Hard Gold (13 page)

They had begun with horses, mules, and oxen, but when we found them, most were without any. Their teams, deprived of food and water, had perished. They had eaten some of their animals. Wagons had been broken up so that the wood could be used to cook food. Many were sick and desperate. All cursed the day they had ever set forth.

We offered such help as we had.

Later, I saw Lizzy wander off and sit down alone on the prairie. When I went out to her, I discovered she was crying. I had enough good sense not to say anything, but sat by her side in silence as she sobbed.

“Early,” she finally said, “one of the ladies on that train became a mother when they were traveling. Her poor babe lived only a few hours and was buried on the margin of a brook. They said they named the place Infant Creek.”

“I grieve for it.”

“But, Early,” she cried with anger, “how could they give the creek a name and not the child?”

I didn’t know what to say.

“Mr. Grostig—” Lizzy went on, “he’s with that wagon from Missouri—is ailing. So is my mother. What if she dies?”

“You’ll manage, Lizzy. You and your father. You’ll have to.”

“She has suffered too much to die now!”

Unable to find words to comfort her, I gazed out at the empty land. “This is all too hard,” she said after a while.

“It is,” I said, feeling great pain in my chest.

All of a sudden she clutched my arm and cried, “Early, you must never, ever leave me!”

All I could say was “I won’t.”

“And if I should die,” she went on, gulping back her sobs, “you must not abandon me out here. Because if you did,” she said with great fierceness, “I know I’d die anew each day from terrible loneliness.”

All we could do was sit together. It was a small thing in a big world—but what else were we to do? I had to acknowledge to myself that when I’d set out to find Jesse, I hadn’t known what I was doing, hadn’t known (and still didn’t) where I was going or what might happen. I felt small, weak, and stupid.

For the first time in my life I wondered: Would I live?

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The Long Trail

June 24, 1859

W
OKE TO hail big as peas, which later turned to rain.

When the rain finally stopped, some of our train, so discouraged by the unfortunate emigrants we had met the day before, turned back. We were now a train of twelve.

Mrs. Bunderly worsened. Lizzy was grim.

June 25

We rolled on, always looking for water. Reached Fremont Springs, which had some. I supposed the place was named after the man who had first explored this area for the United States.

A curious, grotesque thing occurred. The children found a dead buffalo. The poor beast was so bloated with decay gas, the children took to jumping on it. The gas-filled carcass served them like a spring, bouncing them high. That went on until the bloat burst and a child fell into the beast’s putrid innards. Much glee, and disgust.

Fortunately the spring was close.

June 26

We reached the place where the Platte River divided. Follow the trail along the north branch, and you eventually get to Salt Lake, California, or Oregon. The South Platte, however, would lead us to Cherry Creek, and so we turned and camped upon its banks.

I wondered how close we were, how far we had come. There was nothing about the trail to tell us. No markers. No fingerposts. Though surely we were on the trail—the wagon ruts told us so—but we could as well have been lost.

Mrs. Bunderly, faring most poorly, remained in the wagon. Lizzy tended to her all day. When I saw her, she was sad. But sometimes angry.

June 27

Went twenty miles along the riverbank. The water was shallow and warm. Lizzy and I did a calculation and determined that it was
forty-six
days since we had left Wiota! We told that to Mr. Bunderly. He reminded us that Noah was afloat for only forty days and nights.

I told Lizzy what Jesse had claimed, that he could have walked to Cherry Creek on his hands—backward.

“Maybe what your brother Adam said is true,” she snapped. “That Jesse’s a fool.”

“He’s smart,” I insisted.

She said nothing, which made me sulk over her remark.

There being no wood to burn for our meal, I went with the youngsters to collect buffalo chips. Whenever I left the train, I kept an eye open for Mr. Mawr. I would see him watching me.

How, I worried, would I be able to free myself of him once we got to Cherry Creek? Surely I’d have to get rid of him before I reached Jesse.

Around the fire that night, the men were talking about what it was that made men want gold. All kinds of opinions were offered, but the best was Mr. Bunderly’s. He said, “Gold attracts men because its nature is opposite their own. That’s to say, no matter how old gold gets, it keeps its value, is forever malleable, and remains bright.”

I puzzled that in my head and determined he meant that as a man gets older, he loses his value, does not change, and grows less wise. Did he mean himself? I resolved that would not be me.

June 28

Went twenty-two miles. Passed an Indian trading post at Julesburg.

Now and again we have met Indians—the Pawnee and Sioux. They are different peoples and at war with each other. Sometimes they come and ask for food, or wish to trade for horses or guns. We try to be accommodating about food. We heard some stories how they have returned lost children to emigrant trains. Still, some of our people mock them, but never to their faces. Others are frightened. A few like Mr. Boxler, our train captain, have tried to learn their different languages, insisting we can only gain by their friendship. For the most part we keep our distance—like mutually uneasy strangers.

