CHAPTER 10
ALMOST JAILBIRDS
May 21, 1896–Day 16 La Grande, Oregon
Dear Arthur and Johnny,
In case you have not had your quota of dime novels this month, I am sending you a true account of our First Adventure:
Our two brave heroines are Helga Estby, a Norwegian immigrant homesteader, and her daughter Clara. For two weeks they had walked through heavy mud, swollen rivers, and rugged mountains, determined to reach New York City to win a wager that would save their family's farm.
Only the day before, the valiant women walkers had crossed the Blue Mountains in a ferocious blizzard. When the next morning dawned clear, they had no presentiment that this day would be other than an uneventful walk into La Grande, Oregon, where they hoped for the reward of a long, hot bath.
Late in the day, they came out of the foothills on the far side of the Blue Mountains. Looking down on the wheat growing in the Grande Ronde Valley, they could see the ruts left by the thousands of wagons carrying courageous pioneers westward on the Oregon Trail.
Still concentrating on their footing in the loose rock slicked by melting snow, they did not notice the slow hoofbeats behind them until they heard a man's voice. "You headed into La Grande?"
Helga Estby quickened her pace. She did not answer.
In a quick glance back, Clara observed the man's straight dark mustache, oiled hair, bowler hat, suit, and once white shirt.
"How far you two been walking?" he asked.
Clara, innocent as she was of the darker side of human nature, started to reply, but her mother warned her to keep her silence.
The man was willing to do all the talking himself, however. He slid off his horse and walked along behind the two women.
Though travel-ravaged and less clean than was their wont, their proud carriage still identified them as paragons of decent womanhood. In the gentle wind blowing southward through the valley, a strand of Clara's fair hair pulled loose from her decorous bun and glowed like a golden filament halo in the solitary ray of sun, which pierced the billowy cloud.
"Why you out here by yourselves?" His voice was coarse and menacing He paused, inviting a reply, but the women remained silent. "You got a boyfriend, titmouse?" He drew abreast of Clara and poked his elbow into her arm to make sure she knew he was addressing her, but Clara still did not answer.
He dropped behind again and continued his one-sided conversation.
"Sure would like to see what's in them satchels. Run off with your old man's loot?"
When he shoved her mother, Clara's eyes widened in horror. Would she have to use the gun her father had insisted they carry? Her face grew hot as she fumbled in her bag to bring her gun to the top where she could grab it if she had to.
The dark-mustached man shoved Clara's back this time. As she lurched forward he jabbed her again, harder, and she fell to her hands and knees across her satchel. He grabbed her chin from behind, like a cougar snapping a sheep's head around to break its neck. As Clara flailed helplessly, he leaned over her to growl, "When I talk, look at me like you're listening"
Clara's frantic mother grabbed one of his shoulders and tried to wrench him off her daughter, but he swung one scarred fist, which landed with a thud on her brow. In spite of the trickle of blood now running into her eye, she held steadfast to the villain's arm, straining with every ounce of a mother's courage to drag him off her daughter.
He tried to shake her loose, but she would not release her grip, so he stooped to his boot, where Clara was alarmed to see the hilt of a knife. As he pulled out his glittering dagger, she pulled her gun from her satchel and before she could lose her nerve, she shot.
A hole bloomed red in his lower leg, just above the line of his boot. He howled and fell back on his posterior.
"Get on your horse and get out of here," she commanded.
She kept her gun trained on him while he limped to his horse, swearing oaths too coarse to commit to print. As he put one leg in the stirrup and swung his other, bleeding leg over the saddle, he issued a warning: "The sheriff in La Grande will throw you both in jail!"
"I doubt it," said the valiant Clara. Soon he was nothing but a dust cloud.
Clara tucked the ripped top of her skirt into her waistband and washed the cut above her mother's eye. As they walked the last two miles into town, Clara's mother took over the gun. "If there's any problem over this shooting, I'll tell the sheriff I did it" she said. "I'll not have you hung for protecting me"
Clara anxiously scanned the horizon for any sign of a posse out looking for a would-be murderess and her mother. With faith in the power of truth and the fairness of justice in this land, however, she and her mother strode directly to the sheriff's office.
