Hope's Imperfection

Chapter 14: Wild West

I was focused on San Francisco, but Sarah was still talking about Lizzy.

“I don’t believe her,” Sarah stated emphatically. “You’re telling me that she just happened to get an email about the diary a few days before we arrived in Astoria. I think she knew about the book in San Francisco all along.”

I just smiled and leaned against the train.

“It does seem improbable,” I replied.

“I feel as though she’s been pulling our strings this whole trip. It was her that gave you the first volume of the novel, which led you to Chicago and St. Ignace. Now we spot her in Portland, and by the grace of God she reveals another clue that takes us to San Francisco,” Sarah deduced.

“It is her story too,” I replied.

“I just hate feeling manipulated,” Sarah responded. “What else is she not telling us? I think she knew the whole story of Stewart McIntosh all along.”

“I don’t think so, Sarah. She seemed generally interested in the research you did, and I noticed she copied a number of documents and took them with her,” I countered.

Sarah wasn’t buying it.

“I’m just thrilled about the potential of continuing Richard Stanhope’s story and learning more about his life. We have about forty years to fill in between being orphaned in Montana and returning to St. Ignace in the 1850s ,” I said excitedly.

Sarah agreed.

“Do you know what Lizzy does for a living, what business she is in?” Sarah asked.

“You’re killing me, Shine,” I responded, with a smile.

It was a question that Sarah put away, to be revisited another time.

I had concluded that Portland was weird and seemed to enjoy being that way. Everything was just a little bit different, and the people were enamored of specialty items. Microbreweries, exotic yet free-trade coffees, and every other off-the-wall essential were coveted. It’s not enough to buy slippers; one must go to the one-and-only slipper store in the Pacific northwest and buy the exact type of slippers that slide just right when worn on the natural pine floors that every Portlander has recovered from under their pulled-up carpets, to be refinished and gleaming in their trendy little loft. It’s all a little much. However, that is only Portland proper; these crunchy jam eating urbanites have found each other in the city and left the rest of the state to the anglers, hunters, and volume beer drinkers.

The Amtrak train passes along the west coast, but the Pacific Ocean quickly vanishes from view. Soon you pass into Northern California. You think that you will immediately be treated to Mickey Mouse and Malibu beaches but it doesn’t happen; the ride gets even more luscious and immense. The towns we pass through are just as small but the views are spectacular. With the ocean out of sight, our eyes are drawn to the woods and the mammoth tree trunks that line the highways like bodyguards.