Coming Up Roses

by Duncan, Alice

  But Rose was such an innocent. She was not of this world, in fact—or not of H.L.’s world, anyhow. She had provincial morals and standards and wasn’t sophisticated like he was. She didn’t have any big-city gloss to her. To Rose, an affair would be a serious undertaking. She wouldn’t consider a sexual liaison with him in the light of recreation. The only context in which Rose would condone a sexual encounter would be within the bounds of matrimony.

  H.L. shuddered at the thought of marriage. That he had to force himself to do so because the shudder didn’t come naturally as it had always done before he’d met Rose, he chalked up to residual weariness from a long day, a bout of energetic fisticuffs, and insufficient sleep. He wasn’t sure he believed himself.

  He’d managed to make his way to the Sioux encampment as he pondered all of this. Spying Little Elk, he waved and set up a holler. “Little Elk!”

  He’d learned as soon as he’d awakened that evening what Rose had meant about the Sioux thanking him in unexpected ways for his help in rescuing Bear in Winter. When he’d opened the door to his apartment, he’d found, tacked up with a knife, a rawhide pouch filled with a variety of things H.L. couldn’t precisely identify.

  There was a beadwork pouch inside the leather pouch, which he assumed was for anything he wanted to use it for, some leather moccasins also decorated with beads, some kind of dried meat—pemmican or jerky, he’d heard that sort of thing was called—and a quillwork belt. He thought it was a belt, anyway. Whatever it was, H.L. appreciated all of it, including the knife, which had some great carvings on it and looked as if it had been fashioned of bone. He wondered if a slaughtered buffalo’s bones had been the source of the haft.

  Whatever the items had been made of, the gift provoked lots of images in H.L.’s mind, that’s for sure. Visions of great buffalo hunts and of Indians riding across the vast plains wielding bows and arrows flickered in his head, along with pictures of Indians in feathered headbands and fringed moccasins dancing around a campfire.

  He took a moment to wonder if his images bore any resemblance whatever to reality, or if he’d adopted the dime novelists’ renditions of Indian traditions as fact. There was a great idea for another series of articles, if he could get any of the Sioux to talk to him. According to Rose, and he’d noticed the same thing, the Sioux weren’t apt to chat with white men about their culture.

  H.L. understood, although he hoped he’d be able to jostle some information out of Little Elk, even if no one else in the Sioux camp trusted him. At the moment, however, his interest in Little Elk extended only as far as to ask him if he knew where Rose was.

  Little Elk frowned. “With Little Sureshot, I think.”

  H.L. felt confounded for a moment. “Little Sureshot? Oh, Annie Oakley. Right. I should have thought of that myself.”

  The Indian nodded as if he agreed.

  H.L. didn’t mind. He understood that the Sioux’s take on things might relegate white intelligence to a fairly low rung on the ladder. He said, “Say, Little Elk, I appreciate the gift someone left on my door today. I like it very much.”

  Little Elk nodded. “You save Bear in Winter.”

  “Right. Well, thanks.” H.L. had read that Indians didn’t receive thanks in the same way whites did, and he wasn’t sure how much gushing he should do.

  Dammit, if he could find Rose, she could tell him. He was slightly peeved with her for running off before he’d arrived. After all, he’d told he he’d come by this afternoon.

  “Bear said you almost kill the man who took him. That’s good.” Little Elk nodded again, as if to indicate H.L. had performed a good deed, and was appreciated for it.

  Glancing at his swollen knuckles—he’d removed the bandages, figuring fresh air might do the cuts and scratches some good—H.L. muttered, “I’m glad to have helped.”

  Little Elk nodded again and didn’t look as if he intended to keep the conversation going, so H.L. said, “So long. I’m going to look for Rose,” and took off.

  He wished Little Elk hadn’t mentioned that fight. H.L. had managed to forget about it in his panic over missing Rose, but as soon as Little Elk reminded him, his hands and jawbone resumed aching. His arms ached, too, not to mention his ribs. They weren’t accustomed to that kind and severity of exercise. It was probably a good thing H.L. had decided to become a reporter and not a river boat captain or something, since he didn’t think he’d really enjoy that much physical exertion on a regular basis.

