“Watch out!” It was Sergeant Tuttle. Josh whirled around. Three bulls burst out of the trees right behind them. “They can smell the blood,” Tuttle shouted, throwing his musket up to his shoulder. He fired and a puff of smoke rolled outward from the barrel. There was a grunt and the lead bull went down, its muzzle plowing a track in the riverbed. The other two swerved, one to the right and one to the left, the latter coming directly toward Josh. He fumbled for his rifle, which was still tangled in its sling from when he had lain down with it. He freed it and snapped off a shot. The bull, no more than ten feet away, jumped and flashed past him.
Now the noise of rifle shots, screams, bellows, and cries was everywhere. A horrible sound split the air. Josh whirled, reloading even as his eyes took in what was happening. The bull that had overturned the wagon now turned on the mule team. The overturning wagon had caught the mules in the traces and they were down, all tangled up with one another. The bull stood over the nearest mule, its head down and one horn buried almost to its full length in the mule’s belly. With astonishing speed, the bull withdrew, its horn showing bright red, then lunged again and gored the mule a second time. Another horrible shriek was torn from the fatally wounded animal.
Beside Josh a man dropped to one knee, took aim, and fired. The bull leaped sideways, then fell to its knees, bellowing wildly. Finally it rolled over, almost landing on the mule that it had just killed.
Josh swung around. Bulls were coming out of the underbrush too quickly to count now. Eight! Ten! A dozen! The air was filled with dust, and it was difficult to see clearly in all directions. But one thing was evident. This was not just a stampede. Tuttle was right. These were animals infuriated by the smell of the blood of their own kind. They were thundering masses of destruction, bent on charging and destroying anything that moved.
Josh saw a younger bull whirl in full stride as it caught sight of Amos Cox, one of Josh’s fellow privates in Company D. Cox was running as hard as he could in the soft sand, trying to reach the protection of a wagon. It was incredible to Josh that the huge bull could move so quickly. Josh yelled, but Cox either didn’t hear or was so intent on escape that it didn’t register. He was fast—sheer terror adding greatly to his speed—but he wasn’t fast enough. In four or five great leaps the beast reached Cox. Again there was that terrible sweep of horns, the massive upthrust of the shaggy head. Cox screamed as he went flying over the bull’s back. There was a flash of red on the horn and Josh knew that his friend had been gored.
The bull swung around, spraying dirt and dust and gouging great furrows with its hooves. It had its victim down and was ready to finish what it had started. There wasn’t time to think. There wasn’t time to aim. Josh raised the rifle and fired as the animal started slowly forward. It flinched heavily; then, bawling like a steamboat’s whistle, it turned and ran back into the brush.
Josh dropped to one knee again, frantically groping for a cartridge. There was another scream. Just ten yards away a bull had a man pinned up against a wagon. Fortunately the man was between the horns. He was yelling and screaming and beating on the animal’s head. Another man ran up and fired point-blank into the bull’s head. It went down. The man went down as well, writhing on the ground in agony.
“Josh! Behind you!”
Again Josh whipped around at Tuttle’s cry. Another bull burst from the thicket and was headed straight for him. For one split second, Josh froze. He was still loading the musket and had no chance for a shot. He saw the crazed eyes and the nostrils flaring like bellows. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the puff of smoke from Tuttle’s rifle, and he heard the explosion; but Tuttle missed and the bull came on, puffing and snorting. For one instant Josh thought about Amos Cox trying to outrun the beast; then his instincts took over. He fell on his musket, throwing his arms over his head. He felt the ground tremble and heard the pounding hooves bearing down on him. Then for a moment they stopped and he felt something graze his shoulder and dirt rain down on him. There was a great thud, and then the pounding of hooves moved away from him. The animal, losing its moving target, had jumped over what was now no more than a log and raced on, looking for something else to destroy.
As Josh turned his head to see what had happened, three men shot the animal at the same time. It ran another ten yards, sloshing into the river, then finally went down with a tremendous splash.
