Boise was a spectacular city of tall buildings with moving boxes which took the place of stairs, street cars, gas and electric lights, and a huge park complete with joy wheel, fun factory, miniature railroad, ostrich farm, picture show building, and a natatorium where men and women, practically naked, swam in a huge, steamy enclosed pool. But, pacing the thick pile carpet of her room at the Idanha Hotel, it was none of these wonders that Polly thought about. Instead, a conversation she had overheard replayed itself.
She had been on the street car leaving Chinatown after her visit with Bob No. 2 who had worked for Bob Katon in Warrens, and there had been two male Chinese voices, low and intense.
“When I was a young man, there was no food in my village. I had to come to America, but China is different now. Won’t you change your mind and come with me?”
“No, Uncle. This is my home.”
“I have worked here forty of my sixty years, but I do not call it home.”
“I was born here”
“An old man like me goes back to China to die. But you are young. You can help build our country, make it strong.”
“My country, my home is here.”
“And where is my home?” Polly had whispered. Not in China, a faded memory. Or Warrens. Or Grangeville. Or Boise. Then where?
The question had repeated itself during her tour of the big city stores, the White City park, even during the motion picture with the short, funny-looking tramp called Charlie. His tiny black mustache, bowler hat, and crazy antics had made her laugh. Yet there had been a frantic sadness about him, as though he dared not stop.
Like herself.
The unexpected comparison caught Polly short. She stopped her pacing. The room with its bright fire, heavy drapes, and clutter of furniture closed in on her, and she lifted the window sash and leaned out.
It was late, but the street and buildings were brightly lit, voiding the sky of stars, and though she could see the faint glow of moonlight, the height of the buildings blocked the moon itself.
All at once, a wave of homesickness engulfed Polly, sweeping away doubts and fears in a crest of longing. She knew where she belonged.
THIRTY-SIX
Bird song woke Polly. She had arrived too late the night before to see anything more than deep shadows and starlight, but the warm embrace of the canyon walls and the welcoming roar of the Salmon had told her she was home, and she had fallen asleep dreaming of the rustle of wind through tall, healthy corn stalks, the smell of new cut hay, the taste of bread made from her own wheat, milk warm from her own cow. Now, eager to see the ranch in daylight, she threw off her shawl and stretched.
The seventeen mile walk down the steep trail from Warrens and the night spent on the cold, hard ground of the root cellar had taken a deeper toll than she anticipated, and her muscles, cramped and sore, resisted movement. Unalarmed, in fact rather enjoying the teasing suspense the delay evoked, Polly worked the knots in her arms and legs loose, then rose and pushed open the door.
At first she thought her eyes, dazzled by the sudden light, deceived her. Then she realized she had merely deceived herself. Polly Place, like Charlie, was gone forever. Angrily, she ripped at the dew wet weeds and brittle grasses around her.
“Polly! What are you doing here?”
She looked up at Pete, startled, forgetting how the night before she had playfully spread her white hankerchief on a bush facing the river to announce she was back.
“I couldn’t believe it when I saw your old signal for help, but I thought I’d better check it out. When did you get here? Is something wrong?”
Polly’s fingers closed around the black earth beneath the pulled weeds and grasses. She smelled its dampness, felt its heavy richness, the warmth of the sun sweeping down the pine-clad canyon walls, the rushing roar of the Salmon.
“For a long time, yes. But not now, not anymore,” she said.
“Polly, you’re not making sense.”
She smiled. “You see, after Charlie die, I hurt so much, I think I must get away. But I wrong. Charlie’s not just here in the canyon. He’s inside me, and it does not matter where I go, Warrens, Grangeville, or Boise, he be there. There and not there. That is what hurt. But nothing will change that, and this canyon is my home. Our home. So I come back.”
Pete’s arms made a wide sweep, taking in the fences torn down by bears, the garden trampled back into the earth, the sagging chicken house overrun with trailers of hops, thirty years’ work work reclaimed by the canyon in one. “There’s nothing left.”
