Chapter 35
Memories on Horseback
Palo Alto was all Cal promised it would be . . . and more!
Mr. Stanford and his wife treated me as if I were the most honored guest they’d ever had on the estate. I could hardly believe that a short time ago I was out in the desolate land of Nevada nearly being burned alive by Indians, and now I was hobnobbing with one of California’s wealthiest men—and, according to Cal, one of its most influential politicians too!
The Stanford estate was completely different from the primitive Fremont estate at Mariposa. Mr. Fremont was also rich, of course, but he spent so little time in California, and Mariposa was so far away from everywhere else that he never did much to fancy it up. But I could tell instantly that the Stanfords intended to live on their new estate a long time. Besides politics and railroads, Mr. Stanford loved horses, and told me it had always been a lifelong dream of his to raise them. Now that he had a place and the means to do it, he intended to make his dream come true, right there in Palo Alto.
Mr. Stanford was a good friend of John and Jessie Fremont, and once Cal explained to him my connection with the campaign of 1856, he told me many interesting things I hadn’t known.
“John Fremont may have lost the election in ’56,” he said, “but as far as I’m concerned it was a great victory. For a man to come so close to becoming president only four years after the formation of a new party is remarkable, in my opinion, and we Republicans owe him a great debt of gratitude. We’ll win this year with Lincoln, thanks to people like you throughout the country, Corrie. The John Fremont campaign four years ago laid the groundwork for this year’s victory.”
“Was he considered as a candidate again this year?” I asked.
“By a few people. But to be honest with you, there wasn’t a great deal of support for him at the convention. Lincoln represents the rising new tide of the party, Corrie, although John’s name was bandied about for vice-president. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him with a cabinet appointment in the new administration, however. Lincoln thinks highly of him, from what I understand.”
Just then Cal walked in.
“The horses are all saddled, Corrie. Shall we head out over the hills and see what kind of adventure we can find?”
“You be sure to take her up to the top of the ridge, Cal,” said Mr. Stanford. “On a clear day like this, Corrie, from up there you can see out to the Pacific to the west, down into the bay to the east, and, if it’s clear as crystal like it gets after a rain, you can just make out a bit of San Francisco at the tip of the peninsula. It’s the most stunning view in all of California, if you ask me. And it’s right here on my estate!”
“I’ll be sure she sees it,” said Cal.
“I probably won’t see you again, Corrie,” he said. “I’ve got a meeting with the Crocker brothers this evening, and tomorrow I have to get up to Sacramento early to see Judah, Huntington, and Hopkins on some railroad business. But you enjoy the rest of your stay, and you let my wife or Cal here know if you need anything.”
“Thank you, sir,” I said. “You are very kind.”
It was still fairly early in the morning when we set out. Cal led the way at a leisurely pace, westward from the house and barns, down through a grassy little valley, and then up the gradual incline at the far end. The grass was dry and brown at this time of the year, and the hills were gently rolling, with oaks scattered thinly about. The air was not hot, just pleasantly warm. There was no breeze yet.
Gradually the climb grew steeper, though still nothing like the mountains I was used to back in the foothills country around Miracle. There was no trail, but the grass was almost meadowlike. We wound around gnarled old oaks, crossed several small streams, came across little glens that interrupted the upward ascent, and if I had let myself daydream, I could have easily thought we might crest a small rise and see the snowcapped Sierras in the distance. It was hard to believe we were actually going in the exact opposite direction.
Finally a clearing spread out before us, with a rise about four or five hundred yards farther that seemed to taper off at its crest into a flat plateau.
“There it is!” said Cal.
“What?”
“The top. That’s the summit.”
“The summit!” I repeated with a laugh. “That makes it sound like a mountain.”
“Okay, maybe it’s not a mountain peak. But it’s the highest hill for thirty miles in either direction. It’s the one Mr. Stanford told me to show you.”
“I’ll race you there!” I cried.
