Snowbound and Eclipse

by Richard S. Wheeler

  “It’s a solid meal, that’s for sure,” he said.

  I would do what I had to do. At dawn, my Mexican muleteers and I hastened upriver, through a frosty gloom I can barely describe because it seemed hostile and dark. But my men, mostly wearing heavy wool serapes, hurried the sluggish animals with switches. Their burros and mules were all half-starved. But on their backs was life itself. The day of our departure was January 22. A disastrous four weeks had elapsed since Colonel Frémont had sent the first relief party from the Christmas camp, and we began making our way out of the white mountains.

  We reached the Red River settlements late that day. Preuss, who remained weakened and unable to travel, told us that none of our company had come in, which alarmed me, so we didn’t tarry except to collect more bread and blankets and shoe leather from worried villagers and hurried north once again. Surely our men could not be far ahead. But they were. It took us four days to cover the first forty miles, and finally we raised the original relief, Breckenridge, Williams, and Creutzfeldt, huddled miserably around a flame, unable to move because their feet were ruined. They had staggered along on strips of blanket until at last they could go no farther and were waiting for help or death in a sheltered arroyo where there was some wood.

  I scarcely recognized any of them, but one thing will remain with me. Breckenridge clasped the loaf I gave him and began sobbing, and soon the others wept also, as they tore at the bread.

  Creutzfeldt was the weakest, and I wondered whether he could even eat the bread, but he nibbled, gained a little strength, and began tearing at chunks of it, tears leaking from his eyes the whole time.

  This was clean and honorable food. They were eating something that evoked no shame. I thought the tears had something to do with that as well as the joy of their salvation.

  “The army’s on the way with rations. They’ll tend camp here until you can be moved,” I said. “Eat sparingly.”

  “What will they think of us?” Breckenridge asked.

  “Whatever you think of yourself,” I replied. They would have to live with themselves, and if they couldn’t, they faced sad days and years.

  I left those hand-woven, hand-carded Mexican blankets with them and a little cornmeal to boil up. The muleteers gathered firewood for them and wrapped them in thick blankets and made them comfortable, and that was all we could do for the moment.

  “Look for help tomorrow,” I said, eyeing those tearstained, smoke-blackened faces.

  “You have saved us,” Breckenridge said. “We would be dead.”

  “Are the others alive?” I asked.

  None could answer.

  It was snowing again. Never had anyone seen such a winter. But these three, with bread and meal and blankets, could endure. Reluctantly, we parted. I was shaken by the encounter. These men were but hours from crossing that bourne from which no mortal returns. If Colonel Frémont had not sent me swiftly back with aid, surely these three would have perished.

  We hurried upriver, the snow biting at our faces and driving the heat from us. I marveled that these good-hearted muleteers braved the hardship with such cheer. They had a way of coiling their serapes around them that protected them from the stinging snow. We reached Vincenthaler’s camp suddenly, out of the white whirl, men slowly rising out of their snow-covered rags beside an almost-extinguished fire.

  “Relief! It’s the Colonel!” Vincenthaler cried.

  They were so snow-blinded and deaf and devoid of their senses they scarcely knew who had come.

  “It’s Godey,” I said. “The Colonel sent me.”

  Now these ruined men stirred. I wasted neither time nor words but dug into the sacks and began handing out those brown loaves.

  “Bread!” someone cried. I could not make out one man from another, so ruined were their faces, blackened by wood smoke, their dull eyes peering out from the parchment over their skulls.

  Two of my muleteers, Carlos and Esquivel, swiftly handed each trembling man a round yeasty loaf. One lacked the strength to pull it apart, and Carlos attempted to help, but the man would not let go. The man finally bit into the side of the loaf and tore bread loose. For the life of me, I could not tell who was who.

  “Don’t eat fast,” I cautioned. But it landed on unheeding ears. They would wolf it down just as fast as they could.

  I waited for Vincenthaler to demolish a few pieces before seeking to know how they stood and who was where. I dug into a sack of blankets and wrapped Martin in one, and found another for Bacon and another for Ducatel, who stared numbly at me, looking demented.

