Snowbound and Eclipse

by Richard S. Wheeler

  But in this bright, eye-smarting place we could not tarry, not for an extra second, because the icy gale was plucking the last heat from us and further destroying our mules. We studied the mountains and hastened across the ridge, dropping into a gulch so steep we could not keep our footing, and floundered our way downslope through giant drifts higher than we could stand, amid yellow pines. And there more mules simply halted, too worn to proceed, but we could not stay there in that awful place and hurried on, needing all that was sustaining about lower altitudes and escape from wind and perhaps fodder for the mules, which were now clearly in extremis. My own mind was filled with terrors now. We had not crossed the divide, as Frémont had promised us, and we could see nothing to the west or north that suggested descent or cessation of this towering range. It was as if, up there, we were witnessing our death warrant. Or so I thought. We were all too numb ourselves to say a word to one another. We slid and stumbled and plowed our way down that steep slope for as long as we could endure, never reaching any sort of bottoms that might yield feed for our wretched animals or game for ourselves. I felt trapped.

  Finally, in the last hour of December light, the colonel decided we would camp in a wind-sheltered bottom, in four or five feet of snow. There would be plenty of firewood but not a bite for the mules. We unloaded the mules and heaped the tack in a single place where we could get at it in the morrow. We had to keep our tack from the mules, which were gnawing at leather and canvas and rope and trying to break into the panniers for whatever would fill their bellies. Most of them had lost manes and tails, which had been gnawed away by other mules.

  Some of the men attempted to dig out a camping place, while others wearily spread a rubberized sheet over the snow and collapsed onto it. I had never experienced such silence in a bivouac, each man among us entirely private. If their thoughts were similar to my own, it was no wonder. They dared not utter what they were thinking. So deep was Frémont’s grip on his veterans of previous journeys that they would follow Frémont to their doom rather than wrestle him or set themselves loose from the rest of us. I could not fathom it, and yet I was doing the same thing. There I was, in probably fatal circumstances, meekly accepting my fate.

  The mules stood stock-still in the bottoms. A little brush poked through, and a few of them found the energy to nip at stalks and twigs. But most had given up and numbly awaited their death. No one seemed to care. I was weary, but I made my way to the bottoms and flailed away with a piece of deadwood, gradually exposing more brush for a few mules to masticate. I was satisfied to see several of them begin to nip and chew. I hoped that my example would stir the others to open some of the snow fields to the forage, but I made no progress there, though most of the men had watched me carefully, and all of them knew my purpose. It was as if they needed a command from Colonel Frémont to undertake the labor, and that command was not forthcoming.

  In time they did complete a makeshift camp, and mess fires burned in holes in the snow, their heat glazing the walls of the pits. The company could find warmth in those protective circles, which reminded me of the walls of an igloo, and there the men congregated as a lavender darkness descended, and along with it an icy downdraft from that ridge above, which was ladling killing air down that draw, air that would murder the weakened mules.

  Some men, it turned out, did go upslope, and they recovered eight of the beasts and herded them down, arriving in camp at dusk, the mules stumbling and sliding so slowly that they barely made it while daylight lingered. These eight were simply herded in with the rest, to live or die as fate saw fit. I once again felt a great loathing for men who would not make every effort to sustain their beasts. And yet these same men were so weary they could barely sustain themselves, so I supposed my judgment was harsh.

  The bright fire down in that snow pit cheered me that night. Our mess had the greenhorns, the ones who had never been out on an expedition before, the ones unknown to Colonel Frémont, the ones least familiar with the arts of survival. Some boiled macaroni cheered us. It was good to get something solid in our bellies. The glazed walls caught the heat, until it seemed we were in a parlor instead of high in the Saguache Mountains, as they seemed to be called by these men. I peered upward uneasily, suddenly aware that the ice-chip stars above had vanished, and I knew that we would soon be inundated once again. The night would not be so pleasant.

  “How much food have we?” Ben Kern asked. “Does anyone but the colonel know?”

