Cherokee Rose

by Judy Alter

  I touched my heels to Sam, and when he was at a good pace, I began to lean, ever so slightly. No reaction from Sam, so I leaned a little farther, which threw him off his stride some, but he didn't buck or anything.

  The morning flew—Rose told me about crouching in the saddle, the first step toward the Roman stand, but I couldn't imagine myself standing in the saddle.

  "You use a strap at first," she said, "and then one day, you just let go of it. But once you do, you can't reach down and pick it up again." She laughed gaily.

  She demonstrated and talked about the pickup, where you pick something off the ground while riding by at a good clip—"Good trick for you to start with once you get Sam used to your leaning"—and she showed me how to make Sam rear on his hind legs by pulling hard on the bit—"some horses will rear," she said, "and others won't, they'll just back up." Sam reared, and I was supposed to sit prettily in the saddle. The first time, I clutched Sam's mane with both hands and held on for dear life, terrified as I'd never been on a horse. But Sam never did get his front feet very far off the ground.

  Rose showed me the new trick she was working on—going under Poor Babe's belly from one side and coming up on the other, while he raced around the arena. Her head came so close to his flying hooves that I held my breath, but she scrambled up on the other side and was soon seated in the saddle again.

  "Still too awkward," she said. "I got to make it look like there's nothing to it, not like I'm struggling."

  She could have fooled me. At the end of the morning I was exhausted and exhilarated, my clothes wrinkled and sweaty, my hair flying in wisps in my face. I sure was not a trick rider by any stretch of the imagination, and I could see dimly that trick riding was never going to take the place of roping for me. But I was determined to master a few tricks, on the theory it would make me more useful in a Wild West show.

  The only sour moment in the whole morning came when I was riding, leaning out from the saddle, and looked up to see John Mason watching me from the gate to the arena. He wore a black Stetson pulled low over his eyes, but I could somehow feel his look burning at me from under that hat brim. I remembered what Papa said once about if looks could kill.

  Rose saw, too. "Ignore him," she advised.

  Rose and I parted with many hugs and promises to meet again soon. Young, we saw nothing as impossible, and we only barely understood how far Wyoming was from Oklahoma. In both our minds, unspoken, was the dream of Colonel Zack Miller and a 101 Wild West Show.

  * * *

  It was a year before I heard from Colonel Zack, a year of hard work and practice, a year I lived in Guthrie with Louise, and above all, the year I met Bo Johnson.

  Colonel Zack Miller had, it seemed, sent a carriage and driver all the way to Guthrie for Louise, and he intended to return her in the same fashion. So we tied Sam to the back of the carriage, and I rode inside with her. I'd have hated it if the carriage were closed, but it was one with a top that could be pulled back. Louise put on a huge hat and fussed about the sun, until I deliberately took off my hat to expose my face to the light.

  "You'll freckle," she warned direly.

  "Next year," Colonel Zack said, "I'll send the Locomobile for you."

  "Zack," Louise laughed, "I'm not sure I'm ready to trust my life to one of those newfangled things. You drive it up to see me first."

  "I'll do that," he said. His loud voice softened, and he smiled once again only for her. As we pulled away, he seemed to remember me and boomed, "Keep that rope spinning, Tommy Jo!"

  I waved over my shoulder, and we were off.

  The roads, so crowded when I arrived, were now almost empty of people, though here and there on the riverbank we could see a tent or two still up and, other places, signs where people had camped. We rode in silence, the sun beating down on us and promising a hot June day. Every once in a while I glanced at Louise, but she seemed to have drawn into herself beneath the veil that tied her hat to her head.

  After an hour or so, she suddenly looked at me. "Well, was it everything you wanted?"

  "Yes and no," I said slowly. "I loved riding, and the crowd. And I think Prairie Rose is the most wonderful person I've ever met."

  "I think I shall have to be jealous of that girl," Louise said, and then laughed. "She is lovely. I agree. And what else?"

  I took the proverbial bull by the horns. "I was asked because of you, wasn't I? I mean, Colonel Zack Miller had never heard of Tommy Jo Burns, wouldn't have known I can rope, if you hadn't written him."

