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A Homeless Mom Inherited an Old Cabin Then Her Daughter Found $3 Million Beneath the Hearth — Transcript

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0:00A widow ran barefoot from the cabin
0:01porch as orange light suddenly climbed
0:04the wall of her horse barn. [music]
0:06Across the frozen clearing, two men were
0:08already backing toward their horses and
0:10one of them had just dropped a burning
0:12handful of hay. Then a rifle cracked.
0:14The shot struck dirt between their
0:16boots. Both men ran inside the barn.
0:19Another man came down from the loft with
0:21a pistol in his hand while flames
0:22[music] crawled through the dry hay
0:24against the outer wall. The widow seized
0:26a bucket. Someone shouted from the creek
0:28trail. Hooves pounded into the darkness.
0:31Only hours earlier, her own family had
0:34stood on that porch and promised to take
0:36her home, her land, and even [music] her
0:38daughter if she refused them. Now
0:40someone had come in the night. She threw
0:42the first bucket against [music] the
0:43flames. Then she heard a horse coming
0:45back toward the house. October of 1884
0:48wore a low iron sky [music] over St.
0:50Joseph, Missouri, the kind of sky that
0:52promised no mercy to anyone sleeping
0:54outdoors. Down on the frost cracked
0:56planks behind Doyle's livery, in the
0:58hollow ribs of a broken knogga that no
1:01teamster had claimed in over a year, a
1:03woman of 38 lay curled around her
1:059-year-old daughter to keep the child
1:07warm. Her name was Adelia Whitcom. The
1:09girl was Josephine, though nobody called
1:12her that except the school momm on the
1:14days she was in trouble. Within a
1:15fortnight, a letter would travel 800
1:18miles from a lawyer's desk in Cheyenne
1:20to that same [music] wagon, carrying the
1:21deed to a piece of the Wyoming
1:23territory. No one in her family thought
1:25worth the paper it was drawn on. Beneath
1:27the flagstones of a cabin nobody had
1:29entered in three decades, sealed away by
1:32an old man's patience, lay more than $3
1:34million in coin gold, mining shares,
1:37government paper, and land patents.
1:39Every kin she had left in the world
1:41would try to take it from her. Not one
1:43of them would ever see a scent. Morning
1:45came grudging, the frost inside the
1:47wagon's canvas as thick as new shorn
1:49wool. Josie stirred first as she always
1:52did, her small fingers finding the rag
1:54doll she had rescued from the pawn shop.
1:56[music] The winter their house burned
1:58into the ground. She sat up slow,
2:00careful of her mother's sleep, drew her
2:02breath in the way a child learns to draw
2:04it when the cold gets down inside the
2:06ribs. In the corner of her tin trunk lay
2:08the leatherbound copy book she carried
2:10the way another girl might carry a
2:12locket. She opened to a fresh page. The
2:14last drawing showed a house with three
2:16chimneys, a mother, a father, a girl
2:19with braids. She turned it toward the
2:21light, took her pencil stub, then with
2:23the deliberate cruelty a 9-year-old owes
2:25only to herself, crossed out the father.
2:28Adilia awoke to the sound of the pencil
2:30moving. She did not open her eyes at
2:32once. There were mornings when a mother
2:34granted her child the mercy of not being
2:36watched, when the small private grief of
2:38a girl belonged to the girl alone. She
2:41lay listening to the pencil, to the slow
2:43drip of thaw water off the wagon bow, to
2:45the wet cough of a Draymond two stalls
2:47over readying his team for the day. She
2:50had been a midwife once. Her mother had
2:52taught her the trade before either of
2:53them thought a woman ought to expect to
2:55feed herself with a trade. She had
2:57caught 200 children in Buchanan County
3:00before the town elders had ruled that no
3:02unmarried female might attend a birth
3:04without a licensed physician's counter
3:06signature. A widow in the reckoning of
3:08St. Joseph in the year of our Lord 1884
3:11was a species of unmarried female. So
3:14the deliveries went to a doctor prime
3:17who charged $3 where she had charged one
3:19who lost mothers she would have saved.
3:21She had learned to swallow that
3:23knowledge the way she had learned to
3:24swallow rainwater from a canvas seam.
3:27Her husband Ezra had been in the ground
3:2928 months. Consumption of the liver the
3:31coroner had written which was a courtesy
3:33word for the whiskey he had drunk
3:35himself into by the time Josie was six.
3:38The debts he left behind had swallowed
3:40the frame house on Sylvvin Street. The
3:42piano she had inherited from her mother.
3:45The mayor, the yard, the goodwill cloak,
3:48every stitch of anything with a resale
3:49value. What she had kept was the child.
3:52What the child had kept was her. [music]
3:54Josie shut the copy book when she heard
3:56her mother move. There was no discussion
3:58about the drawing. Adilia lit the small
4:01tin lamp warmed her hands over its
4:03glass, then reached beneath the fold
4:05folded quilt for the twist [music] of
4:07paper that held their morning bread.
4:08Half a heel, hard as a shingle, split it
4:11clean along the crust. The larger piece
4:13she pressed into her daughter's palm.
4:16There was no argument about which was
4:17larger. That argument had ended a long
4:20time ago. Miss schoolhouse stood four
4:22blocks north on Farahan Street, a
4:24whitewashed shed with a stove [music]
4:26pipe knocked crooked by a summer
4:27hailtorm. Adilia walked her daughter
4:30there in the raw morning through the
4:31alley behind the meat market because the
4:34alley meant fewer respectable eyes to
4:36notice [music] their shoes. Jos's boots
4:38had holes in the soles that Adilia had
4:40lined with folded newsprint that
4:42morning. The child walked as if she
4:44believed the paper would hold. Halfway
4:46down the block, Jos's hand tightened in
4:48hers. Small voice coming quiet from
4:51beneath the muffler. Mama Sadie Pervvis
4:53asked, "Did I want to come home with her
4:55this afternoon to see her new kitten?"
4:57Adilia felt the question lancing
4:59somewhere under her breast bone. What
5:01did you tell her, sweetheart? I told her
5:03our roof's being tred and mother can't
5:05have visitors till next week. The lie
5:07was so smooth it might have been
5:09rehearsed a h 100red times. In truth, it
5:10had been. Adilia stopped there in the
5:13alley between a barrel of oyster shells
5:14and a stack of orange crates, [music]
5:16knelt down in front of her child, took
5:18the small chapped face between her
5:20hands. Josephine, you are not to carry
5:23this. Do you hear me? This is my burden,
5:25[music] not yours. Jos's eyes were her
5:27father's brown as a fresh turned furrow.
5:29Though nothing else about her, recalled
5:31the man. Mama, we have had worse. Do you
5:34remember the 4 days after the bank sale
5:36when we slept in the tannery yard?
5:38Adilia remembered. She wished she did
5:41not. The child nodded once as if some
5:44contract between them had been ratified,
5:46then walked toward the schoolhouse door
5:48without another glance back. Adilia
5:50stood a long moment watching the paper
5:52lined boots cross the frozen mud. She
5:54promised, not to God, [music] because
5:56she had gotten out of the habit speaking
5:58to him, but to the empty air of the
6:00alley itself, that whatever it took,
6:02whatever it cost, [music] her daughter
6:04would not sleep another Missouri winter
6:06in the belly of a broken wagon. She
6:08would have 3 months to keep that
6:09promise. She did not yet know it. There
6:12were four Witcoms of her generation
6:14still walking the earth, three of them
6:16her enemies. The last, though she did
6:19not yet grant him the grace of the
6:20distinction, [music] was something else.
6:22Constance Merryweather, the eldest, 42
6:25years old, married up into the St. Louis
6:28cotton trade, ran her parlor the way a
6:30colonel runs a picket line, could smile
6:32at a widow the way a shopkeeper smiles
6:34at a hungry dog. Ambrose Wickham, 40,
6:37ran a pawn shop off the levy in Kansas
6:39City, took bracelets from grieving
6:41mothers at 10 cents on the dollar. Once
6:43hit his own wife hard enough on a
6:45Christmas Eve to break her jaw, which
6:47was a thing the family had agreed by
6:49silent treaty to forget. Oilia Greb, 33,
6:52had married a young Methodist circuit
6:54writer, wore piety the way a card sharp
6:56wears a false cuff, tucked and useful.
6:59Cases [music] Wickham, 36, was a brick
7:02layer in independence, spoke seldom,
7:04drank not [music] at all, carried in the
7:06set of his shoulders the specific weight
7:08of a man who knew what his own name
7:10meant, who could not bear to look at it
7:12in a mirror. 3 years passed when their
7:14father, Elijah, had died of a burst
7:16appendix in the county hospital at
7:18Springfield. He had left $5,000 in life
7:21insurance in equal parts to his five
7:24surviving children. Adilia's thousand
7:26had come to her while she was still
7:27nursing the last of Ezra's debts.
7:30Constance had written the same week,
7:32weeping in ink about the failure of her
7:34husband's cotton contracts. Ambrose had
7:36wired asking for 300 to save the pawn
7:38shop from a receiver. Oilia had needed
7:40600 [music] for a doctor she could not
7:42afford. A child she was carrying could
7:45not lose. Casius had not asked. Casius
7:48had refused his own share, told the
7:50executive to divide it among the others,
7:52then gone back to laying bricks in
7:54independence without another word.
7:56Adilia had lent $3,000 out of her own
7:59inheritance in bills of exchange
8:01countersigned at the Buchanan County
8:03Bank to Constance Ambrose Oilia in the 6
8:06weeks following the funeral. She had
8:08kept the notes. She had believed the
8:10family. Not a dollar had come back.
8:12Constance had stopped answering letters
8:14within 6 months. Ambrose had told a
8:16mutual cousin that any money that had
8:18passed hands had been a gift, [music]
8:20that Adilia was a liar for pretending
8:22otherwise. Oilia had written once very
8:25sweetly to say that the Lord would
8:27provide in his own good time, that
8:29Adilia should not concern herself with
8:31earthly ledgers. Cashes had visited her
8:33once the winter she and Josie first lost
8:35the frame house, had stood in the snow
8:38outside the boarding house door with his
8:40cap in his hands. He had said only, "I
8:43know what they did. I am sorry I did not
8:45stop them. Then he had gone away again.
8:47She had heard nothing from him since she
8:49had told herself that his silence was of
8:51a peace with the rest. [music] The
8:53Presbyterian poor house on 9inth in
8:54Sylvvin was run by a widow named Bulahar
8:57Grove, 68 years old, built like a rain
9:00barrel, sharp of eye behind wire
9:02spectacles, possessed of the particular
9:04nononsense charity of a woman who
9:06[music] had buried three husbands, two
9:08grown son, who had concluded from the
9:10experience that the Lord expected his
9:12people [music] to make themselves
9:13useful. She let Adilia use the poor
9:16house address for correspondence since a
9:18broken wagon behind a livery stable did
9:21not qualify as a residence for the
9:22purposes of employment or of the postal
9:24service. Adilia stopped in three
9:27mornings a week to see if anything had
9:29come. She had not expected anything to
9:31come this morning. Nothing had come for
9:336 months. Mrs. Hargrove looked up from
9:35the intake ledger with an expression
9:37that was almost a smile, which was
9:39itself uncommon enough to be alarming.
9:41There's a letter came yesterday on the
9:43afternoon mail. The paper feels
9:45expensive. The envelope lay on the
9:47counter beside a chipped enamelled cup
9:49of chory cream vellum thick enough to
9:52stand on its edge. The flap sealed with
9:54red wax bearing an oval stamp Adelia
9:56could not decipher. The direction was
9:58written in a lawyer's copper plate. Mrs.
10:01Adilia Wickham in care of the
10:03Presbyterian House of Industry, 9th
10:05Street, St. Joseph, Missouri. The return
10:08address embossed in dry black ink at the
10:10upper left read Ezekiel Finch attorney
10:13and counselor at law Ferguson Street
10:15Cheyenne Wyoming territory. Adilia's
10:18first thought was that some old debt of
10:19Ezra had crawled out of the ground 18
10:22states [music] west. She stood with the
10:24envelope in her hand could not for a
10:26moment persuade her fingers to break the
10:28seal. Mrs. Hargrove watched her the way
10:30a woman watches a kettle. Well, child.
10:33Adilia broke the wax. The paper unfolded
10:35stiff as playing cards. Dear Mrs.
10:37Wickcom, it is my melancholy duty to
10:40inform you of the death of your great
10:41uncle Silus J. Wickcom, formerly of Big
10:44Horn County, Wyoming territory, on the
10:4717th day of April last in his 89th year.
10:50Mr. Wickcom was your late father's
10:52paternal uncle. Under the terms of his
10:54last will, of which the enclosed copy is
10:57a full extract, he has devised the
10:59entirety of his real and personal estate
11:01to yourself, jointly with your minor
11:03daughter, Josephine, to the express
11:05exclusion of all other persons of the
11:07Wickcom name. The estate consists of a
11:10homestead patent of 320 acres [music]
11:12upon the eastern slope of the Big Horn
11:14Mountains, together with the log
11:16dwelling erected thereupon in all
11:18outbuildings and improvements. No leans,
11:21mortgages, or incumbrances of any kind
11:23attached to the property. A separate
11:25fund has been set aside to defay your
11:27travel expenses. Please find enclosed a
11:29bank draft in the sum of $40 drawn upon
11:32the First National of Cheyenne, [music]
11:34redeemable at any Wells Fargo agency
11:37between here and there. I am Meta, your
11:39most obedient servant, Ezekiel Finch.
11:41Adilia read it three times before the
11:43words consented to arrange themselves in
11:45her head.
11:46>> Silus Whitus.
11:49She dug back through the low silt of
11:50family memory, came up with only one
11:52image. Her father's funeral in
11:54Springfield, three summers passed. An
11:56old man in the last pew, gaunt as a
11:58fence post, silverbeard trimmed clean,
12:01coat, expensive, out of fashion,
12:03standing alone at the back of the little
12:05[music] brick chapel, staring at Adelia
12:07across the width of the sanctuary. He
12:09had not come forward at the graveside.
12:11He had not signed the register. She had
12:13asked her father's brother who the
12:15stranger was. The brother had said that
12:17would be Uncle Silas. Come down from the
12:19mountains. First time in 20 years. Best
12:22leave him be. The draft for $40 was
12:25pinned to the letter with a straight
12:26pin. Mrs. Hargrove had come around the
12:28counter without Adilia noticing. My
12:31great uncle. Adilia said he left me a
12:33homestead in the Wyoming [music]
12:35territory. Mrs. Hargrove's hand landed
12:37on her wrist, warm, dry as sandstone.
12:40Child, that is the hand of providence
12:42you are holding. Adelia wanted very much
12:45to believe her. She had learned,
12:46however, that hope was a species of
12:48debt, that debts must be paid, that in
12:51her present accounting, she could not
12:53afford another creditor. It might be a
12:55shack. It might be 40 acres of bare
12:58rock. It might be a fever swamp with a
12:59lean two on it. She said as much, Mrs.
13:02Harrove only looked at her over the wire
13:04rims of her spectacles. Even a shack has
13:06a roof. $40 will not sleep [music] in a
13:08wagon. The clerk at the Western Union
13:11office on Felix Street was a boy of
13:12perhaps 19 who wrote out her wire
13:15without expression. Constance
13:17Merryweather care of the Merryweather
13:19residence vaner place St. Louis. Uncle
13:23Silas dead homestead in Wyoming devised
13:25to meet Josie. Details to follow Adilia.
