Page 8 of Hope’s Enduring Echo

Leo

When Leo was seven, he got a splinter in his foot. It went deep into his heel and then, because he walked on it the rest of the day, broke into three pieces and eventually caused an infection. It took Father holding him down and Mother digging with a needle for three quarters of an hour to remove every bit of wood from the bottom of his sore foot. In retrospect, the lengthy, painful procedure was easier than drawing information from Jennie’s disagreeable father.

After his third question was met with a grunt and shrug, Mrs. Ward stopped stacking cans on shelves and crossed to Mr. Ward’s chair. “Claude, you know the answers to what Mr. Day is asking.” She spoke as kindly as Leo’s younger sister did to butterflies that visited their mother’s flower garden. “He came all the way out here from town to gather information for the director of the big museum in Denver. Why won’t you tell him what he needs to know?”

Mr. Ward’s brown eyes narrowed. “Why does that fellow in Denver need to know bones are layin’ half-buried on the ridges? What business is it of his?”

Leo stifled a sigh. If a person opened the dictionary to the word curmudgeon, they’d probably find an image of Claude Ward. “If I locate something of note, such as more of the bones that go with the one Jennie gave me, Mr. Figgins wants to be sure it isn’t from privately owned land. If it is, he needs to seek permission to access the area. He wants to avoid charges of trespassing.”

The man’s expression remained sour. “And likely doesn’t want a battle over ownership.”

Ah, he was more knowledgeable than he wanted to let on. Leo nodded. “Absolutely. The museum’s reputation could be tarnished if it was forced to engage in litigation.” The world of paleontology didn’t need another war over dinosaur bones.

“Far as I know”—Claude drawled the words, as if too weary to participate in conversation—“the acreage on the waterway side of the river is claimed by the Canon City Water Works Department. They let hunters and trappers roam out here without having to ask first. I’ve warned a few of ’em away from the pipeline and our cabin. Don’t want a stray bullet poking a hole in the staves or, worse, hitting my wife or daughter.”

Now that he’d gotten his vocal cords working, he seemed to have a lot to say. Leo listened for information that Mr. Figgins would find of use.

“I don’t reckon they’d mind you hunting for bones. But if you want to do any kind of digging, you’ll need their permission. Depending on how deep you go, it could affect the stability of the mountainside. They won’t want an avalanche coming down and damaging the pipeline.”

Leo nodded, amazed by the man’s lengthy speech. His sullen, uncooperative attitude had led Leo to wonder if he wasn’t quite bright. Clearly, he was intelligent. For whatever reason, he simply chose to keep his knowledge to himself.

The man aimed an impatient look at him. “That all you want to know?”

Leo believed he’d garnered what was necessary to proceed. He nodded and started to rise.

“Then lemme ask you a question.”

Something in Mr. Ward’s tone made the hair on the back of Leo’s neck stand up. He settled in his chair again. “All right.”

“Who all is gonna be doing this snooping for bones? You, or a whole passel of people?”

Mrs. Ward and Jennie both paused and looked at him. They seemed to hold their breath.

Leo shifted in his seat. “Just me, sir, for now.”

“For now?” The man almost growled the query.

Leo gave a hesitant shrug. “Well, yes. But if I find something of value, and if the water-works owners approve a dig, a team of paleontologists secured by Mr. Figgins will likely come out to excavate the site. That could involve”—he borrowed Mr. Ward’s term—“a passel of people.”

Mr. and Mrs. Ward exchanged a glance. Mr. Ward rubbed his stubbly chin. “Then I don’t know if I want—”

Jennie scurried to her father. “We’re getting ahead of ourselves, Daddy. There’s no guarantee Leo will find the remainder of the skeleton.”

“That’s true.” Leo grimaced. “You folks can’t know for sure where your dog found it. It might be a futile hunt.”

Sadness shadowed the man’s eyes. “Too bad Rex ain’t around to lead the way. He was a good dog. Never had a better dog.”

Jennie bit down on her lower lip and stared at Mr. Ward with such sympathy Leo wished he hadn’t mentioned the dog. But it was too late now. He had to ask one more question, but not for Mr. Figgins’s sake. He crossed to the doorway and picked up the bone Mrs. Ward had leaned against the corner. Then he returned to her husband.

