“That’s Echo Canyon down there.”
“What?” Derek said.
“You’ll see. Down the canyon a ways, you get a really strange echoing sound. Some of our group called it Red Fork Canyon, but the Reed children and I called it Echo Canyon.”
The thunder rumbled again, sounding as if it were coming from a barrel. “We’d better get inside the wagon,” Rebecca said, “or we’ll all be eating in the rain. Derek, go find the boys.”
The thunderstorm rolled around them for almost twenty minutes, dumping a pretty heavy rain shower, but it quickly passed. Once it was gone, the Steeds bailed out of the wagon and they continued their preparations for supper. A few minutes later they saw the Apostles climbing down out of Elder Woodruff’s wagon. Immediately all talking in the camp stopped and every eye turned to the Apostles.
“Brethren and sisters,” Heber began in a loud voice, “as you know, President Young is still too sick to be moved. Albert Rockwood and others are also quite ill. But as you also know, today is July thirteenth. The growing season is already half gone. Every day we delay here is one day less that the seeds will have to mature before first frost. Therefore, President Young has recommended that we split the company.”
No one spoke, but several nodded.
“In council we have decided to send Elder Pratt forward with an advance company of twenty-three wagons and forty-two men. We’ll meet with the captains shortly and give them the names. We know from the report of Brother Peter Ingalls and Brother Brannan and from reports in the newspapers that Mr. James F. Reed took another route over the Wasatch Mountains that bypasses the hazards of Weber Canyon. Elder Pratt has been asked to go to the Weber River and try to find Reed’s route.”
Now many heads were bobbing up and down. This was a wise course of action.
“The rest of the company shall remain here, resting and recruiting their teams until we can bring President Young up to join you. Then we shall proceed together, following the trail that Elder Pratt’s company has scouted for us.” He stopped. “Any questions?”
“Is the advance company to go all the way to the Valley?” That was John Brown.
“For now we only want them to find Mr. Reed’s trail, if that is possible, and then we shall make further decisions at that point.”
He looked around. There were no more questions. “All right, you captains of tens, if we can meet with you, we’ll give you the names of those who are going. We want to move swiftly. We’d like the advance company to be on the road by three p.m.”
As the various captains started moving over toward where the other members of the Twelve were, Heber motioned to Orson Pratt to join him and then came over to the Steed wagon. “Peter?”
“Yes?”
“A matter of some debate in our council was whether to send you on with Brother Orson here. After some discussion we decided against it.”
“Oh?” He hadn’t expected that.
“We’ve already taken Nathan back with us. You have two women and four children. That’s a lot of responsibility to put on Derek alone. We’re going to send Brother Crow and his wife and children ahead so that not all the families are in one company. That means we think you need to stay with Derek.”
“All right.”
“What we’d like you to do is tell Elder Pratt all that you can about where that trail takes off to the south. Can you remember it that well?”
“I remember it as if it were yesterday,” Peter said softly. “Yes, I can tell you exactly where to look.”
There was no morning roll call and no guards mounted at Pueblo de Los Angeles on the sixteenth day of July, 1847. That alone said much about the fact that this was going to be a very unusual day. Along with the others, Private Josh Steed spent the day quietly in his tent, cleaning his weapon, polishing his boots (newly issued since they had arrived at Los Angeles), and collecting his gear.
At half past two, word circulated that they were to assemble in half an hour. When the courier had gone, Josh turned to Sergeant Luther T. Tuttle. “Do you think that will be it?”
Tuttle shrugged and got up off his cot. “Could be. This is the day, and the day is rapidly coming to an end.”
They lined up by companies. Company A took the front position. Company B, which had arrived from San Diego just the day before, started about three paces behind them. Then came Companies C, D, and E. They lined up in silence, no one speaking, everyone watching carefully. When all were finally in place, Lieutenant Andrew J. Smith stalked out of the nearest barracks. Lieutenant Smith was now an officer with General Kearny’s First Dragoons, but this was the same Lieutenant Smith who had taken over command of the battalion back on the Santa Fe Trail after Colonel James Allen had died. This was the same Lieutenant Smith who had worked in harmony with Doctor George Sanderson—“Doctor Death”—and wreaked so much havoc on the men with his martinet ways and his raging tempers. He despised the Mormons and was equally despised by them. The men made no secret of the fact that they considered Smith’s replacement by Colonel Cooke a direct answer to prayers.
