When Winter Comes

by V. A. Shannon

  It was a sad thing to look at so many tiny flames quivering in the draft and threatening to blow out at any minute, and a sober one, too, as we all thought of how our own lives could be blown out in an instant, by one gust of a chill wind.

  We said a special prayer for the safety of the Donners, away at Alder Creek. And I thought of them, keeping company with their dead, sitting there on this Christmas Night in the black darkness, snow as far as the eye could see in every direction, and no sound but that of the wind ghosting through the treetops.

  When our prayers were finished and we lifted our heads, we all seemed filled with God’s Grace; and when Mr. Breen finished speaking we hugged one another and wished each other a Merry Christmas. For that little space, bad words were forgotten and animosities put aside.

  Mr. Keseberg cried, “Next Christmas we will be safe and merry in California!” and there was laughter and kind words spoken.

  All had found a tiny helping of food to bring with them, a handful of flour for some biscuits or a spoonful of molasses, some grits or beans. Even Mrs. Graves stepped up with some coffee and a bit of sugar, but the highlight of our feast was contributed by Mrs. Eddy: meat, come from a bear that Mr. Eddy had killed some days before he left. And this was when I heard the tale of Mr. Eddy and the bear.

  Despite his avowal that there was no game left in the mountains, one day Mr. Eddy had gone hunting and found the trail of a bear. He began tracking it, gun cocked and ready for the kill. But the bear was just as cunning as Mr. Eddy and somehow snuck round the back of him. It started out with Mr. Eddy tracking the bear and thinking what a fine dinner he would have, and ended with the bear chasing Mr. Eddy and thinking the same.

  Off they went, Mr. Eddy running for his life and the bear lumbering behind, growling and showing his teeth. They came to a great tree, and Mr. Eddy ran round the tree and the bear ran after him. Faster and faster they ran, until in the end Mr. Eddy ran round so fast that he caught up with the bear and shot him in the back.

  I think I never laughed so much. We all cheered Mr. Eddy, and wished him luck in crossing the mountain, and thought kindly of him. With all his high tales of his bravery and great deeds, it was a story that made fun of him that made us like and admire him the most.

  When the merriment was over and we were making ready to depart, Mr. Breen suggested that we make one last prayer to give thanks for our survival so far. It was a hard prayer to make, and I was not the only one to feel so.

  He finished with these words. “Jesus said, ‘Suffer the little children to come unto me.’ He did not mean that they should suffer, as our children are suffering now. He meant that they should be allowed to turn to Him, for comfort and protection; and I say to all, remember that God’s Grace shines upon us, even in our darkest hour.”

  * * *

  It seemed that these words in particular sat heavy on Mrs. Murphy’s mind. When we crossed into the Murphy cabin next morning it was to find Mrs. Murphy taken to her bed, much distressed. Landrum told me she had repeated Mr. Breen’s words over and over when they got back into their cabin, and she repeated them many times again throughout the course of that Christmas Day.

  For our Christmas meal, the children had bones, boiled and then roasted, to gnaw on. The water they were boiled in was what we had, nothing but a thin broth with a few scraps of meat from a beeve’s tail floating in it.

  To give the children some amusement, and to divert ourselves from the hunger that beset our every waking minute, it was decided that each person should tell a story. Mrs. Eddy told the story of Jesus born in a stable, and Mr. Keseberg one about a lady who lived in the sea, with a fish tail instead of legs, and how she longed to live on the land and marry a prince. Landrum told a tale of when he was a little boy. He tried to stay awake all night to see Santa Claus, but fell asleep and dreamed about having his face washed, and woke up to find that his Christmas gift was a puppy licking his ear. The children all laughed at this, and then it was my turn.

  I wished most heartily that it wasn’t. I knew no stories at all, and my memories of Christmas were mostly about drunkenness and thievery and the rest, and not fit to share with anyone. I usually spent the day walking the streets of the town, pressing my face against the shop windows to see the counters piled high with fine things and wishing I had them. But I had to say something, and so this was the story I told.

