Lillian nodded, though I knew Ida would have to sort out who got that piece of Mama’s heart and when. I looked at their faces, my brothers’ and sisters’, aching with such longing.
“Mama,” I offered. “Why don’t you cut a little piece of your heart now for everyone to have?”
Bertha piped up, “Oh yes! Please do that.”
Mama looked at me. “All right. Lillian, can Mama have it back for a minute?”
Lillian hesitated but, by nature a generous child, she handed it to Mama, who cut off sections and then placed these in the open palm of each of my siblings, their pink skin showing beneath the squares and diamond shapes made by threads pulled back so carefully by my mother’s hands over many hours.
“Do you have a small piece for me?” I asked as she gave Lillian back a little square.
“You’re going with me, Clara. You certainly won’t need one,” she said.
I thought my heart would break.
She cut her own half heart in two and shared this with Papa. He looked at it, didn’t speak. Then she took Lillian’s pudgy hand and rubbed it across the piece Mama would take with her. “I’ll keep this one with me.” She held it to her breast with the child’s hand. “My heart will be complete only when I come home again and all of you put your pieces together with mine. All the while I’m gone my heart will be smaller because I’ve left so much of it with you.”
Noses sniffled. Silent weeping shook Arthur’s shoulders, Billy’s too, though Arthur tried not to show it. He clapped his hands, and the dog romped to stand beside him. He petted him, pulling comfort from Sailor’s presence.
One more good-bye and that was to Ida. Mama saved the hardest for last.
“Come here, daughter.” Ida slouched forward, a scowl marking her face. She’d stuffed her lace piece into her apron pocket. “I know this isn’t what you want,” Mama said. “You are making a great sacrifice, and I will never forget that. You take my place now. Look after the little ones. Make sure Papa has his morning coffee. Read my letters when they come, out loud. You’re a fine reader with good eyes, better than Hedvig’s. Make sure Johnny eats his greens. He doesn’t like them very much, does he?” Ida nodded. The scowl had lessened. “Good. Know that every night I will say prayers for you and every morning your well-being will be the first thing I think about, the first prayer I pray. I love you all so very much.” She hugged Ida, who clung to her. They rocked, with Mama’s chin on Ida’s head.
At that moment, I envied them all hearing Mama’s clear expression of her care for them. I missed the intensity of their good-byes, the assurances she gave of her love, her confidence in their ability to endure the next months. I longed for that assurance. I wanted to fit in with those blond heads lined up, those boys and girls who would have experiences very different from the ones we embarked upon.
After a moment, Mama peeled Ida free, pulled her daughter to her side, then opened her other arm to her flock. They dived toward her.
I stood off, closer to my father than my mother. He said nothing.
“I’m sorry, Papa,” I said, though I wasn’t sure why I apologized. This was none of my doing, none of it.
My father reached over then and thumbed away the tears against my cheek. His tenderness surprised me; he so rarely touched me.
“Keep her safe, Clara,” he said. “Headstrong woman that she is.”
I nodded. I wished he would call me daughter, but he never had, never even introduced me to others as his daughter. I was always just Clara Estby.
“Well,” my mother said, “a handsome crowd you all are. We do this for each other.” Mama seemed to be memorizing their faces, moving from one set of blue eyes to another. “Come along then, Clara.”
Lillian’s lower lip pooched out, and my heart pounded, and I watched as tears pooled in my mother’s eyes and my own ache threatened my composure.
I said, “Let’s all of you walk with us to the field, where we can say good-bye to Olaf.”
“I’ve already—”
“Arthur and Bertha, you set the pace. Everyone else behind. Mama and Papa and I bring up the caboose. Do you have one more piece of lace Ida can save for Olaf?”
“Yes, indeed,” Mama said and cut another piece from what remained. Ida took it with one nod.
They started out then with us following them. My father remained on the porch. “March to the music,” I shouted and began to sing, “A mighty fortress is our God.” The children finished with the second line: “A bulwark never failing.”
