by Jesse Wiley
Once your livestock are safe in the cargo hold, you hurry aboard the boat. It will take more than a day to get to Saint Louis, so you’ll be sleeping overnight.
It’s frigid on deck. Having lived in tropical swamplands all your life, you have never seen snow, but maybe you’ll see it sooner than you thought.
The steamboat chugs upriver, and time passes in the blink of an eye. If only you could just take it all the way to Oregon City.
The next day, you pull into the major port of Saint Louis, Missouri. Here, your family purchases a covered wagon and a team of six oxen. Your Cherokee friends do the same. You have to sell your last horse, but you keep your pack mule, your two goats, and a few sheep.
Your covered wagon, also called a prairie schooner, is much smaller than you thought it would be. You try to hide your frown.
Pa laughs. “I’m afraid it’s just meant to haul supplies—not people. Save for Ma and baby Jaime, we’ll be walking the rest of the way.”
You pack your wagon. Your oxen are full of energy, and they giddyup toward Independence.
You, Pa, and Emma are walking at a fast clip, and the exercise warms you. Only Ma and Jaime sit in the driver’s seat, tightly bundled up against the bitter prairie winds.
You stop briefly in Jefferson City, Missouri. It’s directly on your route, but you continue on after a day of rest. You don’t want to waste any time getting to Independence.
* * *
You can barely contain your excitement when you arrive. This town marks the start of the Oregon Trail! Is it really as dangerous as people say?
But there isn’t a wagon train in sight. You encounter only expensive trail guides—you can’t afford their fees. Joining a wagon train is the most important part of survival. Without safety in numbers, you and your Cherokee friends are sitting ducks for bandits.
You scour the city for a couple of days, looking for wagons. No luck. Pa and Tsayoga discuss possibly waiting until next year to go to Oregon City. It’s the end of May. You didn’t realize everyone else would have left already.
Just when you’ve lost all hope, a small three-wagon train rolls into town. They’re looking to join up! Pa and Tsayoga talk to their co-captains, two brothers, for a long time. Finally, everything seems to be settled. You have a wagon train for the Oregon Trail!
But the next morning, one of the captains, Henry Clay, storms over to your covered wagon in a huff. Clopping behind him on his broken tether is Fred!
“Your pack mule ate half our sugar loaf!” Henry’s boot stomps the ground. “What are you going to do about this?”
Pa and Ma stiffen. They try to calm Henry, but his anger inflates. He wants money for the sugar. Should you make up for Fred’s damage? Or should you simply apologize, hope there are no further repercussions, and wait for a new wagon train to roll through town?
To make up for Fred’s damage, turn to page 86
To wait for another wagon train, turn to page 50
Return to page 137
If you don’t eat well tonight, nobody will have enough energy to keep going. You have trouble keeping your eyes open. Your stomach growls, but you’re concerned about Pa’s health.
You take your sister and Cherokee friends aside. “Let’s go searching for food ourselves. We can try to bring back something for everyone, even if it isn’t much.”
“Yes—let’s go.” Atsadi tells his parents that you’re going off to hunt nearby. Pa and Tsayoga, too tired from carrying especially heavy packs, stay behind.
“Be careful,” Ma calls out. “And stick together.”
The five of you break off from the group to find food. At first, you find only a few berries and acorns. Atsadi sees a rabbit, but it gets away before he and Dash can corner it.
You’re all hungry and tired, and you still haven’t found enough food for everyone.
“I see something!” Inola nudges you. “Look! Through the trees! It’s coming toward us!”
The five of you hold your breath.
Grrrr . . .
Out lumbers an enormous grizzly bear!
You’re frozen. There’s no way any of you can fight this bear off. Should you run, or try to scare it away?
To scare it away, turn to page 92
To run, turn to page 83
Return to page 57
It seems silly that giving Emma hot tea could hurt her.
“She needs to get warm quickly.” You pour a cup a of steaming-hot tea.
“I wouldn’t,” Atsadi warns. “Let me try helping her with ginger root. It won’t overheat her.”
“Ginger root? In tea, you mean?”
“Yes, but not water that will scald her.” Atsadi reaches for a satchel. “Ginger root helps to heat the body naturally.”
You’ve never heard of using ginger root as a way to get warm before.
You panic and give her the hot tea instead.
Halfway through the night, Emma starts shaking, badly. She has hypothermia, and she won’t make it to the morning. Your trek ends here.
THE END
Return to page 60
The Clay brothers take your advice to set up a new campsite somewhere else. All this debris and decaying food makes you queasy. People could get really sick.
You carry on past the campsite, dragging your aching feet in the grass. Soon after, your wagon train corrals for the night in a fresh, clean spot.
Weeks pass. You make your way across the plains of Kansas, guided by the Little Blue River. When you finally come to the Platte River, you know you’ve entered into the Platte River Basin.
