The Year We Were Famous

by Carole Estby Dagg

  We didn't pass any homesteads this whole day, so we had to sleep outside. A spindly tree didn't offer real protection against cougars, snakes, or rain, but I still preferred to sleep cozied under a pine rather than in the open scrub. We spread our ponchos over mounded brush and stretched out, alert to the sounds of the night. Every mouse scurry became a rattlesnake; every lonesome coyote howl became the vanguard of a hungry wolf pack. I finally slept—backside up, to protect my innards.

  July 27, 1896 – Day 83 Between nowhere and more nowhere, Wyoming

  Nothing to report this week except that, in spite of having to stop for Ma to rest more often, we kept to our goal of twenty-five miles a day. I entertained myself by watching dust devils and the shifting shadows on the ground cast from clouds above, and by convincing myself that over the next rise I would discover something wondrous. It was always more miles of scrub.

  Other than the occasional passing train, it was like Ma and I were the last people left on the planet.

  July 30, 1896 – Day 86 Approaching civilization in Rawlins, Wyoming

  Ma was even quieter today, smaller and wilted. I tried to perk her up with some "do you remembers," but she said she was too thirsty to talk. I couldn't let her slip into a down spell so far from home. Would new people to talk to put her starch back? I was as ruthless as Simon Legree in Uncle Tom's Cabin. Pushing her to walk an extra fifteen miles today—forty total—we reached Rawlins, the first place bigger than a whistle stop in one hundred and twenty miles. We checked in at the Carbon County Journal office and gave our story. The publisher, Mr. Friend, said he knew someone who would likely take us in tonight.

  We walked out West Cedar Street to a boxy two-story house with flowered curtains in the window and knocked. The woman who opened the door was not much taller than my sister Ida, and dressed as elegantly as Ida did in her dreams. "I'm Dr. Holmes," she said with a smile, and invited us in.

  I was relieved to see Ma brighten at a new face. She started talking almost faster than a body's ears could listen. Mercifully, I did not have to listen to her "why women should have the right to vote" talk again, since women had voted in Wyoming since just after the Civil War. Dr. Holmes was a champion listener.

  By ten o'clock I was yawning, but Ma was still wearing a path in the rug describing—with exuberant hand gestures as well as words—Henry's death, her bout with consumption, her previous plans to save the farm, and how she was sure this walk across the country was the best idea she'd ever had. "I had to do something. I couldn't stay put and let the farm go to the sheriff's sale." Ma looked at me.

  "You're right, Ma," I said. "We had to do something." At the thought of another four months to go, however, I wondered if this walk had been the right something.

  Without saying another word, Ma got out her journal and began to write, as if she were alone in the room.

  Dr. Holmes smiled toward me. "Want to find a breeze on the porch?"

  I followed her outside and sat on the edge of the porch, leaning against one of the pillars. Dr. Holmes and I looked at the stars in friendly silence for several minutes. Then she spoke. "Your mother must have an iron constitution if she can have consumption one month and start to walk across the country the next. I never had a patient who could do that."

  "You never know about Ma," I said. "For months she'll hardly sleep and wear everyone out with her projects and then she'll need to sleep a lot. After Henry died, she did have a cough, and although she said it was consumption, I thought she was just being melodramatic, or using consumption as an excuse to work through her dismals in bed. When she got up, she was in another of her whirlwind moods. She had more endurance than I did when we left Mica Creek. But she's slowing down now. I hope she can make it to New York City."

  "I think you may be right—that your mother was just sad, not sick. It sounds like she just needed an excuse to stay in bed until she was ready to face the world. This walk across the country gave her a reason to get up. You say your mother has taken to bed before?" Dr. Holmes asked.

  "Three times that I remember. The longest time—nearly two years—was when she fell on sidewalk the city had broken up, getting ready for repairs. She fractured her pelvis and couldn't walk again until she got the city to pay for an operation. I took over for her all of seventh and eighth grades."

  Dr. Holmes shifted to lean against the other pillar. "How did you manage?"

