“The decision has been made,” Reed said through tight lips. “We’ve been outvoted.”
“But you said it’s no more than half a mile more down the creekbed and we’re out of the canyon.”
Reed swung down from Glaucus and came forward a few steps. “Perhaps not even that.” His voice was lifeless and flat, his eyes showing the weariness they all felt.
“Then let’s cut our way through,” Milt said. “If we’re that close—”
Baylis Williams, who rarely said anything in councils such as this, surprised them all. “I’m not chopping one more bunch of willows or moving one more boulder,” he said bitterly. “I’ve had enough of that for a lifetime.”
“But it will kill the teams,” Peter exclaimed. He turned and pointed at the steep ridge that loomed high above them. “Look at that incline. You can’t take wagons over that.”
“We’ll hook up as many teams to each wagon as we need to,” Reed answered. “All of them, if need be.”
“They can’t do it, I tell you,” Peter countered. “They’re already near exhaustion after these past twelve days of coming through the mountains.”
James Reed swung around, his eyes blazing. “Are you deaf, Peter?” he roared. “I said we’re going over the top. If you can’t accept that, I’ll find someone else to drive.”
Peter would not have been more stunned if Reed had jerked out his pistol and fired it at him. He rocked back in astonishment. Milt Elliott’s mouth was open as he gaped at his employer. Williams was aghast. James Reed never lost his temper. Now his jaw was clenched and the veins along it stood out. His nostrils flared as his chest rose and fell. His eyes were like two black glowing points of fire, daring anyone to disagree with him. Margret Reed was as deeply shocked as any of them. “James—,” she started.
He whirled, swearing. “Woman! This is not your affair. I suggest you stick with things that are.”
Her face instantly drained of color. Then, as tears sprang to her eyes, she turned quickly and stepped back inside the wagon.
Reed glared at his three drivers. “Make up your mind, Peter. What will it be?”
“I . . .” Peter stammered. “You know I’ll do whatever you say, Mr. Reed. I was—” He stopped. “I’ll do whatever you say.”
The others nodded quickly as he swung on them.
“Then unhook the teams. We’ll take Uncle George’s wagons over first.” With that, he pulled on Glaucus’s reins and walked past them, ignoring the utter astonishment he left in his wake.
Peter stood quietly beside the two yoke of oxen for which he was responsible. They were now yoked ahead of George Donner’s own three yoke. Milt Elliott was yoking up two more to the front of Peter’s teams. Baylis Williams waited beyond Milt with one additional yoke beyond that. They had decided to take one of Donner’s supply wagons first. It was not fully loaded, and they had decided it would be a good test to see how the oxen fared. But eight yoke? This was madness!
Peter turned his head and looked at the path the scouts had chosen. The ridge rose steeply for about three hundred feet before it crested. What an unfortunate accident of nature! They had entered this canyon two days before and been working their way down by following the creek. This was the route that Lansford Hastings had shown James Reed some two weeks ago. Even though they were moving downhill now, it had been tough going through the underbrush, which was too thick for even a bear to go through. Then last night, when they finally could see that they were nearing the mouth of the canyon, they had rounded a bend in the creek and found this. Just where the canyon should have opened up onto the valley, a high ridge jutted out from the left canyon wall to dam the canyon’s mouth.
It was heartbreaking. They were so close to being out of the mountains. The valley was just over the ridge or, if they chose the other option, less than a mile farther downstream. It seemed like such an obvious choice, but Peter understood what had led the group to choose this route, even though he bitterly disagreed with the decision. The past twelve days had broken the spirit of the company. They had so exhausted themselves in cutting a road over the mountains, that now the thought of even one more half mile of hacking and chopping and shoveling was unbearable. They couldn’t—or wouldn’t—do any more. They would leave it to the animals instead.
If they had been a company the size of the one Hastings was leading, which had more than a hundred men and sixty wagons, it would not have been so desperately difficult. But the Donners had only twenty-seven able-bodied men and boys who were capable of the kind of work required. Two days into the mountains they had been joined by the Graves family. The Graveses—consisting of three men, one older boy, three adult women, and six younger children—were from Illinois. They had been with a larger company which had two men killed in a vicious attack by the Pawnees. At Fort Bridger they had been told that the Donners were not too far ahead of them and decided to push ahead and join with them. It was a welcome addition. That brought the company’s working force to thirty-one men and the number of wagons to twenty-two. But it still wasn’t enough for the task at hand.
