A Bright Tomorrow (9 page)

For two days Roosevelt and the other officers of the Rough Riders worked to pull the men together. The overall commander of cavalry, General “Fighting Joe” Wheeler, had commanded Confederate cavalry in the Civil War. General Wheeler was no less hot-headed and ready for trouble when he led the men out on June 24, than when he'd led his gray-clad troops against Grant. The strike force would be heading for a pass in the mountains called Las Guasimas, which lay between the army and Santiago, the ultimate objective.

When Captain Bucky O'Neill, former mayor of Prescott, Arizona, came by and spoke with Roosevelt just before the assault, Amos was standing close enough to hear their conversation. “Colonel, we'll get our chance today! Fighting Joe won't be able to resist a chance to hit the garlics.”

“Capital!” Roosevelt grinned, and he turned to Amos. “I'll ride Prince today, but bring Little Texas along in case he goes down.” He looked at the men and nodded approvingly, and when the column moved out, the men followed the narrow jungle trail joking, laughing, and arguing at the top of their lungs.

O'Dell was eager. He poked Amos in the ribs with a sharp elbow. “Bet I get more of 'em than you, buddy!”

But Amos had considerably more imagination than the little soldier. “What if they get you, Faye?”

O'Dell stared at Stuart, then laughed. “One of them get
me
? Not a chance!”

“It could happen.”

“Nah! We're gonna whip 'em, Amos!”

Amos licked his lips, for he knew that any of them could go down. “Wish I'd paid more attention to my ma. She's a Christian. If I die, I'll be in hell right off, Faye.”

O'Dell stared at Amos. “Hey, you're fighting for your country. Anybody who dies fighting for his country goes to heaven. Didn't you know that?”

Amos shook his head. “Those fellows waiting for us up there…they're fighting for their country, too. Everybody dies, Faye. But Ma says it's only saved people who go to heaven.”

“Saved? What's that mean?”

Amos stared at Faye, surprised. He'd grown up listening to revivalists, and his mother had read to him from the Bible all his life. “Why…saved is believing in Jesus.”

“Well, I'm saved then.” O'Dell shrugged. “I've always believed in Jesus.”

“No, it's more than that, I think,” Amos said. He was searching the terrain in front, watching for the glint of sunlight on steel barrels. His nerves were tense, and he saw that General Wheeler was sending out more scouts. “What Ma says is that a fellow has to give up his bad ways and do what God says. But she says, too, that you got to be converted.” Just talking about it took some of his fear away, and he told O'Dell what he could remember of the sermons he'd heard. The small man seemed intrigued by the one on being born again.

“Born again?” Faye mused. “I guess it'd take something like starting all over to get me ready to meet God. I've done some pretty bad things—”

Suddenly there was a shrill
z-z-z-z-eu
overhead, followed by a sharp
crack
.

“Mausers!” Roosevelt yelled.

The hidden Spaniards opened fire, and a man five feet in front of Amos grabbed his face, which exploded like a red flower, and he dropped to the ground. Others were falling. But Roosevelt was so excited that he jumped up and down. Amos saw a bullet hit a tree inches from his head, sending splinters everywhere.

“Look at that!” O'Dell said in wonder. “He
likes
it!”

The Rough Riders were pinned down, the Mauser bullets bowling them over. The Mauser packed a terrific punch. The force of a bullet striking an outstretched arm was enough to spin a man around in his tracks before he hit the ground. Amos heard the chugging sound made by the slugs as they plowed into the flesh of his companions.

It was Fighting Joe Wheeler who saved the day. The feisty little cavalryman could contain himself no longer. The Civil War never far from his mind, he loosed the rebel yell and shouted, “Come on, men! We'll put the Yankees on the run!”

With a wild cry, the Rough Riders charged. The Spaniards broke and fled down the trail to Santiago. One of them who was taken prisoner said, “These gringos…
muy loco
! When we shoot them, they scream and run
at
us! They even try to catch us with their hands!”

Amos and Faye had joined in the wild charge, and when it was over, they collapsed, winded and drained. Amos looked back over the ground they'd covered. It was strewn with bodies, both Spanish and American.

Faye caught his breath, then shook his head. “Lots of our guys didn't make it, Amos,” he said soberly. The slaughter had done something to him, and he muttered, “Wonder if they were born again, like you said?” When Amos didn't answer, he studied the faces of the dead and wounded. “Makes a guy feel funny, don't it?”

