At a mail stop, we had a brief respite, though Mary and I stayed in the stage. The nanny got out with the four children to give them a little fresh air, and the jehu wrapped his ribbons around the brake while he loaded and unloaded mail bags. No one at the mail post stood to calm the horses, who jerked forward and back, restless as a woman’s legs after a long ride astride.
And then, as though as one, the horses lurched forward, the brake slipped off and in seconds they surged at full speed. Without a driver. The sick man atop couldn’t gain the reins and his boy attempted to jump off, then slipped and fell between the wheels. I knew we’d run over him. Mary couldn’t see what made me gasp.
Mr. Giggy sat across from me, jostled by the thrust, his hands in prayer, his face contorted. Then his countenance brightened. “If I can get up to get the lines, they’re still wrapped around the brake, I can halt—” His words were shoved back and forth as the stage rocked. I knew we’d soon approach a length of corduroy road which, if we hit it crooked, would flip the stage and drag us to our deaths.
Then before I could even complete my own prayer, Mr. Giggy wrangled his large self out through the window and atop the stage to the front boot, where he grabbed the lines, shouting, “I have them!” That did not stop the rolling, rattling stage, however, as no man can hold back six runaway horses. But we could pray he could guide them enough that they would hit the corduroy directly and, in time, tire themselves out and slow themselves down.
As the stage roiled like a ship on a dark sea, I believed in that moment that we were going to die.
There was no panic in me. I didn’t have my life flash before my eyes. A sense of calm flooded my spirit, and I felt badly for Mary and for Robert, as I knew he’d blame himself for sending me on, for not accompanying us. There was no white light as I had heard people speak of when they thought they were about to die. It was an . . . acceptance, that God was with us and we might live or we might die, but in the end, it would be alright. I was very reassured by that calm.
“No, no!” Mary’s words took me from my peace. She grabbed at the mother, who clutched at the door handle, trying to open it.
She screamed, “I must return to my children!”
“They’re fine. If you jump out, you’ll die.” Mary took her hands.
I looked into her terrified eyes. “He’s gotten the reins. The horses will tire.” I used my most steady voice. But she wasn’t all there, her fear wiping all reason from her. I lunged to help my sister then, to hold the woman in as we bounced around like stones in a swirled bucket. The woman sobbed and fought us through her crying.
I felt, then heard us hit the corduroy road, breathed gratitude that we’d struck it square. We rattled on a mile or more and once off of it, our savior Mr. Giggy turned the team into a fence where the sweating horses stopped, hung their heads, breathed hard and snorted.
“I’ll bring them about,” he called down to us. “We’ll head back. They’re tired now. It’ll be alright, ladies, gentleman.” He spoke to the ill man who moaned about his son.
Not long after turning back, we met the driver fast-walking toward us and he took over from Mr. Giggy. I would have liked our angel to have remained atop, as he was being thanked profusely. He walked back to the mail stop where Mr. Giggy opined, “I guess I know now why I was supposed to take this stage.”
Not a one of us disputed his claim.
It was a day to celebrate Providence’s intervention, the boy who had fallen was not killed. He was badly hurt, though. His ill father stayed with him at the postal stop where the children were also reunited with their mother. Much hugging and kissing and crying, though the nanny had kept close tabs on them. That family stayed and would return to Denver in the morning.
Mary and I and new passengers from the postal stop all traveled on to the Middle Park Hotel at Sulphur Springs. Getting out, I wobbled to the front of the team, patted the neck of one lead animal. “Quite a day you’ve had.” The big animal lifted its head and jangled the bridle. I saw blood at his mouth where he’d held the bit. “You’ll tend these horses well tonight, won’t you?” The jehu nodded, looked sheepish, it seemed to me. He knew of his part in this catastrophe. That boy’s broken bones would take some time to heal.
