Snowbound and Eclipse (33 page)

Early on, I had discovered that the Kerns and their friends were slackers, a drag on the whole expedition. What was Richard Kern doing while my veterans sweated? Playing his flute. If they had pulled their weight, we would have topped the San Juans and continued on our way, despite Bill Williams's bungling. The men of my old command were able to deal with the snow, while the newcomers slowed us day by day. More and more, as I waited for news from upriver, I determined to settle the blame for the calamity on the Kerns. I had imagined that an artist like Richard would provide valuable sketches that would augment the railroad survey, and a doctor like Benjamin would serve the injured, but little did I know these pampered Pennsylvanians would slow the entire company to such a degree that precious days were lost high up in the mountains, when haste was our salvation.

In time, the survivors did drift in, by twos and threes,
assisted by muleteers and the army. They were a horror to see, still snow-blind, starved to nothing, weakened by their ordeal. I wished they had stayed in the Red River settlements longer, cleansing themselves, trimming beards, repairing their attire, so they would not be a spectacle to the citizens of Taos. Indeed, some did linger there, unable to travel the last lap. From Vincenthaler I finally received the bad news. Ten had perished: Proue, King, Wise, Carver, Hubbard, Beadle, Tabeau, Morin, Rohrer, and Andrews. Godey was bringing the last and weakest along and would report to me in a few days. I was impatient to be off and waited restlessly for the remaining men to drift in. I thought of leaving without them, knowing they would be weakest, but I stayed on out of a sense of duty.

It was clear that in my absence there had been no effective leadership. I had held them together, and on my departure, their discipline had vanished and they had fallen into small fragments, no one of these wandering groups helping any other. Yet I could not regret leaving them. But for the relief I sent to them, all would have perished. I saved their lives. One thing puzzled me: of the dead, all but two were veterans of my California Battalion. Only Rohrer and Andrews were not with me in California. It made little sense to me that softer men, like the Kerns and Cathcart, had survived while my resourceful veterans had died. I had intended to make a point of it with Jessie and Senator Benton and thought better of it.

We gathered at last on the sunny plaza in Taos, on a particularly pleasant February afternoon, with little sign of the grave winter we had endured. Banks of rotting snow persisted, but the earthen town was shaking loose from the worst. I looked them over, not liking what I saw. Some of them were too diminished to stand while I addressed them. Curious villagers, including heavy-boned women in black
shawls, and urchins had collected and watched me quietly in the amiable sunlight. I doubted that any could understand English, for which I was grateful.

“Gentlemen,” I began, “tomorrow at dawn we leave for California. It's clear to me that some of you are not able to travel and will stay here to heal. I'm adding several new people to my company. Now, I regret not being able to take all of you with me, but my first choice rests with those seasoned men who were with me during the third expedition and others, old friends and veterans of past campaigns. Those who I've decided should, for their own sake, remain here until they are better able to travel include the Kern brothers, all three; Captain Taplin, Captain Cathcart, and Mister Stepperfeldt. As for Mister Williams, I no longer require his services. I wish to thank all members of this company for engaging in this enterprise and offer my heartiest best wishes to those I will be leaving behind here.”

That wrought silence, at first, and then smiles. These doughty veterans would actually gather strength with regular meals, warm weather, and horseback travel. We would enjoy a mild climate the rest of the trip. Altogether, it seemed a good choice. I saw no one objecting. Those whom I had excluded gazed silently from within a little knot.

But Doctor Kern did speak up.

“Colonel, have you notified the families of the departed?”

The question caught me utterly off guard. This wasn't an army command, and it really wasn't my duty to do anything of the sort. But I understood his sentiment.

“Why, Doctor, I shall attempt to do so when we reach California,” I said. “This is neither the time nor place, and I have no information about them.”

“I'm sure you will look after it,” Ben Kern said.

Was there something in his tone that offended me?

That was an oddly disturbing moment, as if Kern wanted
to revive memories of what we had all just been through, instead of burying them and getting on with life.

