“What will they find of us?” I said. “My curling iron. Your frying pan. How will they ever explain that?”
“Don’t,” Mama said. “Don’t think that. We have to get out of here. We have to.”
I started to cry then. The fear, the hunger, the realization that we were lost set in.
“Please, show us the path and we’ll walk in it. Please, save my child if not me,” Mama whispered into the still night. I could feel her rocking beside me.
The night was a grave, time disappearing into darkness.
I slept, awoke in a start. “Mama? Is Papa here to take us home? Over there? By the lantern.” My face felt like I had my head in an oven, checking on the brown rolls. “Are you talking to him?”
“No, no,” Mama said. “You’re … I’m so sorry. Let me hold you. I’m praying, child. That’s what you hear. Hush now. The crying won’t help us, and it robs you of strength. Try to rest.”
She held my hands, rubbed at my fingers, smoothing over the rough edges. I didn’t remember her ever holding my hand. I must have been a little child.
“Your nails, they’re all torn,” she said then.
In the morning, Mama held the compass. She directed us to the northwest, saying we’d walk back the way we came, back to Boise City. I lagged behind. Thirsty. Rocks looked like soft pillows I could just lie down on. I sat in a crevice between rocks as big as buckboards.
Mama shook my shoulders. She looked blurry and fuzzy as a rabbit. I wished I had a rabbit to hold.
“Listen to me, Clara.”
I couldn’t.
She struck my face. I blinked, touched my cheek.
“We’re going to take one step, then another, then another.”
“I hear you. Everyone hears you, Mama.” I sloughed Mama’s hands from my shoulder. “Everyone hears what you say. That’s why we’re here. Hold tight,” I told her. Mama looked confused, but I only needed her to hold my hand again, to keep me from floating like a bubble from the washtub up, up into the air and far away into blue sky.
TEN
Desert Starlight
Night. Darkness. Whisperings. “If you must take us, please let Clara die first, Lord, so she won’t have to die alone without her mother tending her.”
A rumble far away. A storm brewing. Whispered words continue. The thunder.
“Clara! Do you hear that? A storm! We’ll have water.”
I hear her scrambling in the night.
“Where is that frying pan? We’ll collect water. It’ll rescue us, that old pan!”
She sounds happy. Mama is happy. I look up. No moon. No rain. Only pinpricks of stars. I close my eyes.
“Clara. Listen to me. I need to tell you something. Listen now. Clara?”
“My ears aren’t tired. Only my eyes.” I keep them closed. There’s nothing to see but darkness. I sleep maybe. I dream of julekaga, Mama’s Christmas bread, so sweet, so filling. One slice and I am full from all the love that goes into that bread for Christmas morning. Smells fill the kitchen. Am I dreaming? “Do you have julekaga, Mama?”
“Clara. Listen. It’s not Christmas. I must tell you a secret thing.” She holds me in her arms. I’m little, like Lillian. She rocks me. “There’s something I hoped I would never have to tell you, but you should know this. If something happens to me—”
“Are you going away again?”
“No. No. But if I … If you get back to Boise but I don’t, you should know.” Thunder rolling, closer this time and steady, rolling and rolling through the still night air. She sits up, pushes me up too.
“A secret, Mama? Another secret?”
“Clara,” her voice changes. “Clara, I don’t think that’s thunder.” Joy in her voice then. “Clara! Oh, Clara, look!”
It’s too dark. I can see nothing but a tiny star moving across the low horizon far in the distance.
“A star.”
“Not a star at all,” Mama says.
“Lightning in the storm. Rain will come.”
“No. No storm, Clara. It’s a train! God has sent us a train!” She stands. She leaves me. “Where is that compass?” She clatters over the rocks, finds her grip. I can hear her, then see her in the lantern light. “Yes! That’s the direction we will follow in the morning. We know where we’re going! Oh, Clara, we’re saved. We’re truly saved.”
Is she going to tell me another secret? How many does she keep?
