Rebecca gave Kathryn a puzzled look.
Then the tent flap opened again and Nathan and Matthew stepped inside. Rebecca gasped. Kathryn jerked forward sharply enough that Nicole awoke with a start and started to cry.
“Surprise!” Derek said happily as he came in behind them.
Nathan held Leah on one leg and Benji on the other. Matthew had Nicole in his arms, and Christopher stood behind his uncles, one hand on each of their shoulders. Kathryn just kept shaking her head. “I can’t really believe I’m sitting here with you two again.”
“It has been a long time,” Matthew said. “How long since you and Peter left us in Nauvoo to go to Springfield?”
Her mouth pursed in thought. “Let’s see, we went to Springfield in January, so it’s been almost a year and half since we’ve seen any of you.”
“And it’s been almost a year for us,” Derek said. “You can imagine how surprised and pleased we were when we found that Kathryn was in Pueblo and then we ended up there too.”
“That was a great blessing for both of you,” Nathan said. “Any word at all from Peter, Kathryn?”
She shook her head, her eyes suddenly sad. “None.”
“I’ll bet he’s on his way east already,” Matthew said.
“Uncle Matthew?”
“What, Leah?”
“I love you.”
He bent over, pulling her close. “I love you too, Leah. You’ve grown up on me. You’re so big now.”
“Do you have a wagon, Uncle Nathan?” Benji asked. “We have our own wagon now.”
“Yes, we do. How would you like to bring your wagon and come with us?”
He nodded gravely, then looked at his father. “Can we do that, Papa?”
“We’ll have to see what President Young says, but I think that’s the plan.”
“There’s only one thing that could make all this better,” Rebecca said wistfully, “and that would be if Mother and the rest of the family were here as well.”
They all nodded at that.
“How long before we get to see Grandma?” Christopher asked.
“About a month,” Matthew answered. “Maybe a little longer.”
Derek stood. “Well, children, it’s way past your bedtime now.”
There was a cry of dismay from all three of them, but Derek was unmoved. “There’ll be time enough to visit tomorrow. President Young is going to talk to Mr. Bordeaux and see if he will rent his flatboat to us to bring the wagons across the river. Maybe we can all go down and watch.”
That pacified the children a little, and Leah and Benji slid down from Matthew’s lap.
“How about if we said our family prayer together right here?” Derek suggested. “I think we have a lot to thank the Lord for tonight, don’t you?”
Though the Mormons had traveled alone on the north side of the Platte and the North Platte Rivers, at Fort Laramie that was no longer an option. The terrain along the north of the river was too rough for wagons, and so even though it meant joining the numerous other companies on the Oregon Trail, there was no choice. The day after their arrival across from Fort Laramie, Brigham Young contracted with James Bordeaux, the trader who ran the post, for the use of his flatboat. For fifteen dollars they could ferry their entire company over. They began ferrying the first wagons across on the third of June, 1847.
That took almost two full days, but they made good use of the time while the wagons were brought over. A blacksmith shop was set up near the fort and coal purchased from Bordeaux to fire it. Many a wagon tire had been loosened by six hundred miles of prairie and these were set again. Tools and harnessing were also repaired. After much discussion it was determined to send someone for the Pueblo Saints. Rather than send Brother Crow or any of his people back again, Brigham picked four men, with Elder Amasa Lyman as their captain. They would go south and guide the nearly two hundred fifty Latter-day Saints who were still at Pueblo back up to Fort Laramie; then they would follow the Pioneer Company to their final destination. They left Fort Laramie headed south on the afternoon of June third.
At noon on the fourth day of June, the Pioneer Company lined up their wagons to the west of the fort. Brother Crow brought his little company and joined their five wagons to the seventy-two of the main company. With the four guides gone, the Pueblo group brought the total number of the company up to one hundred and sixty-one. For the three women of the company, the addition was most significant. Where before there had been only one woman to every fifty men, now that ratio dropped to about one woman to every seventeen men. And Harriet Young’s two children now had companions on the journey.
