The Undaunted : The Miracle of the Hole-In-The-Rock Pioneers

by Gerald N. Lund

  And that moment, David’s father appeared on the ridge. He was waving his arms wildly. “Bring the binoculars!”

  They looked at each other. “Maybe Platte is back.” Platte Lyman, his brother, and another man had been exploring the countryside to the south while waiting for the road to be finished.

  “They be in that bag in me wagon,” John shouted as he ran toward them.

  Abby darted over to the wagon David and John used, rummaged quickly, and found them. All three of them broke into a trot toward John. As they reached him, he bent down, breathing hard. “I think it be David.”

  Molly’s hand flew to her mouth. “Where?”

  “It’s a lone figure on foot, cumin’ across the flats aboot a mile oot.”

  “What about George Hobbs?” Sarah asked, as they turned around and started back.

  “Dunno,” came the reply. “But Ah’m purty sure it be David.”

  John and David Draper lay side by side in the wagon box that served as their bedroom. They could still hear the murmurs of people talking, but for the most part the camp was in bed and quiet. “Ah, Son,” John said with a deep, satisfied sigh. “It be so gud ta ’ave ya back agin. We awl be gittin’ worried aboot ya. Especially Molly and Abby.”

  David came up on one elbow. “Abby? Are you sure?”

  There was a soft grunt, then a long silence. Finally, John spoke. “Ya wanna be tellin’ me what’s goin’ on b’tween ya an’ ’er?” he drawled. “Befur ya left, you two were like a cat an’ a dog lookin’ at the same bowl of milk.”

  David chuckled at that image. “Never could put much past you, could I, Dad?”

  “Ah be not as dotty as ya think, boy. So, are ya gonna tell me or naw?”

  David did. He talked slowly, starting with the plunge down the mountain and the kiss. He went through the conversation at the creek in almost perfect detail—it was still burned keenly into his mind—and finally, he shared Mary Davis’s feelings about the whole matter.

  “Aye,” his father murmured when he was done. “Ah be pretty sure sumthin’ was up.”

  “So?” David said. “I want to know what you think about the whole thing.”

  “That’ll take sum time.”

  David snickered. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  Again there was a long silence, and David could almost hear the wheels turning in his father’s head. “Awl reet, ’ere be some random thoughts.”

  “Reet,” David snorted, lying back down again. “I’ve never known you to have a random thought in your whole life.”

  He ignored that. “First, Ah told ya befur, Molly be a good woman, but Ah dunna believe she be the best person fur ya. An’ in me own mind, thare be no question aboot Abby. But yur not outta the woods on this one yet, Davee boy, so go easy. Ya ’ave ’urt Abby real deep, Son. Part of that is ’er own ’urt, but part of it is fur Molly. If ya be destroyin’ Molly, Ah naw be sure she be furgivin’ ya fur that. Your friend Mary be reet. Go careful. Dunna be riding inta that situation with your spurs clangin’ an’ yur guns blazin’.”

  David laughed in spite of himself. “Oh, Dad, we’re gonna make a Yank out of you yet.” Then he sobered. “Mary thinks I should tell Molly as soon as possible. Do you agree?”

  “Naw as soon as possible. That wud be tanight. But as soon as it be wise.”

  “Well, yes, Mary said that, too. So when do you think is a good time?”

  “Naw sure,” John said again. “Naw t’morrow, that be certain. We start movin’ the cump’ny down the hill in the mornin’. An’ this be anuther bad one, Son. Real bad. We’re callin’ it Clay Hill Pass.”

  “I saw the grade. About killed me coming up it.”

  “It be more than joost the grade. Frum the top of the pass ta the base is aboot a thousand feet of vertical drop, but the road is almost three miles long b’cuz it winds back and forth to handle the grade. But the worst part is the clay. The tiniest bit of water, an’ it becums slick as an otter’s back. An’ we been ’avin’ rain and snow now fur a couple of days. Them wagons be slidin’ reet over the side if’n we dunna hold ’em back.”

  “I’m glad I’m back to help drive.”

  “Ah’m sure Abby be glad fur that too. She’s real good noow, but these steep places still frighten ’er sumthin’ bad. Anyhoow, yur gonna ’ave ta wait fur a better time ta be talkin’ romance and love and marriage.”

