The Daughter's Walk (10 page)

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.

W
e 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.

“You've got to get fluid back into you, Clara. Here, sip a little water now.”

“I … I can't hold anything down,” I said.

I wanted to die, to be left alone to die.

Mama pointed out that at least we had the graciousness of a widowed grandma here in Percy, Wyoming. Living on the outskirts of town, she'd shown us comfort, offered her outhouse. I groaned again. Mama rose. “I'm going to ask her where the doctor is and see about finding a little work while you're down.”

“No, don't leave me,” I said. The thought of sitting alone in the disgust of my own aroma gave me chills. I started to shake.

“I have to go, Clara. I'll be back as soon as I can.”

I imagined this was what my sisters felt when we left Mica Creek: wanting to believe she'd be back but feeling like they'd die while she was gone.

I tried sipping water again, watched a spider make its way up the side of the door, then spin a web. Bees hovered on the hollyhock branches; the sun moved across the sky.

“Here we are.” Mama's cheery voice reached through my agony. “The doctor said water then a little rice, if you can hold it down. The lady of the house has dried apples we can mash later. And tea, he told me tea will help.” She handed me the bowl, but another wave of cramping coursed through me. I was grateful this hadn't happened in the wide-open spaces. Thunder rumbled in the distance and lightning crackled in the foothills. At least I had a roof over my head. And Mama was taking care of me and didn't seem upset with me even though this delay was bad. We weren't even halfway to New York yet.

“I'll contact the sponsors,” Mama said later that evening. “Get an extension. They said we could do that for illnesses, and the doctor will surely verify that you've been sick. I've got a laundry job for tomorrow. And here, I replaced your curling iron.”

I lay on a cot in a guest room of the kindly woman. My hair was as dirty and flat as old leaves. I didn't need a curling iron.

“Don't fret, Clara. You should have at least one delay on this trip with your name on it,” she teased. “You don't need to remind me that all the others have been mine.”