  "That's probably true, though not for certain. He knows your father." Mama would have looked over the far edge of the carriage at this point, but Louise turned a steady eye on me. "I introduced them."

  I swallowed. "Is Colonel Zack..." What on earth was I going to ask her? I had no idea what to say, how to say what I thought I was thinking.

  "He is a good friend to me, and an old friend."

  "Like Papa?"

  Without flinching, she said, "Yes, just like your papa." She saw the puzzlement on my face. "Tommy Jo, I'm not married to either of them, or to anyone else, and I'm not beholden to either of them. I can have as many friends as I want, and I'm the one who determines what my relationship with them is. Zack Miller does for me just what your father does—gives me masculine companionship without any strings attached."

  "He comes to see you in Guthrie?" I asked, and when she nodded yes, I pursued, "But not when Papa comes. Or Papa doesn't come when Colonel Zack is there."

  She nodded yes again. I had a lot to think about—Mama and the way she let Papa run things; Louise, who let nobody run things; me, who didn't know what I wanted but sure wasn't going to let the John Masons of the world run things. Billy flitted through my mind briefly, but I couldn't see him behaving like any of them—Papa, Colonel Zack, or John Mason.

  I wrote to Mama as soon as I was in Guthrie:

  Dear Mama,

  The exhibition was a success. Colonel Zack Miller said I was the hit of the show, and Geronimo gave me a beaded vest. I really liked riding and roping before a crowd, and I hope I can be in another show.

  I've come to Guthrie with Louise. Papa is angry with me, and I guess I'm angry with him, too, though not as bad as he is with me. But still, I can't come to Luckett's right now. I'll stay in Guthrie. Please come to visit me. Give my love to Papa.

  Love, Tommy Jo

  Even as I wrote the words, I knew Mama would never come to Guthrie to see me. Mama wanted her world to go on just like it was, undisturbed by women like Louise, by a daughter who wanted to ride in Wild West shows, by change in any form. But would Papa come to see me—or to see Louise? I couldn't guess.

  Mama wrote me a stiff note saying she was glad I was in good hands and she would miss me. But she never mentioned coming to Guthrie, and she never suggested I come home to Luckett's.

  For Louise and me, it was back to serving meals to the boarders. "Louise," I said as we did dishes that first morning, "Sam can't stay in your barn. There's no place for him to exercise. And I—I've got to find a place to ride and practice."

  Her hands deep in soapy water, while I toweled and dried the dishes, she looked at me. "Practice?"

  I got very busy with the plate I was drying, so that she couldn't see the blush creep up on my face. "Tricks. Rose showed me some tricks, how to practice them, and I want to try."

  "Tricks," she echoed. "Like standing in the saddle?"

  I nodded.

  Shaking the soap off her hands, Louise reached for a towel, dried her hands, and then hugged me. "Of course you can do that! And you must! I know just the place for you to practice."

  And that's how Bo Johnson came into my life. He owned a stable on the edge of Guthrie, and he'd built a small arena next to it, mostly for cowboys to practice roping. "It's a lot easier if the steer gets away and they don't have to chase him halfway to hell and back," he explained grinning.

  Bo was maybe thirty years old, lots older than me, and a widower. His wife, Elizabeth, had died in childb
irth two years before, and you could tell it pained him even now to talk about it. But when he talked about almost anything else, his eyes lit up with fire and laughter and joy. He was like Billy—and not like Walt Denison—in that he was kind of overgrown and gangly looking, his arms too long for his body, his hair always flying in several directions. No, Bo Johnson was not a man to stop a girl's heart—at least not until you got to know him.

  "Got my name as an orphan boy, I think," he said. "Always thought I probably didn't have a name and somebody began calling me Boy. Then it got shortened to Bo, and I've been Bo ever since. Not a very dignified name, but it suits me."

  If Papa first taught me to ride, and Billy taught me to rope, Bo taught me to ride, really ride, though he didn't know a blasted thing about Wild West shows or trick riding or any of that.

  I went to see him the very day that Louise suggested it.

  "You want to what?" he asked incredulously, standing with his hands on his hips in a pose that made him seem belligerent.

