Unbridled Dreams

by Stephanie Grace Whitson

  Trust him. How could she. How many times had she done so and been hurt. But she returned his embrace. Whatever his character flaws, Otto Friedrich adored his daughter. That, Willa realized, she could trust.

  Saturday evening, April 24, 1886

  Dear Monte,

  Happy May Day! I suppose this letter will arrive about the time Minnie and I are making the rounds in town with our silly little bouquets. In case she didn’t tell you, Minnie is coming to stay with me while Momma is gone. I will write more of that later.

  How is Diamond? Is Lady Blaze turning out as I predicted? Do you think you will like living on a train? You must write and tell me every detail of what you are doing. You said there are no performances on Sunday, so I expect a letter to arrive here no later than the fifth of May. That will give you TWO Sundays to get one written. That should be more than enough time.

  I am trying to be patient while Momma goes on and on about how wonderful it’s going to be for me in Omaha this fall. I ask you, Monte, what am I going to learn at a “finishing school” anyway? Don’t you think I’m “finished” quite well enough?

  I clipped the latest headline and article so you could read the big news from at home, which is: people are finally going to have to stop letting their pigs run free in the streets or be fined. Orrin Knox is being credited with beginning a successful campaign to clean up our fair city. He has also suggested an ordinance requiring the burying of kitchen scraps—a good idea in my opinion, if the pigs are no longer to be allowed to run free and gobble them up. There has been talk of his running for mayor in the next election. The whole thing must seem very trite to you now that you’ve visited REAL cities. (I will admit, though, that Orrin’s campaign has done a great deal to make a stroll along the boardwalks less odiferous.)

  Does Helen Keen really ride sidesaddle in the production? Are you in any acts with Shep Sterling?

  Irma stopping writing. She had promised herself not to ask about Shep at all. At least not until he wrote to her. To keep that promise she was going to have to rewrite the entire letter. With a sigh, she stood up, pleasantly surprised when the effort produced not even one twinge from her injured ribs. Dr. Sheridan had said it would take a few weeks for her to be back to normal, but she was already feeling much better.

  Tomorrow was Sunday, and as Irma turned out her lamp and slid into bed, she wondered what the Sabbath was like for the Wild West performers. She wondered if Monte really was going to church as promised. Did Shep go to hear the cowboy preacher, too? Did he miss her? Why hadn’t he written? And would she ever stop daydreaming about those kisses?

  “It’s nice of you to take me out,” Irma said on Monday as her father pulled a chair out for her in the dining room at the Mayfair Hotel. As Irma spread her napkin on her lap, her stomach growled.

  She laughed. “I don’t know if you heard that, but my stomach definitely approves.”

  “Good,” Daddy said. “You haven’t been eating well. Your mother and I—especially your mother—have been a little concerned about you.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Your mother says you haven’t been yourself. She says”—Daddy grinned as he snapped his napkin open and, with a flourish, tucked it into his collar—“that you’ve been agreeable.” He chuckled. “It’s most disturbing.”

  Irma frowned a little. “Momma is worried because I’m . . . agreeable?”

  “You must admit,” Daddy said, as he signaled for a waitress, “it’s not quite normal for you to get along with your mother.” As the waitress approached he asked, “Do you want coffee?”

  Irma nodded and Daddy ordered them each a cup. When the waitress was out of earshot she said, “I don’t suppose I have been myself. Everything’s changed so much.” She bit her lip. “And I don’t like most of the changes.”

  “Your mother’s been so worried that this past weekend she very nearly cancelled her trip to Chicago.”

  “Well, that’s ridiculous,” Irma sat up straighter. “Minnie and I are going to have a nice time together.” She added cream and sugar to her coffee. “Which reminds me. I wanted to ask you if I might have a luncheon while Momma is gone.”

  Daddy frowned. “I don’t think that’s a very good idea.”

  “Why not? We’ll do all the work. You won’t even know it happened. I’m not talking about one of mother’s productions. This would only be Minnie, Edd Peterson, Orrin Knox, and me. And maybe Violet Dawson. She likes Edd.”

