Cherokee Rose

by Judy Alter

  "And I think you ought to marry Donnie Slaughter," I shot back.

  "Maybe I will," she said, turning to the dishes in the sink, "maybe I just will."

  And that's exactly what Pearl decided to do—leave Guthrie to go back to Sweetwater and marry Donnie Slaughter. She announced her decision some four or five days after Bo's visit.

  "How can you?" I screeched. "How can you give up everything you ever wanted to settle down and raise babies and work on a ranch?"

  "I'll have Donnie lovin' me," she said stoutly. "You might think about doin' the same with that Bo fellow."

  "I'm not ready to give up show business!" I shouted, and then stopped dead in my tracks as I heard myself. It hadn't been a week since I'd told Bo I was ready to give up, and I'd believed it then.

  Pearl was looking at me with a grin. "I didn't think you were," she said.

  "I thought I was," I answered slowly, "but I guess I'm not. Why are you?"

  "It's not show business," she said, "that changed my mind. It's this boardinghouse, and those two ladies who make hats. I can see myself growing old like that, living in a house that's not my own, with other ladies—what's the difference if they're trick riders or milliners? And no children, no family, nothing to show for what I've been or where."

  "Maybe," I said, "that's why I'm not ready to give up show business."

  Pearl turned serious now. "That's all right for you, Cherokee. You're better at it than I am, and you could probably make a living at rodeo. But I can't. I'm going home to marry Donnie Slaughter, and I think you probably ought to stay here and marry that Bo fellow."

  We fell into each other's arms. "No, I won't do that," I said as I hugged her. "But I thank you, Pearl. You've helped me see myself better."

  There we stood, our arms around each other, tears streaming down our cheeks, and big grins on our faces.

  "What in tarnation is going on in here?" Louise demanded as she entered the kitchen.

  "You better sit down," I told her, as I went to pour her a cup of coffee.

  * * *

  The colonel had had my horses delivered to Bo's stable, and I went out to see that they were settled.

  Bo praised both horses in his own understated way. "Don't look too bad, Tommy Jo. That one"—he motioned toward Guthrie—"looks a little high strung. But this one, he's a fine ropin' horse, looks like."

  "He is," I said. "I'll show you." And we spent two hours in the calf lot, me showing off what Governor could do, and Bo trying his darnedest to confuse that horse by mixing calves around and causing distractions. Governor never lost track of what he was supposed to do, and my rope flew cleaner and better than it ever had. I knew that going back to shows was the right thing.

  When I finally dismounted and led Governor back to the corral, Bo said, "Wasn't you that had the talent all this time, after all. It was that horse."

  I threw a handful of hay at him, and he walked away, laughing. I was glad Bo was in my life again, even though I was planning to move on again and leave him behind. He just didn't know that, and I didn't see any need to tell him until I knew what I was going to do.

  * * *

  Pearl was gone before Christmas, and we—Papa, Louise, and me—enjoyed a quiet holiday. I was, as they say, gathering my forces, but quietly.

  "Sure nice to see you so contented, Tommy Jo," Papa said, leaning back in the most comfortable chair in Louise's parlor.

  "Louise makes it easy to be content," I said, looking sideways at her in a quiet plea for conspiracy. Louise knew me better than anyone, and she knew I was simply waiting for the right opportunity.

  The milliners had gone to visit relatives for the holiday, and we pretty much had the house—and Christmas dinner—to ourselves. Louise barely knew how to cook for only three people.

  "Goin' down to Fort Worth pretty soon," Papa said to neither of us in particular. "That young whippersnapper Walt Denison is putting together a rodeo."

  "Walt Denison?" I echoed. "Name's familiar."

  Quietly Louise said, "Son of one of the biggest ranchers in North Texas, though he's no whippersnapper anymore. Must be your age, Cherokee, maybe more." She hesitated a minute. "I used to know his daddy."

  Was there anybody's daddy she hadn't known at one time or another? Papa, who might have taken offense, simply grinned at her. It pleasured him some, I figured, to have for himself a woman who had so many opportunities—and who had, to whatever measure, settled down with him.

  "You remember, Tommy Jo. He was on that wolf hunt with Roosevelt, all those years ago."

