Snowbound and Eclipse (15 page)

To be sure, just west of us was a bleak sea of sand dunes, mostly covered with ribbed snow, but the wind had whipped against their sides, exposing a desolation devoid of all vegetation. We would need to cross that wasteland, and I supposed Bill Williams would know where to do it. I had found myself less and less sure of the man. Was that really Robidoux's road he took us over? I didn't see any sort of road at all, especially on the west side, which was deep in snow and crosshatched with fallen timbers, making wagon passage impossible. The grades were too precipitous for a wagon road in any case and were probably beyond what was acceptable for a railroad.

A dark suspicion of the man flared in me. Maybe he was an utter knave. But I set it aside as unworthy. He might be unprepossessing, but by all accounts he was the foremost master of this country. I didn't need to like the man; I needed only to respect him.

The dunes ahead would have to be skirted. They were constantly in a state of wind-driven flux, and no rails could be laid across them. It was plain that the 38th-parallel route was not practicable unless it strayed considerably from the parallel. But it was my duty to finish what was started, and I would continue to pursue a rail route as close to the 38th
parallel as possible. If the passes ahead proved to be as difficult as those we had traversed, I might be forced to disappoint Senator Benton and his colleagues. But I had no intention of doing that. I planned to force a passage by whatever means, and this of all my expeditions would be long remembered for going where no company had gone.

I set the book aside, blew out the lantern candle to save tallow, and returned the Blackstone to its oilcloth case. Then I hurried through the bone-cold night to Godey's mess and found him unrolling his blankets atop one of those rubberized sheets that were the salvation of my men.

“Alexis, tomorrow you take the lead. Straight across the dunes. If I ask the guide to steer us, he'll take us around to the north.”

“I'll do it, sir.”

“There'll be neither food nor fodder nor water in those dunes, and that will be Williams's argument against the direct route.”

“We can save a day or more, colonel.”

“That's how I see it. And Godey, kindly put your best hunters out. I don't suppose they'll find anything in those dunes, but put them two or three hours ahead of us, and they'll reach the valley floor in time to make meat. That's what I have in mind. When we reach camp tonight, I want the men to discover some elk haunches roasting for them all.”

“I'll send our best hunters, colonel. But it doesn't look like game country to me, sir.”

“You're quite right, Alex. But it's something that must be done. The men expect it.”

“As you wish, sir.”

“The mules are feeding well tonight on the bark. They should be fine tomorrow.”

Godey's hesitation told me he disagreed. I have come to
read men well and can sense disagreement in them almost as fast as ideas form in their heads. But he smiled. “We'll have them on good pasture soon,” he replied.

That's what I liked about Godey. He read my mind. He understood my deepening disillusionment with Williams. And he accepted my instructions without cavil.

The weather cursed my designs that night. A wind arose out of the north, bringing snow squalls with it and severe discomfort to my men, who could not stay dry. The icy blast rattled canvas shelters, raked cook fires, chilled the mules, drove men to cover, and even whipped the mules farther and farther from our bivouac. By dawn there was a thick layer of white upon us. Men were numb. Mules had vanished. The dunes to the west had a new layer of snow over them, to make our passage harder. But I set an example, expressing good cheer, even amusement at our plight, and soon enough a thoroughly chilled party was out, wading through snow, to recover our strays. Others were attempting to ignite cook fires, without much success in those Arctic gusts. And once again, icicles dangled from beards and eyebrows, and a rime from our breaths covered our leathern coats.

I heard that Ben Kern was both frostbitten and attempting to treat some frostbite in others with stimulants. Some of the wretches had stockings frozen to their feet, and getting flesh and cloth thawed and separated was no easy task. They should have known better than to let themselves suffer needlessly. There are canvas shelter cloths and blankets for all. But some men just won't perform the tasks that would spare them trouble. Later I would find out who had let himself suffer frostbite and keep the lapse in mind.

