Jim Steinmeyer (11 page)

The wagon set off, pointed west, from Butte on July 1, 1898. It was a ridiculously naïve plan—three dancers and a confidence-man magician setting out as explorers—that became evident just three days later, when they started across the Great Divide and encountered snow. They hadn’t brought a compass or a map; they hadn’t thought to include any heavy clothing or boots.

A rancher advised them to turn back. “The country is rough enough for men on horseback. With that wagon and the women folks, you’ll never make it.” But the women remembered the clientele in the wine rooms that they’d left behind and voted to keep going. Whatever they found ahead, it would have to be better than that. The Evanses and Thurstons slowly negotiated up the slushy mountain trails; Clare drove the team as Mabel, Grace, and Howard walked next to the wheels with chocks so they could block the wheels as they began to skid and slide.

The weather warmed, from winter to summer, as they descended the mountains. Grace recalled that they “crawled” through the west, following rivers or railroads for any sign of civilization and stopping at any outpost and soliciting the local saloon to put on a performance: Southern Cross, Sula, Medicine Springs, Darby, or Hamilton, Montana. Thurston was right. The locals were often starved for entertainment. But he was wrong about the receipts. The audience could only offer bags of flour, lard, or canned food in payment. The four performers, often starved, were happy to accept the food.

Like many entertainers, Thurston came to live for each show, becoming more animated and engaged as he heard the audience assembling on the other side of the curtain. Grace, Clare, and Mabel would stand in the wings, marveling at his easy grace in front of a room full of strangers. He quickly convinced each person in his audience of his friendliness, talent, and quick wit, then worked hard to earn their applause. But during the days, as the performers set off for the next town or foraged for their next meal, Thurston grew nervous and irritable, barely speaking to his companions. Grace felt that the source of his frustration was deep—he was contemplating his stalled career. Now nearly thirty years old, Thurston realized that the inebriated cheers from each small Montana town left him with a sort of egotistical hangover, reminding him each morning why he was just a failure. Grace sensed that her husband had not only lost his patience but had never exhibited any personal faith. “If he had developed faith, he could have avoided the fretful bitterness that irritated him more and more with every passing day.”

In one Utah town, the group was surprised by the wonderful provisions that had been offered in payment for their show—bags of oats, ducks, chickens, jerked beef, canned fruits and vegetables, sacks of cabbage, potatoes, beets, and onions. Grace looked down at the bags of groceries and began to imagine recipes for stew. Howard just sulked. “It’s an insult. We’re a good show. We ought to be living in good hotels and playing big theaters.”

Just like his father, Howard felt sullen and confused after business failures. When his mood darkened, he accused Grace of flirting with other men at the saloons. And, like his father, he struck back by literally striking out, opening his hand and swinging at his wife. She didn’t understand the significance of the gesture; she was smaller and faster than Howard, so she easily dodged the swings, giggled, and returned to put her husband at ease by jollying him through a conversation. But Clare saw what happened. The tall Texan had no tolerance for that sort of behavior. He became especially solicitous of Grace and was quick to remind Howard that he was watching.

 

 

IN UTAH,
during a sudden thunderstorm, the troupe took refuge in an empty church. They hitched their ponies, lit the potbellied stove, and moved their cots inside for a peaceful night of sleep. The next morning, the church doors burst open and a crowd of Mormon men arrived to throw them out. In the midst of the shoving and yelling, Howard jumped atop his cot and held his arms out—in his white nightshirt, he looked almost angelic. Perhaps this is why the men froze for a moment and listened to the intruder.

“Gentlemen and brothers, let me introduce myself and extend apologies,” Howard began, raising his voice to a smooth purr—part carnival talker, part evangelist. “I am Howard Thurston, and this is my wife, Grace. The others are members of my famous traveling company. We took refuge in your godly house against the sudden coming of His gracious rain. I intended to leave a substantial sum on the pulpit in the morning to help you further His good works. Perhaps we can join in a moment of prayer with the added strength of numbers.” Realizing that he had seduced another audience, Howard paused briefly and then poured on the charm. “Coincidentally, I happen to be a theologian, and have often admired and studied the work of Joseph Smith.... I graduated from the Dwight L. Moody School. I wonder if anyone in the assembly is familiar with that blessed institution?”

