Two men in the Oregon portion of our company were in partnership with one another—one had furnished the oxen and the other the wagon for the trip west. Why they ever agreed to be partners is a mystery, for they did not get along and fought with each other constantly. One night, there was a bitter argument because one of them wanted to take his oxen and go on ahead. It turned so ugly that they disrupted the whole camp. It was decided that something had to be done. Out here it is a simple democracy—the majority rules—and so a vote was taken. We in the California company outnumber those going to Oregon, and our men decided to give the wagon and team to the partner who had a wife and who was willing to work. The other man, being a bachelor, and quarrelsome and lazy as well, was to get nothing. But this decision made the Oregon party angry and they said we had no say in the matter. They took their own vote and chose another solution.
You will think I am telling a tall tale, but I saw this with my own eyes. The Oregon group decided to divide the property evenly between the two men. How do you do this when the property includes a wagon and oxen? Well, they sawed the wagon in two, right down the middle, leaving each man with half the oxen and half a wagon. The married man had the front half of the wagon and the bachelor got the back half. We drove off the next morning, leaving him standing there with the back half of a wagon, his oxen, and no way to hitch them up. Such is the folly that we have seen manifest. Our people were so disgusted, that was when we who are going to California and those going to Oregon split from each other.
Then we learned more disturbing news. Colonel Russell and others, most notably a Mr. Edwin Bryant, have left us. Mr. Bryant is a newspaper editor from Kentucky who is traveling to California so he can write a book. He is a fine man and a true gentleman. He has become good friends with Mr. Reed and also Peter. Bryant and the colonel and several others were greatly concerned that our progress was too slow. We are nearly through June and we haven’t even reached Fort Laramie yet. Those with experience say that if we are not to Independence Rock (which is two hundred miles west of Fort Laramie) by the Fourth of July, there is danger of having the mountains of the Upper California closed by the snow. We will be lucky to reach Fort Laramie by Independence Day, and that is a great worry. But instead of everyone working together to help the slow ones—the very thing President Young did when we were driven out of Far West—these men are going to leave and strike out on their own. Bryant is apologetic to Mr. Reed but will not change his mind.
This leaves me sick with worry. I think even Peter is beginning to be concerned, though he tries hard not to let me see it. Mr. Reed however is still optimistic. In the book called “The Emigrants’ Guide to Oregon and California,” Mr. Lansford Hastings describes another route to California which bypasses Fort Hall and the Oregon Trail. It is much shorter and will save us a month. So Mr. Reed says we will be fine, though we are behind the normal schedule.
As we pass some of the more notable landmarks, I cannot help but think that you soon will be seeing these same wonders. Chimney Rock, for example. It was the most stirring sight we had seen since our departure. We first saw it at a distance of about 35 or 40 mi., standing out like some great sentinel guarding the way. It lies a mile or so south of the river and is well named. Peter says that it looks much like the great chimneys on the cotton mills around his home of Preston, England. At the base it is a rounded hill, much like a pyramid in shape, but out of the center of that rises a shaft of rock like some giant’s needle rising to what Peter guesses is four hundred fifty to five hundred feet above the plains.
Then there was what is called Scotts Bluff, a few miles farther west from Chimney Rock. Some say these bluffs mark the end of the Great Plains and the very beginnings of the Rocky Mountains. How it gets its name is another interesting story about life on the trail. According to what Peter was told, a few years ago there was a party of fur trappers headed downriver for the States. There was some kind of accident near here and a Mr. Scott was severely injured and could not walk. The others left him, promising to send for him when they caught up with a larger party at a rendezvous. But when they reached the rendezvous site, they told the others that Scott had died. It was late in the season, and they feared that if they went back they would all die. They supposed that he would be dead anyway, even if they went back.
The next spring, they found Scott’s bones at the rendezvous site. What is so awful and remarkable is that the rendezvous site was about sixty-five miles from where they left him. Because of his injuries, they could only suppose that he must have crawled all of that way, only to find no one there waiting for him. This is what they mean about seeing the elephant.