“You’re on!” Cal yelled back, giving his horse a slap on the rump and lurching into a gallop.
I let him get about twenty yards out in front, just enough of a lead for him to look back to see me sitting at the starting point calmly. Then I dug my heels into the mare Mr. Stanford had let me pick out earlier in the morning. I had liked her looks immediately, and had tested her speed a couple times on the way up, so I was confident of what kind of mount I had under me.
By the time Cal looked back again I had closed half the distance between us, and drew alongside him before we were halfway to the top. I didn’t even look over, but just leaned forward against my mare’s neck and whisked by. I reached the top, reined in the mare, and was sitting calmly in the saddle regaining my breath by the time Cal galloped up alongside ten or fifteen seconds later.
“What took you so long?” I asked, grinning.
“Let me answer with a question—where did you learn to ride like that?” laughed Cal. “You put me to shame.”
“I’m just a country girl,” I answered. “I told you I’ve been riding for years. When you don’t live in a city, you learn to ride.”
“Maybe it’s you who ought to be riding for the Pony Express instead of your brother!”
“I might if they let girls join,” I said.
“Don’t you dare! We need you too much in this campaign!”
Now that the race to the top of the hill was behind us, I had a chance to look around and see where we were.
“It’s absolutely breathtaking!” I exclaimed.
Spread out, not above us as the Sierras would have been, but rather below us like a distant blue infinite carpet stretching all the way to the horizon, was the Pacific Ocean. The day was perfect. The sky was nearly as blue as the sea, with a few billows of clouds suspended lazily here and there. As we had come up over the ridge, the gentlest whisper of a breeze had met us, and now as I drew in deep breaths I could smell just the faintest hint of the ocean’s fragrance.
I stretched all around in my saddle, looking down upon the long blue fingers of San Francisco’s huge bay in the other direction, just as Mr. Stanford had described it. Then I turned north to see if the city itself was in view. It hadn’t rained in the last several days, but it was just clear enough that I thought I could see fuzzy glimpses of it. If it wasn’t the actual buildings of the city I saw, perhaps it was just the rounding part of the end of the peninsula, with my imagination filling in shapes where I knew the city was.
“Look over that way,” said Cal, pointing northeast. “There’s the mouth of the Sacramento River emptying into the bay. And Sacramento eighty miles away,” he added, swinging his arm a little to the right.
As I watched Cal describing the view, I saw a subtle change come over him when he began talking about Sacramento. The capital city, it seemed, possessed a greater significance for him than all the rest.
“What is it about Sacramento that’s so special to you?” I asked.
“Opportunity, Corrie,” he said after a long silence. “Just like I told you before . . . opportunity.”
I thought back to Pa’s talk on our way to Carson City; he had said that sometimes we have to take the chances that come our way before it is too late. But I had the feeling he and Cal meant two completely different things. Pa seemed to be saying that we ought to be mindful of the opportunities God puts in our path. Cal seemed to be saying something else, although I wasn’t quite sure what it was yet.
“Look around you, Corrie,” Cal went on, turning in his saddle. “Look out there—what do you see?” He pointed due west.
“The ocean,” I answered.
“What else do you see?”
“The sky,” I said, half in question.
“What else?”
“I don’t know, Cal . . . the clouds?”
“No, Corrie! Down there is the end of the land, the coast of California . . . the end of the country, the last piece of the United States, the edge of the whole continent!”
His face was lit up as if he had revealed the whole riddle of the universe. He kept looking at me as if expecting light to break in upon my mind at any second.
“Don’t you see what that means?” he asked finally.
“Uh . . . I guess I don’t,” I said.
“It means the end of one kind of opportunity and the beginning of a whole new era in our country’s history—a whole era of new opportunities!”
Again he stopped and scanned all around, at everything we could see. Slowly we began walking our horses along the plateau of the ridge.
