When Winter Comes

by V. A. Shannon

  The gentleman—“Colonel Haraszthy at your service, ma’am,” he introduces himself, with a military click of his heels—says to me, “Why is it you are so interested, if I might ask?” And I answer him, that I was once acquainted with someone who had dreamed of such a venture himself, but I thought that his dreams had come to nothing, in the end.

  Colonel Haraszthy answers me, “Well, that is a pity. California will be a great wine country, if I know anything about it.”

  He asks me where I live. When I tell him, he says that he believes that part of the country would grow fine grapes, and, smiling, perhaps I should think of starting a vineyard of my own. It is clear that this remark is no more than gallantry. I thought he considered me a sensible woman asking sensible questions, and not some feather-headed girl acting foolish. I draw myself up, feeling insulted.

  I guess he sees the change in my face, and he quickly adds, “Forgive me—I do not mean to cause offense. Some ladies of my acquaintance are setting out on such a venture, and I admire them exceedingly for it. Please allow me to give you my card. I would be happy to furnish you an introduction to them.”

  He hands me his card with a flourish. I tuck it away in my reticule, and join my husband.

  I am pretty quiet for the rest of the afternoon and Jacob looks at me something anxious once or twice. In the end I say that the sun is so hot and the crowds so great, would he mind if we returned to the hotel.

  I try so very hard to be content with my life. I look to the future and try not to think of the past; but it was a hard thing to see this man so successful and delighted with his life, and be reminded of Mr. Keseberg, sitting by the light of the campfire with Mr. Wolfinger and Mr. Burger and poor Mr. Hardkoop, he speaking with such eagerness of his plans, and they of theirs, all to come to nothing.

  And I wish above all that it had not reminded me of my own lost dreams of adventuring onward, sailing away with the wind in my hair, going where I chose and doing as I pleased, seeing the world and achieving something splendid.

  What are dreams? Smaller than dust, lighter than air. You cannot see them with your eyes; you cannot weigh them in your hand. But they are powerful strong, and you cannot kill them, no matter how much you might try. They creep into your mind and torment you, be it the darkest hour of the night or the brightest hour of the day.

  And thanks to my wretched dreams, Jacob’s treat is spoiled, when he has made such an effort to please me.

  I hate myself for it. But I keep that card.

  36

  It was as well that I stayed. Not more than an hour after the rescue started off, the Reeds’ two boys were brought into our cabin, too little and too weak to manage the journey. And Mrs. Murphy soon became very ill indeed.

  With the brilliance of the snow outside and the darkness of our cabin her sight had become worse and worse. She could hardly see to put her hand to the fire and was become a danger to herself and all. As the days had passed she had become increasingly withdrawn and silent. Her older daughters had left her; Landrum had died; she heard the news that Lemuel had perished. Each time she became more scattered in her wits. But the worst was still to come. For the day after the rescuers left, Catherine died. And I carried the tiny body, no more than the size of one of the little girls’ dolls and as light as a feather, out of the cabin and put it into the snow beside the rest.

  Next morning I woke to find Mrs. Murphy walking round and round the cabin, searching for something.

  “Where is it? I had it in my hand, and now I cannot find it. You, girl!”—pointing at me—“Help me look. Where is it? I had it in my hand, and now I cannot find it.”

  I led her back to her bed, and sat her down with the quilt wrapped around her, and made up the fire and put water to heat.

  Mrs. Murphy would not be still. Again, she got to her feet, and crossed the room, lifting up blankets and peering into corners.

  “I cannot find it! Where is it? I had it in my hand, and now I cannot find it!” She began to weep. Again, I led her to the bed, and sat her down, imploring her to stay still, but she would not cease her quest. Round and round she went once more, and again after that.

  The kettle came to the boil, and I sat her down once more, and fetched her a cup of hot water to drink.

  “What is this?” She flung it straight at my head, accompanied by a stream of language filthier than anything I had ever heard in the back streets of Cincinnati. I reeled back, my head cut open and blood dripping down my face, and my clothing soaked.

