by Daniel Knapp
They caught up with the Donners a few days later and learned that Reed had stopped for a night with them, then journeyed on with one of the drivers. Reed had left word he planned to send back provisions if he reached California.
Elizabeth was mildly heartened to join the first section of the train again. But her modest rise in spirits was short-lived. Within minutes of arriving at the Donners' camp, she saw a forbidding sight. Dizzying waves of heat rose from the dry sandy country that stretched on either side of the dwindling river, but the sensation she felt was that of walking into an icehouse. Off to the side of the wagons, flies swarmed around the almost bare bones of a member of the Hastings group. Just a few weeks earlier, he had been killed by an arrow. Buried, he had been unearthed by Digger Indians, stripped of his clothing, and left there to rot. Wolves and coyotes had done the rest.
It seemed to Elizabeth that Snyder's ghost haunted the members of the party now. Another wagon broke down and had to be abandoned. The Diggers swept in early one morning and drove off more horses. Grass for the surviving cattle grew scant as they plodded southwest. Almost to the sink of the Mary's, they camped one night in a spot where there was no grass at all. The cattle scattered to find food. Again the Indians drove them off, eighteen of them, including a precious dairy cow. By the time the party reached the sink itself, the heat and the savages had robbed them of almost a hundred head.
On October 13 they set out across the last stretch of pure desert between the Mary's and the Truckee River. The combined oxen and cow teams pulling the remaining wagons were half-starved. They pushed on through the day and most of the night, resting only long enough to gain a little strength. Water from hot springs kept them from dying of thirst. It was bitter, almost undrinkable, but "cooled" to lukewarm in kettles, a little of it was just enough to keep them going. By midmorning John Alexander showed signs of dehydration. He no longer even cried. Carrying him, Elizabeth dabbed a handkerchief wrapped around a chunk of sugar on his tongue. She was becoming desperate. Her own milk had augmented the amount of liquid he had been taking in. But now, with scarcely any water to drink herself, Elizabeth's breasts were drying up.
Sometime near noon William Eddy discovered that the Breens, normally people who would share, were hoarding half a cask of water. When Eddy asked for a ladleful for his children and John Alexander, Patrick Breen refused.
"You son of a bitch!" Eddy shouted. "I'll kill you if you don't share the water."
Patrick Breen didn't even bother to stop walking. "You don't have the strength. You're unarmed, and you'd kill yourself in the effort."
Exhausted and dizzy from the heat, William Eddy could not think clearly. What Breen said seemed to make sense. He could not remember what he had done with the Colt revolver. Elizabeth's mind was clearer. She was certain Eddy's children and John Alexander were about to die of thirst. She walked slowly to Eddy's wagon and reached in under a buffalo skin. The Kentucky long rifle was in the same place she had seen it when Eddy had slipped her the pistol for Reed. She climbed into the wagon and muzzle-loaded it the way she had seen Eddy do it many times. Then she carried the rifle forward, cocked and pointed it at Patrick Breen. He stopped walking.
"I am not asking for myself or any other adult," she said quietly. "But if you do not give the children some of your water, I will shoot you here on the spot."
"Mrs. Todd, that water is..."
"I mean it!" she shrieked. "And may God forgive me."
Breen broke out the cask. Momentarily shocked back to his senses, he rationed out as much as he could for Elizabeth and the Eddys as well as the children. William Eddy took the rifle back and smiled as he replaced it under the buffalo skin. The way Elizabeth had loaded the rifle, it would have blown up in her face.
The train moved on in the still, parchingly dry heat. Within a few hours the incident was forgotten. There were more pressing matters to think of. They kept on through the afternoon, stopped briefly at sunset, then, grumbling, pushed on again as night overtook them. More oxen fell. They had to be cut free of their yokes and abandoned. Somehow, held in what was now a near-delirious trance, the emigrants managed to pick one foot up, move it forward, and then pick up the other. They knew if they stopped they would never move again.
