Coming Up Roses (40 page)

He thought about it as his fingers tapped out
sentences on his Underwood. He thought about it after he’d filled
the first sheet of paper and as he rolled in another one. He
thought about it as he figuratively tore the Chicago Police
Department’s attitude toward kidnapped Indian children to shreds.
He thought about it as he recounted his and Rose’s rescue of Bear
in Winter as a prelude to Rose’s own kidnapping. And he thought
about it as he finished up with a flourishing account of Rose’s
attempted kidnapping and her resourcefulness in rescuing herself
after he, her erstwhile protector, had been sandbagged into
unconsciousness.

“
Thus it is,” his article ended, “that
Rose Ellen Gilhooley, otherwise known as Wind Dancer: Bareback
Rider Extraordinaire, proves herself to be not merely beautiful,
intelligent, and talented, but the possessor of a heart as big as
the Kansas plains from which she hails.” H.L.’s fingers stilled on
the typewriter’s keys as he reread the final sentence of his
article. He frowned.

“
What’s the matter, H.L.? At a loss for
words?”

H.L. glanced up to find Wiggins grinning at
him as if he’d just uttered a brilliant witticism. H.L. grunted and
went back to glaring at his article.

Perhaps those shouldn’t be his last
words on the subject of Rose. Perhaps, if H.L. truly didn’t want to
lose Rose forever, he ought to tack on another paragraph. He hit
the return bar, spaced in far enough for a new paragraph, and typed
the letter
A
.

All the teachers of literature and journalism
who’d ever tried to teach him the basics of his craft had pounded
it into the heads of their students that one should never start a
sentence, much less a paragraph, with the word And. However, H.L.
had ever been one to twist the rules to suit himself.

Besides, language was a dynamic applied art.
Language changed constantly. Therefore, he tossed his teachers’
strictures aside didn’t give them another thought as he started the
last paragraph of his article with the word And.

“
And,” he typed quickly, before he
could lose his nerve, “if she will have him, Miss Rose Gilhooley
will make this reporter the happiest man in the world and agree to
marry him. This, before God and the citizens of the great city of
Chicago, Illinois, is my formal proposal of marriage to the woman I
love.”

It would have to be, since Rose wouldn’t
speak to him. With a sigh, H.L. realized that, one way or the
other, he’d just sealed his own fate. If Rose agreed to marry him,
his days of carefree bachelorhood would be over. He might
eventually even be responsible for rearing a dozen or so children
of his and Rose’s production. He waited for the shudder engendered
by the notion of having children to hit him, but again it didn’t
come. He considered that a good omen and went on to the alternative
to her acceptance of his proposal.

If Rose refused to marry him, his carefree
bachelor days would go on forever. H.L. knew in his soul that,
while his days might be free of responsibilities in that case,
they’d no longer be carefree.

All things considered, he preferred the first
alternative.

# # #

In spite of the pain her bruised bottom
caused her, Rose was kind of glad she couldn’t perform for a few
days. She didn’t believe H.L. May would honor her demand that he
never speak to her again, any more than she believed Colonel Cody
would eschew strong drink for tea.

The one was as likely as the other, and Rose
figured she could dodge H.L. better if she were not adhering to her
regular performing schedule. If she were trapped by duty into her
usual hours, he’d catch her for sure one of these days. This way,
she could keep her eyes open and make sure she spotted him before
he spotted her, and in that way avoid any confrontations with him.
She was absolutely certain she wouldn’t be able to withstand any of
his sweet words. The bounder. The cad. The horrid, awful . . . man
she loved.

“
Oh, Annie, how could I have been so
stupid?” she asked, anguish vivid in her voice. She sat on a
poultice, made according to Little Elk’s mother’s recipe, in
Annie’s tent. She’d confessed all to her best friend, who’d taken
up the cudgels of righteousness on her behalf.

“
He’s a man,” Annie said, drawing the
doggie brush through George’s curly hair. “Most men are curs.” She
paused to give her poodle a hug. “I’m sorry, George.”

Rose heaved a huge sigh. “I didn’t want to
believe you were right about him, although I did all along. I don’t
know how I could have allowed myself to weaken so thoroughly.”

