The Sierra Nevada was a great mountain wall looming before them, often shrouded with dark clouds, showing brilliant white crowns when it was clear. It was mid-October, and neither the clouds nor the snow were encouraging. No one rode Glaucus now. Reed held her reins and she followed along, as painfully slow as the men. Now, two days after starting to climb, they were within an estimated five or six miles of the pass. The trail had become steeper and they plodded onward, heads down and too exhausted to speak.
Peter was thinking of Kathryn, focusing on the trail only enough to keep his feet moving forward one step at a time. That was no surprise. Kathryn was constantly on his mind of late. As usual, whenever he thought of her now, a great sense of gratitude welled up inside him. When he thought about what it would have meant to have her still with them—hacking their way across the Wasatch, stumbling through the hell of the Salt Desert, now with him gone on ahead—it made him shudder.
“Look!” James Reed leaped forward and dropped to one knee. He fumbled in the pine needles and dried grass. Then he held up his hand triumphantly.
Peter leaned forward, staring. It looked like he held a small pebble. Walt Herron moved over beside Reed. “What is it?”
“A bean!” He waved it back and forth like a flag.
“A bean?” Herron said stupidly.
“Yes. If there’s one, there may be others. It evidently dropped out of one of the wagons.”
Had they been able to see themselves, and had the circumstances been different, they might have laughed aloud. Three grown men moved slowly along the wagon track, scouring the ground with their eyes as though they were looking for gold. Each time they found a bean, there was a glad shout and great rejoicing.
They found seven in all, and then there were no more. Some careful wife had evidently seen the beans leaking out of the sack and fixed the problem. When it was evident that their “bounty” had ended, they solemnly divided them up. Herron—who was doing the worst on no food, or at least who made the most noise about it—got three. Peter and Mr. Reed each took two. They washed them down with water from the river, now a tumbling stream, then moved on again, more disheartened than ever.
Two hours later it was Peter who saw their next startling sight. “Wagons!” He virtually screamed it at his companions.
“Where?” Herron exclaimed.
“There. Through the trees.” Ahead of them about fifty or sixty yards, the wagon track took a sharp bend to the left. Beyond that, through the pine trees, they could see splashes of white and portions of wagon wheels.
“It is!” Reed cried. He raised his hand and began shouting. “Hey! Halloo the wagons!” It came out not much more than a hoarse croak.
They broke into a stumbling run, but as they came around the bend and saw the three wagons in full view, they slowed to a halt. There were no horses, no oxen, no life of any kind.
“They’re abandoned,” Peter exclaimed bitterly.
They stared for several seconds, the disappointment so sharp as to make them twist in pain. Then Reed started forward. “Maybe they left some food.”
They tore into the wagons like madmen. Whoever had decided that they couldn’t make it over the pass with these wagons had left considerable goods behind—books, cooking utensils, tools, toys, blankets, bolts of cloth. But to no one’s surprise, they found not one scrap of food—not a forgotten crust of bread, not a rusting tin of sardines, not a barrel that hadn’t been completely emptied before it was tossed aside.
After fifteen exhausting, bitterly disappointing minutes, they came back together, heads down, panting heavily. “Nothing!” Reed whispered. “Not so much as a whiff.”
Peter and Herron nodded, too weary to confirm that they had had no better success.
Suddenly Reed leaned forward. The other two raised their heads to see what he was staring at. To their surprise, he went to the second wagon. A bucket hung from the side. Peter had seen it earlier and checked it, but it was the bucket for the grease they used to lubricate the axles and the hubs. He had gone on, looking for better things. Reed took it off its hook and peered into it. There was a grunt, more of interest than of triumph. Curious, Peter moved over to see what he’d found. Herron stayed slumped on the wagon tongue.
“What is it?” Peter asked.
“Axle grease,” Reed said, wrinkling his nose. He had a wooden spatula and scooped up some of the dark brown mixture. Then suddenly he began to scrape in earnest, wiping the grease against the wagon wheel. “Look!” he cried again, holding up the bucket.
Peter leaned over, putting his face right next to it. He saw a white streak in the bottom in sharp contrast against the dark grease. Then the smell hit him. It was so awful that he recoiled as though he had seen a rattlesnake in the bucket.
“What?” Herron called. “What is it?”