  The balmy May day smelled of blooming flowers combined with the leftover scent of popcorn mingled with horses and a faint whiff of the stockyards. If H.L. had been in Rose’s company, he’d have considered the day just about perfect. As it was, no matter how much he appreciated the elaborate gardens the fair directors had planted, and the hundreds of energetically blooming rosebushes therein, the day had a hole in. A Rose-sized hole. He’d started out in a good mood, but it was sinking with each step he took without Rose on his arm.

  “Dammit,” he muttered as he paused to try to remember where Annie Oakley’s tent was.

  He spotted Rose before he got to Annie’s tent. She was dressed to the nines in a lavender spring suit and a tiny flowered hat. His heart soared into the atmosphere, executed several front flips and a back somersault, then careened about in his body for a second or two before coming to rest in his chest. Damned heart. It was terribly unpredictable these days.

  Rose hadn’t seen him yet, so he set up a shout. “Rose! Rose! Here I am!”

  It only occurred to him after he’d hollered that she might not have been as eager to see him as he was to see her. Although H.L. had a very good understanding of his own self-worth, the notion that she might have a different one daunted him. He was even more daunted when he saw Rose glance up, spot him, and frown.

  Blast it, what was she frowning at him for? Hell, he was going to make her famous. Not that she wasn’t already famous, but—aw, hell, he knew what he meant.

  Because he didn’t want her to know how insecure he felt, and because the feeling was as uncomfortable as it was new to him, he waved and trotted over to her. She was with Annie, and they looked as though they might be going off somewhere together. Maybe he could go with them. The notion of heading back to his lonely apartment without getting a full dose of Rose only served to depress his spirits, so he aimed to push his way in on their excursion if he could. He had faith in his brass.

  Sweeping his jaunty spring straw hat from his head, he gave the two

  ladies a small but perfect bow. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Butler. Rose.”

  Annie gave him a frosty, “Good evening, Mr. May.”

  Rose’s cheeks were pink. H.L. didn’t know if she was embarrassed or had only got some sun the day before. She muttered, “H.L.”

  Perceiving that she was edgy in his company, and in an effort to diffuse any misunderstanding on her part, he said, “Sorry I’m a little late. I spent a couple of hours at the Globe office after I left you this morning, and I’m afraid I slept a little longer than I’d planned.”

  Her stiffness eased a little, and H.L. was glad he’d made his uncharacteristic apology. He generally felt little need to apologize for anything.

  “I wondered if you’d forgotten you’d asked to interview me again today,” Rose said. Her voice was soft, as if she wasn’t sure of him or herself.

  Probably an aftermath of the kiss, H.L. told himself. The kiss loomed large in his own mind today, but since Rose hadn’t nearly the experience he had when it came to kisses, she was undoubtedly feeling more than ordinarily shy. “Not a bit of it. I wouldn’t be likely to forget that, would I?” He gave her one of his more dazzling smiles. This was the one he reserved for women he was trying to wear down so they’d go to bed with him.

  She lowered her head and stared at the ground, as if she were inspecting something fascinating that had crawled onto her shoe. “I wouldn’t know.”

  His immediate reaction to that was to bark something sarcastic at her because her words had irked him,
but he bit back the impulse. Annie spoke next—mercifully in H.L.’s opinion, since he didn’t have any idea what to say next and he didn’t have any more smiles in his repertoire.

  “We’re on our way to the evening church service at Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, Mr. May. If you’d care to join us, I’m sure it would do you a world of good.”

  Annie’s voice was as caustic as her words, and H.L. glanced at her keenly. What was her problem? Was she mad at him for some reason?

  Oh, crap. Rose hadn’t told her about that kiss, had she? A glance at

  Rose told him nothing since, although she’d stopped staring at her feet, she’d started fiddling with the small handbag she carried and was now staring off into space. It was clear to H.L. that she didn’t want to look at him. She probably didn’t want him to accompany them to church, either. To hell with them both.

