From E.S. Patterson Interview, University of California Local History Archival Project 1932:

“The others followed ours, as they were ready. It was a rough ride, you have no idea, but we were so glad to be moving again, and to have Pa with us at last. I think sometimes it set Ma off a little, as she had become so used to being in authority, but Pa was so very kind and good-humored, and on the second day, as we were moving down below the snow, we heard someone calling…”

It contented John enormously, to have all of the worry and some of the guilt off his back, to be able to move along so brisk, to see Sarah and Isabella and the other women revive from their sad condition, like wilted flowers returned to a vase of fresh water. “It is amusing to see,” John wrote in his diary, “how tenderly the men urge them to eat and compete to offer them such delicacies as we brought with us, being so distressed at the conditions we found in the winter camp, where we had left them with such high hopes of their safety and security. We brought eggs with us, and sugar and such other rare delicacies. I had much work to do, at the outset, to prevent some of the children from gorging themselves.”

Eddie, of course, with his unerring tendency to run straight at any available and inviting hazard, managed to make himself quite spectacularly sick from overeating on that first night.

Called out of his bedroll in the middle of the night, John had administered aid (warmed milk and a mild dose of laudanum) and counseled Eddie’s somewhat distraught father. Old Hitchcock was much more sanguine, being by this time more accustomed to the hazards of Eddie.

“Well, he never yet managed to kill himself, all this long way, with all the chances he had. The young imp has a guardian spirit.”

“A battalion of them, I rather think,” Samuel Patterson sighed, “working overtime. No wonder that Isabella’s hair is almost entirely grey.”

“Fortune favors the bold,” John yawned, “and Eddie has enough boldness to sell shares. He shall sleep sound, and we’ll move on in the morning. Eddie’s misadventures have never adversely affected his own self for long, only the rest of us.”

“Funny, how that works out,” Samuel Patterson remarked, wearily. “Do you have sons, Doctor Townsend?”

“Only Moses.” John sighed deeply. All around the two of them were sleeping people in their rolls of blankets, and he confessed after a moment, “We still do not know if he lives, yet. And I have no idea of what I shall say to my wife.”

“I am sorry to hear that.” Samuel sounded regretful, as sympathetic as he had been the first time they met.

“Dennis Martin went to look for him. He was at the camp three days ago, so says Patrick, but he would have had to have gone higher into the mountains, over the gap where we brought the wagons, and then walk ten or fifteen miles farther.”

It was the middle of the night, and John was tired, and at such times it was hard not to think of Moses and what might have happened. It was difficult not to see him in the mind’s eye, fallen ill in the white wilderness by the ice-water lake below the pass they had crossed with such labor. The thought of Moses dying alone and abandoned by all his family and friends, like poor Scott in the tale that Hitchcock had told, back at their camp by the bluffs on the Platte, brought forth such grief and regret. Those thoughts tore at him as savagely as an animal with razor-sharp claws, but only in the middle of the night or in times of such weariness, did this vision rise to torment him. Most other times, he was able to keep that cruel imagining at bay.

“He must be a dear friend, to risk so much on your behalf,” Samuel was saying, and John wrenched his attention back to that present, talking with Isabella’s husband, while Eddie slept the sleep of the drugged.

Possibly the only time that one might relax in young Eddie’s presence, thought John with a bit of wry laughter, and he answered, “No, Dennis would be more Moses’s friend than mine… but still, we ventured so much together in each other’s company. I think we became much more than friends. We were comrades in adventure and adversity. We looked to each other, in good times and bad, and were all that we had, all alone…so we look after each other still. It came to be a bit of habit.”

“So it is in the mule trains,” Samuel said, wryly. ”You look to and depend on each other in hard times, regardless. I think…” and he looked down at Eddie, “I owe you a very great debt, Doctor…for Isabella and the children; for bringing them all safely over the trail. I’ll probably never be able to repay entirely, but be assured that we shall be at your back, any time you need anything at all, here in California.”

“You’re considerably welcome, Patterson…except for damn near letting them starve, a little bit short of safety,” John said, wearily.

“Not your doing,” Samuel answered warmly. “We all had a part in deciding to wait, not yourself alone. They managed, and we were just in time, that’s what I’d rather consider. Get some sleep yourself, Doctor… we always feel lowest in the middle of the night. I’ll stay and watch Eddie awhile.”

“No, I don’t think I can sleep now,” John answered. “It’s nearly dawn anyway.” So they sat together under the wheeling stars and talked idly of California and the rich valley where Patterson had his rancho, of such crops and orchards that could be grown, and the sturdy, thick walled house of unbaked mud brick to which Patterson had added a second storey with a wooden verandah all the way around, of books and the education of children.

“We soon must think of starting a school,” Samuel said warmly. “There are more and more Americans, every year…especially in Yerba Buena. Until just the last years, they were only men, trappers, and deserting sailors from off the ships…and merchants and the like; but now with families, it changes. And do you know something else?” Patterson was looking at him, in the manner of a man who has just thought of something new. “I do believe you will be the only qualified doctor in Alta California.”

“Good heavens!” John was appalled. “Surely not! There must be others with medical training, somewhere….”

“Well, there are those with skills, like my wife…and there are a few who are self-taught, like Mr. Marsh, and some of the mission fathers… they minister as best they can. But save for when a ship with a regular surgeon comes to port…you’ll be a busy man in the years to come. You’ll have all the doctoring you can do.”

They moved in haste the next morning, for behind them, clouds pressed down over the mountains at their back. The jaws of late winter’s trap were closing again, but this time they looked to have a good chance of escape.

John did the rounds of his patients as they moved and was gratified to find Eddie demanding food, Isabella strong enough to sit alone in a saddle, although not for long, and Sarah able to sit up in the litter without becoming dizzy. Allen was with her, and it seemed that there was no animosity between them, now. Allen brought her food, and sat and walked with her, and John hoped that perhaps they had been reconciled.

He reported on his patients to Stephens, riding point with Old Greenwood. Both of them looked pleased, although Greenwood looked over his shoulder and said, “It’s in the nick of time, Cap’n. We’ll be well below the snow line tonight, less’n that is a worse storm than anything we’ve yet seen…hold on….”  He wheeled his pony. Back up the hill behind them, all hoofprints and mud, marked with broken branches in the wake of their passage, someone shouted.

“Stop the train,” Stephens ordered, tersely. Along the line of march, drovers shouted to their animals, and women called out, wanting to know what was happening. Old Patrick Martin was shouting and pointing up the hill.

Two men bearing packs on their backs were running clumsily downhill through the trees where they had just come, slipping and sliding in the thin patches of snow, and the mud between them.

“’Tis Dennis!” Old Patrick shouted, “and I b’lieve that’s your lad with him, Doctor!” A crackle of excitement ran along the line like ball-lightning.

John’s heart lifted in a mighty surge of joy. Without a second thought, he spurred Ugly Gray and sent him lunging up the hill toward the scattering of men and women around the two; yes, it was Dennis, and the other was Moses, alive and fit, but as ragged as a scarecrow. They were at the center of a fast-gathering group He leaped out of Grey’s saddle as Moses cried, “Doctor John… I thought never to see you again!”

“So did I, lad, so did I!” He embraced Moses; the lad was all bone, and his hair came practically to his shoulders, like a wild man, but his eyes were as lively and blue as ever, although in a face worn down to skeletal gauntness. Moses returned the embrace, for a moment seeming almost frantic, a child of Eddie’s age, but then he let go and stood back a little, composing himself again as John looked searchingly at him.

“We feared to have lost you, Mose.”

“Came close, once or twice, Doctor John,” Moses answered, jauntily. “Dennis says that he promised Liz that he would come back to look for me, and we’ve spent two days trying to catch up and outrun the storm.”

“And it’s coming on fast,” Dennis hitched up his pack again, “so I suggest that we keep on moving and tell tales at the campfire tonight.”
“Come along, Mose, he’s right—we should keep moving.” John waved to Captain Stephens, and shouted, “Move on, then; we’re coming down…it is Moses and Dennis, all right.”

Stephens waved to the drovers, whose animals plodded forward again, wading through snow that barely reached their hocks. Dennis ran, whooping like a wild Indian, toward the mules that his brother led, where his father waited to embrace him joyfully. He was wrestling the pack off his own back, tossing it onto the top of the mule’s burden, and John said, “I should take yours, boy.”

“Oh there isn’t much in it, Dr. John, just some blankets and some of Dennis’s supplies. And I am so relieved to be back with you all, I could carry it easily were it twice as heavy.”

“Nonetheless…tie it behind the saddle…and tell me what happened after Allen and Joseph left you.”

Moses slipped his shoulders out of the straps, doing as John asked, and he said, “You can’t blame them, Doctor John. You can’t, knowing the qualities of them both. There wasn’t enough food for one of them to have stayed with me. They knew it and I knew it, and they both said goodbye so sadly. I never held any blame to them. There was nothing any of us could do about it.”

They walked on, leading Ugly Grey between them, alongside the pack train, from which Mary Miller and the Murphy women called their welcome to Moses and expressed their joy and happiness to see him again, alive and reunited with the company. Old Martin Murphy slapped his back, heartily, saying, “Well done, lad, well done indeed!” and Samuel Patterson said quietly, “We must indeed rejoice for you, Doctor John. What once was lost has now been found.”

Joseph Foster seemed deeply moved, unable to speak for some moments. He embraced Moses silently and then stepped back a little, to shake him by the shoulders and say, “You young scamp. We thought we had left you for dead, and here you turn up again, fit as a fiddle. I see very well that you spent the winter living off the fat of the land, with never any thought for the rest of us, and all the while we’ve been riding for Captain Sutter all over this country….”

His very emotions choked his words, then, and Moses put his own hands on Joseph’s arms and answered, “Truly, Joe, you’d no cause for worry. I made it fine down the mountain, once you and Allen had left. I had only the loneliness to fear, and not knowing anything of how you all were faring.”

And Allen Montgomery jubilantly thumped Moses on the shoulders and said, “Mose, Mose, if there is ever a person I was more glad to see in this world…. Perhaps your sister will speak to me now, when she knows that you are safe!”

“Liz?” Moses looked abashed, “She cannot be angry with you, Allen. It was not your fault. It was my doing, to go back when I could not carry on if it meant endangering you and Joe.”

“Nonetheless, Mrs. Elizabeth blames me with particular vehemence for abandoning you in the mountains,” Allen answered, wryly. “We have not said more than half a dozen words to each other since we came down the mountains, most of them being ‘Good morning’, or ‘Good Evening’.”

“Ne’er mind, Allen. I shall fix it with Liz,” Moses promised, and Allen shrugged and said, “Kindly said, Mose, kindly said…but it’ll be of no moment, repairing my standing in your sister’s parlor. Even should Mrs. Elizabeth forgive me, it may make no difference in the long run.”

Allen spoke, with weary resignation, and John looked at him sharply, remembering Sarah’s talk of the two of them separating. Was Allen still set on that course, laying aside the bonds of friendship as well as those of matrimony? But Moses answered with cheerful determination, “I shall talk to her, Allen. You and Doctor John have been our friends for years. She cannot go on holding you responsible, not when I am safe and well and we are all arrived in California at last.”

They caught up to Stephens and Old Greenwood, who seemed just as cheered, though rather more restrained in expressing it. “So what did you learn, from a whole winter in the mountains?” Old Greenwood asked, and Moses thought for a moment before answering, “There is no way on earth to cook a coyote and make it edible.”

Both Stephens and Greenwood chuckled, and Moses added, “But fox is very, very good. I should thank you for the use of the traps you left, Captain Stephens…there was no result in hunting, although I did shoot a crow once. But I used the traps to good effect.”

“So I’d always found,” Greenwood remarked, in satisfaction, and Stephens asked, “How did the crow taste?”

“I couldn’t make up my mind which I liked better…crow or coyote.” Mose looked thoughtful, for a long moment. “Through my efforts, I always had enough, but I could never be sure of a continuing supply. I always feared that the supply of foxes would run out…and I worried endlessly about all of you. Especially after the storms began, and the cabin was buried to the roof.”

“We feared the worst when Joseph and Allen said they’d had to leave you.” John said. “You will have to talk very convincingly to your sister before she will look kindly on either of them.”

“Well, it did seem like the worst,” Moses answered. “But you know, it was very odd, as soon as they were gone, I began to be very cheerful and thought that, well I may work out something. So I got up and picked up my blankets and the rifle, and thought about going back to the cabin. It had frozen hard during the night, and with the crust on top of the snow, I didn’t need to use the snowshoes; which was good, since I was still exhausted from the day before. But I was still so tired when I gained the cabin that I couldn’t step over the sill. I had to reach down and lift up my knees one at a time to step over it. I think I slept all the night and most of the next day. And when I went to try and hunt, all I saw were tracks. Lots of them, but never a sight of anything more than that, and I was about sick with disappointment and anxiety when I came back to the cabin.”

“When I went to put my rifle in the corner, that’s when I saw the pile of Captain Stephens’s traps, and I thought; well, if I can’t hunt them, maybe I can trap them. So I set them out that evening, baited with some scraps from the two oxen left to us, and in the morning I had a coyote in one of them.” Moses made a face. “Well, that’s when I found out about how coyotes taste. No matter how hungry I got, it just didn’t set well. Three days after that, I had a fox. And it was delicious. Or I thought it was delicious, compared to coyote, and could have eaten it all at once. I made it last two days. I seemed to trap one every couple of days, and now and again another coyote.”

“I hung the coyotes up as a reserve, from the cabin eave, lest I ever run out of foxes. I think I finally had eleven but never ran low enough to be tempted with a dish of jugged coyote again. I had plenty of salt and never used it, no bread and didn’t miss it. I did have enough coffee for one cup. I saved it for Christmas Day.”

“You look to have endured such hardships very well,” John remarked in approval, and Moses’s bright cheeriness wavered.

“I can’t really describe how miserable, I was, Doctor John.”

Suddenly Moses looked about as woebegone as Eddie after one of his escapades, and very much the same age. “I confess I was very low in spirits. It was very wearying to be alone in that place, thinking upon you all, and worrying that you might be in a worse condition. It was also burdensome to worry about where my next meal might be coming from, or even if I would even have any sort of meal at all. I consoled myself with your books. They were of great comfort.”

“So, they would be,” Greenwood said, with enormous compassion. “So they are. I read all through Herodotus’ Histories, one long winter. I never felt myself alone, with a volume such as that.”

“I’d pile up pine knots on the fire and read aloud to myself for half the night, just to hear the sound of a human voice and pass the time….” His voice wavered a bit, although his expression was rigidly controlled.

“It seemed after a time that I had been there forever, that the snow would never leave the ground. When I first saw Dennis coming down the mountain, I thought it was a figment of my imagining. And then I thought he was an Indian…I am still half-afraid that I have dreamed all this, and I will wake up back in the mountains….”

“No, Mose, it is all real. If it is not, then all the rest of us are dreaming as well. Come and tell me when you are most convinced you are dreaming, and I will box your ears, or shake your shoulders or something like that.” John looked at him very closely; he did not like the way Moses’s mood swung so abruptly between ebullient and bleak. But he was young, and resilient, and would recover.

“I wish we had burned that cabin, though.” Moses’s shoulders moved as though he shuddered. “I thought of it sometimes as a prison.”

“No, someone may have need of it, someday.” John replied.

After a long silence, Moses said, “You were right, though, Dr. John.”

“About what?”

“Well, practically everything… but Lord Chesterfield’s letters, most especially. They were very comforting, in an odd way. I could almost imagine you, or Mr. Murphy giving me such wise advice, sometimes. Although…” Moses thought for a moment, “he was dreadfully cynical, wasn’t he? About other people, I mean.”

“We must live in the world as it is,” John answered, “and make of it what we can…and look there, Mose. There is the world we will live in, now.”

They had come around a bend in the river, where they could look out now, and see the hills falling away below them, gentler hills, and lightly wooded, and the green valley beyond, the hazy afternoon sunshine slipping between clouds and filling it with golden light. Moses looked, with his face alight again, and said, “It looks like a park, as far as the eye can see.”

“Aye, so,” Greenwood sighed. “Too soft for my liking… but nice enough to visit for a while. I prefer the mountains.”

“It’s a golden land,” Stephens said. “Why would you not stay for good?”

“Itchy feet, Captain. The boys and I will stay, but we’ll be heading east again soon…hire on with another party at Fort Hall, or Fort Laramie. Knowing the trail for sure, and Old Truckee’s way over the mountains now, that’ll make us worth our hire.”

“You’d have my highest recommendation,” John said, honestly. “I’d be happy to write out an affidavit for you, at the very least.”

“What are we going to do, now that we are here, Doctor John?” Moses asked.

“Go to Sutter’s fort and deliver you to your sister, first. Allen and I, and Foster, we’ll need to come back in a few months to retrieve our wagons and goods. Yerba Buena is where there is what little commerce there is, although I like what Patterson tells me of San Jose. What about you, Stephens? Where are you going to settle?”

“Hadn’t rightly thought on that, Doc.” Stephens looked at the vista spread out before them. “But I think I’ll know it when I see it.”

From Dr. Townsend’s Diary:

“Fifth of March, 1845. This day arrived with the remainder of our party, delivered from the mountains to Sutter’s Fort. We were reunited with much joy. My dearest lavished much fond attention upon Moses, to his very great embarrassment. But he seems to have steadied by his experience in the mountains, and sobered and responsible in temperament. In looking through these pages, it is brought to my mind that we departed upon this road a week short of one year ago. I am much given to marvel, for we seem to have lived many years, encompassed in the space of those tumultuous twelve months just past.”

From E.S. Patterson Interview, University of California Local History Archival Project 1932:

“Pa and Paw-Paw took us to his rancho, a few weeks later, when Ma was quite recovered. Pa had thought to hire a carreta, one of those carts that they commonly used in California, to transport us all, but Ma saw them being used at Captain Sutter’s and put her foot down, saying she would not be able to bear the screeching of it, or one of those great clumsy wheels going over a rut in the road with a great jolt, so we went on horseback with a great train of mules afterward, as was the custom then.

Pa’s rancho was a little west of San Jose, close by where Mountain View is, today. He had been granted a tract and bought a little more land adjacent with a house on it. He improved the house, and built on a little house for Paw-Paw to stay in where he pleased. In the summer they went back with Captain Stephens and Doctor Townsend to bring out all the wagons we had left in the mountains, but all the goods we left in them, they was stolen by Indians. All but the guns and Dr. Townsend’s surgical kit, which they feared touching. Pa and us, we kept a wheel from our wagon as a relic; hung it up in the hallway of the house for years.

Pa had talked so much to the others about the Santa Clara valley and Yerba Buena  that the Murphys and the Millers all set up thereabouts. They all did right well, all but Bernard. He was killed in a steamship explosion in ’53. The rest of them got on. When Young Martin and Mary-Bee celebrated their wedding anniversary in…oh, round about ’81 it was, the entire town closed down for the party. They ran in special trains for guests. He died one of the richest men in California, never foreclosed on a loan, and never did learn to write his name proper.

Young Johnny Murphy, he eloped with Miss Reed, that came over with the Donners and the Reeds, two years after our party. You’d heard plenty about them, I think! Such a scandal there was, he being Catholic and her just a bit of a girl then, both families were fit to be tied! Captain Stephens, he was there for a good few years, but he went strange in old age; moved to Bakersfield, pretty near became a hermit.

Doctor Townsend, he took his family to Yerba Buena for a while, but he eventually settled down in San Jose, too. The cholera epidemic in ’50 took them both. Tending the sick, they were; first him, then her. We all grieved something terrible. They left a little boy, two years old. Young Mose raised him, after that. In a way, it was good to have so many friends from the trail settle close by, people you knew the qualities of.  Pa and Ma lived there until they died; they always said after that, they had no more interest in moving around.

Mention of the Doctor’s boy Moses minds me of how he spent that winter all alone in the mountains, in that little cabin he and Joe Foster and Allen Montgomery built. Two year later, some of the Donner-Reed folk took shelter in it. Them poor folks, I get the cold shivers still, thinking on how it was, trapped in the snow and waiting for help. My, I tell you we were so glad to come down from those mountains!

My brothers though, they got the gold fever in ’48. Oliver and Johnny got over it pretty fast; they did get lucky, but like the Murphy boys, they figured after a bit there was more money to be made from the gold miners than there was to mining it yourself. Samuel, though…he got the gold fever bad and never recovered. He took up mining claims all up and down the foothills, went to Virginia City later on, prospecting for silver, headed up to the Yukon when they hit pay dirt there. He was killed in a fight in a bar in Dawson in ‘98, so we were told afterward. You’d have thought he’d have been old enough to know better, but he was too much like Paw-Paw, I guess. Ma and Pa were long gone by then, and it had been so long since we seen him, it didn’t ever seem quite real. I’ve imagined for years that he’s still out there somewhere, working some little claim and telling yarns like Paw-Paw used to do. Now, if you had only took your recording machine, and have Paw-Paw and Samuel tell of their lives into it, you would have had the whole Wild West in a nutshell.

You know, in ’04, my wife had the thought that we should go back east to the World’s Fair in St. Louis. First time in sixty years I had felt any urge to go back there. I went down to Mexico a couple of times, went to China and the Islands, hunting for plants, but never felt the need to go back east again. Like Ma and Pa, I didn’t feel it necessary once I’d got to where I wanted to be. But the wife talked me into it, on account of my sister Sadie’s husband having just died, and we thought Sadie might welcome a distraction. So we brought her with us, and my oldest son and his wife, and his children. My son worked for the railroad, and he had the use of a parlor car. Oh my, that was that the way to travel then!

We met the train in Sacramento, where I’d been in and out of all the time, no great changes to speak of. All of them had happened after the Gold Rush and the great fire, when I’d been barely grown. Sutter’s fortress had fallen down long since, and his grand house had been a stable for years, and all along the river, that had been open meadows and marshes the first time I had seen it, were built up: warehouses, and businesses and rooming houses and all.

We looked out the parlor car windows, for the railway followed the river, pretty much… and that was the same road we had come down, all those years before, when it was wild and empty land, with nothing a couple of small ranches and Captain Sutter’s fort. There was a fair sprinkling of little towns now, some of which had been pretty roaring places during the Rush, but in between them, the mountains looked just as they had done when it took us weeks to cross over, instead of just a day.

Pretty soon, we were going through the snow sheds approaching the top of the pass, but there were places where they’d left windows, so we could look out. The train went pretty slow, too. It’s a steep grade, as any of the Murphys or Captain Stephens would have testified.

My son had told the engineers of how Sadie and I had come over the pass in the Earlies, so they very kindly stopped at the top of the pass for us to get out and look down to the east and the west. So help me, I could recognize the valley, and the lake where we had left some of the wagons, from above. All the mountains around, I recalled them exactly as they were. But of the place where we watched those who were to stay, walking down to their little cabin, and of the little gap where we had led up the cattle one by one, and the ledge where the men dragged the wagons over…not a thing.

It grieved me, for if I was sure of anything, it would be of recognizing that. My son said likely that when they had built the rail-bed, it all had been blasted away, or buried deep. I asked Sadie if she saw aught familiar and she shook her head and said, sadly “No, Eddie, I barely remember anything. I was little more than a baby. I remember feelings, and being cold sometimes, and sitting in someone’s lap and watching the snow fall, but little of events and places. There’s only one thing I really remember clear.”

“What is that, Sadie-girl?” I said, and she looked out at the valley with the little quick-silver colored lake in the middle of it, and she said, “Standing on a hillside, with nothing but green grass all around, and the wind rippling through it. The grass comes up to my waist, and it’s full of flowers. There are butterflies and grasshoppers flying up out of the grass ahead of us. Someone on either side of me has my hands, and we are running through the grass, and laughing; the wagons are coming over the top of the hill opposite, and the white tops of them are shaking like sails in the wind.”

“That’s the clearest thing you can remember, Sadie-girl?” I said, and she nodded, and I said to her, “And a grand memory it is to have, if out of all of it that is the only one you have.”

Ah, well. She enjoyed the fair. We all did. But it bothered me to look out of the train and see a creek-bed out of the window, that we went over in a minute or two, and see wagon-ruts a little farther down and know it might have taken us half the day to dig out the bank and double-team the wagons over. Just felt that it was all too easy. But they tell me now that you can fly from St. Louis to Los Angeles…hah! You might be able to get there in a day, but it’ll never be the experience it was, back in the Earlies…is that enough for your project then? Well, thank you very much… Miss Birdie, was it? My pleasure.

THE END

From E.S. Patterson Interview, University of California Local History Archival Project 1932:

“The Murphys, they had some little bits of meat and flour. James Miller, he managed to shoot a fox, once. It started to get warmer, seemed like, and there weren’t any storms. Ma and Johnnie fetched down a hide off the roof, and they scraped off the hair, cut it into strips, and boiled it until it dissolved, and that’s what we had to eat toward the end. Ever eaten gruel made of boiled hides? Tastes a little of beef, mostly like glue, but Ma said we had to eat it, nasty as it was, to keep up our strength.

Mrs. Montgomery, she couldn’t bear to eat the boiled hides. She took to her bed after she fainted clean away one morning going out to the privy. Mr. Martin, he and Ma carried her in. Ma had a little bit of sugar saved for an emergency. She dissolved half in a little water for her to drink.

Mary Sullivan had some dried meat left, but she wouldn’t share with anyone but her brother and Mr. Martin. Mr. Martin, though, he felt so sorry for Ma that he gave his portion to us, and Mary Sullivan didn’t like that a bit, and so it was hammer and tongs for a while. Mrs. Montgomery wasn’t so sick that she couldn’t give Mary a piece of her mind. Oh, yes, there was an atmosphere in that cabin, and not all from the privy pots!

Mr. Miller, he finally got so discouraged and desperate, he told us he and Willie were going to walk down from the mountains and go for help. The snow had melted and packed down a little, and there hadn’t been a storm for days. He thought he might be able to get by with hunting, and so they went down the mountain, as the other men done. Mr. Martin couldn’t go with them as he had hurt his foot and it wouldn’t heal properly. He could get around the camp all right, but not well enough to leave out with the Millers.

This was at the end of February. Looking back afterward, I’d guess that Ma was at her wits’ end. We had nothing left to eat but the hides. One morning, maybe two days after Mr. Miller left, my brother Johnnie and I were carrying firewood, as Old Mr. Martin was splitting it for us, and Robert Sullivan came running over to us, saying there was a man coming up from the river.

“It must be Mr. Miller,” we said, and Robert said, no, it was a man by himself with a big pack, and just then we heard a gunshot and a man shouting, “Hello, the camp! Is anyone there?”

Old Mr. Martin, he gave a shout and sank his ax into the chunk of wood he was splitting. “’Tis my boy, Dennis!” he said, and so it was. Oh, my, we were glad to see him. Everyone came running out of the cabins, even Mrs. Montgomery, who was so weakened she could hardly stand, asking a million questions, and crying and laughing.

As soon as he could get a word in edgeways, he said that the others were on the way, they were coming up from Sutter’s Fort. He had passed Mr. Miller and Willie on the way up, and told them the relief was only a few days behind him. Captain Stephens and the men, they were organizing a relief party and supplies to bring to us and take us out of the winter camp, but he was worried about his Pa and came away ahead of them, and also he had promised Mrs. Townsend to go back over the pass to the lake and look for Moses.

Ma just sat right down on the ground, hearing this, and couldn’t speak at all for some considerable time, she was that overcome. Old Mr. Martin then told Dennis some of what our trials had been, and how little we had left. He opened up his pack right away and gave Ma some of his supplies, saying he was right sorry he couldn’t spare much; he had to keep enough to see him over the pass and back. He couldn’t stay the night, even. He said that he didn’t want to risk being caught by a storm, but I always wondered if it was more of what Old Mr. Martin told him of conditions in our camp. So he went off into the higher mountains that very day. We could scarce sleep that night for excitement.”

From Dr. Townsend’s Diary:
“Twenty-forth of February, 1845:  Mr. Patterson and some of his men have brought twenty mules and ten riding horses from his rancho, or borrowed from some of the other landholders, who, hearing of the plight of our party, desired to assist us with such aid as they could render. Mr. Bidwell has drawn similar numbers from Captain Sutter’s vast herds and additional supplies from larders and storehouses to support the relief party and to bring the families out, and arranged for a ferry to cross our party over the Feather River. We fear the snow may be well too deep to move the wagons, referring to Allen Montgomery and Joseph Foster’s witness from December.

Mr. Patterson plans to ride with us, bringing a handful of his own drovers with him, although not Oliver and Samuel. He tells me, with a certain amount of amusement, that he has left them in charge of the rancho in his absence. I relayed to him the general thrust of what I told Mrs. Isabella, when I convinced her to allow Samuel to accompany the rest of us…

“Dearest…we are ready to depart.” John looked into the parlor of Sutter’s grand house, at about mid-morning, Old Martin Murphy at his back. Elizabeth looked up from her sewing. She and Helen had quantities of white muslin and figured calico, scissors and spools of thread strewn about them, all over the parlor. She sprang up from where she sat, a measuring-tape in one hand and a clutch of dark calico in the other, and embraced him.

“Darling, take care. Bring them back to us with all haste.” Then, all practicality, she ran the tape around his wrist. “Oh, good, I have got the right of the buttons and buttonholes on the cuff.” She thrust the calico bundle at him. “A new shirt, Dearest…you have none left fit to be seen in company. Add it to your pack, I beg you. I rushed to finish it before you and the men departed.” She hugged him again, whispering, “Go now. Bring them safe out of the mountains, Isabella and Sarah and all of them. It grieves both of us deeply to think that while we enjoy such safety and generous plenty that our dearest kin and friends are lingering in despair and want.”

Within the parlor, Old Martin embraced Helen, saying with gruff amusement, “So, we are away to bring our dearest children home. Fair Helen—have you any more suits of marriage offered to you that I should know of? Any princes or lords or ambassadors among them?”

“No, Papa, only the usual sort,” Helen giggled. “Do you know, there was a young gentleman who came to the fort, having heard only that some ladies from America were there, and determined therefore to make our acquaintance, and Captain Sutter clapped him in chains and put him in a dungeon.”

“Has he a dungeon?” Elizabeth asked, from across the room. “Not chains, surely, Helen. There are only some strong rooms, under the towers.”

“And he was of the opposite party in the late unpleasantness,” Helen answered. “I am sure that his imprisonment was due to that, rather than any forwardness offered to me. I never was introduced to the gentleman, so he had not the opportunity….”

“Put any of them off until we return, hey?” Old Martin said, cheerily. “For they must have mine and your brothers’ approval before they come a-courting you.”

“Oh, Papa.” Helen rolled her eyes. “You are so old-fashioned. Be assured that anyone whom I encourage is a man you would like and approve of anyway.”

“That’s my darlin’ girl.” Old Martin kissed her firmly on the forehead. “Are these baby clothes you are making? Aye, for Mary-Bee’s little one, and little Ellen… an excellent idea, new clothes to welcome them into the world, and better late than not at all.”

“We had not a chance to do fine sewing on the trail,” Helen replied, and it seemed to John that she spoke too swiftly, and an amused glance flew between her and Elizabeth.

“Surely these are very tiny garments, Dearest.” John cast a glance at a completed dress, laid out on the table nearest the window. “Ellen Miller is now more than six months old….”

“But my namesake is barely three months of age,” Elizabeth interjected, and exchanged another one of those amused looks with Helen, as Old Martin clapped him on the shoulder, saying, “Come away, then, Doctor, we’ve work to do, and the lads are waiting.” And he kissed Elizabeth once more and followed after Old Martin, holding in his mind how lovely she looked, as if she glowed with the return of health, or maybe just the morning sunshine streaming in through the parlor window.

