The Daughter's Walk (34 page)

Olaf wrote in October and said he was inclined to accept my offer. He'd winter in Spokane and contact me in the spring. “Don't write to Aunt Hannah's,” he said. “Papa won't like it. I'll come help you look for land next year.”

Arthur's birthday was in November, Johnny's too if he had lived. I thought about sending Arthur a card but didn't want to do anything that might upset the family. Still, if I sent a card and gave them my address, maybe they'd contact me one day, open a door of return. I had to give them a way.

With property purchased, papers signed, and winter approaching, the next steps meant trapping my own land—or at least learning how. A bit of the bravado I'd had in New York waned when the skies spit snow and temperatures dropped. Maybe Franklin and my friends were right about letting others do the trapping. But no, I'd sold them on this, and besides, if I was to eventually ranch fur-bearing animals, I'd have to begin by livetrapping wild game for my breeding stock. To compete with the Finns one day, I needed to know firsthand what I was doing.

I visited with the LaPrays, for whom the nearest road to the property
was named. They told me of the Warrens, father and son, two men more intimate with the streams and timber than anyone who had actually owned it. They'd been trapping the government property for years. They truly read the land. “But they'll be wary of you,” Joseph LaPray told me. “You being female and all and them being Indians.”

The LaPrays said they'd put the word out, and one week when I finished work on the shack I'd built, two men appeared. They were from the Spokane reservation across the river. I wore men's pants I bought at the Coulee store, dressed with fur-lined boots and gloves and a fur hat. I looked like a man, I'm certain, and maybe that was good. The men remained silent to my questions, and finally I stopped asking, said that I needed their help. The elder Warren let a smile creep across his round, weathered face. “We know this,” he said. “We wondered if you did.”

Warily, they agreed to let me watch them set the traps that fall and winter. I assured them I wouldn't restrict their trapping on what was now my land, and I vowed to stay with them on the long treks in the snow, even sleeping out in the curl of the rocks at night if need be. “My grandmother knows the hides,” the younger Warren told me, and I sent a prayer of gratitude to her for the spirit of acceptance she must have instilled in her descendants. The Warrens treated me as a daughter in need of guidance, with a nod to my femininity during my monthly flow. Those weeks through those winter months I remained in the hut and fleshed and prepared pelts so as not to attract coyotes or wolves to the trap line.

The Warrens showed me how to set the traps myself, explained what to look for in a tree crotch that, along with bait, might lure a weasel in. They demonstrated how to field dress and flesh the animals, stretch and cure beaver hides on circular frames. When I set and began
checking my two trap lines, they commiserated with me as I told them a coyote took more than one animal, leaving just bits of fur behind. Like an indulgent grandparent, the elder Warren smiled when I described my delight at sleeping beneath twinkling stars when work along the trap line kept me from my shack. They nodded approval at the harness I made for Lucky, whom I used to pack the hides. They shook their heads at my clumsiness when my knife slipped through a pelt, ruining it. Franklin wouldn't like that either, and it took money from my hands. But I learned about desirable color, coverage, and other grading qualities from these two grisly men. They called me Miss. “Miss. Stick must be
inside
trap, not
outside
, or muskrat will trick you, go home another way.” They snickered at the written logs I kept, writing down what was trapped where, how many skins I collected. I suspect they had years of oral listings they could tell me about, but paper and pencil did not appeal to them.

Still, they gave me wisdom. “Eat dark meat,” the Younger told me. “Very good. Builds muscles for next time you set traps.”

I also endured their grunts about my curling iron when they saw it, and I let them pick up my hair extension and shake their heads in wonder as they tossed it back and forth. These men were skilled, and I needed their wisdom to accomplish my plan. Even more, they were men who appreciated the passion of this intense dance in the wilderness, wits against animals, rivers and land, and the joy in the morning when my efforts proved fruitful and I said out loud my prayer of thanks.

