by Judy Alter
"Me either!" he said loudly. "Once was enough." But when I asked him to tell me about his marriage, he just shook his head and said he didn't see any sense in talking about unpleasant things.
He sat with his arm casually on the back of my chair, while I perched, almost nervously, on the edge of the seat. Every once in a while his arm would stray over to touch my shoulder, but then it would move again to the chair back. When we talked, he locked his eyes onto mine, his expression sincere and intent. I began to wonder if I would have to fight him off at the door to my hotel room. A vision of yelling for Papa flitted through my head, making me let forth a slight giggle.
"What is it?" Walt asked, but I shook my head and refused to say.
I was wrong. At my door, he gave me a quick kiss on the forehead and said, "We'll be great together, Cherokee. I'll be in touch." And he was gone—without a word about seeing me again before Papa and I left for Guthrie.
I didn't know if I was relieved, miffed, puzzled, or disappointed. "Walt Denison," I said aloud to myself, "is a practiced ladies' man, and you best keep him clear out of your life."
Sometimes we don't listen to our own best advice.
* * *
Next morning Papa and I had breakfast in the hotel dining room. "You're lookin' sleepy, Tommy Jo. You out late last night with that Denison boy?"
It tickled me that Papa called him a boy, when he was at least thirty. "Yes, Papa, I was, and I didn't sleep too well. Strange bed and all that, you know." But it wasn't the strange bed. I'd lain awake far into the night, alternately trying to figure out Walt Denison and lecturing myself about being a fool for getting involved with any man, let alone one so obviously sophisticated and practiced in the ways of romance.
"He get outta line?" Papa demanded.
"No, Papa. He was a perfect gentleman," I said, wondering if that was why I was upset.
"If he wasn't," Papa threatened, "he'd have to fight Sandy Burns, and I can still hold my own against a boy his age. Soft, that's what he is." Papa, having yesterday thought Walt Denison was the answer to my prayers, was now making him an enemy.
"Papa," I said, "he's a fine man, and I think he's going to produce a good rodeo. He's certainly being generous to me, and I'm grateful for another chance to ride."
"Sort of a comedown for the star of the Buffalo Bill show," he muttered, "riding in a local rodeo in Fort Worth."
"No it's not," I said. "It's not a local show, like those little ones that are around here all the time. It's the rodeo with the Southwest Fat Stock Show. And besides, it's just a week—then I can be in Guthrie the rest of the time." Those words hit home like an arrow—the show was just one week. What was I going to do with the other fifty-one weeks in a year?
* * *
Papa went with me to Louise's when we got back to Guthrie, and before I could tell her anything, he was bragging about how I was going to be the star of the rodeo and how he'd arranged it all with that "young whippersnapper Denison." Louise looked sideways at me a time or two but listened attentively to Papa, murmuring "You don't say" or "Well, I'll be" every once in a while, to his great satisfaction.
"All right, Cherokee," she said, once he was safely out of earshot on his way back to Luckett's, "let's hear the truth."
"I'm going to ride in the show for a week. I'll do a trick-roping act, but I'll also enter the competition." I shrugged. "That's all there is to tell."
"No, it's not," she said, pulling me up from the kitchen table where we'd sat with Papa and marching me into that parlor filled with cushions and patterns and plush chairs. "You sit there." She nearly pushed me into a chair and then chose the footstool near it for herself, so that she perched almost at my knees. "What happened in Fort Worth that changed the look in your eyes?"
I laughed. "All right. I met a man. But I think, well, I think I'm foolish to think about him, for a lot of reasons."
"But you can't stop thinking about him? And he's that Walt Denison that tried to kiss you when you were fifteen?"
I nodded, and slowly I told her about my evening with Walt Denison. "I'm not going to have anything more to do with him," I ended emphatically. "He's not right for me. He's used to ordering women around."
"May be," she said, "but he's attractive, and you're attracted to him." She sighed and stood up, rubbing at her lower back as though it pained her. "There's no telling why we're attracted to some men, Cherokee, even though every rational thought tells us that he's the wrong man. I've given up puzzling it out." Hands on her hips, she turned to look at me with a broad smile. "If I were listening to my brain and not my heart, I wouldn't have another thing to do with your papa."
