Lone Women

Adelaide Henry has hired Mr. Cole to drive her to the port of Los Angeles. During the ride, he comments on Adelaide and her family, whom the community considered to be strange and reclusive. Adelaide deflects his comments and questions, observing instead the many deep, unhealed cuts on her hands. She notes that she will have to buy gloves to hide her wounds. She tries to remember exactly how she received the wounds but starts to feel sick at the memory of previous events that took place at her home.

Mr. Cole spends the trip speaking badly about the Henry family, and Adelaide briefly imagines killing him. As they get closer to Los Angeles, Mr. Cole stops for directions and learns that the port is actually in another town called San Pedro. They have to backtrack, and Adelaide worries that she will miss her ship. They finally arrive in San Pedro and remark at the sheer size of the city around them. Mr. Cole hesitates, and Adelaide urges him to keep moving toward the port.

The port of Los Angeles is crowded and bustling with activity. Mr. Cole drives Adelaide toward the ticket booths, where she purchases a one-way ticket on a steamer ship to Seattle. She turns to go back to the wagon and collect her things only to discover that Mr. Cole has thrown her steamer trunk out of the wagon and is already driving away. The thought of killing him crosses Adelaide’s mind for the third time. She inspects the trunk and is grateful to find it undamaged. She locates the berth for her ship and tries to solicit help from the ship’s superintendent to carry her trunk to the bottom of the boarding ramp. He ignores her, and Adelaide has to drag the heavy trunk to the berth by herself. It takes so long that she barely makes it before the ship departs. She learns that despite having paid for a ticket that includes a room, she will have to sleep on the deck because the ship has been oversold. Adelaide is frustrated but resigned to her fate. She sits down in a deck chair and pulls out her favorite book from her travel bag: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, by Anne Brontë.

Adelaide reflects on an oft-repeated phrase of mother’s: “A woman is a mule” (17). She recognizes that her mother said it frequently to prepare her daughter for the many hardships she would encounter, but Adelaide considers how resentful the saying made her feel. She always longed to escape her fate and dreamed of going to the remote state of Montana, which shares her birthday. Her current plan after arriving in Seattle is to board a train for Montana to start her new life. The memories of her mother and her previous life cause Adelaide to feel a kind of aching loneliness, so she heads below deck and spends the night leaning against the side of the steamer trunk, whispering to whatever is inside.

Adelaide recalls the article that encouraged her to seek out a new life in Montana. It was written by a “lone woman” homesteader named Mattie T. Cramer. Ms. Cramer traveled to rural Montana with her young son to receive a plot of land from the federal government, which she then cultivated for a three-year term. After she completed the initial three years, the plot belonged to her. Adelaide read this article repeatedly at home and was drawn to the “unlimited opportunities” that homesteading in Montana promised.

Upon arriving in Seattle, Adelaide meets with a realtor and selects her plot of land by pointing to a nail on a map. She chooses an isolated spot near the town of Big Sandy. The realtor explains that the previous tenant of that plot built a shack and a well. These will cost her extra, but the realtor states that it is beneficial to have shelter and water already in place.

At the train station outside of Big Sandy, Montana, Fred Harnden, a reporter for the Bear Paw Mountaineer, awaits the arrival of the next train. His duty is to greet all the passengers, asking them who they are and what brings them to Big Sandy. He then publishes his account in the daily paper. Mr. Harnden is joined by Mrs. Jerrine Reed, the only other resident of the town who greets the train every day. Mrs. Reed and her husband are the richest townsfolk in Big Sandy, and she is extensively involved in the community. As they wait, Mr. Harnden and Mrs. Reed make playful guesses as to why the train might be running late. Mr. Harnden asks Mrs. Reed if she is waiting for a particular passenger, and she replies that she is there to receive the new theater organ that is to be installed at the opera house. The train finally arrives, and Fred Harnden speaks to the disembarking passengers. Adelaide Henry pauses to ask him where she might hire a wagon, and he points her in the direction of town, not bothering to ask her name because he assumes that she is simply a hired servant.

Adelaide wonders why Fred Harnden never asked about her name or history but notes that it is probably for the best, as her whole reason for coming to Montana is to disappear. She enters the town of Big Sandy and observes how tiny it is, especially when viewed against the vast Montana sky. While searching for a wagon and driver to take her to her homestead, she is interrupted by Mrs. Reed, who welcomes Adelaide to Big Sandy and points her in the direction of the most trustworthy driver, Mr. Olsen. Mrs. Reed then returns to inspect the new theater organ, which is now sitting outside of its crate on the train platform. Mr. Olsen agrees to drive Adelaide to her land and remarks on the fact that she has brought only one steamer trunk.

The ride out to Adelaide’s plot of land is marked by harsh, biting wind: Adelaide’s introduction to the unforgiving Montana weather. The other passengers are a family called the Mudges, consisting of a mother and her four boys. Adelaide observes that all four boys have blindfolds over their eyes and assumes that they must be blind. She notes how difficult the family’s life must be, even in comparison to her own.