  “Bread,” Ducatel said. “I live. The bread of life, thanks be to God.”

  It was some sort of communion, and I found myself the priest distributing this sacrament.

  I squatted beside Vincenthaler. “Who’s here? I scarcely recognize these men.”

  He took a long time, as if he weren’t sure himself. Somehow, most of these men were confused, including their leader. “Hubbard quit us a while ago. He couldn’t go another step and sat down.”

  “We’ll go for him. Where’s Scott?”

  Vincenthaler shrugged. “Left us.”

  “That’s two. Where’s Rohrer?”

  Vincenthaler didn’t seem to know.

  “You’ve got Joaquin and Gregorio. Where’s Manuel?”

  Vincenthaler shrugged. “They thought they’d be eaten so they came with us.”

  “Eaten?”

  Vincenthaler nodded.

  “The Indian boys came to your camp because—they feared for their lives?”

  Vincenthaler shrugged.

  I saw that my men had fed everyone and had covered the most desperate with blankets.

  “The army’s coming. Be here tomorrow. They’ll tend camp and feed you and then help you out of here.”

  “Leave a mule.”

  “No, but some colts are coming, and you can have them. We’ve some cornmeal we’ll give you. Boil it up. It’s a sturdy food. It’ll satisfy until you get some army rations and meat. You should have horse meat and hardtack in a day or two.”

  We could do no more except collect ample deadwood and build up their fires and make sure these men had blankets. We also built up their shelters a little. The longer I stayed at each camp, the itchier I got. Maybe, just ahead, would be a man I could save.

  The snow lessened, but we had miles to go, and if need be I would wrestle up the river in the dark. If the sky was clear, snowy nights could be quite bright. My muleteers had given the wretched beasts a few ears of maize, but that was all there was for the animals, and I marveled that they moved at all.

  But then we plunged into the wintry dusk, a wild hunger to move ahead impelling me.

  We stumbled on John Scott, scarcely a hundred yards ahead. It was incredible. He was within shouting distance of the camp. He sat stupidly in the snow, unmoving, and I thought he had perished. But his eyes tracked me. Life flickered.

  Swiftly, Esquivel wrapped him in a blanket.

  “Scott! We’re here. Hang on!”

  Scott, a veteran of the California battalion, simply stared. He was bone cold to my touch.

  “The Colonel sent me! I’ve bread for you.”

  This time Scott’s eyes focused a little. Whether he comprehended any of it I could not say.

  Esquivel drew a bladder canteen from his bosom, pried open Scott’s mouth, and squirted. Scott coughed and sputtered.

  “Aguardiente!” the muleteer explained. Taos Lightning, the fiery brandy made locally.

  “What?” said Scott.

  “Frémont sent relief.”

  I tore some bread from a heavy loaf; his hands could barely lift even the small piece I gave him, but in a moment he was masticating, swallowing it. I rubbed his shoulders and back, willed life into him. He ate another bite. And another. My muleteers lifted him onto canvas, and we dragged him back to Vincenthaler’s fire.

  “I’m cold,” Scott said.

  The sight of Scott alive energized some of the party, and they dr
ew him close, built the fire, and began feeding him.

  “Look after him,” I said. “This is his loaf.”

  They would.

  My muleteers started out once again in the whirling snow and soon stumbled across Hubbard, sitting upright, like Scott, staring at us as we descended on him. He was a Wisconsin man, used to cold.

  “Hubbard! We’re relief!”

  Hubbard stared stupidly.

  I shook him, a deepening dread in me. His body flopped about, but I saw no life in it.

  “Hubbard!” I rattled him hard, and he simply sagged over.

  Esquivel shot aguardiente into his mouth, and it dribbled away. Hubbard was dead. And he had died so recently warmth lingered in his body.

  We stared at one another.

  “Ah, Madre,” he cried.

  These Mexicans had come to share my passion to save lives. Hubbard toppled the rest of the way, lying on his side. I knelt, straightening his limbs, folding his hands over his chest, until he stared sightlessly into the falling snow, which still melted on his face. We had come so close. A half hour, maybe fifteen minutes was all that separated this man from our relief. So close. A terrible melancholy swept through me. If only we had hurried a little more, driven a little harder.