  “Could we please get back to the topic at hand?” Daddy said. He smoothed his mustache and goatee, then leaned forward and said quietly, “You must make every effort to show Momma that you are going to be just fine.”

  Was he really going to blame her for Momma’s mood? Irma looked down at the scroll design around the edge of the hotel china. She was doing the best she could. She and Momma had talked for nearly half an hour yesterday about Reverend Coe’s sermon. And she’d helped with dishes and even asked Momma to show her how to do that fancy embroidery stitch she was doing on her mantel scarf.

  And this morning at breakfast she had— “You can look up, Irma,” Daddy said. “I’m not scolding you. I’m only trying to help you understand that it helps no one for your mother to worry to the point she considers canceling her own holiday.”

  “What does she think I’m going to do?” Irma said. “Throw myself off a cliff because I didn’t get my way? I’m not a child. I’ll be fine. And could you please give your permission for the luncheon?”

  Daddy dropped his spoon. When he bent to retrieve it, something fell out of his pocket. It was a train ticket. He laid it on the tabletop, then reached into his pocket and took out two more. When Irma didn’t look at them, he pushed them toward her as he said, “I think it would be very reassuring for your mother if she heard you and Minnie wanted to have a luncheon. Tell her all about it. It’ll put her mind at ease.” He took a gulp of coffee. “Just last night I promised Momma that I would take a personal interest in doing everything possible to cheer you up,” Daddy said, and tapped the tickets with his index finger. “She and I both know what it’s like to be young and to have more than one disappointment come all at once.” He leaned back as the waitress delivered plates of roast beef and potatoes swimming in gravy. “When Momma said that Minnie was coming to stay with you, I had the idea that perhaps you girls would enjoy your own little holiday—say for May Day? Something special.” He looked pointedly at the tickets. “Of course you can choose to have a luncheon instead. If that’s really what you want.”

  Irma looked more closely at the three tickets. To St. Louis. She could feel the goose bumps as she began to realize what Daddy wasn’t saying. And he kept not saying it as he buttered a dinner roll.

  “Of course we’ll need other tickets to make it a perfect May Day, but I have it on good authority—I telegraphed a friend named Bill—that those tickets will be waiting for us once we arrive at our destination. Which,” he said, “is a secret. And not to be discussed with anyone.”

  Irma nodded.

  “So the question is: Can you put your mother’s concerns about you to rest? Can you reassure her that you are feeling much better so that she can go to Chicago as planned?”

  “Of course, Daddy.” Irma nodded. “I understand. And . . . never mind about the luncheon I wanted to have. We’ll do it another time.”

  Daddy gestured at her plate. “I’m sure it would help put your momma’s mind at ease if I could go on and on about how much you ate today.”

  Irma slathered butter on a roll as she asked, “May I have dessert?”

  CHAPTER 9

  BREAD OF DECEIT IS SWEET TO A MAN;

  BUT AFTERW ARDS HIS MOUTH SHALL

  BE FILL ED WITH GRAVEL.

  Proverbs 20:17 KJV

  She’d been here before, but it had always been in a dream, and something always happened to pull her out of the scene and down a tunnel into other places where dissonance and the absurd reigned supreme. But tonight the aroma of freshly graded earth was real
. Her seat was solid, just like the thousands of other seats rising in stair-step fashion away from the Wild West arena. Irma closed her eyes and listened. Footsteps. Boots clunked and shoes scuffed as people clamored to their seats. Laughter as ticket-holders shared their anticipation. And, every now and then, a whinny or a snort—faint because the sounds came from behind the curtain and past the performers’ tents, where temporary corrals and stalls housed buffalo and bucking broncs, tame elk and horses.

  Opening her eyes, Irma looked down at the Wild West program in her lap. Large letters across the top proclaimed Buffalo Bill’s Wild West. A pen-and-ink profile of Bill Cody dominated the center, but it was flanked on one side by a mounted Indian chief and tepees, and on the other by a cowboy and covered wagons. “America’s National Entertainment,” the program heralded in inch-high letters, “led by the famed scout and guide Buffalo Bill.” As Irma traced the images and letters with her gloved fingers, goose bumps crawled up her arms and across the back of her neck.

