Introduction

With a voice as rich, haunting, and beautifully compelling as the rugged landscape his heroine traverses, William Haywood Henderson tells the story of Augusta Locke, a true American pioneer, tough in spirit and achingly human. Spanning several decades across the two World Wars, Augusta Locke provides a window into one woman’s extraordinary life as well as an extraordinary time and place: the American West in the waning days of its exploration. Gussie Tornig was born in 1903 just outside of Ravenglass, Minnesota, the only child of Leota and Brud. But with her awkward appearance, dark hair, and brown eyes, she doesn’t really look like either of her handsome parents. It seems from the moment of her birth that she is an outsider, even in her own family. Uncomfortable within the walls of her family’s cabin, she spends most of her time outside, tracing the flights of the ravens, and the trail of her deceptive father, whom she discovers with another woman. His betrayal is publicly exposed, and Brud is driven from town. Gussie and her mother also leave Ravenglass and begin a new life together in Colorado where her mother marries the well-to-do Frank Locke. Frank is stern and devoutly religious and insists that Gussie, now a teenager, be baptized and conform to his rigid expectations. But on the day of her baptism, still soaking wet from being dunked in the river and wearing the exquisite white dress her mother made for her, Gussie runs off, beginning a lifelong journey to find her freedom and her place in the world. She heads straight into the arms of Jack Fisher, a young man on his way to volunteer in the Great War. In their brief but passionate encounter, Gussie becomes pregnant with their daughter Anne. Jack heads off to war, and Gussie heads north, spending the following years in Wyoming, determined to make her way in the male-dominated West, even with a young child in tow. Known for miles around as a tough hand who’s good with a horse, she drives a rig, carrying supplies across the Great Divide Basin, with Anne always at her side, spending nights together under the stars. Anne grows up to be strong and independent, intimately familiar with the land but also, through the generosity of a friend, with the world of books and learning. But after seventeen years of living the life her mother has chosen for her, Anne yearns for space and independence and leaves to begin her own journey. Gussie is heartbroken and goes on a desperate search to find her; she soon realizes, however, that she has no idea the direction Anne has taken, and she gives up trying to trace her daughter’s path. The years pass, the Second World War begins and ends, and Gussie has settled, alone, in the DuNoir Valley, with her own cabin and parcel of land. The people in Gussie’s life have come and gone, but the earth has been constant, and she has often turned to it for comfort. But now, forty years later, her grandson and great-granddaughter have come to find her, and she welcomes them into her home. While the land has been good to Gussie, has embraced her, there is no solace to be found like the touch of a hand, the sound of a voice, especially those of her own family. With Augusta Locke, William Haywood Henderson has created a moving epic about the American West and an unforgettable portrait of one woman’s refusal to give in or give up, even when faced with the overwhelming obstacles of life alone on the road and the never-ending longings of the human heart.

Editorial Review

No editorial review at this time.

Excerpt

Bomber Basin

Alone in the granite scoop of Bomber Basin, together on a soft patch of alpine sedges, Gussie Locke and her grandson, Hayden, and her great-granddaughter, Laurel, waited for Jack Fisher. They gathered the remains of their lunch, wrapped up the bread and salami. The orange peels had curled into hard little bowls. The afternoon sounds were sharp and clear, carried on the unfiltered sunlight, the reflections from lake and cliffs, ten thousand feet high in the Wind River Range.

Gussie inhaled, held the afternoon in her lungs. Her cells consumed the air, forced the day's heat out along the trails of her veins. She had been drawn back to Bomber Basin by the pristine scent of the summer snowfields, by the rare altitude, by the memory of Jack Fisher riding into the basin, into the smoky light of the fire. She felt almost hale. In a few hours, Jack would arrive.

She had telephoned Jack, invited him to join her in Bomber Basin. She'd reminded him of the nesting finches, the odd color of the barren lake, the sun on the cliffs. She'd reminded him of the morning ice at the shore, the way the ice grew around the stones, a stitching of long crystals. She'd reminded him of the echoes in the basin, the amphitheater of the cliffs and the broken steps. And she'd told him there would be strangers he would want to meet, these two travelers who had found her cabin in its stand of aspen, in its unmarked acres far toward the end of the DuNoir road.

With a glance at his watch, Hayden climbed to his feet. “You ladies enjoy the sun,” he said. “I'll get us settled.”

Gussie squinted at his shape dark against the sun and the mass of Spider Peak. Hayden was slight, almost delicate, and she could see in him her own lean shoulders, her own blunt jaw and unruly hair. He must have had a rough time of it, so clearly steeped in her blood. “I could help you,” Gussie said, though she didn't want to move. The sun was too warm, her muscles cramped by the ride up along East Torrey Creek. They'd left the broad view behind, passed Bomber Falls, followed the intermittent trail, the miles through the canyon, through marshes and meadows and dark forest, into the basin. Hayden had led the pack horses himself, and she'd expected him to be jerked from his saddle at any moment, his hand too often tangled in the rope, but she'd kept quiet. And now she knew that she'd only hover at his shoulder as he tried to organize the gear, that she'd have to refrain from pointing and suggesting. “I'm not going to help you, sweetheart.”