All day the work of burying the dead and treating the wounded went on, but the way lay open to Santiago. It was rough going, Amos and Faye discovered, for the trail could not handle the wagon and mule trains hauling their supplies. They were forced to eat “embalmed” beef and beans soaked in hog fat, and when opened, the cans smelled like garbage pails in the damp heat.

At night the land crabs sought them out—ugly creatures that moved about noisily in search of food. Amos came awake with a wild scream when one of them crawled over his face that night, and he was not the only one. The red ants, too, had a bite like an electric needle, so that Amos finally climbed a tree to escape the vermin.

As they marched on, Amos listened to the officers as they talked about what lay ahead. Captain O'Neill, a tall, good-looking man with black hair, took time to explain it to a small group of the soldiers as they cooked supper on the last night of June.

“There are two hills—San Juan and Kettle—surrounded by trenches and barbed wire. The Spaniards' main defense runs along the crest of San Juan Ridge. Then there's a village called El Caney, with wire and trenches and a fort with loopholes. Here's what we've got to do to get through to Santiago—” He pulled a rough map from his pocket, and the men crowded around to take a look.

O'Neill frowned. “It's uphill, and will be tough going.”

That night Amos wrote his mother and Rose. He waited until the next morning, then gave the letters to Faye, saying with a casual shrug, “If I drop, Faye, see that these get back, will you?”

O'Dell stared at him. “Oh, blast it, Amos!” he snapped. “Nothing's going to happen to us!” He jammed the letters into his pocket, muttering, “You and your talk about hell! Gives me the willies!”

Amos wanted to ask if he could carry any message for O'Dell, but saw that his friend didn't want to talk about dying.

The two of them moved out with the regiment, and soon discovered that before attacking the hills, they would have to march down a narrow jungle trail. “Every Spaniard in the country will zero in on us,” Amos whispered. “They can pick us off like sitting ducks.”

At that moment he and the rest of his fellow soldiers looked up to see a horseman in a black business suit, watching them as they set out. Amos stared, not quite able to believe his eyes. It was William Randolph Hearst! He was recognized by a soldier, who yelled, “Hi, there, Willie!” and the cry was taken up and shouted from one end of the column to the other.

“Guess he came out to see his war in person,” Amos said grimly, knowing that in one sense, it really
was
Hearst's war. But he saw, too, that the publisher wasn't so arrogant for once. His long face was pale, and he looked sick.
Maybe he sees what his “nice little war” really means,
Amos thought. He made no attempt to speak to Hearst, for the line was moving rapidly now.

Ten thousand men crowded the jungle trail, with the Spaniards waiting for them. As Amos pressed forward, the air suddenly vibrated with the screech of Mauser bullets. Amos felt his mouth go dry and his stomach tie up in knots.

The Rough Riders were not riders at all now, for the territory was too rough for cavalry. They fought their way through, finally coming to the foot of Kettle Hill. As they lay down, taking cover, Captain O'Neill stood up straight, ignoring the rain of fire and smoking a cigarette.

“Sir, better get down!” Amos called out.

O'Neill laughed and blew a cloud of smoke. “Sergeant,” he began with a smile, looking down at Amos, “the Spanish bullet isn't made that will kill me!” But he was wrong. At that instant a slug struck him in the mouth and came out the back of his head. He was dead before he hit the ground.

One of the men next to Amos began to retch, while the firing from the Spanish line grew more intense. Just then, Lieutenant Jules Ord, who was at the apex of the enemy fire, stood up and yelled, “Good-bye, if I don't come back!”

Holding a pistol in one hand and a bayonet in the other, he led the attack. “Come on! We can't stay here!” and shouting like lunatics, fifty men leapt up and raced toward San Juan Hill. Ord reached it first and was shot dead at once.

Theodore Roosevelt was right behind. “Bugler, sound the charge!”

The bugle sounded, and all but one man moved forward. Roosevelt saw him, and ordered him to his feet. “What? Are you afraid to stand up when I am on horseback?” he raged. Just then a bullet ripped into the man, narrowly missing Colonel Roosevelt. “Come on, Rough Riders!” Roosevelt screamed, and drove his horse up the hill.

Amos rose with the rest, almost mindlessly, for the battle-madness had taken them all. He stayed as close to Roosevelt as he could, and when a Spanish officer appeared, he saw Roosevelt drop him with one shot.

A cry went up, and the regiment surged forward, Amos with them. He saw Faye O'Dell go down, clutching at his stomach. Amos dropped beside him, and saw at once that there was no hope. The bullet had torn the boy's stomach wide open, and blood flowed from the wound, gushing redly.

