Snowbound and Eclipse

by Richard S. Wheeler

  We saw not the slightest sign of game, but neither did I expect to see any in an area of shifting sands. In all, we made only five miles that day and camped in the lee of a great dune, which gave us a little protection from the furious wind. I was disappointed. I had planned to reach the river. It would be a miserable camp, without water, save for whatever snow we could melt, and without much fuel for our fires. The mules would be hard to contain, and I decided to double the guard. One slip and the whole lot would head back to that grove.

  Bad as the camp was, it was better than what lay ahead, a featureless plain covered with snow, without shelter or wood or feed. Beyond, looming in the West, was the jagged white wall of the San Juan Mountains, the last great barrier we faced until we reached the Sierra. The tops were sawed off by cast-iron clouds, but I knew that the San Juans probably contained peaks in the fourteen-thousand-foot range, if my informants were right. I scraped away snow until I reached naked sand and put up a tent, feeling the heavy canvas flap in the Arctic wind. I hoped my tent stakes would hold in the soft sand, and I drove them as deep as I could, not liking the softness beneath my feet.

  Nearby, my men struggled with firewood. There was naught but sagebrush, which they harvested ruthlessly. It would barely heat water, and their porridge or macaroni would be tepid, more glue than food this evening. I didn’t mind it myself, but I had long since learned that I am more resilient than other men and can endure most anything. I ascribe it to good blood. The mules lost no time crowding east and had to be checked forcibly. I feared we would need to picket all of them. I watched my Creoles and California Indian boys, Manuel, Joaquin, and Gregorio, wrestle with the animals, finally picketing some in the lee of the dune where there was a little brush. I was returning the boys to California; the army had brought them east as curiosities and to let them get a glimpse of civilization and the great father in Washington. They had been docile and useful to me on the trail.

  I was not yet settled when Old Bill materialized. He was permanently bent and walked with his northern half leaning forward and his southern half backward. But now he hunkered down on the balls of his feet, a form of rest common among mountain men who knew no chairs in the wilderness. Carson often did it. I could never find comfort in it.

  “Hard night on the mules, no water or feed,” he began. When addressing me he spoke a fairly educated English; among the men his inflections were rustic, even quaint.

  “They’ll eat snow,” I replied.

  He snorted. “Warming a mouthful of snow costs them more heat than they can get from eating,” he retorted. “And they hardly get a spoonful.”

  “I know that.”

  He stabbed a crooked index finger west. “See that? It’s death. It’s plain death to anyone that goes into there.”

  “I know a pass,” I replied. “Cochetopa. It’s on the Mexican charts.”

  “So do I, and it’s death, I’m saying.”

  “We have come this far without loss, Mister Williams.”

  “There’s a way around. I’ve taken it plenty of times, just ease around the south of this range here. Cuts some foothills, plenty of valleys likely to have game and grass. Takes an extra day or three, but I’ll put you all beyond those hills yonder, and you’ll be glad we did.”

  “There’s a path heading north; that’s the one I plan to take. It leads to Cochetopa. It cuts off of Saguache River. It’s an old Spanish route, and it’s where we’re going.”

  “It’s where you’re going to get into trouble like you never did see before, Colonel.”

  He was riling me, so I smiled pleasantly. I cared less and less for the oaf. He squinted at me and began an amazing monologue.

  “You see the Rio del Norte out there, that winding bottom? Well, that’s all sagebrush flats, not grass, and there’s no feed worth a damn. You think you’ll put some iron back into these mules? You’d better take stock. You’re about out of corn and they’re about to start stumbling and tumbling unless you get them on some good pasture.

