by Daniel Knapp
"Let me carry those, Mizz Carter." He tipped his short-billed cap and swooped up the luggage in almost one movement. He was breathing hard. "I should have... waited for you... outside the... hotel."
"Thank you kindly, but there was no need."
"You're quite early, ma'am. The train won't be leaving for two more hours."
"Yes, I know. I wanted to avoid the crowd."
He nodded his head. Poor woman, she was still grieving for that son of a bitch Carter. "I understand, ma'am. I'll look in on you from time to time to see if there's anything you need."
They were inside the private car now, and the trainman placed the bags behind the curtain at the middle of the car.
"There is a bellpull to call you?"
"Yes, ma'am." He pointed to the braided cord that hung through loops above the windows on one side of the car. "I'll hook it up to the next section right away. If I'm not there, one of the other men will let me know."
Esther handed him a silver dollar.
"Oh, no, ma'am. I couldn't."
She pressed it back into his hand. "I want you to have it."
He looked down at his shoes.
"Would you be kind enough to tell the conductors that I do not wish to be disturbed for any reason. I'm certain I won't be needing anything, at least not until Reno. I didn't sleep well last night, and I want to rest."
"Certainly, ma'am. I understand. Shall I pull the shades down?"
"Yes, please do."
"I'll be sure no one comes through the door of the next car. I'll lock it. Some of the passengers will be, ah, celebrating a bit, and..."
"That's very thoughtful of you. We'll be stopping at Dutch Flat?"
"Yes, ma'am. For just a few minutes."
"Then would you do one other thing for me? My son Todd will be riding in Jupiter, with Mister Sam. Would you just look in on him to see that he's behaving himself?"
"Why, certainly, ma'am. He's a fine boy, young Master Carter."
"I'm sure there'll be no need. But if for any reason he should have to he brought back, please take him to his... godfather, Judge Todd. Tell Judge Todd I'll fetch him at Reno."
When the trainman was gone, Esther took the leatherbound journal out of her valise and sat in a chair opposite the one she had occupied the night before. She raised the shade just enough to provide reading light. She opened the book again to the black-ribboned entries and stared at the double-knotted bow midway down the first, blank page. Now? she wondered. Yes, now. I will read them now—and again after I have read it all. Twice. If I falter, if I lose my nerve between here and Donner Lake, the words on these pages will serve to see me through the last minutes of all this, whatever the result.
Slowly, trembling, she untied the knots and the bow, turned the page, took a deep breath, and began reading again.
Ten
South Fork Cabin
July, 1847
December 22, 1846...
Predating these pages. Recording after the fact, as best as I can recall...
Separated from the rest of the snowshoe party this day. Down on the west side of the mountain crest, far from the pass. My own fault. Decent motives, but foolish—and in the end unforgivable, considering what happened. Willful ignoring, forgetting that my first responsibility was to John Alexander, then myself, not the two women...
The two women had been gone for an hour after dawn that morning. The previous night, a snowsquall had smothered the campfire. They were six days gone from the lake, less sure now that Bear Valley and the settlements west of it were within no more than five or six days' march. By now, they were exhausted, Stanton worst of all, from the effort of scaling, then descending, the pass and slogging west through waist-high drifts. Near starvation, almost out of their meager provisions, all of them were nonetheless still optimistic. Five of them had gone searching for firewood, among them the two women. The three men were back, breakfast of dried meat and coffee had been eaten, but the two women, Mary Graves and Mrs. McCutchen, still had not returned.
"Got to go on," William Foster said grimly. "We'll all die here if we don't."
The brilliant sunlight bouncing off the snow almost blinded Elizabeth as she turned to him. As weak as they were, she scarcely knew whom she was responding to. "We cannot just leave them behind!"
"Have to," William Eddy said.
She turned to "Uncle" Billy Graves. The old man who had contrived the snowshoes looked away. "Mister Graves. You are not going to just stand there and do nothing, say nothing about this, are you? Your daughter may die!"
