I saw no birds. Heard no sounds but the horses munching. There must be beetles and bugs out there. I knew there were snakes, though that day I saw none. Had this landscape once been lush or had it always been flat, abandoned, a place where people, if they ever came here, moved quickly on through? Robert saw it as a destination, a place to call home. It would be my home.
The only way I could think to congeal the reality I saw with the vision my Pard imagined was to plunge into the effort, to show those arriving women that making a home and life in this barrenness could be done. There’d be no showing up in the summer to rent a little cottage, as with Hailey, nor helping a house get built with supplies close by, as in Omaha. In fact, a house would be one of the last things to construct in this landscape. A train depot and freight yard and commercial enterprises would come first. There’d be no overnight riches as in a mining town. Money here would be hard earned. Yet with water—yes, water—life could flourish on this flat.
We would have to live on-site without irrigation until it arrived. I let my eyes scan the sagebrush. I saw the wheat-colored shirt my husband wore as he stepped off distances to place yet another stake, wondering if that would be my backyard. I took heart from his enthusiasm as I watched him, smelled the sagebrush, let the silence fall around me like a warming cloak. Maybe this was where I was set to bloom. How ironic, one’s blooming in the desert.
And so that day in 1883 I chose to become the mistress of Caldwell. My heart moved into my throat then, and I had trouble swallowing, but I was sure it was from the choking alkali dust and not from my understanding of the commitment I’d just made. The lyrical poet Von Goethe wrote that once a commitment is made, Providence moves. I was counting on that.
When his surveying was finished, I gave Robert jerked venison and cheese along with bread now dry as a bone. We washed everything down with water from our canteens, savoring each precious drop. I’d spread a blanket at the side of the wagon to catch a little shade. The horses switched their tails at flies. A jackrabbit hopped beneath a greasewood, stared at us, and moved on. I’d learn to fix a rabbit stew.
“Now that I think about it more, Dell, there’s no need for you to risk this desert while we’re building,” Robert told me. “Just stay in Hailey. Or go back to Denver. Or maybe west to Walla Walla. You liked that little city.”
“I did, but I envisioned you there with me.”
He was thinking out loud. “Boise won’t be a place to stay. They’re boiled about my wanting to create Caldwell. This . . . building is going to be a hardship for a time. You can see that.”
“What would I do in Denver with you up here?” I’d accepted his invitation to make Caldwell our home and he then decided I might not be all that helpful. “I need to be able to look at those arriving men and women and children and assure them that it can be done by a woman, even an eastern woman with as few survival skills as a frog out of water.”
“You have good common sense and persistence, Mrs. Strahorn. Those are prerequisites for survival in any circumstance.”
“Maybe I’ll have to be the shoulder they lean on, dealing with their own visionary mates bringing them to—this—until they find their own dream here.” I would have to make his promised land mine.
He took a drink. The horses shifted their stance. We’d need to water them before we slipped back into Boise. “It would be good to have you here, but I fear your mother would have my throat if she knew the conditions.”
“I can be elusive about the . . . setting. She doesn’t have to know Caldwell is right now nothing more than a twinkle in your eye.”
“It won’t be easy, Dell.” He took my hand. “It’s probably not fair to have asked you in the first place.”
“I’m willing. I want to see what it’s like to settle down.”
“It’ll be much harder than adjusting to a strange stage stop each night and certainly more demanding than directing those house builders in Omaha.”
“What a good idea. Could we get them to come here?” He knew I jested.
“I don’t think they’d come within a hundred miles of this site, at least not until we have a thriving town. And we will, Dell. And I will build you a fine, fine home here. It’ll be our base from now on. It would be easier with you here, if you can tolerate the heat and later the cold.”
“If I set my mind to it. We’re in this together.”
“I, uh, should tell you that trying to get the Oregon Short Line to come to Caldwell is not a sure thing. We’re kind of doing this as a speculation, Caldwell and Mellon and me.”
“Us.”
“Yes. Us. But what I mean is, I’m no longer working for Union Pacific. I had to sever ties with them to create the development company, remember that. So, the UP could change their minds about where to bring the line.”
“But they trust your surveying, all the work you’ve done for them.”
Robert nodded. “They agree to the likelihood of where tracks will be laid next, including Caldwell. But things can happen. Politics. Boise City really wants the short line there, and it could be they have deep pockets enough to get the railroad to switch tracks on us. We’ll be investing our own money in this venture, not the railroad’s. You understand that.”
“Even more reason for me to live and work here, where Caldwell is.” I said it with certainty, giving myself a little time to absorb what he’d told me about severing all ties with the UP. “Does that mean our passes are now invalid?”
“No, no. I managed to keep those.” He laughed. “But I need you to know that there is some risk. There won’t be a monthly salary from the railroad but from the Land company, and it’ll be much less, as the company has taken out loans to invest in this venture and that’s where that money must go right now. We’ll see the return when we sell commercial and home lots and outlying land to newcomers. And rights of way to the railroad. It’ll take time.”
