by F. M. Parker
Sam heard the thud of horses’ hooves. They grew louder and louder, coming directly at him. Sam lifted his head slightly.
Two mounted men leading three packhorses loaded with bundles of furs pulled their animals to a halt. One of the men spoke to the man with the rifle. “We don’t need a lookout anymore. Come and get one of these packhorses and take the furs to the raft.” He gestured in the direction of the craft down river.
“Okay,” replied the man.
The man on foot took the reins of one of the packhorses and headed along the river. The river pirates had brought their own pelts to add to the ones they had obtained by killing. They passed well away from Sam. When the sound of the horses faded, Sam raised higher to look.
The two men had ridden up river to the second raft that was tied to a bush on the edge of the water. They began to carry the furs aboard the craft. When the last bale was loaded, and lashed down, the men removed the packsaddles and dropped them on the ground. The remainder of their possessions, saddles and other personal gear, were brought onto the raft.
One man shoved the raft away from the bank. He sprang on board as the second man began to swing the sweep to propel them out into the current of the river. The horses stood watching after the men.
Sam saw the last man load his furs and take his personal items onto the raft. He left the horses and worked his craft into the river. He joined with his comrades as they floated past.
The two crafts grew smaller and smaller until they were but mere dots upon the back of the Missouri River. The rafts vanished around a bend and were lost to view.
Sam checked the height of the sun above the horizon. The yellow ball had fallen only a couple of finger widths since he had looked at it while still on the raft. The deaths of six men and the theft of many thousands of dollars in furs had all occurred in less than an hour. He had gone from a relatively wealthy young man bound for the delights of St. Joe to a man badly wounded and a thousand miles deep in Indian country.
The four horses left behind on the river shore upstream from Sam had seen him sitting in the grass. They began to drift in his direction. Occasionally one would lower its head and crop a bite of grass. Then it would continue on with its mates.
Sam painfully climbed to his feet. He held out his hand to the horses and whistled low and soft. The closest horse, a good-looking gray animal, increased its pace toward him.
So someone has been hand-feeding you, thought Sam. “Come on, old fella,” he said gently to the horse.
The gray reached Sam and began to nuzzle his fingers. Sam stroked the long bony jaw. The horse watched him with large gold-flecked brown eyes.
Sam could fashion a halter and perhaps a crude saddle out of the packsaddles left behind by the thieves. However, with his wound, it would be cruel punishment to try to ride the horse south across the plains. There was a second option. His party had passed two trappers beginning to build a raft at the junction of the Knife River and the Missouri. If the Indians did not kill the men, or they did not drown in the swift current, they should be coming downriver in two or three days. Sam had a better chance to heal lying on the raft than riding on the jarring back of the horse for days.
Could he get the men on the raft to stop for him? He grinned without humor. His skin was as white as the thief’s. Sam would take off his shirt and show his skin to the men.
He pulled his skinning knife. “Sorry, old fella,” he said in a sad voice. He slashed the horse across the vulnerable underside of its neck with the keen-edged knife.
The blade cut deeply into the soft neck. The white ends of the severed jugular vein showed just for an instant. Then the bright red blood throbbed out in a great crimson geyser. The hot blood fell upon Sam and the brown grass on the ground.
The gray horse screamed in agony. It spun away from the man who had hurt it so cruelly. Its hard hooves threw clods of grass and dirt as it bolted. The other horses followed in a wild, snorting stampede.
Sam did not follow. The horse could go but only a short distance. He hated what he had done.
The wounded horse halted. It looked back at Sam for a handful of seconds, as if trying to understand why the man had hurt it. The blood still spouted from the gaping neck wound, jetting out with each beat of the strong heart. In the sunlight Sam could see the red stream rapidly weakening.
The dying horse splayed its legs to keep from falling. The proud head began to droop. A moment later the animal began to tremble, every muscle straining to hold the heavy body upright.
The horse fell to its knees, tried to steady itself but failed. It collapsed onto its side.
Sam made his way to the horse. Wincing with each stroke of his knife, he began to skin the animal. Blood started to flow from both the entrance and exit holes of Sam’s wounds. He halted and cut a strip from the tail of his buckskin shirt. This he tied tightly around his waist to close the wounds and lessen the loss of blood.
He recommenced the skinning of the horse. It was going to be a long and difficult chore with his injury.
Near dark he finished, taking the hide only from the back, one side, and the stomach, for he could not turn the heavy body. There was one more chore to do. He cut the flesh of the horse along the backbone and took a three-foot strip of tenderloin.
With the length of meat hanging over a shoulder and dragging the wet horse hide, Sam slowly made his way down onto the point of land and out to the driftwood pile.
As darkness of night fell upon the valley of the Missouri River, the little heat that had accumulated leaked away into the sky. A chilly wind began to blow down from the north. Sam wrapped himself in the green hide, the hairy side to his body. The night would be cold.
He started to tremble, as the horse had trembled from loss of blood. The horse had died. Would he?
His trembling increased. Unconsciousness swept over him. He was falling and spinning as he plunged down into a bottomless pit of blackness.