Stephens and Young Martin waited for them, just outside the citadel gate. Dog sat, panting at the feet of Stephens’s horse, but lurched to her feet when Stephens handed Ugly Grey’s reins to John. The pack-trail of mules, and the loose herd, chivvied by the other men, was already fairly far down the roadway along the river.

“Now, boys, let’s see how fast we can move when it’s our own that we are riding for!” Old Martin whooped like a boy, and they departed in a fine spray of mud flung up by their horses’ hooves.

From E.S. Patterson Interview, University of California Local History Archival Project 1932:

“We were on needles and pins, all through the days after Dennis Martin came. We watched the clouds, dreading another storm, which would delay them. Ma, she sat for hours, looking down the valley, with Sadie or me on her lap, all wrapped around with her shawls, and tried to work out when they would come. Dennis Martin, he said it was seven days’ journey on foot, and he thought they would be leaving three or four days behind him,

“But see,” Old Mr. Martin told us, “they might be driving cattle before them, which would slow them down, some…unless they were mounted, which might see them moving faster… ah, be damned….”

“Mr. Martin!” said Ma, sharpish.

And old Mr. Martin, he looked embarrassed and said, “Begging your pardon…there’s just no way of knowing, until we set eyes on them.” And so it was, but it turned out we did know they was coming.

Mary Murphy, she was Mr. James Murphy’s little girl—he who made us the Christmas toys? She came running into the cabins that afternoon, all excited, saying that she had heard the sound of cattle lowing, away off in the distance. O’course, we all went running outside to the overlook, everyone shushing each other, and trying to listen as hard as we could. You know how quiet it can be, away up on a high place? It’s as if the noise down below floats up to you, over a long distance. We listened and listened… nothing but the sound of the wind in the trees, and we told Mary she must have imagined it through hoping so hard for hearing the men and her father coming to rescue us, but she said over and over again that she had heard cattle and horses at a distance.

All the rest of that day, we kept going back to the overlook, hushing each other, and hoping to hear what she heard. I even stole out after dark, to listen for a bit. But the next morning, though, we could all hear the sounds of hooves and horses neighing, and sometimes very faintly, a ringing as of bells; sometimes even what we thought was men shouting, faint and clear, but such a long way off! We got excited, none the less.

When the men had built the cabins, you know, we had moved into them and took everything necessary out of the wagons. They’d took down the wagon bows, and laid them flat, and stowed the ox yokes on top of them and tied the wagon covers tight over all, but now they were covered deep in snow, there was no way to begin to sweep off the snow, since they were buried so very deep in it. Even if we could sweep away the snow and set the bows upright in the brackets, and put the cover on again,  the snow was over the tops of the wheels. But Ma rounded up a wash-pan and made us all clean up and put on our clean set of clothes. Even Mrs. Montgomery, she called up enough strength to get out of bed. By mid-morning, we could hear them plain, and we kept going back and looking for them between the trees.

Such a welcome sight they was, you cannot believe. We had waited so long for them, and there they were, looking so splendid, driving a great herd of mules and horses in front of them and leading strings of mules with packs behind, riding up through the trees from the river down below, shouting and waving their hats in the air: Captain Stephens, and old Mr. Murphy and his boys, John Sullivan, and Doctor Townsend, and Paw-Paw, with a man I didn’t know at first.

He got down off his horse and looked at Sadie and me, and after a moment I saw that he looked like my oldest brother, Oliver, so I knew it must be Pa. Sadie, she was hiding around behind me; so much noise frightened her, and she never cared much for strangers.

“Sadie-girl, it’s your Pa,” Paw-Paw told her, but Pa was smiling very gently, and he said, “Hello, Eddie, you’ve grown so big I’d hardly know you.”

He stuck out his hand, and I shook it, and I blurted out, “Pleased to meet you, Pa. Ma says she’s going to box your ears when she sees you, for having taken so long.”

“Oh, I don’t think she’ll do that, Eddie,” he says, and he picks up Sadie, and takes my hand, and he says “We came as soon as we could… now, take me to your Ma.”

And so I led him to where Ma was. She was looking around for us, shading her eyes with her hand. She said, “Oh, Samuel!” like she was about to cry, and he set down Sadie and put his arms around her…oh, it was a sight, it was. We hadn’t seen Pa in almost three years, by that time…”

Patrick Martin came hobbling from the direction of the wagons as John swung down from Ugly Grey’s saddle. “Faith, but ye’are a sight for sore eyes… we have been longing for a sight of you, since Dennis said you were on the way…”

“Dennis? Isn’t he here with you? He went on ahead of us, he was so concerned over you—we thought sure he’d be waiting when we got here. What’s the matter with your foot, Patrick?”

“Nothing at all,” Patrick answered stoutly. “Just a gash that won’t heal. Dennis made a promise to your lady wife, before he left Sutter’s. He went up to the pass, three days ago it was. She had begged him to look for your lad and bring him out if he were still alive.”

A wave of gratitude threatened to overcome John’s composure, gratitude and affection for the stocky, combative Irishman and his sons, and Patrick took his arm, and lowered his voice. “He said you were not to wait for him, or the lad, but to get moving and get the women and the babies out of this camp before another storm hits.”

John looked at him very closely. Under the excitement that animated his features, Patrick appeared terribly gaunt.

“How bad is it, Patrick?” he asked, very softly and Patrick replied, “Ah, nothing that a little whiskey on the outside, and the inside too, couldn’t have cured. Oh, d’you mean here? Well, it were tolerable fair for all, for a month, not so fair for another month, and perilous close to starvation for the last three weeks.”

John went cold. Damn Sutter. Goddamn him to hell. Damn him and his favors with strings attached, his cold pebble eyes, and his everlasting politicking.

“Who’s the worst off, then, Patrick?” With an effort, he controlled his temper. He had left some medical supplies here and had also brought a small assortment with him, in his saddle bags. He took them from the saddle, then. “Sit down, man, take off that boot so I can have a look. Over here, sit on that the stump, where you can appreciate the fine furnishings in my surgery.” Patrick hobbled to the stump, and sank down on it with relief, pulling off his battered boot.”

“Mrs. Montgomery, she’s barely able to rise from her bed. And Mrs. Patterson has been scanting herself for two months to feed the children, so she’s not all that much better. My daughter has done the same, for Mary. And she is in the way of another wee un, so she told me.”

Patrick’s shoulders slumped, and John thought he saw tears welling up in the big man’s eyes.

“Mother Mary and Joseph and all, Doctor Townsend, it’s been the starvation times, all over again. It breaks your heart to see it, day and day. The children are the best off, and Mary-Bee Murphy and Mary Miller too, because of the babies. They fed them, the best of whatever was left to us, or what we could find. I couldn’t bear another day of it, truly I couldn’t. There was nothing to hunt, not a whisker of it, for Miller and me. How do you think we could endure it, seeing all their eyes growing big in the little skulls of them, and not a thing could we do, then?”

“We’ll have you out of here as soon as we can, Patrick.” John promised. Patrick had a bit of cloth wound around the gash on his foot, with some dried herbs in it, binding them against the wound.

“From Mrs. Patterson, the last of her medicinal herbery, she gave me for it.” Patrick explained. John sniffed at it; no putrefying flesh, no smell of infection, just not healed.

“The foot looks bad, Patrick. I’d have stitched it, if I had been here. How long ago did you say?”

“Last month.”

“It should have started to heal by now. There’s no inflammation….” and John started to venture that Patrick must have gone without food himself, and that was why his injury was so slow to heal itself, but Stephens strode up just then, with Dog gamboling at his heels.

“We’ll move them out, Doc. Now. We need to beat the weather, get below the snow line.”

“We’ve been getting ourselves ready, so we have, Captain.” Patrick pulled himself together. Hope was a powerful infusion, seemingly. “Some of our things are already packed and out of the cabin, so. We heard you coming, so we did, and made preparations according.”

“Get the rest of them ready, Patrick” Stephens answered. “We’ll finish packing. We must move as soon as we can, Greenwood says he smells a storm on the air.” He pulled John away with him, as Patrick hobbled towards the mule string.

“Doc… I’ve already got men packing the traps, but if some of them are too sick to set in a saddle, we’ll have to make litters and carry them. Can you see who is fit to ride? Patrick looks like hell, and some of the others don’t look all that well, either.”

“I’ll sort out who’s in bad shape,” John answered. “We ought to move them out first.”  Stephens nodded and hurried away. Fragments of reunions swam before him: Samuel Patterson, with Isabella, in the center of his children. Samuel seemed as if he were holding her up, and it struck him again how tiny she was, shrunken to the size of a child, all bones, tiny and gaunt with hardship. Old Martin, in the middle of his beloved grandchildren, all of them insane with excitement. Young Martin’s sons, Frances and Theresa Miller, all but Mary Murphy, who was in her father’s arms.

Old Martin had a basket of oranges, giving them out one by one, saying, “Aye, they’re oranges…in the Old Country the rich folk grow them in greenhouses, but here they grow on great trees, out in the good clean air, so many that the extra fall on the ground and rot before they are eaten. You take off the peel, first, and isn’t that a miracle? Ah, and the blossoms of them smell like the gardens of paradise, so they do! Mr. Patterson—you know, Eddie’s Pa? He has a friend in the South, who sent him a great bag of them for you, when he heard that there were children who had never had an orange for this Christmas…”

“Don’t let them eat to many, or too fast,” John said to him in passing, and Old Martin whispered, with his eyes welling up, “Faith, they’re fair starved, what ought we do, then?”

“A little at a time,” John answered, “Although the children are well enough, Patrick fears their mothers are in worse case,” and almost to himself, he added, “I blame Sutter, that they were forced to this extremity. We should have pressed harder to return in the fall and brought them out.”

Old Martin looked at him, with shrewd sympathy, and answered, “Aye…we can blame him. Easier than blaming ourselves, I suppose.”

Before John could consider his words, Mary Miller frantically clutched his arm, as he strode toward the cabin. She had the baby in her arms. “Doctor, where are James and Will? I don’t see them anywhere! Are they not with you? They went for help days ago…”

“Mary, be at ease,” John answered, soothingly. “They’re fine. we left them at our last camp, with Allen Montgomery. We cached most of the food there, and they are keeping the fires burning and waiting for us…now, let me look at the little one…oh, yes, Mary, she looks well.”

And little Ellen was well, a fat and gurgling mite, smiling up at him in the guilelessly happy way of a child who has never known anything other than contentment and love. “Let me look at you, too, Mary…ah, you look well, too.”

“As much as can be expected,” Mary Miller answered, almost bitterly, and in his heart, John damned Sutter again.

“Look, Mary, we plan to pack up and move today, lest we are caught by storm… you’ll be with James and William tonight, if we can…I must check on Mrs. Montgomery.”

“She is within.” Mary gestured toward the cabin, “She did not feel well.”

Stephens and the Murphy boys had already loaded the first string of mules with bedding and clothes and such few possessions as were left to the women, in a perfect storm of curses and complaints: Sutter’s animals were half-wild after a winter of idleness. Stephens called, “Let me know who needs to be carried, Doc. We’ll put together some litters and send them out first, with you. Don’t wait for the rest of us, Doc. You’ll be moving slow, and we’ll catch up soon enough.”

Young Patrick shouldered out of the cabin with another roll of bedding, and John caught his arm. “I’ll be taking the first string, as soon as they’re packed. Get your father onto a horse, Patrick.”

“I’m not sure how I’ll manage to do that,” Young Patrick’s eyes widened at the thought of ordering his formidable parent about.

“Tell him we brought along an Englishman for him to fight,” John replied. “And he’s waiting for him, down at the food cache.”

Patrick laughed. “Aye, that would do the trick, for sure.”

The cabin was all but empty, only the rough bunks left, and dark as a cave with only the light coming in from the doorway and a little from the dying fire on the crude hearth. John thought of how crowded it would have been, with everyone and their blankets and possessions all crammed in together, and shuddered. Sarah lay on one of the stripped bunks, fully dressed, her shawl pulled around her, like a doll abandoned by a careless child. Upon hearing John moving through the rough doorway, she stirred and lifted her head.

“Good morning, Mrs. Montgomery.” John sat on the opposite bunk and set down the saddlebags next to him. “Mr. Martin told me you were feeling poorly, so I came to see you directly.”

“’Morning, Doctor John,” she whispered, and John took up her hand to feel the pulse in her wrist. The bones of it felt tiny, fragile, like a bird’s. “I thought I was feeling stronger this morning, the children were all so excited, but every time I stand up, it seems like everything is whirling around me.”

“You haven’t been taking care of yourself, Mrs. Montgomery” John said, chidingly, and Sarah replied with a faint ghost of her old spirit, “I’d just better do that, hadn’t I? It’s not like he will, now. He didn’t come with you all, did he?”

No need for John to ask who “he” was.

He could see the bright trickle of tears out of the corners of her eyes rolling back into her hair. “Mr. Montgomery is down the mountain, half a day’s journey. We’ve cached food and set up a camp. He’s waiting for us there, Sarah.”

“Well, I am surprised.” She laughed then, faint and exhausted laughter. “I thought he would have taken himself off by now. He is going to, you know. We don’t want to be married, any longer, Doctor John.”

“But you have spoken vows, Sarah…. They can’t be unsaid!” John was shocked, but almost equally grieved to see the depth of her unhappiness.

“Yes they can. We’re the world away from where they were said. Hardly anyone will know of us here. He intends to leave me with the wagon and all that’s in it but his tools and just go. Somewhere. Anywhere. We agreed, months back.”

“Sarah, I think it very rash….“John started, but she interrupted: “Doctor John, please don’t. There is nothing you or Elizabeth could say to fix this. I’ll not go back to him, nor he to me. After this, they’ll be an end to it.”

Her eyes closed with an air of finality. After a moment, she whispered again. “I couldn’t eat the hides. I tried, but I couldn’t keep them down. Isabella, she and the children. They could eat them. It’s all they’ve had for three weeks, but for some bread that Dennis Martin gave us three days ago.”

Damn him, John thought again, bleakly, remembering the morning in Sutter’s office, and the bargain they made. Damn him. They should have just taken whatever they needed and gone back to the mountains, back to the winter camp that very day, never mind what anyone advised. But he was reacting like their leader, and a hot-headed one at that, when he should be thinking like a doctor.

“Sarah,” he said, making his voice sound quiet and soothing, consciously banishing the fury that he felt towards Sutter, “I am going to give you a little something to eat, just a little piece of flatbread, and some of the cheese they make at Sutter’s fort. I brought it along for myself, in my saddlebag…here, hold out your hand. Just take little bites. Go slow and careful.” He waited a minute while she chewed and swallowed, carefully. “How does it sit?”

“It tastes funny…but good. Not like real bread,” she answered cautiously.

“Now a bit of cheese…just a crumb, mind you. You’ll not be able to manage anything rich, or very much of it.”

“That was very good,” she said, thoughtfully. “When I think on how long since I had a drink of milk…. When did the cows stop giving milk, Doctor? Just short of Ft. Laramie, I think.”

“Here’s some more bread,” He put a larger piece of it in her hand. “I need to look at some of the others, now, but I’ll come back. We need to fix up a litter for you, since you cannot ride. Is there anything you’ll want to take with you?”

She frowned, thinking upon it. It seemed to take a great effort. “I had one of those Indian baskets, with the rest of my things in it. I think Johnnie took it outside with the blankets.”

“I’ll make sure,” he promised. “Now eat your bread…slowly, now…and I’ll be back.”

Outside, the swirl of activity had intensified. Old Hitchcock and Patterson were helping Jamie Murphy lash together two rough litters out of four long poles and some canvas panels that had once been part of a tent.

“All I ask,” John said, “is that you hang those contraptions between the four gentlest mules you have.”

“Don’t worry, Doctor, we’ll make sure of that!” gasped Patterson.

Underneath their feet, the ground was churned into an unsavory mixture of slush, muck, and droppings.

“You… young Sullivan,” he reached out and reeled in a boy, who shrilled delightedly, “Doctor John! Ain’t it grand?”

“Isn’t,” John corrected him, “Hold still Robert…let me look at you. Yes, it is grand. Captain Stephens asked me to look at everyone, make sure you are all well enough for the last bit of the road… you’ve a sore throat, then. Not enough to keep you from it. I thought sure I had a bag of horehound candy, but never mind.”

He released the boy and went on, working his way among the women and children; just a few moments each, and a quick assessment more by sight than anything else. Much as Old Patrick had said, the children had borne semi-starvation well, and the two babies were thriving. He weighed Elizabeth Murphy thoughtfully in his hands; no, she would be too large for the tiny clothes that Elizabeth and Helen were sewing, back at Sutter’s for her. Patrick’s daughter Annie; she looked ill, grey and hollow-eyed.
“Put her in a litter,” John told her husband, “and the girl, too. We’ll sort everything out in camp tonight; I’ll go in a few minutes with the sickest, and she’s one of them.”
Returning to the cabin for Sarah, he found that she had eaten the rest of the bread and fallen into a sort of half-doze. Slipping an arm under her shoulders and another under her knees, he lifted her easily as if she were as light as one of the children. The second litter was ready: John laid Sarah in it, and covered her well with blankets against the cold. Annie and her daughter were already in the other, well wrapped, and Old Patrick had already been mounted on one of Sutter’s ponies; John wondered what Young Patrick had to say to convince him. Old Patrick did look ill, so probably not much.

John put another bit of flatbread into Sarah’s hand, tucked another blanket over her all, and turned his attention toward the Pattersons. According to Sarah, they’d had nothing to eat but boiled hides for three weeks. The children looked thin, but Isabella appeared emaciated, and if it weren’t for her leaning against Samuel, John suspected that she would have fallen.

Stephens appeared, leading Ugly Grey, Patterson’s horse, and two of Sutter’s Indian ponies, a hint if there ever were one. “Ready to hitch up, Doc? We’re burning daylight.”

“Just about,” John answered. “Mr. Patterson…if you would conduct Mrs. Patterson and the children each to a horse, and put them onto it. We’ll ride, as soon as you are ready.”

Isabella straightened, as if she would protest, and John sighed.

“It is my considered medical opinion that eating any more boiled ox-hides, or remaining in this place, will have an adverse effect on your health, dear Mrs. Isabella. Let your husband and me assist you.” And he looked to Samuel and added, “Just get on the damned horse, and I’ll hand her up to you.” Samuel set his foot into the stirrup and looked at John with a particularly amused look.

“Doctor’s orders, my dear. This is really not a good time to argue.”  Samuel swung up into the saddle, and John picked up Isabella and lifted her up to her husband, who set her in front of him.

“Really, Mrs. Isabella, I think Mr. Patterson does have some knight errantly qualities, after all,” John gibed, wondering if he jested so rather than give himself over to fury. “Johnnie, you take Sadie in front of you. Eddie, you get to ride this one, by yourself. Any monkeyshines from you, and I will take over the whipping after your father gets tired.”

From E.S. Patterson Interview, University of California Local History Archival Project 1932:

“They were in such a hurry because Captain Stephens feared a winter storm. The men bent every effort into moving fast, moving us down below the snow line, lest we be caught again. They didn’t dare take the time to pack carefully, just lashed the bedding and bags to pack saddles and told us to get up and ride, before we were caught by a storm.

We traveled all the rest of that day, and after sunset, we came to where they had camped before, and there was a great bonfire burning, and such a supper cooked for us. To eat our fill of it, after months of want, oh that was an indescribable delight….”

From E.S. Patterson Interview, University of California Local History Archival Project 1932:

“What do I recollect most clearly of the winter camp? A good many things, but what has stuck with me the most was how dark it was, inside. Before the men went down from the mountains, following the river, they built two little cabins with a sort of porch between, a roof with no walls. But the snow soon made walls on either side, and presently all you could see of it was an opening like a burrow going down into something that looked like a tall snow-bank with a little smoky chimney on either end. It was always dark inside since there wasn’t any windows; the men had been in too much of a hurry, and it made no never-mind, because the snow would have covered them up anyway. We had some fat lamps and tallow candles, too, and Ma would read to us during the days it was storming outside.

Dimness, aye, that’s what I remember. And the smell of it; a wood-fire burning, and the smell of tallow candles, and dirty clothes and the babies’ dirty diapers, and the chamber pots that Ma and Mrs. Montgomery kept outside in the little porch, with a couple of blankets around them for privacy. But that smell came in, too, sometimes. Nothing to do for it, as Ma and the four of us shared one cabin with Mrs. Montgomery and Mary Sullivan and her brother Robert, who was near enough to my age. Old Mr. Martin, one of the men who was staying behind to guard and hunt for us, he had a little bunk in one corner with a blanket for privacy.
The other cabin was full of babies and children: Mr. Miller, the other man who stayed, he was living there with his wife and son William and three daughters. The youngest was the baby born at Independence Rock. Then there was Mrs. Murphy with her little girl, Mary, and the other Mrs. Murphy with her four little boys and the baby born just when the men set up the winter camp. Mr. Martin said our cabin was all peace and quiet in comparison, even if Mrs. Montgomery and Mary Sullivan fought like cats in a sack; it was still only five of us children and no babies. There was four grownups in the Murphys’ cabin, but eight children and two babies. How they got through that winter without running plumb insane, I’ll never know.

Ma, I think she sent us to play outside on the fair days, as much as possible, and so did the Murphy women with the children and all. There were the other things I remembered: how beautiful it was, up there, when it snowed, everything so clean and white, and a little ridge of snow along every twig and branch. It was so cold, the snow was dry and fluffy like feathers, and the sky above as blue as turquoise stone, and your shoes squeaking on the snow as you walked for it was that cold.

We hadn’t been there a wee, when Mr. Foster and Mr. Montgomery came down the hill, following the trail of trees the men had cut to bring the wagons over… there they were, just the two of them. We thought they were wintering over at the lake, guarding the other wagons we had left there.

They talked to Ma and Mr. Martin and Mr. Miller, and Mr. Montgomery talked some to his wife, but they didn’t have much to say. He abandoned her later, and she married another man, name of Talbot Green, came out with Bartleson and Bidwell in ’41, but turned out he was wanted for embezzlement, and damned if he didn’t abandon her, too. She did have good luck with her third husband, though, but I never could blame her for not thinking much of men. It was Ma, though, that taught her to read. She couldn’t you, you see. She was so embarrassed about that, she kept quiet, until we were in the winter camp, and she couldn’t keep it a secret no longer.

Mr. Foster and Mr. Montgomery left the lake when they saw there wasn’t any hunting, like they had planned. The snow was just too deep. They’d made themselves showshoes and could walk on top of the snow, after a fashion, but it was hard going. They’d left Moses, the Doctor’s boy, behind, as he fell ill, and there was only food enough left for one to stay the winter. They was afraid if they stayed, they’d be caught in another big storm.

You have to remember, most of us were from Missouri, Ohio, and back east. We weren’t anything like accustomed to snow that piled up and stayed on the ground without melting in between a bit. They say the snow commonly was over fifteen feet or deeper. It wasn’t near that deep where we were, but Mr. Miller and Mr. Martin never did have any luck hunting from our camp, either.

But later on, whenever we starting saying what a hard time we had, Ma would tell us to thank our lucky stars our party had Captain Stephens, and Doctor Townsend, and Old Martin Murphy with us, because what happened with us wasn’t near to as bad as what happened to some of them that came along later.

We did have to eat some hides off the roof, though. But that came later.

Christmas…I recollect Christmas. It came just after Mr. Montgomery and Mr. Foster went, following after the rest of the men. We each had a toy, on Christmas morning, can you beat that? Mr. James Murphy, before he went with the other men, he had made a little toy or trifle for each one of us. A little boat with a sail or a horse or cow for us boys, a bit of a doll for the little girls, and Mrs. Murphy had sewed a little dress and apron for the dolls. Sadie loved that little doll, for she had managed to lose the shell necklace that Ma traded for her birthday present at Laramie. Mr. James made a little trinket box for my sister Nancy, though, as she was too old for dolls. And Ma, she had a treat for us too. From the last of Doctor Townsend’s stores, two little jars of jam. She brought them out and gave each of the children a spoonful. There was just enough to go around.

About the food…well, it was monotonous, but we were used to pretty slim rations by that time, anyway. Ma got right ingenious. She and my brother Johnnie went out and dug down through the snow to where the men butchered the oxen, pulled up a lot of the bones they had left aside. Roasted them, cracked them for the marrow, boiled them until they were crumbly and fell apart. We’d eaten every scrap that was left, and that includes the brains and offal. We were starving for the fat, you see.

Another time, she and Mrs. Montgomery went down to the river after there was a good, hard crust frozen onto the snow. They dug down through the snow at the river edge, prospecting for water reed tubers, and plantains and stuff. It all tasted pretty awful, if you want to know the truth. But the best part of whatever we had, it went to the little children, and to Mrs. Miller and Mrs. Murphy, who were nursing babies. Ma was a midwife, next to a doctor, practically. If them two didn’t have enough to eat, their milk would stop up, and the babies would die; simple as that.
She never showed how worried she was to us, but her hair went from dark brown to near enough grey in that one year, and if she ate more than a mouthful at any meal during that whole winter, then I never saw it. She was tough, too. I never saw her cry and get downhearted, but when I was older myself, I thought about the fix we’d been in, and I wondered how she managed it. Afterward she never talked about that winter, except on her deathbed. She went back to it in her mind at the end.

Sadie and Nance and I, those who were with her then, we all knew then that whole dreadful winter, it had stayed with her, all the rest of her life. She wouldn’t eat, you see; she wandered in her mind, back to that time; all she would say to us was “Give it to the children, Sarah. Give it to Mary for the baby. Give it to Mary-Bee; the baby will need it.” It broke our hearts to hear that, it did.

One thing, now that you’ve asked and brought that time back to mind; she used to walk out every fine day, to the edge of the camp, and sit on a tall stump, looking out at the west, as if she were watching for someone to come up from the river. I asked her, every day that she did this, what she was looking for, and she would answer, “Eddie, my duckling, I’m waiting for your father and Paw-Paw and the other men to come back for us, and I want to be the first to see them.”

And I would say, “Why is that, Ma?” and she’d answer, “So I can give your Pa a kiss and a hug for the joy of seeing him, and a box on the ear for making us wait for him this long.” And then she would take me on her lap, and wrap her shawl around us both, and tell me about Pa’s wonderful new farm, and what it looked like and all. I think she made most of it up, though, for she’d only had one letter from Pa the whole time he had been out looking for land, and it were a year old when she got it, anyway. That’s one of the things I remember best.

Well, that and when the snow had begun to melt and we came down the mountains, and I found a live frog and put it in Mary Sullivan’s bedroll. I got a licking over that from Ma, but it was worth it.”

From Dr. Townsend’s Diary:

“Twenty-first of December, 1844, At Sutter’s Fort on the American River, New Helvetia. We have accepted Captain Sutter’s terms, acknowledging that nothing can be done until spring thaw. Mr. Patterson, the mild-mannered Petruchio to our own Kate, agreed with us most regretfully as regards the impossibility of venturing a rescue before then. This gentleman arrived in haste from his rancho near San Jose yesterday, upon receipt of a messenger from Mr. Bidwell advising him of the situation. He came to fetch the boys, as I had promised Mrs. Patterson to see them into the custody of their parent…”

John had often speculated in his own mind on the sort of man to have made a successful match with the formidable Isabella, so he hurried from Sutter’s house to the quarters set aside for the others and to where Mr. Patterson had been directed by the duty sentry, with curiosity lending wings.

He found Dog, that most formidable of guardians, sniffing at a wiry man of middle years with a weather-burnt face and mild blue eyes, who was sitting in one of the leather chairs, looking amused, just as Samuel and Oliver burst in, from the other direction, clamoring in unison, “Papa! You’re here!”

And of course, it must be no other, for he sprang up, saying, “Oliver… and is this Samuel? Oh, you have grown so tall, the both of you!” and the boys chorused,
“Oh, Pa, you’ll never guess…we had such adventures! Ma is up in the mountains, but Doctor Townsend talked her into letting me come with the men…you’d never believe…Sadie is talking, and Eddie is now such a scamp…he broke his arm, and his head…Ma had to hitch Goldenrod to the wagon…we crossed the desert in two days, and…Papa, may we ride with the men and Mr. Sutter’s army for Micheltorena? May we, please?”

Samuel Patterson smiled wryly and reached across his excited and vociferous offspring. “Samuel Patterson.” He shook hands firmly. “I b’lieve you must be Doctor Townsend. You have the look of a professional man. No, you may not, Oliver; absolutely not. It’s a fools errand, and I’ll need both of you on the ranch, planning a campaign to rescue your mother.”

“A man with priorities well fixed.” John returned the handshake. “And you are correct. It is a fool’s errand, to which we are committed only until the wretched man wins or loses definitively, or the snow melts, whichever first.”

“A sensible man, I see.” Patterson was sizing him up. “Would you allow me some moments with the boys? It has been a long time since I parted with them, and I would speak to you about this matter.”

So John lounged in the verandah, with Dog’s great head on his knee. Stephens must have bade her stay in the quarters, for he himself was nowhere around. After a while, Patterson emerged from the inner room, and sank into the chair opposite.

“Will you accept my thanks, Doctor, for having seen to the conducting of my family? The boys are most energetic in their praise of yourself and Captain Stephens. Might I meet him, do you think, before we depart? I should like to tender my thanks and gratitude.” He sighed, deeply. ”I had no idea that Isabella would decide on so strenuous a route. I myself went out to California through the regular trade to Santa Fe, and the pack-trains from thence to Los Angeles. I fear that my description of the hazards attendant on the mule-train may have affected her decision.” He looked pleadingly at John, and asked in tones of deepest concern, “Was she well when last you saw her, Doctor? I want to know everything…particularly in regards to my family.”

“She was well, when we left the winter camp, two weeks ago, “ John answered, fairly. “Well, but wearied from the journey, as you may expect, and most particularly grieved at the encampment on the lake, just below the mountain pass, when we had to dispatch many of the stock. The children were well…to all of us,” John looked at the tiled floor, beneath his feet. “She has been a most amenable and trusty traveling companion, a colleague in medicine to me, and a personal friend to my wife. We have valued her company and friendship enormously.”

“You can only imagine my own feelings,” Patterson answered. “Knowing her qualities as a friend and companion, but intensified for me, in that she is my very dear wife, and the mother to our children. It is very disheartening to know that she has traveled all this way to rejoin me, come so close…and yet be trapped by winter, just out of our reach.” He sighed, deeply. “And we can mount no rescue until spring. This is very bitter knowledge, Doctor Townsend, exceeding bitter.”

“Captain Stephens has talked with others who are familiar with conditions in the mountains,” John answered, “and they all caution us not to attempt a relief until mid-February at the earliest. So, that is what we intend. Will you join us then? Captain Sutter has promised us all aid…but of course….” John shrugged, not liking to say more, and Samuel Patterson answered.

“His generosity has long strings attached, you mean. You need say no more. I am resolved to stand aside in this Micheltorena tangle. Castro and Pico are honorable men, with whom one may honestly differ. And the truth is that just as many American settlers are taking their part in this. Most of Micheltorena’s soldiers are dregs, the worst sort of criminal swept from Mexico City’s jails by their government and dumped here to afflict the population. It speaks well of Sutter to be loyal to his good friend the governor but badly for his judgment in not seeing this whole affair for the miscalculation that it is, in alienating the local gentry. They are proud men, Doctor Townsend, and Governor Micheltorena has bungled it very badly.”

