Cherokee Rose

by Judy Alter

  "It's obvious," the colonel said in exasperation. "He kicked his foot through the side of the stall. See, there, you can look at the hole."

  I saw jagged wood, with splinters sticking out wickedly and blood dried where it had dripped toward the floor.

  "But what made him do it?" I persisted. Sam simply wasn't the kind of horse to go crazy and start kicking his stall. The other horses in the car stood placidly enough, and none showed any sign of wanting to kick out of a stall.

  I put my face to Sam's, as though I expected him to tell me the truth about what happened, but of course I got no answers. Finally, the leg wrapped and the doctor declaring he'd done the best he could, I retreated to my seat, going much more slowly than that hasty rush toward disaster. I never did find out what had frightened Sam, though I never again trusted a stable boy completely.

  The colonel had a different worry on his mind. "What are we going to do for a horse?" he asked not once but at least ten tunes.

  Now the wheels sang a song to me about missing your chance, and I forced myself to remember something that Louise had told me often: "You take opportunity when it knocks, and when it seems like it's not knocking, you sit and wait. Sometimes opportunity surprises you." I couldn't get off the train and go back to Guthrie, and I wouldn't have if I could. So I didn't have much choice except to head for New York and wait for opportunity.

  "Tommy Jo? I—we heard about your horse, and I just wanted you to know, well, I'd do whatever I could for you. My horse just don't rope." Belle Saunders stopped by my chair, her hand on my shoulder and her voice in my ear rousing me.

  "Thanks, Belle," I said and meant it. She would never replace Prairie Rose, but Belle Saunders was a friend and would become a better friend in New York.

  One by one the others stopped: two or three cowboys, a Spanish dancer who rode bulls (the colonel was proud to bustin' for having "discovered" her in Texas), some of the women who were to be in the "scenes" the colonel planned, and finally Mrs. Miller.

  "Tommy Jo, I just want you to know I'm sick about that horse of yours, just plain sick."

  "Thank you," I said, grateful once again for her kindness. Then it struck me that here I was in a crisis, and I hadn't even thought about my own folks. I guess that's because I knew how Papa felt about horses: "Tore up a leg beyond repair? No room for a nonworking horse around here!" I'd seen two good horses shot before their time, and I couldn't bear the thought that it would happen to Sam.

  My ranch childhood put me in a funny place about Sam. I knew enough about raising animals not to get attached to them, and I understood full well that Sam would have to be replaced and that I would come to trust the next horse as much if not more. But I wasn't Papa—I couldn't cold-heartedly abandon Sam. He'd served me too well, putting up with all my foolishnesses—learning roping tricks, trying to learn trick riding, forcing him up and down the road from Guthrie to Luckett's in blinding thunderstorms. No, in a real sense, I knew I owed my life to Sam, and I was sensible of the debt.

  With those thoughts rattling through my brain and keeping me awake nights, the miles ticked away. Belle had come to sleep in the chair next to mine—a move of companionship, which I appreciated—and she snored gently, sleeping the sleep of the innocent. Sam's future didn't trouble her, and it shouldn't—but I knew that Prairie Rose would have been awake, worrying with me.

  "What're you thinking, girl?" The colonel crept up behind me and leaned over the chair, his voice gentle.

  "I... I don't know," I said, twisting to see him in the dimness of the darkened railroad car. "What does the doctor say?"

  "You won't ride him in New York, that's for sure. Can't tell if he ought to be put down or not."

  "No!"

  "Now, Tommy Jo, you know better than to ask someone to keep a broken-down horse what can't earn its feed."

  "Bo will keep him," I said, not letting him know that I had just this moment thought of that. But of course that was the answer—Bo knew about Sam, knew what he'd meant to me, and Bo cared about horses in a way that men like Papa and the colonel didn't.

  "Might be," the colonel said thoughtfully. "He probably would, for you." And without another word, he turned and left the car, headed for his own private domain.

  * * *

  The colonel had arranged for the special railroad train to park on sidings not too far from Madison Square Garden, although he declared that we would stay in boardinghouses he'd located, and we would parade at least once through town to drum up business for the show. But Sam, blessedly, could stay in the stable car.

