Wind Walker (21 page)

The Prophet was taken aback. “You’ve
floated
the lake? Then it isn’t all as big as Fremont shows it is on his map?”

“It’s so durn big we figgered it for the ocean at first!” Jim explained.

“I ’member you telling me that story, Gabe,” Bass said with fond remembrance. “Not long after I first met up with you. Same time I met Beckwith
^*
too.”

Bridger smiled. “I recollect that too, sitting by the crik an’ scrubbin’ the grease off our hides. Shit, weren’t we the young bucks back then?”

The Prophet waved a hand in the manner of a man
impatient to bring someone else’s conversation back to his topic. “What do you know of Hastings’s route?”

“It’s a likely way to get where you’re goin’,” Bridger answered.

The Prophet drew a few lines in the dirt at their feet. “Through Weber’s Fork?”

“Yep. Go right on by my fort, keep marching south by west instead of turning north for Fort Hall. That takes you on Hastings’s road to California. He come out last summer—”

“So that route will lead us to the valley of the Salt Lake?”

“Less’n you get lost off it. Been least a hunnert wagons go through there last year, by way of Hastings’s road.”

“What do you know of the country beyond the valley?”

Jim hastily scratched some lines on the ground with the tip of his belt knife. “After you get around these here mountains, it’s purty flat for aways.”

“From there?”

He jabbed his knife into the grassy soil. “A country covered with a hard, black rock. Ever’ stone looks to be glazed, just like glass. An’ ever’ piece so hard and sharp it’ll cut your horses’ hooves to ribbons in a matter of a mile.”

G. A. Smith leaned forward and asked, “South of the valley of the Salt Lake, what lies there?”

“You run onto the Green again,” Jim answered. “The way runs through some level country, then winds into some hilly ground, but all of it bare as the face of hell, all the way to the salt sea.”

Howard Egan interrupted now. “Hastings reports that from your fort to the Salt Lake it is no more than a hundred miles. How far say you?”

“I been that way more’n half-a-hunnert times,” Bridger declared. “But I couldn’t lay any number on how far it is from my post.”

Wilford Woodruff asked, “Can we pass through the mountains farther south of here with wagons?”

“Sartin you can,” Jim replied. “But there’s places you’ll be in heavy timber, where you’ll have to cut your way through for wagons.”

Now Young asked, “You said you’d floated the lake. Have you been to the other side?”

“I know a half dozen men or more been around that lake,” Bridger said. “Had a brigade over there one autumn. Some of ’em got their horses stole by Diggers or Utes
^*
—you best watch out for them Utes, they’ll be troublesome for you—so we cut some canoes outta cottonwoods an’ sent our men around the lake, looking for beaver.”

“How long did it take for them to bring back the beaver pelts?”

He grinned at Young. “Never did find no beaver, and them boys was about three moons getting back to us. Said it was more’n five hunnert fifty miles to get around.”

“What of these Indians stole your horses?”

“Utahs and Diggers both, bad Injuns. They catch you out, got you beat on the odds—they’ll plunder your outfit an’ whup you, if’n they don’t just kill you outright. But, a bunch big as you got here, ain’t got no worry. Them Injuns is yeller cowards less’n they got big odds in their favor.”

“With my apologies, President Young?” James Little injected. “I’d like to ask Mr. Bridger about the favorable conditions for growing our crops, like corn.”

“Yes, how is the soil in the valley?” asked William Clayton.

“I know of a feller was a trapper too, he has him a small place up in the valley of Bear River,” Bridger explained. “Soil’s good up there for his growing season, so I figger it’s good on south in the Salt Lake country. Only trouble is—”

“Trouble?” Young repeated the word with his stentorian voice.

“I figger the nights get too cold in the Salt Lake Valley for your people to grow Missouri field corn. Frosts of a night’ll kill off most grain. Country south of Utah Lake better for your crops.”

Three of the bystanders immediately leaned over Brigham
Young’s shoulders as the Prophet hunched in study of his Fremont maps.

“Ah, here it is,” Young announced with pride. “Is this the valley?”

Jim squinted and asked, “A little’un? South of the Salt Lake?”

“Yes,” the Prophet assured.

“That’s the place I’m telling you of,” Bridger continued. “There’s a band of good Injuns down that way, got farms of their own, and they raise grains. I can buy the very best wheat from ’em. As I recollect that country, I ’member a valley down that way. If there was ever a promised land your God was leading you to, it’s gotta be that valley aways on south of the Salt Lake Valley.”

Surprised at that declaration, Young stammered, “W-why do you call it a promised land?”

“There’s a cedar grows down there, bears a fruit, like juniper berries, but bigger an’ yellow—’bout the size of a small plum. And the Injuns in the country ain’t thieves. They feed themselves: pick them berries and grind ’em into a meal.”

Little asked, “There’s a lot of this fruit?”

“I figger I could gather more’n a hunnert bushels off one tree alone,” Jim declared. “I’ve lived on that fruit afore, when I couldn’t bring no game to bait.”

“How’s the water, Mr. Bridger?” asked Egan.

“Streams running outta the mountains all over, and many springs too.”

Young sighed with impatience, “How far is it from the valley of the Salt Lake?”

Jim brooded a moment, then said, “Twenty days’ ride from there.”

The Prophet’s face hardened. “That far?”

