“Should we head back?” I asked. Being the first white woman to be a bear’s breakfast didn’t appeal at all to my adventurous spirit.
“We have a few miles’ ride to Yellowstone Falls. You wouldn’t want to miss that.” Mr. Marshall spoke to my husband’s happy nod.
We slept out under the stars and I put aside thoughts of bears and in the morning peered at the glorious lake with pelicans and swans as we began the twenty-mile ride around the lake. We’d picked up the superintendent of the park by then—Colonel Norris, who led us—and we carried on, knowing we had another twenty-five miles to ride to reach the falls. Storm clouds hovered and by midafternoon . . . sent a calling card of snow. And then hail.
“Dismount! Rest the horses!” came the colonel’s order.
Darkness closed over us in a steady rain as we figured we were five miles from the falls. We’d make that trek easily in the morning, I was assured. Robert had gone on ahead to shoot an elk for our dinner and the superintendent had left Mr. Marshall and me, too, to find the best camp. When we found Colonel Norris’s choice for where to spend the night, it was in the open instead of under trees. Rain pelted down that would turn to snow. I said nothing and I knew Robert would never question a colonel’s choice, but truly, if I’d had the strength, I would have complained and offered up another solution, one that included trees for shelter.
Robert returned without our dinner and pulled canvas over the bedding, hoping to keep it dry. He said nothing about the campsite. Bread and bacon was our fare that night. Snow fell as we kept the fire going to find scant warmth.
I awoke after a miserable night, cold and shivering, to Mr. Marshall’s mutterings and learned that our horses had departed without their riders. Robert was livid and said words to Mr. Marshall, who hung a sheepish head, adding, “I lost my pipe too,” as though that was the real disaster. Men. The horses had already been gone for two hours, but in daylight the men hoped to track them. I was given an extra blanket with a canvas draped over me and a rifle for protection. Bears. They stoked the fire with wet limbs, then left me alone while the men made their search to take us back the thirty miles to any kind of supplies. I prayed they’d find those horses or we’d be walking back.
You can learn a lot by sitting and thinking. A person could freeze to death in circumstances like these. My feet were this side of wet inside those boots. Thank goodness for wool socks, wool skirts, wool coats and hats. I didn’t see my life flash before my eyes, yet. I almost wished it would. I got up, stomped around, sat back down. Memories of my childhood did come back though: my sisters and I slumping through snow, the light from our house a beacon as we walked home from school in the early dark. I imagined a warm fire. The one in front of me lacked sufficient fuel. I remembered my mother’s words in her letter after I told of our plans for Yellowstone, of how cold meals are not good for a person. What would she say about cold everything? I tried to write but couldn’t hold the pencil in my wet-gloved hands. I was grateful I wasn’t pregnant, the first time that bit of gratitude had pushed its way into my brain. And I’d have a story to tell. I considered singing but didn’t . . . it might attract a bear. What did I know about bears? As the hours wore on, I prayed aloud.
My prayers were answered when the men arrived back with the horses, who had stopped at a hot creek and, reluctant to cross it, tore at the grass rather than heading on home. But instead of us now returning to get out of the storm, the men decided that since we were so close to the falls, just five miles, we couldn’t turn back, now could we? I would not complain and be known as the first white woman to deprive men of their Yellowstone adventures.
It was decided Mr. Marshall and I remain behind, and Colonel Norris and Pard rode on to see the falls.
Now, that decision smoldered my thinking. After all this sitting and freezing, I should be deprived of being the pioneering woman to visit the falls? No. It took me awhile to decide what to do about that—and I then asked Mr. Marshall to saddle my horse. We argued—I was very ladylike—telling him if he didn’t saddle my mount, I’d head out on foot and follow the horse’s tracks. He finally saddled both our mounts and we started off, but he muttered about bears getting our camp box so I told him, “You head back. Look after things, pack up. When we return, we can leave straightaway. Go on.” My gloved hands shooed him like he was a gaggle of geese. He finally agreed, but I suspect he watched me until I was out of sight.
