Led to the Slaughter

by Duncan McGeary

  It was clear from the start that the Weber Canyon path was a difficult one. Yet we could see evidence that much of the debris had been removed and that the previous wagon train had made slow progress. I was inclined to agree with Pike, after only a few miles, that we should go that direction.

  We cut short our exploration, went back to the bottom of the canyon, and started up the other trail.

  To our great surprise, the route that Hastings had encouraged us to take was much smoother and gentler than the other. We traveled half a day without hitting any major obstacles. We camped that night feeling optimistic, thinking that perhaps luck was finally turning in our favor.

  I awoke in the deepest, coldest dark of night. The fire had burned low but I could see Pike sitting bolt upright across from me, his eyes glittering with fear. I wasn’t sure what had woken me until I heard the howling again.

  The sound seemed to strike directly at my chest, a stab of fear that stopped my heart for a moment. It was a primordial hunting call, the sound of a superstition come alive. A few moments later, there was a squeal, the cry of an animal that was being slaughtered.

  “Wolves… ” I heard Pike breathe.

  Normally, I would have guffawed at his fear and told him to go back to sleep. Perhaps I might’ve built the fire up a bit, just to appease my more primitive instincts. But I’m not afraid of wolves. I’ve run into wolf packs before, and they are usually harmless, despite all the tales. They are more afraid of humans than we are of them, and will vanish if they hear or smell us coming.

  But this was unlike any howl I’ve ever heard. There was a savage tone to it, a bloodlust that had nothing to do with hunger or instinct, but everything to do with malevolence. The cries of the victim were even worse, as if a child was being murdered, the sounds forced through a throat constricted with agony and terror. It sounded as though the prey was being played with, and the torment went on for what seemed hours––though it could only have been minutes––as both Pike and I stayed frozen in place. Finally, the anguished screaming was cut short.

  Then not just one howl of victory but a chorus of triumph echoed through our small alcove in the cliff side. It sounded like there were dozens of voices, more than in any wolf pack I’d ever heard of. Eventually, the cries started to taper off, not so much as if the entire pack was moving on, but as if its members were going their separate ways. Finally, there was silence.

  Without a word, we built up the fire. I lay down in my blankets but didn’t fall back to sleep right away. Pike didn’t even bother to attempt to sleep. Every time I opened my eyes––for my slumber was fitful––he was stirring the fire, building up the flames and adding another log.

  I was sure that in the morning we’d agree to turn back, but when daylight came, it was as if the previous night’s sounds had merely been a passing nightmare. When we heard the birds singing and the squirrels chattering as if everything was normal, the fear that had frozen us began to thaw.

  We agreed to carry on for one more day, as planned.

  The morning went smoothly enough. The path was wide and clear; the incline was shallow. It was a perfect trail, as if it had been built for us. In the afternoon, that all changed. The road narrowed to little more than a deer path. There was one of Hastings’s scrawled notes at this juncture, nailed to a tree, assuring us that things got better a few miles down the road.

  We passed beneath the trees, and soon we were scrambling over fallen timber and squeezing between boulders. How did Hastings get his mule through here? I wondered. The sky overhead was darkening and black clouds were rolling over us like a damp blanket. A drizzle deepened our misery.

  Somehow, in the near-darkness, Pike and I became separated.

  As I shouted out for him, I sensed something watching me. I stopped, fell silent, and looked around carefully, taking my gun from its holster quietly and cocking the hammer. Then I heard someone scream on the trail ahead.

  I poked my head around the huge slab of rock that cut across the path in front of me. I saw Pike’s muddy footprints in the few inches of soil between the boulder and the drop-off. I squeezed around the boulder and on the other side found a small glade, little more than a widening in the trail.

  Pike lay on the ground, an animal crouched over him with its jaws clamped around his arm. It looked something like a wolf, but it was shifting, changing somehow. Its arms and legs were longer than a wolf’s and ended not in paws, but in what looked like hands and feet. Its eyes seemed alien and strange, and I shuddered, realizing they were human eyes. As I approached, the creature’s muzzle lengthened and its chest broadened.