“That's fine. How could I accept your help?” He carried the lunch supplies back toward the camp, leaving a trace where he'd sat on the sedges, a silvery patch of pressed stems. Gussie ran her fingers across that trace, felt the essence of the plants, felt the heat of Hayden's body, heat of the sun, and the cold earth beneath. In the shelter of whitebark pine, Hayden stooped at the panniers, started to arrange the goods they would need for the next week. The horses shuffled at the limits of their pickets, tearing the frail grasses from the roots.

Laurel lay back, closed her eyes. “He doesn't have a clue what he's doing,” she said. “We'll be sleeping in a tarp and eating raw flour.”

“He's on his own,” Gussie said.

“That's not very nice.”

“Nothing I can teach him that he can't learn himself.”

The air gleamed, pressed light against Laurel's skin. Gussie looked at the girl's twitching eyelids, the dryness of her lips. Laurel was still a child, slim and bony, nearly thirteen. After a long still minute, Gussie almost thought she could hear Laurel's pulse, the quiver at her wrists where her sleeves exposed the white. Gussie's own skin was dry brown. It seemed impossible that Laurel would ever age, ever diminish, yet somewhere in the girl's long lines was Gussie's blood.

Apple flesh, Gussie thought. Laurel had brought apples from California. What a treat they had been, apples in December. They had unloaded Hayden's car, snow falling so fast that their tracks had filled before they could return for a final load, but the apples were all safely into the shelter of Gussie's pantry. Porter, Northern Spy, Blue Pearmain, Laurel had said, freeing each apple from its wrap of tissue paper. The red blush, the pale green, the slice of the knife. Huddled in the kitchen, they had shared a few, compared the sweetness, the snap of the skin, Gussie and these two strangers who'd emerged from the storm. All from my grandmother's orchard, Laurel had said, and that grandmother would be Anne, Gussie's own daughter, long gone from Wyoming, long lost to Gussie. Anne, Gussie thought. Apple flesh.

Apple flesh, the men had said, nearly seventy years ago, leaning close over the infant Anne, not yet a year old. And Gussie had centered herself in the hotel parlor, held Anne up into the light, folded back the corner of the blanket. The chandelier's radiance circled deep in Anne's blue eyes, and the shadows of the men also crowded in the blue, and Gussie's own shadow was an awkward form. I'm not delicate, Gussie had thought. The men were around her, around her daughter, heating the air with their breath. Apple. Angel. Then Gussie saw Anne's skin, the lucent white, the subtle veins-this was her daughter, her own flesh.

Gussie had been drawn to the infant Anne, drawn the same as all the others, men and women alike, drawn by the surprise of such a child in the Wyoming desert. Gussie had never quite been sure of Anne's weight in her arms, never sure of the girl's smile. It was not Gussie's smile. It might have been Jack Fisher's smile, but Gussie hadn't been able to remember Jack Fisher clearly enough to judge if the smile was his-unlikely that such a delicate turn of the lips could come from a man. Gussie had known Jack only a single day-he could have been dead, for all she knew, could have been moldering in the ground of some battlefield, the French countryside gray with rain, the Great War rolling far beyond his final steps. But Gussie had kept studying her daughter, looking at the curve of her ear, the hollow of her nostrils, the set of her shoulders, looking for Jack, looking for herself.

And here was Laurel, great-granddaughter, far toward the end of the century, dozing, the blades of the sedges pressing against her shoulders, her cheeks, the leaves of the wildflowers crowding the gaps between her fingers, her legs, the blooms abrupt and fiery in the brief summer. To Gussie this girl was remarkably strange, remarkably dear. There were years between them, whole continents of regret. Laurel had lost her mother, Ruth-an accident. Gussie had lost her daughter, Anne-abandoned. How many layers between Gussie and Laurel, how many people that Gussie would never know, how many seasons? Why hadn't Gussie known Laurel since her birth? Why hadn't Gussie held Laurel to the light, tipped back the edge of the blanket, opened her to the sun and sky? Gussie looked closer, but she couldn't find herself in the girl's pale form.

Gussie turned away from Laurel, squinted to focus the afternoon. Water ran everywhere in the basin. Up against the spine of the Wind River Range, even in July, snowfields held to the cliffs. Black rosy finches flew against the snow-Gussie heard their constant chatter, their bickering, feeding, sounds of endless years, of high country, low country, freeze and thaw.

