Cherokee Rose

by Judy Alter

  Without another word, I hoisted my duffel and headed upstairs. As I passed a closed door, I could hear the murmur of voices—Buck and Belle. Their talk was followed by the tinkling laughter of a woman.

  Without meaning to, I slammed the bedroom door behind me.

  "How's Belle?" I asked, striving for casualness, when Buck finally came to our room, dragging his own duffel.

  "She'll be all right," he said. "She just needs to stop feeling sorry for herself and get on with things."

  "Sorry for herself?" I asked.

  "You know, new baby and no way to support herself. What's she going to do?"

  "I don't know," I said. "What is she going to do?"

  "She'll be all right here for a while," he said, and then Buck Dowling, who knew me better than anyone, came over and put his arms around me. "You jealous of her baby, Cherokee?"

  "No," I answered truthfully, "but I'm uncomfortable around it. I—I don't know how to handle babies."

  He laughed aloud. "You'll learn. Just wait till we have our own. You'll learn real fast."

  "Yeah," I echoed in an empty voice, "real fast." Without another word, I began to dress for dinner.

  * * *

  It soothed my soul some to be among those gathered at the huge 101 dining table again, though I thought of Prairie Rose and how it didn't seem right to be at the ranch without her. Still, the food was hot and hearty as always, and so was the company.

  "Got great plans for this winter, don't we, Buck?" Colonel Miller asked heartily, and Buck jumped to attention, equaling him in heartiness as he replied, "We sure do, we sure do!"

  "Tommy Jo, dear, are you as enthusiastic about this vaudeville business as these men?" Mrs. Miller put her question gently, and I had no way of knowing if she knew how close she came to the mark.

  "Oh, of course," I said too quickly. "It'll be great to work all year—though, of course, I'll miss being here."

  "Of course," she said. "How's your family?"

  "Mama's not doing so well, or so Papa writes. I thought I'd go see them and then go down to Guthrie in a day or two. That is, if you don't need me," I added hastily, looking at the colonel.

  "No, no, you go on and get your visiting done. We can do without the two of you for a few days."

  Both Buck and I looked startled. I opened my mouth but couldn't think of what to say. Buck was quicker.

  "I'll probably just let Cherokee go by herself," he said. "I think her family likes to have her to themselves."

  I shot him a quick look but could read no ulterior motive on his face.

  We spent the next few days unpacking from the tour, sorting costumes that needed mending from those that needed replacing, untangling tack, making a list of props that needed repair. The colonel pretty much stayed in his office and let Buck handle the allocation of work, and Buck was everywhere, issuing orders, making demands, acting like it was his show.

  "Cherokee, that rope is fraying—best get a new one. Bonnie, see if a new feather won't fix that hat. Jake, can't we paint over that fake front so the settlers' cabin looks a little more real?"

  Not a month earlier I would have been filled with happiness that Buck was doing more than blowing his horn. He was taking on responsibility and showing a talent for organization. And best of all, he was feeling better about himself. I remembered his words: "I gotta do more than blow my horn!" But now a corner of my mind resented him. It wasn't that I thought he was taking over or replacing me on the colonel's list of most valuable people in the troupe. As a matter of fact, I didn't know why I felt the way I did. But there was that little lingering black cloud in my mind, and it was growing. It was time to get away for a few days.

  "Buck, you really don't mind if I go alone to see my folks and Louise?" I sat at my dressing table, brushing my hair, while Buck concentrated on some paperwork before him.

  "What?" He looked up as though I'd brought him back from a far place. "Oh, no, Cherokee, I really think it would be best. I got a lot to do here."

  "Yeah," I said dryly, "I noticed you've been right busy."

  He got up and came toward me, taking the brush out of my hand as he often did. "You miss me?" he asked softly.

  Maybe I was wrong. Maybe everything between us was right, and I ought to stop manufacturing trouble. "Yes," I whispered, "I guess I have been missing you."

  "Let's not let that happen again," he said, bending to kiss my neck and work his way up toward my ear, while I sat shivering in anticipation.