  How many had died? I could not say.

  We pushed ahead another hour, until a snow-choked dusk caught us and we were in peril of losing our way, and then we huddled through an overcast night. We could go no farther. My own body was rebelling. My sainted muleteers boiled a pail of tole, the hot cornmeal mush that did so much for me, and I recovered my own strength as I lay buried under blankets. They fed the bony mules a few ears of maize, but it was not enough, and the plaintive bray of a hungry beast we were abusing sometimes lifted me out of my doze. It was an especially black night, without stars or moon, and I felt almost strangulated by it. I wanted to be up and off. There were men ahead whose lives hung by a thread, if indeed they still lived.

  Restlessly, even before dawn, I arose, built up the fire, and boiled up the mush. When first light permitted us to leave, we burdened our mules and horses with packs and set out in dull gray light. A thick ice fog lay over the land, and I knew it could cloak the survivors, making them invisible and muffling our shouts. I would shout every little way, because it was possible we could pass them by. And so we proceeded in a cold and lonely morning, making such noise as we could all the while.

  It turned out that we did pass the camp of the Kerns, Cathcart, Taplin, McGehee, and Stepperfeldt, striking a camp of Josiah Ferguson, who had a fire blooming, though the thick fog caught the choking smoke. He was another of Frémont’s veterans, an able man in the wilderness, and somehow he had survived.

  He smiled broadly. “Thought maybe that was no elk drifting through the fog,” he said.

  “The Colonel sent me. You alright?”

  Ferguson shook his head and gestured toward a dark bulk lying in the snow a few yards distant.

  “Ben Beadle,” he said. “I thought maybe a pair of Show-Me Missourians could beat the game. He’s dead.”

  I felt something give way in me. Esquivel handed Ferguson a loaf, which he tore apart and began steadily chewing. I pulled out a blanket and wrapped it around the man’s shoulders.

  “Colonel got through and sent us with relief. The army’s coming along behind, with rations.”

  “You mind if I eat one of them mules?”

  “There’ll be some horse flesh tomorrow. We’ve got the bread and some tole, good cornmeal mush, that’ll put some warmth in you.” I nodded toward Beadle. “How long ago?”

  “Yesterday. We couldn’t keep up, me and Ben, so we made camp. The Kerns, that bunch, are below us.”

  “Below? We passed them by?”

  He nodded. It had been a thick, cloistering fog that muffled sound.

  Ferguson quit eating and buried his face in his arms, the blanket wrapped over him to hide himself from us. I knew he was crying. We quietly built up his fire. I looked at Beadle’s body. It was intact, though snow had drifted over it. He lay sprawled on his belly. Another of Frémont’s hardy veterans from the third expedition gone from this world.

  In time, Ferguson recovered some and resumed his meal, while we heated up some cornmeal for him. “Is there anyone above here?” I asked.

  “Manuel, but he’s dead. He quit first day out of the mountains, froze up, his feet black, that was some days ago, and he headed back to the cache. He said he’d be there. Stay warm there, if he could. All the rest, they’re down in the camps below.”

  Ferguson seemed to rebound a little more than the others with some food in him, and we helped him onto a mule, which shuddered under the weight, and headed downriver through the morning fog, which was composed of tiny, mean ice crystals that bit at us.

  Even at that, we almost missed the Kerns’ camp.

  “Halloo?” someone yelled.

  “Relief,” I yelled back.

  “Who is it? We’re all snow-blind.”

  “It’s Godey,” I replied.

  We rode in and found a few men huddled in misery, too worn to greet us. I stared at Cathcart, wondering who he was. And Taplin. And young McGehee and Stepperfeldt. And the Kerns, all unrecognizable. But soon we would have their story, too. All alive.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Benjamin Kern, MD

  That shout rising from the mists was the most welcome I ever heard. In short order, Godey burst into our midst, along with some Mexican men and mules. They wasted no time. One dug out round loaves and handed one to each of us; another man tugged blankets out of packs and wrapped one over the shoulders of each of us.

