Impatient With Desire (5 page)

1847

J
ean Baptiste told me that the last thing Samuel Shoemaker said before he died on his platform in the dark, dank shelter, was “Roast pork, Mother! And sweet potato pie! Oh, Mother! You’ve made all my favorites.” Then he closed his eyes, a rapturous smile on his face.

Our thoughts are consumed with food. We dream about food. My sister-in-law, Elizabeth, endlessly comes up with more and more elaborate recipes to cook until I think I will go mad. When the children talk about food, I discourage it. “A rasher of bacon,” Elitha blurts out. “Oh, wouldn’t a rasher of fatty bacon taste heavenly—” “You
hated
fatty bacon,” Leanna says angrily, “Mother had to practically cook it to char to get you to taste it,” and Elitha bursts into tears, lamenting all the food she wasted. “We’ll have plenty of bacon in California,” I say. Then twenty minutes or an hour later, Elitha says, “A fried egg swimming in that bacon grease. That has to be the most perfect food—” “Just keep quiet!” Leanna yells. “Please, children,” I say.

We lost most of the cattle in the snow, and the few we found and immediately butchered were so scrawny their meat was quickly gone. For some time we have subsisted on oxen hides.

Today we prepared the oxen hides as usual. I try to keep the children to a strict routine, organizing their days to give them some shape and sense of time passing. By and large, they don’t balk, though Leanna, impatient like me, sometimes narrows her
eyes and hesitates just long enough to tell me she’s going along now, but…Exactly as I acted at her age.

I scored and cut the hide into strips. Elitha passed a candle flame back and forth over a strip, singeing the hairs, her nostrils flaring at the acrid smell. She passed the strip to Leanna, who scraped the singed strip with a knife. “I’m way ahead of you,” she said. There is not a task in the world that Leanna cannot make into a competition.

Elitha rolled her eyes. “Just be sure you get all those little bits, Leanna,” she said in her big sister, bossy voice. “It’s even more disgusting with hairs.”

“You’ll never catch up,” Leanna said, tossing her finished piece into a big pot on the fire.

“I
loathe
and
detest
hides,” Elitha said. “When we get to California, I will
never
eat jelly again!”

“Be glad we have them,” George said.

Leanna snorted, but I pretended not to notice. He’s right of course; hides are the only thing between us and starvation, but
glad
does seem a little too cheerful and lighthearted for that gray, glutinous mass bubbling on the fire, basically a pot of hot glue.

I cut, Elitha passed the candle flame over, Leanna scraped. “You’re not getting them all, Leanna,” Elitha said again. “Get them all out…”

“Get all the feathers out, especially the little pinfeathers,” I say, handing the unplucked pheasants to Elitha and Leanna. “We’ll enjoy these at nooning.” I turn back to the brace of pheasants George shot this morning, necks wrung, one plucked on my improvised butcher board. Leanna starts right in yanking feathers out, but Elitha grimaces and hangs back. With a cleaver, I crack the breastbone of the plucked pheasant, open it, remove the heart and liver. Elitha blanches.

“Don’t be squeamish, Elitha,” I say. “It’s not an attractive trait. The
good Lord put this abundance on earth for us.” I butcher the bird quickly, as I have butchered hundreds before it. “Do you know what the Indians say, Elitha? They say, ‘We thank this bird that gave its life so we might have food.’”

I looked at the tough, hairy oxen hide in front of me, the knife in my hand, my mouth watering at the thought of those plump pheasants we ate so matter-of-factly. Would that we had a bird to thank today.

T
oday, after Elitha marked the big red
X
on the calendar I made, I pointed four days back, to January 4th. “Jean Baptiste said that Margret and Virginia Reed, Milt Elliott, and their cook, Lizzie, set out here to cross the mountains on foot.”

“Mrs. Reed?” George said.

I saw his astoundment and would have privately shared it before hearing about her Christmas feast. I nodded.

“That’s sheer lunacy,” George said.

I glanced over at Frances, Georgia, and Eliza in bed, playing their game of “cards,” withdrawn from our conversation by the fire. Frances triumphantly laid down a card with a moon painted on it, and Georgia groaned.

“Mrs. Reed is desperate,” I said. “She begged the Breens and the Kesebergs to keep her three little ones. They were not happy about it, but took them in.”

“Where
is
Reed?” George said.

“We have to assume he’s doing the best he can,” I said.

I turned back a calendar page, pointing to December 16th. “Twenty-three days now since the snowshoers left,” I reminded Elitha and Leanna. “Mr. Stanton knows the way. They’re probably resting at Sutter’s Fort right now.”

