Demon's Pass (9 page)

“I am curious. If you do not get along with Two Ponies' other two wives, how do you all live together?”

“We do not live together,” Moon Cow Woman replied. “Each wife has her own teepee, as you must.”

“What?” Elizabeth asked. “You mean I have to build a teepee? Why, I wouldn't have the slightest idea of where to start.”

“I will help you,” Moon Cow Woman said. The other two wives of Two Ponies appeared then. They were considerably younger-looking than Moon Cow Woman, but both were just as plump. It became very obvious to Elizabeth at that moment that being the wife of a chief meant that at least you didn't go hungry.

Moon Cow Woman and the other wives began speaking, but Elizabeth couldn't understand what they were saying.

“Look, Willow Branch,” Morning Flower said. “Moon Cow Woman has become the slave of Sun's Light.”

“Yes, see how she helps Sun's Light,” Willow Branch replied, putting the same contemptuous sneer in her voice as had been in Morning Flower's insult. “Perhaps she will also hold on to Two Ponies' penis, to help him mount her.”

“As you hold on to the penis of a dog to help him mount your sister?” Moon Cow Woman replied.

“You speak with the tongue of the first wife now, old woman. But soon Two Ponies will tire of you and he will stop coming to your lodge. Then you will beg for scraps, and if I feel kindly toward you, I may feed you along with the dogs of the camp,” Willow Branch said.

“I have no fear that I will be discarded,” Moon Cow Woman said. “You have the fear, or you would not make a vow to be the enemy of Sun's Light.”

“You will see,” Willow Branch replied. “It is not only we who shall be the enemy of Sun's Light. Soon, many others will be her enemy as well, for they will learn that the word of a white woman is not to be trusted.”

Elizabeth had no idea what Willow Branch and Morning Flower were saying . . . but from the tone of their voices and the looks on their faces, she figured she was just as well off not knowing.

 

 

Clay and Parker were discussing Demon's Pass.

“It's a difficult decision to make because once we start through it, we have no choice but to go on,” Clay said. “If we turn back, that means giving up any chance of reaching Salt Lake City this year. We could wind up bankrupt.”

“Whatever you decide is fine with me,” Parker said.

“No, that's not right,” Clay replied. “You are a full partner in this operation, Parker. You have as much to lose as I do. It's a decision we are going to have to make together.”

“I appreciate that you call me a full partner,” Parker said. “But we both know that this whole thing is your idea, so whatever you decide is what we will do. But, if you must have my opinion, I think we should try the cutoff. How bad can it be, if it saves three hundred miles?”

“I appreciate your support, Parker,” Clay said, putting his hand on the boy's shoulder. “All right, let me think about it. I'll come up with something before the final decision has to be made.”

 

The decision was still not made on the morning they were to leave, but that didn't slow their departure. Mounted on the first horse he had ever owned, Parker leaned forward and patted the animal on the neck. With a new rifle stuck down in the saddle holster, and the unaccustomed weight of a Colt on his hip, Parker surveyed the train of wagons that was about to depart.

Although there were only three wagons, each was pulled by a team of six mules, stretching the company out for more than a block. Each wagon had a driver, along with two outriders, in addition to Clay and Parker.

As head driver, Marcus Pearson would be handling the first wagon. Marcus had an unerring sense of direction and could navigate the open spaces by stars and reckoning, as accurately as a ship at sea could be navigated by compass, watch, and sextant. Clay also knew that he could count on Marcus's loyalty. And in an operation such as the one he was undertaking, loyalty counted for a lot.

Jason Mills, the young man who had been working in the livery stable, was driving the second wagon. After meeting him, Parker and Jason became friends. When Jason learned of the excursion to Salt Lake City, and of Parker's unique position within the company, he begged Parker to hire him. Clay cautioned Parker about it, suggesting that Jason might have trouble taking orders from someone who was younger than he was. But Jason insisted that it wouldn't bother him, and he pledged his loyalty.