“When I was here last, you named a possible location where the bone was found.” His pulse thrummed in hopeful double beats as he locked eyes with Jennie’s unsmiling daddy. “I’m not familiar with this area, but you are. If I paid you for your time, would you take me to the place you mentioned?”

The man bristled, and his hands balled into fists on his knees. Jennie stood quiet and wide-eyed behind her father, staring at the back of his head. On the other side of the room, Mrs. Ward seemed to turn into a statue, her eyes fixed on her husband’s face. Leo waited uncertainly. Apparently, he’d broken some kind of unwritten rule, but what?

Jennie suddenly took a step forward and placed her hands on Mr. Ward’s shoulders. “Leo, Daddy can’t take you up on the mountain.”

Leo recalled him saying as much last Friday when Jennie asked him to show Leo the spot. He should have remembered. He cringed. “I’m sorry. If he doesn’t have time, it’s all right. I understand.”

“It’s not about the time it would take.” Jennie’s expression seemed to plead with him, further confusing him. “You see…” She gulped. Mr. Ward stared out the window, and dejection seemed to wilt him. “Daddy can’t do all that walking. His leg…he hurt it, and…”

Leo slowly put pieces together in his mind. Jennie had said she was examining the pipeline for her father because he’d been sick. She’d told a half-truth. He wasn’t sick after all. But why lie about something like that? There was no shame in having an injury.

“If you bring a lot of people up here, the waterway men will know.”

Leo tilted his head, confused. “Know what?”

Jennie gritted her teeth. “That Daddy is hurt.”

Based on Jennie’s tone, the situation was dire, but Leo still didn’t understand. “They don’t already know?”

Mr. Ward sat straight-up and pinned Leo in place with a fierce glare. “No. And you ain’t gonna tell them. You ain’t gonna do any bone hunting around here either. We can’t risk—”

Jennie wrapped her arms around her father from behind. “It’s all right, Daddy. You can let Leo look for more bones. We can trust him not to say anything to anyone. I know we can.”

Mr. Ward wriggled, his expression fierce. “How do you know?”

“Because—” She swallowed. “I know.” She released her father and slowly stood upright. Her gaze drifted to Leo’s and remained steady. “I just…know.”

Jennie

Please, Daddy, believe me. Jennie couldn’t say the words out loud, but her thoughts begged. Daddy had to let Leo look for dinosaur bones. Because if Leo found more bones, then maybe she could start to believe again that God answered prayers.

Her reasoning was so jumbled even in her own mind she wouldn’t be able to explain it. Was confusion part of being at a tumultuous age? When Leo had said he believed that God orchestrated her path crossing with his while she was carrying that awful old bone, something deep inside her had come alive again. She knew what the something was. Hope. Hope that God did hear prayers. Hope that God did answer prayers. Hope that God was watching and caring, the way she’d believed when she was a little girl. She missed believing. She wanted to believe again. But she had to see in order to believe. If she saw Leo’s prayers fully answered, then maybe she could trust God with her own.

Mama came close to Daddy. “Claude, Jennie’s right. Until we know for sure if there’s more dinosaur bones up on the hill, there’s no sense in stewing about people coming around and finding out she’s really the one walking the pipeline.”

Daddy struggled to his feet and turned a sour look on Mama. “I guess there’s no reason to tell him not to look for bones since you spilled the secret we’ve been holding. Tell him whatever you want to. I’m gonna take a nap.” He limped to his bedroom door and closed himself inside.

Leo sat back in the chair next to Daddy’s and placed the bone across his knees. He looked from Mama to Jennie to Mama again. “I’d never divulge something that could bring harm to all of you, but I don’t understand why it’s such a secret that Jennie’s walking the pipeline.”

Mama sat sideways in Daddy’s chair. She reached out and caught hold of Jennie’s hand and cradled it between hers. “The waterway men hired Claude. They didn’t hire Claude’s little girl. All this time, they’ve kept paying a salary meant for a grown man. It won’t matter to them that Jennie’s done the same job her daddy did before he got hurt.” She chuckled, peeking up at Jennie. “She’s maybe done even a little more, because she makes drawings of what she finds so they have a better idea of the problem.” Then Mama sighed. “They might think we’ve been pulling the wool over their eyes. They could ask for some of that money back or even kick us off this place. And if they do…”

Mama didn’t need to say more for Jennie to understand, but would Leo? Jennie added, “We won’t have a place to live or money to support us. Daddy”—she sucked in a breath—“can’t work anymore.” Her air whooshed out with the admission. She didn’t want to shame her father, but Leo had to know the truth of everything. Then for sure he wouldn’t tell anyone. “And he depends on Mama to take care of him during the day.”