“Whoo-ee!” Tuttle said, running up and helping Josh to his feet. “That was close.”
“You’re telling me?” Josh gasped, still not sure that he was all right. Not wanting to make the same mistake again, he started jamming another cartridge in the musket as he tried to recover his breath.
There was a shout from behind them, and they both spun around. Downstream a few rods, Colonel Cooke was riding his white mule, racing up and down, shouting commands. Yet another bull had exploded out of the underbrush. It was enormous, the largest yet, and was as black as the inside of a hog’s belly. It trotted forward, swinging its head back and forth, puffing like a railroad engine. Colonel Cooke instantly pulled his mule to a halt so as not to draw attention to himself. Then suddenly a man came running out in front of him.
Someone yelled for the man to hold still, but he trotted onward another eight or ten paces. Seeing the movement, the bull roared, lowered its head, and leaped forward. It headed straight for the moving figure. As Josh peered more closely he recognized Corporal Lafayette Frost of A Company. The corporal stopped, planted his feet, then calmly raised his rifle and took aim.
The bull had come out of the brush about a hundred yards from Colonel Cooke. Now with blinding speed it had cut that distance by half. Everyone froze at the sight of this single man standing calmly as he waited for the animal’s charge.
“Load your weapon, Corporal!” Colonel Cooke shouted, thinking that the soldier had obeyed orders and was marching with his weapon unloaded. Frost didn’t move. He stood there as cool and unruffled as if he were watching a pheasant come out of the weeds instead of twelve hundred pounds of raging fury. Frost waved an arm, as though he didn’t want the bull to lose sight of him.
Cooke swore, thinking the corporal was so terrified that he had lost his senses. “Run, you fool!” he screamed.
Corporal Frost moved only enough to lower his head and sight down the barrel. The huge beast was down to thirty yards and was closing with breathtaking swiftness.
“Run!” someone else shouted.
Frost stood his ground. Then, just as it was certain that the bull was on him, Frost fired. He must have hit it squarely between the eyes, for the bull dropped as if someone had cut its legs out from under it. It slammed into the ground in a great cloud of dust. For a moment, Josh couldn’t see what had happened, and then the dust slowly dissipated. Corporal Frost stood where he had been before, the only discernible change being that his rifle was lowered now. Barely six paces directly in front of him the bull was in its last death struggle, the legs jerking spasmodically.
Chapter Notes
Whole novels and books could be written—and have been—about the incredible march of the Mormon Battalion. The details given in this chapter all come from the various journals but are only a small portion of what these Latter-day Saints experienced on their way to California (see MB,pp. 70–85; CHMB,pp. 165–207; SW,pp. 232–93).
On 3 December 1846 the Mormon Battalion reached Rancho San Bernardino (not the same as the current San Bernardino in California but located just below the present Mexican-U.S. border near the state line dividing Arizona and New Mexico). Before they reached the deserted ranch, they began seeing hundreds of wild cattle, mostly bulls. Eight days later as they were marching along the San Pedro River, dozens of wild bulls suddenly shot out of the brush and attacked men, animals, and wagons. One mule was killed, a wagon was tipped over, and three men were injured. A bull ran Amos Cox down and gored him in his leg. Witnesses say he was tossed ten feet into the air, completely over the bull’s back. Albert Smith was hit by a bull but managed to stay between its horns. He
was badly bruised and suffered three broken ribs. One lieutenant, while frantically trying to reload, dropped two cartridges into the chamber of his rifle. One exploded, taking off the upper joint of his thumb. Levi Fifield was charged by a bull, but he dropped to the ground. The bull jumped over him and ran on, leaving him very frightened but without injury. It is not known how many bulls were actually killed in what came to be known as “The Battle of the Bulls.” Two men counted nine carcasses in one spot. Some said at least twenty were killed and two or three times that many wounded. (See MB,pp. 94–95; CHMB,pp. 219–21.)