  I screamed at her, “Be still! Be still!” and in that instant she came back to herself.

  “Oh, my dear—why, whatever has happened to your poor face?” and she looked at me full of love, and took my hand, and kissed it.

  I was ashamed of myself, and buried my face in her shoulder, saying, “Oh, I am sorry to have shouted at you so!” Mrs. Murphy patted me on the back and said, “Sweetheart, let me find something to dress that cut.” Then she stood up and crossed the room, saying to herself, “Now, where is the . . . where is it? I had it in my hand, and now I cannot find it. I had it in my hand, and now I cannot find it.”

  * * *

  As time had gone on the wolves had drawn closer to the camp. Now they were among us night after night. We heard them, growling low in their throats as they circled the cabins. Flakes of snow would fall from the roof as the animals padded back and forth above our heads, and we lay rigid in our beds, listening to every footfall. They howled, and their fellows howled in return.

  Mrs. Murphy became obsessed by them. If we managed to fall to sleep, it would be for a few moments at most; for when they howled, Mrs. Murphy would howl, too, and bang on the roof with a stick.

  In vain I begged her to stop. I remembered how our lean-to tumbled down around our ears. The cabin roof was hardly any stronger, and I imagined it giving way as well, a great gray wolf come crashing down in our midst, twisting and slavering, teeth and claws at the ready as he fell.

  * * *

  It was March when the second rescue party arrived with Mr. Reed leading the way. These men were better supplied than the first, though again they were all on foot; they still could not get animals through the snow, which they told us to be twenty foot or more, up at the pass. Some of the men continued down to Alder Creek, and the rest made camp near us.

  Mr. Reed came down into our cabin, overjoyed to find his boys safe. He told us that as he left Sutter’s Fort, he had seen the men from the first rescue, Mrs. Reed and Virginia in their company, heading in. I could imagine how he felt to see his wife and daughter safe and well.

  Mr. Reed was kindness itself. He gave us some good food, and brought in wood for our fire, and set water to heat, all the while telling us of his adventures between leaving the train—what seemed so very long ago to us now—and arriving at Sutter’s Fort.

  He and Mr. Herron had made good time to start with, until Mr. Reed’s horse went lame. Mr. Herron shot it, and they butchered it and took the meat with them, and as well they did, for game was scarce. They were not bothered overmuch by Indians on their way, but the journey was longer than they expected. Once through the pass it was another three days’ journey down the other side of the mountain, and then they’d had no food at all.

  Mr. Reed told us that he arrived in California to find there was a war on, so it was impossible to send back any help, for all the fit men were off fighting the Mexicos. Those who said they would bring us help were nothing but roustabouts and broken-down fellows; Mr. Reed didn’t trust them not to take the food and animals he purchased and never be seen again. But he thought it no great matter if we waited for help to come, and it was not until he met up with the poor remnants of the Snowshoe party that he finally heard the truth of our situation. Our story was taken up by the newspapers, and at long last folks stepped up to assist him.

  All this was said with a right choke in his voice, and when he heard the story of how his wife and children had suffered, how some had taken against them to the last, and how w
e had helped them, he was so moved that he wept, and embraced Mr. Keseberg, and called him his dearest friend.

  * * *

  After a few days, Mr. Reed’s rescue made ready to depart. Mrs. Graves and the rest of her family were to leave, though it must have been a hard task for Mr. Reed to assist them, knowing how cruel they had treated his family. And all the rest of the Breens were to go with him, and sorry I was to hear it.

  My life had become a lonely one, strange to think it, when I was surrounded by people at every minute of the day and night. But those I had grown to love had deserted me—my darling Margaret Eddy, Meriam and Landrum and all the rest of my friends, Mrs. Murphy, worst of all. She had been like my mother, and now she was become my worrisome child. Mr. Keseberg had turned away from me. His conversation, laced with that dry sense of humor so akin to my own, and which meant so very much to me, had stilled, and he lay silent and morose all the livelong day.