As Grace, Clare, and Mabel settled uncomfortably into the pews, they listened to hours and hours of fervent prayers, Bible quotations, and fulsome blessings. The couples stayed another night, and the next morning they hitched their ponies to the wagon and left. Of course, there was no “substantial sum” left behind. The magician’s skill at misdirection ensured that the offer had been neatly forgotten.

The trail became even more dangerous. One afternoon, as their wagon negotiated the walls of a canyon in the Unita Mountains, it skidded out of control on the hard trail. The performers attempted to lash the wheels, pulling on the wagon to stop it, but it continued to slide, careening around a curve and almost overtaking the ponies, who danced nervously in front of it as their hooves tripped and slipped on the rocky path. Clare pulled mightily on the ropes from the back but ended up being dragged. “Keep her going straight!” he called out. “We’ll skid her to the bottom!” But by the time the wagon had hurtled to the canyon floor, bumping across a wide ditch and settling to a stop, they realized that Howard had been thrown from the wagon onto the trail.

They found him several yards away, lying prostate and moaning in pain. Luckily, they ended up a short distance from an abandoned ranch house. They carried Thurston inside and carefully placed him on his cot. He was badly bruised on the side of his body and had cracked two ribs. Grace bandaged him tightly with strips torn from a sheet. “He seemed so helpless,” Grace remembered, “like a small boy whose world had been smashed to pieces.” He could not raise his arms; he was unable to perform the card act or even rehearse his moves.

She sat by his side, nursing him back to health, offering bits of available food, “motherly tenderness, firmness, and a great deal of secret prayer.” Thurston’s own prayers had been confined to conning religious men. When he was broken, helpless, and frustrated, he couldn’t imagine praying for help.

The spooky, empty ranch house in the hidden valley seemed analogous to their situation. They had reached the bottom, quite literally, and were now at the end of their money, at the end of their luck, in an abandoned spot far from the notice of anyone else. As Grace explored the house, it seemed haunted by some sudden tragedy—the rooms were still filled with clothing, furniture, and remnants of food, and in the farmyard she found the pitiful skeletons of cows, some with the skeletons of their unborn calves. On the kitchen door was pinned a note. “Gone with John. Goodbye. Ruth.” The note chilled Grace. She considered how lucky a wife would have been to have such a home, and why she might have left it. In many ways, the house represented her dream of security.

 

 

AS CLARE AND MABEL
Searched for food, Grace sat by Howard’s side for days. His nerves were soothed, and his ego satisfied, by detailing his life story to his wife. She dutifully filled the pages of her diary. He spoke honestly about his days of crime as the Nim Kid, his arrest in New York, and his time at Moody’s School and Burnham Farm, before he rediscovered Alexander Herrmann’s wonderful show. Thurston’s long monologue seemed confessional and redemptive. “Grace, I guess sometimes I haven’t been really kind or honest with you, but you’ve stuck all the way,” he admitted. “I truly love you.” She wrote those words, too, as it had seemed to come from such a desperate, vulnerable place in his heart. He promised to build her a real home when he found success in his career.

After five days, the group decided that they needed to leave and try to find a doctor. Howard was barely strong enough to consider the journey. Using wheel chocks and straining against leather straps, they began the slow, laborious climb out of the canyon. Thurston was confined to kneeling inside the wagon, holding on to the curved stays over his head and silently wincing with pain. “He would stare with disgusted resignation,” Grace recalled. “I knew he considered this a low point in his life.”

When they reached a town, they found a local doctor who examined Howard and applied new bandages, advising him to rest for several days. Clare went off to arrange a performance in town; a local rodeo guaranteed a crowd of people. Thurston couldn’t present his act—his arms were still too sore. But he dressed and agreed to “run-’em-in-and-out” for the three shows, energetically gathering a crowd, promising marvels inside, and then shooing the audience so that the next group could be accommodated.

