The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters (Arbor House Library of Contemporary Americana) (23 page)

They wouldn’t be back for a month. Or so I understood it. Now we were away and free, I felt uneasy about crawling back in a wigwam, but the girl looked so shaky and cold and almost pretty, if white, with the rain running down her forehead and dripping off her nose, that I took a deep breath and said, “Very well—go ahead.”

She took my hand and led me forward, past some old campfires, past a cut-off sapling with a bundle of jerky meat in the crotch, past a broken turkey-wing fan on the ground, toward what I guess she thought was the best wigwam in sight, scribbled all over with paintings, some of them uncommonly raw according to my way of thinking. It was cozy inside; you couldn’t deny it. To make it more so, the rain still dribbled down, and darkness was coming on now. These tepees are roomy—they’re as wide as a small cabin, and when they’ve laid buffalo robes on the ground, and cut a trench around
outside for drainage, you’re as comfortable as you are in any parlor. This one seemed to have lost its smell, too.

Right off, the girl found a bow with a stick-drill and a box of dry tinder and got a fire going on the raised earthen mound in the center. We fed it kindling from a pile in the corner, then she went out to cut jerky for supper. She made a broth of herbs that she took from a pouch in her bosom. We had a good meal.

But I wasn’t
entirely
at ease sitting here in the firelight. It was different than being with a boy; I didn’t have the same feeling about it, for some reason. Still, I didn’t make any objections when she fixed our sleeping robes near each other; it wouldn’t have been polite. She seemed so helpless, being away from home, and even, in a way, captured, that I put my arm out of my robe and held her hand. It seemed to me the least I could do. And when she wriggled across and went to sleep with her black hair on my shoulder, I was proud of myself because I didn’t throw her off. A little service like this—being kind to your inferior instead of taking advantage-was what gave a person character; I’d heard my father say so on many an occasion.

I snapped awake; it was clear daylight. Through the smoke hole I saw the sky, deep blue, and outside I heard the birds twittering, happy the storm was over. I turned in a hurry to sit up, but my hands were tied. And so were my feet. The same kind of rawhide thongs as before, dipped in water, too.

I called out the girl’s name several times. I yelled, “Pretty Walker—come and cut me loose!” but I didn’t get any answer. There wasn’t a thing but the birds stopping their noise for a second, the stream splashing over the stones, and a scratching of the flap strings loose in the wind.

I should have known, I suppose, but I had a big lump in my chest, as if something good had gone, now in my fourteenth year, that might not come back again ever.

From the McPheeters Journals

July 12, 1849

This day encamped beside the Platte, near Grand Island in the Nebraskas, where the soda encrustations begin. To bridge a gap of days, occasioned by other duties and by the absence of Jaimie, our route has been up the Little Blue, which runs in a southeast direction. The channel has been no more than ten yards wide, but its periodic overflow deposits sand and detritus of such thickness that the grass does not penetrate through it.

For this period our luck has held good; we begin to smell California and hearken to its beckoning promise. The trail has been firm and easy, diverging at length from the Little Blue to ascend high bluffs overlooking the Platte. No trouble, but Indian signs plentiful: cottonwoods to either side have been stripped of their bark—indication of Indian ponies feeding there, as is their wont. No flowers here; numbers of antelope and curlew.

Wood for our campfire came tonight from the island half across the river. Though broad (and sluggish), the Platte is deceptive about depth. In no place did it ascend higher than our chests as we waded. For purposes of navigation the Platte is a nullity.

Mr. Kennedy’s bites, at first healing with great vigor, now show inflammatory symptoms, with tingling and itching. These are uncharted regions. Not subscribing to quackery concerning “mad-stones,” or other witchcraft, I am powerless. As with the secret spark of life itself, there is a point at which science leaves off and Providence assumes the burden. We must commend Kennedy’s plight to His almighty wisdom.