  “It gets worse, even before you start into that wall.” He paused dramatically. I enjoyed his theatrics. He could run for the Senate and win. “Beyond that river, where those brushy flats lie, that’s the strangest country you ever knew. It’s where all the waters off those mountains have collected, just a little under the surface. It looks like naked arid land, don’t it, sir? It is, for sure. But just below, it’s wet like a sponge, like a hidden marsh, and if you think it’s tough to pull and push mules through a lot of snow, wait until you push them through that. They can’t hardly step without each foot sucking up and oozing in. If you take off their packs, maybe you can help them a little, but that means the men’ll be carrying the load on their backs through the same swamp. This time of year, Colonel, they’ll soak their feet and their boots; they’ll freeze, and their feet will be so frostbit you’ll likely perish the whole party, men and mules, before you even reach them hills you’re planning to leapfrog over. I’m saying, Colonel, it’s not the way to go; you’ll be wearing the last out of the mules before you even step into the first gulch taking you up to where the gales blow constant and kill a man in five minutes.”

  “I don’t want to stray from our plans, Mister Williams.” I smiled, wanting him to see there was no hard feeling between us.

  “Yes, sir,” he said, unbending his hairpin frame until he was upright again. “I suppose it’ll be for us to see.”

  That was an odd observation.

  It was something I was very familiar with, the undertone of people trying to deflect me from my plans. I would have the honor of crossing the Rockies in December and intended to see to it no matter how much carping I had to endure. No one had ever done what I was about to do. I would alert Godey to be aware of conspiracies and disloyalties and to report these to me in confidence.

  As the day waned, I could see the cook fires blooming, perfidious light and heat that would vanish for lack of tinder even before the supper was warm. It was something for them to endure; it would strengthen their manhood and prepare them for the travail ahead, when we toiled across those subterranean wetlands on the other side of the Rio del Norte.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  William Sherley Williams

  That man Frémont, he was the serpent that tempted Adam and Eve, no doubt about it. I reckoned it when I looked him over close. I can sometimes see right through, to the inner spirit, and inside of the colonel was the serpent himself, same as got Eve to eat the apple.

  That next day, mean cold and blowing again, we raised camp late and worked out of the sand hills through some gray snow, and I climbed up on a ribbed dune to watch until the wind blew the heat out of me. It was the serpent all right, snaking through a trench in the dirty sand-topped snow, single file, the head of the serpent out front, and the tail most of a mile behind, one hundred–some worn-out mules, a hairy man here and there, all in a snaking black line. The corn was most gone, so the Creoles had adjusted the loads, but them mules were still hauling heavy goods, canvas shelter cloths, and all of that, and now they were looking like scarecrows, caved in, muscles ridging on their flanks like hogbacks.

  They knew their fate, I could tell. I can see right inside an animal, and they knew they was about finished and soon they’d die. They knew that, so they didn’t much care. They stopped fighting the wind and snow and just didn’t much care, and I knew they’d all but given up on this earth, anyway. Maybe I’d see them down the road apiece. I have that vision so I know I’m coming back as a bull elk. Animals got no clock; it’s all here and now. Only us mortals got time. But animals know what’s coming where we don’t.

  There was a lot of nothing to eat in that naked flat of the Rio del Norte, just a little sagebrush poking from the dirty snow, and the mules toiled past it, knowing they would die soon. I got inside the skull of one of them, and he was saying he was worn out and cold and he hurt and no one cared and pretty soon he would stumble and die. I have the ability. I can even get myself inside the head of a squirrel. I can conve
rse with a chipmunk if I’m of a mind. I told that mule I was going to cash in, too, mighty quick now, but not this trip. I plain knew. Once you get to talking with animals, you see how they think. I picked up on it.

  This was a solemn day, mean black clouds, mean wind, mean sleet spitting in our faces, and the serpent’s men had froze-up beards again, icicles dangling and clanging off beards, and eyebrows pasted with ice. They was all cold and wet down inside, round the waist, over the belly. The colonel never took the lead, never broke a trail himself, but let shifts of his men do that, busting up the crust and making a path. It was all done without an order. The men seemed to know when to quit, and another bunch would bust up crusted snow and the serpent would snake along, heading for the river that ran betwixt naked banks where the wind never slowed or quit. If the serpent thought to feed the mules there, he would be surprised.