Travel is slow. The increasingly unstable weather patterns make it difficult to keep to your daily goal of about fifteen miles a day. The rain pours, and lightning fills the sky.
It’s been almost a month since you left Independence. It’s the beginning of July, yet it hasn’t gotten any warmer or sunnier. More than ever, you wish you had extra blankets. It would take too long to make new buckskin clothing out here on the Trail. You haven’t come across any fur trappers yet, but even if you do, your parents probably couldn’t afford their prices.
When you pass Courthouse and Jail Rocks, followed soon after by the famous Oregon Trail landmark Chimney Rock, you know that you’re close to a third of the way through your journey!
But good spirits don’t last long. You think you’re nearing Scotts Bluff when dark thunderclouds roll in across the plains. They turn an eerie green, and purple lightning strikes down in a vicious crack. A cold wind whips against your wagon—you’re worried it might tip.
Then comes torrential icy rain.
And it doesn’t stop for days. Hailstones pelt your prairie schooners. You’ve patched up the canvas so many times already, you’re afraid the wagon might not make it out of these plains. You wish you could find a grove of trees for cover.
At last, the rain stops, and your wagon train rolls on just as dense fog sets in.
You wander around for days with zero visibility. Hunting is impossible. At first, people are certain the fog will pass, but it persists.
After a week, when the fog finally clears, you’re lost. You’ve gone completely off the Oregon Trail. All you see is prairie, and beyond that, distant mountains. You feel vulnerable in the wide open flats.
Should you try to find shelter in the mountains, or stay put on the open prairie?
To stay where you are, turn to page 35
To head for the mountains, turn to page 74
Return to page 86
As much as Emma wants something hot to warm her up, you trust Atsadi’s knowledge.
“But I’m so cold.” Emma shivers.
“I know, but don’t worry, I can help.” He dies into his satchel and produces a knobby brown root. “This ginger needs to simmer for a while. We don’t want the water to be too hot.”
Emma sips the tea slowly. After about an hour, her shaking becomes less pronounced.
“It’s working!” You smile. “Thank you, Atsadi.” That night, you find your
self shivering under your covers. You start to cough. Your throat burns. You hear others in your family coughing too.
Soon, the whole camp has fallen ill. You run out of ginger root within the next few days. You’ll be lucky if anyone survives. Your journey ends here.
THE END
Return to page 60
The Mandan villagers know the area better than you do, but you’re afraid of leaving the Missouri River behind. You know much less about the Yellowstone River path. Either route winds you through the Bitterroot Mountains.
Henry Clay positions himself at the front of your wagon train. “We’ll listen to Sha-kó-ka and take the Yellowstone River route.”
Pa and Ma are nervous about deviating from the Missouri River, as are Tsayoga and Tsula, along with another wagon-train member, a banker named Beau Travers.
Your three wagons split from the rest of the wagon train. Your family, your Cherokee friends, and the Travers family continue along the Missouri River.
The search for food becomes scarcer as you go farther northwest. The bison have all but disappeared. You barely even see deer or antelope along the river plains. You try to dig for roots near the riverbanks under logs and driftwood, but the ground is frozen solid.
“I hope I don’t have to eat another camas root . . .” Wahya pokes his stick at a piece of driftwood.
HISSSS!
You hear a rattling noise!
“Look out!” Inola jumps back.
A snake lashes out, fangs snapping near Wahya’s leg. Luckily, you all manage to escape the venomous creature.
Close call. The three of you are more careful around the riverbank after that.
Finally, you reach the Great Falls of the Missouri. The massive waterfalls are a magnificent sight to see, but the increasingly rocky ground proves difficult for your wagons. Your poor oxen groan and bellow while pulling your heavy wagons up steep cliffs. It will take weeks to make your way around the Great Falls.
To make matters worse, hailstones bigger than your hand pelt your wagons, some tearing through the canvas and denting the wood. Hail turns to torrential rain.
The steep terrain causes your wagon to tip over. The oxen break out of their yoke and run. You’ve come to a crossroads: you and your group will have to abandon your wagons to cross the river on foot. The water is high, and the hard ground is extremely slippery with icy mud. Should you look for a better place to cross, or take cover in the wagons and wait until the weather improves?
To wait for better weather, turn to page 27
To look for a better place to cross the river, turn to page 52
Return to page 43
You ask the Cherokee family if they want to travel with you. After all, there’s safety in numbers.
Pa turns to Tsayoga. “Excuse me, but I wonder if we might be able to help each other out.”
“How is that?”
“Well, we’re thinking it might be safer for us to travel together.” Pa adjusts his hat. “Protection against wild animals, bandits, and the like. We can hunt together and share what we have. It’ll be easier to take turns on guard duty at night. What do you think?”
Tsayoga turns to his family and speaks to them in Cherokee. A short discussion follows. Atsadi, his older son, doesn’t look happy with the decision.
