Jim follows the Bear to its junction with the Feather and from there heads farther south through marshy bottomland even richer than the pastures higher up. Today his eyes seem sharper, his head clearer. He looks at this place with clearer eyes, yet what he sees is like a dream. Between the long mountain ranges east and west, it is a vast park, perfectly flat. He figures crossing it would take a day of steady riding. The channel of the Feather is lined with oak and sycamore. Wild grapevines wind through the undergrowth along its banks. He sees unfamiliar creatures here, cranes and pelicans. Around him groves of oak trees decorate the broad and level plain, their canopies like sculpture. He sees elk and blacktail deer. Under gnarled, spreading limbs he sees a herd of pronghorn antelope, two hundred animals at least, who take no notice of his passing. He sees ponds where wild ducks feed, and more ponds, a chain of mirrors under a sky without clouds, until a cloud of ducks obscures the sun, flapping and veering, a thousand ducks, or five thousand, he cannot tell.
Silently he mouths “Hallelujah!” The virginal abundance is like an alcoholic fume. Wonder fills his heart, and stronger than the wonder is a welling desire that intoxicates him. He is here at last. Yes! He has made it, though not in the way he once imagined he would make it, never dreaming he would arrive alone, with so many miles and days between him and his family. Perhaps it is a blessing to have arrived at all, and he gives thanks that he may have arrived in time to possess some part of this unspoiled place, to inhabit it, make his mark upon it and make it his own. Make it their own.
This time he speaks the word aloud. “HALLELUJAH!,” an outburst to ward off an unexpected pang of doubt. Somewhere inside this wondrous spectacle he feels a menace. What it is or where it is, he cannot say. His eyes are following a shadow thrown across the valley by the thick cloud of ducks, so many they eclipse the sun. It occurs to him that it might be too soon to bring a family into such a wild place. Are the Mexicans as dangerous as they are made out to be? Should he have waited another year to try this journey?
By early afternoon he has crossed the American River, so low at the ford this time of year the water is no higher than his horse’s knees. The trail here is heavily used, passing through more level country, spotted with oaks. He sees a village, a cluster of domes covered with dirt and built close to the ground. He sees the smoke of cooking fires. He passes a field where cowboys are cutting longhorn cattle out of a herd. They are local Indians, he later learns, working for Sutter. One fellow does something Jim hasn’t seen before. He rides with a coil of rope in one hand, throws it toward a moving bull, and the loop falls deftly around the horns. Jim watches another fellow do this, and another, then they lead the reluctant creatures toward the fort, now a mile or so ahead, on a swell of land well back from the river.
There are deep ditches here, four or five feet wide, to separate the unfenced rangelands from broad stubbled fields where grain has been harvested. Closer to the fort he sees a few emigrant wagons with the clutter of their rustic campsites under oaks. He sees corrals and storage sheds, then the whitewashed walls are rising ahead of him—after all these hundreds of empty miles, an adobe bulwark three times higher than a man is tall, with corner blockhouses notched for artillery.
Compared to Fort Bridger, with its log-cabin trading post and picket-fence stockade, this is a fortress. This is a castle. A white building shows above the walls, and on a pole rising from the peak of its sloping roof an American flag now flies.
A broad dirt track leads up to the gate. In front of it, two Indian soldiers in military jackets and buckskin trousers pace slowly back and forth, underneath a wizened face that grins down at all who pass. Above the gate, a human head has been impaled upon a spike so that it too, like the flag, can be widely seen. The eyes are long gone, pecked out by birds. The skin is dark, sunburnt and shriveled, drawn back from yellowing teeth. Strands of black hair dangle past the neck.
Another Man with a Secret
AT A SECOND-STORY window John Augustus Sutter looks out across his compound toward the south gate where yet another emigrant stands seeking entrance. Who is it, he wonders, and what will he want? A bed? A fresh horse? A sack of flour? A job? How many has he seen this year? How many more will be coming, the longed-for multitude that now fills his days with apprehension?
