Unbridled Dreams (45 page)
“When are you going to stop punishing that little gal?” Helen sidled up to Shep after an evening performance late in August.
“You think that’s what I’m doing?”
“Doesn’t matter what I think,” Helen said. “It’s what
she
thinks. And she’s starting to look like a puppy that’s displeased its master and doesn’t know how to fix it.”
“She’s the one who stopped talking.”
“Yeah, well, that was a couple of weeks ago. And she’s started up again. And just about everybody else seems to have decided they’ve made their point and it’s time to do a Sunday Joe and forgive and forget.” She pulled him toward where the Wild West train sat on the siding. Grabbing hold of the railing, she climbed onto the platform and motioned for Shep to follow, which he did, sitting down beside her. Dangling one leg off the edge of the platform, he took off his hat and set it on his knee.
“What about you?” Shep said. “All that going over and over every detail of your act with her every day doesn’t exactly look like forgiveness.”
“She needed to realize how important it is for us to trust each other. And that I was having trouble trusting her because of her tendency to be reckless. I think she understands that now.” She sighed.
“She’s just a kid, Shep. We had to know she’d have lessons to learn. I didn’t think she’d need to learn one quite this big, but I guess I was wrong. Either way, seems to me she’s learned it. Shoot, I think
Mabel
even feels a little sorry for Miss Belle.”
“What makes you think that?”
“When you were off having dinner with your mother Sunday afternoon, Mabel brought Miss Belle a pastry from that bakery up the road.”
“You’re kidding,” Shep said.
“Not.” Helen shook her head. “Even Bishop’s being nicer to her.
And if Mabel and Ned think its time to be nice, it’s time.”
“As I just said,
she’s
the one who stopped talking to
me.
All I did was tell her the truth.”
“What truth was that?”
“That not listening to Cy Matthews proved she had more guts than brains.”
Helen raised both eyebrows and stared at him. “You really said that?”
He shrugged. “All right. I probably could have found a better way to put it. I was upset.”
“So she isn’t the perfect cowgirl. Shoot, I live with the girl. She isn’t the perfect
anything.
But I love her anyway, and I’m gonna find her and tell her so. Right now.” Helen jumped down and took two steps before turning around and motioning for Shep to follow her. “This is me helping you two kiss and make up, Shepherd. Get your carcass down off that train car and come with me.”
Helen grabbed a shovel and, coming alongside Belle, began to help her shovel manure into the waiting wagon.
“You don’t have to help me,” Belle said.
Helen said nothing. Just kept shoveling.
Presently Shep Sterling arrived, shovel in hand.
Belle stood back and looked at them both. They kept shoveling. “Listen,” she said. “I know I’ve messed up just about everything I’ve tried in one way or another this summer. From bad audition to hackneyed debut in Dora’s spot to complete stupidity with Blaze. I’ve been stubborn, and I wouldn’t listen to the people I should have listened to. I’ve acted like a know-it-all, and I’ve ignored good advice and—” Clearing her throat, she went back to work. “Shoveling manure is probably the one thing around here I
can
be trusted to do.” She tossed a load of manure. And missed the wagon.
Helen and Shep didn’t say a word. Belle looked at Helen first. Helen only shrugged. Belle turned toward Shep. “Don’t you dare laugh,” she said. “Don’t you
dare
laugh at me.” She went after the errant pile and scooped it up. By the time she got it into the wagon, tears were coursing down her cheeks.
“Now, honey,” Helen said, as she gave her a hug, “don’t cry over spilled milk. Or manure. I just came over here to tell you I’m sorry I rubbed it in so hard. And I know you’re sorry. Let’s head back out on the road with a clean slate. What d’ya say?”
Belle swiped at her tears. She nodded. “I say yes. And you can trust me not to pull any stunts in the arena. Ever.” She stole a glance at Shep. “And I’m sorry I quit talking to you. What you said was right. Sometimes I
do
have more guts than brains. And I know I messed up, and if you’re never going to forgive me, I wish you’d tell me, because if you aren’t ever going to talk to me again, I don’t know if I can
be
Liberty Belle anymore.” She was crying again, and she didn’t care because she’d just realized that at some point along the way, being Liberty Belle had stopped being the most important thing in her life. The most important thing in her life was standing atop this pile of manure with her. Taking her in his arms. Whispering love.
“Is something the matter, dearie?”
Vesta came up behind Willa and looked over her shoulder out into the yard.
“He’s talking to the trees,” Willa said. She nodded at Otto, who was, indeed, standing and looking up at one of the trees he’d planted weeks ago, babbling away. Complete with gestures. “It looks like he’s giving a speech.”
