Free Hers the Kingdom by Shirley Streshinsky Page A

forget, but to hold on to that bit of knowledge.
     Soon we will cross the great Rocky Mountains, then the Sierra Nevada. Do you know that sometimes little bands of prairie dogs sit up and bark at the train? They do! They truly do. This is the West I have dreamed of for so long. Why do I feel so insulated, so out of time in this railroad car? It is as if I am in another place, another time, as if a crucial step has been missed.
     Sara has invited us to visit her in her father's home in San Francisco, I think out of gratitude for our coming to her aid during the storm. I was prepared to make our apologies, knowing how important it is to Owen to be on our

way to Los Angeles. But when he heard of the invitation he was ecstatic. "We would be delighted, absolutely delighted," he told Sara, and she said, "Good." Just when I think I am beginning to understand Owen, he surprises me.
     But I am delighted, too. Sara is the dearest of girls, and I am happy to spend more time with her. Too, I want to see San Francisco, the mecca of the West, before we go to what is charmingly called "the cow counties" down south. Most of all, I am happy to stop in San Francisco to put an end to our courtship, to have this marriage consummated. I touch Owen and feel a sharp electric shock, a warmth in the lower center of me. I wish the Rockies and the Sierras were behind me, I wish we were even now arriving at the City by the Golden Gate.
     My love, dear one,
     Willa
    Reno, Nevada
     My dear Lena,
     Forgive the brief nature of this note. I have not been feeling well. I did want you to know that you might write me in care of Sara Hunt, Number 14 California Street, San Francisco. She has promised to see that your letters reach me, and I know that she will.
     Out of the window this morning I watched an eagle circle and soar. I must see that this is posted in Reno, a city which is said to be "neither hawk nor vulture."
     My love,
     Willa
     "I have not been well," she wrote, and it was true. It would be a year before I learned, from Sara, what had happened as the train rolled across Wyoming and into Utah and Nevada.
     At first, Sara would say, Willa had simply fallen silent. The two spots of color that were always high on her cheeks disappeared, making her look strangely wan. She ceased to eat, though Owen tried to coax her and the Chinese girl rummaged through the assortment of tins of delicacies that were kept on the Emory car.
     Sara was alarmed; Owen was panicked. He hovered over Willa, fretting and worrying. When Sara suggested she stay in one of the polished Satinwood folding berths in the private car, Owen readily agreed. As the fever mounted, they took turns bathing Willa with cool towels.
     Willa said nothing at all, but only lay there. Her skin was hot to the touch. At times she lost consciousness altogether, or she would see things that they did not see. At Salt Lake City Owen made a frantic effort to get a doctor. None would come, and he only got back on himself by grabbing hold of the last car at the last moment, his heart pounding and his breath coming in hard gasps, so that Sara was frightened for him, too.
     They took turns sitting with her; "She will be all right," Owen said—sometimes as a question, sometimes as a statement.
     And then Willa had looked at them, and smiled weakly, and they knew it was going to be all right. Owen had kissed his wife's hand and held it to his cheek. Then he gently put it back under the coverlet, and turned to Sara and hugged her to him, while Willa smiled from her bed at them. For the first time in her life, Sara Hunt felt connected to another . . . to two others. It was to be important to all of them.

CHAPTER THREE

    LETTERS FROM CALIFORNIA, with and without the tiny o in the corner, arrived with astonishing regularity. I say "astonishing" because Willa was not organized and she did not believe in routine. It was,