The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters (Arbor House Library of Contemporary Americana)

by Robert Lewis Taylor

  This is foolish speculation. Beneath the blasts of desert wind, the spire itself may crumble within a few decades. This is harsh and pitiless country.

  Five days out from the Rock, beyond the Devil’s Gate, a thirty-foot fissure in a mountain wall, and approaching a granite canyon, Coulter came riding back with every look of concern. He offered no salutation, which was unusual, but spurred his horse rapidly to the rear. Then he galloped up the other side, shading his eyes to peer first at one frowning wall, then at the opposite.

  Plainly he had no fancy for what he saw, for he set about closing up spaces between wagons, in tones by no means gentle.

  Jaimie, on his spotted pony, rode up and said, “Coulter smells Indians—he doesn’t like the canyon.”

  This was hard to believe, for Indians along the way had generally been peaceful, barring our boy’s mishap and the infrequent raids by night.

  Watching anxiously, we saw a faint puff of smoke behind the canyon wall, off to our right. It was followed by two others in quick succession, then nothing at all—empty sky where a second before something had been burning.

  Events now came rapidly. Pointing to a high rock, Jaimie shouted and we saw silhouetted against the blue expanse a motionless figure, then two shots rang out from somewhere in the train ahead, and Coulter came galloping back, very fast, sitting his horse twisted to one side in the saddle, the better to address us: “Circle! Circle wagons—this is an attack!” Above the confusion, we could hear him repeating it all down the line—“This is an attack, this is an attack.”

  One’s first reaction to the words is a chilly gripping of the bowels. It is difficult to grasp that in a few moments you may be shot at, and perhaps wounded or killed. Fortunately there was little time for reflection. The dust rose in clouds around us as thirty-odd heavy “prairie schooners” wheeled into the defensive ellipse, horses and oxen rearing and complaining, men cursing and sawing at the reins, a tempest of frightened movement in an otherwise silent desert. Coulter skidded up to leap off and begin inspecting guns, and then he placed women behind wheels and boxes and covered children over with planks and tarpaulins. His manner was neither impolite nor gentle, and only a fool would have argued; he meant business.

  Up ahead, nothing yet in sight. Then Coulter said, “We’ve got a visitor.”

  Down the canyon passage an Indian came riding, alone, on a fine-looking horse. He was coming along fast, but a hundred yards or so before reaching us, he swerved his horse suddenly, nearly falling, to plant a garlanded spear in the sand. Then he galloped back and disappeared around the bend.

  No sooner had he disappeared than several dozen others, the advance guard, the head men, trotted out from the bend ahead to survey us impassively. Our Mr. Coulter now walked forward boldly, with his customary look of contempt when dealing with Indians, leaned over and picked up a handful of dust. He held it high, for all of them to see, then threw it down.

  Then he returned, not running, but he didn’t tarry, either.

  “That’s it,” he said. “They gave us a challenge, and I took it up. Get yourselves ready; they won’t be over a minute or two.”

  And only a few seconds later, “Here they come.”

  Two files, straddling us, swept past close against the canyon walls, difficult to see, because the sun was directly overhead and both sides were shadowed. Several arrows fell inside our enclosure, but none caused damage.

  “Don’t fire,” Coulter sang out. “Not on this pass. Hold up; it makes them nervous.” He ran, bending low, from one group to another, and his serene indifference to this crisis, and our enemies, began to rub off on us a little.

  At the far end, they collected, whooping, and gathered for another run.

  “Crows, with Snakes amongst them, black as niggers,” muttered Coulter.

  Not having attracted our fire, they spread out from the walls this time, and we looked them over. Some were large and well made, others appeared poor and bedraggled. Many were entirely naked, while the bodies of a few were covered with the skins of hares sewn together. In general, their hair was long, they had aquiline features, and the average height, I should say, was five feet six or seven inches. And Coulter was right about one thing—a sprinkling—Snakes, or Shoshones—were as dark as our Louisville negro.

  I seized up an arrow that struck the sand not far from my feet, without force, having been fired high into the air. It was crudely wrought, poorer in quality than those of the Sioux we had seen, but it was strongly tipped with iron, procured at some trading post, no doubt.