She opened her hand, revealing the rich black soil. “I have the land.”
“You know how much work it took to make your ranch,” Pete said gently.
“And I’m too old to start over,” she said for him.
“Yes.”
“I know I never have big ranch like before, and I not need. All I want is a small house and help with heavy work.”
She reached into her pocket, pulled out Charlie’s old Bull Durham tin, forced open the lid, and took out a piece of paper. “This is Charlie’s mining claim for twenty acres. Help me build a house and make a small garden, and when I die, bury me next to Charlie. Then the claim is yours and you can homestead the land.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Pete said gruffly.
Polly smiled. “You think when I die I can take the land with me?” She spread the claim open and held it out to Pete. “You agree?”
For a moment the paper fluttered in the morning breeze. Then Pete reached for it, folded it, and put it in his pocket.
“Welcome home,” he said.
THIRTY-SEVEN
The salmon thrashed, jerking against the line that meant its certain death. At the same time, Polly, wedged firmly behind a rock, whirled the reel, rapidly letting out more slack. Then, at just the right moment, she tightened the line until it became taut. Again the fish fought hard, threatening to snap the slender strand that snared it, and again, Polly’s fingers twirled expertly to release the tension. Like a cat with a mouse, she continued to play with the fish until, exhausted, it offered no resistance when she wound in her line.
Laughing at the contrast between the ten-inch squaw fish at the end of her line and the salmon of her daydream, Polly unhooked the fish and threw it in the creel with the five she had caught earlier.
“Never mind,” she told the fish. “You small and you bony, but you just right for old lady.”
She threw her unused bait into Polly Creek, picked up creel and rod, and started up the grassy slope to the cabin Shepp and Pete had built for her. It was not far, but she climbed slowly, studying the wild sumac, buttercups, towering pines, and firs like a person scrutinizing the face of an old friend, for beneath the blue canopy of sky and within the rock face and timbered slopes were countless memories. Memories she had tried to run from, but which she had learned to treasure, mulling over them, in conversation or alone, just as she and Charlie had once reviewed the photographs in the album the fire had destroyed.
She sank down on the porch steps to catch her breath. Sunshine poured down on her, penetrating the lightly quilted percale dress lined with outing flannel that she had made for summer wear. The rays warmed, easing the rheumatism that had settled in her joints, and once again Polly congratulated herself for choosing a site where the sun, as soon as it rose over the rim of the canyon, would shine through her curtainless loft window, and where, from her porch, she could catch the last rays as it sank out of sight. She closed her eyes, basking like a contented cat until her breath returned. Then she picked up creel and rod and went inside.
Pete said the cabin was not much more than a doll’s house, with space downstairs only for the smokey wood stove she kept threatening to replace, and the chairs and table Shepp had made, and upstairs, in the sleeping loft where only she could stand completely straight, a bed and dresser, also made by Shepp. But with the lace-trimmed muslin curtains she had made for the downstairs windows, the rag rug she had hooked, the photograph of Charlie, and
bundles of fragrant herbs and spices, it was home, and she had lived in it well content for ten years.
Not waiting for her eyes to adjust to the dim light, she fumbled for the telephone Shepp had installed. Cradling the receiver, she turned the crank and shouted into the speaker.
“Shepp? How many eggs you get today?”
“Six? I get ten,” she countered proudly. “How many fish you catch?”
“None? You no good,” she chortled. “Never mind, you and Pete come over, I cook squaw fish I catch today, okay?”
“Good. See you later.”
She hung the receiver back in place and bustled out to the vegetable patch to pick vegetables to cook with the fish.
With each passing year, her garden had shrunk as her strength had waned. Now she cultivated barely half an acre, and the hen house sheltered only a handful of chickens. But Pete and Shepp brought her wild game and she had more than sufficient food for her needs and those of visitors, old and new. She surveyed the rows of melon, beans, corn, and cabbages drooping in the August heat. Before she picked anything, she would have to water.
