He smacked his fist against the table. “This is a day of action and not of argument.”
As Matthew and Solomon walked back toward their camp, they both were silent. Matthew wasn’t sure what Solomon was thinking, but Brigham’s words had stirred him deeply. The fire of the covenant.He had not thought of it in that way before, but now it did consume him like flame unquenchable.
He looked at Solomon. “What do you think?”
Solomon seemed surprised. “Is there any question about what we must do?”
Matthew nodded slowly. “Even though we don’t have the houses completed yet?”
“Those people don’t have anything, Matthew. Do we have any choice?”
“No,” Matthew answered, pleased that Solomon was one in thought with him. “Let’s go tell the family. If possible, I’d like to be on our way first thing in the morning.”
Derek walked slowly, letting the others go out ahead. It was just after noon and the sun beat down upon him, making him a little dizzy. Josh was talking earnestly with Sergeant Williams and didn’t notice that Derek had fallen behind. Then suddenly Josh stopped, his head turning as he searched for his uncle. When he saw him, he immediately came back to join him.
“Are you all right?”
Derek nodded. “Just tired.”
Josh reached up and put his hand on Derek’s forehead. The hand felt wonderfully cool to Derek.
Josh gave him a sharp look as he withdrew his hand. “Your fever is starting in again.”
It was tempting to deny it, but Derek knew there wasn’t much point in it. If this was the typical pattern of fever, chills, and violent shakes, they would know for certain in a few hours.
“Oh, Derek,” Josh murmured. “Not again.”
“That’s what I say.” He looked around. “Not a word to anyone until I’m sure, all right?”
Josh pursed his lips, but finally nodded. Up ahead, the column had stopped, probably in response to the small group of riders that had come in from the west a few minutes before. Lieutenant Smith had brought the battalion to a halt, but it was strung out for more than half a mile and Company D was near the tail end. Finally they reached the main body and moved up to join the others.
Lieutenant Smith was pacing up and down beside his horse. The other officers were directly in front of him. Doctor Sanderson and Lieutenant Dykes were off to one side and slightly behind him. “Men, we’ve just had a communication from General Kearny.”
That was no surprise. As they drew close, Josh had seen that the riders were a group of dragoons. They had to be from Kearny’s regiment, which was out ahead of them.
“General Kearny,” Smith went on, “is not waiting for us in Santa Fe. He left there on the twenty-fifth of last month.”
Derek and Josh looked at each other. General Kearny was obviously an impatient man. He couldn’t seem to wait for them anywhere.
“He says we are moving much too slow,” the officer went on, clearly not pleased. “He needs us in Santa Fe by the tenth of the month.”
That brought instant cries of dismay. Today was October second. They had calculated that Santa Fe was still about two weeks ahead of them.
Smith let the noise die again, then held the letter up in the air, waving it at them angrily. “General Kearny has said that if we are not in Santa Fe on the tenth, he will discharge the battalion and find someone who can give him the help he needs.”
Now the surprise and disbelief turned to shock. Discharged? in the middle of Mexico? after only two and a half months of service?
“Men, I am not about to have my command disobey a direct order from our commanding general. We will be in Santa Fe by the tenth of October. Are there any questions?”
Several hands shot up. Smith ignored them. “Good. We will immediately begin our line of march. We will not stop to rest the teams. We will not have supper until we have reached the Red River.” He looked around, daring anyone to cross him. When no one spoke, he flicked his hand in the direction of the officers. “See to it. Get those men moving immediately.”
Josh Steed gave a low sound of sheer pleasure as he dropped his other boot and began to massage the bottom of his feet. “Oh my,” he groaned, “that feels good.”
Derek, who was already lying down with his feet propped up on his knapsack, opened his eyes. “Funny how the simple pleasures change, isn’t it?”
“How far did we come today, Papa?” Christopher asked.
“Twenty-seven miles, according to Captain Hunt.”
Rebecca hauled herself up wearily, stretching as she held her back. “I know what my back feels like after that far in a wagon. I can’t imagine how sore your feet must be.”
