Snowbound and Eclipse

by Richard S. Wheeler

  On December 3, after weathering a bitter night with ornery temperatures and an unsociable wind, we pushed into the canyon that would take us up the road and over Robidoux’s Pass and into the valley of the Rio del Norte. Or so they said. Me, I just tag along. What the hell? For days we had been pushing south, the forbidding massif of the Sangre de Cristos looming on our right like a jailhouse wall. Those shoulders formed a rampart such as I had never seen before, the cloud-wrapped peaks forbidding us passage westward. Even old John Charles kept staring at that white wall, while icicles dangled from his beard and eyebrows. Our burdened mules didn’t like that wall either; they might be dumb beasts, but they knew enough to shy away from those fatal highlands, and the slightest westward passage brought them all to a halt. Only curses and whips set them on our path.

  When we did enter the yellow canyon, everything improved at once. We were out of that icy wind. The creek had snow piled along its banks, but back a little there were bare patches we could traverse without trouble. The mules beelined for every spidery cottonwood and quaking asp to gnaw at the bark, and it made me aware how starved they were. We could barely keep them on the trail. I was all for letting them gnaw a meal out of the bark and twigs and leaves for a day or so, but old Frémont, he would have none of it. It was almost balmy in there, with sun heating the south-facing slopes and making the sun-heated rock friendly for an hour or two midafternoons. But later on, snow showers skidded over, wetting us and making our passage treacherous. Still, this was easy, and our spirits soared as we gained altitude.

  We made the divide about noon, and were once more exposed to the howling wind, which stole our hats until we treated it with more respect. Doc Kern, he had to toss his rifle onto his hat or he’d have lost it forever over a precipice. I spotted Herr Preuss trying to set up shop on that barren ridge, with the wind battering him so violently he could hardly stand. I knew what he wanted: the altitude of the pass, and he was not going to get it in that gale.

  “Hey, you old bastard, you want some help?” I asked.

  He unbent his bundled body, stared up at me through wire-rimmed spectacles, and glared. “If I vant help I ask for it, ya? If I vant help, I make every man here help me. I don’t vant help. I do this myself.”

  A touchy sort, I thought. Me, I don’t know Germans from Spanish and barometers from sextants. But I’m good with a Hawken. I braved the wind, curious about how the topographer would deal with it. He scraped away a crust of snow until he found bedrock and then set an instrument on it. The device was little more than a long upright glass tube full of quicksilver.

  “What’s that, Herr Preuss?”

  He glared at me. “Mercury barometer, that’s what it is called, and not a good way to do this. Wind bad. Air pressure, ach!”

  He got on his hands and knees, ignoring the icy gale, and studied the mercury in the glassed column, muttering to himself.

  “How high are we?” I asked. I wanted to skedaddle off that ridge fast, but curiosity got the best of me.

  “Stupid Yankee question,” he said. “Where you from? Missouri? With wind like this, we could be below sea level, ya?”

  I laughed. Old Preuss, he was one to make some sport.

  He pulled off a glove, extracted a notebook, and began making calculations in it with a stubby pencil. “Nine thousand seven hundred seventy feet, give or take,” he said. “Don’t ask any more questions.”

  “That’s why I’m out of breath,” I said. I wanted a lot more air in my lungs than I was getting.

  He stuffed his instrument into a rosewood chest and hurried away. He had converted barometric pressure to height above sea level, all he could manage there. He didn’t look happy with himself.

  I hastened off that ridge myself and hurried down a bar ren blue rock slope, with mules in front of me, finding precarious footing. Every living creature among us was in a hurry to get off that damned ridge and into some shelter, any goddamn shelter. We followed a vee downward, with Old Bill steering us as if he knew what he was doing. I saw no trace of a wagon road, but that didn’t mean much. Railroads could go anywhere. Railroads could climb Mount Everest, right?

  So far, we hadn’t had much trouble on the alleged road to Robidoux’s Pass, and I told myself that Old Bill, he knew what he was about. He wasn’t just making this up. We were sailing right along. Up high, on that saddle, I saw naught but white, grim, and desolate ridges and peaks with a plume of snow streaming off of them. And of course no game. Animals had more sense than we did.

