Cherokee Rose

by Judy Alter

  She flounced her hair. "If he's admiring, why doesn't he say so?"

  "Maybe he's shy." I paused to stare in a window at a display of saddles and bridles. My old saddle was worn and in need of replacement, but I was torn between a new store-bought saddle and one custom-made for trick riding.

  "Tommy Jo, let's look at these parasols. I see enough of saddles every day," Rose complained.

  Jake watched and waited for nearly two weeks. Then one afternoon he asked Rose to go for a ride with him. They were gone an hour, and Rose came back looking subdued and puzzled.

  "Well?"

  "Well, nothing. We rode out in the country, stopped under a tree, he rolled a smoke, we talked a little bit, and then we came back."

  "What'd you talk about?"

  "The show. His boyhood—he grew up not too far from Guthrie, as a matter of fact."

  "Really? I never knew him, but I guess that's not surprising."

  "No," she said dryly, "he didn't go to a convent in St. Louis." She was pacing the floor nervously. "He didn't really say much. Never said why he was watching me. And he just said good-bye and thanks when he brought me back here. Rode away without..." Rose didn't really know what she expected of him, but she hadn't gotten it.

  By St. Louis, Rose and Jake were an item, and Mitchell had been told not to come to St. Louis. I pictured Mitchell turning forlornly to some hardworking, sturdy farmer's daughter and remembering, the rest of his life, his brief fling with Prairie Rose.

  Jake was another matter—much more worldly and sophisticated about women than Mitchell. Even Rose, whom I thought so knowledgeable about affairs between men and women, was no match for Jake. He had planned his campaign thoroughly, and he'd captured the prize he wanted. Rose hung on his every move, and once he was sure of her adoration, he accepted it as his due. Jake never went out of his way to see Rose, but he didn't have to. She saw that they were together almost constantly.

  "Colonel Zack says I've got to stop following Jake around," she pouted one evening, flinging herself on the bed in our St. Louis hotel room. "Says romances between show participants are distracting, not good for business. Pooh! As though I'd give up Jake just because he says so."

  "Did he give you a choice—Jake or the show?"

  "Not exactly. Besides, he doesn't have to. Show's over after this, and Jake and I are going north."

  "North? Together?"

  "North. Together," she repeated shortly. "Doesn't seem so remarkable to me. We want to be together, and Jake can find work in Wyoming or Montana. My family's up that way. And there's lots of shows up there—Calgary Stampede, Cheyenne Frontier Days."

  * * *

  The St. Louis Coliseum was an enormous, three-story, square red-brick building, with flags—eight of them—flying on the rooftop, which was edged by a marble cornice with abstract designs in relief. The main entrance was a great arched two-story affair with marble columns on either side, and all the windows along the first floor were similarly arched, though smaller. I thought it was a grand building. Inside, the arena was large, seating thousands.

  Something unexpected happened in St. Louis. The show was a huge success, and the crowd began cheering with the grand entry parade. The colonel had hired extras in St. Louis, so now the intricate figure-eight parade was a big—and dangerous—presentation. But we got through it without a mishap, in spite of a few spooked horses under the temporary riders. The broncos reared higher and twisted more than usual, or so it seemed, as though they were spurred on by the enthusiasm of the large crowd. One rider was tangled in his reins for a few seconds, and the crowd collectively held its breath until he was freed, unhurt. The steer wrestling was similarly exciting, but no one—neither man nor animal—was hurt.

  Rose began her act, as usual, with the trick of picking up a handkerchief from the ground while riding full tilt across the arena. The crowd gasped as she leaned down, but I paid no attention—I'd seen Rose do this a hundred times by now. Then the gasp became louder, and I whirled to look. Rose had missed the handkerchief and lost her hold on the saddle. The horse, still racing and now unguided, was dragging her, and with each step her head swayed dangerously near his hooves. Before anyone could move to help her, Rose arched her body, throwing it out and away from the horse, and fell onto the floor. As I went forward to comfort Rose, the crowd was cheering and calling her name.

