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As Far as the West

By Barbara A. Curtis

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CHAPTER 1
CALDWELL, IDAHO
MAY 1920

Lizzie Morgan dumped the slop into the pig trough and
jumped back as brown droplets splattered her apron.

“Come and get it!” She dodged the critters
lumbering toward their last meal from her. Let her four
younger brothers vie for this position. Once she got to Irma’s
Roadhouse in Boise, she’d be feeding patrons who possessed
some manners and appreciated fine cooking. “You’re safe from
me, you nuisances. At least you won’t be the ones sizzling in my
skillet.”

She tossed her braid that tamed her curls over her shoulder
and spotted her father. People said she was a replica of him
with her dark-brown hair, dark-brown eyes. Sturdy and plain
were probably what they meant, nothing notable. A jab of
homesickness clogged her throat already as her father limped
to the barn to harness Jasper and Stardust for the trip to the
depot. Was being saddled with that limp really worth trying to
beat the truth out of a scoundrel twenty-three years ago? And
on top of that, Papa even forgave the man. She shook her head.

“Papa—” But he’d already entered the barn. Now she
wouldn’t have a few minutes alone with him before she left the
Double E, because…she couldn’t follow him in there. Her feet
were rooted in the mire along with the pigs. Even they grunted
out their disgust for her.

Please… She rubbed the scar over her right eye. Please help
me to walk inside there. One last time.

Lizzie left the pigs and managed a few steps toward the
barn. Stopped. Listened. All was quiet inside—no kicking
against the slats of the stalls, no shrieks from unbroken horses.
Hopefully, every last one of them was out in the back field.

Kep Two, named after the original ranch dog, came up
beside her and licked her hand. He always seemed to sense
when someone in the family needed encouragement.

A few more steps and she stood at the threshold. The sharp
smell of polished leather and even a low groan coming from
inside the barn couldn’t coax her farther into the darkness.

“Papa?” Lizzie dared to stick her head around the doorframe.
And there he was, bent over, clinging to his saddlemaking
table. Kep looked from her to Papa, as if deciding who
needed him most at the moment. But when Jasper nickered
softly from his stall in a comforting sound for Papa, Kep
remained by her side. “Papa.”

He straightened and looked her way. Lizzie couldn’t identify
the expression that flitted through his dark eyes. Surprise? No,
something more than that. Probably just shock that she actually
stood at the entrance to the building.

“Sorry, Lizzie girl. I didn’t hear you come out here.” He
walked slowly over to her at the doorway.

“Is your leg bothering you?”

“No worse than usual. But I expect a storm is brewing somewhere.”
He rubbed his knee.

“Don’t you ever wish you could get your hands on the man
who caused your injury, who did that to you?” Every time she
heard the story, her emotions anchored deeper into her heart.
Anger. Sadness.

“No, Lizzie girl. I did once, and it came to no good, I’ll tell
you that. Bitterness does no one any good. I had to learn to
forgive as God has forgiven me. ‘As far as the east is from the
west, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us.’”

Words he often quoted from Great-grandmother Roberts’s
big black Bible that he read from to the family every night.

He drew her close. While she could smell the pig slop on
her apron, he smelled like fresh air and leather. “I’ll sure miss
you, Lizzie. And if you ever find yourself lonesome there in the
big city, step outside and listen. When you hear the birds
singing in the sun and the frogs croaking on a moonlit night,
think of us here. And know you’re loved.” He released his hug
and ran a hand over her cheek, then cleared his throat. “How
about you pick some bitterbrush flowers for your mama? Eliza
will need a reminder of your smile once you’re gone.”

Lizzie clenched her teeth, nodded. Even managed to
scrounge up a smile. That old bitterbrush out back—always a
reminder of what she wasn’t. The generations of women in
Mama’s line were known for being long like a white pine with
bitterbrush blooming on top. She’d never be like Mama—the
legendary Eliza Morgan, tall and stately, her hair as yellow as
the spring blossoms. Lizzie resembled the bitterbrush in its
other seasons—drab, sagebrush-like. She couldn’t even redeem
herself by following in her mother’s footsteps as the Angel from
the East, the renowned lady horse trainer. The horses didn’t
respond to Lizzie—except with thrashing hooves and razor
teeth. There was only one chore she could do well with the
Double E animals. Feeding the pigs.