Annie tutted. “Don’t be so hard on yourself,
Rose. It’s difficult to resist a man when you long so much to
believe him.”

“
Yes. You’re right about that.” As Rose
knew to her everlasting sorrow.

“
It will be all right, dear,” Annie
said soothingly. “You’re not the first woman, and you assuredly
won’t be the last, to be fooled by a sweet-talking
charmer.”

Another sigh constituted Rose’s reply to her
friend. She felt really stupid; even more stupid than usual, mainly
because H.L. hadn’t really sweet-talked her. He hadn’t had to. He’d
just been himself, and she’d fallen for him like an avalanche. It
was a lowering reflection and one she feared didn’t speak well for
her overall moral character.

Both women swiveled to face the flap of
Annie’s tent when raised voices reached them from outdoors.

“
Damn it, Little Elk, I thought we were
friends.”

Rose and Annie exchanged a glance, and Rose’s
heart gave a quick, painful spasm. That was H.L.’s voice, and it
sounded both aggrieved and angry.

“
I need to talk to her,” H.L.’s voice
added in pleading accents.

“
Wind Dancer my friend,” Little Elk
said. He, on the other hand, sounded both stoical and impenetrable.
“She says she don’t want to see you, so I won’t let you see
her.”

“
Bless him,” Rose whispered, grateful
beyond anything that Little Elk was her friend. He’d agreed to
stand guard, eating popcorn and hamburgers, and drinking carbonated
soda, all provided by Rose and Annie, and to ward off H.L. May
should he attempt to see Rose.

Before she decided to hide out in Annie’s
tent, Rose had contemplated H.L.’s probable plan of attack. She
figured he’d go to her tent first and then, finding her tent empty,
try to find her. She expected he’d try the Butlers’ tent next,
since that was logical. Therefore, she’d posted Little Elk outside
Annie’s tent during the day. During the evening performances, Rose
made sure she was as invisible as possible by hanging out with the
cowboys on the sidelines. They were all a good deal taller than she
and hid her well.

“
But I’m her friend, too, damn
it.”

Little Elk grunted. Rose heard a rustle of
paper, and featured him reaching into his popcorn bag to get a
handful of the crunchy morsels.

“
Damn it, Little Elk, this isn’t
fair!”

Rose had never heard H.L. whine before. She
hadn’t known he had a whine in him until this minute. She muttered,
“Maybe I should—”

Annie whirled on her. “No! You just stay put,
Rose Gilhooley. You know very well you won’t stand a chance if you
go out there and try to reason with him.”

Rose heaved another large sigh. “You’re
right.” She was no match for H.L. May should they engage in a war
of words. He knew too blasted many of them, and he also knew how to
use them. Since she’d met him, Rose’s own vocabulary had grown, but
she’d never be able to use words with the facility with which he
used them.

Her heart ached to see him. Her body
ached to touch him. She was
so
stupid! She hated herself for harboring these longings even
after he’d proved himself to be a worthless seducer of innocent
females.

Not that he’d had to work very hard to seduce
her, Rose acknowledged bitterly. She’d fallen into his clutches
like a ripe peach from a spring branch.

“
Little Elk,
please
. I only want to see her for a minute or
two. I promise.”

Rose imagined Little Elk shrugging, because
H.L. then shouted, “This isn’t fair, damn it!”

Little Elk probably thought it was amusing
that a white man should be talking to a Sioux about fairness. Under
other circumstances, Rose might have been amused, too. Not today.
Today, she wanted to cry.

But she wouldn’t. Rose Ellen Gilhooley
vowed to herself that she would shed no more tears over H.L. May.
She’d read that article in the
Globe
, including the last paragraph in which
he’d penned a proposal of marriage to her. She didn’t believe a
word of it. He’d probably only written that absurd last paragraph
as a means of placating her and getting her back to his bed until
he tired of her. That’s the scenario Annie had proposed, anyway,
and Rose had no reason to doubt Annie, whose predictions had proved
catastrophically accurate so far.

