The snow fell like feathers shaken from a torn pillow, choking and blinding us. The trail fell away at one side into a deep canyon, but the snow whirled so mad in the air that we could hardly make out where the road ended and the canyon began, and every step we took might be our last. The path rose up ahead of us, a steep sheet of ice beneath the slippery covering of the snow; the animals could not find their feet. Mr. Keseberg yelled at the beeves, “Hup! Hup!” He staggered his way forward to grab at the leader’s head, and guide him up the slope, but the animal fell, pulling another with it, and I heard the crack of a bone breaking.
Those ahead abandoned their wagons and fled away past us, scrambling their way back down the mountain and screaming at us to do the same. In blind terror we joined them. Sliding and falling, we went helter-skelter back the way we had come.
25
By the time we got back to the lake, Mrs. Murphy had set up a fire in the shelter of a tall rock and brewed up coffee for all; and we stood round in sober little groups, drinking our coffee, and talking over what we should do.
Mr. Breen thought that the only course of action was to wait out the storm. It was well known that the bad weather did not settle in until after Thanksgiving, and that was three weeks yet. Within a day or two, he said, the weather would change, and we could resume our journey, and we thought he was right.
With everything we owned left up on the mountain, we had to beg for shelter. There was a tumbledown cabin near the shore, that looked like it had been used by trappers, and the Breens moved in there and let us sleep in their wagon along with Mr. Dolan. We were within sight of the Murphys’ two wagons, drawn up by the big rock a few hundred yards away, but the Graveses got back in their wagon and took themselves as far away from us as they could manage. Being such a big family, they were not in need of company, I guess, and they never had been sociable. They were still sore about John Snyder’s death, and above all I reckon Mrs. Graves disliked the thought of an Irishman being deferred to, and his advice taken.
With our delay, we thought to see the Donners, and those who had been traveling with them, catch up with us at the lake camp, but they did not. So the next afternoon, Mr. Stanton and the Mexicos set out with a couple of the mules and headed back to Alder Creek; returning a couple of days later with Mrs. Reed and her family and servants.
Mr. George Donner’s injury hadn’t healed well, and he was abed with a fever, too ill to be moved. He had sent a note by way of Mr. Stanton, authorizing the purchase of more beeves and provisions. The plan was that once we got through the pass, we would send back such supplies, and in a week or two the Donners and the rest would follow us. The plan seemed sound, for next day it began to rain in torrents, washing away the few inches of snow that surrounded us in the camp, and it was decided to resume our journey.
The last steep climb up to the pass was a difficult one and would need double-teaming to get the wagons up, but the few remaining beeves were skin and bone, and exhausted to the point of death. It made more sense for those with no wagons and no animals to complete the journey on foot and follow Mr. Donner’s idea, to send back provisions and animals to enable the rest of the families, and our wagons, to be brought safe home.
Those who decided to set off with us were Mr. Breen, leaving his family behind to wait for his return; Mr. and Mrs. Eddy and their two little ones; and Mr. Stanton and the Mexicos, to show us the way. Mrs. Reed’s party was to come with us; and Mrs. McCutcheon and her little girl, Harriet. Mrs. McCutcheon’s wagon was left up on the mountain, with her team hitched up, so she thought to walk up with us, and either continue with us through the pass, or else claim her wagon and bring it back down to the camp.
Mr. Dolan offered to come along with her, to help her either way; and of course, Mrs. Keseberg nodded her head to Mrs. Eddy at this news, for it seemed to prove the truth of their rumor-mongering.
* * *
It was decided that we should start out as early as possible the next morning. So, at first light, we started up to load the animals ready for our journey. Mr. Stanton had made a rule about loading up the animals and it was this: that each person could bring what supplies of food they had, and a few necessities for when they reached the other side. He meant light things like a bag of coins, or a change of clothing, but everyone had a different idea of what they should take.
As well as the last of her provisions, Mrs. Reed had brought a bale of calico and some books back from the Donners’ camp, and now she pitched up with them, saying that she would need them to trade when we reached Sutter’s Fort. Mr. Dolan was wanting to pack his tobacco box, though he had no tobacco left in it, and Milt Elliott his rifle, though he was a right poor shot and in any case had no ammunition. Poor Mr. Stanton was everyone’s enemy, saying no, no, to each and every silly thing.
“Necessities only! Just what is needed for a few days!” was his cry, but he was ignored altogether.
We were to carry the babies and toddlers, with the rest of the little children up on the mules. We thought to take two or three of the stronger beeves to carry our goods, but not being pack animals, they bucked and fought our efforts to load them. It meant that we did not start until the early afternoon, with bad feeling already in the air.
In our first tumble back down the mountain, Mr. Keseberg had injured his bad foot even further, and now he was unable to walk any distance at all. He was put up on a mule, with his foot in a kind of sling. He had Baby tied in a blanket on his back, and took the smaller children up in front of him in turns, to give the women a rest, and Mrs. Keseberg and I took it in turns to carry Ada.
So once again we set off on our journey up the mountain.
