Authors: Nancy Radke
It snowed again that night, a late spring snow that kept us in
our camp. Luke measured and whittled two sticks flat and smooth for me. He was
finally able to put on the splint. He had to pull on my leg to straighten the
bone, which hurt something awful, but he got it straight. Then he put on the
splint.
He did a good job of it. We decided only one bone was broke. The
other might be cracked, but it had stayed lined up and felt all right.
We stayed more days, while my leg got a start healing. Neither
one of us felt any hurry to move on. It was as if we had run out of fuel and
needed to rest up long enough to replenish it.
We talked. I told him about growing up at the store. About my
mother, who was so strong in her own way. And of my Pa, adventuresome and gentle.
He told me about growing up in the mountains of Tennessee. About
moving rocks so that plants could grow, only to find more rocks. Rocks on top
of rocks, is the way he described it. He mentioned his mother, who was a
schoolteacher, who raised a brood of boys and taught them all. Except Luke
would rather be out in the woods than getting book learning, and would slip out
after breakfast while she had her back turned, and not come back until night.
Their Pa gave up on him.
Then the war came and changed everything. John lost part of an
arm. Matthew came home on a tall stallion and left after a year, and Mark and
Luke left to find a way to help John.
“John’s good with the books, so I figure a small store where he
can hire one man to help him.”
“Or a banking job.” I said. “Have you asked him what he wants to
do? You might feel mighty foolish buying him a business and finding out it’s
not what he wants.”
“He’s not going to be able to do much.”
“Oh, I don’t know. We had a one-armed man in our town who went
around from place to place and fixed things.”
“A tinker?”
“Yes.”
“How’d he do it?”
“He used his legs a lot of the time, as a second hand. You’d be
amazed at what he could do. If he wanted something, he’d just figure out how to
do it. He had a strap and a hook he’d use sometimes. So don’t go choosing a
store without consulting your brother.”
“I guess we were sort of limiting him.”
“Don’t. Let him find what he can do. The fellow in our town
wouldn’t let anyone help him unless he asked them to. He always tried to do it
himself first.”
My leg was sore, but the splint made it so I could hobble around
a little. Luke decided to go out and hunt, to try to get us some meat for the
next leg of the journey, which was going to be through these endless mountains.
He came back sooner than I expected, excited.
“You have to come, Mahala. It’s a small hot spring, back in a
cave. It’s full of minerals. I think it will be healing, as well as make you
feel good.”
He put me on his back and carried me there. It really wasn’t
that far away. He stood outside while I hobbled into the cave.
This was a strange country of hot springs and salty water. I
stripped and slipped into that water and soaked. And soaked.
“Mahala? Are you all right in there?”
“Yes, Luke. I haven’t felt this good in ages. I should come out
and let you get in.”
“I can do it later. Take your time.”
I wished I had a bar of soap, but I scooped up a handful of sand
and rubbed with it and felt all tingly and good. Luke was right. It was better
than a full stomach.
I crawled out and dried off, stripping the excess water with my
fingers before putting on my clothes again. I called Luke to come in and
re-wrap my leg. Then I hobbled out and took up guard while he stayed in the
cave.
I could hear him splashing about and murmuring with pleasure and
realized I had probably been making the same sounds. Then quiet, as he also
soaked for awhile.
I was close enough to the entrance to feel the heat coming out,
but had cooled off by the time Luke appeared.
“How you doing?” he asked.
“My leg is beginning to throb, but it was worth it. I feel
better than I have in days.”
He handed me the rifle and put me on his back again, carrying me
back to camp through the snow. The snow wasn’t too deep in the woods, most of
it still hung on the trees.
As we neared our camp we heard a roar and a great commotion of
frightened horses and breaking wood. I slipped off Luke’s back and he grabbed
the rifle and ran forward.
“Careful,” I called, but knew he didn’t have time to be. I held
my breath, trying to hear what was going on. By the sounds, a bear was in our
camp, going after the horses.
A shot was followed closely by another one. Then a third and
fourth. If Luke was shooting the bear, I could only hope he was faring better
than his first encounter with one.
