Free The Daughter's Walk by Jane Kirkpatrick Page B

back up, and a rock gouged out from beneath my foot, leaving me perilous. I was no mountain goat like one we’d spied a few days before.
    â€œHold tight, Clara!” Mama yelled. “Don’t let go!”
    It was my anger at her for taking this trail that pushed me upward and over the ledge we never should have gone down in the first place.
    â€œStay with the tracks,” I said, panting, my hands on my knees as I leaned over. “Do it systematically. One foot after the other. Stop these ‘adventures,’ Mama. Stop them. We lose time.” A good businessman would never think like she did. No wonder my parents couldn’t pay the mortgage.
    The thought was sacrilege, blaming them when it was the poor economy, Papa’s accident, so many other things that made our situation precarious. But I wouldn’t have been scared to death if Mama hadn’t taken me on this trek.
    â€œThe rest of the country is flat. We can make forty miles a day, easy. Besides, I’ll have things to write about,” Mama said. “And you’ll have interesting illustrations to make instead of simply railroad tracks to draw.”
    â€œI’ll make an illustration of me tying my mother to my grip so she doesn’t take a spur track into a dreaded canyon again,” I said.
    Mama laughed, but I hadn’t meant it to be funny.
    In the Red Desert, food was scarce but mountain lions weren’t. One night we sat up with guns in hand on the far side of large fire we built to keep the big cats at bay. I could feel eyes watching, and this time Mama didn’t dismiss my worries. “I feel him too,” she said. “They don’t attack from behind, so we’ll keep our fire bright and make sure we’re ahead of him when we walk out tomorrow.”
    We walked through coal-mining country and, in small towns, felt if not saw the tensions between Chinese workers and local miners. Federal troops walked about, armed. “We may be safer out on the desert than in these towns,” I said.
    â€œRemember that wheelbarrow,” Mama cautioned, but she picked up the pace.
    One day we found a jar of water like a lily pad blooming in the desert beside the railroad tracks. We stood and looked at each other.
    â€œDo you think it’s safe to drink?” I asked.
    â€œIt looks perfectly good.” But we didn’t pick that jar up. Several miles down the tracks we encountered another jar of water with dried cherries in a paper cone beside it. “They’re looking out for us, those railroad men. They know we’re walking their rails.” Mama lifted the jar and drank, then ate a cherry. She offered me a few and I took them.
    â€œMaybe it’s not the railroad men, Mama. Maybe it’s these Wyoming people, the ranchers and such who have read the articles. Maybe they’re looking after us.”
    â€œI believe you could be right, Clara. After all, those men gave women of Wyoming the vote. They know a thing or two about how to treat a gentlewoman.”
    â€œDon’t turn everything into politics,” I said. I took a swig of the water now too.
    â€œBut this is about politics,” she said. “We’ve come through four sparsely populated states and been unharmed, treated with respect. We’ve had no threats.” I raised my eyebrow. “Well, that one, but he was hungry. In many ways, we’ve been taken care of. We’ve only slept out seven nights since we left the lava craters. We’ve been given shelter, which speaks to the character of this country’s people.”
    â€œNow you’re talking Bryan again.” I wagged my finger at my mother.
    â€œEveryone’s talking politics, my daughter. The campaign begins soon.”
    â€œWhy is it so important to you—getting the vote, knowing about the elections and all of that?”
    â€œYou have to pay attention, Clara. Otherwise laws get passed that come to haunt you. Maybe