  “Now, lads,” said Coulter. “They’ll be careless this run. Pick a man well out in the sunlight, and if you ain’t a dead aim, hit his horse!”

  One of our number cried, “I draw the line on that, it ain’t humane. I’ll shoot for the man.”

  “You do that, Wilson,” said Coulter, “and that yellow-haired tyke of yours’ll have herself a honeymoon with twenty-five bucks.”

  The man stepped back angrily, but I noticed that when the lines came down, screaming with such frightful effect as to have paralyzed a less hardy group, he took cool aim and dropped a pinto mare head over heels on its rider. My physician’s eye could spot the signs of a broken neck—the tilted head, the threshing of the lower limbs, the whole body flopping like a chicken before he died.

  One notes these small pictures against the larger screen of battle. I was loading and firing the Hawken rifle, a cumbersome weapon which rested between the spokes of a wheel. These Indians were shooting guns as well as arrows; I saw a man hit, though not badly, across our enclosure.

  “How many altogether?” I asked Coulter during one of his low-crouching sorties.

  “They’ve got us about six to one. And they’ve picked a nice day for it.” He looked ruefully up at the sky.

  The heat in our canyon was growing unbearable. A sun that seemed ten times life-size blazed down without pity, and not a breath of air stirred.

  We had four casualties on the next two passes, none fatal; a youth hit by a ball in the shoulder, two men wounded at almost identical spots in the groin, and a scalp injury, unserious but bloody.

  Over the uproar, I could hear Coulter bawling for the dozenth time, “Pick a horse, pick a horse—forget the man.”

  By now I was no longer firing, but had quit by request to tend wounded. Jaimie, lying beneath the Brices’ wagon, was shooting a borrowed revolver, and Jennie was working careful, methodical havoc with one of Kissel’s rifles. Mrs. Kissel loaded for us all. Our situation was quite plainly desperate. In a battle of attrition, into which this was degenerating, we were hopelessly outclassed. Our number would be so reduced that we could expect a direct charge long before sundown; I heard Coulter say so, in a tone not meant to be generally audible, to one of the drovers.

  Still they came on, in endless supply. On the next pass, several bucks formed a cluster, reining up, and giving a bloodcurdling huzza, headed straight at us. All of our men on that side rose instantly to their feet to draw careful bead, but a stark-naked Indian, accoutered only in head feathers and paint, still got inside our circle, leaping his horse over barrels and boxes between the wagons. Yelling bloody murder, he began thrusting left and right with a lance, but his moment of glory was short-lived.

  Kissel rose towering before him, there was a flash of steel against the sun, and we heard that curious ripping sound that one makes when a watermelon is split with a knife. With his ax, Kissel parted the Indian’s skull from crown to chin; it was cleft as a pine faggot is divided for the fire. It was a sight, I assure you, that I shall carry to my grave.

  With complete lack of emotion, as if it were a farming chore he had to do, Kissel then seized the brave by the waist and hurled his remains outside our fort. His shattered skull was a trifle too much for civilized stomachs.

  Coulter came over, brushing the sweat out of his eyes with his sleeve; an occupational hazard with this kind of fighting. He’d been everywhere, plugging up holes, speaking both comfort and direction, and occasion
ally reproach, looking after the women, rearranging barricades, gentling stock—I saw him draw two arrows from the backs of oxen, hit by those high, looping shots that were meant to distress mainly by annoyance—and keeping our spirits alive by a perfectly callous disregard of danger to himself.

  Now in the lull he stopped beside us for a second. “God damn these Crows,” he said, adding a few details which I’ll refrain from setting down verbatim. “We’ve dropped a bunch, but they won’t haul off. Any other tribe, they’d pull up for a while, collect the dead, maybe wait till tomorrow. That’s what the Snakes’d do, left to themselves.”

  I asked how long he thought we had.

  “Three more passes and they’ll try to ride in. They’re calling, doctor; who’s that hit? Damn the luck, it’s that swamp rat Billings, from Georgia. He and his wife are the best shots we’ve got.”