  Donning his cockiest demeanor, he swung around to Rose’s side. “Don’t mind if I do. I haven’t been to church for a long time.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Annie said with something of a snarl.

  Rose allowed her shoulders to slump for only a moment. H.L. resented that slump.

  Dammit, he didn’t mean her any harm. Couldn’t she tell that much about him, even if she was as innocent as a newborn lamb? He’d never encountered such an intriguing combination of world-wisdom and absolute innocence. He hoped he’d captured it in his article. The good Lord knew, he’d tried hard and long enough. He’d tried so hard and so long, he’d missed an entire night’s sleep. That he’d managed to catch up on his sleep during the day, he chose not to remember, since he was reveling in his indignation at present.

  They caught a cab and rode to church. None of them said a word the whole way. H.L. maintained his nonchalant exterior, although he wasn’t feeling nonchalant inside. He was feeling abused. The feeling didn’t abate as they left the cab—Annie paid before H.L. could reach into his pocket for money—and climbed the steps to the church.

  St. Mark’s was a pretty place, designed along Renaissance lines, with a tall bell tower. Inside, the Victorians had had a field day. There were carvings everywhere, and the stained-glass windows made an explosion of color on the pews as the sun shone through them. H.L. watched Rose as she took it all in. He’d have liked to talk to her about it, since he found a certain interest—not to say joy, which was an awfully strong word and made him nervous—in listening to her discover new things.

  Although he was almost certain Rose didn’t want him to, H.L. maneuvered so as to sit between the two ladies during the church service. It became clear to him as the ritual progressed that Rose wasn’t familiar with the Episcopalian way of doing things.

  He ventured a question while the three of them walked to the cab that would return them to the Wild West encampment. “So, Rose, did you grow up in the Episcopal Church?”

  Her quick frown surprised him. “You know very well that I grew up in Deadwood—oh.” Her flush was as quick as her frown had been. “I understand what you mean. No, I went to the church closest to our farm. It wasn’t Episcopal.”

  “What denomination was it?”

  “What difference does that make?” Annie snapped. “At least she went to church.”

  H.L. turned to Annie. He didn’t understand her hostility. Even if Rose had told her about the kiss, he ought to have been forgiven by this time. After all, it wasn’t everyone for whom H.L. May would attend church. “It only matters to readers, Mrs. Butler. They’re eager to know all there is to know about Miss Gilhooley.” It occurred to him that she might also be miffed that he and Rose were on first-name terms, although he didn’t know why she should be. It wasn’t any of her business.

  “When I was a small child, the church didn’t even have a designated denomination, as far as I know,” Rose said in a rush, as if she were attempting to stave off violence between her companions.

  H.L. gave up trying to wriggle his way into his companions’ good graces as they approached the hack. He couldn’t buck Annie’s hostility and Rose’s shyness in the confines of the cab. He hadn’t regained his full strength yet and wasn’t up to a verbal battle. Yesterday’s physical one had him aching from jawbone to toenails.

  They returned to the Wild West without more than two words being spoken by anyone. Once they got there and it became clear to H.L. that Rose aimed to hang out with Annie for the rest of the night, he decided his luck was out for the day.

  In a foul mood by this time, he said, “Here,” as he thrust the early edition at Rose. “You can read what I wrote about you. It’ll appear in tomorrow’s paper.” Handing her another, smaller, rolled-up package of papers, he said, “This will be coming out in Wednesday’s paper. It tells about how we rescued Bear in Winter, too.”

  Startled, Rose took the newspapers. “Thank you. I mean, it’s nice of you to—to bring them to me.”

  “Yeah,” said H.L. “Sure.” As he turned and slunk away, he felt very low.

  Rose watched him go, clutching the newspapers close to her bosom and feeling both guilty and ashamed. She was ashamed that she’d kissed him last night, and ashamed that she hadn’t been nicer to him today. She felt guilty about both of those things, as well. She was also slightly annoyed with Annie, who had no reason to dislike Mr. May as much as she seemed to. She also felt guilty about that, since Annie had been her kindest friend and a surrogate family to Rose since she joined the Wild West.

