The Road to Oregon City

by Jesse Wiley

  “Is everything okay?” Joseph falls back and asks you.

  “My feet are killing me,” you respond. You lift up your shoe to show Joseph.

  “I can almost see through to your socks!” Joseph cries. “Why didn’t you get your shoes fixed when we stopped?”

  You hang your head. “I know. I should’ve told Ma that I needed new shoes when we were at Fort Boise.”

  “I have an extra pair of socks,” Joseph offers. “Do you want to borrow them?” You thank Joseph but really don’t want to wear his smelly socks. I’ll be okay, you think.

  A blanket of white snow is covering the ground ahead, and as you continue up the side of the mountain, the snow is getting deeper. At first you can feel the icy wetness seeping into your shoe, and it makes your sock damp and uncomfortable. But after some hours of walking, you don’t even notice it anymore.

  When you finally stop to make camp for the night, you sit for a moment and look down at your feet. Your toe is poking out from the front of one shoe, and you find it strange that you didn’t even feel it. You untie your shoe and pull off your sock. Your toes are a strange shade of purple and green. Yuck! You’ve never seen anything like it.

  You head over to the campfire that Ma has gotten started and sit down with your feet as close to the flames as possible. Ma isn’t in sight, and you know she must have gone to gather dishes from the wagon. You see the kettle for heating water on the fire and have a thought. Should you use some of the heated water to soak them for a little bit? Or should you just sit by the fire and rub your toes to get them back to their normal color?

  If you soak your feet in the warm water, turn to page 91

  If you rub your feet in front of the fire, turn to page 21

  Return to page 83

  Hannah!” you shout. “Run! Bear!”

  Hannah looks up, and horror fills her face. She lets go of her apron, and all the berries tumble onto the ground. And then, without turning around, she starts to run toward you.

  You race back to camp, with Samuel two paces ahead of you both. Even though you want to look behind you to make sure the bear isn’t following you, you don’t. Instead, you just keep running.

  Suddenly your foot strikes a big rock in the ground. It sends you flying in the air, and you land hard on the back of your head and are knocked out.

  The next thing you know, you are lying on your back, inside your tent. Ma is leaning over you.

  “You hit your head,” she says, wiping her eyes. “How are you feeling now?”

  “I’m okay,” you start to say, trying to sit up. But you are struck with a wave of dizziness and feel like you are going to vomit.

  “Lie back down,” Ma says.

  You fall asleep and don’t wake for a long time. Someone tries to shake you, but you can’t bring yourself to open your eyes. When you finally do, you see someone but can’t recognize who it is.

  “Who are you?” you ask. “What am I doing here?”

  “I’m your mother,” the woman answers. “How are you feeling, my dear?”

  You stare at the woman speaking to you but still don’t recognize her.

  “Where am I?” you ask.

  “We are on our way to Oregon,” the woman says, while a man rushes into the tent and starts to speak.

  It’s all making you terribly tired to listen to them trying to tell you who you are and what is happening. You close your eyes. And never open them again.

   THE END

  Return to page 41

  You move toward the lighter spot in the ice, which means there is no snow on top of it. Carefully, you swim toward the spot, until you see sunlight. It’s the hole! You stick out your head and take in a deep breath of air, trying not to gasp. The calmer you stay, the more likely you will get out alive. So you tread water for the next minute, trying to think about what to do.

  “Help me!” you try to shout as you look around for anyone who can pull you out. But your voice is hoarse and comes out only as a whisper. Samuel is nowhere in sight. You are on your own.

  You find the thickest piece of ice on the side to hold on to and slowly lift yourself halfway out of the water, leaning on your elbows. You’re nervous you’ll break the ice again and end up back in the water. Gently, you lean forward and kick your feet to help push yourself. You slowly make your way out, then lie on the ice and snow, panting, exhausted, and shivering.

  Standing back up could mean falling through the ice again, so instead you roll toward the edge of the pond. Finally, when you’re sure it’s safe, you get on your knees and stand up on firm ground. Phew!

  You’re numb from the cold but run back to camp. When you get there, Ma gasps when she sees you drenched and shivering. She grabs you and orders you to take off all your wet clothes. Then she brings you dry ones, wraps you in a blanket, and sits you in front of the fire.

  “Thank goodness you got out of there,” she cries, holding you tight and trying to warm you as you tell her and Pa what happened.

  “You did everything right,” Pa says. “That was extremely dangerous, and you could have been trapped . . .”

  Pa’s voice gets choked up, and he can’t finish his sentence. Instead, he just shakes his head as if he’s pushing out the thought, gives you a quick hug, and fixes you a steaming mug of hot coffee to drink.

  Your family is back on the Trail the next morning. It was a close call, but for now it seems like you escaped your fall into the icy pond without getting hurt or sick.

  The next several days are uneventful as you make your way through the mountains. Everyone is getting increasingly excited as the end of your journey is becoming more of a reality. You are only a few weeks away from Oregon City!