  “I know. I looked in the packs,” his brother Richard said. “We have three packs of macaroni, maybe fifty pounds of sugar, salt, and some frozen elk that the colonel is saving.”

  “Just that, for thirty-three men?” Ned asked.

  “That and the mules.”

  “What good are frozen mules, that’s what I want to know,” Creutzfeldt asked. “I couldn’t hack them up with an axe.”

  “How far to the Continental Divide?” Ben asked.

  No one could answer him. That next ridge west could be days away, with the mules so broken down.

  “The mules could be helped with warm water mixed with sugar,” I said.

  None of them responded at first.

  “We’ll need the sugar ourselves, I am thinking,” Creutzfeldt said.

  That’s where it ended. Later, it began to snow, thick flakes that soon buried us as we lay in our bedrolls. The snow had become a prison, shackling me. Now there were walls rising in every direction. We could not return from whence we came. We could not go forward. The silent snows ruled us.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  John Charles Frémont

  I wondered how Jessie was faring. She probably was still in Saint Louis, readying herself for the Panama trip. She was made of sturdy stuff, and I little doubted that she would negotiate a successful journey to California. A lesser woman could manage it. I felt no qualms about consigning her to the fates of the traveler, knowing she was a Benton. I supposed she was pining for news of me, but I had no means of telling her that I was somewhere close to the Continental Divide, being guided by a lummox who might or might not know the way, and only time would tell.

  I had strong men with me during the army expeditions, and some of them were with me this trip, having left the service or taken leave. They were from good stock and had weathered all the adversities of life lived in raw nature. Preuss was a tough little German who knew how to keep himself comfortable. Godey, of course, is the very prototype of his sort, as strong as they come, and a veteran. King is another one, a veteran who was with me in California and who is made of sturdy stuff. Add my California men Taplin, Martin, Stepperfeldt, Ferguson, Wise, Vincenthaler, and Breckenridge, as well as my veteran Creoles, Proue, Tabeau, and Morin, and there is my cadre of hard men, good stock, who never urged on me the counsels of despair. It was the rest who concerned me, but I didn’t let them know it. They were soft city men, unused to hardship.

  We were being guided by a degenerate, and that caused me some difficulty. It was plain to me that Williams had been a poor choice, though the only one available, so I can scarcely fault myself. He had not lifted a finger the entire trip, reasoning that a guide need not concern himself with food, firewood, saddling and grooming and feeding the mules, breaking a trail, or making and breaking camp. He assumed no responsibility, not even for the mule we provided him, letting my company do every lick of work whilst he meandered about.

  That he had led us into a perilous circumstance high in the San Juan Mountains did not escape my attention. He had barely said a word, and I knew he was avoiding me as much as he could. Now we had topped a saddle Old Bill had assumed was the divide, only to discover that many miles distant rose another chain, higher than the one we had topped, and we were far from crossing over to warmer and safer climes. Indeed, I found myself wondering whether this odd degenerate had the slightest idea of where he was leading us, and that morning I decided to find out.

  After my morning toilet I sought him out. He was lounging on one of our rubberized sheets watching m
y company once again prepare to tackle massive drifts and to hack a passage for our weary mules.

  My men were busy; the mules had this night eaten saddle blankets, ropes, manes and tails, woolen clothing, belts and shoes and canvas, in the process damaging such tack and equipment as we had at hand. It was almost impossible to keep them out of camp.

  I squatted down beside him as he lounged, picking his teeth with twig. I seethed with contempt for the lout but carefully set aside my private thought and smiled.

  “Well, Williams, we obviously have a long way to go to cross the divide,” I said.

  “Goodly way, yes.”

  “I wonder if you could show me the pass. I see nothing but another wall of white mountains off to the west.”

  He grinned, his tongue working the gaps in his teeth. “Oh, she’s there. I always know it when I see it.”

  “Is there feed for the mules ahead?”

  “Oh, could be, depending on how she blows.”

  “How steep is it?”

  He lifted his cap off and scratched his hair, or maybe it was a cootie he was scratching. “Depends on which way we go,” he said. “It don’t make a difference.”