Sutter wears an unbuttoned military jacket so that a pot belly is revealed, pushing against his shirt. A moustache curves above his upper lip. Beneath his mouth there’s a small triangular goatee, a bushy medallion on his chin. The hair across his scalp is almost gone, or perhaps has been relocated to the long, full sideburns that drop past his ears. Alone at the window, he stands erect, with his shoulders shoved back, as if inspecting a squad of recruits, wishing he were a captain again, instead of second in command at his own fort.
He is thinking of the courier who rode in this afternoon from Monterey, who ran sweating across the plaza in search of Fremont’s anointed lieutenant. Can things get any worse? That message should have come straight to him! Until this summer, all couriers from Monterey came looking for John Sutter. Now, in his own house, he is the last to learn what is going on. Two hours later the news came trickling across the compound, mouth by mouth, and who knows how much truth remains in the story he has heard, of American forces at Los Angeles Pueblo being beaten back, driven to their ship. A hundred marines had sailed down from the Bay of San Francisco to quell the insurrection, and now we’re told they have been defeated, with six dead—or sixteen? or sixty?—and the southern pueblo once again under Mexican control.
Did he, Sutter, make another mistake by letting the Americans take charge here and fly their flag above his fort? Is it possible that the Mexicans might somehow win this struggle after all? Surely they can’t last much longer. They have no ammunition, no defense against ships of war. Their troops are untrained, their artillery useless. This remote, badly managed province was abandoned years ago.
But suppose that policy has somehow been reversed? What if reinforcements have finally found their way north? You hear rumors about shiploads of Mexican troops landing in the dark of night. Has it all been too easy—each port and pueblo taken like a man caught half asleep? Were they simply buying time?
No. No, he thinks. It’s out of the question. That kind of foresight would be out of character.
From the decanter on his desk he pours half a cup of brandy and sniffs and swirls it and sniffs again and gazes into it before he sips. His third this afternoon. He doesn’t like to drink alone. Companionship adds savor. This fellow at the gate, should he be invited in? Or could there be another family waiting somewhere out of view, the wife, the ragged children? Never has he seen so many wives, so many children as have passed his way this year. For months they have been coming, and still they come, and why does the sight of it fill him with misgivings? Hasn’t he dreamed of the numbers that would one day gather here and provide the strength to wrest this land from the Mexicans, who have never had a clear idea of what to do with it?
These Americans, they think like he thinks. They see the same opportunities. There is a recognition, a sizing up of one another that is familiar. He likes that. And yet he does not like it. There are so many now. So suddenly. While their warships fill the bays, the horses and wagons roll over the Sierras, or down from Oregon, family by family, and before you know it, the men turn into soldiers. They call themselves soldiers, though many are not. Vagabonds and bullies—that is what they become. Captain Fremont, who now calls himself a colonel, would like the world to believe he commands a military company. But under whose authority, Sutter has to wonder. They have no uniforms. They roam up and down the province, stealing what they need. They come here where Fremont knows he has always been welcome, and they steal this fort away, put another man in charge, an infant who has never marched in battle, who marched across the continent in Fremont’s shadow, a twenty-three-year-old lieutenant replacing him, John Sutter, and removing his very name from the map of the region he himself transformed. They call it Fort Sacramento now. Wha
t a humiliation! What a joke! Despising Mexicans, they give the fort a Mexican name.
From his window he can see corrals and fallow fields and garden plots and sheds. Were it not for him, there would be no cultivation here, no sheep or cattle, no blacksmith shops to make new shoes for Fremont’s horses, no barracks for his so-called troops. There would be no grapes, no melons, no tomatoes, no brandy. There would be no fort. There would only be the meager huts of the tribes who awaited Sutter when he sailed up the river and chose this spot and set up his cannon and fired off a few rounds, sending unknown forms of thunder up and down the valley to let them understand who had come to stay.
