May 7, 1886. A robin is sitting on a branch directly above my head as I write this—if I had a worm he might come eat out of my hand! It’s so warm today—I will take off my shoes and stockings and go wading in Dead Man’s Creek, even though the water temperature is not far above freezing. Tomorrow I will take the trail that leads up to Connor’s Peak. The weather promises to be fine, and I hope to make the summit before midday.
May 8, 1886. I did it! I hiked all the way up to Connor’s Peak and back again. Papa was furious, for I didn’t make it home before dark and missed supper. He is terrified that something terrible will happen to me—that I’ll be eaten by a bear. Silly—as if I didn’t know to make noise and scare the bears off. As punishment I was not allowed to eat at all, but I don’t care. The view from the top was food enough for me. The snowcapped peaks beyond were wreathed in clouds and seemed to touch the blue, blue sky—the smell of pine resin was heady perfume. The delicate mountain violets are just beginning to bloom—I think they are my favorite of the wildflowers. Charlie will be so jealous that I went without him, but I wanted to be absolutely alone at the summit. Does God feel like that sometimes—wishing He could be all alone with His creations, without the pesky humans crawling all over the place like stinging ants?
Francie scowled. It was like Carrie to compare herself with God. Her handwriting was scrawling and spidery—Francie remembered their mother always pointing out how illegible Carrie’s school papers were. Francie ran her thumb along the gilt edges of the little book—the pages were soft, almost like cloth. A part of her wanted to read through the night, and a part of her didn’t want to read it at all. It felt wrong, somehow—as if she were peering into someone’s bedroom window and watching the most private part of that person’s life. Suddenly she wanted to slam the book shut and hurl it across the room. Why did Carrie have to be so incredibly stupid as to get caught in a landslide!
But stronger than her reluctance and anger was the compulsion to find out about the note and what mystery surrounded it. She felt as if she couldn’t quite catch her breath as she turned to the last page. It was dated Aug. 13, 1888, two days before the landslide. Carrie’s handwriting was even more scrawly than usual, with several ink blots, which seemed to indicate either that she was in a great hurry or that she was very upset.
Aug. 13, 1888. I saw Old Robert again today. He took me up over the mountain and showed me my tree. My tree! It is enormous, bigger than any other sequoia in the entire valley. Maybe it’s the biggest tree in the entire world! And so old . . . think of the history it has witnessed. I can’t fathom it. It is so, so beautiful . . . a Prince among trees. No, a King . . . an Emperor! And I am the steward. No, I am the knight, sworn to protect my Emperor or die in the attempt! Can Old Robert really give me a tree? He says he can . . . he showed me the will and it looks very official. He says I must not tell anyone about this great gift. But how can I keep silent? I am bursting with the joy and the responsibility. I will tell Charlie—he can keep the secret. And perhaps I should consult with someone who knows about wills. Surely it would be safe to tell Mr. Court. As soon as I can find a way into St. Joseph, I will make an appointment to see him. After the White Mountain walking tour—they’re counting on me to be there for that.
Francie shut the book with a sharp pop. The White Mountain walking tour. Before the landslide it used to be offered every year for the tourists. People from St. Joseph and from even farther away would come to see the wild-flowers, the sequoias, the deep canyons cut by the river, and the powerful river itself—all the views the Sierras were becoming famous for. Carrie had been allowed to go as a sort of assistant guide, to help the ladies over the rougher parts of the trail.
They’d brought her sister’s body back—Francie had watched as they’d lifted her off the mule. She could remember the feeling of the splintery hitching post—she’d stood beside the mule, rubbing and rubbing that post with her fingers as she’d listened to the story of what had happened.
“Mrs. Jenkins spied a clump of that yellow columbine way out on one of them rock outcroppings,” the old guide had said. “I told her it was too dangerous, but she wouldn’t let it rest, she begged Carrie to climb out and get it for her.” The old man rubbed a shaky hand over his chin and pulled his hat brim down lower over his eyes. Francie, looking up at him, could see the tears running down his grizzled cheeks. “That silly woman kept pestering her—talking as if Carrie was afeared to try it,” he said through clenched teeth. “I think Carrie tried it just to shut her up. She started out and the whole thing collapsed.” He closed his eyes, as if by doing that he could erase the picture in his mind. “It was only luck we found her body—she was more than half covered with that broken rock.”