“Maybe not that far … just the country you gotta go through to get there is so bad. Nothin’ much for your animals to eat. Not like it is here on the Little Sandy, where your horses got all the feed they want. But once you get there, you’ll find a copper mine on one of the rivers running
through the valley. Fact be, there’s a whole mountain of copper. Gold an’ silver down there too. I never had no use for such. You spot veins of coal in the hills. Yessir, that land is good. That there’s your promised land, Brigham Young. Soil is rich. Nights don’t get cold in the growin’ season. That country is thick with persimmons. Ever you ate a persimmon? That’s a shame you ain’t. There’s wild grapes down there too, for a man to make the best wines.”

“It takes a good climate to grow grapes, Prophet,” commented Woodruff.

So Brigham asked, “How far north have you seen these grapes growing?”

“Never saw any around Utah Lake,” he answered, “but I seen lots of cherries and berries. That’s better country than the valley of the Salt Lake. But, it’s far better south of there, where I told you. Plenty of timber, an’ the fish in the streams ain’t never been caught. Even found some wild flax growing down there.”

Young asked, “How many years has it been since you were in that country?”

“A year ago, this coming July,” Bridger declared. “There’s good rain there, but not much wind. If your God brung you out here to a promised land, it’s for sure it ain’t in the Salt Lake Valley. By gonnies, you won’t find no promised land till you get south of Utah Lake.”

The Prophet brushed both hands down the front of his dusty vest and said, “Perhaps it would not be prudent of us to bring a great population to that basin until we have ascertained whether grain will grow there or not, to sustain our faithful.”

At that moment three more men stepped up to the assembly, one of whom announced, “Supper is heated, President Young.”

The Prophet stood and tugged on the points at the bottom of his vest. “I would like to take my supper in the shade of that tree over there, Brother Whipple. Would you throw down a blanket and set two places under the branches?”

“T-two, sir?”

Young turned to peer at Jim. “Would you do me the honor of eating with me tonight? I have so many more questions I want to ask you about the valley of the Salt Lake … and that valley you said was God’s own Promised Land. Join me, please?”

“We be glad to,” Bridger replied.

Young cleared his throat. “I don’t want there to be any misunderstanding, Mr. Bridger. I invited only you to dine with me. Not your friend here.”

“You don’t wanna eat with him, then I ain’t—”

“Gabe,” Bass interrupted. “G’won ahead with this fella. S’all right. I ain’t gonna go hungry.”

Jim studied his eyes a minute. “Awright. I’ll eat my supper an’ then we’ll make camp. Light out in the morning.”

Titus nodded, then watched Brigham Young turn Bridger away, the two of them walking toward the tree where the three young men were spreading a blanket and preparing to serve supper.

A strange people, Bass thought to himself as he sighed and turned away. You’d think a man what calls hisself a prophet of God would know where God wants him to go already, Titus brooded. Wouldn’t you think this Brigham Young would have no need to ask Jim Bridger for directions to the Promised Land?

“They call themselves Marmons,” Titus explained to his wife as they stood at the open gates and watched the two dogs trotting toward the first of the Pioneer Party hoving into view more than a half mile from the stockade.

She did her best to mimic his English. “Mar-mo-o-o-o-ns.”

He quickly glanced over his shoulder at the Cheyenne woman and all the children who had gathered with them to watch the arrival of Brigham Young’s Saints at Fort Bridger. Then Scratch whispered in Crow.

“Gabe took to their chief right off; but I saw him as a hard-faced man,” he declared as the sun shone hot upon them.

As Bass watched the riders approaching through the trees, crossing one small streamlet after another to reach the post, he ruminated on his confidential talk with Bridger some nine days back, late that night after Jim had finished his supper with Brigham Young.

“Not a bad sort,” Gabe had observed as Titus put a few more limbs on the small fire as the summer night grew cold.

“I don’t trust him,” Titus snorted. “None of them others.”

“But I don’t read his sign same as you,” Bridger said.

“Hell no, you wouldn’t,” Bass whispered as they unfurled their robes and blankets in a small copse of willow there
beside the Little Sandy. “You just et supper with that preacher, an’ now he’s even got you seein’ angels dancing on the top of a pin.”

Bridger shrugged. “Simmer down, Scratch. He an’ his brethren seem like they’re honest, God-fearin’ folk—just like Whitman.”

“Like Doc Whitman?” Scratch repeated, incredulous. “Now, there was a good man, Gabe. He wasn’t like most ever’ other preacher I knowed: looking down their long noses at you from up on high, with them accusin’ eyes full of fire an’ the air around ’em filled with the smell of sulfur an’ brimstone. No, I’ll be glad to say our fare-thee-wells to this here Brigham Young an’ his pack o’ Marmons come mornin’.”

For a moment, Jim had pursed his lips, then disclosed, “I was hopin’ to talk you into turning around from here.”

“You don’t want me to see you on to the pass, e’en down to the Sweetwater?” he had asked. “I ain’t see’d Devil’s Gate, or that ol’ Turtle Rock in a long time—”

“I was figgering you could take President Young and the rest on to the fort, Scratch,” Bridger admitted. “Since I ain’t got no choice but to keep on my way to Fort John to see about them goods we’re needing for the store, you’ll be the host for me.”

“At your post?”

Jim leaned close to Bass. “I can trust you to show ’em your best manners.”

He didn’t have a good feeling from the start, and it wasn’t getting any better. “I dunno—”

“Treat the Saints good an’ they’ll be on their way in a few days,” Bridger said. “They need some smithin’ done afore they move on. I told President Young you’d fire up the anvil for all they needed, an’ he said they could do it themselves, or pay for your work in coin, or take it out in trade. They brung ’em plenty of supplies along, so maybe you can take a look over what they got to trade for. See what the women needs the most in the store, an’ swap out your work for the goods.”