“I will,” Taplin said.

“That would be most appreciated, Captain,” I replied.

Everyone seemed well satisfied with that.

I caught Ben Kern and Charles Taplin afterward, and privately offered them a mission. “I've a great deal of equipment cached up in the mountains. It's worth several thousands. If you gentlemen could quietly retrieve it when the weather is more favorable and turn it over to my creditor here, Mister Aubry, you would do me a great service and one I would reward. I fear the cache will be plundered by the Utes if no one gets to it soon. You'll need to employ some men with mules here to haul it all to Taos.”

“I'll make the effort when I am able,” Kern said.

“I know I can count on you.”

I spent the evening at Carson's house, absorbing what I could of the southern route from charts and from his recollections. He had been over it several times. At an hour before dawn, February 13, I collected my men on the south edge of town, in gloomy moonlight near a big adobe church, and by first light we were off. I had with me Kit's brother Lindsay Carson, who would serve as guide, as well as Tom Boggs, the former Missouri governor's son. I even had Charles Preuss with me. My topographer had recovered his health in the Red River settlement and arrived just in time to join us—tough little fellow, and I had forgiven him his derelictions. We were in fine fettle and glad to put our trials behind us. Just as I had hoped, the trip down the Rio Grande was easy, and the weather remained perfect for traveling. The nightmare of the mountains swiftly vanished from all our minds.

At Albuquerque, another little mud town without the grace of Santa Fe, I did more outfitting, and soon we were
en route through the arid river valley, an empty stretch not fit for human occupation. A man could only wonder why the United States wasted its energies on such country. It was infested with hostile Indians, was worthless for crops other than what might be produced in a melon patch, and added nothing to the United States.

That first sunny afternoon south of Albuquerque, I invited Preuss to ride with me. We were, actually, at the rear, where we could talk peacefully. The reliable Godey was at the van.

“Ah, Charles, it's good to be on our way again,” I began. “I should like to talk about California. You have a position with me, if you want it.”

“Doing what, Colonel?”

“The Las Mariposas, which Larkin bought for me. It will need some topographic mapping. It lies in the gold country, and if there's gold on my property, I'll need metes and bounds. The boundaries were rather vague. I'll need to lay out wagon roads and locate villages and camps.”

He simply grunted.

“The gold stretches along the western flanks of the Sierra. My grant's right there. Taos is buzzing with stories about the gold. With your geology and topographic skills, you could be a most valuable employee, and a well-paid one.”

“I have my own plans, sir. I'm sorry.”

That was a disappointment to me. I did not inquire into his plans but ventured some other business. “Alright. I have other business to transact. I plan to complete the railroad survey and intend that your topographic data should be completed as well. As soon as I'm settled out there, I'll plan the rest of it. We'll approach from the west, and connect where we left off.”

Again, he said nothing.

“We were so close,” I said, showing him two fingers a fraction of an inch apart. “If Williams had followed my instructions and taken us north, up the Saguache River, we would have topped the San Juan Mountains, descended into the drainage of the Grand, and continued west. That close,” I said.

“I'm very sure of it,” he replied.

“Well, I intend to finish it up.”

“In winter?”

“No, I've proved whatever needed proving. We'll complete the link, and I'll report to Senator Benton and his business friends.”

“I don't think so, sir.”

I wasn't sure whether he was turning down my employment or was simply skeptical about the route. “There might be a better route still farther north,” I said. “We can survey it.”

“No, sir. In California, I will be pursuing other matters. It is a territory that remains unmapped and little known.”

“I see. Well, I still plan to engage your services once we arrive.”

“I am honored by your attention, sir.”

The German seemed as amiable as ever, and yet something had changed. We had been colleagues all this while, in previous expeditions and this, but now he was clearly separating himself from me.

“I suppose you'll be making your journal public,” I said.

“I keep an account for my own reference, Colonel Frémont.”