  The morning I was to leave for Luckett's, Belle appeared at breakfast. Her entrance was dramatic, to say the least: she wore a wrapper of richly printed cotton—no chintz for our Belle!—and her hair was swept back and up, with a few loose curls falling around her face, to give just a hint that she was still an invalid. Still, I detected a little rouge and gloss on the lips.

  "I just got tired of being confined in that room," she said, almost pouting, "and Sallie's asleep, so I thought... may I join you at breakfast?"

  Well, of course every man in the room jumped to help her to a seat. Buck won, the first to reach her, hold out his arm, and help her into a chair. She favored him with a wide smile and a look that went deep into his eyes.

  "Thank you, Buck." Then turning to me, "Cherokee, Buck tells me you're leaving today for a little bit."

  "Just a little bit," I mumbled, unconsciously mimicking her word choice. Buck frowned at me, so I became more conversational. "I'm going to see my family for a few days."

  "Aren't you lucky to have family to visit," she said.

  Nastily, I thought to myself that she was playing on the fact that everyone knew she had been disowned and couldn't go visit her family.

  Before I could say anything else, the faint sound of a baby crying floated down the stairs. As Belle said, "Oh, my," and started to rise, Buck said, "I'll get her. You stay still." And he bounded up the stairs, returning a minute later with the baby nestled contentedly in his arms.

  Now I knew Buck had spent a lot of time with Belle and the baby ever since we arrived at the 101. He regularly and without apology went in to see them before dinner and supper both, and he regaled me at night with accounts of how darling the baby was, how she smiled at him—I didn't tell him the one truth I knew about babies' gas pains being mistaken for smiles—how she followed him with her eyes when he was near her. I had told myself it was clearly a love affair between my husband and a three-week-old infant, and that the mother was no part of it. And I really believed that, maybe even thought Sallie would fulfill his need for a baby and I'd be off the hook.

  But now, seeing him standing there holding that baby, I drew in my breath sharply. There was a sort of radiance about Buck, a happiness I'd never seen, even in the wildest days of new passion between us. I saw clearly that Buck would never be a whole person until he had children of his own—and the thought whirled in my brain like a dervish.

  "Here, Cherokee, you hold her and let Belle eat." He handed Sallie to me, ever so gently, holding her head and moving my hands until they were placed under the baby to his satisfaction.

  She fit comfortably into my arms and snuggled down as though perfectly content, and I liked the feel of that little warm body next to mine. What, I thought, is happening to me?

  "You gonna sing to her, Cherokee?" asked one of the cowboys, a grin on his face.

  "Don't want to scare her," I retorted quickly. But my quick voice was enough to start the baby crying, which unnerved me completely. With a red face, I handed her quickly back to Buck, who simply talked softly to her, walked in a circle for a bit, and soon had her back to quiet contentment.

  "Oh, Cherokee," Belle laughed, "you'll have to learn about babies. Buck tells me you two are hoping to start a family."

  While I roused in indignation that Buck had been talking to her about our intimate life, the colonel nearly choked on his coffee.

  "Cherokee?" he said in a strangled voice, and I knew he had a vision of his show closing while the star had a baby. "Do you... is there some
thing I should know?"

  Maybe it was the tension around the table that got me, but I began to laugh, and the more I tried to stop, the harder I laughed, until tears were streaming down my face. I was the only one that knew how close my laughter was to sobbing.

  Meantime, Buck jumped in. "No, sir, it's just—well, you know, every young couple would like to start a family. And we will, someday."

  I threw my napkin on the table and ran up the stairs, followed by a great silence. I knew, behind me, they all sat with their eyes glued on me.

  * * *

  I went straight to Guthrie. I wasn't ready to face Mama, and I needed Louise. I went alone, riding off while Buck was busy so that he wouldn't insist on accompanying me or sending someone with me. I'd ridden from Luckett's to the 101 alone all those years ago—it seemed like a lifetime but it was really only six years—and I would ride back now by myself. I needed to be alone.

  But the prairie was of little comfort. The day was warm and sunny for November, and I shed layers as I rode, stuffing my jacket and then my sweater into the duffel I'd packed behind me. Instead of reveling in the beauty of the day, I began to feel sweaty and uncomfortable.

