Only the Brave: The Continuing Saga of the San Juan Pioneers

by Gerald N. Lund

  Chapter 6

  _____________________

  September 12, 1884—Bluff City, Utah Territory

  When Mitch stopped at the front of the cabin, it was no surprise that the door was open. The summer heat was finally softening, but it was still in the low nineties even though it wasn’t yet noon.

  He stopped, wondering if his mother was asleep. But then, as his eyes adjusted to the dark interior, he saw that she was at the table preparing the bowl of string beans the Bartons had sent over. Moving very carefully, he stepped over the doorsill and onto the hardpacked dirt floor. His feet didn’t make a sound. His mother was humming softly to herself as she worked.

  He took another step, half holding his breath. But she heard that one. With a low cry, she leaped up, sending the pan of beans flying. She whirled around, her hands coming up to defend herself.

  “Mama, it’s just me,” Mitch cried. She stared at him, eyes wide and frightened, and he realized that he was silhouetted against the light from the door. He went to her and took her in his arms. “It’s me, Mama. It’s Mitch.”

  Sagging against him, her body trembled violently.

  “I’m sorry, Mama.” Mitch felt awful. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.” Actually, that was exactly what he had planned to do—give her just a little scare.

  She backed away, brushing quickly at her dress. “You gave me such a start.” Then she smacked him on the arm. “Don’t do that to me, Mitch. You knock or say something before you come sneaking up on me. My heart’s pounding like a blacksmith’s hammer. You scared the daylights out of me.”

  “Sorry.” Then he took her by the hands. “Can I make it up to you?”

  “I’m not sure. It would have to be something pretty good.”

  He let her go and strode back to the door. “Oh, I think this will do. Wait here.” A minute later he appeared with a sack of flour over his shoulder and a tin of lard under one arm.

  “Flour?” she squealed. “Where did you get that?”

  Setting the haul down on the table, he held up a finger for her to hold that question and disappeared again. A moment later he came back with a smaller sack, this one made of a looser fabric.

  “What is that?”

  He held it up so she could see the label. For a moment, she couldn’t make it out, and then she clapped her hands in delight. “Apples! Are those really apples? Where in the world did you get them?”

  Setting them on the table, he gave her another hug. “So am I forgiven for startling you?”

  “Four times over,” she cried. “Where did you get them?”

  “Ben Perkins just got back from Durango. There’s a Mexican grower over there. They’re right in the middle of the apple harvest now.”

  She bent over and inhaled deeply, then sighed. “Oh, Mitch, how much did you have to pay for these? Not that I care. They’re wonderful.”

  “The better question is how many people did I have to fight off in order to get a bag?”

  “I can only imagine,” she said. “How many?”

  “Actually, when I told them that my mama baked the best apple pies in all of Utah Territory, they let me have first pick.”

  “Oh, this is wonderful. We’ll have apple pie for dinner tonight.”

  “That’s why I bought the flour and the lard, too.”

  She blew him a kiss. “And I don’t care what your father says, you’re getting the biggest piece.”

  “I’ll hold you to that, Mama.” He started backing away. “Well, I promised Ben I’d help him unload the wagons for giving me first pick, so I’d better run.”

  “Tell Johnny and Martha to go get some water from the Bartons’ well. I’m not going to put river water in the pie crust.”

  “Okay.” As he reached the door, he stopped. “Oh. Guess what else? There are several Indians in town, and Henry was with them. Do you remember Henry? The boy up on Elk Mountain who helped us?”

  She had gone very still. “Indians? How many?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. Four men and their squaws, two or three papooses. They call their leader Old Toby, though don’t ask me why. But Henry is with them. And he remembered me.”

  It was like she had barely heard him. She was staring out the window, her mind far away. He went over and kissed her on the cheek. “Remember,” he teased. “I get the biggest piece.”

  She finally smiled. “After me, of course.”

  Laughing, he went out the door. “I’ll be back before sundown.”

  “Mitch?”

  He stopped and turned back. “Yes?”

  “Will you shut the door, please?”

  “But it’s so hot in here, Mama.”

  She nodded. “I know, but I don’t want the flies going after our apples.”

  He shrugged and pulled it shut after him.

  She waited until Mitch was half a block away, and then she moved a chair over and propped it up against the door. Only then did she get out pans, knives, and dishes to start working on the apples.

  Gwendolyn Greene Westland did not like Indians. Or, put more accurately, she had a deep and abiding fear of Indians. All Indians. The tribe didn’t matter. This had nothing to do with their race or color. It had everything to do with their fearsome reputation as warriors and their known hatred for white people.

  The Greenes and the Westlands had not known each other in England, even though they were both from Staffordshire. Not until they reached Liverpool and were assigned to the same ship going to America did they meet each other. And only when they reached Iowa City and were assigned to the same handcart company, captained by Edmund Ellsworth, did a friendship form that would last the rest of their lives.