“A little late to tell me now, isn’t it?” My retort held more bite than I intended to show at that moment, but perhaps again, my heart knew something my head hadn’t yet grasped.
“I should have included you in the negotiations, or at least kept you apprised, but Caldwell and Mellon are the bankers and they gave it thumbs up even with that miserable night at Shoshone Falls. And the senator didn’t include Pace in all of this, so I didn’t involve you either.”
“Since when does what other men do with their wives direct what you do? We’re ‘pardners,’ or so I thought.”
“Of course we are.” He leaned over to kiss my alkali-dusted nose.
I sighed. “I need to be here while we undertake this town building. Will the senator be on-site? Pace?”
“They’ll visit. We can stay with them when we go back east. You and Pace get along?” I nodded. “They say Kansas is beautiful country.”
“Pace speaks fondly of all the trees they’ve planted.” That spurred my thoughts. “Trees, Robert. We need to plant sheltering trees, which brings me back to water.”
“We already have plans under way. Our company will pay for the canals. But meanwhile, we’ll haul water by wagon and eventually by rail until the ditches are dug. A cooper will make good money here. Water’ll be scarce, so I’m not sure about trees as a top priority.”
“Oh, I’ll plant trees,” I said. “And give up my tea for the cause.” I tried to imagine where our own home might be and wondered if maple trees would grow in this heat. “Do you have our house site marked out?”
“I do. But before I show you, know that for now, development won’t be in the residential sections. We’ll set up a tent close to where the terminal tracks will come, when they come.”
“Tent living. Well, we’ve done that before for a short time. I’m sure I can figure out how to extend it. But give me the home tour.” I stood, brushed my skirts of bread crumbs, reset my hat as a warm breeze had stirred itself up. I pulled him up. Robert pooched out his elbow for me to take it as we made a promenade toward a cluster of sagebrush well beyond the horses, o
ur boots puffing up white dust as we walked. High above I saw a bird, soaring. A good sign. I don’t think it was a vulture.
I soon stood in the middle of my house, swirled around, slowly so as not to add to the dust bowl rising at my skirts. Both of us coughed, the sound like a knife cutting the vast stillness. “We’ll have a spectacular view, as far as the eye can see.”
“That we will.”
I kept turning, stopping at each directional point: east, north, west, south. “I think I see the picket fence.”
He laughed, then kissed me beneath a sky so blue it put a morning glory pool of the Yellowstone to shame.
“Chickens are scratching. There’s the garden.” I pointed. “And I see a dog lounging beneath a maple tree.”
“I love you, Dell Strahorn.” He kissed me again.
“I have to be able to see it to be a trustworthy reporter to all those souls you’ve enchanted west.”
“We’d best get started, then,” he said. And so we did.
From Fifteen Thousand Miles by Stage, vol. 2, by Carrie Adell Strahorn (pages 120–21)
To plump one’s self down in an alkali flat, with railroad survey stakes for company, and expect an Aladdin’s lamp to throw pictures of a thriving city, invites feelings of sobbing and laughter so closely allied that one can hardly tell which is which, or which will dominate. It means success or failure and only laughter must go echoing through the air, to be caught up and passed along the road of success to cheer and encourage all who hear it. The sobbing must be hidden so deep that one’s own sweetheart will not know it is there. Work and courage are the essential attributes for the pioneer.
23
Buckets from the Boise
I find myself struggling with what to write here. The task ahead is overwhelming. And if I write of the hardships, will that bring me down at a time when I must maintain a stalwart stand? I’ll try to be honest so I may draw on what I was feeling if later I write that memoir. But who wants to read of everything going well when within our own lives things usually aren’t chugging along without a break in the tracks? It will take my greatest effort to imagine what Pard sees and to not be discouraged by the day-to-day plodding through alkali desert toward success. Perhaps I will write less until I can bring in the light that makes things grow.
August 7, 1883 in Caldwell
What I hadn’t realized then—and that Caldwell helped teach me—is that it’s how we respond to the broken tracks that matters, because there will always be brokenness. It’s what we do with the punches we take, the heart-stopping moments, those are the knives that carve out who we are. I came to believe that people born with silver spoons in their mouths never get the real nourishment they need to grow to their full height unless the spoon tarnishes or the food drops off now and then and they have to find a way to pick it up themselves. They’re really deprived, which may be why we call them “spoiled,” like meat left out in the sun.
I was one of those spoiled children until Robert and stagecoaches and Caldwell. Wealthy parents, matriculating at the University of Michigan, a European voice tour and instruction, marrying a popular writer and adventurer, diamonds on my wrist and ears, never lacking for anything. Yes, when Pard gets ill, his needs carve something of my character in how I respond, but any woman wearing diamonds cannot complain loudly, or ought not to.
Pard got the load of lumber ordered in first off and had spoken with a man about setting up a mercantile to handle the lumber sales. They sat on those boards while Pard did his best pitch.
“You’re sure the railroad is coming here? I want to see some side rails before I buy property and start to build.” He was a man after my own heart, that lumberman.