“It’s tallow,” Reed said, holding the bucket away from his own face. “Probably hog tallow, judging from the smell. They didn’t mix it in very well when they made the grease.”
“And rancid as a dead carcass,” Peter said, backing up a step.
Herron leaped up, hollering something unintelligible. He came hobbling over and peered into the bucket. He pulled a face, but he didn’t pull away. “Sure it’s rancid,” he agreed, “but it’s food.”
“You can’t eat that,” Peter cried in disgust.
Herron whirled on him. “You got any other suggestions?”
Reed blanched. “Walt, that’s not edible.”
“Give me a bite.”
“Walt!”
“I’m not going to die on this mountain. Give me a bite. If we can keep going for just another couple of days, we can make it.” When Reed just stared at him as if he had finally gone mad, Herron slapped the bucket. “Give me a bite.”
Reluctantly, Reed took the spatula and scraped out a glob about the size of a walnut. Herron stared at it for a moment, took a deep breath, then opened his mouth. Gingerly, Reed held the spatula up to Herron’s mouth.
Herron gulped it down without chewing it. He nearly gagged for a moment, but then he swallowed hard and the impulse passed. “Another one,” he demanded.
Peter turned away. Even four or five feet away, the smell tied his stomach in knots.
He heard the spatula scrape the bucket. He looked around in time to see James Reed take a small bite of the stuff. Reed, however, made the mistake of biting down on it once and nearly threw it back up before he managed to swallow it.
“Give me another bite,” Herron said.
Reed was still struggling to keep his down, but he scraped up another small ball of the stuff. Herron gulped it down again without hesitation. “More!”
Reed shook his head. “No, Walt. Any more and it will kill you.”
Suddenly Reed doubled over and groaned in pain. The bucket and paddle dropped from his hand. He turned and ran, nearly smacking into one of the wagons, then stumbled on, groping his way like a blind man.
Peter started after him as the violent retching began. “Are you all right, Mr. Reed?”
“I can’t see,” came the strangled reply. He fell to his knees, retching violently now but waving Peter back. “Leave me be,” he gasped.
“Oh mercy!” Herron cried. “He’s dying. Don’t die on us, Mr. Reed. Don’t leave us.”
Thoroughly disgusted, Peter didn’t look at the other teamster. He hovered back a few feet as Reed, down on his hands and knees now, fought the dry heaves. “He’s not going to die,” Peter finally said in order to shut Herron up. “He’s just sicker than any man I’ve ever seen before.” He peered at Herron. “How are you feeling?”
Herron touched his stomach briefly. “A little queasy, but all right, I guess.”
Peter shook his head, amazed that the man was not laid out flat on the ground.
Finally, after what seemed like forever, James Reed slowly straightened. His face was white, his hands trembling. “I think we’d best get started,” he said in a voice not much louder than a whisper. “There’s a storm coming and we’ve got to get over the pass. Peter? Can you see to Glaucus for me for a while?”
It was late in the afternoon of October seventeenth when they went over Truckee Pass. It was snowing, and the new snow was falling on six or eight inches that were already on the ground. But once over the rugged, granite notch, they quickly dropped out of the snow again. By dark they were back in rain. The ground snow became patchy, then disappeared altogether. Crossing the pass had given them almost as much of a boost as if they had found food in the wagons. Part of it was that they were going downhill now. More important, they had crossed the last major barrier to their destination. They weren’t to civilization yet, but they could almost smell it, and that was a powerful stimulant. It was the twelfth day since leaving the company.
The next day they were following the wagon track, half stumbling, only partially aware of their surroundings. The track was snaking its way down a pine-covered ridge. The trees were thick and only gave occasional glimpses of other forested mountainsides. Then suddenly the ridge dropped more steeply and a grand vista of a narrow valley opened up below them.
Peter stopped, struck by the sudden beauty that lay before them. Reed and Herron lumbered on, too tired to care about scenery. Just as Peter started again, something caught his eye. At first he thought it was patches of snow in the trees by the riverbank, but they hadn’t been high enough for snow since early morning. He leaned forward, squinting. The patches came into focus, looking very much like half a dozen wagons or more. He rubbed at his eyes. Then he gasped. A tiny dark figure came out of the trees and passed directly in front of one of the wagons, silhouetted momentarily by the canvas cover.