13:29She paid the 55 cents from the $40 which
13:32felt already like a wound in the money.
13:34Stepped back into a Missouri afternoon
13:36gone the color of wet slate. She had not
13:38yet composed in her mind what she would
13:40do if her sister replied. She only knew
13:42that she was for reasons she did not
13:44quite trust. Extending her family the
13:47courtesy she would not have extended a
13:49stranger. She would learn better within
13:5124 hours. The answering wire came before
13:53the sun was down. Ridiculous. Sign the
13:56property to me. You cannot manage a
13:58chicken coupe. We'll arrive St. Joseph
14:00tomorrow with Ambrose Oilia. Do not act
14:02rashly. [music] Constance. The train
14:05from St. Lewis put the three of them on
14:07the Felix Street platform [music]
14:08at 10 the next morning, which Adelia
14:11would remember afterward as a small
14:13miracle of family loyalty since it meant
14:15that none of them had waited for a
14:17second wire to confirm the news.
14:19Constants came off the parlor car in a
14:21bottle green traveling costume with jet
14:24buttons that caught the wet light.
14:25Ambrose came off after her, wearing the
14:28same Prince Albert coat he had worn to
14:30their father's funeral, cigar unlit
14:32between his teeth. Oilia came last in
14:34great veil already down the picture of a
14:37woman preparing to be sorry for someone.
14:39[music] Adilia had asked Mrs. Hargrove
14:41to keep Josie at the poor house for the
14:43morning. Josie had refused. Josie was 9
14:46years old had inherited from her mother
14:48the specific stubbornness that had once
14:50persuaded a fullgrown Gernzie to walk
14:52into a milking stall. She stood now at
14:55her mother's hip on the plank walk
14:56outside the telegraph office. small fist
14:59balled in the pocket of her coat around
15:00her ragd doll watching her aunts. Her
15:03uncle come toward them with the eyes of
15:05a child who had already at 9 learned the
15:07shape of an ambush. Constance opened
15:10without preamble, which was her habit.
15:12Adilia, show us the papers. We need to
15:15see what the old fool actually left
15:17before you do something you cannot undo.
15:19Nothing has been done. The papers are
15:20not yours to see. Ambrose took the cigar
15:23out of his teeth. Christ almighty,
15:25Adilia, do not start. You have not held
15:28down a proper roof in 2 years. You are
15:30living in a livery yard. You are
15:32proposing to walk a 9-year-old girl 700
15:34m into Indian [music] country because
15:36some dead recluse who never wrote you a
15:38letter left you a wood pile. Sign it to
15:40Constance. She will sell it through her
15:43husband's people. We split the proceeds
15:45five ways. You clear enough to take a
15:47small clean room somewhere respectable.
15:50You keep your child. You stop
15:51embarrassing the family name. Oilia's
15:54veil lifted just enough for her voice to
15:56carry sweetly through. Adelia, dear, no
15:58one is trying to take anything from you.
16:00We are simply concerned for Josephine. A
16:03child cannot flourish in these
16:04conditions. Adilia felt Jos's grip
16:06tighten in her pocket. She felt the
16:08small heat of the child's shoulder
16:10against her thigh. [music] She felt
16:12something enormous, slow move within her
16:14chest, not anger exactly, but the
16:16settling into place of a decision she
16:18had been carrying in pieces for two
16:20winters. You were not concerned for her
16:22when she was sleeping in the tannery
16:24yard in the January before last. You
16:26were not concerned for her when I wrote
16:28each of you three times asking for the
16:30return of the money you owed me. You
16:32were not concerned for her when the bank
16:34sold our house. I sent word to Vanderb
16:36place. Constance's housekeeper wrote
16:38back that madam was not receiving. You
16:40are concerned for her now because a
16:42lawyer's letter used the word estate.
16:44Constance's smile did not move, but
16:46something behind her eyes went cold
16:48metallic. Adilia, you are hysterical.
16:51That is a diagnosis men have used
16:53against women for a thousand years to
16:55avoid answering their questions. Josie
16:57stepped forward before her mother could
16:59stop her. She was 9 years old, her hair
17:01braided in two tight ropes, her coat two
17:04sizes, small at the wrist. She looked up
17:07at Constance with the naked contempt.
17:09Only children prophets can afford. You
17:11took my grandfather's money. You did not
17:13pay it back. My mother went hungry so I
17:16could eat. You are not my family. You
17:18are just people who share a name with
17:20me. Ambrose's face went the color of old
17:22brick. Do not let that child speak to me
17:24that way. She will speak to you anyway
17:26she likes. That is a right she has
17:28earned. Constance stepped in close
17:30enough that Adelia could smell her rose
17:32water. Her voice dropped into a register
17:35no passer by would hear. You will regret
17:37this hour. [music] There are courts in
17:38this country that specialize in mothers
17:40who cannot provide. You may find your
17:43daughter reassigned to a residence more
17:45befitting her needs. Think carefully.
17:47Adilia did not step back. She had spent
17:50two winters learning what a woman looked
17:51like when she had no more ground to
17:53give. This is my daughter. This is my
17:56property. This is my life. You will not
17:58touch any of the three. Take the noon
18:00train back to St. Louis. If you follow
18:03me west, I will meet you with the law of
18:05a territory that owes you nothing. The
18:07three of them stood a moment on the
18:08plank walk. Constance's mouth thin,
18:11Ambrose's cigar cold between his
18:12fingers, Oilia's veil quivering with
18:15what might have been laughter or might
18:16have been [music] tears. Then Constance
18:19turned on her heel with the practice
18:20pivot of a ballroom, walked away.
18:23Ambrose spat into the mud. Oilia
18:25lingered a half second, her gloved hand
18:28rising as if to bless something, then
18:30followed. Adilia stood on the plank walk
18:32with her daughter's hand in hers,
18:34understood that she had just declared a
18:36war she was not equipped to fight. She
18:38would have helped she had not yet
18:39reckoned for. He came to the poor house
18:41that night. Cashious Wickham, 36 years
18:44old, in a canvas coat gone gray at the
18:46seams, hat in his hand, boots scraped
18:49clean of Independence brick [music] dust
18:51at the bootjack by the door. Mrs.
18:53Hargrove looked him over once, let him
18:55in, which was itself a testimonial.
18:57Since Mrs. Harrove had turned three men
19:00off that porch in the last month for
19:01less, he would not sit. He would not
19:04take coffee. He put a small canvas sack
19:07on the deal table in the parlor. It made
19:09the muffled sound coined gold makes $15.
19:12It is the interest on what I owe you. I
19:15could not lay hands on the principal
19:16today. I will bring the rest. You do not
19:19owe me anything. Adillius, which was not
19:21true. Both of them knew it. He had
19:23borrowed $600 from her in the autumn of
19:2682, the same month the frame house had
19:28gone. He had asked before he had known
19:31how close to ruin she was. He had
19:33promised repayment by the spring. Then
19:35Ezra had died. Adelia had gone dark for
19:37a season. By the time she had surfaced.
19:40Cashes had stopped speaking to any of
19:42them. She had not had the strength to
19:44hunt him down for a debt he plainly
19:46could not pay. He set the sack down
19:48anyway. He kept his hat in his hand.
19:50Constance wired Percal Thorne this
19:52afternoon. Chicago attorney specializes
19:54in what they call incompetency
19:56petitions. She has means to fight you.
19:59Ambrose has means that are worse. You
20:01will want to be careful on the road. Do
20:03not trust a man in a black coat who
20:05claims to be from the railroad. Do not
20:07accept an escort. Sleep in the lady's
20:09car if there is one. Do not let
20:11Josephine out of your sight in Cheyenne.
20:13How do you know all this? Because I have
20:16been listening at doors for 3 years. It
20:18is not [music] a distinguished
20:19occupation. It is the only useful thing
20:22I have done since our father was buried.
20:24Adilia looked at him a long time. She
20:27did not offer forgiveness. Forgiveness
20:29was a thing she was not yet prepared to
20:31spend. She said, "Thank you, Casius."
20:32[music]
20:33Meant it as far as she was able to mean
20:35it. He heard it as far as he was able to
20:37hear it. He put his hat on his head,
20:39opened the door, walked out into the
20:41Missouri night without looking back.
20:43Mrs. Hargrove counted the $15 into
20:46Adelia's palm herself. Buy the child a
20:48proper pair of boots. Wyoming does not
20:51forgive Missouri boots. The Kansas
20:53Pacific left St. Joseph the next
20:55afternoon at 3:40 threaded through the
20:57stockyards [music] out onto the plane in
20:59a plume of black smoke that streaked the
21:01low sun. Adilia Josie rode in the
21:04thirdass car with a soldier going home
21:06to Fort Wallace. A Menanite family bound
21:08for a colony in Kansas. Josie kept her
21:10nose to the window until the Missouri
21:12Hills gave up lay down. She had never
21:14seen the horizon simply keep going. She
21:17had never seen a herd of pong horns
21:18scatter before a locomotive. She had
21:20never seen the sky come down to the
21:22ground uninterrupted by anything human
21:24at all. Mama, mama, are we really
21:26allowed to live in a place with this
21:28much sky? Adilia thought about the wire
21:30from Casius, about Perl Thornne of
21:33Chicago, about a sister who had promised
21:35her a court that would take a 9-year-old
21:37girl away. About an old man in a chapel
21:39three summers ago who had stared at her
21:41from the last pew, never spoken a word.
21:44She looked at her daughter's small face
21:46reflected in the dark of the coach
21:47window against the sundown outside. Yes,
21:50I believe we are. They changed at Kansas
21:52City for the Union Pacific mainline.
21:55They changed at Omaha for the sleeping
21:56car service. Those sleeping births were
21:59beyond their means. They sat up all
22:01night in the immigrant car. Jos's head
22:03heavy in her mother's lap, [music] the
22:05wheels underneath them singing a song of
22:07ties, joins that Adelia would remember
22:09for the rest of her life. They watched
22:11the sun rise over the plat. They watched
22:14it set over the Laram plane. On the
22:16morning of the fourth day, the train
22:18pulled into Cheyenne under a sky so blue
22:20it looked painted. Adilia carried her
22:23sleeping daughter down the iron steps of
22:24the coach into a wind that smelled of
22:26sage, coal smoke, something she could
22:29not name until she looked west, saw it.
22:31Freedom smelled like distance. Ezekiel
22:34Finch's office stood on Ferguson Street
22:36in a two-story sandstone building with a
22:38brass plate at the door. He was 68,
22:40silverbearded, his eyes the pale sharp
22:43blue of a winter creek. He came around
22:45his desk to meet her, took Jos's small
22:47hand as gravely as he had taken
22:49Adilia's. Did not sit down until they
22:51had both been settled in leather chairs
22:53with [music] cups of hot coffee in their
22:55hands, which was the first hot coffee
22:57Adilia had drunk in a week. Your great
22:59uncle spoke of you. Not often when he
23:01did, it was with respect. I met him
23:03once, I think. At my father's [music]
23:05funeral, he did not speak to me. Finch
23:08nodded slowly, as if that was the answer
23:10he had expected. Silus was a man who
23:12paid attention. He did not require
23:14conversation to do it. He rode down to
23:16Springfield the summer of 81 on nothing
23:18but a rumor that his brother's boy had
23:20died. He stood in that chapel because he
23:22wanted to see the daughter his brother
23:24had bragged on for 20 years. He wrote me
23:27a letter the day he got home. He said,
23:29"I have seen the one. She is the one who
23:32gives does not count." Adilia set the
23:34cup down before her hand could betray
23:36her. There is more. 6 months before he
23:38died, he came here to this office. He
23:41was 89 years old. He had ridden 90 mi to
23:44town on a mule so he could speak with me
23:45in person. He knew he was failing. He
23:48knew what your siblings were. He wanted
23:50to leave nothing to chance. He dictated
23:52[music] a 40page sworn deposition. He
23:55walked across the street to Judge
23:57Prudence Hollister's chambers, swore it
23:59under her seal. She examined him for
24:01competency for three hours, pronounced
24:03him the sharpest witness she had put on
24:05a stand in 10 years of the bench.
24:06[music] Then he did something I've never
24:08seen a client do before or since. He
24:10asked me to bring in an Edison
24:12photograph. There are two of the
24:14machines in the whole of the Wyoming
24:15territory. I had to send a boy up to the
24:17offices of the Union Pacific to borrow
24:19one. He spoke his testimony onto a wax
24:22cylinder. He said, "Ezekiel, if they
24:24come for the [music] girl, they will
24:26come. This is what you play for the
24:28judge." Then he rode his mule home. He
24:30was dead within the season. Finch waited
24:33a moment for that to settle. [music] He
24:34did not smile. He did not soften. He
24:37watched her across the desk the way an
24:39old man watches a young woman he has
24:41decided to defend. Your uncle did not
24:43have second sight. Mrs. Witcom, he had
24:45eyes. He had money. He had lawyers.
24:48[music] He knew what his own kin were
24:49made of because he had watched them for
24:5130 years. Whatever comes, we are ready.
24:54Adilia was not able to speak for a
24:56moment. Josie in the other chair was
24:58watching Finch with a solemn expression
25:01as if trying to memorize a face she
25:03suspected she was going to need.
25:04Finally, Adelia found her voice. How
25:07large is the estate? [music] The letter
25:08said Homestead. Finch smiled for the
25:10first time. Ma'am, that is a
25:12conversation better had at your kitchen
25:14table with a lamp between us. Let us get
25:16you home first. He drove them himself.
25:18[music] Not by rail. There was no rail
25:21to where they were going. He had a
25:22spring buck board [music] hitched to a
25:24pair of tough Morgan gelings. He drove
25:2690 mi north over the territory in 2
25:29days. camping the first night in a
25:31cottonwood grove on Chugwater Creek,
25:33telling them stories over a small
25:35mosquite fire about a man they had
25:37barely known. Silas Wickcom, born in
25:39Vermont in 1795, enlisted in the First
25:42Missouri Volunteers at the age of 51,
25:45served as quartermaster sergeant under
25:47General Wool through the Chihuahua
25:49campaign. Mustered out with a captain's
25:51letter of commendation, a lifelong
25:53contempt for the class of men who send
25:55other men into cannon fire from a
25:57hundred yards back. rode west with the
25:5949ers at 54. Worked a claim on the
26:02American River for two seasons. Sold it
26:04for $8,000 before the Placer failed.
26:07Trapped Beaver in the Wind River Range
26:09for four winters. Ran a small pack train
26:12out of Fort Bridger. Drifted north into
26:14the Big Horn Country in the spring of
26:151857 at 62. Simply never came back out.
26:19He had built his cabin with his own
26:21hands over two summers, hauling every
26:23log, every stone himself. When the
26:25federal land office opened at Cheyenne
26:27after the territory was organized in '
26:2968, he had walked in hoop by hoop turned
26:32squatters ground into legal fe [music]
26:34simple 320 acres of the finest
26:37east-facing slope on the whole of the
26:39big horn front. Why did he leave it to
26:41us? Josie asked [music] wrapped in a
26:43horse blanket by the fire, her face lit
26:46orange from below. Because you were the
26:48ones who reminded him of a time when
26:49people kept their word. The second day,
26:52the road turned to wagon track, then to
26:54game trail. The big horn front rose in
26:56front of them in a wall of blue violet.