His sideshow duties rejuvenated him. The next morning he resumed rehearsals of his card act. He positioned his mirror low on the side of the wagon so he wouldn’t have to lift his arms. Then he lit a cigar, one of the strong dark cheroots that he preferred, clenching it between his teeth and puffing like an engine. He methodically repeated his sequence of moves—cards appearing, and then disappearing—for hour after hour, cigar after cigar. Grace was delighted to see his determination.

Thurston returned to the act in Diamondville, Wyoming, a brand-new mining town that smelled of lumber and sparkled with silver nail heads against sheets of black tar paper. He could sense the silver dollars and gold nuggets that seemed to clatter in the pockets of the residents. “Here’s where we get ours,” he coolly announced to the troupe of entertainers. That night the card routine drew cheers, and Socrates the duck’s appearance from the volunteer’s coat nearly started a riot. The troupe added to their bankroll, traded their wagon for a proper stagecoach, and replenished their supplies—new linens, new pots and dishes. But shortly after that, the cold weather began to set in and they grew impatient with their life on the road. Passing through Denver, Thurston secured bookings at a local variety theater, the Alcazar. It sounded exotic and elegant. It turned out to be another miserable honky-tonk wine room, even if Thurston had made special arrangements so that the ladies were spared the usual duties of fraternizing with the customers.

The crowd at the Alcazar was not just enthusiastic, but insanely, dangerously wild, drunk, and determined to have a high time in their low-life surroundings. At the end of Mabel’s act, some of the men lunged for her, dragging her into the audience with loud whoops. Clare burst out of the wings and jumped into the crowd, swinging his fists. Days later, Evans and Maitland decided to leave Denver. They’d been offered a booking at an East Coast dime museum that they just couldn’t resist—a real city, a real salary. Howard and Grace reluctantly said good-bye. Clare Evans took Grace aside and warned her about Howard’s temper—he was a good man, but she had to keep her eyes open.

Thurston and Texola were precisely back where they had started nearly a year earlier. Howard sent to Cincinnati for another box of cheap watches and returned to the usual con game: Grace resumed her tearful act of parting with a worthless watch in lieu of paying the hotel bill. In a small town on the Arkansas River, the magician befriended a red-bearded local policeman named Britt, who was an amateur performer and a show business ham. Britt arrived, at the end of the engagement, and apologetically explained that he had instructions to attach the Thurstons’ theatrical trunks, since the couple had failed to pay their bills. Thurston rose to the occasion. “Britt, we are a bit short on cash, but I’ve wired for two hundred dollars, and it’s being sent to Lamar, where we will play tomorrow night.” He charmed the constable into following them so they could pick up the money. Of course, the money wasn’t in Lamar, and the couple earned almost nothing at the local saloon. Thurston flattered the stagestruck constable into traveling to the next stop, Cripple Creek, even borrowing money from him for their train tickets. He was a sucker.

When they arrived at Cripple Creek, and the Western Union agent informed the magician that no money had been wired, Thurston feigned astonishment. He earnestly explained to Britt that he now realized the problem. The money must have come to Lamar, after they’d left. He urged Britt to go back and retrieve the cash, promising him a little extra money for his trouble. But Britt was starting to come to his senses. “I hate to ask this, Mr. Thurston,” he said, “but maybe we ought to wire Lamar to make sure the money’s there.”

Thurston smiled. He thought this was an excellent idea. He went to Western Union and sent a wire, explaining that the Lamar operator would wire the answer to their next engagement, in Colorado Springs, before they worked their way to engagements in Helena and St. Louis. When the trio arrived in Colorado Springs, Thurston walked to the telegraph office and asked if he had a wire waiting. And, as if by magic, there it was. He handed the form to Grace and Britt, carelessly catching a corner of the paper so that it tore away. The telegram was correctly dated and addressed to Howard Thurston. It read, “Yes, $200 received via wire for you. Operator Lamar.”

Grace was dumbfounded by the message. The appearance of that money seemed to be the most incredible miracle her husband had ever accomplished. She knew that they weren’t due any money. Howard grandly autographed a note empowering Britt to pick up the money, and then escorted the relieved lawman to the station. As the couple were finally free of the lawman, watching his train depart for Lamar, Grace turned to ask her husband, “Where did you get that telegram?”