Cherokee Rose

by Judy Alter

  On the night of the royal performance, the grand parade began the show as usual, only this time each of us dismounted, led our animal by the reins, and bowed low in front of the royal couple, who sat, naturally, in an ornate box constructed especially for them. They graciously bowed—well really, they sort of just inclined their heads—as each performer came before them, but the whole process made the show almost an hour longer than usual.

  When I wasn't riding, I watched the king and queen to see how they reacted. They couldn't have been more delighted—when the settlers' cabin was attacked, the queen clasped her hand over her mouth in horror, and when a cowboy roped and threw a steer, the king clapped vigorously, and I could have sworn he said, "Bully, bully!" which reminded me of Theodore Roosevelt. But the really telling sign was that the queen kept taking snapshots. Toward the end of the show I happened to look up and see one of their wait-persons—or whatever they are called—reloading her camera.

  After the performance, we took an unaccustomed curtain call, with the audience applauding loudly and standing in ovation. But when the king looked at Queen Mary, then held out his hand, and the two of them stood in recognition of what we'd shown them, I thought I'd burst with pride.

  The next day the headlines in the London newspapers read, "King Stands for the Cowboys!" And we girls came in for a good mention. The article read, "Red Horn Gulch has come to London and settled at the Stadium, Shepherd's Bush, where, among the many inhabitants of the wild and woolly west are a bunch of the most wonderful cowgirls ever seen east of St. Louis."

  Royal approval got the show off to a tremendous start. We played for the king and queen in mid-April, and after that we played three times a week to large crowds well into the summer. When we weren't performing, it seemed we were at a party every day. The British, I decided, really knew how to enjoy life, though their idea of fun was fairly formal and restrained. But one dance stands out in my mind.

  It was at the home of an earl—a great big estate with a huge ballroom. We had, as always, been asked to wear our western clothes, so we dressed in satin shirts and split skirts, with Stetsons on our heads.

  "I get tired," Pearl complained, "of bein' a freak. Seems like they want us to dress this way so they can poke each other in the ribs and wink about our clothes."

  I knew exactly what she was feeling. We were on parade, and though the interest was kindly, it was tinged with an attitude that plainly said, "We would never dress like that." We were curiosities.

  "Well," I said slowly, "just think how dull it would be if we weren't there!"

  "They're used to dull," Pearl said.

  As usual, the Englishmen were wearing white ties and tails, and the women were formally coiffed and dressed. We all stood around, rather awkward, while we nibbled those bits of food they put out and listened to the band playing sedate music.

  "I say," said a gentleman who wandered up next to me, "do they dance much in the American West?"

  Startled, I looked at him. "Dance? Of course we dance."

  "The waltz?" he asked.

  I must have looked at him as though he'd just fallen off a horse and hit his head. "No," I said slowly, "we don't waltz much. Do you know 'Turkey in the Straw'?"

  He looked faintly amused. "No, I don't think that I do."

  Devilment overcame me. "You just wait here a minute," I said. With his murmured "Of course" echoing in my ear, I made a beeline for some of the cowboys from our band, whispering my message into first this ear and that. One by one, they nodded, and then, like a parade, they headed for the orchestra, which was playing that slow dull music that nobody could have danced to.

  I watched with my hand over my mouth as one cowboy reached for the violin and another took the cello and so on. In minutes, the cowboys had displaced those staid English musicians. Then they struck up "Turkey in the Straw."

  Hurrying back to my Englishman, I heard Tex Johnson, our band leader, call out, "Ladies and gentlemen, let's form a square."

  The Englishman stood where I'd left him, a look on his face that wavered between amusement and uncertainty. Without hesitation, I grabbed his hand and pulled him into the square that was being formed by three other cowgirls who had simply grabbed the nearest man—always making sure, of course, that he was an Englishman. Pearl had by the hand a pale young man with spectacles who seemed inclined to stumble over his feet, but she simply pulled him along.