“And it’s worrying you,” Vesta said, and returned to her dusting.
Willa turned her back to the window and sat down at the edge of the window seat. “He doesn’t talk to
us.
”
“Well, of course he does, dear,” Vesta said. “A man has a thousand ways of expressing himself. My Ira, may God rest his soul, was never a man of many words, but we never lacked for communication.”
She finished wiping the top of the dining table and stood, dust rag in hand, smiling down at Willa. “And you can’t tell me that after all the years you’ve been with Mr. Friedrich, you don’t know what he’s saying most of the time—whether he uses words or not.”
Willa sighed. “I used to think I knew. Now I’m not so sure.”
Vesta walked around the dining table, pulled out a chair, and sat down opposite Willa. She gestured out the window. “Tell me something you’ve heard him say in the past few days.”
Willa glanced over her shoulder. “He’s frustrated.”
“And you know that how?”
“By the way he stabs at his food on his plate at dinner. And he won’t let me help him down the stairs. He’s gentle about it, but if I try he pushes me away.”
“Ah, he’s
gentle
about it, is he? And what’s he saying with that gentle little push?”
Willa looked down at her wedding ring. “He’s saying he wants to be left alone.”
“No, dear,” Vesta said, and put her hand over Willa’s. “He’s saying, ‘I can’t stand you seeing me this way. I’ve always taken care of
you.
This isn’t how things are supposed to work and I won’t have it.’ ”
Willa looked into Vesta’s blue eyes. “You’re reading a great deal into our marriage. And there’s a great deal about it you don’t know.” She looked back outside to where Otto was making the rounds, watering the trees and still pausing every once in a while to jabber away to himself. “Do you think I should talk to Dr. Sheridan about this? There’s always the possibility he’s had another small stroke. Something none of us noticed. Perhaps he’s . . . confused.”
“A man who keeps his peace at the table and at every other time except when he’s watering trees,” Vesta said, “doesn’t seem to me to be a man who’s confused. If you ask me—” she got up and put the chair back in place before pointing out the window—“that’s a man with a plan.”
Otto went back to work half days in early September. He devised a system of communicating with abbreviations and hand signals that Willard at the bank learned quickly, and it wasn’t long before Willard was no longer a teller at First Bank. He was, instead, the bank president’s right-hand man, and, as far as Willa could tell, an excellent one. As Otto’s stamina improved, he worked longer hours. His mood improved. He walked. He went to church. He worked in the yard. He kept talking to the trees. He smiled more. Willa suspected he might even be talking to Willard. But he did not talk to her.
“Be patient, dearie,” Vesta McKay would say. “When the man has something to say that needs words, he’ll use them. Right now he’s speaking to you with silence. Working through meals says he needs to get things in order at the bank. Attending church says he wants to get things in order with God. And it’s obvious those trees are very important to him. He’s been close enough to eternity to look in the door. Give him time to decipher what he wants to do with what he’s learned.”
Willa tried to be patient, but it was September, and Irmagard would be coming home soon. After a short fall tour, the entire Wild West would disband in St. Louis at the end of the month. And then Irmagard and Helen and Shep would be returning to North Platte for Monte and Dora’s wedding. Willa had offered to host the prenuptial dinner. Was she to do all of that with a silent partner? Now that Otto was better, should she write and tell Irmagard about his stroke? And once the wedding was over and Irmagard went back to New York with the Wild West . . . what should she do then?
In the weeks following Otto’s stroke, the white heat of her anger against him had burned itself out. Otto Friedrich was not an evil man. He’d provided well for his wife and daughter. As for the boy in Denver, most men would have simply walked away. But not Otto. Otto had felt an obligation and done something about it. Dare she think of it as
honorable
? Perhaps that wasn’t the right word, but he’d been right about one thing. The circumstances of his son’s birth were not the boy’s fault.
There was a great deal of good in Otto Friedrich. He could always be counted on to help those less fortunate. He had never really said an unkind word to Willa. At times over the years, when she’d been near a nervous collapse over this worry or that, it was Otto’s mellow voice and strong arms that had always had a steadying influence on her.
As time went on, Willa began to believe that, perhaps—if he ever asked her again—perhaps, she could look past the hurt and find a way to forgive him.
After all, who amongst us is without sin?
Then again, if the man wouldn’t talk to her, how could things ever be resolved?
H
OWEVER
,
THERE IS A
G
OD IN HEAVEN
WHO REVEALS MYSTERIES
.
Daniel 2:28
NASB
