John Charles Frémont
We reached the valley of the Arkansas River in perfect ease, and I was satisfied that the exploration would proceed without difficulty. My outfitting had never been better despite limited funds, and we were proof against the worst that nature could throw at us. We entered the wide sagebrush-covered valley and found it largely denuded of trees on its north bank, so we crossed at a good gravel ford and then the travel was more comfortable and there were ample willow and hackberry and cottonwood to feed our fires and build our shelters. The road was excellent, not so churned up as it is on the north bank, where the Santa Fe trade had wrought quagmires.
I was satisfied that we had located a good rail route across the prairies, and Charles Preuss was, too. I trusted the man, dour as he may be, simply because he drafted excellent maps and kept unimpeachable logs during my first two explorations. His readings, both at high noon and of the polestar at night, were finer than any before attempted, and he could tell me within a few feet how high we were above the sea. Now he was daily advising me about how far we wandered from the 38th parallel. He had a certain irony in his eye, knowing full well that by all Hispanic accounts there is no practicable route over the Rockies at this latitude or even anywhere close by. South Pass on the Oregon Road offers an excellent route along the 40th parallel and is much used now by the Oregon bound. And of course, the Sangre de Cristos peter out off to the south, offering unimpeded passage west. But we had been commissioned by men who want to run rails straight over the top, so we would find a route for them, even if it meant turning high mountain saddles into benign passes and impossible chasms into placid valleys.
The visionaries in Saint Louis thought there might be a practical route and had set me to find it. Preuss just shook his head, an ironic gleam in his eye, saying nothing and yet telling me everything on his mind with little more than an arched eyebrow. I tended, privately, to agree with him but could not confess it publicly, nor did I wish to refute my father-in-law or bring him bad news. Better to find a route of some sort and let them decide whether it will break the United States Treasury or bankrupt all the merchants of Saint Louis to build it. In any case, it is my fate to achieve the impossible. I have known all my life that I am destined to do what other men cannot do. It is out of my hands. If it is my fate to find a new route west, through the middle of the continent, then it will happen no matter what I may choose to do.
No sooner had we reached the south bank of the Arkansas than we ran into an encampment of Kiowas, old Chief Little Mound’s people. Their tawny lodges were scattered through cottonwood groves. They seemed entirely friendly, and I saw little menace in them. And some of them were handsome, which pleased me, for I take them to be a noble race. But I did halt my company and let them know that I had the utmost respect for Indians, and I required that all my men treat the savages with kindness and discernment. Of course I doubled the guard, not wanting my mule herd stolen.
They seemed an impoverished people, and I imagine they were verminous. Certainly they were unwashed. They mostly stood beside our trail, examining us one by one as we rode past. Who knows what thoughts were festering in their heads? When we camped that eve, there they were, collected silently around our perimeter looking for something to lift when we were occupied with other things. I brought few trade items because trade was not our business, which meant I could engage in little commerce with those people. And now I wished I had a few gewgaws.
But, oddly, Doctor Kern came to the rescue. They found out that he was a medicine man and were soon seeking him out. Godey and other of my veteran Creoles are pretty good sign talkers, and so the consultations proceeded. Kern hung out his shingle, examined the patients, and prescribed from his cabinet. In one case he compounded salves for some skin lesions. The Kiowas watched the compounding with wonder and took away these ointments as if they were gold. That made Ben Kern a very popular man among the Kiowas. The good doctor told me later that many of the Kiowas were flea plagued and he dreaded any contact with them because fleas are hard to get rid of.
The next days we traveled with the Kiowas, who were our constant companions, all of them curious about our ways and observing our every act. Apart from losing a saddle blanket, we suffered no losses, but it took constant vigilance to keep what was ours. I was especially zealous in protecting my instruments, which we needed to measure latitude and longitude as well as elevations and temperatures. We had several instruments whose sole purpose was to give us an altitude above sea level. The mercury barometer was the simplest, but it was variable in its results because of shifting air pressures. It was a fragile device, a thirty-inch glass tube partly filled with quicksilver, and we took special care of it. So I put these things under guard at all times and kept the mules under watch.