  That was a moment of elation. There we were, midway on our passage across these chains of the Rockies, the divide of the middle range, and nothing more than some hungry animals were plaguing us. The canyon on the west side of the pass had been cut by a rill that sawed furiously into the mountain slopes, and we hurried into it, wanting to escape that gale. This was different. For one thing this canyon was choked with snow. I thought maybe we were walking on top of fifteen or twenty feet of it. Truth to tell, I had no idea how far down we would strike rock. One moment we would be carving a trail through snow; the next we would be stumbling over crosshatched deadwood, giant logs lying every which way a foot or so under the snow, which halted us and stymied the burdened mules. This here was no cakewalk.

  This was a twisty, narrow defile, filled with giant boulders and slabs of rock that had tumbled down from above, gray and red barriers we had to work around.

  “Some road, eh?” King said. “Robidoux must have been three sheets to the wind.”

  “There’s no wagon road here,” I replied. “Impossible.”

  “I wouldn’t take Bill Williams’s word for anything. The stupid bastard. Maybe this isn’t Robidoux’s Pass at all,” King said.

  We were, at that point, trying to ease one mule after another through log-strewn narrows, when the slightest misstep sent a mule to its knees. Sometimes we had to pull off their packs before they could get themselves up and out of those miserable little holes hidden by benign-looking snow. Now, too, the snow showers increased. The sky would darken and spill thick flakes, and then the shower would blow off and we would enjoy a moment or two of bright sun, which hurt our eyes. Every time the snow blew, I’d get a dose of it down my neck.

  I swear, some of us had so many icicles dangling from our facial hair that we rattled and chimed with every step. If the trail up the east slope had been easy and warm, the trail down the west slope made up for it. We plunged into snow so deep we had no idea of the contours of the gulch beneath our feet. Our lead men broke the crust, and those who followed stamped a deepening trench in the enormous drifts, until we were progressing through a virtual tunnel whose walls reached many feet above us. I dreaded what a cave-in or avalanche could do. The mules didn’t like it and had to be goaded ahead. Old Bill Williams, he just nodded and let us do the work.

  Still, we were out of the goddamn wind, which counted for plenty.

  The rill we were following twisted every which way, and once we got below timberline we faced new obstacles—heaps of deadwood, logs, and brush—that frustrated our descent. Snow showers added to our tribulations, but we worked grimly forward until we rounded a bend and caught a glimpse of a vast, arid, naked valley ahead.

  “It’s the Rio,” Godey announced. He actually slapped old Johnny Charles on the back, which I’ve never seen done before or since.

  That was a cause for rejoicing. We had conquered the second range. Ahead would be grass prairies, warmth, escape from wind, comfort, and game. I could hardly wait to climb onto one of those mules, Hawken in hand, and go after some juicy red meat. We might even find some big shaggies down there, and surely plenty of deer and elk.

  The rest of that blustery day we fought the narrow defile, working around tight corners, staring up at giant orange rock slopes, which were often sawed off by clouds. More and more, we could glimpse the peaceful valley ahead, looking like the promised land, and that inspired us to move our hundred and thirty mules and ourselves with haste. After a tough descent, we reached the f
oothills.

  Godey settled us in a willow grove not far from some giant gray sand dunes that formed an unexpected barrier to our passage. But that would wait for the morrow. We turned the mules loose in cottonwoods, where they began gnawing ravenously on bark and leaves and whatever roots they could pry out of the frozen earth. I watched those wretched animals do everything in their power to feed themselves. They worked at bark and twigs frantically, as if they knew that worse would follow. It troubled me some. Them mules knew more than we knew, and no one was paying them any heed.

  It was snowing again off and on, but this would be a comfortable camp, and we rejoiced. By dusk we had ample deadfall at hand for the mess fires, and we settled down for an evening of rest and recovery. Two ranges down, one to go. Men built towering fires and dried their outfits as best they could, but blowing snow didn’t help none. A man would get his drawers half baked dry and a gust would pelt fresh snow into them.