Josh reached down and peeled of his socks, then continued to knead the muscles with his fingertips.
“Josh?”
“Yes, Benji?”
“You got a big sore.”
He turned his foot enough so that he could see the bottom. Sure enough, there on the ball of his foot was a blister nearly half an inch across. “I know, Benji. I can feel it.”
“We can’t keep up this pace for the next seven days,” Derek said. “Command or no command, we’re not going to make Santa Fe by the tenth.”
“Not unless we can teach mules how to fly,” Rebecca agreed.
“Some of the men think Kearny’s bluffing,” said Josh. “He won’t really discharge us. How can he get replacements out here?”
“He can’t,” Derek said shortly. “But Lieutenant Dykes says you always take Kearny seriously. He says he is a good officer but tougher than a blacksmith’s anvil.”
Rebecca hooted softly. “Well, maybe if we were that tough, we could make it.” Then, softening a little, she looked at Derek. “If we have another march tomorrow like the one we’ve had today, I think we’d all better go to bed now.”
They were up at dawn and on the road before breakfast. There was surprisingly little grumbling, perhaps because they were still exhausted from the previous day. They had gone about six miles when Lieutenant Smith called for a halt near the bank of a creek. While the women began getting a cold breakfast, Smith called for a meeting with all of his officers.
Ten minutes later Derek, Rebecca, and Josh looked up as Sergeant Thomas Williams approached their wagon. “What’s the word, Tom?” Derek asked.
“Thought you’d better know. Lieutenant Smith has decided that there is no way that we can make Santa Fe in eight days. He’s going to split the company.”
“What!” Derek blurted. Josh had also jerked up at that announcement.
“He wants fifty of the strongest men from each company, along with the best teams and wagons, to make a forced march to Santa Fe. The rest will be put under command of Lieutenant Oman and come along as best they can.”
“No!” Derek exclaimed. “President Young said that we were to stay together.”
“This is not right,” Josh said quietly. That surprised them all. Josh was always the last one to criticize, even when there was more than ample cause.
“Well,” Williams said reluctantly, “right or not, Josh, you and I have been assigned to go with the advance group.” He held up his hand quickly to cut off Josh’s protest. “You should know that our officers agree this is the best course of action. We can’t risk being discharged.”
Josh was deeply disturbed. “So we just leave Derek and Rebecca and the children?”
“We’re going,” Derek said, trying to stand. He had to close his eyes as a wave of dizziness hit him.
“Sorry, Derek,” Williams said sadly. “The determination has already been made. We have no choice but to trust the judgment of our officers.” Then there was a rueful smile. “There is one consolation.”
“What?” Rebecca asked. She wasn’t as upset as Josh and Derek, as long as her family would stay together.
“Doctor Death will be going with the advance group. You’d think he would be required to stay behind with the sick, but with his usual loving care, he’s decided he should go ahea
d.”
That stopped Derek. He squinted a little at Williams. “He has?”
Josh groaned. “He’ll be with us?”
Williams nodded.
Derek sat back. “Maybe staying in the second group is not so bad after all.”
Chapter Notes
John Augustus Sutter, a Swiss pioneer, led a group of white settlers to Mexico in 1839. They settled on the American River about two miles upstream from where it joined the Sacramento River. In return for an oath of loyalty to Mexico, Sutter was given a land grant of fifty thousand acres. He established a fort there and began to farm. He called it New Helvetia, Helvetia being the Latin name for Switzerland, but it quickly came to be known widely as Sutter’s Fort. It became the western terminus for the California Trail and an important trading center for the region.
The description of Winter Quarters in late September of 1846 comes from the journal of Hosea Stout (see SW,p. 188). The gristmill built by Brigham Young still stands near the river in Florence, Nebraska.