Through long winters, from her cabin on the DuNoir road, for decades, with the glare of snow at the window, Gussie had watched the black rosy finches mob her feeders. The birds fluffed themselves against the cold, moved on through the aspen. And each spring, the finches didn't wait for the valley heat but scattered right off into the face of the Wind River Range. They dodged a Clark's nutcracker, ascended through clouds of newborn gnats, and then they reached the highest basins. They paired again, hunted out the old nests. Perhaps it was the cold the finches loved, and the memory of ice at the edge of a lake.

Gussie listened to each small sound-the chatter, the breeze, the rustle of canvas as Hayden dragged the tent behind him, ready to raise it in a spot they'd chosen among the pines. Gussie didn't want to watch him-it was her tent, but raising it was beyond her strength. She knew the smell of the tent-it was thick with decades of woodsmoke-knew the weight of the canvas, the wind it would take to disturb the heavy walls, how the canvas filtered sound. Over the years, she had lain in the tent at dawn and heard the shift of boots on gravel so clearly that she thought she could picture the scene perfectly, picture the gait of the man moving through the chill, but then the echo threw the action farther from camp or much closer than she had expected, and for a moment she'd felt blind and alone.

Hayden had the canvas spread out. He sorted through the stakes, worked to untangle the ropes. Gussie turned to Laurel. “Let's go, sweetheart. I can't wait here.”

Laurel roused directly to her feet, helped Gussie up. “Where are we going?”

“To look for nests.” Gussie stretched the long ride out of her tendons, moved on, taking the girl with her.

“Don't you want your binoculars?”

“You can't find a nest with binoculars.”

They traced the lakeshore. Bomber Lake, a half-mile long, was an unnatural scoured blue. Above, water had leached from the fissures of the cliffs, streaking the granite with darkness. Following the fishermen's trail around the end of the lake, Gussie moved slowly enough to keep her heartbeat contained. Laurel held to Gussie's arm, balanced her. Gussie pointed to the mats of kinnikinnick, the pink flowers, red fruit, and the silky scorpionweed. She wouldn't find any wild bergamot, not at this altitude, but she could use it-a tea to clear her lungs, calm her belly, dissolve the gas that bubbled, or she could just pack the minty leaves around her aching teeth.

They passed the last of the trees, worked their way up the slope. Far above, a pair of finches dove among the rocks, fed at the edge of the snow. The finches went on. Gussie lost them.

“You should stop,” Laurel said. “We'll sit until you can breathe.” Laurel found a spot where soil had gathered, where grass had started, and she lowered Gussie onto the softness. Gussie held herself as still as her blood would allow.

Gussie felt her pulse at her temples. Her blood's passage hissed through her ears. She knew her blood moved in great circuits, found the heart, and then forced its way again onto the narrowing pathways. The finest veins threaded toward the surface and the blood cooled and caught the hint of daylight, then drew deep inside again. Her heart prattled in her veins. There was nothing to do about it except follow her doctor's orders and stop if she heard her heartbeat centered between her ears.

Across the lake, Hayden had finished with the tent. The spine of the roof sagged-it would collect water, pool and soak, drip on them, but only if it rained. It might not rain. He tied open the flaps, placed three cots in there, laid out the sleeping bags and pillows. There was room for a fourth cot, but Jack Fisher would have his own tent. Hayden sat on a cot, elbows on his knees, chin in hands, looking at the other cots. There would be no getting away from each other.

The finches chattered. Gussie turned, saw them again. She would have to get closer to the snow. “I'm fine now,” Gussie said. “Let's go.” She stood, pulled Laurel upright with her.

“Back to camp?” Laurel said, taking a step down the slope.

Gussie held steady. “We only just started.”

“You've done enough for one day.”

“We're going up.” She turned, and Laurel came around with her. Gussie let the girl support her.

They moved into the scree slope, that steep pile of shattered stone, ascended the slabs of granite, broke through the spider webs that seemed the only substance holding the slope against gravity. Gussie kept her eyes on her steps, listened to her soles grind and slip. She heard her belt creak, her joints pop. Through a gradual half hour, avoiding the purple sky pilots, noting the pika trails and caches of dry grass, they rose from the lake, and, finally, with her hand clasped tight in Laurel's, Gussie found herself at the fringe of a snowfield.

And here the black rosy finches fed where the snow melted. They flashed. They came and went. Slowly, Gussie found the focus of all that nervous movement-the base of the cliff, just above, where the snow had shrunk back a few inches from the reflected glare, the heated stone.

“You see where they're going into the stone, Laurel?”

“Yes. I can see it.”

“That's where we'll look.”

Gussie made her way along the margin of the snowfield, and Laurel came behind, reaching up to Gussie's elbow or hip to steady her. They moved through the high sounds of falling water, stepped through the rivulets, up to the cliff face-cracks and deep-rooted weight.