For the first few days, Kathryn became the unofficial guide for the company, being the only one who had been west of Fort Laramie. She pointed out where the Reeds and the Donners had camped the year before. On the fourth day out, she took Nathan, Matthew, Derek, and Rebecca up Beaver Creek and showed them the natural bridge where she and Peter had decided that she should not continue on further.
Two things were significantly different once they left Fort Laramie. The first was in the nature of the road. The prairie was about a hundred miles behind them now. The North Platte flowed from northwest to southeast, skirting the base of a substantial range of mountains known as the Black Hills. While this made for more timber, grass, water, and game, the deep, soft soil of the Great Plains gave way to flint-hard rock that chewed into the hooves of the oxen and wore out leather soles quickly.
The second change was that they now shared the trail. There were several other emigrant parties moving westward. Most of these were smaller parties—half a dozen to maybe twenty wagons—but several were from Missouri. When those emigrants learned that there were Mormons close by, tension filled the air. The rumors that the Mormons had come out to slaughter any emigrants, and especially Missourians, was still going up and down the river. With about a hundred and fifty men, the Mormons far outnumbered the Missourians, and the non-Mormons well knew it. But Brigham wisely kept apart from them as much as possible, and no clashes resulted.
That did not mean, however, that there wasn’t considerable competition for the best grazing and watering sites. Often one company would rise and leave without breakfast so as to get the jump on others.
William Clayton still took very seriously his charge to keep a careful record of the trail and continually left “signposts” for the following companies. One was a buffalo skull on which he left a notation of date and distance. On another board he noted the mileage and the date, then said, “All well.” On the twelfth of June, just before five o’clock in the afternoon, an advance group of the Pioneer Company reached what was known as “the last crossing of the Platte.” As they reached this significant point, William Clayton put up another of his trail markers: “Fort John, 124 miles. Winter Quarters, 655 and 1/4 miles.”
Matthew was driving. Kathryn and her baby were on the wagon seat beside him. Rebecca, who had been in the back feeding Leah, was now on her knees on a blanket, looking out from between them. Nathan, Derek, and the two boys were walking alongside. As they came over a slight elevation, they saw the river below them and the flats near the river dotted with white wagon tops. Matthew reined in. “There she is,” he said.
“What, Papa?” Benjamin cried. “What is it?”
“That’s the North Platte River again, son,” Derek said, hoisting him up on his shoulders. “That’s where we’re going to camp tonight. See those wagons off to the left? Those are the men who went ahead of us.”
“Look,” Nathan exclaimed, “there’s the cutter taking someone across.”
Even from a distance, they could easily spot the Revenue Cutter. The boat was midway across the river. Two men were rowing what looked like a full load of goods across to the far side.
Matthew turned and looked at a second group of wagons clustered in a circle about a quarter of a mile away from their group. “And those must be the Missouri companies.”
Derek frowned. “I hope there’s no trouble. We normally don’t have to camp quite that close to them.”
Their attention was drawn away from the river when Heber C. Kimball came riding toward them on his horse. When the Steeds stopped to look, several other wagons in the company also pulled up alongside of them. Others were now coming up behind them. Elder Kimball stopped a few yards away. He turned in his saddle to point. “Brethren, you can see where the advance group has made camp. It’s a good site. Brother Brigham wants us all to camp there.”
“Have we already started to ferry our stuff across?” Nathan asked. “I see the cutter’s already working.”
“No. Actually we are ferrying goods for the Missouri com-panies.”
“What?” Matthew exclaimed in surprise. There were also several other cries of dismay.
Heber turned again to look toward the river. The cutter was now reaching the far bank, and there were men there waiting who immediately began to unload it. “There’s no way to take a loaded wagon across that river. It’s too dangerous. So we carry across their loads; then they try to swim their wagons across. And without much success, I might add.”
“Why would we want to take their goods across?” Kathryn asked, still quite surprised by that news.
Heber gave a short laugh. “Because they’re paying one dollar and fifty cents a load for us to do it. Since yesterday we’ve already earned thirty-four dollars, to be paid in flour at two dollars fifty cents a hundred weight.”
Nathan gave a low whistle. “Two dollars fifty cents per hundred is Nauvoo prices. At Fort Laramie, flour was selling for ten dollars a hundred weight.”