Toward daybreak of October 15, they saw the trees of a river bottom ahead. They were certain it was a mirage. But as they dragged themselves the last three miles, they finally realized the trees were real. Gaping in awe, they walked the last few steps to the bank of the Truckee River and lay down beside it. At first they did not even drink. The sight of it was almost painful. The river was clear and pure and flowing fifty feet from bank to bank under cottonwoods. Hesitantly, as though the entire scene before them would suddenly vanish, the ten families, their passengers and hired help cupped their hands and took small sips of water. Around them lay a verdant pasture of lush grass and wild peas. Birds sang in the trees.
Elizabeth, slowly sprinkling small amounts of water over John Alexander's forehead and onto his lips and tongue, wept. She had been certain on that last stretch of desert that they would both die. Now, sitting here in this veritable Eden, as exhausted as she was, she vowed never to give up hope again. She gazed westward over the cottonwoods and the vow caught almost palpably in her throat. Off on the horizon, she could make out the hazy, blue-gray outlines of the Sierras against the lightening sky. Even at this distance, their enormous size made her shudder. John Alexander made a happy cooing noise, and she was distracted for an instant. When she looked back at the mountains, she gasped. Cloaking their heights now, as the first rays of the sun reached them from the east, lay a mantle of brilliantly white snow.
Eight
Truckee Lake
The Sierras
December 15, 1846
Camped at this bitter, freezing place since early November. Tomorrow some of us will make a fourth attempt to cross the pass and go on to Captain Sutter's fort beyond what they call Bear Valley. It will not be without the help of The Almighty if we make it, weakened as we are. But I know that if we do not go with Mr. Stanton and the two Indians from the fort we will surely not survive the winter. The snow is up to the rooves of the three cabins here and the same, I am told, some five miles east where the Donners have camped in bough-covered tents. There are sixty-odd men, women, and children here by the lake. Twenty or so with the Donners. There is scarcely any food of substance left. The dried beef and flour Stanton brought are almost all used up. Most of Sutter's mules and many of the surviving horses, oxen, and beeves wandered off and died in the high, covering drifts. Those bony few that did not stray are now eaten up. The bear William Eddy risked his life to shoot is gone also and no other game has come near enough to be seen. Even the fish below the ice on the lake ignore the bait on the hooks.
We are reduced to killing the last of the dogs and boiling bones and hides. Last night Mrs. Murphy's grandchildren idly tore off pieces of the Buffalo throw they lay on before the fire, speared them with small sticks and ate them after they were crisped. I do not know what will happen here if the men, all but the strongest—nay, even they—sink any further from lack of proper food and the unbelievable cold. It is difficult for them to carry firewood now. If the snow and the storms that sometimes last longer than a week continue, they will not even be able to move about enough to chop and carry what little there is.
John Alexander and I have been staying with the Eddys and Mrs. Murphy's family—all twelve of them! Nothing can describe the odors and the filth here and in the other two cabins, one of which we found built by an earlier traveler. Vermin crawl upon us in the night. It will only grow worse as more weeks pass. I mean to criticize no one here. Eighteen unbathed men, women, and children, some of them sick from time to time, trying to survive amid the smoke from the fires and the things boiling in the kettles, cannot much turn their thoughts to impossible housecleaning chores.
The baby is still feeding at my breast, as is one-year-old Margaret at Eleanor Eddy's. They are both still tolerab
ly healthy if all too thin. I do not like the fact that they cry less and less. It is a sign of growing weakness, I am sure. John Alexander has a cold again, and I fear leaving with him tomorrow almost as much as staying.
It is difficult not to be bitter. Looking back, it seems as if even one day would have put us across the mountains to the fort and safety. Any one of those days wasted at Fort Bridger, waiting for James Reed to reach and return with Hastings when we were in Weber Canyon, or the weeks lost in the mountains and following Hastings's insane roundabout trail. Even one of the five days spent resting at Stanton's urging after he courageously rejoined us at the Truckee Meadow below here. God knows even less than a half day would have put us across before that first attempt on November second. We were but three miles or so from the crest of the pass, according to Stanton. But the rest would not go on, staying instead around the campfire. We found ourselves covered with snow and the pass blocked by ten-foot drifts when we awoke in the morning.