After the first season, back in Coulee City, Olea, Louise, and I attended the Presbyterian church, meeting a few more of our neighbors. The
Lutheran church, with a pastor riding from Wilbur every other Sunday, was organized by the Danes. Olea suggested it was a good time, moving to Coulee City, to try out something new. As one could “never be certain about the Danes,” we became Presbyterians. We took on boarders and attended meetings about the possible reclamation dam, and I waited for Olaf to contact me so we could look for that farm together. I'd been reconsidering grain, thinking a chicken farm instead so I'd have protein when I started my own fur-ranching, but I didn't know if Olaf would approve. I wanted to speak to him in person. Besides, I had plenty to keep me busy, just looking after the big house, continuing to be the bookkeeper for the women, and readying myself for the next season of trapping.

The women became more like sisters to me than partners in real estate or the fur business. I cared about them, but it wasn't in my nature to speak of inner thoughts with others; I'd had enough of rejection from people I loved. I'd put my risk in business, where the consequences of failure, I thought, wouldn't hurt as much.

We women moved into a routine that included a monthly shopping trip to Spokane, a trip we made by train, though I still threatened to buy an auto one day. On the April morning in 1903 that found us there, Olea followed up on her legal affairs while I stopped by the local furrier to see about having our furs cleaned and stored for the summer. Afterward I met Louise at Crescent's department store, where she toyed with bolts of material to find the perfect lavender for her bedroom curtains. I fussed over the
Godey's Lady's Book
the store kept in the ladies' lounge. I shouldn't have looked at that; I compared myself to the women with beautiful hair.

When Louise finally finished, we stepped from Crescent's at the same time as a couple entered, and we bumped into each other.

“I'm so sorry,” I said, grabbing at my hat. I gasped.

It was my stepfather and Ida.

I caught my breath. “Ida. How—”

Ida's eyes grew large. She looked away.

My stepfather walked quickly down the steps, motioning for my sister, who then trailed along behind him. But she turned, hesitated for a moment.
Did she nod?

“Who was that?” Louise said as the two hurried away.

“My stepfather and my sister,” I said.

“They should have stopped and talked,” Louise said.

“Did it look like Ida recognized me? Did you see her nod?”

“If she didn't, it's only because you've changed your hair with those extensions. You look quite sophisticated, Clara. I bet they didn't see it was really you.”

I watched my family cross the street, then turn the corner without a backward glance.

I stood motionless, a fly caught in a spider web.

Then, “Let's get you a new dress, Louise,” I said, taking her elbow and moving back inside Crescent's. “My treat. We'll pick out a purse for Olea too. Maybe shoes. A nice surprise for her when she comes back from the lawyer.”

“But we finished. I thought you were … bored.”

“Bored? No. Not ever. Only uncreative people are bored. Let's see if they have this style I saw in the magazine. It'll look good on you.”

“A store-bought dress? They're so expensive, Clara.”

“You deserve it,” I said.

Inside I caught the attention of the clerk and showed her the dress
I had in mind. They had one in a pink as sweet as sunrise. It needed altering and it was expensive, but that was fine, I could do that for Louise. I picked out a leather purse with brass trim for Olea. A pair of shoes to go with it fit right into the shopping bag. Money could buy things for people, nice things. There was nothing wrong with spending money on friends.

“She'll love that,” Louise said. “Won't you get a new frock for yourself?”

I shook my head. “Let's go back to the fabrics, Louise. Get a few more yards of material you'd really, really like.”

I let Louise's chatter about fabric deaden the memory of the moments before. Except for Ida's faltering recognition, I might have been the striped pole outside the barbershop instead of an Estby relative. I wished I were that pole; I wouldn't have felt the piercing pain.

More determined than ever to move my plan forward, I wrote to Olaf again at the Elstad farm but heard nothing back. By June I let myself worry. Maybe my card to Arthur spurred a problem. Olaf might have said something to the family, and they might have told him not to get involved with me. Maybe Ida and Ole made comment about seeing me wearing the finery bought by “dirty money.”