by Daniel Knapp
"Is there any possibility that we will be traveling after the first snowfall in the Sierras?" she asked quietly.
Reed smiled. "None whatsoever, dear child. What prompts you to ask?"
"Nothing. Just curiosity. It is a bit late in the season, though, is it not?"
"Not really," Reed said with total assurance. "I thought perhaps you had chanced to overhear one of the worrywarts in this company. Not the Donners, mind you. But we do have a few traveling with us who are—how shall I put it? Limited, somewhat, in their mentality. And others hobbled by their fearful imaginations."
"I have not heard such directly or indirectly."
"Well, never fear. We are among the last trains to be traveling this year, but there is plenty of time. It is still summer. If it will put your mind more at ease, I am quite certain we will be traveling with an expert guide by a nigher route to California, one that eliminates some four hundred miles from the journey. We should cross the Sierras many weeks before the first snowflake falls."
"May I trouble you with one more question?"
"As many as you like," Reed said, waving his hand magnanimously.
"The man who rode up with the message yesterday —will he be traveling back with us?"
"The mountain man? No. He left early this morning for Fort Laramie. Lansford Hastings will be our guide."
Elizabeth thanked him and returned to the wagon. She felt like a fool.
On July 19, with the going easier each passing hour, they camped at the waters of the Little Sandy. Under the willows that lined the creek, a vote was taken. A few California-bound wagons elected to follow the Oregon Trail to Fort Hall and then cut southwest on the proven route. All twenty wagons under the influence of James Reed and George Donner voted to follow the freshly cut tracks of the Bryant-Russell party and the Young-Harlan contingent ahead of them. They had cut off here toward Fort Bridger, Lansford Hastings, and the new, shorter route.
Elizabeth was surprised when George Donner was elected leader of the party rather than James Reed. But she knew the wealthy sixty-two-year-old farmer and Reed were the closest of friends, and that Reed's judgment, however much the less affluent voters of the party might resent him, would be no small factor in any decisions Donner made. For all James Reed's somewhat lofty, slightly patronizing manner, she felt secure with him, safe. He was forty-six, in splendid physical health, and he had already displayed his fatherly protectiveness of her.
Handsome, blond, strapping Lewis Keseberg had found excuses to visit the Palace Car, obviously smitten with Elizabeth. James Reed had finally put a halt to it, extricating Elizabeth from what had become an awkward situation and sending Keseberg permanently back to the wife he beat regularly in the privacy of their wagon.
George Donner's tiny forty-five-year-old wife, Tamsen, was the only one in the party who seemed disappointed with the choice of the new, shorter route. Normally gregarious and high-spirited, she walked along beside her wagon now, gloomy and dejected as the wheels, oxen, and small clusters of beef and dairy cattle raised a thin cloud of dust around the train. It was relatively easy going over this arid tableland, and everyone else was happy. Elizabeth was content. She had long since dismissed her fears after the nightmare as the foolish reaction of a young girl alone with her baby far from home. Holding John Alexander in her arms and rocking him as she stood in the well of the wagon behind Reed's driver, she gazed westward over scattered sagebrush to the point where the earth fell away under a sky dotted with buttermilk clouds. Four hundred miles shorter was four hundred miles sooner. Four hundred miles less before she saw her beloved Alex again.
The next ten days were a series of almost leisurely rides between campsites and campfires. Night meals had a festive air. During the day several men, Reed among them, rode out and returned with kills. Antelope, rabbit, and bighorn sheep dressed and cured in the Rockies, sizzled over blazing logs in the cool, early evening. Later the fiddles and banjos were broken out, and there was dancing under the brightest moon Elizabeth had ever seen. Accustomed to the howling of wolves and the gargled yipping of coyotes in the distance, she and John Alexander slept without stirring each night.
They crossed the Big Sandy, then followed its north bank to the Green River. On their left a small cluster of low bluffs broke the monotony of the flat, barren country, and there seemed to be mountains a long way ahead. But for now all they had to do was follow the fresh tracks of the two parties traveling ahead of them and let the beasts of burden do the rest. Occasionally deep sand and boulders slowed their progress and stirred the men to brief bursts of intense effort. But for the most part their greatest difficulty was staying awake. They crossed the Green and then wove back and forth across Black's Fork Creek, washing their feet in less than six inches of deliciously cool water. A drowsy, lulling contentment settled over everyone.
