The Undaunted

by Gerald N. Lund

  “I am so sorry, Belle. I thought . . .” He looked around. “But where are the other children and the wagon?”

  She half turned, pointing to a spot down off the ridge. At first, he wasn’t sure what she was seeing, then he saw the tip of a rusty stovepipe showing above a huge sandstone boulder. “There. In the wagon. Ada is telling young Roy stories.”

  Stanford’s face flushed. He grabbed his hat off his head and hurled it to the ground. Then he began stomping on it, muttering angrily, Belle momentarily forgotten. “With me down there helping them get their wagons loaded onto the raft, I thought sure someone would bring my wagon and family down. Drat ’em all!”

  Arabelle Coombs had married Stanford Smith in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City in 1870. She was seventeen; he was twenty. Belle, as everyone called her, was a pretty, dark-haired girl who referred to herself as pleasingly plump. But she had pluck. Everyone knew that. And she was used to her husband’s flashes of temper, especially when he saw something that he considered as an injustice. Snatching off his hat and throwing it to the ground was common with him. Stomping it was part of the ritual if he was really exercised. She loved that dirty old crumpled hat because, to her, that was her husband.

  Now she watched him for a moment, not reacting. Then she was all business. “Stanford, I have the horses harnessed and everything is packed and ready to go. Standing here stomping on that ole hat isn’t going to get us down there any quicker.”

  He picked up his hat, looking sheepish, dusted it off, and jammed it back on his head. “Ah, Belle, what a jewel you are. How do you put up with this old fool?”

  “We need to hurry, Stanford,” was all she said.

  The Smiths had brought four horses with them. One of them had been crippled and died at Fifty Mile Spring. Two were now hitched to the wagon. The third, a huge old workhorse called Nig that they used to help the team when pulling up the steeper inclines, stood nearby, in harness, head down, waiting patiently. Stanford took him by the bridle, led him to the wagon, and tied him to the back axle with a rope.

  Suddenly, the back wagon flap pulled open just above him. “Daddy!” It was a cry of pure joy, and a moment later, Ada and Roy came tumbling out. From the looks of them, they had been asleep. He took them both in his arms, rubbing Roy’s hair and tickling Ada’s ribs. Then he straightened. “I’m going to drive the wagon over to where we start down the hill, children. Mama and the baby will ride with me, but you can run alongside if you wish.”

  Delighted with that, they lined up beside the wagon. Reaching under the wagon box, he unlocked the wagon brakes, then held the baby while Belle climbed up. Once she had the baby in his bed inside the wagon, Stanford climbed up beside her. “All right, kids,” he called down. “Stay back away from the wagon enough that I can see you.”

  The wagon had been parked about two hundred yards from the top of the Hole, and the children thought it was grand fun to race their father and the horses to the Hole. He pulled up about ten feet back from the edge, set the brakes, and climbed down. “Belle, I’m going to cross-lock the wheels. Can you toss me the chains?”

  He was frowning as he said it, for he didn’t have enough chain to rough-lock them, like most of the others had done. He hadn’t been too worried about cross-locking before, because he was sure there would be ten to twenty men on the back of the wagon to hold it back. Now, he would just have to pray that the cross-lock held. The children watched with great interest as Belle helped her husband lock the wheels in position. Finished, Stanford took her arm. “You better come look, Belle.”

  Walking to the edge of the downward cut, they stood there hand in hand. The top ten feet had some loose sand, but after that it was solid rock as steep as a slippery slide for about a hundred and fifty feet. He felt his wife stiffen by his side. “I heard them talking about how the wagons had pushed all the dirt down to the bottom,” she said, “but I had no idea.”

  “I don’t know if we can make it,” he said, chewing on his lip as he studied the polished, scarred rock just below him.

  “We have no choice,” Belle answered calmly. “We have to make it.”

  “If we had even a few men to hold us back,” he started, feeling the anger starting to rise again, “then maybe we could make it, but . . .”

  Her look cut him off. “I’ll do the holding back.”

  His face blanched. “You?”

