Homestead in Our Hearts

By Nancy Maddux Thornton

“Momma, I’m so very tired of walkin’. Will we ever find a home?” Six-year-old Carrie Wells looked up into her mother’s face, her blue eyes brimming with tears as she struggled to climb the steep, rocky rut that local people called a road. Amanda’s throat caught as she looked down into her daughter’s gaunt pale face. She answered, “We will have a home agin’, child. We will. Poppa says we’re very close. He thinks we’ll sleep at Uncle Billie and Auntie Caroline’s very, very soon.”

Carrie sighed. “I hope it’s prettier there, than it is here, Momma. I hate the color green. Everythin’ here is green. So many greens. Green moss. Green trees, with prickly green limbs. Green stuff hangin’ everywhere. Rocks even covered with green: slimey, slippery green; I hate it, Momma!

She sighed again, as she continued. “I love the sky, Momma. Clean, blue sky. Blue, flat sky. Yes, very flat. No mountains. No ups. No downs, Yellow, brown...gold...an’ flat. I ‘member our las’ spot we called home. Gold colors. Warm. Prairie grass. Dry oak leaves, rustlin’ on the trees. No sticky-leaf green trees, bristling and poking you, suckin’ away the sunshine a’fore it hits your skin. Momma, that’s home. I miss it.”

Amanda thought about which home Carrie might remember best. Over these past five years, their journey west had become a sojourn. One place, then another and another. Each, a heartbreak, tough times over and over again.
They were desperate to begin a new life after the tragedies and losses experienced during the Civil War.
After a five-year struggle to complete their journey, the Wells family will make a new home in one of the most remote, rugged corners of the United States: Tillamook County.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nancy Maddux Thornton
• Release date: May 26, 2013
• ISBN: 9781938619014

Nancy Maddux Thornton

Now in my early seventies, I'm following in my father's footsteps. Like him, I also have the "writing bug". Recently widowed after nearly forty nine years of marriage, I am the mother of two grown children, and grandmother of three. I'm a retired high school teacher, substitute, and civil servant, a bit on the "nerdy" side. I like computer stuff, as well as genealogy and square dancing. My philosophy is to meet and greet life, not wait for it to happen.

Book preview

Prologue-My Family History…Cremated!

Our Portland neighborhood had built up by the late 1970’s; and with it, plenty of rules, but nobody knew about Daddy’s illegal burn pile at the rear of our property. He rarely used it anymore. It was little more than a scar in the weeds: a pile of charcoal chunks surrounded by ashy cinders…but that was all he needed.

He was a craftsman of wood lore, only one generation removed from pioneers. Daddy figured a man should be able to clear his yard by fire, if that was his choice. More than a matter of convenience, it was a symbol of honor; a cleansing of a man’s soul, as well as his clutter.

It was a winter evening when I found Daddy squatting over the burn pile, working on a handful of soggy twigs and dry newspaper. I watched him in the fading light and wondered about his sudden urgency. One match after another was snuffed out in the dampness. Finally, striking three together, a tiny flame endured. A timid whiff of white smoke drifted into the cool, moist air.

With effort, Daddy stood. He was into his seventies now, suffering the creaky bones of aging. He straightened the battered fedora on his head and pulled at his suspenders, hoisting his pants higher, which, as usual, were too big for his skeletal frame.

Get back, Nancy, he instructed as he limped some distance away and bent over to pick up a tall rectangular metal can. He unscrewed the cap, picked up an empty cup sitting next to it, and filled it with kerosene.

Way back, he urged again as he replaced the cap on the can and set the container down some distance away. He glanced over his shoulder to see that I had safely removed myself.

Then, stepping toward the edge of the cinder circle, he threw the kerosene toward the twinkling glow.

White flares erupted against the deepening shadows and into the soaked branches that lay close by, igniting them. Daddy grinned. He hadn’t lost his touch.

The sudden illumination sharply defined his features. This was the parent I’d loved most: a kindred soul.

His was an elderly face; yet still handsome. I remember thinking that from earliest childhood. Except for occasional stubble, he was clean shaven, no beard. He was tall, slightly stooped from age, bony his entire life, craggy featured, with straight hair, still dark, but streaked with silver. He was a man who cared little about his dress, yet he attracted admiring glances wherever he went, especially when he talked. He spoke with the kind of voice sought on the airwaves: deeply pitched; well spoken; diction amazing for one who’d never advanced beyond eighth grade in little backwoods schools.

He was born September 9, 1902 on a homestead along the Trask River, his parents marrying just several months before he was born; a time when illegitimacy was frowned upon. The marriage was unhappy and ended in divorce. His single mother struggled to provide for them, even after remarrying. Through it all, the Homestead and his people provided stability and happiness to him.

Harvey Maddux was a marvelous storyteller. His stories never delved into our family origins, probably because he didn’t know them himself. He told me once that, as a young child, he’d asked his mother about his real grandfather, the father of his father, and she’d answered vaguely, Oh, he was just some old sea captain.

Not true. I would find out much later, after his death, the full story.

One day I would realize how much Daddy looked like his own father…my grandfather…whom I would never meet, because he was deceased by the time Daddy began corresponding with his long lost half-sisters, several of whom didn’t even know of a brother’s existence.

This particular evening, while we stood together in the dusk, I should’ve asked Daddy what he was intending to do with the fire. Instead, I stood transfixed, immobilized, watching the flames establish themselves into a little campfire. I never anticipated his next move.

