Unbridled Dreams (28 page)
“Thank you,” Willa said. “The only thing better than reading this would be if she’d written
me.
” She sighed. “But I don’t suppose I can blame her for not wanting to do that.” She sat down and read while Minnie poured hot water into two china cups and dipped a tea ball in and out, watching as the clear water turned brown.
Dear Minnie,
This has been the hardest week of my life. I thought everything
would be easy because I am so happy to be here, but it isn’t. I alienated
Ned Bishop the other day when I tried to get him to use a more gentle
hand with Blaze, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he never speaks to
me again. I probably could have been a little more tactful in the way
I did it, but he was being too rough with her, and I just couldn’t stand
by and watch without saying something. Shep stood up for me, but
there were more wranglers upset with me than just Ned.
It’s fairly obvious that most everyone thinks I am only here because
Bill Cody owed Daddy a favor. To tell you the truth, if weren’t for
Monte and Shep and Helen, I don’t know if I could have stayed.
But I think I’m finally making some other friends. I’m working hard.
Believe it or not, after I train with Diamond in the morning I am
working in the wardrobe tent. I can hear you laughing already at the
idea of me patching pants and sewing on buttons. Ma Clemmons is
in charge of everything, and she’s really nice. If I had a grandma, I
would want her to be just like Ma.
Do you remember the two cowgirls on the program that did the
race? I work with them. One is very sweet and one isn’t. I try to get
along. My bunkmate, Helen, would shock Momma with her bad
grammar and her cowgirl ways, but she is truly the best friend I could
have asked for.
I probably won’t get to ride in the arena for a while. You can
imagine my reaction when I realized that. But Shep says I have to
be patient. I’m trying. We will be packing up in a few days. Here is
our schedule: Terre Haute, Indiana, May 18–19; Dayton, Ohio,
May 20–21; Wheeling, West Virginia, May 22–23; Cumberland,
Ohio, May 24–25; Hagerstown, Maryland, May 26–27; Frederick
City, Maryland, May 28–29; Washington, D.C., May 30–June
6; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, June 7–21; and then finally New
York, where we will put up a more permanent camp at a place called
Erastina on Staten Island.
Shep says Liberty Belle will probably debut in New York, although
he might talk to Mr. Salsbury about letting me ride in the parade in
Washington. (Mr. Salsbury and Bill Cody have assigned Shep to
watch me train and tell them when he thinks I am ready to perform.
At first that made me angry, but now I understand they can’t be
baby-sitting me all the time, and it’s not all bad. Shep doesn’t seem
to mind the job.)
If you see Momma, please try to make her understand that in
spite of it being difficult here, I am happier than I have ever been in
my whole life. I have tried to write her, but I just don’t know what to
say. I can’t tell her I am sorry, because that would be a lie. Every time
I get out a piece of notepaper and write the words “Dear Momma,” I
stare at the paper and then I give up. I haven’t written Daddy because
it would be mean not to include Momma, but she would be upset if I
just acted like nothing happened and wrote about the Wild West. I
don’t know what to do.
I hope you remembered to tell Orrin Knox what I said. Did you?
Write me soon. Monte says hi. He just came by the tent. Some of us
are going over to Forest Park for the afternoon.
If you talk to Momma tell her I am going to church. Since you
have been here you can tell her what it is like. Sunday Joe’s sermon
this morning was about being humble and taking the first steps toward
making up when you have a fight with someone. I thought about
Momma so much I almost cried. But I still don’t know what to do.
Well, now here is Shep and Helen telling me to come on, so I
will close.
Ever your faithful cousin and friend,
Liberty Belle
P.S. You can write to me at the Wild West, General Delivery,
New York, New York. Helen says they do a good job of chasing us
down and delivering the mail.
Willa got teary-eyed halfway through reading the letter. When she finished she reached across the table and grasped Minnie’s hand. “Thank you,” she said. “Both for having the courage to walk over here and for letting me read this.” She folded the letter and handed it back. “Will you be writing her soon?”
“I write almost every day,” Minnie said. “I just add a paragraph or so—or one of the other girls does. Or Ma. When we get a few pages, we send it off.”
“And have you told her I’m staying out here?”
Minnie shook her head. “No, ma’am. That’s not for any of us to tell.”
Willa smiled. “When you send off the next letter, would you tell her that you and I had tea and that Momma sends her love.”
D
O NOT BE DECEIVED, GOD IS NOT MOCKED; FOR
WHATEVER A MAN SOWS, THIS HE WILL ALSO REAP
.
Galatians 6:7
NASB
At first she thought it was only her imagination, but within a week of Belle’s setting foot in the wardrobe tent, things began to change. One of the surlier wranglers nodded and almost smiled when Belle walked by. The waiter in the dining tent refilled her coffee without her asking. The head trainer, Cy Matthews, showed her how to make an easy trick look more impressive. He even commiserated with her about Blaze’s fate, although he insisted the mare was too flighty for regular arena work. More troupe members began to drift past the corral when she was practicing and to shout encouragement. Best of all, Belle began to be included in the inside jokes and banter about everything from tough beef to ignorant guests. She wasn’t performing in the arena yet, but she was definitely beginning to be accepted as more than a visitor.
