Unbridled Dreams (29 page)

The train headed east through the sleeping city of St. Louis and then across the Mississippi River by way of the Eads Bridge. Daddy had been impressed by the bridge, Belle remembered, calling it a marvel of engineering. As the train rattled along, the three cowgirls who’d performed that day fell asleep. But the rocking of the train car and the sound of the rails combined with other thoughts and worries to keep Belle awake far into the night. She didn’t understand why she hadn’t heard more from Daddy. She’d told him exactly how to address letters to the Wild West. And what was Momma thinking these days? Minnie had written that they had tea and that Momma said to send her love. That was something, but it wasn’t enough. She wanted Momma to write.

Belle’s mind wandered away from her parents and back to the Wild West. She wondered if Monte realized that Dora Spurgeon cared for him. Would Ned Bishop ever get over being mad at her? Did Shep know that Mabel Douglas watched his every move? Shep . . . Shep . . . Shep. His name was in her head so often lately. Something would have to be done about that. As Liberty Belle, she needed to be thinking more about perfecting an impressive act and less about Shep Sterling’s smile. And much less about when he might kiss her again. With a sigh, Belle turned over. But she did not sleep.

Happiness could wear mighty thin when a person was forced to live in cramped quarters with someone who didn’t like them. It seemed to Belle that when Mabel wasn’t teasing Dora about Monte or her stutter, she was making sly remarks about Belle and Shep. Mabel Douglas just wasn’t in the least bit friendly and it was getting increasingly hard to ignore.

Letters from home were very short. One of Daddy’s recent notes was postmarked
Denver.
That helped some. Clearly Daddy was traveling for business. But Momma’s wall of silence loomed ever higher. Belle’s own letters home became less frequent. What was there to say, anyway? She helped unload. She sewed. She groomed horses. She helped pack up. And as far as she could tell she wasn’t any nearer to actually performing. Shep kept saying she would ride Diamond in the parade in Washington, D.C., but that was weeks away.
Weeks.

Willa was hoeing beans one morning when a rider approached from the direction of town. Laura, who had been thinning the dozen or so hills of squash at the far end of the garden, stood up and peered at the rider, then walked over and said, “Do you want me to send him away?”

With a sigh, Willa shook her head. “I have to face him sometime. It might as well be today.” She reached for Laura’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “Would you say a prayer for me?” Leaving the garden behind, she headed for her cabin even as she telegraphed a protest toward heaven. She did not want to see Otto today. It was too soon. But here he was, hitching his black gelding to a corral post next to the barn and striding toward her. Willa waited just beneath the overhang that created a small porch running the length of the rustic cabin.

“What’s this?” Otto said abruptly, motioning at the cabin.

“Didn’t Charlie mention this when he told you I’d be staying here?” Willa gestured around her. “The girls helped me clean it out.”

He swiped an open hand over his mustache and goatee. “You can come home, Willa.” He looked away. “I’ve already moved out.

I’m living at the hotel now.”

“I never wanted that house,” Willa said. “A grandiose house was always your idea.”

“I wanted you to have something nice.”

She shook her head. “No you didn’t. You wanted the biggest house in town. You wanted to impress everyone. If you’d wanted to give
me
something nice, you would have listened to what
I
wanted. We’d have built a smaller house and had money for gardens. And trees.” She sighed. “But you never listened to me, and it doesn’t really matter anymore. Irmagard is gone and there’s no reason for me to live there.” She gestured at the freshly turned earth that ran along the front of the porch. “I’m very content here. I’ve planted flowers. Daisies and larkspur. Charlie says they won’t grow, but I’ll keep them watered, and I bet he’ll be surprised.”

“Whatever you think you read in that letter,” Otto blurted out, “I haven’t betrayed you again. It isn’t what you think.”

“Really? How else should I have interpreted a letter from another woman that begins
My Dear Otto,
and goes on to express concern about a ‘stipend’ that hasn’t arrived and then mentions how faithful you’ve been
over the years
.” Willa glared at him. “Exactly how many ways are there to think about a letter like that, Otto?”

He ran his hand over his mustache and goatee. “I am
not
keeping another woman. That money makes it possible for a promising young man to go to school.”

Willa folded her arms and leaned against the doorjamb. “And I suppose your relationship with the young man’s mother is platonic?”

He looked away. Shook his head. “It wasn’t at one time. But it has been for a long time. In fact, it isn’t really even a relationship. I rarely see her.” He gestured toward the cabin. “Could we please go inside?” When Willa hesitated, he reached into his coat and pulled out a bundle of letters. “From Irma,” he said. “But there’s something else I have to say, and I’d like to say it without several pairs of Mason eyes boring holes in me. Imaginary or not, I seem to sense that you and I are being watched.”

Willa led him inside. Never had she seen Otto so flustered. He laid Irmagard’s letters on the little kitchen table. “She’s doing well,” he said.

“I don’t doubt that,” Willa said. She was planning to visit Irmagard in New York, but it wasn’t something she cared to discuss with him.

