Juliana Hayes squinted against the sun breaking over the sharp rock outline of the Bitterroot Mountains. Each escaping ray ratcheted up the thermometer in the early Pacific Northwest morning. Giant cedars looming above eighty-foot white pine should offer refuge and shade. Instead they represented the immobile bars of her prison. In the distance, the forest closed so tightly it looked like rolls of dark green velvet. Such beauty hiding the malevolent nature of the area’s extreme dangers. As dangerous as some of the men Juliana cautiously avoided since being stranded.
How much longer until she could break out of the harsh existence that had held her captive for over two years? The deep snows in winter and the fires in summer, extremes she could do without. The oncoming train puffed out clouds of smoke against the sky so blue and clear it resembled a lake more than the heavens. But she’d also ridden that train many times praying they’d make it to the next mining camp through heavy snow and bitter cold. Did there exist another place so wildly inhospitable?
“Anot’er hot day, Mrs. Hayes.” The baggage handler lifted his flat cloth cap and rubbed a gray cotton sleeve across his forehead. “Who knew America would be such a hot place?” He flopped the cap back on his head as he waited with her on Adair’s platform for the train to sidle up.
She’d join the morning shift change on the train headed for the mines dotted through the wilderness settlements and narrow, serpentine valley to deliver her quota of baked goods. “We’ve never had a summer as hot before, not that I can remember.” Was he Austrian, Belgian, Croatian? She didn’t ask. He obviously wasn’t Chinese or Japanese with his blond hair. She tried not to wrinkle her nose. It was blond, wasn’t it? Hard to tell when these men likely bathed only on their day off. He stood tall enough to stick out among the Japanese who mostly inhabited the tent city of Adair nowadays. “After the avalanches in the spring, I don’t think anyone expected this drought.”
“I heard da winters here are hard. You do good wi’ dem?”
She nodded, avoiding too much conversation. There must be more than seventy different nationalities working on the rails and the mines here on the border of Montana and Idaho. Some nationalities were so close they spoke similar languages; only the colors or sometimes a piece of native clothing distinguished them one from another. This mishmash of humanity from every known continent all with the same hope—to make their fortunes, whether to bring over more family or get rich quick or hide from the law. Money drove these desperate men.
His clothing suggested another Austrian. They tended to band together, each of these different nationalities. It helped with communication overall as the foremen spoke English and the native language of their crews; sometimes a few others did as well. The mixed-pigeon varieties were endless, and sometimes humorous, but the pigeon languages helped bridge one group to another unless they clashed. They often clashed. Tempers were as hot as the rail spikes in the sun, after a day of working in the excruciating cold, wet work deep in the rocky mountainsides. As important the sense of togetherness inside a group was, it was ironic how that togetherness habitually incited aggression and animosity toward outsiders. Why couldn’t they all just get along?
Juliana did her best to be as neutral and invisible as possible, down to wearing dull clothing and keeping her long hair tied up under her baker’s scarf. But as a young woman, that worked as well as a queen bee in a hive. She hated developing the stinger that went along with the unwanted attention buzzing around her like soldier bees. But she’d been left with little other protection when her husband died.
Not long now. She calculated her time left based on her weekly pay envelope. She could shed the protective veneer in nine weeks, six days, and twelve hours—give or take the time it took to leave the mountains behind. She’d have her trunk on the very next train to Helena without a second glance. There’d be no salt pillar of Juliana Hayes in Adair, Idaho, or any other debauched mining town in this forsaken place.
This Austrian, or whatever, was new on the job in a constantly changing mass of men. He’d met her at the brick dome ovens in Adair the last few days to help load a converted mining cart with the staples she baked for the workers up and down the line. At least she could understand his English—and he didn’t seem to be a Montenegrin by the look of him. Those vicious men tended to work in Rowland and Taft, on her Tuesday and least favorite route. Why did she have to feed the very men who murdered her husband? A shiver ran down her spine. She’d have to deliver the bread order to them tomorrow. Each week she considered adding sawdust, or worse, to the dough—and each week she mashed the desire down deep as she punched the bread into submission. Twenty loaves, untainted by her dark desire for vengeance. “Vengeance is mine…saith the Lord.” She repeated that verse each time the snake’s temptation squeezed its coils around her heart.
“I hear said da snow gets deep as the depot roof.”