The speech given here by Brigham Young calling his people to go forth and help save the poor Saints back in Montrose is actually part of speeches given on two successive days, 27 and 28 September, one in Winter Quarters and one on the east side of the Missouri River in Council Bluffs. They are combined here for purposes of the novel, but except for a few transitional phrases to help it flow better, these words are the very ones used by Brigham Young to stir his people to action. (See Richard E. Bennett, “ ‘Dadda, I Wish We Were Out of This Country’: The Nauvoo Poor Camps in Iowa, Fall 1846,” in Susan Easton Black and William G. Hartley, eds., The Iowa Mormon Trail: Legacy of Faith and Courage[Orem, Utah: Helix Publishing, 1997], pp. 162–63.)
On 3 October the Mormon Battalion split into two groups in order to comply with General Kearny’s order to reach Santa Fe by 10 October. Doctor Sanderson went with the advance party, which led Sergeant Daniel Tyler to later write: “The sorrow which they [those in the second group] felt at the loss of friends through having the Battalion divided, was in a great measure compensated by the relief they experienced at being rid of the Doctor’s drugs and cursing for a few days. There was a noticeable improvement, too, in most of those who were sick after the Doctor left, so that when they arrived in Santa Fe many of them were convalescent.” (CHMB,p. 163.)
Chapter 28
Saturday, October 3 — On the California Trail
I have not written for some time, so I shall try to summarize. After crossing the dreaded Salt Desert, we took inventory of our provisions and got confirmation of that which we already feared. We do not have sufficient supplies to see us to California. With no trading posts between here and Sutter’s Fort, things are grim. We had no choice but to send two men on ahead to purchase supplies and bring them back to us. Charles Stanton, from New York, is a bachelor traveling with the Jacob Donner family. William McCutchen, who has a wife and baby girl, joined us at Fort Bridger. They are from Missouri.
We camped at Pilot Peak springs for a time to rest the teams but could wait no longer. There was snow on the higher mountain peaks and dread drove us onward.
By the twenty-second day of September, we finally made our way around a high range of mountains called the Rubys. Very discouraging. Too high to cross, so we went south around them, then traveled back to almost the same point but on the other side. Took nine days and well over a hundred miles to go 30 miles directly west.
By then our company had become hopelessly fractured. We no longer travel as one group, but each smaller party makes its way as best it can in the day. The Germans—Keseberg, Wolfinger, Spitzer, etc.—stay together. The Breens, who are Irish, stay to themselves. We and the Donners, who are viewed as the rich of the company, mostly stay together. The tedium and the strain tell on tempers, and contention is as common as the dust. We camp together at night but there is not much mingling. The Salt Desert left us broken in more ways than one.
Bitterness against Mr. Reed grows. Lansford Hastings is not here to take the blame, so many put it upon Mr. Reed. Our alienation from others in the party grows noticeably each day. Part of this now festers from months ago when Mr. Reed confronted Keseberg, a haughty German, about mistreating his wife. Keseberg, a man with a great temper, still seethes over what he saw as his humiliation.
Seeing more signs of Indians. Shoshannees, or something like that. Uncle George (Donner) lost two horses several days ago. Assume Indians stole them.
Six days ago we rejoined the California Trail. Mr. Reed totaled up the mileage from his journal. He calculates that instead of saving three hundred miles as Mr. Hastings promised, in actuality we have likely come an extra one hundred twenty-five miles. Someone suggested we rename the route “Hastings’s Long Trip.” Though we are now on the California Trail, there are no wagons in sight. We are alone, so far as we know. Notes and sign boards left by parties ahead confirm that this was a terrible mistake. At the Weber River, we were just four days behind Hastings and his group. Now we are at least eighteen days behind them. Some of us now remember—not without pain—Tamsen Donner’s deep melancholy when we chose this new route. Standing guard each night on livestock. Have lost two oxen and several horses to Indians. We have none to spare! Making better time. Company still split. Donners are now about a day in the lead. The heavy family wagon so artfully constructed back in Illinois now slows us considerably, since we have insufficient oxen. My thoughts are constantly of Kathryn and the baby. It is now just three months from coming into the world. Oh, how I wish I could be there when it comes!