They were coming out of hibernation, hungry, grouchy, and plumb
dangerous.
I heard the sound of hoof beats and heard Luke yell.
I couldn’t stand it no longer. I hopped as well as I could
through the snow, afraid of what I would find.
Luke had killed the bear, but not before it had tore up our
shelter and scattered our things. The horses were gone.
“What bad luck,” Luke said. “He came while we were gone.”
“That’s good luck,” I said. “We weren’t here when he came, so
you had time to come in prepared to shoot.”
“The horses are gone.”
“The horses are alive. And probably not gone far. You start
after them while I cut us some bear meat. Make sure he’s dead first.”
Luke took his knife and slit the bear’s throat, bleeding him
properly, and making sure he was dead at the same time. He reloaded, grabbed a
bridle and a rope, and ran off down the trail.
That bear had come in a’swinging, knocking everything every
which way. I hardly knew where to begin. I retrieved our blankets out of the
snow and hung them up where it was dry, under a small remaining part of our
shelter. I rebuilt the fire, and cut us some bear steaks, putting them on to
roast.
All the while I listened for Luke. It was getting dark.
I cut myself a crutch, so I could hobble around easier, and
tried to pick up as much things as I could before it got too dark. I hoped Luke
could find me again and didn’t have to spend the night without any supplies.
When I did hear a horse coming, I drew back from camp and
readied my rifle. It was Luke, riding Pride bareback, and leading Rosie. I put
my rifle down, glad his luck had held. We would have had a hard go of it,
walking, me with a busted leg.
The horses snorted and rolled their eyes, not wanting to get
close to the bear carcass. Luke tied them as far away from it as he could.
“I caught Rosie pretty quick, but Pride ran until his rope
caught and held him. I don’t think he wanted any part of bear.”
“I don’t blame him. You want to eat first?” I asked.
“No, I’ll rebuild this shelter a little, then eat. If it snows
again tonight, we’ll need it.”
The meat was getting done, so I handed him a strip. “Eat as you
work. You’ll do better.”
He nodded, eating as he gathered some poles and remade our
shelter. It was past dark by the time he had put it all back together again,
but the meat was done, he and I had both eaten, and I was busy cooking more
meat to take with us. The bear had smashed one of our pots so badly, I didn’t
think we could ever get it straightened up again, but Luke took a small rock
and knocked it into it, then a larger rock and then a larger one until it was
sort of pot-shaped again. It wouldn’t have won any prizes, but it did hold
water.
“We make a good team,” I said.
“Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for
their labour,” he quoted. “For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow:
but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help
him up.” I nodded. I knew that verse, too.
I also knew the verse that came next. “Again, if two lie
together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone?” I wondered if
Luke thought about it, but just didn’t say it.
We didn’t have many books, so those we had got read and reread,
including the Bible. It was as familiar to me as it was to most folks those
days. With its moral teachings, it kept most of us on the right path, and for
those folks who didn’t walk that path, we had our guns.
With the shelter remade, Luke skinned out the bear by the light
of the fire. There was plenty of meat, and I cooked it as good as I could, in
the high altitude.
“I’ll make a couple of bags out of this hide and put some meat
in them,” Luke said. “We’ll carry it to the next camp and cook more there.
It’ll cook faster when we get lower. Sear it, if you can.”
I did, laying it on the hot coals enough to sear the outside and
keep the juices from running. It finally put out the fire, but we were ready to
go by that time.
I would have liked to go soak in that hot spring one more day
before we left, but didn’t say anything to Luke.
He must have felt the same way. We got all packed up, ready to
go, then he said, “Let’s stop by the spring for a couple of hours. We’ll ride
over there this time, have our gear with us.”
“Sounds good to me.”
I asked him to go in first this time. I wanted to come out warm
and stay warm a bit while riding down the trail.
It was too bad I couldn’t have one of these in the middle of our
ranch. I could get used to it.
After I had a good soak, Luke helped me put the splint back on
and lifted me onto Rosie again, then we rode back to the trail and started on
down.
“No wagon would ever go on this trail,” I said, as we fought our
way over fallen trees and rocks.