  Still mounted on Sam, I said loftily, "I want to practice trick riding. Louise Turner said you'd let me use your arena."

  He grinned and looked at the ground, as though trying not to let me see him laugh at me. "If Louise says so, it's so," he declared. "But trick riding? What's that mean?"

  Now I was on shaky ground. I still wasn't all that sure. "I want to learn to stand in the saddle."

  "Stand in the saddle! That's the most foolish notion I ever heard! Girl, you could get yourself killed that way." His alarm was genuine.

  "I won't get killed. Lots of cowgirls do it. I—I just need somewhere to practice. I won't get in your way."

  He waved a hand vaguely toward a barn that obviously needed repairing. Between it and where we stood was the small arena, but its fence posts weren't quite straight and some of the boards were sagging. Papa would have had Casey and Wilks out fixing it before daylight. "Not much anybody can do to bother me," he said. "I ain't got enough time to get it all done anyway, so I just don't worry about it."

  I thought about Papa and marveled that men could be so different.

  "You just suit yourself, come on anytime. If there's some ropers here 'fore you, well, you'll all just have to take turns. Now, I got to fork down some hay. See ya." He waved jauntily and turned away, leaving me sitting there.

  Pure devilment went through me like a flash, and I built a quick loop with the rope that was always tied to my saddle. Carefully I sailed it over his head, aiming beyond where he was to compensate for his forward motion, and then let it catch him.

  "Hey!" There was real anger in that first response, but when he saw that I wasn't going to pull the rope tight, he tried to raise his hands in the air just like John Mason had done—maybe, I thought, I should stop roping men and stick to horses!—and then he laughed aloud. "Gosh almighty, girl, you're good, you're damn good!"

  I let the rope drop to the ground, and he stepped over it, asking, "What other tricks can you do?"

  Without a word, I slipped off Sam and built a larger loop behind me on the ground, then flung it over my head and whirled it in front of me. Bo stood watching about fifteen feet away. "Come on," I said. "Walk through it."

  He looked startled and wanted, I think, to look behind him on the off chance that someone else was there. With one finger he kind of pointed at himself and looked questioningly at me. When I nodded yes, he shrugged, as though this fate was inescapable, and trudged through the loop. Once through, he looked over his shoulder with a kind of surprised expression, and then walked back through again. I let the loop drop, figuring if he did that too long, my arm would really get tired.

  "Never seen a girl rope like that," he exclaimed. "Or a man either. Tommy Jo, you're somethin' else. You tell me when you want to practice, and I'll be here to help you."

  "Six o'clock every weekday morning," I said crisply. "Soon be too hot by ten to do anything."

  He gulped and said, "Six o'clock. I'll be here."

  "Louise might feed you breakfast afterward," I said, climbing back onto Sam. With a wave of the hand, I spurred Sam to a gallop—show-off stuff, I knew—and whirled away from him. But I couldn't resist the temptation to look over my shoulder once, quickly—there he stood, one hand shading his eyes against the sun, his faded shirt and jeans blending into the weathered barn behind him.

  So began a year of long and hard work, a year in which Bo Johnson, with his ever-present grin and his complete awe of anything I did on a horse, became my teacher and my best friend.

  "You're not moving with the horse," he'd say. "Relax and feel how he goes." Or, "You didn't prepare Sam tor that one. Near scared him to death—and me, too." Once he said, "Tommy Jo, you need to relax and be with the horse, not against him. You do it when you ride, but now you're stiff as a board." I was mortified.

  He particularly hated when I tried to make Sam rear, and I was reluctantly about to decide that Sam was one of those horses that wouldn't do it. He never did get his front feet much farther off the ground than he had that very first time at the Miller, and when I used a Spanish bit, with a hump that no doubt really hurt a horse's mouth, Sam neighed his displeasure—but he didn't rear back any higher.

  Bo was more vocal about his displeasure. "Can't believe you'd do that to your horse," he said disgustedly. "Just to get him to jump some way the good Lord never intended him to anyway. Tommy Jo, this show business has warped whatever good sense you had."