Despite his young age, Jason was exceptionally good with a gun. Shortly after he was hired, he had given the others an amazing shooting demonstration. He held a washer on the back of his hand, then turned his hand to let the washer fall toward a pie pan on the ground. At the same time the washer started to fall, Jason began his draw, and he pulled his gun, fired, and hit his target before the washer plunked into the pie pan. By his own admission though, Jason had never shot at a man, nor had he ever been shot at.

The driver of the third wagon was Frank Pecorino. Pecorino was a dark, brooding sort of man. He volunteered the information that he was from “back East” without ever saying what city that meant. Some questioned Clay's wisdom at hiring an easterner to drive a freight wagon, but Pecorino proved to be an exceptionally good driver. He explained that his experience came from driving a beer wagon, heavily loaded with oversized beer barrels. It required a delicate touch to maneuver those wagons without spilling your load, and Pecorino had mastered that touch.

The two outriders were Paul Tobin and Greg Gibson. Paul rode a horse as if he had been born in the saddle, and Clay hired him after seeing him win a horse race, coming in at least ten lengths ahead of his nearest competitor. Greg Gibson had recently taken a discharge from the army. Hearing that an outfit was being formed to take cargo to the Mormons at Salt Lake City, he actively sought the job.

Though Independence had long been the jumping-off point for western adventures, the people of the town were still unjaded to the momentous event of a wagon train hitting the trail. As a result, several of the townspeople had gathered on Independence Avenue to watch the outfit's departure.

True to his word, Charles Garland provided each wagon with two extra buckets of grease, which now hung from beneath the wagons. Garland was in the front of the crowd, waiting to bid good-bye when the company pulled out. Most of the employees of the wagon yard were there as well, though conspicuous by his absence was Arnold Fenton.

By now the final good-byes had been said, the wagon drivers had climbed onto the high-board, and the outriders were mounted. For a moment, all other traffic and activity came to a halt as everyone stood poised for the journey to begin. Clay, who had ridden along the length of the wagons for one last check, now came back to the front, his horse at a clod-throwing gallop. He pulled his horse to a stop alongside Parker, then smiled at his young friend.

“Mr. Stanley, would you like to give the order?” he asked.

A huge smile spread across Parker's face, and he stood in his stirrups to stare back down along the train of wagons. The three drivers and two outriders, all of whom were aware of, and accepted without question, Parker's position as coleader of the outfit, looked at him expectantly.

“Wagon's ho!” Parker shouted.

With whistles, shouts, and cracking whips, the wagons started forward. Within a few steps the mules had reached the speed of two and one-half miles per hour. That half mile per hour advantage over oxen would give them five extra miles per day, thus justifying the extra expense of using mules.

As they pulled out of town, Parker contemplated the trip before them. It would be long, arduous, and perhaps filled with adventure. There was no doubt that it would also be filled with danger.

Traveling by wagon was certainly not new to Parker. After all, he and his family had been on the trail for the better part of two months before they were attacked. Now he found many of the sights, sounds, and smells were so familiar that every time he looked around, he half expected to see his mother, father, and sister.

He wondered about Elizabeth. Was she alive? If so, how was she being treated? The fact that he was now a full partner in a freighting operation, and, quite frankly, having the time of his life, while his sister could be undergoing the harshest kind of conditions, made him feel more than a little guilty. He made a conscious decision not to think about Elizabeth. There was nothing he could do about her condition, and dwelling on it only made it worse.

 

By the end of the second day, they were sixty miles west of Independence, camped on a grassy glen near a stream of clear water. They ate well that night, then sat around the fire and watched as sparks popped out of the burning wood to rise on a column of heat, joining with the thousands of stars that dusted the night sky.

“Say, have any of you ever met any of these Mormons?” Pecorino asked.

“Sure,” Gibson said. “Ain't you?”

“You kiddin'?” Pecorino replied. “I never met anyone who wasn't Catholic till I was a full-grown man.”

