Bud & Me

by Alta Abernathy

  Salt covered the whole area. The ground was smooth and white and looked as if we could gallop right across it. But we soon learned that the weight of the horses cracked the salt crust, exposing a slimy, dark gray mud underneath. Stagnant water around the lake had created these mudholes, and we had to be very careful not to bog down.

  That sour, standing water gave off a stench that nearly made us sick. We rode long past noon, hoping to find a higher, drier place, free of that awful smell, before we ate lunch. Finally, we found a good spot and fed the horses, even though we had no water for them. They couldn’t drink salt water, and the little bit in our canteens wouldn’t begin to quench their thirst.

  I pulled the jar of strawberry preserves out of the oak sack, but no matter how hard I strained, I couldn’t get it open.

  “Here, Bud, you try.”

  After several tries, he finally got it open. Then he handed it to me, and I took a big bite.

  “Taste these preserves, Bud. They taste like they’ve got oats in them.”

  “Sure do,” he said, spitting out several oats.

  We ate the preserves anyway, spitting out oats with each bite.

  “Did you do that for a joke?” I asked in accusation.

  “How could I?” Bud demanded indignantly. “We’ve been together the whole time. Besides, I had to eat them, too.”

  To this day I’ve wondered how the oats managed to get into a sealed jar of preserves.

  To the west of us, for miles on end, was nothing but Sahara-like sand dunes and salt flats, gleaming in the sun. Nor was there vegetation to be seen anywhere. It would be a long, hot, dry stretch. Maybe if we’d known more about the desert, we would have had misgivings, but as it was, we only knew we had to keep plodding ahead. It never occurred to us that survival could become such a challenge.

  Following the dim remains of an old wagon trail under the hot sun, we began sipping water from our canteens more and more often. But we were careful not to push the horses in the heat. As the trail began to disappear, Bud tried to keep the railroad track in sight. The crunching of the horses’ hooves in the crusty salt was the only sound we heard for miles. Even our voices, when we spoke, sounded out of place in the eerie desert silence.

  “Bud,” I said, in a dry-throated whisper, “I wish we’d see somebody. We haven’t seen a bird or an animal or a train or a person, all day long.

  “I know, I know,” was all he could say.

  Night finally came, and we camped under the stars. Bud hobbled the horses, since there was nothing to which he could tie them.

  We had little to say as we stretched out side by side. Listening for the usual night noises, all we heard was the loud breathing and occasional snorts of the horses. Even that was a welcome sound.

  We woke at sunrise, planning to ride as far as we could that day. Bud hurried us on to make up for lost time, and our spirits picked up when we saw a mountain range in the far distance. There was an end to this desert after all!

  In the heat of the day, Wylie Haynes’ slow, rhythmic gait lulled me to sleep. Bud kept an eye on me, afraid I would fall off and catch my foot in the stirrup. But I rode along for miles without either waking up or falling off, the hot sun burning down on my head and back.

  We pushed on into the night before we stopped, exhausted. After a scant supper, we figured that we had traveled 110 miles that day. Then we fell asleep immediately.

  Next morning when I woke up, something felt wrong. I opened my eyes but lay still for several seconds, a sense of dread creeping over me. Everything was too quiet. I didn’t even hear the horses.

  Shaking Bud, I jumped up frantically. “Our horses are gone! They’ve strayed away!” I shouted in panic.

  Bud blamed himself. “It’s my fault, Temp. I didn’t hobble them last night. I was too tired, and I thought they’d be too tired to go anywhere.”

  We looked in every direction, but there was no sign of either horse. “How stupid can I be?” Bud muttered, shaking his head in disbelief.

  “Don’t worry, Bud,” I said, doing my best to be reassuring. “Wylie Haynes won’t stay gone. He’ll come back on his own pretty soon. I know he will.”

  I wasn’t sure I believed that myself, but we had to have some hope. The thought of walking out of the desert was frightening. I think we both suddenly realized that we could die there in the heat. We had little food and almost no water left. Without the horses, survival would be almost impossible.