“So you intend to stay home this winter and grow cabbages… in a manner of speaking?” John was intrigued.

“I do so intend,” Samuel answered firmly, “Because, one way or another, it will make no difference at all. Micheltorena will bloody Castro’s nose, or Pico will bloody Micheltorena’s, or maybe even Castro’s too, for good measure, and it will make no difference at all in the long run. From the least to the grandest, the Californios care little for being indifferently and distantly ruled from Mexico. I think most of them wouldn’t care two pins if Alta California fell into American hands tomorrow, or next year, as it most likely will, eventually…all it would mean would be indifferent and distant rule from another quarter. Less restraint upon trade and commerce, and a few more emigrant parties, most likely, of which all would be in favor. Another flag and different colored uniforms on the soldiers in the presidios, which the local maidens would find enticing, I daresay. This business with Micheltorena is a schoolyard brawl magnified, and I want no part of it.”

“Well, we have every intention of disentangling ourselves from it as soon as we can,” John sighed. “One would hope sense can be talked to all the parties concerned. I can see how you wish to remain apart from the fray, though.”

“Extracting yourselves from this unhappy situation will at least give you something to think on, rather than worry constantly about your nearest and dearest,” Samuel sighed. “Perhaps it serves as a fortunate distraction for you? Do you have family, stranded in the mountains, Doctor?”

“My wife’s young brother.” It pained him to talk of Moses. “We raised him as our son, more or less. He is about Oliver’s age. He volunteered to stay with two other men, guarding the wagons, on the other side of the pass. He became ill when they attempted to walk out, and so they left him behind.”

“And the other men of the party, here…they have family also awaiting rescue in the mountains?” Samuel sounded genuinely appalled.

“Captain Stephens does not, nor does Greenwood, our guide…or the hired men, but Martin Murphy and his sons…they left their wives and children there…two of them infants in arms. The Murphy men will be in a perfect frenzy by the time spring comes; neither Sutter or the governor or anyone else will stand in between them and the mountains, then.”

“Trusty men, then.” Samuel looked relieved, and John said, “Will you be at Captain Sutter’s table for supper? I can then introduce you to my wife. She can then talk of her friendship with yours. They spent much time together, on the trail, I am certain that Elizabeth can regale you with many cheerful accounts of the children, also.”

“It would be appreciated,” Samuel answered. “And it would also allow me to avoid overmuch conversation with our host. I fear he would be importuning me to join his company… and I rather think I might be overly blunt in turning him down.”

“He is a darling,” Elizabeth whispered to John that night in their bed, “Quite older, though, and quieter than I would have thought.”  John had sat at the other end of the table, with Bidwell and Stephens, tactfully keeping Sutter’s interest from Patterson, and so he had had little to do with Elizabeth’s conversation with him.

Now he asked, “What did you talk about?”

“Oh, the children, mostly. He does not know Sadie at all. She had not even been born when he departed for California, and Eddie only five, so he liked to hear of their doings and conversation. I told him of Isabella’s rational costume, and he laughed and laughed about her winning a footrace with Oliver and Samuel. We talked about the trail, of course…. He went to Santa Fe, did you know? Mr. Hitchcock had connections in the trade, who made arrangements for him to travel with the yearly caravan, and he went on from there with a mule party. It sounded much more exhausting than our own travails, and most of it spent crossing a dreadful desert, and the Indians were very much more dangerous. He talked about his own rancho, and how he has had a fine house built for them all, with a view of the mountains, and many fine trees. It sounds like quite a kingly place to live. He talked much with Mr. Murphy about it.”

“Old Martin liked the talk of the mission, I noticed.” John added. “It pleased him greatly, to know he has come to a Catholic country, where his native beliefs are favored. He and his sons have great plans. I think most of them hinge upon engendering enough grandchildren to sweep all before them.”

“You are wicked, to talk so,” Elizabeth tried to sound severe. “Should not we think on our own children, and grandchildren then?”

“My medical practice in California may depend on attending the various Mrs. Murphys!” John kissed her, most lovingly, “Have a care, for you are distracting their family physician from his duties, my dearest.”

And at that point, they lost the thread of conversation for a long time, until Elizabeth ventured sleepily, “I wish you were not so obligated to Mr. Sutter’s military company, Dearest, for we could then advance our own plans. I would love to have a home of our own, one that you may bring Moses to when the snow melts and you and Captain Stephens bring the wagons down from the mountains. Where shall we go, do you think? San Jose, like the Murphys and Mr. Patterson? I should like to be close to our friends.”

“I rather liked talk of Yerba Buena,” John answered, “They tell me it is on a great natural bay and may be one of the greatest port cities in the world, though it is cold and foggy most times, from being on the ocean.”

“We’ll take a look.” Elizabeth stretched and then re-curled herself against him. “And maybe Moses can help us decide. When does Captain Sutter wish you all to leave with him?”

“After Christmas,” John answered, “if it does not resolve itself by then. Perhaps we can hope for that.”

“I only live for the day, my dearest… day to day, and for now, and content with that.” Elizabeth said, drowsily.

From Dr. Townsend’s Diary:

“Mr. Patterson and the boys parted this morning, with many protestations of regard…as well as a promise to meet again here before the end of February, so as to coordinate our efforts. At supper, Captain Stephens affirmed to the company present that he was fixed most especially upon this relief. Upon being elected, he reminded us once again, he had promised to bring us all to California. Since so many of our party remain trapped in the mountains, this promise remains unfulfilled, and he is honor-bound to see every last one of us delivered safely. Captain Sutter was most moved by this declaration, and by the firm intention of those few of our party who were only contracted to accompany us—Mr. Greenwood and his sons, and one or two of our hired teamsters and drovers—to remain together with the party and act under Captain Stephens’s and my direction, even though their formal obligations were concluded upon our arrival. Mr. Bray, tho’, has taken employment with Sutter’s enterprise as one of his foremen.

We departed on this day, the First of January. We ride with little enthusiasm but a large sense of duty towards our fellows, and for Captain Stephens.

We marvel at this country, meanwhile. It is beautiful, and temperate, save for the coastal regions but thinly populated. In many regions there are few trees, but noble and spreading ones of a species of oak peculiar to this part of the world.

There are but few towns, and scattered houses of the well-to-do rancheros. The buildings are solid and low, mostly constructed of unbaked clay bricks, which are then plastered over and roofed with curving clay tiles…

The missions are large and prosperous, tho’ not as much as formerly, many of their outlying properties being sold… noted this day some expansive groves of cultivated olives, and terraces of grapevines… a pair of lemon trees, of a good size, in pretty glazed pots; such would appeal to my dearest, in our home.

Enthusiasm for this venture flags more, the farther we go. Mr. Patterson was prescient in referring to this as an organized schoolyard brawl. There is little feeling for Governor Micheltorena, other than that which Captain Sutter feels as a friend. Most of the rest of his “army” if you can term it thus, feel so little for his cause that we would not risk a scratch from a pin for it, let alone our lives.

Thirteeth of February, 1845, near Monterey, on the coast. Dennis Martin has had enough of this, and the rest of us are close enough to it.”

“It’s a mug’s game, and I’ve had enough,” Dennis announced at their campfire. As if of old habit from the trail, the group of Stephens party men kept their own campfire and looked warily on strangers. John often wondered if they had all been too much by themselves for too long, and if they would long go on being mistrustful of outsiders to their company.

“Playing patty-cake, and pouncing about the countryside, while our old Da is in the mountains,” Dennis continued. “I’m off in the morning. Give my regards to Captain Sutter, and tell him I’ll turn his horse into his own corral and be off toward the mountains. I’ve seen as much of his elephant as I wish to see, and I have better things to do. Patrick….” he turned towards his brother, who was moodily roasting a bit of beef threaded onto a greenwood spit. “D’you want to send any message to Da?”

“Tell him there are more Englishmen here than we thought, and he’s to keep his fists in his pockets until we get them sorted out,” Patrick replied. “Also, we’ll be along in a bit. I think this farce has about another week to run, but I want to be around to laugh when the wheels come all the way off.”

“Well, please yourself.” Dennis caught up his rifle and his coat and bedroll. “Matter of fact, I think I’ll start now. I’ve eaten and rested, and I can put a good few miles behind me by dark. See you in the mountains, boys!”

And he was gone with a wave and a thunder of hoofbeats. Stephens and John looked at each other, and John said, “We won’t be able to hold them to Sutter’s company much longer.”

“He’s just hasty-tempered,” Stephens answered. “He’s right about the elephant, though. I reckon we’re all pretty fed.”

From Dr. Townsend’s Diary:

“Nineteenth of February, 1845. Received news from the south, via a fast courier; Governor Micheltorena has been defeated militarily in a small clash north of the Pueblo de Los Angeles and has agreed to depart California at once. We received this news as we were about to leave for the south to link up with Micheltorena’s unfortunate army.  Captain Stephens and I went at once to Captain Sutter and Mr. Bidwell…”

Sutter stood to receive them, seemingly with pleasure; he had a large tent set up for himself, equipped with folding camp furniture.

“We heard of the messenger from the south,” John began, and Sutter replied, “The news of the governor’s surrender has not been confirmed…all may not be lost, gentlemen.”

“Yes it has,” Stephens said flatly, and John and Bidwell exchanged looks of amused exasperation. All the tact of one of his own oxen; even Dog had more polish to her manners. “He’s gone. We’re done, as we agreed. We’ll move out in the morning.”

“It’s nearly the end of February,” John added, quietly. Would Sutter dare renege on his agreement? He had that pebble-calculating look to his eyes again, although his face was all kindness and concern. “You offered us anything we would need to mount a relief party, once the governorship was settled, or winter began breaking up in the mountains. We left them with food, but not much of it. They will run out in a few weeks, if they haven’t already.”

“It’s settled,” Stephens was at his flintiest, most uncompromising. “You have ambitions here, whether the Americans take over or not. How far would you go, after it were known to all, that you let women and children starve in the mountains, while you kept their men galloping all about the country?”
“Captain Stephens, that’s hardly fair!” Bidwell was outraged, “You would have us abandon our good friends….”

“Lot of that going around,” Stephens answered laconically, and bright color rose in Bidwell’s face, as though he had been slapped.

“We’re going,” John said, “With your aid, which you promised, and which would reflect credit upon your legendary hospitality…or without; which might be hard to explain, down the road. Either way, we’re going. Good day to you, Captain Sutter.”

John touched his hat-brim, nodded to Bidwell, and exited the tent at speed, fairly dragging Stephens after him. When they were out of earshot, Stephens commented dryly, “Don’t care for him, do you Doc?”

“He’s kindness itself when it serves,” John replied. “It fair makes my teeth hurt. He makes me want to go out and kick a cripple, after every time I speak to him. He is all saintly sympathy and no action.”

“Captain Stephens…Doctor Townsend…wait!” It was Bidwell, hurrying after them. He looked harassed, embarrassed, and as young as Moses. “I…I’ve spoken to Captain Sutter. He was only surprised, taken aback, as it were, by the sudden misfortune of it all. There is so much going on, with his various enterprises and affairs…I think it had slipped his mind entirely, the plight of your families. But he is in agreement on this, that your bargain is fulfilled, and he releases you from the company.”

“Mighty good of him,” Stephens remarked, dryly.

“We’ve released ourselves,” John said, and Bidwell continued, “And he directed that you should take whatever supplies are necessary. I am to accompany you back to the fort to provide any needed authority, and oversee…well, that you have everything you need.”

“We’re grateful, Bidwell, very grateful, indeed,” John said with some relief, and Bidwell straightened up, and answered, “Look, I know how it was, to be coming over the trail, and be lost and starving, at the end of it. We’ll do for you whatever it is in Sutter’s power to do.”

“Grateful,” Stephens said dryly, and the glance that he exchanged with John added the unspoken coda of “Or his interests.”

There was a wax flower arrangement under a glass dome on a table between a pair of tall windows in Captain Sutter’s office, the only touch of bright color in an austere room with pale, rough-plastered walls. The windows were narrow and un-curtained, but there was glass in them, and frames and shutters painted a dull indigo color. John, Stephens, and Old Murphy sat in crude chairs, leather roughly sewn over a wood frame, lined up in front of an ornate inlaid desk trimmed with brass and ebony, like a trio of bad schoolboys called before the headmaster.

Ragged and filthy with trail dirt, unkempt and unshaven, he couldn’t help but think they were being deliberately put at a disadvantage. He did not like to think of young Bidwell being a party to this; he seemed barely older than Moses, as if he had grown that beard of his in order to seem older and more responsible.

Liz. He had come back into this world, from their embrace to hear Bidwell urging them toward the big house and saying

“Captain Sutter gave particular orders that he meet with you at once, upon your arrival.”

He still had the feel of her bones impressed upon him, and she had smelt of soap and rosewater, of starched linen, and he wanted nothing more than to go apart with her alone, and pull the pins out of her hair and hold her close again, while he looked for ways to say how much he had missed her and to work around to a way to tell her that her little brother was left behind, high in the mountains. But instead, she had loosened her arms and stepped back a little, laughing breathlessly as she said, “Dearest, we rode out every day along the river, hoping we should see you! Captain Sutter and Mr. Bidwell assured us frequently that you must have been able to cross with safety….”

“I arrived with an emigrant company myself, three years ago,” Bidwell added cheerily, “We barely scraped through ourselves, but I had some idea of how much can be accomplished by sheer determination. We expressed every hope that we had for your safety to Mrs. Townsend and Miss Murphy.”

“Mr. Bidwell and Captain Sutter have been kindness itself,” Elizabeth exclaimed, “And Captain Sutter’s generosity is a legend.”

“It is also his greatest weakness,” Bidwell added, with wry affection. “With him, it is enough that a man wants employment, not that Captain Sutter can afford—or even needs—his particular skills. Which is, I think, why his enterprises here now include a brewery, a bakery, and the weaving of blankets. But as it now happens,” Bidwell added, with a serious face, “he may have need of your own several skills,. And that is why he wished to meet with the officers of your party at once.”

Good lord, all he wanted was a few more moments with his wife. At his back, Helen Murphy asked excitedly about Mary-Bee’s baby. A girl, was it? How sweet! How far back were they camped?

Stephens himself looked more like an unhappy gargoyle than ever, and John sighed again. “Mr. Bidwell, we have left the women and children of our party a week’s journey away, camped in the mountains and awaiting our help…and allow me to be the first to assure yourself and Captain Sutter that they have first call on our services.”

“And rightfully so, of course,” answered Bidwell frankly. “But Captain Sutter will explain himself the nature of the service he requires. It’s not for me to anticipate.”

“Well, sonny,” Old Hitchcock rumbled, “since you’re his foreman, I have an idee there are things you can do on your own hook? Like send a messenger to Samuel Patterson’s rancho, telling him that his two sons are safe here, but his wife and other children are marooned in the mountains?”

“Yes, of course, I know of him. Governor Micheltorena granted him lands, near San Jose.” Bidwell sounded distressed, and for once, rather younger. “I’ll be happy to send a message… and we had arranged quarters for you all. I shall take you to them, as soon as I have conducted your officers to Captain Sutter’s office. Do you know there is not an inn or hostelry anywhere the length and breadth of this country? Travelers stay with friends or friends of friends…and sometimes even strangers.”

Bidwell had walked John, Old Martin, and Stephens to the stairs of the big house by now, and they followed him inside, Stephens bidding Dog to stay by the doorway. Elizabeth murmured, “Dearest, Helen and I will wait for you and Mr. Murphy in the parlor.” She looked up at him with a slight frown. “Where is Moses? I haven’t seen him?”

“He stayed to guard the wagons, Liz,” John stammered. It was out, then, but Liz didn’t seem fearful, only rather fondly annoyed, and he realized that she must think Moses had stayed at the winter camp with the women. She kissed him again, and she and Helen slipped into a doorway they passed as they followed Bidwell down the hallway to another room, the room where they sat now, and waited for Sutter, the master of all they had yet surveyed.

There was a footstep in the hall, and the door opened. “Welcome, gentlemen, all,” said Captain Sutter, “Welcome to New Helvetia, and to California, and to my home. John Augustus Sutter, at your service.”

The magnate of New Helvetia proved to be a sleek though stocky man of middle years, smartly turned out in a coat of vaguely military appearance that strained a little around his belly. He was slightly balding, and his features described an amiable oval, supporting an immaculately barbered mustache and goatee and an expression of gentle enthusiasm and sympathy. He had a slight accent, not quite French but not entirely German.

“Doctor John Townsend, late of St. Joseph, Missouri, our Captain, Elisha Stephens.” John shook Sutter’s extended hand and performed the introductions.

“Of nowhere in particular,” Stephens inserted, dryly.

“…and Mr. Martin Murphy, Senior, formerly of Missouri…”

“And Canada, Ireland and everywhere in between.” Old Martin added, and Sutter shook his hand, saying, “A citizen of the world you are indeed, Mr. Murphy; a citizen of the world, as am I, but lately come to make my fortune in this most blessed country on the face of the earth, as I believe. And through many hardships and toils, you have come to join us in our endeavors.”

“Our hardships and toils ain’t over, yet.” Stephens sounded particularly ungracious, and John sighed inwardly. Really, he wondered how Stephens would get on here in California, if he himself were not there to intercede, to smooth over, and to apply the necessary diplomacy on his friend’s behalf. Make enemies right and left, no doubt, unless he went and lived like a hermit in a cave.

He said, “You must understand, Captain Sutter, most of the men who came with us have left their wives and children in the mountains. We set up a winter camp and slaughtered the rest of our oxen for food, to leave with them. Two of our number stayed behind to guard them through the winter, but our intention now is to mount a rescue expedition, to return as swiftly as possible. We were seven days, following the river down to your… establishment, only two days of it struggling in the snow. Our guides, Mr. Greenwood and Mr. Hitchcock, were of the opinion that if we returned with pack animals at all speed, we would have an excellent chance of winning through to them. But for this, we need your help, and we need it now.”

“Alas,” Sutter mournfully shook his head, “I regret such a daring plan is already not possible. The snows of winter in the mountains are already too deep. This is the middle of December, my friends. You were fortunate to escape the storms of winter by departing when you did.”

The expression of Sutter’s face was sympathetic, regretful, but John noticed that it did not reach to his eyes. They were opaque, like pebbles, calculating and watchful.

“No!” Old Martin started up from his chair, “I canna sit still and hear this! Man, these are my own children and grandchildren, the wives of my sons! You tell us there is nothing to be done? They are stranded in those mountains until spring, and meanwhile, we are able to go outside in our shirtsleeves?”

“It is indeed as mild as summer in most other places, here at the confluence of rivers,” Sutter replied, his voice warm, soothing. “But the mountains are…well, you have seen, seen a little of what the snow in them is like, and I can assure you that it becomes much, much worse, and with suddenness. I have been here nearly ten years, long enough to know that what trails exist are impassible. Even the deer and the Indians abandon the high country in winter. Your own General Fremont passed through here last year, and even he admitted defeat at a winter crossing.”

“So, you’ll do nothing?” Old Martin asked bitterly, and Sutter lifted his hands in an apologetic gesture,

“I regret most sincerely, gentlemen, there is nothing that I can do for your families until spring, except offer my prayers for their continued well-being. I take that you left them with sufficient food, enough to last until spring? And two men, to hunt for them, and guard over them? But of course, you would have taken every possible care…”

Sutter was all warm regard, and in that instant John conceived both a violent loathing of him and the knowledge that he must keep that antipathy well-hidden, as Old Martin answered stoutly, “We left them practically every scrap we had, and all but two of the cattle.”

“We ain’t improvident folk.” Stephens stirred himself and spoke, and it seemed that Sutter flinched slightly.

“Then, assuredly, they will be safe until the snow melts in spring…bored, perhaps, and longing to see their husbands and papas and brothers….” Sutter made an expansive gesture toward the windows. “In the spring, when the paths are open, you may then make free of my stables and stores. I put no limits on my hospitality….”

“So we are told,” John answered, neutrally, and Old Martin, added, “And grateful we are, Captain Sutter, grateful we are. My daughter has told of how she and her brothers have been received….”

“Miss Murphy is a charming young lady,” Captain Sutter seemed much amused. “She already has been the focus of romantic attentions from some of the other American settlers here. As her father, you should be forewarned, perhaps.”

He sat back with a sigh in his own chair, the other side of his grand desk, as Stephens watched with hooded eyes and a mien of stone. Oh, here it comes, now, John thought. The point Sutter has been moving toward; what he wants of us.

“You arrive most fortuitously in California,” Sutter ventured at last, making a steeple of his fingers over the gleaming surface of the desk in front of him.

Stephens and John remained silent; Old Martin said only, “Aye? So you have been saying. The snows and all.”

“I meant politically,” Sutter replied. “Do you know much about California and its governance by Mexico? Their governor is appointed from Mexico City. At present, he’s a man named Micheltorena; he’s the finest of men, and a good friend to me, as well as kindly disposed to Americans. He has given out many fine grants of land….and that displeases some of the local grandees. They have raised a small army, and a rebellion against his authority.”

“And that has…what to do with us?” John asked, and he thought he saw a flash of impatience in those pebble eyes. “It is, after all, a Mexican affair.”

“It has much to do with you, gentlemen, whether you know or not. Should Micheltorena be overthrown, Pico or Castro, or whoever they might put forward as governor will not be so kindly disposed toward Americans. Your bright future here would be in jeopardy…so I have a proposal to secure it for us all. I am raising a company for Micheltorena. He is my friend, and I could do no less for him. March with us to Monterey, gentlemen, and join with me in assisting the governor in putting down this ridiculous little charade of an uprising. I would be indebted to you for your help, Governor Micheltorena would be grateful…and it would well serve your own interests. That is my offer to you and your men, Captain Stephens.”

He looked at them over the desk, and they looked back for a long moment, until Stephens answered mildly, “I’d have to talk it over with the others. Prolly vote on it, too.”

Old Martin scowled, and added, “How long would this business take, hey? Seems to me that fifteen men would be neither here nor there.”

“It will all be over well before spring; these little farces never go on for very long, more like an organized brawl, and then everyone dusts themselves off and goes back to fandangos and bear hunts,” Sutter replied airily.

“And fifteen armed men, just come from the trail, who would be reliable…you would be a very great part of my company indeed, and Doctor Townsend would be the battalion surgeon.”

“As a rule, we Americans are more inclined to side with rebels against an appointed governor,” John felt obliged to point out.

“As you wish, gentlemen, as you wish,” and Sutter seemed about to dismiss them, but for Stephens abruptly rising.

“We’ll talk it over, Captain Sutter.” John inwardly sighed again as Stephens strode toward the door; all the tact and polish of one of his own oxen.

He and Old Martin lingered for a moment as John said, “We will let you know of our decision on this matter, Captain Sutter.”

“Don’t linger too long over it,” Sutter answered, suavely.

“In any case, we would like to render our thanks again for the care of Miss Murphy and Mrs. Townsend…we are in your debt in that regard alone,” John owned honestly; he disliked the man, but he had to be fair.

Sutter smiled warmly. “It was our pleasure, as a host. They have been most enjoyable company. I presume that you would prefer to stay in the same rooms as your wife? I shall see that arrangements are made,”

“Again, our thanks,” John answered, and he and Old Martin followed after Stephens, their feet thudding on the wooden floor. Elizabeth popped out of the parlor door as he passed. “We have to talk to the others,” he whispered. “I’ll have another one of those kisses, Dearest, to tide me over.”

“He put it to you to ride with his company?” she whispered in reply and reached up to his face. “Darling, you’re all bristly. You appear quite ferocious.”

“You knew about this?”

“I guessed. They talk of nothing else but the governor and Castro and Pico coming out against him.”

“You’ll have to tell me who all these people are!” He hurriedly tore himself away. “Soon, before I make a fool of myself!”

“Tonight!” she whispered, and he hurried down the stairs after Old Murphy and Stephens. The other men had gone off toward the stable block and the corrals, and the three of them held a hasty consultation.

“Tell you what, Doc, I don’t like it at all.” Stephens shook his head. “Not just giving us no help until spring but wanting us to ride off on this jaunt of his? Smells like an over-full privy on a hot summer day.”

“I wish we knew truly about winter conditions in the mountains.” John rubbed his face. By god, he was bristly. “For all we know, he might have been exaggerating.”

“Wanting us to think there was really nothing we could do until spring?” Old Martin shook his head; shrewd and stoical as ever, “Faith an’ I little like the thought of dancing to another’s tune…but he’s the laird of these parts. A good friend to be having, but a worse enemy; I like it as little as you both, but I think we may have no other choice than do as he wishes.”

“There’s always a choice,” Stephens answered. “What do you advise, Doc?”

“Stall,” John replied, “Stall, and find out as much as we can.”

“You’ll get nothing much from Bidwell,” Old Martin added. “Nice lad he is, but the way he goes on, he seems to think the sun shines out of Sutter’s arse. Any else we’re likely to speak to, they work for him, or are of his party.”

From Dr. Townsend’s Diary;

“Capt. Stephens and I made the others aware of Capt. Sutter’s offer, and they liked it as little as we, feeling that we are being maneuvered into taking his part against our own best interests. And he is a fair and well-thought of man, held in high esteem by all. Being newly come to this place, we do not wish to offend anyone, but there is somewhat of a bad taste resulting from his haste to recruit us to his ranks.”

“I am afraid I do not know very much,” Elizabeth sighed, late that evening, after an interminable dinner shared with Sutter and Bidwell and a number of other guests, including Old Martin and his sons and Miss Helen. Decency and a fairly late hour had finally allowed them to retire for the night in the room that Elizabeth had been allotted.

“I have only been here a week myself and have not met any of these people, but I have heard of them. Juan Castro and Pio Pico are the two most set against Governor Micheltorena, but they can hardly stand each other. There are Americans here and there, some who have been here for years, and from what I can see, most of them do as they please and humor the Mexican administrators. Is that what you needed to know, Dearest?”

“Liz, you make an admirable spy.” John kissed her again.

“You seem very pleased tonight,” she murmured, and he answered, “I am clean, shaved, and sharing a bed indoors with my own wife—who’d not be pleased?” But he looked at the ceiling over their heads and sighed. “I fear for the others. I don’t think I’ll sleep entirely sound until they are all brought safe down from the mountains.”

She took his hand and brought it to her cheek and said, calmly, “I know about Moses, you know. He is not at the winter camp with the others. Helen’s brother Bernard told me, while you were in with Captain Sutter.”

“I had meant to say, Dearest. There was never the right time, until we were alone.”

“I know. Bernard told us how Moses was quite set upon remaining, when you and Mr. Stephens and Mr. Foster all decided to leave your wagons.”

“I couldn’t talk him out of it, Liz.”

“Nor could I have, Dearest. I think,” she added firmly, “that Moses is probably enjoying himself very much, hunting with Allen and Mr. Foster, rather than looking after all the babies and little children. He has no patience with apron strings…so I have known since that time when he went off to hunt buffalo. You were so very wise on that, Dearest…that I should not fuss over him—he would be able to look after himself and be safe.”

She burrowed into his arms then, with a sigh of complete contentment, and John thought on his last sight of Moses, walking down the pass after Allen and Joseph, and hoped she was right; or if not, could go on believing so.

Three days later, while Stephens and John were still stalling on Sutter’s offer, he and Old Martin were gloomily looking over the corralled stock and discussing the chances of an expedition of their own. Elizabeth and Helen had continued the habit of a daily ride and had ridden away some time before.

“It’s not the finances, mind,” Old Martin remarked, frowning, “We have some funds between us, but most of it was put into our gear, stock, and supplies for the journey. We would be hard put to realize the value of the wagons in cash.”

“Besides my own wagon and goods,” John sighed, “I have some two hundred in gold coins and a letter of credit from my bank in St. Joseph. it would take time to raise cash with that, even assuming I would know whom to take it to, outside of our kindly host.”

“And it would come back to buying the animals and equipment from him. Holy Mary Mother….” Old Martin’s gaze went beyond John, toward the fort gates. “Is that not Allen Montgomery and young Foster, that we left at the lake!?”

A pair of bearded and trail-worn men, with packs and rifles slung on their shoulders, had just entered the compound and stood in evident puzzlement, looking around at the heart of Captain Sutter’s busy and bustling kingdom.

One of the sentries approached them, and exchanged a few words. The sentry turned and pointed at Old Martin and John, who were already hurrying toward the gate. John was looking beyond; surely there should be one more? Elizabeth would be so pleased to know that Moses was safe, now. But there was no one else with them, just the two, no one of Moses’s gawky frame and light hair anywhere to be seen, and John’s heart was already cold. Allen and Joseph looked fit and well, even though dirty, but they looked at John as if they had bad news to break.

“Where’s the lad?” Old Martin asked, quietly, when they were in hearing, and Joseph looked at them as if he would weep, and answered, “We had to leave him. I’m sorry Doc, so sorry.”

“Where?” John’s voice sounded harsh in his own ears, and Allen and Joseph both flinched.

“At the lake. He said goodbye to us at the top of the pass, and we went on and left him there, alone.”

Now Joseph was weeping, and his voice cracked—Joseph Foster, always so cheerful, who had never had a disheartened word to say, even when things had been truly dreadful.

“You’d best tell us then, boys.” Old Martin spoke in gentle but stern tones, and over their head, Elizabeth looked down from Beau’s saddle, like an avenging angel with the sun shining from behind her head.

“Yes,” she said, quietly. “Tell me what has happened to my little brother, and why you left him all alone, Allen, when you were the friend he looked up to?”

Elizabeth had learned much from Isabella, John decided then. She had that very tone in her voice, fair warning that no man or child should dare to cross, and Allen Montgomery looked fair to wilt.

“My dearest.” John cleared his throat carefully. “They have come a long way. It would only be fair to let them sit down, let them have something to eat and drink, and then they can tell us what has happened.”

Joseph’s look was piteous in its gratitude, but Allen said pleadingly, “He was alive, then, Mrs. Townsend. We left him by the fire. He said he was going to walk down to the cabin as soon as he had rested a little more. He was alive when we last had sight of him,  I swear it,” Elizabeth only looked at him, and John realized that the animus that he held toward Sutter was a pale shadow compared to what Elizabeth now bore toward Allen.

Elizabeth was partial to Sarah and took her part when Allen had treated her badly, but now Allen had let down Moses, who was all but Elizabeth’s own child. A wise man did not do harm, by commission or omission, to a woman’s cub, not if he put any particular value on his own skin, or make one of her particular friends unhappy, and now Allen had done both. No, Allen would not be welcome in any parlor that Elizabeth kept, and John did not blame her in the least. In spite of their long friendship, John would cheerfully knock Allen down if he had shown himself responsible for abandoning Moses in the wilderness.

Captain Sutter had given them several furnished rooms in his garrison quarters. The sleeping rooms opened into an opened arcade that served as a sitting room and dining room combined, furnished with tables and the same sort of comfortable rawhide chairs that he had in his office. The Martin boys, Dennis and Patrick, were taking their leisure there and welcomed Allen and Joseph happily, taking no apparent notice of John’s grim face.

“Allen, man, you lazy scamp, you were supposed to be in the mountains,” Patrick said, cheerily. “Set your traps down anywhere.

“And what would your old father say if he saw you boys lazing away the day?” Joseph answered, and Dennis said, “‘Move yourselves over, and pass me the pipe,’ that’s what he would say… you’ve just come from the women’s camp?”

Allen and Joseph set down their packs with expressions of profound relief. “A week ago…we’d just missed you, and your father and James said they were doing fine, and we should take ourselves after you, as soon as possible, before another storm hit.” Allen looked sideways at John. “Other than the snow being nearly up to the roof, everything seemed well for them.”

