Coming Up Roses

by Duncan, Alice

  “I did not screech at the man.” Rose crossed her own arms over her breasts and sat back with a huff. “Besides, he was a moron.”

  H.L. had the gall to laugh. “He might not have been the brightest candle in the box, but you gave him a touchy problem, don’t forget. The most those Columbian Guards usually have to contend with is folks who’ve had too much beer in the German Village.”

  “Hmph.” Rose didn’t think anything about this situation was funny. “This is much more serious than that.”

  “Right. Which is why we’re on our way to the police station right now. Don’t worry, Miss Gilhooley, we’ll get the boy back if it’s possible to do so.”

  Rose had her doubts about that, if she were forced to depend on H.L. May to do it. She gave him another “Hmph,” and passed the remainder of her trip staring at the city of Chicago as they traveled past it.

  She was impressed, although she’d eat a bumblebee before she said so to H.L. But Chicago seemed like a nice place and pretty in spots, although Rose was more comfortable in her native wide open spaces than in cities. Still, if one had to live in a big city, Chicago might not be a bad one in which to do it, especially if one had a good income and could buy a nice place by the lake. She liked Chicago better than New York City.

  Her mother would probably love it here. Although Mrs. Gilhooley had come from a family in modest circumstances, she’d begun life in Massachusetts, in the city of Greenfield. She used to regale her children with stories about life back home, and Rose had been able to discern the longing in her voice, even though her mother had always tried to hide it.

  Every time Rose thought about her poor mother, she ached inside. It made her feel better to know that the money she sent home helped ease her mother’s burdens. It would really ease her burdens if Rose could take her away from Deadwood and find her a home somewhere in a more civilized environment.

  Her mother never complained, and she loved her family more than anything else in the world, but her life had been so hard. Rose longed to make her remaining years comfortable. She had a long-standing dream of moving her entire family somewhere other than Deadwood; somewhere they could all be together, but where there more opportunities for a decent life than there were in Deadwood.

  Until she’d met the colonel, her dream had been an idle one; a mere daydream. The longer she worked with the Wild West, the less impossible it seemed. She’d never spoken aloud of her ambitions, not even to Annie, because Rose was sure people would think she was only being fanciful. Whoever heard of a woman taking care of her whole family?

  Actually, lots of women took care of their families, but not the way Rose wanted to do it. Rose wanted more than poverty and worry, which is what the normal female-headed family experienced daily. Rose wanted peace and, if not luxury, at least comfort for her loved ones. Before they died. It was all well and good to rest in eternal peace, but Rose wanted to provide her family with a bit of peace long before then.

  Fiddlesticks. She wanted everything. Why not ask for the sun and stars while you’re at it, Rose Gilhooley?

  Still and all, maybe her secret dream wasn’t too far out of line. After all, even if she couldn’t move her whole family to Chicago or somewhere else as nice as this, at least she could eventually allow them to live a better life in Kansas, and that was the main thing. With her brother’s help, it should be possible, too. Good old Freddie worked hard to help their mother, just as Rose did. The two smallest girls were too young to help a whole lot, but Rose had no doubt that they’d pull their weight one of these days.

  She heaved a huge sigh.

  “What’s the matter? Worried about Bear in Winter?”

  She turned to glance at H.L., whose voice had actually sounded kind. She didn’t believe it and squinted at him narrowly, trying to figure out what his game was. “Of course.”

  “We’ll all do our best for him, Miss Gilhooley,” he said, still sounding sympathetic and kindhearted.

  What was going on here? Why was he being nice to her? Did he know something she didn’t about the fate of kidnapped children in Chicago? Was there some kind of ring that captured loose children and did awful things to them? Obviously, something was amiss, if H.L. May had taken to being kind.

  She didn’t get the chance to ask him what terrible fate he envisioned for Bear, because the trolley pulled to a stop in front of the police station, and H.L. announced, “Here we are. Little Elk, will you help Miss Gilhooley down? I want to ask the driver something.”

  Rose watched him narrowly as she climbed down from the trolley. He only spent a couple of seconds with the driver, and then he climbed down, too, and joined them on the sidewalk. “I asked him if he’d seen anyone with a wooden leg and a black moustache with a little Indian boy.”