Colonel Cooke himself would later say, according to battalion member William Coray, that the march of the Mormon Battalion “had not a parallel in the world” (cited in MB,p. 121). This is an exaggeration born of Cooke’s personal enthusiasm, but there is no question but what in U.S. annals it is one of the longest infantry marches in history, if not the longest.
Chapter 33
In Winter Quarters, Christmas Day 1846 began with a rousing boom. John Scott, who was in charge of the Church’s three small cannons, took them up on the bluff and fired off each one just as the sun rose over Winter Quarters. Many people were already up by then, and they poured out of their houses to see what was happening. When they realized it was because of Christmas, there were cheerful cries of “Happy Christmas,” “Merry Christmas,” and “Christmas Gift” all up and down the street.
Nathan stepped back inside the house as Lydia appeared from behind the blanket that separated their sleeping area from the children’s. She was in her nightdress and looked very sleepy. He smiled. For Lydia, rising was always a slow process. He went to her and took her in his arms. “Happy Christmas, Lydia.”
She pried one eye open wider. “Was that what that was?”
He nodded, chuckling.
Emily peeked out from behind the blanket that partitioned off their “bedroom.” “Happy Christmas, Papa.”
“Christmas Gift,” he answered.
Nathan left immediately after breakfast. He stopped for a moment in front of their hut and took a deep breath. It was going to be a beautiful day. The sun was rising in a perfectly clear sky. There had been a hard freeze during the night and his breath came out in large puffs of silvery white, but it would warm up soon enough. “Good,” he said aloud. “A beautiful day to celebrate the birth of the Savior.”
He was out this morning because he wanted to ensure that all of the families in his ward would have a good Christmas. In some cases that would be a matter of just stopping in to wish them a good Christmas and to let them know he was thinking of them. In other cases it would not be so simple. There were women whose husbands were with the Mormon Battalion or on missions. For all intents and purposes these women were widows and needed special attention. Then there was Mary Northrop, whose husband, Amos, was near death. Nathan was on his way to the gristmill to make sure that the family had something to eat, and he would try to bring them some comfort and see if he could do anything for Amos’s suffering.
It was a holiday, and it might be saluted with a volley from the cannons, and there would be Christmas suppers tonight—meager but festive—but it was still a workday. There was simply too much to be done to have it be otherwise. Even though it was not yet eight o’clock, everywhere he looked there was a bustle of activity. Men and boys were laying a sod square on the ground, the first foundations of another home. Young girls sat on benches in front of homes or wagons spinning flax into thread or tending younger brothers and sisters. Boys moved back and forth carrying baskets filled with a variety of clothing or goods. He passed women who stood before kettles hung over fires in their yards, starting to do the day’s laundry. He saw Sister Stone, another ward member, coming back from the creek, staggering under the load of two buckets of water hanging from a yoke on her shoulder. He walked quickly to her, took it from her, and carried it the last way to the wagon that served as “home” to her, her husband, and three children.
She touched his arm as he set the buckets down. “Thank you so much, Bishop Steed.” She spoke with a lilting English accent.
“Happy Christmas, Sister Stone.”
“Christmas Gift, Bishop. God bless.”
He walked on, amazed once again at the bustle around him. Men were chopping wood, repairing chimneys, shoveling dirt and grass up on top of their houses to make roofs. Behind a log cabin, a man had what looked like a yearling heifer strung up on a block and tackle and was skinning it out. Nathan passed one open-ended sod building where five or six men were working on building or repairing a wagon. That was a sober reminder that all of this was temporary. Come spring, they would be moving west, and preparations for that day were never set aside for very long.
As he rounded the corner, he saw the nearly completed Winger cabin. Without being aware of it, he frowned. There were the others in his ward who presented a different kind of challenge than widows or families who lived in tents and wagons. John Winger was one of those. The Winger family had come west with the Orville Allen rescue group that Nathan and Joshua had accompanied. But instead of staying at Mount Pisgah, as the refugees had been counseled to do, Brother Winger insisted on coming on. Brigham had not been pleased, but he assigned them to Nathan’s ward and asked him to work with them.