Buffalo play a more important part in our lives than ever I dreamed. Everywhere the eye turns there is evidence of the great beasts. We see live ones in the distance quite often, but one can scarcely turn this way or that without seeing bleached skeletons of long-dead animals on the prairie. We have left any trees behind, except for the meager stands of timber along the rivers and creeks. The prairie is as featureless as the sea. So in addition to eating buffalo meat, we use “buffalo chips”—their dried dung—as firewood. These chips are everywhere and are easily gathered, even by the children. They catch fire easily and burn quite hot and without as much odor as you might think. Without them, we would find it difficult to build cooking fires out here.
Fort Laramie, Saturday, June 27th
I have been writing this letter since mid-June, but late this afternoon we arrived at Fort Laramie, which is near the junction of the Laramie River and the North Fork of the Platte. This is a wonderful day. Though by any other standards this would seem like an outpost of the rudest and simplest sort, here in the midst of the wilderness it is the most welcome sight we have seen since leaving Independence. But the more important news is that there is a small party of trappers and emigrants from California led by a Mr. James Clyman, who is an acquaintance of Mr. Reed. They fought together in the Black Hawk War. They are returning to the States, and Mr. Reed says he is sure that his friend will carry our letter back with him. At last we have our “postman.” He is going to St. Louis and will take it there. From St. Louis, it should be only a few days upriver to Nauvoo into Melissa’s hands. Then I hope she will send it on to you as soon as pos-sible.
Therefore, I shall finish quickly. We love you. We pray for you every day. We also pray for Will and Alice, who, like us, are taking a different route to the place of gathering.
All our love,
Kathryn and Peter
Kathryn handed the thick envelope to Peter, then held on to it for a moment so as to catch his attention. “Will you tell him how important this is to us, Peter?”
He nodded, and she finally let go. “Mr. Clyman seems like a decent man,” he said. “I think we can trust him to see that it gets back to the States.”
“Even if he wants money, Peter,” she went on, the anxiety clouding her eyes, “it’s urgent that we let your family know that we are now ahead of them.”
“I know, Kathryn. I promise I’ll talk to him. Now, you’ve had a long day. Try to get some rest. I’ll return as soon as I can.”
She smiled at him through her tiredness and nodded. “I am weary, but I am so pleased to know that someone will take our letter back.”
“As am I,” he said. He bent down and kissed her, blew out the lamp, then pushed through the flap. He paused for a moment, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness. Their tent was a short distance away from where the largest of the three Reed wagons was parked. He could see the lamplight through the canvas and the shadows behind it. Margret Reed was getting the children ready for bed, he guessed. Then, beyond the wagon, he saw two dark figures silhouetted against the light of Reed’s campfire. Pleased, he moved forward, slowing as he approached the fire.
James Reed looked up at the sound of his footsteps. “Ah, Peter. Come join us.”
“Thank you.” He stepped over a log and sat down across from the two men.
He saw now that both men were smok
ing cigars. James Clyman reached inside his breast pocket and withdrew another one, holding it toward Peter. “Cigar?”
Reed laughed before Peter could respond. “No, Peter here is a Mormon. As you may know, Mormons don’t believe tobacco is good for you.”
Clyman looked surprised. “Really? Why is that?”
A little flustered, and certainly not wanting to offend the man he was about to ask a favor of, Peter hesitated for a moment. “Well,” he began, “we believe that it is not good for the body.”
The man from California considered that, then nodded. “You’re probably right. Filthy habit, but hard to break.” He put the offered cigar away again. “A Mormon, eh? Heard a lot about them, but never met one before.”
“Peter’s as fine as they come, Clyman. I’ll vouch for that.”
Pleased and surprised, Peter inclined his head. “Thank you, Mr. Reed.” Then he looked to Clyman again. “You’ve come from California?”
“Yes siree, all the way from Mr. Sutter’s fort on the American River.”