I had much less fear being alone between Mr. Marshall and Pard and the colonel than when I’d sat and waited for those same men as they searched for horses in bear country. Having a direction, knowing I was headed somewhere with a trail to follow, invigorated me. Plus, I began to sing. Oh, what a glorious time to hear my voice pressing against the low clouds, the dense timber, the snow-filled trail. My horse kept up a steady pace.
I met Pard and the colonel coming back. “I’m glad you decided to come,” Robert said. “I should have let you in the first place.” He reached out to pat my shoulder as he brought his horse up beside mine. “It is truly magnificent. I wish you could have seen it.”
“And why can’t I? I’ve come this far.”
“Let’s hurry on now, Strahorn, Missus.” The colonel tipped his hat at me, wore a worried face.
“I deserve to see the falls, don’t I?”
Robert frowned, then to the colonel, “You go ahead to Marshall’s camp. I’m taking her on up. She’s come this far. She deserves to see it all.”
“It looks like more weather rolling in. It’s not a good idea.”
“I see that.”
I’d rarely seen Robert stand up to a colonel, but he did this time. Maybe he shouldn’t have. Off we rode to that magnificent canyon to see those breath-arresting falls. Robert and I lingered longer than we should have, even lying on our bellies in the snow to look over the side of the canyon to that marvel of color and depth. My fingers felt numb inside my gloves; my feet felt frozen. But I’d seen the magnificent artistry of God’s very hand and I was in awe.
“We’d better get going now,” Robert said. His eyes searched the lowering sky.
“I’m ready.” We let our ponies take us back, the animals seemingly aware that we headed now toward home.
The weather didn’t cooperate. Snow, sleet, misery, but we caught up with the colonel, who had sent Mr. Marshall on ahead to make our next camp—forty miles forward at that unfinished log house.
It was a long, quiet ride as the cold seeped through my bones, and I did have a moment of wondering if my blustering toward adventure, not wanting to be left out, might have a cost greater than anticipated. Frostbite was nothing to laugh at.
Robert said to me, “What is there worth having that one does not have to strive for?”
“I’ll feel better about philosophy when I’m in front of a stove,” I told him.
We kept a steady pace, but in snow, well, we had magnificent animals. I felt guilty for asking them to do what they did. The pale light of the cabin pierced the darkness, a beacon. The horses hurried up, then stopped at the hitching post, heads hung low. Robert dismounted. He reached up to help me down.
“I can’t move.”
I couldn’t.
All three men had to lift me, nearly frozen, from the saddle and carried me into the cabin. Robert clucked over me and hung a blanket for privacy so he could help me strip the frozen garments, wrapped a blanket around me, then set me before the small stove. Here I offer statistics as it seems relevant: I had ridden eighty-five miles in two days, one hundred twenty-five miles in three days, all in a man’s saddle splitting my hips, in horrible weather. I felt like a wishbone already pulled apart.
I could barely move the next day, but we had to leave. The men created a platform so I could slide into the saddle, and I rode with them another twenty-five miles, eating my lunch of bacon and bread atop the horse for fear I would not be able to get back on if I slipped off. My knees ached in places never known to me; my hips were stones that nevertheless felt pain. And we were getting
low on beans, bacon, and bread.
Pard did shoot a fine elk later that next day, which helped. It had seven prongs. Colonel Norris insisted he would ship the head back for mounting so it could hang in Pard’s office. “People see that and they’ll flock to Yellowstone.” He sent other specimens of plants and rocks that Robert had packed into our saddlebags, too, so many that later in his career, all that we’d brought back became an exhibit at a special showing in Denver.
I did not tell Pard of my continuing discomfort in my knees and hips. I hoped that if I put distance between the four hundred miles on horseback that we’d ridden during our weeks in the park, my body would heal up. But he must have noticed. I hope he noticed just a little.