We had lost several mules en route, and I intended not to lose more. It was a puzzle. None of our stock was so heavily loaded as to give out, and all fed themselves nightly on the nourishing grasses that stretch endlessly in every direction, and yet some of our animals faltered, stumbled to earth, and would go no farther. I ascribe this to bad blood. There is bad blood in human beings and bad blood in animals, and the weak are constantly being culled out, both by nature and by man. I see even in my company some bad blood, men whose weakness will tell on them. I have good blood, and passage through hard country is as easy for me as a stroll down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington City is for my father-in-law. I can’t help those who cannot help themselves, and if any feel foreboding about our passage across the mountains, I hope they will withdraw from the company and not wait until they become a burden and liability.
We were well supplied with meat. Godey and several others are expert hunters and discovered a few buffalo in most every ravine, taking refuge from the wind. One could wish that we could feast on cows, but that was not to be our fortune this trip. We ate bulls. There was always ample meat for us and plenty to give to the Kiowas, who were tagging along with us. It seemed a good way to preserve a tenuous peace, but the constant presence of these half-starved people did not elevate the mood of my company. It didn’t help either that it snowed off and on and that the thermometer swung wildly up and down. Give us a southerly wind and we rode in comfort; give us a northerly one and the weaker men in my company wrapped themselves in their blankets and grumbled.
The farther upstream we progressed, the more excited the Kiowas became, and I could not fathom what was exciting them until we arrived at a large camp of Arapahos, and among them was my old friend Tom Fitzpatrick, Indian agent for these southern plains tribes. He was in the midst of a great gifting of the tribes, a peacemaking process intended to secure their friendship. Major Fitzpatrick (all agents receive that honorary rank) was well known to me as Broken Hand Fitzpatrick, a veteran of the fur trade, a mountaineer without equal, a man who had survived numerous scrapes involving Indians, weather, animals, starvation, and cold. Indeed, he had been a part of my company on the second expedition when we made a winter foray over the Sierra Nevada into California, refurbished our company at Sutter’s Fort, and returned to Saint Louis unscathed except for one small loss. He had done his work without complaint, constantly using his experience and skills to help the distressed.
Were he not employed by the government as agent, I would have approached him about the prospect of guiding us over the mountains ahead. But that was not a possibility, especially since my party had no official status and I had no way to loosen him from his duties. I thought to ask him who, in his opinion, would be the ideal man to guide us over the mountains lying to the west. If anyone would know, he would. But whether or not I could find a guide familiar with the country, I never doubted that I would succeed. I knew my fate, and I knew I would reach California no matter what lay ahead.
We had clearly arrived on the eve of a powwow of some sort. There were smoke-blackened lodges scattered through the bottoms, amply supplied with firewood from the groves of hackberry and cottonwood scattered across the valley. Some of the lodges had gaudy medicine art painted
on them. Fitzpatrick, and an assistant who was probably a breed of some sort, had a wagon loaded with gifts from Uncle Sam, which after some treating with these chiefs and subchiefs would be dispensed. There would be something or other for every lodge. These were simply bribes. Don’t attack white men and stay at peace, and your father in Washington will give you these things. A blustery wind blew through the valley, scarcely broken by the copses of trees. I smelled snow on the breezes.
Major Fitzpatrick recognized me at once as we rode through the loose-knit campground, and he waited patiently. I was glad we were not in blue uniforms, which might have upset the tribesmen. Plainly, the lot of us were ordinary citizens. We seemed a larger force than we were because of the hundred thirty mules and a few horses, most of them bearing our provisions neatly stowed in the reinforced duckcloth panniers I prefer for mountain travel. The major eyed us knowingly, perhaps even recognizing a man or two, especially the Creoles.
“Colonel Frémont, I believe?”
