Stranded

by Matthew P. Mayo

  I do not like using them because, as Papa says, once a thing is used up out here on the trail, there is not another anywhere nearby to replace it. It’s not as though I am encamped close by a trading post, let alone a mercantile.

  But I was desperate and near to freezing. And though I was tempted to huddle in the wagon under quilts and cup myself around that tiny candle flame, I know foolish when I sniff it, and I was full of it. I commenced to do the next smartest thing I could. I built a fire in the stove and used the candle flame to set a twist of curly bark and dry moss to flame.

  I transferred that to the firebox of the stove and as I always did when I lit a fire, I prayed and held my breath. Fire can be such a life-saving thing and it can also be a tender thing easy to kill with a sneeze or a cough or a laugh. I don’t like to risk any of them when I start a fire, so I hold my breath. And I don’t much care who mocks me for it.

  It took the little stove a few long minutes to settle into its task, but once it did, it didn’t let me down that night. And for that I was grateful. Only then did I shed the quilts and dive for fresh clothes. I didn’t bother looking at myself. I fear the bristle brush may have been overdoing the cleaning of the blood, but I was running out of daylight. I suspect I will heal.

  As soon as I got fresh shirts and woolens and finally the coat back on, I also pulled on two pairs of socks over my hands. As mittens they are warm, but awkward to use for more than swinging your arms to keep from freezing up.

  The most important task I had was to finish pulling in the kegs and boxes and one satchel full of salted meat. I did pay attention to them to see if they were dripping from the day’s events. But they were too frozen to worry about. I dragged the others on in and commenced to close up the ends of wagon, cinching them as tight as possible. Behind these I hung extra blankets and stacked anything I could up in front of them.

  I checked that I had the shotgun and an axe and two knives—a big old hip knife and the skinning knife—close at hand. Then I worried about keeping warm for the night. You don’t have any idea how cold a wagon is until you’ve slept sitting upright in one for a couple of weeks. My word, even though I had a nice spot arranged for myself, I won’t lie, I was some cold. Right down to my boots and then some. Cold, cold, and more cold. I about wrapped myself around that little stove.

  To make matters worse, that storm I could smell coming? It did. I heard a scratching sound against the wagon cover. I’d dozed off and it jerked me right awake. I thought for certain I was a goner, that something was sniffing me and the meat and whatever else it wanted in the wagon.

  I came more awake and heard it for what it was—snow pelting the tarp. I knew it couldn’t be rain because it was too blamed cold. There wasn’t a thing I could do that night except pray I had jammed enough wood inside the already tight wagon that morning.

  In my mind I went over the campsite wondering if I’d left anything of consequence out there. I came across a few items I wished I’d gotten under cover: The two Dutch ovens were still out and should have been hung back under the wagon by their bails. And I know I left Papa’s double-bit axe leaning against a wheel. A little snow would hardly hurt it.

  I sniffed at the stack of salted meat vessels. I thought maybe I could smell meat, but I can’t be sure. My nose still is still clouded by that warm blood smell I mentioned earlier. Maybe the cold would disguise them. I covered them with what clothes I could afford to give up that weren’t wrapped around me.

  My belly began to growl louder than any sound a wolf could cough up, I’ll wager. I let it go for a time, but I couldn’t quiet it. So I uncovered a pan of biscuits I’d saved from two days before. I have been trying to ration my food, make it last as long as possible. But with all the work that day, I reckoned I deserved, as Papa says, to tie on the feed bag. I ate every biscuit in the pan and they weren’t enough, but they went a long way to quieting that angry bear in my gut.

  I made a cup of tea, since water is about all I want to cook on the little stove when I have the wagon sealed up. Smoke and food smells cloud up near the ceiling, and I didn’t dare risk it. The stove pipe is stuck through a steel ring up high in the wagon cover, but it is a loose fit and gusts of wind rattle in around the pipe, and snow sifts in now and again. The little flakes hit the stove and sizzle.