  "Ladies and gentlemen, bow to your partners and allemand left," Tex called, and we girls showed our partners how to do it. There was a dry run or two before they got the hang of it, but it wasn't too long before we had those dignified Englishmen dancing in a square—and all the other guests stood around and applauded. That was the best dance I went to the whole time we were in England—and I never did learn to waltz.

  The colonel, who had missed the party, was visibly nervous the next day. "Cherokee, I don't think you should have done that. These Englishmen—they've got real strict ideas about what's proper, and they might be offended."

  "They had a wonderful time," I said flatly. "I think we ought to try it more often, maybe stage some square dances."

  He backed away in a hurry. "Now, Cherokee, don't be gettin' any ideas. We're visitors in this country."

  "And aren't we showin' them a good time?" I asked heartily.

  Shaking his head, the colonel walked away.

  The cowboy with the blond hair who was always staring at me also sought me out after that party, and there was laughter in his voice as he said, "That was some trick last night, making those Brits dance a square. I admire your style, Miss Cherokee."

  "Why thank you," I said. "I—"

  "You don't know my name. I'm Jim. Jim Bones. Born down in Texas, been with the show just since the colonel started planning this trip."

  "I know that," I said sharply. "And I've noticed you before."

  "Good," he laughed. "I've noticed you a whole lot. Next time you want to square dance, why don't you call me 'stead of one of those stiff Englishmen. I'll show you a good time."

  He winked at me with the confidence of a young man and swaggered away, and I watched him amused. He probably could show me all kinds of good times, but I just wasn't interested. In spite of myself, I held him up on one side of an imaginary picture in my mind and Buck on the other side—and Buck came out the better, simply because he was older, enough so as not to be so cocky, enough to know that life wasn't all laughter and flirting.

  After that day, when we were at a party, I would sometimes find Jim at my elbow. "Ready to dance?" he'd ask, or "How about walking out on the balcony with me, Cherokee?" Sometimes I would walk out and listen to him talk about his home in Texas, and how he wanted to earn enough money to go back and buy a ranch and raise a family. But until then, he said, he wanted to have a good time.

  "And are you having a good time?" I asked.

  "Right now I really am, ma'am," he said, leaning toward me as though he'd try for a kiss.

  I backed away just enough so that he had to step quick to catch his balance and avoid embarrassing himself. But even that made him grin, and I admired that youthful happiness in him.

  Still, when Jim began to pay attention to one of the younger girls and she returned his favors, I wasn't disappointed. He still grinned at me when I caught him watching, and I toasted him with that imaginary glass.

  * * *

  In spite of the parties and the good attendance we had, England was not a happy place to be that summer. The winds of war were blowing across Europe, though I certainly was not nearly enough aware of international politics to recognize the threat. Still, I knew that the colonel read the newspaper each morning and shook his head with worry.

  "Gonna be trouble here," he said one morning. "I don't know but what we should go home now, while we can."

  "What kind of trouble?" I asked.

  He shook his head. "Don't rightly know. These Europeans, they're all crosswise with each other, all the old governments shifting and forming new governments
and new allegiances. Everybody's angry at everybody else. It's too much for any one man to understand."

  Alarmed, I asked, "France is still France, isn't it?"

  He looked disgusted. "Of course it is, Cherokee."

  "And will it still be safe for us to go there in September?" I badly wanted to go to France, though the only reason I could think of was that I wanted to try my convent-school French.

  "Far as I know now," he said. "I just got this feeling, like there's trouble hanging over our heads."

  The colonel's premonitions got a lot worse in late June. "They've shot this archduke—Ferdinand of Austria—in Serbia," he said. "There's gonna be trouble come from that."

  "Why?" I asked.

  He shrugged. "You know these Europeans. You don't kill their royalty and get away with it."

  It seemed too simple to ask if they couldn't just arrest the Serbians who'd done the killing and that would be the end of that. I put the whole thing out of my mind for a few days.