Mary and I sat at the edge of one of the hot springs where a cooler stream rushed through—there were more than twenty springs—with fifty cabins set around. “What do you think of all that happened today?” Mary asked. All I could see of her was her head that held a bathing cap, the ruffles limp in the steamy water. Lit candles with a lavender scent gave more an illusion of light than being able to see. She moved closer to the edge where it wasn’t as hot and could be refreshing. “The role of Providence in our rescue,” Mary continued. “There’s no denying that Mr. Giggy was where he was meant to be.”
“I suppose one of us might have wrangled ourselves through that window and crawled up to the boot, but we’d have little knowledge of how to operate that set of reins once we got there.” I shivered. “And the horses would feel that. They’d know they had an amateur at their helm. Mr. Giggy is a horseman. He had the size and bulk and had obviously managed smaller teams. He was the right one.”
“And he listened. I think that’s the hardest part of this life journey.” Mary’s body sat out farther still, seeking the cooler edges. The water steamed off her legs. “Knowing how to listen to all the different voices that talk to us.”
“Mary, are you hearing voices?” I teased.
“I’m not jesting. We all hear voices inside. Things Mama told us when we were little that remind us of some action to take in the present. Husbands tell us things we let stew inside our heads and hearts, even when they aren’t present. It’s not always for the best.”
I thought of Robert’s words about my writing under my own name or how I sometimes didn’t do what I thought best because I knew Robert would have done it another way. I’d do it his way instead of my own way, so I didn’t have to defend if questioned.
“It’s so hard to know if the voice we’re hearing is Providence. Or some tempting devil.” Mary got out of the water and dabbed a towel to her face.
“If we’re familiar with the voice, that would help,” I posed.
She brushed beads of sweat from her face. “That means time in silence, doesn’t it? A mother labors to find such time. I envy you those long walks you write about.”
“Music is where I hear the voice of God,” I said. “Not so much when I’m singing as when I’m preparing to sing, in those moments of silence before the first notes. I sometimes think silence is the first note. Then I get lost inside the music.”
“I’ll tell you a secret. When I’m writing, that’s how I feel. It’s like I’m there allowing another voice to speak.”
“Even when it’s about practical things like your piece on how to make a perfect cherry pie? It had lots of humor in it. I loved that.”
“Even then. I imagine I’m making someone’s day brighter, offering them a small respite. It’s nothing like a book, of course, I know that. But I think everyday moments can be divine. Mr. Giggy’s story is a divine revelation that there is still mystery in the world, unexplained phenomena. Miracles.”
“People don’t call much miraculous anymore. We’ve gotten cynical. But I have no trouble calling it that. All the little things, too, like our working together to keep that mother from jumping out. And bigger ones, the boy not dying. At least I hope he won’t die. And most of all, Mr. Giggy being willing to go in a totally opposite direction from what he’d planned for today. How many people are willing to look foolish?”
“You did, when you married Robert.”
I thought about that. “I guess I did.” I laughed.
“All those other voices telling you it was crazy to go off with him and plan to travel the West by stage and train and horseback, without a home to come back to. It’s quite a different path for a lady to take. Mama says that often.”
“I’m sure she does. But has it benefit
ed the life of anyone? Or was it just a selfish wish on my part, to indulge in my own dreams and adventures?”
“You were here today to keep a woman from jumping to her death. You nursed Robert and what was his name?”
“Mr. Gleed.”
“Both men were brought back to health. You’ve given Robert sound advice. And I suspect there have been other moments where you were present to offer a kind word when someone needed it.”
All those stalwart women at the stage stops, the ones I’d paid a compliment to. Could such a little thing really be divine-inspired?
I may not manage a runaway team but working with my sister, I did listen to common sense and help a woman face terror.
I got out of the pool. “When we were racing along today, I had the most tranquil moment. I wasn’t afraid. I accepted whatever would happen. I’m reassured that when my time comes, I won’t be terrified because I know I’m not alone.”
“Tranquility. Who knew one could find it in the wildest of moments.” She sighed, wrapped the towel around her shoulders. “I could stay here for the rest of my life.”
