Page 10 of Hope’s Enduring Echo
Jennie
For the remainder of the week, Jennie and Leo followed the same routine established on Monday. When the afternoon train made its slow curve, Jennie paused and waited for Leo to join her on the route. When she was done with the daily inspection, they searched for signs of prehistoric life until the shadows grew heavy and Leo needed to meet the evening train at the footbridge.
How she savored those late-afternoon hours spent with Leo, roaming the hills and talking. At first she thought he would want quiet and focus in case he’d miss something, the way she did when walking the pipeline. But he claimed he could search and talk. So they talked. Endlessly. About their families, their closeness to their mothers and the emotional distance they felt from their fathers. School, his chosen classes at college and the classes she hoped to take in Canon City. Everyday things, their likes and dislikes, living in the city versus living far outside of town, childhood memories, and much more. She hadn’t realized she had so many words in her, and Leo seemed interested in everything she said.
She reminded herself often and firmly not to grow accustomed to his company. Once he found the bones he was seeking, their time together would end. But it didn’t matter how often she inwardly cautioned herself—she continued to open up to him. To not only converse but also laugh with him. And just once, late in the week when talking about Daddy, got teary-eyed with him. She’d never forget the tender look in his dark-blue eyes or the gentle squeeze he gave her shoulder. Hardly a touch at all it happened so quickly, but the deep feeling behind it left her almost giddy with gratitude. He cared. He really cared.
His kindness on that breezy Thursday afternoon made her all the more determined to find bones for him. To gift him the way he had gifted her. At the same time, she understood that finding bones could potentially expose the secret her family kept. Knowing what a discovery would cost her created a tumult of emotional angst, but she held to her determination to repay him the only way she could—by locating the remainder of the skeleton from which Daddy’s old shepherd dog had taken a bone.
Early in their hunting, Leo had indicated they’d be more likely to find bones in rocky outcroppings, so Jennie gravitated toward the places where layers of sediment were exposed. Friday afternoon, about an hour into their explorations, they encountered an area perhaps twelve feet wide. It was four feet high at its center but tapered down to mere inches at both ends. She nearly dismissed it, reasoning that such a small expanse of rock wouldn’t be able to hold the remains of a dinosaur. But Leo approached it with eagerness, so she trailed after him, enjoying watching him go into what she had secretly dubbed his detective mode.
He bent forward until his face was only inches from the exposed rock, then worked his way across, his finger tracing a line from left to right as if he were reading text from a giant book. Then he reversed the search, tracing right to left with his finger a bit lower than the first sweep. He moved slowly, meticulously, sometimes pausing and squinting one eye shut and staring hard at a spot. She stood to the side, biting down lightly on the end of her tongue to prevent herself from talking and interrupting his concentration.
He was making his fourth slow sweep when he jolted and sucked in a breath. With his gaze locked on the rock, he pawed one of the belt pouches open and withdrew his knife.
Jennie darted forward, her hands clasped beneath her chin. “Did you find it?”
He laughed, unlocking the blade. “That depends on what you mean by ‘it.’?”
“The skeleton!” The statement squeaked out. Her heart pounded as exuberantly as if a drummer had taken up residence in her chest. Both hope and a sense of doom warred within her. He was poking at the rock with the knife blade, seemingly unaware that she awaited a reply. She rocked in place, eagerness to know what he’d found making her want to climb out of her skin. She couldn’t stay quiet. “Leo, did you find the skeleton?”
“Ta-da!” He pinched out a chunk of rock and held it aloft, beaming. “Look!”
She looked, but she couldn’t see anything of worth. “What is it?”
He laughed again, a joyful laugh that chased the element of doom from Jennie’s chest. He cradled the bit of sediment in his palm. “Look there in the middle. Do you see something smooth and almost glassy half-buried in the rough stone?”
His description helped her locate a small triangle a bit darker and much smoother than the surrounding rock. She nodded.
He curled his fingers around the chunk of rock, his smile bright. “It’s a tooth, Jennie.”
Her jaw dropped. “A dinosaur tooth?”
“A shark tooth.”
She drew back, suspicious. Was he making a joke? “How do you know?” She scanned the rock wall, seeking further evidence. “Where’s the rest of it?”