“I never thought of that hymn as a marching song,” Mama said. She wiped her eyes with her handkerchief.
“It may become ours,” I said and motioned for us to slip away toward the rails while they sang.
We were abandoning them. That’s how it felt to me, without a piece of Mama’s heart to hold and call my own.
SIX
The First Secret
We walked quickly. I didn’t want the dog to follow or the children to come running after. Still, I couldn’t get our farewell out of my mind. Was it a premonition, this desire to memorize them? Olaf, so handsome and kind. Ida, brittle—no, fragile in her fear. Bertha, happy and giving. Arthur, animal-man with his dog beside him. Johnny, playful. Billy, a lover of music, always tender to another’s sorrow. Lillian, the baby who smiled through everything because she didn’t know there were things that might make her sad.
And my father. His slender frame, sloped shoulders, the pale mustache that twitched beside my cheek as I hugged him even though he didn’t hug me back. I wished I’d told them all those little things I loved about each one of them, but I wasn’t good with words. At least not when the eyes of those I loved stared straight at me.
“Let’s say good-bye to Henry too,” I said as we started up the first hill.
“Go by the cemetery? All right,” Mama agreed and we headed up the dirt road.
The landscape, so vast and emerald, scooped me in its arms from the hilltop. Spring wheat thrived over the rolling hills and disappeared into the shallow swales. At the Mica Creek cemetery, wind whipped us as we stood over Henry’s grave. Rheumatic fever, the doctor said, had caused my brother’s death. Mama pulled at weeds around the stone, lost in thought.
“He wrote the sweetest letters to me when I was gone to Wisconsin,” Mama said. “I’m so glad I saved them. Glad we have his picture too. I wish I had a picture of Ole.”
“You have one of Papa,” I said. “Didn’t you bring it?”
She looked confused, then looked at me. “No, I meant Ole. Our first son. He’s buried in Minnesota.”
“I had a brother who died? Another brother?” Her words were like stones thrown into a still pond, disturbing in all directions.
“It was a long time ago,” she said. “Before you. Our firstborn. Son. I wish I had a photograph,” she said. She patted my shoulder.
“But you never said—never spoke of a brother. Older than I? Does Olaf know? Do the others?”
“No,” Mama said. “No need to tell you either, I suppose. But we have seven months to face together, so I imagine secrets will come out.”
In an instant I had a fleeting memory of an infant crying in our sod house in Minnesota, fuzzy lantern lights casting strange shadows on the earth walls, Mama crying too, hands to her mouth and a man holding an infant. Could that have been Ole? No, Ole was older, Mama said. The crying child must have been Olaf, sixteen months younger than I. Yes, it must have been Olaf I remembered crying, my now-big, scrappy brother. I had no memory of Ole, who’d come before me.
“What happened?”
“The sod house. So very cold. Pneumonia. It was why I wanted us to leave there, come here. That and the cyclones that lit the sky like fireworks with booms and crackles. I hated them.” She shivered. “And the prairie fires. And the harsh winters with their snowdrifts.” She sighed. “Little Ole wasn’t with us very long, but I still miss him. So,” she said in her changing-the-subject voice, “let’s stop at the store and pick up a hard candy to
help us commemorate our walk.”
I’d have to catch her in a thoughtful time to find out more.
Mama hesitated at Schwartz’s store in Mica Creek.
“That’s Martin Siverson’s horse. Your father’s best friend thinks I should listen to my husband and not take this walk.”
“Let’s not go in then.”
The door opened as we turned to leave.
“I suppose you’re off then, Mrs. Estby,” Martin said. He motioned to our bags. Mama paused and turned. “Such a crazy scheme. Shameful.”
“It’s for good,” Mama said.
“So you say,” Martin said. “And Clara. You can’t talk sense into your mother, then? Are you stubborn like she is?” He shook his head and crossed the street.
My face burned. His expression reminded me of Mrs. Stapleton’s. Shameful. My mother’s wish to save the farm brought shame to our family. Would success even wash it away?
