When George couldn’t keep the hankering off his face, we both burst out laughing.
In the bedroom, dark except for one candle, in our nightclothes, he said, “Tamsen, I could never leave Jacob.”
“Of course not,” I said. “They’ll come with us. Jacob can live out his years in warmth and sunshine, and Elizabeth can find a thousand new things to cook. Imagine the opportunities for all our children, George, what their lives will be like. What our lives will be like!”
“All that free land,” George mused again the next night in the bedroom, and looked at me and grinned. “All you want just there for the taking—”
“I’ll start my school for girls!”
“In a few years, California will be like Illinois,” George said. “We’ll be in on it from the beginning!”
We embraced, George snuffed out the candle, and we fell back on the bed.
The next four months were a pleasure of preparation and anticipation, Betsey. In March, one month before departure, we had stopped at Elizabeth and Jacob’s to show them all the new parcels. One parcel had beautiful new boots for George, and of course he wanted to show Jacob right away.
In the barn, three wagons were in various stages of construction. Jacob’s stepsons, Solomon and William, and two teamsters, Samuel Shoemaker and James Smith, packed shiny farm implements. Jacob rested on a hay stack, his eyes closed.
George strode into the barn with a pack of smaller nephews. “See my new boots, Jacob. Aren’t they beauties?”
Jacob opened his eyes and gave a token nod.
George showed them to Solomon and William and to the teamsters, who whistled approval, then he picked up a sack of seed off a pile near Jacob. “You know, boys,” he said to his nephews, “in California you just throw the seed on the ground and reach down and pick the plant. What do you fancy to eat, Jacob?”
Jacob slowly shook his head. “I think I’m just gonna stay put.”
George’s face sobered, but his tone was still light. “All you can look forward to here is snow freezing your privates.”
Our nephews giggled. Jacob’s fleeting smile looked like a grimace. “I’m too old, my legs hurt, my back,” he whined. “My whole life I’ve had pain, George—”
In the doorway I held two blueberry pies Elizabeth had sent out and watched George listening to Jacob’s litany, watched him deflate with every ailment. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Jacob,” I finally said, “you’ll live twenty more years in warmth and sunshine.”
Jacob lumbered to get up, groaning in an exaggerated way.
I knew George would not go without him. “If you don’t want to go for yourself, Jacob,” I said, “go for your children. Don’t rob them of this opportunity.”
Chagrined, Jacob looked at his boys’ pleading faces. He looked at George. “You really think I could do it?”
“All you need is a little open country,” George said. He reached out a hand and pulled Jacob up. “It’ll be just like the old days, brother.”
George turned to me tonight and said, “I knew he didn’t want to go. I talked him into it, because otherwise I couldn’t have come.”
“You didn’t act alone,” I said.
Feb 8th 1847
“What luck?” the rower shouted to the ship, and we waited, breaths held, until the answer came.
“We had bad luck,” Jean Baptiste says frequently.
I’ve thought often about luck here. We always assign a value to luck, think it either good or bad. Looked at that way, he’s right. Luck was against us.
But you also can retrace our steps, as I have done many nights, and see that many small decisions, made thoughtfully or without thought, carried us incrementally, inexorably, here. You could say, though I’m not ready to, that we caused our own fate.
June 1831, North Carolina
Tully stands at the window with Thomas on his shoulders and spreads his arms wide. “See your farm, Thomas,” he says. At this time of day, the light is golden, and I know he looks at a delightful sight. “And your mother is eager to go to Ohio,” Tully says incredulously. He turns around to where I’m writing you at the table. “Tell your sister that no one in her right mind would ever leave such abundance. Carolina has every delight anyone could want.”