26:59The snow line already halfway down the
27:01peaks, though it was only the middle of
27:03November. They crossed a ridge of pine,
27:05the trees fell back. The world opened up
27:07into a bowl of pale gold grass at the
27:09head of a creek. There, seated in the
27:11exact geometric center of that bowl, was
27:13the cabin. It was not a shack. It was
27:16not a leanto. It was not a wood pile. It
27:18was a two-story dwelling of handodized
27:21logs. Each log fitted with the patient
27:23love a man puts into a thing he does not
27:25expect anyone else to see. The roof was
27:27slate hauled up by mule from a quarry
27:29Adilia could not begin to imagine. The
27:32chimney was riverstone 10 ft across at
27:34the base [music] rising up through the
27:36roof with the settled confidence of a
27:38thing built to last a hundred winters. A
27:40covered porch wrapped three sides.
27:42Behind the cabin, a barn, a smokehouse,
27:45[music] a springhouse, all of the same
27:47patient construction. Behind those, the
27:49shoulder of the big horn rose gray
27:51white, unassalable into a sky that hurt
27:54the eyes. Josie made a sound Adelia had
27:56never heard from her child. It was not a
27:59word. It was the shape a small heart
28:01makes, miss, when it is first shown that
28:02the world can be more than it has been.
28:05She was down off the buckboard before
28:07Finch had set the break. She ran the
28:09last h 100red yards through the grass,
28:11her braids flying behind her, arms out
28:13as if to embrace the entire clearing.
28:16Adilia watched her go. She could not
28:18step down. Her legs were disobedient.
28:20Finch waited beside her, hat in his
28:22hands, saying nothing. Mr. Finch, is
28:24this real? It is yours, madam. Free of
28:27incumbrance, clear title. Prepaid taxes
28:30through 1934. There is a small store of
28:33cordwood in the shed, sufficient for the
28:35winter. There is a hind quarter of elk
28:37in the smokehouse, salted, hung by a
28:39neighbor at my instruction 3 weeks ago.
28:42There is coffee flour, salt, sugar,
28:43[music] beans in the pantry. There is a
28:46mule named Homer who has been boarded
28:48down the ridge with a family called Fen.
28:50I will bring him up tomorrow. The key to
28:52the front door is here. He put it in her
28:54palm. It was brass, worn smooth as a
28:56riverstone by 27 years of a single man's
28:59use. Adilia closed her fingers around
29:02it. She turned it over once, felt the
29:04small, warm weight of it, finally
29:06stepped down off the buckboard onto
29:07Wyoming ground. Josie was waiting for
29:09her at the porch. Mama, mama, mama, come
29:13see. The door swung inward on hinges
29:15that made no sound. The air inside was
29:17cold, [music] smelled of pine resin, old
29:19woodm smoke, the deep, sweet mineral
29:21scent of a house that has been well-kept
29:23even in its master's [music] absence. A
29:26stone hearth on the north wall dominated
29:28the main room carved along the mantle in
29:30a running [music] freeze of birds Adilia
29:32could not name from the doorway. A pine
29:34plank table under the west window. Four
29:36ladback chairs. A bookcase built [music]
29:39into the east wall spine to spine with
29:41volumes bound in cloth calf. A ladder to
29:43the sleeping loft. A door to a small
29:45back kitchen with a black cast iron
29:47[music] range. Everything scrubbed,
29:49everything ordered, everything waiting.
29:52Josie ran up the ladder like a small
29:54brown squirrel. Adilia heard her feet
29:56cross the loft above. Heard her voice
29:58come down muffled through the boards.
30:00Mama, there are two beds. One is small.
30:02It has a quilt with stars. Adilia stood
30:05in the middle of a room built by a man
30:07she had barely known. In a country she
30:09had never seen could not remember how to
30:11breathe. Finch behind her at the door
30:14had the grace to step back out onto the
30:16porch. Leave her alone with the house.
30:18They ate elk stew that night at Silus
30:20Wickham's pine plank table by the light
30:23of a whale oil lamp. Finch had left
30:25burning on the mantle. Josie ate two
30:27bowls, half a corn dodger, fell asleep
30:30with her cheek on her wrist before her
30:31mother could finish the dishes. Adilia
30:33carried her up the ladder to the small
30:35bed under the eaves, tucked the star
30:37quilt to her chin, brushed a strand of
30:39hair off her forehead with a hand that
30:41would not quite stop trembling. She
30:43stood a moment listening to the child
30:45breathe. She had listened to her
30:46daughter breathe in a tannery yard, in a
30:49wagon bed, in the drafty upper room of
30:51the poor house. She had listened for the
30:53small wet catch that meant croo, for the
30:55raggedness that meant fever, for the
30:57shallow rasp that meant hunger. Tonight
30:59there was only breath, slow, even the
31:02breath of a child who has, for the first
31:04time in the entirety of her memory, no
31:06reason not to sleep. Adilia climbed back
31:09down the ladder, walked out onto the
31:11porch, stood in a cold that would have
31:13killed her a month ago, [music] wrapped
31:15now in a wool blanket Silus Wickcom had
31:17woven himself in the winter of 79. The
31:20night was so clear the stars looked hung
31:22on wires. A wolf sang somewhere on the
31:25ridge to the north, long, thin. After a
31:28long moment, another answered from the
31:29south. She had never heard a wolf. She
31:31had thought she would be afraid. She was
31:34not afraid. The house at her back was
31:36warm. [music] The child above her was
31:38safe. The land under her boots belonged
31:40to her name. She spoke aloud softly. To
31:43no one or to a man 10 months dead, which
31:45was perhaps the same thing. Uncle Silas,
31:48I do not yet understand why you chose
31:50me. I promise you I will be worthy of
31:52what you have done. She stood a while
31:54longer. She was going to turn back
31:56inside when a movement at the far edge
31:58of the clearing caught her eye. a rider
32:00at the black rim where the pines began,
32:03silhouetted against the starfield above
32:04the big horn. Horse still as painted
32:07glass, watching the cabin. She could not
32:10see the face. She could not see the
32:12coat. She could see only that he was
32:14there, that he had been there long
32:15enough for the horse to stand quiet.
32:17That when she took a step forward to
32:19look more carefully, he was gone. She
32:21stood a long time on the porch after
32:23that, hand in the pocket of her skirt on
32:25the brass key, looking at the empty
32:27place where the rider had been. The
32:29wolves called again from the ridge. The
32:31stars did not move. Somewhere inside the
32:34house, a log settled in the bank stove
32:36with a small sound like a sigh. She
32:38thought, "We have not yet arrived. We
32:40have only been given ground on which to
32:42stand." She went inside, closed the
32:44door, slid the iron [music] bolt,
32:46climbed the ladder to the loft, lay down
32:48beside her sleeping daughter in the
32:50small, warm, dark under the eaves of a
32:52house that was at last hers. The first
32:54week in the Big Horn taught them a
32:56language they had not known they needed.
32:58The pump handle at the kitchen sink took
33:00a specific rocking motion to prime.
33:02Learned by the fourth morning at the
33:04cost of a soaked apron. The wood stove
33:06drew clean when the damper on the flu
33:08was cracked exactly one finger's width.
33:10Learned at the cost of a small chimney
33:12fire that scared the mule into kicking a
33:14slat off his stall. The chicken Silas
33:17had left in the coupe. Four buff
33:19Orpington hens tended [music] these past
33:216 months by the fence down the ridge.
33:23delivered nine eggs on the third
33:25morning, [music] which was more eggs
33:26than Adilia had eaten in a fortnight.
33:28She fried three of them in bacon grease
33:30from the smokehouse, watched her
33:32daughter eat two of them without
33:34stopping to breathe. She kept the fourth
33:36for herself, ate it slowly on the porch
33:38step, understood that this was what a
33:40person was supposed to feel like when
33:42they were not counting. Josie made a
33:44game of measuring the cabin. She had a
33:46length of clothes line she had found in
33:48the springhouse, marked every foot with
33:50a small knot of red thread from her
33:52mother's sewing basket. She would drag
33:54the line along a wall, count knots
33:56aloud, write the number in her copy
33:58book. On the fourth morning, she came
34:00down from the loft with the copy book
34:01open, her small face wearing the
34:03specific frown she had inherited from
34:05her mother, the one that appeared when a
34:07son refused to add, "Mama, the outside
34:09is longer than the inside." by four feet
34:12on the north wall. Adilia had been
34:14pouring boiling water into the coffee
34:16pot. She stopped. "Show me." They walked
34:18the north side of the house together.
34:20Mother, daughter, the child paying out
34:23the clothes line, hand overhand along
34:25the log wall, from the corner of the
34:26porch to the corner of the woodshed. 42
34:29knots. They walk the interior of the
34:31main room from the same corner along the
34:34base of the hearth to the same terminus
34:36at the back kitchen door. 38 knots. 4 ft
34:40unaccounted for. All of it swallowed
34:42somewhere along the width of the stone
34:43[music] chimney. Insulation, Adilia
34:45said, though she did not believe it.
34:48Stone chimneys were not insulated. Stone
34:50chimneys were solid stone. Josie was
34:53already studying the hearth itself, her
34:54small hand tracing the carved birds
34:56along the mantle. Silas had populated
34:58the pine board with a running freeze of
35:00the birds he had watched from this porch
35:02for the last quarter century of his
35:04life. A redtailed hawk with its wings
35:06halfcocked at the left end. A pair of
35:09magpies conferring in the middle, a gosh
35:11hawk at the far right end. Between them
35:13smaller work, chickades hatches, a pine
35:16[music] cis, and a dozen others. Near
35:18the bottom right of the mantle, where
35:20the carving met the stone, was a small
35:22brown creeper, Renized, unremarkable
35:25except that the wood around its body was
35:27worn slightly darker than the wood
35:28around the others, as if a single finger
35:31had touched it a great many times over a
35:33great many years. Josie put her thumb on
35:35it. She looked up at her mother. Mama,
35:38can I press it? Do not break it,
35:40sweetheart. The child pressed. The
35:42little bird sank into the mantle a
35:44quarter of an inch with a small dry
35:46click. From somewhere deep in the
35:48fireplace itself came a sound of stone
35:50on [music] stone. Not loud, only the
35:52small grinding whisper of a mechanism
35:54long unused deciding, after considerable
35:56thought to work. A hairline crack opened
35:59in the flagstones of the hearth. It had
36:01always been there, invisible under 30
36:03years of settled dust. The dust jumped
36:05free of the seam as the stone shifted. A
36:08square of the hearth, perhaps 4 feet on
36:10a side, lifted a quarter of an inch
36:12above the surrounding floors on some
36:14counterwe neither [music] of them could
36:16see. Adilia stepped back, pulling Josie
36:18behind her, her right hand on her
36:20daughter's shoulder. The small heat of
36:22the child grounding her against a
36:24heartbeat that had begun to climb into
36:26her throat. She waited. Nothing further
36:28happened. The stone hung there, waiting
36:31to be lifted. She fetched the pryar from
36:33the workshop, [music] worked it into the
36:35seam, put her weight on the handle. The
36:37slab lifted with the ease of a thing
36:39balanced by a craftsman who had
36:41understood exactly how heavy a stone
36:43could [music] be raised, by a woman who
36:45might one day need to raise it. Beneath
36:47the slab, a set of steps descended into
36:49the mountain. 12 steps of dress granite,
36:51each tread hollowed slightly by nothing
36:53more than the passage of a single man's
36:55boots over three decades. The lamp from
36:58the mantle came down the steps with
36:59them. Adilia went first, one hand on the
37:02wall, Josie two steps behind her with
37:04the lamp held high. The stairway ended
37:06in a small landing with a plank door
37:08unlocked. The door swung inward onto a
37:11chamber that stopped Adelia's breath in
37:12her throat. The vault was perhaps 20
37:14[music] ft on a side, ceiling arched
37:16with hand huneed beams laid up into the
37:18living rock. Kerosene lamps and wall
37:21brackets wicks long dry. Along three
37:23walls ran shelving of clear pine, each
37:25shelf labeled in Silus Wickham's small
37:27square hand. Along the fourth wall stood
37:30two ironbound trunks the size of grain
37:32chests, each fitted with a heavy brass
37:34hasp, each hasp locked with a key that
37:36hung from a leather thong on a peg
37:38[music] beside it. Because Silas Witcom
37:40had not needed to hide his keys from
37:42himself, in the center of the room stood
37:44a table of dark oak with a single lad
37:46back chair. On the table, a leatherbound
37:48ledger opened to a page dated the 3rd of
37:51April, 1884. Beside the ledger, a
37:54fountain pen, an inkwell, a wax
37:56cylinder, and a fitted wooden case.
37:58>> [music]
37:58>> The case labeled in the same square
38:00hand. Testimony of Silus J. Wickcom. Do
38:02not play except in court of law. Adilia
38:05lit the wall lamps one at a time, walked
38:07slowly along the shelving. The pine
38:09shelves held boxes labeled in a system
38:11that took her a moment to decipher.
38:13Boxes marked C followed by a date held
38:15coin. She opened the nearest. It was
38:18full of double eagles. $20 gold pieces
38:21from the San Francisco Mint stacked in
38:23cylinders wrapped in oil paper. Each
38:25cylinder holding 20 coins. She counted
38:2712 cylinders in the box, 240 coins,
38:31$4,800 in gold in one box. There were 23
38:34such boxes on the shelf. Boxes marked S
38:37held silver. Morgan silver dollars
38:39sacked in canvas bags of 100 coins each.
38:42She lifted one bag. It weighed as much
38:44as a full sack of flower boxes marked B
38:46held paper. She opened one. It was full
38:49of United States government bonds. 6%
38:52gold bonds from the war. dated 1863 64
38:5665 each with the coupon still attached
38:59in their proper rows each rising in
39:01value with every passing decade since it
39:03had been signed. [music] Silas had
39:05bought these when they were selling at
39:0680 cents on the dollar. They were now
39:09trading at par and above. Boxes marked
39:11Mheld mining stock. She opened one. She
39:13read the certificates. Ofer Mining
39:15Company, Comtock Load, Virginia City,
39:18Nevada, 100 shares, dated 1862. Gould
39:22Curry Mining 150 shares dated the same
39:25year. Homestake Mining Company lead
39:28Dakota Territory 200 shares dated 1878.
39:31[music]
39:32The Homestake had paid a dividend every
39:34quarter for the past 6 years. Boxes
39:36marked Rheld railroad paper. Union
39:39Pacific first mortgage bonds. Central
39:41Pacific first mortgage bonds. Northern
39:43Pacific preferred stock. Kansas Pacific
39:46Consolidated Bonds of the Denver, Rio
39:48Grand, the Chicago Northwestern. Along
39:51the top shelf in a row of 12 small tin
39:54boxes, each about the size of a family
39:56bible lay the land patents. 12 separate
39:58parcels held in fe simple by Silus J.