To trace along the base of the cliff, to thread that gap of open stone and avoid pitching backward into the snow and sliding away, they had to press themselves to the wall and shuffle sideways. The going was narrow. Gussie's fingers shook. Her nails scraped. And then she reached a crevice, a pure cut, slender but tall. She gripped Laurel tight around the shoulders, held her, brought her close.

“Here we are, sweetheart.”

They looked into the crevice, deep into the sound of finches in darkness. After a long while Gussie was sure she could distinguish the ruffling of wings, could hear the birds working at the weave of grass, stems, moss. No way to reach into that narrow gap. No way to prove she'd found a black rosy finch nest after half a life of looking.

“You have those thin arms, Laurel. Those long bones.” She took hold of Laurel's wrist and placed her hand at the crevice, tried to feed the girl's fingers into darkness. “Reach in, Laurel. See what you feel.”

Laurel held back. “No.”

“For me, Laurel. I want to see the nest.”

“Ruin it?”

“We'll put it back.”

Laurel pulled herself free from Gussie's grip. “They'll peck me. I won't do it.” Abruptly, she turned around, and Gussie turned with her. The snowfield pitched away below them. They caught themselves back against the wall. Laurel contorted her arms behind her, threaded her fingers into the crevice, took hold of the rock, and Gussie held to Laurel's arm.

Gussie exhaled. She was pinned by the brightness of the sun off the snow, pinned to Laurel's side, and through that brilliant haze she saw the whole valley below, the whole undersurface of the lake exposed, the bed diving to a dim fold. And the patterns of boulder and green spread all around, like a puzzled dream, a lunatic map. And the horses, their hooves clattering. And Hayden, dear boy, working away, deep inside the light, beyond the snow.

“I'm sorry,” Laurel said.

“That's okay. Too late to find a nest, maybe. Or whatever's in there.”

They were balanced high above the lake. It would be a dangerous descent. The light was as she remembered it. In a few hours, the lake would darken toward evening. The sky would detach above the cliffs, separated by a line of night, and the light in the basin would seem almost subterranean, as if the granite had collected light through the day, as if the basin lit the sky.

Gussie waited for the sound of Jack Fisher's spurs, the steel stars, his halloo, his git-git to his horse. Forty-three years ago she'd found Jack here in Bomber Basin, when she thought she'd lost him forever. Now, soon, he would arrive, and she would look to him, follow his approach. And Hayden and Laurel would also look to him, see the man, a stranger, their blood. view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

1. At the beginning of the novel, Gussie has returned to Bomber Basin, the site of the plane crash. Discuss the significance of this place to her and why she may have felt the need to return.
2. Why do you think Gussie never returns home or ever even tries to reconnect with Leota? “Surely Gussie could go home,” Gussie thinks to herself (p.137). Can she?
3. What does Gussie see in Mr. Foster? Why do you think they connect with one another? Mrs. Shayd says that Mr. Foster “pities” Gussie (p. 171). Is this true? Why do men in general seem to connect to Gussie and, in many ways, want to take care of her? (Jack Fisher, Mr. Foster, Mr. Dunn, etc.) How does Gussie view all these men?
4. Gussie moves from the lushness of northern Minnesota, with its red pines and lush landscape, to the deserts and ranges of Wyoming. Might this change in landscape indicate what has changed in her? How do you explain Gussie's deep connection with the land?
5. On Armistice Day (p. 183), Mrs. Shayd warns Gussie not to go out to the Armistice celebration, almost as if Mrs. Shayd knows what she herself might do, yet Gussie goes anyway, and then almost loses her daughter. Gussie knows that Mrs. Shayd's interest in Anne is extreme, so why does she take this risk? How does the historical significance of this day fit into the context of the novel?
6. Though she never sees her again, Gussie often thinks of Leota: “In all that wide-open storm, Leota was there with her, traveling, still with her, always. And if Gussie could speak to her mother, she would say, 'I know. I understand what I've done. I did it for you' ” (p. 193). What does she mean? How does her relationship with Leota affect her relationship with Anne? Why does Anne also leave?
7. The novel is filled with so much rich symbolism, but perhaps none more so than the use of the ravens. Discuss their significance in the novel and what they mean to Gussie.
8. What is the significance of Gussie's encounter/friendship with the man Gardelle Jankirk? In thinking about Gardelle, Gussie wonders “if he'd ever find what he was looking for in these mountains.” She could be describing herself. She ponders beginning a relationship with him, “There was room in her cabin for a man smitten with birds.” Why doesn't she ever marry Gardelle or any of the men she meets?
9. When Gussie finally sees Jack Fisher again in 1943, twenty-six years after their first meeting, why doesn't she tell him about Anne?
10. What is Gussie searching for? Does she ever find it? Does it find her?

Weblinks

»	Publisher's book information Page
»	Author's website

Book Club Recommendations

Recommended to book clubs by 0 of 0 members.

Member Reviews

Rate this book