On the Trail of the Truth

by Michael Phillips

  We were at the end of the canyon, and the trail up the mountain wound up and out of sight. I now saw the impossibility of what I had hoped to do. The wagon could go no farther. A light wet snow was falling where we were, and up higher the snow was falling in huge, thick flakes.

  We stopped and I tried desperately to think.

  “We’ll have to try it with these horses,” I said at last. “They’re the best workhorses Parrish Freight has, and it’s our only chance.”

  I jumped out of the wagon and began unhitching the straps from the two animals.

  “What’n tarnation ya thinkin’?” said Mr. Jones.

  “We’ll both ride up there!” I answered, working my fingers as fast as I could in the biting cold. “We’ll take the horses and your mule . . . leave the wagon here, then bring them all four down at once!”

  “Ya got spunk, I’ll say that! Let’s git goin’—we still gotta find where they’s broke down,” said Mr. Jones, already out of the wagon and untying his mule from the back. “An’ that ain’t gonna be easy, neither!”

  In another three or four minutes we were making our way up the narrow trail. It seemed to take forever, but we made it safely to the top. When we reached the main road that ran along the ridge, we stopped.

  “Which way’s the Ward place?” said Mr. Jones, half asking, half trying to remember himself.

  I glanced all around. In the eerie quietness of the snowy wooded area, everything looked different.

  “I . . . I’m not sure,” I replied, glancing about for something I might recognize.

  Suddenly Mr. Jones jumped off his mule and tromped forward in the snow several paces.

  “Look . . . there’s wagon tracks!” he shouted back at me as he pointed ahead. “They been along here all right!”

  He glanced hurriedly to the right and left.

  “The slope’s climbin’ this way,” he said, jumping back onto his mule. “That means they was headed down.”

  “Let’s go!” I cried, urging the horses toward the faint wheel tracks.

  Alkali Jones nodded. “I jest hope we ain’t too late.”

  Chapter 10

  The Article

  What happened next . . . well, I’ve kinda got to jump way ahead to tell you about it. You know I’d always wanted to write, and had even hoped to write newspaper articles someday—more than the one or two little things I’d done for Mr. Singleton. As it turned out, what happened to me and Mr. Jones in the blizzard was the thing that my first really big article was about. Of course, it wasn’t printed in the paper till a couple months later—that’s the jumping-ahead part.

  But as I was writing about the blizzard, it just seemed that perhaps the best way to tell what happened would be just to let you read the article I wrote afterward. And I’m kind of proud of the article too, even after all these years, since it was the first one I got published in a big city paper. So here it is:

  Sometimes danger brings with it adventures that would never have happened without it. That’s how it was during the blizzard that struck the foothills northwest of Sacramento last March. Folks had already been calling the winter of ’55 a bad one, and the sudden fall of snow that dropped on all the gold-mining communities of the region sure made it seem like they were right.

  The blizzard brought danger, all right, because most of the citizens weren’t expecting it, since it struck so suddenly and all, before anyone was prepared.

  The first sign of trouble came when word got to the men gathered in Miracle Springs’ Gold Nugget—one of the town’s only establishments open at the time—that an avalanche had just occurred on Washington Ridge east of Nevada City, burying three cabins in the ravine below, and endangering the lives of six or eight miners trapped inside. Immediately all the town’s available men set out through the snow to try to dig the men out.

  No sooner had the men left Miracle Springs when another emergency came. Mr. Jeriah Ward staggered into town, nearly dead of exposure in the bitter cold and in danger of frostbite, frantically in search of help. Finding no one at the saloon or the sheriff’s office, Ward made his way to the Parrish Mine and Freight Company. In a state of collapse, he desperately told Mrs. Almeda Parrish Hollister that his wife and three young girls were trapped underneath their broken-down wagon halfway up Buck Mountain.

