Page 28 of Hope’s Enduring Echo

Jennie

Jennie paused on the stoop and scanned the areas to the left and right of the cabin. She didn’t see Daddy or Rags. Given her father’s limp, he couldn’t have gone too far in the short amount of time since he went outside. Maybe he was in the outhouse. She started to go look, but from the corner of her eye, she caught a movement down the rise in front of the cabin. She turned fully in that direction. Daddy was plopping down on the boulder that perched at the edge of the rocky eight-foot-high drop-off to the river.

As vividly as if it had happened only yesterday, a memory played through her mind. They’d been living at the cabin for a week or so when Daddy caught her standing on that same boulder with her back arched, arms outstretched, and chin held high, the way she’d seen an acrobat pose on the edge of a platform high above the circus floor. Daddy had jogged up and asked in the drollest tone she’d ever heard, “You ain’t plannin’ to jump, are you, Jennie Hennie?”

When she’d seen him coming, she thought for sure he would scold her for doing something dangerous. His question had knocked the fear right out of her. She told him that no, she wasn’t. Then he asked what she thought she was doing. She answered with an eleven-year-old’s logic—“I wanted to find out what it felt like to fly.” He scratched his chin and said, “I’ve always wondered that myself.” Then he’d climbed up and posed with her.

Her chest went tight, and her nose burned with the effort to hold back tears. She’d had the best daddy in the world. And now Daddy was broken. Not in bones, but in spirit. Broken bones could heal. Even if they healed crooked, they healed. Well, if broken bones could be splinted, maybe there was a way to splint a broken spirit. Maybe the doctor in Pueblo would be able to pull Daddy out from under the blanket of sadness that covered him. Daddy had to let the doctor try. They couldn’t keep going the way they were.

She walked down the rise and stopped next to the boulder. Rags whined a greeting, and Daddy angled his head in her direction. She arched one eyebrow and asked, “You ain’t plannin’ to jump, are you?”

His lips quavered, and something—remembrance?—sparked in his eyes. Then as quickly as it lit, the spark dimmed. “Don’t let your mama hear you say ain’t. ”

“I won’t.” She climbed up and sat next to him. She hung her legs over the boulder’s rounded edge the way he did and watched the water for a few minutes, absorbing the morning. The harmony of the wind’s whistle, the water’s burble, and birds’ various chirps and cheeps came together in a tune so unique she’d never be able to replicate it in a million years. But she inwardly titled it. “Peace Song.” This hillside she’d called home for six years was isolated and often lonely, but it was also peaceful.

But not inside her cabin these days. And not inside Daddy, either.

She put her hand on his knee. “Daddy, I haven’t said this in a while, but I want you to know…I love you.”

He glanced at her. “I know, Jennie.”

She waited for him to say he loved her . It stung when he didn’t. But maybe all the sadness had eaten up his deepest feelings, too. She tightened her grip on his knee. “And I miss you.” She swallowed. “I really miss you.”

He huffed a soft snort. “I’m right here.”

She shook her head. “No, Daddy, you’re not.” She didn’t mean to speak so sharply. She cleared her throat and tried again. “I miss the daddy I had before we moved to the cabin. Before you hurt your leg. You…you aren’t the same.”

He shot her a dark scowl. “Well, of course I ain’t. I can never be. Not with this bum leg holdin’ me down.”

Her week of advising and guiding Mama had built her confidence. She looked directly into her father’s eyes and said kindly yet firmly, “It’s not your leg that’s holding you down, Daddy. It’s something else. Something inside of you. And until it gets driven out, you’ll never be better. If you’re never better, then neither Mama nor I can feel right either. That’s how important you are. That’s why it’s so important for you to get better.”

Daddy stared at her unblinking, his lips forming a grim line. Suddenly he raised his head and peered at her through squinted eyelids. “Do you think I’m crazy?”

Jennie didn’t hesitate. “Of course I don’t.” She patted his knee a couple of times, then laid her hand on the dew-cool boulder. “I think you’re sad, Daddy. Not crazy. Sad. ”

“Then why do you and your mama wanna send me to that insane asylum?” He sounded belligerent now. But she sensed that inward pain drove his hostility. Leo had told her to be patient. She would do so.

“Because that’s the place people go when they have a sickness that isn’t in their body.” Bits and pieces of things Leo had said found their way from her lips. “We need a doctor to make us well when our bodies are sick, don’t we? Well, we need a different kind of doctor to make us well when our minds are sick. Folks who are stuck forever in sadness have a sickness in their minds. The sickness is what makes them feel sad all the time. They need a doctor to help them.”

“Doctors.” Daddy snarled the word. “They can’t fix everything.” He slapped at his damaged leg. “This here proves it. It’s healed up, but it ain’t the same as it was before I fell.”