But it would all work out. By noon of a blustery and bitter December 4, with the thermometer's mercury hovering low inside its bulb, we set out across the sand hills, the hunters well ahead of us, the balky mules fighting our whips
and kicks. It was all we could manage to drive them into that blast of air, and they fought us as if their lives depended on it. It was odd. The mules clearly did not want to leave the protection of that cottonwood and willow forest, which offered fodder and warmth, and this time they resisted frantically, looking for any opportunity to turn tail and head east. We had to maintain utmost vigilance.

“Drive them ahead of us,” I suggested to Godey, but that didn't work either. They all simply quit. I am always one to learn from my mistakes, being flexible in nature, so we put several men and mules in the van, to clear a path through the drifts, and in that manner we won the reluctant cooperation of the rest of the mules. But they were not a happy lot and trudged with heads down, brushing as close to one another as their packs would permit, for the sake of whatever warmth could be gotten that way.

We saw not the slightest sign of game, but neither did I expect to see any in an area of shifting sands. In all, we made only five miles that day and camped in the lee of a great dune, which gave us a little protection from the furious wind. I was disappointed. I had planned to reach the river. It would be a miserable camp, without water, save for whatever snow we could melt, and without much fuel for our fires. The mules would be hard to contain, and I decided to double the guard. One slip and the whole lot would head back to that grove.

Bad as the camp was, it was better than what lay ahead, a featureless plain covered with snow, without shelter or wood or feed. Beyond, looming in the West, was the jagged white wall of the San Juan Mountains, the last great barrier we faced until we reached the Sierra. The tops were sawed off by cast-iron clouds, but I knew that the San Juans probably contained peaks in the fourteen-thousand-foot range, if my informants were right. I scraped away snow
until I reached naked sand and put up a tent, feeling the heavy canvas flap in the Arctic wind. I hoped my tent stakes would hold in the soft sand, and I drove them as deep as I could, not liking the softness beneath my feet.

Nearby, my men struggled with firewood. There was naught but sagebrush, which they harvested ruthlessly. It would barely heat water, and their porridge or macaroni would be tepid, more glue than food this evening. I didn't mind it myself, but I had long since learned that I am more resilient than other men and can endure most anything. I ascribe it to good blood. The mules lost no time crowding east and had to be checked forcibly. I feared we would need to picket all of them. I watched my Creoles and California Indian boys, Manuel, Joaquin, and Gregorio, wrestle with the animals, finally picketing some in the lee of the dune where there was a little brush. I was returning the boys to California; the army had brought them east as curiosities and to let them get a glimpse of civilization and the great father in Washington. They had been docile and useful to me on the trail.

I was not yet settled when Old Bill materialized. He was permanently bent and walked with his northern half leaning forward and his southern half backward. But now he hunkered down on the balls of his feet, a form of rest common among mountain men who knew no chairs in the wilderness. Carson often did it. I could never find comfort in it.

“Hard night on the mules, no water or feed,” he began. When addressing me he spoke a fairly educated English; among the men his inflections were rustic, even quaint.

“They'll eat snow,” I replied.

He snorted. “Warming a mouthful of snow costs them more heat than they can get from eating,” he retorted. “And they hardly get a spoonful.”

“I know that.”

He stabbed a crooked index finger west. “See that? It's death. It's plain death to anyone that goes into there.”

“I know a pass,” I replied. “Cochetopa. It's on the Mexican charts.”

“So do I, and it's death, I'm saying.”

“We have come this far without loss, Mister Williams.”

“There's a way around. I've taken it plenty of times, just ease around the south of this range here. Cuts some foothills, plenty of valleys likely to have game and grass. Takes an extra day or three, but I'll put you all beyond those hills yonder, and you'll be glad we did.”

“There's a path heading north; that's the one I plan to take. It leads to Cochetopa. It cuts off of Saguache River. It's an old Spanish route, and it's where we're going.”

“It's where you're going to get into trouble like you never did see before, Colonel.”

He was riling me, so I smiled pleasantly. I cared less and less for the oaf. He squinted at me and began an amazing monologue.