  Suddenly it came back to me, and I saw those laughing dark eyes as clearly as I had when I was fifteen. "He was older than me, and when he tried to kiss me, I pushed him away."

  Papa laughed. "Might be he'd remember that all these years."

  I shrugged. "Doesn't have anything to do with how I ride and rope."

  "No, but he might want a lady with spunk for his rodeo."

  "Rodeo!" I scoffed. "It's not going to make it. Colonel Miller tried showing real ranch work, and nobody was interested. People want entertainment, the kind of thing we gave them in the Wild West show."

  Papa was patient. "Miller's problem was he tried to make ranch events into entertainment. These days rodeo is competition."

  "Competition?" I repeated.

  "Yeah. Cowboys compete against each other for the best roping times, the best ride on a bronc. It's like it was when rodeo first started back in the 1890s in Pecos, when a couple of cowboys challenged each other. It's a whole different thing from all that fancy stuff the colonel and Buffalo Bill did."

  "Could I compete?" I asked.

  "Far as I know, there's not many ladies' events. The ladies stick to trick riding and such stuff."

  "I can rope better than most men," I said with determination.

  Papa grinned. "That you can," he said and said no more. He knew me well enough to know when he'd planted the seed.

  Silently I vowed I'd go to Fort Worth and see Walt Denison.

  * * *

  Papa rode into Guthrie early one day not too far into the new year. I was dusting and straightening in the parlor when I heard Louise sing out, "Well, hello, Sandy Burns. Come to see that daughter of yours?"

  Papa's answer was muttered so that I couldn't hear, and I immediately took myself into the kitchen. We hugged and said how glad we were to see each other, even though it hadn't been more than a week since we'd last visited.

  "Did you come to see me?" I asked.

  "Of course," he said. "But then I'm goin' to take the train to Fort Worth, see what that Denison boy is up to with that rodeo, just like I told you. They got that great coliseum in Fort Worth. Ought to be a real show. You want to go, Tommy Jo? We can sit in the stands and watch all them poor cowboys tryin' to make a livin' out of ridin' and ropin' in a contest."

  Louise threw me a sidelong look as I laughed aloud. "Yes, Papa, I do. I really do. But Papa, I don't want to sit in the stands. I want to take Governor, and I want to be one of those doing the roping."

  He threw his hands in the air as though he were exasperated, and then he turned on Louise. "I thought you told me she was through with show business!"

  Louise just shrugged, but she had the grace to blush a little, too. Now I knew what I'd always suspected—the two of them were in touch about me without ever telling me. It was like having parents fuss over me, only now I was too old for that. And besides, Louise was my friend—not my mother! But no matter, they both knew all along they'd get me to Fort Worth.

  Papa persuaded me to leave Governor behind, seeing as how we were going by train and the rodeo wasn't until the end of the month. I didn't argue much, since trains and horses were a bad combination in my mind. Trains and people weren't all that much better.

  "You think this train is going too fast?" I asked. It seemed to me that the landscape was flying by, with hardly time for me to make out the bushes and dips in the prairie. We'd soon be coming to the Arbuckles—those mountains that cut across l
ower Oklahoma, separating it from Texas—and I shuddered to think about the train climbing that grade.

  "What?" Papa roused himself from a nap. "Seems fine to me. Makin' good time."

  I fidgeted and squirmed in my seat, finally making Papa so uncomfortable, he couldn't sleep. "Whatever's the matter with you, girl? I never in my life saw you afraid of anything, and now you act like you're afraid on a train. It's not even your responsibility. Someone else is doin' the ridin'."

  "That's just it," I muttered. "If I was driving this train, I'd know we were safe."

  Papa harrumphed and advised me to take a nap, but I couldn't. We passed the Arbuckles safely, and I held my breath while we rattled across the trestle over the Red River. Then we went flat out, fast as lightning, across the flat prairies of North Texas, where grass seemed to stretch to the horizon in every direction, broken only here and there by clumps of pitiful trees, stunted by wind. We stopped in two towns—Gainesville and Denton—and then the train picked up speed for the last run into Fort Worth. When it finally slowed again, I breathed a sigh of relief. When I was ready to bring Governor to Fort Worth, we weren't coming by train, that was for sure!

