The Daughter's Walk (12 page)

“You were ashamed for having me,” I said as we walked the rails again. I padded beside her, trying to keep up.

“No. You made it all worthwhile. My shame was in believing in the words of a man, a boy, who had no good intentions. This is why your Forest—”

“I don't know if he's
my
Forest.”

“You wish he would be,” she said. “It's one reason why I wanted you to go with me on this journey. I didn't want the same to happen to you.”

“You don't know that Forest might not be a good man,” I said. “I'm not fifteen, a girl. I'm eighteen years … Nineteen, I guess.”

“Nineteen.”

“Didn't Papa know?”

“Of course he knew.” Mama stopped and took the grip from me. She held my hand, brown and scratched. She stared at my stubby fingers. I still gnawed at the nails. Her fingers were slender as asparagus. She looked up, chewing the side of her cheek.

“At the lava craters, I wanted to tell you, in case … Ole would never tell you. It was mine to tell, he always said, but he didn't see the point of it. It didn't seem right that I might die still holding the truth. It was time you knew, but that's that now. Nothing more needs to be said. That boy who fathered you … he isn't family. Ole is.”

We walked in silence for a long time, and I finally dropped behind, hung my head like the soggy sunflower, trying to piece together who I was.

What was he like? What was his name? It became my new internal conversation. After acquiring a signature I'd wonder,
Could my father have been like this mayor or that governor?
Once we scared off a herd of curious pronghorns, and I wondered if my true father ever hunted or if
he had crossed the Mississippi River. A world of otherness opened to me, a way to make sense of why I was the only one in the family not a towhead, why I was nearly as tall as Papa. Who would my father vote for in the upcoming election? My mother gave out no new information. I feared I had all I was meant to get, at least for now.

Cooler weather gave us renewed spirit. In Greeley, Colorado, we bought yet another pair of shoes and welcomed September. A news reporter wrote about us, “They wear the beat look of a pedestrian stomp.” It was the first time we experienced disdain in the newspaper before leaving town. The article ended with, “The fakes left this city for Denver.”

A part of me did feel like a fake: I'd been masquerading as an Estby.

“What was his name?” I asked. We rested for the night in a shared bed in the house of a suffragette.

“There's no reason for you to know that, Clara. He was young. I was young. I did what was best for him and for my parents, who had dreamed I'd go on to school. They'd sent me to private school in Norway. All that investment, lost.”

“But—”

“Not all questions need answering.”

“Will you write to Papa and tell him you've told me?”

She sighed. “Better left until we get back,” Mama said. “Besides, I fill the letters with so many details of what we've seen, the people who have befriended us, our adventures, that such intimate things can wait,
ja
? Wait until we have a
sandbakkel
to dip in our coffee and I am baking the Christmas bread for us all. We can sigh together about how God
has been so good to us. We are your family, Clara. This”—she tapped her heart—“this is who you belong to and always will.”

Not far from Denver, a man approached as though he had news, hailing us. “Women walkers,” he said. We stopped to greet him, and before Mama could show him a photograph to sell, he grabbed the grip that held our money and possessions, save the pepper-box pistol I kept in my pocket.

“Give that back!” she shouted.

“Stupid women,” he snarled. “Tramps. You're asking for this.”

His need to condemn us before running gave me time to get my pistol out. I stepped forward and pulled the trigger, purposefully shooting past his head.

He screamed and Mama grabbed for the grip, swung it from him.

My heart pounded, but I'd acted, done what was necessary. We couldn't afford to lose our grip. My letters to Forest were in there, all the signatures. Evidence of our accomplishment, which the sponsors would want.

“Now skedaddle,” Mama said. “Perhaps learn to avoid attacking women.” She had her revolver out now. “You'll walk before us into Denver, and we'll drop you off at the police station or maybe the governor's mansion when we get His Honor Mr. McIntire's signature.”

But as we approached the rail house, we lost our robber when he dodged behind a rail car. I was too tired to chase after him; Mama didn't either.

“You did well to scare him, Clara, and you'll notice I didn't shoot him. It would have delayed us. And for the record, it was your quick
thinking and our teamwork that caught him,” Mama said. “Not any well-laid plan.”

In Denver, Mama was granted her speaking engagement. She spoke at a large hall filled with big-hatted women, a few wearing reform dresses like the ones we wore, but most dressed in long skirts with light summer jackets for the late-afternoon heat. Feathers shifted with round fans bearing advertisements for products like Coca-Cola and politicians like William Jennings Bryan. At the auditorium door, I sold pictures of us, which kept us out of the laundry houses to earn our next dollars. It also kept me out of the limelight, something I truly wanted to avoid.

Mama looked magnificent on that stage, burgundy curtains behind her. She told her stories of the mines, of crossing the trestle, and included the latest adventure with the would-be robber. She wove in local stories such as the upcoming elections and chastised Colorado women, who had given up their right to vote a few years ago, urging them to get it back. She acted out the events and made people laugh and cheer and applaud. I'd never seen this side of her. I was nothing like her, nothing. She was magnificent.

She ended by speaking of our family, how she was walking not just to prove a woman's strength but to keep her family together, acting out in her way what every woman in America did by cooking, cleaning, taking in wash, putting in gardens, canning peaches and pears—all the little things that go unnoticed, she said, but were critical for life, for family. All for family.

Women had tears in their eyes and I did too. She hadn't mentioned
the money, and I was glad of that. And proud of her performing. I liked how happy she looked.

“My family is my compass,” she said, “giving me direction, telling me how to find my way home.”

A man in the back yelled out, “Your husband should have kept that compass for himself and kept you home with it!”

A murmur rose from the women and the few other men as necks craned to see who had spoken. My mother's face grew pink.

“Only a strong man would not be threatened by a strong wife,” I said loud enough for my mother to hear from the stage.

“My daughter,” my mother said, and the crowd began to applaud, drowning out the heckler's retort.

We walked back to our hotel, each of us in thought.

“Clara?”

“Yes, Mama?”

“Oh, never mind. Just Clara.” She held my hand, swinging it as though we were children playing. “I'm so glad you came with me on this journey. Every good adventure deserves to be shared. Aren't you a little bit pleased we've come this far?”

“I guess,” I said and realized I meant it. For the first time in a long time, I didn't feel put-upon. I felt hopeful.

Coming down the steps the next morning from our hotel room, which had been provided by one of the suffragettes of Denver, I stumbled and fell. Pain seared through my ankle like an ice pick pierced into bone.

“You didn't break it, did you?” Mama asked. She squatted down.

“No.” I gasped, taking in the sharp stabs that radiated all around my right foot.

“Let's get you into the room and take that shoe off,” Mama said. “I'll get ice to keep the swelling down.”

“I'm sorry, Mama. I just—”

“Not your fault. I think I see a loose carpet tack. It tripped you up. I'll have words with the management.”

“No, I—”

“Let's get you up on the bed.” She helped me hobble upstairs, then pulled out pillows, which I gingerly set my foot on. My ankle throbbed with my toes pointed upward. Oh, how it hurt!

She unhooked the shoe quickly, tugged at it gently, but the movement still brought tears to my eyes. I sat up on my elbows to look. It already swelled, as big as a bedpost.

I flopped back on the bed. I should never let myself be happy or hopeful. There was always another shoe to drop, and it most likely would drop on me.