  "There'll be a guard on duty all the time," he said. "Got to have someone, what with crime what it is in a big city like this. Whoever's watching the train can watch Sam and make sure he's got food and water."

  "I'll come check him every day," I vowed.

  "Like as not, Tommy Jo, you'll get too involved the show and city life. I wouldn't promise to do that if I were you." The colonel had a tolerant look on his face, as though he understood me better than I did myself, and it made me mad.

  "I'll visit him," I said distinctly.

  Belle, Mrs. Miller, the Spanish dancer, myself, and three or four women I hadn't really met were staying at a boardinghouse run by a Mrs. O'Riley. "Good plain food," she told us as we arrived, "and clean rooms. But I don't allow no men in the rooms, no drinking, no smoking." She looked stern.

  "Of course," we murmured in unison, meekly complying with the tyrant.

  "Good. Now set yourselves down to some supper."

  And we "set ourselves down" to a stew with a rich meaty gravy that outdid anything I'd ever tasted—not only did it beat anything Mama thought about cooking, but it was better than Mrs. Miller's stew, which I'd eaten aplenty of, and even better than Louise's, and that was hard to beat.

  "This has a wonderful unusual flavor," I said, hoping to compliment our stern hostess. "What is it?"

  "I reckon it's turnips," she said sternly, and I subsided, having always hated turnips.

  I'd expected to share a room with Belle but found myself instead paired with the Spanish dancer. She was, I soon found, from Brooklyn.

  "Brooklyn?" I exploded.

  "That's right," she laughed. "Right back home. But do not tell the colonel." With the last words, she moved into the Spanish accent that had apparently fooled the colonel. Carmelita—her real name, she told me, was Hannah—was dark-complected, with black hair that hung below her shoulders, curling around her face in ringlets. Her jet black eyes had a way of looking through you, but she was quick to laugh—and she was calculating.

  "Hannah?" I asked, as fascinated by her deception as I was by her beauty.

  "Jewish," she said. "My papa, he's a cantor in a synagogue, and he... he has disowned me because I wanted to be in show business." She shrugged her shoulders, as if to say being disowned mattered little to her.

  I hadn't exactly been disowned, but I could sympathize. "But where did you learn to ride bulls?" I asked, for that was what it was broadcast that she would do. A nagging bit of worry was beginning to force itself into my brain.

  She shrugged again. "I've never ridden the bull. I just told the colonel that because I was in Oklahoma, and I needed to get back to New York. I can ride it when the time comes."

  Oh, oh! I thought. We have a real problem here. "Carmelita, you can't 'just ride' a bull," I said desperately. "It's—well, I've ridden some rough broncs in my life, but I'd never try to ride a bull."

  "Rough broncs?" she echoed.

  "Carmelita," I said directly, "what were you doing in Oklahoma?"

  "I was with an actors' troupe that failed. We did Shakespeare and George Bernard Shaw and some others—even Uncle Tom's Cabin—but the show went bankrupt and left us stranded. The colonel's show was the only way I could see to get home." She looked pitifully helpless, but I felt not one whit of pity, for I knew the trouble that was brewing.

  "Are there any others like you in the colonel's troupe?" I asked. When she shook her head to the negative, I said
, "Hannah, you cannot—I repeat, cannot—ride a bull. You'll just have to confess to the colonel."

  The Spanish accent came back in full force. "Oh, but mi hija, I cannot. It is a matter of honor—to be sure, you understand?"

  It was, to me, a strange sense of honor. "No," I said, "I don't understand at all."

  Stewing about Carmelita would not find me a new horse to ride, though, and I was getting more and more worried. The colonel, beset by a thousand details, had just waved his hand and said, "I'll take care of it," when I talked to him. But I'd carefully gone over the troupe's horses in my mind, and I knew there wasn't a one trained to rope the way Sam was. And I seriously doubted the colonel would find a good roping horse for sale in New York City.