“Amos!” Faye gasped, lifting one bloody hand to clutch at Amos.

“You'll be all right,” Amos lied. “I'll get some help—”

“No–too late—” Faye's eyes were wide, and a trickle of blood dribbled from his mouth. “Amos…not ready to die—!” The little soldier arched his back, but he could not speak. He kicked his feet wildly, then he went limp.

“Faye!” Amos cried, weeping for his friend. But Faye was dead, and the officers were yelling at the troops to move on.

Amos got to his feet and plunged blindly up the hill. He got no more than ten feet before the world turned a brilliant, blinding red—and then it turned to black. There was time for only one thought as he fell.
First Faye
…
and now me. Oh, God—

San Juan Hill was taken. Santiago fell a few days later, and on July 3, the Spanish fleet tried to escape from Santiago Harbor and was annihilated by the American Navy.

The Spanish-American War was over.

But Amos Stuart knew nothing of all this. He was in a coma, lying on the ground for many hours before medical help arrived. Even then he did not regain consciousness. If Theodore Roosevelt himself had not ordered the doctors to do their best for the wounded man, Amos Stuart would have died in Cuba.

He woke up on a hospital ship, his head bandaged, and with a raging fever. When the orderly saw he was awake, he called the doctor, who came to look at him. After a brief examination, he nodded. “You'll live, Stuart. I didn't think you would.”

After the doctor left, Amos lay there, his mind wandering most of the time. He thought often of Faye O'Dell…and how the small trooper had gone out to meet God without being ready.

I ought to be grateful it wasn't me,
he thought. But he found that the war and O'Dell's death had left its mark, and as his body mended, his spirit grew hard.

F
rom the moment Rose waved Amos off to war, she had the feeling that somehow she had made a grave mistake. For the first few weeks after he left, she went about her work at Charlie's Place with a vague feeling of unrest. During this time she went often to see Anna. It was the closest thing to a real home in her life, for the older woman had become like a second mother to her.

“I wish you would-a quit that saloon,” Anna said, shaking her head. “It's no good for young-a girl to be all alone in a place like-a that!” The two women were sitting on the back steps of Anna's house. Summer had fallen on New York like a heavy blanket, and the sun beat down on the bare yard, which had been pounded as flat as concrete by the feet of children at play.

“Oh, it's all right, Anna.” Rose shrugged. “It's better than the factory.”

“Maybe it's not so hard, but…you be careful, Rose.”

The brief warning stirred something in the young woman, and she gave a fleeting grimace. Her long black hair lay down her back, for she had washed it in the rainwater Anna collected in a barrel as it fell off the roof. She was prettier than ever, Anna noted. Regular food had caused her to fill out, and she was wearing one of the new dresses she had bought for herself at Eddy Sparks's urging. It was light-blue cotton with white trim, and the color made her green eyes appear blue.

“You mean…men?” she asked after a delay. “I know, Anna. Eddy does the best he can to keep them away. But they're always there.” She smiled then, and reached over and patted the older woman's shoulder. “As long as I've got you and Eddy to preach at me, I'll be all right.” She got up, stretched, and sighed. “It's almost three o'clock. I've got to go back to rehearsal.”

“You come-a back tomorrow, you hear? We fix a big chocolate cake. Make you fat and pretty…like-a me!” Anna grinned.

“All right, I will.” Rose hugged Mary Elizabeth and the other children, then left to go back downtown.

It was a long walk, so Rose treated herself to the luxury of a cab ride. The streets were crowded, and she watched with interest as one of the new horseless carriages came chugging down the street. It was an odd-looking contraption to her, though she had seen many of the vehicles since coming to New York. The cabdriver gave the noisy affair a sour look, turned to her and said grumpily, “Them things will never amount to anything. Be glad when folks lose interest, and we can have the streets back like we're supposed to!”

Rose got out of the cab in front of Charlie's Place, paid the driver, and went inside. It was a little cooler there, and she went at once to the dressing room. The rehearsal was only for her act—a new number Eddy wanted to try—so the other girls were not around. She put on the older dress she used for rehearsals, then went out to find Eddy.

“Hello, Eddy,” she said, seeing him seated at the piano. He had been kind to her, and she had grown to trust him a great deal. But she saw at once that he was upset. “What's the matter, Eddy? Don't you feel good?”

Sparks ran his fingers over the keys in a series of dissonant arpeggios, unaware that he was doing so. “I'm not sick, Rose,” he said, doing his best to smile at her. “Well, maybe I am a little…but it's not something a pill or a doctor would be able to fix.”