  The grasslands seemed to have already withdrawn in preparation for winter. There had been a pretty hard frost a week or so earlier, and the grass looked brown, the bushes bare, the landscape uninspiring. I guess that just as I wanted my honeymoon to last forever, I wanted it always to be spring on the prairie, with the bright green of new grass and the crazy-quilt colors of the wildflowers. Today, it was all brown and gray, unfortunately suited to my mood.

  Louise greeted me with open arms and a wary look. "What's wrong?"

  "What makes you think something's wrong?" I countered lightly.

  She shrugged and turned to light the flame under the coffeepot. "Maybe it's your red eyes—or maybe it's that you aren't due here for several days."

  I sat down at the table in the kitchen and began toying with a spoon, but I couldn't say anything.

  "Are you pregnant?" she finally asked.

  It was, of course, the question that burst the dam. Between sobs, I managed to convey the opinion that it might be better if I were.

  "Better than what?" she asked. Louise never hovered. She never reached an arm to comfort or console, or spoke in soft tones to quiet me. She was practical and matter-of-fact—and I knew that she cared desperately about me and whatever was wrong. It was like having the proverbial rock to lean on.

  "Better than having Buck Dowling fall in love with someone else just because she has a fatherless baby."

  The coffee having warmed, she poured herself a cup—I still couldn't stand the bitter stuff—and sat down. "You better begin at the beginning," she said.

  Between sobs, I told her about Belle and the baby and the time Buck had rebelled when I roped him and how happy he was with the baby. I must have blathered like a baby myself.

  "Tommy Jo, you knew this man wanted children right from the start," she said, wasting no sympathy on me. "You thought you could ignore it and it'd go away, and now the whole big problem has come up to hit you in the face."

  "It's Belle's fault," I wailed, having completely given up my good sense in favor of self-pity. "If she hadn't gotten pregnant...."

  Louise hooted. "I imagine she feels that way a lot of the time too. But if Belle hadn't brought the problem to a head, something or someone else would have. You can't hide your head in the sand anymore."

  "What," I quavered, "if I never do get pregnant. It's been four years."

  "What if?" she said. "You win, Buck loses."

  "I lose too, because Buck... well, he..."

  "He won't stay with you, if you don't give him a baby? Good possibility. So?"

  "I love Buck Dowling," I said automatically.

  "That's not what I asked. Do you want to spend the rest of your life with him?"

  "Yes," I said, far too quickly.

  "Tommy Jo," she said, rising from the table, "you're going to have to do some hard figuring about how much you want to be a star in a Wild West show, how much you want Buck Dowling, what you're willing to do to keep either one. May be that one will have to be sacrificed to the other, and you're going to have to choose. I can't do that for you." She turned lightly away. "Besides, I have a noonday meal to fix. Here, start on those potatoes."

  And so I sat at Louise's kitchen table and peeled potatoes and thought long and hard about life's choices.

  Dinner at Louise's table was like dinner at the 101 table—familiar and comforting. The drummers were different but still the same—men with empty lives who traveled from place to place, never at home anywhere but always ready to grab on to anything of interest. When one of them leered at me and asked if I'd care to walk out after supper in the evening, Louise let me defend myself. I did, so quickly that he never looked at me again during the whole meal.

  "Me?" I said innocently. "My husband wouldn't approve."

  "But," said the drummer, "he let you come here alone."

  "He knows I can take care of any fools I might meet on the road," I said.

  The two lady milliners still lived in Louise's house, and they approved of me not one whit more than they had before. "You're doing what?" said one, while the other murmured, "Your mother must be worried unto death."

  I wouldn't treat them the way I did the drummer, and I reminded them that I was married.

  "But those wild horses," said the second one. "You could be hurt."

  "Yes, ma'am, but it's not likely. I know what I'm doing."

  She clucked and went back to her meat and potatoes. She must have thought how safe it was to be making fancy hats for town ladies. I thought it so dull I couldn't even bear to think about it.

  After Louise and I had cleaned the kitchen in companionable silence, I asked about Bo. I'd shipped Sam to Bo's stables, and much as I wanted to know about Bo himself, I also wanted to know about my horse.