Otto took his hat off and set it on the table. He looked around him. “Please, Willa,” he said. “I love you. I want you to come home.” He took a deep breath. “You have to understand. It happened a long time ago. But I couldn’t simply turn my back on my obligations. I couldn’t just walk away and pretend he doesn’t exist.” He tugged on his goatee. “It would be different with a girl. A girl could make a good marriage and be all right. But a boy—a boy needs schooling. It isn’t his fault the way he started out. Don’t you see? He deserves a chance.

“His mother moved to Denver when he was little, and as far as everyone there is concerned, she’s a widow. But I couldn’t just turn my back on him. So I’ve sent money to a trustee. She never gets any of it. It’s only for the boy.” He sank onto the one chair in the tiny room and sat, fiddling with the stack of Irmagard’s letters. Clearing his throat, he finally looked up at Willa. “He’s twelve years old. And it was the last time I did anything like that. Do you hear me, Willa? It was
the last time.

“I did a despicable thing to you, and I wouldn’t have blamed you if you
had
left with Philip. But you didn’t. You stayed with me. And we’ve built a good life together. I promised to be faithful to you if you’d stay, and I have kept that promise. With God as my witness, I have kept that promise. I love you, Willa. You and
only
you.”

“He’s twelve years old.”
As the reality of what Otto was confessing sunk in, Willa stopped listening. She lost the awareness of her surroundings, and when she regained her senses, she was sitting on the cot in the adjoining room trying to catch her breath—and trying not to vomit. Otto was still sitting at the kitchen table with his back to her and his head in his hands. If she hadn’t known him better, she would have thought he was crying from the way his shoulders shook.

It seemed to take hours for him to finally reach for his hat and turn around. He stood up and came to the doorway.

“Is there anything I can say, anything I can do that will convince you to forgive me and to come home?” His voice broke. “I am so sorry, Willa. So very sorry. I’ll do anything. Anything you want. Just tell me what to do.”

“Get out,” Willa said. She was aware of him moving away from the door, but she didn’t look at him. She heard the sound of his footsteps and then the squeaking of a hinge and the click of the latch as he pushed the screened door closed behind him. Finally the cadence of hoofbeats sounded as the great black horse took its rider away.

On the late-May morning when the Wild West set up in Hagerstown, Maryland, the sky was heavy with dark, billowing clouds. Thunder sounded in the distance as canvasmen and seat teams hurried to erect the grandstand. By the time the audience began to trickle in for the afternoon show, a fine mist had settled over the grounds.

Bill Cody had been confined to his parlor car ever since injuring his foot during the reenactment of his duel with Yellow Hand in Wheeling. Thanks to medicinal whiskey, Cody was managing to ride in the Grand Entry and at the head of the band of cowboys rescuing homesteaders from Indians on the warpath. Still, crowds were less than happy when they realized Cody wouldn’t be presenting his famous target-shooting act, and they had ways of letting it be known. While Shep Sterling and Annie Oakley had received their usual ovations at the previous stop, when Cody rode out, things quieted down to what one reporter labeled, “merely polite.” Things like that affected everyone’s mood, and the gloomy weather was no help.

As the day wore on in Hagerstown and the mist evolved into bona fide drizzle, even Helen Keen, who could usually be counted on to keep friendly banter going as the cowgirls went through their preperformance routines, was in an off mood. When Mabel said something about Dora’s “c-c-crush” on Monte, Helen grabbed her arm. “Shut up, Mabel. For once in your life, just shut up and leave Dora alone.”

Belle excused herself and ducked into the wardrobe tent. Other than an occasional click of a belt buckle or the thud of a work boot dropping to the ground, the only sound in the tent was the patter of raindrops on the canvas overhead. When, with a clap of thunder and a flash of lightning, it began to rain in earnest, a collective moan went up.

For the first time since joining the Wild West, Belle was consciously grateful for Dr. Miller’s presence with the troupe. She was also glad she wasn’t performing. Riders would be soaked to the skin moments after shedding their slickers, and the arena would be a morass of slippery mud. Any act depending on quick maneuvers would take on an entirely new level of danger. Belle began to worry. She cared about these people and didn’t want any of them getting hurt. Bill Cody might be calling his injured foot a “slight inconvenience,” but it had sent ripples through the entire troupe and inspired a round of storytelling about past accidents. Shep said most of the tales were exaggerated. Belle hoped he was right.

The Grand Entry was finished before Belle donned her own slicker and headed toward the arena. The rules that forbade lingering backstage were strict, but surely no one would take issue with her being there to hold her friends’ slickers while they were in the arena. That wasn’t
loitering.
It was
helping out.

Thunder rumbled and rolled across the sky just as Helen, Dora, and Mabel were getting ready to shrug out of their slickers and hand them over. Belle flattened herself against the false wall that blocked off the open end of the grandstand to get out of the way of Dora’s roan as the horse did a little sideways crow hop. Even Helen’s dependable pinto shook his head and danced about. Suddenly a bolt of lightning streaked out of the sky and hit a tree on the opposite side of the lot. With a tremendous pop the tree exploded into a ball of flames. Helen’s pinto reared, striking out with his front hooves. For a fraction of a second, both horse and rider were outlined against the stormy sky. An expert horsewoman, Helen stayed with her mount, but the rain had dampened her saddle, and when the pinto slipped in the mud, Helen lost her seat and landed with a sickening thud.