  “Fiddlesticks,” she muttered at last. “I give up.”

  Annie sniffed. “I hope you’re not letting that man take advantage of you, Rose.”

  With a sigh, Rose turned and started walking with her friend toward the Butler tent. “I’m not.” What Annie didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. Even more to the point, it wouldn’t hurt Rose, and at the moment that was more important to her than anything else.

  “I’m so tired,” she mumbled as they walked slowly along. “I’ve never been through such a night.”

  “I’m sure.” As if she regretted her hard edge, Annie added, “You performed a heroic act yesterday, Rose. I’m glad Mr. May wrote about it. The colonel will be beside himself with joy.”

  Since Annie smiled at her after she said those nice things, Rose smiled back. She felt minutely better that her friend didn’t seem inclined to give her a lecture or question her about Mr. May’s possible advantage-taking.

  More brightly, Annie said, “Let’s take the papers to my tent, and you can read them to me. That way, I can enjoy the articles, too, and help look up words if you need me to.”

  “Thank you, Annie.” Rose felt true gratitude, because she really did want to read what H.L. had written about her. She hoped to goodness he’d be kind about her lack of education and so forth, since she wasn’t eager for the citizens of Chicago, or anywhere else for that matter, to know what an uneducated dunce she was.

  Since whale boning and Sunday-go-to-church clothes were all but suffocating her, she persuaded Annie to stop by her tent before continuing to the Butler abode. There she removed her corset, stockings, and Sunday shoes, changed into a simple skirt and shirtwaist and donned her old, soft, worn-down moccasins. She felt much more comfortable and, therefore, much more cheerful afterwards.

  # # #

  “Oh, look, Annie!” Rose had just opened the Monday paper. The article about her was featured on the first page of the second section. “There’s the picture of me that nice man, Mr. Asher, took that day when he came by to meet us. There’s one of you, too.” She showed Annie the photographs.

  The one of Annie showed her aiming at a target that looked as if it was about a thousand yards away, thanks to the angle. She appeared very serious about what she was doing.

  Rose’s photograph, on the other hand, was much more exuberant. Mr. Asher had captured her in full costume, a glorious smile on her face, standing on Fairy’s back with her arms flung in the air, and with one of Chicago’s famous winds blowing her feathered headdress out behind her. The feathers were blurred because they’d been in motion, but
that only added to the feel of the picture, which was one of exhilaration and action. At least, Rose told herself, that’s the feeling she got when she looked at it, and she was vastly pleased.

  She was also pleased because when she first saw the picture, her first reaction had been to notice how pretty the girl on the horse was. She only realized a second later that the pretty girl was her, Rose Gilhooley, and that’s the way she really looked. It was a delicious discovery, and one Rose hugged close to her heart, although she knew it was vain of her to do so.

  “That’s a lovely picture of you.” Even Annie appeared gratified. “Mr. Asher’s a good photographer.”

  “I’ll say.”

  “He really captured you, Rose. You’re such a pretty girl.”

  “Thanks, Annie.” Now Rose was embarrassed, although she didn’t say anything else, fearing she was being foolish. It had been Annie herself who’d once told her that the best thing to do when one paid you a complement was to say, “Thank you,” and let it go.

  Calmer now that she’d viewed the two photographs, Rose felt slightly less uneasy than she had been earlier when she started reading H.L.’s article, the one intended for the Wednesday paper. She was interested to know how he’d captured the rescue in words. She cleared her throat and began slowly. She continued slowly, as well, since she hadn’t mastered the art of reading aloud very well yet.

  “‘Miss Rose Ellen Gilhooley was born in the rough-and-tumble community of Deadwood, Kansas,” the article began. Rose looked up at Annie, who was seated nearby, embroidering a cloak for her white poodle, George.

  “So far, so good.”

  Annie chuckled.

  Rose’s complaisant mood didn’t last long. Before long, she was reading even more slowly and with dawning apprehension. Maybe horror was a better word. “‘The charming Miss Gilhooley, an uneducated and unlettered young woman’— Oh, Annie! How could he write that? I don’t care if it’s true, it’s humiliating!”