  "He's fine," she said noncommittally.

  "Fine?" I demanded. "What does that mean?"

  She turned toward me, the soapy rag in her hands dripping onto the kitchen floor. "Means he's married, seems to be happy, goin' along like he always has." She paused a long moment. "That man loves you, Tommy Jo, and that's a responsibility you'll have the rest of your life."

  "He has a corner of my heart, Louise, always has. I'm glad he's happy, but I'm not jealous. Should I go see him?"

  She thought a minute. "No. That might just stir up trouble. That girl he married—well, she hasn't a lot of self-confidence, and I reckon it would bother her more than a little if you were to come calling."

  I shrugged. I would have liked to go to the stable to check on Sam, but I understood what Louise meant, and I surely didn't want to cause any trouble.

  But the next morning as we lingered at the kitchen table after breakfast, the dishes still undone and the kitchen a mess, there was a knock at the door. When Louise called out, Bo stuck his head in the door.

  "Mind if I come in?"

  Louise jumped up. "Of course not, Bo. I'll get you a cup of coffee."

  "Bo!" I said, rising and holding out both my hands in real honest delight to see him. "How's Sam?" was the first question out of my mouth.

  "He's fine, just fine," he said, apparently glad for a way to begin the conversation. "Leg's healing nicely. You can probably ride him again if you want."

  "Sam deserves a better life than that," I laughed. "I want him to be fat and happy at your place."

  Bo just nodded.

  "How'd you know I was here?" I asked.

  He grinned self-consciously. "You know Guthrie. Word travels. Fact is, the wife went to pick up her new bonnet, and the ladies at the millinery store mentioned a visitor at the boardinghouse, and she—well, she put two and two together, and she told me about it."

  With relief I thought that must mean that "the wife" wasn't jealous of me. "Well, how nice," I said. "I hope to meet her."

  Bo shook his head. "I don't think that's what we
ought to do, Tommy Jo. She knows about you, and she knows I'd have married you if it'd worked out. We've made our peace with it, but, well..." Then he brightened. "We got us a little one, a fine boy, named him Thomas."

  I winced inwardly but didn't ask about the name. Instead I probed for the usual things a father will brag about—how old the child was, how he took to horses, and so on. Bo talked on awhile with great pride, and then asked me about the show and about Buck, and it was my turn to talk. I did so cautiously. There was no reason to let Bo Johnson know about the distance that was growing between Buck and me. And with Bo so proud of his new son, I wasn't about to tell him that I couldn't—or wouldn't—get pregnant.

  Bo stayed a long time, probably close to two hours, and then, with a kind of reluctance in his voice, he said, "I best be getting back to the stables. Can't take a whole day's vacation. Sure good to see you, Tommy—uh, Cherokee."

  I took his hand in mine again and echoed, "It's good to see you, Bo. Take care of my horse for me, and tell him I'll come see him soon." But I wondered when I could visit Sam, if a jealous wife stood between me and Bo.

  He ducked his head as though bowing slightly, put his hat on, and was out the door before either of us could say another thing.

  Louise had busied herself with the dishes and dinner preparation all this time, but I knew she'd heard the talk. Still, she waited for me to say something, and I was a long time doing it. Instead I sat at the table brooding, thinking that Bo and I, who had once been the closest of friends, now had a distance, an uneasiness between us. It struck me as sad, but I didn't know what to do about it. Why, I wondered, did men have to be your lovers or nothing? Why couldn't Bo and I have kept the friendship between us, even though each of us had other lovers? At twenty-two I was far too young to know the answer to that question, but I was also blind to my own ignorance, in the way of the young.

  I stayed with Louise five days and then, reluctantly, rode out for Luckett's. When I left, Louise simply said, "I'm here when you need me."

  With great bravado, I smiled as I said, "And I probably will, sooner or later."

  I rode slowly, as though I didn't want to go to see my parents. Papa had written from time to time, and his letters were full of a sort of forced cheerfulness. Mama was not, I gathered, getting any better. Louise had told me, though, that Papa never came to see her anymore. She would hear, from time to time, that he'd been in town on business, but she never saw him.