“But it’s better than it was at first.” Jennie’s voice sounded shrill. She drew a breath, calming herself. “Remember how it was? You couldn’t walk on it at all. Now you get yourself to the outhouse and all the way down to the footbridge. You even climbed onto this boulder so you can watch the river. It’s better than it was at first, right?”

Daddy shifted his focus to the river again. On his other side, Rags nosed his hand, and he flopped his arm across the dog and pulled him half onto his lap. Rags rested his chin on Daddy’s knee and watched the river with him.

For several minutes, Jennie sat and listened to the hillside’s peaceful song, patiently waiting for Daddy to say something else. She waited until her supply of patience reached its end. She gave his elbow a light nudge. “Daddy, do you like being sad all the time?”

Very slowly, as slowly as if his neck had stiffened up, he wagged his head back and forth. He mouthed, “No.”

Despite the sorrowful admission, Jennie’s heart fluttered with hope. “Then do you want to get better?”

His head dropped back and stared at the sky. His Adam’s apple bobbed, then bobbed again. Still looking upward, he rasped out, “Yes.” He angled an anguished look at her. “But I’m scared. What if even after I see that doctor at the asylum my mind ends up bein’ like my leg…crooked an’ weak?”

“Your leg is crooked, but it still works. It’s better than being broken.” She put her hand on his shoulder. “Even if your mind stays a little crooked, crooked is better than broken, Daddy. And your mind might not be like your leg at all. It might get all the way fixed. But we won’t know unless we try.” Please, Daddy, say you’ll try. The words escaped her thoughts in a ragged whisper. “Please say you’ll try.”

At first she feared nature’s boisterous chorus had smothered her voice, because he sat still and unresponsive. But after several seconds, he gave a slight nod. “All right, Jennie. I’ll try.”

She forced down the elated cry straining for release. She didn’t want to scare Rags into leaping off Daddy’s lap into the water. She squeezed Daddy’s shoulder. “Let’s go tell Mama you want to see the doctor in Pueblo. It’ll make her so happy.” She blinked back tears. “As happy as it’s made me.”

She swung her legs around and stood up, holding out her hand. Daddy put Rags on the ground, then shifted to the edge of the boulder and stood, too. He looked at her hand, his chin quivering.

“No, Jennie. Ain’t gonna catch hold. I need to walk the yard on my own. The way I used to walk the line. Back when I was a whole man. I can’t never be a whole man again unless I can walk it…on my own.”

Something about his statement didn’t set right in the back of Jennie’s mind, but she pushed the nibble of unease aside and grasped the joy of the moment. He wanted to get better! He’d said so. She clasped her hands in front of her and nodded. “That sounds good, Daddy.”

They walked side by side, with her slowing her pace to stay even with his limping gait the way he used to slow down when she was a little girl so she could keep up. Her joy increased with every step across the yard. A smile pulled so hard her chapped lips felt stretched beyond their limit, but she didn’t mind a bit. Leo had told her to pray, to hope, to trust, and now God was answering her prayers. Daddy would get better. He’d come back from the hospital being Daddy again. She felt like she was walking in hope’s echo.

They reached the stoop, and Jennie ran inside. Mama was at the kitchen table, the papers from the envelope spread out in front of her. Jennie dashed to the table, planted her palms on its surface, and blurted breathlessly, “Mama, Daddy said he’ll go. He’ll see the doctor in Pueblo.” She smiled over her shoulder at Daddy, who limped toward her. “Isn’t that right, Daddy? You want to go and get better.”

Daddy rubbed his finger under his nose. “I’m willin’ to try.”

Jennie whirled and faced Mama again, expecting to see happy tears flowing. But Mama’s expression remained somber. Jennie’s elation faltered. “What’s the matter?”

“I didn’t realize…” Mama lifted one page from the stack and held it out. “I thought seeing the doctor in Pueblo wouldn’t cost any more than a visit to Dr. Whiteside. I knew we’d have to pay for a train ride and maybe even a night at a hotel, but I didn’t count on…” She dropped the paper and hung her head.

Jennie took the page Mama had discarded and scanned it. Amounts seemed to leap out at her. The cost for the evaluation—two dollars and fifty cents. An evaluation took an average of three days, and a bed in a ward cost three dollars a day. During that time, the hospital charged extra for toilet articles, meals, and use of linens. Jennie did the math in her head, and her heart seemed to cease pumping for one painful second before stuttering into painful double beats. How would her family pay such a sum?

She held back a groan of agony. Why had God let Daddy agree to go to Pueblo when He knew how little they had in their money jar? Why had He let her hopes fly so high only to crush them again? The joyous echo in her soul faded into silence.

Leo

Leo stared at the bone Mr. DeWeece held, hope exploding through his chest. “What do you think? Is it part of the allosaurus?”

