by Judy Alter
"The show ring?" I asked.
"Yeah. Your pa's got him a contract to provide bucking stock for the Buffalo Bill Wild West, no less!"
Now, everyone knew about Buffalo Bill's show. I'd even read about it in that St. Louis paper that Papa took. In the Wild West show Annie Oakley shot glass balls or playing cards, hitting 950 out of 1,000, and Indians massacred settlers every day for spellbound audiences; brass bands played, beautiful women rode rough and trick horses, and Sitting Bull, the infamous Indian chief, signed autographs. The show traveled all over the country, drawing thousands of people to its performances and filling them with wild and woolly images of life on the frontier. I hungered to see Buffalo Bill and Annie, though Papa scoffed at it and said, "It's all made up. None of that is the way life really was with horses and Indians."
For Papa, realism was essential, but I lived on dreams.
And now this horse—Devildust—would go to the show that I longed to see. If I could just ride him, I thought, I'd somehow have a link to Buffalo Bill and his show. Perhaps someday, five years hence, I could present myself to him and say, "I broke a horse that's in your show." And then, in my fantasy, Devildust would nicker and break loose from the herd, coming to nuzzle me affectionately.
"You can't ride this horse, Tommy Jo." Casey broke into my reverie. "It's too dangerous."
"Just hold him," I said, and without giving Casey a chance to refuse, I put one foot in the stirrup and jumped onto the back of that quivering mass of muscle. That sudden mount was, of course, a mistake—even I knew I should have quieted the horse, let him get the sense of me, before I jumped on his back. But I was afraid Casey would win out, and so I learned that old lesson about mistakes made in haste.
Wilks was the one who removed the blindfold and turned the horse loose. I always thought Wilks resented me—the foreman's daughter who had a finer horse than he did and rode it better too—I think he was ready to see me get into trouble this time.
I never could recall the fraction of time between Wilks's turning the horse loose and my landing on the ground so hard, it took a minute for me to get my senses. As I shook my head, I saw Devildust across the corral, still pitching as though to shake the memory of me off his back.
"Catch him," I said, getting shakily to my feet. "I got to get back on."
"Now, Miss Tommy Jo..." Casey was clearly upset.
Wilks caught the horse and got him snubbed again, without ever saying a word to me.
The horse had learned something the first time. He stood quietly now for a minute, just long enough to give me a false sense of security, and then he was off—whirling, jumping, arching his back, and finally flinging me off his back like a gnat. I landed ingloriously in a heap, almost on top of a fencepost.
"Put the horse up, Casey." Papa's voice cut through my fog clearly. "I'll see to Tommy Jo." He hunkered down next to me. "You all right?"
"Yessir. I think so." I wouldn't admit to the light-headedness I felt, nor the sharp pain in the elbow on which I'd landed.
"Good, 'cause I'm gonna tan your hide, and neither one of us is gonna mention any of this to your mama. You'll simply tell her you fell off Sam, and that'll cause enough anger in her for you to deal with. No need for her to know you were fool enough to jump on that horse without doin' it the right way."
And that's just what happened. Papa took a strap to my bottom, as though I were five years old, but the indignation hurt much worse than the blows. And then we explained my appearance to Mama by saying I'd parted company with Sam when a snake spooked him.
"I told you, James, that she shouldn't be out riding alone," Mama said. "You should be in school in St. Louis," she threatened, a specter that haunted me from that day. But Mama never forbade me to ride alone on the prairie—she knew better than to issue an order she couldn't enforce.
After that, I waited until Papa was around to ride the rough stock, because more than jumping on Devildust, that was really what I'd done wrong. Papa would have approved if he'd been there to authorize the ride first.
Devildust went off to the shows when Papa shipped a load of horses a month or so later, and I never saw that horse again—by the time I got to the Buffalo Bill show, he'd probably long been put out to pasture. But he stayed in my mind always.