  In the next few minutes, I tried counting the Indians fallen. Twenty-six horses were down, on both sides, some still kicking and many crying horribly. Around these, sprawled in every attitude of death, were forty-odd braves; the number being difficult to figure, because not a few were all but invisible beneath mounts. Other horses, riderless, had taken to flight. And a fair proportion of the men down were moving, trying to rise, clutching an injured part, crawling in one direction or another. One fellow, wounded in the eyes, fascinated us all by coming slowly, on hands and knees, directly toward us, his sense of orientation gone.

  I heard a pistol crack from beneath our wagon, and peering downward, saw Jaimie’s eyes a-gleam with excitement. And the next instant he had drawn a knife and started forward. I grabbed his collar and shouted, “What is this? What are you trying to do?”

  “I thought I’d take his hair,” was the incredible reply.

  I drew back to cuff him, but I was too late. The faithful Jennie had already performed that service with neat, graceful competence.

  Twenty minutes later, Coulter scrambled rapidly around the enclosure, passing out hand weapons of every variety—axes, knives, his own tomahawk—gained God knows where—mallets, hammers, clubs, anything to repel the concerted rush we all now expected. Raising his voice, he cried, “They’re coming in, men. We’ll stand them off—we can do it. If we don’t, save a ball for the women and children. I’m proud of you—you’ve done your duty like men—everybody here. Now let’s give them hell!”

  A little cheer went up for Coulter, and he looked sheepish.

  Then we tensed, waiting, and I’ll confess that my bowels were constricted in knots. The Indians were massed together, forsaking their lines, working themselves up for the signal, with whoops, yells, screams, and a rattling of weapons. Over everything rose an odd, high whine, eerie and unsettling. “Pay no mind, boys,” cried Coulter. “They’ve got some eagle-bone whistles, aimed to scare us out of putting up a fight. Get set, hold your fire, and wait for their signal.”

  I rejoice to tell you, Melissa, that it never was given. Behind us, emerging like a mirage, a cloud of horsemen as impossible to count as leaves on a tree, approached in such numbers as to choke the canyon from wall to wall. There were hundreds—we could hear the rolling thunder of their hoofbeats before even the Crows spotted them.

  “Now wait a minute,” said Coulter, shading his eyes.

  Coming on, they seemed familiar, though they were Indians beyond a doubt.

  Under the wagon, Jaimie cried out, “I know him! It’s Black Poddee, that gave me the horse.”

  I should guess that fifteen hundred or more Sioux comprised the charge that swept over the luckless remaining Crows, driving them past us, with a great deal of slaughter, on up into the canyon and out of our lives.

  An hour passed, and we assembled before our wagons. With massive dignity, Jaimie’s friend rode slowly toward us holding out his arm.

  “Yellow Hair that carries letter,” he said in English.

  “I’m here, all right,” spoke up Jaimie, looking self-conscious as the center of so much attention. He walked forward and the Indians in the front rank dismounted. The chief shook hands in the white man’s fashion, then this fierce and amusing old fellow drew out the paper Jaimie had signed, attesting his friendliness. At that moment, I believe, everyone in the train would have been happy to swear in court that Black Poddee was the greatest man in America.

  In half an hour they were gone, to join other Sioux in the holy crusade against the Snakes and Crows, and we filed wearily back to the wagons, elated but depressed, too, in the awful emptiness that follows a battle, the anti-climax to perhaps the sharpest of all human experiences.

  “That’s like Brice,” remarked Coe, who had stood unruffled beside us, exchanging shot for shot, as debonair throughout as a man grouse-hunting at an English country estate. “He’s taking a quiet nap against the wheel as if he fought Indians every day of his life.”

  And then Jennie’s, “Oh, my God!”

  An arrow pinned him to the hub, passing through his neck from back to front, severing the carotid artery, and, I think, snapping the bone itself. We drew it out later—a vicious thing, with a long, smooth stem, a bright turkey feather, and a heavy iron tip.

  He was quite dead; I doubt if there had been an instant’s pain.