  She brushed me away. "I'm all right," she muttered almost angrily. Then, without a word, she whistled her horse to her, caught him, and was in the saddle. Carefully she threw the handkerchief on the arena floor and rode back to the chutes to start the trick again. This time she picked the handkerchief up without a problem, and the crowd went wild.

  But her near-miss made me so nervous that my timing was a little off, and I came dangerously close to missing a steer when my act was on. But by the time the act ended I had control of my nerves, and this time, for my surprise victim, I chose Jake and Rose, who were standing at the edge of the arena talking earnestly and absolutely oblivious of the crowd. When the rope fell around them, they looked up in surprise, and then embraced in mock terror. The embrace, however, turned into a passionate kiss, which brought down the house and made a nice ending to our St. Louis show.

  "Whew!" I said that night. "Rose, you scared me."

  "Scared you! I was terrified," she confessed with a grin. "And I was mad, too. Jake saw me do that!"

  "Doesn't seem to have bothered him," I said, recalling that final kiss.

  "He was scared, too," she said contentedly, as though his fright proved he loved her. "But we agree that I won't stop doing that trick. That was a fluke. Nothing's going to happen to me."

  Why did I hear footsteps on a grave when she said that?

  Next morning, Colonel Miller called us all together at the coliseum. "I have an announcement," he said. "This show has been asked to present an exhibition at Madison Square Garden in September at the annual horse show, sort of an extra attraction. Anyone who wishes to accompany us, please see me before the train leaves."

  Madison Square Garden!

  "Rose?" I was breathless with excitement.

  "Not me," she said. "Jake and I know where we're going."

  Jake just nodded in agreement, and I stared at them in disbelief. How could they turn down such an opportunity?

  Without another word, I rushed to find the colonel.

  * * *

  I never saw Prairie Rose Henson again.

  I spent the rest of July and all of August at the Miller 101, though Papa tried to tempt me back to the ranch. I think he wanted help with Mama, or maybe the freedom to get away himself a bit, and that last almost made me guilty. I felt bad about Papa having to stay there, but then I guessed he'd gone his own way long enough, and having to take care of Mama now was some sort of justice. For me, once having made the break, I felt like I didn't dare go home again. And so I stayed at the Miller, practicing my roping and riding. Mrs. Miller fussed over me, and it was nice to have someone act motherly toward me, but I would have traded her for Louise, who treated me as an equal.

  One morning while I was practicing picking up a handkerchief from the ground, the colonel strode into the arena, waving a telegram. "Telegram for you," he called, as I rode up to him. "I thought it might be important."

  I took it from his outstretched hand somewhat nervously. No one had ever sent me a telegram before, and all sorts of black possibilities went through my mind, prime among them that something had happened to Mama. I was totally unprepared for what the telegram did say.

  "Rose killed in arena accident, stop. Jake." Nothing more—-just that cold message in black on that yellow paper.

  Wordlessly I handed it to the colonel. He handed it back after a moment, his eyes fixed on me, watching cautiously, wondering, I'm sure, if he would have to catch me as I fell off the horse.

  I managed to dismount all right, but once I touched the ground my knees were so weak, I could hardly stand. Unconsciously, I took the colonel's arm and allowed him to lead
me all the way to the house. Neither of us said a word, but it occurred to me that this man, who I both loved and resented, was really genuinely sad and really truly worried about me.

  "Mother!" he called as we came through the front door. "Tommy Jo needs you right now."

  And that motherly woman came on the run. One look at us, and she wrapped her arms around me. Only after she'd soothed and hugged did she ask what had happened, and I guess the colonel whispered it to her, but I don't remember that much of anything.

  She made tea and put a splash of bourbon in it—I do remember that. I drank it slowly, staring into space, and they both let me be alone, though I was aware that they hovered nervously not too far away. Later, I realized that both of them were almost as grief-stricken as I was, but with a wisdom I hadn't yet learned, they focused their concern on me. There was nothing they could do for Rose—and nothing, the colonel told me much later, that he ever could have done for her, though he had wanted to.