  I found the answer maddening. I espied a knob to the right and saw how it might offer advantage.

  “My friend, we’ll go up there,” I said, pointing. “Then you may enlighten me.”

  He studied on it. “That’s a far piece and full of snow.”

  “I’m sure it’s of no consequence to a man of your abilities.”

  He offered me no resistance save for some mumbling, and we struck through heavy drifts, sometimes waist high, ascending a rough slope that revealed only the tops of the pines growing on it. In no time he was heaving air in and out of his ill-used body, whilst I ascended easily, the steam of my breath dissipating in the icy air. It was a clear and sunny morning with a cobalt sky, and that would help me accomplish my purpose.

  He followed along in my path, daintily avoiding what labor he could, but that was the inferior nature of the man. The last portion was a steep ascent over unknown obstacles underfoot that tripped us, but in time we arrived, blowing, atop the knob, which afforded us a breathtaking view west and north and south. It was at once brilliant and forbidding. The heavens were a bold blue, and before us lay hundreds of square miles of whitened country. In the immediate foreground was a rolling plateau, but beyond was a great range of whited peaks. Overall, the snow lay so thick that it obscured all else, so one could not tell whether forest or plain or rockslide or brush lay underneath.

  It was too bright; my eyes leaked tears, which froze in my beard.

  “Ah, Mister Williams,” said I, “this gives us a view.”

  He blinked, said nothing. The glare didn’t seem to affect his vision at all, and I wondered whether his eyes had dimmed with age.

  “Now, sir, we can peer into the future. Where are we going?”

  “I don’t rightly know from this distance, but I know close at hand, as we pass by,” he said.

  It was not a response that gave me comfort.

  “Now, where is Cochetopa Pass?”

  “Oh, yonder there.” He waved an arm vaguely north, toward a formidable white range.

  “Is that where we’re heading?”

  “I got my own way.”

  “Well, then, kindly point it out to me.”

  He eyed the distant ridges to the west, which probably were the actual divide, and finally shrugged. “I’ll know her when we get there,” he muttered.

  “This was the route you recommended because of its ease and good fodder?”

  He smiled cheerfully. “Trust me or not,” he said. “It’s better than the other.”

  “What choice have I?”

  He laughed, a low muttering that finally broke into an odd giggle. And yet I saw no alternative. He would lead us through, or not. Ahead of us were two or three or four days of passage over a rolling plateau, but it was snow-blanketed open country that afforded little shelter and no fodder unless we could turn the mules into a watercourse somewhere ahead.

  We descended in a small avalanche, which in fact bruised my shin, and I proceeded into camp, where my old stalwarts were waiting, having watched our ascent.

  “Old Bill assures me that the pass is just ahead,” I said. “We have some snowy country to cross, mostly level, and then it’s up and over. By Christmas, we’ll be down in warm and grassy country, celebrating our deliverance.”

  “We lost eight mules last night,” Godey said.

  “And we’ll lose more, I’m sure,” I replied. “The hardy stock will pull through. The inferior ones will surrender.”

  I did not see skepticism in their faces, which was good. I’ve learned over the years that candor is the most excellent means to keep spirits high, and that is what was required at this crucial moment.

  “Let’s be off,” I said.

  The men cheerfully finished loading the mules. They had rebalanced the loads, making sure that as our stores diminished the burdens were lighter. Godey took the lead, having fashioned a club of deadwood that would hammer a trail for the mules, and so we proceeded down the canyon where we had harbored ourselves from the icy gale of yesterday. At the van, half a dozen good men hammered the drifts into submission. It swiftly became plain that this day we would work through snows that could well be twenty or thirty feet deep. The V-shaped trench in the soft snow soon blotted out all horizons, save for a narrow strip of blue above. We fell into a world in which the surface of the snow was above our heads, even those of us who were riding the mules.