  “Back home in Cincinnati,” I said, “in the big house where I used to live, with my brothers and sisters and Papa and Mama, in every room there would be a big fire blazing in the hearth, the flames leaping and crackling, so hot you can hardly get near it.

  “After breakfast we would put on our warm coats, and Papa would take all us children out to the common ground by the town pond, to watch the folks skating on the ice. A man would be roasting chestnuts over hot coals nearby, and the air would smell like burnt wood and something sweet, too. And my papa would put his hand in his pocket and bring out enough money to buy a great bag of these chestnuts, and we would peel them and eat them while we listened to the German band.

  “Afterward, we would go home, where Mama had been cooking for days beforehand, and there would be too many pies to count. Every which sort of pie,” I said, “with a butter crust and a filling all of sugar and nuts, or apples with a twist of lemon rind dipped in sugar sat on the top.

  “For our dinner we’d have a great goose with onions round, and potatoes roasted in butter and dripping fat. For pudding we’d have sugarplums and marzipan and little cookies made with sugar and spices; and oranges, that Papa would bring us off the boats, for he worked as a hauler down on the quayside and could lay his hands on near enough anything.”

  The children looked at me wide-eyed. Some of them had never seen an orange. “It’s a fruit,” I said, “round like a ball and the same color as a pumpkin.”

  I told them how it was ate: cut in half with a lump of white sugar put on the top and the flesh dug out with a spoon. And I tell them it’s sweet, sweeter than molasses, sweeter than honey, sweeter than anything you have ever eaten in your life before.

  “So sweet it makes your eyes water!” I said, screwing up my face to make them laugh.

  Margaret Eddy had been sat on my lap through this story, leaning against me with her doll hugged to her, and half-asleep. But now she sat up straight and put her hands to each side of my face, gazing intently into my eyes. “Can I have one?” she asked, patting my cheeks. “Can I have one? One of the sugar cookies?”

  “Oh, sweetheart, I don’t have any to give you!”

  Margaret burst out crying. “I want one!” she sobbed. “I want an orange, and one of those sugar cookies!” and scrambled down from my lap and ran over to her mother.

  Mrs. Eddy took me to task. She said, “Oh, how can you torment the children so, with this tale of sugarplums and oranges and great fires?” But I knew no other story I could tell, for I was right ashamed of the truth of it. Our Christmas was spent with Ma asleep and snoring drunk and Pa still in the alehouse, drunk as well, and no great fires or a table heaped with good things.

  The ice skating part was something true. I’d take my brothers with me, and they’d lurk somewhere out of the way, while I went and asked folks if they’d like me to watch their belongings for a dime while they were off on the ice. There was always some fellow wanting to leave a heavy coat so that he could show off his fine figure with some swoops and leaps.

  As soon as this fellow had got well out onto the ice, and was too busy admiring himself to notice what we were up to, my brothers would head off with the coat in one direction, and I’d head off with my dime in the other.

  A dime would buy a good big bagful of those hot chestnuts. I bought them with the proceeds of thievery and lying, but I’d cared nothing for that. They were the whole extent of my Christmas dinner; and right good they’d tasted, too.

  I guess Mr. Keseberg could see that my story was a long way from the truth, for when I had pitched up at his wagon I must have been looking very far from wel
l-fed and well cared for. He looked at me very sober, and when no one was paying us much mind, he reached out and squeezed my hand.

  Mrs. Murphy lay quiet in her bed most of the day, and it was clear that the remembering of happy Christmases past, and the thought of her children out there on the mountain and alive or dead we did not know, weighed her down something terrible. At suppertime, when there was nothing to eat but a few grains of rice boiled in water, she turned her face to the wall, and sobbed quietly to herself.

  William Murphy took down the Bible and read aloud and that quieted her somewhat. But I think that was the point when her heart broke; and she never came back full to herself again. For from that day she hardly stirred, lying silent most of the day, rousing herself only to feed little Catherine.