  “Me and Nig,” she corrected. She turned to look at the big horse behind their wagon. “Isn’t that why he’s back there? I’ll hold his lines and pull him back so that he’ll hold the wagon back some. It’s all we can do.”

  He was shaking his head even before she finished. “No man with a lick of sense would let a woman do that.”

  “What else is there to do?” she countered.

  “But Belle, what about the children? We don’t dare put them in the wagon.”

  “They’ll have to stay up here,” she said in that same calm, determined voice.

  “And if we don’t come back?”

  Her eyes momentarily darkened, but then her chin lifted and her mouth set. “We’ll come back. We have to.”

  Without waiting for him to answer, she spun on her heel and walked to the wagon. “Come, children,” she called.

  She stepped up on the running board beneath the tailgate, and reached inside. She brought out the same tattered quilt she had been sitting on when Stanford first saw her. She handed it to Ada, then crawled inside the wagon. A moment later she reappeared, handed baby George to her husband, then climbed out again. Moving over to one side, back some distance from the edge of the incline, she folded the quilt double, then spread it out on the rocks. “Elroy, you sit here.”

  As grave as if he were conducting a funeral, the three-year-old came over and sat down in the middle of the quilt. “Make sure you’re comfortable, Roy, but spread your legs a little. And button your coat real tight.”

  He did so. She next took the baby from Stanford. Double-checking that the blankets were tightly wrapped around him, she sat him down between Roy’s legs, his back propped against his brother’s stomach, his head cradled in one elbow. “All right,” she said, smiling brightly at him. “Your job, Roy, is to take care of little George. So you hold on tight to your baby brother until Papa comes back for you, okay?”

  He looked up, pleased with such an important responsibility. “Yes, Mama.”

  Belle took her daughter’s arm and guided her onto the quilt. “Ada, I want you to sit right here in front of your brothers. Don’t move. Any of you. I don’t even want you to stand up.”

  Ada nodded, her clear blue eyes wide and anxious but trusting.

  Belle laid a hand on her shoulder. “I want you to say a little prayer and ask Heavenly Father to bless you children.”

  “Yes, Mama.” Ada looked up at her father. “Will you come back for us, Papa?”

  He tried to speak, but suddenly tears had come and his throat was too tight for words to get out. He nodded, then reached out and laid a hand on her head. He nodded again.

  At that, she smiled. It was pure and sweet and at peace. “Then I’m not afraid, Papa. We’ll stay here with God until you and Mama get the wagon down.” And then she bowed her head and spoke slowly but clearly. “Father in Heaven, bless me and Roy and our baby until Father comes back for us.”

  Unable to bear that look a moment longer, Stanford walked to the back of the wagon. He cleared his throat and wiped surreptitiously at his eyes with the back of his glove. He reached up and untied the reins on Nig’s back. Then, to cover his emotions, he handed them to Belle. “You’ll have to pull back as hard as you can to hold him in,” he said, his voice still husky. He forced a crooked grin. “Little thing like you, though, I’ll bet you couldn’t pull the legs off a flea.”

  “Ha!” she said, and took the lines from him. Stanford had given her a pair of his gloves, and she wrapped the reins around them, then pulled back, cinching them tight. “I’m ready.”

  He stood there for a moment,
agonizing over what they were about to do, then gave a quick nod. He went to the front of the wagon, climbed up, untied the lines to the team, and wrapped them around his hands. “Okay, Belle?” he called back.

  She turned and smiled at the children, who were watching all of this with wide, anxious eyes.

  “We’ll be right back,” she said, and formed a kiss with her lips. Then she turned forward, bracing herself. “Ready.”

  She thought she was prepared for the first jolt, but as the back end of the wagon lifted high in the air, it shot forward, nearly pulling her arms out of their sockets and making her gasp. She dug in her heels, leaning back as far as she could as she was dragged over the edge and started shooting downward, feet skidding down the slick rock.