  We searched all day, going in opposite directions but always careful not to go far from camp. We’d come back at intervals, to check on each other, then strike out again. The heat was unbearable, and Bud was downright miserly with our food and the last few swallows of water. I would have finished off both the food and water in a minute, if he’d let me, but fortunately, he wasn’t that foolish. About an hour before sunset, Bud gave me one last swallow of water, and we parted for the day’s last search. No luck.

  That night, our eyes were hardened into a squint by the sun and salt, and our spirits were sunk lower than they’d been on the whole trip. “I wish Sam Bass was here,” I mourned. “He wouldn’t leave us.” I was even beginning to get mad at Wylie Haynes for being so dumb as to leave us.

  “We’ll find ‘em tomorrow,” Bud said, trying to raise my hopes. “We’ll find ‘em, Temp.”

  The next day was more of the same. By mid-afternoon, I was so tired and disheartened that I just stayed in camp while Bud kept searching, refusing to give up.

  The third morning, I could barely move. Bud tried to cheer me up, and then went out by himself again. I just lay in camp, sweat dripping off me like a waterfall. That made me think of the cold stream where we’d bathed in the Rockies, ages ago. Then I remembered Niagara Falls. From there, my mind turned to all the other spectacular sights I’d seen, and all the wonderful experiences I’d had in my life. Seven years old, and I was preparing myself for death.

  Bud came back around noon. “How are you feeling?” The worry was plain in his eyes when he looked at me.

  The only answer I could give him was a miserable stare. He rested a bit and then got ready to resume his search. “I’ll be back before sunset. If I don’t find them, we’ll start walking tomorrow.”

  I nodded glumly. But deep inside, I knew that I’d never make it. I couldn’t take ten steps without getting dizzy. How could I walk out of this desert? The distant mountains reminded me of New Mexico. Then I remembered the jackass that chased me...and Geronimo galloping as fast as he could...and the frustrated jack braying with his head over the fence. I was surprised to catch myself laughing. But then, I remembered our wretched situation and my hopes sank again.

  “Temple Abernathy,” I told myself, “you’ve been through rough times before. Everything’s always turned out all right so far, and you’ve even been able to laugh about it afterwards—like that old jackass.”

  My talk to myself helped a little bit. There was no sense giving up, and I resolved to be just as strong as Bud, and do what I could to see us through this predicament.

  I was thinking about all this when Bud came riding up, bareback, on Wylie Haynes. I’ve never been happier in my life! Even while I hugged Wylie, I was debating whether or not to punish him for wandering off. I decided I was too glad to see him for that.

  We fed him some oats and wished we had water for him. Bud said that was probably why the horses wandered off in the first place—looking for water. We saddled Wylie and rode double, with Bud carrying his saddle. It wasn’t long before we came to a hill, and just beyond it, to our happy surprise, was the town of Kelton. We had survived!

  Kelton, Utah, is a ghost town now, but it was paradise to us that day. Big Black had reached town before us. We watered both horses, watching to make sure they didn’t drink too much, too fast. Then we filled our canteens, and went into a store to buy supplies.

  Mostly, we bought canned goods. I was especially fond of tomatoes, so we got a few cans of them, along with some peaches. Even though we would have liked t
o have stayed in Kelton, Bud thought we’d better push on farther while it was still daylight.

  I was napping in the saddle again, when a strange sound woke me with a start. It was a train whistle! The train stopped, and three or four crewmen ran out to meet us. They’d been alerted to watch for us, and I guess we must have looked half dead to them.

  “Please, boys, let us put your horses in the boxcar, and you ride with us,” the engineer said. “We can give you a three-day lift out of this desert.”

  I knew Bud was as tempted as I was, but he didn’t even hesitate. “No sir, we can’t do that. It would be breaking our contract.”

  “We’ll never tell,” said one of the crew, and another chimed in, “That’s right. No one will ever know.”

  “We’d know,” Bud said.