  How that poor baby survived I cannot say. She was fed on no more than a few tiny spoonsful of flour and water. To see her sucking feebly on this thin paste and to know that there was not a drop of nourishment in it, and that once it was gone there was no more, was a terrible sight to see. Mrs. Murphy’s heart was broke with the misery of Christmas, and fear for her children; but as the weeks wore on I think it was the sight of Catherine’s baby face, once so rosy bright but now withering away like a little winter apple, and to see her lying listless in her cradle, too weak even to cry, that broke Mrs. Murphy’s spirit.

  * * *

  Christmas marked the point when all fortunes turned bad. A day or so afterward we woke one morning to find Mr. Burger sweating with a fever, muttering to himself in a hoarse, gasping voice, and breaking into little snatches of song.

  It was plain to see that he was ready to die. Mr. Keseberg sat next to him and took his hand, speaking to him right soft. He told him that he would never forget him, and said a prayer over him, and I think this comforted Mr. Burger somewhat, and he quietened down.

  After a few minutes, he turned to me and said, clear as anything, “I haven’t forgot that green ribbon, sweetheart.” Then he turned his head away, and muttered something in German that I did not understand, and died. Mr. Keseberg bent and kissed his friend on the forehead, with tears streaming down his face.

  Mr. Keseberg said that Mr. Burger had wanted him to have all his possessions, and he vowed to treasure them all his days. But the next day, when we were at the Murphys’ cabin, Mr. Spitzer went into the lean-to and helped himself to Mr. Burger’s good overcoat and his waistcoat, too.

  Mr. Keseberg was as angry as I have ever seen him, and took his fist to Mr. Spitzer and knocked him clean to the ground.

  Mr. Keseberg didn’t spread the story of why he hit Mr. Spitzer, but of course folks asked where he got the black eye; and Mr. Spitzer told a tale to all. He said that he went into our lean-to on purpose to look for evidence regarding Mr. Wolfinger’s death, and he was right to do so, for he had found Mr. Wolfinger’s rifle. This proved, or so he would have it, that he, Mr. Spitzer, had been falsely accused and was innocent of all wrongdoing. And he said that when he challenged Mr. Keseberg about it, Mr. Keseberg had hit him.

  Yet again the cabins buzzed with gossip about Mr. Keseberg. In all our misery and despair, I wonder yet that Mr. Spitzer wanted to thieve and lie, and that the rest wanted to think about murder. Surely there was death enough for all, without raking up more.

  31

  Help did not come; help did not come. When the Snowshoes left, we calculated that we had enough food to last until a rescue party arrived. We calculated two weeks—three at the most. But those three weeks had come and gone long since.

  Folks were driven to desperate measures. Mrs. Reed was no exception, and she arrived at our door one morning asking for our help. She was setting out to cross the mountain, on foot, in her light summer clothes, with no provisions of any kind—this was her plan. Virginia was going with her, but she wanted us to look after her smaller children, for even she could see that the little ones would not get through.

  We agreed to take five-year-old James, and his little brother Tom. It was the only thing we could do to help, though of course we begged her not to go. We thought her demented—perhaps she was—for a more foolish plan there could not have been.

  Milt Elliott was going, and now, lanky William Graves surprised us all, just like his father had done previous with his help regarding the snowshoes. He told us that, following John Snyder’s death, Mr. Graves had made a pledge to Mr. Reed, to look out for Mrs. Reed and the children. This was a great mystery. Perhaps on reflection Mr. Graves had felt that there was fault on both sides: that John Snyder had tormented Mr. Reed, or that his blow to Mrs. Reed had been something deliberate. However it had come about, I would hazard that Mrs. Graves had nothing to do with this pledge, and once Mr. Graves left with the Snowshoes, I think she decided that the promise had gone with him, for she tormented Mrs. Reed at every opportunity she could get. But now, William Graves said that he would honor his father’s pledge to look out for the Reeds, and if Mrs. Reed insisted on leaving, then he would keep her company on her journey.

  Eliza Williams set off with them, though with great reluctance, and she was back near as quick as she started, saying that the journey was pure foolishness. Sure enough, a few days later they all returned, ill and shaking with the cold, and the two men carrying Virginia between them, for so bad froze were her feet that she could hardly stand.