On July 28, two log cabins surrounded by a log fence took shape in the distant afternoon haze. The sight was disappointing. They had expected more—a fort rather than a twin-structure trading post and corral. As they drew closer, their disappointment grew to apprehension. The wagons of the Bryant-Russell and Young-Harlan parties were nowhere to be seen. Except for the two grizzled mountain men waving their hats at the gate, Fort Bridger looked deserted.
Six
Mary's River
September 30, 1846
Praise God we have finally rejoined the California Trail somewhere West of the Great Salt Lake. We are at a point, exactly how far from California we do not know, that we likely would have reached weeks ago had we not taken the short cut. Shortcut indeed! There is not a body among us who does not wish we never listened to that man Hastings. And it is a miracle that only one person has died after all we have been through in the past two months.
If is hard to understand why Hastings would lead us into such an ordeal, why he was not there at Fort Bridger in the first place as he promised. How could he just leave word to follow the tracks of the two parties he went off with? Why, Lord, would Bridger and his partner, Vazquez, praise the route we have just taken, knowing what was involved?
Weber Canyon was well nigh impassable, even after the two groups with Hastings laid down a road, if you can call it that. When I think of Hastings leaving a note on a berry bush for one of our party to ride ahead and parlay with him, it makes me want to wring the man's neck! Bad enough, all of it, but he had never seen the canyon route himself! He had relied on the information of one of his illiterate scouts... My God, what gall. And then to suggest that we cut through the mountains instead of the canyon, a suggestion followed, I hate to say, more out of James Reed's concern for keeping the Palace Car in one piece than anything else. How could these men be so blind? We had already yielded four days resting and repairing at Fort Bridger. By the time Reed got back from his ride to overtake Hastings and gain his hollow advice, five more days were lost. Anyone here would pay dearly for those days now. But they were too blind to see we should have doubled back then toward Fort Hall and the proven way! Spilt milk, as Father used to say.
Hastings would not even come back to guide us through the mountains. I believe they are called the Wasatch, and none of us will ever forget them. When dark the moon itself must look no more forbidding to the angels. Underbrush and alder so thick along the streams the men could scarcely hack their way through with broadaxes. Terrain so rocky and steep it is a wonder we did not all slide to our doom. Twenty-one days to travel thirty-six miles! Then, beyond the Salt Lake Valley and the desert, a veritable parade of low-mountain chains running north and south. Praise God for the streams on the Western side of each of those intervening valleys!
It becomes obvious that George Donner is no leader of men. He is too old, too soft, and does not have the manner. Thank God, unpopular as James Reed has become because of his decision to cross the Wasatch, that he is with us. No one else in the party, save William Eddy, is cut out for such extremities as we have experienced. Most are but a degree better than greenhorns and tenderfeet, and some lack the sp
ines of men.
Upon reading the last line I almost move to strike it out, for the labors through the mountains—and Lord knows, across that Salt Desert—would sorely tax even the strongest man. But the shirking—not by all, but by many—the loafing and malingering and unwillingness to learn lessons that need be learned quickly, have been inexcusable.
By the time we reached the desert, we had lost many precious days. Heaped on all that, Hastings's claim that the dry drive was but only thirty-five or forty miles, and would take but two days and two nights, was criminally preposterous. It was more like eighty miles! Almost a week without water to replenish with, broiled by day and frozen stiff at night. It is a miracle we have it behind us.
Looking around me, I want to weep. We have lost many precious weeks. Eight wagons are strewn across the desert, dry-rotted or axle-deep in sand and alkaline sink slush. Countless oxen, cattle, and horses dead and bloated under the broiling sun. Untold possessions—bureaus, trunks full of clothes, dishes, silks, silver—the objects of a lifetime scattered or buried in mounds the scurrilous Indians will surely strip away. All because of Hastings.