I do not understand some of these people. I know how tired and frozen they were from wading and pushing waist high in snow. But Stanton and Eddy were just as tired, just as reduced in strength by that time as anyone, and they were ready to continue. As were a few others, myself included. It struck me then almost as if the rest were stubbornly, blasphemously daring God to bring his wrath down upon them.
That is foolish, but it is clear to me now that human nature either gets far worse or far better than average under exceeding trying conditions. There have been sacrifice, sharing, cooperation, even heroic efforts by some. But there have also been base greed in the form of forced payments for food, miserly hoarding, and probably worse. I find it difficult to believe that the Germans, Spitzer and Rhinehardt, did not kill Mr. Wolfinger for his money when they remained with him to bury his possessions after the loss of oxen at the sink of the Marys. Dear Lord, I could not even six months ago have uttered such about another human being. And God only knows what sort of person I will be even if John Alexander and I survive this next test.
Test it will surely be, but fearful of it as I am, I feel we leave none too soon. Despair has given way to sluggish resignation here. Eliza Williams's brother, Bayliss, died today. The accidental death back on the Truckee of Mrs. Murphy's son-in-law hangs heavy on the poor woman... not to mention her daughter. Harriet Spitzer is failing fast, I hear. No, I do not want to be here when the last of the victuals runs out and hunger begins to madden them all. I have seen them close to that state from thirst on the desert. And I fear if it comes upon them full, nothing, not even killing one another for a scrap of hide or bone, seems beyond possibility.
Eighteen of us will leave in the morning. Stanton, who says it is but thirty or so miles and that we should cover it in six days, will lead us. His two Indians. William Eddy and old Mr. Graves, the Vermonter who cunningly thought to fashion snowshoes for us out of the hickory oxbows and woven strips of rawhide. Of Mrs. Murphy's clan, Mr. and Mrs. Foster and their two sons will be going. So will Mr. Graves's two daughters and son-in-law, Jay Fosdick. The German man, Mr. Burger. Antonio the herder, (Oh, how he must pine for the warmth of his native Mexico!) Mrs. Pike and Mrs. McCutchen, whose husband took sick in California and could not return with Stanton. And young Patrick Dolan the bachelor.
At first they would not hear of my taking John Alexander. Dear William Eddy, who has been as loyal to me as he has to the Reeds, persuaded them in my favor!
The fire grows low now. Only large embers glow as the children quietly whimper in their fitful sleep. Dear God protect us and let it not snow again until we are down out of the mountains. I must now pack the small carryall I will take with me. Dearest husband, I will take this diary with me also so that, whatever happens, you will know that I tried to bring you your son and the money you trusted me with. I pray that I succeed, and know that my love and longing for you give me the strength and courage to go on.
Nine
Sacramento
May 7, 1869
5 a.m.
A shaft of sunlight awoke Esther Cable Carter with a start. She had slept only three hours, but she was instantly wide awake. It seemed only seconds since she had read the last diary entry and halted, staring at the blank page that preceded the section enclosed by black ribbon. She sat up and saw that the journal had fallen off the bed. Putting on the velvet robe that hung over a bedside chair, she picked the book up, closed it, and fingered the ribbon for a moment before tucking the journal away in the smaller of two bags she had taken with her for the journey to Promontory. When she snapped the clasp on the bag shut, her son Todd stirred under his blankets on the blankets on the cot, turned, but did not awaken.
Esther picked up a thick white towel embroidered in blue with the words "Sierra Hotel" from the marble-topped oak lowboy near the door. She went back to her bag for the small, red-and-gold leather case containing an exquisite mother-of-pearl-backed brush and comb and put it in one pocket of the robe. Alex Todd had given it to her in St. Louis as a wedding present two dozen years earlier. The towel over her arm, she stooped and picked up the chamber pot from under the bed. Crossing the room, she opened the door a crack and checked the hallway. No one stirred this early on the upper floors. She folded the towel over her left arm and put her bare left hand out of sight in the pocket of her robe. Barefoot, she padded quietly to the door of Solana's room. As she raised her hand to knock, the Indian woman, already dressed and waiting, opened it. Seeing the towel and the porcelain chamber pot, Solana nodded and turned without a word to go to watch over young Todd.