Suddenly, flexible as a cat, he bent to the ground and scooped up an object I hadn’t noticed before: a compact little trunk about the size of a modern gym bag. It was hard-sided, rectangular, dung brown, wrapped in cracked leather straps and secured by green, oxidized studs. It was reinforced at the corners by metal filigreed corners.

It was the old stagecoach trunk! My Grandmother’s!

I screamed, Daddy! Don’t!

Too late!. The ancient latch was broken. It flipped open easily. Inside, I saw beribboned bundles of torn envelopes and scrawled, hand-written pages. Old letters!

With a diabolical grin, like a release from agony, Daddy flung everything into the inferno…a clean, basketball swoop…gulped in an instant by the flames.

My family history, an irreplaceable part of me, gone forever!

I’d always wanted to read those letters when they’d come into Daddy’s possession after my Grandmother’s (his mother’s) death. He’d placed it within sight on a shelf in the finishing room of our home shop, Maddux Engraving Company. I’d respected his wish for privacy, both expressed and implied. Now an old man, he’d decided it was time to destroy what he considered the symbol of his mother’s heartbreak. Tonight!

I heard myself whimpering, Daddy, why?

Too much pain, he’d answered in his deep, resonant voice.

I could find no words for what I’d just witnessed.

My gentle, loving, sweet father was doing a son’s duty, destroying an excruciatingly painful part of his dead mother’s life.

I’d never get to read Grandmother’s words, or Grandfather’s, my real Grandfather’s. Their written thoughts, their pen strokes, their hearts and souls, the very pages they had once touched, all had exploded into instant vapors, anonymous smoky steam, fragile flakes which were now spiraling into the darkening sky.

Cremated!

I didn’t know it then, but Daddy was already creating a substitute legacy: put together tiny block letter by tiny block letter, space by space, paragraph by paragraph, page by page, picture by picture, until it became a book. He wore out three fonts of type before he finished.

He called his book, Homestead on the Trask. Wrapped within its glossy, neon yellow cardstock cover, his book glowed like an amber caution light. Written beneath the title, in plain black print, was, By Harvey Maddux, although it should have read, By George Harvey Maddux.

Once Daddy set his mind to do something, nothing could stop him.

Me too. I’m taking Daddy’s book and building my own upon it.

I’ll start way back, in the latter part of the nineteenth century, even before the births of my grandparents, or Daddy’s parents.

I should call my story a historical memoir, fiction, yet fact. I can only imagine the scenes, the conversations, the emotions, but many were based on Daddy’s book, as well as my own experiences, genealogical research and historical insight.

I hope the spirits of my ancestors, as well as Daddy’s, would say, yes, this is how it was. You are flesh of our flesh; soul of our souls, the future that began where we left off. Bless you, Daughter, Granddaughter, Great-Granddaughter.

Our love continues into you, and the succeeding generations that you have created.

Where you go, we will go.

Pass it on.

+++~~~~+++

+++~~~~+++

Chapter 1--Walking the Most Horrible Road in the World

Lord, God, Gus Wells, if you won’t slow down a bit, I swear I’ll piss inta my boots, right here in the middle o’ the road!

Amanda Cook Wells screamed in the direction of her husband, hoping her plea might reach his ears as he led their tiny caravan up this craggy, narrow, God-forsaken path that the locals called a road. She preferred staying at the rear of her family: a self-appointed guardian, ever watchful for the safety of her dear ones, as well as their meager possessions, which had never been much, and were even less now, as they neared the end of their journey. It was all that kept her going.

As she had expected, Gus did not hear her.

The shadows were deepening. She could barely make out her man…stocky, broad shouldered, tattered felt hat askew…a whip in one hand (which he hardly ever used), the other, wrapped around the halter of their smarter ox, Ulysses.

Amanda was too exhausted to reason that Gus was engulfed in an envelope of his own noise: the snuffles of those lumbering beasts; the creaking of the wheels of their canvas-covered wagon; a horse; two cows; a cluster of goats; a cage of chickens; a couple of dogs; an old lady balancing a small toddler on the saddle of Luke, their ancient mule; and behind all that, three staggering, stair-step towheads.

Amanda was a tall woman, angular, with sharp cheekbones and arching brows framing vivid green eyes. Her straight hair was held in a struggling bun that was constantly unwinding. She was not a beautiful woman by the standards of her day. She was much too thin…almost bony, tanned by a hard-working early life that had begun on the prairies of Illinois, although she was never sure that it might not have been Indiana or even Ohio, since state boundaries had been continually adjusting during her childhood, and might still be, for all she knew.

Beauty in an 1880’s woman was petite, round breasted and bottomed, with long hair swept back and braided, then coiled grandly at the crown of the head, no doubt covered by a bonnet, even in this god-forsaken wilderness.

Wearing a long sleeved blouse and tattered ankle-length skirt, Amanda's clothing had long ago lost its color and shape, and could best be described as earthen, torn, and drab. She didn’t care.

Her prominent chin jutted in anger as she caught a last glimpse of her husband continuing to plod uphill and disappearing around a sharp bend. Darkness was gathering, and she was beginning to be afraid. Strange creatures scuttled and rustled and crashed on either side of the road, as well as overhead.

Gus! Amanda screamed again, but she knew for sure, he couldn’t hear her now. Tiny Mattie, swaddled against her breasts, grinned as she opened large blue eyes and fluttered her long lashes, then sleepily closed them again. Amanda heard her grunting, and the fresh odor of baby pooh, adding to prior accumulations over the last several hours, made her wish that she could find relief as easily.