It had been the last of the White Mountain walking tours. No guide had dared to advertise anything so dangerous in the six years since. The tourists still came, but they didn’t go up on White Mountain anymore. Carrie was buried in the mountains she had loved. And, thought Francie, smoothing the soft leather of the diary with her finger, her secrets were buried with her.
Who was Old Robert? Where was this tree he had supposedly given her? Francie opened the diary once more and looked at the pages. Could she find more clues to this mystery in the diary? It would mean reading the entire book, entry by entry. She closed her eyes. How could she bear to read her sister’s most private thoughts?
“I must bear it,” she whispered. “For the sake of Carrie’s mystery.” She smiled a bitter little half smile. While she was alive, Carrie was always inventing pretend mysteries. But when she died, she set off a real mystery. How she would have loved to solve it!
She heard her father’s footsteps walk past the door and then stop. Francie blew out the lamp before her father could knock on her door—no more time now to search. And she wouldn’t see Charlie again until Sunday—if he remembered to come.
• • •
On Sunday afternoon Charlie knocked on the Cavanaughs’ door just as he had promised. Francie moved to open it, but her mother motioned her to sit and went to answer it herself.
“Aunt Mary,” Charlie said, taking off his hat as he stepped into the front hallway.
“Come in, Charlie.” Francie’s mother gave him a hug and showed him into the sitting room where Francie and her father were waiting. “Sit down and tell us the news.” She picked up her knitting and sat down in her favorite green brocade chair. When she was a little girl, Francie had loved to sneak into the sitting room and run her fingers through the slippery gold tassels that hung from the seat cushions.
“Yes, ma’am.” Charlie took a seat beside Francie on the sofa. He smiled at her, raising one eyebrow in question.
Francie nodded her head ever so slightly. She felt like she might burst with the news of the diary, but instead she had to sit quietly with her hands folded in her lap while her mother and father questioned Charlie about his family and friends from St. Joseph.
“Old Mrs. Andrew died just after New Year’s,” Charlie was saying.
Francie’s father put down his newspaper and stared at him. “I wonder if that was the same Mrs. Andrew who taught me in school.”
“Probably was,” Charlie said. “They said she was eighty-six. She came west in the 1850s and she was in her forties then!”
“I’m amazed she didn’t die long ago,” Francie’s father said, “with the things she had to put up with from her students. She used to tell us we were more of a challenge than the Oregon Trail.” He smiled at the memory, and Francie felt her heart twist inside her. If only he would smile more often.
She was torn between wanting her father to tell more stories and wanting to go with Charlie to Turkey Fork. Her father had been eight and her mother only a year younger when their families came west, and their wagon train experiences were exciting—she remembered some of the stories she’d heard when she was little. Before Carrie died.
But the light in her father’s eyes dimmed as quickly as it had come. There would be no more stories now. Francie sighed and surreptitiously poked Charlie.
“Uncle James,” he said, sitting up straight. “I was wondering if I could take Francie walking up the Connor’s Creek trail. The bluebirds are thick up in there . . . and I think I know where a den of fox pups is. We were talking the other day and she said she’d like to see them.”
“I would, Father,” Francie said, gritting her teeth against the tone Charlie was using, like she was a little girl who had to be taken care of. The point, she told herself sternly, was to find Turkey Fork. “Please may I go? We’ll be home before dark.”
Her father looked from Charlie to Francie, and then at Francie’s mother, who took that moment to examine her knitting. He cleared his throat but evidently decided there was no trick. “I suppose you may go,” he said, nodding. He fixed Francie with a stern look. “No climbing or doing anything dangerous. You will obey Charlie. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Father.” Francie gripped the brocaded arm of the sofa to keep herself from jumping up.
He nodded once more. Charlie put his hand on Francie’s elbow as if he were helping her to rise. “I’ll take care of her,” he said, turning back to Francie’s parents as Francie almost skipped into the hall, grabbed her hat from the rack, and fixed it on her head with a few pins. She hated hats—their wide brims limited what she could see without craning her neck—but she knew her mother would never let her go walking with Charlie without one. As quietly as she could, she opened the middle drawer of the hall table and pulled out an old cotton shoulder bag with Carrie’s diary inside. She’d put it there that morning, sneaking down the stairs with it before anyone else was awake.
“Yes, sir,” Charlie was saying. “No risks. I promise.” He stepped into the dim hallway, opened the front door, and ushered Francie out into the street.