  The Wild West program was more than a printed order of events. Irma paged through it slowly, scanning the historical profiles of great Civil War scouts and frontiersmen and the notes about the various Indian races as well as the vaqueros. She would keep it forever, and when she was old she would tell children stories about the day a girl’s dream came true. She would talk about the train ride across the prairie and how they changed trains in the vast station in Omaha and then arrived in the even more vast station in St. Louis. She would describe the excitement she felt when she and Minnie followed Daddy out of the Laclede Hotel and climbed aboard a cable car to cross St. Louis en route to the fairgrounds. And she would speak of almost crying with joy when finally, after descending from the cable car, she caught sight of the canvas arena cover announcing Buffalo Bill’s Wild West in foot-high letters. She would do her best to tell these stories, but it would be nearly impossible to find words to describe exactly how she felt sitting here in the stands waiting for the performance to begin; waiting to see Monte and Ned Bishop ride into the arena; waiting, too, to see Shep Sterling in all his Wild West glory; and waiting for the moment when the performance was over and she and Minnie would follow Daddy onto the back lot and surprise all three cowboys.

  The Wild West Irma had seen with Uncle Charlie and Aunt Laura in Omaha was nothing compared to this. This Wild West boasted a twenty-member band and concession stands serving popcorn and fresh-squeezed lemonade. Monte had told her the stands in St. Louis would seat about twenty thousand people. Tonight they were full. Night. As she looked around her, Irma thought that might be the most amazing thing of all. Light fixtures mounted high on poles anchored to the front of the grandstand illuminated the entire arena. More lights focused on the scenic canvas backdrop painted to suggest a wide open prairie and vast blue sky. It was as close as a person could come to being magically transported into the West.

  Minnie had been poring over her own program, but when a band member dropped something, she started and looked up. She pointed. “Is that Jason and Jonathan? Oh, look—they’re wearing holsters. With guns!” She laughed aloud. “Imagine that. Growing up out west and the first time you strap on a gun it’s to play your trumpet in a band.”

  “Ah,” Daddy said, “but don’t they look the part of rough and ready cowboys? And looking the part is important in show business. At least that’s what Bill told me when we had our last meeting about the money end of this production.”

  Irma tapped the cover of her program. “Did you see the page about the band? They make them sound like world-renowned musicians.”

  “Mollie will be so proud,” Minnie said. She beamed up at her uncle. “Thank you, Uncle Otto. I’ll treasure the memory of this weekend forever. I don’t know how you convinced Aunt Willa to let us come, but I’m so glad you did.”

  Irma went back to reading her program—or at least pretending to read it. It was only natural for Minnie to assume Daddy had told Momma all about this trip and convinced her to agree to it. After all, Uncle Charlie and Aunt Laura never disagreed about anything. At least not in front of their children as far as Irma knew. But whatever Minnie might believe, Irma was fairly certain that when it came to this trip, things weren’t settled at all between her parents. She was almost tempted to feel guilty. Or to worry. But then she reminded herself that Daddy could handle Momma. He always had. And besides, when Momma got back home and realized how much it had meant to Irma, she wouldn’t be able to stay mad for long. Eventually she would have to forgive them all, just as the Bible said. Seventy times seven.

  “Your Aunt Willa and I want you both to have the time of your lives this weekend,” Daddy was saying. “If it is in my power to provide it, I’ll do it. In fact, you should be thinking about which of those stores along Broadway you want to go in tomorrow morning. I know better than to take a woman to St. Louis and not allow time for shopping.”

  As the stands continued to fill Irma nodded at the scenic backdrop. “That obnoxious reporter who was on the cable car with us is going to have a time of it proving his theory about Annie Oakley hiding behind there to do all of Bill Cody’s shooting.”