“Exactly,” Heber said, smiling. “As Brother Woodruff said just before I left camp, ‘It is as much a miracle to see our supplies replenished in the midst of the Black Hills as it was for the Israelites to find manna in the wilderness.’ ” Then he sobered. “The Lord continues to bless us, and may his name be praised for that.”
“That’s wonderful,” Rebecca said, feeling a great surge of rejoicing. She and Kathryn had used the last of their flour three days before. If there was a new supply, that would be a great blessing to them.
“So far, we’ve taken in about thirteen hundred pounds of flour,” Heber went on, “along with some bacon and a few pounds of cornmeal. We’ll distribute that throughout the camp tomorrow.” Now the smile wreathed his whole face again. “I would say that the Revenue Cutter has earned its name. And more than that. When our men came up yesterday afternoon, they said the Missourians were friendly but wary. All of them had bowie knives and pistols in their belts to let us know they were prepared for any trouble. Then late yesterday afternoon one of their men decided to swim across the river by himself. The fool kept his clothes on, thinking he’d be all right. When he got about halfway across, he started floundering, screaming and yelling that he couldn’t make it. Fortunately our men had seen him and took out after him in the cutter. They got there just in time to save his life.”
“Oh, that’s good,” Christopher said, who had been listening to all this intently.
“More than good, son,” Heber said. “Next thing we knew, the knives and the pistols had disappeared and the Missourians invited some of our boys over for a hot supper prepared by their cooks. So the boat has paid rich dividends in other ways as well.”
He picked up the reins and prepared to go. “Well, come on down. We need to get camp set up as soon as possible. As you know, it’s the Sabbath tomorrow, but how much a day of rest it will be remains to be seen.”
Sunday or no Sunday, the challenge of getting across the river weighed heavily on Brigham Young’s mind. Well over a hundred yards wide, filled with limbs and logs big enough to stave in a horse, the North Platte during the spring runoff was enough to give anyone a chill just looking at it. This was not going to be a simple crossing, and yet every day spent here was one less day for growing crops when they reached their final destination. After the morning worship services, Brigham called for a meeting with the Twelve and the various captains. There was no debate about whether to unload the wagons and ferry their goods across on the Revenue Cutter. The question was how to get the wagons across even if they were empty. After what the Missourians had experienced, the Twelve were understandably nervous about trying to swim them across. Two courses of action were decided upon. First, a group of men would take wagons south the eight or ten miles to the mountains—the Black Hills—to cut long poles. These would be used to lash the wagons together in sets of twos or fours so that they would not roll over in the current. A second team, under Howard Egan’s direction, was given the assignment to start cutting timber along the river and build a raft large enough to carry a wagon. To no one’s surprise, Matthew was assigned to that team because of his carpentry skills. Derek and Nathan were asked to take their wagons with the group that went to cut poles. By afternoon of that day, both teams were hard at work fulfilling their assignments. The work of finding a way across the flood-swollen river had begun.
Chapter Notes
On the first day of June, 1847, advance scouts, including Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball, reached a spot across the North Platte River from Fort Laramie. As they were deciding on a campsite, they saw some men across the river approaching from the southwest, the direction of the fort. Brigham sent the Revenue Cutter across for them, where they discovered they were part of the Mississippi Saints who had wintered in Pueblo. They had been waiting at Fort Laramie for about two weeks by then.
Though the most common name for the trading post near the confluence of the North Platte and the Laramie Rivers was Fort Laramie, officially at this time it was named Fort John, presumably for John Sarpy, who had built it (see LeRoy R. Hafen and Francis Marion Young,
Fort Laramie and the Pageant of the West, 1834–1890
[1938; reprint, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984], p. 70). William Clayton consistently referred to it as Fort John; in other journals it is called Fort Laramie.
The Black Hills mentioned often in trail journals were not the current Black Hills of South Dakota. Rather, this was the name given to the range of mountains that parallel the North Platte River in what is now eastern Wyoming. Heavily forested, they appear black from a distance, which prob-ably generated the name.