“Let them say what they will,” Mama said. “I will prove them wrong. Don’t you worry about a thing.”
Since I was going with her against my will, the least she could have said was “we.”
SEVEN
Walking
So much for God smiling on our venture. We walked through days of pouring rain. Mama said once we reached LaCrosse Junction, a Norwegian town in southern Washington, we wouldn’t have to sleep on the hard benches in the train stations because people there were like family. We’d speak Norwegian and be treated with hospitality.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” one woman said as we approached her house, drenched to the bone. “You should have stayed home with your children where a good Norwegian wife should be!” She slammed the door in our faces, so we slept on the benches again, only ninety-five miles from Spokane.
“I thought you said we’d be welcomed,” I complained.
“They don’t understand,” Mama told me. “As we move east, we’ll have a better reception.” We munched on hardtack in the depot and took turns watching the door so we could squeeze rain from our woolen coats by holding them in front of the potbellied stove. “At least we have a roof over our heads,” Mama said, putting the bag under her head as a pillow. I slept that night wondering at my mother’s ability to look for the good in things.
We decided early on not to stop to eat according to the sun—which we hadn’t seen much of—but rather to be guided by our stomachs. Eggs were cheap and filling and could be eaten at any meal. Often when I ate them, I recalled Martin Siverson’s comments, or the women who closed doors in our faces, and the food coated my stomach with new uncertainty. Rain greeted us in Walla Walla, Washington, but the Walla Walla Union ran a long article about our journey, mentioning Mayor Belt’s endorsement and saying we were headed on to Boise City. We sold several photographs to sympathizing women and replenished our reserves, buying hard rolls and even a pat of butter because Mama said we needed fat to keep going. A family offered us a sweet-smelling bed above the horses in their barn. The sun came out one day and steamed our wet wool clothes. We slept mostly in the railroad stations, which were about nine miles apart. It was how we kept track of our daily distance. Well, that and the maps of the railroads we carried with us.
My feet scraped along the Union Pacific outside of Umatilla, Oregon, and I remembered reading Astoria, a history book written by Washington Irving about the Astor fur-trading expedition coming this way, the first big cross-country expedition west after Lewis and Clark returned. There’d been one woman in that party, a Madam Dorion, and she’d walked or ridden a horse from St. Louis, Missouri, all this way, heading to the Pacific. At least Madam Dorion had the luxury of traveling with her husband and sixty men. She’d also brought her two young boys with her instead of leaving them behind.
Red willows bushed up beside the Umatilla River, which ran right through the Umatilla Indian reservation. Those Indians had been friendly in the book I’d read, had helped Madam Dorion when she got into trouble. Nevertheless, I hoped we wouldn’t encounter any and said as much to Mama.
“Me either,” she said, for the first time not minimizing my concern.
We both heard the clatter of rocks at the same time. “What’s that?” she said. I saw the tramp first and pointed.
He was shorter than both my mother and I but much stockier. He wore baggy pants with holes in the knees. His pockets bulged, and an old tweed jacket covered what looked like two shirts. The coat was stained with spots big enough to be seen even though he was a good twenty yards from us. He must have been sleeping in the bushes as we walked by. Our chattering probably woke him up. Clumps of mud hung on his pants, but mud hung on us as well. I didn’t know if he was a stygging, a nasty man, or one like us, walking the rails.
Mama put the grip in front of her and dug into her stride, saying, “Keep walking. Faster.”
The tramp began a singsong cry of, “La-a-a-dies. Let’s have lu-u-u-nch. La-a-a-dies, let’s have lu-u-u-nch.” I twisted to look. He appeared frazzled more than dangerous.
“Ignore him,” Mama said, urging me along with her hands when I turned.
A stone inside my shoe rubbed against my heel. I nearly twisted my ankle turning to see how fast he approached. I picked up my long skirt, wishing we had the reform dresses to wear right now.
“Leave us be or I’ll shoot,” Mama said. I could tell by the direction of her voice that she’d stopped. Does she have her Smith & Wesson out?