No, I give him too much credit. There were those in this train who were warned, I now know. Warned as early as Fort Laramie by the mountain man named Clyman. And by pilgrims traveling with them until the Little Sandy. And again, unbeknownst to me, by another mountain man just outside Fort Bridger. Joseph Walker is his name, and, I am told, he is among the most knowledgeable men in these God-forsaken parts. And of those forewarned who insisted on this "nigher" way was James Reed himself! I cannot believe it.
But I also cannot but feel pity for him now. All his possessions save one wagon and two horses and the money belt he carries are gone. He is lucky his family has survived, reduced as they are. As for me, I walk a lot. The Eddys and the Breen family kindly let John Alexander ride with them often. Poor young Mr. Halloran is dead of consumption, and would have been anyway even had we been traveling smoothly up there on the zephyrs and the clouds. It would take an entire book to fully describe the agony this party has already gone through. Mr. Stanton and Mr. McCutchen have been sent on ahead by horse and mule to California to bring back help and supplies. But how far California is I cannot even hazard a guess. If they do not soon return God knows what further horrors we will endure, for the company is torn asunder in dissension and the food we have may not be sufficient.
It is a comfort, as we rest up here by the Mary's, to recall the news learned at Fort Bridger that the Grigsby-Ide Party—and therefore my dear Husband Alexander—reached a place in California called Sutter's Fort a year ago this coming month. But as I gaze at his son, John Alexander, who seems so healthy, so miraculously unaffected by this ordeal, I find myself wondering if we will ever see his father again. I weaken and must not think thus. But dear God, the sun does loop over us further and further to the South each day, and the days grow shorter.
Seven
The Great Salt Desert and the mountains that had nearly broken their backs were behind them now, as they worked their way northwest, then west, then southwest along the Mary's River to its sinkhole. Behind them as well, scattered across the mountains and salt desert, were major portions of their will, spirit, and rationality. Their bodies cried out for respite, but there was no time to rest. Pushing forward in their twelve surviving wagons, their oxen and cattle, their few horses and dogs emaciated, the emigrants strained to put twenty miles behind them each day. Normally, in this high, rolling basin-land dotted with greasewood and sagebrush, it would have been hard work and no more. But they were spiritually and physically exhausted now, terrified by the time they had lost, and each day took a little more of the life, strength, and humanity out of them.
By chance, the Donners' oxen were the least weakened by the torturous days in the Wasatch and the desert. They soon pulled ahead of the rest of the train by a full day's ride. No one thought to keep the wagons more tightly knit. Indians crept in one night and killed two oxen, knowing they would be left behind. Two mornings later a horse was missing. The losses, and the knowledge that Indians were watching their every move, pushed all of them further toward the breaking point.
Everyone walked now. It was easier on the weakened animals. There were still enough possessions in the wagons to make a modest start in California. Food was another matter. Provisions were dwindling at an alarming rate. Stanton and McCutchen and the supplies they were to bring back from Sutter's Fort would soon be a matter of life and death. With all that hanging over them, as they strained to push westward as fast as they could, tension mounted and tempers began to burst. It began with harsh words and curt answers. But then it turned ugly.
On October 5, the second segment of the train reached another long, steep, rock-crested sand hill. It seemed they would have to use double teams for each of the wagons on this one. Two made it over without as much difficulty as the men anticipated. John Snyder, a rawboned man who had joined the party late, near Fort Bridger, was driving the third wagon in line for the ascent. He was certain he could make it up and over with just his own team. He decided to rest his oxen for a few minutes before the long pull.
Behind him, Milt Elliott, one of Reed's teamsters, sat waiting. A second team of oxen was already hitched to the wagon he was driving. Elizabeth and Mrs. Reed walked past it, through the narrow wash that led to the slope, and moved out of the way. James Reed was partway up the hill, ready to prod the teams if Milt Elliott needed assistance.
Elliott grew impatient. He assumed Snyder was waiting until the men ahead brought a second team back down the incline. There seemed to be just enough room to pass, so Elliott snapped the reins and began guiding his wagon around Snyder.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Snyder barked.
