Bitterroot Lake

“So tell us about this mysterious trunk,” Nic said. “It belonged to your great-grandmother?”

“Yeah. They met in Butte. Caro’s father was a bigwig in one of the copper mining companies, where Con worked. He wanted to build a business of his own and started buying land with his savings. The story is that when they got married, her father staked Con so he could grow the lumber company. That’s why they moved up here in 1916, the year my grandfather was born. Then the war came and that boosted production, which really took off afterwards.”

“In the Roaring ’20s,” Holly said.

“When did they buy the lodge?”

“1922, I think. A railroad exec built it as a summer home and fishing camp, a couple of years earlier,” Sarah said. “Why he sold, I don’t know, but I always heard Caro fell in love with the place, so they bought it. Good business move—they entertained a lot of clients who came out on the train. They even had their own bus to pick people up. They kept horses and boats, and threw lavish parties.

“Every community had a few mills,” she continued, “but McCaskill had the resources to expand and buy out competitors, even during the Depression. The Hoyts ran a smaller mill until sometime in the ’80s, when construction tanked and our family bought them out. The conglomerates dominate the market now—Weyerhaeuser, Georgia-Pacific—but Connor’s managed to keep things going.”

Janine was flipping through an album. “Caro was quite elegant. I always wonder how couples like that handled money. Of course, it’s easier when there’s plenty of it.”

“She had money of her own, though what she used it for, I don’t know. Supposedly her mother believed every woman should have a private fund that her husband couldn’t control.”

Sarah picked up the journal and returned to the rocker. Life was simpler back then, right? The ink had faded from black to purple in places, and the formal script wasn’t easy to decipher. She leaned closer to the circle of light cast by the old bronze floor lamp with its parchment shade.

She picked up where she’d left off this morning, with Caro’s description of the family’s first morning at Whitetail Lodge in 1922.

We are so fortunate to have been able to buy this place, though I grieve deeply for Ellen Lacey, the girl, and their losses. The lake. I cannot fathom her desperation. Why powerful men feel they can do such wretched things, I cannot imagine. Thank goodness Frank L did not put up with it and sent H packing. Con has said H will never darken our doors. It is beastly unfair that we women must be so constantly vigilant.

That was intriguing. She turned the page.

But I do not want to write of these things or even to think of them, on such a glorious morning in such a beautiful place. The children and I will move out here for the summer as soon as Tom’s school year ends. He is getting to be such a big boy, tall and graceful like his father. I’ll have my hands full keeping an eye on those boys during the week, while Con stays in town to manage the mill. Fanny will be with me, of course, to help mind the children, and Mrs. O’Dell to run the household.

Ahhh. The mystery of Mrs. O’Dell, solved. She opened her mouth to tell Holly, but her sister had vanished.

She kindly recommended her friend, Mrs. Burke, to deliver hot meals for Con at the house in town, as I know he will tire quickly of eating at the hotel, and to clean once or twice a week. Thank goodness my husband is a tolerant man who does not mind making his own coffee or insist that I iron his shirts and collars. Heaven knows, I botched the job more than I succeeded, and it’s been such a relief to have Mrs. O’D take over. Once we’re truly settled, we’ll start entertaining. The lodge is too small for three children and guests—at least, my children! Con’s been setting aside timber from the road construction to build guest cabins, though we might not get them built for a year or more. We will have to invite only guests who are likely to be charmed and let those who insist on creature comforts cluck their tongues at our primitive ways—

The entry ended abruptly, as if Caro had heard a cry from the nursery or Mrs. O’Dell had interrupted her musings.

“Fanny the Nanny”—she remembered Grandpa Tom telling stories about her. Stories that had made her want a nanny, though her mother had howled when she’d asked for one.

Frank and Ellen Lacey. If they were the people who built the lodge, had they—Ellen, most likely—put together the construction scrapbook? She set the journal on the side table and dashed up to the sewing room. Found the scrapbook and opened it. Inside the flyleaf was the name Ellen Granger Lacey. She carried the scrapbook downstairs, along with the stack of framed photos, and set them on the coffee table.

Who were H and the girl, and what were the losses Caro mentioned? Connected to the war? The 1918 flu epidemic? But both were long over by the date of the first journal entry, and Sarah got the sense from her great-grandmother’s words that the Laceys’ losses were too recent and terrifying to linger on. A miscarriage or the death of a young child, perhaps in the lake? Life a hundred years ago had been full of dangers.

Still was. Just different dangers.

She returned to the journal. She was about to ask Nic for her reading glasses, but they were firmly on the other woman’s face, a thin sheet of paper in her hand, the Sampler box of letters open in front of her.

Readers. Another sign of change. Another thing to add to the shopping list.

Holly came out of the kitchen with a glass of wine and sat in the peeled log chair, gazing out at the lake.

Caro’s words became easier to decipher as the loops and links of her handwriting grew more familiar. The next entry was nearly two weeks later. We are HERE! All of us, together at Whitetail Lodge! she’d written with a flourish.

“Oh, my gosh,” Nic said, a letter in hand. “Listen to this.”

They all turned to her.

Dear Mrs. McCaskill:

Enclosed herewith please find twelve dollars and fifty cents. Thanks to your kindness and—

“Generosity, spelled g-i-n-e-r-o-c-i-t-y.”

Thanks to your kindness and generosity, I was able to pay a man to help me rebuild my homestead cabin and replace necessary items destroyed in the fire. I will get the rest of the money to you next month, after my hens begin to lay.