When Winter Comes

by V. A. Shannon

  Mr. Reed was standing still as stone, with his face as white as his shirt linen, and a bloodied knife in his hand. And John Snyder, the Graveses’ teamster, was lying on the ground, dead.

  Mr. Reed looked from his knife to the body and back again. And with a great groan he threw the knife from him and sank to his knees.

  There wasn’t a whisper of sound except for the rush of the water tumbling away below us, and Mr. Reed’s choking sobs, his head laid on John Snyder’s chest, saying over and over that he was sorry, and begging for his forgiveness. I do not know which was worse, the sight of the blood or the sight of Mr. Reed’s horror at his deed.

  Nothing could be done but to bury Mr. Snyder and get on with our journey. Mr. Reed was helped to his feet, and Mr. Breen offered to lend him a team. And then Mr. Breen had no choice but to approach Mr. Graves and ask him to return the animals he had taken from the Reeds in the first place. It was fuel on the fire for Mrs. Graves, and she said no, most decided—“Mr. Reed can stay at the bottom of that damned hill and die there himself!” she said—but somehow Mr. Breen persuaded them, with the promise that when we all got into camp that night the matter would be resolved.

  20

  When we came into camp that night there was a meeting. Not the Donners; they had a long start on the rest of us and were nowhere to be seen.

  The broiling heat that had made August and September so unendurable was passed; and now, although the days were warm and sunny enough, the nights were growing colder. There was a touch of frost on the ground, and Mr. Breen got a big fire lit in the center of the clearing. After we’d eaten our supper, Mrs. Keseberg told me to stay where I was and mind the children, and she and Mr. Keseberg went across and joined the rest of our companions round the fire. I cleared up the dishes and got the children settled for the night, and then poked up the embers of our cooking fire, and put on some more sticks to make it blaze a little. Then I settled myself down to watch, wrapped up in a quilt and leaning against one of the wagon wheels.

  The discussion started off calm enough. Mr. Breen held up his hand for silence, and made a little speech. He said that with folks’ agreement, he would lead the meeting; George and Jacob Donner were not here, and Mr. Reed and Mr. Graves both had a part in the trouble. Mr. Breen was an Irish, and a Catholic at that, but no one seemed to hold that against him particularly, and his announcement was greeted with nods of the head. He said that we’d hear Mr. Graves’s story about what had happened, and then Mr. Reed could speak. Anyone who wanted to say something after that was welcome to do so.

  Mr. Graves went first. He said that Milt Elliott, Mr. Reed’s teamster, had words with John Snyder about the way he was whipping up the team. Mr. and Mrs. Reed came up to them. Mrs. Reed provoked a great argument, and got herself in such a fury that she went to slap John Snyder across the face. He dodged out of the way, but in his hand he still held his driving whip, and caught her a blow with it, accidental-like. Then Mr. Reed up and stabbed John Snyder.

  Mr. Breen asked him a few questions at this. Where did Mr. Reed get the knife? Did he bring it with him? Mr. Graves said he did, and then that he wasn’t sure, and maybe it was Milt Elliott’s knife.

  Milt Elliott was called up to the fire. Mr. Breen asked him, was it your knife?

  He answered, yes it was. He’d thought one of the beeves looked to have lost a shoe and was something lame, and he wanted to look at its hoof and maybe dig out a stone, so the knife was in his hand.

  Then Mr. Breen asked him, did Mr. Snyder aim his blow at Mrs. Reed deliberate-like? I couldn’t say, said Milt, and was told to sit down again.

  Mr. Graves answered the question instead. “John Snyder did it without thinking and it wasn’t no more than the force a body would use to swat a fly. He would never have raised his hand to a woman, for John was a good man.

  “I considered him almost my son, and we expected that when we reached the end of our journey and arrived safe in California, he would marry our Mary.”

  At that, all turned their heads and looked at Mary Graves, who hid her face in her kerchief.

  At this, Mrs. Reed couldn’t contain herself. She jumped to her feet in a fury, shouting out that none of what he was saying was true at all! John Snyder aimed his blow at her deliberate and knocked her to the ground with the force of it, and John Snyder was a jealous sort of fellow and Mary Graves was known to look under her lashes at any man who passed the time of day with her! It was she deserved a slap, for she had been making eyes at Milt Elliott!