We both laughed then. But as we parted for the night, she said, "You might as well ride this one out, Cherokee. You're not going to walk away from him without seeing if you get thrown."
I tossed fretfully before falling into a restless sleep, but my last conscious thought was that I was not going to let a man mess up my life, not even Walt Denison. You are, I lectured myself, behaving like an adolescent, and you know better.
* * *
Next morning Louise was not herself. When I stumbled into the kitchen at six, she was staring at the roll dough as though she didn't know what to do with it, and there was no coffee made.
"Louise?" I asked.
"Oh, Tommy Jo, I think you'll have to help me this morning. I can't seem to..." Her sentence trailed off as she grabbed the edge of the sink and stared straight ahead, her teeth biting into her lip.
"What is it?" I cried, almost frantic.
"My stomach," she said, and then I could see her ease some, the tension leaving her, apparently as the pain passed. "I must have eaten something," she said lightly. "It'll pass. But I would appreciate your help right now."
"You sit down," I said, as I started the coffee. She obeyed and sat at the kitchen table, where I could glance at her from time to time as I kneaded the rolls and stirred the oatmeal. She would seem fine until a pain seemed to grab her, and then, even sitting in a chair, she'd almost double up.
"Louise, you go on up to bed. I'll send for the doctor."
"No," she muttered, "no doctor. I... I'll be all right." But she went up the stairs, haltingly, to her room. I would have helped her, but some sense told me it was more important to her that I have breakfast ready for the boarders.
They ate, curious about where Louise was and why I wasn't sitting with them. But as soon as I had them served, I was up the stairs into her room. She lay on the bed, eyes staring at the ceiling, her skin sort of pasty and pale, wet with a cold sweat. A wave of pain would pass over her, causing her to grit her teeth and cling to the side of the bed, and then she would relax, obviously spent from the ordeal.
"The doctor's coming," I said. "I sent Mr. Coconaur for him before I'd let the poor man eat breakfast."
She turned her face toward mine. "No hospital," she said through clenched teeth. "My mother... she went to the hospital... died. I need calomel."
"Calomel?" I knew it was a laxative, and I knew that Louise's pain came from something too serious for calomel to cure.
"Calomel," she repeated, her voice firmer.
"I'll go get it," I said, and left the room, knotting a fist into my mouth in fear. Nothing could happen to Louise! I wouldn't let it!
Dr. Munson arrived before I had a chance to leave for the druggist's, and I met him at the door. "She wants calomel," I said. "I'm on my way to get it now."
He put a restraining hand on my arm. "Let me see her first."
I left the room while he examined her, and was in the kitchen cleaning up from breakfast when he appeared. "It's her appendix," he said. "It hasn't ruptured yet, but there's no time to waste. Thank God you didn't give her the calomel."
I turned toward him, my look obviously a question.
"Stimulates bowel activity," he said curtly. "Would have ruptured it instantly and spread infection throughout her belly. We most times can't save them when that happens."
"Now what?" I aske
d.
"We'll have to remove that appendix right away."
"She says she won't go to the hospital," I told him. "Says her mother died there."
Clutching his medical bag, the doctor gave me a long look. Finally, he spoke. "Young lady, the days when I did surgery on the kitchen table are long past. We can save her at the hospital, or at least give her a fifty-fifty chance. If she doesn't go, we'll lose her for sure."
"She'll go," I said, heading for the stairs. Once in her room, I began to put together a few of her things—a warm gown, a hairbrush and personal items, the small Bible she kept by her bed.
Between bouts of pain, she watched me warily, but the pain was now almost constant, and she was reduced to a pitiful moaning state, making small sounds like a cat in pain. Every instant I thought fear would make me bolt from the room, but then I would straighten up and continue. With her things gathered, I went to the bed and took her hand. She clasped mine with the ferocity of someone desperate for help.
"You're going to the hospital," I said. "Dr. Munson says it's the only way he can save you."