Rose was confused, for the actor had always been a cheerful sort. She asked cautiously, “Is it something about your family?”

“No, they're all right.” Sparks shook his head, then said glumly, “Well, you've got to hear about it anyway, so I might as well tell you now. Charlie told me this morning that he's got a new company coming in to take our place. Tomorrow will be our last night here.”

Rose felt her stomach begin to knot up, and she bit her lip nervously. “Why did he do that, Eddy?”

“Oh, we've been here longer than most, Rose. People like a change.”

“But…do you have another place for us to go?”

“Well…not yet, but I'll find something.” He reached over and patted her shoulder awkwardly. “Sorry about this, Rose. Don't say anything to the other girls yet. I'll tell them myself.”

“All right, Eddy.”

Rose made it through the performances without betraying her roiling emotions. But when Eddy told the girls afterwards that they would be finished after the next evening's performance, she could see they were as unhappy as she. One of them, a small girl with blond hair named Eileen, said to Rose, “This is a bad time to be out of work. Nobody's looking for singers and dancers now…they've already got plenty.”

“Eddy will find something for us,” Rose said with more confidence than she felt.

But after the final performance, Eddy's face was sober as he met with them. “I haven't been able to get a booking yet. I've got a line on a spot in Cleveland, but it won't be open for three weeks.” He looked haggard and tired, but he smiled and tried to be encouraging. “Give me your addresses, all of you, and I'll get word to you as soon as I find something.”

Rose went to her room, fighting off the fear that rose in her at the thought of the future.

“I'm going back home, Rose,” Lillie, her roommate, said before going to bed. “This is no life for me. Take my advice and do the same.”

The next day Rose began looking for work, but discovered very quickly that there was none available…not for her, at least. She had no real friends in the entertainment world, and no marketable talent—at least for the legitimate stage.

One of the men she spoke to that first day, a heavyset man with a balding dome and a kind heart, said, “Little lady, you can't sing and you can't dance and you can't act—not enough for the stage, I mean.” He hesitated, not wanting to hurt her, but finally said honestly, “All you have going for you is your good looks. But this town is full of good-looking young women, and I'd hate to see you go the way most of them go. Be better if you get a job as a typewriter or a teacher.”

But those things were beyond Rose, and she knew nothing else to do. That night when she went home, she had to struggle to control the fear that choked her and brought a trembling to her hands. She walked the floor all night, unable to sleep, trying to think of something. Finally, she fell into bed.
I won't be able to afford this room now. I'll have to find a cheaper place.

For a week, she searched for work as hard as any miner ever sought for gold, but found nothing. Nothing, at least, that she could bring herself to take. Several times she was approached by men who offered her a job in their saloons or dance halls. But the glitter in their eyes frightened her.

At the end of the week, when the rent was due, she was confused and paid up for another week without thinking. She had spent most of her income on clothing and had less than twenty dollars left. She ate little that week and exhausted her strength by going to downtown shops, looking for almost any sort of work.

She had seen Anna only once during this time, and when Nick came by early one afternoon, saying, “Mama says to bring you home,” she was ready. Noting the slight hollow in her cheeks, he added carelessly, “She's promised to make some of that lasagna you like so much. Come on, let's go.”

It was a good evening for Rose. Anna stuffed her until she couldn't swallow another bite, and the children clamored over her. As she left with Nick, Anna hugged her. “You come-a home, Rose! We miss you!”

Nick put her in a cab, and all the way back to her room, he chattered idly. Rose could never make out exactly what it was Nick did for a living, but whatever it was, he was prospering. His cheeks were glowing with health and he was wearing a fine suit and seemed to have plenty of money. When he walked her upstairs to her room, he took some money out of his pocket and pressed it into her hand.

She tried to refuse and he grunted, “Aaaa, shut up and take it, Rosie! Plenty more where that came from.” He closed her fingers over the bills, kissed her cheek, and grinned. “You miss ol' Amos, don't you?”

“Yes; I'm afraid for him.”

“He'll be okay,” Nick said quickly. “Don't let this get you down, Rose. Something will turn up.”

Rose lived for a week on the money Nick gave her, but it was almost gone by Saturday. Now she had no money for rent, and the thought of having to leave the room brought panic to her. Finally she came to a decision.
I'll have to go back to work at the factory.

She rose the next morning, as depressed as she'd ever been in her life. The joyless future at the factory offered nothing but misery. Knowing she'd have to walk, she decided to have a good breakfast first.

