Excerpt
Hope's Enduring Echo
Chapter One1915 Near Cañon City, Colorado Jennie Ward Arms outstretched like a tightrope walker, Jennie placed one foot in front of the other and kept a slow yet steady pace on top of the wooden pipeline running along the edge of the Arkansas River. The wind, moist from swooshing into the ravine and over the surging water, flattened Daddy’s cast-off cotton shirt against her front and tore at her braid. Little strands of hair worked loose and danced on her cheeks, tickling, but she paid them no heed. She kept moving, moving, her unwavering gaze fixed on the large round pipe beneath her battered boots.
She’d told Mama during her short lunch break that she was so familiar with this route she could probably walk it with her eyes closed and never fall into the water below. Mama advised her not to test her theory. If she closed her eyes, she might miss a leak between the redwood staves. A leak could lead to a break. And a break would be disastrous for Cañon City residents, who relied on the pipeline to deliver water to their homes and businesses. Jennie’d only been teasing Mama, but after five hours of inspecting, she was tempted to give it a try. A few seconds of walking with her eyes closed would relieve the monotony of the task. But then, of course, she’d have to backtrack and walk it again in case she missed something. She better keep her eyes open.
Pausing for a moment, she rotated her shoulders and squintedat the cloud-dotted sky. The sun beat directly down, making exposed rocks on the hillsides glow and the ever-flowing river sparkle like diamonds. For only a short time each day could she enjoy full sunshine. The mountain ranges rising on both sides of the river cast shade the majority of the time. During the late fall and winter months, due to soupy cloud cover, the sun didn’t reach their valley for even a minute. Even though many more miles of pipe awaited examination, she squandered a few seconds, enjoying the sunlight. Daddy’d done the same thing midday. If he’d done it, Jennie could, too.
As always happened when thoughts of Daddy intruded, a tumble of emotions rolled through her chest. How could resentment and worry and sorrow and sympathy all reside in her at once? Mama said seventeen was a tumultuous age, so all those different feelings shouldn’t make her fret. Jennie remembered her mother’s assuring smile when she’d said, “
You’ll get them sorted out in time if you ask the Lord to help you.” Mama brought the Lord into nearly every conversation. Sometimes Jennie found the practice comforting. Other times, annoying. But those opposite reactions were probably also part of her tumultuous age.
With a sigh, she returned her focus to the pipeline. The toe of her boot pointed to a rusting bolt connecting two reinforcing rods. Something about the bolt didn’t look quite right. Was it loosening? The bands of steel held the thin staves tightly together. Daddy’d told her that if a bolt worked loose, the pipe would weaken. Jennie leaned over and poked the bolt with her finger. It wiggled like a baby tooth starting to be pushed out of the way. She was supposed to make note of any changes in the pipeline’s appearance.
She straddled the pipe, hooking her heels the way she’d held her seat during a pony ride at the circus when she was six. She pinched out the little pad of paper and pencil stub she carried in her shirt pocket and opened it to a clean page. Poking her tongue from the corner of her mouth in concentration, she made a sketch of the bars and the slightly askew bolt.
She couldn’t resist smiling as the picture emerged. Mama’s sister, Delia, had told her she should sign up for art class at the high school in Cañon City. But that was back when everybody thought she’d be moving in with Aunt Delia and Uncle Prime and going to high school. Before Daddy fell and broke his leg. Before Jennie took over walking this line. Before she entered the tumultuous age. She was probably too old to start high school now even if Daddy suddenly got out of his chair and said he’d be the linewalker again, so no sense in thinking about it. At least walking this line gave her opportunities to draw.
She sent a lingering look over her shoulder, then gave her forward view the same attention, getting her bearings. With a nod of satisfaction, she pressed the pencil tip to the page and wrote, “Section 6, roughly 1/3 in from the west, June 4, 1915.” She reviewed the note, then snorted in aggravation. Why couldn’t she ever remember the way the waterway men wanted the date recorded? In her mind, it didn’t seem natural writing, “4 June 1915.” Nobody else she knew put the day before the month. Neither Mama nor Daddy could explain it, but that’s the way the waterway men wanted it, so that’s the way Jennie was supposed to write it.
“Well, I can’t fix it now,” she muttered, jamming the pad into her pocket. When she returned to the house this evening, she’d rub out the date with the eraser from the tin case of artist supplies her aunt and uncle had given her for her fourteenth birthday and rewrite it. If she remembered.
She braced her hands on the pipe, preparing to push herself upright, but a pale stick of some sort propped against the rocky ledge at the base of the ravine caught her eye. She squinted at the object, trying to recall where she’d seen it before. Remembrance dawned. It was the bone that Daddy’s old shepherd dog, Rex, had dragged home close to three years back. For a while, Daddy carried it with him. “To warn off critters,” he’d said with a wink, waving the chunky length of bone like a baseball bat. He must have tossed it aside on one of his treks.
She slid from the pipe on the upward slope side of the ravine, climbed the rocky rise to the bone, and picked it up. She ran her finger along its edge. Warm from the sun and smooth, almost like polished wood. Such a funny bone, unlike anything she or her parents had seen before. Daddy had decided it was from a bear’s leg. Jennie wasn’t so sure. But maybe if she showed it to him, it’d remind him of old Rex. Maybe bring a smile. Sadness pricked. She missed Daddy’s smile.
Carrying the bone with her, she returned to the pipeline. She laid it up on top of the pipe and then pulled herself up. So awkward, getting herself onto the pipe—first flopping on her belly, then swinging her legs around and sitting up, and finally standing. It’d been a lot easier when Daddy grabbed her hand and pulled her up behind him. She’d taken a few falls back when she was learning to get herself up there. But after all these many months of walking the route alone, she’d mastered mounting the pipe. Within seconds, she started off again, the bone propped on her shoulder like a fishing pole.
As she moved steadily forward, she reminded herself to change the way she’d written the date on the note she’d made. If Mama sent the weekly report in on the train with the date written wrong, the waterway men might figure out somebody other than Claude Ward was making the reports. Her family couldn’t risk any of those men snooping around and discovering the truth—that the linewalker’s daughter was doing the job instead. For twenty-two months already, her family had kept the secret. They couldn’t let it slip now.
If the men found out Daddy wasn’t walking the line, they’d fire him. If they fired him, she, Mama, and Daddy would have to leave their little house perched on a pie slice–shaped plateau above the pipeline and move to town. Her feet slowed to a stop, her thoughts racing. If they lived in town, it wouldn’t just be once-a-month visits to Aunt Delia and Uncle Prime—she’d be able to see them every day if she chose. No more isolation—she could make friends and be carefree like other girls her age. No more walking the seven miles of pipe from one end to the other every day no matter the weather.
Her heart gave a hopeful flutter.
What was she thinking? Daddy didn’t dare lose this job. Who else would hire a man who sat in his chair all day and stared morosely out the window? Where would she and her parents live if they got kicked out of the house the waterway men provided as part of Daddy’s pay? Aunt Delia and Uncle Prime couldn’t take all of them in, and her folks didn’t have money to rent a house. But maybe Mama could—No, Mama couldn’t get a job and support the family, because then who would take care of Daddy?
They needed the money from the waterway men. She shouldn’t entertain what-ifs about living in town, going to school, having a normal life. Not until Daddy was well again. But would Daddy ever
be well again? Mama prayed for it every day. She told Jennie to pray, too, and Jennie had. For a full year. But not lately. If God hadn’t answered by now, He wasn’t going to. Mama could waste her time imploring Him, but Jennie was done.
