A Sweetness to the Soul

  I stood so helpless! I could do nothing from where I stood but pray and that I did, hands pressed to my mouth.

  Then from the corner of my vision I saw a familiar reddish streak strike out for the big cow’s heel, pushing the cow toward Joseph!

  Bandit barked and bit, drawing blood at the cow’s heel.

  I held my breath, heard my heart thud, expecting the cow to throw her half-ton of weight directly at my husband, smashing him against the rails as she escaped the kelpie’s bite.

  Instead, the cow swirled to attack the dog.

  Water sprayed in all directions. The cow’s lumbering body took a sideways turn as she lowered her head, bellowing, at Bandit. She butted the dog, and sent him flying higher than her head. Joseph slipped beyond the mother, up and over the fence rail and out of striking distance, deciding wisely to let her move her young one when and where she wished.

  Bandit hit the ground with a splashing thud. He lay still. The Hereford bellowed and with her calf beside her she stood by the still form; nudged it. Bandit did not move. The old cow bellowed again, butted at her calf and sloshed away from the corral, away from the rising creek.

  Joseph circled around, bent to Bandit, and I knew he would be shedding tears for that small dog.

  “I’ll come across,” I shouted, tears already brimming.

  Then as Joseph kneeled beside him, the strangest thing happened: Bandit sneezed. Dazed, he stood. His legs wobbled, but he lived! “He’s all right!” Joseph yelled at me, his voice cracking. “Fall must have been broken by the water!” With Joseph’s help, the dog leaped into his open arms. “Good boy!” Joseph told him, over and over, letting the dog lick his face. “Good boy! He’s earned his keep!” he yelled to me, waving. Remounting, he rode upstream. “Cross where it’s narrower,” he signaled.

  With the horses, I rode a mile or more up the bloating creek, paralleling my husband and Bandit before finding a place safe enough to cross. Once there, I leaned from my horse to pat the dog, let him nuzzle me. Then I touched the face of the man I’d married, grateful he rode safe and sound beside me.

  Thousands lost property that spring of 1870. Barns and animals and homes joined trees and carcasses and snakes on their way to the Columbia and the far Pacific. Benito and Anna’s home wore water damage but still stood. Joseph’s pack road needed repairs where the water eddied back behind the sagebrush roots, washed out dirt to expose rocks, bore a hole or two in the surface. The trail held firm, though, would still be safe to use even if it had been wide enough for wagons, which it wasn’t. Yet.

  The Nix bridge was lost to high water as Joseph predicted. O’Brien’s bridge had damage too, in a section where a tree root had caught then pulled splintered lumber with it. While it did not wash away, neither did it invite safe passage, this place where my husband hoped to build a wagon bridge and our future.

  Out of disaster can come triumph if one does not faint or fall away. Joseph was nothing if not persistent and so he approached O’Brien, riding down to the site where the log bridge gaped open in places like an old man’s bad molar. It didn’t seem possible that a man could want to build another bridge knowing two had been lost within ten years. But O’Brien was made of tough stuff.

  Oddly, the day Joseph rode to talk with him about the land, O’Brien stood again with Robert May, Lodenma’s brother-in-law. It was the spring of 1870, the start of a new decade, and Joseph hoped to capitalize on that new beginning for us, convince O’Brien it was an ending at the falls for him.

  “Quite a sight,” Joseph said, walking abreast of the two men as they stood peering over the side. He nodded to O’Brien and to May.

  O’Brien grunted. He stood head to head with my husband, older, carried less than the 220 pounds my husband bore. His brow wore worry furrows. Bushy brown eyebrows speared out from his face giving him a wilder look than what his deliberate behaviors promised. Robert May removed his bowler hat, wiped his face and shiny head of the June heat. He said nothing.

  “S’pose you’re here to barter,” O’Brien said, turning to him.

  “Only make a fair offer,” Joseph answered, “if you’ve a mind to sell.”

  “He does,” May said.

  “You speaking for him?” Joseph asked.