  I discovered old John Charles before his tent and thought to ask him a question that had been burning in my bosom.

  “That’s no canyon for a railroad, is it?”

  “No, of course not. This pass won’t work,” he said. “I’m not sure it’s Robidoux’s Pass. There wasn’t a sign of a wagon road.”

  “Herr Preuss told me the ridge measured almost 9,800 feet.”

  “He did, did he? I’ll talk to him about it.”

  “Do you think maybe Old Bill got himself turned around?”

  The colonel didn’t like that and stared at me for an answer. I was getting into some kind of politics there.

  I drifted back to my mess. This would be a macaroni night. At least we had some of that to feed ourselves. But later I discovered that Frémont had lit a bull’s-eye lantern and had settled himself in front of his tent with a book. A book! What manner of man would park himself outside of his tent on a wintry eve with a book? He had pulled his spectacles on and was quietly reading away.

  I edged up to him and discovered a massive tome in his hands, with dense type on every page.

  He gazed up at me and fathomed my curiosity. “It’s Blackstone’s commentaries,” he said. “Common law and cases. I should like to practice law when I reach California.”

  I stared at the book, at him, at the whirling snow that blew across its pages.

  Later, when I was back among my mess mates, I told them that the colonel was reading Blackstone, and they marveled at it.

  “Other men would be looking after the animals, checking supplies and all,” King said.

  “It’s all for show,” Vincenthaler said.

  But Godey objected. “Why would a man of his repute do anything like that, mes amis?” he asked.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  John Charles Frémont

  All my life I have been cognizant of the impressions I have made on others. There were multiple messages in my reading of Blackstone. I could just as well have pursued the jurist’s ideas in the privacy of my tent, but that would have accomplished nothing. So I settled myself outside, where my study would be seen and considered. I wanted my company to draw proper conclusions, and I don’t doubt that I succeeded.

  They would marvel, of course. There we were, deep in a snowy wilderness, where common law was the last thing on the minds of these men, and there I was, toiling at my book by the light of a bull’s-eye lantern. I considered it a most efficacious moment.

  It signaled, of course, that my thoughts were now on life in California and that our present problems were surmountable—indeed, nothing to dishearten good and valiant men. It was an acknowledgment that we were twothirds through the cordillera that had posed the principal barrier to our westward progress. It expressed my calm, and my utter absence of anxiety. To be sure, we were in some peril, but it was important to let the entire company know that these perils would be dealt with. It was never far from my mind that we had a larder of one hundred thirty mules, meat on the hoof.

  So I chose to read the Blackstone, knowing the galvanic effect it would have on my men. They would cease their fretting and be well armed in spirit for the final assault on the Rocky Mountains. Ahead lay the vast, arid valley of the Rio del Norte, whose headwaters collected near where we were camped and wound their way south and east, clear to the Gulf of Mexico. We were not far from settlements. Down that drainage lay Abiquiu, northernmost of the Mexican hamlets, and below these, Taos and eventually Santa Fe. Ahead lay a fertile river bottom chocked with game, filled with grasses and brush and a few trees. By the time we were ready to ascend the San Juan Mountains, we would have fresh meat, the mules would be well fed and even fattened, and we would be in prime condition for the last alpine assault.

  To be sure, just west of us was a bleak sea of sand dunes, mostly covered with ribbed snow, but the wind had whipped against their sides, exposing a desolation devoid of all vegetation. We would need to cross that wasteland, and I supposed Bill Williams would know where to do it. I had found myself less and less sure of the man. Was that really Robidoux’s road he took us over? I didn’t see any sort of road at all, especially on the west side, which was deep in snow and crosshatched with fallen timbers, making wagon passage impossible. The grades were too precipitous for a wagon road in any case and were probably beyond what was acceptable for a railroad.

  A dark suspicion of the man flared in me. Maybe he was an utter knave. But I set it aside as unworthy. He might be unprepossessing, but by all accounts he was the foremost master of this country. I didn’t need to like the man; I needed only to respect him.