  So it was with a great deal of apprehension mixed with excitement that I went to the Garden that first day. Excitement won at first, for here I finally was in Madison Square Garden, the place of my dreams. Granted, Buffalo Bill wasn't there, but maybe that would be another time. Meanwhile I was going to ride and rope in the mecca. The annual horse show was a high society event, so the colonel told us, and they sure had turned every trick to fix up that big coliseum. Flags from all nations flew from the girders, and bunting was draped all over the sides of the arena. They'd put dirt on the floor—four feet at the turns—to make sure the animals didn't slip, and that dry dirt rose in our faces as we stood in the arena.

  A cowboy stood leaning against the wall of the arena, a small rope twirling in his hand while he looked idly about. One look, and I knew that cowboy was familiar.

  "Billy!" I meant to walk quietly up to him and whisper. Instead, I yelled so loudly that even the colonel turned to stare for a moment.

  "Hey, Tommy Jo," he said, never moving from his spot against the wall.

  "Billy, how are you? Where've you been? You were supposed to come back to the ranch!" I was full of questions and accusations, and behind them lay the unspoken question about whether or not he'd missed me.

  "I'm fine," he drawled. "Been around some." He nodded his head again and then looked straight at me. "I didn't think coming back to Luckett's was such a good idea."

  My mind scrambled for a minute to digest that, and then I babbled, "I swore I'd be a star by the time you came back. Guess I didn't make it."

  That big slow grin traveled across his face. "No, guess not. Somebody named Cherokee Rose has top billing in this shindig."

  I laughed aloud, an unladylike, hearty, happy laugh. "That's me," I told him. "I'm Cherokee Rose."

  His jaw dropped, and he shook his head to throw that lock of hair off his forehead. "No kidding? How come you chose that name? You ain't Cherokee." He grinned a little bit. "Sometimes I'm called the Cherokee Kid."

  "Really?" I asked. "I—well, you know the wild rose they call the Cherokee Rose... and I knew Prairie Rose Henson... and it's a long story. You can hear about it later. What are you doing here?"

  "Colonel Miller invited me, says he'll make a roping star out of me." He nodded toward the center of the arena where Colonel Zack was in heated conversation with someone, pointing this way and that and raising his voice so that we could hear him, even if we couldn't make out the words. "Telling 'em how he wants it, no doubt," Billy said. "You ride a high school horse?" he asked suddenly.

  "High school horse?" I'd wandered into a world for which I was totally unprepared. "Nope. Don't even know what one is."

  "It's foreign," he said disgustedly. "Spanish I think. They teach the horse to do everything like lie down and roll over, and the rider doesn't hardly have to signal, leastaways not so the audience can see. Looks like the horse is thinking for itself. Colonel's got one billed, but he don't have anybody to ride it."

  "He doesn't have a horse like that," I said with certainty. "He'd have told me. Besides, what does that have to do with the West?" Echoes of the colonel's insistence on reality sounded in my mind.

  "Nothin'," Billy said, "nothin' at all."

  "I don't have a horse for roping," I said. "Sam's torn a tendon. S'pose a high school horse can rope?"

  "Nope. But a roper ain't much good without a horse," Billy said, eyes once again on the ground.

  "That's true," I agreed. Six months ago—before I left home, before Rose died—I'd have been frantic, but now I could almost stand there and watch myself look for a horse.

  "I'd hate to miss this chance because I didn't have a horse," I said.

  Billy did what I'd been hoping he would, even if I hadn't admitted the hope aloud even to myself. "I got three horses," he said, "all trained ropers, good ropers. You can take your pick out of two of them, for an extended loan. Lucy's Luck is mine."

  "Who's Lucy?" I demanded without even thanking him for the offer of a horse.

  "Girl I met," he said noncommittally. "You want to see the horses?"

  I chose a bay named Governor. "Governor?" I asked.

  "Yeah. I used to know a man named Governor. Liked him. Thought naming a horse for him was about the best tribute I could give him. You best get to riding that horse, get him used to you. Show opens in two days."

  And for two days I rode Governor almost constantly, until the horse and I were both exhausted. I almost lost interest in my Madison Square Garden debut, simply from practicing so long and hard. I was the one who had to practice, not the horse—he was better trained than any roping horse I'd even dreamed of riding.