  O’Brien turned away, stared out at the water. May spoke again. “Ezra and I think he should sell. No sense to rebuild.” So here was another name. Ezra was Ezra Hemingway: banker, businessman extraordinaire; another person involved in this venture? Joseph had checked the records at the courthouse and only O’Brien’s name appeared on the deed.

  “It’ll go,” O’Brien said. “Make the bridge wider, sturdier. We know more now. You can’t quit in the middle. You’ll never get to the other side.”

  May ignored him, said to Joseph: “What kind of offer do you have in mind?”

  Joseph noticed O’Brien’s shoulders stiffen. May’s eyes prodded for an answer. Joseph could see O’Brien was dealing with dreams while his apparent backers dealt defeat. My husband wanted to purchase the land fair and square, not to wheedle while a man was down, to buy so both buyer and seller were pleased with the exchange.

  “What makes you want to hang on, Ben?” Joseph asked to O’Brien’s back. “Ye’ve lost two to high water.”

  “Same thing as makes you want it.” O’Brien paused. “Put in bigger timbers. That’s the key.” He turned to Joseph, a man with a vision staring into the eyes of a kindred soul. “You know it,” he said, “where they don’t.”

  “The Military Road will kill any competition,” May said. “People would rather ferry at the mouth than go up and down these canyons.” His eyes gazed upward at the ridge that loomed nearly two thousand feet above them. He shook his head, removed his hat again, wiped his bare head with a blue silk handkerchief, stuffed it back into the small vest pocket. “Not to mention the savages. Unpredictable regardless of how peaceful they act.”

  He looked at the distant scaffoldings holding men handling nets. “Forced even them to use canoes way upstream, swim across in places. But they got their eels and fish to motivate ’em. Most don’t have anything to make ’em risk these ravines or a new bridge for.” He walked a little along the rocky ledge, bent down, squatted, returned to a silent Joseph and O’Brien. “Good investment a few years back,” he said. “Now, too costly for us to consider rebuilding.” He checked his watch, slid the gold piece back into its pocket. “We can talk, Mr. Sherar. Bring your offer in,” he said handing Joseph his card. “We’ll be making a decision within a month or two, won’t we Ben?”

  O’Brien did not respond.

  In the spring of 1871, Ben O’Brien agreed to sell his property to us, Joseph H. and Jane A. Sherar, the land the river ran through. We named our venture Til Kinney Road and Bridge Company. Joseph arrived home from a trip to The Dalles elated, overjoyed, surprised, and dealing with the newness of achievement, the effort of the long, hard journey not yet in his mind.

  “Be careful what you wish for. You might get it,” Joseph said, waving his offer before my face. “My father said that more than once. Guess we’ll find out what it means!” He picked me up, swirled me around the kitchen. Bandit yapped outside the window, excited over the activity going on inside. “Let’s tell Benito and Anna!” he said, taking my hand and pushing open the door.

  I held back. “Details,” I said. “Give me the details.” I crossed my arms over the watch hanging at the tucks of my dress. “How much does he want? What do we have to sell to give it?”

  “Later,” he told me. “Let’s celebrate now. Come on! Get your shoes on.” He pulled at my hand again like a boy urging his dog to play.

  “I want to know. Now.” I liked living where we did. I liked the familiarity of our home, knowing what part I played in our life, having some say in decisions. This new venture did not promise me as much, especially when my husband chose not to share with me his usual details that gave me comfort and control.

  He stopped, annoyed that I poured water on his hot fire of anticipati
on. “Seven thousand and forty dollars,” he said. “And a pack string of mules. It’s a fair price,” he added, responding to the look of disbelief on my face. “Includes what he’s started on the bridge, small barn, that little house, and the lumber sits there for adding on.”

  “It may be fair, but it’s more than we have, cash on hand,” I said. “You’ve not looked lately at the books.”

  “Didn’t need to.” He grinned. “Wasn’t going to tell you this, but I’ve a stash.”

  “What stash?”

  “From California times, when I risked some Merino rams sent across the country and came out good. I’ve never spent it. Just kept it, in case.”

  “Where! What bank?”

  “In a safe place. No bank.”