Old Martin had tactfully detoured to the kitchens and bakery and reappeared now with a tray bearing a couple of bowls of the good fortifying stew of beef and beans provided for the hands and local Indian workers, and a stack of thin bread. “Sorry, boys, and it’s all they had at the moment,” he said, apologetically. “But here’s a pitcher of the good ale they brew here. Drink up and tell us what happened now…how and why did you come, and what news have you to tell us?”

“But first, tell us what happened at the pass,” John said. “We left you there to guard the wagons. Are we to assume, then, they are left unguarded?”

“No,” replied Joseph. He had taken a cup of the ale that Old Martin had passed to him, and a bowl of the good red stew. He was gobbling it up, accompanied by handfuls of the thin folded bread made in the bakehouse for the workers around here. “At least, I think not. Moses was going back to the cabin, you see.”

“Tell us what happened,” John said through his teeth, and Allen replied.

“After we bid farewell to you, at the top of the pass… we all three went down again. We finished building the cabin in a couple of days. We used those two oxen to drag logs, and we had it all finished and tight, the weather was fine, and everything we needed moved into it, and then the storm set in, about four days after. We thought nothing of it. We were warm and sheltered, and thought how fine the hunting would be, when the storm was over.”

“Ah,” interjected Old Martin. “We were caught, just then, ourselves. Four days after crossing the high pass, that’s about right, the day when we packed it in and couldn’t go any farther.”

“Three feet of snow,” Joseph said. “Three feet, and it didn’t melt and pack down, but kept on snowing, until it was up to the level of the cabin roof. We killed the oxen…there was nothing left to feed them, anyway. We tried to go out hunting…we could barely go far enough to get firewood. There was nothing to hunt. So much for my plan to hunt for my supper—it was a bad one, as it turned out, but we didn’t know it for sure for another week or so.”

“We took hickory bows from my wagon.” Allen scraped a mouthful of good red stew on a fold of thin bread. “Joe said he could trim and bend them to shape; using the cowhide, he could make snowshoes of them, something that we could use and get around on the snow, better than we could in our boots. It worked, and we made three pair of them, so we could walk around on the snow with a bit of effort.”

He nudged his pack with his booted foot; a pair of hickory bentwood objects were strapped to the back of it, the insides of the teardrop-shaped frames filled in with a netting of oxhide strips, knotted together.

“Faith, you walked out on those?” Dennis commented. “Holy mother, I’ll bet you about killed yourselves. The frame of it don’t need to be all that heavy, you know.”

“We went out hunting,” Joseph continued. “So we did, and we did our best, but there wasn’t anything, anything at all, but tracks of foxes and coyotes. The deer had gone down to lower levels, the bear were all hibernating… even the fish in the lake were gone down, and then it froze entire…so what could we do? There wasn’t enough meat left from those oxen for all three of us to make it through to spring, and the snow was piling up higher than the cabin roof.”
“We talked it over then,” Allen continued. “And we agreed to try and walk out. We dried the beef, and each of us took some of it, and some blankets, and a rifle each, and we set out in the morning to try and catch up to you. It was hard going for us, even with the snowshoes, but we carried on. That night, we camped at the top of the pass. We had a fire, too, but we feared that it would go out, and it was bitter cold. We stayed awake all night to feed it.”

“What of the lad?” Old Martin asked softly, and Joseph answered.

“He carried on, as bravely as he could…but he kept having cramps in his legs, and he fell down in the snow many times. We’d wait for him, and he would get up and walk on a little way, but by the time we made camp for the night, he could go no more than fifty yards without resting. In the morning, he could barely move.”

“We couldn’t carry him, if he failed.” Allen looked pleadingly at Elizabeth and John. “He was well grown for a lad, even if he wasn’t as heavy as a man. We couldn’t return to the cabin—there was only enough food left behind for one, maybe—and we feared being caught out in the open in another storm.”

John was reminded piercingly of the story that Old Hitchcock had told as he and Moses and Stephens had watched the sunset on Scott’s Bluffs, and he remained silent but thinking. Dear God, Moses had remembered how Hiram Scott had bidden his friends to leave him, accepting his own death at the price of saving theirs.

“So that’s what he said,” Joseph continued. “He said he would go back to the cabin, alone, and live as long as he could on what was left. Perhaps he might try to walk out, later on, if he recovered his strength. He shook our hands, and we said, ‘Goodbye, Mose’. We left him by the fire; he said as soon as he was a little more rested, he would walk down. It had frozen overnight, so I think he would have been able to get along without the snowshoes. We promised to organize a relief party in the spring. It was all we could do for Mose, Mrs. Townsend. I’m so sorry. It was all we could do. He told us himself that he knew that whatever he did, he had to think of the others in the company as well as himself.”

“Ah,” said John. So Moses had remembered, also, the lecture John and Old Martin had given him about thinking things through, after the incident with the Indians at the sink so many months ago. With the gallantry of the very young he had decided to live up to it, courage and sacrifice and friendship, all at once, at the ice-water lake in the heart of the mountains.

“I am sure he is all right, Liz. I am sure of it. There was so much left with the wagons, and if the snow was frozen hard, and he could walk from the pass…it was not that far from the pass, to their camp.”

He took Elizabeth’s hand, as she sat with a still face and overflowing eyes. Dennis Martin took the other, saying, “Heart up, Mrs. Townsend. I’ll promise myself to go back in the spring for young Mose, with a better pair of snowshoes, yet. I’d think shame on myself if I couldn’t build a better pair, or teach him so as to get along without falling down,” and that coaxed a softening to her face, although she still looked bitterly toward Allen.

“We know about winter snow in the mountains, now.” Stephens materialized in the arcade; John had no notion of how long he had been there. “We’d best consider our answer to Captain Sutter now.”

From E.S. Patterson interview, University of California Local History Archive Project 1932:

“My next oldest brother, Samuel, came to my mother with Paw-Paw and my oldest brother Oliver, who was to go with the men…”

“No!” said Isabella, passionately, “I won’t have it! Samuel is a boy, he is not old enough….”

“Izzy, Izzy, Izzy,” Old Hitchcock chided his daughter, “Don’t shame the lad in front of the others. He’s sixteen and well grown, two years older than Michael Sullivan….”

“Michael is going with his brother, and so would I be,” Samuel pleaded.

“John Sullivan is a man grown, and Oliver is barely more than a boy himself,” Isabella stormed. She dropped the armload of bedding she was carrying from the wagon just inside the doorway of the tiny cabin, and folded her arms, “And you are not too big for me to turn you over my knee….”

“Yes, ma-am….no, ma-am. I am too big for you to do that,” Samuel stammered, bravely. “I’ve been taller than you since mid-summer. Haven’t you noticed? And you’ve been saying at every meal, seems like I eat as much as a man, anyway. So, why can’t I go with the men, seeing as that would leave you all the more?”

“Got you there, Izzy.” Old Hitchcock seemed hugely amused.

She spun on her heel and stormed up to the campfire, where John was trying to warm the inkbottle sufficiently to thaw the ink inside, so as to be able to write a new entry. Given that there was not a shred of privacy in the camp, he already knew what the disputation was about and had been hoping that he would not be drawn into it.

“Doctor Townsend!” Isabella demanded, “Tell him! Tell Samuel he may not go with the men!!”

“Why not?” John asked, reasonably. “It can’t be that he is too young, for Michael is even younger, and he is going. Moreover, he would be going with Oliver… and his grandfather no less… and Captain Stephens and myself as well. Surely you can assume that we would all be most responsible guardians…”

“Men!” cried Isabella in frustration. “You all stick together!”

John sighed and re-corked his inkbottle, putting it in his pocket. Not a good time for a full account of the building of the winter camp and the decision to split the party once again. He stood and offered her his arm.

“Mrs. Patterson… may we speak privately on this matter? Please?”

She took his elbow, and he walked her a little way, to the edge of the winter camp, where they had been felling and trimming trees. Inadvertently, they had cleared a vista, looking out on the folds of snowy forest falling away to the west. He stopped at the place where they could see it all, the trackless lands along the unnamed river.

“Look at it, Mrs. Patterson,” he said, quietly. “It’s where we’re going, tomorrow.”

“So you are, but I don’t want Samuel going with you!” She kept her voice low, but her eyes were full of passionate tears.

“But is it not where Mr. Patterson is…Samuel and Oliver’s father? You set out on this journey so that you and the children could rejoin him. He was going ahead of you all, so he could settle on a good prosperous farm, and then you would join him, as soon as it was all done, and so you shall. Why not send both of them ahead, Isabella? It’s only a short journey, compared to the road that we have already traveled. Captain Stephens and I can send word from Sutter’s establishment, and they will be safe in the care of their father.”

“But I want to keep him safe!” Isabella lost her attempt to keep her voice low, and John took her hands in his. “Samuel is a child. What more can this journey now demand of me? We have spent so much…Goldenrod and all the oxen, now our wagon and everything that we brought with us, perhaps the lives of my boys!? I cannot endure that. I cannot.”

“Not that,” John sighed.”Not that last sacrifice, not after all that. You cannot keep him safe, Isabella, not when he is of an age to think for himself. Let him go with us.”

“No,” And her tears brimmed over, but John continued, relentlessly.

“Listen to me, Isabella. He cannot be rolled up in cotton-wool and protected, as you protect Sadie…and as you try to protect Eddie, that little imp. Listen to me. Our children at a certain age, they crave to be respected, to have responsibility, to be treated by the rest of us as if they are adults, worthy of our regard and company. We must let them have this.

“We must let them have this, because if they do not have this in a good way, they will become distracted and look for it in a bad way. They will become careless and idle and seek for low company and low pleasures…just because they want so much to be worthy and responsible. Samuel yearns for that…let him have it, Isabella. Let him go, and let him see that he can be a man…a brave and responsible man. It is a couple of years before he can be that in truth…but it will do him good, I think.”

“Is that what you told yourself when you let Moses stay at the lake with your wagon?” Isabella said harshly.

“Perhaps it was,” John answered honestly “Perhaps it was. He has already chosen his task. Let him go, Isabella. Let him go and do it, show us all that he can rise to what is expected. We will see that he comes to no harm. Let him go with us, Isabella.”

He knew he had won when her shoulders dropped, even before she looked down at their hands and replied, wearily, “As you ask, then, Doctor. I will let Samuel go with Oliver…but you will promise me on everything that you think holy that you and Captain Stephens will keep him safe until their father comes for them.”

“We’ll keep Samuel and all the boys as safe as it is possible to keep them.” John raised her hands and bowed over them. “Thank you…I know that Samuel will thank you, and so will Mr. Patterson, when the boys rejoin him.”

Isabella smiled then, a little. “Tell him…” her voice quavered a little, “when you see Mr. Patterson…tell him that I am longing to see him again, and that he must come for us as soon as possible.”

“If I am sure of anything,” John answered, “It is that nothing will keep him from riding to your rescue…on a white charger, no less, and with one of your handkerchiefs as a favor. Would you like to give me one of yours, so I can take it to him, as a token of your affections?”

As he had hoped, Isabella laughed outright and answered, “That would not be necessary. He is a very dear man to me, but not, I fear, the knight-errant sort.”

“Then let us go tell Samuel to make up a pack. I imagine that he has been on pins and needles, watching us talk.”

From E.S. Patterson interview, University of California Local History Archive Project 1932:

“Ma was persuaded to let Samuel go with Oliver and the men. They each put on two sets of clothes and their heavy coats, and Ma packed a little food for them. They both carried a roll of blankets, and Ma made them take some extra socks and asked Paw-Paw and Doctor Townsend to promise to send word to Pa’s holdings…”

From Dr. Townsend’s Diary:

“Fifth of December, 1844.” We shall depart on the morrow, having done everything possible to prepare. Snow fell heavily last night, burying the stock of meat fairly deep, as well as a great stack of fire wood which Murphy and his boys thought fit to provide, among other comforts. James Miller and Young Martin have built some rough furnishings (beds and chairs, etc) for the cabin, so that all within may sleep in some comfort, and James Murphy has diverted himself in his usual manner by whittling toys from odd bits of wood. I perceived that he had a small box full of them, and when I asked his purpose, he replied that it would be Christmas in three weeks, and he intended to leave the collection with his brother-in-law, so that each child would have a gift on Christmas morning.

We take nothing but what we can carry, a bedroll and rifle and ammunition each, since we have only my horse, Mr. Hitchcock’s two mules, and three of Greenwood’s ponies left to us. I must leave my writing desk, although my journal, pen, and ink will fit easily into my coat pockets. I must leave most of my medical implements and supplies behind also, in Mrs. Patterson’s care.  We leave, trusting our Savior for a safe journey and swift return.”

Angeline Morrison Letter #3
3rd December,1844
Writ from Sutter’s Fort
New Helevetia, California

Dearest Angeline:
My last letter was writ to you from Ft. Hall as we were about to leave the established trail and venture into the desert, following a small river into the desert sink, from where we hoped to find passage over the mountains. We were successful in this venture, although it cost us much toil.

My dearest husband was taken ill from sunstroke whilst crossing the desert, which distress’d me very much, but he recovered fully. Our party followed a fortuitous river up into the mountains that divide the desert from California like a great wall. With much difficulty and labor, our party brought our wagons along this river, well up into the mountains, but we were caught by winter.

Fearing that we might become stranded, Capt. Stephens call’d for a meeting, at a place where two tributaries met. Knowing not which way might prove a more straight path, it was decided to send out a small party on horseback to follow the southward bending fork, in hopes of an easy crossing. We drew lots, among the fit and strong, and without young children to care for.

You will be amazed, my dear Angeline, to know that my health is so much recovered that I was among six chosen for this desperate venture. Six of us set out on 15th November; besides myself, Helen, John, and Daniel Murphy, and two hired men, Francis Deland, whom my dearest hired in St. Joseph all these months ago to drive our wagon, and Oliver Magnent, who was in the employ of Joseph Foster.

We each took our blankets and some little food, hoping to be able to hunt. Miss Helen and I were allowed a change of clothes each and a piece of canvas to sleep under. The men each bore a rifle and ammunition. We also had two extra horses, to bear packs, as it was hoped we could move rapidly and if necessary, bring back help and supplies upon reaching safety.

We departed from our loved ones with much anguish, Mr. Murphy and my own dearest husband being most particularly affected. I leave any further description of our tender farewells to your imagination, my dear Angeline, as it causes my own tears to flow again when I reflect on them.

We ascended the southward turning canyon with no impediment caused by snow; indeed I was pleasantly surprised at the swiftness of our passage, since we did not have to clear a way for wagons. At the end of two days, we came out on the shores of a magnificent lake, verily an ocean, as blue as a sapphire in a setting of mountains. We could not see to the end of it, but the water itself was as clear as glass. We crossed along the northern shore of it, feeling such a medley of emotions as my pen is feeble to describe—such awe and wonder at this marvel, well mix’d with apprehension of being caught in another storm and mir’d deep in snow.

After some little distance, we found an easy pass over the rim of mountains and followed it westward, leaving behind the marvelous lake. Finding another watercourse flowing west, we descended from the mountains, fleeing the approach of a storm that covered them with impenetrable clouds for many days.

The watercourse became a broad river, as we traveled; within some days we had left the snow behind and were traversing a country of gentle hills, very lightly wooded, and rich with game. To the inexpressible delight of the men, they were able to hunt…and to my own and Miss Helen’s delight, we were able to set aside certain of our heavy garments, and revel in what seemed like the balmy zephyrs of spring.

We were forced to cross the river at one point, and John Murphy’s horse was o’erthrown by the swift current. His rifle was nearly lost, and himself carried some distance by the current, until he was able to catch hold of an overhanging branch. He was drenched thoroughly and nearly drown’d, although we were all wetted to some degree. We made camp immediately on the shore and built a large bonfire to dry our clothing, before proceeding farther.

Wondrously, after some two weeks or twenty days of travel following the river, we came to some houses; the dwellings of a Mr. St. Clair. While astonished at our appearance—think on it: six very tired and travel-worn strangers appearing out of the mountains as if by magic—we were received with much kindness, altho’ Mr. St. Clair and his family and friends expressed great concern upon hearing that we were emissaries of a larger party still maroon’d in the mountains.

They conducted us down to Captain Sutter’s establishment on the confluence of two great rivers in this valley, where we were very kindly received. He is the great magnate in these parts: Miss Helen and myself were given rooms in his own house, and her brothers and the other men quartered suitably near by.

You would be astonished, my dearest Angeline, at Captain Sutter’s vast establishment, for he keeps a very great estate, in a vast square fortress built out of unbaked clay bricks on top of a low hill overlooking the rivers and the territory around. There are a dozen brass cannon on the walls and in the bastions, and a troop of Indian soldiers, turned out in blue drill pantaloons and white shirts, of which Capt. Sutter is very proud.

Being informed by a messenger from Mr. St. Clair of our circumstances, we were conducted into Captain Sutter’s office immediately upon our arrival.  He is a gentleman of many parts, and considerable charm, and received us very warmly, with every protestation of concern at hearing of the plight of our party.

But although we all and severally begged for his assistance in organizing a relief party,  Miss Helen even burst into showers of tears, to no avail. Capt. Sutter firmly demurred, although he seemed much moved, saying that winter storms make the mountains impassible, and any such attempt would only be to condemn the rescuers to an ugly fate.

We had hoped so much from our flying journey across the mountains to rescue our family and friends, and were so gratified by a successful completion; you will know that our distress was very great. Capt. Sutter seem’d most downcast, and sympathetic to our spirits, and encouraged us to hope that the party may have also been able to transport themselves closer to safety by their own efforts. He counseled patience and offered us indefinite hospitality, saying that our lov’d ones may yet appear as we have done, and that winter has only now descended with full force upon the high mountains.

So we must wait, at least for a little while. It still seems very strange to me, having become accustomed to the trail for the last eight months, to live inside a house and sleep in a proper bedstead, and eat meals at a proper table. Civilization fits uneasily, still, like a garment I have not worn for some considerable time.

Every day, Miss Helen and I, and sometimes her brothers Johnny or Daniel take our ponies and ride a little way along the river, by Capt. Sutter’s wheat fields and pasturelands; we look at the distant mountains and watch for a while, hoping to see our dear ones. Each day we ride back, very low in spirits, and then we say to each other, “Perhaps tomorrow we’ll see them.”

The post departs very infrequently from here, when there is word of a ship in port at Yerba Buena or Monterey. Capt. Sutter promises that we well be informed at such a time. I will leave this letter unsealed until then, hoping to add a post-script that my dearest husband and Moses and the others are safely arrived.

Until then, with deepest fondness, Thy friend
Elizabeth

“Doc, I’m goddamn glad there’s no one there for me to say goodbye to,” Stephens murmured to John as they waited by the deserted wagons, on the morning they had decided to leave. John nodded; he had already said his farewells long since and days back, and this desperate trek with the men and boys could be the means of reuniting with Elizabeth, anyway. He had told Isabella to make free of whatever she might be able to use from those of his medical supplies being left behind, and she had nodded distractedly.

Hitchcock stood with them, with his two pack-mules stamping impatiently, and Old Greenwood and his sons, and the four hired men, who might once have sent yearning looks at Mary Sullivan, or Helen Murphy, once upon an evening when there was music around the campfire, but had no chance against the vigilance of assorted brothers…they were impatient to go, also. Dog nudged Stephens’s hand with her nose—oh, she was impatient too. Patrick Martin took each of his sons in a mighty bear-hug,

“Be off with you both then, lads. Don’t start anything you can’t finish.”

Isabella, her eyes filling with unshed tears, pulled Oliver’s coat straight and re-knotted the muffler around his neck. She did the same with Samuel and said fiercely, “You… give my love to your Pa, and tell him to hurry. Mind you pay attention to Doctor Townsend, for if I hear you ain’t been behaving, I can still bend you over my knee, you know!”

“No, you can’t Ma,” Samuel replied, and bending down to hug her, he tightened his arms around her and lifted her clean off her feet as he straightened up.

“Sauce!” she gasped, when he put her down again. “Go on with you, you big man, then. Go on!”

“Bye, Ma. Bye, squirt,” Oliver and Samuel chorused, and Oliver tousled Eddie’s head. “Take care of Ma, Johnnie. This leaves you the man of the house, then.” A hug each for Nancy, and another for Sadie, bewildered enough to have begun sucking her thumb again, and the two of them joined the waiting men.

Young Martin had the baby in his arms; he knelt in the snow with his boys around. John thought he might be telling them to look after their baby sister. Young Martin’s brother Jamie simply stood with his arms around Annie and his adored little Mary. John Sullivan and Michael, the youngest of all those making the trip, stood close by his sister and little brother. Mary Sullivan nodded calmly, as he spoke to her, obviously last-minute directions and instructions, in John Sullivan’s level-headed fashion.

“You should be away, now,” Patrick Martin rumbled finally in his gravelly Irish voice, to his old and good friend, Old Martin. “Before we’re all drowned in tears and used up half the day. Ne’er fear, James and I shall keep them all safe. Be away with you, then, while the day is young. We shall see you when we see you.”

Old Martin took Bernard by one arm and John by the other and said, “Martin…Son James…we’ll away, and be back before you know it. Take care of the children, my dears.” He came up to John and Stephens, saying “Let’s be gone from here, before I commence to wail like a banshee.”

And with that, they straggled off, Dog loping in the lead, dancing and leaping like a wild dervish, although there was many a mournful glance backward, as long as any could see the little straggles of smoke from the campfires and chimneys.

They followed the river, taking turns to walk in front, wading through the snow, and stamping it down for an easier path for the rest, leading the mules and Ugly Grey, and Greenwood’s ponies, marveling at how fast they could yet move, unburdened by wagons.

“At this great rate, we may be able to return in weeks,” Jamie Murphy commented happily, and it seemed to John that their spirits rose. The country was still very rough, and thick-wooded with trees. To bring out the wagons would still be a chore, but with fresh teams…and as long as the snow held off.

The animals fed on rushes that evening; although it seemed that the snow was not as deep on the ground as before, it was still too thick for them to paw it away from last year’s grass. But by the next day, the snow had diminished to a few rags in deep shade, or on a northern facing slope, and they moved even faster.

“Oh, ’tis a splendid country,” Old Martin rejoined. “Look at that grass, ‘tis nearly Christmas, and yet it’s as green as it ever was in Ireland.”

Scouting a little ahead, on the following day, John Greenwood and Dennis Martin shot a brace of fat deer, and they ate their fill of venison that night, at ease around the campfire.

“Oh, now ‘tis sublime, that!” Old Martin sighed, and tossed the last little bit of gristle and bone to Dog, who snapped it up eagerly. Dog had been very well fed on scraps and bones this evening.

“It’s a golden country. No mistake.” Stephens tossed her another bit, and Michael Sullivan produced the most resoundingly noisy belch. The Patterson boys giggled.

“Manners, lads, manners,” Old Martin chided them. “Pigs have none!”

“I think that was the first time in months that I ate my fill without calculating how little that would leave for the next meal,” John observed, idly.

“You also?” Old Martin lifted an eyebrow, “Faith an’ I thought I was the only one doing so. And now we are in the land of plenty, where the rivers are full of milk and honey, and the trees full of golden fruit, and we shall not have to consider every day how many miles we have made.”

“I’m glad it’s nearly over.” Oliver Patterson wiped his mouth on his shirtsleeve, and John said, “So am I. I think now if I had known of some of the difficulties….”

“Would you have stayed in St. Joseph, then, Doc?” Stephens asked.

“No, but I might have thought longer on leaving it,” John answered, and Old Martin said, “Doctor, when you’ve lived as long as I have, trust me, you’ll look back on it and forget all the hardships and weariness, and remember only the good times, fine company, and marvelous sights…and then you’ll wish it had lasted longer.”

“It’s lasted quite long enough for me, already,” John answered. “And we are still a little short of Sutter’s, at that. But you are probably right about time painting a fairer picture, in retrospect.”

In the next days, they descended into a gentler country of rounded hills lightly covered in fine spreading oak trees, and then into a valley so large that they could not see an end to it. The river they followed became broad and deep, flowing through lush meadows on either side. They spotted cattle grazing, fine fat cattle, and harvested fields.

At about midday, seven days after leaving the winter camp, they rounded a bend, and in the distance saw what appeared to be a great sprawling enclosure, a great wall with corner bastions, surrounding a number of taller buildings within. Smoke rose from many chimneys, and a banner flew from a tall staff, and the sound of a distant bugle hung on the air.

“That can be no other than Sutter’s establishment” Greenwood said with quiet satisfaction. “It is said that he keeps a greater state than the governor himself.”

“There is only one other sight that could be more welcome to me,” John answered honestly.

“But it is a grand one, none the less,” Old Martin marveled. “Sure, and he lives like a lord, with a village outside the gates. Should we walk up to the front door, think you, or go around to the back to the stables?”

“To the front,” John answered, and it seemed that they walked faster.

There were uniformed men patrolling the walls above, and the coming and going of men, horses, and wagons had beat out a road, a road that led between fine sturdy buildings, roofed with orange-red tile. They passed people going about their own business, who looked at them with a little curiosity—Indians mostly, but dressed like white folk, the men in simple trousers and shirts, and women in chemises, under gaily-patterned calico skirts and shawls.

The gates of Sutter’s fortress stood open, but as they approached, a man called down from the bastion overhead, “May I ask who you are, strangers, and inquire of your business here?”

“We are part of a wagon company who set out from Missouri, under Captain Stephens, some eight months ago,” John answered, raising his voice a little, “and we would need to speak to Captain Sutter….” but his interlocutor exclaimed, “Stay…sir! Oh, this is happy news…you are expected! Come in, come in! We had news of your party…. Wait a moment, let me come down.”

They entered though the gate, coming out into a great courtyard with a well in the center, all a-bustle with activity. A great arcade of structures lined the inside wall: stables and storehouses, workshops and stores. The smell of baked bread filled the air. A large house and several smaller held pride of place in the center, where a number of saddled horses were tied to hitching posts. One of them rather resembled Beau, and John’s heart rose at the sight.

A bearded young man emerged from a small doorway at the foot of the bastion, saying in much excitement, “Captain Stephens, is it? Martin Murphy and Doctor Townsend? I am John Bidwell, Captain Sutter’s foreman and assistant. We had much to do to reassure Mrs. Townsend, Doctor, she was most distraught…”

“They are here?!” Old Martin cried with much delight, “All of them with Helen and Daniel, and Johnny? They are here, and safe?”

Martin and James, and their brother Bernard slapped each other’s backs and crowed, “I knew it, those little scamps…anything to get out of chopping trees!”

“Yes, indeed, they rode in five days ago,” Bidwell answered, “and Captain Sutter….”

But John did not hear another word, for two women had come out of the big house and down the steps, and one of them was Helen Murphy, and the other was Elizabeth. And for the longest time, it was only the two of them, alone in Sutter’s busy courtyard, locked in each other’s arms.

From E.S. Patterson Interview, University of California Local History Archival Project 1932:

“We looked back down from the top of the pass, and we couldn’t hardly believe we had brung wagons all the way up it… but we had! The snow was all trampled to slush, there was marks of chains all over, trees chopped down, empty casks and scraps of wood all left at the bottom. And tired?! We children were tired enough, but the men, they were exhausted…and three of them that was going to winter over, guarding the other wagons…they said goodbye to us at the top, just at sundown.

We watched them climb down, by the way we had come up, and they went walking off into the valley…I think now that some of us feared they might never be seen alive again, but I was just a little boy then, and I was dead envious of them, camping all winter in the snow, and hunting when they wanted, no school or chores or such.

Doctor Townsend’s foster-son, Moses, he was one of them. To me then, he looked near to a man, the same as my brother Oliver. Looking back now, I know they were both just boys…and I had no idea of how bad things would get, just when we were thinking we were pert near safe….”

John stood with a little knot of people, just at the top of the pass, the setting sun behind them turning all the snow opposite to pink, or lavender where the shadows fell, filling up the valley below like a cup, and turning the ice-water lake to a pool of quicksilver.

He and Sarah, with Stephens, Isabella with Eddie, and Old Martin huddled into coats and shawls against the bitter wind, stood in a small knot to bid their farewells.

“When you can,” he overheard Isabella advising earnestly, “Eat of the innards, especially of the liver…and if you can find it, strip off willow bark and brew a tea of the inner layer. It’s a sovereign remedy against pain and fevers too. Purslane…you know what it looks like? Fat green leaves, growing low to the ground in damp places. If you can dig down through the snow and find last summer’s growing, eating it will stave off scurvy…”

“Lime juice is better for preventing scurvy,” Old Martin said, heartily. “Wish we’d remembered that, buying necessities, way back in St. Joe, lads…aye well. If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.”

He, Stephens, and Isabella were making much of Joseph Foster, because he had no close kin amongst them and it was unseemly to part with someone who had done and would still do great service without taking some kind of notice, and of Moses for his very youth.

Sarah and Allen seemed to have little to say. “It was not so bad as all that,” Allen said, easily. “We’ll sort things out when we get to California. You’ll be taken care of, at least.”

“…to be taken care of!” Sarah sounded indignant, and Allen shouldered his rifle and answered, indifferently.

“Whatever you wish, then.” They said nothing more to each other, after that. Sarah pulled her shawl tightly around her elbows and went to embrace Moses instead, while Allen seemed impatient to leave.

“I mean to thank you, for volunteering to guard our wagons,” John said to him, as Allen stood a little aside from the knot of people. “We have left so much of value in them… and for the love of god, take care of Mose, for Elizabeth’s and my sake.”

“Like a brother,” Allen’s face lightened from the dark cloud on it. “We have long been friends, you and Mose and I. Have nothing to fear for him, Joe and I will be as careful as nursemaids with the boy.”

“He’ll give you no credit for that, I am sure. But we will see that Sarah is safe until we are reunited again.”

Allen’s face again appeared grim and dark at the mention of his wife, and he replied mordantly, “Aye…reunited. That’s a cheery thought to keep a man warm of a winter.”

“It does so, for me,” John answered, and Allen laughed a little, saying, “Aye, but you and Mrs. Elizabeth are happier in your marriage than Sarah and I have ever been…there are people who are meant for marriage, and more and more I doubt that we are such. No, you need not look as sour as a preacher, John. I’ll see that she is always provided for.”

John thought that he might have said more but that Moses had been embraced by Isabella, and Old Martin, and Joseph Foster had shouldered his own rifle. It was time to face that wrenching farewell.

“Moses, lad….” John said, in a voice that nearly gave way, “You’re sure you want to partake of this enterprise? Your sister will be distraught to think of you left behind in this manner…it is not too late to change your mind about it. Allen and Joseph are men grown; they would not expect you to play the part of one, as well.”

It almost seemed that Moses wavered; if he were still the boy he had been when they departed the Bluffs, he might yet have changed his mind. But he was not; he had guarded cattle, and hunted buffalo, borne the responsibilities of a man for all those long months since, even though to John he still appeared absurdly young. “No, Doctor John.” Moses’s shoulders squared under John’s hands. “Liz will not be too worried; after all, she had her task. I am not a child any longer, and I have mine. I’ll not be talked out of it.”

“Boys, it’s getting dark, we’d best mosey along,” Allen said then, impatiently stepping away from the little group, starting the descent of the path tramped out by so many feet on this day.

“I thought as much,” John sighed, and embraced him. Joseph was already following after Allen. “Stay warm, Moses…keep busy as you can. I most especially recommend reading Lord Chesterfield’s Letters. Dear lad… We’ll be back in the spring, as soon as the snow melts and the passes open. That’s a promise.”