“Mr. Reed,” Peter cried. It came out as a harsh, indistinguishable croak. He broke into a run, and catching up with his employer, he grabbed his arm. “Mr. Reed. Look! Wagons!”
Reed pulled up and Herron did as well. They stared in the direction he was pointing. “Abandoned?” Herron said, still not seeing them.
“No!” Peter exclaimed. “Look, there’s people. See the smoke? We found them!”
No one bothered to wonder who “them” was. Reed started jumping up and down, waving his arms. “Halloo the wagons!” Peter and Herron joined in, shouting at the top of their lungs. Below, no one stirred. The three men were so weak they were hardly making themselves heard twenty rods away.
“Come on,” Reed called to the others, breaking into a stumbling run. “We’ve found them. We’ve found them.”
“Them” turned out to be the party led by Samuel Young, the Young of the Harlan-Young Party that Lansford Hastings had guided across his cutoff. The rest had gone on, but Young decided to rest his teams at the head of the Bear River before going on to Sutter’s Fort. Young was stunned to learn that these three filthy, starving men had come from a whole company that was still somewhere back on the Truckee River.
To the further amazement of Reed, Herron, and Peter Ingalls, they had no sooner arrived in camp and been swarmed by the emigrants than a man stepped forward to greet them. It was Charles Stanton, the man who, with Bill McCutchen, had left the Donner Party more than a month before to ride for supplies.
Sam Young wouldn’t let Stanton talk to them until he had the three arrivals seated around the fire sipping strained beef broth, warning them about eating too much too fast. But once they were settled, Reed was too anxious to wait any longer. He turned to Stanton. “Where is McCutchen?”
“By the time we reached Sutter’s Fort, he took real sick. I had to leave him there.”
“You’re traveling alone?” Peter said in astonishment.
Stanton shook his head quickly, then pointed to where two Indians stood off by themselves. “Mr. Sutter lent me two of these Indian boys. Miwoks, they’re called. They’re two of Sutter’s
vaqueros,
or herders. They’re Christians and very good men.” He smiled at them and they lifted a hand briefly to acknowledge they had heard his compliment.
“But you have supplies?” Reed asked eagerly.
“Yes. Flour, sugar, some jerked beef, beans. Seven mules’ worth.”
“Thank the Lord,” Reed said, sagging back.
“Captain John Sutter furnished them,” Stanton said quietly. “I had nothing but your letter promising to pay him, but he accepted it.” Then his mouth turned down. “Seven mules’ worth? It will help but it won’t be nearly enough to sustain them.”
“It will be a start. They’ve got plenty of cattle to live on if need be, but the flour and other things are critical. We’re going for more.”
Stanton seemed surprised. “You’re not going back with me?”
A quick look passed between Peter and James Reed, and Peter knew that the banishment had instantly come to Reed’s mind. Then Reed turned to Stanton. “No. If we go with you, we’ll only consume more of your supplies. They’re going to need more, much more. That’s why we came ahead.”
And, Peter thought, when they returned with additional badly needed supplies, perhaps there would be some softening on the part of the Graves family and Lewis Keseberg and the others who so hated James Reed. If not, they would have mules and supplies and would simply take the Reed family and come on alone.
“I’ll be leaving at first light to start over the pass,” Stanton said, accepting that. Then he turned to Mr. Young. “Finding these people here was a blessing for me as well. It gave us a chance for a good night’s sleep without worrying about getting an arrow in our backs.”
“You have to hurry, Charles,” Reed urged him. “We had snow coming over the pass.”
“So did we,” Young said.
“I will,” the bachelor replied. “But you come on back as quickly as you can get Sutter to outfit you. He’s a good man. He’ll help you.”
On October eighteenth, the second detachment of the Mormon Battalion marched northward out of Santa Fe. There were eighty-six men, twenty women, and all of the remaining children, which were numbered somewhere around forty.
Tears were streaming down Rebecca’s cheeks. She reached up and caressed Josh’s face tenderly. “Dear Josh, how we will miss you!”
Josh was on the verge of tears too and could only nod. He had already said his good-byes to the little boys, and they had been ushered away by another family.
“We promised your mother that we would take care of you, Josh, and now look at us.”