  Your wagon train has finally reached an area known as The Dalles, which you’ve been hearing about for weeks. It’s where the Columbia River sinks into an area filled with massive boulders. Up until a couple of years ago, all pioneers had to travel down the swift river rapids on rafts they built themselves. But ever since a man named Samuel Barlow built a new road to the south that goes around Mount Hood, there’s another option too.

  “This might be the biggest decision of our trip,” Ma says, staring at the rushing rapids with you. “Do we travel down this or go around it?”

  “Why wouldn’t we just go around?” you ask.

  “Well, the Barlow Road costs five dollars a wagon, and we don’t have much money left,” Ma explains. “And it has its own challenges, including a very steep hill.”

  Another steep hill! None of the others you’ve encountered on the Trail have been easy. And five dollars is a lot of money, which you’ll need to start your farm. But the rapids look equally dangerous, like they could easily flip a raft. You hear everyone debating the pros and cons of each. Not everyone has enough money left for the toll. In the end, they agree that every family must choose the route that it feels most comfortable taking. What does yours decide?

  If you pay the five-dollar toll, turn to page 48

  If you risk the rapids, turn to page 56

  Return to page 35

  Shoo!” you shout, waving your arms around. The big cat continues to stare at you, muscles tensed, without blinking. You steel your nerves and fight the urge to run. Instead you pick up the biggest stone you can find. Flinging it in the direction of the lynx, you continue to yell at it.

  “Go on, now!” you shout. “Go!”

  Archie starts to bark at the lynx too. Together, the two of you make such a ruckus that the lynx finally turns its head and slinks away.

  You breathe an enormous sigh of relief and realize you are drenched in sweat.

  “Come on, Archie,” you say, grabbing a few branches for the fire. You race back to camp and arrive breathless.

  “I saw a lynx!” you shout to Joseph, the first person you see.

  “How close was it?” he asks, his eyes wide.

  “As close as you are to me,” you say, realizing how close that really was, since Joseph is within arm’s reach.

&
nbsp; “Lynxes are usually awake at night,” Joseph tells you. “It might have been roaming around in the early morning because it was hungry.”

  You feel the hair on your arms stand up. Good thing you scared it away.

  After you hand Ma the firewood, she quickly fixes breakfast. Soon you are sinking your teeth into a stack of flapjacks and almost forget about the fact that maybe you could have been the morning meal of a big cat.

  The wagon train starts rolling again a short while later. As you make your way higher into the Blue Mountains, the Trail has been getting harder to travel. Along the way, giant trees and branches lie in your path, making it difficult for the wagons to pass through. An hour after you start your day’s hike today, another fallen tree blocks the way.

  “Halt the wagons!” Caleb shouts. “We have to clear the path.”

  For the next two hours, the men of the wagon train work hard to chop up the tree and haul away the pieces. All the kids help by pulling large branches. Everyone is exhausted by the time the work is done, but there’s no time to rest. Caleb orders the wagons to start rolling again . . . until yet another tree needs to be cleared.

  For the next several days, it’s the same. The wagon train isn’t covering much ground because you have to stop so frequently. Everyone is overtired, and tempers run short. It doesn’t help that when the path is clear, the steep climbing is also slow and difficult. You, like everyone else, have blisters on the palms of your hands from dragging branches out of the way.

  When Caleb finally halts the wagons for a midday rest, a man from the group starts to talk.

  “We can keep moving at a snail’s pace and risk getting caught in more snow as we go up the mountains, or we can make a new plan,” he says.

  “Like what?” Pa asks.

  “We could leave the wagons behind,” he suggests. “We have only about two hundred and sixty miles to go before we’re in Oregon City.”

  A few people snort and start to laugh. Leave the wagons behind! Ridiculous!

  “Let’s hear him out,” Caleb says.

  “If we just take what we need for the rest of the journey and tie it to the animals, we would move much more quickly,” the man adds. “Plus, we have to think about how long our food supply will last if our trip lasts longer than expected.”

  Now some people murmur in agreement.

  “Just think about it, everyone,” Caleb says. “But for now, we have to keep moving.”

  You listen to Ma and Pa talk about what the man said.

  “How could we possibly give up the wagon now?” Ma says. “We’d lose so much.”

  “Yes, but we do have to think about getting stuck in the mountains in the colder weeks ahead if we keep moving so slowly,” Pa says.

  “But what if it gets better soon?” you ask.

  “That’s possible,” Pa says, looking at each member of your family. “What do you think should we do?”

  If you say you should abandon the wagon, turn to page 28

  If you say you should keep the wagon, turn to page 100

  Return to page 76

  You decide to see why Archie’s so riled up and follow him. He continues to tug on your clothing and bark hysterically as he bounds away to the edge of camp. He leads you through the dark woods, whining, until finally, you smell something—it’s not a skunk. It’s smoke. Then, a glimmer of firelight just up ahead reveals that you and your wagon corral are not alone.

  “A campfire!” you whisper, and grab Archie’s collar, yanking him back. “Stay back, boy!” You realize it’s the smoke you saw through the trees earlier. But you don’t know if these people are friendly.