  Gwendolyn was fourteen at the time. Arthur was four years older and barely paid any attention to her while crossing the plains. But their parents had a little more vision and a great deal of patience and began to make plans. Upon their arrival in Salt Lake City, both families were assigned to a group called to open up a new settlement on the Beaver River in central Utah. That and their parents’ quiet determination to bring them together made it almost inevitable that sooner or later, Gwen and Arthur would marry. They were married in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City in November of 1863. By that time, Gwen was twenty and Arthur was twenty-four.

  Her fear of Indians began before they ever left England. As the missionaries from America began baptizing people by the thousands, the vicars of the Church of England united in an effort to stop them. The Church of England petitioned Parliament to declare The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to be a false church and to banish it from the British Isles. Fortunately, Parliament stood by the laws protecting religious freedom and told the vicars that if they treated their flocks better maybe they wouldn’t lose so many members to the Mormons.

  Furious at that, ministers and other public figures took up another strategy: they started a smear campaign. Newspapers published all kinds of lies about the Church, including that their missionaries were here to seduce young girls and take them as plural wives. Preachers thundered out against them from the pulpits.

  Soon employers started firing Mormon employees if they refused to denounce the Church. Children of Latter-day Saints were taunted by their teachers in school and hounded by other children. Gwendolyn’s teacher had somehow learned that her family had been baptized and began mercilessly attacking her and the other two members in their class. When the teacher learned they were going to America, he devoted an entire school day to Indian atrocities in the American West.

  He had done his research well and regaled the class with stories of Indian battles, Indian massacres, and Indian torture. Just before class ended, he went to his desk and opened a drawer. By this time, England had developed a morbid curiosity about the American Indian. Native Americans were brought over on ships to be paraded before the people. That curiosity also fueled a brisk trade in human scalps, most of which had been taken by white men from their so-called savage enemies.

  Somehow, th
e teacher had obtained one of those scalps. He pinned it to the end of a ruler and waved it right in front of Gwendolyn’s face. The other children shrieked with delight when she fainted. When they revived her, the teacher leaned down and told her that she and the other two Mormons were being expelled.

  Her nightmares started a few days later.

  Somewhere between Chimney Rock and Fort Laramie, the Ellsworth handcart company saw a large band of Indians coming toward them. This was not an uncommon sight, but the fact that all the men were wearing war paint was. And it was a fearsome sight. When the leader came into their camp and angrily demanded food from Captain Ellsworth, Gwendolyn had nearly fainted again. The pioneers were already short of food and were still several days away from meeting the relief wagons from Salt Lake. They had no food to spare. When Ellsworth started out to meet the chief, he looked over his shoulder and called back, “Pray for me.” Gwen did, more fervently than she had ever prayed before, but she did so from beneath the cover of their handcart. She buried her face into a blanket, too frightened to peek out and watch what was happening.

  As it turned out, Ellsworth convinced the Indians that they didn’t have food and offered them some beads instead. The offer was accepted, and the group moved on. That evening, Gwen’s nightmares returned.

  By the time Gwendolyn married Arthur, her childhood fears had mostly disappeared. There were Indian skirmishes around the territory from time to time, but they rarely impacted her or her family. Then a few months after their marriage, a local Ute chief by the name of Antonga Black Hawk formed an alliance with the Piutes, Apaches, and Navajo and unleashed war on the whites. Arthur was part of the local militia and was called up to fight in the Black Hawk War.

  It was a horrible time for Gwen. Arthur would be gone for weeks at a time, leaving her alone with the children. Even when he was home, her fear was only made worse because he wanted to—needed to—talk about what was happening out there. She would lie by his side in silent horror as he recounted some of the things he had seen and experienced. Then, long after he was asleep, she would relive his words over and over in her mind.

  Did Arthur know any of this? She wasn’t sure. She didn’t think so, for she had determined long ago that this was her own private battle. Yet more than once he had taken her in his arms when she woke in the middle of the night screaming and wet with sweat. But he never asked her about her nightmares. He just held her in his arms until she fell asleep again.

  The nightmares hadn’t troubled her for years. Then came the call to go to the San Juan to live among the Indians and make friends with them. She was still fighting that reality when Mitch went to find a way up to the high plateaus of Elk Mountain. Her nightmares were not as frequent or as horrible as before, but they still left her with her heart pounding and her pillow soaked with sweat.

  When the children returned with the water from the well, she made them stay with her. Ostensibly it was to help her with the pies. but even when the pies went in the oven she convinced them to play checkers with her. But that only lasted for so long. Begging leave from the hot cabin, they convinced her to let them go play again. She went to the door, removed the chair, and looked all around. There was no one in sight, not even any of the Bluff settlers. “All right,” she agreed. “You can play outside until Mitch and Papa come home. But stay close by. No going down to the river.”

  “Yes, Mama.”

  “And . . .” She bit her lip. “And if you see anyone coming other than your brother and your father, you come get me. Understood?”

  “Yes, Mama.” And they were gone. She watched them go, Martha squealing as Johnny tried to yank on her pigtails. Smiling, Gwen went back inside and started to shut the door. But the heat inside the cabin was suffocating, and she changed her mind. Leaving the door half open, she fell onto the bed and dropped off into an exhausted sleep.