  The dunes ahead would have to be skirted. They were constantly in a state of wind-driven flux, and no rails could be laid across them. It was plain that the 38th-parallel route was not practicable unless it strayed considerably from the parallel. But it was my duty to finish what was started, and I would continue to pursue a rail route as close to the 38th parallel as possible. If the passes ahead proved to be as difficult as those we had traversed, I might be forced to disappoint Senator Benton and his colleagues. But I had no intention of doing that. I planned to force a passage by whatever means, and this of all my expeditions would be long remembered for going where no company had gone.

  I set the book aside, blew out the lantern candle to save tallow, and returned the Blackstone to its oilcloth case. Then I hurried through the bone-cold night to Godey’s mess and found him unrolling his blankets atop one of those rubberized sheets that were the salvation of my men.

  “Alexis, tomorrow you take the lead. Straight across the dunes. If I ask the guide to steer us, he’ll take us around to the north.”

  “I’ll do it, sir.”

  “There’ll be neither food nor fodder nor water in those dunes, and that will be Williams’s argument against the direct route.”

  “We can save a day or more, colonel.”

  “That’s how I see it. And Godey, kindly put your best hunters out. I don’t suppose they’ll find anything in those dunes, but put them two or three hours ahead of us, and they’ll reach the valley floor in time to make meat. That’s what I have in mind. When we reach camp tonight, I want the men to discover some elk haunches roasting for them all.”

  “I’ll send our best hunters, colonel. But it doesn’t look like game country to me, sir.”

  “You’re quite right, Alex. But it’s something that must be done. The men expect it.”

  “As you wish, sir.”

  “The mules are feeding well tonight on the bark. They should be fine tomorrow.”

  Godey’s hesitation told me he disagreed. I have come to read men well and can sense disagreement in them almost as fast as ideas form in their heads. But he smiled. “We’ll have them on good pasture soon,” he replied.

  That’s what I liked about Godey. He read my mind. He understood my deepening disillusionment with Williams. And he accepted my instructions without cavil.

  The weather cursed my designs that night. A wind arose out of the north, bringing snow squalls with it and severe discomfort to my men, who could not sta
y dry. The icy blast rattled canvas shelters, raked cook fires, chilled the mules, drove men to cover, and even whipped the mules farther and farther from our bivouac. By dawn there was a thick layer of white upon us. Men were numb. Mules had vanished. The dunes to the west had a new layer of snow over them, to make our passage harder. But I set an example, expressing good cheer, even amusement at our plight, and soon enough a thoroughly chilled party was out, wading through snow, to recover our strays. Others were attempting to ignite cook fires, without much success in those Arctic gusts. And once again, icicles dangled from beards and eyebrows, and a rime from our breaths covered our leathern coats.

  I heard that Ben Kern was both frostbitten and attempting to treat some frostbite in others with stimulants. Some of the wretches had stockings frozen to their feet, and getting flesh and cloth thawed and separated was no easy task. They should have known better than to let themselves suffer needlessly. There are canvas shelter cloths and blankets for all. But some men just won’t perform the tasks that would spare them trouble. Later I would find out who had let himself suffer frostbite and keep the lapse in mind.

  But it would all work out. By noon of a blustery and bitter December 4, with the thermometer’s mercury hovering low inside its bulb, we set out across the sand hills, the hunters well ahead of us, the balky mules fighting our whips and kicks. It was all we could manage to drive them into that blast of air, and they fought us as if their lives depended on it. It was odd. The mules clearly did not want to leave the protection of that cottonwood and willow forest, which offered fodder and warmth, and this time they resisted frantically, looking for any opportunity to turn tail and head east. We had to maintain utmost vigilance.

  “Drive them ahead of us,” I suggested to Godey, but that didn’t work either. They all simply quit. I am always one to learn from my mistakes, being flexible in nature, so we put several men and mules in the van, to clear a path through the drifts, and in that manner we won the reluctant cooperation of the rest of the mules. But they were not a happy lot and trudged with heads down, brushing as close to one another as their packs would permit, for the sake of whatever warmth could be gotten that way.