Carolina was a beautiful place, Betsey, and I was very happy there. Our farm and my school prospered, and I was quite the entrepreneur, selling our milk and eggs at the door, honey from our bees, and my special molded butter. I know you have many wonders in Newburyport, but I rather think you don’t have butter designs. In the evenings, I took the butter from the cold water crocks in our storehouse and laid out my tools: a circular wooden board Tully had fashioned for me, a set of sharply pointed sticks, a knife, and squares of muslin. While Tully rocked Thomas to sleep and we talked quietly by candlelight, I molded designs on the butters: flowers, a bird, whatever took my fancy, once even an elephant, squeezing a lump of butter through the muslin for its rough skin, a different muslin mesh for its tail, and my knife blade for its tusks. I did not charge extra for the designs because molding gave me pleasure, but I couldn’t make enough butter to keep up with the demand.
Yet, every time I bid one of our Ohio-bound neighbors farewell, desire leapt in me. All my life, I have wondered about the place I’m not in. You either are that way or you aren’t, and you can’t imagine the opposite state.
Tully wasn’t that way—though we had determined to remove to some western state the next year because of his precarious health and our strong dislike to slavery—and there were times I found it hard to want something and have to wait for someone else to want it too. George was, though he thought he had grown too old.
I will own the truth. I wanted George and the children to go to California because I couldn’t go without them. But I wanted them to go for themselves too. It cannot be wrong to wish as much for others as you wish for yourself. Certainly it can’t be wrong to wish things for yourself.
I would give anything to take upon myself the pain my children now endure. It is nearly intolerable to consider that I may be responsible for that pain.
Feb 9th 1847
My menses have stopped. I thought it was the change of life, but this morning Elitha told me hers have stopped too. In one way I’m glad, because it’s easier, but it worries me too. What else is shutting down in our bodies?
The darkness has bothered me the most. It can be high noon outside, but here, underground, it’s always dark. We read and write and eat and live by lighted pinecones when Jean Baptiste can find them in the snow and the omnipresent firelight, which casts its eerie shadows in the corners. I tell myself, Betsey, that this is just like when I was little and we ate by firelight and candlelight because the whale oil was too precious to use, but it’s not like that at all because I didn’t know anything different then. When the snow melts more, Jean Baptiste and I hope to uncover one of our wagons to find kerosene lamps, and my sewing box for Elitha to bring back her interest, which has flagged again now that the tobacco is gone.
Solomon came over today. With a hat shading his eyes, he was able to tolerate the bright light. He seems his old self, and his visit cheered up everyone. Jean Baptiste asked me if he could come back home, and I said yes.
Feb 10th ’47
“The third wagon has all the things we won’t need until California,” Frances says, parroting my voice.
Enormously excited, she, Georgia, and Eliza, in linsey traveling dresses, peep out the window at the three pristine covered wagons in our farmyard.
“The second has our food, our clothes, all the necessities of camp life.”
They squeal and jump up and down, watching oxen, horses, dogs, their father, and the teamsters engage in tremendous activity. Next to the children, an 1846 feed store calendar left on the wall has a date circled in red: April 15.
“And the first wagon,” Frances tells her sisters, “is our family home on wheels!”
We dismantled the first wagon and parts of the other two for th
e shelter, platforms, table, benches, and a small “cupboard” near the fireplace we kept the food in until it was gone.
The remnants of the second and third wagons are encased in snow that thaws and freezes, but this afternoon, Jean Baptiste tunneled like a madman and reached one.
“Tamsen,” George yelled from his platform. “The seed!”
I turned around wearily.
“Don’t you remember?” he said, already struggling to get up. “In California you just throw the seed on the ground, boys. What do you fancy to eat, Jacob?”
George in between us, Jean Baptiste and I stumbled across the clearing until George said, “Here. We’re close, I know we’re close.”
Jean Baptiste thrust a pole into the ground. It struck something. He looked at George.
“Keep going! Keep going!”
Jean Baptiste shoveled, then clawed at the snow with his bare hands until he uncovered wood. He smiled hugely at us, almost crazily I thought, until I realized later that our smiles back mirrored his.
Jean Baptiste wriggled down the tunnel he’d made. George and I looked at each other, holding our breath.