“Willie and Christina would come find you. Two months to let you go is a very long time.” I never loved her more than at that moment. “I’m so grateful that you’re here.”
“Something told me it was time to see my sister. I listened.”
From Fifteen Thousand Miles by Stage, vol. 1, by Carrie Adell Strahorn (page 204)
Then a feeling came over him so strong that he must take it [the stage] that it was like a power not his own that impelled him to demand the stage to wait for him.
18
Singing in the Snow
Landscapes ask us to ponder our inner being. Dutch painters coined that word—landscape—when they moved from painting seascapes to capturing the beauty of the interior of a land, her mountains and valleys and rivers. Wish I could paint what feelings the West’s grand landscapes inspire in me.
October 10, 1880
Remember the cancelled trip to Yellowstone?”
I nodded. Autumn had arrived and I was homesick for Marengo.
“Well, it’s back on.” Robert grinned. We were at our hotel in Virginia City, the city bustle active outside our window. “The owner of the stage route will himself drive us on the official first run. Just you and me as passengers.”
“I hope it’s not too late in the season.” It was October.
“Marshall says we’ll do fine. We’ve got to load up with felt for our boots, though, take mittens, scarfs, overcoats, a felt skirt, heavy woolen shawl, blankets, pillows. We need to finish shopping and get you a pair of thick-soled boots. The ground there is said to be too hot for your thin leather soles, and if we encounter snow, too thin for those too. Come along.”
He dragged me out of my moroseness that had settled after Mary left. The lack of fashion of the boots I eventually bought made me grimace. “They’re not very attractive, are they?” I said. Heavy soles of thick rubber held leather sides.
“They’ll keep your feet dry and your ankles safe. You have such dainty feet.” He lifted my foot as I sat at the mercantile. He rubbed my calf above the boot top.
“They weigh a ton.”
“All the better to protect you, my dear. That’s my job on this trip and those boots are my partners.”
Once on the road in our private stage, Robert teased me about those heavy boots, said they looked like how he imagined Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein’s monster boots must have looked. “I had no idea you had such big feet, Dell.”
To silence him I said, “I’ll wager you five dollars that I could get both my dainty feet inside one of your boots.”
“I accept your bet. Now prove it.”
“When we settle for the night. I’m not taking them off in this stage.” The weather brought cool but clear skies, and the leaves had begun their annual turn toward amber, red, and cinnamon woven between deep greens of pines and fir. A vast stillness shrouded the place as we stopped by Henry’s Lake. Teal and canvasbacks and mallards quacked their calls to fellow ducks. I’d stepped outside the new coach to stretch my legs and heard an elk’s bugle. Then soft sighing through the trees, broken by the sudden clatter of antelope racing beyond snowcapped mountains shadowing tiny green plants. Pine scented the air. It was a place for tourists, that was certain.
“You’re the first woman to come into the park,” Marshall said. He was Robert’s height, older though, and carried himself as a man who found strength in the elements.
“First white woman, I imagine,” I countered. “No Indian woman would have kept her distance from so grand a landscape as this.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” Marshall said. “When Colonel Vandervort of the survey team was here, he wrote that ‘no lovely woman’s sweet voice had ever floated across Henry’s Lake.’ No longer true now, thanks to you, Mrs. Strahorn.”
It wasn’t true before, I’m certain of that. Sometimes men didn’t listen and for a moment I wondered about that Arapaho or Shoshone, Crow or Blackfeet woman who might have sung a song heard in this natural cathedral.
Several hours later, we came upon our rest stop for the night. It was a two-story house that a ranger had built but then, with Indian troubles, had abandoned, taking out the glass windows and doors for fear the house would be burned and he’d lose those costly items. Canvas flaps were hung to keep out the wind. There were no beds inside, only a crude table and chairs.
Mr. Marshall rustled up supper for us. “I hope you like cold beans.”
“Beans make anything a complete meal,” Robert said. He did like his beans. After we ate, Robert said, “We’ll head out to the stage for the night. Best place to keep warm.”
