whistle, which caused a head or two to turn. He took a deep breath when he looked in the store and saw Audra standing there with a letter in hand.
God is good, he thought to himself.
He waited until she walked the few feet into the adjoining post office, a closet-sized box with an iron railing. He cleared his throat, and she turned around.
Wordless, terrified, he held out his letter, the one with all the love in his heart on two close-written pages. She took it as she handed him a letter.
This wouldn’t do. He looked at the sutler, who watched them with some interest.
“Mr. London, is the enlisted canteen open yet?”
“Too early, Steward,” he said with a smile.