  I gave a little snort of disbelief; I couldn’t help myself. Mary Graves was a flirt, sure enough, but even she wouldn’t have give squinty-eyed Milt Elliott a second look.

  Mrs. Graves screeched at Mrs. Reed’s words, and would have flown at her if not restrained. Mr. Graves yelled out that Mr. Reed should control his wife, and if he had been John Snyder he’d have landed her one himself. Mr. Reed retorted that this was rich words from a man who had never said nay to his own wife in his life, and was too much of a coward to do so, now!

  This was the signal for nigh everyone in our party who had a grievance against the Reeds, to let loose. There was a right outcry of voices. Over them all was Mr. Graves again, who shouted out that the fact of the matter was that if we were back East Mr. Reed would be hanged as a murderer, and he should be now! Mr. Reed pointed at the folks sitting round the fire, shouting back that he wouldn’t accept justice from this raggle-taggle crew, and they had no right to pass judgment on him!

  Mr. Keseberg had been sat with his back to me, and I couldn’t see his face. I was surprised he had sat there so far in silence. But I guess this last was too much for him. He leapt up, and yelled that Mr. Reed was a fine one to talk about justice and passing judgment, that from the very start he had considered himself better than anyone else and if Mr. Graves wanted Mr. Reed hanged, why, he would provide the rope for it! In a fury he snatched up a rope from the nearest wagon and brandished it in the air.

  Even before the words were full out of Mr. Keseberg’s mouth, Mr. Graves and his son, William, had Mr. Reed by the arms and were dragging him across the sandy ground to the nearest tree, Mr. Keseberg hot on their heels.

  The women all screamed, and I did, too. Mrs. Keseberg ran after her husband, beating on his back and shouting at him to desist. Then Mr. Breen took his gun and fired a shot into the air, startling everyone into silence: and waking up Baby, who wailed.

  I scrambled to my feet and climbed into the wagon, hushing Baby as best I could and with an ear turned to events outside, straining to catch what was being said. In the end I grabbed Baby, wrapped him in a shawl, and stuck my head out of the back of the wagon, just in time to see Mr. Reed pull himself free from his captors, and step into the firelight.

  I guess fear had quietened him down. He suddenly seemed right calm, though he could not look anyone in the face. Instead, staring at the fire, he said, “I will never forgive myself for what I have done.”

  At this, his voice cracked, and he wiped his hand across his eyes. “I will go out—if that is what you wish. I will leave the company and ride ahead, for I can see it is hard on Mary Graves, to look at me and see me alive, and know—and know—” At this, he was overcome and could not speak for several minutes. At last he pulled himself together.

  “It would be too hard for Mary Graves to look on me, and know that her sweetheart is dead by my hand.”

  Again there was a buzz of voices, and again Mr. Breen raised his voice to be heard. He said he was not willing to pass judgment on Mr. Reed and he, for one, would not condemn him to death. But that if Mr. Reed wished to leave, then perhaps that was for the best.

  “We are a Democracy in our Country,” he said, “and I say we put it to a vote. We will go round and each stand up and cast his vote, stay or leave. And I say that the married women have a vote as well.”

  This was a novel idea. The women all looked something startled to have such responsibility thrust upon their shoulders. Hattie Pike burst into tears, and Mrs. Murphy
put her arm round her shoulders to comfort her.

  He started with Mr. Graves, who voted for Mr. Reed to leave, and then Mrs. Graves the same. So it went round the circle. Mr. and Mrs. Eddy said he should stay, and so did Mrs. McCutcheon. Several of the women said they would not vote at all.

  By the time the last vote was called for, it was split even. The last to vote was Mr. Keseberg. He looked straight at Mr. Reed, and Mr. Reed looked at him. And he knew that his fate was decided, for of course Mr. Keseberg voted yes.

  So it was agreed. He would be sent on his way, and was given one hour to make his good-byes.

  He was to set out on his journey alone, for no one from our companions would volunteer to go with him, and his family could not, for their wagon was still being pulled by the beeves lent to them by the Graveses.

