The Daughter's Walk - Jane Kirkpatrick [86]
“You haven’t even gotten to the expense of wheat seed and paying a manager to farm it.”
“I’m going to contact my brother Olaf. He’s a good farmer, and I hope he’ll be open to working for us, farming the wheat on shares.” He may not want land of his own, but he might be willing to work for me.
They sat silently while my own heart pounded. Summarizing it as I had did make it sound a lot more involved than what I had imagined. Maybe at first it would be, until I had things pieced together. Buying a house. Acquiring property to trap. Then the wheat land. Right now my vision wasn’t something we could all see and understand.
But I could imagine it, I could. And for the first time, I felt excitement about moving forward in my exile.
We sat silent for a time, late-night-reveler sounds rising up from the streets to interrupt the teapot scream.
“I see what you’re after,” Franklin said. “But get someone locally to trap for you.”
“I want to learn that part myself. If you won’t teach me—”
“It doesn’t make sense for me to do it,” he said. “Find the men who have been trapping that land. Engage them.”
Olea nodded in agreement.
I deferred to their wisdom. I’d find local help. Between Franklin’s and the women’s advice, I’d learn about pelts and their quality. We’d move, make a change. It would be one we chose, not one thrust upon us.
“Change is kind of like a prayer, isn’t it?” Louise mused as she refilled our cups with hot water. “We present it and have faith it’ll be received as intended, perhaps even better, trusting that one day it’ll be answered in a way we hope is fruitful.”
“Yes,” I said. “Change is a bit like that.” Risk too.
Once I learned the trade, had my own property, my own way of doing things, no one would be in a position to take advantage of me. I’d be financially secure. I’d have an independent business that could sustain me well into the future. If it served as a way to reconnect to my brother, then that was a bonus. Yes, moving intertwined Olea and Louise with me in new ways, but they were people I imagined would remain in my life. I wanted them to stay. Wasn’t that the purpose in taking risks? Wasn’t that why my mother had wagered everything to walk across the country, doing what she thought best for family and financial security too?
But I was making better choices than she had. I’d thought my plan through. I didn’t hear any voice telling me not to pursue it.
THIRTY-FOUR
The Artistry of Risk
FALL 1902
After we returned to Washington, I purchased land from the government, short of three hundred twenty acres, a half section. An additional sixteen acres became available from the Department of the Interior, and not long after that another quarter section, all in the same region in the wide bend of the Spokane River west of Spokane. The sixteen acres had a little more open farmland that didn’t need to be cleared at all and could support orchards. It was close to the LaPray Toll Bridge, so I had road access and could easily arrange for a wagon to pick me up and help get my pelts to storage. A couple named Welch had opened a small store/hotel and post office near the bridge, so I could keep Louise and Olea aware of my comings and goings. My property west of Spokane was so intertwined with timber and streams that when I bent beneath the branches and untangled my bifurcated skirts from the blackberry bushes, it was as though the land reached out with fingers, clutching me to it, and I knew this would be prime country for weasel and martin, otter and skunk, bobcat, beaver, and wolf.
That fall, after much ado, we found what we agreed was a suitable house in Coulee City. It had big bedrooms for the three of us and three more on the third floor to rent out to boarders, who could enter through an outside stairwell. Meeting each of our needs in selecting a home proved daunting, and I wondered how Olea had ever gotten Louise to move all the way from New York those years before.
Louise’s concern had to do with the privy. She counted the steps between