John Augustus Sutter disembarks on the 7th of July, a Tuesday. He has made a vow. At the quayside, he jumps down to the ground, elbows his way through the militiamen, takes in the vast maritime panorama at a single glance, uncorks a bottle of Rhine wine and empties it at one draught; he throws the empty bottle in amongst the Negro crew of a Bermudaman. Then he bursts out laughing and runs off into the great, unknown city, as if he were in a hurry and someone was expecting him.
6
'Listen, old man,' said Paul Haberposch to John Augustus Sutter, 'I'm offering you a nice cushy job, and you'll get your bed and board and laundry. I'll even kit you out with clothes. I've got an old highwayman's coat with seven capes - it'll knock the eyes out of those Irish immigrants! You won't find such a good position anywhere else, especially since, between you and me and the gate-post, you don't speak the language. But that highwayman's coat of mine will work wonders with the Irish. Believe me, they're a bunch of bloody fine rascals, every last man of 'em a son of the Devil dropped stark naked from heaven, and all you'll have to do is keep your ears open and you'll hear them going on in that God-forsaken, whore-stricken tongue of theirs, for they never know when to shut their gobs. I swear to you that, within a week, you'll hear such horrors that you'll be begging me to let you take Holy Orders. An Irishman can't keep his mouth shut, but what I want you to do, while he's getting it all off his chest, is to have a little feel of his bundle of luggage, see whether it's got a double stomach like a red monkey or if it's stuffed as tight as an old woman with constipation. I'll give you my coat, half a gallon of Bay Rum (you must always drink a toast with an Irishman who's fresh off the boat, it's the way to welcome him amongst his compatriots), and a little knife of my own invention. It's as long as your arm and as flexible as a eunuch's prick. You see this knob here? Press on it . . . there, d'you see? There are three little claws that come out of the end of the blade. Yes, that's the way. So, while you're rabbiting on to him about O'Connor or the Act of Union that's been voted through Parliament, my little tool will tell you whether your-customer's arse is punched, bored or reamered. Then all you'll have to do is bite on it to discover whether his coin is made of gold or lead. Got it? Good, about bloody time, too! Sure, it's my own invention. When I was sailing around the ports of the Levant, we had a real bastard of a surgeon aboard, a Frenchman, and he used to call that thing a thermometer. Well, then, I entrust my thermometer to you, and no tricks, huh? I like the look of you, my boy, your mother didn't make a bad job of it when she had you. Listen. Whatever you do, don't forget to polish the buttons on that highwayman's coat, they must shine like the sign of a good pub, then you show them the flagon of rum, for, as the proverb says, "Good blood tells no lies," and with your hair like a bunch of radishes, my highwayman's coat, and the buttons polished till they glitter like dollars won at dice, they'll take you for the Bishop of Dublin's coachman on a day of General Indulgence, and, with their European notion of things, they'll follow you here like lambs, every one of 'em. But play it smart, eh? Don't get pipped at the post by that goddamned Dutchman over the road, or he'll snatch your clients from under your very nose . . . and, if he gets hold of them, watch out! One word more: once you've brought one of these wretched Irishmen here, make sure you never run into him again as long as you live, not even a hundred years from now! I wouldn't wish that on you. And now, bugger off, at the double!'
'Sometimes, you'll get a tip straight from the horse's mouth and sometimes you'll get a bum steer. But I'm going to teach you how to live off the fat of the land.'
It is Hagelstroem, the inventor of Swedish matches, speaking. John Augustus Sutter is his delivery boy, packer and bookkeeper. Three months have gone by. John Augustus Sutter has left the immediate neighbourhood of the port and penetrated further into the city. Like the entire American civilization, he is moving slowly westward. Since his encounter with that old pirate, Haberposch, he has already tried his hand at several trades. He is plunging more and more deeply into the life of the city. He works in a draper's shop, a drugstore, a delicatessen. He goes into partnership with a Rumanian and becomes a door-to-door salesman. He works as a groom in a circus. Then, as a shoeing-smith, a dentist, a taxidermist; he sells Jericho roses from a gilded wagon, sets up as a ladies' tailor, works in a sawmill, boxes a giant Negro and wins a slave and a purse of one hundred guineas; for a time, he is down-and-out; he teaches mathematics with the Mission Fathers, learns English, French, Hungarian, Portuguese, the Negro dialect of Louisiana, Sioux, Comanche, American slang, Spanish. Advancing still further towards the West, he moves to the other side of the city, crosses the river, reaches the outskirts and opens a saloon in an outlying suburb. At Fordham, he has a clientele of tough wagon-drivers who like to linger over their drinks whilst exchanging all the news and gossip from the interior; among them, there appears from time to time a solitary and taciturn drinker. His name is Edgar Allan Poe.