Finally, the father turns to you and Pa. “We agree. We will travel together to Independence, Missouri.”
You’re relieved. It’s not good to travel alone. Mostly you’re excited to make new friends.
As Pa talks with Tsayoga and Tsula, you run back to get the rest of your family. Emma, engrossed in her book, doesn’t want to budge from her blanket in the farm wagon.
After introductions are made, your two families gather around one campfire. You share food, including Ma’s fresh peach pie, squash, Tsula’s cornbread, and roasted venison. You tell stories of your travels so far and talk about your hopes and fears of life in Oregon Territory.
* * *
The next morning, Tsayoga’s family leads you out of the woods and onto a lesser-traveled road toward Nashville. The landscape around you shifts. You’ve grown up in the flat grasslands and swamps of Jacksonville with low-hanging trees covered in Spanish moss and scrubby pines. Gentle hills soon become steeper slopes and small mountains. You’ve never seen mountains before. Your horses aren’t used to the new landscape either and get tired more quickly. You have to stop more often.
Georgia’s spring is still brown and gray. Sprigs of green flash out of the wooded leaves every now and then, but the trees are still mostly bare. It’s still colder than you’ve been expecting.
When you come to the small but growing town of Dawsonville, the Cherokee family elects to stay on the outskirts and wait while your folks get everyone supplies in town. Already fast friends with Wahya and Inola, you wait with them.
“Why don’t you want to go into town?” you ask.
“Before there was a town here, it was ours.” Wahya frowns. “New Echota. It’s . . . or it was the Cherokee capital. Where the Cherokee Tribal Council met. We even had a newspaper: the Cherokee Phoenix. It’s not published anymore.”
“I’m very sorry.” You wrap your coat more tightly around you.
“I’m going to start my own newspaper when I get out to Oregon City.” Wahya puffs his chest. “The Cherokee Frontiersman.”
You smile. “I’ll be one of your first customers!”
“You’ll be his only customer.” Inola sticks her tongue out at Wahya.
When Pa returns, he’s sold two of your sheep for a pack mule, which you decide to call Fred. The next morning, you leave Dawsonville and pass near two forts: Fort Wool and Fort Cumming, but you avoid them both. They were Cherokee-removal forts only a few years ago.
You spend the next few days making your way into the hill country of Tennessee. It’s very cold at night. You have to bundle up and huddle close to the fire near Wahya and Inola.
Just over three days after leaving Dawsonville, you reach Chattanooga, Tennessee, formerly known as Ross’s Landing. No need to stop—you recently restocked on food and you know your Cherokee friends want to keep a low profile to stay safe. Only a few years ago, Chattanooga was used as a site from which several groups of Cherokees were forced to leave.
You make camp north of town in a deep wooded valley. After a hearty meal and shared stories around the fire, it’s your turn to watch the livestock. You’ve done it before, but never for this many animals.
HOO! HOO! You jump at the sound. It’s dark out in the woods, and the campfire is dying down. You rub your tired eyes and poke the embers with a stick, shivering under your blanket. Beside you, Dash yawns and rolls over on his back, paws up.
Out of the corner of your eye, you spot something move. You freeze.
Oh, no! Your pack mule, Fred! He broke away from his tether and wandered off into the woods. Should you look for Fred, or stay near the campfire and try to call him back?
To stay near the campfire, turn to page 66
To look for Fred, turn to page 21
Return to page 11
You keep heading toward Saint Louis. You’ve already fallen behind and will not make it to Independence until the end of May—if you’re lucky. You’re going to miss most of the wagon trains leaving for the Oregon Trail as it is. If you keep going now, maybe you can join up with stragglers.
You and Emma take turns holding baby Jaime while Ma and Pa switch off driving the farm wagon. You continue on like this for another day, but Pa’s cough gets worse very quickly. As the afternoon drags on, Pa’s grip slackens on the reins. A sudden gust of wind scares the horses.
Your tired horses charge forward—out of control! Ma grabs the reins and tries to calm them down.
“Let them run it out!” Tsayoga shouts. “They will tire quickly!”
After a few minutes, the horses finally slow to a walk. Your heart is racing, and Emma is crying, holding baby Jaime tightly. Pa has passed out.
Ma feels his forehead and gasps. �
��He’s hot as fiery coals!”
Tsayoga and Atsadi carry him down from the wagon while the rest of you scramble to set up camp to get him warm.
Pa’s cough only gets worse. By nighttime, you hear a rattling in his lungs. He looks very weak and ghostly pale. When morning comes, he can barely lift his head off his bedroll.
Pa dies of dysentery, and it spreads through your group. You never make it to Oregon City.
THE END
Return to page 23
You don’t want to risk waiting a whole year to get to Oregon City, not when you’re so close. The Columbia River presents a great challenge, but you’re confident you can make it the rest of the way.
You talk over your options with the wagon-train members that night. The Clay brothers are torn between themselves.