As they entered the office, the man who had accosted them jabbed an accusing finger at them from his position on a rough-hewn bench. "That's them!" he shouted. "Put them in jail!"
Clara's mother slammed her satchel on the sheriff's desk and jabbed her own finger at her assailant. "That's the man who should be in jail—assaulting defenseless women..."
"Defenseless!" The man started to stand and groaned as his leg oozed fresh blood through the rags he had bound around it. He collapsed back on the bench and pointed to his wound. "There's all the proof you need on who should be locked up"
"How dare you..." Clara's mother started.
The sheriff held out one open palm against Clara's mother and the other against the man on the bench as if to physically stop the accusations and counter-accusations. "Both of you, quiet! The judge'll be through here next week, and we'll hear both of your stories then."
"But we can't stay here a week," Clara said. "We'll miss our deadline!"
"And look at us, Sheriff," Clara's mother said, pointing to her bleeding forehead and Clara's ripped skirt and bloodied hands. "We were only virtuous women defending our honor"She sorted through her bag to find her letter of recommendation from Mayor Belt of Spokane and the clipping from the New York World.
"Well," the sheriff sighed as he finished reading the article and handed it back. "I think you women are crazy for trying to walk across the country by yourselves, but it looks like you were provoked into using your gun, so I won't lock you up. In fact," he said, turning to the villain on the bench, "I am going to keep you here for a day or two. You need to keep off that leg anyway, and I'm sure these ladies would continue on easier in their minds if they knew I was keeping an eye on you"
The sheriff escorted Mrs. Estby and Clara to the door and pointed the way to his house. "My wife will see you cleaned up and mended before you're on the way. Try not to use that gun again between here and New York"
And so ends the first installment of the adventures of Helga and Clara Estby. Do you think I should change our names for the book? Helga and Clara sound more plodding than dashing.
Love,
Your gunslinging sister;
Clara
As I put down my pencil, the grim smile on my face collapsed. My arm still jangled from the recoil on the pistol, and I shuddered and gagged at the smells of gunpowder and blood, which still clung to the inside of my nose. I darted out from our host cabin long enough to retch and wash my mouth out at the pump. I could have killed that man. Or he might have killed Ma and me just to see what was in our satchels.
After a few minutes of breathing fresh air, I was ready to revise the draft of my letter to Arthur and Johnny. By this second retelling—three, if you counted the time I explained what happened to the sheriff—my heart still quickened, my ears still rang with the sound of gunshot, the bile still rose. I had an adventure to write about, but I hoped this would be the last one that nearly landed us in jail.
CHAPTER 11
THE GOVERNOR
June 5, 1896–Day 31 Boise, Idaho
WE arrived at the Idaho Daily Statesman office still dripping trails of water from the stream we forded a few miles back where the bridge had washed out. Ma briskly shook off her poncho and fished in her satchel for
one of her cards. As soon as the reporter found his notebook, she launched into her "why we're walking" spiel.
Since she was determined to be an example of indomitable womanhood, she did not complain about our walking conditions this month. I didn't complain out loud, but shivered theatrically and wrung my skirt out on the floor. Littered as the floor was with dead cigars and slimy tobacco cuds that had missed the spittoons, my wrung-out rainwater undoubtedly improved the hygiene of the office. When Ma scowled my direction, I lifted one foot to show her the sole of my shoe, which was almost thin enough to see my sock through. After crossing the Blue and Boise Mountains and walking wet for twenty-eight days, my boots were ready to be given to a teething puppy to finish off. Ma rolled her eyes and sighed, but ended her talk by saying that we planned to stay long enough to earn money for new shoes and would be grateful for a place to stay.
The next morning we found Governor McConnell's office, but he was out visiting the site of a new irrigation program. It escaped me how there could be a square inch of Idaho that needed more water.