The constant uphill trek of these last days was taking its toll. Everyone was exhausted, but she understood her husband’s continual push. Stopping before you were ready to bed down was a commitment…too hard to get rolling again. Every one of them suffered from blistered feet; screaming thighs; aching stomachs bordering on starvation. There was no time to hunt; little time to start a fire and cook; few supplies left. Water was a prize this high in the mountains, isolated from the creeks and rivers tumbling through the valleys, so far below. Water’s most reliable source since they’d left the valley was the dew collected on the leaves in the morning. Occasionally, a shower might sweep over the summit and dribble into their pots and pans as it passed inland, but one best not count on it this time of year, as summer approached. The tumultous green growth of the Coast Mountains of Oregon was pure irony: a virtual desert that survived only by the climate’s undependable blessings.

As they’d begun their ascent into these mountains many days earlier, the trail had suddenly transformed to a steep, rocky, mossy-mud, deeply rutted path. How could this forsaken excuse for a road be so slick and slimy, yet so littered with fallen branches and snarly, lumpy roots? Gus said it was the easiest route to Tillamook. Otherwise, it was animal or Indian trails, and they wouldn’t allow passage of a wagon. But if this was the best road, she would’ve hated to see a worse one.

Her bladder screamed for relief as she stumbled faster, trying to ignore her urgency. She tried to concentrate on the wind sounds stirring the indifferent, massive boughs of the forest monsters above her. When gusts swept over the ridge from the West, the trees moaned; and branches cracked and rubbed together, occasionally squealing like bellowing calves.

Closing the gap between herself and her children, Amanda screamed again, Carrie! Lillie! They were only six and seven, respectively, but they were old enough to assist, except, looking at the backs of their tender, slumping shoulders and drooping necks, with a quickening heart, she realized that they, too, did not hear. They were suffering, just as she was, probably worse, because they were so young. Her precious girls had never enjoyed a steady home. They were growing up and away and apart. At that moment, she feared she’d lost them forever.

It was tiny, thin-faced Cora, pacing slightly ahead of her older sisters, who turned around. Sweet little Cora: she was Amanda’s slow one, four years old but more like less-than-three, her appearance dull, with slightly crossed eyes and slow speech, yet ever faithful to her mother’s beckoning. Stooped with weariness, Cora stumbled slowly downhill, past her sisters, who paid her no heed, and came to her mother.

Cora, Honey, could ya’ please take Mattie whilst I relieve myself?

Not waiting for an answer, Amanda quickly unwrapped the swaddled baby from her barely covered breasts, leaving a stinking wet splotch against her belly. She thrust the dripping bundle toward the frail girl, who, as she offered her arms, slumped under the baby's weight.

Not wanting to flood her daughter, Amanda took several steps down the slope, whirled around, squatted and lifted her ragged skirts above her knees. The relief! It almost hurt as she emptied. A good time not to be wearing breeches! The force of her stream drilled through the powdery duff as it trickled down the earthen path. She never would’ve guessed she’d consumed so much liquid. Even now, her mouth felt parched.

Dag-nabit! Amanda muttered as she felt the spray of urine on her bare ankles. She should’ve found a better place, if one existed, where wide salal leaves and bristling sword fern would have deflected the splatter. She’d be messier than ever, but there had been no time to find a better spot. Would she ever feel clean again?

It seemed a long time before she felt emptied. Cora patiently held Mattie, although the baby was flexing and wiggling in Cora’s thin arms, waking up. Mattie knew when her Momma wasn’t holding her. Although Mattie whimpered, Cora stood steadfast. Bless you, Cora, Amanda thought.

Still holding up her skirts, she gathered from the edge of the path a wad of lichens that had dropped from the trees, and gently wiped her inner self, then let her skirts drop and walked to a new, uphill spot, a few steps from her absorbed stream, gathered more lichen to wipe her ankles, then went further uphill, stooped and grabbed the matted duff from the forest floor. She scrubbed it between her hands, as if it were soap. She picked flecks of lichen from her broken-top boots.

All the while, fragile Cora bravely studied her mother, clutching the dripping baby to her chest. Amanda sensed the little girl's fear. The shuffling, scuffling sounds were increasing within the density of the brush. Night creatures were beginning to stir. Treetop winds whined louder. Darkness was drawing its ever more dangerous curtain between themselves and their family. Mother and child wordlessly sensed their predicament in this primeval wilderness.

On the prairies of Kansas, Wyoming, and treks between, the howls of wolves or coyotes were expected, but usually not close enough to make a person like herself feel threatened. Here, the horrors were nearby, but hidden, invisible, and constant.

So many awful stories! Amanda would have wet herself before she would have put baby Mattie down on the ground, where ravenous jaws might snatch her away into the brush before she even saw what was happening.

But I must reassure Cora, she thought as she finished adjusting herself. That’s what mothers do. She gave Cora a quick hug and murmured thanks and took Mattie back into her arms, leaving Cora standing stiffly, not moving. Then she realized Cora’s plight.

I’ll bet you need to go, too, sweet puddin’? Amanda asked.

Oh, yes, Momma, Cora said, blinking furiously, as if emerging from a trance. She quickly imitated her mother’s motions, sighing softly as her smaller trickle joined her mother’s.

Thanks, Momma, Cora said as she dried herself. C'n we go now?

Amanda’s heart lurched. She suddenly realized she couldn’t see the trail. Dusk obliterated everything. There was nothing left now but shadows and shapes. There was no earth, no brush, no family, just scuffling, scrunching, snuffling, somewhere, everywhere. Everything had become blackest black, except straight up, where faint patches of sky glowed through swirling fingers of coniferous branches.