“Don’t … don’t …”
I heard the gunshot, smelled the powder, watched the man fall.
“You shot him,” I screamed. “Mama! You shot him!”
“I gave him fair warning.”
“Maybe he was hungry,” I said, running past her to him.
“Then he should have said so.”
“He said he wanted lunch.”
Mama joined me. He lay on his side, still. A light rain drizzled.
I leaned over to touch him. One eye came open. I jerked back.
“You … you shot me,” he said. “My leg.”
“A mere flesh wound,” Mama said, but she sounded relieved.
He moaned loudly. “Meant you no harm,” he said. “Haven’t eaten in two days. My leg!”
“Are you armed?” Mama asked.
“No,” he said. I could see blood through one of the holes in his pants. “If I had a gun, I’d have traded it for chicken. Just wanted a little food. Thought you were tramps too.”
“Do we look like tramps?” Mama asked. She pulled on her jacket, straightened her shoulders. Actually, I thought we did, mud all over us, hats as flat as grinding stones. Mama didn’t wait for his answer. “Come along, Clara. We’ll bandage him up. He can’t do any harm hobbling.”
His mouth dribbled hardtack Mama gave him. I tore up one of his shirts to use as a bandage. It was a flesh wound, but I was sure it hurt. “Don’t you know it’s dangerous for two women alone out here?”
“You can see we can handle ourselves,” I said. I hated defending my mother’s actions.
At the river I found a stick that would work to help him hobble along to the next town. Having injured him, we felt obligated to take care of him, even though his wobbly ways delayed us. At the next train station, he said he’d wait and see if he couldn’t get one of the other tramps who rode the rails to give him a lift. Mama left him an egg.
“I don’t think we should be so hasty in the future,” I said as we walked away.
“What? Why not? He’ll tell the other tramps that the two women walkers aren’t to be toyed with. He could have been trouble. You must do whatever is necessary to protect your family, Clara. This trip should prove that to you if nothing else.”
I knew my mother was strong, brave even. She’d sued the city of Spokane over an injury. I’d taken care of her and my brothers and sisters while she healed. But shooting the tramp wasn’t brave; it was … impulsive, just like this trip. It had cost us precious time, caused the man pain, and we’d likely sleep under a willow, drenched in the rain, because of Mama’s has
ty action. One needed to think things through. That’s what this trip would prove to me.
We stepped aside for trains rumbling along the tracks. I held my hand to my hat and turned my face away from the black smoke that billowed as engines chugged past. Passengers sped by us, blobs of color in the windows. Surprised looks washed over faces flashing by. A man in the caboose waved. Strangers, all of them. Yet we were dependent on strangers to see us through. That’s what Mama said. We couldn’t live on hardtack and eggs forever. Everyone we’d encounter would be a stranger. Perhaps even my mother.
EIGHT
Sunflowers in Boise
JUNE 1896
Soggy sunflowers hung their heads over a fence outside of Boise City. Rain poured down as it had all but five days since we’d left. It’s good when God gives us great beginnings, because soon after come the downpours of discouragement. One needs the memory of good starts to carry on, and we’d had that one good, dry day. Since then, we’d crossed flooded streams, stood beneath leaky storefront porches in cowboy towns like Pendleton, hoping the rains would ease. Dirt paths became streams and I fell more than once, mud caking on my skirt and building up on the soles of my shoes. “At least we don’t lack for wash water,” Mama said, holding her hands out to the rainy heavens.
We’d come only four hundred fifty miles in six weeks of walking. It was taking us too long. The leather bags weighted us. The mud, rain, snow in the Blue Mountains, tramps, and need to earn our meals by washing dishes or laundry had all slowed us. So much for my mother’s planning. The only good thing so far was the ample time I had to daydream about Forest.
Boise City ended at a railroad stub line, and trains backed into the city, then headed out and south, so following the rails meant we’d have to backtrack part of this road. But we had to go into the town, find work, and get new shoes, carpetbags to replace the leather. Boise was our first capital city, so we needed a governor’s signature too.