Far From Home

by Val Wood

  ‘Then he won’t mind if I borrow them!’ Edward said and changed out of his stained shrunken cotton suit into these other more suitable clothes, which fitted him better than Robert Allen’s did.

  On their route towards Red River they came across an occasional settlement, a collection of cabins, with a general store, and they stocked up with more supplies, filled their casks with water and let the horses graze.

  Their funds were meagre, Edward discovered, and they told him they had never earned much money. What little they had, had gone on the waggon, horses and provisions. Matt had bought the horses from his father and he was the one who looked after them, tended their feet and fed and watered them.

  The track grew less swampy as they trekked alongside cottonwood trees and maple. The going was easier, though Larkin kept casting his eyes heavenwards and muttering that soon there would be a big one.

  ‘What kind of big one?’ Edward asked. ‘A storm, do you mean?’

  ‘Yip,’ he replied laconically. ‘A big one, and that ole Mississippi will flood the banks and come rolling right on up here.’ He lifted his head and sniffed. ‘I can smell it.’

  Edward wiped his brow with his sleeve. The air was heavy, though it was not as hot as when he had been in New Orleans. It’s winter, he thought: at home there’ll be snow on the ground or fog. They’ll soon be preparing for Christmas.

  ‘Surely the river won’t flood here?’ he said. ‘We’re several miles from the bank. Isn’t that why the settlements are so far back?’

  ‘It’ll come,’ Larkin said. ‘It’s a mean ole river! Them folks back there just git themselves settled in their homesteads and in she comes, that muddy ole river, over the levee across the swamp and washes them clean away.’

  The storm came at night. They had pitched their canvas tents in a grove and tied the horses nearby. Edward, who hadn’t a tent, slept in the waggon. The frogs were especially loud that evening, giving out a high-pitched chorus of croaking. They heard a honking of geese and Jed put his hand out for his rifle and looked up, but the sky was dark and they were gone before he could load, a formation of hundreds heading for safety before the storm broke.

  They cooked bean stew, ate rye bread, put more wood on the fire to keep it going during the night, and unanimously decided to turn in and have an early start the next morning.

  The first thing they heard was the sizzling of the fire as the rain came down. The wind began to rise and whoosh through the trees, causing the branches to sway and bend and scatter the dead wood so that it thwacked against the canvas tents and waggon.

  ‘Batten down!’ Jed shouted. ‘Make sure the provisions are covered, Eddie. We’ve got to keep the stores dry.’

  Edward pulled the sacks and canvas over the boxes of provisions. Matt went to the horses to make sure they were secure and soothed them, for they were stamping nervously. The fire went out as the rain became torrential, and the sky was lit by a flash of lightning followed by a crash of thunder.

  They all huddled into the waggon, for the tents were useless against the deluge. ‘We’ll have to move on to higher ground,’ Larkin said presently. ‘Another hour and the water’ll be up to the axles. We’ll never get the waggon out.’

  Edward glanced outside. The rain was sheeting down and already the ground was becoming a quagmire. The others agreed with Larkin, knowing the territory and what to expect.

  ‘Let’s get moving then,’ Jed said. ‘Matt, you and James go one on each side of the team. The rest of us will walk behind and push if necessary.’

  ‘Walk?’ Edward said. ‘Can’t we take it in turns to travel in the waggon?’

  ‘Nope,’ Jed said. ‘We need as little weight as possible else we’ll not get rolling.’

  They put canvas sacks over their shoulders and Edward, who hadn’t a hat, tied his over his head and shoulders with a length of twine. Before they had even put the horses into the traces, they were all soaked. The others didn’t seem to notice, but Edward, standing behind the waggon ready to push off, was as dejected as he had ever been in his life. He swallowed hard but tears, which he hadn’t shed since he was a child, ran down his cheeks, mingling with the rain.

  I must go on, he vowed. I must keep up or I’m finished. I’ll die out here in this godforsaken swamp. He stood next to Jed and put his hands on the waggon as he was doing and leaned into it, his back and shoulders tense, waiting for the signal.

  ‘Ready everybody?’ Larkin’s voice was almost obliterated by a crack of thunder. A flash of lightning lit up the scene, the dark trees bending dangerously and the men and horses illuminated for a second, then darkness, then again light. ‘Get set!’ Larkin cracked the whip over the horses’ heads and gave a great shout. ‘Push!’