  But then I rode with Lady Charlotte early one morning in July.

  "Austria is blaming Serbia for the death of Archduke Ferdinand," she said tensely.

  "So the colonel told me," I said, "but that doesn't affect you, does it?"

  "Everything affects us," she said almost bitterly. "Europe is too small, the countries too close together for any of us to remain isolated from trouble."

  "But you're not in Europe," I said, puzzled. "There's that water between you and them."

  "The channel," she said decisively, "is not that wide."

  At the end of July, Austria and Germany declared war on Serbia, who was soon joined by her allies, Russia and France. I was still naive, thinking Britain was a different country—maybe in the back of my mind I thought so because they spoke English—and wouldn't become involved. Then, on August 3, Germany invaded France. There went our French tour, though I'd known for a week or more that it was out of the question. On the fourth, England entered the war.

  "What now?" I asked the colonel at our usual breakfast together.

  "We cancel the show and head for home as soon as we can get passage on a ship," he said.

  Unfortunately, he didn't get that passage soon enough. When I went to breakfast three days later, the colonel was the most dejected man I had ever seen. He sat at the table, shoulders slumped, head down, and never raised his head even when I approached and said "Good morning."

  "Colonel? You all right?"

  "No," he whispered hoarsely, and then he reached into his coat pocket to hand me a letter.

  I unfolded it slowly and saw that it was from a sergeant, and it had a heading that read "Impressment Order under Section 115 of the Army Act." With panic rising in my throat, I read,

  "'His Majesty having declared that a national emergency has arisen, the horses and vehicles of the 101 Ranch Show are to be impressed for the public service, if found fit... and will be paid for on the spot at market value to be settled by the purchasing officer. Should you not accept the price paid as fair value, you have the right to appeal to the County Court... but you must not hinder the delivery of the horses and vehicles, etc. The purchasing officer may claim to purchase such harness and stable gear as he may require with the horse or vehicle.'"

  "They can't do that!" I exploded, my growing panic having burst into the greatest fear I could remember since the bull ran over the embankment when I was a youngster. "They can't have Governor and Guthrie!" The colonel raised tired eyes to me. "I guess they can," he said. "No! A trained high school horse and the best roping horse I ever had are not going to war, just to be shot on the battlefield." I flung the letter down at him and ran from the room. Actually, though my departure may have seemed impetuous, I knew exactly where I was going—to see Lady Charlotte.

  "Oh, my dear!" Lady Charlotte clasped a well-ringed hand over her mouth. "I—I'm so sorry!"

  "Thank you," I said briefly, "but I need your help. I've got to get Governor and Guthrie back. They're, they're trained and valuable, and I can't do my act without them." In spite of myself, I felt that I was about to break down completely in front of this sophisticated woman who always showed such control. I clenched my hands into fists so tight that my fingernails dug into my palms.

  "I don't think that will be possible," she said slowly. "The king's order cannot be changed."

  "Couldn't the king make an exception for two really special horses?"

  She almost smiled. "And one really special cowgirl?" Then she became serious again. "The king, of course, can do anything he wants. He is, after all, the king. But I suspect that he will not be allowing exceptions. If he starts that, every lord and earl in the country will want his favorite jumper spared."

  I could understand that, but I could not—would not—give up. "How would I put this before the king?"

  "Oh, dear, I have no idea. The whole world's gone topsy-turvy this week, and nothing is as it should be. The king, I hear, is very preoccupied."

  "I should suppose so," I murmured. "But he enjoyed our show—he even stood for us. Surely..."

  She walked over to the tall windows of the library and stood looking at the formal gardens, which were now, in August, a maze of bright colors and deep green in intricate patterns. I tried to wait quietly, memorizing the pattern in the rich rug on the floor, but I itched with impatience. At length, she turned to me and said slowly, "Perhaps the queen."