“Sure, Papa.” She left him in the barn and went to the edge
of the yard behind the house and broke off an armful of bitter-
brush branches. Though she’d never be courageous like Mama,
if she could be like Papa, wise and kind, even forgiving, that
should be enough.

The blooms wound their sweet aroma down to her soul. A
scent of something floral and spicy and lemony and cinnamony
all mingled together. The beauty of the blossoms did seem to
offer a promise of hope, of God’s provision, as Mama always
said. A reminder of His goodness and faithfulness. That’s what
she’d need in Boise—her own bitterbrush of sorts. Something
to remind her that God would go with her.

She headed into the house, and just as she finished
arranging the bouquet, Mama entered the kitchen, her sky-blue
eyes widening.

“Goodness!” Mama gathered Lizzie into her arms. “I’m
going to miss you so much, sweet girl. Are you sure you want to
go off and work in Boise?”

Nestled against her mother, no, she wasn’t sure. It’d be so
much easier staying with her family, even feeding those old
pigs. But working in Boise meant she could contribute money
—albeit from safely afar—to help keep the Double E in horses
for Mama to train and Papa to make saddles for.

“I’m sure.”

“Well—” Her mother freed Lizzie and crossed her arms. “If
not for living above the roadhouse with Mrs. Farber, I doubt I
could bear to let you go.”

“Oh, Mama.” Lizzie smiled. “You were twenty-one when you
left New York and headed far out West for adventure—so I’m
old enough. Almost.”

“Adventure.” Mama shook her head. “I never should have
told you those stories.”

“Then I wouldn’t know how you and Papa met.”

Mama laughed. “I don’t wish any of those frightful times
upon you. But you’re right. How would I have met my dear
Caleb otherwise?”

“Or saved the Double E.”

“Lizzie…” Mama ran a hand along Lizzie’s cheek. “This time
it’s different. It’s simply a matter of sales being down. They’ll
pick up again, and we’ll be fine.”

“But it’s both the horses and Papa’s saddles. When I get to
Boise, I can send back some mo—”

“No, dear. Thank you. But the ranch is not your responsibility.”

“But Mama—”

“No. We’re letting you go to Boise—under Mrs. Farber’s
watchful eye, mind you—so you can try your cooking out on
city folk. Leave the Double E to your papa and me. This is our
life. Now go get ready.”

Within minutes, Lizzie donned her green chiffon dress with
the flounce and wide rouched waistband. Even if she was overdressed
for the roadhouse, she would arrive in confidence and
style. Her Sunday lace-up walking boots would be easy on her
feet as she served customers all day, and keeping her hair in its
long braid down her back would be professional. With a smile,
she set her brown cloche hat with a dark-green ribbon on her
head.

She lugged her carpetbag down the stairs and headed
for the kitchen, about to swing open the door when an
almost inaudible sound stopped her. Not the loud jabbering
of her brothers—but the hushed tone of secrets. And
then—

“…warn Lizzie?” Mama’s voice cracked.

Lizzie halted. Listening in on others was rude. Just plain
rude. Wasn’t that what Mama had taught her?

Still, she edged closer to the door and pressed her ear next
to the casing.

“No, Eliza.” Papa’s voice carried better. “I don’t think we
should even mention it to her. She’s too adventurous as it is. I
don’t want her anywhere near that man.”

“But he lives in Boise. What if he discovers she’s there?
What if—”

“He won’t. It’s a big place with so many people. He couldn’t
possibly know she’d be there, much less where. For now, I think
we should leave things alone. We don’t know for sure that
Benton Calloway even has anything to do with this.”

Benton Calloway? Lizzie inhaled, almost too loudly. Did her
parents really suspect that he might be the cause of the Double E’s
troubles again? Twenty-three years later? Could be… Because of
Papa, Mr. Calloway had landed in prison. What if Benton Calloway,
now apparently a free man, still wanted revenge? What if crippling
Papa wasn’t enough, or he was set to come after Mamaagain?

“Let’s—” The outside door banged, and Papa’s voice came
through the crack in his normal volume. “Yes, Isaac?”