“And you saw no other Mormons ahead of us on the trail?”
He shook his head. “Reed told me that you were expecting your people to be ahead of you, but there’s none that we met, at least none that were admitting to being Mormons.”
“It would be a large party, maybe even a thousand people.”
This time the shake of his head was emphatic. “Nothing like that. You’re the largest group so far. Sorry.” Then he saw the envelope in Peter’s hand. “A letter for the States?”
“Yes, sir. My wife was wondering—”
“Be happy to,” Clyman said, cutting him off.
Peter stood and handed it to him. “If there’s any charge . . .”
He gave a curt wave of his hand. “I said I’d be happy to.”
“Much obliged,” Peter said gratefully. “If our people are still behind us we’d like to get word to them.”
“Consider it done.”
James Reed was watching the other man. “Mr. Clyman and I are acquaintances from some years back. What I didn’t know then was how distinguished a reputation he has out here. Mr. John Baptiste Reshaw, at Fort Bernard last night, was telling me that you were part of William Henry Ashley’s Rocky Mountain Fur Company. Is that true, Clyman?”
There was a brief nod. “I’m afraid John Reshaw talks a little too much.”
Reed turned to Peter. “That may not mean much to you, Peter, being from England, but Ashley was one of the pioneers in the fur trading business here in America, a competitor to John Jacob Astor’s American Fur Company. Those who worked with Ashley are almost legendary in America—Jedediah Smith, William Sublette, Tom Fitzpatrick.”
“Just men,” Clyman said quietly. “Good men, but still just men.”
“Is it true that you were one of those who discovered South Pass?” Reed asked.
“Well, rediscoveredmight be a better word. Some of the earlier explorers had talked of a broad, gentle pass over the Continental Divide. But yes, me and Jedediah found it in eighteen twenty-four.”
“The Continental Divide?” Peter asked.
“Yes, where the waters are divided. Everything this side of the divide flows into the Atlantic Ocean eventually. Everything on the other side goes to the Pacific.”
“Oh.” It was a concept Peter had never heard before.
“Peter says that Brigham Young, the leader of the Mormons, is planning to settle around the Great Salt Lake,” Reed said. “You know that territory?”
There was an amused laugh. “Sure do. In ’26 me and some other trappers circumnavigated the Great Salt Lake in a bull boat. First white men to do it, far as I know. Proved there’s no outlet to it. That’s why it’s so salty.”
“It really is salty?” Peter inquired, fascinated now. “I always thought it was just a name it was given.”
“Whoo-ee,” the trapper said. “Take a swallow of that, and a man can choke to death. Go swimming in it and you bob like a cork in a tub of water. Can’t sink.”
“Really?” Reed said, looking a little dubious. Mountain men were renowned for their whopping exaggerations.
Clyman saw his look and crossed his chest. “It’s true, I swear it. Don’t get it in your eyes, though. Darn near blinded me.” He looked at Peter. “The Valley of the Salt Lake ain’t no place for a home. Nothing with two legs is gonna live there very long excepting them Utah Indians.”
Peter said nothing. He wasn’t about to argue with a man as knowledgeable as this one. “So when did you leave California, Mr. Clyman?” he asked.
“Well, I met up with Hastings and Hudspeth at Johnson’s Ranch, which is about forty miles from Sutter’s Fort, and we left there April twenty-third, just over two months ago now.”
Peter’s employer jerked forward. “Hastings? Not Lansford Hastings.”
“Yep. One and the same.”
“The same that wrote the book?”
There was a frown. “’Fraid so. Why do you ask?”
Reed had become quite animated, surprising both Peter and Clyman. “Is he traveling with you now?”
“No. We planned to rest up and recruit our stock at Jim Bridger’s fort on the Black’s Fork of the Green, but when we got there the place was deserted. Old Jim and his partner, Vasquez, had gone somewhere, probably up the Green to a rendezvous.”
“What did you do?” Peter asked, fascinated by the man’s account now.