Fetching water from the creek had become an increasingly difficult chore, so she watered sparingly, a dipperful at the base of each plant, just as her father had taught her. At the end of each row, she straightened slowly, kneading the small of her back. Halfway through, her head grew swollen and heavy. Black spots danced before her eyes. She pushed on stubbornly. The spots receded, then surged forward, becoming red and gold, then black again.
Then it was all black.
A numbing heaviness sealed Polly’s lids so she could not see, but the steady buzzing seemed like the drone from one of the new flying machines that sometimes soared above the canyon. Faint at first, it became louder and louder, rising above the thunder and crash of the Salmon.
She knew she must signal it. She opened her mouth to shout. No sound came. She struggled to rise, but her limbs refused to obey. The droning became faint, then louder, then faint again, until finally it faded, and there was only the familiar roar of the Salmon.
Then there were voices. Shouting. She felt herself gathered up. Bound. Trussed like a chicken for market.
“No, Baba. No,” she cried, straining against the arms that held her. “Some other way, Baba, I beg you. I don’t want to go.”
His voice, warm and kind, began a comforting murmur, but the grip that held her remained as tight. She knew she was lost, her efforts too feeble against his strength. Still she struggled until, once again, darkness overcame her.
A sudden fierce jolting shot vicious bolts of fire through Polly, shattering the numbing darkness. She mourned it like a lost lover. Why the agonizing punishment when she had given up the struggle long before, she wanted to ask. But her tongue, thick and swollen, prevented her, and she suffered in silence, yearning for the darkness to return and smother her pain.
It came and went, like surf against the shore, sometimes generous, sometimes meager, sometimes simply hovering on the edges of her pain, its promise of relief cruelly tantalizing.
A star glittered silver bright and she searched for moon glow.
“Charlie?” she whispered.
“He’s dead, Polly. You know that.”
She forced her eyes open. Above her loomed a white man’s face, weathered and bearded, no different from the faces of a thousand others, except, on his chest a bit of silver flashed. Silver, sharply edged. A star. The sheriff.
“Paper,” she croaked through cracked lips. “I have paper.”
He seized her arm. Silver glittered, pierced her skin, bringing peace.
THIRTY-EIGHT
A heavy weight bore down on Polly’s chest and limbs, making breathing difficult. Impossible. So this was death, she thought. Confinement in a narrow, airless coffin pressed down by six feet of earth. But if she were dead, then surely she would not be able to feel pain. Doubt bubbled, bursting into panic. It was a mistake. They had thought her dead, buried her too soon. Her arms flailed weakly, ineffectually, against the constricting boundaries.
“Polly! Polly! Can you hear me?”
With a tremendous effort of will, Polly reined in her terror so she could think. She had asked Shepp and Pete to bury her beside Charlie, next to the river they both loved, but the voice calling her was not his. It was a woman’s.
“Wake up, Polly. Wake up now,” the bodiless voice urged.
Wake up? Then she was not dead, not buried. She struggled to open her eyes. The lids burst open, fluttered against the painful glare of light, and closed again.
“That’s it. Come on, you can do it.”
Using her lashes to shield her eyes from the hurtful brightness, Polly opened them a little at a time.
Above her, a big strong woman with curly brown hair hovered, encouraging. “That’s it. A little more. Come on.
Pale blue walls. White ceiling. Wood stove. Chair. Curtains rippling in a cool breeze. The harsh smells of antiseptics, medicine.
“Hospital?” Polly croaked, her voice as much a stranger’s as the woman’s.
The woman smiled. “You’re in the County Hospital in Grangeville. I’m Eva Weaver, your nurse.”
Broken pieces of memory surfaced briefly, blindingly. Men. Horses. Pain. Darkness. A sheriff. Fear. Sirens. Polly struggled to fit the pieces, but reaching for one, she lost another.
“When I come?” she whispered.
The nurse smoothed the sheet that covered Polly, pulling it taut. “You’ve been here three days. There for a while we thought we would lose you, but you’ll be fine now.”