July 13

This day had an encounter that saddened us, and disturbed our womenfolk. During the morning we were hailed by a detachment of six soldiers, under a Captain Duncan, all in civilian clothing. They were riding trail in search of four U. S. Dragoon deserters from Fort Laramie. These latter villians had committed a depredation which aroused all the decent people of the Fort. Heading east and skirting an emigrant train bound for Oregon (consisting of sixty-six wagons) they came upon a lone woman washing clothes at a stream. The deserters forced her to give up her possessions-some pieces of trumpery jewels and a hand trunk—and ravished her, one after the other. The poor creature’s husband was only a few hundred yards distant, tending his cattle, but upon her first attempt at an outcry, they stuffed her mouth with a stocking then tied another round her head. Her husband finding her in a condition of swoon, raised the alarm, and the emigrant leaders called at the Fort in protest. At this writing, there is some doubt whether she will return to full rationality.

July 14

No signs of our son. I reproach myself for not staying behind in search. But where? The prairie is a vast sea in which a single being can be swallowed up without rippling its gay and deceitful surface. But I cling to the notion of his having fallen in with roving Indians, the noble red men, who will restore him to us soon. And after that—the ladle! Coulter seems positively glad of our distress, and makes coarse remarks about “smart-aleck quality” endangering the safety of the train. I verily believe he would turn his back if the boy were spied grappling with wolves within view of the camp itself. He is a
hard
and
unfeeling
man, hounded by personal devils. Probably he is disturbed for some reason, even dating as far back to his youth. But we shall see. The fire has fallen to a bed of faintly glowing coals. I can write no more. Tomorrow we pass Fort Kearney. To Morpheus!

July 15

This day traveled up the Platte bottoms, frequently near its bank. The bed remains expansive, with numerous green islets, while on
the opposite side the plain appears to be sand. All presents a barren aspect, largely lacking in grass. Behind us, offering no inducement to tarry, lies Fort Kearney, a string of log huts inhabited by a scattering of unshaven, unshorn soldiers whose uniforms are crazily patched. Their lounging gait foretells a soul weariness of this station in the wilderness. Some few of the worse element among us sold them whiskey at a dollar for the half pint.

The sun blazes fiercely; the water in our canteens is at blood heat. For coolness, we are obliged to sew them up with flannel.

Have today seen our first buffaloes—a black smear, moving slowly, some miles distant. Bleached bones of buffalo are now apparent on the trail; indeed, the white skulls of those great beasts are of a form of post office, whereon the emigrants inscribe messages, one train to the other. A second courier is the cleft stick, in whose crotch advices about Indians, water, grasses, and like may be found. Thus does man’s inherent neighborliness manifest itself in this desolation. In addition to its use for meat, the buffalo is valuable as the staple for fire fuel in these parts. “Buffalo chips”—dried manure-bum like tinder, making a further quest for wood unneedful.

July 16

I am worried about Mr. Kennedy. As little as I know (nay, as any of us know) this dread disease, his condition appears alarming. Besides the inflammation around several of the bites, with tingling and itching, the areas now are afflicted with intermittent numbness.

A patient’s report to his physician is privileged; Mr. Kennedy has been to me in confidence, filled with apprehension. While I can confide this to no person, I feel justified in committing it to a Journal meant, in my lifetime, for no other eyes than my own. Who knows—these jottings, upon the possible maturity of rabies, may play a small part in the understanding of cases yet to come.

Seated on robes by our campfire (the others having retired) Kennedy discussed his emotions, an astounding revelation. He senses a powerful evil a-stir within him, a swelling of the most malignant and deadly forces. Poking thoughtfully with a stick at the embers, he said, “I have been a soft-spoken and deliberate man,” and all of us who know him as an emigrant will endorse that sentiment gladly.

And yet, this gentle, courageous fellow now is swept with wild
gusts of alternate elation and despair, and is racked with intense sexual excitement. You may imagine that these phrases did not come easily to one of his sensitive disposition. In fact, I cannot conceive that the words “sexual” and “quickly aroused” have passed his lips since his boyhood, even in the intimate embrace of his wife. He scarcely knows himself. He has never been unstable, but now he is subject to mental depressions, restlessness and fears. These are joined to periods of full quietude, such as the one in which he related to me his story.

However, I took uneasy note that, as we ended our discussion, his talk was unnaturally rapid and verbose. The words tumbled out one after another, the articulation was abrupt and jerky. He seemed in a state of barely suppressed tension, and upon wringing my hand to leave, his eyes glowed in the dark like an animal’s.

