Only the Brave: The Continuing Saga of the San Juan Pioneers

by Gerald N. Lund

  He reached out and touched her hand for a moment. “It’s all right, Edie. Tell me what happened.”

  She turned and stared at the snow swirling around them, blotting out everything but the horses. “Everything was fine for the first two days. We crossed White Mesa with no problems. It was a little cloudy by the time we reached Recapture Creek, but the temperature was mild and there was no snow.”

  “I’ll bet that changed about the time you reached Alkali.”

  “Exactly. We could see the sky darkening and knew there was a storm coming. We pushed the horses as hard as we could, but it caught us about halfway to the top.” Her voice was hushed and tight with pain. “It was horrible. Suddenly we were in snow almost two feet deep. And then the blizzard hit. The higher we went, the deeper it got. Pretty soon it was up to the bellies of the horses, and they eventually stopped. It was too much for them. They couldn’t go any farther.”

  She stopped and turned away, staring out into the gathering darkness. Her voice had a faraway, ethereal quality to it. “Nothing we could do would make them go any farther.” She looked up at him. “And that’s when I thought we were going to die. And that’s when we really started to pray. I mean, we really started to pray.”

  “Did you know how close you were to Verdure by that point?”

  “Not for sure. I’ve only been across this road twice, and with all that snow it was hard to know where we were.” When she looked up at him, her eyes were swimming with tears. “How did you know where we were?”

  “I didn’t. But finish your story first. So when the horses refused to go any farther, you got out and walked?”

  “Not exactly. Not at first. We unhitched the team and took the stronger one.” She turned around and glanced back at the other passengers. “I think they may be asleep,” she whispered.

  “Good. Especially for Nean.”

  “Anyway, we took turns. One of us would ride the horse for a while, holding Nean on our lap, while the other two walked alongside. Fortunately, the horse seemed to know where we were going.”

  She stopped and started picking nervously at the balls of snow on her mittens.

  “We walked for what seemed like hours until . . .” Her voice caught. “The horse just gave up. It gave this horrible shudder and then lay down and refused to move.”

  She buried her face in her hands and began to silently shake. Mitch laid a hand on her shoulder. “It’s all right, Edie. You don’t have to talk about it now.”

  She wiped at her nose with the back of her mitten, sniffing back the tears. “I want to.” A long pause. “I need to.”

  She looked up at him. “That’s when I lost all hope. I thought . . .” A sob was torn from her throat. “I thought, ‘It’s over. And what if no one ever finds us?’ I thought of Mama and Papa and how awful that would be for them. I thought of Oma, of never seeing her again, either.”

  She looked up him as tears ran down her cheeks. He was weeping with her now. “And I thought of you.” She had to stop again. He put his arm around her and pulled her in tight against him. “And I cried to God, ‘Please, Heavenly Father. Please let me see Mitch again so that our last time together will not be his memory of me.’”

  She slid closer and leaned her head against him. “It was no more than five or six minutes after that cry of anguish that we heard horses coming. Can you imagine how we felt at that moment? I was dizzy with joy. Delirious, almost.”

  She took his hand and intertwined her fingers with his. “And then I heard your voice.” She couldn’t go on. She just squeezed his hand so hard that it hurt. He squeezed it back.

  “At first I couldn’t believe it. Wouldn’t believe it. And then, there you were.” Turning her head, she buried it against him. “How did you know?” she whispered. “How ever did you know where to find us? No one even knew we were coming.”

  “Someone knew.” And so, in a quiet voice filled with emotion, he told her about his feelings.

  They drove in silence for a long time. They had come back to the junction with the road that led to Verdure. The wind had died down a little, but the snow was thickening. He kept glancing at Edie. Her head was on his shoulder and her eyes were closed. He could see her body slowly relaxing, her emotions calming. There was so much he was longing to say, but he made himself wait.

  As the team turned again, he squeezed her hand. “About ten minutes now.”

  She nodded.

  He took a deep breath, and then another. He opened his mouth to speak but then changed his mind. Watching him closely, she sat up straighter. But she too chose not to speak. And then came another impression. It wasn’t as strong as the one to go south. But it didn’t need to be. He transferred the reins from his right hand to his left and then removed his right glove and fished in his pocket.

  Curious, she sat back a little to give him more room. When he pulled his hand out, he had something clenched in his fist. He held it out in front of her and then slowly opened his fingers.

  She stared at it for several seconds before finally looking up at him. Her eyes were wide and luminous. “You keep it in your pocket?” she exclaimed in wonder.

  “I do. All the time. It helps me remember how stupid I was. What a dummkopf I was.”

  He closed his fist again while he wrapped the reins around the seat handle. He removed his other glove and dropped it in his lap. Then he took the ring between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. He held it out for her to see.

  “Miss Edna Rae Zimmer. I have been thinking about you and your grandmother.”

  “Oma Zimmer?” she exclaimed in surprise. She had not expected a man holding a ring out at her to bring up her grandmother. “What about her?”

  “I’ve been thinking about her patriarchal blessing.”

  Edie was clearly taken aback by this unexpected line of conversation. “What about it?”

  “No offense intended, but I was thinking that if we leave it up to you to teach our children German, it’s not going to work. You don’t speak it often enough to make a difference.”

  Her eyes were almost glowing in the darkness. “Our children?”

  “Yes. So, I think when we build our new ranch house”—he emphasized the possessive pronoun—“we need to put in an extra room for Oma Zimmer. She can live with us and make sure our children help to fulfill her blessing.”