“Give my love to Liz, when you meet her again.” Moses shouldered his own rifle. “Good-bye, Doctor John, see you in the spring.” He started down the trail after the other two.

Stephens called after them,     “We left you two oxen, picketed out at the bottom of the pass. They’re not in such good condition, but they’ll make a couple of meals, until the cabin is finished and the hunting picks up.”

Allen waved his rifle, and the next moment they were out of sight, and Isabella saying distractedly, “I wish we had fed them one good supper…but they could not stay, with darkness falling, and who knows when the next storm will come….”

Sarah had walked on ahead, as if she cared little for a last sight of her husband.

“Your father knows.” John took Isabella’s arm. “He says that his rheumatic knee gives him fair warning of all changes in the weather.”

Old Martin chuckled. “Meself, I feel a change of weather in my shoulder.”

“Fiddlesticks! Absolute fiddlesticks!” Isabella snorted, “The stories that man tells! Eddie, my duckling, run along. Tell Nancy I will be at the fire presently.”

Eddie scampered ahead; at least, he still had enough energy to do so. After drawing up each of the wagons, they had moved a little way down the pass, to set up camp and shelter from the wind in a little dell rimmed with dark pines. Someone had started a cookfire, although no one but the children seemed in the least hungry.

“Some of them are true,” John insisted. “And those that aren’t have the benefit of being at least amusing. I’m deeply fond of the one where he spent a winter night in a cave with a hibernating colony of bears. There is a lot to be said for a man who can be good and amusing company in a tight place…and speaking of hibernation for a winter night, I presume that I am to share a tent with Oliver and the boys?”

“It’s all such a jumble, all higgledy-piggledy now,” Isabella lamented, in housewifely fashion. “Sarah and the girls and I in the wagon, and Eddie and the boys in the tent, below. Do you know, Doctor, I nearly traded away the canvas at Ft. Laramie; the boys often didn’t wish to bother with it. They liked sleeping in the open or underneath the wagon if it looked like rain.”

“Sheltering all of us now, with half as many wagons,” Stephens ventured. “Doc, is there enough canvas for all? I was not thinking of anything beyond all the labor of moving the wagons.”

“We should not use canvas after too many more nights,” Old Martin answered jovially. “With luck; we should soon be down below the snow. Mind you, I could sleep comfortable in a snow-bank tonight, for I am that tired with the work we did today.”

“So could we all,” Stephens agreed.

“Is there anyone needing medicinal aid after today’s hard business?” John yawned hugely. “I am myself so weary, I fear I would be applying my skills to the other limb or the wrong end entirely.”

Isabella shook her head, “No, the only one who soon will require your aid may be Mrs. Murphy, and not for another few days, in my opinion.” She sighed, a great sigh of relief. “Do you think it can be true that we are close to the end of our journeying? No, do not answer that…I know neither of you knows, but I would so like to think that we are, just for tonight!”

And John kept silent and so did Stephens, for both of them had looked out toward the west, from the top of the pass, and seen only dark forested mountains, for miles and miles beyond, and nothing of that fabled green and golden paradise that California was supposed to be. Somewhere below and beyond, Elizabeth and Helen and the others rode swift and sure for Sutter’s Fort, while he plodded along with the wagons and longed for a sight of her.

From Dr. Townsend’s diary;

“Twenty-seven November, 1844: Alas for hope, our labors are unceasing as the country is very rough; in one place we were forced to lower the wagons down a steep hillside by means of ropes snubbed around trees, lest the wagon overtake the team. We are descending but gradually, and fear that another great winter storm is about to break over the mountains. We are worn very thi,n and our remaining team animals weakened and near broken. We are wearied to the bone with the necessity of clearing trees out of our path, and Mrs. Murphy (wife of Young Martin) is close to her time…”

The first John knew of it was the screaming. He was halfway down a muddy slope, leading Ugly Grey by the reins in one hand, and gripping an ax in the other. He had been with Stephens, Greenwood and Patrick Martin all morning in advance of the wagons, scouting and felling small trees this way and that, thinking, “I used to be a professional man, with a fine library and a medical practice, and now I am a pioneer, felling trees in front of the wagons. Really, that is a waste of an education, however you look at it”.

He doubled back; it was mostly women screaming, but a man cursing too in a hoarse voice, and the meaty sound of blows, and an ox bellowing in the agonized way of a beast in pain.

“Holy Mother of God,” Patrick panted, running at his side. “What is this, the Indians attacking us, at long last?”

John caught his rifle from the holster on Ugly Grey’s saddle and fired a shot into the air, a signal to Stephens and Greenwood, farther ahead, blazing a path along a ridge above a fast-running little river.

They came upon the wagons, a grim tableau among the green pines and the white snow. Young Martin’s wagon was in the lead that day, keeping to that long-established trail practice, although there were only the five of them left, and John took it all in at a look and stood stock still, frozen with horror at the scene before him. One of the lead beasts was down, fallen to its knees and dragging its yokemate with it, and Young Martin, with the face of a madman, beat it savagely with his whip handle, shouting in a frenzy of rage and despair, “Get up, damn ye, get up,” as the crimson blood splashed onto the snow.

Mary-Bee, half-collapsed and supported in the arms of Annie and Mary Miller, screamed from beside the wagon, begging for him to cease. “Oh, stop, Martin, stop it! The children! Oh, stop, for the love of God!”

The little boys and their cousin Mary watched in horror, some of them crying, and burying their heads in their mothers’ skirts. Like John, all seemed paralyzed alike at seeing Martin, always so even-tempered and gentle, solicitous of his team, administering this frenzied and senseless beating.

Only Isabella and Old Martin seemed able to move sensibly: Isabella ran up and snatched the bloody whip out of his hand, crying, “Oh, enough, enough!” while Old Martin took his son in his arms, pulling him away from the shuddering animal.

“That’s enough, child…come back to us now, let it go….” as Young Martin collapsed to his knees, sobbing in horrible, wrenching gasps in his father’s arms, while Old Martin held him fast. Just so had Isabella cried, that day of the cull in the mountains, and John met her eyes and knew she remembered it also. And Stephens appeared then, out of the woods at John’s elbow, as silently as a ghost himself, and Old Martin met their eyes.

“It’s enough, now,” he said quietly. “We’re done in, Captain.”

Stephens nodded, acknowledging. They were exhausted, had been for weeks, and the mighty effort of getting those five wagons over the pass had sapped the last reserves of strength and endurance left to all; men, women and the team animals. Above them, the storm clouds pressed close against the trees, blurring the sky and the mountains behind in a cloud of falling snow. A couple of fat white feathers of it drifted down on them, melting into the blood that splattered the snow already fallen.

“Mrs. Murphy’s time has also come,” Isabella said, softly. “I do not think we dare travel any farther. And the storm is coming.”

“We’ll make camp, then,” Stephens answered. “There is a suitable place yonder, above a bend in the river.” To John and Old Martin, he added quietly, “After we’ve set up, I’ll want a meeting…everyone, as before…to talk over what to do.”

They straggled along that little way, like survivors of a battle lost, and made camp as the snow fell thick and hard. The ox that Young Martin had beaten so savagely managed to rise and stumble that little way. John and Isabella put Mary-Bee into the Miller wagon, and Isabella tended her there.

“Tomorrow, I think.” She consulted with John, when they loosed the teams. “It does seem strange to be setting camp so early in the day. What do you think Captain Stephens has in mind?”

“I don’t honestly know,” John answered. “There doesn’t seem to be much else we can do now but try and pack out with what we can carry.”

“Not with Mary-Bee…not with the babies, and the other children, not in snow that near comes up to their chins,” Isabella sighed. “What of Young Martin?”

“He’s as tired as the rest of us, only worse for him, with Mary-Bee. I gave him a little tot of medicinal whiskey.”

“At least they are here together,” Isabella sighed again. “And the children are enjoying themselves. Look.”

Stephens had picked a campsite on a low knoll overlooking the river. They had parked the wagons in a sheltered grove, by an open meadow frosted with snow, being covered deeper now by snow still falling. In it the children were romping, throwing snowballs at each other, while their fathers cut poles and branches in the grove, for firewood and to build hasty bowers and shelters for themselves.

“It is good for them not to share our cares,” John said, simply. “They can play for a little longer.”

With poles and canvas, and using trees and the wagons themselves, they had a shelter of sorts rigged, something to keep the fast-falling snow off the fire and themselves, gathering for the meeting that Stephens had called. John looked around; the contrast between them now, and how they had appeared six months ago, preparing to set out and cross the river into the wilderness was almost unbearable. Only Greenwood and his son appeared relatively unchanged; everyone else looked shockingly thinner, worn and sun-burnt, tired and as ragged as some of Old Martin’s tinker gypsies. Isabella and Old Martin, even Patrick Martin, surely they had not so much grey in their hair, six months ago?

By ones and twos they gathered, families and the single men, even Mary-Bee, wincing occasionally as a pain seized her, and Stephens looked into the fire, at his rough, strong blacksmith’s hands, as they gathered.

“What do I say, now, Doc?” he had asked, all those months ago when John had engineered his election to captaincy, and he had taken John’s advice and made the shortest political acceptance speech that John had ever heard. But he had promised to get them to California, or wherever they were going…and now they were so close, so close that at every hillside prospect, it seemed they could almost see that fair green and golden land, but the snow and the mountains had closed around them again, and now they were spent, out of strength and nearly out of food, but Stephens, that big, ugly, and inarticulate man, had never yet failed, had always managed to keep going, to keep them all going. John dreaded that Stephens would ask his advice again, and this time he would have none to give.

“When you ’lected me, you all gambled.” Stephens finally looked up from the fire and met their expectant eyes. “You gambled on me. You gambled on yourselves being able to make the trip, too. An’ I made a promise then…I’d get you all to California. We’re as close as anything to taking our winnings off the table. We’re over the mountains, now. We found a pass. We crossed the mountains on a way that no one but the Indians ever seed before. We’re nearly there, folks… we’re following the river downhill every day. Old Man Hitchcock, here,” Stephens jerked his bearded chin toward the old mountain man, “he’ll tell you that rivers lead down out of mountains, sure as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Caleb and Isaac and I, we b’lieve we have no more than a couple of days’ travel, but with the snow, and the conditions of the teams and all, it’s clear we can’t carry on as we are. We need to make one more gamble. Most of you tell yourselves you ain’t gambling folk. But you are, and we need to make that last throw. We did it before, on the Green, and again when we left the Fort Hall road, and when we crossed the desert on the say-so of a naked wild Indian we couldn’t say two words to… .Hell, we gambled the day we crossed the river from Kanesville.” Stephens’s water-pale eyes gleamed in his dark face; for once he was touched with the fire of eloquence that was not normally his. John held his breath; for once his friend was saying all the right things.

Stephens took a breath and looked up at them, each of them, the wagon-owners and Isabella, the old mountain men, at John himself, and continued. “But every time we gambled, we looked around at the situation and considered everything we might know…and then we acted on the best advice we had. You all trusted me…better than that, you all trusted each other. Every one of you had a say in each of those gambles, and every one of you all had your own kind of skill, and all of them gambles paid off. Now, we got this one last gamble, and it’s for stakes a man don’t like to put on the table, mostly. This time it’s for the lives of your women and children.” Stephens paused, looking into the fire again. “We’re almost to Captain Sutter’s fort, so I b’lieve. We got some time; we got what’s left of our teams. Greenwood here, he’s been saying for weeks that our only hope is to leave the wagons and pack out fast. Mr. Murphy and Miz Patterson here, they don’t like that thought, since it ain’t possible to pack enough supplies, and all the children with what we have. Me, I think the only way out of this pickle is a compromise. We can’t all go, and we can’t all stay.” Stephens took up a stick and poked the fire with it. The snow falling in it made little sizzling sounds, and Dog started up from sleep at his feet. She lay down again, woofing softly, sleeping with her great fawn-and-black head resting on his boot.

“I propose we leave the wagons here and build a winter camp for the women and children, slaughter the rest of the oxen, and leave a couple men here as guards, and the rest of us take the horses and mules and pack out. We take just enough for a couple of days and leave everything else here. There should be enough to last for a while, long enough for us to come back with a rescue party. I plumb don’t see any other way to play the cards, folks, and that’s the plain truth of it. If anyone else can think of something, I’d ’mire to hear it and put it up for a vote.”

“I cannot, either,” said Old Martin Murphy, after a silent moment, while the fire cracked and sizzled away from the snow falling into it. “I cannot bear the thought of leaving the children, but as we cannot carry them with us, we must leave them well provided for.”

“How long does winter last, in these parts?” James Miller asked thoughtfully. “How long could we expect until the snow melts enough in spring to admit a rescue party?”

Hitchcock and Greenwood looked at each other, and Greenwood at last spoke heavily. “I dasn’t say for sure, James…at a guess, end of February at the earliest, March or April at the latest. Make that three months, four months.”

“Any notion as to how good hunting might be in these mountains?” John Sullivan asked.

“There’s always something about,” Hitchcock answered, “if you gets hungry enough. Gen’rally, the deer and other big game go down the mountains…how far? Depends on how deep the snow is. They’ll stay where they can paw snow off last year’s grass. They won’t be where it’s any deeper.”

No one had to look very far to see how the snow outside their wagon circle had already piled in soft billows halfway to the axles. Four months, on the scant supplies left, and the lean flesh left on forty or so oxen.

“We might yet be able to return sooner,” Patrick Martin said hopefully.

“Remember, every man who goes will leave a greater share for those remaining.” John added. He looked around the campfire; no, it seemed as if there was no more to say, no more questions, and certainly no alternatives. “So, then it is proposed that we build a winter camp here to shelter the women and children. Shall we now go ahead and vote on it?”

“One thing,” Isabella spoke up, firmly. “I believe we should all vote on it, women as well as men. In remaining behind or going forth, it is asked of us all to endure a very great trial and considerable risks. When so much is then being asked of all of us, should we not all have a voice in it, not just those who have a franchise in the party? Oughtn’t we at least be able to look back and say we chose our particular trial freely and fairly, and that it was not another’s choice made for us?”

Old Martin nodded somberly. “’Tis a fair thing to ask, Captain. We are asking much of my daughters and Mary Sullivan, as well as Mrs. Patterson and Mrs. Montgomery.”

“I think my choice is made for me already,” Mary-Bee said, halfway between a laugh and a gasp, “and not by any of you!”

“A show of hands, then,” John said, and the hands went up, immediately, and some reluctantly.

“I’ll stay,” Sarah Montgomery was one of the reluctant ones, “but I’d sooner go with the men.”

“You bold thing, you!” said Mary Sullivan, half in jest and half what sounded like malice.

“Sarah, dear, there is no other woman to be a chaperone,” Isabella said, and Sarah answered sullenly, “Then I don’t have a choice then, only what is dictated by propriety.”

“If there’s no objection,” Patrick Martin said, heavily, “I’ll stay here, for a guard, meself.”

“I’ll stay, also,” James Miller spoke up. “We’ll hunt as best as we can.”

“I’ll not go until we have a proper cabin built for everyone,” Young Martin said flatly, “And have done all that we can to for supplies and to keep them safe until our return.”

“That we will,” Stephens promised, and Old Martin added, “And so we must, for the safety of our own souls…as ye said, Captain, a man hardly likes to wager the lives of his own.”

From E.S. Patterson interview, University of California Local History Archive Project 1932:

“So all decided then, for the women and children to stay put, and the men would build a shelter for us, and kill the last of the oxen for food…we couldn’t go any farther in the wagons then, you see the snow was halfway up the walls of the cabin that they began to build, even before the storm was over. They were out in the grove felling trees, working as fast as they could. They did not have the strength left in them, or the time to fell logs for a large cabin, so they built two small ones adjoining under one roof… what Mr. Greenwood said they called a “dog-trot” cabin in the place he was raised up.

Each little room had only a door, no windows and a little fireplace opposite. And we moved in and lived like animals in a burrow; it was warmer in there than in the wagons. Ma and us children with Mrs. Montgomery and Mary Sullivan and her brothers lived in one, and Mrs. Miller and the two Mrs. Murphys all living in the other. The men covered the roof with ox-hides and canvas and piled cut branches on top of it all. They didn’t go until they were finished and the oxen slaughtered, all but two or three they took for meat for themselves.”

From Dr. Townsend’s diary: “Encamped at a winter camp on a river, four days journey west of the highest pass, Mrs. Martin Murphy in labor with her child.”

“Well, at least this is easier than chopping down trees,” John remarked philosophically, rolling up his sleeves. The cold bit through his shirt, for he had already set aside his coat. They had brought two kettles full of coals into the wagon, in an attempt to keep it somewhat warmer; in the back of his mind John feared he would put his foot onto one of them, tip it over and set the wagon on fire.

“Speak for yourself,” Mary-Bee Murphy gasped, leaning against Isabella and Annie’s shoulders. She was yet able to smile at him.

“Another strong push there,” crooned Isabella. “Breathe in and bear down now, Mary-Bee.”

“This would be the second of Old Martin’s grandchildren that I have delivered in six months,” John mused, thoughtfully, “There might be a very bright future for my practice in California…very good, now there’s a bit of the head…your father-in-law has four children, three of whom are of age and unmarried, aside from the four who are. The chances are excellent that I would be kept very busy as the family physician.”

“That, and stitching up my pa when he gets in fights,” Annie Murphy put in, as she and Isabella lifted Mary-Bee’s shoulders up.

“Breathe in and bear down, Mary-Bee…that’s our brave girl,” Isabella urged her, and John said, encouragingly, “There’s the head now. Another great push again….” and Mary-Bee made a great moan that rose to a scream, and the rest of the baby’s body slipped out of her body and into John’s hands.

“It’s a little girl,” John said as he bound and cut the cord, and Mary-Bee fell back, laughing thinly between great gasping breaths.

“Oh, the Lord be praised! How she will tease and pester those imps of her brothers!”

John hastily swaddled the baby in a towel, and then another; she was a dusky pink, not pale like her cousin, and immediately began to wail piercingly.

“She sounds angry,” Mary-Bee gasped again. “Is there something the matter with her?”

“She knows she has just been born on a mountain in the snow, in the middle of the wilderness,” Isabella answered, “and will no doubt make all pay dearly for this lack of forethought.”

John handed the baby to Mary-Bee, who touched her little nose with one finger and cooed,     “Oh, my little sugar-dumpling…how you are going to plague your brothers. I can hardly wait.”

“Have you thought on a name for her?” John asked curiously. Mary-Bee groaned a little, as the afterbirth came away; all there, it looked like.

“We thought Elizabeth would be a pretty name for a girl,” she answered, and John was absurdly pleased.

“Well, it would be a silly one for a boy. He’d be teased at school everlastingly. But if she turns out to be as pretty as my Elizabeth, she’ll lead all her suitors a fine dance, and need a lot of big, watchful brothers to keep them in line.”

From Dr. Townsend’s diary:

“Yesterday, Mrs. Martin Murphy delivered of a fine, healthy infant girl, christened by her Grandfather Murphy. We intend to leave on the morrow, the cabin being finished, and all necessary preparations made; all remaining men and boys old enough to be counted as men, numbering seventeen in all, save James Miller and Patrick Martin the elder to remain behind to watch over the winter camp.”

From Dr. Townsend’s Journal:

“14th November, 1844 In the wilderness at the fork of Truckee’s River. This day, I can scarce put pen to paper, being distract’d with grief and worry. Our party is split yet again, this again being of our own decision. My own Dearest is gone ahead with five others, judged fit and sound, and without the care of little ones to attend. Yesterday, our labors brought us to where a tributary came down from the mountains, athwart our path, and leading to the south…We made camp in late afternoon, and Captain Stephens called a meeting.”

“We can’t take the wagons much farther,” said Young Martin flatly, as if daring anyone to argue with him, “unless we follow the west tributary.” He dropped down onto an upturned cask that he was using as a stool, and wincingly pulled off his waterlogged boots. He peeled off his socks, which were also soaked.

“Out of our way,” murmured Old Man Hitchcock, looking into the fire, past his eternal whittling and the knife-blade. “The long way around.”

“The long way around may prove the shortest,” answered Stephens gently. “We done well before, always heading straight west. At the Green, and again from the Sink. I’ll wait to hear what Isaac says.”

He sat a little way back from the fire on a half-rotted fallen log, Dog at his feet. Her great fawn and black head lay on her forepaws, golden eyes going back and forth as if she were paying intelligent attention to the conversation. The fire was the smallest of the three outside the circle of wagons and tents, set up on the lee side a barrier against the icy breeze roaring down from the high mountains, and the cold that came at sundown, the cold that was most particularly felt when the exertions of the day were over.

Allen Montgomery and the Murphy brothers, Jamie, Daniel, Bernard, and Johnny, hunkered around the fire. It had the air of an informal meeting of the men, while the women cooked a sparse but much anticipated meal. The horses and Hitchcock’s precious two mules were close-picketed for the night, just on the other side of the wagons, inside the circle, jostling each other for mouthfuls of tall, dry grass bristling up from the day’s accumulation of snow, and armfuls of green rushes cut from the riverbank by the women and older children.

Around that fragile shelter of canvas, brush, and fires, the snow was trampled to a muddy slush. At other fires, Isabella and Sarah, and the Murphy women moved in an intricate ballet, skirts, shawls, and sleeves carefully held back from the fire, as they cooked the evening meal: stew and cornbread that tasted like sawdust with no butter to spread richly on it, dried apples stewed with a little spice. Isabella’s milk cow had gone dry, months since.

Mary-Bee Murphy sat with Mary Miller on a wagon-bench, dandling the baby Ellen, while her sons and Willie Miller and their cousin Mary leaned on Old Martin’s knees, or sat bundled in shawls at his feet, as he told them another endless story about miracles, and goblins and old heroes of Erin. It was hard to judge by a casual looking, John thought, of how far along Mary-Bee was, all bundled in shawls as she was, but she still walked lightly. She was not far enough gone in pregnancy to be awkward, but she tired easily.

His glance was drawn finally, as it always would be, to his own Liz, her hair silver-gilt in the firelight, wrapped in two shawls and the buffalo robe that Old Man Hitchcock had traded for her from the tribes at Fort Laramie. Sitting on another wagon-bench, she had Sadie in her lap, Nancy and Eddie leaning confidingly against her, under the shelter of that buffalo robe.

Poor Liz, she had never been any shakes as a cook, had never even had to be, let alone over a campfire. But to do her fair, she tried her best, at a cost of some burnt fingers, scorching her own apron, and upsetting a pot of beans and near to putting the fire out, whereupon Isabella spoke out in tones of mixed exasperation and affection, somewhere back along the trail when the three families had begun to share a campfire.

Elizabeth would do them all favors if she could but stay away from the fire and the hot kettles; chop the vegetables, if she would be so kind, and read to the children, give them lessons and keep them out from underfoot.

In that mysterious way she had, of seeming to know when he was gazing at her, her eyes lifted from the book and met his for a smiling moment, quiet communion among the crowd around the campfire. He was here, she was there, and yet they were alone together. And then she went on reading to the children, and he was supposed to be also paying attention to the needs of others in the party.

They had all become a tribe, John realized, a tribe of nomads as like to any of the Indians, bound together, sharing hardship alike with those moments in the evening, those rare moments of rest. Across the trampled circle, Moses and Dennis Martin stepped out of the darkness between two wagons, each with an armload of firewood. They piled their burden roughly beside the largest of the fires, and a storm-bright burst of sparks flew up like fireflies meeting the stars overhead.

“… tonight, after we’ve supped.”

“A meeting?”

John was startled back from his nearly simultaneous contemplation of his own dear Liz and of Young Martin’s left foot, dead white, nearly bloodless, propped up on his knee.

“Pardon…I was lost, considering this interesting combination of foot-rot and frostbite. Dry socks, Martin, dry socks and liniment. And contemplate sealing your boots with tallow and paraffin…other than that, consider staying out of the water, as much as you can…”

There was a dry laugh, shared around the circle around the fire. In the last three weeks, they had been forced into the river-bed time and time again, as it provided the easiest, and on occasion, the only passage for the wagons.

“We must consider what we should do now,” Stephens said. “We might send a party ahead, along the south branch….”

He fell silent, as Mary-Bee Murphy came with a basin and a steaming kettle and Isabella, bearing a dry cloth and her box of medicinal salts.

“Doctor, tell him to soak in this for a bit, and dry them carefully. We’ll bring a set of dry stockings presently, and dry his boots beside the fire.”

“Mrs. Patterson, you are a tonic.” Extravagantly, John caught her hand, and took it to his lips. “And an excellent nurse. I shall see that the patient follows your advice to the letter.”

Isabella gave him a very severe look, as Mary-Bee awkwardly set down the basin and filled it with steaming water. Isabella added salts and gathered up the socks and the sodden boots.

Mary-Bee looked as if she would say something more, but she merely patted her husband’s shoulder and followed in Isabella’s wake.

“See that he does then, Doctor Townsend, see that he does,” Isabella shot over her shoulder.

When she was gone back to the cook-fire and out of hearing, Stephens remarked,
“A good woman is above the price of rubies.”

“I long to meet the man who would play Petruchio to her Kate,” John said, just as Greenwood appeared as silently as a ghost in the circle of firelight, shadowed by Britt, and heralded only by the scent of tobacco smoke. Stephens grinned, a flash of teeth in his whiskered face.

“Nearly as much as I’d like to be warm again, and over those pestilential mountains; he must be a formidable man. I imagine a very Ajax.”

“Not so,” said Hitchcock seriously. “M’son-in-law’s a very mild-tempered man. Never has much to say for hisself.”

“Married to her, who’d wonder?” ungallantly ventured Bernard Murphy sotto voce, as Greenwood sank onto his heels and held his hands to the fire, looking every day of his four-score. Britt took up a seat next to Stephens on the log and casually gentled Dog’s alertly raised head. She lay down again, with an inaudible “woof.”

Stephens merely lifted his brows, and Greenwood sighed. “Not so good for wagons, Cap’n. Not ’less you had a month of good weather and a hundred strong men and them with an ax in either hand. Horses? Yeah, easy enough. We blazed it, two, three miles, far as we could, ‘fore sunset. Horses and pack-mules. It looks right promising, otherwise… but I’ve always said if you want to be over these mountains by winterset, you’ll have to leave all your traps and ride hard.”

“No.” It was Isabella’s voice. She had returned unobtrusively to the fire-circle, joining the men, as was her right as a wagon-owner and the head of a family. ”We cannot just leave our traps, as you say. We have chosen out all the most valuable and useful of goods, and brought them all this way; we cannot just drop them by the wayside as things of no consequence. ”

Greenwood shrugged. “They’re only things. You can get back things, or something like them.”

“Things?! Things, as you say, but they are our things! We considered them very carefully; these are things that are not only valuable to us, but things that we need! They are not frivolous possessions, but necessary tools to earning our livelihoods. Without those “things” we should be beggars, dependant upon charity.”

Her keen hawk-glance went round the circle of faces, and John thought of his books, the case of surgical instruments, Liz’s precious china tea set, which had come from her grandmother, whose family had brought it from Germany and cherished through generations.

“And what about the children? Can they ride hard? Can Mary Miller ride, with a baby at breast, or Mary-Bee Murphy, so close to term? The wagon is our shelter, our home! I’ll not be a beggar, I’ll not be destitute. What if any of us falls sick, though lack of shelter? What do you say, Doctor? How many of us would be fit to leave all behind and ride hard?” Her hard, inimical hawk-glance pinned him, challenged him to speak, to venture his opinion.

“The very youngest or those of a weak constitution could not endure very long in such conditions as this without shelter,” John stammered. As many times as he had talked this over with Elizabeth in the privacy of their bed, he was still stuck on the two-horned dilemma, having never come to any conclusion in his own mind. “Nor the very old.” Old Hitchcock snorted derisively at this, and would have said more but for his daughter’s fierce gaze swinging around toward him.

“The wagons…they are at least of some shelter. I would not choose to leave them. I do not think we could carry enough food and blankets and tents on our backs for the weeks of traveling we still must endure…not if we had to carry the weakest of us.”

Stephens sighed, lines of weariness and responsibility harshly grooving his features in the firelight.

“Our supplies diminish every day that we spend, this side of the mountains. I know that my own do, so I assume the same of you all. Old Man, how far do you think we might be from Sutter’s Fort?”

“I do not know for sure, “Greenwood said, bluntly. “Maybe a week’s journey on a good horse to the summit, maybe longer. Sutter’s place is down in the flatland, on the river, a good piece from the mountains on the other side.”

“What sort of man is he? If we sent for aid for ourselves, would he send it?”

“Aye, he would. I know nothing of him at first hand, though. But he is accounted to be generous, and he has ambitions.”

“As do most men. I’ve a hankering to know what he has ambitions for.” Stephens stood wearily, and stretched,

“Doctor, I’d like to call a meeting… not now, after we’ve all supped. Not just the wagon-owners. Everybody. Tell them it’s to consider sending out a small party ahead. He saluted Isabella with a touch to his hat-brim. “Pardon, all. I shall check on the stock. No,” he added as Greenwood looked to get to his feet. “You’ve earned some rest, Old Man.”

Dog’s eyes had snapped open as soon as Stephens moved, and now she lurched to her feet and padded after him into the darkness outside the firelight.

John sighed; he was wearied to his very bones. How Greenwood must feel after his long scout today, he could only imagine. The old man must be made of iron and buffalo sinews to have endured this kind of odyssey for years.

“Supper’s ready,” said Isabella abruptly. “The table is set…that is, if we had a table.”

John stood, and bowed, elaborately offering her his arm. “My dear Mrs. Patterson, may I then escort you to…our lack of table and our evening repast?”

Isabella nodded regally, her lips twitching with her effort not to laugh. “How very kind of you, my dear doctor.” She took his arm with a flourish, and they moved with elaborate gentility across the trampled mud to their own fire, where Elizabeth watched them, laughing, while the children stared in baffled astonishment.

“La, Mrs. Patterson, I fear you are flirting with my own husband!” she said, while Isabella dissolved into hearty and infectious giggles.

“My dearest, I am wounded at the heart!” John slapped his chest theatrically, “How could I consider being unfaithful to you, even in thought!” He sank onto the bench next to her, as the children had sprung up to help Isabella pass out tin plates. He added in a low voice, “Although I confess I now can see how Mr. Patterson’s affections might have been drawn toward our own Kate.”

“Because she is altogether splendid, “Elizabeth replied. “But too many men are fools. A pretty face and a kind regard is all that is necessary for their attentions. A strong mind and a stout heart are not obviously apparent.”

“I am properly rebuked,” John said, and they sat together in perfect companionship under the buffalo robe, while Sadie brought around the tin plates and her brother a pan of cornbread. Isabella carried an iron Dutch oven, from which the most savory scents emanated. She carefully doled out a ladle and a half to each. Across the fire, John noticed that Allen and Sarah sat next to each other, but separate.

Elizabeth followed his gaze, and intuited his thoughts, perfectly. “They are not happy, Dearest. I doubt they will ever be. They married in haste, thinking they would come to love each other…but I cannot think how that will happen, under the trials of such a journey as this.”

“Perhaps when we get to California,” John ventured, “it may yet work out….” He took a mouthful of the stew. “Oh, this is truly succulent fare… or am I just amazingly hungry?”

Elizabeth twinkled at him. “It is a most Luccellian feast, is it not?”

“This cannot be a potato, surely? I thought we had eaten the last of the potatoes months ago. Murphy made such an event of it; I made a note in the trail diary.”