Two years have elapsed. Everything that Sutter has heard, seen and learned, every conversation he has eavesdropped on, is engraved upon his memory. He knows New York, the little old streets with Dutch names and the great new arteries which are being laid out and numbered; he knows what kinds of business are carried on there, and which ones are creating the prodigious fortunes that are building up this city; he keeps himself informed of the progress of those slow caravans of wagons that cross the vast plains of the Middle West; he has his ear to the ground and learns of plans of conquest and exploration even before the government gets to hear of them. He has drunk so much whisky, brandy, gin, eau-de-vie, rum, caninha, pulque and aguardiente, with all the derelict souls who have returned from the interior, that he is now one of the best-informed men in the country about all that concerns the legendary territories of the West. His head is full of maps and itineraries, he has wind of several goldmines, is the only one to know of certain hidden tracks. Two or three times he risks his money on distant expeditions or stakes it on the leader of this or that band. He knows Jews who will put up money, who are, so to speak, the organizers or patrons of enterprises of this sort. He also knows which officials can be bribed.
And he acts.
At first, cautiously.
He joins forces - for the journey only - with some German merchants who are leaving for St Louis, the capital of Missouri.
7
The State of Missouri is half as big as France. The sole route of communication is the gigantic Mississippi River. There it receives its principal tributaries: first, the formidable waters of the Missouri. Large steam ferries, fitted with a transverse wheel at the stern, sail 1,800 miles up this river, whose waters are so pure that, eighteen miles after their confluence, they can still be distinguished from the muddy, turbid, sickly-yellowish waters of the Mississippi; then there is a second river, probably as important and with waters just as pure, the 'beautiful river', the Ohio. Between the low-lying and densely-forested banks, these three rivers purl majestically to their meeting-place.
These giant arteries keep the ever-increasing and feverishly active populations of the eastern and southern states in touch with the unknown territories that stretch endlessly to the north and to the west. More than eight hundred steamboats a year berth in St Louis.
It is just above the capital, in the fertile angle formed by the confluence of the Missouri and the Mississippi (at St Charles to be precise), that John Augustus Sutter buys some land and settles down to farm.
It is a beautiful, fertile country. Maize, cotton and tobacco grow there, but above all, further to the north, wheat. All this produce is sent down the river, to the warmer states, where it is rationed out daily to the Negroes who work on the sugar-cane plantations. It is a profitable trade.
But the thing that Sutter finds most interesting in all this busy traffic, is the lively discourse of the people who travel up and down the rivers. He keeps open house and there is always food on the table. An armed sloop, manned by black slaves, hails passing boats and leads them to the pier. So warm is the welcome that the house i
s always full; adventurers, settlers, trappers who are going down loaded with loot, or poor, penniless wretches, all are equally delighted to indulge themselves there and recover from the hardships of the bush and the prairie; going the other way, up-river, are fortune-hunters and daredevils, hotheads with fever in their eyes, mysterious, secretive men.
Sutter is indefatigable, he regales them all, drinks the night away, tirelessly interrogating his guests.
In his mind, he analyses, classifies and compares all these stories that he hears. He. remembers every word and never forgets the name of a mountain, a pass or a river, or place-names such as Dry Tree, Three Horns, Bad Man's Ford.
One day, an illuminating idea strikes him. Every last one of the travellers who have filed through his house—the liars, the chatterboxes, the braggarts, the loudmouths, and even the most taciturn — all, all have uttered one immense word that sheds its grandeur over their tales. Those who speak it too often as well as those who speak it too rarely, the boastful, the timid, the hunters, the outlaws, the traders, the settlers, the trappers, all, all, all, all speak of the West, speak of nothing, in fact, but the West.
The West.
Mysterious word.
What is the West?
This is the notion that he has of it:
From the valley of the Mississippi to beyond the gigantic mountain ranges, vast territories stretch far, far away to the West: marvellously fertile lands and arid steppes reaching to infinity. The prairie. The homeland of countless tribes of Redskins and the huge herds of buffalo that ebb and flow like the tides of the ocean.
But then, beyond that?
There are Indian legends that tell of an enchanted country where the towns are built of gold and the women have but a single breast. Even the trappers who come down from the North with their cargoes of furs have heard, in their remote latitudes, tales of this wondrous country of the West where, they say, the fruit is made of gold and silver.
The West? But what is it? What is to be found there? Why do so many men make their way there, never to return? They are killed by the Redskins. But those who get through? They die of thirst. But those who survive the deserts? They are halted by the mountains. But the man who crosses the pass? Where is he? What has he seen? Why is it that so many of the travellers who pass through my house strike out for the North but, the moment they are in the wilderness, turn sharply towards the West?
Most of them go to Santa Fe, that Mexican colony deep in the Rocky Mountains, but these are nothing but common traders attracted by easy profit, they give no thought to what lies beyond.
John Augustus Sutter is a man of action.