  I have had snow off and on since Papa and the boys left that morning, but I knew they were passing storms, dustings that crust up then melt off later in the day. For some reason I know this storm is different, one to be paid attention to. I don’t like to admit it, but it makes me angry that the decision I hadn’t wanted to make has been made for me.

  I expect I am losing my chance to leave the valley on foot. The more snow that falls, the more difficult it will be to get anywhere of consequence on foot. Papa talked of making us snowshoes as something to have in case we ran into what he called “squalls” in the mountains. But he never got around to making them, and I have no idea how to go about such a thing. They will only be useful if I intend to walk out.

  If I do that it would mean leaving them behind. What if Papa and the boys come back to find the camp buried in snow and me gone? I could leave markers pointing in the direction I take. But I know Papa pretty well and I bet he’d not rest until he caught up with me. He would be disappointed in me, I think.

  Or maybe I am lying to myself because I am afraid. I don’t like to admit being afraid, and in truth I have not been much afraid of anything in my fourteen years. But I have experienced more fear in the past three, nearly four months since we left home than I did in my entire life leading up to the day we left.

  Most of that fear has fallen like a mountain of mud on my head since Papa and the boys left me. I don’t like to go on and on about such things because it worries me that I will become one of those people you hear about who lives alone and worries and fears over every little thing that might happen to them. In truth little of it ever happens to them. They never get to see or hear or feel anything wonderful outside their shuttered windows. I could go on like this, and I don’t care what people think. It makes me feel better.

  I am falling asleep with that thought in my mind and I am worried very little of wolves or bears or lions or anything else that might pull me from this little nest I have made in the wagon.

  “Good night, Janette.”

  “Good night.”

  TUESDAY, OCTOBER 16, 1849

  * * *

  This morning I woke in the dark, as I always do. With all the family gear piled tight, there isn’t room enough for stretching out, so I sleep sitting up. It isn’t the most comfortable way to rest yourself, but if you are tired enough it will do the trick. When you wake up you find yourself a mite “crampy,” as Papa says of a morning.

  My, but that man can carry on, especially if he has an audience. He’ll groan and stumble around holding his back and his knees and stretching his shoulders “to work out the kinks.” Then he’ll look over sort of sideways at me or the boys and wink. I do quote Papa quite a bit. I guess that’s only natural given that I have pretty much seen him every day of my life, except for a few times when he was off to another town buying stock or selling crops. But that was a rare event and sometimes only took one day. These recent weeks have been the longest I have gone without seeing anyone else of my family.

  This morning I was so stiff I didn’t think I’d ever unbend myself without cracking apart in a dozen pieces. And that wasn’t the worst part. When I finally shifted around, I throbbed and ached all over, and I knew right off what afflicted me. I was in mortal agony because of that scrubbing I’d given myself with that stiff-bristle brush.

  Looking back on my frantic rushing around of last night, I was right to be hurried and worried, especially once the critters began that far-off howling. But I should have slowed down and grabbed soap and a rough cloth instead of that brush. I tenderly felt my arms, my belly. Though I would have bet good money my fingers were touching raw wounds, I knew they were welted drag marks from the brush. I’d
have to get it over with at some point, so I did my best to stand up quick.

  It smarted enough for me to gasp, but then it got better, sort of settled into a feeling halfway between a burn and the sting left over after you’ve been slapped, only this smacking covered my entire body.

  I figure if a thing doesn’t kill me, I must get over it. Gnawing at it like a hound worrying a bone does no good. It was obvious that rough scraping I gave myself, while painful, was far from the end of me, so I did my best to ignore it. Soon enough my mind settled on the fact that it was downright cold and still. My breath hung in a thin cloud all about me. I held it in for a moment and listened—last night’s hellacious wind had traveled elsewhere. I knew what I would see when I parted the flaps of the wagon’s cover and looked out across the little mountain meadow—nothing but white.

