Snowbound and Eclipse

by Richard S. Wheeler

  “Take us to Saguache River, and then up Cochetopa Pass,” he said blandly. “That’s how the Spanish did it and how we’ll do it.” He smiled kindly. I thought maybe to kill him on the spot but decided to wait.

  I saw how it was with him and nodded. I had me some elk shoulder and coffee for breakfast, put a well-cooked piece in my possibles bag, and hied me down to the mules, which were standing in snow. Their backs were coated with the latest snowfall, and icicles dangled from their manes and bellies, jaws, and tails. They hadn’t been grained and were gnawing on one another’s manes and tails. But even as I stood there, some of the serpent’s Creoles began doling out a little maize and putting a few mouthfuls in nosebags and feeding the animals twenty at a time.

  I watched one mule, one I fancied because it was plainer than most, sigh, eye me wearily, and stuff his hard-frozen snout into the bag, and soon I heard the quiet crunching of corn succumbing to molars. Half of it would go down that throat and emerge untouched a few hours later. That old mule’s spirit hovered there and told me what I wanted to know. It wouldn’t be long now.

  It was cold again, that morning of December 12, but clear for a change.

  This time the serpent sought me out. “You know the way to Saguache River?”

  “I’ve walked over the hull country,” I said.

  “This is the most important day of all, then. We must find it. I’m depending on you.”

  “Well, it’s not so hard. Just go wherever a railroad would go.”

  He laughed softly. I don’t reckon I’d seen him laugh much. I had made a good joke, I thought.

  There were no thoughts of railroads these days. We took off late, but in sunlight, with intense blue skies overhead for a change. Serpent’s luck, I called it, as we worked up a deepening canyon that would take us once again into mountains.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  John Charles Frémont

  The guide was steering us ever westward instead of northwest. I pulled out my brass compass and checked, not liking it. We were leaving the headwaters of the Rio del Norte, a place of pine-clad hills and sloughs, where creeks and rivers tumbled together to form the great river.

  By some mysterious fashion Old Bill had assumed the lead, working us away from the larger stream and up a branch I knew nothing about. I had sketches to work from. So had Preuss. Some came from knowledgeable mountaineers in Saint Louis and Westport. The most recent one had been drawn by Richens Wootton, who knew this country as well as Bill Williams.

  This was a tumbled and rocky land, with giant gray outcrops, steep slopes, somber pine forests, groves of spidery cottonwoods and aspen, fierce, cruel creeks. And snow lazily smothered the country. It had caught and settled in every valley and dip, so that we were crossing spots that were ten or twenty feet deep, perilously working upslope in a tamped-down trench that reached over our heads.

  This creek was not the Saguache River. I was sure of it. That stream was formidable, according to my informants, and had carved a broad valley that could support a wagon road—or a railroad. And it ran north and west, not straight west.

  Yet there was Old Bill, perched on his bony mule, putting the beaters to work pounding a trail up this creek running within a narrow defile guarded by gloomy slopes. It was no easy task, and progress was slowed by steep grades, deadfall, giant boulders blocking the way, and a perilous drop to our right, which threatened the lives of our burdened mules.

  I pulled aside until Preuss drew up.

  “Do you know where we’re going?” I asked him.

  The topographer smiled wanly. “All I have is rough maps, sketched by men with bad memories.”

  “What do you call this creek?”

  “I don’t call it anything. How should I know? Maybe we should call it Old Bill Williams River, eh?”

  “I need to know. I need to stop this.”

  “Why don’t you talk to him, yah?”

  “Where is Saguache? The river?”

  He shrugged. “It is maybe twenty miles north. But that is a guess.”

  “And where is Cochetopa Pass?”

  Preuss grinned evilly. I had the sense that he was enjoying this side excursion and maybe enjoying my discomfort, too. I have a way of reading men.

  “It’s not here, that much is what I say to you. It’s off that way.” He waved a hand in a vaguely northwestern direction.