“I plan to write about this expedition at length. What especially pleases me is the strength and courage of my veterans, the ones like yourself who were with me in the conquest.”

He didn't respond, and we rode some while through the
mild day before we arrived at Socorro. Plainly, this Preuss was not the Preuss who had measured every mountain and valley we had crossed together and shared his every measurement with me.

At Socorro, the southernmost town in the area, I enjoyed the hospitality of Captain Buford, who commanded a detachment there and helped me complete my outfitting. While at his quarters I penned a brief letter to Senator Benton, wanting my father-in-law to be well apprised of all events. I made reference to the calamity of January but did not dwell on it beyond a bare account. There was no reason to dwell on it.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Jessie Benton Frémont

Mr. Frémont's letter reached me while I was the guest of Senora Arcé y Zimena, in Panama City. It was dated January 27, 1849, and was mailed from Taos, where my husband was a guest of our friend Kit Carson.

I read it and trembled. Before my eyes was an account of deprivation, cold, starvation, and death. And yet Mr. Frémont had escaped except for frostbite, and at this writing was recovering among friends. How close he had come, and he was only a third of the way to California. The letter had found its way to Saint Louis and had been forwarded downriver, ultimately arriving in Panama, where postal authorities diligently tracked me down. Mr. Frémont and I had known Senora Arcé's nephew when he was his country's ambassador to Washington.

I was most grateful for her hospitality. Panama City bulged with Americans and others from all over the world,
waiting for transportation to the goldfields of California. They were camped throughout the old town, and many were sickened or dying from mysterious tropical ailments. I was fortunate to have the connection. The flies and biting bugs were terrible, but at least Lily and I had our own room, with a blue couch, hempen hammocks to sleep in, and a bit of privacy. It was a paradise compared with the steaming cauldron of the rest of the city.

We were all waiting for the mail steamer to California, which didn't come week after week, while we hung on desperately, most of us without funds and no way to go forward or return to our homes. Somehow Lily and I had eluded the awful diseases that caught and killed the flood of immigrants. We had been transported across the isthmus, first by river canoe, and then on foot over the mountains, following a path overarched by jungle. Through the courtesy of so many of our countrymen, we made the trip unscathed, though I was certain I would never attempt such a venture again.

It was gold that changed everything. Mr. Frémont and I had planned all this before its discovery; we had no inkling of what was about to happen. I read and reread the letter, concealing it from Lily for the time being, looking for signs that he was past the worst of it. He seemed eager to put it behind him, and it was clear to me that he bore no guilt or responsibility in it; the fault lay in the incompetent guide he had been compelled to employ. It was Mr. Williams who had almost felled my husband and wrought the deaths of a third of his company. It was this Old Bill at whose doorstep this tragedy must be laid.

But that did not allay the tremor that shook me when I considered how close my beloved husband had come. I was stricken with anxiety, because he had yet to travel the main part of the trip and was gravely weakened. In time, once I
could choose my words carefully, I did summon Lily and explained to her that the Frémont family had narrowly escaped disaster.

“Your father is safe and on his way overland, but on a different route, milder in wintertime,” I told her.

“He likes trouble,” she replied.

I almost reprimanded her for expressing such sentiment, but for some reason didn't.

I ached to travel north, but all I could do was wait helplessly, like the teeming thousands living on the grubby old streets and filling the cemeteries. Street vendors sold monkey meat and fly-specked chickens and filthy fruit, and on these things my countrymen survived or sickened.

I was among them. A newspaper account of Mr. Frémont's disaster in the mountains reached Panama City and greatly disturbed me. I fear the shock of Mr. Frémont's catastrophe unhinged me, for next I knew I was gravely sick with brain fever, which also afflicted my lungs, and both a Panamanian and an American doctor attended me. I ceased to think or care, and scarcely knew where I was. There were no leeches to bleed me, but some croton oil from a ship at anchor blistered my chest and wrought a healing. I remained greatly enfeebled, and my condition worried Senora Arcé and others who knew me.