The lieutenant looked a little ragged. The spit-and-polish West Pointer who had ridden out from Fort Leavenworth to take command was gone. The shoulders of his uniform were dusty, his boots were scuffed, his sword handle tarnished. He stalked out of the officers’ barracks and approached the assembled men. Without even a pause to formally acknowledge their presence, he started walking down the first row of them, scanning their faces. All were at attention and no one looked at him. Down the first row, up the second, down the third, up the fourth. He walked slowly, eyes glittering with malice, hands clasped firmly behind his back.
When he finished he walked just as slowly back to the front of Company A. For a moment Josh thought he was going to turn and walk away without uttering a single word, but then his head lifted. In a low voice he said, “You are discharged.” Then he spun on his heel and went back to his barracks.
For a moment the men just looked at each other. Finally Captain Hunt, the senior Mormon officer, stepped out of ranks. He looked a little confused.
“Isn’t anyone from the regular army going to speak to us, Cap’n?” someone called out.
“Evidently not. I guess we are now officially discharged.”
For some it seemed anticlimactic, but Josh didn’t care. As the companies began to fall out of line, he reached up and took off his hat. “
Ya-hoo!
” he shouted, and sent his hat sailing through the air. That did it. For the next two or three minutes, the three hundred seventeen remaining men of the Mormon Battalion went wild, cheering, laughing, clapping one another on the shoulders, and tossing their hats in the air. When they finally subsided, they picked up their equipment, went to the armory, and received their mustering out supply of twenty-one rounds of ammunition. Then, carrying the gear that was theirs to keep, they left the fort and marched to a new campsite three and a half miles up the San Pedro River. There they began making plans for heading east to find the rest of the Latter-day Saints.
No one at that moment knew where Brigham Young and the rest of the Mormons were, but that was all right. The members of the battalion were now free to go and find out for themselves.
As the wagons reached the point where Echo Canyon suddenly opened up on the Weber River, Peter stopped and looked back. The huge massifs of red stone were lined up like gigantic sentinels guarding the way.
Kathryn, riding on the wagon seat beside Derek, saw Peter turn and turned back as well. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” he murmured. “Spectacular.” Actually, he wasn’t thinking about the canyon very much; rather, he was remembering the day that he had taught Virginia and James Reed, Jr., and some of the Donner children how to hear their own echo. And with that, a sudden sadness had swept over him. Some of those Donner children were now dead.
“I loved it how the thunder boomed in the canyon this morning,” Christopher said, beaming happily as he too looked back. “It made me jump, but I liked it.”
Peter smiled, pleased that another child was here to remind him of better days. “I thought it was wonderful, too, Christopher,” he said. “Though the horses and the oxen don’t like it much.”
“Nathan! Peter!”
They turned. Elder Kimball was on his horse near the last few wagons where President Young was riding. Once the advance company had gone ahead under the direction of Elder Orson Pratt, the rest of them had waited two more days for Brigham to get well enough to move on. Finally he rejoined the main company, but the sick group traveled at the rear of the train so as to let the others soften the road as much as possible. The Steeds had dropped back so that Nathan could be there to help whenever he was needed.
“Coming,” Nathan called. He and Peter both turned and trotted back as Elder Kimball hollered at others as well.
Once they were assembled, he jumped right in. “Brethren, President Young is still not doing well. He had a bad night last night and this road is just pounding him to pieces. I don’t think he can endure traveling any farther. We’ve scouted out a suitable campsite about a mile ahead on the Weber. Instead of nooning here, we’ll go on that far, then stop and remain there for the Sabbath tomorrow.”
Heber was very sober. “This afternoon the Twelve and a few others are going to hold a special prayer for President Young and the others who are sick. We would appreciate it if all of you would unite your hearts in prayer in their behalf as well.”