By the time of the Devildust incident, we were living in the house on the Luckett place. Of white-painted wood, it sat on a rise in the land, its wide front veranda facing west so Mama could watch the sunsets and wouldn't, as Papa said, "be looking over her shoulder toward St. Louis." It was a long, low, one-room-deep house with a sitting room, a kitchen, and two bedrooms. Even the sitting room had linoleum and painted boards, though Mama longed for carpet and wallpaper. Papa had a desk in the corner of the sitting room, since his chores as foreman included paperwork. The desk was always strewn with papers and ledgers, and a pair of longhorns was mounted over it, giving a decidedly masculine air to the room. Mama bemoaned the fact that she had no real parlor for sitting in, but then, she had no guests to entertain in a parlor, either.
There were two objects in that house of which Mama was inordinately proud. One was her stove. Papa had sent to St. Louis for a Home Comfort Stove from the Wrought Iron Range Company. The stove boasted the company's motto, "Economy. Strength. Durability. Good Cooking. Good Eating." Papa always said the eating in our house improved ten times when he bought that stove, and Mama would look offended, as though her cooking hadn't been good enough beforehand. But those were not looks of anger—more of a joke shared tenderly between them. When they looked at each other like that, I felt an outsider.
Mama's other prize possession was the baby grand piano that Papa had also shipped from St. Louis. In Mama's mind, pianos stood for culture and refinement, and having that piano made all the difference to her, out on the prairie in that lonely little house. Often when I came in from riding, Mama would be playing her piano, lost to the music and not, in her mind, anywhere near the Cherokee Strip.
She did not allow me to touch the piano. "No, you must not," she'd say. "When you don't know what you're doing, you might damage it." Her psychology worked wonderfully. Even though Papa once said loudly, "Only girls play the piano"—implying that it wasn't an activity for me—I was desperate to learn because it was forbidden. My desperation soon wore off after a few lessons from Mama, but to this day I can pick out the old familiar hymns and it is sometimes a comfort to me to play "Nearer My God to Thee" and "What a Friend We Have in Jesus."
When Papa and the cowboys branded cattle, I always stayed in the corral, though Mama said it wasn't a proper place for a young lady. "I'm a cowhand," I replied in a boasting tone.
"That so?" Papa asked one day. "Then you best get to work. You can help hold these calves while we brand 'em."
And so, dressed in a calico wrapper because I had only come to watch, I knelt in the dirt, clinging for dear life to the rear legs of one squirming, bawling calf after another, while Papa and the cowboys held the other end, branded the flank, notched the ears, and treated for screwworms. Dirt and slobber and sometimes even a little blood flew at me, and I went home that first night so dirty, Mama made me undress on the porch—to my everlasting embarrassment—and bathe in a washtub before I could set foot inside.
"Papa eats in his dirty clothes!" I complained.
"Papa is Papa," she said, "and you are a young lady." Then she rolled her eyes heavenward as though seeking help to bear all her tribulations.
The calico wrapper was ruined and, once washed, became rags. Mama swore she thought about that day every time she dusted with a piece of that wrapper—and I thought those rags never would wear out.
The next day, though, Mama never said a word when I put on overalls and boots and headed for the corral. Silently she watched me go, with such a long look that I felt it behind me all the way to the barn. I guess Papa had persuaded her again, but she was rarely happy about Papa's "persuadings."
After my hard-earned lesson in branding, I wanted to be able to do everything
Papa could do, including rope. With an extra rope of his that I found, I practiced secretly when he and the cowboys were away, building a loop as I'd seen Papa do it, then tossing it at the snubbing post in the corral. Time after time, it sailed through the air, only to fall limply alongside the post. I coiled it in and built a loop again, but I knew that I was doing something wrong. Only I didn't know who—except Papa—to ask, and I wanted badly to surprise him with a sudden great feat of roping.
Papa saw me one day, much to my mortification, and took the rope from me. "This way," he said, showing me how to build up the speed of the loop before I threw it. "Now try."
On my fifth try, I snagged the post.
"It'll be a while before you can try that on cattle," Papa said dryly.
* * *
One morning when I was ten—I remember the age distinctly—Papa announced at breakfast that we had calves scattered in the valleys to the rest of us. "Wilks and Casey are away," he said, "and I need Tommy to ride with me."