“Well, there was some consternation among us. Hastings had planned to wait at Fort Bridger for the incoming emigrants to guide them across his new route to California and—”
“Yes!” Reed exclaimed. “He wrote about that route. We’ve talked much about trying it ourselves. It saves four hundred miles, they say.”
Clyman was shaking his head before Reed finished. “Don’t do it.”
“What?”
“Don’t take his new route.”
Reed sat back, clearly shocked and dismayed.
“Look,” Clyman went on, “you take the regular wagon track and never leave it. It’s barely possible to get through if you follow it, and it may be impossible if you don’t.”
Reed’s voice turned testy now. “There is a nigher route, and it seems to me it is no use to take such a roundabout course.”
“I admit as much,” Clyman said doggedly, “but that nigher route crosses a great desert and the height of the Sierra Nevada. A straighter route might turn out to be impracticable.”
Stubbornness was written clearly across Reed’s face. “Hastings crossed it last year. He says it is not that hard. We go around the south end of the Great Salt Lake and then head straight for California.”
“Hastings doesn’t know of what he speaks,” Clyman shot right back. “He didn’t come that way last season, though he hints that he did, especially not with wagons. He came another way to California.”
“But—”
“It is true that once he reached Sutter’s place he met Captain John Frémont of the U.S. Army survey party. Frémont had brought a group through a new route that cut across the great desert, then followed Mary’s River and the Truckee River to the Sierra. There’s a pass there—Truckee’s Pass, it’s called. It’s high and rough terrain, but manageable by wagon. We came that way ourselves this trip and—”
Again Reed cut him off. “You took the new route coming here?”
“Yes.”
“Then why do you say not to take it? Isn’t it shorter?”
“We didn’t have wagons, and shorter ain’t always the best way, Mr. Reed,” the man said flatly. “There are long stretches without water, and if you don’t make that last pass over the Sierra in time . . .” He shook his head.
There were several seconds of silence. Peter watched the man who was making it possible for him and Kathryn to cross the plains. It was Lansford Hastings’s book that had fired the imagination of James Reed and the Donner brothers and motivated them to form a party to go to California. Now to hear that name maligned and his proposal treated
with open skepticism was clearly unsettling.
“Where is Hastings now?” Reed finally asked after the awkward silence had stretched on.
Clyman shrugged, sensing Reed’s coolness. “We all figgered that it wasn’t safe to stay at Bridger’s fort when there was no one there. I dropped back a little and caught up with some more of our party, and then came on here. Hastings said he was going north to the Greenwood Cutoff. That bypasses Bridger’s fort and cuts straight for Fort Hall. He was going to try and convince them to follow him and take his new route. Haven’t seen him since.”
He withdrew the stub of his cigar, now chewed into a flat, rubbery mass, and flipped it into the fire. “You do what you think is best, Reed. But I’m telling you, his route is not proven, not with wagons and a large company.”
When Peter slipped beneath the covers, Kathryn stirred beside him, then rolled over, flopping one arm across his chest. “Hi,” she murmured sleepily.
“Hi.” He turned to her and brought her into his arms. “Sorry I woke you up.”
“I wasn’t asleep,” she mumbled. “I was only sleeping.”
“Oh.” He chuckled. “Well, now you can go to sleep.”
There was a soft murmur which could have meant anything. Then after a moment her head rose, and the sleepiness in her voice largely disappeared. “Did he take the letter?”
“Yes. He said he would post it in St. Louis.”
“Good. Any charge?”
“None. He’s a fine man. I liked him very much.”
“Good.”
The silence stretched on for several moments, and he wondered if he had lost her again, but then she snuggled in closer. “You were gone a long time. What did you talk about?”
“Oh, the trail, which way to go, what it’s like out there. He’s been a mountain man and a fur trapper. He knows the West well.”
“Really? That must have been interesting.”
“Yeah.” He lay back on the pillow, remembering the change of mood in James Reed.
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