Alex Scarrow: October skies

Not quite so far away now.

‘Oh God, this is wonderful,’ he muttered to himself. This — THIS — was why he came; to see it all before swarms of humankind descended upon it and broke it up into a million homogenous parcels of fenced-in farmland.

Beside him the wagons rolled past, each pulled slowly but assuredly by a six-team of oxen. He twisted in his saddle, looking down the length of the train; in all he had counted forty-five of them. Some open carts, many smaller rigs, and a couple of dozen ten-footer conestogas with flared sides and sturdily contructed traps.

This particular caravan of overlanders was a blend of two parties that had happened to find themselves setting off into the wilderness from Fort Kearny at round about the same time and had merged to form a loose, if somewhat uncomfortable alliance.

The smaller contingent was one he had joined at the very last moment: five wagons that had coalesced outside the military outpost, looking for others to share the arduous and hazardous trip. Fort Kearny was considered by most overlanders readying themselves for the journey as the stepping-off point, the very edge of the United States of America. Beyond that point it was God’s own wilderness.

Many families delayed at this outpost longer than they should, gathering their wits, their willpower, supplies, and mustering their wavering courage to commit to the crossing ahead of them. Ben had made his way here and chanced upon these five wagons in his carefree, meandering way. They were amongst the last wagons lingering around the fort, preparing to leave. Over a shared evening meal with them, and too much drink, Ben had casually announced that he intended to journey to Oregon on his own, trading on his skills as a doctor along the way — and to write a book of his adventures and experiences. They very quickly disabused him of that foolish notion, assuring him that to travel alone, with no plan, more to the point, with no guide, would see him dead out there on the trail within days.

Ben smiled at his own reckless bravado.

They had successfully managed to scare the shit out of him and he promptly decided to throw in his lot with them and even contributed a substantial portion to the pool of money that purchased the services of ‘Wild’ Bill Keats, a prairie guide who dressed more like an Indian than a white man. Keats confidently assured them he had led dozens of parties safely across to the far side of both the Rockies and the more challenging Sierra Nevada mountain range beyond.

With Keats came an Indian partner, Broken Wing — a Shoshone, Keats assured his clients, one of the friendlier tribes.

The other contingent, about forty Mormon families led by their First Elder and spiritual leader, William Preston, had travelled down from Council Bluffs, Iowa, and had arrived with great haste just as Keats and the others were setting off. With both groups intending to head west at the same time, both equally keen to beat the season and cross the Rockies, the salt deserts, and the Nevada range beyond before the snows arrived, it was Keats’s idea that both groups should combine, there being safety in such numbers.

They set out from Fort Kearny on a fine morning, the last day in May, with the rumpled and leathery old trail guide announcing solemnly that they were the last party who were going to be able to make it across the mountains this year. They left the fort behind with Keats and his party leading the way, and the Mormon wagons behind, led by Preston.

‘Hey, Mr Lambert!’

Ben turned away from the distant peaks. Passing beside him was the Dreytons’ conestoga. The large wagon was perhaps more than this small family needed. Mrs Dreyton was a widow — Ben guessed — in her early thirties. She dressed, like all the other Mormon women, very modestly, covered from neck to toe in a drab-coloured dress of hard-wearing material, every last wisp of her hair tucked away inside a bonnet for modesty. She shared the wagon with her two children; Emily, a pretty girl of nine or ten who made no secret of the fact that she adored Ben, and her older brother Samuel, a tall, broad-shouldered and muscular young lad of seventeen, with a sun-bronzed and freckled face, topped with sandy hair.

The young man held the reins in one hand and waved with the other. ‘Morning!’

‘Good morning!’ Ben shouted cheerfully across to them. He reined his pony in, and steered it and a second, tethered behind and bearing all his worldly possessions, towards them. He fell into step beside their wagon, which was clattering noisily with pots and pans dangling from hooks along the outside, and the jingling of the oxen harnesses ahead of them.

Samuel and Emily’s smiles were as wide as they were warm, a marked contrast to most of the sour-faced and stern-lipped members of Preston’s people.

‘How’s the riding today?’ asked Sam.

Ben shuffled in his saddle and winced. ‘My blisters have blisters, I think.’

‘You can always tie up your pony on the back and sit up here with me,’ offered Sam. ‘We got room.’

Emily’s face, poking through a canvas flap over her brother’s shoulder, lit up. ‘Oh we got room, Mr Lambert, haven’t we, Momma?’

Mrs Dreyton shot a cool glance back at her children, and then at Ben. ‘I don’t think it would be appropriate,’ she said flatly. ‘And, Emily, put your sun bonnet on, this instant!’

‘Mom,’ Emily chimed unhappily, ‘it makes my head hot.’

She turned round to her. ‘Do you want a face as brown as a savage?’

Emily shook her head.

‘Then you best put it back on.’

She then turned to stare at Ben with an expression that quite clearly indicated there wasn’t room on the jockey board.

Ben quickly responded. ‘That’s all right, Mrs Dreyton. I’m just fine where I am.’

Sam shrugged apologetically. Emily wilted.

He liked the two children. The rest of their group had kept very much to themselves under the stern and watchful eyes of Preston and his cadre of loyal elders. They were all a little too sombre and cheerless to make easy travelling companions — ‘too churchy’ Keats had grumbled after only a couple of days on the trail with them. But these two youngsters were as bright and as welcoming a sight as a couple of shined pennies.

He turned his pony away, wary that tongues amongst the neighbouring Mormon wagons might start wagging if he loitered too close and for too long beside the Dreytons.

‘I’ll bid you good morning.’ Ben doffed his broad-brimmed felt hat.

Sam called out to him. ‘Will you take a mug of coffee with us, Mr Lambert? When we stop at noon?’

The young man’s mother looked sharply at her son with steel-grey eyes.

Ben nodded. ‘That’s kind of you, Sam, but maybe not today.’

He turned round and, with a jab of his knees, urged his pony to break into a lethargic trot, taking him up to the front of the column where the small contingent of wagons under Keats rolled on, through the dust.

Saturday

Blue Valley National Parks Camp Site, California

They emerged from the woods and onto the gravel parking area just as the pallid autumnal sun dipped down behind the brow of tree tops. There were only two vehicles parked up here — Grace’s Cherokee, marked with the National Parks Service logo, and the Toyota Prius Julian had rented from Hertz.

They exchanged goodbyes, and Grace gave them her home and mobile numbers to call when they were ready to trek out there again. She firmly reminded them both that she was going to do the right thing and call in the find to the park’s manager in a fortnight’s time… and no later.

Julian and Rose thanked her, watching her dump her pack in the boot and carefully put away the Parks Service issued hunting rifle in a case on the back seat. She climbed in, offered them a wave, started up the Cherokee and swung out of the parking area, kicking up a rooster tail of stones and grit, onto a single lane of road that wound its way down the mountainside to the nearest town, Blue Valley — a half-hour’s drive through some of the most beautiful scenery Julian had ever seen.