  * * *

  Walt Denison greeted us when we got to the coliseum in Fort Worth. "Mr. Burns, 'course I remember you." He still had the dark curly hair and the dark eyes, though they didn't seem to have quite the same sparkle. He was taller than I remembered, and though I didn't recall the slight build of his youth, I was aware that he had fleshed out, as they say. He didn't have the slender look of a man who rode working horses every day for a living. Instead, he looked like a man who ate and drank well but was still young enough not to show any ill effects from it. "And this is your daughter—ah, don't tell me... Bobby."

  "Tommy Jo," Papa said, his voice rather curt.

  "Pretty much I go by Cherokee these days," I said.

  That stopped him in his tracks. "Cherokee? Cherokee Rose who rode with the Miller 101?"

  I nodded, trying hard to hide my pleasure that he knew who I was.

  "Well, I'll be. Never would have guessed that the famous Cherokee was that little girl I met on a wolf hunt. You have come a long way, ma'am." He eyed me from top to bottom, and I wasn't sure whether to be flattered or offended.

  We were standing in the arena of the Cowtown Coliseum, a structure now ten years old and still one of the largest show arenas in the country. Outside it was a large, impressive-looking building, fronting on a brick-paved street where traffic was still more ahorseback than motor driven and where cowboys strode along the street on their awkward heels, their spurs jingling. Inside, the building seemed huge, its roof so high that I craned my neck to look upward. The arena was ringed by hundreds—thousands?—of wooden seats, just waiting for spectators.

  "You gonna stage a rodeo in here?" Papa asked incredulously.

  "Yessir," Walt said, "world's first indoor rodeo. Cherokee," he said, turning to me, "you'll ride, won't you?"

  I shrugged, feigning indifference because I figured it would never do to let him know that was why I had come to Fort Worth in the first place. "What's the prize money?" I asked.

  "Just don't you worry about prize money," he said expansively. "We'll make you a special act—entertainment. Pay you a salary."

  "I want to enter the competition," I said steadily, though from the look on Papa's face, I thought maybe he was going to kick me.

  Walt looked surprised too. "Well—well, fine. But we don't have any women's events."

  "I'll rope against the men," I said flatly, watching his reaction carefully.

  I'll give him credit: he didn't react instantly. "Let's talk about that over dinner, folks. You be my guests, and I'll treat you to the finest steak you've ever sunk your teeth into."

  Papa agreed immediately, and so I too murmured my thanks.

  We had taken rooms at the Thannisch Hotel just a block from the coliseum, and we retired there to prepare for dinner. I dressed carefully—a serviceable brown denim split skirt, a crisp white shirt, a brown and gold scarf knotted at the neck, and my best light-colored felt Stetson.

  "Tommy Jo, can't you look like a girl?" Papa complained when he saw me.

  "I want Mr. Denison to know that I'm a roper, not a girl," I said.

  "You might be both," he muttered.

  We had dinner in the hotel dining room, opulent with red brocade curtains, flocked wallpaper inside walnut frames, and plush-covered chairs at the heavy wooden tables. When Papa ordered the biggest steak on the menu, Walt never blinked but simply ordered the same thing. I settled for a much smaller steak.

  "Cherokee," Walt said, staring directly at me, "you ride for my new rodeo, and I'll make you more famous than Buffalo Bill ever could have."

  That broad boast made me edge back into my chair a little, and Walt saw that. "I really will," he said. "This rodeo is going to be the start of something big. We're going to get away from that show business that they've always had—the Buffalo Bill kind of stuff, only on a smaller scale. We're going to have rodeo—competition between real working cowboys." He paused a minute, then added, "And cowgirls, of course. There'll be published rules, entry fees, prize money—not much, but some purses."

  Papa jumped right in. "Tommy Jo, you best sign on with him."

  What Papa didn't know and wouldn't have believed was that I was more knowledgeable than he about show business. "I'm not looking to be famous," I said slowly. "I got over that with Buffalo Bill. But I do want to ride and rope, and I like an audience. But if you hire me as entertainment to do trick roping, I'll be just what you said you were getting rid of."

  "We've got to have some entertainment," he said emphatically. "You'll be the star."