He chuckled. “Sharks don’t have bones. They’re all cartilage, and cartilage breaks down. You’ll never find a shark skeleton.” He pulled a handkerchief from his trouser pocket and folded it around the broken piece of stone that contained—supposedly—a shark tooth. “But they have lots of teeth. Literally rows of them, and they lose teeth quite frequently.”
She’d read in a science book about sharks’ teeth regenerating, so she didn’t doubt the truth of what he’d just said. Even so…“How’d a tooth get way up here? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Sure it does.” He shrugged out of his knapsack and tucked the bundle into a little buttoned pouch on the outside of the pack. “Shark teeth and fish skeletons have been found far inland from oceans—in the middle of prairies and high up on mountain peaks.” He settled the knapsack in place and gazed at her with his brow furrowed. “Jennie, think about it. When God sent the great flood, the creatures of the seas didn’t stay where they’d been before. They were able to swim all around the world. Of course, when the waters receded, not all those fish made it back to the ocean. Their fossilized remains show where they died. Or where they lost a tooth.” He grinned. “I know it sounds a little fishy, if you’ll pardon the pun, to imagine a shark swimming along these hillsides, but the tooth proves it. This was once all underwater.”
She tried to think of something intelligent to say in response, but all that came out when she opened her mouth was, “Wow…”
He nodded. “Exactly.” Then he frowned. “I wish there was a way to take a photograph of where we found the tooth. I’d like to commemorate our first discovery.”
He’d said we and our, including her in the finding. A happy shiver wiggled down her spine. She snatched out her little notepad and pencil. “I don’t have a camera, but I can make a drawing.” She plopped down on the ground, balanced the pad on her knee, and made a sketch. The paper wasn’t large enough to include the whole mountain—or Leo standing there smiling with the sediment-crusted tooth in his hand—but on the back of the page, she recorded their approximate location based on distance from her family’s cabin and the river. She hoped it would do. When she finished, she gave it to him.
He stood looking at her sketch for a long time with as much concentration as he’d given the bank of exposed rock. Then his gaze lifted from the paper and settled on her. “This is really good, Jennie.”
His praise made her feel light as air. She rose, slipping the paper and pencil back into her shirt pocket, then rocked gently on her heels. “It’s not much. It would be better if I had my big sketch pad and the fancy drawing pencils Aunt Delia gave me.”
He shook his head. “Don’t belittle yourself.” His serious expression held her captive. “That you made such a detailed drawing on a small piece of paper with only the nub of a pencil proves you are very talented.”
His words delighted her but also embarrassed her. Uncertain how to respond, she dipped her head.
He lifted her face with his finger under her chin. An easy smile formed on his face, framed by the hat’s silly brim and the strings beneath his chin. “Don’t hide from a compliment. Just say ‘thank you’ and move on.”
She swallowed the bashful chortle threatening to erupt and said, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He lowered his hand, then winked. “You need to start thinking of yourself as an artist, Jennie Ward.”
Maybe. Later. For now, she was just the linewalker’s daughter. But Leo’s statement gave her hope that she might be something more someday. She took a step in the direction of the cabin. “I think we better move on.”
His laughter rolled as he followed her. They wove their way down the rocky, sloping expanse of ground. When they encountered an exposed wall of stone, they paused and Leo gave each inch a thorough perusal, but he didn’t find anything else of note. If he was disappointed, he gave no indication. They continued their winding trek, and when they neared the cabin, he pointed ahead.
“I think I see your daddy sitting at the window.”
Jennie slowed her pace, a hint of sadness intruding on the pleasure of finding a fossilized tooth. “Yes, probably.” An ache settled in the center of her chest. Mama kept telling her not to give up hope, but when would they see a change in Daddy? Five whole days had slipped by since Mama promised she would get Daddy strong again, and the only thing he had done besides sit was stack empty crates on the wagon. He’d never get stronger if he didn’t do something more. “Sometimes I think that chair has a magnetic pull on him.”
“I don’t think it’s the chair that has the pull,” Leo said in a musing tone. “I think it’s the view beyond the window.”
Jennie stopped and turned a puzzled frown on him. “What do you mean?”
Leo folded his arms over his chest. “Look at the view, Jennie. What do you see?”
She sent her gaze from the patch of grassy ground where the cabin and the outhouse stood, down the rock-strewn rise to the pipeline, across the wide ribbon of rippling water to the sharp climb leading to the man-carved flat path for the railway lines, and finally up the sheer rock wall behind the steel lines. She’d seen it all so many times it held no real significance anymore. She shrugged. “I see where we live.”