“Why don’t we walk over, Mother?” Leanna asked.

“I think not,” I said.

“We can leave Elitha to take care of Father and the little ones,
and you and I and Cousin Solomon and Jean Baptiste can go and bring back help—”

“I’ll help Elitha with the babies,” Frances piped up from the bed.

I shook my head.

“I’m strong and you’re strong,” Leanna persisted. “I’m sure we can do it—”

“That’s enough,” I said, and she went sullenly silent, staring daggers at me.

T
his morning I went outside, and after not speaking to me since yesterday, Leanna charged out after me. Already an inch taller than I am, she planted herself in front of me and said, “Solomon and Jean Baptiste think we should go too!” When I didn’t answer, she burst out, “Father is going to die if we don’t get help soon! Don’t you understand that?”

Her face was set in defiance, as if she were telling me something I didn’t know or daring me to contradict her.

“Oh, Leanna,” I said. I reached out for her, and she burst into tears. I held her and said, “Be strong, Leanna. Rescue is coming soon.”

When she had calmed, I took her face in my hands. “I’m sure your aunt Elizabeth misses you very much, Leanna. Why don’t you go see if you can help her?”

Her eyes narrowed, and she shook her head. “She should not have spoken that way to you, Mother. I cannot forgive her.” She turned and went back into our shelter.

I think a lot about walking out. That’s why I couldn’t lend Mr. Stanton my compass.

Last night, George whispered to me, “Reed and McCutchen would never leave their families here. I think they may have frozen in the snow trying to get here.”

I didn’t respond directly. That thought has crossed my mind more than once too. “There’s still Walter Herron,” I said. “And the snowshoers. Don’t forget the snowshoers. And if Milt and Margret get through, Milt will come back for us.”

“If we’d been there,” George said, “Reed wouldn’t have been banished.”

“Maybe.”

“We shouldn’t have been two days ahead,” he said.

“We went ahead because the grazing was sparse,” I said.

“That’s true. But the real truth is I just couldn’t stand that endless quarreling. I should have been there.”

After a moment, I took his hand and whispered, “I wanted to go ahead too.”

He squeezed my hand.

“It’s good we’re pushing ahead,” George said. “This way we won’t be competing for grazing.”

I nodded my head in agreement.

That’s what we told each other and ourselves at the time.

October 7th 1846, between Humboldt River and Truckee River

George, Walter Herron, Mr. Reed’s teamster riding with us, and I stood outside our wagon on the Trail, waiting for a horseman from the East to catch up with us.

“It’s Mr. Reed!” Walter Herron said.

“Hallo, James!” George called. “Come tell us the news.”

When James got near we saw his bandaged head, his distress as he dismounted. We gave him as much water as we could spare, and then he began.

We were double-yoking the wagons again to get over another one of those endless sand hills, James said. We had eight wagons already over and five lined up waiting to go.

Graves’s first wagon had just pulled over the top of the long, steep hill. You know how hot it was. Everyone was exhausted and drenched with sweat. The men unyoked the extra team of oxen from Graves’s first wagon, drove it down the hill, and yoked it to his second wagon, which began the pull up.

Next in line with Graves’s third wagon, Graves’s teamster, John Snyder, waited for the oxen to be brought back down for him.

Behind Snyder, Milt had already borrowed a yoke and double-teamed our family wagon. “I’m ready, I’m gonna go,” Milt said, and he swung out and started to pass Snyder.

Somehow Milt’s lead yoke got tangled with Snyder’s yoke. “What the Hell—” Snyder began, and then he just exploded and started beating my oxen with his whip.

I rushed up. “Are you crazy, Snyder? Stop beating the oxen!”

His rage switched to me. “You need a good whipping too. You got us into this—”

“Get the wagon over, Snyder,” I said. “We’ll settle this matter later.”

“We’ll settle it now,” he said, lifting his whip.

“Get the goddamn wagon over, Snyder,” I said, and down came his whip butt on my head, blood was pouring in my eyes, he raised his whip again, I drew my knife, Margret rushed up, down came the stroke full upon her, I struck. It all happened in a flash.

Snyder staggered a few steps and fell down dead.

Then everything happened in a blur. I offered boards from my wagon to make a coffin, but Graves would have none of it. Margret was too distraught to bind my wounds, so Virginia had to do it. I should not have asked so much of her. They wrapped Snyder in a shroud, a board below, a board above, and lowered him into the ground. All the women and children were crying. Our family, Milt Elliott, and the Eddys stood on one side. The Graves family, the Kesebergs, the Wolfingers, Reinhardt, Spitzer, and the Murphy clan stood on the other. The nine Breens stood apart from either group.