“You see the Rio del Norte out there, that winding bottom? Well, that's all sagebrush flats, not grass, and there's no feed worth a damn. You think you'll put some iron back into these mules? You'd better take stock. You're about out of corn and they're about to start stumbling and tumbling unless you get them on some good pasture.

“It gets worse, even before you start into that wall.” He paused dramatically. I enjoyed his theatrics. He could run for the Senate and win. “Beyond that river, where those brushy flats lie, that's the strangest country you ever knew. It's where all the waters off those mountains have collected, just a little under the surface. It looks like naked arid land, don't it, sir? It is, for sure. But just below, it's wet like a sponge, like a hidden marsh, and if you think it's tough to
pull and push mules through a lot of snow, wait until you push them through that. They can't hardly step without each foot sucking up and oozing in. If you take off their packs, maybe you can help them a little, but that means the men'll be carrying the load on their backs through the same swamp. This time of year, Colonel, they'll soak their feet and their boots; they'll freeze, and their feet will be so frostbit you'll likely perish the whole party, men and mules, before you even reach them hills you're planning to leapfrog over. I'm saying, Colonel, it's not the way to go; you'll be wearing the last out of the mules before you even step into the first gulch taking you up to where the gales blow constant and kill a man in five minutes.”

“I don't want to stray from our plans, Mister Williams.” I smiled, wanting him to see there was no hard feeling between us.

“Yes, sir,” he said, unbending his hairpin frame until he was upright again. “I suppose it'll be for us to see.”

That was an odd observation.

It was something I was very familiar with, the undertone of people trying to deflect me from my plans. I would have the honor of crossing the Rockies in December and intended to see to it no matter how much carping I had to endure. No one had ever done what I was about to do. I would alert Godey to be aware of conspiracies and disloyalties and to report these to me in confidence.

As the day waned, I could see the cook fires blooming, perfidious light and heat that would vanish for lack of tinder even before the supper was warm. It was something for them to endure; it would strengthen their manhood and prepare them for the travail ahead, when we toiled across those subterranean wetlands on the other side of the Rio del Norte.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

William Sherley Williams

That man Frémont, he was the serpent that tempted Adam and Eve, no doubt about it. I reckoned it when I looked him over close. I can sometimes see right through, to the inner spirit, and inside of the colonel was the serpent himself, same as got Eve to eat the apple.

That next day, mean cold and blowing again, we raised camp late and worked out of the sand hills through some gray snow, and I climbed up on a ribbed dune to watch until the wind blew the heat out of me. It was the serpent all right, snaking through a trench in the dirty sand-topped snow, single file, the head of the serpent out front, and the tail most of a mile behind, one hundred–some worn-out mules, a hairy man here and there, all in a snaking black line. The corn was most gone, so the Creoles had adjusted the loads, but them mules were still hauling heavy goods, canvas shelter cloths, and all of that, and now they were looking like scarecrows, caved in, muscles ridging on their flanks like hogbacks.

They knew their fate, I could tell. I can see right inside an animal, and they knew they was about finished and soon they'd die. They knew that, so they didn't much care. They stopped fighting the wind and snow and just didn't much care, and I knew they'd all but given up on this earth, anyway. Maybe I'd see them down the road apiece. I have that vision so I know I'm coming back as a bull elk. Animals got no clock; it's all here and now. Only us mortals got time. But animals know what's coming where we don't.

There was a lot of nothing to eat in that naked flat of the
Rio del Norte, just a little sagebrush poking from the dirty snow, and the mules toiled past it, knowing they would die soon. I got inside the skull of one of them, and he was saying he was worn out and cold and he hurt and no one cared and pretty soon he would stumble and die. I have the ability. I can even get myself inside the head of a squirrel. I can converse with a chipmunk if I'm of a mind. I told that mule I was going to cash in, too, mighty quick now, but not this trip. I plain knew. Once you get to talking with animals, you see how they think. I picked up on it.