  "I stayed home from school so I could take care of Ma and the younger ones, but my school-age brothers and sisters brought my assignments home so I could study after dinner. I not only graduated from eighth grade with my class, but with first-place marks. Ma was so proud of me, she talked Pa into letting me hire out to one of her suffrage society friends in Spokane so I'd have a place to live while I went to high school in town. I was a servant, but at least I got to go on to school."

  Other than the sounds of someone pumping water into a tin pail nearby, crickets, and two dogs having a conversation, the night was quiet.

  "It sounds like you've been so busy taking care of everybody else that you haven't had time to think about what you want to do for yourself." Dr. Holmes patted my shoulder. "Your ma is lucky to have you, but don't let her ups and downs keep you from living your own life forever. While you're on this sabbatical, think about what you want to do next."

  "I know what I want to do—write. But I also like to eat." I turned to face Dr. Holmes. "More than the farm is at stake in this walk. If we win the money, I can go to college and study writing. If we lose, I stay in Mica Creek and marry the boy next door." I slumped back against the pillar.

  When she put a hand on my shoulder I straightened up again with a start.

  "How can a smart young woman like you leave one of the most important decisions you'll ever make up to fate? Don't you know your own mind? You don't strike me as a young woman who would be content with Mica Creek and the world she can see from her front porch. Your ma isn't, and you must take after her."

  I shook my shoulder free from her hand. "You're the first person besides Ma who ever said I was a bit like her. Most people say I'm more like my Pa." I fingered Pa's owl in my pocket. "I wish I knew for sure I could make it as a writer. Then I could stop dithering about my future and write."

  Dr. Holmes leaned forward and took both my hands. "Sometimes you just have to try something and see if it works. I taught school for a year or so, and then apprenticed myself to a doctor for another year before I decided to go to medical school. I can give you one inflexible piece of advice." She made sure I was looking at her before she continued. "Don't marry to avoid making up your mind about what else to do. And learn skills to support yourself before you do anything else. One reason young men have more choices in their lives is that..."

  "They don't have babies," I finished.

  "Yes, that too," she said. "But what I meant to say is that men make better wages than women, so it's easier for them to save money for college. Domestic work, teaching, nursing—none of the traditional women's work pays a hill of beans. Learn to do something men get paid well for."

  I withdrew my hands and held up one arm to test my muscle. "Do you know a blacksmith who needs an apprentice?"

  Dr. Holmes laughed. "I was thinking of something that favored brain over brawn, but with such formidable biceps, blacksmithing might be a possibility."

  Ma was asleep in the guest room when Dr. Holmes and I went back into the house. In five minutes I was beside Ma in bed, but thinking through Dr. Holmes's advice kept me awake. Ma had said I might be more like her than I thought. Now Dr. Holmes thought I favored Ma, too! What similarity between Ma and me did she see that I couldn't? We didn't have anything but our front teeth in common. She could out-talk the hawker of magic elixir, and I ran out of things to say once I stammered hello. Ma thrived on attention, being different, marching with the suffragists, tromping clear across the country, and getting her picture in the New York World. I would do anything to avoid attention. Her notions had her blooming fiery orange like
her Austrian Copper rose, then going dormant as a stick. I was more like a pine tree, never blooming—just a steady, predictable green.

  I did agree with Dr. Holmes on one thing, though. I wasn't going to let the outcome of this walk decide whether or not I would marry Erick. If I didn't want to marry Erick I wouldn't. I just had to sit down and write a letter to tell him so.

  To: Miss A. J. Waterson, 95 William Street, New York City, New York

  From: Helga Estby

  Monthly report # 3: Fort Fred Steele, Wyoming

  Miles covered, July 4—August 4: 424

  Notes: Peaceful encounter with Ute Indians. Let us know as soon as possible if our previous request for extension of time due to heat stroke in the lava fields is granted.