The creek bottoms were a wild tangle of willow thickets, wild rose and service berry bushes, cottonwood, box elder, and alder trees. In most cases even a man and a horse couldn’t make their way through unimpeded. Therefore, there was no choice but to hack a road through it yard by man-killing yard. The sun beat down upon them, only slightly tempered by the higher elevations. Mosquitos swarmed thickly enough to form a shadow. They were under constant attack from large brown flies whose bite stung like that of a horsefly. They chopped and slashed; dragged brush and trees; attacked side hills or creek banks with shovels to make them passable for wagons. Their arms and faces were a mass of scratches and cuts. Their legs were scraped and bruised. Even those with the toughest of hands quickly raised huge blisters that had to be doctored every night. One day they worked from first light until dusk and barely made two miles. In another eight-mile stretch, they crossed a creek thirteen times, either digging down the banks or creating makeshift bridges with logs and brush. Going up the mountains required double teaming the wagons, and then they would have to lock the wheels and chain up the animals behind the wagons to take them down the other side. Twelve days and they had barely come thirty miles as the crow flies.
That was why the company voted to go up and over the ridge. It was criminal, a major mistake, in Peter’s mind, but it was also perfectly understandable. Yet it worried Peter to the point that he felt ill. It was not just the teams, though that made him a little sick as well. It was what was happening to the company. They had lost their heart, abandoned reason. They couldn’t see that today, but they would tomorrow.
Peter blew out his breath. When they left Fort Bridger they had estimated it would take them seven weeks to reach Sutter’s Fort in California. That required averaging a hundred miles a week, an ambitious schedule but not an impossible one. But here they were, three weeks into the seven, and they had barely come a hundred and twenty-five miles. It was the last week of August, and they still had six hundred miles to go!
He heard a footstep and turned. James Reed was coming toward him. Peter straightened. He suspected that his employer had been making peace with his wife. After tying Glaucus to the back of the wagon, Reed had immediately gone inside their commodious wagon and Peter had heard the soft murmur of voices.
Reed came up alongside Peter and stopped, watching Baylis Williams starting to hook up the last yoke of oxen. “Eight yoke,” he said softly and with open bitterness, “sixteen animals, and I’m still not sure it will be enough.”
Peter nodded. “This is one of the more lightly loaded wagons. I don’t think eight yoke will be enough to take yours up, Mr. Reed.”
“If we have to put on every team, we’ll do it.”
Peter nodded again, not about to contradict him anymore.
The silence was awkward and heavy for a moment; then Reed cleared his throat. “Peter, I want to apologize for what happened earlier. I—”
“No need,” Peter broke in quickly. “It is I who should apologize. It’s not my place to question the vote of the company or your orders, Mr. Reed.”
Reed went on quickly. “I tried to reason with the rest of the men, but they rode right over my protests.”
Peter waited, troubled by the despair and hurt he saw in Reed’s face.
“They’re saying it’s my fault, Peter.”
His head came up quickly. “What’s your fault, sir?”
Reed looked away. “Choosing to take this cutoff.”
“But,” Peter exclaimed, “they all voted to follow Mr. Hastings’s new route. You didn’t make them do that.”
There was a sad smile. “No, but I was such an enthusiastic supporter of the idea, they’re saying I convinced them against their will.”
“Balderdash, Mr. Reed. Those who didn’t want to take this way went with Mr. Boggs and company. No one forced anyone to come with you.”
“They’re also saying we should have taken Weber Canyon.”
“But . . .” Peter stopped, seeing that Reed wasn’t listening.
Reed rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands. “It would have been difficult, but I think we could have gone through Weber Canyon in four or five days.”
Peter didn’t know what to say to that. Reed’s despondency was nearly as alarming as his anger.
“It will be all right,” Peter said, not with a great deal of conviction. “It will be a hard pull up, but then we’ll be out of the mountains. We’ll rest the teams for a day or two, then be on with it. We’ll make much better time across the flatlands.”