***
Hours later Sam awoke fuzzy headed and weak. But he no longer trembled. He was even slightly warm. He shoved back the horsehide. The high dome of the sky arched sapphire blue overhead. The sun was halfway to its zenith.
The river had risen another three or four inches during the night. It gurgled wetly as it poured past the bank. The sound brought Sam’s thirst quickly to his attention. He crawled down the river’s edge and drank deeply of the muddy water.
Sam remained by the edge of the water for a time and watched upstream. There was only some brush and patches of brown foam floating on the current. Growing weary, he crawled back to the horsehide. The trappers could not yet have come this far downriver. He let himself slide off into sleep.
On the morning of the second day Sam unbound his wound. The ragged gunshot holes were red and ugly. They started to bleed slightly. He was troubled by the thought of infection. He turned to let the sun shine on the wounds.
After an hour or so, he replaced the binding around his waist. Painfully propping himself into a sitting position against a driftwood log, he watched the river for the balance of the morning. The only living thing he saw was a blue jay that flew in to perch above his head and study him with bright liquid eyes. In the afternoon a herd of forty-seven buffalo— Sam counted them as they unhurriedly filed down the riverbank—came and drank from the brown Missouri. Then they climbed back up to the level of the prairie and disappeared.
Sam tried to eat a piece of the horse meat in the late afternoon. But he spit it out. He had eaten raw meat before, and his lack of appetite was not caused by that. His body simply rejected the food. He knew he was badly hurt and might never leave the riverbank.
Those were bad thoughts. He must prepare for the future. He cut the rest of the meat into thin strips and hung them over the limbs of the cottonwood that grew close to the ground. He would have a fair supply of jerky in a few days. He would need every bit if he should have to travel overland by himself.
Sam studied the drying meat. He should have cut it for jerky the da
y before. He thought ruefully of yesterday. Then he was just trying to live.
On the third day Sam felt weaker and more light-headed. He thought his wound was infected. He again tried to eat a little of the half-dry horse meat but could not. He propped himself up to watch the river. Come on, somebody— anybody.
His eyes grew heavy and he fell asleep in the afternoon sun. He dreamed that the two trappers he and his partners had seen working on the raft along the river were floating by, just off the end of the point of land. They were sitting on bales of furs and looking downriver. They did not see him.
He jerked and called out in his sleep. The pain of his sudden movement brought him instantly awake. He flung a scanning look out over the river.
A raft with two men sitting on bales of fur was on the river. Sam shook his head, not believing that reality was exactly the same as his dream, that there were in truth two men on a raft on the river. One of the men idly turned to glance toward the point of land.
Sam weakly climbed erect. He gasped at the pain from his wound. Holding his stomach, he staggered to the edge of the water.
“Miller!” Sam shouted. His voice was but a croak. He tried again, raising his voice above the noise of the river. “Miller! Over here! Hey! Over here!” They must see him. He must not be left behind!
The man spotted Sam. He spoke quickly to his comrade. The second man turned to stare toward Sam.
Sam called at the top of his voice. “Miller, Stamper, it’s Sam Wilde. We met upriver a few days back.” He waded out into the river up to his crotch. “Stop. Pull into shore.”
Stamper stepped to the sweep and vigorously began to swing it. The raft, still speeding downstream, angled across the current.
Sam watched for a few seconds longer to be certain the raft was indeed pulling in the direction of the riverbank. Then he turned and, in a stumbling walk, made his way slowly off the point of land and downstream.
The raft made shore two hundred yards below Sam. Miller hopped out and stood near the water’s edge, holding the raft by a rope. Stamper climbed to the top of the bank with his rifle.
“What in God’s name happened to you?” Stamper asked as Sam drew near.
“River pirates. They tricked us into coining close to land and then shot the hell out of us. Everybody but me is dead. They got every fur we had. “
“How long ago?” Miller called up from the river.
“Three days now.”
“How many of them?” asked Stamper.
“There was four but now only three. I knifed one.”
“Well, come on and get aboard the raft,” Miller said. “Let’s shove off. You can tell the story as we go. If they should have some trouble that slows them down, we might catch up.”
Sam went down the bank and climbed out on the raft. Miller moved to the sweep. Stamper shoved them away from the bank.
Sam was dizzy from the exertion and pain. He thought he was going to faint.
“You’d better lay down,” said Miller. “You look awfully peaked. How bad are you hurt?”
“Bullet in the stomach. Went clear through.”
“Well, let Stamper look at it. He’s doctored some bad wounds in his time and is fair at it.”
Stamper snorted through his nose. “I haven’t let anyone die yet,” he said.
Sam stretched out on the deck of the raft. Stamper knelt beside him and removed the buckskin wrap.
“Awful bad to get shot through the guts,” said Stamper, examining the wound.
“It feels like I’m burning up inside,” said Sam.
Stamper’s face was creased with his concern. “Just lay there and rest. It’s good that I won’t have to dig for a bullet. I’ll get some of my herbs and make a poultice. It might take you a few tomorrows of healing before you can hunt down those fur thieves.”
Sam closed his eyes. He just wanted to live to see the first tomorrow.