  CHAPTER 17

  WE BATTLE NATURE

  August io, 1896–Day 97 Wyoming

  WE were climbing into the Medicine Bow Mountains at the pace of slugs. We should have been on the far side of Nebraska by now. If Ma hadn't had to wait for the governor's signature in Boise, if she hadn't insisted on that shortcut across the lava fields, she hadn't felt the weight of the entire suffrage movement on her shoulders and wasted a day in Ogden marching with her sign ... if, if, if.

  Every time I thought of how far behind we were getting I wanted to howl.

  Ma would never have made it this far without me, yet it hadn't occurred to her to put my name on her cartes de visite. I was just "and daughter" like something else she had packed in her satchel and brought out in emergencies. Need someone shot? Need someone to drag you through the lava fields? Whip out your trusty Clara; she'll take care of it.

  By the point where the tracks entered a narrow gorge, I waited for Ma to catch up. I sighed impatiently when she stopped again, smiling at the wildflowers and taking in the mountains, a backdrop for some nameless lake.

  "No lollygagging!" I called out.

  "Of course you're spry; you didn't have consumption all winter." Her chest rose and fell with the effort of walking uphill; maybe she wasn't lollygagging but had to rest.

  "I always said you didn't have consumption, and Dr. Holmes agreed with me," I called out.

  "How would she know? She wasn't in Mica Creek when I was sick."

  "Humph. She said you were sad, not sick," I said.

  When Ma caught up with me, she put down her satchel so she could gesture freely—one hand on her hip, one finger pointing to the middle button on my sweat-stained shirtwaist. "You don't understand what real sadness is like. After Henry died, you bustled on through your chores every single day like nothing happened. I feel things more strongly than you do."

  "I feel things every bit as strongly as you do. I just don't wallow in those feelings. You have to steel yourself to do what needs doing."

  Ma shook her head. "It goes beyond sad. I don't know if there's even a word for it."

  "Melancholy, depths of despair, despondency?"

  "Stronger yet. It's more like—like an elephant sitting on your chest. No amount of willpower is going to make that elephant move. You just have to suffer until the elephant takes a mind to get up and leave you alone for a while. But you know he'll be back. And you won't be able to do anything about it the next time, either, except wait for him to go away."

  "The trouble is, when your elephant comes to call, I have to take over for you. And besides those times you can't help, there are all those times you trot to Spokane to sip tea and talk votes." When I realized I was standing with one hand on my hip and one finger pointing at Ma—mirroring her pose—I jerked my arms down to my sides.

  "And another thing," I said. "You would never make it on your own to New York, but I let you get all the attention in the interviews, since getting your name in the papers seems to be as important to you as winning the bet. I didn't even complain about not getting my name on your hoity-toity cartes de visite."

  Ma huffed. "You don't want to talk to the reporters, anyway. Unless," she added, "they're under thirty and let you ride their bicycles." She smiled, trying to coax a smile from me.

  I turned my back on Ma and headed on up the tracks into the gorge.

  Ma followed, continuing her side of the argument. "You wouldn't have made it on your own, either. I have had to talk us into a bed and a meal every night. If it weren't for me you would have starved to death by now. Anyway, I should have my name on the cards. It was my idea for the walk."

  I stopped and whirled. "I gave you the idea!" My voice squeaked in indignation. "I was talking about Nellie Bly and her trip around the world and that's when you said you'd see if you could find someone to pay you to walk."

  By now there was no longer room for us to walk side by side, so I crossed the tracks to find space for my feet on the other side.

  "But you didn't do anything with your idea, did you?" Ma said. She looked up from treacherous footing in the broken rock long enough to shoot me an accusing glance.

  I had to admit to myself that I hadn't.

  "And if it weren't for me, you'd still be back in Mica Creek, marrying Erick because you didn't have the gumption to tell him no outright and figure out what you wanted to do with your life. I'm trying to teach you some gumption and you just whine about not getting your name on the cards."

  "But..."

  "Listen here, Clara Estby. Show some respect to your mother."

  "How about showing some respect to me? Didn't it occur to you I might be right about not taking the shortcut in Idaho?"