Juliana nodded again and graced the man with a quick, courteous smile, careful not to encourage anything. Too nice a response would garner yet another proposal or a lewd proposition. No response and she’d have to lug all four heavy freight baskets onto the train herself to the next stop on her daily deliveries. Her pay packet from the railroad would be reduced if she cost precious production minutes, she knew from experience when she first started for the Milwaukee Railroad. The company didn’t care that she was a new widow. They cared she kept up with her quotas.
“Too bad we don’t have a little snow left over,” she mumbled as pleasantly as possible, under the circumstances. “I hope we don’t see a fire season so dangerous again as that one two years ago.” She didn’t want to relive a summer like that for more reasons than the spot wildfires. Her grief had been as thick as the smoke trapped by the jagged peaks.
“Was bad, ja?”
“Yes.”
The engine whistle blew three long shrieks as metal on metal squealed a high-pitched complaint, braking the train to a stop. The nearness of the rocky mountain slopes amplified the sounds. The conductor, in overalls and brimmed summer hat, leaned out the caboose porch. He leaped onto the wooden platform and ran nimbly along the train before it had a chance to stop, bellowing, “All ‘board! Let’s be movin’, folks.” He inspected the waiting cargo, including the amount Juliana brought aboard. “Mornin’, Widow Hayes.”
“Good morning, Mr. Kelly.” She handed him a couple of buttermilk biscuits filled with apple butter, wrapped in cheesecloth. The conductor often missed meals for train delays. “There’s one for the engineer also.”
“Yer a good woman, ya are.” He tipped his hat and strode at a fast pace toward the front. “Johnnie, we been visited by the Angel of Adair! Looky the size of them biscuits!” Only he called her that, and only he was allowed. The older man, stronger than his wrinkles led one to believe, had shoved more than his share of miscreants off the train for interfering in her duties.
Johnnie Mackedon tooted out his thanks on the whistle. One of his signatures. Stay long enough and each engineer could be recognized by the way he pulled the train whistle.
She laughed and gave him a quick wave as she called out, “You’re welcome, Johnnie.”
The burly handler lifted the heavier basket laden with oversized loaves and walked with Juliana toward the steps leading into the first passenger car.
As he shifted to pass another up to the top step, he said, “Mizz Hayes, I been meanin’—”
Juliana made a show of focusing on raising her skirt to climb the steps. Three days it took him. Must be a record. “Oh look, the front seats are open. Mr. Kelly keeps them clear for me, you know.” Prime space to settle in with her tasty cargo that still wafted the fresh-baked aroma of oat bran, whole wheat, and honey all around her. The rich scent of baked goods helped to mask the constant smell of the muck of the mines. She always rode in front. First on and first off to keep deliveries moving and the unwanted scent of unwashed bodies blown behind her by the open windows. In the front, she avoided eye contact. They might approach her with odious offers, but none would dare take a Milwaukee Railroad baker’s chosen space. The company provided the best grub in the country for their workforce, supplementing the regular camp cooks. Bellies held priority until full. Then it switched to other appetites. Appetites she refused to fill.
All eyes devoured her as if she were a Sunday cinnamon raisin bun. How unfriendly did she have to be to protect herself? It seemed the colder she behaved the harder some men tried. She’d heard the dares and the bets and chose to ignore them. One at a time, she could rebuff the advances.
“Mizz—”
“I don’t want to keep you from your other freight or we’ll both get docked for delaying the shift change.” Not today. She didn’t want to be targeted by teeming crews snatching up the handful of women as wives or worse. No, she couldn’t stomach it, today of all days. She lifted the nearest bread crate and stowed it.
“Ma’am, the party tonight, if you’re of the mind—” His voice soft, pleading.
He might even be a nice man. But Juliana didn’t want a man here, nice or otherwise. She took the last crate from him and backed away, setting the bread on the front seat beside her. The length hung well beyond the edge. With those stacked on the floor near her feet, another across the aisle, they formed a sort of protective fencing. A small fortress protecting her personal space.
The whistle blew, sounding departure. She couldn’t give him a hair of a chance to spit the rest of the words out. “I’ll bring a few loaves of hearty dark rye in the morning. I know that’s a favorite with the wild onion and venison sandwiches. I heard your bunkhouse got a big buck the other day. Maybe a trade for some meat?” The extra work would be worth it if she could supplement her pantry and not spend out of her savings. And steer the conversation away from what she knew came next.