  The words had barely passed his lips when one of Parrish Freight’s young employees set out through the snow with a high-axle flatbed wagon pulled by two sturdy workhorses. The Parrish Freight wagon first headed north through the snow-blanketed white countryside on the main road toward North Bloomfield and Alleghany. Following Humbug Creek, swollen full from the winter’s rains, the wagon left the main road at the base of Buck Mountain, dropping down into Pan Ravine, a narrow gulch running along the south flank of the mountain. There the snow, which had been between six inches and a foot and a half deep on the main road, was only an inch or two thick. According to Mr. Marcus Weber of the Parrish Mine and Freight Company, who was interviewed afterward, this unusual phenomenon, which keeps most snowfall off the floor of Pan Ravine, is known only to the oldest natives of the region, but has been responsible for saving the lives of more than one person in winter snowstorms like this one.

  Up through the ravine the young freight driver urged the two workhorses, who found the footing easier. But as the elevation steadily rose, so did the snow on the ground.

  About halfway through the canyon the familiar voice of longtime Miracle Springs miner Alkali Jones was heard. Jones had left the previous day, prior to the beginning of the blizzard, for the Dolan ranch on the higher ground beyond Buck Mountain, and had been feared trapped or even lost in the snow. Like a ghost peering out from the darkness of the cave where he had been trying to wait out the worst of the storm, Jones appeared and joined the rescue effort.

  The two made their way to the end of the ravine where they left their wagon. Then up the narrow trail into the blizzard they went, Jones leading on the back of his sure-footed mule, followed by his young friend on the bare back of one of the horses, pulling the other.

  Steadily they climbed up the side of Buck Mountain, the snow falling heavier and heavier, but the trail under the thick foliage of the trees remaining visible. The way was slow, but all three animals proved true to their sure-footed reputations. Up the steep way they went, switching back often, always climbing, until at last they reached the main road that ran along the ridge. Snow over a foot thick covered the way.

  “I hope they’re still alive!” cried out the young freight driver as they began their search for the broken-down wagon.

  “Ain’t likely they can last long in this cold!” said Alkali Jones. “We gotta find ’em quick!”

  As rapidly as they could in the thick snow, they trudged along the road, following the barely visible indentations of wagon tracks, which were growing fainter and fainter by the minute.

  “I think I see it!” shouted the young driver at last. “There . . . off the road, all covered with snow!”

  “Could be a wagon,” replied Jones, giving his mule a hard kick in the side.

  “Mrs. Ward . . . Mrs. Ward!” the two shouted as they approached, jumping down and staggering through the deep snow. “Mrs. Ward—you there?”

  “Thank God!” said a faint voice from underneath the half-buried wagon. “Who is it?”

  “I’m from the Parrish Mine and Freight Company. Your husband came looking for help. His horse broke a leg and he couldn’t get back to you.”

  The two bent down. Under the wagon, protected from the snow, sat the freezing woman, the chill of death in her eyes, huddling her three children close to her under two or three blankets. The bed of the wagon, partially sloped against the wind, had kept them dry, and the blankets had preserved at least some of their body heat as the woman clutched the three children close to one another. Otherwise, all four would have been dead.

  “Why, Alkali Jones!” exclaimed the woman, recognizing one of her rescuers for the first time.

  “In
the flesh, ma’am,” replied Jones. “I haven’t seen ya since last spring.”

  “You two can visit later! Let’s wrap up the girls in these blankets. We’ve got to get back down to the canyon before this snow gets any deeper!”

  Helping her to her feet, Jones assisted Mrs. Ward onto the back of his mule—the most sure-footed of the three animals—then handed her the smallest of the girls, tightly wrapped in a blanket. Then the other two remounted, each cradling one of the children securely.

  Ten minutes later, the three animals were retracing their hoofprints toward the steep trail they had recently ascended. Downward they went this time, in tracks they had carved through the powder on the way up—still visible, though snow continued to fall. Jones, on one of the horses, with seven-year-old Julie bundled on his lap, led the way, followed by Mrs. Ward with the baby on the mule, and then the last Parrish workhorse with four-year-old Tracey in the rider’s lap. In a rainstorm the footing on the steep trail would have been muddy and treacherous, but in the frozen snow the hoofs of the animals found solid footing; and though the way was slow, they made the descent into the ravine below without stumbling once.