“No, “Elizabeth replied, serenely. “Those things that taste somewhat potato-like are roots of water-reeds. The Indians eat them, even dry, and grind a sort of flour out of them, or so Mr. Hitchcock says. And we found stands of wild onions when we first came up into the mountains. Truly, this wilderness is a garden if you know where to look.”

“Ah, well…. “John looked with new interest into the contents of his tin plate. “We are well served, and well fed, Darling Dearest. I could not ask for better companions in all the world.”

“So…” Elizabeth ate with renewed interest, “what does Mr. Stephens think we should do next?”

“He wants to hold a meeting,” John replied. “I think he wants to send an advance party, following the creek toward the south, whilst we move the wagons west along the main body. We cannot spare too many men, or horses, though. But at least, they could bring fresh supplies and teams from Sutter’s.”

“Who will he send?” Elizabeth looked around the camp. “Who can be spared? Who can be asked to leave their families behind?”

John followed her gaze. Across the fire, Moses and Allen laughed together. Sarah’s back was to her husband; she talked quietly with Isabella, who seemed to be listening with half an ear while she supervised the children. A tiny line worry-line appeared between Elizabeth’s level brows.

“He’ll ask for volunteers, first.”

“Moses will ask to be sent, I am sure of it.”

“Liz, dearest, he is not a child any more. He is a man, or close enough to it. And we will talk it all over tonight after we have supped.”

Elizabeth’s merry mood seemed to have fled, though, and they ate in companionable silence, until they could see that other men were drifting to Stephens’s campfire, carrying benches and stools; Old Martin Murphy and his sons, and James Miller, Patrick Martin and his boys, young Sullivan, and the various drovers. Sarah and Elizabeth hastily scoured the plates clean, and followed Isabella. John clambered up into the wagon for his little writing-case; he had a sense that he ought to be taking the minutes.

The wagon-owners settled themselves in the first circle around the fire: Stephens and Greenwood, Isabella and her father, Allan, Martin Murphy and his sons, and James Miller, John Sullivan, and Patrick Martin. Wives, and older children, brothers, and the hired men filled in the spaces and spilled over to a second circle, and stood in the gaps behind benches and chairs brought out from the wagons. Coming to the confluence of waters meant a very real decision about what route to take now, a decision with nearly unbearable consequences, now that snow had been falling for weeks. No wonder Old Martin looked particularly worn and cosseted his grandchildren. Fully half the party was his blood kin, and he the person most responsible for bringing them here, too.

“Aye, we must send for assistance, while we can,” Old Martin agreed. Like Isabella, he would not countenance abandoning the wagons; consensus regarding taking the slightly more open but possibly longer route along the creek was complete.

“And how many shall we send? And who can we spare, when we’ll need every strong man to move the wagons, hey?”

“No more than six, “Greenwood replied. “Strong riders, with little gear and just enough food. Eight of the horses are in fair condition, still— six to ride, two for spares and packs.” He cleared his throat and spat thoughtfully into the fire. He seemed almost to hesitate before saying more. “Whoever they be, ’twill be six less on the foodstuff left to the main party. And they need not all be men, either.”

That was a notion to cause an intake of breath around the fire, and a sudden, thoughtful silence. Old Martin was the first to break it. “I’d not countenance asking a mother, or a father yet, to leave children behind in a place such as this…no, no, never. ’Tis an unnatural thing y’d be asking. Not even the heathen savages would ask such.”

“No,” agreed Old Man Greenwood, “But among the tribes, women without children commonly ride with the hunting parties. They do the butchering and dressing out, and cooking and all.”

“What a wonderful time they must have, doing all the work of it!” Sarah said, in a voice that carried just far enough, and there was a rustle of wry laughter from the women on the edge of the campfire.

“So how do we choose the six; should we draw lots from among those of age, young, fit, and without children?”

“Aye,” agreed Old Martin readily. “But it is in my mind; we should first pledge to assist the families of those chosen, in whatever they may require. Our needs might leave them short of a provider and ready hands.”

“So… are we agreed on that, then? To draw lots for a place and to see to the needs of any family left short.”

Stephens’ ugly, lined face appeared more than usually like a grim, fire-gilded gargoyle, looking around the circle. “We are agreed then? Are there any exceptions?”

“None but you, Captain…and the doctor. You are more needed here with us.”

“I had no intent of leaving this company until we are all safe,” replied Stephens, dourly. “Nor does Doctor Townsend; so, how many will draw?” He leant down and began pulling stems of dried grass from the brown tufts that were still un-trampled around his log seat.”

The quiet murmurs ran around the campfire, quickly tallying names; Alan and Sarah, Greenwood’s two sons, and Stephens’s young drover, Tom Flomboy, Oliver Patterson, old Martin’s youngest children, Daniel, Bernard and Johnny, and their sister Helen. The four drovers, Edmund Bray, Vincent Calvin, Matthew Harbin, Oliver Magnent, and Francis, John’s own hired man. Joseph Foster, and Moses’s close friends, Dennis and Patrick Martin.

Not the Sullivans, though, after some discussion, since John and Mary had the care of their younger brothers. But that left Moses himself… and his Elizabeth. John’s heart seemed to turn over in his chest; all of them, fit and strong and young, and childless, twenty of them, nearly a half of the party.

Stephens cut twenty straws, and then cut six of them in half. He set them in his palm so they were all level and then closed his fist. He held out that fist toward Allan Montgomery first, then Britt and John Greenwood. Allan and John Greenwood drew long straws, and so did Britt. Moses also drew a long straw. His disappointment was obvious, but John hoped that his own relief was not. The hired men drew in a body: the Irish drover boys and Stephens’s drover lad, the dark Louisiana French boy whose name was such a tongue-twister, all drew long straws, but Oliver Magnent and Francis Deland both drew short. Joseph Foster stepped forward to draw: another long.

“Tarnation take it, another two months of this!” he said, in good-humored disappointment. “And all on short rations, too!”

“Daniel… Johnny, ye and Bernard step forrard… and where’s Helen?” Old Martin chided his four youngest into the circle and looked on with a deathly countenance, when Helen, Johnny and Daniel all drew short straws. Oliver Patterson stepped forward into the firelight to draw, and Stephens looked at him with a particularly severe and interrogatory frown. “Boy, are you of age for this venture?” and Oliver blushed deep red as Isabella said, white-lipped, “He will be eighteen in three months.”

Oliver drew a long straw though, leaving a pair of wispy straws in Stephens’s fist; Sarah and Elizabeth stepped forward, and John’s heart felt as if it turned over entirely within his chest. Sarah drew a long straw, and could not hide the disappointment on her face. And Elizabeth then took forth the last of the straws from Stephens’s hand: a short straw for the horse party.

Elizabeth, not Moses; John was shaken down to the soul. Old Martin looked hardly better. Stephens let the murmurings of excitement and sympathy die down and quietly said, “Doctor, take down their names into the trail journal. I’ll want to talk to them, all together. They must leave in the morning, as soon as we are ready.” He spoke a little louder, to the gathering at large. “Thank-ee all, sitting out in the cold for this. It’s only trail business we had to settle tonight.”

Taking their cue, the women began chivvying away the children who had not already been settled to bed. The younger men and the families of those who had not been chosen drifted away from Stephens’s campfire in their wake; after such a day of travel, a warm bedroll had a powerful and irresistible allure. As the evening meeting broke apart, Greenwood thoughtfully sized up the six chosen.

“You were well-guided, Cap’n. They are well-suited. Among the women, Mrs. Townsend has the best seat, and little Helen is young and strong. It is good that her brothers are among them, they are both good hands with the beasts and fearless about venturing into wilderness. Magnent and Deland are good shots, and as trail-wise as they come, besides being used to the cold and the snow.”

“For myself, I am glad Mrs. Townsend is amongst them.” John said. His voice sounded hollow to his own ears. “The cold and the hardships are so extreme, I fear for her, under these circumstances, and welcome any means for her to escape further exposure to the winter chill.”

“Aye, it may be best at that.” Old Greenwood sighed, grimly. “Would that I could urge all to travel so light and escape these mountains. At least, they will be six less appetites upon the supplies we have left.”

Old Martin and his children, Elizabeth and the two French lads, all of the chosen lingered by the fire as they had been bidden. In the firelight, Elizabeth looked as young as they, and all of them so eager, fired by the prospect of adventure, just as they all had been six months ago at Council Bluffs, when the grass was lush and deep, escaping the drudgery of a mundane existence. Now they looked fair to escape another one, of everlasting cold and the brutal labor of moving the wagons another mile or so farther up the river, the river whose jaws were closing in on them like a trap.

Stephens looked at them, and smiled, wryly. “No great words…wish I did. Ride hard. Look after each other and the horses. Get to Sutter’s place and bring back help.”

“We shall!” Elizabeth’s chin lifted, and her eyes were fired with determination. “We are leaving our kin and dearest ones, and our friends, knowing that their very salvation depends on us. Depend on us, Captain Stephens—we will not fail.”

And even if Old Greenwood seemed to hide a half-cynical smile, the others, Helen and her brothers, the two Frenchmen, all shared the same look of bright dedication. They could not fail; they would throw themselves at the high mountains, the rocks and rivers and the ice; they would win through it all; they would come through, rescue their families, and John’s heart felt as if it would burst with a combination of pride and dread.

“And we will not fail, “Elizabeth whispered, when they lay tucked together in their bedroll of blankets and quilts and the trusty buffalo robe, all spread out on top of the platform of boxes and flat-topped trunks in their wagon. The drawstrings and flaps were drawn tight against the cold, and a kettle of coals taken from the fire lent an illusion of warmth to the tiny, canvas-walled room. A pair of flat stones heated in the fire, wrapped in a blanket and tucked in the bottom of their bed, produced a slightly more convincing degree of warmth, together with the warmth of each other, curled into each other, spoon-fashioned.

Around and outside this fragile shelter came the quiet, near-to sleep voices of Isabella’s children, Allan Montgomery’s irritated voice, raised and quickly hushed, and a quiet crunch of regular footsteps in new snow: the horses pawing the frozen ground, searching for more of the thin, dried grass. Under it all, a nearly imperceptible yet menacing rustle, the constant sound of more snow falling, brushing the canvas and pine branches; fat flakes like feathers, like falling leaves.

“I wish….” said John, into her hair, hugging her dear and familiar self into the shelter of his own body, “I wish that we….”

“Had not taken this journey?” Elizabeth picked up the thread of his thoughts as expertly as she had always done. “Oh, my dear, never wish that. No, never. For I am glad that we have, even if this would be the last night we spend in each other’s arms…and it will not be,” she added firmly, and took his hand in hers, and held it first to her lips, and then her cheek. After a moment, she continued, thoughtfully, “I almost feel as if my life before we started this journey was lived in shadows, a sort of half-life, and then I came out into bright sunshine. Did not we decide upon this great adventure partly because of my own health? And now I am in good heath and have shared your life in a way that I never could before. In our present emergency, I am accounted strong enough to be given a great task, a responsibility. There should be no greater reward. I do not ask for any such. Dearest, there is nothing to regret. I love you all the more for having made this possible. Have no fear for me…I will be safe, and we will not fail.”

“I pray that shall be so, “ John tightened his arms around her, at once wishing for this night with Elizabeth never to end, full knowing it would be the last they would spend together for weeks if not months, and yet wishing that it were tomorrow already, and the agony of parting already over. He was torn between pride in her courage, and worry for her that shook him down to his bones. “We should go to sleep, Liz. You’ll need as much rest tonight as possible.”

“Mmmm. Don’t stay awake yourself, watching over me,” Elizabeth said, teasingly, but John did try to fight off slumber for a while, until sleep claimed them both.

And then too soon it was dark morning, and snow still falling, and he was standing, wretchedly tongue-tied in front of people, for once. He had promised Elizabeth, back in the desert, that he should not have to go on a long scout again and be separated from her. And now, ironically, she was riding on a long scout, leaving him to plod behind.

“Promise me, rather, that wherever one of us will go, the other will follow after in a little while,” she had said, and so he would be following after, but it was bitter, bitter. Moses and he had saddled Beau, had rolled up the buffalo robe and two or three blankets around a pitiful bag of dried meats and hardtack, and a little ground coffee, and strapped them behind her saddle. Isabella and Sarah had fussed over what to send with her, just as the Murphy women had fussed over Helen, Johnny, and Daniel.

Old Martin had tears rolling down his cheeks as he gave his youngest daughter a boost into the saddle. Daniel’s paint pony danced impatiently, crunching the fresh-fallen snow underfoot; the lads were eager to be away.

“Dearest, I must go now.” She leaned down from the saddle and brushed his cheek with her lips, and then she was gone, following the rest of the mounted party. They were veiled in falling slow before they reached the first bend and were lost to sight, but he was almost sure she turned in the saddle and lifted her hand in one last farewell.

From E.S. Patterson Interview, University of California Local History Archival Project 1932:

Three days Captain Stephens and Doctor Townsend and Mister Foster was gone in the desert with the old Indian. funny thing, they thought his name was Truck-hee, because that’s what he kept saying, over and over. We were so grateful for his help, guiding them to that river, they named it after what they thought his name was, but it wasn’t his name at all! Truck-hee really meant “all well” or “everything satisfactory”! But he was a chief, right enough, the chief of the Paiute tribe thereabouts, and a very well-thought-of man among them. Rightly, too, I have to say…he took the compliment so well, that he took “Truckee” as his name after that.

A good man, right enough. Died of a tarantula bite, years later; he was given a splendid funeral by all the folk thereabouts, Indian and white. Buried him with a Bible that John Fremont gave him, so the story goes… Anyway, I’m wandering. Privilege of old age, so they tell me; ninety-six years old next April, I’ll be. I’ve outlived all my brothers and sisters, even my little sister Sadie. Outlived my wife, and three of my children… can’t get more privileged than that, hey?

I think Captain Stephens’s dog saw them first. She commenced to whine, and then to bark… she warn’t no dog that barked much, commonly, so that had everyone’s attention…especially since she had been sitting on that very spot since they went and Captain Stephens bade her stay. They came riding out of the desert, leading the extry pony, that dog barking fit to beat the band. Ma, and Doctor Townsend’s wife, and the other women came running out. (Most of the young men were out hunting.)

We had been busy all those three days, patching up the wagons, and the women were washing things, and smoking meat over the fires and all. Such a sight they was, all dirty and sunburnt, but grinning all over. Chief Truckee had led them right to that river, all right. Captain Stephens snapped his fingers at his dog, and she went to capering and leaping about, and running back and forth. Miz Townsend, she reached up and hugged the Doctor…ah, such a lovely woman she was.

I had a bit of calf-love for her, you see. Just a boy of seven or eight, I was then, but she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever set eyes on, and brave she was, too. About broke my heart when she went, but she and the Doctor went together. Within days, I was told. Some comfort in that, I suppose; she never had eyes for anyone but him, big, jolly roughneck that he was. Capable man, he could deliver a baby or doctor an ox and build a road; can’t say that about doctors these days.”

“We found it!” John shouted, waving his hat over his head as they rode into camp. “We found it, right where the Chief said it was!” He slid down from his saddle and swung Elizabeth off her feet; she was laughing and crying at the same time into his shirt-front. Old Hitchcock hobbled up from Greenwood’s campfire, Eddie at his heels, “And a beautiful, beautiful river it is, too. Liz, don’t cry. Why are you crying?”

“I was worried about you!” Elizabeth brushed her cheeks with the edge of her hand,

“Nothing to worry about, Dearest, it was only the desert.”

At his side, Foster clapped Old Hitchcock on the shoulders, saying, “… Ice cold, straight from the mountains…two days’ travel, a little less on horse, as you can see. We’re close to Californy at last, Old Man, close enough to taste it!”

“We ain’t there yet,” Stephens said, quietly. “Down, Dog.” Dog sat obediently at his feet, but her tail kept wagging, and she pressed up against her master as if to reassure herself that he was really there.

More men gathered around the three scouts and their horses, drawn from their chores: Old Murphy, beaming joyfully, James Miller with a hammer still in his hands, a happy babble of voices repeating the good news to the lately arrived.

Stephens finally held up his hand. “Folks, we’re tired, hungry, and saddle-sore. We found the river, but it’s been three days in the desert to get to it, there and back. Give us a mite to clean up. Doc and I’ll call a meeting for tonight, after supper.”

“We’ll not be leaving from here right away,” John added, fairly. “I’ll be worse than that cut-off between the Big Sandy and the Green. We’ll have to carry all the water we can and cut two days worth of fodder for the animals.”
A dismayed murmur rose from all; the memory of that leg of travel, and the temporary loss of forty head of cattle was clear. This desert would be even more desolate and comfortless?

“We’ll go over it all tonight, after supper,” John said again, and Moses appeared, and took Ugly Grey’s reins out of John’s hand.

“Ill take care of him, Doctor John.” Moses looked at him critically. “You might want to…um, wash up, a little.”

“You should.” Elizabeth recovered herself. “You’re as bristly as a bear.” She went on tiptoe and kissed him again. The crowd had melted away, reluctantly, and John went to the water’s edge below camp with a bucket and a rag, stripped off his filthy shirt, and poured water over himself until he began to feel somewhat cleaner.

“It works better with soap,” said Elizabeth, from behind him, “I’ve brought your shaving things and a clean shirt.”

“Bless you, Liz,” John said, gratefully. She also carried a clean towel and a basin of warm water. “It was a hell of a scout on horse with a small party, Dearest…and it will be even worse with the wagons.”

“We’ll manage,” Elizabeth replied, tranquilly. She perched herself on a rock at the water’s edge, “With Captain Stephens and you, and everyone…we’ll help each other, and we’ll manage.”

John upended the bucket and sat upon it, with the basin and soap at his feet, and commenced to scraping beard-stubble off his jaw and from under his chin.

“We’ll need to,” he rinsed off the razor, “We can’t stay much longer here, in any case.”

“What does Captain Stephens plan?” Elizabeth lifted her skirts a little; she had moccasins on her feet, rather than shoes. She slipped out of them and dabbled her feet in the water, as playfully as a child.

“He is going to suggest that we travel at night, mainly. The heat during the day is hellish, Liz. It’s forty miles, at least, so Stephens estimates it. And the last stretch is in deep sand; we’ll be lucky not to lose at least a couple of oxen there, unless we take very good care. There’s not a scrap of grass from here to old Truck-hee’s river, and only one spring of water, and it’s boiling hot and tastes utterly vile, to boot.” He scraped at his face again with the razor, “There…did I miss anything?”

“No, I don’t think so…oh, a little bit, just so….” She stepped out of the water and took the razor out of his hand. With a look of great absorption, she ran the edge of it over the last bit of bristle,

“There,” she remarked with satisfaction. “You look quite respectable again, my dear doctor, not like some shiftless ruffian of the trail…or you will, once you have put on a shirt again. I missed you terribly, these last four days. Since we wed, I think it has been the longest we have ever gone without seeing each other.”

“Once over the mountains,” John ventured, taking up her hands in his, “We will be in California, and I doubt I’ll have to go on such a long scout ahead of the train. Therefore, I think I may safely promise that we will not ever be parted for so long again.”

He kissed her fingers, and she laughed a little and replied, “No, promise rather that wherever one of us goes, the other will follow after in a little while.”

“Always, Liz, always,” and he kissed her fingers again, and she laughed again, and pulled away, to gather up his dirty shirt, and the towel and basin and all.

“I think I may soon need to cut your hair as well, Dearest,” and she slipped her feet back into the moccasins and carried her burdens back to camp.

From E.S. Patterson Interview, University of California Local History Archival Project 1932:

We were another couple of days camped at the sink and making preparations. Captain Stephens brought out his sharpening stone, to sharpen knives and sickles, as we needed to cut all the grass and rushes that we could carry with us. We spread out tent-canvas and piled up cut fodder on it, and rolled them up into great bolsters, and tied them onto the backs and sides of the wagons. Mr. Miller mended as many empty barrels as there were with wood scraps and tar and bits of unraveled rope, and we soaked them in the marsh so the wood might swell again and seal up any leaks. Ma and Mrs. Townsend and Mrs. Montgomery cooked up enough bread and beans and meat and such to last us for two or three days, for Captain Stephens said, and Mr. Greenwood said too, that we would travel straight through without stopping save to rest the cattle for a few hours…

We rested a little in the afternoon of the second day, and ate a good meal, and as the sun went down, my brothers and the other men hitched up the teams, and Captain Stephens led us out into the desert…”

One after another, as the sun set in a red-gold smear against the lavender-colored mountains, the wagons lumbered away from their camping place, to the gentle accompaniment of the frogs and night birds singing in the marsh, and the querulous voices of smaller children, put to bed in the wagons but unable to sleep for the motion of it. Greenwood and Stephens carried lanterns with them and lit them as darkness gathered; not because they needed the light to retrace the scouting party’s tracks, but rather as a guide to the wagon drivers urging their teams on. Those were plain under the starlight, across the pale desert sands, and clear as daylight when the moon soared over the horizon.

“It reminds me,” Elizabeth remarked, “of those winter nights when there was a fresh fall of snow on the ground, and a full moon behind the clouds. It was night, but everything brilliantly lit, as bright as day.” John circled the slow-moving procession of wagons and returned to walk with her and a knot of women and older children walking close by the Patterson wagon after some hours. The light evening breeze bore the dust away from them. She led Beau, and he walked beside her, leading Ugly Grey,

“It’s almost like walking in snow, too,” Isabella spoke up. She and Oliver were taking turns driving; now she walked with one arm around Nancy’s waist and leading Eddie by the other hand. “Don’t drag your feet, children. It just makes the dust worse.”

“Ma, I’m thirsty,” Nancy said, and Elizabeth unhooked a canteen from Beau’s saddle horn and handed it to the girl.

“Don’t drink any more than you need,” John said. “Often, but not too much. We’ll need to save as much as possible for the horses and the teams and to walk as much as possible ourselves to spare them.”

“How long must we walk, then?” Nancy did her best to sound brave.

“As long as you can, sweeting,” Elizabeth replied cheerfully. “And when you are a little tired, I’ll let you ride Beau for a little, and when you and your brother are really, really tired, you can sleep in the wagon for a while.”

“I’m not tired,” Eddie spoke up, sturdily. “I can walk for miles and miles and miles, yet.”

“That’s our brave Eddie,” Elizabeth said, affectionately, and Eddie fairly glowed.

John kissed his wife and swung into the saddle again, for another patrol, the length of the train. Not near the long chore it was in the days when they traveled with the Oregoners; now just the eleven wagons, and a scant handful of spare oxen, and Old Hitchcock stumping along with his two mules. Old Martin walked with his younger sons and his daughters and daughters-in-law and his grandchildren, although it touched John enormously to see that he was carrying the smallest grandson on his shoulders, and young Helen carried tiny Ellen Independence for Mary Miller. Old Martin was declaiming one of the epics of old Erin, as they marched along through the night.

“…so it came to Queen Maeve that it seemed as if she didn’t own anything at all, if she had not a bull of such splendor among her herd, so she called the herald McRoth into her court to find out if there were any such in the whole kingdoms of Ireland, and the herald McRoth said to Queen Maeve “I know, indeed, where there is a bull even better and more excellent than he, in the province of Ulster in the cantred of Cooley, in the house of Dare MacFinna.” And Queen Maeve ordered him to go, saying to McRoth the herald, “Ask of Dare, for me, a year’s loan of that bull….”

Even Mary-Bee Murphy walked, carrying a basket of small things and leading her sons, linked by their hands.

“You should not overexert yourself unduly, Mrs. Murphy,” John said, with some concern as he overtook them on horseback, and Mary-Bee flashed a smile at him.

“Oh, I am not the least bit tired, Doctor Townsend. I have promised Isabella and my husband that I shall ride in the wagon and rest when I feel the need of it, truly I shall.”

James Murphy walked by his team, driving them with his voice, while tenderly carrying little Mary in his arms. She was asleep, her head on his shoulder. And so they walked on, children stumbling with weariness until they were put to bed in the wagons or into the saddles of horses, and led by their elders. At midnight, John finished another circuit of the wagons; he found Elizabeth leading Beau, with Nancy and Eddie dozing in the saddle.

“Captain Stephens is sending me ahead with Foster and Greenwood’s boys,” he said to her, “so’s we can run off water from the springs, and let it cool off enough for the cattle. Three hours should be enough.”

Elizabeth pulled her shawl closer around her shoulders. “It does seem so much colder at night, out here,” she replied. “Take care, Dearest.”

“We’ll be resting at the springs for a couple of hours before moving on; you should ride for a while. This is the easiest stretch.”

Elizabeth shook her head. “I am fine. I’ll rest when you do.”

Using shovels this time, it didn’t take long to break several new channels, laboring like well-diggers in the moonlight, in clouds of sulfur-stinking vapor. When they were finished, John tied Ugly Grey’s reins around his wrist and simply cast himself down on the ground to snatch a little sleep, while Britt Greenwood watched for the wagons.  Britt shook him awake when he spotted the lanterns bobbing in the distance, like a pair of distant yellow glow-worms.

They dared not un-harness the teams entirely, lest they repeat the experience of having them run off, in search of water, but led them in yoke to the pools of cooling spring water to drink. The oxen relished it as little as the horses had, but drank. Once re-hitched, they scattered mounds of fodder in front of them, where they stood in harness, and allowed them to rest and eat of it as they wished.

John found Elizabeth lying on top of their bed in the wagon, fully dressed, even to shoes, and fast asleep, the deep sleep of utter exhaustion. She had managed to unsaddle Beau and leave him picketed next to a bucket of water and an armload of green stuff. Moses and Francis had spread blankets underneath the wagon, and slept also, but it was no more than a brief respite of an hour or so. They ate of the cold food prepared for the journey and moved on stumbling with weariness through a night that seemed endless, until the stars paled, and dawn came up at their backs.

John thought he had moved to somewhere beyond weariness, aware only of a slightly giddy feeling if he moved too fast, as he patrolled the length of the caravan, pausing at each wagon or family. The sun arced higher in the sky, and the heat of it poured down relentlessly. The nighttime coolness fled as if it had never been. The Sullivans and the Martins were at the tail, on this day. Mary Sullivan held her younger brothers and led them by the hand, while her brother drove their wagon. Patrick Martin waved, cheerily. “Holy Mother and all the saints,” he said. “When I am judged before the Lord, I will be able to say that I should go to heaven straight away, as I have already served in Purgatory.”

“I hope you have the right of it, Patrick,” John replied. The Patterson children walked uncomplainingly with Isabella, although Sadie cried in silent misery, her tears drying on her cheeks nearly as fast as they fell.

“Here,” said Old Man Hitchcock to his grandchildren, “this is an old Indian trick. Put a little pebble in your mouth to suck on. You won’t feel so thirsty, then. Sadie-girl, you want to ride on one of Paw-paw’s mules. Ups-a-daisy, there you go. Now, boys, I was once chased by a war-party of Comanche, through a desert just as bad as this….”

Elizabeth had wakened in the wagon, around sunrise, and was walking again, leading Beau. She smiled at John, “Nothing seems to bother him, does it?”

“He’s a tough old bird,” John replied. “I used to think most of his stories weren’t true, and now I am beginning to wonder if most of them aren’t the God’s own truth.”

“Well, the one about being scalped by the Blackfeet…that’s not true,” Elizabeth mused. “But, now that I have seen the hot spring back there…I think the tale of the great fountain of water spurting out of the ground might be true.”

“A little exaggerated, maybe,” John admitted.

Old Martin strode like a patriarch of old among his sons and grandsons, still in full spate.

“Now, Cormac had three companies of warriors, who came to Cruachan; the first company was arrayed in mantles of green, with many-colored cloaks wound about them, and fastened with great silver brooches. They wore tunics woven of golden thread reaching down to their knees, trimmed with red-gold thread. Bright-handled swords they carried, aye, splendid swords with hand-guards of silver, and long shields. Long shields they bore on their left arms, and each man carried a broad, grey spearhead on a slender shaft in the other hand. ‘Is that Cormac, yonder?’ everyone asked, and Queen Maeve made answer ’ Indeed, it is not.’”

Each one of the adults carried a child.

“Anything to lighten the wagons and ease the burden for the teams,” Young Martin Murphy said gravely to John. “This sand is wicked cruel on their feet, and they must pull twice as hard.” He patted the neck of his lead ox as it plodded stoically forward.

“I think we will not know just how much we depend on them until we must carry a like burden ourselves. A good thing they ask so little of us. They certainly get very little in exchange for their great labors.”

No, thought John, only a kindly bullet, at the end of things, after drinking bad water, or miring in quicksand, or breaking a leg when a wagon tipped over on a steep hillside.

Allen and Sarah were quarrelling bitterly; John did not know what about, for they stopped when they saw him riding closer. Allen was red with sunburn and fury, Sarah’s voice sharp with irritation. “Then see if I care, when we get to California!” she snapped, “You may please yourself then, and so shall I!”

John sighed. It was one of those things it would be best to pretend he did not hear. He said, instead, “Captain Stephens says we will rest for three or four hours at noon, wherever we are when the sun is overhead and it is hottest. Allen, can your team manage for another couple of hours?

“Think so,” Allen grunted, and swabbed his forehead with his shirt-sleeve. Sarah said something under her breath and walked a little slower, letting their wagon run ahead while she dropped back to walk with Elizabeth and Isabella.

Foster pulled the handkerchief off his face and grinned hugely at John from where he trudged, sinking into the sand at every step, beside his laboring team. “I am telling them all about Truck-hee’s lovely river, and all that beautiful cool water and the green leaves overhead,” he said, cheerily as ever. “So help me, I think they are listening to every blessed word. It cheers me up no end to think on it, myself.”

“We’ll be there in another day, with luck,” John said, although to even hope of it in this soul-scorching heat, with the wheels biting deep into the hot sand with every step the oxen took, seemed like the veriest illusion.

Old Greenwood and his boys walked with Stephens, leading their ponies and pack string in the van, a little way ahead of Stephens’s own wagon, where the scout party’s own trail ran clear, a churning of the sand marked with shod hoofs, where they had gone and returned.

“How’re they doing back there, Doc?” Greenwood strode along, as strongly as any of the youngest men. “This is a rough road, no mistake.”

“Quite well, considering,” John answered. “Everyone’s teams are pulling strongly still, no one lagging behind. The oxen are terribly thirsty, though. Everyone is walking who can. Allen Montgomery and his wife are quarrelling. Old Hitchcock and Mrs. Patterson are not. The smallest children are tired and cross. Mary-Bee Murphy is riding her brother’s pony, at the insistence of her husband, father-in-law, and myself, strongly backed by a committee formed of all the other Murphys. Old Martin is well launched on an epic tale of war and slaughter in Old Ireland…and I think that I am slightly touched by the sun, or as Hitchcock would say it, “tetched.” This concludes the morning report, Captain Stephens.”

“You’re thirsty.” Stephens said. “Take a good long drink of water, Doc.”

“No, actually, I am not,” John insisted. “I am a doctor. I am fully competent to make my own diagnosis.”

But Greenwood passed him a full canteen and said,“Drink half.”

“We’re supposed to save as much for the teams as we can,” John protested, and Stephens replied, “Won’t do us any good, if you have sunstroke, Doc. Drink.”

“No one authorized you to practice medicine,” John grumbled, and Greenwood said, “They wouldn’t have the nerve. Drink.” John obeyed, finally, but didn’t admit that he felt only slightly better for it, afterward.