  I wheeled my mule away. I would never again hire that man. He couldn’t even say where we were. Mapmakers were a dime a dozen. I waited in the snow while more of my company rode by single file, and then pulled Creutzfeldt over.

  “Where are we?” I asked.

  “We are proceeding up an unknown valley with slopes of fifty and sixty percent on each side. I am thinking we will enjoy an avalanche.”

  “Have you a name for that creek down there?”

  He smiled blandly. “I will put it down as Frémont, yes?”

  I laughed softly so that he might know that I appreciated his humor, but only mildly. I would prefer that the Pathfinder’s name be used sparingly and to good effect.

  “We might climb to that ridge and see,” he said.

  The ridge was five or seven hundred snowy feet up. I shook my head. It was already too late to do that. We must either proceed where the treacherous old guide was taking us or turn around at once. It was time to confront Williams, but the trail was narrow and the snow-trench in which we walked did not permit me to work forward, so I pulled into the middle, between two weary mules, whose every step betrayed exhaustion. They were receiving one pint of corn morning and evening. My hope to find grassy south slopes to feed the mules had so far been dashed by the heavy snowfall this year. We were lucky on this day, the first in which we had not suffered yet another dumping of snow.

  The company halted ahead at some stony shelf where the forest parted, and I carefully worked my way around the drooping livestock and reached a bench where Williams had paused.

  There was little in sight but snow: snow climbing the valley walls, snow burdening pine trees, snow capping giant claws of rock that had tumbled from above eons ago. Just off to the right was a steep abyss and a creek tumbling below, mostly ice-capped but here and there open.

  I waited for a moment while the old man relieved himself.

  “What is this place? That’s not the Saguache River.”

  “Never said it was,” he replied.

  I smiled and bit back a retort. “The Saguache River is where we’re going. I want you to take us there. If that means turning around here, we’ll turn around.”

  He sighed. Breath steamed from his nostrils. “I don’t think that’s the way to go. It’s an extra three or four days, and this is some shorter.”

  “What place is this?”

  “Mexicans, they call it Carnero Creek.”

  “Why are we here; why didn’t you consult with me?”

  “We’re here because we’re here, and I brought us here.”

  “We’re climbing a tributary. We’re climbing a cleft in the mountains. That could be fatal. What’s on top?”

  “Saves two days. Mules there are mighty poor, your honor. How much corn’s left? Three, four days?”

  In truth I couldn’t say exactly.

  “So ever’ day counts, don’t it now?”

  “Where does this creek take us?”

  “Up and over, then we’re coming onto Cochetopa Pass to the other side.”

  “Are you sure? How do you know?”

  “Getting higher. Lot of snow around,” he said.

  His evasiveness was maddening, but I smiled. Somehow, I had to deal with this renegade.

  “The route I wanted was a wagon trail,” I explained with great patience. “The Mexicans could wagon over to the far side. It’s in their records. That’s important. Railroads follow old wagon trails.”

  “Yep, that’s right. It’s a wagon road, and it’d take rails, maybe. I don’t know why not. But this here’s shorter, and I took it to save time. That all right with you?”
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  I found myself facing the most anguished decision of my life: go ahead or go back. He stood there insolently, solemn, but I could read that man’s heart, and I knew he was enjoying it.

  “It’s what you want, isn’t it?” he asked. “Snow, heaps and piles.”

  The question puzzled me. “I’m sure I could do with a lot less.”

  “But then it wouldn’t be a challenge, your honor.”

  I didn’t like the tone in his voice. He meant to reduce me. “In my own humble way, sir, I am seeking a rail route across the middle of the continent. And that’s all. And this narrow defile is not a place to run rails.”

  “I reckon I showed you one around the south. Waved my finger right toward it. It weren’t to your liking.”

  I heard the amusement in his tone. I also knew I was utterly at his mercy. He knew the country, and I didn’t. I had only one choice. Stick with him or turn back. “All right, we’ll go straight up and over. Show us the way, Mister Williams. When we get to Cochetopa, we’ll be back on the rail route.”

