Page 21 of Hope’s Enduring Echo
Etta
Before going to bed, Etta sat at the table and wrote a thank-you note to Leo for gifting Claude with cake and strawberries. She also thanked him for passing along Mr. DeWeece’s comments about Jennie’s ability as an artist. Her chest swelled with pride in her daughter. Her determination to send Jennie to school for her final year, where she would receive specific instruction to help her develop the talent God gave her, increased.
Tuesday morning, she gave Jennie the note she’d written and asked her to put it where Leo would find it when he came out to hunt for bones. Rags leaned against Etta’s legs and whimpered while she stood on the stoop and watched Jennie bound down the rise. With her braid swaying against her daddy’s chambray shirt, how carefree she looked. But Etta knew better. The child was burdened. Jennie would stay burdened until her beloved daddy was well again.
She ruffled Rags’s white ear. “You stay quiet now. I’ve got some praying to do before my day gets going.”
When Claude limped from the bedroom and settled at the table for his breakfast, Etta slid Leo’s note in front of him. “Take a look at that while I dish up your eggs and biscuits.”
“What is it?”
“Just look at it.”
Claude picked it up. “Where’d this come from?”
“It was in the box with the cake.”
“So that all came from Leo Day and not Prime and Delia?”
“Seems so.” Etta kept her nonchalant tone. “Go ahead and read it, Claude.”
He grunted but bent over the page.
She went to the stove and spooned scrambled eggs from the skillet onto a plate, peeking at Claude out of the corner of her eye. His scowl shifted to arched brows and then smoothed back to his stoic expression. He set the paper down, but his gaze remained riveted on it while she stacked two buttered biscuits on the eggs and carried the plate to the table.
She set the food and a fork in front of him, smiling. “What do you say about that? Mr. DeWeece—an important businessman—thinks our daughter is a talented artist.”
Claude fiddled with his fork but didn’t pick it up. “Reckon an educated fellow like him knows what he’s talkin’ about.”
Etta sat in her chair. “I agree.” She clasped her hands together in her lap, silently praying for Claude to respond favorably to the speech she’d planned out in her head. “Honey, we’ve got to do what we can to encourage Jennie’s talent. She’s got a knack, one God planted in her, but she needs training for it to grow and develop.”
Claude fisted his fork. “So teach her. You been teachin’ her everything else.”
Etta sighed. “I would if I could. But I’m not an artist. I wouldn’t have any idea how to help her. She needs to attend classes for art. Remember when Delia gave Jennie the drawing supplies? She told us the high school in Canon City has art classes. We need to send her there.” She could have added, “The way we promised two years ago,” but she held the comment inside. The reminder could be seen as combative and turn the attention to him and his injury. She wanted to keep Claude focused on Jennie’s needs.
“How’s she gonna go to school in town an’ still see to the linewalkin’?”
Etta winged another prayer heavenward. “Well, now, she can’t do both. For her to be able to go to school, you’ll have to take over walking the line again.”
He turned his face toward the window, giving her a view of his stubborn profile.
She reached across the table and curled her hand over his wrist. “On Saturday, you walked down the rise to the train tracks and back up again. The sloping, uneven ground and all the rocks along the way make it a hard walk, but you did it. Didn’t that show you that you’re able to walk a piece?” She squeezed his wrist, and he gave her a side-eyed glare. She said what needed saying in spite of the warning glimmering in his brown irises. “You’re stronger and more able than you think. You could walk the line like you used to. I believe it.”
He jerked his arm free. “I was plumb wore out by the time I got back to the cabin. That walk to the train tracks an’ back ain’t even a full mile. And you think I’m gonna be able to climb up on the pipe and walk it back and forth just like that?” He snapped his fingers, fury pulsating from his tense frame. “It’s fourteen miles, Etta. It’s too much for my leg.”
“It’s too much for your leg right now because you haven’t been using it.” Silent prayers rolled in the back of her heart, keeping her voice gentle. “If you’d get out and walk some each day, you’d rebuild your strength. Before you know it, that fourteen miles will seem like a stroll to the outhouse. You can do it, Claude. I know you can.”
He pushed the plate aside, thumped his elbows onto the table, and jammed his fingers into his graying temples. “I can’t.”
“You can.”
“I can’t!”
The desperation underscoring the declaration pierced Etta through the center of her chest. She rounded the table, sat in Jennie’s chair, and put her hand on his trembling shoulder. “Why not? Tell me why not, Claude.”
“I…I…” Rags propped his front feet on Claude’s leg and looked at him with moist eyes. Claude sat up and gently shifted the dog to the floor, then folded his arms on the table and buried his face. “I don’t know.”
Tears stung Etta’s eyes at his ragged admission. Claude had always been a proud man. A hardworking man. A man who found his satisfaction in providing for his wife and daughter. This shattered shell no longer housed the husband and daddy she and Jennie loved. If Leo was right and an unknown illness had stolen Claude, it would take more than walking the line again to bring him back. Maybe he would never come back.
She slammed the door on the frightening thought. She patted Claude’s shoulder. “Sit up, now, and eat your breakfast before it’s stone-cold. We don’t have to talk anymore.” Right now.
He slowly straightened, but he didn’t reach for the fork. His hand dropped beside him and landed on Rags’s head. He rubbed his fingers back and forth for a few seconds, then pushed to his feet. “Give the plate to that dog. I’m not hungry.” He shuffled to his chair in front of the window, sat, and stared out.