They’d have to walk by sensing the trail through the dimness, feeling their way along the walls of solid brush; making their steps firm and purposeful and guiding themselves by faint silhouettes, like they were blind.

She clutched Cora’s small hand and cradled little Mattie in the crook of her opposite elbow and began to stumble uphill, hoping the child would not sense the fear trembling down through her arms, clear to her fingertips.

Momma, I don’t see ‘em, Cora whimpered. Are they waitin’ for us?

Yes, of course, child, Amanda whispered back, then she thought, why am I whispering? Rage surged through her and she began to shout, Gus! Ma! Somebody! Slow down! Wait for us! Come back!

At that moment, very close by, a scream shredded the night: frenzied, more shrill than a woman’s, too loud to be human. Primitive panic surged through Amanda. Without thinking, she screamed again, Help! Help! Cora’s shrill voice joined her. Mattie began to wail.

They began a stumbling run, Amanda pulling Cora against her thigh as they fled. She figured they’d heard a panther (or cougar…yes, that’s what they called them here) a very, very close one, probably a big one, immensely dangerous. Legends were countless…women, children, babies, even men…no one survived an attack. One massive bite on the neck, and the spinal cord would be severed. Next, faces were ripped off bone and muscle. Finally, chests and soft bellies were torn apart, exposing the cougar’s most fabled treat of all, the internal organs: spongy, air-filled lungs, surrounding a heart, still quivering, while stomach and intestines continued to churn and push along their contents, unaware that their owner had expired and no longer required their functions.

Blood! Horror!

The unearthly scream ripped through the night again, then a snuffling, much closer. Thoughts flew through Amanda’s mind: tales of women who were lactating, or experiencing their menses, being favorite prey, stalked for miles by the starving carnivores.

Oh please, God, please, she prayed as she flew through the darkness, uphill. If you can’t save me, at least, save my babies.

Suddenly there was a shot, not far away, then another one, closer. Precious bullets, exploding, flashing from a gun barrel, approaching, shattering the darkness. Gus, frantically yelling, stomping, leaping down the trail toward them, and the girls, Ma, the mule, everyone, coming to save her and her precious ones.

Mandy! Mama! Mommy!

For the first time since they’d left Wyoming and begun this last miserable trek into a wilderness more awful than her wildest imagination, Amanda Cook Wells sank to her knees and wept.

+++~~~~+++

Chapter 2--Stolen Moments

The moon, in its slimmest phase, had long ago vanished. The creatures of the forest sensed dawn rising. Their scurrying activities among the towering conifers and snarled tangles of mid-level trees, salal brush, and fern were cautious and quiet as night ended. Hunger and survival, even mating, must now be suspended. It was time to hide and sleep as dawn broke and revealed them to their daytime enemies. They would be eaten if they didn’t disappear into burrows and hollow logs.

Nothing special woke Amanda from her exhaustion, but she sensed a difference, as mothers do. She lifted her head slightly and peered down the row of sleeping bodies. As always, the youngest baby was tucked beside her, where she had recently nursed, then fallen asleep again. Lifting her head slightly higher, Amanda began counting the small lumps that were her dear children. There was Grammie, kind of in the middle, cuddled against Cora, and the older children on the other side. But…where was Gus? He was a big man and should have been plainly visible at the far end of the family bed. The improvised canvas lean-to, tied to the side of the wagon, was dark inside, but shapes were discernable, and Gus definitely was not there, anchoring the other end.

Since they’d departed from their Wyoming home, and even before, since Kansas, they’d always slept like this, in a shared bed. It helped ease the pain of leaving everything familiar behind, especially family, some recently mourned and newly planted in their graves. Such closeness offered continuity and comfort to everyone, including herself.

Unfortunately, it made conjugal closeness between husband and wife a rare occurrence, but they both agreed it was best not to take a chance on making another baby until they settled again. This agreement helped them avoid intimacy, although Amanda yearned for him, and he, her.

Suddenly, Amanda felt a hot breath at her exposed ear. She forced herself to move slowly and not panic, although the previous night’s encounter with the cougar still terrified her. As she turned, her mouth was engulfed with a starved, quivering, silent kiss, while her breast was squeezed till she felt a little squirt of milk spray into her gown. Gus!

She rolled apart from the baby, and flung aside her end of the covers. In her nightclothes, which were just stripped down versions of her outer garments, she rose to meet Gus, who was fully dressed. He whispered in her ear, Toss on yer’ dress and shoes, my darlin’, and let’s take a little walk, just you an’ me.

They left together, more silently than the rising morning creatures. They walked, hand in hand, a distance from the family, where Gus led her beneath a dense, low canopy of fir branches, a quilt spread out in the darkness, making the most private of beds.

Amanda giggled at Gus’ thoughtfulness and planning, knowing he’d been plotting this tryst since last night, when she’d experienced her last thread of patience and endurance, snapping at the girls over something trivial. Now she couldn’t even remember what it had been.

Holding hands, they sank down upon the cushion, a mattress created by centuries of forest duff, and they pulled apart their clothing to the extent necessary, and made love as if newlywed. Amanda forgot to be afraid…although, she, least of all, wanted to make another baby.

They knew time was precious. Though they wanted to linger, they could not. They kissed and embraced one final moment, then rose and cleaned and adjusted themselves and lifted the quilt and shook the forest duff off it, as best they could, then folded it, meeting his corners to her corners, snatching kisses as they could.

