Searching for Silverheels (16 page)

“You might want to get a newspaper, too,” George replied, not moving. “There's an interesting piece about those National Women's Party friends of yours. Arrested and sent to jail. And it's about time.”

Josie pushed past him and through the front door without a response.

“Come on, George, let's just go, before she comes back out,” I said again.

“You have to stand up to seditionists, Pearl. My mother says true patriots have to fight the war here at home, too.”

“I thought we were taking a walk,” I said.

“You think taking a walk is more important than protecting our country?”

“Of course not! But arguing with Josie —”

“You're not defending her, are you?”

“No! George, I—”

“Then prove it,” he said. “Here she comes.”

I looked through the doorway into the store. It had been open the whole time. Josie—and everyone else inside—had heard our whole conversation. The blood rushed to my face as Josie raised her eyes to mine. Her gaze was filled with as much challenge as George's voice had been.

“I— I—” I couldn't think of a thing to say. Instead I jerked out of George's grasp and backed three steps out into the street. “I just remembered. I have to help my mother,” I said. I spun around and ran for the café.

I didn't look back when I got home. I rushed inside and straight up to my bedroom, where I threw myself onto the bed and burst into tears. I had been on the verge of the best moment of my life; why did Josie Gilbert have to come along just then? Now George might never kiss me. He might even decide he didn't want to go to the picnic with me!

I stayed in my hot, stuffy bedroom all afternoon, until my mother called me down to help serve supper. I felt miserable, but I tried to smile and be polite to the customers. I was relieved that neither Josie nor the Crawfords came in. I wasn't sure how I was going to face any of them, and I was in no hurry to find out.

After supper, Mr. and Mrs. Engel arrived in the café. Mrs. Engel was showing off the hat that she was donating to be raffled at the picnic. It was a broad-brimmed summer hat, festooned with a navy-blue ribbon embroidered with white stars. Two enormous blue ostrich plumes swept from the front along either side of the crown in a glorious arc. It was so lovely that all the ladies in the café that evening bought raffle tickets at once.

When the fuss over the hat settled down, Mr. and Mrs. Engel chose a table and ordered coffee and pie. I was cutting the pie for them when I remembered what the postmistress had told me that afternoon.

So, when I delivered the pie, I asked, “Mrs. Engel, when I was up at Buckskin Joe earlier this week, I saw that someone had tended the grave of a fellow named Buck Wilson. Would you know anything about that?”

She gave me a puzzled look. “Why would I know anything about that?”

“Mrs. Abernathy at the post office said your maiden name was Wilson. I thought he might have been a relative of yours.”

“Mrs. Abernathy's memory isn't what it used to be. My maiden name was Wilkins, not Wilson,” Mrs. Engel said.

I suppressed a sigh of frustration. Another dead end. “You have been in Park County a long time, right? Do you know any Wilsons, or someone who might be keeping up that grave?”

“Let's see. Old Tom Lee knew all about that sort of thing. He even claimed to have known Silverheels.”

“He knew her?”

“So he claimed, but he moved down to Denver.” She thought for another minute, then snapped her fingers. “Mae Nelson, down in Fairplay! She grew up in Buckskin Joe. You should talk to her.”

“Yes, ma'am. Thank you,” I said. Excitement was building inside me as I returned the coffeepot to the stove. At last—someone who remembered Silverheels herself!

Tom Lee was in Denver—and so was Frank! Surely Frank would be willing to find him and talk to him.

I was impatient after that to finish my evening's work. When I had, I composed two letters. The first was a short note to Mrs. Nelson in Fairplay to thank her for helping Frank and me and to ask her if she had thought of anyone else who still cared for the graves in the Buckskin Joe cemetery. Perhaps with a little prompting she would think of
something she hadn't told us and would write me back.

The second letter was the more important one, and I wasted two sheets of paper before I thought of just how I wanted to word it. After all, this letter was to Frank. I didn't want to sound like an ignorant hayseed, but I didn't want it to be too formal, either. I wanted him to feel a tender friendship for me as he read it, but it was hard to know exactly what words would make him feel that way. Especially since I was really writing to ask him to do me a favor. I was writing to ask him to find Mr. Tom Lee, the man who had moved to Denver. The man who remembered Silverheels. The man who was my best hope to prove Silverheels a hero, once and for all!