  I imagined I would see entire cities spread before me, sparkling rooftops and spires of cathedrals, onion domes and turrets, all dusted by nature’s magic. It would seem as if I were somehow on a tall mountain peak and they were far below, stretching away as far as I could see into the distance. And they would not be white like snow, but kissed with color, faint, like the blue of river ice near the end of winter. But not only blue, I imagined gold and pink and green and all those colors between that only fancy artists have names for.

  Such foolish, fanciful thoughts kept me warm the whole while I took lighting the stove. I had a sizable enough stack of snapped branches to warm up the inside of the wagon, but I’d have to get out quick and rummage in the woodpile. I was thankful I’d spent time stockpiling firewood.

  I had little choice. If I didn’t keep warm I might as well lie right down in the snow next to the carcasses of old Bub and Bib and let the critters have at me. Besides, fetching firewood gave me relief from not spending every minute of my day thinking about Papa and the boys. And wood gathering keeps me warm while I am at it. Papa always says wood warms you three times: once when you chop it, again when you stack it, then lastly when you burn it. I agree with that.

  By the time I was ready to peek at what Mother Nature left me, the two cups of tea I’d had were reason enough to get out of doors and relieve myself. Not a simple task when you have trousers and longhandles on beneath layers of skirts. But I dare not complain. Papa and the boys were no doubt struggling mighty to keep warm, too, wearing only what they brought with them. I wear as much clothing as I can stand to have on and still go about my chores.

  The snow was pretty, as I knew it would be. No great magical cities poked out of it, but it was as fine a sight as the first big snow of the season should be. The sun was up, the sky beyond blue to nearly silver, and I watched my breath float out of my mouth and swirl off and disappear. And there still was no sound. I almost hated to make a noise.

  About then nature’s call took over and I figured it would be more embarrassing to wet myself than to crack open the silence. Colder, too. I jumped down and kicked my way through a whole lot of loose, gritty snow that came nearly to my knees. That was plenty for one storm. I wondered if the winters here in the mountains were full of such weather. What if that much snow came down every few days? Something to think about.

  TUESDAY, OCTOBER 16, 1849

  * * *

  Later this morning, after I cleaned off my woodpile—like a fool I had neglected to cover it with the other canvas tarpaulin the day before—I did my best to shovel the snow away from the campsite. Papa’s grain shovel is cumbersome, wide and heavy, but it is what I have. I have come to the conclusion that shoveling is a whole lot like gathering wood. It warms a body and gives the mind time to think.

  All the while I worked at setting the campsite to rights, I did my best to think about anything but whether I was going to wait for Papa and the boys in the valley or set out on my own, on foot, through the pass I believe Papa was headed for when we stopped.

  Now, I am not normally one to shirk a task, but this decision is difficult to grapple with. I noticed the snow grew heavier as the day aged. And I was sweating more. I stood up straight and stretched my back and squinted around me. The sun had burned through whatever clouds were left over from the storm. And then I realized what was happening. The day was turning off warm. Mighty warm.

  The low spots in the meadow still showed slumped snow, but even there I saw stubbly brown bristle grass poking up like a porcupine’s coat. Might be this snow wouldn’t be with me all that long. I was pleased. But then a new thought came tripping over that one. The autumn was still a new thing, it being only October. What would happen when the days grew colder?

  I climbed back into the wagon, closed the flaps behind me, and made tea. Then, when I had a cup warming my hands, I sat down where I’d been sleeping and resolved to make my decision. And what I decided was that I was familiar with the little valley, and I was sure that Papa and the boys would be along before too many more days passed.

  Suddenly it was that simple. I have decided I need to stay here and wait for my family. I believe it will not take them much longer to come back to me.

  WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 1849

  * * *

  That first big snowstorm was a warning. That’s how I took it, anyway. And once my decision was made to stay put, a desperate fever gripped me like no other. The wagon was colder than anything I could imagine at that point. In fact, I could not even imagine spending another night in it, though I knew I had to.