When they arrived back at the lean-to, they grinned at each other when they heard gentle snoring, even from Grammie, and knew they’d have a few more alone minutes together.

Gus tossed the quilt on the farthest wagon wheel and whispered, I want you to see, and he led her again by the hand, where she was surprised to observe a clearing in the midst of this cursed forest.

That’s West, he said, whispering. It’s still a great distance, but you can see we’ve reached the top, the summit. Way off…c’n you see that silver thread? That’s the Trask, or maybe the Wilson. Our rivers. From here on, it’s pretty much downhill. No more big climbs."

Amanda almost shrieked in relief. Oh, Gus, she whispered. Oh, Gus.

But Gus was a wise man. Now, dearest, he said, I don’t wanna’ worry you, but downhill’s not gonna’ be easy. In some ways, it’ll be harder. More dangerous. I hear the trail’s even worse goin’ down the West side. More curves and twists. Cliffs. Hogbacks, sticking up higher than the rest of the places, steep on either side…like rocky bridges across the sky. I’ll have to hitch a big log to the back o’ the wagon, an’ let ‘er drag like a brake to keep the wagon from runnin’ away from us. If it does, it’ll kill the oxen an’ anythin’ else in its way, maybe even me. The team’ll have to work hard to steer an’ control when they can. You’ll have to keep the others back, darlin’. If I gotta’ do somethin’ fast, I don’t want any of you in the way.

This information left Amanda speechless. Worse than before?

Suddenly they heard crackling in the distance. Fire! Gus had pulled the embers apart last night, and it had looked like the fire was dead as they’d passed it earlier. Panicked, they hurried back. Even in this coastal dampness, fire could be a destructive enemy, not a friend.

The height of the flames leaped into the dawning light. As they neared, they saw, with relief, that Grammie had brought the fire back to life. She was carrying baby Mattie. Behind her, Carrie was working something…perhaps breakfast fixin’s…from a packsack.

Grammie looked up at them as they approached. She smiled, which was rare, ever since Poppy, Thomas M. Cook, had practically been kidnapped to serve in the Union Army, and had emerged from his horrible year of service in the War of the Rebellion, a weak and sickly man. With every move, from their beloved farm in Vermilion County, Illinois, to Missouri, then Kansas, their beloved Poppy had grown worse, finally to die near Fort Scott, Kansas.

Grammie had taken her husband’s death with bitterness, but she’d grown more cheerful as they’d neared the homestead of her brother, William J. Thornton. He was somewhere ahead, on what he claimed was the best little farm on the Trask River. Uncle Billie had written often over the years, encouraging them with wondrous stories about his homestead, located somewhere in the west, and now they were getting very close. When they reached the juncture of the Trask River branches, where the river became one and headed some twelve miles to the west to join the massive Tillamook Bay, and from there, to the Pacific Ocean, they would have arrived.

Gratefully, Amanda helped Carrie finish fixing breakfast, while Gus left to tend the animals. As she walked past Grammie, Amanda whispered, thanks, and touched her mother’s shoulder affectionately. Grammie smiled knowingly, and nodded.

Light reached across the clearing as the sun rose in the east. Bird chatter escalated. Amanda watched her other children as they began to wake up and wander about, disheveled, still half asleep, asking about the location of Daddy’s poopy hole. She set about her new day, too busy to worry about Gus’ admonition. Long ago, she’d accepted the fact that life must be faced, day by day. There was no use lingering over the worst possibilities, no matter how bad they might become.

+++~~~~+++

Chapter 3--Rumble Down the Demon Trail

There were no words for the agony in Amanda’s calves, or her hips, her shoulders, arms, ankles, feet, even her toes. For two days, maybe more, she couldn’t remember, the family had progressed down the western side of the Oregon coastal mountains. The road curved and zigzagged back and forth as it switched around the highest ridges and skirted enormous, tree-lined, bottomless chasms.

As Gus had predicted, downhill was worse than uphill. The misery had only begun, when, just days before, they had reached the top.

By themselves, the oxen could not slow the heavy push of the awkward covered wagon. It had been necessary to attach a slowdown, as Gus had called it…a large, heavy log that was tied to the back axle of the wagon, where it would drag and act as a burden, but not a total brake. It was tricky and dangerous.

When the road straightened enough for her to see Gus below, leading their tiny caravan, Amanda couldn’t bear to watch. It was bad enough, just knowing where he was, and what he was having to do.

At least twice…she couldn’t remember…the log had broken apart and needed to be replaced.

To find another log, it had been necessary for Gus to thrust his body into the density of the trees and thickets of salal, sword fern, and salmon berries until he found the trunk of a suitable windfall. He’d whack at it with his double bit ax to get the proper length, then call for help.

Amanda and Lillie and Carrie, the oldest children, would wade in after him to help break off the smaller branches of the log till it suited Gus.

Grammie would defiantly stand in the middle of the road, guarding baby Mattie, wrapped in blankets and placed next to her feet; and comforting little sisters Dora and Cora, who clung to her skirts. Dora was too young to be of help; Cora too frail. Grammie held Gus’ extra rifle, cocked, and ready to fire, just in case a bear or cougar should wander into the clearing.

"They ain’t a’gonna git any human dinner from this family, Grammie declared with beligerance. She’d shot a few varmints, as she called them, in her lifetime, and she wouldn’t hesitate to blast another one to kingdom come, by cracky".

Amanda wasn’t sure how much longer she could walk today. The last log had been bigger than the others, because lately, their descent had become ever steeper. Extracting the last log had been the worst struggle of all.