  Mrs. Graves spoke up again, and demanded their return. Mr. Breen tried to reason with her.

  “You are the only family left with spare beeves to lend out. You cannot mean to deprive Mr. Reed’s family of any means of travel, surely? In the name of God, you could not be so cruel!” He was right heated, not like himself at all.

  Mrs. Graves was adamant. She said that she and her family had got stuck with us all, thanks to her husband—and she gave him such a look—stuck with us all, much against her better judgment, and as far as she was concerned, this business with Mr. Reed put the lid on it.

  “My family comes first,” she said, “and I owe nothing to anyone here. Mrs. Reed is as much to blame for this business as her husband is, and why I should assist her is beyond my comprehension!

  “I will do so—in the spirit, as you say, Mr. Breen, of Christian charity—for the sake of her children. But they are my beeves, and they stay within my sight!”

  I guess the same thought crossed all minds. Mr. Reed might travel away, but Mrs. Reed and her children would be left behind to take his punishment.

  The Reeds’ servant, Baylis Williams, who had started off the journey a big, solid sort of fellow, was reduced by hard work and short rations to near enough skin and bone, and had turned right sickly over the past week or two, so he was not fit to go out. Milt Elliott stepped up to go, but Mr. Reed refused to allow him, saying that he was needed to care for the animals. He got a solemn promise from him that he would take good care of his family.

  Milt Elliott cried like a baby at this, vowing, “On my life, Mr. Reed, I will do everything for Miz Reed and those poor childer.”

  Once it was determined that Mr. Reed should go, another vote was taken, as to whether he should take his gun and some provisions. To send a man out with no food and no means of hunting any, and all defenseless against the Indians, was just the same as killing him. I thought it a right shameful thing to do, more cruel than hanging him there and then, and my first thought was that no one would agree to it. But I was wrong.

  When Mr. Reed had first spoke up, I had been so affected by his tears and his remorse that I never would have voted to send him out. But now I suddenly thought, “How is it that Mr. Reed has made it seem like he is doing us a kindness in leaving us? That he is doing it to spare Mary Graves? If it was not for his actions in killing a man, Mary Graves would not need to be spared!

  “He is a murderer! Yet here I am feeling right sorry for him! His punishment is to be nothing more than to ride off on his horse and get to the end of his journey a sight quicker than the rest of us. While we are all still struggling onward, he will be sat in Sutter’s Fort with his pipe in his mouth and his feet up on the fender.

  “Let him go out with no gun and no food,” I said to myself, “and take his chances! He is lucky to be alive. Let it be in God’s hands if he stays so!”

  I guess I was not the only one to have discovered that same sense of aggravation. This time round everyone voted and the vote was pretty nigh unanimous. Only Mrs. McCutcheon voted against it. All in all, it seemed that the women in our company had got the taste for power.

  21

  The river had given up its tumbling drop through the narrow canyons and now the Marysink spread out before us, the place where, at the end of summer, the river vanished away into the ground. It was a long, low valley, with steep sides. In the spring when the rain washed down the mountains and the river was in full flood, this was a great lake. Now, though, the water was slowed to a sluggy trickle and the land about was marshy, filled with pools of water that lay milk-white and stinking in the sun. It was poor water, and we lost yet more cattle from the drinking of it.

  We trudged along with Indians riding along the ridges above our heads, then wheeling their horses away. We knew that they were there, hidden from our sight but watching us all the while, and we hastened along as best we could, thinking that we were like fish in a barrel waiting to be shot.

  One night we made camp on a sort of grassy island that stuck up out of the mire, and the next morning Mr. Eddy come swaggering along, one of his tales ready for the telling. His desire to set around himself a lurid story and be seen as the hero of the hour was eventually to cause the most evil misery; but at the beginning, his love of a good tale merely got the better of his common sense. So it was now.

  He told us that during the night Mr. Breen’s mare had gotten loose and stuck herself up to her flanks in the mud. Mr. Breen had applied to him for a hand to get her out, but Mr. Eddy had refused.

  “I paid him back in good coin for not riding to the aid of Mr. Hardkoop!” This was said with an easy laugh, and it was obvious that he expected us to look admiring of his high-mindedness.