  When they moved on, I felt a terrible loneliness in that desert. We finally left the Salt Lake behind and began to see grass. West of Kelton, we climbed a butte covered with material so shiny that I thought sure it must be gold. I picked up a piece to have it tested when we got to San Francisco. Of course it turned out to only be gypsum, sprinkled with silicon—worthless. Still, for a moment there, Bud and I dreamed of riches. We knew by then that there was little chance we’d earn the $10,000, and a rich gold strike seemed like a good way to make up for the lost money.

  For two days we rode by elaborate irrigation systems, and then we began to see a gradual change in the countryside. The grass was still sparse and brown, but now, we saw occasional sagebrush. There was still no shade though, and the blistering sun kept beating down on us.

  Shortly after noon one day, I saw a lone telephone pole. Only about eight inches thick, it cast the smallest of shadows, but I was burning up. “Bud,” I said, “Let’s sit beneath that pole and eat our lunch.”

  “It’s not big enough to shade us,” he said, “but it’s all right with me.”

  It was as good a place as any. We were running out of food again, but we had a can of peaches, a can of tomatoes, and a little bit of bread.

  “I’ll take some tomatoes,” I said eagerly, because I really did love canned tomatoes.

  “Okay,” Bud said. “You eat the tomatoes, and I’ll eat the peaches.”

  Those tomatoes were boiling hot. The temperature must have been at least 110, even in our little spot of shade. The can bulged out a little, but I didn’t think anything about it.

  That night it cooled off and we slept soundly. Well, I slept soundly until about three a.m. Then, I woke up with a terrible pain in my stomach. Thinking it was just the rough ground, I rolled over and tried to get comfortable, but the ache only got worse. I twisted and turned, rubbing my stomach to relieve the excruciating pain. Finally, I woke Bud up, and begged him to help me.

  “Here, Temp, take a sip of water.” He handed me the canteen.

  I took a few sips, but that was no help. Bud told me to go back to sleep, because we couldn’t do anything until morning. I lay down for a while, but I was violently sick and totally unable to get comfortable in any position. After a while I stood up again and asked Bud to take me someplace for help.

  It was just before daylight when he helped me onto Wylie Haynes, and we started riding. By now, I was bent over double with pain, and Bud was really worried. We had no idea how far it was to the next town.

  We rode for seven or eight miles, before we came to a very small town. As we rode up to the porch of the grocery store, a man came out to see what we wanted.

  “My brother is sick,” Bud said. “Can you help him?”

  The grocer lifted me off Wylie Haynes and carried me through the store to a back room where he had a bed. “Lie here and rest,” he said. “I’ll get a cold cloth.” He came back with a damp towel to bathe my face and hands, and that cooled me off some. Bud told him about the can of hot tomatoes, and he didn’t seem surprised. They left me alone for awhile.

  When the man came back to ask if he could get me anything, I felt better and said, “I think I could eat some Post Toasties with milk.” After I ate, I began to feel much better, and in a little while, I was ready to go, even though I was still weak. We couldn’t afford any more delays. Bud offered to pay the man, but he would take nothing for his kindness.

  Before we went too far, we had to go through a gate with a smelly dead cow beside it. Bud opened the gate while I held my nose. My stomach was in no condition to deal with that kind of odor.

  After a few miles, we were in the state of Nevada, famous for its dryness, or so Bud told me. According to him, the rain clouds from the Pacific collided with the Sierra Nevada mountain range and could come no farther. Nevada’s only moisture came when the snow melted and ran down the mountains. I believed him.

  We rode alongside the railroad track, and went long stretches without seeing anyone. Shortly before we came to the town of Wells, we were delighted to come upon a stream. Thinking to quench our thirst and water the horses, we dismounted, only to find that the stream was fed by an artesian well and it was boiling hot! We drank it anyway and then led the horses downstream, to where the water was a little cooler, and let them drink.

  While we were standing there, a strange hissing noise surprised us. This was desolate country, and we were pretty sure we had it all to ourselves. Pretty soon though, an automobile came chug-chugging toward us, sounding as if it was down to its last gasp. As we watched, the two men in it had to get out and push.