She nodded grimly and kept her grip on my hand. When they carried her out of the bedroom in a makeshift stretcher made of blankets, she was still clutching my hand, and I near fell down the stairs trying to keep that hold and yet stay out of the men's way. Dr. Munson had arranged for a flat wagon to transport her to the hospital—luckily it was a balmy day for January—and saw to all the details. Though things moved quickly, it seemed hours before that wagon pulled away from the front of the house.
Word travels fast in a small town, and before I could leave to follow them to the hospital, Bo arrived.
"Just heard about Louise," he said. "How is she, and what can I do?"
I told him, briefly, all that I knew, which wasn't very reassuring. "You can—if you would, Bo, would you ride for Papa?"
"I'm gone," he said, and he was.
I sat on a hard straight chair in the hospital hallway, alone, waiting for the doctor who had been gone, I thought, far too long. Occasionally a nurse came by and smiled briefly at me, but pretty much I was alone. I longed for Bo and Papa and maybe even Pearl, and I was terrified of losing Louise. If she was gone, I thought I'd be alone. Papa, the colonel, Pearl—none of them counted like Louise.
After what seemed like hours, Dr. Munson came down the hall. He wore his dark suit with the vest and the gold watch chain hanging across his belly, and the absurd picture arose in my mind of him fastidiously operating in those very clothes, without getting a bit of blood on himself. I silenced my urge to ask him what he wore in surgery.
"She's a very sick lady," he said solemnly, "but her appendix didn't rupture. I think she'll be fine. The next twenty-four hours should tell us."
"What can I do?"
"Sit with her, let her know you're there, give her the will to live. After a day or so, you can start feeding her broth. But for now, your presence is important."
That's where Papa and Bo found me, sitting beside Louise's bed in a darkened room, holding a limp hand and willing her to open her eyes and look at me. I was more frightened than I had ever been on any rough horse. It was more like the fright I knew on a runaway train, because I had no control over what happened.
"How is she?" Papa asked in what he thought was a whisper.
I shrugged and pointed to the sheet-covered figure, which seemed to lie with the stillness of the morgue. Only if you looked closely did you see the rise and fall of her chest from shallow breathing.
"Louise," Papa suddenly said in a loud voice, "you wake up and listen to me. I'm not gonna find another woman who cooks pot roast like you do, so you just gotta get outta that bed and go home again."
In horror I reached to silence him, but he brushed me away and nodded toward the bed. Louise's eyes had opened ever so slightly, and as I watched with held breath, the corners of her mouth lifted ever so slightly. Then she closed her eyes and fell asleep again.
"She heard me," Papa said with a great deal of satisfaction.
"And so did everyone in the hospital," I countered. "Couldn't you be quieter?"
"Be damned about other people," he said. "I wanted to be sure she knew she's important to me. How else could I tell her?"
I looked at him with surprise and some measure of respect for his judgment, and when I looked, I saw tears in his eyes. I let go of Louise's hand long enough to give Papa a big hug. "Go on," I said. "You and Bo go look after the boarders, and I'll stay here."
"No," Papa said, "there's no way I can cook for them spoiled people. You go feed them supper. I'll stay here."
It made sense to me, and I went, with Bo following me. We put together a meal of scrambled eggs, fresh vegetables, and some leftover pies. We answered the boarders' questions, reassured them that Louise would be fine, and finally—the boarders retired for the night and the kitchen clean—collapsed at the kitchen table.
"I've got to go back to the hospital," I said, feeling that I didn't have the energy to get myself upstairs to bed, let alone to the hospital.
Bo took a sip of his coffee and looked at me over the rim of the cup. "Don't you suppose if they needed you, they'd have called?" There was no sarcasm in his voice, just an honest question.
I nodded. "But she needs to know how much I care."
"She knows," he said. "You need to go on to sleep. I'll stay on the couch down here, case you need me."
Too exhausted to think, I went over to where he sat and bent my head to lean against his. "Bo, I don't know where I'd ever be without you."
He reached up to pat my hand without saying a word, and I turned and forced my way up those stairs and into bed, where I slept without waking until dawn.