  “Oh.” Rose hadn’t even thought about asking the trolley driver if he’d seen Bear. But it was a logical question, since the trolley ran right past the Exposition, and anyone might have caught it. “And had he?”

  “No.”

  “Oh.” There was no reason for her to feel so disappointed. After all, it would have been a miracle if finding the child were to be as easy as all that.

  “So,” H.L. went on, “let’s see what the Chicago police have to tell us.”

  “Right.”

  The three of them walked up the steps to the police station, and H.L. opened the door for Rose and Little Elk to enter before him. Rose looked around with interest. There was a counter over to one side, with a blue-uniformed man with a big walrus moustache behind it. He looked bored until he glanced up and saw H.L. Then he frowned. Rose wasn’t sure, but she thought this might be an unlucky-for-Bear reaction on the policeman’s part.

  “What are you doing here, newshound? Didn’t know we’d had any riots or police beatings lately.”

  The man had a thick Irish accent. For some reason, Rose wasn’t surprised, perhaps because she’d heard somewhere that lots of Irishmen became policemen when they moved to the United States. Why that should be she didn’t know, but she wondered if Freddie might like to take up a career in law enforcement if he moved with their mother to Chicago. She warned herself not to get sidetracked. Bear in Winter was her first priority at the moment.

  “No such luck, Morty,” H.L. said with a hard laugh.

  Rose looked at him, surprised by this change in his tone of voice. He sounded sharp and sarcastic with this police person. Only moments earlier, he’d sounded kind and concerned. She hated people who changed their personalities this way. They were so disconcerting. One never knew how to react to them.

  H.L. went on, “We’re here to report a kidnapping and to get help in finding the kidnapped party.”

  “A kidnapping? Where’d you get a kid to nap?” The policeman barked out a laugh as if he appreciated his own wit.

  “Not mine.” H.L. tilted his head in Little Elk’s direction. “His.”

  Morty, who hadn’t paid any attention to Rose or Little Elk once he spotted H.L., glanced at the two of them now. His gaze came to rest on the Sioux. His eyes nearly popped from their sockets. “Jaysus, May, that there looks like a real wild Indian.”

  Rose bridled instantly, but H.L. put a restraining hand on her arm. When she tried to shake him off, he dug his fingers into her flesh and it was all she could not to cry out in pain. She was so incensed, she wanted to stamp on H.L.’s foot, but finally understood that he was giving her a signal to let him handle the policeman.

  She sniffed and almost told him what she thought of him, but another look at the policeman made her hold her tongue. He didn’t appear, at first glance, as if he were a particularly cooperative individual. Maybe H.L., who evidently knew him, ought at least to handle the first part of this interview.

  “This is Little Elk. He’s a member of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, Morty. It’s one of his kinfolk who was kidnapped, a ten-year-old boy named Bear in Winter.”

  “Why the devil do them Injuns give their kids such stupid names, is what I want to know.” Morty cast a supe
rior sneer at Little Elk. Rose clamped her teeth together and told herself not to shriek at the obnoxious man.

  “It’s nothing to you why they do anything, Morty. What matters today is that this little boy has been kidnapped.”

  Rose was astonished by how well H.L. May was keeping his temper even under what seemed to her like extreme provocation. If it had been she dealing with Morty, she’d have thrown something at him by this time.

  “And how do you know that, Mr. Newshound? Did you see the snatch happen?”

  “No, but there were two witnesses.”

  “Ah, and did you bring ‘em with you? Is that what these two are?” He jerked a rude nod in the direction of Rose and Little Elk. Rose decided this horrid man wasn’t worth her anger. He wasn’t worth anything at all.

  “No. This is Miss Rose Gilhooley, who performs with the Wild West as Wind Dancer.”

  Rose gave the policeman a cold nod. He returned her nod with a knowing grin. He also adjusted the bow tie at his throat, as if he were trying to tidy up especially for her. Good God, thought Rose. He’s acting just like a thug from Deadwood. She’d believed big-city policemen to be above such things. Which just went to show one more time how little she knew about life. What a depressing thought.

