4,284 miles - A novel based on the 1916 journey of Joe Bruce and Lester Atkinson

This novel is now available on Amazon!

Personal information about Joe and Lester follow the first chapter preview.

America was on the edge of greatness. The world was on the edge of war.

It was the summer of 1916 – the last days of innocence – when two young men, Joe Bruce and Lester Atkinson mounted their bicycles and rode from Colorado Springs, Colorado to New York City.

Over one hundred years later, little record remains of their four-month journey, only of the times in which they lived. Who would they have encountered? What would they have learned? Did they discover not only themselves, but the nation in which they lived? Come along for the thoughtful, nuanced and intimate journey of two completely obscure high school boys who were just living their lives and doing what they did that summer of 1916.

This button will take you to the sign in for your Amazon account. As soon as you sign in, the order page for 4,284 Miles will appear. This novel is available in hardcover, paperback and e-book. Thank You for your interest!

Please do review this book on Amazon. Reviews are critical to a book’s success. This button will take you directly to your account sign in, then as soon as you’ve signed in, you will be in the correct place to review this book. Thank you for reviewing. Tips for writing an effective review are included on RogerLGreene.com - look for the stars.

Chapter One 

The Hellion

According to the station master, the train would be on time. Lester had already chewed his fingernails to the quick so I feared that any substantial delay could result in him taking them down to bone. In fact, they were beginning to bleed as I stood with him on the platform looking down the tracks, waiting to hear a whistle or see a heralding plume of black smoke coming from the north.

The call had been made. Even though it was a Sunday, the mortician would come shortly. It was the second time Guy had ever been on a train. At only twenty years of age, it would be his last. We were here for his bicycle and packs of belongings as they and the pine box that held his body, were all that remained of Guy.

Lester had recently turned eighteen. I was fourteen, a month away from turning fifteen. Guy’s grave had already been dug beside his mother’s and that of an infant brother, both of whom had died a dozen years ago. Lester’s family was getting ready for tomorrow’s graveside service and burial. Lester had volunteered me to join him in fetching Guy’s bicycle and making sure his body was properly claimed. It seemed but an errand and that bewildered me. It had taken almost two weeks to recover Guy’s body and another week to ship it. Maybe after all the waiting and vain hoping against hope that some mistake had been made, Guy’s belongings amounted to little more than an errand by now – as did his body.

Lester knew grief well. I didn’t know it at all. My family got by. His family did better. It was summertime 1914. America was on the edge of greatness. The world was on the edge of war.

Lester’s dark brown hair was greasy that particular Sunday, sticking out in random hunks from beneath his newsboy cap on an afternoon far too warm for wearing a cap. His eyes were deep blue, too wet, fixed ahead, sparkling in the sun. I’d never really studied my friend’s face until that moment, but then, why would I have? We were always busy. Busy working. Busy adventuring. Busy about the town we lived in.

Colorado Springs was a new creation, planned, not happenstance. Magnificent buildings of stone and the downtown they were creating was springing up from windswept prairie. Homes were being built by the score on gently sloping hills that had only known wind, cattle, horses and sheep until Colorado Springs’ arrival. This Little London was the brainchild of a former Civil War General name of William Palmer who had also built the railroad on which tracks we waited for a whistle, an appearance of smoke, and a brother who had gone off on adventure to Canada. There, in spring’s rushing waters, God had turned his face, a boat had capsized, cold water had engulfed Guy and a young man’s days upon this earth had come to an end.

“Papa said he’s gonna stink,” Lester finally said, his eyes never leaving the tracks, his fingers never leaving his mouth, his jaw muscles never ceasing their work.

“He’ll be embalmed.”

“Papa said he was too decomposed to embalm.”

“He’ll be packed in ice,” I offered. “I don’t think he’s going to smell.”