"No choice," he mumbled, glancing guiltily at his other daughter and her husband, Jay Fosdick.
"Then I will look for them, damn you! I will search for one half hour, no more. And then I will come back. Surely you can wait a half an hour."
One after another, they reluctantly nodded.
"Has someone a pocket watch?"
Graves handed one to her. She stared at the gold-encased face. It was seven forty-eight. "I'll be back no later than eight thirty." She glanced at Stanton, who sat propped against a tree, hoping that neither he nor anyone else would check the time. He winked conspiratorially at her. For a moment she thought of leaving John Alexander with them. But then a sweeping glance at their grimly set, almost emaciated faces decided her against it. Adjusting the sling in which she carried the baby, she set out in the direction the women had taken.
She never found Mrs. McCutchen or Mary Graves, nor was she able to retrace her steps through the windblown snow to the campsite that day. Blessedly, it did not snow during the night she spent under the bow of an evergreen, shivering, numb with cold, nursing the baby, starting with every frozen cracking of the surrounding branches, and certain that at any moment they would be set upon by a mountain lion.
She stumbled on the campsite the following day and was seized by terror. All but one of them were gone. Stanton was still sitting where he had been the previous morning, frozen solid. Staring at her lifelessly through a thin shell of ice, his hand was clutched around a folded piece of paper. Beginning to cry, she pried the note loose and unfolded it.
Dear Mrs. Todd:
Mrs. McCutchen and I got back safely. I tried to make them wait. They would not. Left here 10 a.m. Mister Stanton offered to remain and travel with you. He is so weak it will no doubt be you who helps him. The men say we will be going due West at all times, unless the way is blocked, then South if possible, otherwise in any direction that is open until we find a path west or south again. Forgive me, and bless you for searching. God speed both of you back to us.
Mary Graves
Dropping the note, she collected herself, said a prayer for Stanton, asked his and God's forgiveness, removed his boots, and put them on over hers. After she strapped her makeshift snowshoes back on, she thought to search his pockets. One of them contained a narrow, eight-inch piece of hide. Turning away, she glanced at the campfire ashes, then resolutely set out across the clearing.
There were no tracks in the windblown snow as she pushed west. John Alexander gurgled, unaware, in the makeshift shawl-sling. She looked back once, first at Stanton, then at the enormous, white-capped dome of Cisco Butte. Ignoring the fire in her thighs and calves, she crossed a rise, then threaded along windswept rocks on the edge of a gorge. Finally, the terrain sloped downhill, and she plunged on, her snowshoes coming untied every tenth of a mile, into the bottoms just west of the Yuba River headlands. Zigzagging, guessing which way the rest had gone, she crossed a series of ridges and valleys that flanked narrow, snow-covered streams. She noticed vaguely that they seemed to amble almost imperceptibly southward. She kept on, stopping every fifteen minutes to rest her numb legs, let her bursting lungs and heart quiet—and pray.
When the hollow ache in her stomach became unbearable, she got up and began walking and wading again. As precarious as they were, the wind-scoured rocks and ledges along the upper portions of each ridge seemed more easily negotiable. Climbing, falling in the snow, getting up and going on a
gain, she reached a rim and continued southward. At the top of a gradually upward-sloping rise, she stopped to rest. Looking around, she saw the formidable Yuba buttes behind her, to the north an impassable wall of mountains. As she stood there, the air around her suddenly chilled and grew slightly darker. She gazed to the west. The sun had dropped behind the mountains.
Her hands were numb. Above the upper edge of the shawl wrapped around her face, the tops of her cheeks felt as though they were being repeatedly punctured by hundreds of razor-sharp needles. The rising wind mocked her. The bridge of her nose and her forehead ached so much she wanted to scream at the pain. She knew with nightfall it would be even colder.