  Old Nig hadn’t been expecting anything like that either. He neighed wildly as his front hooves shot forward on the slickrock surface. Then his back hooves slipped, and down he went. In a split second he was sitting on his haunches, sliding downward like a kid on a sled. Terrified that she was going to be pulled off her feet and crash into either Nig or the wagon, Belle gave up on holding back and started taking long, stiff-legged hops, frantically trying to keep her balance. Faithful old terrified Nig tried desperately to get to his feet, but in doing so, he threw his head to the right. That change of weight threw him off balance, and he rolled over on his side, still sliding downward.

  Belle saw this and, instead of letting go or screaming at him, she had an instant thought: “His dead weight will slow the wagon as much as if he were on his feet.” And she was right—the wagon lessened its speed as it careened down the incline.

  Just as she was about to congratulate herself, her foot caught between two rocks and she yanked violently forward. She gave a hard kick and her foot came free, but it threw her off balance and she went sprawling, hitting the ground hard just behind Nig’s big old behind. Sand flew into her eyes, nose, and mouth. She gagged, spitting and coughing, still clinging to the lines for dear life, bouncing wildly as they shot downward.

  The road was rougher now, and there were jagged rocks closer to the side of the cliff where the wagons hadn’t knocked them down. She screamed as her hip hit one of them and scraped all the way down her right leg. It was a searing pain, and she nearly let go of the lines, but instinctively her grip only tightened.

  “Stanford!” She shouted it out, but there was no way he could hear her over the tremendous racket echoing between the cliffs. There was a loud bang as one of the front wheels hit a rock a glancing blow and veered sharply to the left. That sudden change of direction probably prevented Nig from being dragged headfirst into the rock and saved his life, but there was a shriek of horrible pain as the rock edge scraped along his flanks.

  At the same instant, the wagon bounced so hard that Belle was yanked violently upward until she was on her feet again for one instant. But the sharp turn of the wagon snapped the lines and threw her against the side cliff. She bounced off, then went sprawling again, losing her grip on the reins, rolling over and over until she came to a sliding stop.

  She lay there for a moment, dazed and battered, and then she realized that she wasn’t on hard rock anymore. She was partially buried in soft soil. Amazed, she looked up. Just ahead of her the wagon was stopped, its wheels buried nearly to the hubs in the same soil. A cry of pure joy was torn from her throat. They were down. They had made it.

  Dust and sand billowed all around, choking Stanford and making it difficult for him to see. But as soon as he realized they were stopped, he leaped down and ran forward to his team. The wagon had run the animals down, pulling their hind legs clear up beneath the tugs. They were screaming in pain. He grabbed frantically at the harnessing, fighting to loosen the tugs before the animals were seriously injured.

  That done, he raced around to the back of the wagon to find his wife. He stopped. Old Nig was lying on his side, flesh quivering, eyes closed. Belle was about twenty feet away and just getting to her feet. She was shaking violently. One cheek had a raw, red patch. She was bleeding from a cut on her arm, and she was covered with dust and grime. But he had never seen anything so beautiful, or so magnificent, in his life. “Belle!” he cried.

  When she saw him, her chin came up and she planted her feet firmly, daring him to show her one ounce of sympathy. He slowed. “How did you make it, Belle?”

  She took a deep breath, brushed at the dirt on her apron and skirt, then lifted her head. “Oh, I just kind of crow-hopped along,” she said solemnly.

  Once again Stanford felt his eyes burning and he had to turn away. What a woman this was. To his surprise, Nig moaned. He was sure the horse had been killed, but to his amazement, the animal lumbered to his feet. The whole upper side of his body was covered with cuts or large, ugly patches of flesh where the hair had been scraped off. He stood there, head down, chest heaving. But as near as Stanford could determine, he didn’t even have a broken leg.

  Finally, he turned and looked up the narrow notch through which they had just come. He shook his head in absolute amazement. They had made it. He was just turning away when something caught his eye. About a hundred feet up the hill, he saw a small patch of white atop one of the rocks alongside the roadway. He swung around, staring at his wife.

  She had seen what he had seen and was examining her dress. She stretched it out just below the waist to reveal a jagged hole near her hip.

  He forced a shaky smile. “I think you lost your handkerchief up there, Belle.” Then his throat constricted as he saw the dark stain just below the rip. In three great leaps he was to her. Now he could see a small patch of blood on the rock by her foot.