  “Who’s here?” Godey said, as soon as he and his men made us comfortable.

  We were too busy tearing at our bread to reply. I could not answer; my belly cried for this bread, and I was jamming it into my aching mouth faster than I could swallow it. All the cautions of my medical training were trumped by the wild taste of something in my mouth.

  “I can’t tell one from another,” Godey added. “But I need an account.”

  I paused long enough to warn the others to eat slowly, but the words would not form on my lips. Cathcart was the weakest. He hadn’t the strength to tear that big loaf open, and I pointed at him. Godey caught my gesture, knelt beside the Scots captain, and gently broke the loaf into small pieces, a great tenderness in this act.

  Cathcart nodded. I saw tears swimming in his blue eyes. I felt like weeping myself.

  Godey built up the fire, which was almost out, found our camp kettle, and poured a golden meal and water into it and set it to boiling.

  “Cornmeal mush, what they call tole,” he said. “It’s the best we’ve got to build a man up. I’ve lived on it the whole way.”

  I was ready for the cornmeal. I was ready for anything. I lacked the strength even to sit up, so close had I come to perishing. But I knew I would soon gain some command over my helpless body. I felt that bread in my belly. It was amazing. Something real down there, something being transformed into life. My stomach was ready for ten more loaves. I didn’t feel stronger, but I knew I soon would.

  After helping us all he could, he turned at last to me. “You Kern brothers are here. Captain Cathcart. Stepperfeldt over there. McGehee yonder. We brought Ferguson with us. And Captain Taplin, who seems to be doing alright, over there. Am I missing anyone?”

  I did not want him to visit the places just outside our camp where others lay.

  I nodded, miserably, the gesture pointing Godey toward the ones who had fallen. I knew what he would see. Some of those bodies were not whole. I had not partaken of any of that flesh, but some had, each furtively cutting his own piece in the deeps of the night. I thought Godey would find us all guilty, and there was naught I could do about it.

  Godey left camp and soon enough found Andrews and Rohrer, or what was left of them, and returned wordlessly. I somehow expected recrimination but instead found only silence and the same gentle affection he had given us as he set
about feeding the starved. To this day I know not what he really thought. He found legless and armless bodies there and let it pass.

  He hunkered beside me, waiting for the mush to heat. “The Indian boy, Manuel. Ferguson says he went back to the cache?”

  “He did. He could walk no more on frozen feet. His calves were black from frostbite. Dead flesh. We had gone only a mile or so when he turned back. He’d be gone. There wasn’t a scrap of food.”

  “But warm, at least.”

  I nodded. That was a good camp, sheltered in a cave, with abundant deadwood. But he had been there a long time.

  “I’m going to go. I need to account for every man. And maybe I can bring some of the colonel’s equipment.”

  “Equipment!” I glowered at him. We had died shuttling the colonel’s equipment instead of escaping to safety.

  The bitterness welled up in me. “You say the Colonel sent you?”

  “He did.”

  “What is he doing?”

  “He’s outfitting for the next leg.”

  “He did not come with you.”

  Godey rebuked me. “He sent me, and it was my honor to come, and his honor to do his best for us all.”

  “He summoned the army?”

  “He asked me to.”

  “His friends there, Kit Carson and Owens. Did they help?”

  “Every way they could. The colonel is Carson’s guest. They made him welcome. The colonel needs to reoutfit, you know. He needs credit and contacts, and that’s what Owens and Maxwell and Carson have been doing for him.”

  “What did he tell them about us?”

  “He had men stranded on the Rio del Norte and was sending help.”

  “What happened to the first rescue party?”

  “They starved and froze and made no progress, and finally King died.”

  “Young King? The strongest?”

  Godey suddenly drew into himself. “You would not have liked to see them, Ben. I saw the survivors, if you can call them that. The colonel gave them some jerky and headed for the settlements. We had the whole company to relieve and couldn’t spare the time to help them much. The colonel did the right thing exactly. I would have done the same.”