40:00Witcom, deceased in his name alone. 100
40:03acres of bottom land on the Portoire
40:06River in Los Anamus County, Colorado. A
40:08quarter section on the flanks of Pikes
40:10Peak. 40 acres of gulch above the town
40:13of Central City, still bearing the color
40:15the assaers had noted in 71. 80 acres
40:18outside a mining camp on Creek
40:20that no map yet showed, but that Silas
40:22had bought on the report of a broken
40:24down old prospector who had once done
40:26him a favor. Two full sections of
40:28grazing land west of Cheyenne. Six other
40:31parcels she had not the presence of mind
40:33to inventory that afternoon. She sat
40:35down at the oak table because her legs
40:37would not hold her any further. Josie
40:39had wandered along the shelves with the
40:41lamp, small face pale in the yellow
40:44light, [music] was now standing at
40:45Adilia's elbow with her thumb in her
40:47mouth for the first time in 3 years. The
40:50ledger lay open at Adilia's hand. Silas
40:52had made his final entry on the 3rd of
40:54April, the same day he had ridden 90 mi
40:56to Cheyenne to make his sworn record.
40:59His hand had been steadier than a man of
41:0189 ought to have any right to. He had
41:04summed the estate in a single column at
41:05the foot of the page. Coin gold $487,400
41:12silver $40,000 in Morgan coin government
41:15bonds at par with acred interest 740,000
41:19mining shares at current market 820,000
41:21[music]
41:23railroad securities 412,000
41:26land patents at reasonable valuation
41:28620,000
41:30grand total 3,119,400
41:35Adilia read the were three times her
41:37mouth had gone dry. [music] Under the
41:39total, in a slightly different ink, as
41:41if added later, Silas had written a
41:43short paragraph, [music] a note in the
41:45margin, unadressed, but plainly intended
41:47for whoever came down these stairs next.
41:50If you are reading this, you have found
41:52the room. Everything here is yours by my
41:54will, filed with Ezekiel Finch of
41:56Cheyenne, sworn before Judge Prudence
41:59Hollister of the territorial bench.
42:00There is nothing to fear from the paper.
42:02There will be a great deal to fear from
42:04certain of my brother's grandchildren
42:06who will arrive within weeks of the news
42:08reaching Missouri. Play the cylinder for
42:10the court. Do not for any reason play it
42:13in this house. Beside the ledger folded
42:16once, sealed with a small blot of red
42:18wax lay a letter. On the outside, in the
42:21same hand, the direction to Mrs. Adilia
42:23Wickcom should she find herself in this
42:26room. She broke the seal. The letter was
42:28two pages long, written on the same
42:30cream vellum as the lawyer's original
42:32notice in the same square careful hand
42:34as the ledger. Adilia, I have known who
42:37you were since the summer of 81 when I
42:39rode down to Springfield to bury the
42:41last brother I had left in the world. I
42:44stood in the back of that chapel because
42:45I did not have the manners for the
42:47front. I watched you for 2 hours. I saw
42:50a woman who had come to bury her father
42:52with a nursing baby on her hip, who
42:54spoke to every mourner in the receiving
42:55line by name, [music] who noticed the
42:57youngest of your father's neighbors,
42:59standing alone at the punch bowl,
43:01brought her a cup of coffee unprompted.
43:03I saw your sister count the flowers on
43:05the casket to see whose bouquet [music]
43:06was largest. I saw your brother Ambrose
43:09slip a silver pen from your father's
43:10writing desk into his coat pocket during
43:13the visitation. I saw your sister Oilia
43:15weep loudly whenever a person of
43:17consequence was watching. cease weeping
43:19whenever they were not. I saw your
43:21brother Cashius stand behind the
43:23pawbearers with [music] his hat in his
43:25hand, weep silently the entire service,
43:27refuse a place at the family table
43:29afterward because he could not stomach
43:31the food purchased with his father's
43:32insurance. I made my will that autumn. I
43:35have not changed it since. Every dollar
43:38in this room, [music] every acre patent
43:40in my name, every every coin belongs
43:43from this day forward to you jointly
43:45with your daughter Josephine to the
43:48express exclusion of every other person
43:50of my brother's line. This is not a
43:52gift. This is the correct disposition of
43:5440 years labor by a man who understood
43:56at last whom he was making it for. The
43:58lawyers will come, the sisters will
44:00come, the petitions will come. Ezekiel
44:03[music] Finch is a good man will stand
44:05at your right hand. Judge Hollister is a
44:07better judge than the territory
44:09deserves. Will do her plain duty when
44:11the moment arrives. The cylinder on the
44:13table is my sworn voice. Do not let
44:15sentiment persuade you to play it here.
44:17It is for the court. It is only for the
44:19court. It will win you the day. Be
44:22brave. [music] Be plain. Do not
44:24apologize for what has been given you.
44:25You did not steal it. It was set aside
44:28for you before you knew of my existence.
44:30I go to my rest without doubt, [music]
44:32without regret. The mountain has been
44:33good company. The child at your side
44:35will be better. Silus J. [music] Whitam.
44:38Adilia read the letter twice through.
44:40She set it down on the oak table, took
44:42her daughter's hand, sat a long moment
44:44with her cheek against the child's hair,
44:47breathed in the smell of pine resin, wax
44:49cylinder, the small, warm smell of a
44:519-year-old girl. Josie, there is a
44:54letter for you. Also, do you see the
44:56small box on the shelf behind you?
44:57[music] The box was cedar, no larger
44:59than a spectacle case labeled for the
45:01child who opens the mantle. Josie
45:03brought it to the table with both hands.
45:06Inside was a single sheet of paper
45:07folded in quarters, one gold liberty
45:10half eagle, a small folded pocket knife
45:12of good German steel. The letter was
45:14short. Josephine, I have not met you.
45:17You have not been born as I write this.
45:19Your mother has told my lawyer she is
45:21expecting a second child, which she was
45:23not, which turned out to be an illness
45:25that took her 3 months to recover from.
45:27But I have decided that you [music] will
45:28exist by the time you find this room.
45:31that you will be the sort of person who
45:32notices what does not add up. If you are
45:35reading this letter, I am correct on
45:36both counts. The half eagle is because a
45:39person ought to have money that belongs
45:41to no one but themselves. The knife is
45:43because a person ought to be able to cut
45:45a rope if the rope needs cutting. Both
45:47are yours. Nobody may take them from
45:49you. Be brave. Protect your mother. She
45:52has spent her whole life protecting you,
45:54Uncle Silas. Josie held the coin in one
45:57hand, the knife in the other. She looked
45:59at her mother at the cylinder at the
46:01shelves of a lifetime. Mama, he knew my
46:04name. He guessed your name, sweetheart.
46:06Your grandfather liked the name
46:08Josephine. Uncle Silas listened when
46:10your grandfather talked. Josie
46:12considered this mama. He is not a
46:14prophet. He was a man who was paying
46:16attention. Adilia laughed. The first
46:19true laugh she had produced in some
46:20considerable while. Felt her daughter
46:22smile against her shoulder. That is
46:24exactly right, my love. That is exactly
46:26what he was. They closed the vault. that
46:28afternoon, replaced the hearthstone,
46:30[music]
46:31sat down at the pine plank table
46:33upstairs with the ledger between them,
46:35made a plant. They would tell no one,
46:37"Not Finch, not yet. Not the fence down
46:39the ridge, not ever." They would ride
46:41into Cheyenne in 3 days, take a private
46:44interview with Finch, place the ledger,
46:46the cylinder, the letters into his
46:48hands, take his counsel on how a person
46:51quietly assumed possession of [music] $3
46:53million in the Wyoming territory of 1884
46:56without setting off the news wires. The
46:58plan lasted 6 weeks. Small towns in the
47:01West kept their own postal system older
47:03than the Union Pacific, more [music]
47:05efficient than the Western Union. It ran
47:07on the tongues of ranch hands stopping
47:08in for tobacco, of freigherss loading
47:11grain at the depot, of post [music]
47:13mistresses who did not need to open the
47:14mail to know its weight. Iona Sutcliffe
47:17kept the post office at Silver Creek in
47:19the front room of her framehouse on
47:21Second Street, sold books to travelers
47:23from a small case in the back, had over
47:25the years become the informal historian
47:27of Big Horn County by the simple
47:29expedient [music] of paying attention to
47:31what came in, what went out. She had
47:33known Silas Wickcom for 11 years. He had
47:36come into her office on the first day of
47:38every month for that entire period.
47:40Always on the second Tuesday, always
47:42with a saddle bag full of neatly wrapped
47:44parcels for the eastbound mail, always
47:46carrying a small list of new books he
47:48wished to have ordered from Boston,
47:50Philadelphia, Chicago. He had never
47:52mentioned the vault. He had never
47:54mentioned the shares. But over the
47:56years, he had bought titles from her
47:58that a plain mountain man had no earthly
48:00need for. treatises on [music]
48:02comparative geology, on the mining law
48:04of Nevada, on the constitutional history
48:06of testimentary trusts. She had wondered
48:09she had wondered a great deal she had
48:11never asked. When Adilia came into the
48:13post office in the last week of November
48:15to send a letter to Mrs. Harrove in St.
48:17Joseph, Iona Sutcliffe took one look at
48:20the widow's face, said only, "You have
48:22found the room then." Adilia set the
48:24letter down on the counter with the
48:26specific care of a person who had just
48:28been kicked in the chest. Iona did not
48:30smile. She was not a woman who smiled
48:32[music] a great deal. She was 55, iron
48:34gray hair pulled back into a severe bun,
48:37spectacles the color of pale amber,
48:39hands stained with printer's ink from a
48:41small hand press she kept in the back
48:43for the printing of the county's weekly
48:45notices. I have suspected for 11 years
48:47that your uncle was a wealthier man than
48:49he pretended. I said nothing because it
48:52was not my business. I say it now
48:54because in 6 weeks or 8, the news will
48:56[music] reach the newspapers in
48:57Cheyenne. From Cheyenne, it will reach
48:59Chicago. from Chicago. It will reach St.
49:01Louis. You will have visitors, Mrs.
49:03Wickcom. You will have visitors who will
49:06not knock on your front door. Adilia
49:08felt the small cold weight of the letter
49:10under her fingers kept her face still.
49:12How much time? 6 weeks, perhaps 2
49:15months, less, if any of the freight men
49:17have seen you take too much of an
49:19interest in the hearth. I would not send
49:21that letter east. I would not send
49:23anything east that [music] you do not
49:24wish read at every telegraph office
49:26between here St. Joseph. Write your
49:28friend a short cheerful note that says
49:30the house is warm. The mule is well.
49:32That is all. Adilia looked at the older
49:35woman a long moment. Miss Sutcliffe, why
49:37are you helping me? Iona took her
49:39spectacles off, wiped them once on the
49:41edge of her apron, put them back on.
49:43Because your uncle stood in this office
49:45once in the winter of 79 when a drifter
49:48tried to walk out with the day's cash
49:50box. Your uncle broke the man's wrist
49:52against the door frame without saying a
49:54word, then paid for the door frame out
49:56of his own pocket. He did not want to
49:58thank you. He did not want a reward. He
50:01wanted the drifter walk to the county
50:03line told never to come back. That is
50:05the sort of man he was. I am not going
50:07to stand aside now while his provision
50:09is torn away from the woman he chose to
50:11leave it to. Adilia rewrote the letter
50:13to Mrs. Hardrobe on the spot. She wrote
50:16a short cheerful note that said the
50:17house was warm, the mule was well, that
50:20they had found the pantry better stocked
50:22than expected, that the Wyoming stars
50:24were as advertised. She sealed it, paid
50:26the postage, walked out onto the plank
50:28walk of Silver Creek's single business
50:31street with her hand at her throat. The
50:33specific fear of a person who has just
50:35been [music] told that the fire she
50:36cannot yet see is already burning
50:38somewhere upwind of her. The fire
50:40arrived by wire 11 days later. A
50:43stringer for the Chicago Tribune working
50:45out of the Cheyenne bureau filed a two
50:47column story headline the hermit of the
50:49big horn recluse leaves fortune to
50:51penalist widow. The story had come to
50:54him from a talkative teller at the
50:55Cheyenne National who had noticed that
50:57Ezekiel Finch was making inquiries as to
50:59the sale of certain Union Pacific bonds
51:02on account of a client he would not
51:04name. The story ran on the 12th of
51:06December. The Kansas City Star picked it
51:08up [music] the 14th. The St. Louis Globe
51:10Democrat ran an expanded version the
51:1216th, complete with speculation as to
51:15the extent of the estate, which the
51:17Globe Democrat placed at $200,000,
51:19[music]
51:20which was low by a factor of 15, but
51:22sufficient to launch the machinery
51:24Adillia had known was coming.
51:26Constance's wire arrived at the Silver
51:28Creek Post Office on the 18th of
51:30December. Iona Sutcliffe wrote it out to
51:32the cabin herself on a borrowed mayor
51:34because she did not trust it to any
51:36deputy. The wire was seven words long.
51:38We are coming. [music] Do not refuse us.
51:41Constance. They came on the 20th.
51:44Constants in a bottle green traveling
51:46costume darker than the one she had worn
51:48in Saint Joseph cut for December.
51:50Trimmed at the throat cuffs with black
51:52Astrachon. Ambrose in a new Prince
51:54Albert coat purchased on credit against
51:56the anticipated windfall. A heavy gold
51:59watch chain across the vest that had not
52:01been there in Missouri. Oilia in her
52:03habitual gray. The veil this time
52:05trimmed with a small band of mourning
52:07crepe borrowed from a widow of her
52:09husband's congregation [music] for the
52:10specific purpose of arousing pity in a
52:13Wyoming judge. Percal Thornne of Chicago
52:15in a black frock coat, a fur collared
52:17overcoat, kid gloves, a val of dressed
52:20pigkin that cost more than a big horn
52:22hand would earn in 3 months. A
52:24photographer named Cyrus BBE with a
52:26large view camera on a tripod. 12
52:28[music] wet plates in a wooden box. And
52:30a Pinkerton operative named Rufus Cade
52:32in a canvas duster. a lowcrowned hat,
52:35boots that had done real work, eyes that
52:37missed nothing. They arrived by Wells
52:39Fargo coach at Silver Creek at noon,
52:41took the private room at the Boone Hotel
52:43for their party, sent word to the
52:45Wickcom homestead that they wished to
52:47call upon Mrs. Wickcom at 3:00 that
52:50afternoon to discuss matters of family
52:52[music] concern. Adilia sent word back
52:54that she would receive them on her porch
52:56in the open in front of any witnesses
52:58they cared to bring in the presence of
53:00Sheriff Bartholomew Reeves whom she had
53:03already wired to attend that they were
53:05welcome to bring their attorney [music]
53:06but that no photographic equipment would
53:09be permitted on her land. They arrived
53:10at 10 3. Cade had ridden ahead of the
53:13coach, tied his horse in the pines at
53:15the north edge of the clearing where he
53:17thought Adelia would not notice him. She
53:19had already noticed him. She had noticed
53:21him the previous afternoon when he had
53:24ridden the perimeter of the property
53:25with a small brass instrument that she
53:27took for a surveying transit, but that
53:29Iona had later told her was a
53:31rangefinder used by Pinkerton men
53:33[music] for the purpose of assessing the
53:35distances between a residence, the
53:36nearest cover. Constants came [music] up
53:38the porch steps first, kid gloves folded
53:41in one hand, the morning brooch at her
53:43throat catching the low December light.
53:45Adilia, dear, the country becomes you.
53:48You look almost well. State your
53:49business, Constance. Ambrose came up
53:51behind his sister. [music] Cigar unlit
53:53as usual, hands in his coat pockets.