  Ma stopped, dropped her arms, and looked to heaven for forbearance. I followed her glance upward. The clouds were dark now, and scudding fast.

  "I knew you wouldn't let me forget that. You've just been stewing on that for a thousand miles until you couldn't stand it anymore. We all make mistakes. And anyone with an ounce of curiosity or courage knows that making mistakes is better than living in a padded room your whole life, afraid to try anything new."

  I shivered as the wind picked up and whipped through the trees. "Who are you to give me advice? I'd never throw away my future by having a child at fifteen and sentencing myself to a life like yours."

  At Ma's shocked expression, I almost slapped my hands over my mouth. I shouldn't have said that. What's more, I hadn't just said it; I had yelled it to be heard over the wind, which had picked up from a pleasant breeze to a yowling gale.

  "I'm sorry..." I started, then held my breath when the wind halted abruptly. The air felt heavy. The birds went silent. The hair on my arms rose with a tickle. Then— crack! —the sky lit up and thunder exploded almost beside us. Lightning flashed again with simultaneous thunder like a gunshot. Barely thirty feet away, atop a crag on one side of the channel cut for the tracks, a tree split open and began to burn.

  We looked right into lightning bolts flashing on every side. Thunder bounced off rock walls on either side of us, and the echoes made it impossible to tell which rolls of thunder went with which flashes. Thunder rattled my rib cage and set my eardrums ringing. Thunder mocked the puny anger I'd let loose on Ma.

  "Lie down!" she yelled as she threw herself down as far from the tracks as the narrow passage between walls of rock allowed.

  I continued to stand, clenching my carved owl in my pocket. Cinders floated around us like snow. The wind roared through the pass again, blowing fire and cinders uphill beyond us and sweeping in a fresh bank of clouds. The wind shrieked through the trees above us, bending them, breaking them. The wind could have picked me up like a dry leaf and blown me to the next county. As the clouds were pushed higher up the side of the mountain, they loosed their water, dousing the fire and drenching us. To stand against the wind as I struggled into my poncho, I imagined my feet sending down strong tap roots to anchor me to the rock.

  Rain fell by the wagonload. Water cascaded down the rocky slopes in waterfalls that created a stream that swept first over my toes, then ankles, my shins, and over my boots. We had walls of sheer blasted rock on either side. There was no escape.

  After Ma pulled on her rain gear, we waded haltingly
against the current, encumbered by water-weighted skirts. With wind roaring up through the pass and water rushing down, I felt like I was being stretched between two horses galloping in opposite directions. I gripped my satchel and reached out to one side of the canyon walls to steady myself against the racing river. Who would believe we could drown in the mountains? Five minutes ago I had been worried about not getting to New York by the end of November. Now I just wanted to stay alive until tomorrow.

  Rain and spray blurred my vision, but I made out Ma's meaning as she jabbed her chin to the right. Twenty-five feet beyond us, a shallow, two-foot-wide channel in the rock sloped up like a water-swept grain chute leading to a ledge above the torrent. If we could reach that ledge, we might survive.

  I grabbed a bush to steady myself against the power of the water, but the bush broke away with a jerk. I stumbled backward, touching bottom with my seat as my poncho floated like a lily pad around me. Ma heard my yelp above the roar of the water and turned to help me stand. Holding hands, we pushed together against the rising water toward the base of the upward channel.

  I put the rope handle of my satchel over my shoulder and shifted it to rest on the back of my hip. Water cascading down the chute made it feel like I was climbing a river to get to the ledge. I clutched at small slippery knobs of rock with my right hand and braced my left forearm against the other side of the channel. For the first few footholds, I felt Ma's hands guiding my boots. Then she shouted something, which I couldn't hear clearly over the rumbling thunder and tumbling water. She shouted again, "I'm sorry, Clara!"

  I searched for her hand with my foot, but there was nothing but air. Was she sorry she could not reach my feet to help me? Was she sorry we had ever left Mica Creek? I searched blindly for places to brace my feet and knees and clambered up the last few feet.