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  All the men were weary, their energy sapped, but Edward most of all. They had travelled out of the swampy Mississippi basin, through dust and rocks and desert, and there came a day when he collapsed and had to ride in the back of the waggon. He felt so guilty as the men and horses hauled across the cattle-droving plains and towards the Santa Fe Trail that he staggered out of his jolting bed, insisting that he should do his share.

  ‘You’re a city gent,’ Larkin told him. ‘We didn’t expect that you’d be able to match us swampsuckers. We’re used to heavy work – what did you do?’

  ‘Nothing much,’ he admitted. ‘Sat at a desk in a cotton mill.’

  ‘What?’ Jed exclaimed. ‘You were a desk clerk? I had you down for a gentleman of leisure.’

  ‘I would have been,’ he said. ‘But my father insisted that my brother and I worked at the mill. We had shares in it, and he said we should see how it operated. But I hated it,’ he confessed. ‘I never wanted to work and I didn’t after he died.’

  ‘So you did nothing to earn a living? Wow!’ Jed was impressed. ‘You must have been mighty rich!’

  Edward considered. Compared to these men his means were vast, and he’d left all that behind. ‘Fairly rich, I suppose, or at least my wife was.’

  ‘Your wife?’ Larkin said. ‘So where’s she?’

  ‘Back home in England.’ He felt a sudden sense of shame. ‘We – we had a disagreement, so I came to America to try my luck here. A new life, you know,’ he said lamely.

  They were sitting around a campfire and the men gazed at him as he finished speaking. Larkin was the first to break the silence. ‘So what’ll you do if you find gold? Go home to your wife?’

  Edward took a deep breath. ‘She wouldn’t want me. She has her pride. Though if I should decide to, then she’d have to accept me back. That’s the way the law works in England.’ But I have no intention of doing that, he thought. None at all. If I get to California in one piece, then I shall stay.

  ‘But if we find gold,’ he gave a sudden grin, ‘I’ll stay around you fellows, if you don’t mind. I like your company. But tell me. If you knew I couldn’t work as hard as you, why did you ask me to come along? Was it just the drink?’

  ‘Larkin and me have been talking about that, and we remembered why we asked you,’ Jed said. ‘When my pa brought you into the saloon that day, we saw that you were an educated fella and guessed that we could use you if you’d come along.’

  ‘How?’ Edward was puzzled.

  ‘Well, we’ll need to write letters home, and we don’t read or write too well.’

  Tod interrupted. ‘I can read well enough!’

  ‘Sure,’ Larkin said. ‘But you only came along by chance. But more than writing letters home, we want somebody who can understand legal things. There’s plenty of free land, but we wouldn’t want somebody to come along and jump a claim if we should make a lucky strike. We’d want it written down to say that it was ours.’

  James chipped in. ‘Do you think there’ll be any gold left by the time we get there? We’ll be weeks yet on the trail.’

  ‘The fever’s probably passed,’ Larkin agreed. ‘But don’t forget that some men, if they don’t find gold straight away, will move off elsewhere. It
’s a big country.’ He chewed on a piece of twig. ‘We’ll be patient. We’ll find gold.’

  There were thousands of other gold-rushers with the same destination in mind. Men with a vision, men with a dream. City men, farm boys, factory workers, shopkeepers and sailors, speculators and law-breakers, all set out on the long trek, by sea or overland, to seek their fortune. Some brought their wives and families to share in the adventure and many of them, worn down by hardship and disappointment, turned around and went home again.

  Edward and his party passed broken-down waggons and dead horses, and men walking with packs strapped to their backs and grim determination written on their faces.

  They were stopped by the snow at the eastern edge of a high ridge of mountains and it was here that one of the horses had to be shot. Matt had been concerned for some days after finding the horse sweating and a swelling under its jaw.

  ‘Guess it’s strangles,’ he said eventually when the horse couldn’t swallow. ‘Can’t do anything for him out here.’ He stroked the horse’s neck. ‘Don’t know what Pa would say.’ His voice was choked.

  ‘Your pa would say shoot him,’ Larkin said. ‘Come on, boy, put him out of his misery.’