The man raised the dirt-smeared fossilized bone they’d worked free from the soil and squinted down its length. “It’s possible that it is part of the same skeleton from which the bone you found originates. Given the geographic location, rain could very well carry bones from this ridge to the valley where the Wards’ cabin is built. But if it is from the same skeleton, then the suspicion I’ve harbored may be true.”

Leo frowned, confused. “What do you mean, suspicion?”

DeWeece sent an amused glance at Leo. “Now, no need to grow defensive. The bone you found bears a resemblance to the scapula of an allosaurus. At first examination, I thought the same as you. But after comparing it to other known specimens, something about the joint end of the bone didn’t quite ring true for me.”

He flipped the newly discovered bone and pointed to its end. “Look here. See how it’s almost flattened on the top? Then look at this very slight curve from top to bottom. It reminds me a bit of our human arm bone.”

Leo extended his right arm and rotated it, trying to imagine the bones under his skin. “Really?”

The man chuckled. “Have you studied human anatomy?”

“Yes, sir. Last year.”

“Then you know the human arm consists of several different bones. Below our elbow, we have the ulna and the radius.” As he spoke, he turned the sizable fossil this way and that, his expression thoughtful. “Now, this is mere conjecture at this point—we won’t know until we find the entire skeleton—but what if this bone and the one previously found are actually the ulna and radius of a dinosaur’s foreleg?”

Leo gaped at the businessman. “Wow. That would be something, wouldn’t it?”

He chuckled again, nodding. “Yes, my enthusiastic young colleague, it would most certainly be something.” Mr. DeWeece handed Leo the bone and then withdrew a sextant from his pack. He turned a slow circle while peering through the telescope. His fingers flipped filters and turned the dials on the navigational device with as much ease as Leo tied his shoelaces.

Their first Saturday together, DeWeece had shown Leo the complicated brass instrument and explained how it identified their location by degrees of latitude and longitude. Leo had a compass he’d used when hiking or camping in the woods, and it had proved helpful for keeping his bearings on these mountain treks. Would he one day have a sextant of his own? Recording its coordinates would be the same as placing a pin in a map.

Mr. DeWeece went down on one knee and wrote in the leather-bound journal he always carried, then returned the journal and sextant to his pack. He loosened one of the wire-stemmed flags from its bundle and pushed the wire deep into the ground. After swishing the dirt from his hands, he flicked the red fabric square flapping in the breeze, buckled the leather strap on the pack, and straightened. His gaze landed on the bone in Leo’s arms, and a sly smile formed. “We’re getting close, Leo. I feel it—if you’ll pardon the expression—in my bones.” He glanced skyward and grimaced. “I wish we could search more today, but we’re an hour-and-a-half walk from the Wards’ cabin. We should go.”

As much as Leo wanted to press on, he wouldn’t argue. They’d left the handcar near the footbridge. If they didn’t have it back in Canon City before seven, they’d risk encountering the return train on the track. “Yes, sir.”

Mr. DeWeece flung his pack onto his back and started down the hillside, taking the winding path of flattened grass carved by their feet earlier in the day. Leo fell in step behind him carrying the bone. He hoped they would reach the Wards’ cabin with time to spare. He wanted to show Jennie what they’d found. An idea struck.

“Mr. DeWeece, I suggest we leave this bone with Jennie at the cabin. She could do a sketch of it. If you give her the coordinates you recorded, she can add those and today’s date to the drawing for later reference.” The ground was becoming steeper. He shifted the bone to one arm, giving him a better view of the ground. He didn’t want to trip and fall on this precious piece of history. “If she does the same with other bones we locate, the sketches with their discovery dates and locations would make a nice addition to a portfolio.”

“That’s a fine idea.” DeWeece tossed a grin over his shoulder. “Since two bones have already been found apart from a skeleton, chances are we’ll make similar discoveries of single specimens. It would be good to have a precise record of which bones were found where.” They reached a slight plateau, and his pace sped, as did his words. “Perhaps after we’ve located sufficient bones to determine the species from which they came, I’ll write an article for one of the science magazines. People might be interested in knowing how much work is involved in uncovering these evidences of life from the past.”

“I like that idea.” Leo smiled, thinking about Jennie’s drawings printed in a national magazine. He didn’t know any other seventeen-year-old girl who could claim such an honor. “It will only take a minute or two to drop off the information and the bone. Should we do that before going to the handcar?”

Mr. DeWeece gave a decisive nod. “Yes. Let’s.”

Leo fought the urge to break into a run, eager to show Jennie the latest find. Perhaps by the end of the week, he would discover the remainder of the skeleton. If so, she’d have a large project to draw. She’d be so excited. He could hardly wait to tell her.