ELEVEN
Changing Clothes
Weak as a kitten, I followed her in the morning. She put everything into one grip and carried it. I had to carry only myself. I imagined lefse soaked in butter and rolled up around fresh blackberry preserves, or sandbakkels shaking sugar from their crispy shapes, and my licking the crystals from my mouth. I imagined cream porridge served with milk and eating mounds of boiled potatoes, saving the water for the next day to use for making bread, fresh brown buns, straight from the oven, soft and smelling of yeast. I could see the julekaga. I could see tables spread and a chicken steaming, its oyster-flavored stuffing spilling out onto the plate. I saw pools of water Mama said weren’t there.
“Clara. Sheep!” She pointed and held up the empty canteen, shouting to them. “Water! May we have water?”
Sheep will give us water?
Two Basque sheepherders halted, then walked out of the desert heat toward us. They spoke no English, but it wasn’t necessary. We looked so gaunt and ravenous, and we received the gift of water and biscuits like communion as in our Norwegian Lutheran church back home. Two hours later we were at the railroad tracks. I bent down to touch them.
“Praise God,” Mama said.
“Don’t ever leave these again, Mama. This is the path. We follow the rails. Promise me?”
Mama nodded, tears in her eyes. She dropped to her knees too and said, “Thank You, thank You.”
Mama changed after that. She was as determined, but a part of her seemed … humbled, maybe a little more open to my thinking. When I suggested that the eggs we were given might contain more fuel for our bodies than the venison jerky pressed onto us by a rancher’s wife outside of Battle Creek, Utah, for example, my mother agreed. When she mentioned politics and how much she admired William Jennings Bryan, she didn’t try to cut me off when I said I preferred William McKinley. Once, she even agreed with me when I told her that Bryan supported segregation, and that didn’t seem like the actions of a man who worked for the downtrodden, as my mother claimed he always had. She accepted that we had differing views and didn’t push to make me think like her.
But when I tried to have her talk a bit more about what she’d almost told me in the lava beds, she said it was of no consequence. “You were nearly delirious, Clara. It wasn’t anything so important.” She changed the subject then, telling me a story of a pair of red shoes she’d brought with her from Norway, beautifully embroidered. “They’d never have survived this trip,” she said.
My mother, the avoider.
The July day felt balmy with white-capped mountain peaks looking down on us as we approached the Mormon town in Utah. We could walk side by side here instead of having to traverse narrow trails that kept me behind Mama and made conversation difficult.
“We might have people stare and point at us in Salt Lake City,” Mama said, “once we put on the reform clothing.”
“I know. The Rescue League of Washington thinks wearing such clothing is the work of the devil,” I said. “But then I suppose they think the devil rides the bicycle too.”
Mama laughed. “I can’t tell you how many of my women friends said every part of this trip would be of the devil, but we’ve already proved them wrong in that. The light of a train when I felt most lost came not from him, I’m certain of that. God answers in His own time, but He always answers.”
I didn’t want to contradict Mama, but bad things still happened: I’d been dragged on this trip, for one.
“He can answer in ways we don’t want, though,” I said.
“Yes. But that’s another way
of telling us to wait, that He has chosen the path, and at the crossroads we are to look to Him to say right or left, rather than look to ourselves.”
It seemed to me that often Mama didn’t wait to hear the direction; she set off on her own.
“The sponsors were to ship the clothing to the train station. We’ll change there, walk to the nearest newspaper to affirm that we’ve made it this far and are now clothed in what some call our Weary Waggles wear.”
“Leaving behind this skirt won’t cause me any crying,” I said and I meant it. I brushed at the Victorian skirt I’d been wearing since home, a chipped nail catching on the stitching over a tear made by the volcanic rocks. “I’m amazed you were able to stitch up these tears,” I said.
“A needle and thread are a woman’s lifeblood,” Mama said.
But it was my curling iron that satisfied a group of Indians who stopped us outside of Salt Lake City. Sea gulls screamed in the distance. The men, half-clothed, surrounded us and grabbed at the bag I held on to.