Etta did as he asked, her heart aching. She watched Rags gobble up the eggs and biscuits. By the time the dog had finished, she’d made a decision. She intended to talk to Dr. Whiteside on July 3 if the doctor confirmed Leo’s suspicion that Claude wouldn’t—couldn’t—ever walk the line again, then she would do it herself. With God’s strength bolstering her, she would do it herself, because Jennie would go to Canon City and finish her schooling with other young folks her age. The girl deserved a different life than this one of isolation, and she would get it.
She will, Lord. I vow, she will.
Leo
As June marched steadily on, Leo caught the afternoon train every weekday and searched the hills surrounding the Wards’ cabin for the illusive skeleton that belonged to the bone on the desk in his room at the hotel. The days seemed longer and less enjoyable without someone along for company, but he went anyway. Mr. DeWeece had given him a bundle of little flags to leave if he found anything of note. He was able to place one near a rock formation embedded with the fossilized remains of some sort of fish, but his desire to circle the area containing a dinosaur skeleton remained unfulfilled.
The last Saturday in June, he and Mr. DeWeece searched together. The more Leo got to know the man, the more he appreciated him. They shared a common goal to preserve remnants of the past for future generations. From the businessman he received the encouragement to pursue his studies that he longed to have from his father. Leo listened with rapt attention to stories about previous finds, including a prehistoric bird with wings that spanned five times wider than an eagle’s. He dreamed about the day he would get to see such things for himself.
DeWeece indicated he would need to bring in a team of excavation experts when they finally located the skeleton, and he promised that Leo could be part of the team if he was still in the area. Leo knew it was customary that the financial supporter would receive the recognition for its find, but DeWeece assured Leo his name would be included on official documentation.
“Even if it’s found after you return to college, you recognized the significance of the bone and instigated the search, so you will be recorded as a member of the discovery team,” he told Leo when they stopped for their lunch break.
Leo briefly pondered if Jennie Ward should be acknowledged. But Jennie hadn’t actually found the bone—the Wards’ dog Rex had. And they couldn’t credit a dog, could they? He asked Mr. DeWeece, and the man laughed so heartily Leo wished he’d kept the question to himself. But he understood the man’s amusement. Crediting a dog would be a strange addition to scientific documents.
He received two letters from home during the last weeks of June. The first, from his mother, included a promise to pray for the Ward family. The second, penned by Father, also stated assurance that the family was in his prayers, but it ended with his usual request to give some serious thought to making a change in his studies. “What eternal good,” Father wrote, “are you accomplishing?” The query stung and begged for rebuttal, but Leo hadn’t yet written a reply. He truly believed he could do eternal good by disproving scientific theories that discredited creationism. But he’d said it before and Father had discounted him. Maybe it was best to ignore the question and do as Mr. DeWeece said—continue learning about paleontology.
At the end of another fruitless Saturday search, Mr. DeWeece plopped his large pack on the seat across from Leo’s, then sat sideways with his feet in the aisle and braced his hands on his knees. Despite his firm position, his body jostled with the train’s motions. “I have duties at the town’s Independence Day celebration next Saturday, so I won’t go out on an excursion. What are your plans for the day?”
Leo preferred not to waste a day that could be spent hunting. He was on borrowed time in Canon City. But he didn’t want to miss the town picnic and fireworks. And if he stayed in town, he might run into the Ward family. He and Mrs. Ward had exchanged a couple of notes, and he appreciated receiving news about the family. But letters weren’t the same as face-to-face conversation. Even if he wasn’t able to talk to Jennie alone, it would do his heart good to see her, smile at her, let her know he still cared.
He gave a sheepish shrug. “I want to see the fireworks, and I doubt I’d be able to see the display from way out there.”
The man laughed. “Very true. Well, then…” He faced forward. “I’ll put July 10 on my calendar as our next search date. Unless”—he lobbed a grin at Leo—“you find the skeleton on your own and we make it an excavation date instead.”
Leo’s pulse skipped a beat. “Wouldn’t that be something?”
DeWeece nodded, then rested his head on the tufted seatback and closed his eyes. He remained quiet for the rest of the ride to town, leaving Leo to daydream on his own.
Leo attended the United Presbyterian Church on Sunday morning. Afterward, he joined Mr. and Mrs. Flankston for dinner and conversation in the hotel dining room. He liked Jennie’s aunt and uncle very much and appreciated their friendship, especially since he couldn’t spend time with Jennie. That afternoon, he stayed in his room and wrote postcards to his sisters and another missive to Mrs. Ward. As he put his signature on Mrs. Ward’s note, he hoped he hadn’t overstepped any boundaries of protocol. But his worry about Mr. Ward’s behavior continued to weigh on him, and he wanted the family to heal. He reread the paragraph troubling him.
I am praying Dr. Whiteside will have suggestions for helping Mr. Ward break free from his chains of despondence and be restored to his former self. If I can help in any way, perhaps with chores or delivering goods to the footbridge, please don’t hesitate to ask. I won’t return to Denver until late August. Until then, I am at your disposal.
Maybe it was presumptuous to make himself available when he knew Mr. Ward didn’t want him around. Should he rewrite his note and leave the section out? But the helplessness he experienced when he thought about Jennie walking the line for her father, about Mrs. Ward caring for a grown man who did nothing to contribute to the family, and even about Mr. Ward’s seeming inability to help himself swept over him again. He wanted to do something to ease their burdens. So he left the note as it was and sealed it in an envelope.
On Monday, he hopped off the train near the footbridge. He placed the letter under the rock and then set off, hope propelling him forward that today might be the day he came upon the dinosaur skeleton.