Lester shrugged, pulled his fingers from his mouth, spit a bit of nail and skin he had gnawed off and shook his head. Wetness in his eyes welled deeper, threatening to spill. Then he looked down and they spilled. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know whether or not to put my hand on his back. His shoulder was bone. His back was bone. No sooner than my hand had come to rest on bone, I saw smoke rising in the distance. I opened my mouth to tell Lester of the engine’s plume when its whistle caused him to look up. His blue eyes were suddenly straightforward and as piercing as they were fearful.

Telegrams are real, but not as real as a train bearing the earthly remains of a brother as it is pulling into a station. I saw in Lester’s face the reality of his past few weeks’ struggle and the depth at which this occasion struck his heart. It was not the sacred moment it should have rightfully been. When the train came to a halt with a great rush of steam, a bustle of activity proceeded all around us. There was freight to offload. Freight to load. Baggage to haul. Passengers to greet. Passengers to board. We stood unnoticed and engulfed by it as if we were both lost and invisible.

My friend began to sniffle as the crude pine box that contained his brother was set leaking onto a cart and wheeled aside on the platform where a puddle began to form beneath it. Lester’s feet seemed glued to the wooden planks we stood upon. I stepped forward to meet the conductor and wheeled Guy’s bicycle and its complement of canvas packs from the mail car, over to Lester. He didn’t acknowledge me, he only stared at his brother’s pine casket and as much as he tried not to, wept.

My name is Joe Wheeler Bruce. When I first met Lester Edward Atkinson, he and I lived ten blocks from each other on the working-class side of town. Dryhurst and Son was the neighborhood market where from age eleven I’d stocked shelves and Lester, from age fourteen had run deliveries. It was directly across the street from the very compact two-story house my family rented. I knew all the Atkinson boys well, but Lester had become my friend. Guy, at five years my senior, had remained a much older and far more worldly acquaintance. Still, this day was hard for me as well.

I was methodical. Lester was exuberant. My father frequently called him a hellion, and Guy – may he rest in peace – Father had always said, was a hellion as well. That their names showed up in the Gazette newspaper at all was often enough that my father knew the Atkinson name and had, at Lester’s employment at such near proximity to our abode, cautioned me and my brothers of any close acquaintance with said hellion.  

Due to his employment as a deliverer of goods, Lester was familiar with every man, woman and child in our part of town and they knew him as well. Lester’s pedaling upon the Dryhurst and Son bicycle with its accompaniment of baskets, was routinely conducted at breakneck speeds and with a degree of madness that made Lester antipathy to horses or anything horse drawn. Lester also presented a danger to pedestrians at least equal to that of the motorcar. Of course, Lester’s mad need for speed did in no way interfere with his friendly shouts of greeting, frantic waving or near misses with trolleys, dogs, horses, pedestrians, and motorcars foolhardy enough to cross his path.

It was a rare meal at our board that did not include some tale of Lester’s antics and father’s glance of consternation in my direction that generally followed. Even if Lester was a hellion, his enthusiasm for life was as infectious as his smile, frantic waving, and shouted greetings. His gusto intrigued me. I don’t know that parents ever fully know their children. If my father was to have truly known me, he’d have understood the yearnings of my soul did not match my appearance.

I was a thin, sorrowful looking, plain boy with brown eyes, sandy brown hair, a perpetually furrowed brow, and ears that stuck out way too far. To look upon me may have inspired a degree of curiosity, but not much by way of impression. However, if one were to have taken the effort to come to know me, they would have discovered a scrappy will, a degree of determination akin to that of Robert Peary, and a quality of inventiveness and perseverance similar to that of Orville and Wilbur Wright. I was a fighter in that the one way to make me succeed was to mention the unlikeliness of my success. I was intelligent, delighted in reason, and was resolved that the man that dwelt inside would one day become the man I presented to others.

My friend Lester, while not a man of much forethought or study, was a man of iron will and fortitude. He was wiry, far too lean for his height and his height was not remarkable. As noted by my father, a hearty gust of wind could blow him away. Lester was frequently ragged, perpetually moving, tenacious if not stubborn, but friendly in the kind of way that made others glad to meet him. I couldn’t help but like him. He was the kind of man that inspired the budding man inside of me. Lester, it was said – and I don’t necessarily disagree – possessed one speed: hell bent for leather, was capable of only one direction: straight ahead, and listened to only one mind: his.