It was not that steep a hill. Compared to what they had come over in the Wasatch, especially that last killer ridge that had nearly broken their teams, this was barely more than a long rise. They had seen worse coming across the desert. But that had been a long time ago and when their teams were stronger. This hill, long and with deep sand, had stopped them again. Along the river it was too marshy. Fording the river to go around the hill wasn’t an option either. Their teams, down in number and almost utterly wasted, simply could not pull them alone. So once again the fragmented, straggling company known as the Donner Party had to stop and double team in order to get their wagons up and over the top.
Peter shook his head grimly. Why did he still refer to it as the Donner Party? George Donner was the elected captain, that was true enough, but after the loss on the Salt Desert the Donners had the strongest teams, and in the last few days they and their party had gradually pulled ahead of their companions. Judging from the signs they left behind, they were now at least a day ahead of the others, more likely two. That was too bad, for at times like this, the Reeds and their fellow travelers desperately needed the extra oxen.
But that was wishful thinking and won them nothing. Peter sighed and walked back to James Reed’s wagon. Milt Elliott was just finishing the yoking up of the extra team borrowed from one of the Graveses’ wagons. “You want me to take this one up?” Peter asked.
Reed’s lead teamster shook his head. He and Peter were the only Reed drivers still with the family. With most of Reed’s oxen lost and two wagons abandoned, Reed had sent the others on with the Donners, who had more provisions. “You took the last one. I’ll take this one,” Elliott answered.
“All right.” Peter moved past him around to the back of the wagon. Pushing at the back of this heavy wagon wouldn’t give the oxen much help, but it was something to do and perhaps it helped enough to give the animals some relief, even though small.
Once in place, he turned and looked up the hill, then shook his head. The wagon that had started ahead of them was now stopped about halfway up. John Snyder, a teamster for the Graves family, was now blocking the trail.
“Milt,” Peter called. “Look.”
Elliott turned, then swore. “Come on, Snyder,” he yelled. “Keep it going.”
Peter heard the sound of a horse and turned. Mr. Reed approached, riding his mare. During the noon stop he had gone out on a brief hunting trip. Peter saw that he had bagged nothing. Reed surveyed the
situation quickly, then swung down and tied Glaucus on the back of the wagon. Peter couldn’t help but notice the difference in the once proud thoroughbred. Its ribs could be easily counted. Its coat was dull and dirty. The spirit was largely gone.
Reed came over to stand beside Peter, peering up the hill. “What’s going on?”
Peter shrugged. “We took Pike’s wagon over first and now we’ve got his team. Mr. Graves was going to send his teams back for his last wagon, but Snyder said this one was lighter and he could make it without the extra help.”
Reed snorted. “What was he thinking? That sand is like adding on a thousand pounds.”
“Well, as you can see, he was wrong. Looks like he’s stuck now and is going to have to wait for the extra teams anyway. So, here we sit.”
Margret Reed had been standing with the children on the other side of the wagon to get some relief from the sun. She came around now to see what they were talking about. Reed squinted up at the wagon that was ahead of them, then made up his mind. “Milt,” he called irritably, “we’re not waiting any longer for that fool. Let’s go.” Then he cupped his hand and shouted. “Move out of the way, Snyder, we’re coming up.”
Peter was a little surprised. There was no love lost between Franklin Graves and his family and James Frazier Reed. Graves was now openly blaming Reed for convincing them to take the Hastings Cutoff, even though the Graves party hadn’t been at Fort Bridger when the decision had been made and only joined the Donner group when they were two or three days into the Wasatch Mountains. But John Snyder and Reed had quickly struck up a friendship, and it had been Snyder who had convinced Graves to lend a yoke of oxen to Reed after his were lost in the Salt Desert. So Reed’s anger at the teamster was a little unusual.
Up the hill, Snyder was standing by his team. He spun around and shouted back. “There’s no room. Wait your turn. We’ll be out of here in a few minutes.”
“Only a fool would think you could pull that hill without help,” Reed shouted back. “Now, move over.” To Elliott he snapped. “All right, let’s go.” He stepped over beside Peter and prepared to help push. “Margret, you take the children and stand back.”
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