“So it’s you, Tom,” I said. “I see you’re busy.”
“Oh, not so busy that we can’t delay matters. I heard you were coming. Moccasin telegraph.”
“Then you know about our mission.”
“I do.”
The response was so abrupt that I eyed the man sharply, aware that this was not the usual effusive greeting of this veteran of the mountains. Fitzpatrick had made his name in the beaver trade and had been a partner in some of those companies. He had guided me on my second venture into Oregon and California. Indeed, he was with me at the time of one of my most celebrated moments, a December crossing of the Sierra Nevada that we attempted, with great success, even though the local Indians warned against it. Broken Hand Fitzpatrick had roamed across the West, but from that trip with me he acquired a knowledge of country previously unknown to him, and I fancy he appreciated it. Now he was an experienced Indian agent.
“Railroad survey, thirty-eighth parallel.”
“It’s rather late in the season,” he said.
“That’s the object. Trains run year around.”
“But summer’s the time to look for a route.”
“I do things my way, Major.”
He nodded and motioned me off my roan. My company was drawing up, studying the Kiowas and Arapahos, tribes that were not exactly friends in other circumstances. The Indians were wrapped in bright striped blankets and brown buffalo robes, and sometimes their breaths were visible. The major himself had a buffalo-hide coat wrapped around him and a heavy scarf at his neck.
I dismounted and shook, careful to grasp his undamaged hand, and I clasped it awkwardly. The hand was cold.
Fitzpatrick introduced me to the assembled headmen, using tongue and hand signs I could not follow. The chiefs stood gravely, acknowledging our presence with a nod.
“This isn’t the best time to visit with you, actually,” the major said. “But I tell you what. Tomorrow we’ll be through here and heading for Bent’s Fort. I suppose you’ll lay over for a time?”
“We will, sir. I want to do some trading.”
“There’s not much in the place. It’s late in the year.”
He was saying that the Santa Fe wagon companies had depleted the fort’s stock of goods, but I had hope of improving my stores anyway.
“We’re well provisioned, except for stock,” I said.
He smiled wryly, his gaze on our herd.
“I tell you what, sir. I’ll see ye at the fort before sundown tomorrow, and we’ll palaver. Just now, you see, I have a deal of work. We’re going to powwow, and I’m going to hand out peace medallions, a few muskets, some powder and lead, some red blankets for the blanket chiefs, lots of knives and awls and trade beads, and five hundred plugs of tobacco. And for that we want friendly treatment for the wagon companies. Now I’ll see ye off.”
This interview was more abrupt than I had hoped, but we would have a time to talk things over on the morrow.
“Very well, Major. Until tomorrow, then.”
“Oh, and by the way, Colonel. When ye get beyond the trees yonder, ye’ll have your first view of the western mountains.”
“I’ll tell the men.”
“They stretch like a white line across the western horizon. A lot of snow, sir, this early in the season. I’m told that no one has seen the like.” He stared evenly at me.
“It’s nothing I am worrying about, Major.”
“Nothing to worry about, then.” He lifted his beaver hat, smiled, and waited while I boarded the horse I hoped to trade for a mule at Bent’s Fort.
I signaled my company, and we rode west once again, while several hundred bronze faces observed our every move. Pretty soon we passed through the entire encampment and found only a few squaws beyond, collecting firewood. And then we were free.
Alex Godey rode up and joined me at the van. The column had assembled behind us and was snaking its way up the valley along a trail hemmed by the silvery sagebrush that grew rampant in the area.
“Did Major Fitzpatrick have any news, Colonel?”
“No, but we’re going to have a good talk at the fort tomorrow evening.”
“He was busy.”
“He was something more, which I intend to get to the bottom of. He did not seem eager to see us. Oh, and he did make a point of something. There’s a lot of snow ahead. More than anyone’s ever seen this early. It seemed important to him. It doesn’t worry me, but it troubled him.”
“Alors, he’s a man to listen to,” Godey said.