  I sighed. It wasn't exactly like being the star of Buffalo Bill's show, but it was better than working in a Guthrie boardinghouse and letting my horses forget all they knew. "I want to compete," I said. "I can rope against men, and I'll ride in relays if you have them."

  His eyes danced with laughter now. "No rough stock?"

  I shrugged. "I can if you want, but I don't have to."

  "No rough stock," he said, reaching over to cover my hand with his larger one ever so briefly. Before I could protest or move my hand, he had moved his, the gesture so slight as to be beyond reproach.

  Over a long dinner—with many shots of bourbon for the men—we agreed that I would do a trick roping act and would participate in the calf-roping competition. I'd be paid a salary for the act for the show's duration—only a week, but it was more handsome than anything the colonel had ever paid me—and I'd not have to pay entry fees for the competition, though I was as eligible as anyone else for the prize money.

  "We'll be down here in... let's see, two weeks, little less maybe," Papa said too heartily, and my heart sank. I had freed myself from him all those years ago when I first went to the Miller 101, and now I'd have to do it all over again.

  "Papa, you can't be away from Luckett's that long. I can take care of myself."

  "Louise says you need chaperonin' and an escort to get down here," he said, then added almost plaintively, "Besides, I want to see the show at least once."

  "You'll be my guest," Walt said firmly, "but don't worry about Cherokee—ah, Tommy Jo. I'll see that she and her horses get here."

  I realized that Louise had talked to both Papa and Colonel Miller about not letting me ride from place to place any longer, and I could hear her saying, "But Cherokee, the world's changing. It isn't safe like it was when you started out." But Papa would want to come by train, and I wasn't putting my horses on a train ever again.

  "I don't want the horses on a train," I said, expecting that to exasperate both men. "We were in a bad train wreck, and I just don't want to chance it again."

  Papa harrumphed, and I saw a cloud pass over Walt's face, but he was instantly charming and reassuring. "Of course," he said. "I'll send a couple of men to escort you down—say two weeks from today, weather permitting."

  "Might make it a day or two earli
er," Papa said, "just in case the weather don't cooperate." I knew he was simply trying to be part of the transaction, but Walt handled it gracefully.

  "Yes, sir, Mr. Burns. You're exactly right. We'll do it on the sixteenth."

  Papa nodded his approval, as if anyone needed it.

  We worked out the details and rose to leave. Walt laid a gentle hand on my arm and turned to Papa. "With your permission, Mr. Burns, I'm going to take your daughter dancing."

  I opened my mouth to protest. He had simply assumed I wanted to go dancing with him, and I knew it had never occurred to him to ask. I wasn't used to dancing, and even more, I wasn't used to having my life run by someone else, even to the slightest degree. But something stopped me—maybe it was a flash of thought that told me dancing with Walt Denison would be pure pleasure.

  Papa was nonplussed, but he managed to sputter, "No, no objections. You young ones have a good time. This old man will just go on to bed."

  I could tell by the way he held himself as he walked away that he was offended, maybe even jealous. He didn't want anything going on without him, particularly not a romance of his daughter. Papa never looked back and barely called a gruff "Goodnight" over his shoulder.

  We didn't dance. We went to some private club where Walt was apparently more than well known, and we sat at a tiny table in a dimly lit room and talked. He drank more bourbon—I was amazed at the amount he could apparently contain without any ill effects—and I sipped at a champagne cocktail.

  "Champagne cocktail?" I asked. "I've never heard of that."

  "Gentle," he said. "A lady's drink. You'll like it." And so without really asking, he ordered for me.

  It was good, I had to admit. That strange bittersweet taste—he told me it was a concoction called bitters—mixed wonderfully with the bubbles of the champagne as I rolled both over my tongue. I took only one drink and made it last a long while, afraid that any more would affect me or, as Mama would have said, make me forget that I was a lady.

  Walt asked about my riding, and I told him, not even realizing how pleased I was to find someone who wanted me to talk about myself. I poured out my indecision—first wanting to leave show business, then knowing I had to ride again. And when I was equally honest about my feelings about men—"I'll never marry again!"—he roared aloud with laughter, so that several others in the club turned to look at him.