  When they returned, they were worse off than when they started. For, the minute they left the camp, before they were even out of sight, Mrs. Graves took her canvas off Mrs. Reed’s roof. Mrs. Graves also took the few hides that Mrs. Reed had saved from the slaughtered cattle, and that she had attempted to use to make her roof more watertight.

  The rain and the snow blew in and destroyed what little bedding and clothing were left. With nothing much to hold them together, the walls tumbled down as well. When the Reeds finally stumbled back into camp, it was to complete destitution. And Mrs. Reed came to our door again.

  We spent so much of our time at the Murphy cabin that maybe Mrs. Reed thought our lean-to was abandoned, and reckoned to take it over, but it was not the case. We still had our small bits of belongings stored in there, what we had managed to salvage from the wagon, and we still slept in there at night. So Mrs. Reed applied to the Breens instead; and although their cabin was filled to bursting, those good souls took the Reed family in with them.

  For several days there was much going back and forth between the Breens’ cabin and that of the Graveses as Mr. Breen tried to persuade Mrs. Graves to return the canvas and the hides. But Mrs. Graves refused him in round terms, thinking, I suppose, that having the hides here and now was worth more than promises of gold in California. And for the first and only time, I heard that good man, Mr. Breen, rail against another in our party, despairing of the cruelty and hardness of the woman.

  It was as well that Mrs. Reed and Virginia did not move into the lean-to. One night, something woke me. Not the wind gusting about us—it was a still, silent night. I lay for a moment, wondering what it could be. Not Baby, not Ada—both asleep next to their ma, and Mr. Keseberg asleep, too, lying with his head on his arm. The quilt that covered him had slipped down some, and I reached out to pull it over him more, when the noise come again. I flew up out of my covers, and crouched there, my heart pounding in my chest.

  My fear was the wolves. For the last few nights we had heard them howling somewhere in the distance and we thought it only a matter of time before they came right into the camp.

  I imagined poking my head round the canvas that formed the door of our lean-to and seeing those yellow eyes gleaming at me. Mr. Keseberg’s tales of wolves that dressed themselves up in grandmother’s clothes suddenly didn’t seem near so amusing. But it wasn’t a wolf that had woke me up. The noise came again, a long, creaking groan. Something brushed past my face, and I looked up, just in time to see the canvas above me rip apart. A torrent of snow began cascading through our roof.

  I screamed, “Wake up! Wake up!” I grabbed at Mr. Keseberg, shaking and shaking him. Even as he woke and j
umped to his feet, there was a thunderous crack. The timbers that formed the wall of our lean-to broke across. Timbers, canvas, snow, and all came tumbling down around us.

  I grabbed the children and Mr. Keseberg grabbed his wife. We scrambled out of the way just in time, as the whole construction came crashing to the ground.

  In the front of our lean-to the snow had been packed hard where we’d walked in and out so many times, and the same with pathways through the camp to one cabin or another. But flying out, we discovered that this little area was quite disappeared. Instead there was snow higher than our heads, and we had to claw and fight our way up to the surface. The moon was up, and it shone on entirely flat land. Where the cabins used to be was nothing. And where the lake met the land could not be told.

  We were right next to the Breens, we knew for a fact. We must have been stood right aside their door, but there was nothing of them to be seen. Next moment, we heard some muffled conversation, what seemed to be coming from below us, and then we could make out a shape in the snow that proved to be the top of their chimney. Mrs. Keseberg left the two of us holding the children, and stepped across and shouted down the chimney.

  “Mrs. Breen! Mrs. Breen! You are all covered in snow so deep we cannot see you! And we are out here with our lean-to collapsed and the children like to freeze to death!”

  Mr. Keseberg called to her, “Tell them to poke up a broom or such to show us where their door is!” A moment later a stick with a kerchief tied to the end came heaving up out of the snow.

  I grabbed the canvas from the ruin of our lean-to, and as many blankets as I could recover, and wrapped the children up tight and pulled the canvas over them. Then Mr. and Mrs. Keseberg and I used our hands to scoop away at the snow where the Breens’ door should have been.