All of a sudden, Graves pointed to me. “You murdered John Snyder!”

“It was self-defense—” Milt began.

Keseberg cut him off. “An eye for an eye! Hang him!”

I bared my neck. “Come ahead, gentlemen.”

No one moved.

Graves and the larger group moved away to confer while Milt, William Eddy, and I drew our weapons and stood ready.

Graves stepped forward. “Banishment. On foot. No weapons.”

“You’re sending him out to die!” Eddy said.

“I refuse to leave,” I said.

Graves drew his gun.

“They’ll kill you,” Margret sobbed. “I beg you to go.”

“Never.”

Graves cocked his pistol.

I cocked mine.

“We can’t afford any more bad blood here,” Graves said.

“Go and bring us back food,” Margret begged.

I looked from Margret to Graves. “I will go if you promise to take care of my family.”

Graves made a small nod.

He took my gun, I said Good-bye to my family, and started out alone on foot, listening to the sobs behind me.

That night, I heard horses galloping in the dark and thought they were coming to kill me. I hid myself, ready to fight until their death or mine. It was Virginia and Milt bringing me a horse, a gun, and some food.

George and I were shocked almost speechless.

John Snyder dead?

James Reed banished?

“How could this happen?” I finally got out.

James just looked baffled, stunned.

“You can’t go out alone, James,” George said. “Our horses are gone, but…” George looked at Walter Herron. Walter looked uncertainly at the horizon.

George took him aside.

“Mr. Donner, I don’t want to go out there,” Walter Herron said.

“For a man alone, it’s a death sentence,” George said. “Two men have a chance.” And after a moment, “You’re his teamster, Walter.” And another moment, “There’s nobody else.”

James Reed and Walter Herron, sharing one horse, rode west.

T
he swelling and inflammation has spread above George’s wrist. He’s in evident pain, but never mentions it. I cleanse the wound daily with warm compresses, which seem to comfort him.

I forgot to write down about Elitha’s smoking the other day. When I had finished bathing George’s wound, I fixed a pipe for him, tamped down the tobacco, lit it, drew deeply, and handed it to him.

“Where did you learn to do that?” he asked.

“I used to do it for my father,” I said. “I love the smell of pipe tobacco.”

“Your mother never fails to amaze me,” George said to the children. He smoked his pipe and watched me write a new name.

“Dutch Charley,” George said. “He was a good teamster. He respected the animals and they responded in kind.”

I nodded, closed the Bible, and spread out the calendar. “Your turn to mark the date today, Elitha.”

Elitha lay listlessly on the platform. She has stopped reading. “Elitha,” I repeated.

“Someone else can have it,” she said.

“No, it’s your turn. I don’t want to get it all mixed up.” I waited until she finally came to the table, then I said, “George, give Elitha a little puff.”

George looked at me in surprise. When I nodded, he said, “Knock me over with a feather.” He handed the pipe to Elitha, who was also surprised and perked up almost instantly. “Now don’t draw too deeply, Elitha,” George said, “or it’ll make you cough.”

All her sisters watched Elitha closely as she drew too deeply and coughed. The second time she drew more shallowly without coughing and looked pleased with herself.

“Now can I have a puff?” Leanna said.

“You’re too young,” I said. “That’s enough, Elitha. Give the pipe back to your father and mark the day.”

After Elitha had marked the big red
X
on January 8, I pointed back to January 4 and said, “Jean Baptiste said that Margret and Virginia Reed, Milt Elliott, and their cook, Lizzie, set out here to cross the mountains on foot.”

I’ve thought of them constantly in the last seven days, Godspeed, Milt and Margret. They may already have reached the valley.

That night on our platform, George asked, “Why did you let Elitha smoke?”

“She’s barely able to stomach the hides,” I said. “She tries, but they make her nauseated. Tobacco takes the edge off the appetite.”

He lay there thinking, then asked, “Is that why you started smoking?”

I pretended to be asleep. He moved close to me and spooned his body about mine. His legs are so long that the first time he did that, shortly after we were married, I said, “You’re more than a spoon. You’re a whole cutlery set.” He thought that was the funniest thing imaginable. Now he whispered in my ear, “More than a spoon.” Even though I was supposed to be asleep, I moved into the curve of his body.