The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters (Arbor House Library of Contemporary Americana) (49 page)

The second man climbing down had the old sarcasticky, familiar look, hair and eyebrows grown back now, and little to show for his burns except two or three ugly white splotches on the backs of his sunburned hands.

“My, my,” said Jennie, finding her voice. “We certainly missed you at Christmas. Or did you forget it was mentioned?”

“How’s my girl?” said Coulter, unruffled and grinning.

“He arrived at my fort,” said Major Bridger to Marlowe, just as
Jennie was getting her back up to do something violent, “and was on his way to Salt Lake when your Injun boy came. We figured to ride up together and pass the time of day.”

“We can do without Mr. Coulter,” said Jennie. “He’s busy with his other interests, in
California.”

“I ain’t convinced positive of that, ma’am,” said Bridger, pointing at the Valley.

A speck of disturbance, a small roll of dust, moving, this time almost as far distant as the horizon.

“Yep, they’re on their way,” said Coulter.

“I’d figure about an hour,” said Bridger, looking at the sun.

“How many?”

“Look to be eleven or twelve.” He gazed through his spyglass. “They seem in a hurry. I hardly ever get in a hurry, myself. It makes you get there ahead of yourself, then you’ve got to fill in time till you catch up.”

“Gentlemen,” cried my father, removing his hat to wipe off the band, “we’re entirely at your command. It’s a great, a very great, pleasure to see you. Had it not been for you, and Brother Marlowe, who, with his cus—”

“Better hop to it,” said Marlowe.

“My un-Saintly ear in the Mormon capital,” said Bridger, in a kind of introduction. “Buckingham Coulter, apprentice guide.”

Coulter shook his hand, then he shook hands with Mr. Coe and Mrs. Kissel and Mr. Kissel and the little Indian girl, and made a mock bow to Jennie, who flushed and afterwards startled everybody by saying, “I don’t mind to be kissed hello, if we’re going to be killed anyway.”

“Good girl,” cried Coulter, slapping her on the rump and turning away to Bridger.

Working in a hurry, now, we moved the wagons forward around a bend, where Bridger hid them and tied up the livestock in an opening between boulders. Then we moved the women and children higher, out of sight, and the men took positions that Bridger
had already figured out. There was deep snow in the crevices, and a great deal more farther up.

He said, “We’ll wait here behind the rocks. When they catch up, well hold a little church service.”

There were twelve of them; peeping over the rocks, we watched them come on, at a fast trot, the best kind of gait for a burdened horse on a long haul.

We were all nervous, even Coulter, I think, who felt that his responsibility—of getting us to California—was not yet over. And now he had a special interest in seeing Jennie through, too.

“We’ll palaver first,” said Bridger. “If it ain’t unagreeable, hold your fire and leave me do the talking.”

In fifteen minutes we could hear the rumble of their hooves; then the jiggling figures were blocked out of view for a minute, hidden between rocks of the curve. When they came out, they were uncomfortably close at hand.

“That’s Muller with the bandaged jaw,” said my father in a low whisper. “Why not pick him off?”

Bridger spat on one finger, held it up in the air, then nestled his rifle butt against his cheek, I couldn’t see the trigger move, but at the crack and puff of smoke, Muller’s hat flew off onto the ground. The party pulled up so sharp that one horse reared and spilled its rider.

“Right there’ll do,” called Bridger. “I wouldn’t move none. Now let’s make talk.”

“We come after the dissenters. Send down that girl and them,” cried Muller. “The others can go in peace.”

“I don’t know as they fancy to return,” said Bridger. “Hold on, I’ll ask them.” He turned to my father and Mr. Kissel and went through some idiotic motions; then called back. “They believe not, but thank you kindly all the same.”

“You refusing to chuck them down? Are you standing in the way of the Prophet and the Latter-Day Saints of the Church of Jesus Christ?”

“I don’t hear good. You said Brigham Young sent you here his-self?”

The man on the ground suddenly straightened up, holding a pistol, and fired a shot that chipped rock a foot in front of Coulter’s face.

I heard him mutter, “Close,” and swinging up his rifle he shot the man very nearly in the middle—say an inch to the right—of his forehead.

“There’s just a mite of an easterly breeze,” observed Bridger0.

“I was too mad to take notice.”

“Blasphemers! Enemies of God! We’ll hunt you down for this if it takes forever,” cried Muller in a kind of sob. Then the group scattered in a wild flurry of hooves around the bend and behind the rock.