  “You’re bleeding.” He was frantic. “And we don’t have anything here to fix it.”

  “Old Nig dragged me most of the way down,” she admitted. She lifted her skirt to just above the knee, wincing as the fabric brushed across her leg. There was a gash in her leg starting at the hip and going all the way down to her ankle. She gingerly pressed the fabric against the wound. “It’s not deep, Stanford. I’ll be all right.”

  “Oh, Belle,” he cried, gingerly taking her elbow. “Is your leg broken?”

  She didn’t feel like being pitied right now. She pulled free and gave him a swift kick in the shins. “Ow!” he yelped. “What was that for?”

  “Does that feel like my leg is broken?” she yelled.

  And then her chin began to quiver. He put his arms around her. “Belle,” he said, smoothing her tangled hair with his fingertips, “I . . . God bless your gallant heart.” And then they were both laughing and crying as they stood there trembling and panting for breath.

  She pulled away, sniffing and wiping at her tears, then nudged him. “I’m all right. Go up and get the children.”

  He turned without another word and started up the steep incline. As Stanford approached the top, he heard a small voice calling out to him. “Papa? Papa? Is that you?”

  “Papa’s coming, Ada. Papa’s coming.”

  He found the three children exactly as they had left them. As he dropped to his knees and took Ada in his arms, she buried her head against his shoulder. “God stayed with us, Papa.”

  Roy was nodding vigorously, his face wreathed in smiles. “The baby’s gone to sleep, Papa, an’ my arm’s almost broke.”

  Laughing softly, Stanford gently lifted the baby from between his brother’s legs. As he lifted him up, he pulled back the blanket to see if he was all right. Little George opened his eyes at that moment and, at the sight of his father, broke into a large toothless smile.

  “Come, children,” Stanford said, offering a prayer of gratitude, “Mama’s waiting below.”1

  Far below them, among the wagons still left on the west bank of the river, David Draper sat in front of the fire, warming his hands. Anxiously watching him were his father, Sarah McKenna, Molly, and Billy Joe.

  “It was just plain stupid,” David said, staring morosely into the fire. “I was trying to warn Al Barney about being knocked about and ended up in the water m
yself.”

  Molly laid a hand on his shoulder to help steady the shivering that had gripped his body again. She was shocked to feel how damp and cold his coat still was.

  He abruptly stood, wincing sharply at the pain. “I’m going up to see if I can help.”

  “No, David,” Sarah cried. She stepped to him and gently pushed him back down again. “Patrick and Abby are already on their way back up.” She looked up, then pointed. “See. There they are, just crossing the dugway.”

  They all turned and looked up. Sure enough, two tiny figures were visible in the fading light, making their way horizontally across the cliff face.

  “But . . .” He started to rise again.

  His father pushed him down again more roughly than Sarah had. “David, ya be naw usin’ yur ’ead, boy. Yur leg awreddy be swellin’ up. They naw be needin’ you oop thare. Just give ’em sum ole cripple to worry aboot gittin’ off the moontain.”

  “John!” Molly cried, stunned by the bluntness of his words.

  He turned and winked at her. “Sorry, Molly gurl, but ya need ta talk ta this boy in language ’e understands. Otherwise, ’e be ’obbling his way oop thare.”

  David sank back down. He knew his father was right. Just walking here from the ferry had left his leg throbbing like a bass drum. He looked up again, squinting, watching as the tiny figures of Patrick and Abby finished crossing the dugway. “What do I say to Belle?” he said forlornly. “And how do I face Stanford? I promised.”

  “I think when they hear what happened,” Molly said, squeezing his shoulder, “that you won’t have to say anything. Not anything at all.”

  High above them, Patrick and Abby sat side by side, wheezing heavily as they tried to regain their breath. She stood up and reached out her hand to help him up, but stopped when she saw his face. He seemed far away, lost in his thoughts. “Daddy?”

  He looked up, half startled. He took her hand and let her pull him up. But when she went to let go, he held on to it. “Do you regret telling Carl Bradford you didn’t want to marry him?”