  “We can, however, give you a description of the kidnapper,” H.L. said loudly, presumably in an attempt to deflect Morty’s attention away from Rose and back to the problem.

  His fun over, Morty heaved an aggrieved sigh and drew a piece of paper toward himself. He dipped a pen in a pot of ink and held the pen over the paper. “All right, then, give me the story.”

  H.L. glanced over at Little Elk. The Sioux stepped forward and gave a brief description of the man who had been seen carrying Bear in Winter away.

  “And you say the lad was struggling?” Morty asked, sounding as if he didn’t care.

  “Yes.”

  Rose could tell by the expression on her friend’s face that Little Elk had come to the conclusion they’d be getting little or no help from this quarter. She’d heard of anarchists who threw bombs into public buildings, but she’d never felt in any way akin to them until this minute. If all the policemen in Chicago were like Morty, she’d like to throw a bomb at the lot of them.

  “So,” H.L. said after Morty had been scratching away with his pen for a minute or two, “do you aim to help us find the boy or not?”

  Morty didn’t answer for another minute or two. Rose wanted to pick up the log book at his elbow and thump him on the head with it. When he looked up from his report at last, Morty couldn’t have looked less interested in their problem if he’d tried. “I’ll file this report,” he told them in a neutral tone.

  “I see.” H.L. gave Morty a long, hard look. “That means you’re not going try to find the boy, doesn’t it, Morty?”

  “Now see here, newshound. There are rules and regulations that govern these things. Time limits and so forth. We can’t go rushing around looking for every little kid who runs away from home. It ain’t worth the effort.”

  “I see.” H.L.’s face hardened further. Rose was glad he’d never looked at her like that. “In other words, you neither care about this lost child, nor are you going to do shit to try to find him. Right, Morty?”

  “Now, now, May. That’s no way to talk in front of a lady.” He gave Rose a leer. “If she is a lady, that is.”

  “Why, you—”

  H.L. grabbed Rose before she could climb up the barrier and hit Morty with her handbag. “Don’t waste your energy, Miss Gilhooley. This specimen isn’t worth it. It’s our misfortune that the man at the desk had to be this slug. The unfortunate truth is that Chicago’s police force has far too many worthless bums just like him.”

  “Says you,” Morty sneered.

  “Say I, indeed,” H.L. countered. He turned and spoke to Rose and Little Elk. “All right, we’ve done our duty as citizens. Since the police force won’t help us, I guess we’re going to have to find the boy ourselves.”

  “Do you mean to tell me we’ve wasted over an hour on a useless mission?” Rose’s indignation couldn’t have climbed much higher or she’d have had an attack of something.

  “It’s not entirely wasted,” H.L. told her in a comforting tone. “For one thing, you never know. We might have found one of the few decent men on the police force on duty today. And this way, when we do find Bear all by ourselves, I’ll have an even better story to report to the good people of Chicago. They deserve to know exactly how their tax dollars are being used.” He grinned. “I think I feel a call for reform in the air.”

  He took Rose’s arm in one hand and Little Elk’s in the other, and started herding them toward the door. Behind them, Rose heard a chair being shoved back and the squeak of springs as Morty rose to his feet.

  “Say now!” the policeman shouted after them. “Here! Come back here, May! You can’t go printing things like that in the Globe!”

  H.L. turned his head to cast one last glance at the irate policeman.

  When Rose did likewise, she saw fury and fear battling on his ugly red face.

  “Watch me.” H.L. opened the door and almost threw Rose outside.

  “Mr. May! she shouted at him. “I wanted to give that horrid man a piece of my mind!”

  “I know you did, Miss Gilhooley,” he said calmly. “That’s why I shoved you outdoors. Besides, my exit line was better. We’d just be wasting our time if we stayed there while you ripped up at him.”

  Rose was so mad, she could only splutter incoherently. H.L. May laughed as he propelled her along the busy Chicago street.

  Chapter Eleven

  The funniest thing about the series of articles H.L. was writing for the Globe, he mused as he escorted the spluttering Rose Gilhooley and the stoical Little Elk down Fiftieth Street, was that he couldn’t remember ever having so much fun in his life. Yeah, yeah, he knew a kid’s life was in danger—real danger. And he knew that he’d just irritated a member of Chicago’s police force, which might result on consequences of one sort or another. And he knew the Columbian Exposition would end one of these days, and then where would he be?