  “Why would you not tell me? I thought of us as partners.” I sat down. The kelpie came in through the open door, panted at my feet.

  “And we are! Don’t make a thing of this, Janie. Not now, not when we’re so close. I only told you so you wouldn’t worry over money as you do sometimes.”

  “I worry because you don’t. Now I see why. You’ve kept some back for when you decide we need it.”

  “It was mine earned. Didn’t think I needed to clear everything with you.” He chewed on his lower lip.

  “Not permission. Just sharing,” I said. “Seems little enough.”

  He came to me then, kneeled, pushed at Bandit’s bottom to set him aside. He lifted my chin with his calloused fingers. “I’m sorry, Janie. Look. This is what we’ve said we always wanted. When the door opens, you put your foot in to keep it from closing. Go looking for something to pry it open with and you’ll as likely lose your gain.”

  “You could let your partner know how big your foot is before you knock on the door,” I snapped.

  “They’re tens,” he said, trying to tease me from my mad. “Always have been. And they’ve just walked us through the door we said we always wanted.”

  “You wanted. More,” I reminded him, cooling some, still not looking at his eyes.

  “It’s for both of us, isn’t it? Didn’t you tell me once it was your place of belonging, being at the falls?” I nodded, sighed. “We’ll build a big house there,” he said, “fill it with the voices of people. And children. Not at first, maybe, but eventually. I’m sorry about not telling you of my stash. I can see now how you’d read it. It was meant to surprise you, to keep you from worrying.” He pulled me up. “Come on, let’s let Benito and Anna know. They’ll be pleased to be coming with us, I’m sure of that.”

  I still hesitated. “We’ll need to sell it seems to me. To build. And do the roads. That’s the key you said, the roads?”

  “There’ll be a way.”

  “Something more you’ve kept from me?”

  He sighed. “Nothing more,” he said.

  “Where did you keep it, your stash?”

  Joseph was quiet a long time. “Just around. Can we not discuss it later?” He took my hand. “For now, it’s time to celebrate.”

  “Not sure what we’re celebrating,” I said, knowing I did.

  He took both my hands in his, pulled me to standing. “A new path,” he said. He looked into my eyes. Liquid formed at the corners. He blinked it back, wetting the crows feet that reached out toward his temples. “I feel it. Sense it,” he said.

  “And if you’re wrong and this new path turns into more trouble than we’ve had? If we go to the falls and we don’t have children, can’t build a better bridge, the road doesn’t work, and your vision isn’t real, will it be worth it then?” I wanted assurance that if this move did not bring children, add to our happiness, that he would not hold it over me, hold me as accountable as I held myself.

  “Man’s got to be somewhere, doing something,” Joseph said. He spoke quietly next. “Children? I want those for you more than for us. Because you want it so. It will make our lives no less a gift if we live it out together without some of our own. For me,” he said, his eyes sparkling now, “working at the falls—with you—is what I believe I was meant to do. It’s why O’Brien has decided to sell now, I’m sure of it. It’s time to bend, Janie.” He lifted my chin, looked into my eyes. “This course has been mine since the day I first saw the falls out of the mist, the day I felt something special between me and you. It was like God let me see the falls and then meet you, see you both for what ye could be. I don’t mind that some folks think it’s too hot, too far from people, too rugged to live on. Remember Frederic? He said you can’t let fear and disappointment or what others think set you back. Trust me in this,” he said, folding his big arms around me, burying my face in the wool of his vest. He rested his chin on my head. “Just trust me,” he said softly. “And in God’s plan for our lives.”

  His arms promised strength; he merely asked me for some bend. And so we adopted those coping-saw qualities of life and nurtured them into our future.

  THE FALLS

  To the left! Hold it! Get the blanket, Jane!”

  I followed Joseph’s instructions, wrapping the headboard of the fourposter with the old wedding-ring quilt. Joseph and Benito set the bird’s eye maple bedroom set into the back of the wagon with a “thump!” The mules grunted at the weight, danced a bit in their harness. “Hold ’em!” Joseph shouted at young Dick Barter, the driver.

