Communion
Richard S. Freeland
Smashwords v. 2 Edition
Copyright 2012
Cover by Visions of Domino, Flickr
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Communion
The snow came early that year.
It took us by surprise. We’d been told the winter storms never commenced before mid-November, and that as long as we were over Fremont Pass by then we’d be safe.
Now here it was, the end of October, and the air had turned cold as pig iron, and the wind was sending snow skirmishers to probe the approaches to the Sierra Nevada range with icy, skeletal fingers. Before long a raging blizzard had obscured the pass in a shroud of snow, and we were in trouble.
Oh, we tried. We beat our remaining oxen bloody as they labored to haul the wagons up the long, steep grades. We urged them on with curses and hoarse shouts tinged with a rising fear. The animals lurched through the piling drifts, fighting for purchase, slipping back, falling to their knees and making little headway. And then, at the end, us lending our own waning strength, clawing at their harness or shoving at the wagons while screaming obscenities at the beasts and prayers to the heavens…all to no avail.
We reached a point were we could go no further, where the wind howled around us, where the snow had drifted to three feet and more, and where with each foot gained we slipped back two. Snow mired wheels and axles and was fetlock-deep on the oxen. The animals slipped and fell and tangled in their traces, while the relentless snow accumulated, the drifts reaching four to five feet just below the summit.
Charles Stanton, Luis and I managed to fight our way to the top. We leaned into the teeth of the storm and gazed down with aching longing to where the promised-land of California spread out before us, veiled by the whiteout.
“You go on,” I told them. “I have Anna and Reverend Teal to look after, so I’ll be staying. But you have no family here. If you leave now you might make it.”
“With what?” Stanton said. “The little food we have left is back with the wagons.” His smile was weary and lacked warmth. “We’re all neck deep in the same rut. I guess we’ll stick.”
The storm worsened, the snow now mixed with sleet. Defeated, we turned and plodded back down the mountain.
Seldom in a lifetime are people presented with such a stark line of demarcation. Make it over the divide, you live. Don’t make it, your chances decrease significantly.
We didn’t make it. The snows had come early, and sealed our fates.
It snowed for eight days without letup.
We pulled back to Truckee Lake, and took stock. There was a cabin near the lake, or what passed for one. More of a shanty, a thrown-together affair. One corner of the roof had fallen in. It had no windows, and the door was a rough hole chopped through the wall. But it was shelter, and Patrick Breen claimed the cabin for his family. No one argued. Breen had a slew of kids with him, and needed the space.
Louis Keseberg built a lean-to against one side of Breen’s cabin, for himself, his wife and two young ones. About a hundred yards away was a group of boulders, and William Eddy and William Foster put up another rough cabin against them for their families, along with the Murphys and Pikes.
Everyone was frantic to get settled in, and we helped one another where we could, but not much was said. We men went about our work in a quiet daze, shamed that we’d put our families in such a predicament. It was hard to look our women and children in the eye, knowing what was in store for them – and us.
My two remaining oxen were worn thin, mere hide bags stretched over bone frames. With our surviving mule harnessed alongside them, I managed to drive our wagon into the woods a ways. I found a spot where young pines grew close together and served as a windbreak, and positioned the wagon among them. Ben and I unhitched the team and fastened them to a picket rope stretched between two trees.
Anna had been busy helping the Breens get settled. Now she trudged back to us through the foot of loose snow on the ground. “What can I do?” she asked.
I patted her belly, large with our child. “You rest on the wagon seat, girl,” I said, and smiled. “Your Pa and I will build a palace around you.”
And we did just that. We cut young pines and erected a shelter around the wagon, which I was using as a base to keep us off the frozen ground. We covered that with canvas, and placed pine boughs over the first layer. I wove smaller limbs and branches throughout, and stretched a few of our ox hides over the top.
In one corner of the wagon bed I laid hearth stones, chopped a hole in the roof to allow smoke to escape, and finished by stacking bundles of pine boughs under the wagon to serve as insulation.
We had our home for the winter. Not much of a palace, but it would have to do.
Ben stretched out a crick in his back and glanced at me. “That’s a fine shelter, son. You did good.”
“It’ll keep us dry and warm, anyway.”
I crawled inside with Anna. She’d spread our blankets and a few sleeping furs on the wagon floor. I lay down beside her, tired and a little sore. She wiped snow from my hair, and tried to smile.
“I took an inventory,” she said. Her smile wavered. “We have half a cask of flour, a few pounds of dried beef, some stale beans and that pemmican you brought with you when we left home. It’s not nearly enough.”
I reached over and drew her to me. “It’s going to be fine, Anna. I’ll hunt tomorrow. We’ll make out alright.”
“Some of the others have even less,” she whispered. “And the Donners – where are they? What of their children?”
“I should have stayed behind,” I said. “Helped them with that broken axle.”
Anna took my face between her hands, and stared hard at me. “Don’t you go blaming yourself for any of this, John Nye,” she said. “George and Jacob are capable men. They will have holed up like the rest of us.”