  But all that stuff didn’t matter. H.L. May was having the time of his life, and it was all because of the company he’d started keeping: Rose Ellen Gilhooley from Deadwood, Kansas, and Little Elk, the Sioux Indian from God Knew Where.

  “You’re a scoundrel, H.L. May!” Rose shouted at him, oblivious to the stares of passersby on the street. She’d realize folks were staring one of these minutes, and then she’d be embarrassed. H.L. was beginning to know her like a book.

  “Probably,” he said, in hopes that the word would rile her further and keep her spitting at him for another little while.

  Little Elk, as ever, walked along in silence not even paying attention to Rose’s diatribe. At one point, H.L. thought he caught a wink from his dark-skinned companion, but he wasn’t sure, and he thought it unlikely. Did Indians wink at people? H.L. had never heard of such a thing.

  “What do you mean, ‘probably?’” Rose tried to stop walking, plant her fists on her hips, and shout at him from a stable position, but H.L. kept her moving.

  “I guess I’m probably a scoundrel, is all,” he said complacently. “You obviously think I am, and I’d never doubt your opinion on such a matter, Miss Gilhooley.”

  “You’re impossible!”

  “That, too.”

  “That man back there ought to be fired! He ought to be called before his superiors and given a dressing down! He ought to be horsewhipped!”

  Again, H.L. said, “Probably.”

  “But, what do you do instead of making him do his duty? You tell him you’re going to write about this incident in your newspaper, and then leave!” She became incoherent for a second or two, only making sputtering noises and snorts, before she said, “I can’t stand it.”

  “Take it easy, Miss Gilhooley. If you’re through scolding me, we have to discuss how we’re going to go about finding the boy.”

 
She stopped walking that time, in spite of H.L.’s efforts to keep her moving. “What? What did you say? You mean you’re going to help us find him?”

  “Well, of course, I am! What did you think I was going to do? Let whoever took him keep him?”

  Her pretty mouth opened and closed a couple of times. H.L. watched it with longing. He really, really wanted to kiss this woman. To taste her. He wagered with himself that she’d taste sweet, rather than spicy, because she was more sweet than not, although he didn’t bet too much. He gave himself slightly better than fifty-fifty odds, hedging a bit.

  When Rose found her wits again, not very many words arrived with them.

  H.L. grinned to himself, although he deemed it prudent not to grin at Rose just yet. Because Little Elk was looking at him impassively, and because the Indian might have winked at him, H.L. gave him a wink to even things up. Little Elk nodded once, which H.L. took as a signal that things were going about as he’d expected them to. H.L. was surprised when the Sioux opened his mouth to drop a tidbit into the conversation.

  “I’m hungry.”

  Sensible man, this Sioux. H.L. said, “Me, too. Let’s grab something to eat while we plot strategies.”

  “Plot strategies?” Rose blinked at both of them.

  “Sure,” H.L. said. “Here’s a place. I eat here a lot, and if we take a booth in the back, we won’t be overheard.”

  “But—but—”

  Evidently, Rose hadn’t recovered yet, because she didn’t continue with that thought, if it was one. H.L. steered her through the doors of the restaurant and greeted the waiter by name. “Give us the best table in the house, Waldo, as long as it’s a booth in the back.”

  “Sure, sure, H.L. I’ve got one just right for you.”

  “You’re a good fellow, Waldo, even if you are a wop.”

  “Better’n a mick,” countered Waldo with a laugh. He led them to their booth and H.L. politely gestured for Rose to enter first.

  “Why don’t I order for us and save time?” H.L. asked his companions.

  Little Elk grunted his agreement. Rose looked startled, opened her mouth, closed it, and said nothing. H.L. took this as compliance, and told Waldo, “Bring us three plates of Joe’s special spaghetti and meatballs. And lemonade for the lady. I’ll have a beer.” He glanced at Little Elk, recalling the stories he’d read about how alcohol was devastating Indian tribes, and wishing he’d remembered them sooner.