Everything She Didn't Say by Jane Kirkpatrick

Author:Jane Kirkpatrick [Kirkpatrick, Jane]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780800727017
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2018-06-27T16:00:00+00:00

22

A Dog beneath the Maple Tree

Robert has promised me a different way of life now. We’re to put down roots, build a home, have neighbors to serve, friends for supper. A garden I’ll tend and maybe, a dog! We head today to this place of promise. My delight knows no heights!

July 15, 1883

A desert is the only way to describe the townsite that Pard staked out. I could hardly hold back the tears while my promoting husband waxed eloquently on.

I struggled with being trustworthy as we lured people to landscapes such as Pard wrote of, not speaking of the reality of the alkali flat I stared at that day, but instead, of all he envisioned. He didn’t lie about it exactly. But it wasn’t the whole truth either. As with Emily Dickinson, he was telling it “slant.”

Caldwell was the company’s choice for the railroad terminal to be built in Idaho Territory, much to the chagrin of Boise City, thirty miles away. Already thriving, those Boise founders knew they’d grow bigger if the railroad came their way. They were not silent about their dislike for my dear husband. But Robert in his wisdom thought starting a town from scratch on a flat would be a cheaper build for Union Pacific and get the tracks that much closer, linking to those that would take passengers one day all the way through to Portland and Puget Sound.

I nodded, mute as he described his dream.

“We’ll site a mercantile over there. I’ve got a load of lumber ordered. We’ll post it there.” He pointed to stakes ankle deep in white dust. “See, I’ve laid the streets out. You can help name them, Dell.”

“Quite a lot of them.”

“It’ll be a big town. The center of this growing region, and it’ll serve people outlying maybe two hundred miles. There’s nothing else to reach them. Look over here.” He pointed to a place beyond the horses we’d tied to the back of the wagon, where they munched on their oats. “We’ll have a livery there. That’ll be a park.” He gestured toward a sagebrush. “We’ll have barbershops and a doodad store or two for the ladies. Real estate offices, tinsmiths, the necessary saloons. Here, walk with me.”

It was like pushing through snow as the dirt rolled like powder and whitened our shoes, stockings, my skirt bottom, Robert’s pants and boots. The dust rose to stink up our faces and sting the backs of our hands. It was hot, so I’d taken off my gloves but put them back on after that “stroll” through the “downtown.” Sagebrush and greasewood grew over our heads—and were the only welcome shade—but Pard assured me that wherever sagebrush grew, it meant that with water, the soil could nurture any crop.

“Where is the water?”

“Snake River is full of water. So is the Boise River, which is closer, and there are creeks. We just have to get it across the flat to here. That’ll come in time. First, we get lumber and we build.”

“School? Churches?”

“Of course.

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