“But…we just left them there. All of us in such a God-awful hurry, knowing that the snows were coming. I looked right at George when we passed him. He was struggling to get a wheel off. And I just kept going.”
“It’s not your place to look out for everyone. You have a family. A baby on the way. And the Donners have their teamsters to help.”
“Is that how it’s going to be from now on? Are we going to just stop helping one another? Is it every man for himself now?”
“Don’t say that. I won’t believe it. These last few months have been hell on us all, but we can’t give up on one another. We’ll have to pull together to see this through. Surely the others realize that, too.”
I stared at the pine boughs over our heads. “We have one ace in the hole. Stanton said he'd run into Reed on his way back from Fort Sutton. Reed was well ahead of us, and on horseback. He would have made it through to the settlements before the snows came. That’s something in our favor.”
She sighed. “Thank God. I pray he’ll bring help and food.” She placed her hand on her belly. “And soon.”
“I wish they hadn’t run him off. He didn’t mean to kill Snyder. He was just trying to stop him from beating those oxen. Then Snyder started in on him with that bullwhip. Reed only stabbed him in self-defense.”
“Maybe it was God’s will,” Anna said. “If he hadn’t been exiled, he wouldn't have been so far ahead. He’d be in the same mess as the rest of us.
“He left Margret and the kids behind. He’ll be desperate to get a relief party together and get back to them.”
“I wish he was here, Anna, I surely do. He knew things, and I trusted him. We could use his wisdom right now.”
“Reed was one of those who wanted to take that damned Hastings’s word that his cut-off was a shorter, better route than the old trail. Look where that decision got us.”
“You have a point, girl.”
Anna caressed my cheek with her smooth palm. “My handsome boy,“ she whispered, and kissed me lightly. “Trust yourself, John. You have more instinctive wisdom than any of those older men.”
She pressed close to me, as close as her belly would allow. The wagon rocked a bit when Ben crawled in. He lay down on the other side, sighing.
“That piece of work about wore me out,” he said.
“You’ll still be going when men half your age are down for the count, sir.”
Ben turned on his side to face us. “Maybe I shouldn’t have pushed you and Anna so hard to come out here with me. You’d be safe back east now.”
“Wasn’t anything back there holding us,” I said. “We choose to emigrate. We’ve been over all this before.”
Ben sighed again. “Yeah, I know. It’s just that…” He paused a moment, and I could hear his breathing. “You ever regret living with me, son?”
I smiled. “Ben, you’re the best thing that ever happened to me. After Ma died, I was lost. Set adrift. You were my anchor, sir.“ I grinned. “And if I hadn’t moved in with you, I’d never have met Anna.”
Ben laughed, his eyes lit with merriment. “She sure pestered you enough, hanging around you all the time, asking you all those questions. I figured you married her just to shut her up.”
“Papa!” Anna said. “It’s just that I’d never had a big brother before.”
I squeezed her hand. “I’m just glad that the brother part didn’t take.”
Ben laughed again, then went silent. Just when I thought he’d gone to sleep, he spoke once more, softly. “I always thought of you as my own, John. You were a good boy. Now you’ve done grown up into a fine man. It was the answer to my prayers when you married Anna.” His smile was gentle, and the warmth in his eyes touched me. “I’m proud to call you son.”
He turned away, and soon I heard his breathing change rhythm as he slipped into sleep.
Anna, exhausted, slept also. I started to doze, but snapped awake when I felt our baby kick.
I was scared. Despite Anna’s praise, I didn’t think I was wise at all.
At Black Forks, I’d listened to the older men as they’d argued about Hastings cut-off. The rumor was it would save us 300 miles. But there was no way to verify that. Hastings himself had left Fort Bridger weeks before we'd arrived, guiding another group of emigrants over the route.
I’d had my reservations, but hadn’t said a word. And Jim Bridger – he’d made it sound so good. But of course he would. His trading post would see a lot of profit from emigrants choosing Hastings’s route.
I lay still, eyes wide to the night, feeling the baby moving and praying to God to help me get them out of this alive.
Outside, the snow continued to fall.
The next day Breen, Ben and I, with Keseberg’s help, killed our remaining oxen, and stacked their carcasses like cord wood. I kept the mule. At the edge of the lake I managed to harvest a bit of dried grass from under the snow. It wasn’t much and wouldn’t last, but we might need what strength remained in that mule. I wanted to keep him alive for as long as possible.
And then I went hunting.
The day was clear and bright and cold, the snow having stopped sometime in the middle of the night. I left our shelter and angled downhill through the woods. If there was game around, it would be further down the mountain.
I hunted for the remainder of the day without scaring up any animal sign. Not a track.
The weight of responsibility rode heavy on my shoulders. I was part-Cherokee and, young as I was, knew more woods craft than any of the others. Most of the game would have retreated to the lowlands at the coming of colder weather. Still, my failure to glimpse so much as a bird was a bitter pill to swallow.