  Ahead loomed the worst heights a man could fathom, a white death so high it vanished into the cast-iron sky. I knew that country; it was bad enough in the summer, and now I couldn’t tell one part of it from another. White canceled out everything. I would go in there as much a pilgrim as the next fellow. But it didn’t matter to the serpent. He would go in there and drag the whole company to its doom. And what for? Not a railroad. No. He was looking for the tunnel into hell, is what he was trying to find. The more I thought upon it, the more I thought I should help him to the tunnel of hell. Why would a sane man do this?

  We proceeded out on that vast flat, with nothing but snow and sagebrush and greasewood and wind. They told me it was Thursday, December 7, but I never know one day from another. For once we made good time, though the wind was bad and the temperature was worse and the air scraped heat out of me. I entertained myself by watching the spirits of the mules hovering just above them. When animals are fed and healthy, their spirits climb back inside of them and stay there, but now their spirits rode their backs along with the packs, and that told me what I wanted to know. The mules plodded listlessly, but we made time anyway.

  Godey sent hunters ahead, but I heard no muffled shots on the wind and doubted that we would feast on deer or elk that night. Most of the day we were wrapped in a gray cocoon, with ice crystals stinging our faces and melting down into our beards, where the moisture froze, until we clicked and clanked as we progressed. We could not see the looming mountains, except at rare intervals, and our only companion was silence that day.

  We camped on an open plain that night; there was absolutely no shelter for man or beast, and the miserable mules huddled together for warmth. Occasionally the mules on the outside burrowed into the center, for a moment of warmth. The mule herd seemed to understand this process, and periodically there would be a great shifting as mules on the outside, exposed to icy blasts, would burrow toward the middle of the herd for respite. We laid our bedrolls on iron ground and pulled stiff canvas over us. There was no fuel for fires, so we went nearly hungry, but for a few pieces of jerky the colonel had stashed away for moments like this. I never heard such silence. The company said nothing, each man caught in his private thoughts.

  My thoughts were on the mules, which declined to eat snow for moisture, knowing somehow it would only chill them worse than the icy gales were chilling them. Men lay restlessly in bedrolls, which did little to stay the cold, and the night passed interminably, each man awake and locked in his private thoughts.

  I suppose the serpent slept. Like the rest of us, he huddled in blankets underneath flapping canvas. He knew no suffering, saw it not in others, and blamed all suffering on the sufferers. A true Beelzebub, I thought. Parson Williams, as I am known, saw the man through and through and saw the need for exorcism. By the light of a gray dawn there was another few inches of snow on the ground. The company, without firewood for coffee or food, trembled itself together, threw packsaddles over the wretched mules, pulled the cinches tight, loaded the panniers, and departed on a compass course because it was impossible to fathom direction. I’ve been fair uncomfortable, but that night tested my endurance and made all my wounds and scars howl at me. I loathed the serpent, who acted as if everything was normal, and contemplated shooting him where he stood. Instead, I took some satisfaction in the certainty that he would do the job himself.

  Once again, wordlessly, we slogged west through crusty drifts and treacherous mounds of grimy snow, a giant serpentine string of men and animals coiling toward the Rio del Norte, which we struck in the middle of the day. Here the serpent sent us north along the east bank, thereby signaling to me that he would not bring us safely around the southern flanks of the mountains, as I had proposed. I saw naught but horns on his skull and spent the day conjuring up ways to shoot him in the back, one wobble of my rifle, and thus to prevent what soon would befall us.

  But I didn’t. It was odd how I didn’t. I would fix it all up in my head and had it exact. I’d ride forward a piece, wait for a ground blizzard to veil me, and plant a ball between his shoulder blades. I thus kept myself entertained for hours, whilst the company stumbled toward hell and finally dropped into a thickly timbered pocket beside the river, a haven for man and beast. That was December 8, 1848, and it had snowed in fits all day. The famished company made haste to free the wretched mules of their burdens and turn them loose, and I watched the beasts head for the river, there to slake a cruel thirst, and then to the willows and cottonwoods and red brush, where they tore at the bark and twigs and anything organic they could put their buck teeth around and strip free. It was poor fodder and would not put an ounce on any of them. But it would comfort them, the sticks and bark in their gut.