She wrote Minnie about how some folks returned to the show so often that troupe members began to call them by their first name.
You should have seen the look on Jack’s face (remember the little
boy who sat next to me at our first show?), when Shep called him
“pardner” one day.
If I were Orrin Knox and writing an article for the Register,
here’s what I’d want people to know about the Wild West: The Wild
West is the sweet scent of fresh hay and the not-so-sweet smells when
the thermometer climbs and the crowds press in and the performers
give their all and come out of the arena drenched in sweat. It’s the
smell of gunpowder wafting across the arena and the aroma of popcorn
popping on the midway. It’s the cowboy band striking up “The
Star Spangled Banner” and the whinnies and whickers of the horses
waiting to enter the arena. It’s cowboy clowns and bucking broncos,
buffalo hunts and horse races, trick roping and sharp shooting—and
Bill Cody commands it all with such elegance and grace the ladies
fairly swoon when he walks by.
It’s nearly heaven—and if not exactly heaven, what with the
mountains of manure and all, it’s near enough to heaven that I don’t
want to be anywhere else.
Belle wrote of looking forward to the October parade in New York and performing at Madison Square Garden and of sailing for England the following spring.
She began to write home, too, although her letters to Momma and Daddy struck a different note. In these, Belle spoke of the work ethic required to be a success, the opportunities she had had to meet interesting people, and the time she spent in the company of Ma Clemmons, who was a devout Christian woman admired by all. She recounted Sunday Joe’s sermons and did her best to paint the Wild West with hues designed to convince Momma that things with Irmagard Friedrich were, indeed, all right.
But still, she did not hear from Momma.
Helen and Belle readied their tent and its contents for moving between the afternoon and evening performances on May 17, their last day in St. Louis.
“Just set your trunk outside the tent flap,” Helen directed. “Bedding atop the trunk. The boys’ll load the tent and table onto another car since we won’t be needing them again until New York.” She reached up and took the cowbell down from where it had hung at the top of the tent pole. “What about this?” she said with a smile.
Belle grinned. “I hope you’ve noticed that once or twice I have actually managed to get up
before
the cook clangs that annoying triangle.” She reached for the cowbell. “But let’s keep this as a memento. I’ll pack it with my things.”
“I’m not sure about packing it away,” Helen joked. “You get too big for your britches and a clang of that bell just might be the thing that brings you back to earth quick. Remindin’ you of your roots and all.” She mooed.
Belle laughed and mooed back. While Helen, Dora, and Mabel headed off to mount up for the last performance, Belle picked her way through the hordes of workers hurrying to dismantle everything on the back lot. She found Ma Clemmons busily folding up worktables and putting away bolts of cloth and sewing tools while performers changed into their costumes and staff members loaded Ma’s equipment onto a wagon. Every department had its own wagons, and each wagon was specially designed to hold equipment. “A place for everything and everything in its place,” Ma said.
“The wagons we’ll need first at the next stop get loaded on the first car and so on down the line. I know it looks like chaos right now,” Ma said, gesturing at the frenetic activity on the lot, “but it’s not.” She waved Belle toward the train. “You should go see how it all works while you got the chance,” she said. “We’ve done what we can here until the Final Salute’s over.”
Belle made her way through the crowd and along the row of equipment wagons waiting to be loaded. Fascinated, Belle watched as, using a clever rigging of ropes and pulleys, the pull-up team walking alongside the train pulled the next equipment wagon up a long ramp and down the row of flat cars—connected into one long flat surface by the placing of iron plates across the gaps between cars. Once a wagon moved into place, the train crew put chock blocks before and behind the wagon wheels. And the process was repeated again for the next equipment wagon and the next.
Once Ma’s equipment wagon was loaded, Belle went to check on Diamond. This time, when she offered to help with the animals, she was put right to work. Cy Matthews, the trainer who’d been watching her sessions, seemed to go out of his way to explain how things would work. “I know it looks like they’re packed awful tight,” he said, “but between that and the fact we load ’em in sideways, they help each other stay on their feet as the train moves.” He let Belle lead Diamond up the gangplank herself, and when Ned Bishop grabbed Blaze’s halter and went to haul her aboard and Blaze balked, Matthews sent Ned to do something else and then motioned for Belle to help. “See if you can calm her down,” he said. Belle did, and in a few minutes Belle had loaded the “flighty” mare as if she’d been doing it all her life.
After the last performance, Belle helped the other cowgirls get their show animals ready for travel. When she and Helen finally climbed aboard the Pullman coach they would share with Dora Spurgeon and Mabel Douglas, Helen grabbed her stack of bedding and claimed a top bunk. “I expect you aren’t used to a narrow berth on a moving train,” she teased. “And if you was to fall out, it’d wake me up.”
“Thanks,” Belle laughed. “I appreciate your concern.” When the train whistle finally blew its warning for everyone to climb aboard, Belle peered out the windows at the darkened and now empty fairgrounds. The eleven acres that had only hours ago been a slice of the Wild West was once again an expanse of grass and shade trees and an unimpressive empty grandstand.