Bo found me in the kitchen fixing breakfast, when he straggled up from the couch, his hair going awry in a thousand directions. I laughed before I thought, and embarrassed him as he tried desperately to slick it down with spit.
"Go upstairs to my room," I said. "There's a brush and a rag for your face."
By the time he returned, the boarders were eating flapjacks—"No eggs," I explained, "you had them for supper last night, sorry"—and I had the kitchen running smoothly.
When the last person was fed and the dishes put up, I untied my apron and announced that I was going to the hospital. Bo went with me, and we found Papa asleep and snoring loudly in an uncomfortable chair by Louise's bedside.
When I whispered, "Louise?" her eyes flew open, and she reached for my hand.
"Cherokee... I'm glad you're here. I... I thank you for bullying me into coming to the hospital."
"You're all right!" I said, with no question in my voice.
"I will be," she said softly. "Might take some time."
By now, Papa was awake. "She'll be fine," he said, once again too loudly, "and I'm ready for some pot roast."
Louise reached a hand out to pat his and smiled gently.
"Louise, I'll stay until you can run the boardinghouse again," I said, even though a picture of Walt Denison rose in my mind as I said it.
She shook her head ever so slightly. "No... the Fort Worth rodeo... you've got to go ride. Sandy'll run the boardinghouse."
Papa harrumphed and snorted and finally said, "Well, I can hire someone to do it, and I'll see that it's done right. You go on, Tommy Jo, and ride in that show. Don't guess I'll be going, though."
I felt guilty at the sense of relief that flooded through me at that statement. "All right, Papa," I said, "if you're sure..."
As Bo and I left the hospital that evening, I realized I was off on another adventure—or was it a wild-goose chase? Bo didn't say anything until we got back to the boardinghouse, and then he left me with the words, "You go chase that dream, Tommy Jo, but you always know I'm here. I'll have Governor and Guthrie ready to travel whenever you say."
He was gone before I could wipe the tears out of my eyes.
Chapter 15
The war in Europe did not leave Fort Worth untouched that winter of 1917. The Canadian gove
rnment had established three airfields for the training of pilots, and the city bustled with such tidbits as the fact that dancer Vernon Castle was training at Hicks Field while his lovely dancer-wife, Irene, stayed at a hotel in the city. When he was killed in the crash of his training plane, the whole city grieved with his widow.
There was talk that the city would allocate land west of the city for an army camp to be called Camp Bowie, and the city's stockyards already showed increased activity in the trading of horses and mules. Everyone knew that the United States would enter the war almost any day.
But you'd never have known it from the stock show and rodeo—the atmosphere spoke of a city without a care on its mind and nothing more important than the debut of its most prominent daughters. The Fort Worth rodeo was like no show I'd ever ridden in because they mixed debutantes and cowboys. It was the strangest combination I'd ever heard of.
The annual crop of young ladies, ready to be introduced to society, made their bows on the opening night of the rodeo, circling the arena in open wagons and waving happily to the crowd. Fort Worth's cream-of-the-crop were in the audience to applaud their daughters and to see and be seen.
This was the most important event of the social year. I was absolutely flabbergasted.
After the wagons circled the arena twice and the national anthem was properly played, the queen of the rodeo—a Miss Helen Breedlove—was escorted to her throne by one of her formally attired escorts, a handsome young man whose hands and face looked soft, as though he'd never done a lick of real work in his life. Miss Breedlove had a gilt crown and an enormous fan of peacock feathers that echoed the electric greens and blues of her satin gown. She presided over the rodeo sitting on a throne at one side of the arena, her train artfully draped to trail below her.
The other members of her court—six of them in equally elaborate outfits—clustered in a semicircle behind her. These girls—not a one of them over eighteen—wore elegant formal gowns of satin and brocade, each with long trains and many sequins and bugle beads. Behind them, in formal clothes, stood the young men of the court, so young I suspected some didn't even shave yet. Fortunately for all, the queen's throne and the attendants' chairs were high enough above the arena that the young people were spared clods of flying dirt or, worse, the danger of a runaway animal.