  “I’m not going to say anything to Abby. Not for a long time after I break it off with Molly. Right now, Molly’s the problem. Finding a time and a place where we can be alone is . . .” He finally shrugged. “It doesn’t come easy in a wagon train.”

  “Don’t rush it, Son. Wait ’til it feels reet. Ya will know it when it cums.”

  “Thank you, Dahd.”

  They lay there for several minutes, each far away in his own thoughts. Finally, his father turned so he was facing him. “Yur muther wud be reet prood of ya, Son. Reet prood. What ya did fur the Davises. What yur doin’ fur the McKennas.”

  David swallowed hard. Ironically, he had just been thinking about his mother. “I still miss her. Sometimes real fierce like.”

  “Aye,” came the soft answer. Then, to his surprise, his father rolled over and sat up. He started fumbling in the bag beside his bed.

  “What do you need, Dad?”

  “Joost a minute.” There was a scratching sound, then a match flared. They kept a candle stuck on a tin saucer for use when they were inside the wagon at night. He touched the flame to the wick, then blew out the match.

  “Ah been meanin’ ta do sumthin’ fur a long time, David. Ah think noow be a gud time.”

  “What is it?”

  He didn’t answer. Instead he went up on his knees and reached into the sack. He leaned forward, sticking his arm all the way in. David could see his hand searching for something. Finally he straightened, withdrawing his hand. In it he held a small blue-velvet box. He held it out to David.

  David stared at it as he slowly took it from his father’s hand. His eyes were wide with astonishment. “Is this what I think it is?”

  “Open it.”

  David did. His breath drew in sharply. “Mum’s necklace?”

  “Aye.”

  David was incredulous. “You still have it? I thought we lost it somewhere along the way coming to America. You never said anything about it.”

  John just shook his head. David could see that his eyes were glistening in the candlelight. David took the necklace out and spread it across one hand. The chain was made of tiny filigree links of sterling silver. From the center of the chain hung a small heart-shaped locket. David took it between his fingers and pried it open. There was no picture inside, but David could see an inscription. It was unreadable in the dim light, but he didn’t need to read it to know what it said. It read simply, To my Anne.

  “I remember the day you gave it to her,” David said quietly. “She got all mad at you because she knew you spent a lot of money on it.”

  “Aye, a full week’s sal’ry. She never furgave me fur that.”

  “Oh, yes, she did,” David said fiercely. “She once told me that, next to me and you, this was the thing she treasured most in life. I am so glad you still have it, Dad.”

  “Ah been waitin’ fur the reet time ta give it away.”

  “Give it away?”

  “Yah,” he said, his voice so low David could barely hear him. “Ah want ya ta ’ave it, Son. It be yurs noow.”

  “But, Dad—”

  “Ah naw be tellin’ ya what ta do wit it, but it wud please me if sumday, me first granddaughter were to end up wit it.”

  David was staring at him.

  “Ya ’eard me, ya lunk head,” he growled, trying to hide the emotion in his voice. “If’n ya cahrn’t do that, then I’ll tek it back an’ do it meself.”

  David carefully folded the chain and returned it and the locket to the box. He shut it again. “What made you decide to do this now?” he asked gruffly.

  There was a slow smile. �
�It joost seemed lek the reet time.”

  Saturday, March 13, 1880

  When David came around the back of his wagon, he stopped. Abby was standing beside the mules who would be taking her wagon down, absentmindedly stroking their necks as she stared down at the valley floor far below them.

  “I can drive it for you,” he said, coming up behind her.

  She didn’t turn. Nor did she speak.

  “But I don’t think I need to.”

  She finally turned. “Are you just saying that to try to make peace between us?”

  “Knowing your fear of heights, if I were trying to make peace, wouldn’t I be safer not letting you drive?”

  She looked down at the ground. It was already churned up into gobs of thick, gooey mud that stuck to their boots and coated the wagon wheels. Using the toe of her boot, she smoothed a little spot, which immediately became wet and shiny and smooth as a tabletop. The snowstorm had left only a skiff on the ground, but the soil was wet. Finally she looked up. “Bishop Nielson says he wants as many men as possible to hold the wagons from sliding off.”