The rain that had fallen so hard in the camp hadn’t reached here, and to our dismay the way was still deep in snow, but it was froze pretty hard and we could walk on it without sinking too far in. Even so, every step was hard labor, and before long we were hot from the labor and cold from the snow at the same time. But we plodded on, and by the time darkness came, we were only a mile or so from the pass.
All of us were shaking with fatigue and the children fractious and crying, so it was decided to stop and eat something before carrying on. We’d come up to where the abandoned wagons still stood, a sorry sight with the canvases caved in from the amount of snow that had settled on them. Mr. Keseberg dismounted from his mule, and he and the other men went and unhitched the teams. The animal that had broke its leg, and its companion that had fallen with it, were dead. And as soon as they were set free of their halters, the remaining animals ran away down the mountain, despite our best efforts to catch them.
Our resting place was a shallow depression in the snow, with some young pine trees dotted here and there. Virginia and I stirred ourselves enough to collect cones, and when we had an apron-full we set them round the base of one of the small trees, and Mr. Dolan got out his tinderbox and set them alight. They caught up something beautiful. It was a fine sight, to see those comforting little flames, for it was freezing hard by now. After a few minutes the tree itself caught alight and blazed up, casting a welcome warmth upon us all.
Some food was got out and we all ate something, and then we sat for a while gazing at the fire and complaining how tired we all were, and how much our legs ached with the trudge through the snow. Someone said how nice it would be to stay here in front of the fire, and someone else said that it would make sense to put off the rest of the journey until the morning, when we would be fresh and make good time. One by one we wrapped ourselves warmer in our shawls and the blankets and quilts we had brought with us, and nodded our heads in the heat of the fire. Some of the little children lay down with their heads on their mothers’ laps, and fell fast asleep.
I was brought to by my arm being shaken, and a pinch, and a voice in my ear. I had shut my eyes but for a moment, I thought, but now a hazy moon stood full above me, and Mr. Keseberg was calling me, “Wake up, wake up!” He was shaking Mrs. Keseberg, too, and raising his voice for all to hear.
�
��Don’t stop! If we stop, we will never get through! Wake up, wake up!”—at the top of his voice—“we must carry on as long as we can, no matter what!”
“It is easy for you to say that,” come the drowsy reply from Mr. Eddy, “for you are riding on a mule and the rest of us walking and you do not know how tired we are!”
At that, Mr. Stanton joined his voice to Mr. Keseberg’s. “Look, we can be through the pass in an hour or two. When we get through it the journey on the other side is easier, and then we can rest, but we must carry on and get through the pass while we can.”
He got the same reply—“You are up on your horse and it is not the same hardship for you.”
* * *
I wonder at our slowness to act and get across the pass come what may.
At the start of our journey, when Mr. Reed was persuading all to take the short route, he and the two Mr. Donners and the other men had read through Mr. Hastings’s guide time and again. In there, it said beyond doubt that the winter snows did not set in until well after Thanksgiving. This was a pure fact, known to everyone who set out on the journey, and even though we could see the snow with our own eyes, it was another pure fact that Mr. Stanton and the Mexicos had returned from California and assured us that the pass was still open.
So, even though we had experienced the storm on the mountain previous, and even though we were walking through snow that was far deeper than we had anticipated, most of us seemed unable to truly comprehend the danger we were in. It was as if everyone’s hearts and minds were still in the safety of their homes back East, where the weather was just something to be grumbled at, because it made the sidewalks slippery or a few chickens perish in the frost. Not one of us took it serious; not one of us understood that the weather does not go by Man’s calendar.
The snow did not think to itself, “I have come too early and will depart with my head down in shame.” It did not say, “I will wait until after Thanksgiving, for that is when I am expected.” Like an unwelcome guest, it arrived too early and stayed too long, and never cared what we thought of it.
So we all lay ourselves back down in the snow, willful ignorant of the danger we were in, and fell asleep.
And it snowed.
I opened my eyes to whiteness; nothing more. It took me a moment to understand that I was beneath the snow; jerking upright I found nothing around me but a desolate, deserted landscape. Had all departed in the night, leaving me to perish alone on the mountain? I cried out at the thought.
Beside me the snow heaved. Mr. Keseberg’s head came up and he gave a great shout himself, jumping up and brushing the snow from where it had hidden him. One by one the others followed suit. We were like souls rising from their graves on the Day of Judgment. And our doom was plain to see.
For the animals had been left untethered overnight and had run away and vanished, taking our scant provisions with them. The snow was so deep that we could scarce move one foot ahead of the other, and now the way across the pass was barred to us all.
* * *
We arrived back at the lake for a second time with our heads bowed under the shame of our failure. Those folks who still had wagons took shelter in them, and those of us with none crowded into the Breens’ cabin, or took shelter in their wagon once more. But we had sixty souls to find shelter for, and wagons are not made to be houses; they did not keep out the bitter cold, and we could not sleep night after night crammed in together like pickles in ajar. So it was decided that we would set to and construct cabins; as many as could be made with the materials to hand.
We had tools, and the wagons were constructed so that they could be taken to pieces and the boards and canvases put to good use. But we had so very few of them. Of the twenty or more wagons we had started out with, all that remained was the two that the Murphys had managed to get through, two belonging to the Breens, and two belonging to the Graveses.
