Page 1 of Hope’s Enduring Echo

1915

Near Canon 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 Canon 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 squinted at 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 Canon 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 ? 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.

The pipe began to vibrate beneath her soles. She stopped and shifted, looking toward the curve where the train that ran between Salida and Pueblo would appear. How many people behind the windows would wave at her today? The vibration increased, and the squeaks and rumbling noises of wheels on track reached her ears. First a whisper, then growing increasingly louder, until the train rounded the bend and almost seemed to bear straight at her.

She curled her toes inside her boots and held her position, waiting until the engine passed before waving the bone back and forth like a flag, smiling at every person who lifted a hand in response to her wild greeting. Too quickly, she was watching the tail end of the caboose chug up the rails. Only five cars—the engine, three passenger cars, and a caboose—didn’t take much time to go by. But its appearance always gave her a lift. Her only contact, however insignificant, with people other than Mama and Daddy.

Aiming a narrow-eyed glance upward, she said, “I sure would like to have a friend, God. If You’re gonna keep me here, walking this line for Daddy, could You at least send me a friend?”

She heard the hint of sarcasm in her voice. Mama would be disappointed by it. Jennie’d been taught to be respectful to her parents, to other people, and most especially to the almighty God. But her tumultuous age sometimes got the better of her. If God was as forgiving as Mama said, He’d understand her momentary lapse into bitterness.

She waited until the pipeline stopped its gentle shudders, and then she set her feet in motion again. She’d taken perhaps a dozen shuffling steps when splashing brought her up short. Something was in the water. Animals didn’t usually prowl at midday. Had a two-legged varmint showed up out here?

She gripped the bone in both hands and searched the river, first behind and then in front, her flesh prickling. “Who’s out there?” she barked in her deepest, sharpest tone.

A young fellow wearing a brown felt bowler and a brown pin-striped suit, its pant legs water-soaked, stepped from behind a cluster of boulders. He stuck his hands straight up, the way criminals surrendered to law enforcement. “Just me. I don’t mean you any harm. May I talk to you?”

Leo Day

The girl, leggy as a young colt and scowling as fiercely as a lioness protecting its young, held the bone like a club. Leo didn’t want to give her a reason to swing. If the bone shattered, he’d never know if it was what he suspected—a leg bone from a young allosaurus.

With his hands still in the air, he took a hesitant forward step, his wet trouser legs riding up on his shins. “My name’s Leo. What’s yours?”

Her fine eyebrows tipped together, more in puzzlement now than fear. “What’re you doing out here?” Her brown eyes skimmed his length. “You’re not dressed for a hike, so don’t try to tell me you got lost hiking.”

He hid a smile. She was dressed like a ragamuffin—wearing a man’s baggy shirt tucked into patched britches, the pant legs tucked into boots that had seen better days—but her chocolate-colored eyes glinted with intelligence. As well as distrust. “I was on the train. I saw you waving, so I jumped off.”

Now her eyebrows shot up and her mouth went slack. “Why?”

“So I could talk to you.”

She angled her head, her grip on the bone relaxing a bit. “Why?”

He wriggled his fingers, wincing. “May I put my arms down? I promise I won’t make any sudden moves. But my hands are starting to tingle. Reduced blood supply, you know.”

After a moment’s pause, she gave a brusque nod.

Blowing out a breath of relief, Leo lowered his arms and flicked his wrists several times. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Her tone still held apprehension, but she brought the bone down and rested it against her shoulder. “Why did you want to talk to me?”

Did he detect a hint of longing in her voice? He slid his hands into his jacket pockets, partly to present a nonthreatening pose but mostly to keep from reaching for the precious piece of history she held. “I’m a paleontology student from the university in Denver. When I saw the bone you were waving, I was curious about it. I hoped for a better look. Would you mind letting me examine it?”

Her shoulders slumped. She turned aside, giving him a view of her profile. Was her chin quivering? Such an odd reaction to his query. Unless she had some kind of attachment to the bone and didn’t want to part with it. Maybe he should explain the deeper reason he wanted to see it. She might be sympathetic to his cause. He cleared his throat, readying his request, and she abruptly faced him.

“Here.” She braced one hand on her knee and leaned forward, offering the bone.

The pipeline was roughly three feet in diameter. On the river side of the steep rise, the bottom of the pipe was as high as the top of his head—a good six feet above the ground. He had to stand on tiptoe to grasp the knobby end. Despite his eagerness, he took it gingerly lest he accidentally pull her from the pipe.

While he turned the bone this way and that, she sat and straddled the pipe. He sensed her gaze resting heavily on him. What might she be thinking as she observed his scrutiny of the old bone? Was she secretly laughing at him? He’d suffered ridicule more times than he could count over his interest in things from long ago. Nobody cared about old dried-out bones, his schoolmates taunted. Father didn’t ridicule, but his disapproval was palpable. Leo had grown accustomed to people’s negative reactions, but that didn’t mean he’d welcome more of the same.

He risked a glance at her and found her face reflecting curiosity rather than disdain. His lips formed a small smile of their own volition, and he couldn’t resist sharing, “This is a fine specimen. I’m fairly certain it’s the scapula of an allosaurus. See the bulge here on this end?” He tapped the knob-like protrusion. “This is where the humerus, like our upper arm bone, connected. Of course, the soft tissue is long gone. No surprise, considering how many thousands of years ago this creature walked the earth.” Thousands, not millions, as some of his college professors taught. How he hoped to one day prove his theory.

Shivers traveled up and down his spine. When he’d decided to spend his summer months exploring the areas where renowned paleontologist Charles Walcott uncovered the first known findings of two new species of fish, he hadn’t expected to locate such an amazing piece of history on his very first day in Canon City. Surely, his decision to come here was Spirit-inspired.

Hugging the bone to his chest, he turned to Jennie. “Where did you find this?”

“I didn’t. My daddy’s dog carried it home one day.”

His elation plummeted.

“But my daddy might have some idea where it came from.” A hint of sadness shadowed her eyes, but then she blinked and the expression cleared. “He and Rex—that’s the dog—used to walk all over the hills around here.”

Excitement stirred anew. “Do you suppose he’d show me?”

She looked aside. “No, he wouldn’t show you.” She faced him again, shrugging. “But if he describes the area, I could probably find it.”

Was she offering to help him? He leaned forward slightly. “I would appreciate that very much.”

She stared at him for several seconds, uncertainty warring with some other emotion he couldn’t define in her expression. She brought up her feet and stood in a smooth motion, as graceful as a ballerina. Balanced on top of the pipe, she gazed down at him. “But I can’t take you to talk to my daddy until I finish my route.”

He had no idea what route she meant, but he would wait no matter how long it took. “I’ll go with you.” He swallowed. “That is, if you don’t mind.”

For the first time, a hint of a smile appeared on her heart-shaped face. “I don’t mind.” Then teasing danced in her eyes. “Try to keep up, college boy.”