I made it back to camp just as the sun was dipping behind the mountains. Anna met me as I came in, and I cringed at the disappointment on her face when she saw me empty handed.
But then she smiled and took me in her arms. “It’s okay,” she said. “You’ll find game tomorrow.”
We walked over to Breen’s cabin, where he, Ben and Keseberg were bringing in wood they’d harvested from a deadwood tree. We stopped beside them, and Peggy Breen came out to us with two cups of steaming coffee. “It’s almost the last,” she said, and her smile fluttered like a bird with an injured wing.
Anna and I thanked her. The coffee was weak, but hot, and just what I needed.
“Stanton and his Indians tried for the pass again,” Breen said. He stared at the mountains looming above us. “They’re up there somewhere now. Hard going without snowshoes, I expect.”
“If anyone can do it, Stanton can. He’s one of the toughest men I’ve ever met.”
Keseberg’s little daughter Ada came out and wrapped her arms around her papa’s leg. She was a skinny little thing, almost lost in her threadbare coat, and my heart ached when I looked at her. Anna smiled and gave her something, and the girl ran back inside, giggling.
“Little bit of lump sugar,” Anna said. Tears glimmered in her eyes.
Keseberg looked at her, then gave a curt nod and followed his daughter to their lean-to.
Breen gestured at the wood they’d brought in. “Isn’t much, and we’re going through wood to beat the band. We’ll be burning green stuff soon.”
I helped him stack the wood inside, and Anna and I returned to our place.
That night, in the wagon, we talked baby names.
“If it’s a boy, what do think about ‘Brody’? Anna said. “After Papa.”
“I think Ben would like that. Just so we don’t have to call him ‘Bromont’.”
Anna giggled. “And if it’s a girl, maybe ‘Sarah’. After your Mama.”
“Always was partial to that name,” I said.
“Maybe we’ll have twins,” Anna said. Her voice sounded happy, but she didn’t speak again. I thought she’d gone to sleep until I heard her quiet sobs.
“What?” I asked, and drew her close.
“Twins,” she whispered. “Dear God, I hope not. Not now. Not here.”
I soothed her fears as best I could, until I felt the tension leave her. When I was sure she was well asleep, I slipped from the wagon.
The stars shown cold and lonely in the evening sky. Already, wisps of cloud were blowing in from the west. Another storm coming. I shivered.
I was no stranger to trouble. I’d grown up on a farm in North Carolina, the half-breed son of a white man and a Cherokee mother. I’d had to learn how to fight at a young age, and won more than I lost.
Then Pa’s heart failed him while he was clearing a new field and, at thirteen, I was forced to wear a man’s shoes. Ma pitched in as best she could, and her two brothers, who had a place nearby, helped us out at times. They took me under their wing, taught me the Cherokee ways along with most of my woods craft.
It was hard, bitter work, but we were making a go of it. Then gold was found in Georgia, and almost overnight emigrants were crowding the country, demanding land. And the only land to be had was that of the Cherokee.
It didn’t matter how long we’d lived there. It didn’t matter that my father was white. All that mattered was that we had Indian blood, and we were in the way.
The army gathered us up with the rest of the Cherokee. We were forced from our land and herded west, to Oklahoma. In winter.
The Cherokee called that awful forced migration Nu na da ul tsun yi – the Place Where They Cried. Ma was one of the many who died along the way.
My uncles decided to run, to make a stand in the North Carolina mountains with others of like mind. But before she died, Ma made them swear to take me to this Methodist preacher named Ben Teal, who lived not far from us. Seems my folks had helped Ben through a bad spell once, right after his wife had died in childbirth. Ben took me in, sent me to school. Pretty much raised me as his own.
Those trying times had forged and hardened me in the fires of adversity. But they were nothing compared to what faced me now.
Dear God, I prayed. Grant us a healthy baby. One fit and strong to make it through this ordeal. But please, God, please. Don’t give us twins. They would never have the strength to survive.
Stanton, Luis and Salvador returned the next morning, staggering out of a gale-force blizzard. After Stanton had warmed up at the Breen’s cabin, he called on us.
“We couldn’t make it over,” he said. “The snow approaching the pass is fifteen feet deep if it’s an inch. Without snowshoes, it’s impossible.” He was still shivering, and Anna served him soup made from some of our beans and a little crumbled pemmican. “Thank you kindly, Mrs. Nye,” Stanton said. He sipped on the soup, his hands trembling the entire time.
As I watched him, the thought hit me of a sudden. Stanton’s giving out. All of us men are. We squandered way too much energy clearing brush and rocks and building road to get our wagons through the Wasatch Mountains and the Great Salt Lake Desert. We've been pared down, not an ounce of excess fat anywhere. And now, on poor rations, we’d be called on for even more. Cutting wood, hunting, whatever heavy work needed doing. I didn’t like what I saw looming in our future.
“I was thinking,” Stanton said. “If we cut down our oxbows, we can get several thin, pliable strips of wood from each. Maybe bend them into ovals. Use rawhide for webbing. Make our own snowshoes.”
“That would work,” I said.