6
Liverpool, England—March 9, 1859
Caroline Shepherd stumbled, exhausted and shivery. She had been walking for three days, from daylight to black night. For every minute of that long, dreary time, an icy, drizzly rain had fallen upon her.
The watery mud came in through the holes in the sides of her worn shoes. It squished cold and slick between her toes and around her feet. Her thin coat and every thread of the clothing down to her skin were soaked. The bundle on her back containing her scant belongings was heavy with the water it had absorbed. The straps Caroline had fastened to the bundle to make it easier to carry painfully cut into her bony shoulders.
She raised her eyes from the road and looked to the front along the line of plodding people that traveled with her. Not one person spoke. There was only the sloppy, sucking sound of their feet in the muddy road.
The people were part of the recent converts to the new religion, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Mormon missionary had sent word that he was returning to America. He had asked those who could to join him on the return trip. He had promised to guide them and, with the help of the other church officials, arrange transportation. A few had decided to make the exodus from England. They had been waiting, some in nearly every town and village he would pass through along his route. He had greeted them as brother and sister, and they had replied, calling him Elder Rowley, and had fallen in behind him in the march to the sea.
Caroline had come the farthest, eighty footsore miles from her village in the interior of the country. That distance was barely a step in the five-thousand-mile journey that lay before her.
In the line ahead of Caroline, a baby began to cry. A woman’s voice rose to comfort the child. The crying faded, weakening to a whimper, then ceased altogether. Again the only sound was the feet of the people in the mud.
“Ellen’s baby is very sick,” said the girl who walked near Caroline.
“Yes. I saw it at noon,” said Caroline.
“I think it may die soon. Perhaps in the rain before we can find shelter.”
“I know,” said Caroline. “The missionary has told us the ship will leave us behind if we are late.” She did not want to talk. She felt light-headed. She had spent sparingly of the few coins she possessed, stopping but once each day at one of the markets in the towns they passed to purchase a little food. Still, only one sixpence remained in her pocket. However, now she and the other one hundred and fifty-six converts of the Mormon Church had finally reached the outskirts of Liverpool. The ship that would transport them to America would be waiting.
She had already paid for her passage. The fare of six pounds and five shillings provided for both a berth and food for the lengthy voyage. The fare had also been purchased for the railroad that would carry her from the east coast of America and inland to the center of the continent. A one-quarter ownership had been bought in something the missionary called a handcart. In that vehicle she and three other people would haul their possessions from the end of the railroad and across the wilderness to a place the missionary called Zion. Now she had but to endure, and in a few weeks she would reach that wondrous land.
She looked past the trudging forms of her fellow travelers. The gray, drippy twilight of the evening was closing in swiftly. There was hardly a discernible break where the rain-filled sky ended and the mist-shrouded city of Liverpool began.
Somewhere there, surely not too far, they should reach the waterfront. The Mormon missionary, Mathias Rowley, could see the pitiful condition of the people. He would take them straight on board the ship and out of the rain and have the captain provide a warm meal for the starved folk. Caroline’s step lightened somewhat at the prospect of food to fill her empty, shrunken stomach.
“Out of the way! Get off the road!” shouted the driver of the “dead wagon” hurrying along the road. He was a huge man sitting high on the wagon seat. A greatcoat protected him from the rain. He reached out and popped his whip near the face of one of the women converts, who was slow in yielding the right-of-way.
“Make way,” the driver s
houted again. He yanked on the reins of the lone horse that pulled the wagon. The animal leaned against the shafts of the vehicle and guided it off the road and through the line of people and in the direction of the nearby paupers’ graveyard.
Caroline moved hastily aside as the wagon swung close. The bed of the vehicle brushed her clothing, and the iron-rimmed wheels missed her feet by only inches.
She cast a look into the wagon as it passed by. The bed of the wagon was crowded with eight corpses, the dead paupers from the poorhouse, and men, women, and one child, cadavers gathered up from the street, victims of disease and starvation. The wagon could haul so many corpses because they were so skinny. Not one body had a casket, not even a death wrap. They lay on their backs, their pale white faces and open, unseeing eyes turned upward into the falling rain.
“Ain’t you seen dead people before, missy,” the driver called down in a coarse, amused voice to Caroline.
She shuddered and did not reply. The wagon rolled on and entered the graveyard.
The dead wagon approached the two grave diggers standing and holding their shovels near the raw yellow dirt of a freshly dug trench. One of the men yelled at the driver of the wagon. “Hurry your arse so we can get this grave filled in before dark.”
Caroline heard the converts moving onward along the road, but she could not prevent herself from delaying, looking into the cemetery. There were no individual graves for the dead; only a long shallow excavation half filled with water awaited the corpses. She had heard of these “poor holes” for the penniless dead of the cities. Her village, though very poor, still provided each person who died with his or her own grave. As it should be.
The driver climbed down from his seat on the wagon. “Hurry your own arses,” he said to the grave diggers. “Help me put the buggers in the hole so we can get out of the rain.”
The grave diggers dropped their shovels and, grabbing hold of the corpses, lifted them one by one from the wagon. The bodies were tossed roughly into the common grave, the water splashing and then settling back to nearly submerge the still forms.