  Minnie laughed. “Especially when you consider he said the whole thing worked because the hole Miss Oakley used was camouflaged inside a knothole in a painted tree.” She motioned toward the backdrop. “No trees. No knotholes.”

  Irma looked at her father. “I still don’t understand why you didn’t tell him you know Buffalo Bill—and that everything he was saying was just so much . . . bull.” Momma would have scolded her for using the word, but Mr. Gregory Harrison’s ridiculous claim deserved even stronger language. “He was more than just pompous and annoying, Daddy. He was lying. You should have defended Mr. Cody.”

  Daddy shrugged. “I was enjoying listening to all his balderdash. Just think how embarrassed Mr. Harrison is going to be when he watches tonight and realizes Bill really is a good shot.”

  “Well, I hope wherever he’s sitting he can see,” Irma said.

  Daddy pointed above them. “There are two searchlights up there,” he said. “Nate Salsbury told me the operators will hone in on the sharpshooters and there will be no doubt when they hit their glass balls or clay pigeons. If he’s watching, Mr. Harrison will see irrefutable evidence that William F. Cody does his own shooting.”

  “Even so,” Irma sniffed, “he was rude. I hope we never see him again.”

  A blue-eyed boy about Maggie Mason’s age slid in next to her. “I’m Jack Payne,” he said, and put out his hand. “Have you ever been to the Wild West before?”

  “Not like this one,” Irma said as she shook the boy’s hand.

  “I’ve been waiting ever so long to come,” he said and looked up at the prim-faced woman with him. “Father’s been too busy, but it’s my birthday in a few days, and so he finally gave Miss Farnham permission to bring me.”

  Miss Farnham, who introduced herself as Jack’s governess, motioned for Jack to sit down. The woman seemed disinclined to talk very much, and Irma decided Jack must be used to entertaining himself, for the moment he sat down he began to leaf through his program.

  “Miss Farnham,” he said after a few minutes, “it says here that Colonel Cody knew General Custer, too. Do you think Father could have met Colonel Cody? Perhaps he has and he just doesn’t remember. He doesn’t seem to remember very much about being in the army.”

  Miss Farnham muttered something Irma couldn’t quite decipher, although it was clear the woman had very little interest in engaging her charge in conversation. She was sitting ramrod stiff, her hands folded in her lap. Irma could almost imagine the woman mentally ticking off the minutes until she could leave.

  “You read very well,” Irma said.

  “Thank you,” the boy said. “Mama taught me before she died. She said I learned very quickly.”

  “Well, I think you are very clever,” Irma said. “And I’m sorry about your mama.”

  Miss Farnham patted Jack’s knee. It must have meant “be quiet,” for Jack t
hanked Irma and then immersed himself in the page of the Wild West program showing a biography of Shep Sterling. Irma found the page in her own program and read about Shep’s exploits in Texas. “Audience members will be grateful for Shep Sterling’s introducing the management to long-time friend and fellow Texan, Miss Helen Keen, who will delight crowds with her fearless riding and winsome smile.” Long-time friend? Winsome smile? Irma closed her program. Maybe it was better to experience the Wild West before reading about it.

  When the band began to play the “The Star Spangled Banner,” Jack Payne was immediately transformed from bookworm to wiggle worm. Clutching his program to his chest, he scooted to the edge of his seat and began to rock back and forth and chant softly, “Here they come . . . here they come . . . here they come.”

  Irma leaned forward, too, internally joining the boy’s singsong chanting.

  Sadly—at least in Irma’s opinion—no “they” appeared at the conclusion of the first song. Instead, a lone man dressed in black, except for a huge white sombrero and a red kerchief knotted around his neck, stepped out from behind the backdrop. Quiet descended on the arena. A spotlight followed his progress as he strode toward his rostrum, his spurs rattling with every step. In a golden voice, he welcomed the crowd to the evening’s “exhibition of skill, tact, and endurance created by men who have gained their livelihood on the plains.” Anticipation hung in the air, a taut wire of expectation waiting to be strummed by the Grand Entry. Finally, the announcer took the red kerchief from around his neck and waved it in the air.