  The waiting wagon was loaded with the four Wards while the two-horse team was once again hitched to the wagon. Then the intrepid group turned for Miracle Springs.

  “What about your other mule?”

  “Leave it!” replied Alkali Jones, referring to the second of his two mules that he had tied back at the cave. “He couldn’t make it afore ya came, an’ he ain’t likely t’ feel none different now. I’ll come back fer him when the storm breaks. You jest whip them two horses o’ yers along an’ git us back t’ town! I’m as blamed anxious t’ git outta this cold as the Missus an’ her young’uns. My fingers is likely already froze clean off!”

  And so the rescue of Mrs. Jeriah Ward and her three daughters off Buck Mountain took place. When her husband next saw her, Mrs. Ward was sitting trying to get warm, drinking a cup of tea, while her two older girls sipped hot milk and vanilla in front of the fireplace at Mrs. Hollister’s. Waking up in a chair he could not remember being dragged to, with his family warm and safe and recovering, Ward took a cup of coffee from the hand of Alkali Jones, full of more questions than he could ask at once. Then, with many interruptions of “hee, hee, hee!” from the old miner, the relieved father and husband heard the entire story.

  In conclusion, it should be mentioned that the rescue of the miners trapped on Washington Ridge was also successful, though it was after nightfall before most of the men returned to Miracle Springs.

  Chapter 11

  How It Got Published

  Well, that’s the article I wrote about what happened, though you can probably tell I had a little help with it here and there. Mrs. Parrish and the man from the newspaper office added a few words and made it sound a little better, but mostly it’s mine.

  The Wards all turned out to be fine, and stayed in town at Mrs. Gianini’s boardinghouse for five days. It snowed on and off for another two days, then it took a while before Jeriah Ward could get a wagon back up the mountain with his wife and girls. He never let the fire go out in that cabin all winter and spring, and kept his wagon in good repair. I went up to visit them several times, and they treated me like a hero, telling me that if it hadn’t been for me they might have died in the cold. I hadn’t really thought about the danger, but the men around had such a respect for the mountain and for the fierceness of the weather in winter that they insisted there was more danger to all of our lives than I realized. Although I never felt much like a hero, it was nice to have them appreciate what I did. And from that time on, the Ward place became kind of like a second home to me, and I got quite attached to Lynn—Mrs. Ward—and her three girls.

  Alkali Jones went back to the cave off Pan Ravine the next day during a lull in the storm. I half think he was hoping the mule he’d left there would have frozen to death or run off so he’d have an excuse to go back to Mr. Dolan and try to get his $6.50 back. But no such luck. The mule was still there and still lame. Mr. Jones managed to get him back to town, and got him healthy again, although he still curses at him, calling him “the blamed orneriest dang mule I ever stuck rawhide t’ the rump of!” Maybe because he figured my coming along sort of saved his and his mules’ lives too—or at least saved his new mule’s life by keeping him from killing it himself!—he named it Corrie’s Beast. That’s what he’s been calling it ever since, though most of the time he’s swearing at it so loud he never has a chance to say the critter’s name at all!

  I wrote in my journal all about what happened during the blizzard with the Wards—even longer than I did in the article. I wasn’t in the habit of showing Mrs. Parrish everything I wrote. My journal was still a private thing I did just for myself. But she asked me what I’d said about the blizzard, and if she might see it, and I agreed.

  “Corrie, this is just great!” she exclaimed after she’d read only about half of it. Then she kept on reading, with a bright look in her eye. When she finally set the book down, she looked up. She was still smiling, but she tried to sound serious so I’d know she really meant what she was saying.

  “Corrie,” she said, “we could get this published, I’m sure of it!”

  “How?” I said.

  “In a newspaper. This is real news, Corrie. Papers want this kind of thing, especially personal accounts.”

  We talked about it some more and I asked her what I should do.

