Hard Gold (11 page)

And bones! Bones of abandoned oxen, of cattle, and once, human bones, all bleached more white than white itself—ghastly ghosts that turned to dust where they lay.

Each object left a story told in silence.

June 2

Though as usual we started at sunup (breakfast: cold bean soup, bread, molasses, and weak coffee), we took a wrong turn and got lost despite our experienced captain. Had to go back. Then we ran short of water and didn’t find any until about nine. Only got back to the Platte River in the afternoon. Everybody, humans and beasts, was exhausted. Indeed, Mrs. Bunderly let it be known that it would not be long before she departed this mortal world.

“Do you think she might really die?” I asked Lizzy.

“My father is always talking and my ma is always dying,” was her response. Then she said, “You must think me cruel. They want so little and don’t get much.

“Early, you won’t believe our migration. From Utica, New York, to Ohio. Then on to Tennessee, Illinois, and lastly to your town in Iowa. Hardly there a month. Now this. Every place we go, we live on the edge of disaster—and always seem to leap just before we truly fall.”

I thought of my family, who had
never
moved, and did not want to. To be sure, there was comfort in what I knew. But if I did not know anything beyond home, how could I measure its comfort? As it’s said: you can’t know the pleasure of an old boot till you walk a new road.

June 3

I saw a gigantic prairie-dog town—as crowded as Council Bluffs. The way those creatures sat up and kept watch on their mounds, then darted about, was comical.

Most nights people gathered around one of the fires and shared stories. Generally they were about their own lives, travels, and travails. Sometimes there was a funny story, such as from Mr. Shotcraft of Wisconsin, who (mistakenly) trapped a skunk under his bed.

I loved watching the prairie dogs. Almost comical the way they sit up, keep watch, and scurry about in their great big towns.

June 4

This day I saw buffalo, a herd of them, a herd so immense it was impossible to count their numbers—a brown ocean flooding over the prairie, rolling slowly with ponderous magnitude. Our captain, Mr. Boxler, took pains to warn us we must do nothing to rile them, lest they stampede and trample our train to dust.

June 6

We saw antelope, and they were beautiful. Lizzy loved to watch them run. “I’d like to run like that,” she mused.

“Get some bloomers,” I advised.

June 7

The land we passed over, though mostly flat, had many a sandy bluff, with mostly good water to be found and enough grass for our cattle to graze at the end of a day. I saw some trees—cottonwood, I supposed—but not too many. Wood being scarce, I was regularly sent out to secure buffalo chips—dried buffalo manure—to burn. Though it didn’t provide much heat, it fired enough to cook our food.

The collecting of the chips was something the wagon train’s children were sent to do. After a day cooped up in the wagons or walking through the dust, they found it a joy to run and screech. But there was always fear that a little one would wander into the tall prairie grass and be lost forever.

Lizzy, released by her mother, and I, by Mr. Bunderly, were very happy to walk free and collect chips, too. Happily, buffalo were many, and chips not difficult find.

One day we came upon a large, sick buffalo. It was quite alone in its suffering. I’d not seen one up close before. It was huge, most likely six feet tall, with shaggy brown fur, a mane, a beard under its chin, and a long tail with a tuft of hair at the end. Its head was truly gigantic, with short, sharp black horns, and it had a hump on its shoulders that suggested great power and strength. One of our train supposed it might weigh a ton.

Mr. Armon shot it dead. The meat was shared, and that, I will admit, was good for a change.

June 8–11

Our endless walking continued. At times I wondered if anyone had ever walked so far! Then I recalled that those who were going to Salt Lake, Oregon, and California were going even farther!

Once, as I was walking, thinking I know not what, Lizzy came along and walked by my side.

She did not speak. Nor did I. Then I heard a great sigh, and sensed her shoulders shaking.

“Lizzy!” I said, turning toward her.

I saw what I had never seen before: tears upon her cheeks.

“What is it?” I cried.

“Oh, Early, will we ever, ever get there?” she sobbed.

“We will,” I said, though I too had begun to doubt.

But what choice was there? You either put one foot in front of your other foot, or you would be left behind.

So it was that at last we reached Fort Kearny, a place meant to protect those that passed by. But it was there that Mr. Mawr tried to murder me.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Stampede!

June 12, 1859

F
ORT KEARNY lies on the south side of the Platte River, set back perhaps half a mile, not far from what they called Grand Island. It’s an island—Mr. Boxler informed me—fifty miles long!

The fort was built on a slight rise of ground, the only height thereabouts, which gives a long view of the prairie. From it, to the north, we saw a great dark herd of buffalo.

The fort was nothing to speak of: some frame houses, big and small, as well as a few sod houses, all set around a forlorn parade ground. In its center was a flagpole from which hung a wind-tattered flag of thirty-three stars. Two troops of foot soldiers were stationed there.