There were pine trees about us, too many to count, and they could be felled and used—if we had men strong and fit enough to undertake the labor. But we had lost so many of our number, through death or departure. Of those left, half perhaps were sick or injured, or too elderly to be much use. Ten men fit enough for the work was all we had. And as for the rest of us, what were we? Five or six hearty women, no more; a half dozen of us older children. A couple of nursing mothers, with babies and toddlers. And a whole army of little children, looking to us for their every need.
26
Once we accepted that we had to make camp for the winter, and that our journey was over for a while, we were, in some strange way, content. After so long traveling, we were heartily sick of it; I for one, for it was close on ten months since I had set off from Cincinnati. We had no real reason to fear what would become of us—the interruption to our journey was an inconvenience, but we thought ourselves well enough provided for. The snow around us in the camp was but little; we had food enough to last—if we were careful—for a few weeks until the snow stopped and the pass was open again. Before us, the lake stretched away into the far distance, filled with fish, no doubt. Surrounding us was mile after mile of tree-covered valleys and hills reaching to the horizon; a vast forest filled with game. And at every dawn and dusk, long skeins of ducks and geese went arrowing across the great empty skies above our heads.
So on that first morning we began the work of constructing our cabins with something like eagerness in our hearts.
The day started sunny and blowy. After breakfast was done, a couple of the men set to felling the trees. The older boys trimmed off the branches, and then the mules were hitched up to haul the trunks across to the building site. Here, a couple of the women notched the ends so they would fit together, and the remainder of the men lifted them into place.
The smaller children were set to collect stones to make the hearths and chimneys. And under the direction of Mr. Eddy, the rest of us started to dismantle the Graveses’ wagons, to use the planks and canvases for their cabin floor and the roof.
At first, it seemed a simple enough task. We got on quite quick; and we were merry enough, thinking that we would be provided with cabins for all in just a matter of a few days.
Of course, it did not work like this at all. As with near enough everything we did, and even in the most compelling of circumstance, it seemed we could not undertake one task without disputes and fallings-out; and although the first cabin we set to work upon was that of the Graves family, it was the Graveses who caused the first falling-out.
Mary and Eleanor Graves had been left to tend the campfire and keep coffee on the go, and make the dinner. As the morning went along the sky clouded over. A bitter wind got up, and snow started drifting in the air once more. The two girls disappeared into the shelter of one of the Breens’ wagons where they primped up their curls and gossiped, paying no mind to their task.
The fire went out, and when we stopped at midday there was no hot coffee or food prepared. There was a great argument about whose fault it was, with the two girls blaming each other and the rest of us furious.
After we had sat a little over what we could find to eat, leftover corn bread and cold beans, we returned to our task. But the good feeling of working hand in hand was gone. And now the months and months of relentless hard labor that had been our lot came to bear on all of us something terrible. The tree fellers stopped to rest more and more, and worked slower and slower, until in the middle of the afternoon they came to a halt altogether. Mrs. Breen called them into her cabin, and brewed up some hot tea, and made them grits and peas.
Mrs. Eddy and Mrs. McCutcheon gave up their work and got a fire going again, and brewed coffee and made biscuits for the rest of us, for by then all of us were near weeping with cold and hunger. After we’d eaten something, and a little warmed, we went back to our task. By now the daylight was fading fast. The women with nursing babies had to feed them, and the mothers of the little children needed to give them their suppers and to get them to bed. But the rest of us battled on.
Me and Virgi
nia and Meriam, along with Landrum and Lemuel, went back over to the tree felling. There were a dozen or so felled trees, with the tops chopped off and left in a great heap to one side, branches and cones and needles all tangled together and the trunks hauled out into a clearing, waiting to be trimmed. So we picked up the axes and saws ourselves and began trimming these away as best we could; as each one was finished, we hitched up the mules to haul it over to the building site, where William Graves and his father rolled the trunks away.
The Graveses having elected to set themselves up such a distance from the rest of us meant that they were a long way from the tree felling. Back and forth we went until all the trunks were shifted, our feet frozen, our fingers blistered and bleeding from splinters and nicks, and our hands red raw with the cold. I swear we walked a couple of miles or more in that way, which we need never have done, had the Graveses had more of a neighbor spirit in them, or if we had less.
After a while Mr. Keseberg and Mr. Stanton appeared and set up the sawhorses, and then the rest of the men gradually came out to join them. Between them they got the trunks sawn to size, and the ends notched, and lifted them into place.
Once the walls of the cabin were up, a couple of planks were laid across the top, and the canvases nailed on to make a roof, and the rest of the wagon planks carried in and laid to make the floor.
At this, the rest of the Graves children came swarming round and carried in all the rest of the articles that had been stored in the wagon. And the very minute their last bit of possessions were in, Mrs. Graves called all her family inside, and the door banged shut behind them. They lighted their fire, and put their coffeepot on it, and set to cook themselves a dinner. And all this with not a word of thanks or the offer of a cup of coffee to all the folks that had helped them so willing.
When Winter Comes Page 16