To make Amanda’s fatigue even worse, Mattie had been fussy. Instead of being satisfied strapped against Amanda’s body with a shawl, where she could nuzzle close to a breast, she demanded to be carried face front, as if she wanted to observe for herself the progress of her family.

All of them had trouble avoiding unpredictable slick spots hidden in the grooved mud and rocks. Carrie’s feet had slipped out from under her twice today. She probably wore the most worn pair of shoes. She begged to walk barefoot, but Gus insisted that her feet were too tender.

Amanda hated the constant drizzle that seeped from the grey sky on this side of the mountains. Their overnight cups and bowls were filled with water when they got up in the morning.

Gus had explained that they were now walking toward the Pacific Ocean, the mother of the country’s weather. She had no way to verify the truth of his statement, but it made sense to her. Plants flourished ever more virulently here; battling one against the other, as if struggling for space and sunlight; like people drowning in a sucking sea.

Remnants of nowdrifts were common in the deepest shadows; dirty billows of rotting ice, punctuated by ragged swordfern fronds and, in more open areas, dead stalks of foxglove.

Lillie and Carrie were excited to see snow so late in the year. After all, it was early June, practically summer. They yearned to plunge through the brush and scoop it into their mouths, no matter how dirty.

Go ask Paw, Amanda had advised.

Gus said a simple No, when they’d skipped ahead and asked. Later, when they came to one of the zigzag turns, where the road switched back so sharply that both legs of the road could be seen from above, Gus shouted uphill and said, I know it looks mighty temptin’, those big ol’ piles of snow, my Dear Ones. If you’ll promise not to stuff yourselves an’ git sick, you can have a little bit. I jus’ don’t want somebody getting’ sick from eatin’ too much! Right, Ma?

Yes, Dear, Amanda had agreed, and a little later, she’d been pleased to spot a clean snow deposit, right next to the road. If was wonderful to hear the children giggle and laugh for those precious minutes, while they stuffed icy handfuls of snow into their mouths.

The pleasure was fleeting. Amanda reflected how this time of year, back in Kansas, or even Wyoming, it had seemed summer had already begun, with the weather becoming increasingly hot and dry, often punctuated by scorching winds and smoky horizons: the threat of wildfires and disaster always lurking.

Were they really headed to the Eden on Earth that Uncle Billie had promised? She couldn’t allow herself to believe it might be true. If anything, the anticipation made her feel worse. She was certain she would be disappointed.

Amanda’s speculation and misery were interrupted by little Carrie. She made her presence known by tugging lightly at Amanda’s worn skirt. Amanda hadn’t known she was so close. She jumped slightly, waking Mattie, who whimpered, pooped, and went back to sleep.

H’llo, Momma, Carrie said, in her quiet, musical voice.

Oh, child, you startled me, Amanda replied. She freed a hand from Mattie’s blankets and stroked her second-oldest daughter’s straight, straw-colored hair, now stringy with dirt and grime. Her stained face was streaked with watery finger tracks, evidence of her recent romp in the little snow bank.

They picked their way through a patch of particularly slippery mud: the mother and daughter, following the wagon tracks. When they came across safely, Amanda asked, How ya doin’, honey?

I donno, Momma, Carrie answered, sighing. I’m so very tired. I’m afeered’ we’ll never have a home ag’n. She looked up into her mother’s face with brimming blue eyes. Her sweetly rounded child’s face had becoming gaunt and thin lately.

Amanda’s throat caught as she answered, We will have a home agin’, child. We will. Poppa says we’re very close. He thinks we’ll sleep at Uncle Billie and Auntie Caroline’s very, very soon.

Carrie sighed. "I hope it’s prettier there, than it is here, Momma. I think I hate the color green. Everythin’ here is green. So many greens. Green moss. Green trees, with prickly green limbs. Green stuff hangin’ everywhere. Rocks even covered with green: slimey, slippery green; I hate it, Momma!

She sighed again, as she continued. I love the sky, Momma. Clean, blue sky. Blue, flat sky. Yes, very flat. No mountains. No ups. No downs. Yellow, brown…gold…an’ flat. I ‘member our las’ spot we called home. Gold colors. Warm. Prairie grass. Dry oak leaves, rustlin’ on the trees. No sticky-leaf green trees, bristling and poking you, suckin’ away the sunshine a’fore it hits your skin. Momma, that’s home. I miss it.

Amanda thought about which home Carrie might remember best. Over these past five years, their journey west had become a sojourn. One place, then another and another. Each, a heartbreak. Tough times. Few jobs, and when they found them, full of danger and illness. Rattling coughs. Aching bones and muscles. Death.

The family was about to arrive at their next destination: one of the most isolated corners of the continent. Since their marriage in 1874, Amanda Wells and her children had walked nearly 2,000 miles, following the dreams of husband, Gus, and mother, Martha Thornton Cook, Grammie.

A new life: always following a dream; a promise; commitment. Whither thou goest, I will go.

Settling in Wyoming on their journey from Kansas, they’d hoped to accumulate a little money, maybe even settle there in Hillyard, but it had been a tragic three years. They’d lost four Cook family members, and Gus had been disabled for months with something the doctor vaguely called, mountain sickness.

Gus had described his body as weakness and hurting from inside out. His joints had swelled, and he’d wheezed and coughed constantly. Amanda was sure it was connected with the coal mines he and the others had labored in, night and day.

Even in his weakness and misery, Gus had dragged himself to whatever job he could find. He desperately wanted to accumulate a nest egg, and the need for cheap manual labor was unending at the moment. Laying the railroad to connect Hillyard to other parts of the country had been equally demanding and disabling for Gus. Man-killers, Gus had called them. Loading coal cars, worse.

