Unbridled Dreams (30 page)

While others grabbed the bay’s reins to keep him from bolting, Belle fell to her knees beside her unconscious friend and tried to shield her from the rain. Shep ran up and, crouching down, laid two fingers alongside Helen’s neck to check for a pulse. Satisfied, he ran his hands over her arms and legs. Apparently convinced there were no broken bones, he scooped her up and ran for the nearest shelter—the dressing tent.

Ma knelt over Helen, smoothing her pale forehead and murmuring comfort.

“I don’t think anything’s broken,” Shep said. “Her pulse is strong. But—” He gulped. Belle glanced up at him. Was he really almost in tears?

Ma checked again for broken bones. When Helen inhaled sharply and let out a moan, Ma smiled. “I think she mostly just got the wind knocked out of her.” She dabbed at a cut along Helen’s hairline with a clean cloth. “She’s gonna have a headache, though. Maybe a black eye.”

Helen moaned again, then tried to sit up.

“Lie still,” Shep said. He grabbed one of her hands and held on. “You’re gonna be fine. Just lie still until Doc Miller gets here.” He looked toward the grandstand. “Where is he, anyway?”

As if on cue, the doctor arrived, muttering while he worked. “She’ll have quite the headache . . . doesn’t needs stitches . . . no broken bones. . . . pulse is good . . .” Finally, he looked up. “She’ll be fine,” he said.

Belle reached for Shep. He pulled her close. Sighing with relief, they both looked down on Helen.

The arena manager came into the tent. “Thank God,” he said when Doc Miller gave his report. He glanced at Shep. “We’ll just skip the race in the second act tonight. Crowd’s thin anyway.”

“No need to do that,” Helen protested. Wincing and rubbing her neck, she sat up.

“You are one crazy female if you think you’re riding tonight,” Shep said. Both the doctor and the arena manager nodded agreement.

“Not me,” Helen said. Grimacing as she rubbed her shoulder, she pointed to Belle. “Her.” She glanced from the arena manager to Shep and back again. “You know she can do it. It’s just a little race. All she has to do is stay in the saddle.” She nodded toward the outdoors. “And look. It’s clearing up.”

The arena manager stepped to where the wardrobe tent canvas had been rolled up to admit light near Ma’s work area and peered up at the sky. He glanced back at Shep. “Blue sky peeking out. Bill had you keepin’ an eye on her”—he nodded at Belle—“so I’ll make this your decision.”

Belle thought it took about ten years for Shep to finally look her way. “Take it nice and easy,” he said. “Just get yourself and Diamond through the race in one piece. Let Dora take the lead.”

Belle let out a whoop of joy and leaped into his arms.

Laughing, he returned the hug before pulling her arms from around his neck and saying, “And remember . . . let Dora
win.
”

C
HAPTER
17

T
HERE IS AN APP OINTED TIME FOR EVERYTHING. . . .
A
TIME TO WEEP, AND
A
TIME TO LAUGH; A TIME TO MOURN, AND A TIME TO DANCE
.
Ecclesiastes 3:1,4
NASB

Belle was too worried about Diamond slipping and hurting himself to enjoy her debut. By the end of the race she was so covered with the mud flung into the air by Dora’s mount she could hardly tell what color she was wearing. She could taste the arena dirt, and swiping at her face with the sleeve of her mud-caked shirt only made it worse, but as Belle sat astride Diamond and looked up into the smiling faces of the enthusiastic crowd and listened to the applause, she got goose bumps. “Good boy,” she said to Diamond, and leaned down to pat his mud-caked neck. “Good boy.”

Someone in the front row of the stands held something out as Dora took her victory lap. She accepted it, then trotted her pony to where Belle waited.

“W-wave,” she said, and handed Belle the rose. “You d-did great.”

Belle waved.

“Take a bow,” Dora said.

Standing up in the stirrups, Belle took off her hat and waved it to the crowd. Together, the cowgirls wheeled their horses about and rode out of the arena. As far as any of the spectators knew, they had just watched Texan Helen Keen lose a race to Montana Girl Dora Spurgeon. Which was fine with Belle. She wanted Liberty Belle’s first moment in the arena to be perfect. She wanted reporters watching her every move and writing articles about her. She wanted Bill Cody to be so glad he hired her that he offered her a raise. And she wanted to be among the chosen few who regularly entertained dignitaries visiting the Wild West. And so an incognito performance was just fine with Belle. For now.

While she might remain unknown among the spectators tonight, the wranglers on the back lot had no intention of ignoring Belle’s debut. They hooted congratulations and joked about her “mud-mount” and her “fancy costume.” They teased Dora about winning a fixed race and hollered for Belle to try harder next time. By the time Belle and Dora had ridden back to where they could dismount and get cleaned up, Belle was happier than she’d ever been. Sliding to the ground she reached for a hackamore just as Shep walked up.

“Thought you might be stuck to the saddle,” he said with a grin. He picked a glob of mud off her hair. “You, Miss Belle, are a bona fide mess. Not to mention your horse. Didn’t he used to be gray?”