We met the next Indian less than a mile down the trail. He waved
his hand at us, not his lance, so we rode closer, our rifles ready.
He had a tattered blanket wrapped around his body, no paint on
his face, and looked like he had barely made it through the winter.
Pa had taught me some of the Indian sign language, but it didn’t
take that knowledge to know what he wanted. He pointed to his mouth, patted his
stomach and then pointed to our bags of bear meat.
I indicated that the dead bear was just up the trail and he
nodded, walked past us and headed up the trail. I was glad that the food was
not going to go to waste, as food was scarce in the winter and almost so in the
early spring. Summer was always plentiful, and fall had seeds and nuts ready
for the picking. But winter was starvation time, and that man might have a
family somewhere waiting.
Our tracks would lead him first to the hot spring and then to
the bear. I hoped he got warm while he was at it.
Traveling in snow that is not very deep is dangerous, as it
covers up holes, especially when we came to a stream and had to cross. If there
was a log across the stream, the trail would often go to the log, since foot
traffic would use the log. We would have to pick our way down the bank, into
the water, across the stream and then up into the snow again, unable to see the
footing. Our horses stumbled and slid, for a little snow is worse than a lot.
We didn’t make much progress that day, but we did get off that
tall mountain and into a valley. We’d have to go over another one and then
more, but the snow was thin enough in the valley that the horses could knock it
aside and find grass. We got off and let them graze at the end of Luke’s long
rope. I pulled some cooked meat out of my pocket, wrapped in cloth. We wiped it
clean in the snow and ate while the horses ate.
“We should make camp before dark,” Luke said, looking around the
grassy area. “Just not here. How’s your leg doing?”
“Better each day.” I was looking around, too. “How about that
group of trees over there, by the cliff? It looks like the snow didn’t reach
into there.”
“Mighty dark looking. May be a cave.”
He took his rifle and walked over to the spot, then disappeared.
I waited for him to come out. When he didn’t, I led the horses
that way, hobbling along, using the crutch stick to keep the pressure off my
leg.
It wasn’t much of a crutch, just a stick with a fork to it, and
it hurt me under my arm where I had to put pressure. But I’d cut it the right
length and it was better than hopping. It was a cave, sure enough. It probably
would have gone unnoticed, except the dark mouth of the cave showed up against
the snow.
“Luke!” I called.
“Here! Wait!”
I waited until he came back out to the front, a pile of dry
tinder in his arms.
“I think this is where that bear came from. It really smells in
there. He had been sleeping on this wood. It can’t get any drier. We’ll make
camp here tonight and put our fire back around that corner. I think it will
stay hidden that way. Once the horses have eaten, we’ll bring them into the
front part.”
“It sounds good to me.”
“There are remains of old campfires back there, soot on the
ceiling, so we won’t be the first to use this.”
“I expect all the good spots have been found.”
He walked back around the corner, then returned without the
kindling.
“Watch the horses. I’m going back to gather more wood.”
It was a good spot to camp. We could only be attacked from one
side. It was a bad spot to camp, as we had no way of getting away if we were
attacked. We would have to fight our way out.
Luke had tied the horses, one on each end of the rope. If they
did start to run away, it would catch on something and stop them. I sat at the
entrance to the cave and watched the sides of the small grassy area to make
sure a predator, human or otherwise, left them alone.
After awhile Luke came outside, nodded to me, took the axe off
Pride’s pack, and started collecting branches to add to the fire.
He swung the axe like a true woodsman. Two cuts and he was
through anything small. No wasted hacking, no bouncing axe head to fly back and
cut him. He had sharpened the blade while we were in our snow camp, and it
sliced through those branches like butter. He carried several armloads in, then
came out, looking satisfied.
“Those are wet, but the dry wood should give us enough coals to
get it to burn. I’m going to cut up a log I found, and it will give us a
sustaining fire, enough so we can get the rest of the meat cooked. I’ll be out
here for awhile, so will watch the horses. Why don’t you get the fire started,
while I bring in the supplies and cut up the log?”
I nodded, got to my feet and started in. The floor was rough,
making me stumble.