We were back at Virginia City (where I’d bought those boots), staying at the Rodgers House recuperating, when Pard said, “I think we’ll stick to a few more populated places in the next year and then, maybe find an alternative way for us to make a living.” He rubbed my feet, his good strong hands felt heavenly against my arches and toes.
“Give up the railroad writing?”
“No. Well, maybe do a bit of a side line with the UP’s permission. They want an Idaho book and a Pacific book and after that, we’ll see. The truth is, I never want to see you as you were the night it took three of us to get you off that horse. Golly, I felt responsible for that.” He shook his head. “I meant to expose you to amazing things but not to bring you physical pain like that. The colonel was right, we should have headed back.”
“And miss the most glorious moment of lying on our bellies looking into that canyon, together as partners? Oh, Robert, no. Please don’t decide on what to do next based on that one painful day. I found out I could endure more physical discomfort than I ever imagined. I don’t know if you heard me, but I sang Handel’s ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ in German riding through that landscape alone, tracking you down. It was one of the most magnificent moments of my life. And I have you to thank for that.”
“I didn’t hear you. That would have been grand.” He kissed my toes.
“Besides, we must strive for things that matter.”
“If you say so, Mrs. Strahorn.”
“I do.”
From Fifteen Thousand Miles by Stage, vol. 1, by Carrie Adell Strahorn (page 187)
Robert Strahorn: “But what is there worth having that one does not have to strive for?”
19
Stepping In
I’ve fallen in love with Walla Walla, Washington. A perfect little Pacific town. I know Robert loves the travel and his writing is so well-received because he makes real in his words the grandeur and promise of the West. I fear we aren’t going to make it back to Marengo in time for Christmas this year though. Robert wants to race down the Columbia, head to Los Angeles, and return to Omaha by train. I just want a home. Walla Walla would be the perfect place to settle.
December 1, 1880
We hadn’t been idle after we left Yellowstone. We traveled to Virginia City, back to Helena and Butte, other places where the railroad and Robert’s books had brought bustling commerce since we’d been there two years before. I had written in letter form articles for the Helena Weekly Herald that were well-received. They were letters from “A. Stray,” written as though an eastern lady wrote to her mother of her tourist experiences in the West. I wondered how many readers didn’t realize who A. Stray really was. Robert approved and I found that the writing made my evenings a little less lonely, as I had a task and didn’t just watch Robert work at his.
We visited Baker City, in the state of Oregon. It boasted a boys’ college and a fine public school, too. I liked the idea that the state had helped build the Academy and there seemed a high commitment to education. It was the sign of progress when schools flourished, especially in the vast west where indoor education had to compete with the mountains, rivers, and verdant grasses.
Robert worked on his book in between our stops and stays at places like La Grand and Pendleton. In the evenings, I’d help edit Robert’s book about Idaho: The Resources and Attractions of Idaho Territory, for the Homeseeker, Capitalist and Tourist. A bit of a stuffy title, but then a title is meant to tell a reader what’s inside and it surely did that. I do think it’s why I love to read novels, though, because the titles are meant to intrigue, perhaps be a double entendre. No guessing about Pard’s books.
The Idaho legislature had paid for the work, but the Union Pacific, unbeknownst to the legislature, had backed its publication. I wasn’t sure why Robert didn’t tell those politicians. Maybe he thought they’d be suspicious of his words if the railroad gained as much as their territory did. But surely, they could figure out that we couldn’t make all those forays into the wilds of the unknown by stage and horseback without financial backing. Perhaps they wanted to believe that the book was written to celebrate the natural attraction of the mountains, valleys, and people without a whiff of railroad self-promotion.
Another of Robert’s brothers had moved west and taken employment with the railroad as a ticket agent. At least Pard could write that his own family listened to his words and no one would want to lead one’s family a stray, no pun intended.