"No sense in waiting 'til you get your second team hitched up, is there?" Elliott answered, surprised at the sharp edge in Snyder's voice. He shrugged. It was a matter of small concern. But as he moved forward, his two lead oxen balked, moved sideways, butted, and became entangled with Snyder's team.
"You stupid ass!" Snyder bellowed. "Look what the hell you've done!"
Elliott glanced at the women standing nearby. "Mind your tongue, Snyder..."
Elizabeth, watching from a few yards away, felt a sense of dread as Snyder leaped from his seat, bullwhip in hand.
"I'll show you what I'll mind, you flabby little bastard." Snyder's face was flushed. Now all the anger, fatigue, and frustration of the past weeks welled and pushed him beyond the point of reason. He lifted the bullwhip and lashed out at Elliott's lead oxen, slashing at them again and again. Elizabeth screamed and Mrs. Reed fainted as the beasts moaned in agony. Again Snyder's whip sliced into hide.
"For God's sake, man!" James Reed cried. He ran down the slope and caught Snyder's arm. Milt Elliott, too stunned to move, watched speechless as Snyder shoved Reed and sent him sprawling. He lashed out again at the oxen.
Reed had fallen hard. For a few seconds he waited until the pinpoints before his eyes disappeared. He got up slowly, unsheathing the hunting knife strapped to his belt. "Snyder! Stop what you're doing or you'll answer for it!"
The sight of the knife further enraged Snyder. "You big-headed son of a bitch!" He drove at Reed, reversing the bullwhip in his hand and swinging the butt down hard across the older man's forehead. Elizabeth screamed again as Snyder grabbed the front of Reed's shirt and raised the butt of the whip.
Reed could hardly see. Blood was streaming down his forehead into his eyes. All he could make out was the dark shape of Snyder's arm, rising again. He jerked his shoulders and head to the left. Almost reflexively, his right arm swung in a roundhouse. Sunlight glistened on the long blade in Reed's right hand as it arced and drove deep under Snyder's collarbone.
Elizabeth rushed between them at almost the same instant. "Stop it! Dear God, stop it!"
Snyder was not through. Crazed, he brought the whip butt up again and sent Elizabeth reeling with a glancing blow on the side of her head. Reed held onto
the knife. His shoulder was numb. He stared at the handle protruding from Snyder's flannel shirt. Steady, rhythmic surges of blood pumped out and around the hilt. Reed never saw the third blow. It smashed down full on his skull and drove him to his knees. Through the streaming blood, the spreading numbness in his shoulder, and the pain that filled his head, Reed saw Snyder suddenly stop moving and turn ashen. Dumbly, Reed looked at the knife in his hands. It had pulled free when he went down.
The left side of Snyder's shirt was soaked in a darkening red. He felt the strange sensation of liquid filling slowly in the hollow of his left lung. He turned, walked a few steps up the hill, and fell, bubbled blood spilling from his mouth.
Reed was on one knee now. His stepdaughter and his wife, recovered from her fainting but trembling visibly, held handkerchiefs to the deep wounds on his scalp. He broke free of them, tears rolling down his cheeks, and staggered to where one of the men cradled Snyder's head in his arms. "Oh, God," Reed sobbed. "I never meant for anything like this to happen."
Snyder tried to raise one arm unsuccessfully. He coughed, burbling up more blood. "I'm to blame for all of it," he wheezed. "I don't know what came over..."
They buried Snyder in a shroud between two planks to frustrate burrowing animals who might pick up the scent of death. Most of the afternoon, while Reed sat apart with his family, two factions argued over shooting him here or waiting and bringing him to trial in California. Lewis Keseberg, still bitter about the tongue-lashing Reed had given him over Elizabeth, exhorted them to hang him immediately from a propped up ox-yoke. In the end, they banished Reed from the train. They allowed him his badly deteriorated mare, but no gun and no food. After he left, Elizabeth borrowed a horse, and under the pretext of taking a last message to Reed from his ailing wife, saw to it that he at least had an even chance against whatever waited for him ahead. Tucked inside her undergarments was an 1836-model Patterson Colt revolver Milt Elliott had stashed in a saddlebag on a happier evening back on the trail to Fort Bridger.