  He acknowledged that with a nod. The clay was so slick that even a gentle push against a wagon could move it sideways. “That’s going to be the challenge. Not the road, and not even the grade.”

  “Then maybe I’d better drive.”

  Just then Molly came around the lead wagon with their mother and father. She stopped when she saw them. “Have you decided?” she asked.

  There was a moment’s hesitation, then Abby gave her an affirmative nod. “Yes, I’m driving.”

  “Oh, Abby, are you sure?” She turned to David. “And you agree?”

  “I do. If Dad and I help with the ropes, she and your father can take the first two down, then Dad and I will bring down the other two when we’re through helping on the ropes.”

  “And who will hold you back?” Sarah said.

  He turned, looking at the wagon tracks in the gooey mud. “I hope by then the ruts will be deep enough to hold us in line. If not, we’ll have you two come back up again.”

  David reached inside the wagon and retrieved a coiled rope. “All right, we’ll see you down at that first turn.” As he pushed past the two girls, Sarah stopped him. She looked at him for several seconds, then leaned up and kissed him on the cheek. “You take care, David. We just got you back. I would rather drive a wagon down there than have you risk getting hurt.”

  Touched, he managed a smile. “You know, for a woman who prefers to shop in St. George, you’re getting to be pretty tough.”

  She blushed, deeply pleased. Then she smiled and touched his arm, lowering her voice into a conspiratorial whisper. “Don’t tell my sister. It would completely shatter her faith in me.”

  John raised his hand. “Before we start, thare be sumthin’ Ah’d lek ta show ya.” He turned and started away. “Cum. They naw be startin’ fur another few minutes.”

  The others looked at David, but he shrugged. He had no idea what this was about.

  Down about fifty yards from where their wagons were parked, John stopped in front of a large pink boulder. It was rounded but oblong and looked like a loaf of bread with one end buried in the dirt. “Ah discovered this the other night as Ah was cumin’ off me shift.” He stepped back so they could see the front of the rock. To their amazement, something had been carved into the face of it. They moved in.

  It was Molly who read it out for them all. “‘Make peace with God.’”

  “Who did it?” Patrick finally asked in a soft voice.

  John shrugged. “Dunno. Ev’rybody Ah asked says they dunna know either.”

  “Someone afraid they might not make it safely to the bottom?” Abby asked, very subdued.

  “Perhaps,” John nodded. “But it occurred ta me, it be gud counsel fur all of us, naw matter whare we are, or what we be doin’.”1

  “Amen,” Sarah whispered.

  John turned to his son as if to say something, but he had to quickly look away. Seeing that, David also turned his head. When John Draper finally came back around, he was looking directly at his son. “An’ Ah joost wanted ta publicly thank the gud Lord fur lettin’ me be ’ere ta witness fur meself that David has made his peace wit God. Tank ya, Son. Ah be so prood of ya reet noow, Ah think Ah be aboot to bust me garter belt.”

  Laughing, and trying to hold in his emotions, David threw his arms around his father, hugging him tightly, while the others looked on and tried not to cry.

  Six hours and several close calls later, they were down. In the end, Patrick was needed on the ropes and Abby had to drive the stretch twice. Her mother walked alongside the second time, calling out encouragement both to Abby and to the men on the ropes. When David’s father brought the last wagon down with Patrick and David holding him back, the family fell into each other’s arms, exhausted, relieved, and exhilarated.

  As David and his father clomped over to join the family, their feet so covered with clay and mud that it was like they wore great clodhoppers, John motioned for the family to gather round. When they did so, he reached in his shirt pocket and pulled out an invisible piece of paper and pencil. With an exaggerated flourish, he made a large check mark in the air. “That be one more,” he said, then mimed putting the paper away again.

  “One more what?” Sarah asked.

  “One more impossible obstacle joost made possible.” He pulled the “paper” out again and went on. “So far, Ah’ve got a tick mark by the Hole in the Rock, the Colorado River, Cottonwood Hill, The Chute, Slickrock Hill, an’ noow, Clay Hill Pass. Purty impressive, Ah’d say.”

  “And how many more do you have on that list?” Sarah asked.