  I blinked. It was a wolf after all. Whatever I’d seen must have been some trick of the light.

  Throughout all of this, Pike kept screaming, the mindless, screeching cries of a man who was no longer capable of thought but consumed by fear. I fired my gun without really aiming, and I heard the bullet splat into the wolf’s hindquarters. It yowled, releasing Pike, and faced me, a growl rumbling from its chest.

  The sound of its snarl was the most menacing thing I have ever heard. The fur around the wolf’s shoulders was raised, and, as if in response, the hair on my head and all over my body stood up in terror. All I could see were those ferocious eyes and those fangs, which seemed to take up its entire muzzle, sharp and white, as its lips curled back and foam dripped from its mouth.

  It took a single step toward me, and it was all I could do not to run. I am going to face my death, I thought, surprised by my own bravery, and I am going to hurt it before it takes me.

  I didn’t bother to try to reload, but pulled my knife and waited for it to charge. The wolf watched me as if amused. It stopped snarling and stared at me with those reddish-orange eyes. Somehow, its silence was even more frightening than its growling had been.

  I shouted. I’m not sure what I shouted, only that it was raw and scared and in its own way, fierce. It was a challenge.

  The creature flinched, and in my madness, I almost laughed. Then it appraised me for a little longer, as if curious. I stood waiting for it to attack.

  Instead, the wolf turned and ran away. I noticed with satisfaction that it was trailing its right hind leg behind it.

  Pike was babbling. It sounded as if he was trying to talk, but all that came out were choking, retching sounds. He got on all fours and vomited into the dirt. “Ga … Gaw … Gawd!” he finally stammered.

  “It’s gone,” I said, sounding much calmer than I felt. But my words reminded me that the beast might come back, and I picked up my pistol and hurriedly reloaded. Only then did I get a good look at Pike’s wound.

  The flesh of his right arm was pierced and bleeding profusely. It was frightening, yet I was surprised that not more damage had been done. A grown wolf could have torn it off.

  If a wolf is what it was, came the thought. I’ve had strange nightmares this entire journey, ever since I joined the Donner Party, most of them involving wolves. I wonder if perhaps, in some dark part of my mind, I was already aware of the danger we are in.

  I wrapped the wound tightly. Blood soaked the bandage thoroughly and began to drip from it, but it was all I could do. With the loss of blood, Pike would have little chance of fighting off an infection. He was pale in the moonlight, like a ghost.

  He tried not to groan every time he moved. I made a sling out of the extra blanket in my pack and helped him to his feet.

  “Can you walk?” I asked.

  “If it gets me out of here, I can,” he answered.

  We started back. Sometime that afternoon, we realized that the trail, which had always been hard to distinguish, had disappeared entirely.

  We were lost.

  CHAPTER 15

  Virginia Reed, Wasatch Mountains, August 10, 1846

  Father was gone for only a day, and announced upon his return that Mr. Stanton and Mr. Pike were continuing to scout ahead and that they had met up with Mr. Lansford Hastings, who had assured them that he had a new route all laid out for us. All we ne
eded to do was follow the markings along the trail.

  Father told them we would wait three days. We waited four. Finally, there was no help for it: a decision had to be made without them. We were running out of time.

  “From what I saw of it, the Weber Canyon trail is an extremely difficult one and will delay us by many days,” Father said. “Hastings told us that the new route he has mapped is much easier––and I have to say, it can’t be any worse.”

  No one seemed to know what to say. We didn’t have enough information. We’d have to trust––again––that Lansford Hastings wasn’t leading us astray for some nefarious reason, or using us to blaze his own trail. Dozens of faces turned to George Donner, who blinked, suddenly remembering that as our leader, it was his decision.