“Donkey-headed, ain’t they?” inquired Bridger.

“What now?” my father asked.

Our men scuttled over the rocks to huddle, and Bridger and Coulter said it was best to stay where we were till dark; then they mentioned something about visiting in the other camp. I didn’t understand it fully. But Major Bridger said, “Without pickets, there may be widders before morning.”

“I don’t like it,” said Coulter. “Shoot one of these pious buzzards and you’re apt to make
ten
widders. Taken as a whole, the bunch might represent a hundred. Somehow it don’t seem right; it’s a sacrilege against—hold on, what’s that?”

One of the band had thrust a long stick, with what looked like a pair of white drawers, up from behind a rock. Then a forehead rose very cautiously and a voice bellowed out:

“Flag of truce!”

“If you’re surrendering, lay down your guns and step out one by one,” Bridger called down.

“We’re claiming flag of truce for burial. Under the rules of civilized war.”

“Never heard of them. Anyhow, we ain’t at war. We was on root to California when jumped by bandits.”

“You refuse a flag of truce?”

“Our aim is to kill bandits.”

“That man lying there requires decent burial in consecrated ground—our religion so ordains.”

“Not necessarily—he committed suicide.”

Coulter laughed out loud, and there issued from below a string of oaths to peel paint off a stovepipe.

“The madder they are, the poorer the judgment,” remarked Bridger. The waiting went on. Presently the underdrawers came out again, and a voice resumed. We didn’t think it was Muller’s because the truth is that Muller wasn’t quite bright, so that others must have done the real thinking.

“Flag of truce for a parley.”

“What about?”

“Wish to state our case.”

“What case?”

“Grievance against the dissenters.”

We held a whispering session, then Bridger cried, “Two step out and advance, unarmed. Walk soft and slow, so the noise won’t set off my rifle.”

After a puzzling long time, Muller and a man we hadn’t seen before approached as far as the first rocks below, maybe fifty yards down, where we had a good look at Muller’s bandaged-up face and mean little eyes. He was ugly.

“That’ll do. You’ll be comfortable there.”

“Ain’t you going to let us up? Don’t tell me we got stand down here in the sun.”

“Why no,” said Bridger. “You don’t need to. Why don’t you collect up your Saints and skedaddle back to Salt Lake?”

For some reason, I got the notion they were stalling. They wouldn’t speak right out, but kept hemming and hawing. But Muller’s companion finally said, “What it amounts to is this. We mean to take that girl. Send her down and the others can do as they please. Now you’ll own up that’s fair.”

“Couldn’t ask for fairer,” said Bridger. “I’ll see if she’s ready.”
He called out to Jennie, but without waiting for her answer, said. “This places us in a mighty embarrassing position. She ain’t ready.”

“Very comical,” cried Muller, exploding. “Send that trollop down from there, you dried-up old piss-pot, or I’ll—” His companion caught his arm roughly, and they withdrew a few feet to talk, turning their backs.

At that moment a pebble rolled down from the heights, bounding a couple of times to hit almost at my feet.

“Mistuh Coe!” yelled Othello from the end of the ledge, and we whirled to see him stand up, grabbing Jennie’s pistol, and fire at three men scrambling down from above. A rifle cracked and he fell, screaming; then both Coulter and Bridger dashed over, shooting into the rock and shouting for us to watch the people below.

These now burst into view with a cockadoodle of triumph and fanned out over the sand, firing as they ran. I heard bullets zinging off rocks everywhere around.

With one of the guns from the wagon, I drew a bead on Muller, aiming for his belly, but the second I pulled the trigger, sweat dripped stinging into my eyes and I missed. I could have cried. The trouble was, I wanted it too bad. Any other time, I’d have waited till I could see.

The tables had been reversed all in a twinkling. One minute we’d been sitting up braggy and safe, now we were caught between cross fire. There were too many of them. Of the original twelve or thirteen (it was thirteen, we learned later) one was dead, three were sliding their way down from above, and nine were trying to work up from below, some clawing like madmen at the rocks. Then Jennie let off her double shotgun, from Brice’s wagon, and the man with Muller threw his hands over his face, which really wasn’t there any more; at the same time, a pistol cracked and one of the Saints spread-eagled on a rock directly above Mrs. Kissel. His head hung down, eyes open and staring, like a man that wanted to say something.