"I need her to help me make preserves out of the plums she brought home yesterday," Mama said firmly.
"Plums," Papa answered, "can wait. Calves cannot. She'll ride with me today." He got up and strode for the door, pulling his hat off the rack as he went by. "We'll be home for dinner, Jess."
"Of course, James," Mama muttered as she watched us go. I knew that by midday, there'd be a dinner of beef and potatoes or chicken and dumplings—Papa liked a satisfying midday meal. I suppose I believed that Mama was never lonely when we were gone—after all, she had her stove and her piano, didn't she?
We rode west until we came to a small stream, its banks so thick with vines that no one could ride through them—a perfect hiding place for calves. Getting them out would be a dickens of a job unless the calves were spooked by commotion and came running out of their own accord—and then they'd have to be herded or they'd just run wild for the next thicket.
Papa and I spent four long hot hours riding through those thickets, yelling "Hee-yah!" at the top of our lungs. When a calf came bawling out, Papa's loop sailed through the air, and the calf was caught before it knew what had happened and was dragged to the branding fire before it could resist.
"Papa, you don't have any branding irons with you," I'd said when he first told me we were going to brand the calves before we turned them loose in the far pasture.
"Gonna use my saddle ring," he said. "You watch and learn something."
I gathered sticks and dried brush, and Papa built a small fire, fanning it until the flame took hold.
Papa threw each calf, but I watched how he did it carefully, so that I could do it next time. The only problem was that Papa hoisted the calf into the air, a feat far beyond my strength. But I was strong enough to hold the heads and front legs, except for one calf who managed a sharp kick on my shin. It startled me so that the calf near got away and Papa said sharply, "Don't be spooking these calves!"
I bit my lip to keep back tears of real pain and never mentioned my leg. Years later I realized it could well have been broken, and Papa would never have known.
Papa used his saddle ring to make marks that looked roughly like a T—an upward stroke and a shorter sidewise one, almost connected.
"Papa, that's not the Luckett brand," I said.
"No, it's your brand. These are your calves, for you to practice roping on. I talked to Mr. Luckett about it, and he agreed to give you ten calves. Otherwise, you and I wouldn't be out here bustin' calves out of thickets where they could just as well stay till we gather."
So that was why we were scratching ourselves on plum thickets and turning to puddles of sweat in the August heat—to give me a herd. 'Course, legend grew up that Papa had told me I could have any calves I roped, and pretty soon I had a herd of fifty, but that's not the truth. The way I told it here is the truth.
When it was real important to her, Mama could stand up to Papa with a ferocity that surprised all of us, mostly him. And if she dug in like a calf at the end of a rope, Mama generally got her way. Usually it had to do with me.
Every time Papa would say that I was a cowhand, Mama was quick to reply, "She's a lady, too. And she'll learn to act like one, if it's the last thing I see to." Mama was firm enough about the ladylike business that Papa never raised an objection when she taught me to cook on that prized Home Comfort Stove, though I grumbled from time to time that it wouldn't do me any good.
"I don't intend to spend my life over a range," I said haughtily.
"That's fine," Mama replied calmly, "but you will know what to do if you find yourself in front of one—or in front of a bunch of hungry men."
And so I learned to make mayonnaise dressing, to cook the wild plums into jelly, to wring a chicken's neck, to pluck and roast a turkey; even Papa admitted that I could put a fair meal on the table. "Mama's turkey dressing is a little more moist," he'd say, or "this piecrust isn't as flaky as I'd like." And then he'd add, "But Mama can't ride like you can, Tommy Jo," as though that made it all right.
Mama didn't have to get stubborn about lessons, for Papa agreed with her completely. She set the dates of the school year for me—from September to May—and the hours of the school day—mornings, from seven-thirty, when breakfast dishes were done, until noon. And then she became my teacher. There was no school close enough for me, and I studied at home until I had to spend that miserable year at a convent in St. Louis.