“You see, Corrie,” Cal began, “for the last century, the whole thrust of opportunity in this country was just to get here—to reach the Pacific. This was the frontier. It had to be explored, then tamed. Lewis and Clark, Jedediah Smith, even your own John Fremont back in his exploring days—they were men whose passion was just getting here, to this very place, to the Pacific coast. Then all those who came after them—trappers and traders and homesteaders and cattle ranchers, and families by wagon trains—they were coming here just to be here—to come west, to live, to settle, to make lives for themselves. Do you see what I mean? Getting west was the opportunity in itself! Then came the gold rush, and men and women poured in by the hundreds of thousands. Now California and Oregon are states, and one day Nevada and Washington will be, too. We’ve reached the end, the end of the frontier, Corrie. The country’s come as far west as it can go. California’s been tamed and settled. And here we stand, right at the very end, gazing down to where California meets the Pacific.”
We rode on slowly; then he stopped and suddenly jumped down off his mount, gazing down toward the ocean below us.
“Do you know where the next era of opportunity lies, Corrie?” he asked.
“Where, Cal?” I said.
He hesitated just momentarily, then wheeled around, stretched his arms widely out into the air as he faced eastward, and cried, “Out there! Back where we’ve come from—toward the east and everywhere between this spot right here and the same spot overlooking the Atlantic coast somewhere in New York or Maryland or Georgia! It’s what we do with this land now that we’ve conquered it and explored it. We’ve spent two hundred years just getting to this spot, Corrie. Many people shed their blood so that you and I could stand here and look out upon that expanse of blue. In the next century, fortunes are going to be made and empires are going to be built by those who lay hold of the opportunities afforded them.
“Men like Leland Stanford came west. That was their first opportunity. He came from Wisconsin with his four brothers and set up business in Sacramento. Getting here was his first opportunity, which he took hold of, and it made him a rich man. But he didn’t stop there. Then he turned his eyes back over the country he had crossed, and he began to take hold of new political opportunities—the opportunity of power. He ran for governor of this state. Even though he lost, Leland Stanford is still looking for new frontiers to conquer. He came to the Pacific, but now he is seeking to return to the East by rail—a new opportunity. I have no doubt that he and his friends will one day build a railroad back to the East where they all came from, and grow even more wealthy and powerful in the process.
“Oh, Corrie, don’t you see what I’m getting at? It’s in the statehouses like Sacramento where these opportunities of the future originate—where the laws are made. It’s there where the powerful people gather, where the money flows from. Politics, money, and influence—they are the opportunities of the next century! Those with vision to see such things will go far.”
He turned around, his eyes glowing as he looked up at me. I sat still on the mare, listening to every word he said.
“From the Pacific to the Atlantic,” I said, halfway to myself, reflecting on what he’d said a minute ago.
“Sea to sea . . . shore to shore! That’s it exactly!”
“There’s only one thing I don’t understand, Cal,” I said. “Why then do you want to have anything to do with someone like me? I’m hardly the kind of person you’re talking about.”
“But you are, Corrie! I knew that right from the first, when I heard about you and then when I laid eyes on you. Not only were you a beautiful young lady, all dressed up at the Montgomery Hotel in San Francisco. You also have done just what I’m talking about. You came west. The first frontier was just getting here and joining back up with your father and uncle. But no sooner had you done that than you turned back around and set your sights on higher goals. You started writing; you took every opportunity that you could, and now your writing is being read all the way back across the country. And the very Pony Express pouches that your brother carries across the mountains and desert have newspapers in them with your articles and speeches written down for folks in the East to read. You know the Fremonts and Mr. Stanford and Mr. Dalton. Don’t you see, Corrie—in your own way, you’re going to be an important person someday too, just like Leland Stanford!”
“That doesn’t sound like me, Cal,” I said.
“But it is, Corrie. You should be proud of it!”
“I never set my sights on having high goals. I never tried to take opportunities so I could get well known. That kind of thing never entered my mind, Cal.”