  "The queen?" I echoed dumbly. "She surely can't contradict her husband's orders."

  "No," she said, smiling again ever so slightly, "but she does, I believe, have his ear. I have a cousin who is a lady-in-waiting to the queen. Let me see what she thinks."

  "Thank you," I said with true gratitude, even as I wondered how to say that this was not something to be studied deliberately in the British fashion—considered from every angle and finally acted on a month from next Christmas. "They are coming for the horses tomorrow," I said tentatively.

  Lady Charlotte understood me clearly. "You may, Cherokee, have to give them up temporarily. My advice would be to let the authorities take the horses with the others. It will be no trick to find out where they are stabled." She saw the stricken look on my face and came to put a comforting arm around my shoulders. "They won't ship them overseas in a week or less," she said. "We do have some time."

  "Thank you," I said again, with an impulse to throw my arms around her. I settled for grasping her hand in both of my rough ones.

  * * *

  They came for the horses the next afternoon. The colonel tried to get me to stay at the hotel, but I refused. Instead, I insisted on leading each of my horses to the horse van myself—and as I led them, I whispered in their ears, telling them this was temporary and that they'd soon be going back to Oklahoma with me. Guthrie whinnied and shied with nervousness at the strange handlers and unfamiliar van, but Governor was calm, and I told myself they had both understood my whisperings.

  Still, I thought my heart would beat right out of my chest as I watched the van drive away.

  "Cherokee?" the colonel asked.

  "I'm all right," I said, turning to him. "Are you?"

  He shook his head. "I don't know. It's the damnedest luck a man could have. I've booked passage for us in two weeks. Best I could do. Everyone's in a hurry to get out of this country."

  Two weeks! I was afraid he was about to say two days. Surely two weeks would give me time to free my horses.

  I began to hound Lady Charlotte. Had she heard anything? What did her cousin say? How much longer did she think it would be? I made a nuisance of myself.

  "Cherokee, Cherokee! You need to learn patience," she said. "Some things cannot be rushed. My cousin said she would talk to the queen if the opportunity arose. She can do no more."

  When, I wondered, would the opportunity arise? What did ladies-in-waiting do, and how often were they close to the queen? Did they comb her hair, help her at her toilette, serve her tea? Did they really have opportunities to whisper in her ear, make special pleas? And if so, maybe
this cousin had pleas of her own and didn't want to use up her credit asking for my horses.

  I lived in a fog and cried myself to sleep more than one night during the next week. Strangely, I found myself wishing for Buck, wishing he were in the bed next to me so that he would put his arms around me and whisper into my hair that everything would be all right. But Buck wasn't there—he was in Hollywood—and if everything was going to be all right, I had to make it work out myself.

  Meantime, the days were creeping by too fast. Each individual day was endless. Before, I'd spent my days rehearsing and my leisure time riding on the royal bridle path, but now I had none of those things to do. I tried reading but couldn't keep my mind on the words in front of me. Pearl and I went shopping a time or two, but nothing interested me, and wartime shortages were already beginning to show in the stores as people began to stock up against a long siege. Everywhere the mood was grim, and that made the days longer.

  And yet each night I realized that another day had gone by without any word, any progress, and our sailing date was drawing ever nearer.

  Once I almost went to the offices of the London Daily News. A fantasy had been festering in my brain for two days in which the newspapers made a big splash story about the poor American girl who was about to lose her trained horses to the war—maybe they'd even run a photograph of me on Guthrie as he performed. There would be a loud outcry of public sympathy, and the king would have no choice but to return my horses. A small voice of reason told me that the king would indeed have other choices, and that he might become so angered by such a tactic that he'd ship the horses to the glue factory.

  As a matter of fact, a newspaperman did interview the colonel. He, with more tact than I had and less emotion, simply said that we were behind the war effort and proud to be able to help the British people.

  "Is the show bankrupt?" I asked bluntly one morning. "Now that we have no horses."