“Forgot about that,” Luke said, and picked me up in his arms and
carried me across the rough cave and deeper inside. He had to feel his way,
kicking one foot around until he found a place to put it, then doing the same
with the other. If we had had a pine knot or any kind of torch, I could have
gone in myself.
You couldn’t see the stones and other obstructions going into
the cave, because the light was behind us. Once inside, you could look back and
see everything. I could see why it had taken him so long to go in the first
time.
I made sure I hung onto him, to help him, while not putting any
pressure on his wounded shoulder. He was strong, deep of chest and shoulder. No
wonder he handled that axe like it was a stick.
Luke put me down where he had gathered the first bit of wood.
You could see the area had been used before for campfires.
“There you go,” he said.
“Thanks. I’m glad I didn’t have to navigate that.”
I took my flint out of my pocket, struck it, and the fire caught
hold immediately. I never left my flint anywhere but in the poke in my pocket.
That and a small amount of dry kindling. But I had plenty of kindling here, and
once the fire was going, I took some of the excess kindling and put it in my
poke. Fine, dry wood sometimes made the difference between living or not, so I
dumped out the dry threads of bark I had in my poke, and replaced it with the
thin shavings I took from the dry wood.
Then I put my poke away.
Luke watched me get things going, then nodded and left.
I fed the fire a few sticks at a time, nursing it until it was
going strong. Then I added some of the small branches Luke had brought in.
The fire lit up the inside of the cave. I could see it extended
further back, which is where the bear must have slept.
I had things going pretty well when Luke came in carrying my
saddle and the blankets.
“Where do you want things?” he asked. I pointed to a spot and he
set things down, pulled out my pot and carried it back outside with him. He
brought back both his pot and mine heaped with snow, and I put them near the
fire to melt. He grabbed one of my sticks that was only burning on one end and
took it back into the dark outer cave with him. Then he brought in the rest of
the gear, laughing.
“Wished I had thought of that sooner. My shins are protesting.
Do you want anything else?”
“Just bring the meat bags closer.”
He did so.
“That’s all,” I said. He nodded and went back out to stay with
the horses until dark.
“Mahala!”
“Yes.”
“Bring another torch. I’m bringing the horses in all the way. I
want them to be able to see.”
I had found a particularly pitch-filled branch, and set it in
the fire until it lit. Then I carried it to the point where it lit the outer
cave.
Luke brought the horses in, one at a time, and they picked their
way carefully across the rock-strewn floor.
He led them to the rear of the cave, took the saddle blankets,
and rubbed each horse dry.
“It’s starting to rain outside,” he said. “Warming up. That
should get rid of the snow.”
He looked around. “I think we should try staying here a couple
of days. Get that meat dry and ready to take with us. Give your leg a chance to
heal. Let the horses graze. It will be harder to see the cave once the snow
melts.” He brought in my pine torch, walked into the deeper cave, then came
back and extinguished it.
“Go any further?”
“Yes, but it’s just a crack. I don’t think we could crawl up. We
couldn’t take the horses, that’s for sure.”
“Does the fire show from the outside?” I asked.
“Not right now. I’ll check when it gets full dark.”
We ate our fill of bear meat. I piled the raw meat onto the
coals as they formed and started drying some meat to take with us.
Luke put some of the smaller branches into a pile, making a bed,
then started making a second one.
“Just one bed,” I said.
He looked at me quizzically.
“We’ve already done it, and it works fine. We can worry about
propriety when we aren’t on the trail. I trust you to keep your hands to
yourself.”
He nodded. He had already seen my ankles and legs, parts we
women were supposed to keep covered or be branded “loose.” I was anything but
loose, but it was foolish to sleep cold when we had the two of us.
When Pa and I had planned this trip, he and I both knew that I
needed to dress like a boy, so that I would be able to ride a’straddle on the
horse. Otherwise I would be more of a hindrance than a help.
I had packed my dress when we left Missouri, and tucked my hair
up into my hat for the first few hundred miles until we got clear of people.
That dress had been on the pack horse we lost.
I’d have to get Luke to go into civilization first and buy me
one, so I could go in as a woman and not a hussy. People put so much weight on
appearances. I would have to be careful what it looked like when Luke and I
reached where we were going. Gossips loved to turn necessity into sin.