During the ride, Adelaide attempts to keep her spirits up by repeating quotes from Mattie Cramer’s article about the livability and hospitality of Montana. Mr. Olsen eventually tells her to be quiet and notes that the article is nothing more than popular fluff sold at railway stations. Mrs. Mudge stands up and chastises Mr. Olsen for attempting to dash their hopes about life in Montana. The wagon goes over a bump, and Mrs. Mudge falls backward, landing heavily against Adelaide’s trunk. Adelaide rises in fear and shouts for Mrs. Mudge to get away from the trunk. She pushes Mrs. Mudge with more force than she intends, and Mrs. Mudge falls against the side of the wagon. Her sons rise to her defense, but she tells them to stay seated. Feeling awkward, Adelaide also returns to her seat, and they continue the ride in silence.

The wagon reaches a deep ravine or “coulee,” and Mr. Olsen tells his passengers to get out in order to lessen the weight so that the horses can pull the wagon across the ravine. Adelaide and the Mudges walk beside the wagon across the coulee, but the wagon is unable to make it up the other side. Mr. Olsen decides to unload all the luggage from the wagon and bring it up by hand, allowing the horses to make the climb unburdened. He remarks that his horses have never had trouble pulling a fully-laden wagon like this before, and Adelaide suspects that the problem is the weight of her trunk.

Because night is falling, Mr. Olsen tells Adelaide and the Mudges that they will have to spend the night in a nearby abandoned hotel rather than continuing the journey in the dark. Mr. Olsen explains that the hotel was once part of a frontier town that has since been completely erased by the weather and the environment. When the group arrives at the hotel, it is clearly in shambles. The sight gives Adelaide a foreboding, uncomfortable feeling.

Adelaide and the Mudges go inside to select their rooms. Adelaide assumes that they will all share a room, but Mrs. Mudge tells her it wouldn’t be “proper” for her boys to share a room with an unmarried woman. Adelaide attempts to persuade her otherwise because she is unsettled by their surroundings and does not want to sleep alone. She mentions the “difficulty” of their situation, and Mrs. Mudge ushers her youngest son forward. Joab Mudge shares the difficulty of his life with Adelaide, noting that he didn’t realize he was blind for many years. When another young boy told him he was blind and ridiculed him for it, he pushed the boy into a well. Mrs. Mudge is quick to add that the boy did not die. Adelaide understands that by sharing this story, they intend to intimidate her, so she retreats and finds her own room for the night.

Adelaide finds another unlocked room in which to spend the night. She is thoroughly unnerved by the darkness of the hotel. She cannot sleep and thinks to herself that if she had a light, she would read from her favorite book, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, to pass the time and soothe her fears. She remembers the way that her father used to read the book aloud in the evenings to Adelaide and her mother, while Adelaide combed her mother’s hair. In fact, Adelaide recalls that this is how they spent their very last night together before her parents met their violent end.

Adelaide awakens the next morning and looks out the window to see if Mr. Olsen was able to retrieve the wagon and their belongings. She sees the wagon and horses sitting outside the hotel, with her trunk sitting in the wagon bed, but she notices that something seems amiss about the trunk. She runs outside to check it and sees that the lock has been unlocked. It is not broken and the only key is still hanging around her neck. She hurriedly shuts the lock again, and Mr. Olsen finds her in the wagon bed. He insinuates that she is stealing and Adelaide protests, instead pointing out the fact that her steamer trunk was unlocked by some unknown person. After a slightly tense moment, the two come to an accord. Mr. Olsen helps her out of the wagon and invites her to eat breakfast.

As they eat their modest meal, Adelaide asks him if she will encounter any other Black people in rural Montana. Mr. Olsen notes that there were two other Black women homesteaders like her, but that one of them is dead. She will likely meet the other, Bertie Brown, who doesn’t live too far away. He also tells Adelaide that people of Chinese or Indigenous heritage are more readily disliked in these parts. Mr. Olsen encourages Adelaide to eat more breakfast, and when she declines to save enough for the Mudges, Mr. Olsen reveals that the Mudges disappeared in the middle of the night. Coupled with the knowledge that her trunk was unlocked, this information makes Adelaide anxious.

Mr. Olsen finishes the journey to Adelaide’s cabin and helps her unload her trunk. He tells her that he will continue on to the location of the Mudges’ claim, in the event that they went on ahead without them. Adelaide asks him if he will return and allow her to buy their belongings from him if they are not waiting for him. Mr. Olsen agrees and rides away, leaving Adelaide alone in her new home. She is shocked at the state of her cabin, which is sparse and unfinished, with a tar paper roof and gaps in the siding. The well that she was promised contains water that is only fit for animals to consume. Feeling overwhelmed and hopeless, Adelaide sits on her trunk and contemplates whether she should bother to stay alive. However, knowing that she is the sole caretaker of her trunk and its mysterious contents, she resolves to make the best of her situation.