Oh, if Lizzie could grab the oldest of her brothers and shake
him. Though at sixteen, he surely wouldn’t stand for that. She
pushed the kitchen door open and stepped inside, ignoring the
consternation in her mother’s stare.

“Well.” Mama clapped her hands like the schoolmarm she
used to be. “Let’s get going before Lizzie misses her train. Isaac,
please round up Winston and Zephaniah and tell them to head
out to the wagon. And where’s Sammy? Find him and make
sure he stays in the wagon too.”

Now they probably would be late, as the little five-year-old
had more hiding places than Kep had for bones.

“Come now, Caleb, Lizzie.”

A truck was what this ranch needed, something modern
and fast. Something easier on Papa’s leg than climbing in and
out of the old wagon. And Lizzie aimed to make sure he
got one.

She followed her parents as they headed outdoors but
turned back for a final look at the kitchen where she’d learned
to cook and bake. Of what was familiar to her. Mama wasn’t the
only one who’d be needing a smile in a few hours. Or a
reminder of God’s hope and provision.

Lizzie snatched a twig of yellow flowers from the bitterbrush
bouquet and tucked it under the ribbon on her hat. She
was ready to embark on an adventure in Boise, all right. And
not just in her new position at Irma’s Roadhouse.

If Papa wouldn’t track down Benton Calloway to get the
truth out of him and to save the Double E, then she would.

*****

Josiah Calloway laid down his pencil and rubbed
his calf. Without looking out the second-story
Boise office window, he knew rain was coming,
sure as the cramp creeping up his left leg. The only good thing
about being an accountant was the salary that covered the
meals and rent on his small room at Mrs. McPhearson’s boardinghouse.
And the solitude, as the owner rarely came into this
office, preferring to work from the larger main office across
town. And sometimes the drudgery even kept his memories
at bay.

The numbers jumbled on the page about as well as the
accounting of his life balanced. He hadn’t been able to protect
the children and their families in a little French village in the
Great War, couldn’t earn enough to repay everyone his father
had cheated, and couldn’t run a ranch, let alone afford one. Of
course, the Good Book was right. Pride goeth before destruction,
and an haughty spirit before a fall. He again rubbed the leg that
proved it.

He poised his pencil over the ledger columns. Two years
since the war, and yet these numbers had no end.

Bullets whizzing past each head

The poem started in his head, then flowed into the ledger’s
margins.

Leave with all a sense of dread.
But what pierced my heart, my soul

He turned his pencil upside down and erased the words. He
couldn’t write the next line. If Victoria’s screams turned into
words, they’d no longer be just a memory. But it was too late.
Josiah clamped his hands over his ears as the child’s cries
echoed as loudly as the moment the soldiers had burst into her
village square, the shrieks piercing his very soul. He coughed as
memories, heavy like smoke, sucked the air out of the office.
This time, he even smelled the burning shack. The screams
were so close, he was sure he could look out the window and
see Victoria running.

Josiah walked to the window to clear his head from this
living nightmare. But it was right down there on the street. Had
war come to Boise? Flames shot like arrows from the roof of
Irma’s Roadhouse up into the sky. As fast as he could, he
hobbled down the stairs, his war injury noticeable usually only
on steps or when he was exhausted.

Out on the street, people shoved him aside as they fled.
Josiah ducked into an alcove, but even there, the heat of the
flames seeped through his suit coat. He took a step deeper into
the recess and bumped against something. Someone. A woman
huddled in the corner, head bowed. Sobbing.

“Ma’am?” Josiah placed a hand on the woman’s shoulder.
She raised her head. “Mrs. Farber!” He barely recognized the
German woman beneath the soot striping her face. “What
happened?”

Irma Farber stared at him, as if horror didn’t translate into
English.

“Can you tell me what happened?” He shed his jacket and
wrapped it around her.

Though her lips moved, no words emerged. Josiah took one
of her hands in his, rubbing it until her eyes focused on him.

“The helper man––he smoke in kitchen––burn my place
down!”

Josiah breathed in a lungful of smoke. “Where will you go?”

She held out empty hands. “I have no place. No money. No
anything.”

Surely, she must have friends she could stay with. Or family.
She’d been feeding people in the neighborhood for years, long
before people knew or even cared that she was German. And
she was still well loved now. “Let me help you get somewhere
safe and with people you know.”