Pard had barely opened his mouth to assure him yet again when we heard the train whistle, and a work crew coming from afar arrived ready to lay the rails. It was what I called “divine intervention” and needed as, until then, our tent was but a lonely dot in that town-building sentence.
We moved full steam ahead and then that lumberman stuck Pard with the bill. Scoundrels abound in a growing town, I came to discover. I worked at not letting that fact discourage.
Then came the death threats. Boise people were truly distressed by Robert’s starting a new city rather than urging the railroad to go where one already was. And I was worried sick each time he had to go to Boise, where once we’d enjoyed ourselves in that bustling place.
“Don’t think about it,” Robert said. We were huddled in our tent home. I swept the canvas floor of what dirt I could, the action serving as a snake patrol too. “I understand why they’re upset. They worked hard to build a town that would do even better with the railroad.”
“Those threats and rumors make my blood boil.”
“Very few people act on their outrage, Dell. As long as they’re making threats, there’s a greater likelihood they won’t manifest it.”
“I’m not sure my doctor sister would agree with your assessment. Threats ought to be taken seriously.” I brushed the dust from my shoes on the back of my calves, one at a time.
“Every time I go into Boise where a bunch of men stand around, and I hear them saying my name before I enter, grousing about me, threatening to run me out on a rail, I greet them with a hearty, ‘Hello, gents. Great to see you.’ They always turn with a scowl that fades into a smile, and they greet me with a handshake. It’s blowing off steam, the complaints, Dell. Don’t worry over it. Fear’s an elixir that feeds anxiety and drains common sense.”
“I won’t try to talk you out of going there, but be careful.” I wiped my hands on my apron.
“I will.”
Robert could lessen my worries with his confidence. Still, I said, “Shouldn’t we try to get a sheriff here?”
“There’s a county sheriff. He covers Caldwell too.”
“And would take hours to reach us after sending a runner.” I put aside the broom, sat on one of the leather folding stools that traveled well in wagons and now helped furnish our home.
Robert took my hand. “Every venture forward carries risk with it. We can’t be deterred by that.”
“I know, but—”
“No buts.” He patted my hand. “I’ll be careful. I’ve calmed many a soldier riled up beyond where he should be. I can simmer down those Boise boys. Don’t let your worries drag you down, Dell. Put that fuel somewhere else.”
Don’t let your worries drag you down, Dell. Doesn’t that sound like a song lyric? Phrases from other people’s mouths would get stuck in a rhythm in my head. Don’t let your worries drag you down, Dell. Fear’s an elixir that drains our common sense. I hummed those mantras whenever I began to hear a dissonant note.
We platted the townsite in August of 1883, and within four months, forty businesses had set up shop. One hundred fifty dwellings grew out of the desert almost overnight, though mostly they began as tents and shacks.
Pard built a frame office to work out of, to meet various investors, to charm and cajole a banker to come, druggist, hardware shopkeeper, and of course there was the necessary saloon operator, though I was grateful Robert hadn’t sought after that commercial establishment. The Fahey brothers came on their own.
We lived upstairs of the Land company’s offices. Not a house. Not even a cottage. I cooked for workers, until Pard and I began taking meals in a freight car, which served as the boardinghouse for the town. That was fine with me. Cooking over an open fire was not my idea of time well spent, but the arrival of cookstoves would have to wait for the train to bring them or to be hauled in with some enterprising freighter leading his sturdy pack mule. Still, a framed house would have been nice.
A tent mercantile opened within those first weeks, operated by Montie B. Gwinn—of Boise, no less—and his wife, Delia. He was the son of the Methodist minister in Boise and he had a sister too. The merchant Gwinns lived in the back of the tent. I looked forward to having another woman in the vicinity.
“Your husband could have convinced the Union Pacific to come through Bo
ise and saved all this mess here. What were you thinking letting him talk you into coming to this jackrabbit-and-badger resort?” Delia had quoted that description from the Boise paper. I’d read it in there myself. She swung her arm to take in the tents and greasewood, the flesh of her arm still swinging long after she’d lowered her hands and her gaze at me.
“Welcome to you as well,” I said. She hadn’t even given me a chance to introduce myself, but I guess I didn’t need to. “The Union Pacific has its own ways, I’m afraid. It’s run by men, after all. And a good many of them take no quarter from a woman.”
She harrumphed but nodded. “It’s just such an effort to start anew, isn’t it? I grew up in Portland and this is quite the change. We’re trying to keep the Boise store going while we’re here and putting up with people not too happy that we’ve gone over to the enemy in the first place.”
The enemy? Was it as serious as that?
“You’ll find the people here quite accommodating. There’s almost a festive mood in the air, a little like mining town eruptions.”
“Oh, we’ve packed into our share of those. At least we’re on flat ground here. And there is the promise it’ll get better once the short line is finished. It will get finished, won’t it? I don’t want to get a supply line all put together only to have it peter out like mines sometimes do.” She had intense green eyes.
“If Robert Strahorn has anything to say about it, you’ll hear the whistle by spring. Meanwhile, can I help you unpack? I’ve got some spare time.”
“Aren’t you building your own stick house?”