He would make some woman a fine husband, if he didn’t love that
gold pan more. He’d probably end up an old bachelor miner, broke and wandering
from one strike to another.
Then again, if his luck held, he could hit it rich before he
turned thirty.
“How old are you, Luke?” I asked as we arranged the blankets and
got ready to lay down.
“Twenty-three. You?”
“Seventeen. No, I think I’m eighteen now. I should’ve had a
birthday sometime last week.”
We got settled in, warm and snug, our rifles nearby and a stick
to poke up the fire with.
“You went to war?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Which side?”
“Does it matter?”
“No. I guess not.” No more than it mattered that we killed some
Indians and not others. If a man came at you trying to kill you, you defended
yourself.
“Right after the war, thieving gangs of outlaws rode through
Missouri, looting and killing. They came through our town, but the town folks
picked up their guns and killed the members of a couple of gangs. They rode
clear of our town after that, looking for people who wouldn’t fight back.
“Some people treated them as heros, but they were just murdering
skunks, bullies who used intimidation to get what they wanted. Regular folks,
after the war, disbanded and each went their separate ways. They weren’t out to
kill anyone, just putting their lives back in order.”
“My older brothers were on one side and me and my younger
brother on the other. I chose to fight for the Union, as I believed in my
country. But I could see their reason to fight against it, when it violated the
constitution.”
“The Union was trying to end slavery,” I said.
“They chose a bloody way to do it. It’s hard to legislate
morality. People are not going to change overnight just because one side won.”
“But the Union won.”
“It did. I believe God has a plan for this country, Mahala. Our
early founders believed that, too. Ma made us read a lot of their writings. Did
you know that the Indians who targeted Washington during the French and Indian
War, thought he was invincible? Their arrows couldn’t kill him. He wrote about
some things that happened which shouldn’t have happened. Decisions he made.
British decisions which turned in Washington’s favor. This country is blessed.
I wanted it to stay together.” He paused. “Who did you want to win?”
“I couldn’t tell. So I prayed for God to pick the victor. I
think He did.”
“You believe in God, too?” he said.
“Yes. And I don’t really believe in luck.”
“Why not?”
“Every situation almost, you can look at in two ways. One way
you were lucky my pa came. The other way you were unlucky the bear came in the
first place. It just depend on how you want to look at it.”
“I know one way I’m lucky.”
“What is that?” I asked him.
“I’m lucky to be cuddled next to a sweet smelling girl instead
of some buckskin-clad skunk who snores.”
I laughed.
“Or out here on the trail with no one at all,” he added.
“Traveling alone didn’t bother me when I first left home. Mark and John were
going to come with me, then they decided to stay behind when they found out I
was headed for the gold fields.”
“Well, without you I’m sure I’d have died on that trail. But you
make your own luck, Luke. It’s called being prepared.”
“Or looking at the right side of things?”
“Or working your angel overtime. There’s nothing like a little danger
to bring out the prayers.”
“Amen to that. I’ll watch for awhile.”
We took turns watching through the night, keeping the fire
going. Once when Luke first woke me I took off the drier meat and put on some
fresh to dry out. I wasn’t doing a perfect job of curing it, just getting it so
it wouldn’t spoil on us. I was cooking it, but gently, thin strips that
wouldn’t hold onto the moisture. The driest ones I packed in our saddlebags.
Pliable, not brittle.
We spent three days there, as the rain came down hard. The
horses didn’t mind getting wet, and we put them out on the grass, and they got
their bellies full. We ate bear meat and got our bellies full.
My leg got better. I got all the meat cooked and most of it dry.
I washed out our socks and laid them up to dry on the rocks, away from the
meat. The rest of our clothes dried on us.
We talked a lot, Luke and I, finding we had many things in
common. Everything except wanting gold. I told him the gold was in the ground,
and I wasn’t talking about rocks. I meant good soil that could grow good crops.
I almost hated to leave that cave. It was mighty comfortable,
with the logs burning. The smoke went up and out the crack in the back of the
cave.