Indian trading post. Emigrants bought supplies, too.

June 29

During the night, Mrs. Bunderly died.

Mr. Bunderly was consumed by grief. He blamed him self for his wife’s demise, bemoaned ever leaving Iowa, chastised himself for not heeding her complaints. Lizzy was full of sorrow, too, but she had to lay her mother out, and insisted she’d do so alone. Then she and her father went out from the trail to dig a grave. Not long after, she came back to me, tearful.

“My father is too stricken to dig,” she told me. “I must beg your help.”

The two of us dug the grave in hard ground. Lizzy’s tears did not soften it. Mr. Bunderly, saying he could not watch, left us.

Lizzy and I went along the trail until we found an abandoned and broken wagon. We took boards from it and made the crudest coffin.

When Mr. Bunderly heard of what we had done, he said, “Dear children, learn from this: the most broken wagon can carry one far.”

We buried Mrs. Bunderly the next day. The whole train was in attendance. Mr. Boxler read from the Bible, the twenty-third psalm. Looking about the prairie, I wondered if I would ever see green pastures again.

Lizzy sang. Her voice gave me thoughts of Iowa meadowlarks. My homesickness swelled.

As I grieved, I recalled Reverend Fobbscott’s words about a cold coffin in a colder grave. That the day was so hot made no difference.

Mr. Boxler urged that we leave the grave unmarked, lest impoverished emigrants in search of valuables dig it up—as he claimed sometimes happened.

That night we traveled beneath a full moon so as to avoid the heat. The pale yellow light made the prairie seem even more still. We heard coyotes bark, and once an owl gave call. I thought perhaps it was not an owl but Mrs. Bunderly’s unhappy spirit trying to follow us.

It made me shiver.

At night, before falling asleep beneath the wagon, I wondered: Is this journey the hardest thing I’ll ever do?

I wept some tears. The tears were for not for Mrs. Bunderly, but for myself.

June 30

As we went along, the oxen snorting, the wheels creaking, the harness jangling, I could not help but think of the lonely silence of Mrs. Bunderly’s unmarked grave, left ever farther behind, never to be visited again. Even if we tried, we would never be able to find it.

Lizzy must have been thinking the same kinds of things.

“Early,” she said, “I think the heaviest burdens we carry are our unhappy memories.”

“I shall have only one happy memory of this trip.”

“What?”

“You.”

“Early,” she whispered, her voice broken, “your kindness is as sweet as cool water.”

July 1

The hot dryness made our lips chapped, hands cracked, and brows wrinkled. So we “mooned”—which is to say, we traveled all night to avoid the heat. Above, the ever present stars seemed infinite in number. Did they, I wondered, see
us,
and think of us as we thought of them, emigrants traveling through the vast emptiness?

July 2

For much of the night we went along the river. There was little sound, save the heavy breathing of the oxen laboring and the creaking wagons. Once we heard the long, mournful howl of a coyote.

Lizzy walked with me, but I respected her sad silence. She being without her usual joy, I tried yet again to think what I should do when we reached Cherry Creek, but had to admit I didn’t know what to expect. If I could not find Jesse, I imagined I would need to find my way back to Iowa. I would miss Lizzy.

Lizzy must have been thinking these same thoughts, for at one point she turned to me and said, “Early, what will become of us?”

I wanted to say something cheerful, but honesty compelled me to say, “I suppose we don’t ever know.”

July 3

Though it was a Sunday, it was cooler, so we traveled by day—twenty miles.

At one point, Lizzy said to me, “Early, I have a confession to make.”

“I’m willing to hear.”

“I loved my mother, but I did not admire her.”

“Why?”

“My mother used her illness to shield herself from the world. That made her weaker. I am bound and determined to be strong, but I fear I didn’t pity her enough. It gnaws on me that I wasn’t strong enough to be kind. I can’t forgive myself.”

“She was hard on you.”

She grasped my arm. “Do you really think so? Truly?”

“You did the best a daughter could.”

“Early …” She didn’t finish her sentence, but turned and to my astonishment, kissed me on the cheek, then ran to the wagon and vanished.

I felt my cheek burn—not too unpleasant a sensation.

I used to think Jesse was my best friend. Lizzy … Well, she had really become my sweetheart.

July 4

The Glorious Fourth! We traveled twenty miles today.

At campfire, Mr. Griffin and Peter, who had not played for a long while, offered “Yankee Doodle.” Being so weary, our hurrahs were halfhearted.

July 5

No travel. Too exhausted. Visited by Indians. They were amazed by Lizzy’s red hair. Kept wanting to touch it. One young Indian, who spoke English, called her “Fire Girl.” She liked that.

July 6

Light rain. Went just eight miles but saw scrubby pine trees. That gave hope that the desert would soon be behind us.

Mr. Bunderly, still consumed by sadness, talks little. He is like a drum with a broken head.

An Indian camp by a stream.
There are times I would have liked to stay.