“It happened all the same. And now look at you—who would deny that you’re better off for all of it. For a woman to have done all you have, at such a young age . . . it’s remarkable, Corrie! I tell you, you ought to be downright proud!”
I suppose it was idiotic of me to keep questioning him. He had been so nice to me, and a short time ago I had thought I was in love with him. Maybe I still was. I had even persuaded myself that his attentions came from feelings he perhaps shared. But I had to know.
“Is that why you want to have something to do with me?” I persisted. “Because I might be an important person someday?”
“No, of course not,” he answered quickly. His voice bore a roughness, a defensiveness I had never heard before, as if such a blunt question had caught him momentarily with his guard down. It wasn’t the kind of thing young women asked when men were showering them with praise.
“That is, not if you find such a motive to be offensive,” he said smoothly, recovering his old composure. “I cannot deny that your accomplishments and reputation add to the charm I find so compelling about you. But even without them, I would still find you attractive above any other of the young ladies I have known. Do you believe me, Corrie?”
“I would like to.”
“Then do believe me,” he implored. His voice was so sincere; how could I possibly not believe he was in earnest? “Come, Corrie . . . get down. Walk with me.” He reached up his hand and helped me down off the mare. When my feet were on the ground, however, he did not let go. My heart fluttered to feel his hand around mine, but I was too flustered to make any attempt to pull it away.
“Ah, Corrie,” he said at last, “so much lies within our grasp—young persons like us, with life and opportunities and exciting new times for the country ahead of us!”
We walked on. My mind and heart were spinning in a dozen directions at once. I’d always thought of myself as rational and level-headed, but not now. Not with Cal Burton.
“Be part of it with me, Corrie,” he said after a minute or two. “Let’s find our opportunities together, and take advantage of them! You and I—we can be the Lewis and Clark of the next generation. You’ll be a famous writer someday. And I’ll—well, who knows how far we can go, Corrie, or what we can achieve! We can go back across this continent in the footsteps of Leland Stanford and men like him, and maybe even start to make our own marks in the history books of this country! What do you say, Corrie?”
I know I was being a fool, but I couldn’t help asking one more time, “But . . . why me, Cal?”
“Don’t you know, Corrie? Haven’t you figured it out from all I’ve been telling you? It’s because I care for you, Corrie—I care deeply. That’s why, with us working together, there wouldn’t be anything we couldn’t do, couldn’t achieve, couldn’t get if we set our minds to it!”
Cal’s closeness and the excitement in his tone overwhelmed me. I felt like running! I pulled my hand out of his and took off across the grass as fast as I could go.
“Hey . . . where are you off to?” called Cal behind me. I heard him start to chase after me, but I ran all the faster. I ran until I was tired, then slowed and let him catch up with me.
When he did, he threw his long arm around my shoulder and gave me a squeeze, then let go as we turned and started walking back to where the horses were nibbling at the brown grass.
We mounted back up and started slowly down the hill.
We rode down to the seashore, stopped and ran along the sandy beach, explored a watery cave, then galloped the horses miles along the sand before climbing back up inland, over the ridge of the peninsula again, and down through the woods and meadows. Even though we didn’t arrive back at the Stanford estate until late in the afternoon, in spite of all the exertion and the long ride, I didn’t seem to be hungry.
Dinner wasn’t exactly “formal,” but I did put on a different dress than the one I’d ridden in all afternoon, and Cal made his appearance in a black coat and ruffled white shirt with bow tie. He was indeed a handsome young man, and seeing him all dressed up reminded me of how taken I had been with him that night in San Francisco back in June.
When I went to bed that night, I lay awake a long time, dreaming of horses and sand and oak trees and the shining sun dancing and reflecting off the shimmering white and blue surface of the ocean. But mostly I dreamed of a tan face with brown hair flying above it in the breeze, and eyes of a blue so deep that even the sky above and the Pacific below seemed pale by comparison.