53:56Sister, there has been a
53:57misunderstanding. The papers in Chicago
53:59are running your name in ways that do
54:01the family no credit. We have come to
54:03help settle the matter quietly. Nothing
54:05about my inheritance requires settling.
54:08It has been settled by a will, by a
54:11court, by the express provision of the
54:13man who left it. Oilia's veil lifted
54:15just enough for the tear to show.
54:17Adelia, we only want what is fair for
54:20all of Father's line. Surely a share for
54:22each of us given as a gift from your
54:24generous [music] heart would honor Uncle
54:25Silas in a way a lawsuit never could.
54:27Uncle Silas provided for his own
54:29generosity. He provided none for yours.
54:32Perl [music] Thorne stepped forward with
54:34the specific timing of an attorney who
54:36has been waiting for a quue. He removed
54:38a folded document from his val, unfolded
54:40it, presented [music] it to Adilia on
54:42the flat of both palms as if it were a
54:44summon in the biblical sense. Mrs.
54:46Wickcom as council to Mrs. Merryweather,
54:49Mr. Wickcom, [music]
54:51Mrs. Greavves, I am obliged to serve
54:53upon you a petition for guardianship of
54:55the person, [music] the estate filed
54:57this morning in the Laram County
54:59District Court, territory of Wyoming.
55:02The grounds are enumerated therein.
55:04Chief among them, incapacity to
55:06administer an estate of significant
55:08value by reason of two consecutive years
55:10of vagrancy, malnutrition, exposure of a
55:13minor child, further supported by a
55:16physician's affidavit [music] as to your
55:17nervous condition. The petition further
55:20requests emergency guardianship of the
55:21minor Josephine Wickcom pending
55:23disposition of the primary matter. A
55:26hearing has been calendared for the 17th
55:28of December. Adilia took the document
55:30without looking at it. She handed it,
55:32[music] still folded, to Sheriff Reeves,
55:34who had stationed himself at the foot of
55:36the porch steps with hand at his belt.
55:39Sheriff Reeves, would you be so kind as
55:41to walk these [music] persons back to
55:42their coach? They are not welcome on my
55:44property. Their attorney's paper is
55:46received. My response will be made in
55:49court. Kate at the treeine saw the
55:51moment go against his employer, made a
55:53small motion as if to move his horse
55:55closer to the cabin. Sheriff Reeves did
55:57not turn his head. [music] His voice
55:58carried across the clearing with the
56:00calm authority of a man who had spent 19
56:02years learning exactly how loudly to
56:05speak [music] in exactly what
56:06circumstance. Mr. Cade, that will do.
56:09You may return to the treeine, remain
56:11there, or you may accept my invitation
56:13to spend tonight in the Silver Creek
56:15jail. The choice is yours. Cade chose
56:18the treeine. He would not remain there
56:20long. Constance did not immediately
56:23move. She stood on the top step of the
56:25porch. so close to Adelia that the
56:27Astrachan on her [music] cuff brushed
56:29the widow's sleeve. Her voice dropped to
56:31the register meant only for family.
56:33Adelia, this is your last chance to
56:36settle privately. What you have here,
56:38you will not be permitted to keep. There
56:40are three of us. There is one of you.
56:43You will lose the child before you lose
56:44the money. I promise you this on our
56:46mother's grave. Sign the estate over to
56:49a family trust of which we are jointly
56:51guardians. You may keep the house, the
56:53child, a small income sufficient for
56:56both. Refuse. We will strip you to the
56:58plain widow you were on the Doyle wagon.
57:00Adilia did not step back. She had spent
57:03an entire adult life learning to hold
57:05ground she was told she could not hold.
57:07Constants, our mother is buried in the
57:09plain pine box you paid $12 for, while I
57:12paid the remaining 38 from the same
57:14insurance money you now claim as your
57:16own. Do not invoke her grave in my
57:18hearing. Get off my porch. Constance
57:21held her ground one heartbeat longer.
57:23Then she turned, descended the steps
57:25with the same practice pivot she had
57:27used on the plank walk in St. Joseph two
57:29months before, followed her siblings.
57:32Her attorney backed down the wagon track
57:33to the waiting coach. That night [music]
57:36at half past 11, Rufus K tied a length
57:38of piano wire between two lodgepole
57:40pines at shoulder height across the
57:42wagon track that no led from the Wickcom
57:44[music] homestead to the Silver Creek
57:46Road at a bend where the horse would not
57:48see it [music] until it was too late. He
57:50performed this act on Ambrose Wickham's
57:52instructions for a fee of $40 in gold
57:55[music] delivered in advance in the
57:57private room at the Boone Hotel. He was
57:59interrupted in the completion of the
58:00second knot by Sheriff Reeves, who had
58:03been sitting his own horse behind a
58:04large glacial boulder 50 yards up the
58:07ridge for the past 4 hours. Having
58:09anticipated exactly this manner of
58:11intervention, Cade was arrested without
58:14incident. The wire was cut down, coiled,
58:16entered into evidence. At 12 the same
58:19night, two men Cade had hired out of a
58:21Kansas City saloon that afternoon. on
58:24Ambrose's further instruction, rode up
58:26to the north edge of the clearing,
58:27dismounted, lit a small pile of hay they
58:30had piled against the outside wall of
58:31the horse barn. Jonas Ballard had heard
58:34the horses come up the creek trail past
58:36his own place 3 mi south, had followed
58:38on foot with his old sharps rifle. He
58:41fired one round into the ground between
58:43the two arsonists feet, which was
58:45sufficient to send them running. Cashes
58:47Wickham, who had arrived by tomorrow's
58:49coach 4 days ahead [music] of it, having
58:51ridden with a freight outfit from
58:52Cheyenne to be with his sister for the
58:54hearing, had been sleeping in the loft
58:56above the barn on a straw pallet, was
58:59down the ladder with his own pistol
59:00drawn before the second running footfall
59:02had left the clearing. The two men were
59:04caught by Sheriff Reeves at the bottom
59:06of the ridge trail before dawn. They
59:09confessed within an hour to being paid
59:11$100, half in advance, [music] by a
59:14gentleman answering to the description
59:15of Ambrose Wickcomb at the private room
59:17of the Boone Hotel. Sheriff Reeves rode
59:19into Silver Creek at 7:00. the following
59:21morning arrested Ambrose Wickcom in the
59:24dining room of the same hotel over his
59:26breakfast. Walked him three blocks in
59:28his shirt sleeves to the county jail,
59:30wired an account of the arrest to the
59:32district attorney in Cheyenne along with
59:34a request for immediate criminal
59:35proceedings for solicitation to arson.
59:38Ambrose was released on a $500 bond
59:41posted by Percal Thornne's firm within 4
59:43hours. But the story of a Wickcom
59:45brother arrested for burning down the
59:47barn of a Wickcom widow ran [music] in
59:49every paper in the territory by the
59:51following evening. Constance did not
59:53speak to Ambrose for the remaining 7
59:55days before the hearing. Oilia would not
59:58sit beside him at supper. Silver Creek
1:00:00closed ranks. Adilia had not asked it
1:00:03to. It had chosen its own side within 24
1:00:05hours of Cad's arrest. had not
1:00:07thereafter permitted her the courtesy of
1:00:09a second opinion. Ephraim Boone at the
1:00:11Merkantile refused Ambrose's account.
1:00:14Zebulon Marsh at the Smithy refused to
1:00:16shoe the coach team. Loretta Bishop at
1:00:18the schoolhouse composed [music] a
1:00:20petition of 71 names of Big Horn County
1:00:22residents attesting to the exemplary
1:00:25character of the widow Wickcom hand
1:00:27carried it to Ezekiel Finch in Cheyenne.
1:00:292 days before [music] the hearing, Doc
1:00:31Amos Blackwood examined Josephine, wrote
1:00:34a two-page medical certificate on the
1:00:36head of his own printed stationery,
1:00:38declaring her one of the healthiest,
1:00:40most intellectually advanced children he
1:00:42had examined in 22 years of country
1:00:44practice. Iona Sutcliffe copied every
1:00:47wire that passed through her office
1:00:49bearing any name connected to the
1:00:51[music] petitioners over a period of 5
1:00:52days to delivered the sheath to Finch on
1:00:54the 14th of December in a plain envelope
1:00:57tied with butcher's twine. Casius stayed
1:01:00at the cabin the seven nights before the
1:01:01hearing. He slept in the loft above the
1:01:04barn. He did not enter the house except
1:01:06at Adillia's invitation. He took his
1:01:09meals at Jonas Ballard's table three mi
1:01:11down the creek because he understood
1:01:13without being told that he had not yet
1:01:15earned the right to a place at [music]
1:01:16his sisters. He mended fence. He split
1:01:19three cords of stovewood. He waited for
1:01:22the moment to make himself [music]
1:01:23useful in the way that would matter.
1:01:25Bulah Harrove had left St. Joseph on the
1:01:278th of December on the Kansas Pacific,
1:01:29had reached Cheyenne on the 13th,
1:01:31[music] was lodged at the Inner Ocean
1:01:33Hotel at Finch's expense against
1:01:35Adilia's protest. The old widow had made
1:01:38the journey in her 68th year against her
1:01:40physicians orders. She had said only in
1:01:42[music] the wire that announced her
1:01:44departure. I have come to say what I
1:01:46saw. I will say it under oath. On the
1:01:48evening of the 16th of December, Adilia
1:01:51sat with Josephine at the pine plank
1:01:53table by lamplight. The day before the
1:01:55hearing, the child dressed already in
1:01:57the sage colored wool that had been made
1:01:58for the occasion by Loretta Bishop from
1:02:01bulk [music] cloth donated by Ephraim
1:02:03Boon. Josie had turned the copy book to
1:02:05a fresh page. She was practicing in the
1:02:08small, careful hand she had inherited
1:02:10from her mother. The words she intended
1:02:11to speak in court if the judge permitted
1:02:13her to speak. Mama, I have written them
1:02:16down, so I will not forget. Would you
1:02:18like to hear? Adilia [music] listened.
1:02:20The words were not the words a
1:02:229-year-old ought to have needed to know.
1:02:24They were, however, the correct [music]
1:02:25words. She did not change one of them.
1:02:28Snow had begun to sift down against the
1:02:30window panes. The wind had risen out of
1:02:32the north an hour after sunset. The
1:02:34wolves on the ridge were quiet, having
1:02:36taken their kill early. Somewhere in the
1:02:38loft above the barn, Casius was cleaning
1:02:41the pistol he would carry into Cheyenne
1:02:43the next morning in a shoulder holster
1:02:45under his coat. Would not draw, would
1:02:47not need to draw because the fight
1:02:49tomorrow was one that would be won
1:02:51without powder. Adilia stood one last
1:02:53time at the porch rail before bed,
1:02:55wrapped in [music] the wool blanket her
1:02:57uncle had woven 15 years before, watched
1:03:00the snow come down slantwise across the
1:03:02meadow that had at last become her own
1:03:04ground. Uncle Silas, she said aloud to a
1:03:07man 20 months in the earth. Tomorrow
1:03:09they will try to take her. Tomorrow I
1:03:11will not let them. That is all I know
1:03:13how to promise. That is all I intend to
1:03:15promise. The morning of the 17th of
1:03:17December broke over Cheyenne under a
1:03:19sky. the color of raw pewtor, the
1:03:21temperature not 8° above zero at
1:03:23sunrise, the wind coming down off the
1:03:26Laram range with the small crystallin
1:03:28edge that told a Wyoming person snow
1:03:30would arrive before the courthouse
1:03:32adjourned. Adila stood at the window of
1:03:34the inner ocean hotel on 16th Street
1:03:37with a cup of coffee cooling in her
1:03:39hand, watching the drees hall barrels of
1:03:41cold down the frozen street, feeling in
1:03:43the small of her back the specific ache
1:03:45of a woman who has not truly slept in 9
1:03:47days. Behind her, Josephine sat on the
1:03:50edge of the bed in a plain wool dress
1:03:52the color of dried sage, plating her
1:03:54hair without a mirror, humming a tune
1:03:56Adilia did not recognize. The child had
1:03:58insisted upon the sage dress. She had
1:04:01said, "A person going to a place of
1:04:03judgment should not go dressed like a
1:04:05bride or a beggar." Casius arrived at 7
1:04:08with a plate of [music]
1:04:09wrapped in a cloth napkin from the
1:04:10boarding house on Eddie Street. He had
1:04:12traveled by the same immigrant coach
1:04:14that had brought the delegation from
1:04:16Silver Creek. 16 wagons in a slow train
1:04:19down the Chugwater Road over 3 days,
1:04:21[music] 61 souls in all, arriving at the
1:04:23Union Pacific Hotel yard the previous
1:04:25[music] evening under lanterns. He set
1:04:28the plate on the wash stand, did not
1:04:30sit. Old habit had settled hard in him,
1:04:33the habit of a man who owed a debt he
1:04:34could not repay standing upright until
1:04:36he was told he might lower his
1:04:38shoulders. Adilia did not tell him. She
1:04:40was not yet in the practice of granting
1:04:42that permission to anyone. Ezekiel Finch
1:04:45came for them at half 8 in a hired hack.
1:04:47The Laram County courthouse stood four
1:04:50blocks [music] west, a plain sandstone
1:04:52building with pillars that pretended to
1:04:54be Greek without quite committing to the
1:04:56pretense. Snow crusted along the top
1:04:58step [music] where the janitor had not
1:05:00yet swept. Inside the corridor smelled
1:05:02of pine oil, cheap tobacco, the pressed
1:05:05wool of too many overcoats hung too
1:05:07close together on the row of iron hooks.
1:05:09The gallery of the courtroom was already
1:05:113/4 full when they came through the
1:05:14double doors. Every seat along the east
1:05:16wall was taken by men. Women who had
1:05:18ridden 90 mi on wagons behind draft
1:05:20horses across an open plane in December
1:05:23to sit for 6 hours on unpadded pine
1:05:25[music] benches for a woman most of them
1:05:26had known for 6 weeks. Ephraim Boon the
1:05:29storekeeper. Zebulon Marsh the
1:05:31blacksmith with his massive scarred
1:05:33hands folded in his lap. Loretta Bishop
1:05:36the school mistress in her Sunday
1:05:37bonnet. Doc Amos Blackwood with his
1:05:39medical bag beside his boots as if he
1:05:42expected somebody to faint. Iona
1:05:44Sutcliffe, the post mistress, had
1:05:46brought her own knitting. Sheriff
1:05:47Bartholomew Reeves, was in the second
1:05:50row in uniform, the Silver Star polished
1:05:52his hat on his knee. Bula Hargrove sat
1:05:54at the aisle, a small carpet at her
1:05:57feet, having ridden the Kansas Pacific,
1:05:59the Union Pacific, across two
1:06:01territories in her 68th year to keep a
1:06:03promise she had made to no one but
1:06:05herself. She rose when Adilia entered,
1:06:07took Adilia's hand between both of her
1:06:10own for a moment, said nothing, sat back
1:06:12down. The silence was more sufficient
1:06:14than any speech would have been. Perival
1:06:16Thorne of Chicago was already at the
1:06:18petitioner's table in a black frock coat
1:06:20that fit him too well for the country
1:06:22west of the Missouri River. Two junior
1:06:24councils flanked him, both with brass
1:06:27[music] cornered dispatch cases.