Reed nodded absently, almost as if he hadn’t heard. “Well, the die is cast. We’ve been outvoted, Peter, and there’s nothing to do now but make the best of it.”
“Here, Peter.” Virginia Reed handed him the pewter cup filled with water. He lifted his head and blinked several times. She was standing in the sun, which was now low in the sky, and for a moment he wasn’t sure who she was. He squinted in order to clear the burning from where the sweat had run into his eyes. He swiped at his forehead with his bandanna, but it was already sopping wet and did little to relieve him. He took the cup and lifted it to his mouth. It was tepid. He drained it in three eager gulps. She filled it again. He drained it again. A third time she filled it and the third time he drank it as though he were a dying man. With the fourth one he removed his hat and dumped it over the top of his head.
“Thank you,” he breathed. He handed back the cup.
“Are you all right, Peter?” Virginia asked anxiously.
He peered at her. Had she noticed that his head was swimming with the heat and he was having troubling focusing his eyes? Had she seen the trembling in his legs? They had been up and down the ridge how many times now? six? eight? And then he remembered. There was only one wagon left—Mr. Reed’s family wagon—which meant they had made twenty-one trips up the ridge. No wonder his legs felt like butter left out in the sun. No wonder his lungs burned and his hands were raw inside his gloves. No wonder he was dizzy. He managed a crooked smile. “I’m fine, Virginia.”
“Just one more,” she said, touching his arm. “Then you can rest.”
He took a deep breath and let it out with a great
whoosh.
“Yeah,” he said. Unfortunately, that one more was the “pioneer palace car,” as Virginia had dubbed it. Reed’s family wagon was not much larger than a normal wagon, but with its two-layered design, its built-in stove, its side steps, and all of the other things which made it so comfortable, it was one of the heaviest. He looked around. Everywhere he saw men near the brink of collapse just as he was. They sat with their heads on their arms, breathing deeply. Three were laid out on the ground, hats over their eyes, snatching even a moment’s sleep. Others leaned heavily against the wagons. They let their wives and daughters wipe their heads with wet towels. They drank in desperation. They stared woodenly at nothing.
If the men were a sorry sight, to look at the teams was to view something tragic. It made Peter want to cry. Some of the young boys had brought buckets of water for them. They had to force the oxen’s noses into them in order to get them to drink. The animals stood with feet spread wide, swaying slightly, heads down to where their noses almost touched the ground. Even the lowing had stopped. They were too exhausted to protest what was being asked of them. Their withers were dark with sweat. Drool dripped from their mouths as their tongues lolled out and hung limply. Into Peter’s mind came the image of the great bull buffalo that James Reed had shot some weeks before. When the bull had reached a certain point, the legs could hold him no more and he collapsed in a heap. It looked to Peter as though several of the animals were at that point now, just waiting for their legs to buckle so that they could rest at last.
He walked over to the animals for which he was responsible. He moved among them, speaking softly, rubbing his hand beneath where the great yokes sat across their necks, scratching them behind the ears, patting them on the shoulder, all the while praising them for their magnificent effort.
There was a shout from below. At the edge of the hill James Reed and George Donner shouted something back. They turned. “All right, boys,” Reed shouted. “Let’s bring up the last one and then we can rest.”
Wincing at the stiffness in his body, Peter leaned down and picked up the chain. “One more time up the hill, boys. That’s all. You have my word on it.”
James Reed stepped back, made one last check of the line, then raised his hand. “On my mark.” He held it high for a moment, then dropped it quickly. “Go!”
“Ho, boys!” Peter shouted. “Go! Go!” He snapped the whip above their heads, making it split the air like a firecracker going off. They lunged into their yokes as one animal. Up and down the line of fourteen yoke of oxen the teamsters were shouting and whips were cracking.
“Push! Push!” George Donner shouted to the men on the wagon. They leaned into it, grunting and straining. Some grabbed at the spokes of the wheels and tried to pull them forward. Oxen bellowed. Hooves tore into the black dirt, already pulverized into soft loam by previous efforts. There was a creaking sound, and Peter saw that the wagon had begun to move.