The governor's secretary tried to shoo us out, but Ma would not be shooed. She unfolded her letter of recommendation from Spokane's Mayor Belt and held it close to his spectacles.
Ma had his attention, but I'm not sure it was favorable. I drew back, trying to make myself invisible.
Ma said she needed to see the governor. Just for a minute. Just to get his signature on the bottom of her letter from Mayor Belt.
Mr. Frisk sighed and said that if we could come back the day after tomorrow at 4:45 p.m., we could see him for five minutes and get his signature.
As we walked up Main Street and passed the Assay Office, Ma daydreamed aloud about all the gold and silver that had passed through that office over the last thirty years. I remembered two years ago, when Ma read Pa every article in the newspaper about gold strikes in Colorado and hectored him about finding us a mine. We were in mining country now, but I was more intrigued by water from the hot springs that was pumped into town to heat the houses. No chopping wood for heat!
At the post office, Ma mailed her first journal home so she wouldn't have to carry it and we picked up mail. No exciting news. Ida was taking my place as maid of honor in my friend Tilda's wedding and Bertha would be playing the piano. Arthur was still helping out while Pa's back continued to mend. He asked me to say hello to any Indian chiefs I met and to make sure Butch Cassidy didn't rob us. Erick also wrote.
Dear Clara,
More than one night I've thought of you and your mother so far from home without a man at your side to keep you safe. If your mother's agreement didn't go against it, you know I would gladly have walked from Mica Creek to New York with you. Folks in Mica Creek say your mother is irresponsible to leave her children on such a foolhardy venture, but you may be sure I defend you for your decision to go with her. I admire your loyalty, although I regret that it delays the day we can be married.
Sincerely,
Erick
Blisters and mud had taken my mind off the wedding everyone seemed to expect as soon as Ma and I returned to Mica Creek. Pa favored the match. Erick could work sixteen hours straight in the field. My brothers liked Erick; he laughed at their silliest jokes and taught them rope tricks. He was already close to fulfilling all the requirements for his own 160-acre homestead, with good bottom land near his own Pa's farm and ours. It was a sensible match: hard-working Erick and hard-working Clara. They would have healthy, hard-working children, attend services every Sunday at the Mica Creek Lutheran Church, and be buried side by side in the Mica Creek cemetery.
When I glanced up from my letter, I caught Ma looking at me. She seemed to be waiting for my comments on his letter, but what was to tell? He was waiting, I was stalling, same as usual.
I didn't know what Pa said in his letter, but as Ma reread it, she blinked her eyes and pinched her mouth like she half wanted to cry but wouldn't. She wrote her first progress report to Miss Waterson. In the one hundred and fifty pages Ma had sent home, she had undoubtedly described every sunrise and sunset and every conversation she had had along the way. In all those pages of sunsets and conversations, she had no record of how many miles we'd walked. She had to ask me. I flipped through the pages in my own journal and added the figures in my head.
To: Miss A. J. Waterson, 95 William Street, New York City, New York
From: Helga Estby
Monthly report #1: Boise, Idaho
Miles covered, May 5—June 4: 432
Rain, mud, and blizzard in the Blue Mountains have slowed us down, but we should make up lost time here in Idaho. Shot a man in the leg but were not jailed for it.
The letter seemed powerfully short, considering all we'd been through this month, but Ma said Miss Waterson wouldn't get all the details until she paid us our ten thousand dollars. The "shot a man" line was just to whet her appetite for the rest of the story.
We spent the time waiting for the governor's signature doing laundry and gardening. With what we had left of our start-up money, we had enough to buy Ma new boots and a new journal, and socks for both of us. My shoes would have to hold together a little longer.
Four hundred and thirty-two miles this first month. At two thousand steps a mile, we had taken eight hundred and sixty-four thousand steps, but by now we should have covered nearly six hundred miles and taken over a million steps. We were already a week behind schedule.