1:06:28Constance Merryweather sat behind them
1:06:31in bottle green traveling silk, [music]
1:06:33her jet buttons catching the gas light,
1:06:35her face composed with the specific
1:06:37artificial calm of a person who has been
1:06:39drilled in the composure. Ambrose
1:06:41Wickham sat beside her out on the bond
1:06:43his brother-in-law's attorney had raised
1:06:453 weeks past the cigar absent from his
1:06:48teeth for once. Oilia Greavves wore gray
1:06:50again, veil lifted for the occasion,
1:06:52hands folded in her lap around a small
1:06:54tortois shell Bible. None of the three
1:06:57looked at Adelia when she came down the
1:06:58aisle. It was the specific averted gaze
1:07:01of relatives who [music] have decided
1:07:03that a person is already functionally no
1:07:05longer kin. Judge Prudence Hollister
1:07:08entered at nine sharp through the door
1:07:10behind the bench. She was 60 years old.
1:07:12Silver hair drawn back into a knot
1:07:14behind her head with the plain black
1:07:16gross grain ribbon she was known to
1:07:18favor. The black robe hanging from her
1:07:20narrow shoulders as if it had been cut
1:07:22for a taller person. She had ridden
1:07:25circuit through Wyoming territory for 11
1:07:27years, having taken the bench two years
1:07:29after the territorial legislature
1:07:31granted women both the vote, the right
1:07:33to hold office. [music] She had presided
1:07:35over four murder trials, 19 land
1:07:38disputes, one attempted assassination of
1:07:40a federal marshall. She sat down,
1:07:42arranged three ledgers on the bench in
1:07:44front of her, looked out over the packed
1:07:46gallery without visible surprise, called
1:07:49the court to order. Thorne [music]
1:07:50stood, opened his portfolio, began the
1:07:53petition with the measured slowwater
1:07:55cadence of a man who charged $100 an
1:07:57hour to read aloud. The petitioners
1:08:00being the natural collateral relations
1:08:02of the deedent Silus J. Wickham
1:08:05submitted with the greatest respect for
1:08:06the court's time that the sole legate,
1:08:09Mrs. Zadilia Wickham was manifestly
1:08:12incompetent by reason of two continuous
1:08:14years of vagrancy in the state of
1:08:16Missouri to administer an estate of the
1:08:18magnitude in question that the welfare
1:08:20of the minor child Josephine Witcom
1:08:22further demanded intervention by
1:08:24responsible kin that guardianship should
1:08:26therefore vest in the eldest surviving
1:08:28sister Mrs. Constance Merryweather
1:08:31together with the appointment of a trust
1:08:33corporation of St. Louie to [music]
1:08:34manage the pecuniary assets under the
1:08:37supervision of this court. He laid out
1:08:39the bank records of Adilia's evictions.
1:08:41[music] He laid out the sworn statement
1:08:42of the deputy sheriff who had in
1:08:44September of 83 moved her out of the
1:08:47wagon behind Doyle's livery for the
1:08:49third time. He laid out an affidavit
1:08:51from a physician in St. Joseph, Dr.
1:08:53prime testifying that the widow Wickcom
1:08:56had presented in his office in the
1:08:57winter of 82 with symptoms consistent
1:09:00with nervous prostration that no [music]
1:09:02woman in such a condition could
1:09:03reasonably be entrusted with the
1:09:05management of substantial capital.
1:09:07Adilia had never set foot in Dr. Prime's
1:09:10office in her life. The affidavit had
1:09:12cost Constance $20. Thorne read it as if
1:09:15it were scripture. Ambrose took the
1:09:17stand, told the court that he had made
1:09:19repeated efforts over the past 3 years
1:09:21to render financial assistance to his
1:09:23younger sister, that she had refused him
1:09:25out of what he could only describe as
1:09:27unreasoning pride. Constance testified
1:09:30through a lace handkerchief, [music]
1:09:32told the court that her heart bled for
1:09:34the little girl who had suffered so
1:09:36grievously through the widow's poor
1:09:37judgment. Oilia produced an actual tear,
1:09:40held her small Bible against her breast,
1:09:42prayed aloud that the Lord grant this
1:09:44court the wisdom of Solomon. Adilia
1:09:47watched them each in turn. She did not
1:09:49permit herself contempt. Contempt was a
1:09:51currency she could not afford in a
1:09:53courtroom. She held instead the small,
1:09:55clean weight of the truth, waited.
1:09:57Ezekiel Finch rose when Thorne had
1:09:59rested. He was 68 years old, his
1:10:02shoulders as square as the frame of the
1:10:03door he had come through. He carried no
1:10:06notes. He set both hands on the
1:10:08defendant's table, addressed the bench
1:10:10directly, [music] his voice pitched to
1:10:11carry to the last row of the gallery
1:10:14without seeming to raise itself at all.
1:10:16Your honor, what we have heard this
1:10:18morning is not the concern of a family
1:10:19for a stricken relative. It is the
1:10:22coordinated attempt of three grown
1:10:23adults to seize by legal process what
1:10:26they could not obtain by persuasion. My
1:10:28client did not become homeless through
1:10:30poor judgment. She became homeless
1:10:32because her three siblings, seated at
1:10:34that table, borrowed from her the sum of
1:10:36$3,000 [music]
1:10:37in the autumn of 1881, executed formal
1:10:41notes for the sums borrowed, [music]
1:10:42never repaid a dollar. When she wrote
1:10:44requesting repayment, her letters were
1:10:47ignored. When she was evicted from her
1:10:49home, they were informed by wire. No
1:10:51reply came. When her 9-year-old daughter
1:10:54slept two winters in a broken wagon
1:10:56behind a livery stable, [music] none of
1:10:58them so much as sent a Christmas card.
1:11:00He produced the notes. He laid the
1:11:02original bills of exchange on the bench.
1:11:04He laid the receipts from Western Union
1:11:06for the six wires Adelia [music] had
1:11:08sent asking for repayment. He laid the
1:11:10returned envelope from Vandervener Place
1:11:12[music] with the housekeeper spidery
1:11:14notation. Madam not receiving. He laid
1:11:17the affidavit from the Buchanan County
1:11:18Sheriff attesting that no Constance
1:11:20Merryweather. No Ambrose Witcom, no
1:11:23Oilia Greavves had ever visited or
1:11:25attempted to visit the residence of
1:11:27Adelia Witcom from the year 1881 to the
1:11:30date of the present testimony. He laid
1:11:32down Sheriff Reeves's sworn report of
1:11:34the wire trap set across the wagon road
1:11:37between the Witcom Homestead, Silver
1:11:39Creek, the arrest of the Pinkerton
1:11:41operative Rufus Cade. The confession of
1:11:43the two men Ambrose had paid $100 in
1:11:45Kansas City to ride north into Bigghorn
1:11:48County. Set fire to the straw beside a
1:11:50widow's stable at midnight in order to
1:11:52intimidate her out of her inheritance.
1:11:54Ambrose went the color of wet plaster.
1:11:56Constance's mouth tightened until it
1:11:58disappeared. The gallery made a low
1:12:00collective sound like the intake of
1:12:02[music] breath before a storm. Finch
1:12:04turned then gestured to Casius Wickcom,
1:12:07who rose from the second row, walked
1:12:09forward to the witness [music] stand
1:12:10with the slow, deliberate weight of a
1:12:12man carrying a load he had chosen not to
1:12:14set down. He was sworn. He gave his
1:12:16name, his occupation, [music]
1:12:18his relationship to the parties on both
1:12:20sides. His voice was quiet but did not
1:12:23shake. I am the brother of the
1:12:24petitioners. I am also the brother of
1:12:27the respondent. In the fall of 1882, I
1:12:30borrowed $600 from my sister, Adilia, at
1:12:32a time when I knew she could not afford
1:12:34to lend it. I did not repay her. I
1:12:37watched my other siblings do [music] the
1:12:38same. I said nothing cuz I was a coward
1:12:40who preferred the good opinion of the
1:12:42strong to the honest opinion of my own
1:12:44soul. I have this month returned to her
1:12:47the principle of the debt in full
1:12:49together with 3 years of interest at 8%.
1:12:52I am here today to say plainly under
1:12:54oath [music] in the presence of this
1:12:56court that my sisters my brother came to
1:12:58Wyoming territory for one purpose. That
1:13:01purpose [music] was money. Not one of
1:13:02them ever asked after Josephine when she
1:13:04was hungry. Not one of them ever came
1:13:06when Adelia was sick. Every word they
1:13:09have spoken this morning has been a lie.
1:13:11I say it under oath. I will say it under
1:13:13oath a 100 times. Constance did not move
1:13:16a muscle. Ambrose stared at Casius as if
1:13:18the man had just drawn a knife across
1:13:20the family table. Oilia's hand flew to
1:13:23her mouth. She did not remove it for the
1:13:25remainder of the testimony. Judge
1:13:27Hollister let the silence hold for a
1:13:29full 10 seconds before she spoke. She
1:13:31turned then to the defendant's table.
1:13:33Mr. Finch, I understand the respondent
1:13:35has requested to give testimony in her
1:13:37own person. She will be sworn. Adelia
1:13:40crossed the well of the court with a
1:13:42step so measured it might have been a
1:13:43wedding march. She placed her left hand
1:13:46on the Bible, raised her right, gave her
1:13:48name, her age, her place of residence.
1:13:52She sat down on the pine chair that had
1:13:54been polished by 10,000 nervous
1:13:55petitioners before her. She looked once
1:13:58at her siblings across the room, then
1:14:00only at the judge. Your honor, my
1:14:02siblings are correct in one particular.
1:14:05I have slept in a wagon. My daughter has
1:14:07slept there beside me. What they have
1:14:09neglected to describe is who made the
1:14:11wagon necessary. I trusted my family. I
1:14:15lent them what my father left me. They
1:14:17did [music] not repay me. When my
1:14:18husband died, I applied for permission
1:14:20to practice my trade as a midwife in the
1:14:22county of Buchanan. Was refused because
1:14:24I had no man to sign the papers. I
1:14:27applied for domestic positions in 14
1:14:29households. Was refused because widows
1:14:32with small children are not considered
1:14:33decorative. I applied to teach in the
1:14:36county school. [music] Was told the
1:14:37position had already been given to a
1:14:39young man 3 months out of the normal
1:14:41school. I did not become poor through
1:14:44vice or through weakness of mind. I
1:14:46became poor because a widow in this
1:14:47country is what we have decided a widow
1:14:49shall be. I have kept my daughter alive.
1:14:52I have kept her clean. I have kept her
1:14:54in school every day the doors were open.
1:14:56I have never asked one of my siblings
1:14:58for a dollar. Not since the day I
1:15:00understood a dollar given them was a
1:15:02dollar into a well. Josephine sat in the
1:15:05front row of the gallery beside Bula
1:15:06Hargrove, her feet not touching the
1:15:08floor, her hands folded on the sage
1:15:11colored wool over her knees. When Adilia
1:15:14stepped down, the [music] child looked
1:15:15up at her mother. Mrs. Hargrove looked
1:15:17at the child. The child looked at Judge
1:15:19Hollister. Judge Hollister's face did
1:15:22[music] not change. Her voice, however,
1:15:24when she spoke, was gentler than the
1:15:26courtroom had yet heard it. Miss
1:15:28Whitcom, [music] do you understand what
1:15:29an oath is? I do, ma'am. It is a promise
1:15:32to tell the truth to God even when
1:15:34telling it will make people angry.
1:15:35[music] Would you consent to give one if
1:15:37you wished? I would like to, ma'am, if
1:15:40it is permitted. The child was sworn on
1:15:42the same Bible her mother had touched.
1:15:44She stood beside the witness chair
1:15:46rather than sitting in it because the
1:15:48chair was too tall to allow her feet
1:15:49[music] to reach the floor. She held her
1:15:51ragd doll in her left hand at her side,
1:15:53out of the sight of the gallery, because
1:15:55the doll had come with her every day of
1:15:57her life, would not be left behind for
1:15:59so small a matter as a court of law. Her
1:16:02voice was clear as the bell on a
1:16:03schoolhouse Koopa. Your honor, my mother
1:16:06is the strongest person I know. When we
1:16:08slept in the wagon behind Mr. Doyle's
1:16:10stable, she always ate less than she
1:16:12gave me. She never let me feel poor. She
1:16:15walked me to school through the alley so
1:16:17people would not see our shoes. My
1:16:19aunts, my uncle did not visit us when we
1:16:21were cold. They never wrote me a letter.
1:16:24They never sent a Christmas orange. Now
1:16:26they say they love me. But love is a
1:16:28word people use when they want
1:16:30something. My uncle Silas never said the
1:16:32word love in any letter. He wrote to me.
1:16:34He said only be brave. He said only
1:16:37protect your mother. That is more like
1:16:39love than anything my aunts have said in
1:16:41my whole life. She drew a folded paper
1:16:43from the small pocket [music] sewn into
1:16:45the front of her sage dress. It was the
1:16:47letter Silas Wickcom had written to a
1:16:49girl he would never see. Dated the 3rd
1:16:51of April, [music] 1884. Folded so many
1:16:54times the creases had gone soft as
1:16:56cloth. My uncle wrote this before I
1:16:58found the room under the hearth. He
1:17:00wrote it because he had watched my
1:17:01family for 20 years because he had seen
1:17:03who was who. He was not a prophet. He
1:17:06was a man with eyes. I would like to
1:17:08give it to the court now. The baleiff
1:17:10took the letter. Judge Hollister read it
1:17:13in complete silence. The only sound in
1:17:15the room, the [music] small ticking of
1:17:17the courthouse clock in its walnut case
1:17:19above the door. When she was done, she
1:17:21folded the letter with the same
1:17:23reverence. One gives [music] a discharge
1:17:24paper from a war, laid it on the bench,
1:17:27looked out over the gallery. Miss
1:17:29Witcom, you may step down the court
1:17:31thanks you. Josephine Curtsied, which no
1:17:34one had taught her to do, walked back to
1:17:36her seat beside Mrs. Harrove. The old
1:17:39woman put an arm around the child, drew
1:17:41her in against her side, kept her there.
1:17:43Ezekiel Finch rose one final time. Your
1:17:46honor, with the court's permission, I
1:17:47would present one additional item of
1:17:49evidence. It is unusual. I asked the
1:17:51court's indulgence. Proceed. Finch
1:17:54turned toward the baiff. The baleiff
1:17:56opened the double doors at the rear. Two
1:17:59men from the offices of the Union
1:18:00Pacific rolled a wheeled cart down the
1:18:02center aisle. On the cart, cushioned in
1:18:05a nest of red velvet, [music] sat a
1:18:07machine of polished walnut, brass
1:18:08fittings, a great flaring Japan horn
1:18:11tilted upward like the bell of a strange
1:18:13black flower. Beside it, in a fitted
1:18:15case rested a wax cylinder about the
1:18:17size of a preserving [music] jar. The
1:18:19gallery leaned forward as one body.
1:18:21Almost no person in the room had ever
1:18:23seen an Edison photograph. Most had read
1:18:25about them in the newspaper. Two women
1:18:27who had never seen one believed the
1:18:29reports to be an exaggeration would
1:18:32afterward tell their grandchildren that
1:18:33they had heard a dead man [music] speak.