“Any further word from the advance company?” Peter asked.
Elder Kimball shook his head. “Not since yesterday. We assume they’re moving forward with all dispatch.”
Peter nodded. At least Elder Pratt’s group had found the road the Donner Party had taken the year before. Porter Rockwell had ridden into camp the previous day while they were nooning to report that while the road was faint and mostly overgrown again, they had definitely found it.
“Brethren,” Heber concluded, “soon we enter the mountains again. The road will be very rough. The advance company is trying to prepare it as much as possible, but if President Young doesn’t get better, there is no way that we can start again. You can imagine how that makes him feel, so brethren, we need your faith and prayers in his behalf.”
When Nathan stepped out of his tent the next morning, Sunday, the first thought he had was that it had snowed. Snow on the eighteenth of July? With a closer look, however, he saw that it had just been a heavy frost that left the ground white. But even then it brought Jim Bridger to his mind. Perhaps the mountain man was right. Maybe there was frost every month of the year in these mountain valleys.
He saw movement out of the corner of his eye and turned his head. It was Heber C. Kimball and Willard Richards walking slowly along, deep in conversation. Nathan walked over to join them. “How’s President Young this morning?” he asked.
Willard Richards shook his head slowly. “Better, but still very ill.”
Heber nodded in confirmation. “We’re calling a meeting for ten a.m. this morning. Nathan, I’d like to build a small, temporary bowery in which to meet. Could you and Derek and Peter give me a hand?”
“Of course. I’ll get them right now.”
It turned out to be surprisingly effective. They picked a place opposite the wagons in a patch of shrubbery, then cut off the tops of the small trees and stuck them into the ground to form an enclosure that was shady and cool. With forty-three of their number ahead with the advance group, the rest of them fit comfortably into the enclosure. Heber opened the meeting with prayer, then immediately got to their purpose for meeting.
“Brethren and sisters, as you well know, sickness has invaded our camp, and several of our numbers are suffering. The Lord has not seen fit to spare our President from this affliction, and he suffers as greatly as any of the rest of us. This is the Sabbath day. I would like to suggest that instead of scattering off as you do on a normal day—some hunting, some fishing, and some climbing the mountains in exploration—we stay in camp in an attitude of fasting and prayer. I should like to propose that we meet together and exhort one another to faithfulness, asking the Lord to turn away the sickness which has come upon us, and especially that he would heal our beloved President Young.”
He stopped and looked around. Many were nodding their assent at that recommendation.
“Next,” he continued, “in consultation with the President, we would like to propose that tomorrow the whole camp move on. I doubt that President Young will be well enough to travel by then, so we will keep eight or ten wagons back with enough men to help care for our sick. The rest of you are to proceed over the mountains, following the trail of our brethren who have gone ahead. It shouldn’t be that far to the Salt Lake Valley. When you find a suitable place there, you will immediately set to work to plant potatoes, turnips, buckwheat, and other crops which will mature quickly. The season is well advanced and there is little time to spare. We cannot delay further or we will have no food to see us through the winter.”
Again he stopped and looked around. “All in favor of that proposal?” he asked after a moment. Every hand immediately rose.
“Good. We will meet again at two p.m. and will administer the sacrament to the camp. In the meantime, let us turn our hearts to God and petition him in our behalf.”
Chapter Notes
The details of the Mormon Battalion’s discharge by their old nemesis, Lieutenant Smith, are found in
MB,
pp. 159–60.
Pudding Rocks—or the Needles, as they are now called—are near the present-day Utah-Wyoming border just a few miles south of I-80. It was near there that President Young contracted mountain fever and became too ill to move on. There is no way to know for sure what disease or illness this was, but many speculate that it was what is now called Colorado Tick Fever, a disease transmitted by ticks, which are common in the sage- and oak-covered mountains of Wyoming and Utah (see Jay A. Aldous and Paul S. Nicholes, “What Is Mountain Fever?”
Overland Journal
15 [Spring 1997]: 18–23).