  We disengaged Jennie, who had clasped him around the back, weeping like a tired child, and lifted her into the wagon. Our casualties had been heavy—ten killed and eighteen badly wounded, plus many animals dead or waiting to be finished.

  Who had gained from this senseless encounter? Coulter says that many Crow squaws tonight will gash their breasts and amputate their fingers in mourning. We have met, injured each other horribly, and drawn off, both sides poorer forever for a witless act of violence in the sun.

  And now, Melissa, we have been compelled to make a decision. The train—its remnants, that is—will proceed together to Fort Bridger, there to split up. The Kissels, Jennie, Coe (the good man has put aside his personal interests in our behalf), Po-Povi and ourselves will go to the Great Salt Lake, Citadel of the Mormons, and spend the winter recouping. Mrs. Kissel is ailing. While she doesn’t complain, she quite obviously lacks strength to continue this cruel trek to California. She would be in her grave before snow fell.

  So—we will rest over the winter among the followers of Brigham Young. And with the first buds of Spring, the first flight of birds toward the north, our group, rested and refreshed, shall be off once more, headed for those beckoning fields of gold to which we have addressed our energies and our resolution. My spirits have never been higher; and your son is the picture of radiant health. I remain, strengthened by adversity, on the brink of colossal fortune, your devoted swain,

  SARDIUS MCPHEETERS

  (in slightly decelerated transit)

  Chapter XXVIII

  From what I’d heard of these Mormons, I didn’t care too much about them. Besides, we were supposed to be off adventuring after gold and not holed up with a bunch of mule-headed religious nuts. My father always claimed that people who took on about being pious would bear watching. “I wouldn’t trust one for a second,” he said. Back home, he was barely civil to the Reverend Carmody, and when we left church each Sunday, he’d take his watch and slip it into his trousers pocket before shaking hands on the way out. He was only having fun, but my mother said it was irreverent and pointed up his deficiencies before God. But the preacher they’d had before Carmody sat up praying with the wealthiest old man in the parish when he was down sick of malnutrition, being something of a miser, and finally prayed so hard that when the man died, they came to find out he’d changed his will. And right after the burial, the preacher collected his inheritance, turned in his stole, and moved to Philadelphia. He’d been popular around Louisville, but nobody heard from him again until two years later, when he got into the news from being shot. So I don’t intend to dwell on that winter with the Mormons, but will just hit the high spots—there were a few—then get right on to California.

  After the fight with the Crows, we reorganized and moved on fast to Fort Bridger.
Within a few days, we’d left the Platte forever. Nobody was sorry. It seemed we had been within view of this sluggish nuisance for as long as we could remember.

  We followed the Sweetwater, within sight of the Wind River Mountains, over a country a-swarm with mosquitoes, and finally began the long rocky climb toward the snow ridge that “divides the Continent.” That is, the rivers change directions here; the ones on the East flow toward the Eastern sea, and those on the West empty into the Pacific.

  For several days in a row, there was little grass, but the ground was carpeted over with thistles, on which the oxen and mules fed, though without much appetite. Food for the immigrants was scarcer. Mostly people still were refreshed from Laramie, but Coulter kept trying to bag game, which could often be seen on these rocks up above. Twice he shot antelope, but the wolves moved in and devoured them before we could get there.

  Several women came down with fever, so my father and Dr. Merton were hopping again. The upward pull was affecting both people and beasts. Part of it, my father said, was anxiety, fear of the summit we were approaching, which they called South Pass. But when we arrived, it was no worse than the road before, and was nineteen miles wide. We hardly knew we’d got to the top, but if you ran or moved fast, you knew it well enough, for they said the altitude here was over seven thousand feet high.

  From the top we went along a level road two or three miles, then started a gentle descent to a gushing fountain known as Pacific Spring, very cold and good, being the last water for a long time. And after this we passed over a dry brown plain with what they called buttes—reddish-brown knobs of sandy rock—standing straight up like mushrooms. My father said they were once islands in a great inland sea, but he got into an argument with two other men about it, and was kept busy all afternoon.