She shook her head. “Nein.” She said some more words in
German, then shook her head again. “Nein.”

“Do you have friends you can stay with?”

“No. In Nampa, I have friends I visit. A family. But not my
family.”

“How about your family, then?” Though he’d eaten occasionally
at Irma’s Roadhouse, he’d never stopped to ask her
about her life, her own family.

“Far away. My sister only.”

“Where does she live?”

“She live in California.”

“Then I’ll take you to the depot and buy you a ticket so you can
get to Nampa, and your friends there can help you get on a train
to California. Would you like that?” He tugged his grocery money
from his pocket and handed it to her for necessities on her
journey. “We’ll stop by my room to pack you some food and get you
a coat.” And more money from his envelope so he could pay his
father’s debt to her in full now, though it would delay his
repayments to the others. Plus, train ticket money out to
California.

Mrs. Farber cupped his cheeks in her hands. “May the good
Lord bless you, Josiah Calloway. You are good man.”

Her words seeped into his soul like a balm over the accusation
already embedded there.

“You’re about as valuable as a pig wallowing in its mire.”

Twenty minutes later, minus his overcoat and the apple and
cinnamon roll he’d saved from this morning, Josiah hurried
Mrs. Farber through the Boise streets. She was a refugee now,
like those he’d boarded trains with during the Great War. His
coat swallowed her frail frame, his scarf swathing her head like
a shield against further pain.

As they approached the depot, the inbound train on the
Caldwell–Boise interurban loop was rolling to a stop. Mrs.
Farber pulled against him, heading to the bench alongside the
depot.

She shook his arm. “I need sit here.”

“Mrs. Farber, please come inside with me.” Josiah urged her
along gently. “We must purchase your ticket.”

She looked at the bench one more time, then tightened her
grip on his arm and resumed shuffling, head down, alongside
him. By the time they returned outside, one final passenger was
disembarking the train. The young lady’s hat splashed a yellow
spray of hope into the sooty air with a jaunty bitterbrush
sticking out on top. Yet her countenance contradicted her hat’s
joy, as did her worn brown coat and button-up walking boots.
She clutched her carpetbag as if fearful someone would snatch
it from her while she stood staring at a scrap of paper in her
hand.

The conductor approached her, and with a grasp of her
elbow, propelled her out of the way of approaching passengers.
“All aboard!”

Josiah drew Mrs. Farber toward the short line of people
waiting to board the train, but he checked over his shoulder.
The lady had moved beneath the wide eaves of the depot and
taken a seat on the bench. With her back against the sandstone
wall, she glanced around as if searching for someone. Yet no
one stepped toward her.

If she needed aid or directions, perhaps he might offer
assistance.

“Mrs. Farber, I’ll be right back. You stay here in line.” He
released her arm and took a step toward the young lady with
the chocolate-colored braid. Her eyes, as dark as his childhood
seal-brown horse—Brownie—met his, then she looked down at
her lap.

“All aboard!”

Josiah turned back to Mrs. Farber and took hold of her arm
again. She was his priority, but once she was safely on the train,
he could help the younger traveler.

“May I help her on board?” Josiah asked the conductor.

“Hurry up.” He waved his pocket watch in the air.

Josiah assisted Mrs. Farber onto the train and situated her
into a window seat. “May God go with you and grant you safety
and peace.”

She cupped Josiah’s face once more. “Yes, you very good
man, Josiah Calloway.”

The conductor glared at him. “Now go, if you don’t have
your own ticket.”

Josiah clambered down from the train and headed to the
bench where the girl with the yellow bloom had been seated.
Not seeing her, he poked his head inside the station. She was
gone. Maybe someone had come to meet her, after all.

He stepped back outside as the interurban lurched forward
into the billowing smoke from the roadhouse.

“God bless you, Mrs. Farber!” He waved until he could no
longer see the train windows. “Lord, please be with both of
these women—Mrs. Farber and that lady traveling alone.”
Surely, she was safe. Anyone who would stick a wild desert-like
flower in her hat must have spunk and her wits about her.

Once the car was gone, Josiah turned to head back to the
accounting office. As he stepped across the tracks, he spotted a
splash of yellow covered in dirt.

He bent over and picked up a stick of bitterbrush, its flowers
now crushed.

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