Fort Kearny was only a little more than ten years old in 1859.
It seemed to be in the middle of nowhere.

We remained at the fort for two days, along with other trains. In some there was considerable sickness: dysentery and cholera. Bad water was blamed. Folks from other trains spoke of contaminated food. At this point, a fair number of people gave up and headed back toward the states. Some of those going on still insisted on calling the returnees “go-backers” or “stampeders,” as if they were frightened buffalo.

I stood with Mr. Bunderly as we watched them go.

With a sigh, he said, “Mr. Early, as the poet wrote, ‘Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.'” Which he thought we were, fools or angels, he, for once, did not say.

Another reason emigrant trains liked to pause at Fort Kearny was that people were able to purchase some goods from its storehouse. Being the last mail post before Cherry Creek, it was the place where Jesse had sent out one of his letters.

Remembering that, and watching the go-backers, made me think about my family—how far away they were, how much I missed them, even Adam. So I set myself down and wrote a letter:

T
O
M
A
, P
A
, B
ROTHER
A
DAM
:

I
AM AT
F
ORT
K
EARNY IN THE
N
EBRASKA
T
ERRITORY ON MY WAY TO THE
C
HERRY
C
REEK
DIGGINGS
. F
OR
SURE
I
SHALL BRING
J
ESSE AND HIS GOLD HOME
. D
O NOT FRET
.

                                                                         
Y
OUR LOVING SON
,

                                                                         
E
ARLY

Letter in hand, I wandered around the fort trying to find a place where I could post it. Unfortunately, I met Mr. Mawr. Perhaps he had been watching for me.

“A letter, Early,” he said. “Who are you writing to?” he demanded.

“A kindly neighbor, back home.”

“Not to your uncle Jesse?” he asked.

“He doesn’t know I’m coming,” I said before I thought what I was revealing. When he made no response other than to look hard at me, I went on to post the letter. As I was to learn, my words to Mr. Mawr were a blunder.

That afternoon, Lizzy appeared with her father’s pepperbox pistol.

“Why’d you bring that?”

“Do you know how to use one?”

I shook my head. “I told you, just a rifle.”

“What if we find a lot of gold and someone tries to take it from us?” I supposed she was thinking about what I’d told her about Jesse.

I grinned. “Think that might happen?”

“Mr. Early, I intend to find pounds of gold,” she said and insisted upon my firing the pistol a few times.

We went out on the prairie, and after choosing a target—the stump of a tree—we commenced, each shooting six times. In the silence of the plains, the noise was thunderous. But in all that banging, I think we managed to hit the tree but once. “Hard to hit anything with a pepperbox,” Lizzy said.

“Then what good is it?”

“You can scare people off.”

“You don’t need that gun to do that.”

“Mr. Early,” she shouted, “I think I hate you.” But she was laughing as she chased me all the way back to the wagons.

June 14

On the second day of our stay at Fort Kearny, Mr. Mawr approached me. “Early!” he barked, for that was his way, reminding me of Adam. “We’re in need of buffalo chips. Come with me!”

I was reluctant to do as he ordered. But Mrs. Bunderly, who was reclining in the shade cast by our wagon, called out, “Mr. Early, you must do the bidding of your elders.”

I looked about for Lizzy but did not see her.

Mr. Mawr must have guessed my thought, for Lizzy and I were always together.

“I suppose a boy can go without a girl,” he said.

Feeling taunted, I pulled myself up, grabbed an old flour sack for the chips, and began to follow, noticing as I did that Mr. Mawr had his pistol on his hip.

We walked along the wagons that made up our train until, to my surprise, Mr. Mawr, who had not spoken to me since we had left Mrs. Bunderly, mounted a horse and headed on to the prairie. I hesitated, but he turned in his saddle.

“Let’s go, boy!” he shouted and moved along at a pace which I could follow, his saddle creaking, his Spanish spurs sounding a harsh jangle.

Once, twice, I looked back at the fort, wishing Lizzy was with me, but felt compelled to continue on. Now and again Mr. Mawr glanced back as if to make sure I was following.

I soon realized we were moving ever closer to that herd of buffalo we’d seen. They were grazing, great heads down, moving slowly in our direction. By then we had come so far that the undulating land made it impossible to see either our wagons or the fort. Nor, I realized, could anyone see us. There was nothing else on the prairie save a dead cottonwood tree, which stood like some lost, forlorn creature.

Feeling isolated, I felt a tickle of fright and stopped. “Where are we going?” I called.

Without pausing, Mr. Mawr turned in his saddle and said, “You can start collecting. Plenty of chips here about. I’m going to scout on farther. Maybe shoot a buffalo.”

There being nothing out of place in that, I merely nodded, and watched, relieved, as he put heels to his horse and galloped toward the great herd.