Therefore, Rose sat still on her poultice,
her heart throbbing out a dismal rhythm, and wished she were dead.
Or at least sicker than she was, so she could sleep or something.
Being awake and hurting was no darned fun.

“
Little Elk . . .”

“
No.”

Rose imagined her friend, sitting like an
immovable red rock on the stump beside Annie’s tent flap. He looked
harmless enough, but Rose knew he’d do whatever it took to keep
H.L. away from her. After all, he and Rose had been friends for
years. While Little Elk claimed to like

H.L. all right, Rose knew where his loyalty
lay, and it was with her.

She couldn’t quite suppress a sniffle or a
tear, but she blew her nose on her hankie and brushed the tear away
angrily and decided she’d be very happy when ten years or so had
passed, and she no longer ached for H.L. May.

Hearing the telltale sniffle, Annie put down
the doggie brush and moved to Rose. She gave her an encouraging
hug. “It will be all right, dear. The man’s a devil, and that’s the
worst kind to get over, but you’ll do it. One of these days, you’ll
look back on this and thank God you escaped so lightly.” As if to
turn Rose’s mind onto a cheerier path, she added with a bounce to
her voice, “Did you get the cablegram off to your mother,
Rose?”

Thank God for
friends
, Rose thought with a lift to her heart.
And thank Annie for bringing up my
family
. “Yes. I’m hoping she and Lizzy and Charlotte
will be able to come to Chicago in a couple of weeks.” Seeing her
family for the first time in several years would bolster her
morale; Rose was sure of it. “They’ll love seeing the
fair.”

“
I’m sure of it,” Annie said, a
patently encouraging throb to her voice.

“
And I’ll love seeing them again. Lizzy
and Charlotte are almost grown up now. In her last letter,
Charlotte told me she was stepping out with the youngest Palmer
boy.” Rose sighed, happy for her siblings.

Thanks to her, they were enjoying a much less
rigorous life than the elder Gilhooley siblings, Rose and Freddie,
had. Rose didn’t begrudge her family a single penny, either. “My
goodness, Annie, the last time I saw Harold Palmer, he was only
thirteen years old.”

“
Children grow up fast,” Annie said,
picking up the doggie brush again. George cast a glare at the
brush, but he was a beautifully trained animal and didn’t try to
avoid his mistress’s grooming efforts.

Thinking about children, Rose allowed her
mind to wander. If she and H.L. married and produced children,
would they grow up fast, too? She’d love to have children one day,
although she couldn’t imagine ever wanting to have them with any
man other than H.L. May.

Oh, for the love of heaven,
Rose Gilhooley, stop mooning over that man
!

Her command to herself did no good. She heard
H.L. give up arguing at last. He said, “Oh, for God’s sake,” and
stomped away from Little Elk. Rose’s heart gave another painful
spasm, and she feared she’d never, ever get over loving him.

Chapter Twenty

Damn it all, she’d even posted guards to keep
him away! H.L.’s indignation knew no bounds as he stormed away from
Annie Oakley’s tent.

Imagine Little Elk, of all people, preventing
him entry into Rose’s presence. Little Elk! For God’s sake, H.L.
was the one who’d given him his first bag of popcorn! H.L. was the
one who’d paid his way onto the Ferris Wheel. H.L. had assisted
Little Elk and Rose in the rescue of Bear in Winter when the
Chicago Police Department couldn’t be bothered!

Little Elk was Rose’s friend. Little Elk had
taught Rose how to do all those tricks on a horse.

What had H.L. ever done for her? As he
steamed away from Rose in the warm spring day, H.L. told himself
he’d done a
lot
for her, damn
it. He’d made her a household name in Chicago. Granted, Chicago
wasn’t exactly New York City, but it was about as close as you
could get to New York City without actually
being
there.

He crammed his hands into his pockets as he
walked and wallowed in his resentment. He’d praised her to the
skies in his articles. He’d treated her only to the best. He’d
helped her learn more about the world. He’d shown her Chicago and
the Columbian Exposition. He’d fed her exotic foods. He’d treated
her to her first hamburger. He’d taken her to see Little Egypt.
He’d helped her with her damned horse.

He’d—he’d—

He’d deflowered her.