  “If you think that’s best, Reed,” he said. I saw Father wince as he realized that the blame would fall upon him no matter what happened. Donner had been useless throughout this portion of the journey, unwilling to venture an opinion.

  I still wasn’t frightened, cocooned as I was by young love. I assumed such travails were a normal part of traveling across this vast continent. Bayliss had remained distant, but Jean Baptiste had approached me again, and we were once again spending all our free time together.

  I was in love, and my thoughts and feelings were directed toward Jean, who seemed to feel the same about me. We barely noticed all the things going wrong around us. When others weren’t looking, especially Father, we had begun to hold hands.

  Almost every night, we went walking on the trails behind the camp. Jean was trying hard to convince me to do more than kiss, but I had no intention of doing more than some harmless nuzzling and flirting. And I was certain I could handle him, for he was in my thrall. It was a strange feeling of power, and I was a little ashamed of myself even as I indulged in it.

  Every night, the temptation grew to let it go a little further, and instead of being alarmed by this, I was thrilled.

  I thought I was so grown up.

  #

  On a summer day full of deceptive promise, our wagon train reached the fork in the road. The wagon ruts from the Harlan-Young Party were clear, leading up a narrow, steep, winding trail. On the other hand, the northwest route, the new pass that Hastings had recommended, was flat and wide. We turned onto that trail.

  At first, it seemed we had made the right decision, but after the first day, it was as if the road simply disappeared––as if the mountain itself was intent on blocking us. We came to a narrow path, and Father announced that he had found Stanton and Pike’s muddy footprints on it. There, we found a damp, smeared letter from Hastings assuring us that the road cleared only a few miles ahead.

  Every able-bodied man was rousted from the drivers’ seats and those women who had been taught to drive the wagons were given the reins, including, to my great delight, me. I suppose I was too tired to be scared.

  We built a road that hadn’t existed before. The men were exhausted after the first day, completely worn out. We hadn’t traveled more than a mile. The next day was even worse, and we traveled perhaps a half a mile.

  We found signs of a scuffle in one of the little clearings and blood smeared on some of the leaves, but there was no sign of Stanton or Pike. It left all of us unsettled. What chance had we, dragging our huge wagons, if two men on foot could be swallowed up by the wilderness?

  And where was Lansford Hastings, who had promised to come back and lead us? In the mountains, we found more letters nailed to trees, cheering us onward, deeper into our fate. I believe that if Hastings had dared to appear on the trail before us, there were those in the party who would have strung him up. Instead, the anger turned toward Father, who had advocated this road.

  He was grim, even more severe than normal, and for the first time I saw him stooping under the weight of his worries. He never admitted it aloud, but it was clear that this had been a disastrous mistake.

  All of us kept expecting the trail to get better after the next turn, but it only got worse. Entire mornings were spent doing nothing but felling trees, and entire afternoons were squandered removing them from our path. One day, we didn’t move the wagons at all: we only prepared for the next arduous day, and then the next. What should have taken only days was taking weeks.

  The men could barely summon the energy to eat at night, and the women felt helpless. We comforted the men as best we could. Jean Baptiste and I no longer went on romantic walks, not even to the perimeter of the camp. Instead, we sat at our campfire and he leaned his head against my shoulder, sometimes falling asleep sitting upright. Bayliss stared at us, too exhausted to even resent our closeness.

  Everyone in the party began discarding anything that was not absolutely essential for survival. Desks and chairs littered the trailside. Some of the poorer families, who seemed to understand before the rest of us that we were not going to be able to come back and rescue our possessions, started breaking up the furniture for the nights’ fires, since that was easier than finding deadfall logs and dragging them back to the camp.

  We had been spoiled on our journey across the plains because we always had something to burn at night. The women would gather up the dried dung along the trail––buffalo chips, we called them––and that would fuel our fires. But now we were in terrain where buffalo chips were scarce to nonexistent. The wood in these mountains refused to burn, either too green to catch fire easily or too dry to last long.