  Matt shook his head. ‘I can’t. It would be like shooting my best friend.’

  ‘If your best friend was suffering,’ Larkin said quietly, ‘wouldn’t you help him out?’

  Matt looked up. His eyes were wet and he pressed his lips together. ‘Guess so.’

  ‘Go on,’ Larkin said. ‘I’ll do it.’

  The boy put his head against the horse’s neck. ‘So long, old fella,’ he croaked. ‘You’ve done us real proud.’

  He walked away, leading the other horse with him, so that he didn’t see Larkin lift his rifle, though the shot echoed around the mountains.

  ‘So now what do we do?’ Edward asked. ‘Can one horse pull the waggon?’

  ‘Sure he can, if we walk to lighten the load,’ Jed said. ‘But we can’t go anywhere until the thaw.’ He looked up the pine-covered mountainside, decked out with thick snow. ‘We’ll just have to dig in until then.’

  They found a suitable clearing and began the task of making a shelter for themselves, and another beneath the lee of the trees for the other horse. They felled trees, cut them into logs and built themselves a rough cabin. Edward had taken a breath as he was sawing and looked across the landscape. Below them lay a large lake which glistened in the sparkling cold air. Tall pines and jagged rocks led down to it and over the land lay a covering of crisp snow.

  Matt went off on his own several times. He’d been morose after the loss of the horse, but he came back one day bursting with excitement and dragging something behind him. He shouted at them from a distance. ‘Look,’ he yelled. ‘I’ve shot an elk.’

  Edward, James and Matt quickly put together a wooden frame and placed it over the fire, whilst Jed and Larkin skinned and prepared the dead animal for roasting. ‘This will keep the store cupboard going very nicely,’ Edward said. ‘Well done, Matt.’ The others laughed at what they considered his quaint way of speaking.

  He sorted out the dried food, the beans, the biscuits and horse food, and brought it all into the shanty, for the men had told him that the canvas on the waggon wouldn’t hold under a blanket of snow, neither could they keep marauding animals out of it. Then he dug a pit for the remaining meat, wrapped it in a canvas sack, and covered it with logs and brushwood.

  They collected kindling for the fire, sawed logs and stacked them by the side of the cabin, and settled down to wait for the spring.

  The snow came steadily, drifting down silently in the night and then continuing every day. They made two teams of three and took it in turns to keep the front door of the cabin clear, but each morning the snow had crept up around the cabin until soon only the door was visible. It grew colder and they used every item of clothing to keep themselves warm. Edward dressed in the cotton suit belonging to Robert Allen, and put Webster’s clothes on top of it.

  ‘We’re going to have to make a hole in the roof,’ Larkin said, ‘and make a fire inside the cabin. If we don’t, we shall freeze to death.’

  They stacked one wall with logs, pushed a hole through the middle of the roof and made a small fire beneath it. They coughed with the smoke, but they were warmer, and several times a day they pushed a branch through the chimney hole to keep it clear of snow. Matt dug his way out each morning to feed the horse and make sure he was covered over with his blanket. The snow was too deep for him to take the animal out for exercise but he rubbed him down briskly to keep his circulation going.

  Then one morning they couldn’t get out. The snow had fallen all night and was above the door, trapping them inside. ‘It maybe won’t be for long,’ Edward said hopefully.

  ‘But what about the horse?’ Matt said. ‘He’ll starve!’

  ‘Or freeze,’ Jed replied. ‘He’s got the same chance as us.’

  I keep thinking that nothing can get any worse, Edward pondered. I feel as if I am living someone else’s life. What happened to the other me, the self-assured gallant with an eye for the ladies? Where did he go?

  They had minor skirmishes about someone snoring or the stink of somebody’s feet, but on the whole they remained friendly. The younger men bantered with each other about girls they knew. Larkin was of a quiet nature and kept the peace, and Edward became introspective as he thought on his past life, so different from the other men’s.

  Then Jed found a pack of cards tucked inside a box of biscuits. ‘I’d forgotten about these. Anybody for a hand?’

  They played for pieces of twig and Edward found his pile of twigs growing much bigger than the others’. ‘Well,’ he said, as he drew in yet more winnings from the men. ‘If I don’t find gold, I can make my living as a card sharp.’