Lester and I were more alike than my father ever suspected.

There are things that fortify a man. There are things that prompt a man to action. There are things that plunge us into despair. There are things that change us. Guy’s death changed Lester. While Lester had been scattered in thought and action before his brother’s death, the tragedy seemed to temper his exuberance and buffer his thinking. From this great sorrow and third profound loss in his young life, he gained a sense of reflection and a capacity for focus of which he’d never before been capable.

What I was coming to understand about Lester is that he possessed a brand of courage of which I was unfamiliar. As the greatest president of our new century – who was of course Theodore Roosevelt – had once said, “Courage is not having the strength to go on; it is going on when you don’t have the strength.” Lester found a way to go on, and where he found his strength, I may never know. He never said a word about his struggles. He just did what he needed to do and went about living his life day-by-day.

Guy was buried on the twenty-ninth of July 1914. I don’t understand how it can be said of someone so young – laid to rest. Guy did not long for rest. Guy longed for adventure and thought the world should be his. Privately I wondered whether God had indeed turned his face that fateful day or had instead opened his arms. I wondered if somehow all worlds beyond this world now awaited Guy’s adventures. But those were things that a brother’s grief was not ready to hear and that I could not bring myself to mention, so I kept my wonderings to myself.

And even if it seemed so far distant from my day-to-day reality that it warranted no concern, the day of Guy’s internment was the very day Austria declared war on Serbia. Russia, headlines predicted, would enter the conflict shortly. Europe was no longer on the edge of war, but at war.

Aside from international events, I realized that day, life is just as unforgiving of those who seize it and lunge headfirst into peril as it is of those who stand at its sidelines clinging to safety. Both will perish. One will perish in satisfaction of having given life his all, the other will perish in regret of having expended his lifeforce on nothing more than a monotony of days.

As I’ve come to think back on it, something changed in me that day as well. Until Guy’s death, my early years had been a carefree romp and life had been something I owned all rights to. That thought ended the day I watched the casket that held Guy’s earthy remains lowered into the ground. My carefree childhood died that day. I realized that life was something to be seized and cherished, that I owned nothing but the moment that lie in my hand and the single breath in my lungs.       

And not one thing more.

Miscellaneous Articles Concerning the Boy’s Families: 

June 10, 1902 Gazette – Mary died suddenly at 4 P.M. yesterday afternoon. Leaves behind boys age 8 years to 10 days. Service in the home at 926 E. Costilla.

 March 22, 1910 Colorado Springs Gazette – “Guy Atkinson runs away from home.” He was in search of work and made it almost to Salida when he sent a letter to his father asking him to come and get him.

 6-7-1910 – Nellie plays piano for graduation at Loretta Academy and is in the suffrage movement – secretary of Sunflower.

 4-24-1911– Irvin suspended for breaking into the school and lashing his class flag to the flagpole. He was a junior along with 3 others. Principal is Rosco Hill.

 1911 – Joe is the student manager of the Terrors and coach is Mr. Coffin.

 1911 – Irvin plays baseball for Robbins on the Corner and is team treasurer.

 3-11-1914 Colo Springs Gazette – Lester Atkinson, WH Manning, CW Green, William Loud all fined $1 in Police Court for riding bicycles on the sidewalk in downtown CS.

 June 14, 1914 Guy drowns in Nelson, BC

 June 27,1914   Guy’s body was recovered yesterday. News came by telegram to the family.

 June 16, 1916   Littleton Independent and Castle Rock Record Journal of Douglas County – “Joe is already a star athlete at the Colorado Springs High School. Boys left Colorado Springs on June 12, 1916 and plan to return by school start on Sept 1.”