Does Colonel Fremont appreciate this, he asks himself? Not for a moment. He thinks we have too many friends among the Mexicans. Because the flag of Mexico has flown here, he thinks I can’t be trusted. He forgets that you do not survive in such a place without allies and alliances. He forgets that when I built this fort the Americans north of San Francisco Bay could be gathered into a single room. He forgets how many I have befriended, offering refuge in a hostile land. He forgets that I formed the first militia here, to subdue the tribes, and now they work for me! They work for me by the hundreds. And I feed them well. And many come to me in friendship …
Across the compound he sees the new emigrant looking up at the face of a man who used to be such a friend, the shrunken head of the Mokelumne Miwok chief. Once a respected ally, he had been persuaded by the commandant from Monterey to turn against this fort. Sutter had to hunt him down and execute him, and mount his head above the gate as an example to all the others. I try to be generous and just, he tells himself. I am not at heart a brutal man. But some of them will never comprehend justice. They only comprehend fear. At the edge of this wilderness, fear is a necessary tool.
Now a messenger is crossing the compound. Sutter waits for the knock below. He sips his brandy. He listens. He waits for Manuiki, who will bring this message to him. Her bare feet make no noise upon the stair, but he knows she is ascending. She appears at his door.
“A visitor,” she says.
She stands regarding him with her large black eyes. The luminous glow is gone, like a fireplace of coals banked for the night. Her face is a mask, as it has been for two days. Too bad, he thinks. Too bad I have to put up with this. Too bad she has to be so nosy about my habits.
“Who is it?”
“Mister Reed.”
Sutter nods.
Reed.
Where has he heard this name? Was it from the fellow who led the mule train out of here last week? Yes. The small fellow. Stanton told them all the story of that unlucky company, the last bunch on the trail. And Reed, yes. Isn’t he one of the leaders? Maybe they have finally made it through.
“James Reed?”
“I think so.”
“Is he alone?”
She shrugs. “Who knows?”
“I’ll meet him at the gate, then.”
She turns to leave.
“Manuiki.”
At the door she waits but doesn’t turn. She wears a plain cotton dress that covers her arms and legs. Her black hair is gathered on top of her head. Her neck is the color of chocolate, darker than the Indians. He has always liked her neck. He has had silver earrings delivered just so he could see them hanging there. Too bad she now behaves so much like a wife and cannot be the tender, pliant thing she used to be when they sailed out of Honolulu and he brought her here to be his Manuiki, his little bird. She is putting on weight. Her hips are spreading. Is she pregnant again? That could be it, though he prays it is not. There have been enough children.
He says, “Why are you unhappy?”
She doesn’t move or speak.
He lifts his brandy cup. “Come. Have a drink with me.”
The stairs squeak, but her feet make no sound as she descends. He sips. Down below he hears her voice speaking to the messenger. She must know I brought in the new Indian girl again, he thinks. But is that any business of hers? I am still in command here, no matter what Colonel Fremont and his lackeys may believe.
BEYOND THE GATE Reed stands waiting. Sutter observes his filthy buckskins, his battered hat, his unruly beard, the lean, fierce look of prolonged hunger. What a test it is, he thinks, getting through this country. What it takes out of a man.
Sutter is known for his hospitality and courtesy. It pains him to tell Reed that he cannot be invited inside these walls, nor can he be offered a place to sleep, without the approval of Fremont’s lieutenant.
“You are already known to us,” says Sutter, with a charming and self-deprecating smile. “If it were up to me, you would enter now and receive a royal welcome.”
Where he sleeps tonight, says Reed, doesn’t matter. As soon as possible he’s heading back along the trail, a hundred miles or so, maybe more, and he needs provisions, horses.
“You have already been generous. We’ll be very grateful for whatever else you can provide. I have a wife and four young children still out there, with the company …”
Reed’s voice breaks. He averts his eyes in a way that touches Sutter, who can see that Reed has some cultivation, rough-hewn, but a cut above so many who appear at this gate and never leave. He hears grief and passion in this voice. Against his will, Sutter is reminded that he too has a family waiting somewhere else. He prefers not to think about this, but the urgency of the father standing here takes him by surprise. The thought of his wife makes Sutter long for a drink. He does not miss much about Europe, but he misses the quality of the liquor. His taste buds are stirred, as if the aroma of schnapps has traveled eight thousand miles in an instant. He can smell it. Saliva gathers around his tongue. It makes him thirsty, it makes him sentimental. His eyes are wet. He misses his son, his firstborn, who would be twenty or more. He must send for them all. Yes. Too much time has passed since he left Burgdorf, though who knows where they could live, now that his fort has been stolen out from under him, and what could he offer them here? It is too late in the year, of course, to ask them to make such a journey, with the winter approaching. But in the spring he could send for them. Most definitely. Yes. In the spring. In the spring …
“Do you have sons?” he says to Reed.