“If I’d listened to every caution well-meaning but timid men offered me, I’d not be here now, leading my own expedition. I’d not be known.”
“Ah, bien, sir, but you have the lives of many men to think about now.”
“They have signed on voluntarily, and I will see them through, Alex. Now that you’ve raised that subject, I am hoping that the fainthearted will abandon us before we begin the ascent into the mountains. In fact, I plan to invite them to do it.”
Godey smiled. “I doubt that anyone will, sir. They have their eyes on the history books, eh?”
“Well, I don’t. What the world thinks of me is of no consequence to me. What I think of myself is all that matters.”
We rode silently, following a river trail that gradually rose from the valley to the open plains. And there, when we topped out on the plains, lay a white wall far to the west, a brooding blue and white rampart barring our way.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Thomas Fitzpatrick
I am not very good at concealing my private opinions, but when it comes to John Frémont I make the effort. He is well connected. He is also a national hero, idolized everywhere for his contributions as an explorer and as the conqueror of Mexican California. It behooves me to keep my silence, especially because his father-in-law is the most powerful man in the Senate and can do me mischief.
Indian agents serve at the whim of presidents and with the consent of the Senate, and an agent’s security rests on the most precarious of platforms. So is the case with me. I happen to like my office. I am at ease with the Indians, many of whom I know well and count as friends. I am able to mediate the conflicts rising between the advancing tide of white men and the tribes, and so far, at least, I have preserved the peace and made allies and friends of these people. I think a less-experienced man in my office would cause mischief.
All of which is my way of saying that when Frémont showed up with yet another exploring company and a large mule herd, I chose to conceal whatever lay within my bosom and deal with the man as best I could.
My own views were formed during the second expedition, the one in which he first invaded Mexican California. I was a well-paid guide on that one, along with Carson. Frémont’s instructions were to proceed out the Oregon Trail, mapping it thoroughly, and then link up with Naval Lieutenant Wilkes on the Pacific Coast, in order to link the two explorations by land and by sea. Those were his instructions and what I thought I had contracted to do. He did as much but then struck south f
rom the Oregon country, contrary to any army instruction but probably with the connivance of Senator Benton, until he came to the eastern flank of the Sierra Nevada. Then, on January 18, 1843, he attempted a winter passage of the Sierra Nevada, a course so reckless that he narrowly averted disaster. He managed to invade Mexico without leave of their authorities, risking an international incident, and eventually refitted at Sutter’s Fort on the Sacramento River. From there it was a relatively easy journey home. Never did the man have a more reluctant guide than I, and I count myself lucky to survive a winter passage of the Sierra Nevada. I was duty bound to complete my contract with him, and I did. But I never again permitted myself to be engaged by him.
It was all portrayed in his subsequent report as a triumph, and the perils he exposed us to were blandly bridged with cheerful rhetoric. I knew better.
Even by the time he reappeared in my life, that November of 1848, I still remembered the starved, cold, miserable, and desperate hours high in the Sierra Nevada, in the dead of winter, in which our lives depended not on Frémont but the merciful cessation of the storms constantly rolling in. We were spared from the man’s folly by a random turn of weather, but at terrible cost in terms of the ruin of men and animals. I believe that the miraculous respite in the weather only strengthened his belief that he is fated to succeed at whatever he does.
After we had topped the Sierra Nevada and were heading into mild California more or less unchastened, I chanced to remark to him that we had been extremely lucky that the weather held.
“It wasn’t luck; it was destiny,” he replied.
That alarmed me then, and it still does.
But how could one find fault with a brave national hero? His journals were published by the government itself and became the guidebooks of westward expansion, and the young topographic commander became a celebrated and rising man. But I would never celebrate him. Ever since that journey, I knew I was living on borrowed time.
And there he was once again, wandering into my powwow, as powerful and protected in 1848 as he had been in 1843, despite the court-martial and conviction on all counts and his resignation from the army. Standing behind him were the most powerful men in Washington City.
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