Should she say the rest of what she was thinking? Leo was, after all, still pretty much a stranger. But she wanted to trust him. Wanted to think that maybe he could be a friend if only for a little while. “Mama thinks Daddy can get his strength back and start walking the line again by the end of summer, but I don’t think it’ll happen. It’s not just Daddy’s leg that’s broken. There’s something inside him that broke when he fell off the pipe. Probably because he lay there, hurting and helpless for so long. All his pride drained out of him.”

She’d never forgive herself for not going with him on that drizzly summer morning. August 8, 1913—the day everything changed. She had followed Daddy on his route Monday through Thursday of the week, like always, but that Friday she begged off so she could wash her hair in readiness for the next day’s train ride into Canon City. When Daddy was late coming home, she and Mama first thought the wetness delayed him. The pipe would be slippery—he had to go slower. But when full dark came and he still wasn’t home, Mama lit a lantern and she and Jennie went looking.

An image of her beloved daddy lying on the rocks near the river, his face contorted into a mask of agony, was forever seared in Jennie’s memory. She knew now that not all the agony was from physical pain. Her strong, capable daddy didn’t feel strong and capable anymore. He never would. And it all could have been avoided if she’d gone with him. If she’d been there, she would have witnessed his fall. She could have fetched help right away. He wouldn’t have had to lie there for hours, brooding over his powerlessness.

Mama patted Jennie’s hand and released it, stubbornness jutting her jaw. “If your daddy gets his strength back, his pride will return, too.”

To Jennie’s way of thinking, Daddy needed his pride in order to work at getting his strength back, but she wouldn’t argue with Mama. Especially not in front of a guest.

Mama went on in her certain voice. “He’ll keep sitting around moping unless we make him get up. He needs motivation. And you”—she shook her finger at Jennie—“doing his job for him will not motivate him to get out of his chair.”

Jennie huffed. “Mama, I can’t just stop inspecting the line!”

Mama pursed her lips. “Of course not. But we need to tell him you’re going to school this fall. Then he has no choice except to get strong enough to be the linewalker again.”

Leo had sat quietly while Mama and Jennie talked, but now he leaned forward. His fingers curled over the bone in his lap as if fearful they would yank it away from him. “Ladies, would it be better if I chose another location—one far away from the pipeline—to search for bones?”

“No,” Mama and Jennie said at the same time.

Leo blinked in surprise, his gaze flitting between the two of them. He gently cleared his throat. “Are you sure? It seems my presence here has created angst. I don’t want my personal aspirations to cause problems between you and Mr. Ward.”

Jennie swallowed a knot of longing. Oh, to have a friendship with this kind young man. Why did he have to be a college boy who was only passing through? He couldn’t be the friend she’d prayed for. Maybe only selfishness made her want to be more than part of the answer to his prayers. If he could be unselfish, she could be, too.

Mama started to say something, but Jennie jumped in. “We know for sure there are dinosaur bones somewhere in these hills or Rex wouldn’t have found that one.” Leo glanced at the bone, then settled his attention on her. “The quicker you find the rest of the skeleton, the sooner you’ll know if it’s something the museum wants. It isn’t your fault Daddy got hurt and I had to take over his job, so you shouldn’t have to give up your search because of us. I think you should look where—”

She sucked in a startled gasp. The realization of what she planned to say surprised her so much she lost her ability to speak for a moment. Both Leo and Mama sat looking at her as if she’d suddenly sprouted mule ears like the characters in her childhood picture book Pinocchio. She almost giggled. She whispered, “Where God led you.”

Mama’s eyes swam with tears. She nodded. “Yes. Yes.” She grabbed Jennie’s hand again and squeezed it while beaming at Leo. “Young man, I believe God sent you here to aid us in Mr. Ward’s recovery. So you will hunt these hills for dinosaur bones. And Jennie will be your guide.”