  Matt suggested they try to get out, so they took down the log door. A thick wall of snow was beyond it. ‘Use the fire branch,’ Jed said. ‘Let’s see how deep it is.’

  The branch went almost to its full length before it reached the height of the snow. ‘I guess about two feet above the cabin roof,’ Larkin hazarded.

  ‘Could we tunnel upwards?’ Matt said. ‘I’m worried about the horse.’

  ‘Sure,’ Jed said sarcastically. ‘And where do we put the snow?’

  The door was replaced and they again settled down to wait, but now they were becoming irritable. The food stocks were running low and they were all heartily sick of beans and biscuits. Then one day they heard shouting, a faint halloa, and they jumped to their feet and halloed back.

  Edward immediately threw wood onto the fire. They’d managed to keep the exit hole clear, though the air in the hut was extremely acrid. He pushed hard with the stick to let the smoke through, so that whoever was there would know they were still alive.

  ‘You folks all right in there?’ A man’s voice called dimly through the wall of snow.

  ‘We’re all right,’ Jed shouted back. ‘Any chance of getting us out?’

  ‘Can you check the horse?’ Matt yelled. ‘See if he’s alive.’

  ‘He is.’ The voice came faintly back. ‘Just.’

  A grin of relief suffused Matt’s face. ‘Thank the Lord for that! Alleluia!’

  They heard the sound of shovelling and scraping above their heads and felt impotent at not being able to help. As the day wore on the sound came nearer and lower, until at last they took down the door. A shaft had appeared in front of it, just above their heads.

  A man with a thick beard and a hooded fur coat leaned down through the hole. ‘Howdy,’ he said. Then another man’s head appeared above him. He too was bearded, and wore a similar coat. ‘Howdy.’ He grinned. ‘Guess you’ll be glad to be outa there!’

  With their own shovels the men in the cabin shaped some steps up to the shaft and one by one they emerged, blinking at the brightness of the snow. There were three rescuers, all of them trappers, they said, and Edward shook them by the hand. ‘Thank you very much,’ he enthused. ‘So ve
ry grateful!’

  The trappers nodded and gazed at him. ‘Any time,’ said one. ‘You a long way from home?’ asked another, whilst the third said nothing but continued to stare.

  Edward ran his hand over his beard – it had grown thick and long since he’d set out on the journey. He hadn’t had a shave since leaving Martha’s cabin. He glanced at his companions who were stretching their arms and taking in deep breaths of cold air. We all look wild, he thought, with our long hair and beards. Wild men of the wilderness, just like these trappers.

  ‘We saw your smoke,’ one of the trappers said. ‘Thought it was Indians at first. Then we saw it was coming from beneath the snow. We heard the horse as we came nearer.’

  Matt was giving the animal a handful of oats, little by little. It was thin, its ribs showing. It had kept alive by eating the snow which had piled up around the shelter but hadn’t covered it because of the protection of the trees.

  ‘Another time I’ll stay with the horse,’ Edward bantered. ‘Though I don’t suppose he’ll be very good at cards!’

  The trappers came inside the cabin and Edward built up the fire and boiled a pan of snow to make coffee.

  ‘You did pretty well,’ said one of the trappers, looking around at the rough building. ‘Where you fellas from?’

  ‘Mississippi country,’ Jed said. ‘Swampsuckers all of us, ’cept fer Eddie here. He’s a city gent, down on his luck.’

  ‘And heading fer Californy?’ one of the others asked.

  They nodded. ‘Yip. Jest waiting fer the thaw.’

  ‘Another couple of weeks,’ the first trapper said. ‘Then you can go. But leave your waggon. You’ll travel better without it.’

  ‘Go on foot?’ Edward quaked at the thought.

  ‘Take the horse and join up with a pack train if you can. There’ll be plenty on the trail.’ The man nodded from beneath his hood. ‘Jest keep on walking right over them mountains, across the prairie and on to Santa Fe. There’s a mission there where you can rest and get provisions in the town. It’s a civilized place,’ he said, glancing at Edward. ‘But watch out fer Navajo Indians on the trail. Don’t give them trouble. If they see you’ve nothing worth having they’ll leave you alone.’