* * *
It was my fault that I was sent to St. Louis when I was thirteen. One fine fall day, out riding Sam through the pastures, I found a bull that needed doctoring—or so I told myself. In truth, I probably just wanted to practice roping on something more challenging than the steers in my herd, which had by now been roped so often, they were fairly docile about it. Papa had gone off chasing strays, and I was angry that I'd been left behind, but Papa had said sternly he was leaving before school was out, and I was to stay and do lessons. That afternoon I rode out on the range and sat staring at a reddish-brown bull who lowered his head and stared back.
The bull, sensing my intentions, began to amble away from me, and I spurred Sam after him, building my loop as we went. Then, standing in my stirrups and leaning into the rope, I yelled "Yee-hah!" and let sail the most perfect loop I'd ever made. It settled over the bull's neck, and Sam began to back up, drawing the rope taut.
The bull had other ideas. Snorting, he stomped once and then put all his weight into pulling against the rope. Before I really knew what had happened, the bull was off and running, and Sam broke into a fast gallop out of the necessity to keep up. The rope was dallied around my saddle horn, and Sam was obliged to follow the bull.
We were headed for a creekbed. At that point, if I could have stopped, believe me, I would. Ahead of us, the ground rose to the embankment, then dropped fairly sharply to the banks of a small stream. At the speed we were going, there was no way I could ride down that embankment, and I doubted that Sam would make it in one piece. With a quick prayer that was half apology to Sam for getting him into this, I flew off the horse, instinctively tucking myself into a ball as much as I could so that I would roll instead of landing "Splat!" flat on the ground.
Everything went quiet and dark for just a second when I landed, and then I was aware of Sam whinnying, which told me he hadn't been killed, and a loud thud heard in the back of my mind but not registered.
Shakily, I got to my feet. Once up, I was unsteady, but nothing was broken as far as I could tell.
"Sam?" I could hear him still whinnying, as though trying to tell me something. Looking ahead, I saw him standing motionless at the top of the embankment, the rope still around the saddle horn but now strangely slack. Forgetting my aches and pains, I raced toward my horse.
It took a minute to calm Sam—he skittered and half reared in fright, but I talked to him real quiet, like Papa had taught me, and he calmed down enough for me to hold the reins and look down the embankment.
There, motionless, lay the red bull, his neck at an odd angle. He was as dead
as he could be.
"Broke his neck," I said to Sam, sure that he could understand me. "Papa's gonna be furious."
Papa's anger was less fearsome than Mama's. "I thought I'd taught you better than that," he said quietly.
"You taught me to rope," I said, "and I roped the bull. I just didn't know he'd run like that."
"Didn't know... You do know that a bull is too strong for you to handle," Papa said. "And when you don't know, you don't act. I thought I'd taught you caution, along with roping."
"I wasn't afraid of that bull," I muttered defiantly.
"Caution and fear are two different things. You could have killed Sam."
That I knew to be true, and it shamed me. I wished Papa would yell, even take a strap to me—which he hadn't done since I rode Devildust—anything but this calm talk.
"You could have killed yourself, too," Mama echoed, her voice louder than usual, and then I knew I was in for anger. Papa left the room, and Mama spoke to me in no uncertain terms about dangerous behavior and, even more important, being ladylike.
"You can be a cowhand if you want," she said firmly, "but you will also be a lady. If you don't, you'll bring yourself a load of grief you never expected. Men won't work with a woman who tries to be like them. If you can learn to be as much a lady as you are a cowhand, you might be all right." Her tone indicated some doubt about the latter.
I heard Mama's words, but I didn't really hear them. What did I know about men and their attitudes toward women? How could I understand, at thirteen, what she meant about being ladylike so that men wouldn't resent me? Those were hard lessons, to be learned over years, but never to be believed just because your mother told you so when you were young and green. "I know about ladylike," I said, struggling to hold on to the defiance that had given me courage.
"Good, then you'll get along well in the convent," Mama said calmly.
The convent! I heard the words as one would hear a death sentence. "I won't..."I began.
"Yes," she said with a voice of iron that I'd almost never heard from her before, "you will. And don't think about running away so far that we can't find you. Your papa would find you no matter where. And he's agreed with me this time." The emphasis was on the last two words.