He sells his farm and turns all his possessions into cash. He buys three covered wagons and stocks them with provisions. Armed with a double-barrelled gun, he mounts his horse. He joins a company of thirty-five merchants who are going to Santa Fe, more than eight hundred miles away. But the business is ill-prepared, the organization haphazard and his companions a bunch of ne'er-do-wells who rapidly fall by the wayside. Sutter, like the rest, would have lost everything, for it is too late in the season for such a venture, but he manages to establish himself amongst the Indians of these territories and to live by bartering and trading.
And it is there, among the Indians, that he learns of the existence of another country, extending even further to the West, well beyond the Rocky Mountains, beyond the vast sandy deserts.
And, at last, he knows its name.
California.
But in order to reach this country, he must first return to Missouri.
He is obsessed.
* * *
THIRD CHAPTER
* * *
8
June 1838, Fort Independence on the border of the State of Missouri, on the banks of the river of the same name:
The caravans are making ready.
A wild confusion of animals and equipment. People are shouting at one another in every language under the sun. Germans, Frenchmen, Englishmen, Spaniards, Indians and Negroes jostle one another busily.
People are setting off on horseback, in carriages and in long processions of covered wagons pulled by twelve pairs of oxen. Some leave on their own, others in large companies. Some are returning to the United States, others leaving them to make for the south, in the direction of Santa Fe, or for the north, towards the high pass that leads over the mountains.
The real pioneers who, with no thought of returning, are forging ahead to search for more fertile land or a corner somewhere that will be their new homeland, are very few and far between. Most of these people are traders, hunters or trappers who are equipping themselves against the extreme cold of the Hudson Bay territory. If they reach the banks of the great frozen rivers, which have no name as yet but where beavers and other beasts with valuable furs abound, they will come back in three, or perhaps in seven years; the traders, however, will return next year to renew their stock-in-trade. Amongst the departures watched by all is that of a small, well-armed party composed of John Augustus Sutter, Captain Ermatinger, five missionaries and three women. The garrison of the fort fires a salvo in their honour as they set out on the track that will lead them to the Far West, to California.
9
During the three months he has just spent at Fort Independence, John Augustus Sutter has matured his plan.
He has made up his mind.
He will go to California.
He knows the route as far as Fort Vancouver, the last fort, and if certain information he has managed to glean proves reliable, he will be able to press on still further.
As yet, California has not attracted the attention of either Europe or the United States. Yet it is a country of incredible riches. The Republic of Mexico has already seized the treasures accumulated by the Missions over the centuries, but there are still vast prairie-lands and countless herds of cattle there, to be had for the taking.
Who dares all, wins all.
Sutter must seize his opportunity.
He is ready.
10
The track stretches for thousands of miles, flanked every hundred miles by a wooden fort surrounded by a stockade. The garrisons are fighting the Redskins with every weapon at their disposal, including cannon. It is a war of horrors and atrocities. No quarter is given. Woe betide the little band of men that falls into the hands of the savages or rides into an ambush set up by scalp-hunters.
Sutter is firmly resolved.
He rides at the head of his party, mounted on his mustang, 'Wild Bill', and whistling an air they play on the fife at the carnival in Basle. He is thinking of the small boy in Rünenberg to whom he gave his last thaler. For a moment, he reins in his horse. Heads or tails? And while the coin soars skyward like a lark, he murmurs: Tails, I win, heads, I lose. It is tails. He will succeed. And, without even having halted his companions, he rides on again, full of renewed strength. His first and last moment of doubt has passed. Now, he will go on to the bitter end.
His travelling companions are Captain Ermatinger, an officer who is going to relieve the commander of Fort Boise; the five missionaries - Englishmen sent out by the Bible Society in London to study the dialects of the Crée Indian tribes, whose lands lie to the north of the Oregon - and the three women, all whites, who belong to these seven men. All the others will leave him during the course of the journey and Sutter will go on alone; that is, unless he persuades the three women to remain with him.
11
The track follows the right bank of the Missouri, then turns off to the left and for more than four hundred miles follows the eastern bank of the Nebraska River; it crosses the Rockies close to Fremont Peak, which attains a height of over 13,000 feet, very nearly as high as Mont Blanc. Our travellers have been following this route for three weeks now. They have crossed the unchanging, endlessly flat wilderness, the oceans of grass where daily storms of unimaginable violence erupt on the stroke of noon to last no longer than a quarter of an hour; the sky becomes serene again, a harsh blue against the green f
ringes of the horizon. They camp beneath the crescent moon attended by a solitary, brilliant star; in vain to think of sleep, myriads of insects buzz all around them, thousands of toads and frogs salute the gradual blossoming of the stars. Coyotes yap. It is dawn, the magical hour of the birds. The two unvarying notes of the partridge. On again, and the track flies beneath the swift hooves of the horses. Rifles in hand, they look out for possible prey. Deer bound across their path. Behind them, at the end of the track, the sun, like a huge orange, soars rapidly towards its zenith.
Gold: the marvellous history of General John Augustus Sutter Page 2