J
osie did not come into the café the next morning. I was glad. I knew I had to face her again eventually, and when I did, I would have to apologize, but I was in no hurry. First, I would apologize to George. Maybe see if he wanted to take that walk today. Praying he wouldn't tell me he was going to the picnic with someone else, I headed to the mercantile the first chance I got, with the excuse that I had to post my letters.

George was stocking shelves for his father when I entered. I smiled as I passed him on my way to the post office in the back corner. I slid the two letters across the counter to Mrs. Abernathy along with my four cents for the postage.

That done, I took a deep breath and walked directly to where George was working. He gave me his usual, knee-weakening smile.

“George, about yesterday,” I began.

“It's okay, Pearl.”

“It is?”

“Josie Gilbert scares a lot of people. But when you're with me, you don't have to be frightened, okay? I'll protect you.”

“Thank you, George,” I said, relieved but a little annoyed. I wasn't afraid of Josie!

George squeezed my hand. “I've got to help my father, but see you later, okay?”

I nodded and left the store, grinning. George was still mine! He even wanted to protect me, which, I reminded myself, was very romantic, even if I didn't need protecting from Josie Gilbert.

I was almost back to the café when Imogene burst out of its front door, skipped into the street, and, flinging her arms wide, twirled around like a little girl.

“What's gotten into you?” I asked.

She skipped over and threw her arms around me in a huge embrace. “He asked me,” she said. “He asked me to the picnic!”

“Willie?” I couldn't believe it. I had never once seen him respond to Imogene's flirting or hinting.

“Of course Willie. Who else?”

“Congratulations, Imogene,” I said as I recovered from my surprise. “Does this mean we won't be doing the kissing booth after all?”

Imogene giggled. “Of course we'll still do the kissing booth. That won't be until after we eat, anyway. And I'll give Willie a nickel and make sure he's first in line. You have a nickel for George, don't you?”

I smiled and nodded. I would be sure he had several.

Imogene, still floating on air, danced off toward the hotel. I
watched her go, then floated in my own direction, into the café.

Mother was wiping down the tables, which was usually my job. I offered to take over from her, but she sent me to the kitchen to help Willie instead. I found him at the sink up to his elbows in suds. He glanced up at me as I came in, but said nothing and kept washing. He didn't look nearly as happy as Imogene had.

I took up a towel and began drying the stacks of plates and cups. When I had dried three or four items and he still hadn't spoken, I asked.

“Imogene says you asked her to the Fourth of July picnic.”

Willie nodded. “Yep.”

I dried two plates in silence.

“She sure is excited,” I said.

Willie shrugged. “She's been angling for it for months.”

“I didn't think you were going to ask her. You never seem a bit interested.”

He chewed his lip and said nothing.

I gave him a hard look. “Willie, what's wrong?”

“Russell said he heard that a couple fellas in Fairplay have been drafted. And Raymond Buford and Oliver McPherson have both enlisted. Neither one of them is more than a year older than me.”

“You're not thinking of enlisting, are you? You're only seventeen, and besides, we need you here.”

He shook his head. “No, I can't enlist until I'm eighteen. Thank goodness.” He glanced guiltily at me before he
continued. “I don't ever want to go to war. I don't want to shoot the Huns and I don't want them shooting me, either. I ain't a coward, Pearl, but it makes a fella stop and think.”

“What does this have to do with Imogene and the picnic?”

“I figure in these times, a fella's got to do all the living he can, because none of us know how long we've got. I want to try out everything. Just in case.”

I didn't know what to say to that, so I held my tongue.

Willie washed the last few dishes and wiped the suds off his arms. “And don't you tell a soul I said any of this, Perline, or I'll give you a whupping. I won't have folks calling me a coward!”