Jean Baptiste emerged, exultant, holding a bag of seed.
Even with one arm, George easily tore open the soggy bag. His face immediately fell. He stared at the black, withered seed, shaking his head in disbelief and disappointment.
Inside the children gathered round me at the fireplace as I ferociously stirred the contents of the pot as if I could will it into something they could eat. George touched my shoulder.
“It’s blighted, Tamsen. You can’t salvage it.”
I stared at the fetid, black, oozing liquid, which was clearly inedible.
“Can you fix it, Mother?” Frances asked.
Feb 11th
Today Leanna slapped Elitha, who slapped her back.
“Stop it!” I yelled. “Stop it this instant!” When we had all calmed down, I gathered the whole family and said, “Until rescue comes, our only hope of survival is each other. We have to help each other—”
“She never stops talking about food,” Leanna said.
“I’m sorry,” Elitha said, “I just can’t help it.”
“Yes, you can,” I said. “You’re stronger than you think.”
“I’m sorry I slapped you,” Leanna said. “Sometimes I feel wild, as if I’m going to burst into a thousand pieces.”
Then both of them cried and hugged each other, and I thought, I know the precise feeling, Leanna.
Harriet McCutchen, 1, d. Feb 2nd 1847 at the lake camp. At Fort Bridger when George said the McCutchens were welcome to join us, “Big Bill” lifted Harriet, delicate as a Dresden doll, over his head with one hand. “We’re goin’ to California, Punkin!” She laughed with glee.
Margaret “Maggie” Eddy, 1, d. Feb 4th 1847 at the lake camp
Eleanor Eddy, 25, d. Feb 7th 1847 at the lake camp (Husband and father, William Eddy, went with the snowshoers Dec 16th ’46. No word yet.)
Augustus Spitzer, 30?, d. Feb 8th 1847 at the lake camp. From Germany. Joseph Reinhardt’s partner?
George shook his head. “With both Reinhardt and Spitzer dead,” he said, “we’ll never know what happened to Wolfinger in the second desert.”
Oct. 6–13th 1846
Wolfinger Disappears
Before we set out, Betsey, we knew we had to cross a forty-mile desert between the Humboldt River and the Truckee River to get to California. We also knew that Hastings Cutoff involved a “dry drive.”
“Thirty miles,” Hastings said the “dry drive” was.
It was eighty.
“Two days and two nights,” he said.
It was six days and six nights.
We crossed the “dry drive,” the Great Salt Lake Desert, September 4–9th 1846. The Reeds lost two wagons, the Kesebergs one, we lost one. Thirty-six head of working cattle vanished. James Reed lost his entire herd, except for one ox and one cow. Once the most prosperous, now he had least of all. He had to promise two for one in California to Mr. Breen and Mr. Graves for two scrawny oxen that could barely drag the big family wagon along.
In the second desert in October, the Indians shot more cattle. The Eddys abandoned their only wagon; they had no oxen to draw it. Mr. Eddy, carrying three-year-old Jimmy, and his wife, Eleanor, carrying baby Maggie, walked the forty miles. I left my crate of books, so painstakingly chosen for my new school, keeping only Dickens for Eliza. But we reached the Truckee River; from then on, we would never be out of reach of water. We had all gotten across, except for the Wolfingers’ wagon, which was expected soon.
Mrs. Wolfinger woke George at dawn, and a few moments later, he roused me. “Wolfinger’s young bride is very upset. I can’t make out what she’s saying.”
She was hysterical, nearly unintelligible. I held her very firmly and told her several times in German to speak slower, until I made out the gist and turned to George. “She says her husband never came in.”
Mr. Spitzer and Mr. Reinhardt weren’t in yet either, but Mr. Keseberg said everyone was getting upset over nothing. “They will be helping Wolfinger cache his goods,” Mr. Keseberg said. “They will catch up.”