  I stared at him in astonishment, thinking it showed him simple-witted. He had refused Mr. Hardkoop just as much as the rest, and why would we, having the blame finger of Mr. Hardkoop’s death pointed at us more than any, find his tale amusing?

  Soon came another death in our party. And like the sorry tale of Mr. Hardkoop, the story of Mr. Wolfinger’s murder would come to haunt Mr. Keseberg.

  Mr. Wolfinger had the best of everything, including a fine rifle, though he admitted himself that he was a poor shot. A day or so after we entered into the Marysink, we came to a place where there was a stretch of good water, with great flocks of birds upon it: geese and ducks and many others that we had never seen before. Mr. Wolfinger took but one look at all this good food before him, and offered his rifle to his friend Mr. Keseberg, for a share of whatever he shot with it.

  Mr. Keseberg took the rifle and set off, his eyes fixed on the birds and his finger on the trigger. Not looking where he was going, he missed his step, and plunged down the creekside, catching his foot on some sharp bits of broke willow that dotted the edge of the water. The wood went right through his shoe and his foot and out the other side, and it made me faint to see it. He limped back to our wagon, and the rifle was put down, and forgot, I suppose, while Mrs. Keseberg put salve on the injury and bandaged it up. It never healed right from that day on, and pained Mr. Keseberg something dreadful at times; after that he walked always with a limp.

  Over the next few days the ground improved, and one night we made camp in a fine place, with plenty grass for the cattle. We drew the wagons round tight, and set to sleeping, with some of the teamsters put to guard the beeves and the rest of the animals. Our night was peaceful, and in the morning the campfires were blazed up and the coffeepots set on, and bacon put to fry. One by one the men who had been guarding the cattle came wandering in, drawn by the smell. It did not occur to any that those crafty Indians that had been tracking us all this while knew us better than we knew ourselves. The very instant the men took their first mouthfuls of good hot coffee or helped themselves to a slice of bacon off the griddle, the Indians came swooping down, laughing fit to bust I am sure. They killed as many cattle as they could fire their arrows into, and made off with as many horses as they could grab on their flight.

  It was with heavy hearts that we looked at the lifeless bodies of the animals scattered about where they had fallen. All had lost something. We reckoned up that from the time we set out, to here, we had lost more than tw
o-thirds of our animals: beeves, in particular. And now some of our number had no animals left to pull their wagons. The Wolfingers were such, and Mrs. Reed another.

  The Breens and the Donners took as much as they could carry from the abandoned wagons, and set off with the Reeds and Mrs. Wolfinger walking alongside them—Mrs. Wolfinger crying most bitterly.

  Of all our German party, we were now the only ones who had any animals remaining. We took what was left of the Wolfingers’ provisions with us, and pulled out, leaving Mr. Spitzer and Mr. Reinhardt to stay and help Mr. Wolfinger cache his wagon.

  A great number of travelers were forced to cache their wagons, if they lost their team or an axle break and no one to fix it. The iron struts that held up the canvas to cover the wagon would be pulled out of their fixings, and the wheels took off, so that what was left was just the wagon bed, loaded up with goods. A great hole would be dug in the ground and the wagon bed lowered in, and then the struts and the wheels flat on the top and the canvas over all. Once that was all done the earth would be shoveled back in, and a marker put in the ground. The idea was that once the owner got safe to California, he could return the next year in the good weather with as many teams as he liked, and dig up the wagon and put it back together and fetch the goods home.

  Mr. Wolfinger was never to return for his wagon, though. When we made camp that night he did not come in. The next morning he did not come in neither; but Mr. Spitzer and Mr. Reinhardt did, saying that Mr. Wolfinger was murdered by the Indians in the night.

  At this, a great stir went round the camp.

  The friendship between our German folks wasn’t taken much note of in the original train of close on a thousand folks, nor in the large company led by Colonel Russell. But in our little company of fewer than forty adults, mistrust and suspicion had clouded the air from the start. There were those among us who were as pleasant as all get-out to one another’s faces, but speaking right malicious about them behind their backs. And to have six or seven of the company sitting together night after night and talking in their own language and laughing among themselves was taken something amiss.