  David answered for him. “Only two. The cedar forest and Comb Ridge.”

  Note

  ^1. Clay Hill Pass is located about twenty-five miles east of Hall’s Crossing on Lake Powell on Utah Highway 276. Remnants of the pioneer road can still be seen from the highway, which now bisects the Clay Hills. There are a few trail markers on both sides of the road, though a set of binoculars makes these much easier to locate. On the north side of the highway, near the top of the old pioneer road, there is a large, round boulder with the inscription “Make peace with God.” Though it is badly eroded now, the inscription is still readable. We have no information about who made this inscription or when it was done, but it is similar in style to other pioneer inscriptions. It has been variously attributed to the pioneers, to a local resident of much later date, and to wanderers sometime in between. That it was done by someone in the pioneer company while they were building a road down those hills is my own supposition.

  Chapter 68

  Monday, March 29, 1880

  Step by step, day by day, mile by mile, the company moved slowly eastward, greeting each new challenge with resigned but dogged determination. What should have been a growing sense of excitement as they drew nearer to their destination was lost in a spreading haze of exhaustion. They had left Cedar City on October twenty-second, five months and ten days before. On that day their spirits had been high, their hearts filled with optimism, their teams fresh, their equipment new. Now as they slogged along through the deep sand of Comb Wash, their spirits were flagging, their hearts were weary, their teams were jaded, and their equipment was dilapidated and worn.

  They had passed through (or over) some of the roughest, most desolate, least charted country in the United States and its territories. Their inner steel, tempered by the fires of adversity, was now showing metal fatigue and was near the shattering point. The only thing that kept them going was sheer, stubborn endurance, as one challenge after another confronted them.

  As if the descent down Clay Hill Pass had not been daunting enough, a day later a raging blizzard swept in. Wagon covers were shredded, tents ripped from their moorings, stock scattered for miles. Many were left exposed to the elements to cope as best they could with their whimpering, shivering children and soggy bedding. When the storm finally blew on to the east, Platte Lyman, a man who had sp
ent much of his life out of doors, claimed that what followed was the coldest night he had ever experienced.1

  When they entered the great cedar forests on the southern slopes of Elk Ridge, the road builders faced a new and different challenge. They changed from black powder, pick, and shovel to ax and saw. They literally hacked their way through what seemed like an endless expanse of juniper trees. They cut them off as close to the ground as possible so the stumps would not trip the teams or rip out the bottom of the wagons. But that was not all Elk Ridge held in store. Even though it was late in March, the elevation was high enough that when they weren’t plowing through the remnants of two-foot-deep snowdrifts, they were buried up to the axles in mud. Horses and mules would finally just stop, quivering and shaking violently, and refuse to budge no matter how much they were urged forward.

  As they moved slowly onward, David, who often went ahead to scout the road, began noticing something. Where before there had been an abundance of strong, well-matched teams of horses, mules, and oxen, what he saw now often could not be called “teams” at all. One wagon had an ox and a mule in tandem. Several had milk cows or young heifers in harness. The most unusual pairing was a set of mules harnessed together with a single ox hooked to the front of the wagon tongue. A young girl sat astride the ox’s back, guiding him down the road with her feet or an occasional punch on his neck.

  Gradually, the tight organization and order that had been a hallmark of the company collapsed as people made their way forward as best they could. Those with the strongest teams—or those who had extra animals—forged ahead, while others lagged farther and farther behind. Some wagons were abandoned, left on the roadside fully loaded to await a time when their owners could return later in the season. By the time they reached the eastern edge of the cedars, some families were as much as thirty miles behind the leaders. The company was like a giant accordion, expanding and contracting as they moved slowly forward.2

  As if making a road through that country wasn’t enough of a challenge, an unusual confluence of events occurred that sent a cold chill of fear through the camp. Shortly after they headed Grand Gulch and started down through the cedar forests toward Comb Ridge, the company spotted a small Ute Indian camp up ahead of them. The company passed by and camped a mile or two farther on. That night, the Indians sent one of their women to the Mormon camp to feel things out. She was treated kindly and given some food from the meager stores. She returned with the others, who were extremely shy, and food was given to them as well. The company’s spirits were lifted by being able to render service.