He nodded as if she’d said something wise and important. “You see where you live. All the places you’ve been on a daily basis. Where you’ve walked, climbed, and explored. Yes?”
She nodded.
“Well, so does he.”
Jennie scanned the view again, wondering if she’d missed something. It looked the same. “I don’t know what you mean.”
The kindness she’d seen before warmed his eyes. “When he looks out the window, he sees where he used to be. Remembers what he used to do. I think a longing to return to those days draws him to the window, where he can pretend he’s out walking, climbing, working, being.”
Unexpectedly, anger flared in her middle. “Then why doesn’t he get up and do ? If he really wanted to, he could. The doctor said he could. He just won’t.” She turned sharply away from Leo’s probing gaze and stared across the river at the rock wall. If she hollered at Daddy to get up, her voice would hit that wall, bounce back, and reach his ears. Maybe if she yelled it again and again, it would penetrate deep enough to bring him out of his chair.
She pulled in a full breath, ready to try.
“He won’t,” Leo said so quietly that Jennie barely heard him over the rushing river and whistling wind, “because he hasn’t found a strong enough reason yet.” He put his hand on her shoulder. “But he will, Jennie. Keep praying. Keep prodding. Hold on to hope.”
Her eyes stung. She sniffled hard and stepped free of his light hold. “I think hope is Mama’s domain. I’m pretty well empty.”
Leo nodded, that same gentleness glimmering in his eyes. “Then stand in her echo until you catch some of it.” He rolled his eyes upward, as if seeking something in the sky. When he met her gaze again, the corners of his lips turned up in a sweet, encouraging smile. “Remember what it says in Isaiah 40:31—those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength. Patiently waiting on the Lord is the essence of hope, Jennie. So wait. But don’t give up, okay?”
Her cheeks twitched with an effort not to smirk. “You sounded like a preacher just then.”
Pain creased his brow, but only for a moment. He released a soft chuckle. “Don’t say that around my father. It’ll give him ideas.”
Guilt struck hard. Leo had shared on one of their excursions that he felt like a failure because he had no desire to follow in his father’s and grandfathers’ footsteps. Her comment must have stung. She inwardly kicked herself for being so thoughtless, especially in light of his kindness. He’d told her she should express gratitude when paid a compliment. Well, she should express remorse after delivering a blow.
She grazed his arm with her fingertips. “I’m sorry, Leo.”
He shrugged. “It’s all right. You meant no harm. And, Jennie?” He leaned forward slightly, intensity lighting his eyes. “Your father doesn’t mean you harm by staying in that chair. I don’t believe he’s deliberately seeking to hurt your mother and you. He’s fighting a battle inside himself. Fighting is exhausting. Remind yourself of that when you’re tempted to lose patience with him.”
Leo’s statement pushed aside a bit of her resentment and brought sympathy forward. She glanced toward the cabin, biting on her lip. “Should Mama and I stop pushing him to get up? Should we let him sit until he’s ready?” They’d waited so long already. Would another year pass before Daddy finally got out of his chair? How long did the Lord expect her to wait?
He grimaced. “I wish I knew how to answer. My semester of psychology gave me just enough knowledge to be dangerous. In fact…” He sighed. “You know your daddy better than I do. Maybe you should ignore what I said.”
But much of what he’d said made sense. She’d thought herself that Daddy was fighting an inner battle. Her mind skipped backward in time to when she was little and followed him everywhere he went, asking questions and sticking her nose in the way of whatever he was doing. He’d always responded patiently. The fall had changed him in many ways. Maybe it had even knocked all the patience out of him. But maybe his impatience wasn’t so much with her as it was with himself.
“No, I won’t ignore what you said.” She shook her head, making her braid bounce. “You’ve given me a lot to think about.”
He raised one eyebrow. “And pray about?”
She couldn’t resist teasing, “You’re preaching again.”
This time a hearty laugh rolled. “I suppose I am. You can’t grow up in a preacher’s house and not pick up a few preacher habits.”
They set off for the cabin, Leo’s comment echoing in her mind. All her childhood, Mama and Daddy had modeled faith, hard work, and respectfulness. Would she let Daddy’s current behavior strip those lessons from her? Leo had said to hold on to hope, but it seemed she had some other things she should strive to keep hold of as well.