  He grinned slowly, and I sensed he had somehow bested me, though I couldn’t say how or why. He clambered back on his mule and sat more bent backed than ever, as if sitting straight in the saddle would give offense.

  It was now out of my hands. Whatever fate befell us would be laid on him alone. I intended to make much of that in my reports.

  We fought our way up the narrow gulch, which rarely exceeded two hundred feet in breadth, working back and forth across the icy creek, wherever the trail might take us. The mules so resisted stepping into the icy torrent of water and making their way over the treacherous rock that we had to drag them by the nose through each crossing. But the guide paid no heed and imperturbably proceeded ever higher. We were climbing the streambed, there being no other trail, and often we were caught in drifts several feet deep, which required breaking a trail for the burdened mules.

  This was a piney canyon, not a quaking asp in sight, and the mules feared it, unwilling to move forward, which put a great strain on the company. Sometimes the thick snow covered holes, into which mules tumbled and had to be dug out. Other times the snow covered a perfect cross-hatching of downed timber, over which each mule had to step delicately, one hoof at a time, sometimes faltering on a slippery grade.

  I eyed the steep walls uneasily, noting the burden of snow lodged on them, snow that our very passage might unloose as an avalanche. There were great escarpments of snow just waiting to roar down on us and carry us all into the gulch below. One good thing was the clear blue sky above us, which promised no new snows for the moment. We labored in constant shade, because no sun penetrated to the floor of this defile on this twelfth day of December. We made only a few miles that day and eventually camped late in the afternoon on a steep slope, there being no level ground anywhere. We were well above the creek, on a timbered shoulder that made no proper campground at all, but time was against us and we could see no level place ahead as the darkness thickened.

  The mules stood trembling, unable to go farther, as my men stripped the packs and saddles off of them and stowed them on the upslope side of trees to keep them from tumbling into the gulch below us. Men made level beds only by felling trees and setting the logs on the downslope side and covering the scaffolds with pine branches. There was naught for the mules to graze on, and they clung to the slope, the very picture of dejection, too weary to roam. The men attached the feedbags, with the pitiful pints of corn in them, which some mules ate at once, while others barely seemed to care. Most were up to their bellies in snow, trying to find some small comfort on that cruel slope. At least there was no wind in that defile, and as the icy stars appeared, it was plain the enemy that night would be bitter cold instead of a gale. Even as we prepared to endure the night, we could feel a draft of heavy air slide down the gulch, numbing every creature.

  We could not manage shelters or cook fires in that snowbound place, so men wrapped themselves in canvas and struggled to find a little warmth as the night settled in. I stumbled past men, looking for Godey, and found him near the rear of the column. There were no messes this night, and I could not find half the men I needed.

  “Sir?” he said, peering up at me from a mound of canvas and blankets, nothing but his beard and a pair of eyes and a red nose showing.

  “Alex, how much corn is left?”

  “One day. Tomorrow we run out.”

  “One day! What about our food?”

  “We still have some frozen elk. Macaroni. Jerky. Sugar, coffee, salt.”

  “How long will the mules endure?”

  “They’re chewing on one another’s manes and tails, sir.”

  “Tomorrow, work ahead as much as you can. Find a south slope for the mules.”

  The night was thick enough to hide his face but not his skepticism. He didn’t respond. We had seen not the slightest sign of a meadow or hillside in this defile. Trees crowded the creek bottom, only to give way to heaps of talus and blocks of rock, vaulting upward and plastered with snow. The chances of putting the mules on grass were so poor that I found myself casting about for other prospects.

  “Look for quaking asp or cottonwoods or any soft-bark tree.”

  Godey did not reply. There would be none at this altitude, barring a miracle.

  “We’ll make it,” I added. “Call it Frémont’s luck.”

  “Round the next bend, who knows?” Godey said.

  Did I detect amusement in his response?