  I cared for all, and no one cared for me. All but Mrs. Breen. Once in a while I left the cabin and went across to visit with her—when I thought I could not stay one more minute in the same room with Mrs. Murphy without screaming, or when the children wept and begged for food that I did not possess and had no way of obtaining. Now even that small comfort was to be denied me.

  I wished with all my heart that I could leave with Mr. Reed’s rescue, and be out of this misery. But I could not. Yet again there were more children needing rescue than there were rescuers to do it. George Foster and James Eddy were to stay behind. Simon Murphy was ailing, and could not be moved. Mrs. Murphy was not fit to go out; Mr. Keseberg could not walk. There was no one else to care for them. They must stay in the camp. So I was doomed to stay in it, as well.

  * * *

  The three men who had gone to Alder Creek did not return. Instead, the French lad, Jean Trudeau, arrived. He brought a message from Mrs. Donner. As if by some miracle Mr. George Donner kept alive, but it could not be for much longer. She would see the poor man into his grave, and then she and these men would bring the rest of the children, and join us at the lake.

  Mr. Reed left us with food enough for ten days, and promised that he would send supplies again. In this way we could manage until such time as the weather improved—not more than a few weeks, surely—and then mules could be brought through the mountain to take us all to safety.

  * * *

  The day after Mr. Reed’s departure, I was making a meal of beans and rice when I thought I heard my name being called. I looked up, startled—for we were the only folks left in the camp now. It came again. I left the fire, and ran up the steps to the outside.

  Abandoned in the snow were three little girls. These were Mrs. Donner’s children, six-year-old Frances, and her baby sisters Georgia and Eliza, all wailing fit to burst. Heading away were two of the men who had stayed at Alder Creek, loaded up with packs so heavy they could hardly stand. I screamed after them, “Come back! Come back!”

  Of course, they did not.

  Frances told me that her mama had given them gold and jewelry and every last piece of her good clothing, including a silk gown, for them to carry the girls across the mountain to safety in California. When they got to our camp, the men had set the children down out in the open, told Frances to shout my name, and then marched off without a backward glance. I could not comprehend greater villainy.

  And yet again our cabin was filled with other people’s children, with hardly any means of providing for them.

  37

  With some good meals inside him, Mr. Keseberg regained his strength somewhat. At long last it seemed the snow had stopped, and we had blue skies and sun. Mr. Keseberg was able to get out and fetch us firewood; and with the good food and the fresh air he came back to something like his old self, sitting on a stool by the fireside and telling stories to keep the children amused. And we began our conversations again, and I heard once more of his plans for his vineyard. With the promise of Mr. Reed’s final rescue, food sent for us, and mules to take us out, it seemed that at long last we would get to the end of our journey, and our lives would be set back on the path we had envisaged.

  But this was all an illusion. For with three more mouths to feed, the food that should have lasted us two weeks was gone in less than one; and the blue skies and sun were accompanied by a biting wind, so if anything it continued colder. And little George Foster died.

  So many died, that you might think the death of one more child to be of little consequence, other than to those who loved him. But it was his death that settled Mr. Keseberg’s fate, and, as it turned out, my own.

  So, George Foster’s death. I will write down the circumstances of his death in full, for much was said at the time and since, and all of it lies from start to finish. I turn my head away from the tales that are told of our time in the camp and keep my own counsel, but I will say this. What is true and what is believed are two vastly different things. And those who believe in the tales that are told of poor little George Foster’s death should be ashamed to be so deceived.

  * * *

  When we had set to and constructed the Murphy cabin, there had already been some small mattresses in the wagons for the children to sleep on overnight. A half dozen beds—some of them stacked one atop another, in the way that the cattle roustabouts slept in their shanties—were fashioned from the wagon planks, under the direction of Mr. Eddy.