Poor, unhappy man! I fear the worst. Tomorrow I shall confer with the others. Something must be done. But what? Only a miracle can now save him.

July 17, 1849

Dear Melissa:

It grieves me to write you a melancholy letter when my others have been, I believe, uniformly cheerful and bright. First I must say that Jaimie has not yet put in an appearance. I am still positive that he will turn up soon. But now I have the sad duty of chronicling the tragic events in the case of Mr. Kennedy, who was bitten by the rabid wolf. In my Journals I recorded the gradual deterioration of his physical and mental health in the last few days, the inflammation of the affected areas, their tingling, itching, irritation and numbness; his emotional instability, his deep depression—and the day before yesterday all this came to a climax.

We had stopped to noon on a bank of the Platte near the head of Grand Island, and were resting in the shade, the day being excessively warm. Suddenly there came a dreadful shout—it was a man of our company, a taciturn and bearded drover, who, in the act of leading his horse to the stream, had come upon a very shocking scene. Unable to proceed, he froze in his spot, then voiced the shout previously mentioned. We—Kissel, and some others and I, including Coe, who is now a friend—rushed to his side and stared
in the direction he was pointing. Below, on all fours in the mud, snapping, uttering sounds of a sighing or sobbing character, enough like the baying of a dog to make the hairs rise on one’s neck-was our Mr. Kennedy. He was in the throes of virulent rabies, or hydrophobia, the dread disease in full career. It was a sight to sicken strong men; and several of our group were thus affected.

For once, Coulter proved a help rather than an irritation. Causing the women and children to be sent away from the scene, he raised a tent, and thither did he and Kissel and Coe and I convey the raging victim. At this time, Kennedy did not appear to know us. Neither did he make any attempt to bite us, as I had understood might occur at certain stages of the madness.

But if Kennedy was oblivious of us, I for my part scarcely recognized him. His countenance was contorted with an anxiety so terrible it twisted his features grotesquely. His brow was feverish, his mouth oozed saliva at either end. His eyes were wild and staring, and he continued to respirate with sobbing and sighing. It was almost too much for my nerves, and I have been the (reluctant) witness to a vast catalogue of human ills and disasters.

Placing the unfortunate on a cot, Kissel remained unperturbed, save for an unaccustomed tightness of his lips, Coe was ashen, and Coulter, much as I hesitate to say so, was his usual catlike self.

“The show’s all yourn,” he said to me in his delicate frontier idiom, and I fancied, at least, that there was a contented look of malice in his face.

“He is beyond the physician’s help,” I replied, and I’m afraid I said it a little stiffly, considering that another’s troubles and not petty feuds were the critical business at hand.

Within half an hour of the first violent seizure, Kennedy had emerged from his rigor and was speaking quite rationally. He was cognizant of his plight, and described, at my apologetic request, his symptoms immediately preceding. His appetite had departed entirely, along with his gift of sleep. He had severe recurring headaches and extreme, compulsive, ungovernable nervousness. Telling us this, he begged for a tablet and pen, saying he was desirous of inscribing a last message to his wife. That he could think of others at a time like this! I believe him to be, to have been, the very best man of our train.

My dear wife, it would have wrung your heart to attend that gallant and frightful effort. We propped him up, Coulter with a hand behind his back, and he undertook the incredible labor of saying goodbye to a wife and two children to whom he was apparently devoted. Such phrases as “we shall be rejoined in a realm where even the streets are paved with gold,” “assure the boys that my death was an easy one,” and “find a good and kindly man to take my place in your heart” had the tears running down our cheeks, and I verily believe that Coulter himself was moved, for I heard him snort angrily a time or two, and make a motion as if brushing away a fly.

The paroxysms now became more frequent, and the writing was suspended until each passed. In all likelihood, I shall never be present at another such exhibition of courage. The sufferer’s agitation quickened greatly toward evening: anything could send him into fits of writhing and crying—sudden movement, strong light, even a breath of cool air. He would be seized with convulsions, then make a plea for water, only to meet the offer of a drink with the most maniacal revulsion. Indeed, the mere mention of water occasionally brought on a fresh paroxysm, during which we held his arms and feet to keep him from doing himself an injury. Between fits, he struggled to a sitting position on the edge of the cot, then doggedly continued his missive to that wife whom he will not see again.