CHAPTER 12
LOST
June 10, 1896–Day 36 Idaho
INSTEAD OF sagebrush, we had sand dunes and rocks. Instead of rain, we had hot sun. Instead of following the main line out of Shoshone, we walked eighteen miles on a spur line that came to an abrupt dead end in the foothills of the Pioneer Mountains.
"Ish da!" I said, looking at the map in the Richfield station. "We have to backtrack. We'll lose at least another day."
"Nonsense," Ma said, tracing a finger along a line between where we were and where we wanted to be. "I'm not wasting a day going back the way we came. Let's just take this shortcut directly south to get to the other track that leads to Minidoka."
"The young lady's right." The voice came from the stationmaster, who'd been hovering behind us as we looked at the map.
I smiled a thank-you to him for his support of the safe route along the tracks, but retracted my smile when he kept on talking.
"I don't think two ladies would be up to that rough country between here and the main line." He shook his head, as if already mourning our fate if we should try that shortcut.
As soon as he said it, I knew he'd goaded Ma into a foolhardy choice.
She puffed up in indignation. "We are not namby-pamby drawing room ladies," she said. "We crossed the Blue Mountains in a blizzard, and we can certainly walk ten miles over a few rocks to get to the other track." From the glint in her eye, I guessed it was now a matter of principle to show how strong we women could be.
So we wouldn't have to argue in front of an audience, I pulled Ma outside the station. "Ma, that shortcut could be treacherous."
"Here I come up with an idea to save half a day and you're afraid to risk it. You're as cautious as your pa." She started to fill her canteen at the station's water pump.
Filled with misgivings, I followed Ma toward Minidoka, past boulders and dry sage and gradually downward through loose rock. After an hour or so, we dead-ended at a sheer drop-off. We followed the cleft eastward, and just as we thought we had reached the end, the cleft took a sharp bend to the north, opposite of the direction we wanted to go. I dropped my bag and took out the compass Erick had given me, but poked it away again in disgust.
"Compass doesn't do much good unless you have wings to fly." I ran a finger around my collar where sweat had glued it to my neck.
Ma looked furtively at me as if she expected me to add a rebuke for not following my advice. With angelic self-restraint, I said nothing.
We'd been walking another hour when Ma blurted, "Talk! Even if it's to tell me we shouldn't have taken the
shortcut."
"I guess we shouldn't have taken the shortcut! Satisfied?"
"I don't know how you came to be so much like Pa," she said. "He can get by a whole day on ten words." As she wiped her forehead with the back of a sleeve, she looked at me—really looked—as if I were a stranger she'd just met and was taking the measure of.
I didn't look much like Pa except for height. I didn't look that much like Ma, either, except for the gap between my two front teeth. Arthur had also inherited the gap, which he claimed helped him win spitting contests. I found the gap to be of no value whatsoever, except to reassure myself that I was not a foundling.
Although I didn't look like Pa, everyone said Pa was the one I took after. Like him, I would listen and gauge the other person's slant on things so I wouldn't say anything to rile them up. Since I could usually see both sides of an argument, I spent most of my time listening on the fence, a regular mugwump with my "mug" on one side of the fence and my "wump" on the other.
"If you wanted talk you should have taken Ida," I said, reaching over my shoulder to peel my sweaty shirtwaist from my back.
"Ida wouldn't have lasted an hour in this heat," Ma said. "At least you're still here."
"Ja, well," I answered, surprised by the compliment. "I suppose my doggedness is just another way I'm like Pa."
"Ja, well. You might recall that your Pa didn't want us to take this trip. Yet here you are, with me." Ma unbuttoned the first three buttons on her shirtwaist and picked up her bag, ready to walk again. "You might just be more like me than you think."
Heaven forbid, I thought.
Taking advantage of the cooler air at night, we kept walking as the stars and a sliver of moon came out. We were tired, and sharp rocks made for unsteady walking. When Ma slipped on loose rock, she threw out a hand to break her fall. She held up her left arm, watching blood drip down and soak into her sleeve. "That blood will stain if we don't wash it out right away," she said.
The Year We Were Famous Page 6