From the beginning, Amanda had hated the place, but she’d tried to keep her thoughts to herself. No use making Gus feel worse. To her, the rock-studded, dusty country never had a pretty spring or summer or fall. There seemed to be no gentle transition between parching hot and dry to frigid, cold and dry. Water was precious, and those with money bought up water rights and denied others who needed it just as badly, but weren’t as lucky or as rich.

Carrie might remember Hillyard fondly, but she and Gus did not.

They’d whispered between themselves late at night, there in Hillyard, after the family had gone to bed. Heartbreak had followed them from Kansas, like a grim shadow. Still haunted by ghosts of the big war, that raw memory, as fresh as yesterday, the war they now called the War of Rebellion. It had touched everyone with its devilish illnesses and dreadful mutilations. Many soldiers who had survived, like Amanda’s father, had come home near death: shriveled by disease and disabilities; walking skeletons.

War had killed her father, but not right away. Thomas Cook, a vigorous thirty-nine year old farmer, was a man who had passionately loved the land, loved his family, and vowed his life to his belief in passivity. Amanda remembered her father’s frequent pledge, We deny all outward wars and strife and fightings. This is our testimony and belief. We are Quakers, and this is our foundation, and how we love and serve God.

Poppa had been a fairly short, slender, fair skinned man who tanned readily in the sun under which he tilled his fields and tended his livestock. He was unusually strong for his stature, and so vigorous that he could work circles around men half his age and twice his size.

His gray eyes had burned when he denounced the mantra of slavery, but he often told his family, as the war had spread into southern Illinois in the early 1860’s, I won’t willingly go to war. They’ll have to come and get me, vile as the cause of the South might be. No one should own another man or woman or child. But I never want to take up arms, even for such a cause.

Amanda was only fifteen when they recruited her father, though captured was a better word. There had been no choice. The Union Army would not be denied, even in their tight Vermilion County community of Quaker families and friends. Any able-bodied man was seized like a convict, even one as old as her father. With heartbreak, the family had bid farewell to Thomas as he was mustered in at nearby Danville, along with other Illinois cousins and kin: one of whom would be captured within the year, soon to die at Andersonville; others who would return with festering wounds of hearts and minds and bodies.

Poppa’s departure had been on a gloomy, frigidly cold day in early February, 1865. Amanda vividly remembered the deep snow that had clotted the country roads.

Everyone had been crying, most of all, Amanda’s mother, Martha. The family called her Grammie now, but she had been pretty and spritely and very pregnant then, forty one years of age, lively and fertile. She would give birth to little Zimre within a month of his father’s departure, but the baby would die eight months later, before his father returned from war. Thomas never got to see his next-to-last baby. The Army wouldn’t release him, even though he had taken sick just weeks after being mustered.

Thomas had spent most of the remainder of his service in a hospital in Alabama. It was eleven long months later before he was mustered out in Atlanta, Georgia, a shell of the man he once had been.

The pain of seeing her father’s return was ragingly fresh in Amanda’s memory. His body had been bent and frail. He shuffled now when he walked, and he coughed all the time, particularly if he tried to work around the farm. The fact that he and Mother were able to make another baby, did not speak to his recovery or vitality. Little Albert was born in May of 1867, just two years after his dead older baby brother, Zimre. He would die that August: two dead babies in two years.

That dad’-blamed conflict, Martha Thornton Cook had ranted, over and over, denying herself the blasphemies that she really felt. Her heart brimmed with bitterness. It’s like any other war, she complained. It wrings out the best of a man and spits a useless little wad back out to his family and it ain’t given’ a hoot, what it does for anybody ‘ceptin’ the generals and captains and the rich folk.

Amanda had tried to help all she could around the house and farm, but it was hardly enough. She was, after all, just a young girl who was maturing into her marriageable years. When she met a young man, Nathaniel Augustine Wells, she knew she’d found her destiny. She would have to leave her birth family soon.

She and Gus married June 25, 1874 in Bourbon County, Kansas, where Gus and his father, Augustine, and his uncle, Frank Wells, were able to earn fairly good money in the mines. When Amanda became pregnant with little Laura Lorna, she travelled back home to Illinois for the birth, but no matter what she and Grammie did, the feeble baby died two weeks later. Amanda knew it was likely due to her own exhaustion of travelling back and forth, from Kansas to Illinois, trying to help her parents. When a mother’s own energy was sapped to such an extent, just as Grammie’s had been, a woman could not hope to birth a healthy baby. Her last stay with her parents in Illinois had been a long one, as she’d prepared them for their permanent move to Kansas.

Before they left Illinois forever, Lillie Augusta arrived in 1876, less than a year after the death of little Laura.

When Amanda returned to Kansas with baby Lillie, her mother and father moved with her, hoping that being close to Fort Scott and army doctors might help her father recover. But nothing helped Thomas M. Cook.

When her father died in 1875, it was no comfort to think he’d lived more than a decade after returning from the war. He was dead at the age of fifty.

As a widow, Grammie fought to get her pension…just a few dollars a month, but it helped the struggling family survive. Grammie grieved for her husband, but at the same time, she welcomed his release from pain, and with it, her ability to start a new life. With the arrival of Carrie Elsie in 1877, just a year after Lillie, Grammie had little time or desire to extend her mourning period. However, she would never stop denouncing war.