“Give it to them,” Mama whispered, what sounded like fear shaking her voice.
There were five of them. They snatched the bag and dumped it out, compass and maps and curling iron falling beside the tracks. Mama had the revolver in her pocket; the pepper-box pistol rested in mine. The apparent leader picked up the curling iron, pressed it open and closed, then held it, curiosity in his eyes. Maybe they thought it was a gun.
“It’s for my hair,” I said. My voice shook. “Here, I’ll show you.” I put my hand out and he gave it to me. Without being heated it wouldn’t do much, but I demonstrated a fire by holding it over the lantern, then removed my hat and rolled my hair around the tube. It left a limp curl.
They chattered to each other, eyes marveling, handing it around. One touched my flat curl, gazed as though it was precious. I motioned to use one of his long strands, and it left just the slightest twist. They laughed together and took it, chattering as they walked away, leaving behind our guns.
It’s surprising what people claim as treasure.
The elevator cage jerked as we rode deeper into the throat of the silver mine outside of Park City, Utah. Cool air rose as we descended, but the lower we went, the more the earth warmed. I could feel it from the open sides of the cage. Danger lurked here. I didn’t think I had prognostication as a talent, but I was positive Mama didn’t; here we were, choosing risky, taking precious walking time to do it.
A male escorted each of us, “Because even some of the men get woozy and could misstep,” our guide said. I didn’t mind the escort; it was the wasted day that mattered. We’d already lost extra days working in Salt Lake City and altering the new clothes we had to wear.
The skirts were shorter than our regular dress, with a two-inch embroidered trim about a foot up from the hem. My waist was much smaller than when we’d left Mica Creek, and Mama wanted pockets, so she sewed a patch for each skirt. We wore wide belts to cover the waistline. Those we had to buy.
“The skirts will be easier to walk in but much more controversial,” she told me. We wore them for our trip into the mines. The men escorting us had frowned, but Mama disarmed them with her charm.
“I’ll tell people about your mining work and the union’s efforts here,” she told him, “when I speak in Denver.”
She has a speaking engagement in Denver?
“Who’s invited you to speak?” I whispered as our escorts talked to the miners, who wore dark hats like ours with little lights to show their way.
“I sent a letter ahead to the Denver paper hoping they’ll buy an article about the journey and perhaps book me into an auditorium. We’re quite a novelty, you know. We can wear the reform dress when we walk but a long skirt and jacket for the events.”
“But won’t the sponsors think that’s cheating?” I said.
She actually looked thoughtful. “I believe you’re right, but using a traditional outfit suggests we can make decisions depending on the occasion. We aren’t likely to pick up phthisis on the hemlines in the performance halls. I can mention how much healthier the reform dress is. And we’ll prove it when we arrive healthy in New York.”
If we ever get to New York for all the side trips Mama chooses.
Our escorts returned to point out silver veins. Mama asked questions. I hated the closed-in feeling and earth’s hot breath on our faces.
After what seemed like hours but was likely only one, we stepped back into the cage, listened as the cables groaned us upward and then stopped with a jerk at a wood landing. Had this sinking into earth’s depths really been necessary to save the family farm?
A few days later, at Silver Creek Canyon, we attempted to climb down the sides of a nearly perpendicular rock as a way to avoid walking around the land formation the way the railroad did. We had to climb back up, and a rock gouged out from beneath my foot, leaving me perilous. I was no mountain goat like one we’d spied a few days before.
“Hold tight, Clara!” Mama yelled. “Don’t let go!”
It was my anger at her for taking this trail that pushed me upward and over the ledge we never should have gone down in the first place.
“Stay with the tracks,” I said, panting, my hands on my knees as I leaned over. “Do it systematically. One foot after the other. Stop these ‘adventures,’ Mama. Stop them. We lose time.” A good businessman would never think like she did. No wonder my parents couldn’t pay the mortgage.