  At one end of the cabin was the little room divided off where Mr. Eddy and his wife and two children had slept. At the other end was the chimney hearth, with the cooking pots set over the fire, and a couple of small stools to sit on.

  There was no window. But for the first weeks in the camp there was light enough, for the sun shone in around the doorframe, and through the gaps in the wall where the logs didn’t fit well together, and some days were fine so that we could leave the door open to air the cabin through. In the evenings, or the miserable days when the weather was poor, it was comfortable, for we had a lantern and a few candles and the firelight to see by. With neighbors visiting from time to time, and we stepping out to go visit with them, life in the Murphy cabin was not as bad as it could have been. But those days were long gone.

  Within a day of the food running out, Mr. Keseberg and I began to weaken once more. Collecting wood became an impossible task. There were axes and saws, but Mr. Keseberg was too weak to use them and we could not go out together, for Mrs. Murphy could not be left for a second unattended. Mr. Keseberg could do no more than gather what he could carry from the few sticks and branches that had fallen to the ground. Our fires became as little and feeble as we ourselves, and we trembled uncontrollably from the cold.

  We took the planks that had formed the Eddys’ bed and some of the other beds, too, to mend our fires; and when they were consumed, debated whether to take the planks from the remaining beds as well. But the little warmth we still maintained in the cabin meant that the snow that surrounded us melted through the chinks in the walls and beneath the door, and the earth beneath our feet was mud, soaking into our clothes and bedding. If we burnt the last few beds, the mud would be all we had to sleep upon.

  I wished we could move into the Breens’ cabin, for it was in better condition than ours by far. But although Mr. Keseberg and I could have got across to it, Mrs. Murphy could not, and the little boys could not, and we could not have carried them.

  * * *

  On the night that George Foster died, I had gone round the cabin to settle the children to sleep.

  My legs were so swollen it was painful to walk more than a few steps, and I was so weak that I had to sit down at every bed as I moved along. The Donner girls were tucked into one bed, top to tail like fishes in a basket. James Eddy and George Foster were in another. Both boys were fevered and restless. It was clear that it was only a matter of time before one or both of them would die.

  I would never have thought to be so very matter-of-fact about the death of a child; to acknowledge that it would happen, and to merely wait for the event. But I gue
ss I was hardened to it, by then.

  I pulled the quilt better over them, where George had kicked it off in his dreams, and then climbed into bed next to Mrs. Murphy, and lay there for a while, listening to the drip, drip of water from the ceiling.

  Those nights when I had lain awake planning my future in California, or thinking of a conversation I had that day with Mr. Keseberg, or blushing in the dark as I remembered Landrum’s look when I stepped out of the Murphy wagon in my new dress, and, later, his kiss, were long past. I had given up praying at night for rescue, or telling myself that in the morning a miracle would happen—the snow would be gone overnight, or I would remember a store of food I had hid and quite forgot about. I simply lay in dull silence, staring at the ceiling, knowing that closing my eyes for sleep meant opening them at waking, to endure another day of privation and misery that seemed unending.

  * * *

  In the night, George woke, crying for his mother. His sobs roused me, enough to see Mr. Keseberg cross the room to him.

  George could not stop his tears, and held out his arms to be picked up. Mr. Keseberg took him back to his own bed that he shared with Simon Murphy, who was sound asleep and did not stir. Mr. Keseberg laid George down beside him, pulling the blankets close over them both, and he began to sing to him quietly in German. It was a lullaby he used to sing to Ada, and I fell back to sleep myself, listening to his voice, so gentle and soft in the darkness.

  It seemed but minutes that I was asleep and then I woke with a start. Mr. Keseberg was standing over me, pinching my arm.

  The room was lit red by the dying embers of the fire. Black shadows scurried across the wall as Mr. Keseberg’s candle shook in his hand. I could see George, open-eyed and waxen pale in the next bed.

  “‘Wake up!” Mr. Keseberg spoke in a whisper. “That poor child has died. We must take him out of the cabin before Mrs. Murphy sees him!”