  The hunters brought no game in; I knew they wouldn’t. I have the vision, and I warned away the deer. “Make haste!” said I. “The serpent wants you.” I watched them hasten away and watched the snow swiftly fill their hoofprints until not a dimple remained. I saw it as clear as other men see a rock or a tree. Two does and two yearlings warned away, and now the serpent would never touch them.

  We would eat more macaroni. It would do. If the mules might enjoy cottonwood bark, I might prosper on pasta. I watched the company drag deadfall and shake the snow off of it and build huge mounds of it. There was no lack of firewood in this forest. Somewhere above us, the wind raced, but in this wooded pocket under a cutbank we found a little peace. Then I saw fires bloom, bright orange in the lavender light, yellow in the gray darkness, and not just the usual three mess fires, either. They were building bonfires at every corner, fires to drive away darkness; fires to vanquish the serpent; fires to turn this cold wild into a bright parlor for a night; fires to soak heat into the frozen ground, heat a man’s backside while another fire heated his front; fires to dry out their soaked duds. And now they were talking, too. I heard shouts and cheer and relief. I have hardly heard better in a saloon, with a dozen men enjoying their cups and a good fire warming the pub. Fires circled the camp, and it was better than having a wild woman.

  There would be no guard this night; no two-hour shifts. Those mules wouldn’t stray from the bottoms and would eat all night, never pausing. Me, I drifted toward the dark river, which tumbled out of the mountains and flowed south and east. Snow lined its banks, eerie in the half light. I saw where an elk had descended its banks and crossed only recently.

  “Go on, escape the serpent,” I said. “Old Parson Williams will have you for supper some other day.”

  The next day, the serpent marched us up the Rio del Norte, but snows choked our progress and we made only three miles, finally camping in a piney wood. The mules would have nothing to eat once again. They never touched the resinous pine, which was poisonous to them. Godey spotted the elk tracks, got his five best hunters, and took off after the elk, which had retreated upslope into foothill forest. It didn’t take long for the hunters to return dragging two elk over snow.

  “So you stayed to feed the serpent,” I said, angry with the elk. “But now I will feed my empty belly on you and be glad because you were stupid.”

  “Meat!” cried Stepperfeldt. “Meat tonight!”
The man was a gunsmith, no hunter but handy to have around.

  The elk, two young bucks, lay quiet in the snow, even as fresh flakes fell on their still-warm bodies. One had been shot through the neck; the other in the chest. The company rigged hempen ropes over limbs and slowly tugged the great four-foots up where they could be gutted. It took a gang of men to hoist an elk. I saw the elk spirits hover for a moment, and then gallop away, never looking back. It made me angry. Expert butchers soon peeled back the supple elk hide, which would be valuable, especially for men whose boots were falling apart. I wanted the little two-point antlers. A bit of elk antler could make a man lusty. In time, every mess had thick elk cuts broiling or stewing, and the smell of it drifted through the air. But the butchers never stopped, because they wanted the elk cut up before it froze, and the rest of the meat would be carried with the company.

  Old Parson Williams was well fed that night, in a camp scraped out of four feet of snow and surrounded by pines. Once again the mules were fractious, wanting to retreat downriver to the cottonwoods and a meal, so the serpent posted two-hour guards to check the poor beasts. It would have been better to let the mules feed and collect them in the morning, but it wouldn’t make any difference. The serpent would snake up the mountain, and the mules would die.

  I suffered that night from fits of Christianity, and the next morning when the serpent showed his face, I squatted next to him. “Cross the river here, and go back down, and I’ll take you around these peaks safe and sound,” says I.

  “That’s a detour,” he said.

  “It be more like a safe passage,” I replied, full of holy righteousness.