  In my mind's eye I was seeing Rose in a thousand different poses—on the back of a rearing horse, primping in front of the mirror, smiling coquettishly at Mitchell in Missouri or Jake in St. Louis, pouting when she was criticized, nearly getting her head bashed when she lost her hold on her horse, standing up indignantly to the colonel when he did something that displeased her, laughing heartily over some small thing and making everything funny by her laughter.

  Slowly, at last, tears formed in the corners of my eyes, and soon I was sobbing. Only then did Mrs. Miller come and put her arms around me and hold me tight until my great wails finally subsided.

  "She was my age!" I said in disbelief. "She couldn't die!"

  Though she must have been tempted to tell me that there was no law about age, that good lady just let me ramble. And I did, talking on about Rose and how Jake wasn't good enough for her and how it was probably his fault. I began to blame Jake for taking Rose away, and my sorrow took the misdirected form of anger at him.

  Only later did I learn that Rose had been practicing with a new horse, and when she made him rear on his hind legs, he went over backward, crushing her. When they pulled the horse off, they thought she was miraculously saved, for she got to her feet and bowed as though to an imaginary audience. Then, minutes later, she collapsed. She lingered in the hospital for two days before she died of internal injuries. A heartbroken Jake wrote me a five-page letter about it and asked that I share the details with the colonel.

  "Cheyenne Frontier Days were only a week away, and she was very excited about that," he wrote. "But I'm thankful this didn't happen in front of an audience. Rose had too much pride for that."

  My anger at Jake turned to compassion.

  Rose's memory was with me constantly in the days that followed. The colonel and his mother both treated me like an invalid recently over an illness, until I wanted to yell at them to stop babying me.

  One day an idea came to me that seemed to lift the weight I'd been carrying around—and it solved something else that had been bothering me.

  "Colonel Zack," I said, barging into his office, "I want to change the way my name is billed for the show."

  He raised his eyes from the papers he was working on. "To what? Folks are just beginning to know about Tommy Jo Burns."

  "Prairie Jo," I said with finality.

  "Now, hold on, Tommy Jo. You're taking the prairie part from Rose, aren't you?"

  I nodded, almost unable to speak. Finally, I managed to mutter, "It's... well, it's my way of keeping Rose alive, or at least her memory. And besides, I've wanted to get rid of that masculine name for a long time. I just haven't known how."

  He looked surprised. "I didn't know it bothered you."

  "I want people to know I'm a girl," I said.

  The colonel thought for a long time, and then said, "I understand, and I respect your feelings about Rose." There was a long pause, while he sat staring at me pensively. Then he said, "But I think there's another way to do it. You ever see the wild white rose on the prairie?"

  "Cherokee rose?" I asked. "The rose that climbs the fencerows and grows where nothing else will. I always thought that was where Rose took the prairie part of her name." I could see those hardy little flowers Mama had cultivated by the porch of our little house at Luckett's. They grew wild all over the ranch, but Mama went to great trouble to dig them up and plant them again around the posts of the porch of our house. "The only wild thing I like," she said to me once, when I was too young to understand.

  "That's right," the colonel said, "I think she did take her name from the Cherokee rose. So now, if you took that name, it'd speak to your home in the Cherokee Strip—and it'd give you the feminine part of Rose's name." Offhandedly he turned back to his papers and said, "Think about it."

  "I don't have to think about it," I said. "I like it."

  "Cherokee Rose it is." The cigar stuck out of his mouth, and he chomped hard on it. " 'Course you got to understand that most folks are still gonna call you Tommy. They know you that way, and they can't change easily."

  "Someday most folks will know me as Cherokee Rose," I said positively, "and Tommy will fade away. I can wait."

  The colonel switched topics faster than a cutting horse changes direction after a runaway calf. "New trick roper's gonna join the show. When we get up to New York, maybe you and him can practice together and work out an act. Name's Rogers—ah, Will... yes, that's it. Will Rogers."

  "Billy!" I shouted, alarming the colonel with my exuberance. "Billy Rogers used to work on Luckett's ranch for Papa, and he taught me to rope. I swore I'd be a star by the time he came back from Australia."