  The car was a Stanley Steamer, run by steam not gas, and the men needed water for themselves to drink, and to put into their car. I’ve wondered ever since if they ever made it over those sandhills and rough roads.

  We went on, through Wells and Elko, and past the dangerous Humboldt Sink. Someone told us a story about a man on horse-back who rode right into the sink and disappeared, never to be seen again. We were very cautious.

  Near Reno, we saw lots of prairie dogs and rodents, and I wanted to catch a fat little badger.

  “Bud, he’d make a great pet.”

  “No!”

  I knew he meant it.

  The wagonyard in Reno was crowded with ranchers and farmers who’d come to town with their families. They slept right in their wagons, so the yard was always full of life. A group of girls teased us, and we enjoyed every minute of it. But they were astonished when they learned we planned to go over the Sierra Nevadas.

  “Two little boys can’t go over those mountains,” one of them said.

  “Are you going over Donner Pass?” another asked, her eyes wide.

  “Plannin’ on it,” Bud said. “What about it?”

  “Don’t you know how it got its name?”

  “No, I guess not. But I have a feeling you’re going to tell me.”

  Bud was right. She was so eager to tell her story that she barely stopped for breath. “There was a man named George Donner,” she said, “way back, even before the Gold Rush. He was leading a big group of people over the mountains, right about this time of year. A huge snowstorm came up, and they were stuck. All but a few people died…some starved, some froze…” She told it like a horror story. As she spoke, her hands moved slowly across her chest as though to keep out the cold when she mentioned freezing. When she said “starved,” her hands were clutched at her neck.

  I was spellbound.

  “They found buggies, wagons and horses scattered all over the side of the mountain. Some had fallen over cliffs and into gorges. Some got caught in snowslides and rockslides. And even the few survivors would have starved if they hadn’t…” she paused dramatically, either deeply moved herself, or seeking the greatest impact on her audience.

  I wasn’t sure which.

  “If they hadn’t become cannibals!” One of the younger girls just blurted this out.

  The storyteller nodded solemnly.

  I was the one with eyes wide open now. What a tale! I looked at Bud to see if he believed it, and he looked spooked. Later, when we were well away from those girls, I asked Bud if he thought all that was true.

  “Sure sounded l
ike it,” he said. “Let’s just hope we don’t run into a blizzard up there.”

  My heart sank.

  That night at the wagonyard, we talked with some more people and made many new friends. I kept asking the grown-ups about the Donner Pass story, and they all said it was true. Surely, I thought, there must be a better way to get to San Francisco.

  Bud wouldn’t hear of any changes in the route at this late date. We figured we wouldn’t make it in 60 days anyway, but he didn’t want to be any later than we had to. “Tomorrow, I’m heading straight over those mountains, Temp, and you’re comin’ with me.”

  “Okay, but if we see someone who looks like they’ve been up there a long time, don’t expect me to stop and say hello. I don’t want to be cannibal food.”

  The next morning, we checked at the post office and picked up our chaps from Mr. Preston in Cheyenne. They were custom-made of leather and trimmed with goat hair, and we thought we really looked like a couple of cowpokes. We showed off for all our new friends at the wagonyard and then headed west—for the mountains and California.

  Riding through mist and occasional sleet, we climbed a twisting wagon trail up the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevadas. Before long, the air got cold, the road was slick, and Wylie and Big Black had a hard time keeping their footing.

  We stopped at Donner Pass, even though it made me extremely nervous to imagine the gruesome events that had taken place on that spot. Fearing that we too, might get caught in a snowstorm, we hurried on. After all, it was now mid-October, almost the exact time of year the Donner Party met their fate in another blizzard.

  At one point we came to a dark hole in the mountainside, a rail-road tunnel. Living dangerously, we galloped through at top speed, hoping a train wouldn’t come. Once through, we breathed a sigh of relief, and kept climbing higher.

  The summit was a disappointment—flat like a tabletop instead of rounded into a peak. It had several houses, the homes of rangers I guess, but we didn’t see anyone, and we rode right on.