“We’ll rest in two hours,” Stephens said, squinting at the sun, nearly at zenith. “And start again, at sundown. We can loose the oxen, then. They’ll not dare leave the water and fodder we’ll put out for them.”

“At least that will lighten the wagons, somewhat,” John remarked, “of the extra water barrels, at least.”

“We might consider lightening them even more,” Stephens said, thoughtfully.

“We have used a fair portion of supplies,” Greenwood pointed out, “which has lightened the burden gradually, as we traveled.”

“But we have brought extra traps with us,” Stephens answered. ”Things for which we have little use or need. Good thing to consider, dumping what we can spare and moving on.”

“It may come to that,” John allowed, and after a moment, confessed, “I have a case of books in my wagon, and of little use are they, in this instance. It might spare my team the effort of hauling another sixty or a hundred pounds, if I dumped them out of the wagon this instant.”

“And so are the smaller children of little use, in this instance,” Greenwood replied crisply, “and yet their parents carry them, willingly. Your books are a promise of future fulfillment, just as the children are, Doctor. Do not consider for a moment leaving them. They are as much a part of what we are, and what we stand for, as the children, and being such are irreplaceable. No, cherish your books, Doctor Townsend. If you are that concerned about the burden, I will carry some of them myself.”

They crawled along, the constancy of creaky wagon wheels and jingling harness occasionally broken by an ox, bawling in misery, and the snap of a whip. The children suffered in silence, all but tiny Ellen Independence, wailing in a thin, constant complaint and could not be comforted. At last, Stephens said, “Here. We’ll rest here, until sundown.”

There was nothing in particular to distinguish that spot, only that the sun stood directly overhead; simply that it was as good as, or as bad as any other, and the bawling from thirsty team animals had become nearly constant. Like automatons, everyone worked to  spread out the fodder and carry wash-pans filled with water, around which the animals clustered so thick, shoving each other and packing so tightly one to another that it was impossible to refill them for some little time, once the desperate stock had drunk them dry.

The women spread out blankets on the sand, in the shade underneath the wagons, or under canvas stretched from the sides, for the heat in the little spaces inside was unbearably stifling. No one had much of an appetite for lukewarm meats and stale camp-bread and crackers, and almost everyone just laid themselves down to sleep.

“I am sorry, Dearest,” John set aside his plate. “I am only thirsty. I will force myself to eat, but I cannot confess to any enthusiasm for it.”

Moses had wolfed down his own portion, and now he said, “You should eat, Doctor John. But I’ll take that, if you aren’t hungry.”

“I do not see that anyone has much of an appetite but you.” Elizabeth took John’s untouched plate and tipped its contents onto Moses’s. “Well, perhaps when you have rested a while….”

“Only for a short while,” John replied. “Stephens has asked that we set a watch on our cattle; he fears some of them might be so crazed with thirst….”

“He is asking too much of you, Dearest,” Elizabeth said, indignantly. “You must have a care for everyone else but yourself, and I won’t have any more of it this day. You both have had no more than two hours’ sleep, but I slept long in the wagon this morning. I will sit and watch the silly cattle… and you will rest.”

She flung his plate back into the box with the other camp tin-ware, and took up John’s rifle, with a fierce and determined look. She sat down in a flurry of faded calico skirts, by where John lay, and lifted his head onto her lap. “I can see the animals from here, and I will know if you exert yourself in the slightest.”

Moses chewed his last mouthful of camp bread and remarked, “Really, Doctor John, I wouldn’t argue with her, when she’s this way.”

“I have no intention of arguing….” John answered, and then he dropped like a stone into deep, deep sleep, and remained there until the sun went down and the camp roused and prepared for the final desperate push.

Before harnessing the teams, they put out the last of the cut fodder and all but a barrel or two of water, thinking to save that last to dole out little by little. The oxen sounded querulous and miserable; even Foster’s team obeyed with reluctance. The coolness in the air that came with sundown and the short rest, though, had somewhat revived animals and humans alike. They marched on through the moonlit night with renewed energy. They were almost at the end of the desert torment, surely? Stout souls like Elizabeth and Old Hitchcock, Old Martin and Joseph Foster rallied the faltering and exhausted.

“It’s a marvelous river,” Elizabeth’s voice lilted. “Doctor Townsend told me it looks like a river that flows through the Garden of Eden….”

“How does he know about the Garden of Eden?” Eddie asked, and Nancy answered scornfully, “He just does, silly.”

“ And in the middle of battle, the great king Conchobar heard that the fight had gone against him three times from the north.” Old Martin was in fine form, under the golden moonlight, reciting for his grandchildren.

“Then Conchobar cried out to his guardsmen, the men of the Red Branch: “Hold ye here a while, ye men!” cried he, “even in the line of battle, that I may learn who has attacked us three times from the north!” Then vowed the men of his household: “We will hold, for the sky is above, and the earth underneath and the sea all round, and unless the heavens fall with showers of stars on the face of the world, or the blue-bordered ocean break over it, or the ground yawns open, we shall not move a thumb’s breadth backward from here, until the very day of doom and of life everlasting until you return to us!”

“Green trees and water, boys, green trees and sweet cold water.” Foster snapped his whip over the laboring team.

“We crossed a wicked desert like this, once before.” Old Hitchcock stumped along. “Four days at it, we were….”

They rested a little at midnight, with the oxen standing in harness. They were fractious and unhappy by then, since the water was nearly gone, and with having to pull hard against the deep sand.

“I think we are close to the top of the sand.” John consulted with Stephens and Greenwood, after a short scout ahead. His head ached abominably. “But with the moon gone down, I can’t say for sure. The teams are moving faster, though.”

“Aye, so they are. I think we must be on the far side of it, now.”

“Were it daylight, we could see the river from here,” John explained to Greenwood.

“Pass the word,” Stephens said,

“It’ll give everyone heart,” Greenwood said, “And tell them too, that when the oxen begin to smell the water, they might get a little jumpy. Remind all to be on their guard.”

“It takes a lot to set an ox to stampede,” John said, cautiously, and Greenwood answered, “But when they do, they stampede real bad.”

“Especially bad if they’re still hitched.” Stephens added, grimly.

Knowing that they were close to the river, though, revived everyone’s flagging energies, and at first everyone was glad of the oxen walking faster, pulling with more energy than the plodding lethargy of earlier. But the crackle of whips and irritated shouts from the drivers filled the night.

Ugly Grey began fretting at the bit, as John did a circuit of the march; yes, the animals were fractious, barely obedient to their drivers, maddened beyond all endurance by the smell of water. One of Foster’s oxen began to bellow and toss its horns, and the frantic contagion leaped like a wildfire, a crash from within a wagon, and a woman screaming, oxen bellowing, and a storm of dust rising up.

“We’re losing them, Captain!” John shouted, and Stephens stood in his stirrups and cupped his hands.

“Circle the wagons, circle them now, and let the oxen go! Un-harness them and let them go!”

The half-dozen loose cattle pounded by, throwing up great gobbets of sand, swiftly followed by two boys on horseback. John thought one of them might be Moses, on Beau. The column split and circled in a storm of sand, cursing, and the bellowing of unhappy oxen.

“Let them go, let them go!” he circled the camp, waving his hat. “Un-harness and let them run, before they do any damage!”

In the maelstrom, he caught a brief sight of John Flomboy, clinging to the neck of one of Stephens’s frantic animals, shouting and beating it about the head with his whip-handle, and Bernard and Johnny Murphy struggling to free the yoke from another. One of old Hitchcock’s mules flashed by, with its pack nearly under its belly. Two, three, four loose animals charged through the camp, maddened beyond any control, and somewhere a child screaming piteously. That was Mary Murphy in her father’s perilously rocking wagon, and James shouting to her to stay still, stay where she was.

Dog was barking somewhere in the middle of it, a deep ringing bay, like a very hellhound. The terrible cracking sound of rending wood—oh, god, was one of the wagons going down? More loose animals plunged away, two of them still yoked together. Old Martin’s wagon stood free, all the animals away, and Young Martin and Mary-Bee huddled underneath it with the boys; at his own wagon, Elizabeth and Francis struggled valiantly to free the last yoke. More loose oxen, one with a broken leg dangling free and horrible, chasing after its fellows, and a rider-less horse, reins and stirrups dangling loose.

Ugly Grey snorted and reared, jibbing sideways as a handful of loosened oxen bore down like phantoms out of the dust, but they were there and then gone, and left silence settling with the dust after them. His head pounded; he felt sick, sawing at Ugly Grey’s bit, battling for control of his frantic horse.

He caught sight of  Elizabeth, sheltering under his wagon, cast up like some kind of bizarre shipwreck, askew in a tumbled sea of sand, but hoofbeats pounded out of the dark at his side, and Stephens shouted, “We need to ride hard, Doc!”

“Liz!” he shouted to her. “We’ll be back when we can!”

She came out from the wagon, calling, “Just get them back!”

“Well, we sure as hell ain’t going anywhere, less’n we do!” Stephens grunted, and they were away in the dark, following the stampede trail, even in starlight as broad and unmistakable as a city road. They passed a couple of the teamsters on foot, Old Martin with John Sullivan and the Martin brothers.

“Go on w’you!” Old Martin shouted, “We’ll catch up!”

From E.S. Patterson Interview, University of California Local History Archival Project 1932:

“Oh, that was something frightening… not that they nearly stampeded, that all happened so fast, Sadie and Nancy and Ma and me barely had time to be frightened. It was sitting under the wagons in the desert all alone, waiting for the men and Captain Stephens to come back. All the men had run after the cattle, or taken their horses and left us. Oliver and Samuel and Johnny had gone after the cattle, too, and there we were, all the women and little children, sitting under the wagons in the dark, with just a little water.

Ma had her old dragoon pistol, and she spread out a blanket for us and told us to sleep. Mrs. Miller with her baby, and Mrs. Murphy, who was going to have a baby, they sat under the next wagon with all their children, and the baby crying all that while. We were all so thirsty…and then the sun came up, and we could see a cloud of dust, and it was the men coming back, driving the herd ahead of them. Such a welcome sight as I’ll never forget! The oxen had all drunk as deep as they wished and eaten all they wanted… but five or six ran off, and we never found them again, and one of Miller’s had panicked in harness and manage to break its leg.

They brought us canteens of fresh, cold water, and it tasted so fine! We hitched up and carried on toward the river, which was as welcome to us, and seemed every bit as beautiful, as Mrs. Townsend had promised: a river out of the Garden of Eden, with lush green grass everywhere, and beautiful trees, golden trees on the hills all around, and good hunting. Best of all, the river came out of the west, down out of the mountains, like Chief Truckee said, and we followed it until we came to a beautiful meadow…but the canyon walls closed in, and one morning we woke up, and there was snow all over the ground….

From Dr. Townsend’s diary:
“Third of October, 1844, encamped in the desert sinks by Mary’s River, in considerable perturbation about the direction of our continued journey. We are resting ourselves and our animals, repairing the wagons, and re-provisioning ourselves, whilst some of us explore nearby. This morning came to our camp by chance, an old Indian….”

Toward dawn, a mist rose up from the marshes, burning off as the sun rose, iridescent and pearly, among the voices of waterfowl and frogs, and now the rattle of iron skillets and spoons over the fires, fires that in the pallid early morning light burned with a pale primrose flame. John leaned back in his accustomed seat, resting his back against a wagon wheel, and reflected on how the hardships of this journey made one so appreciative of small innocent pleasures like a cup of good coffee and hot bread baked over a fire.

“Oh, the Lord save us all, just like clockworks,” Sarah remarked, in resigned exasperation, “Here’s another one of them. We might as well set another plate every day!”

“What?… Oh, an Indian.” Elizabeth straightened from bending over the Dutch oven, and John glanced down, reassuring himself that he had set his rifle within close reach, leaning against the wheel and easy to hand. “Sarah, my dear, I do not think he is a beggar…look, he just walked by Murphy’s campfire.”

“No, you are right, he doesn’t look as if he wants a handout,” John agreed.

The Indian appeared to be immensely aged and, although that might have been due to the hardships of life, without a spare ounce of flesh on him. He was all but naked, seamed and scarred and burnt brown, but bore himself with enormous dignity and assurance; he was, John felt instantly, a person of consequence.

The old Indian strolled with leisurely purpose through the camp, observing it all with mild interest, as if he were paying a formal call on new neighbors.  He also carried no weapons other than a short knife and a small bundle slung over his shoulder, and John blinked in astonishment, as the Indian passed by their campfire and their eyes met; did the old man nod his head to him, as a white man would in passing by a slight acquaintance on the street? No, the old man was not a supplicant; they watched him walk by the Pattersons’ wagon, and by this time every eye in camp was on him, and it was clear where he was going.

Greenwood and his sons had built a small campfire just beyond. Old Hitchcock commonly joined them in the mornings. It seemed like some kind of signal passed among the three old men—Greenwood, Hitchcock, and the mysteriously confident old Indian. As John watched, Old Hitchcock creakily stood up and unrolled a blanket, spreading it flat upon the ground with the hospitable gesture of a grand host, inviting an esteemed visitor into the parlor. The old Indian settled onto it unhurriedly, cross-legged on the ground. Old Hitchcock sat, and Greenwood too, after gesturing to Britt. Britt left off saddling his pony and came to the Townsend’s fire.

“Pa, he says for you to come. Bring some bread. Enough for five. The Old One is a chief, he thinks. I am fetching the Captain. Pa says for him to be there as well.”

John wiped his mouth. Any man alive could have told the old Indian was a leader of no small consequence, just from his very bearing and assurance. Elizabeth handed him the bread, five slices wrapped in a clean towel on a tin plate, and he joined the three old men, sitting on the blanket, in the pearly light of a desert sunrise. Stephens also arrived, carrying a couple of tin camp mugs, into which Greenwood poured coffee, and passed a mug to their visitor. He tasted it, and could not entirely hide a dislike of it, but John, in obedience to Old Greenwood’s nod, handed out a piece of Sarah’s good camp-bread to all of them, and the old Indian ate more than just a courtesy bite…no, he ate with evident good enjoyment, and they ate of their own, while John and Stephens followed Hitchcock’s and Greenwood’s cue, and waited with as much tranquility as they could pretend to.

Hitchcock and Greenwood were much better at this than the younger men. It seemed as if there was all the time in the world, all the time in the world to get to the purpose of this, the purpose for which all their lives hung in a balance. And to John, watching intently, it seemed that he could see and understand the gestures and expressions as plainly as if they were written in one of the books in his small library.

The old Indian finished his morsel of bread, seeming to relish it, and made a sweeping gesture, encompassing the whole camp, the wagons and the penned horses, the campfires with the women and children gathered around them.

Who are you, what are you doing here? What is it that you want?

Old Hitchcock made a walking gesture with his fingers and pointed at the distant mountains; in a way, John realized, he was as good with his hands as Old Martin was with his voice, a master musician, conveying acres of meaning with a minimum of voice and motion.

We are here, and just traveling through, we want to go over there, but…

He watched as if mesmerized, and the old Indian did also, eyes opaque with mild puzzlement as Old Hitchcock gathered up a double handful of sand, and then another, pouring it out onto the middle of the blanket between them. He flattened the mound of sand, and in part of it, traced the outline of the river and the marsh. He stood a few blades of green grass in it, to indicate the marsh itself.

“Your canteen, Caleb,” he asked, then, and when Greenwood silently handed it to him, he uncorked it and poured a little dribble of water to indicate the river, and a pool of it for the marsh. Looking at the Indian’s face, Hitchcock pointed at his little model, and made another of those sweeping gestures; the camp, the marsh, and the river to the east. Here… this is the place were we are.

The old Indian nodded gravely. I understand.

Then Hitchcock took another double handful of sand, but instead of pouring it out all at once in a heap, he dribbled it in a long, narrow line to one side of the sand model of the sink marshes. He modeled it into a series of mounds, a mountain range in miniature, took up another handful, and did the same again. He passed his hand over the little peaks of sand and pointed at the far distant blue range to the west, then made that walking-fingers gesture, along the near side of his modeled range.

These are the mountains. We want to cross over them, but there is no path.

Comprehension bloomed, and John thought the old Indian might have come close to smiling. He looked at the sand ranges, thoughtfully, then reached out with one hand and flattened the middle. He carefully re-molded the sand peaks, with a gap between them, and took Greenwood’s canteen, just as Hitchcock had done, and traced a little dribble of water running through it. Then he poured a few drops in the middle of the space between the sand range, and the marsh, re-corked the bottle, and levelly met their gaze. There is a river in the mountains. There. And a spring in the desert, halfway there.

Hitchcock pointed at the sun and traced its path across the sky, and then moved his hand from the damp patch of sand, indicating the marsh, to the little sand range. How many days?

The old Indian held up two fingers. Two days’ journey.
Hitchcock pointed first at Stephens, then at John himself, finally at the old Indian, and gestured at the mountains. Will you show them?

A brief, almost imperceptible nod of assent, and Stephens said, “Have your boys get him a horse. Doc, you and I ride.”

“We’d best take one more… just for safety.”

“Who’s up next on the rota for out-riding?”

“Foster.”

“Good. He’s one of the better shots.”

It took a moment to fathom that remark, and John looked at Stephens, horrified. “He’s not a hostage…surely you are not thinking of shooting him, after he shows us this river, or if his people try to attack ours!”

“No… the Chief here is mebbe what passes for an honest man, in these parts, and I’d as soon he was safe with us.” Stephens scratched his jaw, thoughtfully. “Jus’ wish I knew why he was being so helpful to strangers, that’s all.”

“Easy enough,” Greenwood answered, “Either he is a Good Samaritan… or his folk wish we would just move on down the road a little way, and out of their lands. Stop spoiling their hunting, and distracting their young bucks.”

“Whichever it is, it’s to our advantage,” Hitchcock said, “I’d not go looking a gift horse in the mouth.”

“If we ain’t back in five days, don’t send any lookin’ for us.” Stephens got to his feet and gave John a hand up,

“You two and Murphy take everyone south, follow Chiles’s tracks, and do the best you can. Doc, you and I best saddle up now and take us plenty of water.”

From E.S. Patterson Interview, University of California Local History Archival Project 1932:

“So Cap’n Stephens and Doctor Townsend and Mr. Foster all rode out into the desert, following that old Indian. Cap’n Stephens had him a big old dog, big as a pony she was, and she liked to follow him ever’where, but as they left camp, he snapped his fingers at her, told her to “stay,” and she sat down right on that spot, watching after them ‘til they was no more’n little dots out in that desert. And she sat there, looking after the direction they went, didn’t move from that spot, didn’t eat, didn’t hardly sleep none, just looking after the direction they went, making a little whine, deep in her throat.

Ma, she got to worrying, sent my sister Nancy with a basin of water and some scraps from dinner for Cap’n Stephens’s dog; and Nancy said the dog drank a little, but didn’t eat none. Nancy said she took her by the collar, tried to bring her into camp from that spot, but the dog pulled away, an’ showed her teeth, even growled a little, which she never done to any of us, and finally Ma said, just leave her alone. Three days Cap’n Stephens’s dog sat there, waiting for them to come back.”

John went to his wagon, gathered up extra canteens, and took the bundle of food and supplies that Sarah, ever competent and foresighted, had assembled for him. Elizabeth said, “Dearest, do you want to take your journal with you?”

“No.” John leaned down and kissed her from horseback. “I shall make a long entry upon our return.”

Her voice quavered. “Do you trust this man… this wild Indian…who has promised to guide you to the river?”

“Aye, yes, I do.” John’s instinct in judging men—and women, too, come to think on it —had almost never played him wrong. He had long learned to trust that small, cool judgment, that judgment that had told him to trust Stephens, Murphy, and Old Hitchcock and the others, the same judgment that warned him off Thorp, all those long months ago at the emigrant campground outside Kanesville.

The same judgment that had told him he should press his suit to marry Elizabeth, on that long-ago morning in Stark County, when he went to call on a well-to-do merchant’s family and first laid eyes on her, playing the parlor piano.

”Don’t fret, Liz. Stephens is the most sensible man I know. We aren’t in any danger.” Or, as he silently added to himself, “any more than we are already.”

“I dislike being left alone.” Elizabeth handed up another filled canteen.

“You aren’t alone.” John looped the strap of it around his saddle horn, where it hung with three more against Ugly Grey’s withers. “You have Moses to look after, and Sarah Montgomery, and Mrs. Patterson to keep you company….”

“You know what I mean.”

“Dearest Liz, I’ll be back in four days, I promise from my heart.”

“I know.” But she couldn’t keep the fear and bewilderment out of her eyes, any more than Dog could when Stephens snapped his fingers and bade her sit and stay, as they rode away, into the desert, and camp and dog grew small in the distance behind them.

The sun burned down pitilessly from a harsh blue sky, baking the ground underneath. Their horses’ hooves scuffed up quantities of fine, bitter-tasting alkali dust. John tied a large calico handkerchief over his nose and the lower part of his face, to try and keep from breathing it. Foster had already done so, more to shield his sunburned and peeling face from any more exposure than to prevent breathing dust. They looked, John decided, like the veriest desperados. The old Indian led at a cracking pace, seeming impervious to the temperature and the dust. Once or twice, when their horses started to flag, he looked over his shoulder and seemed to be encouraging them,

“Truck-hee, truck-hee” he kept saying. “Truck-hee.”

“What does that mean, do you think?” Foster asked, when they halted at midmorning to pour out a little water for the horses, and pass around a canteen for themselves.

“Could it be his name, mebbe?” Stephens ventured.

“Hell of a thing, to have a guide you can’t talk to.” John dampened his handkerchief, and tied it over his face again.

“Me, I’d learn that hand-talking language from Old Man Hitchcock,” Foster remarked, “Or, I would if I were going to do this trip ever again. Oncet I get to Californy and get me a nice little farm, with a trout stream nearby, I ain’t gonna set foot off it. Or sleep on the ground ever again, either. Ma Foster’s little boy Joseph has done about all the traveling he is ever gonna do.”

“But not today, he hasn’t,” Stephens replied, “Let’s ride, gentlemen.Our guide wants us to move on.”

The old Indian watched them, seemingly with a mix of concern and impatience.

Foster waved reassuringly and said, “Truck-hee, truck-hee.” And the old man looked mollified, even a little pleased. Foster made an aside to John: “Well, at least now we know it ain’t something rude in his lingo.”

On and on, across the baking and featureless ground, the sun blazing a slow arc over their heads, their path chosen by their tireless guide toward the mountains,  and pitiless heat drying the moisture from their mouths, and clothing. Mirages like quicksilver pools danced and shimmered on the horizon. They spoke little and drove their horses at as fast a pace as they dared.

Very late in the afternoon, they came upon the springs, heralded by a stench of sulfur. In the middle of a barren desert valley, a number of pools of water steamed and bubbled away like a pot on the boil. The biggest of them spurted like a great stinking fountain, a good few feet into the dry air.  Another was elevated in a pyramid-shaped wall of reddish clay to the height of a man, and vented steam with an ominous rumbling sound, and yet another overflowed a shallow basin, a lively trickle as white as milk.

They sat on their horses for some moments, marveling at the sight, until John remarked, “In my medical opinion, Foster, it would do marvels for your health if you would take the waters. The ancient Romans thought very highly of the medicinal properties of natural hot springs such as this and built bathing pools and temples around them. Many such places remain popular today amongst the quality and nobility of Europe.”

“No foolin’, Doc?” Foster pulled his kerchief off his face. “Certainly stinks enough to be good for what ails you.”

“Alas, this spring is a little short of the amenities,” John admitted. “No assembly rooms, no gardens, no medicinal bathing pools… nothing that makes a visit to such a spa so enticing a prospect.”

“I reckon we’ll survive.” Stephens swung down from the saddle and unshipped his small hatchet. “We’ll have to dig a channel, run off some of this, and let it stand until it’s cool enough for the horses.”

“Truck-hee, truck-hee,” said the old Indian. He slid down off Greenwood’s pony like an otter slipping from creek bank to water. Stephens was already hacking out a small channel in the bank of the biggest pool.

“I guess this is where we camp tonight.” John unsaddled Ugly Grey and piled the empty canteens in a heap. He still had one half-full of water. Even lukewarm and straight from the river-sink, it no doubt tasted better than the stuff from the hot springs.

“We’ll have to cut fodder for the teams,” Stephens remarked thoughtfully. “There’s nothing here but mud.”

“And load up water in everything that don’t leak,” Foster added. “How long is it? Two days, didn’t Chief Truck-hee tell us?”

“Two days, maybe less.” John answered, thoughtfully. “Depends, too, on how fast you are moving. I think we made about fifteen miles today, moving faster than a man on foot, or following a team and wagon.”

“Ain’t no wood, either.” Foster un-strapped his bedroll. “Say, that patch of sand here, or that patch of sand over there…so many nice patches of sand to choose from.”

“Long as you ain’t settled on the patch with an ant nest in it.” Stephens cracked a smile.

“I like a lively time in bed as well as the next man, but that don’t include a passel of vermin.” Foster shook his head.

“My good man, cast no such vile aspersions on St. Joseph’s finer lodging houses,” John said. “I have it on good authority that the vermin in the beds there provide quite the liveliest of nights, and at no additional expense.”

“Speaking of lively nights,” Foster lowered his voice slightly, “shall we draw straws on keeping a watch during the night? On the horses and Chief Truck-hee?”

“I’ll take the first watch, after we eat. Just as well there ain’t no wood, I wouldn’t want to build a fire anyways.”

“What about when we come back with the wagons?” John asked. “We can bring along wood….”

“No,” Stephens shook his head. “We’ll not set up a camp…. I’ll talk it over with Greenwood, but it might be best to just haul straight on through. Start at sundown and just carry on.”

“I’d agree on that,”

John brought out his own supplies: Sarah and Elizabeth had supplied him with dried meat, some tack, and dried fruit, and the rest of the morning’s bread baking. Chief Truck-hee’s little bundle seemed to be a little dried meat wrapped in a tattered blanket. John offered him some bread, and he took a little of it, and then wrapped himself in the blanket and hollowed a place for himself in the sand. The old man dropped off to sleep as simply and rapidly as a cat curled up in a familiar place, and John envied him that ability profoundly. He, like Foster, did not look forward to sleeping on the ground.

By then the pool of water run off from the hot spring was cool enough for the horses to drink, although they did not seem to relish it in the least. They lowered the empty canteens by their straps into the least-muddy of the springs and let the water run gurgling into them until they were filled, heavy and dripping and radiating heat.

“Might keep us as warm as a fire would,” Foster ventured. “Still and all, I wish he had brought along fodder for the horses today.”

“We’ll get an early start, after we’ve had some sleep,” Stephens said. “Doc, I’ll wake you in three hours, then you wake Foster in three. Foster, when your three hours is up, wake us all, and we’ll head out.”

Perhaps he was getting used to the hardships of the trail, for it seemed that he lay for only a few minutes, looking up at the stars; huge they were, hanging so close above him that it seemed as if he could reach up and pluck one from the sky as easily as he could pick a rose from an arbor just over his head. And the next moment, Stephens gently shook his shoulder, and he was reaching for his rifle before he was entirely awake.

“You awake, Doc?”

“I am now. Wish I had some coffee, Captain.”

Stephens’s teeth gleamed in the faint starlight as he handed John one of his canteens. “It ain’t real hot, Doc, but it is coffee. I emptied a whole pot into this here canteen this morning, and it’s been soaking in that there hot spring since sundown. I thought we might have need to stay awake.”

John drank gratefully—yes, coffee, hot and strong, banishing sleep, and one of the few comforts on this long scout.

“Thank you, Captain. This reminds me of the main reason I backed you for the captaincy, back in Kanesville: You think of everything, days before the rest of us even get around to considering the possibilities.”

“I try, Doc.” Stephens shrugged; John thought he might be embarrassed by such off-hand praise.

“Other men try, Captain… you do, without any fuss about it. When I want to give myself nightmares, I think of what might have happened to us if Thorp had been elected captain at the first.”

“No need. We’d have made our own way before very long.”

“Perhaps.” John pulled his blanket around him against the chill of a desert night.

“Still… we gained some days on the trail when the traveling was easy, when we might have thought to take our ease. That was your doing, gaining us a little more time before the snow sets in.”

“We’ll need those days now, I think,” Stephens replied, and looked to where Orion would be striding up over the horizon. “Good night, Doc.”

“Good night, Captain Stephens.” John said, and Stephens pulled his own blanket around himself, and as swiftly as Chief Truck-hee had dropped into sleep was himself gone in slumber.

The horses fidgeted at the end of their pickets, and the stars overhead blazed in midnight glory. Foster was a faintly snoring bundle, but Truck-hee stirred and rolled over under his ragged bit of blanket. His eyes gleamed in the faint starlight for a moment, and John thought he seemed a bit surprised to see anyone still wakeful.

“Truck-hee, Chief, truck-hee,” John said soothingly, and it seemed that the old man smiled a little in the starlight,

“Truck-hee,” he replied, and the gleam winked out, and he was another blanket-covered bundle, snoring faintly under the glorious, ever-wheeling stars.

Three hours later, John shook Foster’s shoulder and handed him the canteen of coffee, newly heated in the hot spring.

“Doctor, you are a gentleman and a scholar.” Foster uncorked the canteen and gratefully swigged down sufficient of the contents to render him awake and alert, re-corking it with a gasp, “And a damn-fine judge of horse-flesh. I am in your debt, always.”

“It was Stephens who brought the coffee,” John pointed out, and Foster took another swig,

“A gentleman too, and a very considerate one, and I am in his debt as well. How is Chief Truck-hee?”

“Sleeping the sleep of the blameless,” replied John, and he lay down and pulled his blanket around himself, but it was in fact Chief Truck-hee who wakened him by shaking his foot, and Foster was holding the canteen of coffee—nearly drained, by the weight and gurgling sound of it when he tipped back for a deep swig of the contents, and saying,

“Morning, Doc… I think Chief Truck-hee wants us to saddle up and ride.”

“Better to travel in the cool of the day.” Stephens had already rolled up his blankets and saddled his pony. It was still dark, but the sky in the east was lightening somewhat, and the stars there looked pallid.

A few minutes to water the horses from slightly cooler water, drawn off the spring during the night, and they were mounted and away, with no temptation to linger at the springs. The sooner they found Chief Truck-hee’s river, the sooner they could bring the wagons over this last stretch of desert and be done with it. They urged the horses to a trot, and made good time in the coolness before the sun rose at their backs and the temperature soared until it seemed the ground shimmered like the top of a stove.

“I thought yesterday was bad,” Foster said, when they paused to rest and water the horses around mid-day, “But this beats all.” He poured a little water into his handkerchief and wrung it out over his head, so the water dripped down over his face. He passed the canteen to Chief Truck-hee, who drank sparingly from it.

“Truck-hee, truck-hee,” he said, as usual, and waved an arm toward the west.

“The oxen will have a hell of time in this,” Stephens’s pony stood with head drooping, hoof-deep in fine, shifting sand. They seemed to be going up the flank of a long, gradually sloping ridge. They had been so for hours, never quite seeming to reach the crest of it.

“I don’t know what Greenwood will advise.” John took the canteen from Chief Truck-hee. The water in it was as warm as blood and tasted vile, only temporarily soothing his heat-cracked lips. “But I agree with you, Stephens…we’ll be better off attempting passage of this desert at night. Anything to alleviate the strain on the teams.”

“Will we be able to find our own tracks, in the dark?” Foster asked, “I’d not want to become lost in this hell on earth and go in circles all the night.”

“We’ll steer by the stars, Foster, as sailors do,” John said. “Stephens and I have been keeping note of the North Star, relative to us…just to make sure we were not being led in circles ourselves, this morning.”