  The colonel eyed me patiently. "He's been back awhile, working various shows," he said. "Least you made the star part 'fore you saw him. I'm giving you top billing this time."

  And so I became Cherokee Rose, the world's greatest woman roper. Well, that part was to come next. I wrote Mama and Papa to tell them I'd be seeing Billy and to tell them about my new name. I thought Mama would be pleased because the name reminded me of her wildflowers, but Papa wrote that she was distressed. "She says Thomasina is a good name, and you should use it," he wrote. "I will watch for news of Cherokee Rose, but I do think the colonel could have chosen a name that didn't imply you were part Indian." Papa never would change, I thought wearily, and Mama would never get any better. I was glad to be headed to New York.

  * * *

  All the way to New York, the wheels of the train sang Billy Rogers's name to me. What would he be like? Would he recognize me? Would he remember that sweet savory kiss in the pasture? I remembered every detail—his lopsided grin, the way he looked at the ground sometimes when he talked to me, the hank of hair that always fell in his eyes and the way he'd shake his head to throw it back. In my daydreams, I walked slowly up to him, and he threw his arms wide, exclaiming "Tommy Jo! I should have guessed who Cherokee Rose was!"

  When I made myself admit the truth, I knew that Billy would never throw his arms around me or anyone else. That deep-grained shyness would hold him back. Still, I liked my fantasies better.

  "Tommy Jo? You best come with me." The colonel shook me back to reality.

  "Where?"

  "Horse car. Sam's down," he said tersely, and then I read the look of concern on his face and wondered if it were for me or Sam.

  "Sam? He's all right," I said loudly, convincing myself.

  "I hope so," he said, "I surely hope so."

  "What is it?" I demanded, as I followed him down the aisles of the swaying train, sometimes losing my balance and bumping into seats, tripping over extended feet, always remembering to murmur, "Pardon me, please."

  "Sam's... well, he got excited."

  "Excited? Why would he get excited?"

  Colonel Zack looked like he wished I hadn't asked that question. Over his shoulder, he threw, "You know, the train and all."

  "He's ridden on trains before and never gotten excited," I said, and then demanded, "How bad is it?"

  "His left hind leg," he said.
"Doc's looking at it now."

  For this trip to New York, the colonel had brought along his own veterinarian, a Dr. Smith-Jones, who was, I thought, probably deliriously happy to be rescued from Ponca City.

  When at last we stumbled into the stable car, I blindly shoved past the colonel to Sam's stall. I'd visited him not four hours earlier and found him fine. Now he stood, head down, left hind leg raised, blood almost dried but still dripping a little from a deep gash. Dr. Smith-Jones stood bent over the raised leg. He was a small man, with a bushy mustache, wire-rimmed spectacles, and a funny hat balanced on his head. But his hands, tracing the length of Sam's leg, were sure and strong, and I saw calluses on them.

  I went closer to look, though the colonel held out an arm as though to stop me. I'd seen hurt animals on the ranch, even helped with calving, and a gashed leg wasn't going to bother me. Or so I thought until I looked and realized that it was Sam. Then I had to put a hand to my mouth, but I stayed next to Sam, patting his nose and talking softly to reassure him.

  "Not good," Dr. Smith-Jones said, shaking his head. "Torn the tendon. Don't know if it's past repairin' itself or not. But he's got to keep off it for some time."

  From behind me, the colonel argued, "Some time? What's that mean? She's got to ride this horse in New York in less than a week."

  "Can't do it, 'less you want to cripple the horse for good," the doctor said.

  "She's got to," the colonel insisted.

  "No, she doesn't," I said just as firmly. "I won't ride Sam and cripple him."

  "But Tommy Jo, you're the star. I've given you top billing! What're we gonna do?" The colonel looked almost desperate, and I would have felt sorry for him if I weren't so busy worrying about Sam and feeling sorry for myself. I didn't want to miss my Madison Square Garden chance any more than the colonel wanted me to miss it.

  "Wrap the leg or do whatever you think is necessary," I said to the doctor. Then, turning to the colonel, I asked, "Where's the stable boy? How did this happen?"