 July 20, 1916 Motorcycle Illustrated - Bicycling World Weekly – Joe and Lester made it to Galesburg, Illinois and reported having traveled 1200 miles in 13 days

 August 18, 1916 – Word received and published in CS Gazette that L and B have arrived in N. Y. 2699 miles with an actual riding time of 26 ½ days.

 Sept 30, 1916 – Del Norte San Juan Prospector, “Boys Make Long Bicycle Trip – Colorado Springs – After a cross country trip by bicycle of 4,284 miles, Joe Bruce and Lester Atkinson, two high school boys, returned to Colorado Springs. They left on their cycles June 12 for New York and traveled by way of the Great Lakes arriving at New York on Aug. 10. The trip was made entirely by bicycle and the boys averaged about 100 miles every day they traveled.”

 From Colorado Springs High School yearbook - Joe plays Basketball 1916-19 and is captain in 1919 (described as scrappy), Football 1919-20 and is the captain in 1920. Also a member of the Senate at CSHS. Graduates in 1920 and starts college that fall at CC. Bruce and the Spider – Barton, is noted in senior yearbook as Joe’s favorite book.

Lester Edward Atkinson

June 5, 1896 – May 8, 1972

Born in Detroit, Michigan.

Died in Colorado Springs, Colorado 

Wife Mamie E. Atkinson, 7-10-1894 / 8-5-1992 

Father: Leicester William Atkinson   Birthplace: England 1868. Immigrated in 1890

Mother: Mary Langford Bullen 1871 Birthplace: Carleton, Ontario. In 1881 census she lives in Toronto. Siblings are Henry 13, Mary 10, Elizabeth 8, Adelaide 6, Cora 4.

Family is Methodist. Lester becomes Catholic later in life.

Mary and Leicester (Lester’s parents) marry on 8-3-1893 in Detroit

Siblings:

Guy (born 1894 in Detroit) Guy goes to, or is living in, Nelson in British Columbia in 1914 where he drowns on 7-14-14. His body is returned to CS and is buried on 7-29-14 beside his mother Mary (died 1902) and infant baby James (died 1901).

James Langford born and dies 1901

Miles Henry 12-18-1899 / 12-5-1962 Truck Driver

Leslie 5-30-1902 / 1-7-1985 (Los Angeles)Stationary Clerk

Leicester lives at 210 South Institute in CS in 1900 census. By Mary’s funeral service in 1902, the family resides at 926 E. Costilla. This is confusing. The date of construction on the home at 926 Costilla is 1914. Possibly the family was living in a smaller structure at the same address while the home was being built? I suspect Leicester built the present home. 

Both Lester and Guy attended Helen Hunt Elementary School in Colorado Springs.

Lester registers for draft in 1917 living at 926 East Costilla and works as a truck driver for Sommer’s Market. Medium height and slender build with blue eyes and dark brown hair.

1920 Census – Lester is a mechanic

 Lester’s Stepchildren in 1930 census:

Francis 15 yrs, Genevieve 12 years and Jack 9 years

Original last name was Loss or Lass, adopted by Lester and name changed to Atkinson.

Residence in 1940 census was 117 south 10th street, Colorado Springs, CO. Rented from Jennie Fuller

Mary has a baby in 1901 and then she has Leslie 10 days before she dies in 1902. Leicester is a carpenter with EG Pastor which is a home builder, remodeler, handyman service. Sometime after Mary’s death, Leicester marries her sister Adelaide.

Lester Edward Atkinson dies May 5, 1972 in CS. Buried at Evergreen Cemetery Block 00239, Space 000235.

 Guy William Atkinson Evergreen Cemetery Lot 0000H Space000020 near Mary and infant James.

Eventually, Adelaide and Leicester will be buried there as well

Joseph Wheeler Bruce

September 6, 1899 – June 1 or 30, 1984

Born in Edgerton City (now Platte), Platte County Missouri, Preston Township.

Died in Denver, Colorado 1984

Wife: Dellyse Marie Wright, (born  July 31, 1904 in Missouri)

Married in August of 1939, dies 5-10-1994.