“We’re so far away from home,” I told him as we looked out upon the streets of that little settlement of Walla Walla. Perhaps it was the well-built two-story houses and mature trees and a little creek that gurgled through the town and into people’s gardens, linking them as neighbors and, yes, pioneers all stitched together like a homey quilt. I felt the wanting of a home base. “Traveling down the Columbia and on to California means we’ll be even farther away from Marengo. It’s been forever since I’ve seen Christina or Hattie. She has her own practice now.”
“Don’t think of the longing.” He sat beside me on the hotel bed. I tossed my ore from hand to hand, one of my precious things. “Where are your writing materials?” He made a show of looking around.
“I’m out.” I set the ore down, crossed my arms over my chest, pouted.
“I’ll get you more,” and without a hitch he grabbed his hat and headed out the door.
“Robert—”
I wasn’t sure where he’d find writing materials. I picked up a novel. Couldn’t get back into the words. I sang and hummed. Even that failed to revive my usual good humor. What was Robert really up to?
He returned, paper and lead in hand, a good hour later. He’d located the newspaper office and bought a few sheets of paper, returning to our rooms with the scent of ink on his jacket. “Now, carry on.” He handed me his stash, totally ignored my pout. “Another letter for publication.”
But I was forlorn and that trip ahead down the Columbia seemed more tedious than treasured.
So, of course, Pard came up with another plan. We would head east, not west, first to Lewiston and Spokane Falls before making our Columbia River ride.
“What if we get iced in here and never make it back to Illinois by Christmas?”
“We won’t.” He held up one of his jackets for scrutiny. “Did you spot clean this, Dell?”
We won’t be home for Christmas or we won’t get iced in? “No, I did not spot clean it.”
“I’ll send it out then.” He swatted the tweed. “They’ll have it back within the hour, I suspect.” I couldn’t even annoy him with my failure at wifely duties. “Come along, old girl.” He swatted at my stocking feet. “It’s a five-hundred-mile round-trip by stage and by horse. We’d best get packing for tomorrow.”
I didn’t move.
“Dell . . .”
“And what is there to see in this Lewiston?”
“Wheat country. I need to assess the long-term sustainability. West coasters seem to think theirs is the only coast, but I need to see more of what they think makes this half of the country so great.”
“It’s because their stories of survival are so fresh. Unlike Bostonians who now have all their pioneering stories as second and third generations, this place is a firsthand land. Of course they think higher of what is than what once was.??
?
“A firsthand land. You may have something there, Dell.” He lifted another jacket of his, then held up one of mine as well. “You could use a new frock or two. Spokane Falls is said to be at the heart of this great wheatland where the black soil is fifty feet deep and can grow anything as long as water gets to it. And they’ve quite a commercial center. A few new ear bobs might make the journey worth it. We’ll go there after Lewiston.”
“Robert. Do I strike you as someone motivated by ear bobs?”
He sat on the bed beside me. “I just need to see this landscape said to be so different from any we’ve seen thus far. You know, to want something very much is half the effort of achieving it. Desire pulls us toward a goal better than a fine Concord stage pulled by the best horses. These people out here, these ‘westerners,’ they’re drawn by something bigger and I’m not exactly sure what it is. But I think the landscape will tell me.”
“Perhaps the fact that they’re required to change, forced to deal with the vagaries, face unknown challenges each day. They’re being carved by the very land they’ve come to conquer.” I paused. “Maybe that’s the very thing I’m missing, Robert.”
“What?”
“We leave no mark on this country. We’re merely observers riding through it. Your pencils lure people here and their lives are changed forever. We pack our pens and ride on to the next bluff or valley, taking in the grandeur and perhaps being filled up by God’s great creation, penning a word or two about it, but then what? What is our desire? Your desire, Robert?”
I hoped he wouldn’t ask me mine. I wasn’t sure I could articulate it.
“Too deep for my taste, Mrs. Strahorn. My desire now is to get you up and going so we can catch that stage to Lewiston, ride the steamer on the Snake, then head on north to Spokane Falls. Chop-chop.” He clapped his hands as though I was one of the Chinese waiters.