Belle laughed and nodded. “He did. And I used to have red hair and freckles.” She looked down at her mud-spattered clothes. “And we might be a mess, but we’re happy messes.” She patted Diamond’s neck. “He knows he did good—don’t you, boy?”

Diamond whickered and bobbed his head up and down.

“Well, you both did great,” Shep said. “You even followed orders.”

“I didn’t have a choice,” Belle retorted. “Diamond’s no racehorse.” She grinned. “Just be glad I wasn’t riding Lady Blaze,” she said. “I might not have been able to help myself. Not with that crowd cheering. It’s amazing.”

“As good as you imagined?”

“Better,” Belle said.

Shep nodded. “I’m glad you had fun.”

“Well, I did. Thank you for letting me ride tonight.”

He squeezed her hand. “You earned it.”

Was it her imagination, or was he leaning in to . . . Nope. He wasn’t. Or, if he was leaning in to kiss her, he’d thought better of it. He let go of her hand. “Gotta get back over for the Final Salute,” he said. Then he patted her shoulder. As if she were his kid sister. “You’ll be riding in it before you know it.”

“That she will.” It was Helen, moving slower than normal but obviously feeling better. “Now git along, little doggie,” she said to Shep. “You promised me a steak supper in town tonight, and I want it sooner rather than later.”

Philadelphia
June 10, 1886
Dear Momma and Daddy,

I’ve had my debut! Not exactly the way I had planned, and no
one knows it was me, but I took Helen Keen’s place this past week in
the pony race in the second half. I rode Diamond, and of course that
means we lost every time, but the audiences don’t care, and honestly,
neither do I. Helen has been under the weather. But she’s better now,
so I doubt I’ll have another chance to perform until after we settle on
Staten Island and Cody, Salsbury, and Sterling finally agree that
Liberty Belle and Diamond are ready.

Not long after I took Helen’s place, they let me ride in the Decoration
Day parade in Washington, D.C. Everyone seemed to think
I should have the practice before we get to the big city of New York.
I think they were testing how Diamond would react to street noise,
but if they were worried, they aren’t anymore because Diamond was
perfect. He acted like he’d been doing parades all his life. And we
rode right past the White House!

The crowds here in Philadelphia have been so big that right now
as I am writing to you, I can hear the carpenters hammering away,
adding more seats to the grandstand. People arrive via stage from
three different parts of the city to see the Wild West, and in addition
to the stages, the railroad is running special trains out to us. Shep
says that if it keeps up at this pace the Wild West will play to over a
hundred thousand people before we have moved on.

This past Sunday Shep took me into town. He said that Liberty
Belle should see the Liberty Bell. Ha. It is hard to imagine that Benjamin
Franklin once walked the very same streets. We saw where he
used to live and then rode the ferry across to the zoo and ended our
day in the city with the cyclorama of the Battle of Gettysburg. It made
me cry to think of all those brave men dying in battle.

Daddy, did you remember to order new boots from Mr. Brady?
I’ve had Monte’s repaired twice. You can send them to me in care of
the Wild West, Erastina, Staten Island, New York. Now that we
are settled in, I am hoping to receive at least a dozen letters from
home—letters I imagine following us across the country but arriving
just after we’ve left a certain station. At least I hope that is why
I haven’t heard from you. I am not exactly homesick, but I do miss
you. BOTH OF YOU.

Your affectionate daughter,
Irmagard a.k.a. Belle

As the evening sun dipped toward the horizon in the west, Willa dragged her kitchen chair outside and sat down to reread the letter Charlie had brought out from town. Irmagard “wasn’t exactly homesick,” but she missed. . . .
both of them.
Willa’s eyes misted over when she read that. She folded the letter and tucked it back in its envelope.

She supposed it was understandable for Irmagard to be infatuated by someone like Shep Sterling. Still, the frequency of the man’s name in all her letters was concerning. Willa wondered why Otto hadn’t attended to shipping the boots. Irmagard obviously needed them. If he was going to support this phase of his daughter’s life, the least he could do was follow through and see that she had the proper equipment. As the sun sank behind the distant horizon, Willa decided it was time to go into town. Time to purchase train tickets. Time to visit Irmagard.

“Glad to see you still want them,” Dan Brady said, as he set Irmagard’s new boots on the counter. “I was beginning to wonder. They’ve been ready for a couple of weeks. I sent word over to the bank, but Mr. Friedrich hasn’t been in.”

“Would you have them shipped to this address, please,” Willa said, and handed Dan a slip of paper on which she’d written Irmagard’s address in New York.

Brady perused the address and whistled low. “Is she riding in the show?”

“She filled in for one of the other young women, who was indisposed,” Willa said. “But I believe her own debut has yet to happen.”

“Still,” Brady said, “you should be proud. It’s not every young woman who has that kind of grit and spunk.”

Willa mumbled something noncommittal and left the store thinking that
grit
and
spunk
were not exactly the character qualities uppermost in her mind when she was raising her red-headed daughter. From Brady’s she made her way to the dressmaker’s.