Maria waved at him also. She had spent several months at Abigail Duniway’s school, but she grew homesick, and Mrs. Duniway had not had much need of her assistance. Maria came home for good in May, and she and Will spent many hours together during the weeks after her return, usually under the close watch of Mama or Pa.
But one evening the week before Will was to leave, he found Maria alone in the garden. Mama peered out the kitchen window, but she left the two of them to talk by themselves.
“Do you care for me?” Will asked Maria, as he had when he returned from the militia expedition last autumn.
“Of course, I do, Will.”
“Do you love me?” he asked. “As a woman loves a man?”
“Oh, William,” she said, with a wistful sigh. “I don’t know. I don’t know any life without you, so I don’t know how you will fit in my life ahead.”
“Do you think you might love me?” he asked.
She turned to him and touched his cheek. “I might.”
“Will you write to me while I’m away?” Will took her hand and pressed it to his lips.
She smiled then. “That I will certainly do.”
He’d extracted one promise from her. That was all he needed at this point. But he hoped for more promises someday.
The steamship chugged away from the dock and down the Columbia toward Astoria and beyond.
“Come, Will,” Pa said. “Let’s stand in the bow and watch where we’re heading.” He slung his arm around Will’s shoulders.
Will grinned at his father, and they walked forward together.
THE END
Find more books from Theresa Hupp at https://www.amazon.com/Theresa-Hupp/e/B009H8QIT8
Author’s Note
This novel relied more on specific history for its plot than my earlier books. Lieutenant Colonel Charles S. Drew commanded Company C of the First Oregon Cavalry Militia in 1864, and he led a military reconnaissance expedition through the Owyhee Basin. I have relied on Drew’s report to describe the events of that expedition. See Official Report of the Owyhee Reconnoissance [sic], made by Lieut. Colonel C. S. Drew, 1st Oregon Cavalry, in the summer of 1864, available at
https://ia800906.us.archive.org/9/items/officialreportof00unitrich/officialreportof00unitrich.pdf.
For more about the expedition, see also The Deadliest Indian War in the West: The Snake Conflict, 1864-1868, Chapter 6, by Gregory Michno (2007), available at
https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Deadliest_Indian_War_in_the_West/5ZExU-tGSz8C, and Bancroft, History of Oregon, available at https://www.google.com/books/edition/History_of_Oregon/l-gNAAAAIAAJ.
There is no evidence that Drew used a scribe, but I liked this as a plot device. I summarized and paraphrased Drew’s report in his dictation to Will, but I tried to be true to the attitudes Drew expressed in his report.
There is no clear explanation why Drew delayed in setting out on the expedition, though Michno indicates he wanted to keep his men safe, as well as the wagon trains once they joined him. I also did not find any clear rationale for why Drew did not rush back for the treaty negotiations (which he actually reached on October 15, 1864, on the Sprague River, the day the negotiations concluded). Bancroft states Drew did not believe the government would keep its treaty promises.
I made some changes to the actual events of the Owyhee Expedition. For example, the theft of Indian horses that led to Burton’s death took place away from the cavalry’s herd, but I wanted Will’s horse stolen as well. Also, Humboldt Jim was a real visitor to the expedition’s camp, but he did not tell Drew that Chief Paulina was following the cavalry. Paulina’s Paiutes really did follow the expedition and Paulina decided not to attack because of the howitzer, but Drew did not learn this until after he returned to Fort Klamath.
In addition to Lt. Col. Charles S. Drew, other historical characters in his reconnaissance force who found their way into this novel include Captain Kelly and Sergeants Crockett, Geisy, and Moore. However, I do not know the specific roles these men played in the reconnaissance force, nor do I know anything about their characters. When Drew reported that men left the unit or stayed behind at certain points, I tried to be true to those events.
Captain George Curry (or Currey) commanded another company of the First Oregon Cavalry Militia in 1864, and Drew’s company met Curry’s at Camp Alvord.
Even though no battles were fought in Oregon between North and South, the Civil War had an impact on the state. Both Northern and Southern sympathizers argued their positions vociferously. All the regular Army units in Oregon were called to the East to fight. As a result, Oregon raised its own local militia, of which Drew’s cavalry unit was a part. But the Oregon militia was understaffed, and in the summer of 1864, all units were on field assignments managing the Native American population, which did in fact cause Byron Pengra’s road survey to be delayed until 1865.
Many deserters from both the North and South did drift west during and after the Civil War.
With respect to the age of enlistment, boys under the age of eighteen could not enlist in the Army without a parent’s consent. Younger boys could enlist with consent. Of course, a lot of lying went on by boys eager to participate in the War.
The businessmen Mac encountered—William S. Ladd, Byron Pengra, and the steamship company owners—were real Oregon pioneers engaged in the enterprises I described.
Abigail Scott Duniway was an early suffragette in the West. When I discovered her, I decided to include her in these pages, and I hope to feature her in a future novel as well. Duniway was a pioneer on the Oregon Trail, a farmer’s wife, a teacher, a businesswoman, a newspaper publisher, and an author of fiction and nonfiction, as well as an advocate of voting rights for women in several Western states. Her autobiography can be found in Path Breaking: An Autobiographical History of the Equal Suffrage Movement in Pacific Coast States, by Abigail Scott Duniway (1914), available at
https://www.google.com/books/edition/Path_Breaking/LYtJAAAAIAAJ. But although she did run a girl’s boarding school in Lafayette in Yamhill County, Oregon, in 1864, there is no indication that she hired anyone to help her with the school.
Some of the weather described came from a diary by James Virtue, a prospector who made a trip to Boise in the summer of 1864. His diary depicts a miner’s life in the 1860s, and can be found at “‘May Live and Die a Miner’: The 1864 Clarksville Diary of James W. Virtue, by Gary Dielman, Oregon Historical Quarterly, Vol. 105, No. 1 (Spring 2004).
As always, any errors or deviations from history in this novel are my own, and I take full responsibility.
Discussion Guide
These questions are to help book clubs and other reading groups discuss Safe Thus Far. They might also make good essay topics for students reading this novel for the classroom.
What did you know about the involvement of West Coast states in the Civil War before reading Safe Thus Far?
How did the arrival of the telegraph in Oregon make life easier for residents in the West? Did it make life harder in any respects?
Was it realistic that in 1864 at age sixteen, Will and Jonah could join a militia unit? Why or why not?