She looked around again. Deep snow blanketed the undulated floor of the pine forest covering the surrounding mountains. Thirty feet to her left she spotted a rock outcropping. Remembering how the men in the snowshoe party had set green wood on the surface of the snow to lie on, even built small fires on the primitive platforms to warm them through the nights, she began breaking small branches off the evergreens and the few birches in sight. It took her an hour of exhausting labor to set out a rude wood and pine-needle platform on the snow beneath the overhanging ledge.
Finished, she placed one of the larger pine branches behind her and huddled against it in the corner formed by the rock and the mountainside. She did not bother to take the sling off. Uncovering John Alexander's mouth and one of her nipples, she nursed him slowly, wiping the milk off his chin when he dribbled and licking it ravenously off her gloves. She was aware that her breasts were smaller, that the milk was diminishing. For a moment her fear increased almost to hysteria. She looked up, and the trunk of a nearby fir tree rippled before her eyes, took the form of a bear, and lunged at her.
She screamed, startling the baby and making him cry. She hushed him, looked back, and saw just the trunk of a tree again. Fishing in her carrying bag, she pulled out the narrow piece of hide she'd found in Stanton's pocket. For a moment she was almost overcome with the urge to cram all of it into her mouth. Transforming itself before her eyes, it became a salamander. Startled, she dropped it When it was a piece of hide again, she picked it up, broke off a quarter of the strip, ate it, and put the remainder back in her bag.
Easing down on her side, she turned toward the rock, cradled John Alexander against her belly, then pulled her knees up and lay one arm over him. Staring at the ridges on the base of the darkening ledge, she saw them start to wave before her and wondered if she would live through the night. She closed her eyes. Somehow she remembered to pull one piece of the shawl up over her face and tuck it under her bonnet before she slept.
She was awakened by John Alexander's weak crying. Still tired, she was stiff but, astonishingly, not as cold as she expected. Stretching her legs out, she felt the small drift of snow the wind had blown up along her back, bottom, and the soles of her boots. Without moving further she partly uncovered one breast and fed her child. She took a glove off for ten seconds and felt under his clothing. He was warm. She looked at the gold pocket watch she had borrowed from Graves. It was already past eight. She had to get started no matter how much she preferred staying right where she was.
At noon, after she had repeated the bone-wearying movements of the previous morning over similar terrain, snow began to fall. Nearly delirious, she had no idea it was Christmas Eve. She pushed through the drifts and along the rocks, wobbling as her own shoes slipped back and forth within Stanton's boots. For another two hours she dragged herself westward as the wind rose steadily.
A rim overlooking another frozen stream turned south. Slowing with each step, she fought her way forward for another fifteen minutes, thankful she was no longer heading straight into the stinging flakes of snow. She stopped for a moment to regain her breath. The dollar-sized snowflakes almost choked her. When she tried to pick one boot up through the half foot of new snow covering a thick layer of crust, she found she couldn't. Standing there, snow swirling around her, swaying drunkenly, she reached into the bag and hungrily ate a third of the remaining piece of hide, putting the rest back. John Alexander was sleeping. She leaned over, saw the pasty, solidifying mucus almost filling his nostrils, and heard the faint wheeze of his breath. For a second she gave up hope. But then, slowly, the trailing edge of the snowsquall moved past her and continued east into the higher mountains.
That restored her determination for another hour. By then she could move no farther. She knew if she sat down she would never get up. She cared, yet didn't care. She hated the thought of dying here but felt drawn to the peace of it even more. She looked at John Alexander. His eyes were half open, staring blankly at her. She fed him, squeezed more milk out of her breast onto the palm of one glove, and lapped it up. When she lifted her head again, she saw the narrow column of smoke rising above the next ridge.
There was not an ounce of energy left in her when she reached the top of the rise. She was sure the smoke was a mirage; certain that the tall mustachioed man in furs, the Indian squatting near him skinning a small animal, the lean-to atop the flattened boulder blown bare under the branches of an enormous conifer, the rack of pelts, were all a cruel hallucination. I am seeing things, she thought numbly, as sunlight briefly streamed through an unbelievably beautiful blue fracture in the clouds.