After spilling and rinsing down the contents of the chamber pot in one of the two bathing rooms down the hall, Esther drew a quarter tub of warm water, lathered, and rinsed off quickly. Stepping out of the draining tub, she began toweling off in front of a mirror. It surprised her that she could not see the faint scar on her nose from four feet away, even though the sun now streamed through the gauze-curtained window. She brushed out her hair, then coiled, folded, and tucked it on the back of her head with a finger-sized tortoiseshell comb.
She looked at her face again and could not understand why two decades had scarcely touched it. It pleased her that there were few lines, not even the beginning of a wrinkle in the milky white skin around her eyes and full mouth. Glancing lower, she noted that the pale stretch-marks slanting along the sides of her abdomen were more noticeable, faint as they were, than the faded splotch that encircled the tip of her nose.
She smiled. Then she became aware of the rest of her figure. She looked away from the mirror and put on her robe. At five feet seven and a half inches, she towered over most women, and their petiteness made her feel awkward and clumsy. She did not care for the conformation of her body. The outlines were right, generally speaking, but there was not enough flesh on her hips and limbs to suit her. Conversely, she thought her breasts were disproportionately big, and she was puzzled again that the rose-brown nipples still pointed forward rather than down after nursing three children.
Back in her room, she found her son awake, dressed, and staring out the window at the wisps of steam rising slowly from between the giant wheels of the engine at the station.
"Good morning, mother." The boy blew her a perfunctory kiss and looked back at the train. 'You haven't changed your mind, have you? I can still ride with Mister Sam in Jupiter?"
"No, dear, I haven't changed my mind." She walked up behind him, leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. In a way, she thought, William Carter's death had mercifully spared him the confirmation of his worst suspicions. Todd looked more like Alex every year.
"All the way to Reno?" the boy said, rapt.
"If you sit exactly where Mister Sam puts you and do not remove the leather belt from around your waist."
"I promise! I promise not to!"
"If you do, he'll stop the train and send you back."
He was as headstrong as most seven-year-old boys, but he was in awe of the engineer. Esther knew that, and the threat of being banished from the engine would keep h
im where she wanted him until they had crossed the Sierras.
She turned to Solana and took the older woman's leathery, pale-bronze hands in hers. "Will you take him to breakfast for me? I don't want to talk to anyone this morning."
"Whatever you wish. Will you not eat?"
"Please have someone bring me a tray of tea, bread, and jam. I don't want you to carry it."
"The bags?"
"I'll take them with me when I'm dressed."
Solana nodded. "I will see that he is safely in the iron horse when it is time. Then I will wait at the riverfront for the giant raft... launch."
Esther smiled and put her arms around the Indian woman. "God keep you. I'll see you when I return."
Solana embraced Esther and took the boy's hand. "Come. You must eat as much as Mister Sam does this morning."
After Esther ate, she took off the robe and applied more than the usual amount of lilac water and scented powder on her body. She put on a chemise, but no other undergarments below her waist before slipping into a fresh black dress, hat, and gloves. At precisely 7:00 a.m. she went down the outside stairs on the flank of the building to the wooden walkway. Through a window beneath the stairs she heard the clatter of dishes and the shouts of the German cook over the muted pidgin-English replies of a Chinese pantryman. Breakfast was being served to a full dining room. It was as she had planned it. She wished to see none of the men or women who would be on the train.
At the bottom of the stairs she stopped as she heard a team of horses round the corner of the building. A landau drawn by two extraordinary chestnut mares passed and continued on down the street. After the dust raised by the carriage had settled, she walked quickly, bags in hand, across the street and along the diagonal path to the station. Halfway there, she veered off toward the rear of the train. The trainman waiting at the steps of the private car saw her and began running in her direction. He was a portly man who saw to all Charles Crocker's needs whenever the railroad boss traveled in the special car. The morning was already warm, and he was sweating when he reached Esther.