1:18:35On the day the Witcom case was decided,
1:18:38Finch fitted the cylinder to the mandrel
1:18:40with the practice motions of a man who
1:18:42had done it three times in this same
1:18:44room to prepare. He set the reproducer
1:18:46arm at the head of the wax. He turned
1:18:48the small brass crank once, twice, until
1:18:51the flywheel took up the motion. He
1:18:53stepped back. The horn hissed for a
1:18:55moment with the sound of the wax passing
1:18:57under the diamond stylus. Then a voice
1:18:59came out of it. A voice not one person
1:19:01in that courtroom had heard alive that
1:19:03every person in that courtroom would
1:19:05remember to their own graves. It was
1:19:07thin. It was scratched. It was the voice
1:19:10of a very old man speaking with great
1:19:12care into a machine he did not entirely
1:19:14[music] trust. It filled the room the
1:19:16way lamplight filled a barn at midnight.
1:19:18Sudden, undeniable, present in a way
1:19:20that made the hair on the arms of grown
1:19:22men rise from the skin. I am Silus J.
1:19:25Wickcom. Today is the 3rd of April,
1:19:271884. I am at the office of my attorney,
1:19:30Mr. Ezekiel Finch, in Cheyenne, Wyoming
1:19:33territory. I am in the 89th year of my
1:19:36life in the possession of my full
1:19:37faculties, as has been examined at
1:19:39length this morning by Judge Prudence
1:19:42Hollister of the Laram County bench. I
1:19:44speak this record because I know what I
1:19:46know about my brother Elijah's children,
1:19:48because I do not intend that what I have
1:19:50gathered over 40 years shall pass into
1:19:53the hands of those who did not earn it.
1:19:55There was a small silence in the wax,
1:19:56the sound of the old man drawing breath.
1:19:59When it came again, the voice was
1:20:00harder, almost stern, the voice of a
1:20:02sergeant who has commanded men in a
1:20:04field of fire. Constance, Ambrose,
1:20:08Oilia, you have taken from your sister,
1:20:10you have taken from your father. You
1:20:12have never in your lives given a thing
1:20:14that did not first require an accounting
1:20:16of what you would get in return. I have
1:20:18watched. I have kept my counsel. I have
1:20:20made my provision. If you are hearing
1:20:22this voice today, it is because you have
1:20:24come to Wyoming with lawyers to take
1:20:26from Adelia what I set aside for her.
1:20:28You will not succeed. Every paper is in
1:20:31order. [music] Every witness has been
1:20:33prepared. Every dollar of the estate is
1:20:35protected under the seal of this court.
1:20:37Go home. Leave my niece in peace. Leave
1:20:39the child in peace. If you have any
1:20:41decency remaining in you, spend the rest
1:20:44of your lives learning what your sister
1:20:45already knows, which is that a person is
1:20:48measured by what they set down, [music]
1:20:50not by what they lift up. Adilia
1:20:52Josephine, this is yours. It was always
1:20:54going to be yours. Do with it what your
1:20:55consciences require. I go to my rest
1:20:57without a single regret upon my soul.
1:20:59Silus J. Witcom, God be with you all.
1:21:02The horn hissed a moment longer, then
1:21:04went quiet. Finch lifted the reproducer
1:21:07arm, set it in its cradle. He did not
1:21:09speak. He did not need to. The silence
1:21:12in the room had a weight to it that no
1:21:14lawyer in the history of the territory
1:21:16had ever bettered. Constance was staring
1:21:18at a point on the floor 3 ft in front of
1:21:20the petitioner's table. Ambrose was
1:21:22gripping the edge of the table with both
1:21:24hands as if he expected the floor to
1:21:26tilt. Oilia had begun quietly without
1:21:30sound to cry. It was not the theatrical
1:21:32grief of her earlier testimony. It was
1:21:34the small unadorned crying of a woman
1:21:36who has understood at last that the door
1:21:39has closed behind her, that it will not
1:21:41open again. Judge Hollister let the
1:21:43silence hold. She had ridden hard
1:21:45country for 11 years. She knew a
1:21:47decisive moment when she saw one. She
1:21:50did not permit the moment to be spoiled
1:21:51[music] with the sound of her own voice
1:21:53until she was certain every soul in the
1:21:55room had received the full weight of
1:21:57what they [music] had just witnessed.
1:21:59When at last she spoke, her voice was as
1:22:01level as a plum line. This court has now
1:22:04heard testimony under oath from the
1:22:05respondent, from her 9-year-old
1:22:07daughter, from her [music] brother,
1:22:08Casius Wickcom. This court has read the
1:22:11sworn deposition of Silus J. Wickcom.
1:22:13This court has heard the recorded voice
1:22:15of the same made in the city 8 months
1:22:18before his death in the presence of
1:22:20council of the sitting judge. This court
1:22:22finds the petition before it to be
1:22:24without merit of any description
1:22:26whatsoever. Petitioners have not
1:22:28established the incompetency of the
1:22:30respondent. Petitioners have on the
1:22:32contrary demonstrated with clarity that
1:22:34their own conduct toward the respondent
1:22:36has been reprehensible [music] that the
1:22:38present action is the continuation of a
1:22:40pattern of predation upon a widowed
1:22:42sister that dates back at least to the
1:22:44death of the party's father in 1881. She
1:22:47looked directly at Constance, then at
1:22:49Ambrose, then at Oilia. Not one of them
1:22:52met her eye. The petition is denied.
1:22:54Petitioners shall pay all costs of the
1:22:56respondents defense, including the fees
1:22:58of counsel, all expenses of the
1:23:00community witnesses who have traveled
1:23:02from Big Horn County to this hearing.
1:23:04Mr. Ambrose Whitcom is bound over for a
1:23:07separate criminal proceeding upon the
1:23:09sheriff's report of solicitation to
1:23:11arson intimidation of a resident of Big
1:23:13Horn [music] County. Mrs. Constance
1:23:15Merryweather is enjoined for a period of
1:23:173 years from setting foot in Big Horn
1:23:19County under any pretense from
1:23:21communicating with the respondent or her
1:23:23minor child by post, telegraph or
1:23:26intermediary. This court further finds
1:23:28that Mrs. Adilia Witcom is the sole
1:23:30competent legally uncontested
1:23:32administrator of the entire estate of
1:23:34Silus J. Witcom, deceased, that Miss
1:23:37Josephine Wickcom is her joint legate
1:23:39under the express terms of the will.
1:23:41[music] The gavl came down once. It did
1:23:43not need to come down twice. The gallery
1:23:45did not cheer. They rose to their feet
1:23:47in a single quiet motion. The sound of
1:23:4961 wool coats standing at once, remained
1:23:52standing until Judge Hollister had
1:23:54gathered her ledgers, left the bench.
1:23:57[music] Then Ephraim Boon put his hand
1:23:58out, gripped Adilia's shoulder for one
1:24:01second, said nothing, moved past.
1:24:03Zebulon Marsh did the same. Loretta
1:24:06[music] Bishop bent, kissed Josephine on
1:24:08the top of her head. Doc Blackwood
1:24:10squeezed Adelia's forearm, [music]
1:24:12murmured something that might have been
1:24:13the word bravo. Iona Suckcliffe folded
1:24:15her knitting into her carpet bag, walked
1:24:18past, did not speak, [music] whose
1:24:19silence was the highest compliment she
1:24:21was capable of paying a woman in public.
1:24:24Bulah Harrove stood beside Adelia with
1:24:26the child between them until the
1:24:28courtroom had emptied of everyone but
1:24:29themselves. Casius Finch. Then the old
1:24:32widow looked at the young one, spoke
1:24:34quietly, "You will build something now.
1:24:36The Lord did not haul you here from a
1:24:38livery yard to keep $3 million in a hole
1:24:40under a hearth. Do you understand? I
1:24:43understand. You will not know how at
1:24:45first. That is expected. Ask the post
1:24:48mistress. She has read every book the
1:24:50state library owns. She will help you
1:24:52find the shape of it. Cash stood a
1:24:54little apart, his hat in his hand as he
1:24:56had stood two months ago in a Missouri
1:24:58parlor. He did not come [music] forward.
1:25:00He waited to be released. Adely across
1:25:03the space between them, stopped a foot
1:25:05from him, looked into a [music] face
1:25:06that had cost him more to bring into
1:25:08that courtroom than the $600 had ever
1:25:10cost him to withhold. Thank you, Cashes.
1:25:13That was the debt paid. He nodded once.
1:25:16He did not weep [music] because he was a
1:25:17man who had spent 36 years not weeping
1:25:20in public. Was not likely to begin. He
1:25:22put his hat on his head, walked out into
1:25:25the snow-blown afternoon, took his
1:25:27lodging at the same immigrant boarding
1:25:29house on Eddie Street, boarded the Union
1:25:31Pacific [music] East the following
1:25:32morning. He would not see his sisters
1:25:34ever again. He would see his sister
1:25:36often. Outside the courthouse on the
1:25:38sandstone steps, the snow had begun to
1:25:40come down in earnest, thick sifting
1:25:42flakes [music] that filled the tracks of
1:25:44the departing wagons within minutes.
1:25:46Sheriff Reeves escorted the petitioners
1:25:48to their hired coach made a point of
1:25:50walking behind Ambrose the entire way.
1:25:53Peral Thorne did not speak to his
1:25:54clients. He had already, in the manner
1:25:57of Chicago attorneys who have lost
1:25:58badly, [music] begun to compose in his
1:26:01head the letter that would revise upward
1:26:03the balance of their account. He would
1:26:05be paid. He would not extend the
1:26:07courtesy of pretending they were his
1:26:09clients any longer. Constance turned at
1:26:12the door of the coach. She did not look
1:26:14at Adelia. She looked at the general
1:26:16direction where Adelia stood. Her voice
1:26:18came thin, brittle as a first coat of
1:26:20December ice. You will regret this. You
1:26:24will discover you are not equal to what
1:26:25has been given you. You will come to me
1:26:27in 5 years to beg me to take it off your
1:26:29hands. [music] I will not answer. Adilia
1:26:32did not raise her voice. She did not
1:26:34step forward. This is the last time I
1:26:36will ever speak to you, Constance. You
1:26:38may take that with you back to St.
1:26:40Louis. You may take it with you into
1:26:42whatever room you finally die in. My
1:26:44daughter, my uncle, my land, my life.
1:26:47None of them was ever anything you had
1:26:48any right to. The coach door shut. The
1:26:51team lurched forward through the
1:26:52freshening drifts. Adilia watched the
1:26:55coach go until it turned the corner of
1:26:5716th Street, [music] disappeared behind
1:26:59the corner of the Inter Ocean Hotel.
1:27:01Then she took her daughter's hand,
1:27:02walked with Finch, Mrs. Harrove back
1:27:05toward their own lodgings through the
1:27:06gathering snow that had begun already to
1:27:09soften the wagon tracks of the parting
1:27:10parties into a single unmarked white.
1:27:13The winter that followed was the coldest
1:27:15Wyoming had seen since the great die-
1:27:17off of 72. The Wickham cabin at the head
1:27:20of the Big Horn Bowl received 63 in of
1:27:23snow between Christmas Eve, the 1st of
1:27:25March, the temperature falling twice
1:27:27below 30 below zero in January. Adilia
1:27:30had ordered stove pipe, extra flannel,
1:27:32100 lb of coffee, 10 of salt from
1:27:35Boone's merkantile before the passes
1:27:37closed. She had also at Iona Suckliff's
1:27:40advice ordered from a firm in Cheyenne
1:27:42the correct set of legal ledgers, six
1:27:44volumes of case law on the establishment
1:27:46of testimeamentary trusts in the
1:27:48territories, three magazines a month by
1:27:50subscription, including Harper's Weekly,
1:27:52The Atlantic Monthly, [music]
1:27:54the North American Review. She read at
1:27:56the Pine Plank table by Whale Oil
1:27:58Lamplight after Josephine had gone to
1:28:00sleep. she wrote in her own hand in a
1:28:03leatherbound record she titled with the
1:28:05plain phrase Uncle Silas's provision the
1:28:07shape of what she intended to build.
1:28:09Finch came up once in February with two
1:28:11mules through drifts that swallowed the
1:28:13animals to the shoulder. [music] He
1:28:15brought bank drafts, deeds of transfer,
1:28:18the first quarterly report from the
1:28:19Cheyenne National on the sale of a small
1:28:21tranch of the Union Pacific bonds,
1:28:24$5,000 in silver certificates converted
1:28:26from the estate for the purposes of
1:28:28immediate work. He sat at Adilia's table
1:28:31for 4 days while the snow buried the
1:28:33springhouse to its eaves. Drew up the
1:28:35founding documents of a testimeamentary
1:28:37trust in the territory of Wyoming, the
1:28:39first of its kind. She named it. She
1:28:42would not permit her own name upon it.
1:28:44She would not permit the childs. She
1:28:46wrote across the top [music] of the deed
1:28:47in her own steady schools hand the Silus
1:28:50J. Wickcomb provision for widows,
1:28:52orphans of the northern plains. Finch
1:28:55read the words, took off his spectacles,
1:28:57wiped them once, said nothing. [music]
1:28:59He recorded the trust in Cheyenne in the
1:29:02last week of March. The thaw came in the
1:29:04first week of April. With the thaw came
1:29:06Jonas Ballard, 44 years old, carpenter,
1:29:09wheelright, cabinet maker, veteran of
1:29:12the 23rd Ohio, 3 mi ride south down
1:29:15[music] the creek from the Witcom
1:29:16homestead. He had come the previous
1:29:18November to make good the roof of the
1:29:20springhouse where a windfall had cracked
1:29:22a beam. He had come three times through
1:29:24the winter on snow's shoes to make
1:29:26certain the widow, the child had wood
1:29:28laid, water flowing, chimney drawing
1:29:30clean. He had never entered the cabin.
1:29:32He had left his repairs on the porch,
1:29:34his handwritten note pinned under a
1:29:36stone. [music] He was a widowerower
1:29:37himself. Wife dead of child bed in 71.
1:29:41No children living. He spoke little. He
1:29:43worked slowly. He did the thing right
1:29:46the first time, so it would not require
1:29:47doing again. Adilia had not through the
1:29:50winter permit herself to think of him in
1:29:52any particular way. She had permitted
1:29:54herself the small mercy of noticing that
1:29:56when he came she was glad that when he
1:29:59left [music] the porch felt somehow
1:30:01smaller. By the middle of May the ground
1:30:03was firm enough for foundations. Adilia
1:30:05hired Jonas as the master of works. She
1:30:08hired Casius [music] Witcom by wire from
1:30:10Independence for the brick, the stone.
1:30:12Cashis arrived in Silver Creek the
1:30:14second week of June with [music] a bag
1:30:16of tools, one change of clothes, the
1:30:18last dollar he had earned in Missouri,
1:30:20took a room over the Boone Merkantile
1:30:22for $4 a month, walked the 3 m out to
1:30:25the Wickcom land each morning at first
1:30:27light. He worked 6 days a week for the
1:30:29whole summer of 85. He would not accept
1:30:32wages above the standard rate for a
1:30:34brickmason on the Cheyenne market.