“I won't. I swear!” I said, but he was already headed out the door. I saw him grab his fishing pole from where it leaned against the back wall. He'd disappear for the rest of the day. I couldn't blame him. I thought about Ray and Ollie going off to war. When I first started school, they had been the big boys at the back that gave the teacher headaches with their tomfoolery. I couldn't picture them with guns and bayonets. I couldn't believe, either, that the war had reached us here, in little, out-of-the-way Park County. Here we all were in our sleepy little town where nothing ever changed. Yet as I watched Willie walk away, I realized how very much this war changed everything.

T
he week before the Fourth, the picnic was all anyone in town could talk about. All the ladies except Josie were baking, sewing, knitting, or making decorations for the fund-raiser. Someone had even taken out an advertisement in the
Fairplay Flume
to invite the whole county to our grand event.

Mrs. Crawford and Mrs. Sorensen met with Mother and together they approved the kissing booth, so long as Imogene and I only offered our cheeks and not our lips for kissing and bestowed kisses in the same manner. To decorate the kissing booth, Mrs. Sorensen gave us a sheet from the hotel's supply, and Mrs. Engel gave us some scraps of red felt. Imogene cut out hearts and cupids from the scraps, and we stitched them onto the sheet. Mother gave me a pickle jar to put the nickels in. We planned to curl our hair and wear our prettiest dresses, although I wasn't sure it would make a difference. Everyone at the picnic would have seen both of us a thousand times before, so looking fancy wasn't going to make much difference in whether or not they'd be willing to pay a nickel for a kiss.

As we worked, Imogene talked about who we might get to kiss and imagined that handsome strangers would appear out of nowhere. Listening to her made my stomach knot up. It was bad enough thinking about kissing the boys I knew from school. The thought of kissing strangers was too much.

“Imogene, I don't know if I can do this,” I said.

“Don't be a scaredy-cat. We've got to see it through now. It's for the war effort. We've all got to do our part.”

When we weren't working on the kissing booth, we were admiring the fine hat for the raffle, on display in the window of Mrs. Engel's millinery and yard-goods shop. All the ladies agreed it was the most elegant hat they had ever seen, and raffle tickets were selling at a brisk pace. Imogene herself had already bought ten tickets, and insisted she
had
to win it, since it matched her Sunday dress.

The day before the picnic, a filthy, bearded miner stepped into the café while we were eating our lunch. At first I didn't recognize him through the grime and the whiskers, but Mother leapt to her feet and rushed into his embrace at once. Father had come home for the big event!

We hugged and laughed and hugged again. Then he sat down and ate every single sandwich on the tray as he told us all about his work. Things were going well up at the Lucky Fork, and they expected to make good money when they brought their zinc ore down in the autumn. He figured he could stay on until August if we could spare him here in the café. Mother assured him we could. I agreed. I wanted my
father to come home, but if mother was brave enough to be without him for the summer, I could be too.

After lunch he took a long bath, and by supper time he looked like my father once again, clean and shaved, his mustache neatly trimmed.

“I have to look respectable for the picnic tomorrow,” he said. “I wouldn't want to embarrass my family.”

I didn't want to either. But what if no one wanted to kiss me? Or what if fellas lined up to kiss me and I couldn't see it through? I'd never kissed anyone before except my parents. Did you kiss a boy the same way you kissed your parents, or was there something more to it? I figured if fellas paid a nickel, they would be expecting a good kiss. I should have thought to ask someone sooner, but I didn't know who to ask.

And then there was George. He'd be picking me up in the morning to take me to the picnic. That afternoon I had fried chicken and packed a basket for me and George. My dress was washed and ironed, but I still worried that I wasn't prepared. After supper, Mother washed my hair and rolled it up with rags so it would curl. I went to bed shortly after, but between my nervous stomach and the bumpy rag curls all over my head, I did not sleep well.

The morning of the Fourth dawned clear and bright. Mr. Johnson had every horse from the livery hitched to a wagon or a buggy, and folks were loading up tables and chairs, baked goods, picnic baskets, fiddles and guitars, and anything else needed for a day in Larsen's Meadow. For once, Willie had to
work, loading tables and chairs from the café, while I did not. Mother said there was no point spoiling my curls or my dress doing hard work when there were men at hand to do it.