  “Stop!” Edie breathed, half laughing and half crying as she slipped the glove off her left hand. “Will you let me catch my breath for a moment?”

  “No.” Mitch took her hand and moved the ring near the tip of her ring finger.

  “Edna Rae Zimmer, if I solemnly promise to spend my life caring about you, loving you, worshipping you, working with you, cherishing you, counseling with you, would you consent to be my wife?”

  “Yes!” she cried in exultation. She took off her mitten and stuck out her left hand, and he slipped the ring on her finger. “Yes! Yes! Yes!” She reached up and pulled his head down and kissed him with joyous abandon.

  He kissed her back and then finally pulled away. He was grinning like a little kid. “That went better this time,” he said with a straight face. “Don’t you think?”

  Notes

  In the spring of 1888, Evelyn Adams decided to surprise her husband by driving herself from Bluff to Verdure, a distance of forty-five miles. Feeling adventurous and encouraged by the near-summer temperatures in Bluff, she decided not to wait for the others. She took her daughter Cornelia, who was three, and brought along Leona Walton (later Nielson), who was going up to cook for the men (see History of San Juan County, 66). They set off in a single wagon.

  Aside from the season, it was a difficult journey even for experienced travelers. The road was in some places nearly impassable even in dry weather. A rainstorm could turn long stretches into a quagmire. And they were traveling alone through Indian country. But one has to remember that Evelyn had never seen the Blue Mountain region in winter. She had joined her husband, George H. Adams, and the other four fa
milies in June of 1886, and they had returned to Bluff in October or November of that same year.

  The details of their harrowing experience and their struggle for survival are accurately portrayed here. The rescue was somewhat different, however. A cowhand from the L. C. Ranch named Frank Taylor was driving home in a light sleigh with a load of oats when he came upon the two women and the child. He threw off the oats and took them safely to Verdure (see Saga, 98–99; Lariats, 87–88).

  Nevertheless, the settlers saw this remarkable occurrence as an example of divine intervention. In the first place, at that time in that area of San Juan County, the total population of whites would have been somewhere around fifty, and they were scattered over hundreds of square miles. That means the traffic on any given road at any given time would have been sparse at best, nonexistent at worst.

  Second, the storms of the Blue Mountains had such a fearsome reputation that there are accounts of how even the hardiest of men would hole up inside to avoid being out in them.

  Third, if the snow was up to the horses’ bellies, those women had to have been pushing through snow that reached to mid-thigh. They also had to be soaking wet from the waist down—and all of this while they carried a three-year-old child.

  Fourth, these women were not near any settlement when they first stopped. How they even managed to stay on the road is a wonder. So to have someone just happen to come along in the middle of a blizzard and pass by exactly where they were at that time seems more than remarkable.

  Years later, Evelyn’s husband, George, would say of this experience: “Their surprise was a complete success, although they had taken their lives into their own hands to bring it about” (Lariats, 88).

  Cornelia, or Nean, who was three at the time, later helped author Saga of the San Juan, an important source for this novel.

  Note to Readers

  As I mentioned in the preface, I have decided to extend the story of Mitch Westland and Edna Rae Zimmer beyond this book. I am excited to continue, through them, the story of the early San Juan pioneers who spread out from Bluff to establish new settlements and stabilize a difficult and isolated part of the western United States. Thanks to them, their descendants no longer had to fulfill the role of “buffers,” “shock absorbers,” and “lightning rods.” Those pioneers also left their descendants an incredible legacy of faith, courage, determination, and that most remarkable of qualities—what Bishop Jens Nielson called “stick-a-ty-tootie.” It was a marvelous gift for the rising generations.

  In continuing this story, however, I’m going to try something I’ve never done before. I’m going to take the characters from one series and introduce them into a new series. I hope my reasons for doing so will become obvious as readers see how two families from rural southern Utah—the Westlands and the Zimmers—merge with one another and then eventually cross paths with a family in southern Germany.

  Only the Brave is a sequel to The Undaunted, but that series ends here. However, Mitch and Edie will continue their story in volume two of my new series, Fire and Steel. The first volume in that series, A Generation Rising, is available now. It introduces the family of Hans and Inga Eckhardt, who live in Bavaria in southern Germany. In the second volume, we will come to learn how the Westlands’ and the Eckhardts’ lives will become forever intertwined.

  Bibliography

  Blankenagel, Norma Palmer. “Portrait of our Past: A History of the Monticello Utah Stake of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” Unpublished manuscript, 1988.

  Hafen, LeRoy R., and Ann W. Hafen. Handcarts to Zion: The Story of a Unique Western Migration, 1856–1860. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1960.

  Jenson, Andrew, ed. Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia: A Compilation of Biographical Sketches of Prominent Men and Women in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 4 vols. Salt Lake City: Andrew Jenson History Company, 1901.

  Lyman, Albert R. History of San Juan County 1879–1917. Privately printed, 1919.

  Lyman, Albert R. Indians and Outlaws: Settling of the San Juan Frontier. Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1962.

  Miller, David E. Hole in the Rock: An Epic in the Colonization of the Great American West. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1966.

  Perkins, Cornelia Adams, Marian Gardner Nielson,, and Lenora Butt Jones. Saga of the San Juan. San Juan County Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1968.

  Young, Norma Perkins. Anchored Lariats on the San Juan Frontier. Provo, UT: Community Press, 1985.