“Well, I've met lots of 'em,” Gibson said.

“What are they like?” Pecorino asked.

“They ain't like nothin',” Gibson answered. “They's just like ever'one else.”

“Is it true their men can have more'n one wife?” Tobin asked.

“That's true.”

“That would be somethin', wouldn't it?” Marcus snorted. “Hell, I ain't never wanted one wife, let alone more than one. Whores is better'n wives any time.”

“So what you're sayin' is, you ain't goin' out there to get yourself married?” Gibson teased.

“Nope. I'm goin' out there to take me a swim in the Great Salt Lake.”

Tobin laughed. “Marcus, you've been saying how you can't sink in the Great Salt Lake, but chances are you'll be so covered with trail dirt by the time we get there, you'll sink like a rock.”

“Well, Salt Lake or no Salt Lake, this is the life,” Jason Mills said as he poured himself a second cup of coffee. “No more mucking out stables for me.”

“Yeah, it beats workin' in a store all to hell, too,” Tobin said. Tobin, who was in his midthirties, spoke with the accent of the Mississippi hill country.

“Listen, I don't want you boys to be gettin' the wrong idea 'bout all this,” Marcus said.

“What do you mean by the wrong idea?” Jason asked. “You tryin' to tell me this ain't better'n working in a stable?”

“Or driving a beer wagon?” Pecorino added.

“I mean it ain't always goin' to be nice and peaceful and comfortable like this,” Marcus answered. “If I've learned anything in this business, it's that things that can get worse, generally do.”

“Which brings up something I've been wanting to talk about,” Clay said.

“What's that? You mean about things gettin' worse?” Gibson asked. “ 'Cause you don't have to tell me about that. Don't forget, I just come out of the army. I know about things gettin' worse. They got officers in the army makin' sure things gets worse as a full-time job.”

The others laughed.

“Actually, I've been struggling some with a decision I have to make,” Clay said. “We've got two big ranges of mountains to go through. First, there's the Rockies in Colorado, then the Wasatch in Utah. Now, we're going to get to the Rockies before the snow falls, so we should get through them all right. The problem is going to be the Wasatch. It'll be much later by the time we get there, and if we don't get through Demon's Pass before the first winter storm hits, we could wind up trapped on this side.”

“Snow. Lord, you're talking about snow when it was so hot today that I nearly melted,” Pecorino said.

“He's talkin' about snow because we've got a long way to go,” Marcus explained. “And by the time we reach Utah, it'll be a lot colder.” Marcus looked at Clay. “Still, we should be able to beat the snow, don't you think, Clay?”

“I don't know,” Clay admitted. “Beeker says we're goin' to have an early winter this year. I've known him awhile, and he's generally right about such things.”

“So, what do you think we should do about it? Hole up in Denver for the winter?”

“No, we can't do that. Parker and I have every cent we own in the world tied up in this operation. If we don't get through to Salt Lake City in a timely way, we'll lose everything.”

“Then, we'll just have to get through, that's all,” Marcus said.

“I don't see how we can go any faster,” Pecorino said. “Seems to me like the mules are goin' about as fast as they can go . . . and they're fresh and this is flat ground.”

“Frank has a point,” Tobin said. “We can't go no faster than we're already a‘goin'. Fact is, we're probably goin' to have lots of days where we go a lot slower.”

“No probably to it. We
are
going to have days when we go slower,” Clay said. “That's why I've been giving this a lot of thought.” Clay walked over to the fire and held a stick into the flames until it caught, then used the flaming brand to light his pipe. He took several puffs before he spoke again. “The other day, Parker and I heard about something called Demon's Pass. I've been thinking about it ever since then, and I think we should take it. It's supposed to be a shortcut through the Rockies, and it may be our only chance to beat the snows to Reata Pass.”

“Clay, you ever seen this-here Demon's Pass?” Marcus asked.

“No,” Clay admitted. “But I talked to someone who has.”