“Two sons, yes, and two daughters.”
“And a wife, you say?”
“Yes.”
“And you left them all in the mountains?”
“We had not reached the mountains yet. We fell behind. The herds we started with were half gone. Supplies were running low.”
It is very odd, thinks Sutter, that he would be the man to come ahead, a man who appears to be a few years older than himself, a man of some position in the company. A younger man would have been much better suited for that ordeal. Watching him talk, Sutter knows there is more to it. Reed is concealing something. But then he thinks, Who isn’t? We all have things to hide. And he is drawn to Reed, as another man with a secret.
“Somehow these adobe walls are no longer mine,” he says, “thanks to Colonel Fremont. But the herds, the corrals, the sheds, these things I still control. You tell me what you need. I may find one or two vaqueros to help you with the animals.”
“We are indebted, sir. We want you to know that George Donner, who was elected captain of our party, will stand behind all our obligations.”
From inside his shirt Reed pulls a folded scrap of heavy paper with a letter of guarantee, signed in Donner’s hand. Sutter glances at it.
“When the time comes we can settle these details. I know of George Donner. We get wind of travelers long before they arrive. Much of the country you have passed through is known to me. Though I have not seen the Wasatch Range or the Salt Desert, I have already heard of your struggles there, thanks to your friend who recites William Shakespeare with such enthusiasm.”
“You mean Bill McCutcheon.”
“I have read some of Shakespeare’s work, of course, but long ago, and in translation …”
“Is he still laid up?”
“I believe he is
walking again. I saw him at noon.”
“So he’s here at the fort.”
“At this moment he is probably in a meeting to which I have not been invited, though I am sure you will be welcome. Everyone there is an American, or so I have been told.”
Sutter’s voice is rising. His eyes are red-rimmed with sudden anger.
“How can I reach him?” Reed says.
“They are drinking my brandy, you can be sure of that. But they no longer care for my opinions. No one trusts me, you see! General Castro thinks I am aligned with the Americans! Colonel Fremont thinks I am aligned with the Mexicans! While he gallops up and down the province with his battalion of vagabonds, I am not to be trusted with the command of my own domain. Now men who have been in this region but a few days or weeks gather in a room in this fort I have built, and there they make plans that I am not privy to!”
From the look on Reed’s face he can tell he has said too much, or spoken too loudly. He softens his voice, saying he will send a messenger to Fremont’s lieutenant on Reed’s behalf and request an entrance to the fort. Sometime soon, Sutter adds, he will look forward to inviting Reed to dine with him.
NOW HE STANDS in the dining room, pouring himself another cup of brandy while he waits for Manuiki, who will soon come in to set the table. This Reed, he thinks, seems like a decent fellow, a man he’s glad to help. Providing these travelers with what they need, of course, is a form of insurance. When the party finally makes it past the mountains, Sutter will get his mules and his Indians back. He will also get paid for the flour.
Doing business has been the good part about emigrant traffic. And there will be more of it. More business. And more traffic. As the Reeds of the world keep coming and keep crowding him.
That’s how it feels. The future is crowding him. Sutter’s hope is that the Mexicans cannot hold out. If they give up the fight, Fremont will lose interest. He and his followers will move on to the next adventure, and Sutter will have his fort back. Yes. But then what? What next? There was a time when he thought he knew. These days who can know anything, with the world transforming itself at such a pace. He grows weary of these unforeseeable changes. He grows weary of his fort, the burden of his fort. Days like this he would like to be rid of it. If the Americans are so taken with its virtues, perhaps he should let them have it. Perhaps he should simply sell them this accursed fort, pay off all his creditors, and be a free man at last! He has heard that the naval commander from the Bay of San Francisco might soon pay him a visit, to inspect the site, perhaps to pay for the shipment of flour recently purchased for his fleet, perhaps to make an offer on the fort itself. Would he sell it? Should he? Well, of course. He would sell it in a minute, if the price were right …
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