He blew out his breath in mild exasperation. It was Sister Winger and their two children who suffered because of her husband’s laziness. All the way across Iowa Territory, John Winger had been a source of constant irritation to everyone. His cattle were constantly lost because he simply turned them loose. And unfortunately there were others like him. On more than one day the company had been forced to lay over while they spent the day rounding up stray cattle.
Brother Winger had been an eye-opener for Nathan. Some of those they had found in the poor camp on the west bank of the Mississippi were poor because of the terrible circumstances which had befallen them. Carl Rogers was a good example of that. With the store burned, the brickyard gone, their house abandoned, Carl and Melissa were absolutely destitute. But Carl was a hardworking man. Even though he was still weak and hurting from his punctured lung, he was up helping the family in whatever way he could. Joseph Fielding and his two sisters were another example. Poor, yes, but down and out, definitely not.
But Brother Winger? On their arrival here, Nathan had gotten a group of men together and raised them a log cabin. Even though he himself and several of the other men had only sod huts, they had cut the logs and erected a one-room cabin for the Wingers. And what did John Winger do while they were doing that? He stood back with his thumbs in his belt and watched them work. Since they had finished the main structure Brother Winger had done nothing more to find shutters for the windows—Nathan could see that the same thin blanket was all that kept them from the cold—or to make it more comfortable for his family.
He sighed, loudly enough that a passing woman looked at him in surprise. Embarrassed, Nathan smiled and waved. “Merry Christmas.”
“Christmas Gift,” she murmured back, still looking at him strangely.
At the gristmill he would get a sack of cornmeal for Sister Winger and the children. They were the ones who suffered. And so, irritated at John Winger or not, Bishop Nathan Steed was on his way to make sure they had food and got at least some kind of cheer on Christmas Day.
He thought with longing on those first days as bishop when he had been given just three or four families to care for. Now the wards were made up by city block and each block had twenty lots. In his block there were twenty-eight families. His own family, for example, occupied three lots, but with the addition of Carl and Melissa there were five separate family units living on those three lots. On the lots of several others were wagons or tents with families living in them until they could build more permanent shelters.
As he walked along, he thought of some of the others, and that pushed away his gloomy mood. It was Christmas, and though there were challenges in carrying out his calling as bishop, there was also great joy. For the most part,
his families were faithful and cheerfully endured very difficult circumstances. They shared their resources in a manner that was most gratifying. Even in death they showed remarkable strength. In the few weeks since they had formed his ward, he had already lost five people—an elderly man, a mother who left her husband with four children to watch over, and three young children. And now it looked like Amos Northrop would be next. Those losses had really been hard, but for the most part, his people wept for a time, then threw back their shoulders and went on with life.
With that, he picked up his step, smiling happily now as he passed others and called out a holiday greeting to them.
By ten o’clock, the sun was warm enough that the women put on only light shawls. The ground was thawing and the challenge was to stay out of the mud. They left the older children in charge of the younger ones and set out. Mary Ann, Lydia, Caroline, Jenny, Jessica, and Melissa all walked together, chattering happily.
“What a beautiful morning!” Melissa exclaimed, throwing back her head and closing her eyes against the bright sun.
Mary Ann laughed, then spontaneously hugged her older daughter. “And how good it is that you are here with us to enjoy it!” she said.
“Oh, yes,” the others said. “We’re so glad you’re here, Melissa.”
There were sudden tears in her eyes. “When those men started beating on Carl back in Nauvoo, I thought the world had come to an end. Now, knowing that it changed his mind about our coming west, I’m almost glad—” She stopped, blushing furiously as she realized what she was about to say. “Oh dear,” she cried. “Don’t tell Carl I said that.”
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