Thankfully, Grammie was not one to dwell on the past. With two new grand babies and a virile, fertile daughter and son-in-law, she caught the fever of moving west.

My dear, long-lost brother, Billie Thornton, lives in Oregon, with his new wife, Caroline. Why are we all stayin’ here in Kansas? Billie says how beautiful it is out in Oregon. How everything grows, and the cows thrive and give milk; how easily the stock reproduce as they graze on sweet pastures. He says tall trees and the nearby breath of the great Pacific Ocean protects from the searing heat and bitter blizzards we suffer here.

Grammie was not discouraged when her hints did not move the family immediately, but she was persistent, talking to her Cook relatives as well. Later, she turned to friends and neighbors.

The future’s in Oregon. We should move to Oregon and start a new life. We owe it to our beautiful children, our future generations.

Grammie Cook continued to appeal to Gus: the promise of a fresh beginning; good farm land; plentiful, nurturing water from rivers that never dried up, and never spawned deadly Malaria. Best of all, there was the newly enacted Homestead Law.

After Cora was born in 1875, Grammie said, I’ll bet you’ll have sons if we move West. An’ more daughters, too. They say everythin’s fertile there. Our lives’ll never get better here, in Fort Scott. Kansas ain’t good for us. How can we deny ourselves a chance at the Promised Land?

Gus appeared not to listen, but he did. Amanda, too. A fresh start would be wonderful, surely better than staying here at Fort Scott, they whispered to themselves. No one could deny how wonderful it would be to leave their frustrations and sorrow on the east side of the Rocky Mountains, if they headed west.

Finally, Grammie convinced her son-in-law. Gus could no longer resist, although he reflected on the reality that they didn’t have enough money to cover the entire trip. When they heard of mining jobs around Hillyard, Wyoming, Gus knew it might be the best location to stop for awhile, reassess their future, and hopefully, replenish their income.

They never could have imagined that it would take nearly five long years to get to Oregon.

They decided it would be best for Grammie to meet them later, in Oregon, with some of the other Cook family, while Gus and Amanda’s family could start now.

Carrie was too young to remember that first leg of their journey, except to vaguely recall when she and younger sister, Cora, had drifted away from their little wagon train while picking flowers, and getting lost.

There was no end of dangers for small children who strayed: Indians; wolves; coyotes; not to mention starvation; sunstroke; hypothermia; injury. Carrie was just a toddler, and Cora barely walking.

With the discovery of the missing babies, the travelers had immediately gathered into a temporary camp while Gus had taken someone’s big old mule, Horace, and he and two other men of their party had fanned out, tracing back over the trail.

Horace was bony, slow, but tall, and it was this height that helped Gus finally spot the pair of sleeping flaxen heads. Cora was wrapped in Carrie’s arms, where they both had fallen fast asleep.

Sometime back, when they’d realized they were lost, they had shouted and cried to no avail. It was Carrie's idea to follow the tracks made by the wagon train, which they did: two tiny girls, stumbling over the rough trail till they got so tired they had to stop and rest. That's how Gus found them, hugging each other, each clutching handfuls of dead prairie flowers.

Family memories, good and bad, tumbled through Amanda’s mind now, sustaining her through her pain. She and Carrie continued walking in silence, watching Gus and the wagon round a particularly sharp curve, and a distance behind him, Lillie, holding Cora’s hand, and Grammie slumped over the family horse. Grammie looked like she was asleep, but she’d looked that way over much of their ride from LaGrande, Oregon, located inside the eastern boundary of Oregon. The family had sustained themselves over the winter by picking up potatoes.

Come spring, Grammie was at it again. We’re so close, so very, very close to brother Billie’s ranch. It’s just a few hundred miles further west. See? Look at this map. Here’s us. Here’s the Trask River. I f we don’t like it there, we could always come back here to LaGrande.

Grammie ignored Gus’ statement that he’d put down money for a property here in Union County.

It’s my last chance, Grammie would finally whimper, often with a little catch in her throat. I want to see Billie again, before I die. I want to meet Caroline, my new sister-in-law. You surely don’t want to disappoint an old woman?

That’s why they began the final leg of their journey westward.

As they’d entered the easternmost gates of the supposedly new Trask Toll Road, Amanda had felt a wrenching foreboding.

She whispered to Gus, I think this is going to be harder than we thought. I don’t have a good feeling. In fact, I’m scared to death!

Even as she said it, she knew it was too late.

The tiny path didn’t seem deserving of the name, road. It was a trail that wound ever upward, and even in daylight, diminished into a curtain of devilish darkness.

So they had survived this long, Amanda thought as she caught herself stumbling over a half-buried rock in the road. Was the road getting steeper? She looked ahead at Grammie, sitting on an old worn out saddle that was strapped across Budget’s boney spine, with little Dora wrapped in blankets and tied in front of her on the saddle horn. Amanda wasn’t quite sure how Gus accomplished that unlikely arrangement, but they’d made it so far.

Luckily, Budget was dependable and steady, although quite beyond the usually accepted age of usefulness for a horse. Amanda remembered gentle Budget from her own childhood. She had no idea about the age of the mare, but she hoped, ruefully, that poor Budget would make it to their promised land.

Suddenly, from far ahead, Amanda heard shouting and screaming. Her heart lurched. Carrie screeched, what’s happening, as she tried to tear her hand away from her mother’s. Thus, she woke up baby Mattie, who joined her, wailing.

Amanda shouted, Gus! Lillie! Cora! Grammie! Where are you? What’s wrong?

Together, Amanda, holding a writhing Mattie, grabbing Carrie by