  But I didn't lose interest in Billy. Trouble was, he'd lost interest in me. I could tell that from our first conversation. He was maybe one of the best friends I'd ever had—who else would loan you a roping horse?—but he saw me as a little sister. I practiced being flirty, like I'd seen Rose do, but my giggles and sidelong looks only made Billy uncomfortable. More than once, he just turned and walked away from me, twirling that little loop of his.

  He really only lost his calm indifference twice. The first time was when I'd called him Billy for the umpteenth time, and he said, "I'm Will now. Outgrown that Billy name." He blushed a little, and I thought I heard belligerence—or defensiveness—in his voice.

  The other time he listened, and then he comforted. It was all because of the colonel, of course. The colonel had thanked him profusely for the loan of the horse. "Don't know what we'd have done," he said. "I just—well, I couldn't scare up a horse in New York, and yet Sam—that leg..."

  "Glad to," Billy said, cutting him short.

  But the next day as I was practicing, the colonel came storming across the ring. "Cherokee!" he said loudly, and I was instantly wary. He'd suggested the name all right, but he'd never used it, still calling me Tommy Jo, and I knew by his use of my new "public" name that he had something hidden on his mind. I waited.

  "Cherokee," he said, coming close, "we're gonna beef up your act. Put some trick riding in it, along with the roping. You can do those tricks that Rose used to do, can't you? You know, like picking up a handkerchief."

  My heart turned to absolute stone. "No," I managed to say calmly, "I can't."

  "But that man from Guthrie—what's his name? Bo, yes that's it, Bo. He said you'd been practicing all summer."

  I looked at the dirt. "Yes," I mumbled, "I had. But that was before, and I had a horse trained for it. Governor's never done tricks."

  "Now, Tommy Jo"—he was back to using my given name—"that's a good, calm horse. He'll do fine. And you can't let Rose's tragedy stand in the way of your career. You simply got to do some tricks. You got top billing, but a roper ain't enough for that, won't bring the people in."

  A part of me wanted to simply turn and run away, throwing Colonel Zack and Madison Square Garden and my dream of Buffalo Bill to the wind, but I caught Billy watching me intently, and I drew a deep breath. "I'll give them a show worth their money," I said, looking directly at him, "but I won't do any trick riding."

  "Tommy Jo! I've got this horse..." The colonel almost wailed, and I walked away.

  Billy caught up with me. "You want to tell me about it now?" he asked.

  "Yes," I said.

&nb
sp; And so Billy Rogers and I sat on the bleachers in Madison Square Garden, and I poured out the story of Prairie Rose, our friendship, her death, my own uncertainties, my determination to be a star, equaled only by my determination not to be a trick rider. I'd done my crying for Prairie Rose, and I was darned if I'd let the colonel make me cry, so I told the story in a flat tone, with no tears. Billy looked straight into my face while I talked and never made a sound.

  "You can do it, Tommy Jo," he said—and then with a grin, "Pardon me, I mean Cherokee. You can do anything you want, but you don't have to trick ride."

  "Thanks, Billy" was all I could say. Years later, I never would know if I'd have been a bigger star if I hadn't listened to Billy, if I'd put my fears and convictions aside and learned to do the Roman ride. But right then, Billy Rogers gave me a gift beyond measuring. He gave me myself. I was young and thinking I was looking for romance, and bitterly disappointed that I didn't get it from Billy—not even his smushy kisses—but what he gave me was beyond that. And I've treasured it all my life.

  Chapter 7

  In the end, though, I only partway took Billy's advice. "What horse?" I asked the colonel later that day.

  "High school horse," he said, still angry with me. "But you don't want to be a star, you don't want to ride it." I think he assumed I didn't know what a high school horse was, and if it weren't or Billy, I wouldn't have known.

  "What does it do?"

  "Wha'dya mean, 'what does it do'?" He stood, cigar in his mouth and hands on his hips, staring down at me.

  I held my own. "What kind of schooling has it had?"

  He shrugged impatiently. "Bows, rolls over, and plays dead, trained-dog kind of stuff. Nothing to interest you."

  "Show me the horse," I said.

  "Cherokee"—he turned from angry to dead serious—"I want you to ride this horse and be the star, but you got to promise you won't change your mind, won't quit halfway through for some silly notion."

  "I'll ride the horse," I told him.