  “Write it again, Corrie. Write it on separate paper, and as good as you can make it. Think of it as a newspaper story. Pretend telling folks in San Francisco or up in Oregon or back in Kansas City what it was like during that blizzard. Pretend that you’re telling real people about what happened, and then just write it like a story.”

  “Should I mention my name?” I asked.

  “Hmm, that is hard to know,” mused Mrs. Parrish. “Why don’t you see if you can write it without letting on who you are,” she said after a minute. “That way it will seem more like real news reporting rather than that you’re just telling something that happened to you.”

  Later I learned ways to do “reporting” and tell about things I was involved in without including myself. But this first time it was difficult. After I wrote everything down again as a story, Mrs. Parrish helped me make some corrections. She suggested I add a few words here and there, like foliage and phenomenon. Actually she suggested quite a few things to change, but all the time she made me think it was all my own doing.

  When we were done she helped me send it to Mr. Singleton in Marysville. When he wrote back two weeks later, saying that the California Gazette regrettably would have to decline interest in the blizzard account, she was so upset she stormed and fumed around the house with a red face.

  “That old rattlepate Singleton wouldn’t know a good story if he was hit over the head with it! How he ever got into the newspaper business I can’t imagine!”

  All at once she had an idea. That’s when she thought of her friend. “I know what we’ll do, Corrie,” she said. “I have a friend on the staff of the Alta in San Francisco. He’s in advertising, but I’ve done quite a bit of work with him for the business. I’ll send him the story, tell him it’s authentic and that a friend of mine here in Miracle Springs wrote it. I’ll twist his arm a bit and ask him to show it to the news editor—Kemble’s his name, I believe.”

  “Do you really think they might print it?”

  “You never know unless you try, Corrie. I’ve given the Alta a lot of my business, not just in advertising, but for various printing jobs I’ve needed. I think upon my recommendation, they just might consider it.”

  When Mrs. Parrish’s friend first wrote back to us, he said, “The article’s fine. Matter of fact, it’s better than fine for a new reporter. But doesn’t he know how important it is to identify who the hero of the story is?” He thought I was a he because Mrs. Parrish had suggested I send him the story as written by C.B. Hollister, so his editor wouldn’t say no to
the idea of publishing it just because I was a girl.

  Mrs. Parrish answered the letter and explained why the freight driver’s name shouldn’t be used in the article. He responded immediately. “Kemble liked the blizzard piece. Not too well written, he said, but exciting and realistic, which is what our readers want. He complained like I did about the heroic wagon driver not being mentioned, but I told him that was a condition you’d put on publication. Anyway, he thought the piece was fine enough regardless, especially for a new reporter. Enclosed is $2.00. Whoever your friend C.B. Hollister is, Kemble says for him to get in touch. Might be that we can use something else of his in the future. Kemble likes firsthand accounts and has been looking for this kind of thing from the foothills country. We’ll send you a copy of the issue when it appears.”

  She threw her hands in the air and let out a whoop and holler.

  “Corrie, Corrie! Do you see this?” she exclaimed, shaking the check in my direction. “A check for two dollars! Corrie . . . you are going to be a published, professional newspaper writer!”

  I’d been sitting beside her as we read the letter. My heart was pounding and my hands were sweating, but not because of the $2.00. In fact, I hardly even noticed that. Over and over the words from the letter spun through my brain: Whoever C.B. Hollister is . . . get in touch . . . something else of his in the future.

  I could hardly believe it! Not just that this story was going to get into a newspaper—they might even want another story later, if I could write another one!

  It was too good to be true!

  By this time winter was over, and the story didn’t appear until toward the end of April. I’ll never forget what it was like sitting around the house that night after the copy of the Alta came, the whole family huddled near the fire, everybody looking over shoulders and around heads and through arms. Tad and Becky sat on the floor, Emily and Zack and I squatted Indian-style, Alkali Jones, Katie, Uncle Nick, Pa, and Almeda all crowded together to read the article in the Alta with BLIZZARD RESCUE ON BUCK MOUNTAIN in big bold black print across the top, and underneath the words: by C.B. Hollister, Miracle Springs, California.