“Good, ja, to be sure. Would you—”
The conductor pushed through the entry. “Get on back to loading, Jack.” He jabbed an elbow into the baggage man’s ribs, whose name was something more like Jacques, if one could get the accent right. “The Widow Hayes got ‘er job and yous got yers. Move it, man, get those supplies loaded and leave room for them pack horses!”
A moment later, Juliana escaped the first proposal of the day by luck and by golly. At least he’d tried to be nice. Three stops to dispatch last night’s labor, and a basket of buttermilk biscuits for the highest weekly production, then the ride back to Adair. Tomorrow she’d deliver to Rowland, and the cycle would continue six days out of seven. The Rowland baker from down the line would overlap schedules for her one day off on Sunday, as the others did for all the mining camps stretched through the long valley along the tracks. Juliana rarely saw the other women, as they worked one another’s days off. Most had marital and family duties to catch up on. Each baked for her camp and three to four more that either didn’t have an oven and baker, or only worked part-time due to other responsibilities.
Juliana slid against the seat back, savoring the air flowing in from the window. So many days lately the air stood still as a deer at the crack of a twig. Her only relief came from the train window. Juliana split her schedule and baked half her quota well before dawn during the summer to avoid the intense heat of the huge brick ovens in the late afternoon, the hottest part of the day in the Idaho panhandle.
She had little chance of avoiding several more marriage—or unmentionable—invitations with the significance of the holiday for citizens and immigrants alike. She smoothed the worn white apron over her tan cotton work skirt. She’d have on black still, but that brought the men out of the tunnels and mines as much as the whiskey called them to the saloons. A black dress meant a woman had no man, fair game in this most beautiful of desolate places. Mary, a new baker, had been carried to the preacher within days of arriving last summer. Carried. That miner wasn’t taking a chance of cold feet or bridal theft. Bridal theft could get a man killed in these parts as much as having the precious commodity of a bride, if she were particularly desirable. Most respected marriage, though they’d line up to pay respects at any married man’s funeral in hopes of walking the new widow right past her home and into theirs. Women like her friend Astrid picked a new husband quickly, especially if she had children to support. These mountains could be ruthless in weather and with wild animals.
This summer poor Mary nursed a newborn and baked. She managed to give away one of her days to another miner’s wife, a previous canary, that wanted honest work rather than the bawdy house her husband had found her in. Not me, Lord. Be it Your will, I’m getting out of here come the end of September! I am not raising a family here. If You ever grace me with a good man again, let it be in a city! Strike that. I’d rather just have a city life.
Some days Juliana felt more like a lone stalk of grain in a herd of buffalo bulls all snorting and ramming one another. After this summer ended, she’d have enough to move on before the harsh winter hit again. She’d take this very train into Helena, Montana, the Queen City of the Rockies, and never look back. Maybe she’d continue to Minneapolis or keep going as far east as Chicago. With the mastery of mass baking she’d gained, her own pastry shop would serve cookies, cakes, and anything to break the monotony of wheat bread and sourdough, four days a week, cinnamon raisin or another sweet bread on Saturdays for their Sunday meals, and the dark rye to the weekly winners of extra rations.
Only a short ride between towns, the train wove beside the St. Joe River that flowed low from the heat and lack of rain, and around the wide bend before pulling into Kyle. Deliver into the depot, climb on the next train to Stetson. Deliver, climb on the next train to Avery. Then home to Adair to start the dough for tomorrow. The cycle didn’t slow. Mix dough, bake bread, deliver bread to miners and railroaders. Keep them working. Juliana stared out the window at the white pine, cedar, and river flashing past as they rode deeper into the rugged realm. Why couldn’t she have fallen in love with a man who would stay in the city the first time? She could have avoided this day. While everyone else would celebrate the country’s independence, Juliana marked the second anniversary of her husband’s death.
“Get outta my way!” The shouts erupted several rows from the front.
“I got dibs!”
Juliana rolled her eyes heavenward but didn’t bother to look at the skirmish. She already knew what caused the fight. She plunked her elbow on the window ledge and dropped her chin into it, staring at the passing landscape. Nine weeks and six days…