  Each morning, I looked up at the mountains, and each morning, it seemed as if we were nearer the crest of the pass. But every evening, after we passed what I’d thought was the summit, there would be yet another hill to climb. About this time, mosquitoes appeared in thick clouds, buzzing so noisily in my ears that I wanted to scream.

  Finally, we reached a broad, flat plateau at the top of the pass. We could see down the other side of the mountains. We were all too exhausted to celebrate, and indeed, that was probably fortunate, because our troubles were far from over.

  From the top of the Wasatch Mountains, we could see the white flats of the Great Salt Lake, stretching into infinity. The downward slope was, if anything, even more difficult. The sandy path zigzagged down the mountainside, slippery and perilous. It seemed as though we were nearly there, but it took ten more arduous days before we reached the level surface of the salt flats.

  By the time we reached the flats, none of us had the slightest faith in Lansford Hastings and his magical shortcut. We stopped for a day’s rest in the scant shade of the barren hillside. Father spent that afternoon walking back and forth among the different families, taking an inventory. He returned to our wagon, grim-faced, and I heard him and Mother talking in low, urgent tones.

  It was as if, as we descended the mountains, we were falling into the deepest regions of hell. The heat sucked the breath from our bodies and turned our clothes wet with perspiration, and then dried them into a stiff, salty crust. That oven evaporated what little energy we had left and melted our very spirits. The wagons sank into the lake of salt enveloping us in the blistering heat.

  #

  It was there, in that glaring heat that poor Luke Halloran died. He’d been a charity case from the beginning, that frail young boy suffering from consumption who had been passed from family to family until everyone had lost all sympathy for him. He had trailed along with us like a ghost, and now he was one. We couldn’t look at each other as we buried him, for we all felt guilty about neglecting him.

  At night, we froze, but at least we could bundle up under our blankets. In the mornings, when the salt flats were still solid, we made good time, but by midafternoon, the water beneath began to seep upward and the wheels sank into the thick, mushy salt. We pushed the wagons onward, but the oxen were beginning to fail.

  In the distance, we could see yet another chain of mountains. That might have cheered us, but Hastings’s notes informed us they were the Ruby Mountains, not the Sierra Nevada, and that we had hundreds of miles yet to travel. When we determined this, we all seemed to
stop in our tracks, as if the entire wagon train was stunned––as if none of us had the will to go on.

  I looked around at my companions. They looked as if they had traveled through a dry snowstorm. They were covered by white crystals of salt that hung from their stringy hair and any loose piece of clothing. I tried not to lick my lips, for they were encrusted with salt and I would immediately crave a drink of water. Our water was being saved as much as possible for the livestock, and all of us were thirsty.

  “We should unhitch the oxen and drive them ahead to find water,” I heard Bayliss urge Father. “We can come back for the wagons.”

  “No,” Father said bluntly. “Push on.”

  Some of the other families did as Bayliss suggested, though without success. Several times, I heard shouts of joy as someone thought they saw a wagon or the glimmering of a lake ahead of us. Each time, the vision proved to be a mirage, a mere shimmering of heat and the illusion of hope. After a time, we learned to ignore such apparitions.

  The oxen were lowing continuously now, piteously. If we had poked them with hot irons, they couldn’t have made more noise. Ominously, after a couple of days, the huge beasts stopped lowing and trudged on in silence.

  Several of the smaller families were running out of food. I saw Keseberg arguing with the Eddys, who were now destitute, their oxen having died in harness. They had been forced to leave their wagon behind.

  “You have enough food for all of us,” Mr. Eddy said.

  “I don’t know that,” Keseberg said heatedly. “I may need it all before we get out of here.”

  “For pity’s sake,” Eddy implored. “My family is starving––my children! I’ll pay you back when we reach California. I sent money ahead.”

  “No,” Keseberg said, turning away. “I can’t eat your money. I can’t spend your money if I’m dead.”