1:30:36Adelia knew better than to insult him by
1:30:38trying to press more. They built four
1:30:41things that summer, six things the
1:30:42summer after. A two- room schoolhouse of
1:30:45squared pine logs [music] with a proper
1:30:47bell and a small koopula replacing Miss
1:30:49Loretta Bishop's drafty single room, a
1:30:51residence hall of stone, [music] three
1:30:53stories containing 14 private rooms for
1:30:56widows, 12 for their children, a common
1:30:58kitchen, a laundry, [music] a reading
1:31:00room, a chapel that Oilia's god,
1:31:03Adilia's own more silent one, might have
1:31:05equally [music] recognized. a frame
1:31:07office building on the Silver Creek Main
1:31:09Street housing a legal aid practice with
1:31:11a young attorney named Miss Genevie
1:31:13Ashwood, 28 years old, first woman
1:31:16admitted [music] to the bar in Wyoming
1:31:18territory, who would file for a widow's
1:31:20right to hold property in her own name,
1:31:22for the mother's guardianship of her own
1:31:24[music] child, for the wages of a woman
1:31:26denied by a father's employer without
1:31:28charge, without regard, [music]
1:31:30without limit. and a small brick clinic
1:31:32where any woman within a 100 miles might
1:31:34come at any hour of the day or night to
1:31:36be delivered of a child by a midwife who
1:31:38required no man's counter signature
1:31:40[music] to attend her. The scholarship
1:31:43program came in the fall of 86. 10 girls
1:31:46a year from Big Horn County, Laramie
1:31:48County, Albany County were selected for
1:31:50the trust to send to normal school in
1:31:52Denver to the new nursing training
1:31:54program at St. Mary's in Levvenworth to
1:31:56Rockford Female Seminary in Illinois for
1:31:58the exceptional ones destined for the
1:32:00study of medicine law. Each girl signed
1:32:03a paper promising nothing more than that
1:32:05she would, when her time came, remember
1:32:07what had been done for her. Josephine,
1:32:09at 11, wrote the standard [music] letter
1:32:11that was included in each scholarship
1:32:13packet. She composed it in her own hand
1:32:16at the pine plank table under her
1:32:18mother's supervision. [music]
1:32:19It said only, "This is a gift you were
1:32:21not required to earn. Please do not
1:32:23spend the rest of your life trying to
1:32:25pay it back. Please spend it building
1:32:27the next. Jonas Ballard, in the June of
1:32:291886, having worked the summer, [music]
1:32:32the winter, the spring beside Adelia,
1:32:34without ever pressing a claim upon her
1:32:36attention, walked with her one evening
1:32:38after supper down to the creek at the
1:32:40foot of the bowl where the trout were
1:32:42rising to a hatch of pale mayflies in
1:32:44the failing gold light. He was 45 that
1:32:47summer. She was 39. [music] He did not
1:32:49kneel. He was not a man made for
1:32:51kneeling. He put both hands in his coat
1:32:54pockets, watched the water for a long
1:32:55moment, spoke without turning. Mrs.
1:32:57Wickcom, I am not a man of many words.
1:33:00You are aware of this. I am a man who
1:33:02has finished my morning. I do not know
1:33:05that I will ever love a woman again the
1:33:07way I loved my first wife. I know that I
1:33:10have come to love you in a different
1:33:11way, which perhaps is the way that grown
1:33:13people love who have lost more than they
1:33:15have gained. I am asking whether you
1:33:17would consent to be married to me. I
1:33:19have spoken with Josephine. She has
1:33:22already in her fashion granted
1:33:23permission. She said that a house with
1:33:25three chimneys is only complete when
1:33:27three people sit around them. I did not
1:33:29fully understand her meaning. I trust
1:33:31that you will. Adilia was quiet for a
1:33:33full minute watching the same water. She
1:33:36was not weighing him. She had weighed
1:33:38him already in 12 months of small daily
1:33:40acts. She was weighing [music] herself.
1:33:42She was asking whether she was still,
1:33:44after so much wintering, capable of
1:33:46accepting a gift she had not been
1:33:47required to earn. Jonas, I will marry
1:33:50you. I will marry you with the
1:33:52understanding that this house, this
1:33:54land, [music] this trust, this child are
1:33:56not dowy, are not property. Do not pass
1:33:58into your name upon our marriage. They
1:34:01belong to me, to my daughter. They will
1:34:03always belong to us. I would not have it
1:34:05any other way. I am marrying the woman,
1:34:08not the acreage. They were married in
1:34:10the small Pinelog meeting house at
1:34:12Silver Creek on the first Sunday in
1:34:13October 1886 by the Reverend Elias
1:34:17Halpern of the Presbyterian Mission.
1:34:19There were 12 guests. Casius stood as
1:34:21Jonas's witness. Iona Suckliffe stood as
1:34:23Adelas. Josephine, 11 years old in a
1:34:26blue dress, walked the length of the
1:34:28aisle carrying the small posie of late
1:34:30aers blackeyed susans she had picked
1:34:33from the meadow that morning. Bulah
1:34:35Harrove was not present in body, having
1:34:37died in her sleep in the poor house at
1:34:39St. Joseph the previous February, but
1:34:42her wire from the far side of the river
1:34:43of [music] Jordan was read aloud by
1:34:45Adilia at the small supper afterward,
1:34:47having been written 18 months before,
1:34:50entrusted to Mrs. Harrove's replacement
1:34:52to be forwarded upon receipt of news of
1:34:54the wedding the old woman had known
1:34:55would come. The wire said only, "I told
1:34:58you a shack has a roof. Congratulations
1:35:00to all three of you." The winter of 86
1:35:03was mild. Josephine turned 12 on the 2nd
1:35:06of January 1887. Constance Merryweather
1:35:10wrote from St. Louis for the first time
1:35:11in 25 months. Her husband's cotton
1:35:14contracts had collapsed. She had been
1:35:16reduced to boarding with a cousin. She
1:35:19begged forgiveness. She asked for
1:35:21nothing directly. She hinted at
1:35:23everything. Adelia did not answer the
1:35:25letter. She placed it in a leather
1:35:27portfolio she kept on the top shelf of
1:35:29the pantry marked in her own hand with a
1:35:31small tag that read correspondence to
1:35:34which no reply is owed. She would place
1:35:36three more constants letters in the same
1:35:38portfolio over the following 7 years.
1:35:40She would answer none of them. Ambrose
1:35:43Witcom was convicted at the Laram County
1:35:45criminal session in the spring of 8045
1:35:47of solicitation to commit arson.
1:35:50Sentenced to 2 years at the territorial
1:35:52penitentiary in [music] Laram. He served
1:35:5418 months, was released on parole in
1:35:56October of 86, returned to Kansas City
1:35:59to find the pawn shop sold at
1:36:01receivers's auction. His wife divorced
1:36:03from him with the specific grounds of
1:36:05habitual cruelty. He drifted for the
1:36:07remainder of his life. Adilia knew none
1:36:10of this because Adilia had ceased to
1:36:11inquire. Oilia's husband, the circuit
1:36:14writer, fell ill with a wasting
1:36:16condition in the winter of 86. Their
1:36:18three small children were reduced to the
1:36:20charity of the Methodist board. In
1:36:22February of ' 87, without her name upon
1:36:24it, without a word of accompanyment, a
1:36:27bank draft in the sum of $200, arrived
1:36:29at the parsonage in Booneville,
1:36:31Missouri, drawn upon the first national
1:36:33of Cheyenne, made out to Mrs. Oilia
1:36:36Greavves for the relief of her children.
1:36:38Oilia would spend the remainder of her
1:36:40life not knowing whose hand had signed
1:36:42it. Adilia would not require her to
1:36:44know. Casia stayed in Silver Creek. He
1:36:47built a small three- room house of
1:36:49squared logs on a halfacre lot he
1:36:51purchased at fair market price from
1:36:52Ephraim [music] Boon. Took his supper
1:36:54twice a week at the Wickcom table.
1:36:56Worked 6 days a week with Jonas on
1:36:59whatever the trust had funded that
1:37:00season. He remained unmarried. When
1:37:02Josephine asked him once at 13 why he
1:37:05had never taken a wife, he thought about
1:37:07it for a long moment before he answered.
1:37:10Some men, he said, are given the gift of
1:37:12building homes for other people to live
1:37:14in. That is enough for one lifetime. On
1:37:17the first Sunday in May 1887, [music]
1:37:19the memorial garden was dedicated. Half
1:37:22an acre of native ground on the western
1:37:24edge of the meadow planted with prairie
1:37:26flowers that required no watering, no
1:37:28fencing, no Indian paintbrush, blue flax
1:37:31lupine prairie smoke. At the center of
1:37:33the garden stood a single stone of
1:37:34Wyoming granite 8 feet tall carved by
1:37:37Casius witcomb over the course of the
1:37:39previous winter with a hammer a chisel
1:37:42the simple patience of a man who had
1:37:44come to believe that stone was capable
1:37:45of holding a truth longer than paper.
1:37:47The inscription read only silus J Whitam
1:37:50[music] born Vermont 1795
1:37:53died Wyoming 1884 planted a seed he did
1:37:56not sign. 211 people came to the
1:37:59dedication. [music] They came from
1:38:00Silver Creek, from Cheyenne, from
1:38:03Buffalo, from Sheridan, from the four
1:38:05homesteads the trust had already helped
1:38:07save. From the 23 widows who had passed
1:38:10through the residence hall in its first
1:38:1218 months, from the eight girls already
1:38:14sent to normal school, from the two
1:38:17women delivered of healthy children in
1:38:19the clinic in [music] the past week.
1:38:20They stood in the meadow in a great
1:38:22loose circle around the stone, while
1:38:24Josephine, 12 years old that spring, in
1:38:27the same sage colored wool she had worn
1:38:29to court 30 months before, read from her
1:38:31mother's leatherbound record the
1:38:33founding [music] sentence of the trust.
1:38:34This provision is made because a widow
1:38:36of my acquaintance was told by every
1:38:38institution of her country [music] that
1:38:40she was worth nothing. She was worth
1:38:42everything. Her name was Adilia. Her
1:38:45daughter's name was Josephine. My name
1:38:47was Silas. There will be others. this
1:38:49provision is made for the others. The
1:38:51gathering [music] did not applaud. It
1:38:53was not that kind of gathering. It stood
1:38:55in the silence a moment longer. Then the
1:38:57crowd moved slowly through the garden,
1:38:59laying no flowers since the flowers were
1:39:02already there, standing in small
1:39:03clusters to speak with one another with
1:39:06Adelia with Jonas with a child who had
1:39:08grown a full 6 in in the past two
1:39:10summers. Iiona Sutcliffe delivered a
1:39:12cake she had [music] baked herself. Doc
1:39:14Blackwood delivered a bottle of
1:39:16medicinal brandy. nobody quite
1:39:18acknowledged as medicinal. Sheriff
1:39:20Reeves came in his uniform, took his hat
1:39:22off in the presence of the stone,
1:39:23[music] put it back on when he had
1:39:25passed. That evening, when the last
1:39:27wagon had pulled out of the meadow, when
1:39:29the sun had gone down behind the big
1:39:31horn front, Adilia sat on the porch of
1:39:33the cabin with Jonas on [music] her
1:39:35left, Josephine on her right. The
1:39:3712-year-old girl already tall enough
1:39:39that her feet reached the porch boards
1:39:41without swinging. [music] The child had
1:39:43brought the original copy book out with
1:39:44her, the first one, the one with the
1:39:46drawings of houses on every page, the
1:39:49one that had written in the wagon behind
1:39:51Doyle's livery through two Missouri
1:39:53winters. She opened it on her knees to
1:39:55the last page she had drawn in it, the
1:39:57last page before [music] she had stopped
1:39:58drawing, because at last the house was
1:40:00around her rather than on the paper. I
1:40:03want to read you the last thing I wrote.
1:40:05I wrote it 3 years ago in Missouri. I
1:40:08did not understand what I meant when I
1:40:09wrote it. I understand it now. She read
1:40:12from the childish pencled lines in a
1:40:14voice that was already at at 12 not
1:40:16quite a child's voice any longer. Uncle
1:40:18Silas did not know me. He believed in me
1:40:20anyway. I will believe in other children
1:40:23I do not know. [music] That is how a
1:40:24legacy does not die. That is how a house
1:40:27gets three chimneys. Adilia later hand
1:40:29over Jonases on the porch rail. [music]
1:40:31Jonas did not speak. Some things a man
1:40:34did not improve by speaking. Josephine
1:40:36closed the copy book, set it on the
1:40:38porch beside her, watched a small
1:40:39red-tailed hawk turn a slow spiral
1:40:42against the dying light above the
1:40:43meadow. Somewhere beyond the barn, a
1:40:45pong horn snorted at something in the
1:40:47sage. The lupine along the garden path
1:40:50had begun to close for the night. The
1:40:52first stars pricricked out one at a time
1:40:54[music] over the big horn. The way they
1:40:55had done every night for a thousand
1:40:57years, would do for a thousand more.
1:41:00Josephine's small, clean voice, not
1:41:02aimed at either of the two adults beside
1:41:04her. Aimed at the mountain, the meadow,
1:41:06the memory of a man she had never seen
1:41:08alive. We are home now, uncle. All the
1:41:11way home. Stylus J. Witcom was not a
1:41:13prophet. He was an old man who had been
1:41:15paying attention. He served in one war,
1:41:18prospected in one gold field, trapped in
1:41:20one range of mountains, homesteaded on
1:41:22one piece of ground, watched from a
1:41:24great distance the small ordinary
1:41:26betrayals of one family for 30 years.
1:41:29When the time came, he moved. He did not
1:41:31raise his voice. He did not summon
1:41:33witnesses. He wrote his instructions on
1:41:35paper, spoke them onto whack, sealed
1:41:38them under the seal of a competent
1:41:39court. Then he laid himself down beside
1:41:42the creek at the foot of his own meadow,
1:41:44closed his eyes, was done. the $3
1:41:46million he had spent 40 years assembling
1:41:48out of a place or claim on the American
1:41:50River, a share of a Nevada silver mine,
1:41:53a 100 acres of Colorado bottom land, 12
1:41:55United States [music] bonds, a quiet
1:41:57appetite for the compound interest of
1:41:59railroad paper became in the hands of a
1:42:01woman he had barely met, of a girl he
1:42:03had never met, a schoolhouse, a
1:42:06residence hall, a legal aid office, a
1:42:08birthing clinic, 10 scholarships a year,
1:42:10a garden of prairie flowers around a
1:42:12stone that did not bear his name in the
1:42:14way a monument bears name, but that made
1:42:16his name a small warm sound in the
1:42:18mouths of women who spoke it every day.
1:42:21A widow who once slept in a broken wagon
1:42:23behind a Missouri livery stable stood
1:42:25one May evening in in 1887 on the porch
1:42:28of a house that no longer belonged to
1:42:30any story but her own. Watched her
1:42:3212-year-old daughter watched the first
1:42:33star of the evening rise over Wyoming
1:42:35granite. Blood she had learned by then
1:42:38was not the thing. The thing was what
1:42:40one chose to plant, whom one chose to
1:42:42see, whether one had the patience to
1:42:44wait 40 years for a seed to break
1:42:46ground. The thing was who showed up when
1:42:48the fire went out, who stayed after the
1:42:50fire came back. The thing was in the end
1:42:53the simple willingness to look at
1:42:55another human being across a room decide
1:42:57that this one this one here was worth
1:43:00the whole quiet weight of one's
1:43:01remaining ears.

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