  Half an hour later, Gwendolyn awoke with a start. She was lying on her side, facing the cabin wall. Her whole body was damp with sweat, and she could feel her hair plastered against her scalp. Yawning, she stretched mightily and then settled down again, telling herself that it wouldn’t hurt to lie there for a few more minutes.

  There was a soft scraping sound, and light suddenly flooded the room. Crying out, she jerked up to a sitting position and whirled to face the door. Chills shot through every part of her body when she saw the dark shape framed in the doorway. She couldn’t see a face, but the figure was too short to be either Arthur or Mitch, and too large to be Martha or Johnny. It was a squat, thick figure, with broad shoulders and a squarish head. Outside the door a horse was visible.

  Gwen gasped again and fell back against the wall as the door opened wider and the figure stepped into the room. “Squaw no be afraid,” a deep, gravelly voice said. “Old Toby not hurt squaw. “

  “Get out!” she yelled.

  He stopped but made no move to leave. “Old Toby hungry. Squaw have biscuits for Toby?”

  Getting a grip on herself, but still trembling violently, she stood up and edged away from him, looking for something she might grab if he attacked her. “No. No biscuits,” she stammered. “Go away!”

  With more light in the room, she caught a glimpse of his face. It was one she had not seen before. It wasn’t a particularly savage face, but it was always hard to tell with the Indians. His cheeks were scarred from the pox. In the dim light, his eyes appeared as two dark spots above his cheeks. His mouth was large and he was smiling at her, revealing teeth yellowed from tobacco. He sniffed the air. “No biscuits? Me hungry.”

  Strangely enough, what came to Gwendolyn’s mind at that moment was the first and most important of Thales Haskell’s rules for dealing with Indians: don’t show fear.

  She heard a little, derisive laugh in her head as she saw the six-shooter in a holster strapped to the Indian’s waist. Don’t show fear? Oh, really?

  She took a quick breath and stepped forward.

  “Toby, I am Mrs. Westland.” She was sure her voice sounded like a little girl’s.

  “Me Old Toby.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard of you, Toby.”

  “Me hungry. Want biscuits.”

  “I . . .” Keep things simple. “I know you are hungry, Toby. But I don’t have any biscuits right now.” Then her eye fell on the sack of flour Mitch had brought her earlier. “But you go outside. Chop wood for me and I’ll fix you biscuits. But it will take time.”

  He moved closer, his eyes searching the room. “No chop wood. Want biscuits. Want to eat now.”

  It took every ounce of her will not to try to bolt past him. His voice had turned hard, and now she saw that he had a riding whip in one hand and was slapping his leg with it. No fear. No fear.

  “Toby, listen to me. I will cook you biscuits but it will take—”

  Totally ignoring her, Toby walked over to the window. He bent over, peering at the two pies there. He sniffed again. “Smell good. Toby like pie.” He reached out to pick one up.

  “No!” She yelled it loudly enough that he stopped and swung around to face her. In the light from the window, she could see that his mouth was pinched and there was fire dancing in his eyes. He lifted the whip and shook it at her. “Squaw no tell Toby what to do. Toby hungry. Toby want pie.”

  And as if that settled everything, he turned back around and picked up the pie.

  Later, people would ask her what went through her mind at that moment. She had to admit that there was nothing she could remember except a blind fury that he was stealing her apple pies. In three quick steps she reached the stove, above which hung their large frying pan. Going up on tiptoes, she snatched the pan, gripping it in both hands. In another step she was behind Toby, who had set the pie on the table and was preparing to sit down.

  WHANG!

  The frying pan sounded like a bell being tolled as it connected with the back of Toby’s head. He screamed in pain and dropped to his knees.

  Horror struck her as she realized what she had just done. As Toby staggered back to
his feet, dazed and holding the back of his head, she dropped the frying pan and let it hit the floor. “Squaw cook you biscuits, Toby. But you wait.” And then she did another unthinkable thing. She turned her back on him. She picked up the frying pan, hung it back on its hook, and went to the table to put the pie back on the windowsill. All of this without breathing. All of this as she pictured him pulling out his pistol.

  Finally, taking a deep breath to steady herself, she turned around. “You chop wood. I make biscuits. You chop wood, you have pie. Do you understand me?”

  She held her breath again. His hand was resting on the butt of his pistol. He was staring at her in a murderous rage. “You liar. You no make Toby biscuits. You one angry squaw.” His jaw thrust out, and she saw his hand close around the pistol. “Maybe Toby shoot you.”

  She didn’t flinch nor move. As calmly as she could manage, she said, “Squaw no lie. Squaw tell truth. You want food, you work.”

  Again she turned away, and with every ounce of will she had, she went to the chest and began taking out dishes and setting them on the table. She heard a sound behind her, and then a shadow passed through the light from the door. A moment later, she heard him yell something. She turned just in time to see the horse leap forward and disappear. She ran to the door in time to watch him go.

  When the realization of what she had done hit her, she blindly groped for a chair and sat down, placing both hands under her so they would stop shaking.

  When Martha and Johnny returned, she said nothing about her visitor. She only asked where they had gone. It turned out they had found a desert tortoise over by the Bartons’ well and had completely forgotten their mother’s warning to stay close. They had seen nothing.