For the moment it was over. The two remaining above got down,
from over to one side, and the party below broke off to scramble back out of sight. One was taking it powerfully slow, dragging his left foot, and Coulter shot another in the back before they disappeared. He fell in his tracks like a sack of wheat, heavy, with not so much as a muscle twitch; it wasn’t at all pretty to see.

But we had some troubles, too. Othello was breathing in noisy gasps that swelled his chest up and down, and my father bent over one of the Kissels, a yellow-haired tyke about two and a half, with I disremember which name. He was dead, struck in the neck by a ricochet, and hadn’t made a sound. None had cried, or even whimpered, during the whole racket. They were good kids; I’d never paid any attention to them before.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” said my father; then he went over to Othello. Coe was on his knees, with his hat off, holding the darky’s head. “You promised, Mistuh Coe.”

“You’re a free man. I pronounce you, Othello Watkins, forever free, in the presence of these witnesses. I’d hoped to say these words in California,” said Coe, with tears running down his face. “I should have left you on the auction block in New Orleans.”

“Mistuh Coe, I’m—glad—to-be—free.”

He made several more gasps, arching up high, then lay still.

Mr. Kissel sat on a rock, chewing a piece of weed, and Mrs. Kissel still held the boy in her arms, rocking back and forth and smoothing his hair. Jennie had taken the other children a few yards away, on the ledge.

Hunched over, Bridger looked crushed, but now he straightened up and made a little speech.

“I reckon I’m to blame. These Mormons ain’t Crow Injuns—I won’t forget it again. Might be, I’ve fit Injuns too much—I can’t think like a white man any longer.”

“Fortunes of war,” said Marlowe. “Unhappy but true.”

Coulter tightened his gun belt and bent down to pick up his rifle. “Might be, but there’s still a few things to settle. I hope to catch up on the trail; if not, remember me to California.”

“What are you going to do?” cried Jennie.

“I count eight Saints still waiting for their heavenly reward.”

“Come back, you fool!” She put her head in her hands and burst into tears. “I hope I never hear the word California again as long as I live.”

“I’ll be trailing along,” said Bridger, “Here’s what—come dark, creep down and get on the move. Harness up, feed the stock, and move out as quiet as you can.
They won’t follow.
That’s a promise I’ll keep. There won’t be a blessed one of these sanctified heathens will follow.”

“I don’t like it,” said my father. “The odds aren’t what I call suitable. I’ll join you.”

“Not on this job, doctor. This’ll be Injun work, night style, downright ugly. Brother Marlowe will see you up the trail. It’s marked plain from here to the Humboldt, and the snow’s less than we figured. We’ll likely catch up, give a day or so.”

We shook hands, and he crawled down the rocks toward Coulter. The sky had boiled up black, with lightning squirting around, and dark would fall in about an hour. Before ten minutes had passed, a regular downpour hit us, probably the last big rain of the winter, according to what Marlowe said. Things here were all topsyturvy. Commonly no rain fell in the growing season, any time through the summer, but the winters were snowy and rainy, which didn’t do a particle of good to a soul.

We hung to our ledge, soaked and shivering, and the storm exploded all around.

“Now!” said Marlowe. “Best time possible. Wonderful cover. Single-file, same as before.”

Mr. Kissel and Coe and my father had piled stones over both Othello and the little Kissel boy, so we pried Mrs. Kissel loose and started on down, leaving behind a hard reminder of the Danites.

April 27, 1850

Dear Melissa:

We approach the High Sierras. On the opposite side-California. It seems a decade since Jaimie and I arose on that Spring morning in Kentucky and began our strategic retreat from financial persecution. As previously stated, we had hoped to hear from home and loved ones while in the Mormon capital, but the winter was severe, and the mails presumably did not go through. So, not knowing, we must assume that all is well in Louisville. With any sort of luck, our strike should be made and ourselves well started to rejoin you by autumn.

In my recent missive, I described our tragic brush with the Danites, our flight under cover of storm from the rocks, and our ensuing journey, behind Marlowe, on the “South Trail” across the Great Basin to connect with the main route to California at the Humboldt (or Mary’s) River. Far back, bypassed on our Mormon detour, lay the “jumping-off point,” the dividing of the ways, where the trails to Oregon and California diverge, near a spot called Soda Springs, where the Oregon immigrants beat toward the watershed of the Snake, and most of those for California strike southwest for the Bear and Humboldt.