  When he wasn't displeased with me, Bo counted time, stood still for my rope tricks, applauded my successes, and laughed at my failures. The day I pushed Sam too far and he dumped me in the dirt, Bo was there to pick me up.

  "You hurt?" His arms were under mine as he gently pulled me to my feet.

  "No, I don't think so." I shook my head, as though to banish the fuzziness from my brain. "My own fault. I shouldn't have gone so fast." I'd tried to rise up from the crouching position on the saddle.

  "Yeah, you shouldn't have," he said.

  Bo's hands were on my shoulders, holding me up and steadying me, and his face was inches from mine, his eyes looking directly at me. I felt that funny fluttering in the stomach again, but just as I wondered what would happen, Bo released his hold so suddenly that I almost fell. That, I guess, was the difference between Bo and a man like Walt Denison or even Billy Rogers. But that lesson was years away for me.

  "Guess you best call it a day," he said. "I'll skip breakfast this mornin'."

  Most mornings he came to Louise's, and she saved us huge plates of eggs and sausage and cornbread, sometimes grits—which I despised—and sometimes wonderful brown potatoes. The three of us sat, the other boarders long gone much to our gratitude, and talked of show circuits and Wild West shows and the folly of women wanting to be performers. At least, that's what Bo always talked about.

  "Can't see why you want to do that stuff, Tommy Jo. You ought to be out in town looking the young men over. Find you one to marry and have some babies and—"

  "Bo Johnson, don't you even say it! You know I want to ride in a show."

  He shook his head and reached for his coffee cup. "Yeah, I know it. But I sure don't understand it."

  He was more intrigued by my stay at the 101. "Heard about that show," he said, "clear down here in Guthrie. You can't tell me that that old Geronimo offered a thousand dollars to any man who'd let himself be scalped."

  I laughed aloud, remembering the quiet, almost hesitant Indian chief who'd presented me with the beaded vest that now lay folded carefully away in my chest upstairs. "I heard that story, too, but it was just rumor. Geronimo would never scalp a man—not anymore leastways."

  Bo grinned a little, self-consciously. "I heard he wanted to scalp a man, and he wanted a buffalo hunt. Word was they killed thirty-five buffalo'. Don't know where they'd find that many these days."

  "One buffalo," I said. "One old bull, so old the meat was stringy. And no scalping."

  "No fooling? I really did wonder how they could kill so many." He grinned again, aw
are that he'd been gullible but not too upset about it.

  I didn't understand the feelings I was beginning to have about Bo. Every instinct told me he was a cowboy who'd be content to be small potatoes the rest of his life, he was too old for me, he had no understanding of what I wanted out of life, he was a good friend and nothing more. But when he came close to me, I felt shivery, and sometimes I thought my loop would fall flat just because he was watching, just because I wanted more than anything else to impress him.

  Louise eyed me suspiciously one evening after dinner, when we sat in the parlor. She was mending, and I was building tiny loops with a small rope. "I didn't mean for this to happen," she said.

  "For what to happen?" I went on whirling my loop, honestly in the dark about what she meant.

  "You to fall in love with Bo Johnson." Her eyes were on her stitches, and she never raised them to me, never gave me a smile that might have hinted at teasing.

  "I am not in love with him," I said indignantly. "Bo Johnson is..." I sputtered, "Bo Johnson is old enough to be my father!"

  "Not quite," she replied calmly, "and he's sure in love with you."

  "All he talks about is how dumb it is for me to want to go off and ride in a show," I said. "He thinks I should settle down and marry some cowboy and have ten babies."

  "Not some cowboy," Louise said. "Him."

  "Pshaw. You're wrong this time, Louise. You're really wrong." Frustrated, I threw the rope aside and strode out of the sitting room without so much as a "good-bye" or "excuse me." But that night I lay in bed and thought about Bo and the time he'd held me up, and how I could always feel him watching me, even when he pretended to be busy around the stables, and how glad I was to see him at six o'clock every morning—and how angry I was on the mornings he overslept.

  "Bo?" I called one wintry morning when the corral was empty and the barn looked deserted. "Bo?" I was almost tempted to go to the small house down the street that he called home and pound on the door until the lazy thing got up. "Darn!" I said, and was tempted to say something stronger.