The thought was sacrilege, blaming them when it was the poor economy, Papa’s accident, so many other things that made our situation precarious. But I wouldn’t have been scared to death if Mama hadn’t taken me on this trek.
“The rest of the country is flat. We can make forty miles a day, easy. Besides, I’ll have things to write about,” Mama said. “And you’ll have interesting illustrations to make instead of simply railroad tracks to draw.”
“I’ll make an illustration of me tying my mother to my grip so she doesn’t take a spur track into a dreaded canyon again,” I said.
Mama laughed, but I hadn’t meant it to be funny.
In the Red Desert, food was scarce but mountain lions weren’t. One night we sat up with guns in hand on the far side of large fire we built to keep the big cats at bay. I could feel eyes watching, and this time Mama didn’t dismiss my worries. “I feel him too,” she said. “They don’t attack from behind, so we’ll keep our fire bright and make sure we’re ahead of him when we walk out tomorrow.”
We walked through coal-mining country and, in small towns, felt if not saw the tensions between Chinese workers and local miners. Federal troops walked about, armed. “We may be safer out on the desert than in these towns,” I said.
“Remember that wheelbarrow,” Mama cautioned, but she picked up the pace.
One day we found a jar of water like a lily pad blooming in the desert beside the railroad tracks. We stood and looked at each other.
“Do you think it’s safe to drink?” I asked.
“It looks perfectly good.” But we didn’t pick that jar up. Several miles down the tracks we encountered another jar of water with dried cherries in a paper cone beside it. “They’re looking out for us, those railroad men. They know we’re walking their rails.” Mama lifted the jar and drank, then ate a cherry. She offered me a few and I took them.
“Maybe it’s not the railroad men, Mama. Maybe it’s these Wyoming people, the ranchers and such who have read the articles. Maybe they’re looking after us.”
“I believe you could be right, Clara. After all, those men gave women of Wyoming the vote. They know a thing or two about how to treat a gentlewoman.”
“Don’t turn everything into politics,” I said. I took a swig of the water now too.
“But this is about politics,” she said. “We’ve come through four sparsely populated states and been unharmed, treated with respect. We’ve had no threats.” I raised my eyebrow. “Well, that one, but he was hungry. In many ways, we’ve been taken care of. We’ve only slept out seven nights since
we left the lava craters. We’ve been given shelter, which speaks to the character of this country’s people.”
“Now you’re talking Bryan again.” I wagged my finger at my mother.
“Everyone’s talking politics, my daughter. The campaign begins soon.”
“Why is it so important to you—getting the vote, knowing about the elections and all of that?”
“You have to pay attention, Clara. Otherwise laws get passed that come to haunt you. Maybe interest rates on mortgage loans are raised without you knowing. Wages. We women get paid so little, yet we work so hard! I think of Hedvig having to work out; you and Olaf, all so young for poor wages. Crop prices, those are all part of public life. Unions.” She had found her footing on this subject, and she kicked up dirt as we walked. “If it weren’t for the union, we would have starved after your father’s accident. This isn’t about government and politics, Clara. It’s about family and knowing what you have to do to take care of them.”
“I know. It’s what Estbys do,” I said.
“Yes,” she said. “It’s what Estbys do. And you as well.”
I had no idea what she meant and was too startled to ask.
TWELVE
Crossing the Bridge
We tried to walk side by side, but our strides varied. We didn’t say much to each other even when we were so very close, our now brown hands bumping each other beneath the hot sun, the only connection we might have for hours at a time. Mama walked faster than I, so I found my pace behind her. I walked silently in her footsteps.
It might have been the beef stew with potatoes and carrots that looked to me as though it had a scum on it. But Mama ate it too when we were offered it before Laramie by a friendly woman hanging clothes on her line.
“Maybe it was the cream pie,” Mama said. “You had a piece but I didn’t.”
“What could make me sick from that?” I groaned. “Wait, don’t tell me.” I buried my head in a bucket and threw up, then set it down outside the outhouse door while another part of my body took my attention. My entire innards ripped channels as deep as those silver mines.