Father: James Hamilton Bruce   Birthplace: Missouri (early copies of the book will have that James immigrated to USA from England. This was my error. Even James’ parents were established in the USA, hailing from Kentucky.

Mother: Mary White Bruce   Birthplace: Missouri

Siblings:

William Oscar Bruce born 1894, Grocery clerk.

Irvin Bernard Bruce – born July 25, 1892, Detective, Colorado Springs Police

Nelle Bruce born 1896 – Nurse, probably Memorial Hospital (will become Pratt)

Ernest Handley Bruce born 1897 – Gas shop clerk

 Residence in 1910 is 227 North Prospect, Colorado Springs. Across the street at 230 N. Prospect is Dryhurst and Son.

 Joe registers for draft Sept 12, 1918 as a student living at 416 N Prospect which is up the street and over from the families’ original home. Medium height, build, with Brown eyes and dark hair.

 Information from 1920 census and 1916 phone directory:

Father’s occupation: Insurance, office is B-27 Independence Building

1920 Census – Father – James H. Bruce age 53 insurance and real estate agent, Mother – Mary W. age 51, Brother Irvin B. age 28 – City detective, Sister Nelle age 24, is a nurse at hospital, Brother Ernest H. age 22 is a stock clerk at a gas shop. Lives at 416 N. Prospect Street. Joe W. age 20 – can read, write, attends school – likely still high school.

Eventually Joe attends Colorado College and gets a degree in marketing.

1940 Census

Joe’s residence is 2626 Holly Street, Denver, Colorado

Occupation is newspaper advertising, likely the Denver Post

Joe and Dellyse are buried at Olinger Eastlawn Cemetery in Denver, CO

Irvin Bruce – obit on November 1, 1963

This photo from the Colorado Springs High School yearbook shows Joe at about the age he was when he took the trip, around 16 to 17 years of age.

This is Joe’s older brother, Irvin from 1912 CSHS yearbook.

Joe becomes Pike, captain of the basketball team.

This is Joe’s last year playing basketball. He will become captain of the football team for his senior year. One yearbook description calls him “skinny as a rail but as wiry as they come.”

Joe was also a member of the CSHS Senate. I believe this is his junior year.

Basketball 1918. It was a good year.

Joe in his letter sweater!

Guy’s death in the newspaper.

Colorado Springs High School in 1914.

Draft registration.

Draft registration.

Lester and his adopted son Jack Loss late 1940s

Lester and wife Maime

Lester and Maime late in life

Maime, John, Lester, Sue and Jack 1950s

You’ve read the book and hopefully enjoyed it. Want to go deeper? You may have noticed about midway through the book I was saying more than simply relating a travelogue. This was a critical time in US history for several issues. The following are metaphors in 4,284 Miles:

Circle the Wagons: As the boys leave Colorado they are invited into a unique campground of teepees, Conestoga wagons and stagecoaches, all symbolically aligned with the boys’ own journey as well as previous human migration across the continent.

On Migration: Monarch butterflies flying through a Nebraska town park are symbols of mankind’s perpetual quest for freedom – none that begin the journey will see its fruition but they are compelled to go regardless.

 A Swath of Destruction Long and Wide: The Easter Sunday twister’s path of destruction parallels slavery’s destruction and the subsequent inequality and struggles of black people in an America founded on liberty and equality.

            Junebug: This gluttonous lady represents the dark side of Capitalism: her father was a banker, she was the apple of his eye, she had many suitors, she was fickle and opportunistic, she ate an entire cake herself and then gave the boys cold leftovers, and lastly – the actual Junebug insect devours all to sustain itself, then moves on leaving devastation.