  “Imagine it’ll still get marred,” I said, stepping back, “if the other loads are any judge.” Joseph threw the rope to Benito to crisscross the bed set, and I placed old shoe leather under the stretch points hoping to protect it however little we could. “Can’t be helped,” Joseph said, “We’ll take as good a care as we can but there’ll be some rub marks, sure—until the roads are improved.”

  “Well, there’s little left to load, at least.”

  The men tightened more, wrapped as they could around the trunks and wooden boxes stored under the bed, on top, wherever we could fit things until the wagon sat jammed as tight as my corset, leaving no room, we hoped, for shifting.

  Finally, Joseph gave the order. “Take it down, Dick. Let Janie by you with the pigs first. I’ll finish loading here and bring up the rear.”

  “Right so!” the young man said. Big and tall, he wore a leather belt from his waist to his armpits, to hold his back as stiff as a timber to handle big teams on rugged roads. Dick released the foot brake, slapped the backs of the mules, and with a jingle of harness and crunching wooden wheels, set out with the last of our worldly goods. He headed down the ravine, pulled to the side to wait for me to pass him before we both moved down to the Deschutes.

  I’d made the trip four times myself that past week, surprised that even with Joseph’s work on it, the trail was still treacherous, almost as much as when I first rode on it with Sunmiet and her family. That had been ten, maybe eleven years before. I’d never taken the trail in October to the river. Never had a need to go there after the rains had washed out deep ruts and new rocks. Until we moved.

  It was the week before my twenty-third birthday, 1871, and the move had not gone as we had planned.

  The pigs resisted leaving their roaming grounds, being herded like cattle to new spots. Bandit, confused by our efforts to treat the spotted hogs like cattle instead of the pets they had become, simply lay on his belly and watched, tongue dripping, eyes following our efforts, but not lifting a leg to help. We had a dozen shoats who both kept the snakes down around the house and tidied up the place. Attached to their wallows near the lilacs, they resisted the move. After some effort to push them with the horses down the trail, I suggested we catch them and toss them squealing into the back of a wagon that I now stepped up onto.

  “Don’t think this is the best idea,” Joseph said. “They’d eventually come with us. Riding in this wagon …”

  “Let’s give it a try,” I said picking up the reins.

  “You’ve got to move fast enough to keep them in there—but not too fast,” he warned me.

  We started out well enough.

  With great care, I began down the twisting, windi
ng descent of narrow road, feeling the wheels drop over rocks that seemed to appear overnight in the trail. My legs were tense, beginning to ache. My feet jammed the front board, my hand gripped then released the brake, setting, releasing, my arms aching in the effort to help the horses hold back the wagon with its load. A doe and her fawn startled, distracting. The pair lunged up the steep side hill, the fawn a muted shadow behind its mother.

  This road was some of my husband’s best work up to that point. Difficult to believe that the governor of this state would someday call him the “Greatest Roadbuilder of the West.” That fine governor should have been riding with me in that pig wagon!

  I wondered how Dick was handling his much heavier load when I heard him coming up behind me. He shouted, though I didn’t know what and my team became agitated, maybe because they thought he got too close with his. At any rate, mine picked up speed.

  I tried to slow them, saw their ears flick back and forth in agitation. Half standing, I pushed my weight against the front board, whoaing them. They pulled and jerked the harness, the tongue of the wagon bobbing up and down like a chattering child. My leg cramped, my forearm strained from holding back and I shouted, “Back off, Dick!” but by then it was too late.

  Our action broke a rock loose, startling the horses more as it fell, bouncing and careening like a cannonball off the boulders below.

  “Whoa, now, whoa!” I said, trying to keep alarm from my voice. “Easy, now.” The horses had another plan and then theirs was thwarted, too, as the wagon picked up greater speed and jerked over rocks and ruts like it was a rock itself, bouncing off the narrow canyon, the wheels riding up on the side. I could feel my heart throbbing against my ribs, my breathing shallow, and I’m praying now, out loud, “Please, God, please, God, please,” hoping he will know exactly what I need. I hear another squeal and think I see a spotted form fly out of the back and tumble down the ravine.