Going to the restaurant that offered the cheapest meal, she ordered, and when the meal came, she ate it slowly, knowing such treats would not come again soon. Afterward, she walked all the way to the factory, a distance of six miles, and got her old job back with no difficulty.

The manager remembered her and nodded. “Sure, you did good. Come in Monday morning at six.”

“Thank you, Mr. Berlin.” Rose left the factory, hating the thought of spending her days in the bleak building that reeked of hopelessness.

With half a day on her hands, she decided to go back to Anna's. She was packing her suitcase when a knock came on the door. Surprised, she opened it and found Tim Quincy, a general handyman at Charlie's Place, standing there.

“Letter for you, Rosie,” he said. “It's from Eddy Sparks.”

“Thank you, Tim.” Rose smiled, and as soon as he left, she tore open the envelope, hoping it was a job offer. Instead, it was only a brief note, scrawled in a careless hand.
Rose, I haven't found anything, but I talked to a fellow here who'll maybe give you a job. He's taking a show on the road and needs a good-looking gal for a small part. Don't pay much, and you'd have to do the costumes and props. His name is James Hackett. He said he'd be at the Crescent Hotel Saturday and for you to come by. Hope it works out. Be careful with Hackett. He's a ladies' man.

The note was signed “Eddy.” Rose stared at it for a long moment, then whirled and began to undress.

It will be better than the factory,
she thought.
As long as I can eat and have a place to sleep, that's all I need.
She took extra pains with her appearance, putting on her best dress and fixing her hair in the most attractive style. Then she left the room and headed for the Crescent Hotel.

James K. Hackett was a mediocre actor—a fact appreciated by most of his colleagues, but not clearly discerned by Hackett himself. He was, however, a quick study, able to master long speeches with ease, and he was one of the finest-looking men on the stage. Unfortunately, he acted every role in exactly the same fashion, overdone and highly dramatic. No matter what emotion the scene called for—gentleness, anger, fear—Hackett came on like a storm, sawing the air with his arms and eating the scenery.

The height of his career had been his short stint on the road with Maude Adams in the role of Mercutio. Unbeknownst to him, he had not been Miss Adams's first choice, but when forced to choose a substitute, she had thought Hackett would do if she could get him to modify his histrionics. She soon discovered that she was mistaken. It was not entirely the actor's fault, for he was like a horse with only one gait—full speed at all times.

Hackett had left the play in Boston, and when Miss Adams was asked who would replace him, had replied caustically, “Go out on the street and bring in the first man you see!”

Hackett had one friend who had two splendid advantages—a great deal of money and no judgment at all in theatrical matters. His name was Gerald Partain, and he admired Hackett excessively. He had never made a dime on his own, but his father had left him so much money that he was having difficulty throwing it away fast enough to impoverish himself, so when Hackett came to him with a request for funds to put together a company and take it on the road, Partain was delighted.

While Partain was not a critic of the theater, he was a student of beautiful women, and it may have been Hackett's lady who brought him in as a paying partner. Partain had seen Lylah Stuart in her minor role, had been introduced to her by Hackett, and was convinced that the show—featuring the two in starring roles—would be a smash.

After they had left Partain, Hackett had grinned. “He's like a gold mine that never gets played out, Lylah. A good chap with no sense whatsoever…but plenty of money.” He had embraced her possessively, promising, “You're going to be a star, sweetheart. No way we can miss!”

Lylah was new to the theater, but already knowledgeable enough to understand that James Hackett would never be a star. He might do as a rung on her own ladder, however, and she had allowed him to kiss her before asking, “What play are you thinking of, Jim?”

“Sherlock Holmes,
I think. It's a great role for me.”

And you'd make a hash of it! Besides, there's no good role for a woman in that one.
Lylah had put her arm around Hackett's neck, smiled secretively, and said, “Let's talk about it, Jim—”

After considerable persuasion, Hackett had agreed to do a play called
The Runaway Girl,
in which there was a great role for a rising young actress.

Hackett was basically a lazy man, loving his time on the stage and the applause of the crowd, but hating the multitudinous details that go with taking a show on the road. It had been Lylah who had plunged in and pulled the show together, and it had been Lylah, not James Hackett, who got the good reviews.

Hackett had grown jealous, and after a three-month tour, had staged a rousing fight with Lylah, accusing her of
using
him. Lylah had laughed in his face. “That's just wonderful coming from you, Jim!” she said bitterly. “You've never done a thing in your life that cost you anything. But I won't be
using
you anymore. Good-bye and bad luck!”