She did not feel herself, fall, slide, roll over, and slide again, still clutching John Alexander; she never saw the startled men running toward her from the direction of their fire.
Eleven
South Fork Cabin
July, 1847
December 24, 1846 (predated)
Came upon Luther Mosby's lean-to in the mountains north of Lucifer Peak this day. Thought at first it was a Christmas miracle, the food and fire gifts from God...
She felt warmth first, then fear as she opened her eyes and was startled by both the man and the coldness of his gaze. She recognized him immediately from Bent's Fort but said nothing when he failed to remember her.
"Here, drink this," he said evenly.
She sipped at the broth and took in his hawk nose, curving moustache, and sharp jawline.
"You been out for quite a walk, you and the little fella."
"The baby!" She tried to push up but he stopped her. "John Alexander! Is he—?"
"He's alive. Weak as hell, but alive. Gonna have to get him to a doctor. You too. Don't know if he'll make it 'til thaw."
She lay back and rested for a moment. "Can't we go now?"
"We got horses." He glanced at the Indian standing outside the entrance of the lean-to. "But just two of em.
She propped herself up and saw the baby wrapped in furs at the foot of the sleeping platform.
"I told you he's alive. Lay back down again, you hear?"
She felt under her breasts for the money belt. It was still there.
He saw the movement. "We didn't take your clothes off, if that's what you're worried about. You ain't exactly invitin' right at the moment."
She smiled gratefully. "Are we very far from a doctor?"
"Quite a ways."
"Please. Take me to one. Take me and the baby."
He shrugged. "Ain't easy leavin' here 'til spring. Helluva risk, not to mention the money in pelts lost."
"I'll pay you!"
His eyebrows rose. "You ain't got any money. I checked."
"My husband. He's in Monterey. He'll pay you."
"Take quite a bit to make it worth riskin' our necks."
"It doesn't matter... He's... he's rich. He'll pay you anything you ask."
"Two hunnert dollars?" Mosby asked hesitantly.
"Three. I'll see to it. I promise you."
"How come you's alone? Who was you with?"
"The Donners."
"Jeeesus Christ! The Donner Party? Wasn't nothin' but stories about you folks just before Seeswash and me come up here trappin." He rubbed his jaw. "Who was it brought the news down to Sutter's?"
"Charles Stanton?" She shivered, remembering the shell of ice that had covered his face
and body.
"That's it! Stanton. Went back to bring you people through, didn't he?" Mosby thought for a moment. "Lotta rich folks in that train. You say Stanton brought them in?"
"No. He died back there." She pointed, not really knowing in which direction.
"Beyond the pass?"
"This side."
"And the rest of them?"
Not fully in control of her senses, she thought he meant just the snowshoe party. "They must be beyond this point by now. I was separated from them two or three days ago. I... I don't remember."
"Here, drink some more of this soup. Real slow, now."
She sipped at it, resting as the warm liquid both stung, then soothed her insides.
"Three days ago, huh? They was on snowshoes, like you?"
"Yes. I don't know exactly how long it has been. I... I lost track."
"Mountain man with 'em?"
"Just Stanton, until he... died. Two Indians. But I don't think they are from this region."
"Like as not they're still wanderin' out there. Might have missed this place by less'n a mile yesterday or day before and never know'd it." He thought again for a moment, then stepped outside and spoke to the Indian. She could not hear him, but she saw the Indian smile in an ugly way. He came back in.
"See by your diary your name's Elizabeth. Mine's Mosby. Luther Mosby." He stopped smiling. "Three hundred dollars?"
"Yes."
"We figure them other folks got to be somewhere nearby. We'll start out tomorrow mornin', double back a little, then come down the gorge they musta taken if they was travelin' south. Can't figure out for the life of me why they would be. Or how you managed to angle this way. Nigh impossible."