            Ring the Bells! The little Drummer Boy’s incessant riff is the opening line(s) of the Declaration of Independence. The piano (88 keys) represents the Constitution of the United States ratified in 1788. It is the instrument necessary to make the drummer boy’s riff (the Declaration of Independence) workable. Pianos need to be tuned. They are heavy and cumbersome. The Constitution is tuned with amendments. The Lady in Lavender who played the music represents people working together to make the Constitution reality. The colors of the American flag (red + blue = purple + white = lavender) are her dress. The explosion that interrupted the music of people working together was a metaphor for those who don’t care about the tenants of liberty, but only want to make themselves heard.

In Fresh Water: The parade bombing in San Francisco and railyard explosion in New Jersey portends the approaching war. America felt safe from war in 1916, protected by distance and oceans.  The attack of a shark, a saltwater creature, on an innocent boy 12 miles inland in a freshwater river undoes the fantasy comfort of American isolationism.  

Quagmire: The specter of a moose in the wetland bogs was met with fear, and then denial of its existence only to have it appear from the least likely place at the least likely time – equal to the threat and horror of the impending war.

Direction: Trust of a compass is based upon the assumption that you know where you are. Truth is likewise relevant to present circumstances.

Majesty: The calm waters of the Niagara River represent mankind living in harmony. The Falls and churning caldron beneath represent the strife of this life, this world. The once again gently flowing river represents an idea of Heaven and the Christian belief that the ordeals of this world may be something we have to go through, but are ordeals that will ultimately not harm us.

Mother Time: Dorothy’s dead children represent the failed civilizations of mankind: Inca, Mya, Egyptian, Ancient Chinese, Greek/Macedonian, and Roman – ancient civilizations died from arrogance, pride, treachery, indifference, etc. Dorothy didn’t acknowledge that her children had died. She bragged of them as we honor ancient civilizations – delighting in their artifacts and accomplishments without addressing their failures and ultimate demise.

The Risk and Peril of Felling Trees: Ancient hardwood trees are being cut simply to clear the land. Does that sound anything like the practice of clearing Native Americans and their ways from the continent?  

The impatient motorist honking his horn represents the interests of the barons of industry wanting to exploit the west.

The Iroquois met on the road spoke English and knew literature. The ancient tree felled is the lost Iroquois culture.  

The Iroquois and Mother Time’s parrot were both brightly colored and looked fearsome, but both only had “claws” enough to hold on. Neither were a threat – the parrot to the cats nor the Iroquois to the U.S. Calvary/Army.

Just as Queenie’s son had given Lester his bicycle chain so that Lester could continue his sojourn, the Native American helped Joe get his chain back on the sprockets. Both are metaphors for dependance of Europeans on the Native American and Africans in settling the new land.

The Green Lady: The structure of the Statue of Liberty is comprised of rivets and a serious business of horizontals, verticals, and diagonals. All imply the laws and protections required by the ideas of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution to uphold America’s ideals of liberty and justice.

Stained glass is used several times throughout the story to reenforce or question an ongoing theme of sanctuary. In Joe’s previous idea of sanctuary, sanctuary was a place he was safe inside. The torch of Liberty radiated the light of sanctuary. When Joe is handed the broken piece of amber glass that came from Liberty’s damaged torch, the broken, dull glass was a symbol of sanctuary that had abdicated its responsibility to the greater world.

The “younger sister of Mother Time” – the woman resting on the platform inside Lady Liberty is dressed in black. She seems confident that Liberty will find a way just as the statue found its meaning. She says, “by and by” from the hymn, Sweet By and By sung in the Broken Glass chapter. The U.S.A. is a young nation in a world where nations that had endured thousands of years yet failed. She is optimistic that the U.S.A.’s values will endure but is wearing black as all great civilizations eventually end and the USA is likely no exception.

            Dancing in the story. Two dances are of white people dancing to pianos –  the full Constitution – 88 keys. One is of black people dancing to a fiddle – 4 strings – way short of the full rights they should have been guaranteed. Joe remembers the dance that started their journey. Dancing will come for all when the work of Liberty is done.

            The ongoing metaphor throughout compares the boys’ ride to the nation’s similar journey along a road fraught with peril and hardship.