“By gum,” Foster exclaimed in admiration, “I’d have never thought to do that! I was just trusting the Chief here and thinking we would just follow our tracks back to camp.”

“Always best to think on other plans,” Stephens took the canteen from John and drank deeply of the distasteful stuff.

“Reckon that’s why you’re the captain, then,” Foster said and took back his canteen. “Any idee on how much farther?”

Stephens squinted at the sun, far overhead. “’Bout noon now, I’d say. Chief did say it was two days from the marsh. We made good time; I’d guess another three-four hours; sundown, at the latest.”

“Truck-hee, truck-hee,” said the Chief, making a waving motion toward the west.”

“Wish’t I knew what that means,” Foster mused.

“In this case, probably something like ‘gentlemen, let’s meander a little farther along this invitingly scenic trail,’” John answered, wryly.

“His lingo sure packs a lot o’ words into a little, don’t it, Doc?”

“You’ve never studied Latin, Foster.”

“Can’t say I ever had the pleasure.”

John laughed, and pressed his heels into Ugly Grey’s sides. “Then I shall while away the next part of this journey conjugating Latin verbs for you, Foster.”

“Hey, that ain’t something illegal, is it?”

“No, but there are many schoolboys who would disagree in the strongest possible terms.”

“Hell, listen to the Doc talk long enough, Foster, you’ll be as eddicated as he is,”

Stephens looked over his shoulder as John filled his lungs and began declaiming to the desert, “Amo… I love; amare…to love;  amavi…I have loved; amatus…loved…. Oh, damnation, I have forgotten what comes next.”

“Don’t worry about it, Doc. I figure I’m already as eddicated as I need to be.” Foster sounded cheery as always, probably smiling broadly under the sodden neckerchief tied around his face.

In mid-afternoon, the sun slanting about halfway down the sky in front of them, they finally topped the long, shallow ridge and were able to look down the other side—a vast and featureless sweep of sand, as far as the eye could see…but just on the very edge, right on the horizon, a thin scribble of green lay across the desert, with dun-colored hills beginning to mound up toward the blue mountains beyond.

“Truck-hee.” The chief waved an arm toward it, and John murmured, “Truck-hee indeed. Gentlemen, I believe there is our river, and the key to getting over the mountains.”

“What are we waiting for, then?” Foster made as if to spur his horse, and Stephens said, “Easy does it—t’s a good few miles off.”

But they could see that thin, random line of green, and it heartened them to have their destination so clearly in view, incrementally becoming larger and more distinct, a line of green trees, the poplar trees that meant water, and plenty of it. Their horses became restive and energetic, almost dancing with impatience; they could smell water, sense the moisture in the air, and the scent of lush green pastures.

Soon John could smell it also, and he and the others allowed the horses to trot and then canter. The sand and dust rose in a great plume behind them, and then their hooves drummed on firmer ground. They shot across a thin strip of pasturage, and reined them in on the gravelly bank, half-crazed with thirst and the glory and richness of it all, water, sweet water with green rushes growing all around, and yellow and green poplar leaves rustling and whispering overhead.

He leaped down and let Ugly Grey plunge into the river, up to his knees in it, while he lowered his head and drank in great gulps of water. Stephens’s pony and the others waded in, and John knelt on the bank and dipped his hat into it, pouring great scoop of fresh water over himself. Foster kicked out of his boots, and waded in with the horses, stretching out his arms and whooping like a madman before falling flat into it with a mighty splash.

John poured another hatful of water on himself and thought how beautiful this place looked, after that desert. The afternoon sun lay golden in this grove, sifting through the leaves, and a little breeze rustled the tall clumps of rushes. Great dragonflies and other insects hovered above the water, and the murmur of water melded with the sounds of leaves and insects into one tranquil symphony.

Chief Truck-hee stood quietly on the bank, holding the reins of Greenwood’s pony, watching them for a moment with what John read on his face as great satisfaction, and even a bit of gentle amusement.

“Truck-hee,” he remarked one last time and then handed the reins to John, settled his blanket bundle on his shoulder, and padded away along the riverbank, vanishing like a wilderness sprite among the rushes and dusty golden bars of sunlight slipping down through the trees.

“Let him go.” Stephens halted John with a hand on his shoulder, even though John had no intention of stopping the old man, “He kept his end of the bargain.”

“I’d still like to know,” Foster sat up in the water and retrieved his hat, “if this river has a name,”

“It does now,” John said. “I’d name it after the old man and call it Truck-hee’s River.”

“Truckee?” Stephens shrugged. “Have to call it something, I guess. We’ll camp here, and head back in the morning.”

“It purely is a beautiful place.” Foster looked around, appreciatively. “You sure was right about taking the waters, Doc… I feel better already.”

From Dr. Townsend’s Diary:

“Sixteenth of August, 1844 Ft. Hall, upon the Oregon Trail. We depart upon the morrow from here and within a few days turn southward and aside from the established road. The Oregon company has caught up to us whilst we were encamped here. Mr. Case and the others who had accompanied us since Ft. Laramie upon the Sweetwater remain wholly resolved upon Oregon and part with many expressions of sorrow and the most sincere good wishes for our successful translation to California.

Captain Grant, the factor of the establishment of Ft. Hall  has given us information concerning a party and the trail that we are resolved to embark upon, to whit: A small company guided by an old comrade of Mr. Hitchcock’s named Jos. Walker and captained by a Mr. Chiles departed intent on California at about this time last year. Capt. Grant has no intelligence upon the happy conclusion of their journey, save only that their wagons had planned to depart from the trail at the Raft River crossing, and strike out into the desert, following the route of Mary’s River into the desert sink, and to essay a crossing of the mountain barrier beyond. Aside from that, we know as little as we did three months ago….

Some of our party, fearing their supplies may run short, were desirous of replenishing them here but were utterly dismayed at the cost of doing so: flour at one dollar a pound, et cetera. We were able to trade for a little stock of dried meat and consider that our spare oxen constitute a food reserve sufficient for our needs. Captain Stephens has required of me to compile a complete listing of our party, with their condition and property, a copy of which being left with Captain Grant against some kind of dreadful misfortune falling upon us. The greater portion being of the Murphy family or connections thereof, I begin with them:

Martin Murphy, senior; widower and farmer by trade, accompanied by those of his family yet unmarried: Daniel, Bernard, Helen, and Johnny, and a hired man, Edmund Bray.

John had come to like the Murphy paterfamilias; prosperity and material success had not dulled the sharp, ambitious edge that the old man must have had in him since migrating from his poor, green island so many years ago. And Old Martin was shrewd enough about his own limits, unlike many another self-made man. He placed much the same degree of confidence in Stephens that John himself did. John had treated him for a touch of bursitis, and aside from some rheumatism in his hands, which did not prevent him from playing the penny-whistle for the amusement of his grandchildren, he was as fit as any of his sons. Johnny, the youngest of them, had been ill for many days as they had traveled along the Loup River, from the same fever that had killed Vance, but he had since recovered his youthful energy and vigor.

Martin Murphy, Junior, a farmer by trade; with him his wife, Mary, and four sons, aged from twelve to three years: James, Martin, Patrick, and Bernard, and a hired man, Vincent Calvin. Mrs. Murphy is in a delicate condition, expecting to be delivered of another child approximate to our arrival in California.

“I am praying to the Blessed Virgin that this one is a girl!” Mary-Bee Murphy had told him, laughing ruefully, as she rested her hands on her pregnant belly. “Another boy like the rest would have me tearing out my hair. I’d never survive running after five of them all the day, truly I wouldn’t.”

James Murphy, likewise a farmer by trade, wife Annie, and daughter Mary, and hired man, Matthew Harbin.

John had made a physic for Matthew Harbin’s piles and had treated him with mustard poultices for a long graze across his arm that had gone septic, and been called to attend little Mary, usually by Jamie, who doted on his only child.

James Miller, a carpenter by trade, wife Mary (daughter to Martin Murphy Sr.), son William and daughters Frances, Teresa, and Ellen; the youngest being an infant of ten weeks and delivered whilst on this journey.

John smiled to think of tiny Ellen Independence, and Mary Miller’s exhausted but triumphant face. Like her father, like the other Murphys, they had some small prosperity on this earth but counted a larger part of their riches in their children. Besides attending that birth, John had also doctored James’s left hand; back on the Elkhorn crossing, as they were disassembling wagons for their makeshift ferry, James had broken two fingers, caught between a wheel and the axle.

Patrick Martin, farmer, a widower with two grown sons, Dennis and Patrick.

That very day, Patrick had gotten into a long-anticipated fight with one of the factor’s men; leave it to him to find the only Englishmen within a thousand square miles and get into a fight with one of them straightaway. He had come to John to be treated for split knuckles on his right hand.

“Broke it on the jaw of an arrogant Englishman, so I did!” he had announced triumphantly.  John reckoned they would be fortunate to leave Ft. Hall without Patrick getting into any more fights with the Englishmen there.

John Sullivan, farmer, with his grown sister, Mary, and two younger brothers, Michael and Robert, aged about eleven and fourteen. The Sullivans were a distant family connection to the Murphys: In his early twenties, John Sullivan seemed oddly older, a sober and responsible youth, having the charge of his orphaned younger brothers, and vexed by the flirtatious ways of his sister, who, along with Helen Murphy was one of the only two marriageable girls in the party and consequently much admired by the younger unmarried men. Mary Sullivan had gone to Isabella for some unspecified female ailment: it probably wasn’t serious, for Isabella would have consulted with John if it had been, instead of just mentioning it to him, but the poor girl blushed as red as a beet when John asked after her health, offhandedly.

Robert had fallen, climbing down from their moving wagon, early on, and broken his collarbone, and his younger brother had gouged his hand on a sharp branch while gathering firewood. Their stores of supplies were the lowest of all in the party, a matter of guarded concern for Martin Murphy, who had taken his worries to John when there was nothing at Fort Hall in the way of supplies.

Allen Montgomery, a gunsmith by trade, wife Sarah.

Funny that John Sullivan could appear to be grave, sober, and reliable while barely twenty, and Allen, much his senior in years, conducted himself generally as a careless and irresponsible youth. As for the Montgomerys’ health, Sarah had burnt her hands several times on hot kettles over the cook fire and once had asked after a physic that would make her courses more regular, and then hastily said, no, there was nothing the matter, when he had asked with concern if she had been very much delayed in them. “No, only a few days.”

Mrs. Samuel Patterson, with children Oliver, Samuel, Johnnie, Nancy, Edward, and Sarah, aged from seventeen to three years of age.

Aside from young Eddie’s continuing adventures, to which he had added being roundly sick from drinking too much water from Soda Spring, the Pattersons otherwise had little need of John’s doctoring, Isabella being a fair hand at that herself, with her box of medicinal salts and herbs. In the early days on the trail, Oliver’s shoes had raised great blisters on his heels, which had become infected, and Sadie had been bitten on the wrist by some kind of insect that raised a great red welt.

Otherwise, Isabella and the older boys managed the days of travel very well. John did fear that the Pattersons, like the Sullivans, might run low on supplies if the journey lasted much longer than another three or four months. Watching Oliver, Samuel, and John wolf down their evening meals, John wondered nightly if Isabella underestimated the ravenous appetites of three boys who were doing men’s work.

Elisha Stephens, blacksmith and elected captain. Hired man, John Flomboy.

Flomboy drove Stephens’s team, while Stephens himself ranged on horseback with the advance party. John had not been called to treat either of them for illness or injury, although Dog once had torn the pads of her right forepaw on a sharp rock and left a long trail of bloody footprints in the dust behind Stephens’s wagon until Oliver Patterson, driving just behind, took notice and called for John. John inked his pen, and wrote carefully;

“I am proud to call him my friend, and can think of no one better fitted to lead us unto the wilderness, even with his distinct oddities of character.”

Joseph Foster, farmer and wheelwright by trade, hired man, Oliver Magnent.

Joseph Foster, still chipper and cheery, trying his luck with his fishing pole every river they came to. His hired man, Oliver Magnent, was another French-Canadian like John’s driver, Francis Deland.

John Townsend, doctor of medicine, wife Elizabeth and brother-in-law, Moses Schallenberger, with hired man, Francis Deland.

John considered his list again; he must finish it soon, and the copy for the factor as well. The sound of a fiddle came from across the campsite; so many wagons drawn up here, it seemed like a town. It would be the last of any sort of settlement they would see until they got over the mountains into California. Lanterns and campfires burned yellow, gold, primrose in the twilight, and voices, the clatter of supper clean-up, the noises that cattle and horses made as they bedded down for the night, all of this floated on the evening air.

Women’s voices, the laughter of children, and Old Martin’s penny-whistle and Elizabeth, all verve and drama, reading Pilgrim’s Progress to Eddie and Sadie, over at the Pattersons’ campfire, all of them  floated on the night as well,  the complicated symphony of the trail, and John set his pen to paper again.

Elizabeth continued to be well, riding Beau, or leading him and walking with the women and children, as if all the summer agues, all the nights of struggling for breath, the days when she was prostrated with headaches, as if all that had been but a series of vile dreams. It pleased him also that Moses spent rather more time with Young Martin, John Sullivan, and with Dennis Martin, better models for Moses and the Patterson boys of what a man ought to be than Allen Montgomery.

The above listed all are wagon owners: We are accompanied also by Isaac Hitchcock, trader and trapper, and Caleb Greenwood, trail guide by profession, with sons John and Britain…

Old Hitchcock’s two mules with their packs held all of what the old trader needed, although John rather thought that some of his heavier possessions and stores must be in the Patterson wagon. As for Hitchcock’s health, he complained of rheumatism, only to be expected in a man of his years, but little else. Caleb Greenwood did not even complain of that, but it was clear to John that the cataracts in Greenwood’s left eye would cost him vision there within a few more years. He and his sons also lived out of their small pack-train and from hunting; John often wondered how fast they would have been able to travel, were it not for the wagons.

So this being an accounting of the company in which we now travel, much reduced in numbers after three months of experience, but each of us now having a fair sense of each other’s qualities and capabilities. We are risking much in this journey, but I cannot think of better company in which to venture forward.

Nineteenth of August, 1844, at the crossing of the Raft River. Cannot imagine anyone having to use a raft to cross a bare trickle such as this! Captain Stephens has ridden ahead a little, with the Greenwood boys. He thinks to have espied the trail of last year’s party, as it stands out best at a distance, going over the next rise of land; with little rain falling throughout the year, the wheel ruts remain clear in sand as in dried mud; as wel,l their passage is marked in broken sage and the clear places where campfires burned. This morning, we have finally turned aside from the trail, following a little stream into a broad and well-grassed valley. Old Hitchcock tells me this is called Kassia, or Cassia Creek.”

“Grass is plentiful along the streams, which are small but providential, but the uplands all around are burnt and dry, supporting only sparse sage and a species of cacti…passing a great bowl-like valley, studded with rock outcroppings like candied fruit…the heat is unrelenting, and the dust boils up from our passage describing a pillar like that which led the Hebrews out of Egypt and into the Promised Land.”

Day followed weary day, plagued by dust, a fine powdery grit and baked by the sun, with never a pitying cloud in the sky. When the wind blew, the dust was everywhere and in everything, caking on sweaty faces and limbs like some itchy and dun-colored mask. The women despaired of keeping it out of their hair or from penetrating the bedding: the dust was everywhere, and inescapable. Allan Montgomery swore he even felt it gritting in his teeth in every mouthful of bread that he ate.

They seemed to crawl like ants over an endless and featureless platter. There were no landmarks to catch the eye once they had left the spires of rock at the tangled tributaries of the Raft River, nothing to see and mark their progress by, only an endless succession of low ridges and dales, like an ocean in a flat calm, sparsely covered with sun-burnt grass and the endless and eternal sagebrush. Only along the creek banks was there anything green to refresh the eye or taller than a man to cast a comforting shade.

“I don’t know which is more of a plague,” John remarked, one day during the noontime rest, “the dust, or those poor damned Digger Indians.”

He and Stephens, with Greenwood and Old Murphy were resting in the shade under a length of canvas rigged between the side of John’s wagon and a pair of cottonwood poles, and keeping a watchful eye on a pair of nearly naked Indians, going around to the other wagons, begging. Most of the other families had set up something of the sort for a bit of shade by their wagons. They had taken to nooning in the hottest part of the day, while the sun was directly overhead.  While they watched, one of the Diggers suddenly ducked, and scooped up something from the ground, and ate it with apparent relish.

“Lizard, mebbe… or a cricket. It’s a delicacy, ’round these parts,” Greenwood explained, and Old Martin said, “Jay-sus, Mary, and Joseph, that’s something pathetic.”

“They ain’t Sioux,” Stephens remarked.

“And that’s the plain truth,” Old Martin said.” The Sioux are gentry; these are tinkers, picking over the rags. ’Twould be an honor to be killed by the Sioux, I’m thinking, but a right embarrassment to be killed by one of this poor lot. At least, the Sioux are clean.”

“We’re not exactly fragrant ourselves, of late,” John pointed out, and Stephens cracked a brief smile. ”How dangerous are Diggers?”

“Not very,” Greenwood admitted, “More given to thieving, here and there.”

“Naught too hot, or too heavy, eh?” Old Martin said, humorously. “Still and all, I wouldn’t want them as enemies, not if there’s a grudge in their black little hearts and a sharp blade in their hand. Our cattle… saints preserve, what is he doing?”

John Greenwood suddenly appeared purposefully around the corner of Sullivan’s wagon with a quirt in his hand, where the ragged pair of Indians importuned Mary Sullivan and the boys for something more to eat. They could not hear what John Greenwood was saying to them, but his voice sounded angry, and when he struck out with the quirt, the smack of it on the Indian’s bare shoulders sounded harsh in the desert silence.

“There’s no call for that,” said Old Murphy, in shocked disapproval. Greenwood was already up and halfway to the Sullivans. “They’re only begging, the poor tinkers. Caleb had best rein in that boy of his, before he brings down trouble on the lot of us.”

“He’s a hothead,” Stephens agreed, watching Old Greenwood and his son alertly.  “Half Crow hisself. The only reason the Crows ain’t at war with the Diggers is they ain’t gotten to it yet.”

“Give them time,” John said. “And let us be out of the way, first.”

“We’ll have to keep an eye on him, then.” Old Martin sighed.” I’ll tell my boys, quiet-like.”

“Anyone else liable to borrow trouble?” Stephens asked, thoughtfully.

“Montgomery? Any of the young bucks?”

John shook his head. “None of them seems to hate Diggers the way the Greenwood boys do.”

“I’d tell Greenwood to keep his lads on a short lead,” Old Martin advised, and they did so, but when trouble came of the young men of the party and the Indians, it was not provoked by the Greenwoods.

Were it not for the necessity of keeping track of it for his diary, John might have lost all count of days as they followed Mary’s River farther and farther into the desert. They had no need of the faint traces left by Chiles’s wagons the year before. The river itself, shallow, sluggish, and a slash of green across the desert was their road and guide.

At night the stars hung low and brilliant, as thick in the velvet dark sky as dust motes in a sunbeam, until the moon floated free of the horizon, waxing and waning and waxing again. But among the constellations of early morning, the hunter Orion swung farther and farther up into the sky, a harbinger of autumn and winter to follow. One morning, as they were saddling their horses for the day’s march, John saw that Stephens was looking at the stars, too, standing there holding his horse’s bridle, with patient Dog at his feet.

“What date are we at, Doc?”

“The last week of September,” John answered. Stephens didn’t say anything else, but John wondered if he also thought of the snow-topped mountains off in the distance, as they had crossed the great divide at the height of summer.

That very day for the first time, John thought he could see a faint, dark blue outline on the edge of the sky ahead, just where it met the farthest dun-colored fold of desert, but the dust of the day came up and masked it all, and he thought he had been misled by a mirage, shimmering and elusive like a pool of mercury, until the sun set. Clear against the orange-gold sun was a distant jagged outline.

“The mountains,” said Old Man Hitchcock that evening, with immense satisfaction. He lit his pipe from a twig thrust into the embers of their shared campfire.

They had taken to building them from sage, hacked out of the low desert bushes and piled up in a shallow pit. It burned down to an aromatic steady fire, much more satisfactory than the buffalo chips they’d had to burn back on the Platte. John and his family and Sarah and Allen Montgomery had lately begun to share a campfire with the Pattersons, as it tripled the quantity of sagebrush cut for the one fire. Supper was over, and the few dishes scoured with handfuls of sand and washed at the water’s edge. The day’s heat fled with the sun; John stretched out his hands to the fire gratefully, and asked, “How far away are they?”

“No idea…. I’ve heard a hunnert miles from the Sink, an’ I’ve heard fifty…and there’s still a mite o’ current to the river, so we ain’t at the Sink, yet.”

“What is the sink?” Elizabeth asked, curiously, from next to John.

“Ma’am, it’s a great flat place in the middle of the desert, where this here river spreads out into a marsh and just flat-out sinks into the sand and vanishes.”

“How curious,” Elizabeth remarked. “To think of it ending, just like that, when we have been following it for such a long time. Were not we always taught that a river should empty into an ocean? Water flowed naturally from the highlands down to the sea… this all seems quite odd. So, you and Mr. Greenwood are convinced there is a river coming down from these mountains, into this… sink, as you call it?”

“That’s it in a nutshell, ma’am.” Hitchcock puffed away, while Isabella, mending a tear in a pair of Eddie’s trousers, rolled her eyes and muttered under her breath, “Old fool. You’ve never seen it, but you know it must be there.”

“Ahh, Izzy, Izzy, Izzy…blessed are those who do not see and yet believe. ’Tis one of those great truths, which I have yet to see disproved. It rains in mountains, and in the winter it snows, and when all that snow melts, the water runs down out of those mountains. Wherever there are mountains in this great western desert, there are rivers of water coming down out of them, and where the water comes down, that’s where men can climb up into the mountains and mebbe cross over them.”

“But… you do not know exactly where this river might be?” Elizabeth ventured, and Old Hitchcock puffed on his pipe and said, “We can make us an eddicated guess, ma’am,” and Isabella snorted in derision.

“Educated fiddlesticks!”

“But what are we going to do, when we get to this sink, where the river ends?” Elizabeth asked.

“We’ll camp for a couple days, rest the cattle,” Hitchcock said, ”I reckon Cap’n Stephens will send out a couple scouts, see if we can track them wagons from last year. Mebbe they found the way over the mountains, mebbe not. Make a couple of casts north and south to look for that river… we have time.”

But not terribly much of it, John thought, remembering Orion swinging up in the star-field every morning.

In another couple of days, the river ceased to resemble a river at all and became more of a marsh, with great swales of green rushes, the haunt of waterfowl, fringed with mud and alkali ponds and alive with deer and antelope. Stephens and the two old men consulted and led the wagons around to a fair stretch of meadow on slightly higher ground,
“We’ll stay here awhile, rest the teams, and do some hunting,” Stephens said to the scouting party, John, young Martin Murphy, and the Greenwoods. They could see the mountains clearly now, a haunting blue shadow, clearest at dawn and again at sunset.

“I swear, the teams are in prime condition,” Young Martin said. “They’re fitter now than when we left Missouri.” And just then, Dog suddenly barked, a sound more like a deep and startling baying and launched herself fruitlessly after a flock of ducks at the water’s edge. They rose from the water in a storm of agitated wings as Dog plunged after them. Stephens whistled, and she returned instantly, wet and baffled.

“Not unless you’ve grown wings, girl,”

Behind them, on the meadow, the wagons deployed for the night camp. So practiced were the drivers by now that it all seemed like some vast clockwork. The smaller children and the women had already been gathering firewood, collecting promising sticks of dried wood as they walked.

“Still, I wish’t we hadn’t lost those three to the alkali,” Stephens said.

Two of the Murphys’ stock, and Isabella’s lead ox, Socks, had drunk from a pool of tainted water and died of it. The children wept for Socks, so tame that he had followed Oliver trustingly into the river, on that first day when they had swum the oxen over the river and commenced this journey. Isabella might have wept a little too, but then she had put her cherished milk cow in harness to replace Socks.

“Or the pony that John Greenwood said the Indians stole.” Young Martin added.

“John Greenwood is always ready to blame the Indians for any loss… real or imagined.” John said.

Left to him, and if he did not respect Old Greenwood so much, he’d have gagged and bound the younger man and carried him all this way in one of the wagons. Of late, the Indians had been a different sort, rather less wretched and rather more dressed than before. Pai-ute, said Old Greenwood, with a little more of a fight in them than the Diggers formerly. And Hitchcock had dryly commented that with the fight they had to get any sort of living out of the desert, no wonder they had no energy left for anything more.

And John looked at the distant mountains, in all their sunset glory and visibility, and thought of how close they were to that goal. Just the mountains, just the mountains and over them before the winter snow; just that little bit farther, and he would have a grand house for Elizabeth, and she would be healthy and fit for the rest of her life, and play the piano, and he would school Moses with his fine library, instead of living this vagabond life in a wagon, camping in the wilderness, like a bunch of old Martin’s tinker gypsies.

Stephens held council in the morning, as girls and women carried baskets of laundry to the water’s edge, and cattle stood near to their shoulders in grass.

“Two long scouts. We cast north and south of here for Chiles’s tracks,” he said. “Three to four in each. Greenwood takes the north; I’ll take the south, but not more than a day.”

“Fat hunting country,” Hitchcock remarked. “Keep the young bucks busy.”

“So, that’s the plan, then?” Old Martin ventured, “We rest and restock and mend the wagons here, for the last push?” Stephens nodded. “Ah, then ’tis a fair place…a little short on good timber, though. And if you do not find their trail, or that grand river of yours, then what do we do then, hey?”

“Cross that bridge when we get to it,” Stephens abruptly stood up. “Who’s with me, and who’s with Greenwood?”

John volunteered to ride south with Stephens, and Allen Montgomery and Patrick Martin and Dennis went for the North with the Greenwoods—a hard day’s ride in the saddle either way of it, casting west and south into the dry desert that lay between the sink and the mountains.

They found the traces almost at once, but Chiles’s party looked to have gone south. They followed it with Stephens as far as they dared, until early afternoon, when Stephens reined in his horse at the top of a rise, from which they could see the faint tracks scribbled over the next rise, and the one beyond that.

“I don’t think those boys knew any more’n we do,” he said. ”We’ll head on back, see what Greenwood found.”

When they returned to camp, though, Greenwood had not returned—fortunate in a way, because it meant that his sons were not there to make a bad situation worse. Old Martin met them with a grave face,

“Doctor, there’s been some trouble with your lad. You’d best come quick.”

“What kind of trouble? How badly is Mose hurt? Is Liz with him?” John’s heart sank within him, clear down to his dusty boots.

Old Martin said quickly, “No, not that kind of trouble…he caught one of those pesky tinkers stealing away his halter….”

Old Martin led him rapidly toward a knot of men—Murphy’s sons, and the Sullivan boys, and a large knot of Indians gathered around Old Man Hitchcock. Hitchcock was in full hand-talking spiel, gesturing and making signs with his fingers; it looked as if he needed no help. John didn’t see Moses at first, off to one side with Young Martin.

Moses looked angry and aggrieved, and John thought instantly of a guilty boy caught in some mischief; Young Martin just looked angry, pale with it and lecturing Moses in a furious undertone, and Old Martin continued, “You know that fine one of his, braided out of colored rope? He missed it, and looking around, spotted one of those Indians, wearing a fine blanket…trimmed all over with bird feathers, it was, but the halter hanging down beneath it as fine as you please, and with all his friends around. And your boy grabbed it back, and the Indian was angry then. He drew up his bow and nocked an arrow, and all his friend did the same, and your fine lad took up his rifle and pointed it at him….”

“Oh, god, no,” and John’s blood ran cold at the thought of what shooting one of the Indians might bring down on Moses, and the rest of them.

Old Martin patted his shoulder. “No, Martin struck up his rifle and took your lad aside, and Hitchcock came and began to talk sense before everyone got offended…well, offended very much more, as I judge. Isaac had to talk very fast, and for a good while, but I think he has got them all properly soothed…but you’d best talk to the lad.”

“Doctor John!” Moses cried as soon as John came up to them. “Tell them…that thieving wretch tried to steal away my own property, and I caught him fair and square. Are we to continue submitting meekly to these insults?”

“Yes,” Young Martin replied bluntly, before John could even begin to formulate a reply.

Old Martin stepped in front of Moses and regarded him compassionately. “Yes, my lad, you should. That’s the short answer, and this is the longer one, and why ’tis necessary. Better men than you have taken worse insult…better men than you have been turned out in the road by the landlords, and seen their sisters and wives treated like common whores, and had to learn their letters in the hedges, and leave the land that their ancestors bled for, generation after generation. And they endured it, because to strike back would have cost their lives, and all of those lives they held dearest. So, you had a small thing taken from you…and yes, it was stolen, we are clear on that, and you’ve a right to be angry…but lad, ye canna let the anger lead you to act rashly! There are many of them, and poor ragged savages they might be, but they are here, the Lord Himself only knows how many, w’their bows and arrows, and knives, and we are just a bare handful passing through!”

Old Martin had the gift, John thought, of weaving spells with his voice, as if he had only to talk, and talk in that gruff but musical Irish voice, to compel agreement and obedience, and Moses already looked a little less angry. Old Martin continued,
“If you and John Greenwood want to start a war with them over trifles, I’d say ‘Be my guest’, have it. Have as many as you like, if it just fell on your own heads, but this is my sons and daughters, and the children in the way of it, an’ that is where I say, we canna risk provoking them!”

“They are stealing from us, night and day, and anything that isn’t nailed down,” Moses protested. “I’m sick of it, and sick of having them take advantage….”

“Moses, that’s enough.” John kept his voice low, although he wanted to shout. “Be silent…you could have set off a massacre of all of us, with your temper and thoughtlessness,” while Old Martin shook his head, pityingly.

“Lad, lad, be listening to me. Don’t be thinking of it as stealing, if you like. Think of it as us paying a toll to pass through their lands…only instead of coming to us fair and open with their hand out and asking for the price of it, they amuse themselves by collecting it piecemeal. What have we lost, now, really? Some few clothes, and a couple of blankets, and some bits of bread and meat, and maybe that pony, but myself I think the wretched beast just strayed. We can afford to hand them those trifles, after all, they might have come to us and asked for an ox, an’ that we couldn’t do.”

“They could help themselves to the oxen any time they wished,” John pointed out, “We guard them as best we can, but if they wished, I am sure the Indians could bleed us dry. You may like to think we are kept safe by our own efforts…but we are also secure because to this point I do not think they feel any great urge to harm us.”

“We must not give them any reason to wish us ill,” Old Martin added. “D’ye understand now, lad?”

Moses nodded grudgingly but with a stormy face. “I understand…but I do not like it at all, Mr. Murphy!”

“Aye, well, lad, and we’re not asking you to like it,” Old Martin said, clapping him on the shoulder, “just to keep your temper and put up with it for a little longer.”

He stumped away, and Moses looked at the ground and then at John. “You’re angry, Doctor John, like Martin was… I am sorry; I did not think it through.”

“At least, Young Martin did,” John said, gravely. “And you must remember our situation also, and think carefully, before you act. What you do may affect more than just yourself, for as long as we are part of this company.”

“I will remember next time,” Moses promised.”

“You must, Moses lad, you must. We have get to get out of this desert and over those mountains.”

“I’ll do better, Doctor John. I promise I will do my part.”

“We shall all have to do that,” John sighed, and his eyes sought the thin blue lines of the mountains once more.