“No, no,” Mr. Marshall insisted. “The upstairs has hay. It’ll be softer and warmer. You take this candle lantern and head on up there. I’ll bed down in the stage, keep the horses company.”
I made a quick foray for personal things left in the stage and became aware of how cold and tired I was. My bones ached. In the darkness I heard the serenade of crickets, the crunch of horses chewing; then I returned and climbed the ladder to the loft. Robert waited with the candle lantern that the wind kept blowing out. I wondered why they’d hauled hay up above the living space in the first place, but there it was. I was cold, tired, hungry, and my feet hurt, and I’d take what comfort the loft provided. I’d slept in a stage. It was not a pleasure.
Robert made a bed of sorts over the hay and rubbed my gloved hands trying to warm them. I started to cry, I’m not sure why. I didn’t often, but the contrast of being in that magnificent park by day and in this primitive accommodation by night overwhelmed.
“I’d let you sleep with those boots on, but we need to dry out the felt. Besides, I wouldn’t want anyone to mistake your limb for a log.” I knew he teased to make me feel better, but it wasn’t working.
I began the unhooking of the heavy boots, no easy task, as my fingers were slowed by cold. “My feet have got to have a rest from these.”
Pard helped pull them off, massaged my stocking feet. “Now’s the time to determine if your five-dollar wager brings me five more.” He removed his boots, handed me his big brogan. “OK, let’s see you get both of your dainty feet into my boot.” Our eyes had adjusted to the darkness. The moon gave off pale light through the cracks in the roof and walls.
“Robert, please.”
“Oh, come on. We might as well have fun as be miserable. There’s a choice.”
I sighed, stuck my stocking-clad foot in Robert’s boot; took it out. Then I daintily slipped in the other foot, and took it out. “Done. I win.” I reached for a blanket.
“Hey, wait a minute. You were supposed to put both feet into my boot.”
“I did. Where’s my five dollars?”
“No, no, no, no. At the same time.”
“I never wagered that. I said I could get both of my feet into your one boot and I just did. Pay up.”
His mouth hung open. “Well, I’ll be.” He to
ssed me a five-dollar gold piece but in the pale light I missed it and it landed in the hay.
I scrambled to find it, patting up dust, messing up the blankets. He knelt too, and pawing, we both started laughing. It took half an hour until, voilà, I had it in my hand.
“Woman, you are amazing.” He re-spread the blanket, rolled onto it, and motioned me there too. Then he pulled another wool blanket over us. And the first white woman to visit Yellowstone Park giggled in the arms of her hero, five dollars richer than the day before.
Love drives out tiredness.
After a heartier breakfast than our supper, we continued our tour by stage, stopping whenever we wanted to gaze and be amazed at the grandeur. “Thank goodness this is protected now,” I said. “No railroads, correct?”
“Not likely. But the railroads will bring people to the entrances, and stages and horses will bring them into the interior.”
Mr. Marshall had a half-built cabin that awaited us for supper. He planned to bring his wife here, leaving in the winters. This time we had both a stove and a bed. In the morning, rangers brought horses around and we began our tour by horseback, really a better comfort than the stage, though more exposed to the elements. We kept our mounts far back from some of the stranger park oddities.
Geysers greeted. “Astonishing.” I couldn’t say the word enough. I made detailed notes each evening, writing the names of the geysers, the height of their explosions, how long they stayed in the air. Hot springs, boiling lakes, rainbow-colored pools, it was all so intriguing. Some of the geysers sent a kind of spray over my notebook that preserved my lead pencil writings as though they were etched in stone. Someone had thrown socks in one pool, and though they were white as snow, they were brittle and broke when Mr. Marshall tugged them up. We slept without tents that night, heard the horses being restless for a time, continued our journey in the morning, and had ridden several miles before Mr. Marshall told us he’d found bear tracks not far from the horses when he went to saddle them that morning.