That made sense, because after Mr. Spitzer and Mr. Reinhardt abandoned their wagon in the first desert, they had thrown their few bundles into Mr. Wolfinger’s remaining wagon. But Mrs. Wolfinger continued to cry and beg, until George told our nephews Solomon and William and their friend John Landrum Murphy to saddle up and go back into the desert to look for signs of the three men.
We waited at the edge of the desert while the sun rose higher, and we began worrying about the boys too. Around noon, they appeared driving Mr. Wolfinger’s wagon, flushed with heat and self-importance, vying with each other to get the news out first.
“We found his wagon and brought it in!”
“It was untouched!”
“Cattle unhitched, standing right next to it!”
“Still chained together!”
“No sign of Wolfinger, boys?” George asked. “Or Spitzer or Reinhardt?”
“Indians must have attacked them,” the boys cried.
“Indians don’t leave oxen,” George said.
Patrick Breen snorted. “Indians, my foot. Wolfinger was a rich man, and those other two Dutchmen, I’ll stake my life they’ve seen the inside of jail more than once—”
I doubt that Mrs. Wolfinger could understand Mr. Breen’s thick brogue, but she began sobbing again, and I led her away. “You come with us. One of our teamsters will drive your wagon.”
Without vote or discussion, the men chained up. We could still get in half a day’s travel. We already had lost too much time. No one wanted to go back in that burning desert again. “It’s a matter among foreigners,” one teamster said, another adding, “Their concern, not ours,” and no one disagreed.
Two days later, our fifteen wagons made a meager nooning stop, mostly to rest the jaded teams. We had coffee and tea left. William Eddy held out a small bag of sugar. “This is it for us.”
“Hallo!” a voice called.
We stared in disbelief as Mr. Spitzer and Mr. Reinhardt approached our campsite.
“Indians attacked us,” Mr. Reinhardt said. “Killed Wolfinger.”
“Carried him and his oxen off,” Mr. Spitzer said. “Burnt his wagon.”
George looked coldly at them. “His wagon and oxen were untouched. We brought them in.”
Mr. Reinhardt looked down, but Mr. Spitzer maintained his gaze with George.
Patrick Breen exchanged a look with his wife, Peggy: What did I tell you?
Doris Wolfinger gestured to Mr. Spitzer, whispered to me, “Die Waffemeines Mannes.”
I pointed to the gun at Mr. Spitzer’s waist. “She says it’s her husband’s gun.”
George curtly gestured for Mr. Reinhardt and Mr. Spitzer to fall in. I looked at him questioningly. “Write down what everybody says in your journal,” he said. “The proper authorities can settle this when we get to Californ
ia. Right now we need every person we can get.”
102 days in the mountains
Sister, there is no way George can relay the children. He keeps talking about it, and his spirits are better, but he has to know his arm is getting worse. We must get out of here, but how? I can’t leave him. The children are too little—
I stopped writing there this morning, because George called me. “We’ll give the rescuers a few more days,” he said. “If they don’t come, and the thaw holds, we’ll walk out. Jean Baptiste will carry Georgia. I’ll carry Eliza. You and Elitha and Leanna will help Frances.”
In spite of myself my eyes cut involuntarily to his bandaged arm, and he saw.
“I’ve got it all worked out,” he said. “Milt’s going to help us.”
I stared at him for a moment, calculating his plan, repeating it in my head and then aloud to hear how it sounded. “Jean Baptiste will carry Georgia. You and Milt will carry Eliza. Elitha and Leanna and I will help Frances.”
He nodded.
“George, I think we could do it with Milt.”
We looked into each other’s eyes, Betsey, and saw hope there. “Yes, yes,” I said. “I’m sure we can do it with Milt.”
Feb 13th 1847
Much of the morning, George sat at the table instructing Leanna on how to carry his flintlock. “One way’s to carry the rifle with your dominant hand, the muzzle forward,” he said. “You’re right-handed like me, so try that.”
Leanna stood next to him, painstakingly following his instructions.
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