  I was getting chilled and hurried forward to a hollow I had found, a tiny cavity located in the slope that afforded me some comfort. I cleaned away the snow, settled some pine boughs in the hollow, used some limbs to create a sort of hut when I draped my tent over them, and crawled into my nest. I permitted myself two sticks of jerky, which I wished to eat privately from my personal stock, and settled down for the night.

  I wondered what all those diary keepers were scribbling this night. When I commanded an army exploration party, I forbade diaries, but I could not do that with these civilians, and I suspected they were scribbling things about this camp and this expedition that would not please me. Preuss was keeping one in German, and probably it was riddled with his own sour comments. I didn’t care what the man thought. But I wished I might see what the Kerns were writing about Old Bill. I felt sure they wouldn’t fault me for taking them up this anonymous gulch.

  I had been too occupied on this trip to keep my own diary but had made mental notes along the way, which I would form into a record when I had the chance. I might need it to correct the impressions of those greenhorns, who had no experience of the mountains and might suppose that we were embarked on a foolish or dangerous course. I would, of course, set all that straight later.

  The camp was very quiet, very cold, and a certain foreboding hung in the icy air.

  As I lay huddled under the canvas, I reached toward something just beyond the horizons of my mind, and then it came to me: this was Frémont’s providence. We’d be up and over in two days, hit that Cochetopa Pass in three, get down to feed and game in four. Saguache River might take a week. A week of starving, dying mules, and hardship. Old Bill had delivered me.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Benjamin Kern, MD

  We broke camp about eight thirty the next morning. A brutal west wind was ripping straight down the gulch, but the sky was azure, what little we could see of it in that mountain trench. A certain foreboding had grown within me, a feeling that I did not wish to share with my brothers for fear they would think I was pusillanimous. But the behavior of the mules was evoking alarm in me.

  They were now so worn they simply stood mutely, as if they had surrendered to fate. We groomed and saddled them as usual, while they stood with bowed heads, no longer caring. I had seen that all too often in my practice: mortals too far gone to struggle, too worn to breathe, too weak to grasp at life.

  That is how the mules struck me as we slipped the feedbags over their muzzles, each filled with a pitiful handful of c
orn. Yet, one by one, we blanketed and saddled them, slung their burdens on their frosted backs, and slid icy bits into the mouths of those we would ride and halters over the heads of those we would lead or drive. They had not watered that night, and those who had gnawed at the caked snow had only drained a little more heat from their gaunt bodies.

  As I studied them, with the growing dread that we were getting into grave trouble, I wondered whether the others were feeling the same thing. I eyed them sharply, but to a man they were cheerful and brimming with confidence. Was I the only one in the company filled with foreboding? Was I the coward, dying a thousand times before my death? I dared not reveal my anxiety to anyone, least of all Ned and Richard, who seemed oblivious of the plight of the mules and eager to proceed.

  We managed to boil a little macaroni, which took a long while at that altitude, and so got some nourishment in us before we began, but soon we had the mules and the company lined out and were struggling upslope once again. We encountered a steep hill, maybe three hundred yards, slick with snow, and the mules could not manage it. We pushed and tugged. We removed packs and skidded them upslope through heavy snow. Then we yanked and whipped and shoved the mules up. And once we reached the top, we loaded the packs onto the mules. What should have been an easy three hundred yards of climbing took hours and left us diminished and weakened.

  But the climb had brought us to the lip of a hanging valley. It lay broad and open and level, with receding slopes. There were noble prospects in all directions from here, including one back to the Rio del Norte, far behind. I should have been elated. Instead, I fell into the most painful sort of melancholia. The mules clustered in the snow, at least on level ground, not wanting to move at all. I saw nothing for them to eat, not even brush along the creek. There were only needled branches poking through the snow.

  We had consumed the morning wrestling the mules that small fraction of one mile, and we spent the rest of the bright day working up the valley, and then a low hill, to a second broad valley, where we would camp. These hills were snow choked, but we would be able to scrape snow away and make a level camp and feed some roaring fires with deadwood.