Three days! Again, Polly fought to remember. Bits and pieces glimmered, teasing, then vanished, swept away by black waves that, even now, threatened to pull her down.
“I not remember.”
“You must have been working in your garden when you took sick,” the nurse explained. “Mr. Shepp and Mr. Klinkhammer found you there unconscious. They took you to the War Eagle Mine by horseback though how they got through those steep trails without falling and breaking everyone’s neck is anyone’s guess. Then the Deputy Sheriff and Nurse brought you here in Glen Ailor’s ambulance.”
Heat. Thirst. Weariness. Memory or reality? Her head hurt.
“Tired,” Polly murmured.
The nurse leaned over Polly, starched uniform crackling. “Of course. You go back to sleep and rest. You have lots of people asking for you. Mr. Klinkhammer, Mr. Shepp, Mrs. Holmes, Mrs. Shultz, Mr. Cyczik, Mrs. Long . . .”
The names trailed off, disappearing as Polly sank into a deep, restful sleep.
When she woke again, late afternoon sunshine streamed through the open window. While the nurse’s daughter held Polly, Mrs. Weaver plumped her pillows, propping her up so she could drink the beef broth they had brought. Polly held the bowl, but feeling no hunger, looked out the window, feasting instead on the cloudless blue sky, the wide expanse of golden prairie rimmed by big buttes, the mountains beyond.
And then she saw them. The gray granite slabs just beyond the picket fence. Headstones. A graveyard. What had Mrs. Weaver said? Struggling, she forced the words to surface. “You’re in the County Hospital.” The hospital for indigents. Where old men and women went to die.
She thought of her small hoard of nuggets, the gold buttons Charlie had made her, the ones she changed from dress to dress. She dipped the spoon into the soup and drank. She was not indigent. And she was not going to die. Not here.
“Put my shoes next to the bed,” she told Mrs. Weaver.
“You’re too weak to walk yet.”
“Today. But I want shoes there ready for when I can.”
The doctor came. Old friends and curious strangers visited, smiling encouragement as the days inched into weeks, the weeks into months. But the shoes beside Polly’s bed remained untouched.
“You’ll soon get well,” Bertha said.
Polly looked at the shoes on the floor, the graveyard outside covered with snow. “I’m too old to get well,” she said.
“Don’t
give up now.”
Polly patted her friend’s hand. “After Charlie shot, you tell me the same thing. You help me to save his life that time. I know you want to do the same now. But it’s not possible. We young then, old now. I have to go to the other world to get well.”
Her grip on Bertha tightened. “When I am dead, help me to find Shepp and Pete. Remind them I want bury beside Charlie.”
“I will.”
EPILOGUE
On November 6, 1933, Polly Bemis died at the Idaho County Hospital in Grangeville. Due to heavy snows, all trails into the Salmon River were impenetrable, and neither Charles Shepp nor Pete Klinkhammer could be located. With the City Council of Grangeville acting as pallbearers, Polly was buried in the cemetery she could see from her window.
Her gold nuggets, the gold buttons Charlie had made her, and other effects were donated to St. Gertrude’s Museum in Cottonwood, Idaho, (now the Historical Museum at St. Gertrude) by Pete Klinkhammer, who homesteaded Polly Place. His sister, who inherited his estate in 1970, purchased a stone for Polly’s grave.
By the time I made my first research trip, Jim Campbell owned Polly Place. Captivated by Polly’s incredible spirit, he was working on bringing her remains back to the canyon she loved and restoring her cabin, which he planned to nominate for entry into the National Register of Historic Places.
In 1987 the Department of the Interior deemed the cabin significant in Idaho’s heritage, and at the museum’s dedication ceremonies, Governor Cecil Andrus declared, “The history of Polly Bemis is a great part of the legacy of central Idaho. She is the foremost pioneer on the rugged Salmon River.”
Steps away from her cabin is a market that reads:
POLLY BEMIS
Sept. 11, 1853–Nov. 6, 1933
She lies beneath, across the river from Charlie.
Thousand Pieces of Gold Page 18