  Carefully, you edge closer to see who the strangers are. Against the firelight, you see several dark shapes, and you hear low voices. Your heart pounds as you overhear their conversation: they’re gloating about all the unsuspecting wagon trains they’ve robbed on their final stretches to Oregon City. And, what’s more, the bandits are talking about robbing your wagon train—tonight!

  “Bandits, Archie!” you hiss. “Good job, boy!”

  Together you slip away and rush back to camp, where you wake up Pa to warn him of the immediate danger.

  “Good job,” he tells you. “We could’ve lost everything.” He hurries to wake Caleb, and they decide to tie up the bandits and bring them back with you to Oregon City so they can’t continue to rob other unwitting travelers.

  Pa orders you to stay with the wagons while they rush off to stop the bandits before they make their own sneak attack on your wagon train. Ma, Hannah, and Samuel are awake from all the commotion and are shocked at the events.

  “I’m just glad you’re safe,” Ma says, hugging you tightly. “They could’ve seen you!”

  Eliza and Joseph join your family near the campfire.

  “I can’t believe we were almost robbed in the middle of the night!” Joseph says.

  “It was Archie,” you tell him. “If I hadn’t followed him, we never would have been warned in time.”

  Eliza leans down to scratch Archie’s ears. “You saved us, boy!” she croons. “You’re such a good dog. A hero!”

  Archie licks her hand and barks in return.

  Pa and Caleb return within the next couple of hours with three disgruntled bandits—all tied up together. It would be a funny sight if they still didn’t look so menacing.

  “What should we do with them?” Caleb asks.

  “Tie them to the back of one of the wagons,” says Pa. “They can walk with us the rest of the way to Oregon City. We’ll deliver them to the local sheriff once we get there.”

  The bandits holler and grumble as they’re forced to follow you the rest of the way.

  “They’re like the logs we used to drag behind the wagons earlier,” Eliza whispers to you, giggling.

  You can’t help but grin and nod. Beside you, Archie bounds around your heels and growls at the bandits, ensuring they keep up.

  Even though the journey the past several days has been especially exhausting, there’s a new spring in your step as your wagon train rolls across the final miles of wooded country to Oregon City. Hannah and Samuel argue about who’s going to eat what first. You can picture only a mouthwatering slice of chocolate cake.

  When you finally step into Oregon City, you can hardly believe it. You’ve made it, after all. There are so many buildings—more than you even thought—and hundreds of people about. It’s a real city, and a fresh start for your whole family.

  Caleb and Pa find the local sheriff’s station and deliver the bandits.

  “We’ve been trying to track them down for months,” the sheriff admits, wiping his forehead. “They’ve been robbing every poor traveler on the Oregon Trail. They know people are especially tired and vulnerable after the trek down from Laurel Hill, so that’s when they strike.”

  “They almost got us, too,” you add, “if it weren’t for Archie! He showed us where they were hiding.”

  Archie tilts his head and sniffs the sheriff curiously. The sheriff’s eyes widen.

  “You don’t say? Well, then, this little fella’s a hero!” He digs into his pocket and fishes out a piece of jerky for Archie. “We can’t thank you enough.”

  Eventually your family parts ways with the other wagon families. You’re sad to say goodbye to Caleb, Joseph, and Eliza but know that you’ll see them again.

  Thanks to the little bit of money you still have left over, Pa is able to buy enough supplies to start your own farm on your newly claimed land. You help him build your very own cabin, and it’s even bigger than your house back in Kentucky!

  The first night in your cabin is the best you can ever remember. Ma piles steak, corn, and potatoes with fresh beans onto your plate. And as a special surprise, she makes a rich chocolate cake for dessert. You may even sneak another slice!

  Everything has ended up just as you had hoped. It’s been a long, hard few months on the Oregon Trail, but it’s been worth the journey. Oregon City is everything you’ve imagined it would be an
d more. You’ve successfully completed your incredible journey West!

   THE END

  Return to page 131

  Guide

  to the Trail

  The Final Stretch!

  Congratulations on making it from Independence, Missouri, past Chimney Rock and through Devil’s Gate all the way to Three Island Crossing, in what is now Idaho, on the Oregon Trail!

  As you’ve already discovered in your travels across the prairie and desert terrain, surviving the journey of a lifetime requires you to be cautious and aware of your surroundings and to make smart decisions.

  There’s no substitute for being well prepared, so make sure to get all the information you need about what you will be facing ahead of time. This guide includes important facts about how to stay safe on the final leg of your trip across the Rocky Mountains to your destination, Oregon City! Read up, and get rolling on the Trail!

  Dangers!

  CROSSING RIVERS

  Crossing rivers can be necessary but always presents great risk. If you are unfamiliar with the river, you can quickly lose control of your raft to river rapids, which will dash your raft against the rocks. If you fall in, hypothermia likely isn’t too far behind—the water is sure to be very cold. If you can, try to find someone more familiar with the river’s navigation to help you across.

  SAFETY IN NUMBERS

  While it may be tempting to split up for various reasons, sticking together is better than going off alone in almost every situation. People in pioneer days didn’t have ways to quickly communicate long-distance with one another, and if something happens to one part of the split-up group, the other won’t have any way of knowing until it’s too late.