  If I am going to be stuck here for a lengthy spell, I have to build a suitable shelter. Something that can protect me from the weather, yet small enough that I can heat it well. On the trail Papa told me of soddies, houses built of dirt. Thomas said that was crazy, nobody lived in dirt, but Papa laughed, then told us all about how people had been living in dirt forever, somewhere on earth. He even said that bricks were nothing more than hard dirt. Now that I think on it, I suppose wood was nothing more than dirt way back when the tree was growing.

  But one thing Papa said about dirt stuck in my mind. A dirt house could be warm in the winter and cool in the hot months. Right then I could not imagine there would ever be anything like a July or August ever again, so cold was I in that wagon. But I liked the other part of that notion—warm in the winter.

  So I have set out to dig a dirt house, or as near as I can. But where to do it? I jumped back down out of the wagon and closed the flap behind me. Keep that little warmth in there. No sense sharing it with the out of doors. Not like Mother Nature was interested in being warm this time of year anyway.

  I stood with my hands on my hips, looking at the wagon, and decided I might be able to use some of it, maybe for a frame. But I’d have to take it apart, which might be difficult, even if I did have two axes. I put my hand to my eyes, in part to cut the snow glare. I walked toward the river and spied what I did not know I’d been looking for. Below where I stood, yet above the river, there is a scooped-out bowl in the meadow.

  I tested the edge with my boot, but I did not take into account that the snow might be hiding the true edge. My foot slipped, went out straight as if I was kicking it up at a dance, and I did not land on my backside until I was halfway down the slope. It didn’t much hurt, but I flailed trying to right myself and ended up wet on my rear end and up my legs. I sighed, stood up, and I’ll be jiggered if my feet didn’t slip right out from under me once more.

  That time, I sat right there in slushy snow, the sun warming everything around me, and I laughed. It was the first time in a long, long time I did. Even when I thought of Papa and the boys, I still kept laughing. They’d be laughing at me, I am sure of it. And I wager Thomas would be lobbing snowballs at me the entire time.

  After a minute more, I stood again, my feet spread, and managed to stay upright. Yes, I thought, I could see how this spot might be what I need. That slope I’d come down was more gradual behind me to the east, and might make an easier spot to climb. But how does a body use dirt to make a shelter?

  WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 1849

  * * *

  It is later the same d
ay, and it is still a complicated question: How to use dirt to do my bidding? Critters don’t have such worries. I swear, I wish I could curl up in a ball and sleep away the winter like a mouse in a nest.

  And that’s when it came to me: I need a nest. I was thinking about it all wrong. If I can’t burrow into the earth, which sounded to me like a whole lot of work, I could at least use part of the hollow to build against. It looked dry enough, and with any luck the wind might pass over me, though it could as easily pack tight with drifted snow.

  It took me the better part of an hour to decide what I was going to build, but once I set my mind to something, there is precious little that will change it. I circled around and walked pretty easily up the slight slope at the east edge of the depression.

  I had plenty of daylight left to me, so I trudged back to the wagon and honed a decent edge on the axe. I was about to depart for the nearby copse when I stopped and took stock of my situation. It is a habit I am getting into, though it takes more reminding than I would like.

  I strapped the skinning knife around my waist with Papa’s spare belt. I debated about bringing the shotgun and finally decided I had better. I stuffed two shells into my coat pocket, tugged woolly socks on my hands, and hefted the gun in one hand and the axe in the other. It was a balance I’ve become used to. The stand of pines I intended to ransack isn’t too far, south of me at the meadow’s edge. The land there bends in all manner of directions at once, like a blanket on a bed when you first wake.

  There were a number of straight and tall, but nearly dead pines I had not yet taken for firewood. I estimated I’d need at least two dozen of them, each a good twenty feet long, to build what I have in mind.