  My men rotated the trail breaking frequently, gangs of four or five slowly making progress through the morning. Scarcely did we see more than the slit of heaven, and at no time did any of us observe the vast, chilling panorama of the San Juan range. I thought it was just as well that no man caught a glimpse of the larger world. This was a mild day, with open skies, and no wind pierced into our trench to chill us. I thought in a way it was rather jolly, though some of my men were fearful of those looming walls of soft snow on either side of us.

  A mule gave out, and it turned out to be Ben Kern’s. He had urged it forward, only to feel the beast shiver and slowly capsize. Nothing he did could arouse it, and finally he abandoned it. He is an overly tender man but took it stoically. The remaining beasts had to step over the dead one, which they did unhappily, with ears flattened back. But in time we left our troubles behind and completed our descent, heading out on rolling plateau country, with great rounded shoulders of land driving us south and north as we kept as low as we could. The winds had swept some areas fairly clear, and sometimes we could peer over the lip of our trench upon a blank white world, a landscape without landmarks, perfectly submerged by the snows.

  We made three and a half miles across that tumultuous tableland, but the plummeting sun compelled us to halt and make a dry camp on a slope. We had scrounged some deadwood and made use of it, for there was none at hand. There would be wood enough to boil some macaroni, but not enough to sustain a fire all night. It would be an unpleasant night for man and beast. I knew the sturdiest would never complain, and I heard not one word of distress. But the silent complaint rising from the mess of the greenhorns was palpable, and I could well imagine what the Kerns were scribbling in their diaries. No matter. I have learned to shrug off the mosquito droning of small men. I would set things straight in my own journals when the time came. My stalwarts soon had their rubberized sheets spread, affording them a dry place to unroll their beds, and I heard no more of trouble. I knew the night would claim more of the inferior mules, and I knew there was no help for it. Let them perish. We did not need them.

  I sent Saunders to fetch Godey to me. My deputy commander appeared at once.

  “Some stew?” I asked, motioning toward the kettle. Saunders had boiled some jerky and cornmeal from my private stock.

  Godey shook his head.

  “A few quiet words, eh?”

  Godey squatted beside me, mountain style
.

  “How are the men, Godey?”

  “Doing well, sir. I don’t hear any complaints.”

  “What do they think of me?”

  “Not a complaint, Colonel.”

  “Do they know who got them into this difficulty?”

  Godey paused. “Old Bill eats by himself, sir. That says all that you wish to know.”

  “Ah, then they do know where the fault lies. Now, what about the Kerns’ mess? That’s where trouble will come.”

  “Quite valiant, Colonel. Doctor Kern was severely frostbitten last night, but he carries on without complaint.”

  “Yes, but what do they really think?”

  Godey eyed me and finally shook his head. I didn’t know how to interpret that but let it pass.

  “Soft men are a burden to me, Alex.”

  “I think Doctor Kern would like to save the mules. He headed for the creek and pushed snow aside until he opened up some brush, and pushed a mule into it.”

  “They’re poor stock. We’re better off eating them.”

  “We’ve lost twenty some and haven’t butchered one, sir.”

  “Choose the weakest,” I replied.

  I dismissed Godey and watched him hurry into the darkness. He was my most reliable man.

  A cruel north wind arose in the night, probing once again into men’s bedrolls, ruining hope as well as comfort. My men were already badly frostbitten, with patches of white flesh on their hands and feet, their ears and noses and chins. They had endured these things stoically, as I did, but this night of December 16 seemed to herald a shift in the weather. We awoke to a sullen sky, as dark as the underside of a skillet, with polar air gliding relentlessly past us. Godey lumbered out into the snowfields and came back with the count. Another eight down, but several more so stupid with cold he doubted they could survive another hour.

  “Butcher one,” I said. It was easy enough to butcher a live and warm animal, and I thought to take advantage of it. He nodded and summoned Sorel, who selected an animal that was barely standing and slit its throat with one sweep of his Green River knife, and we watched the beast sag into the snow with a final spasm as blood gouted from its throat. The butchering was left to the Creoles, who seemed to have a knack for it, and soon they were peeling back hide and slicing skinny loins and rib roasts from the half-starved beast. I wondered whether there would be meat enough to feed thirty-three men one meal.