The Way West Part 29

Coming on to good campsites, on to gra.s.s and easy water, men and women always tried to believe the hardest miles were rolled. For a little while -until they pulled again into the waste of sand and stone- their spirits lifted and their voices rang out full. That was the way of them at Salmon Falls Creek, where everything was plenty, and at Salmon Falls. Though gra.s.s and fuel were scanty at the falls, the Indians had fresh salmon and cakes of pounded berries to trade for clothing, powder, knives and fishhooks. Most of all for fishhooks, which d.i.c.k had thought to bring aplenty of. Fresh meat tasted good, even salmon, after days of chewing on dried stuff, eaten stiff or mushed up in a pot, though Evans came to feel he'd just as soon not see a fish again if he could have red meat. And the berry cakes were better yet.

Seeing the Salmon Falls Indians, Evans knew why Summers spoke so low of the fish-eating tribes. They were friendly and talkative and sometimes funny, but childish-minded and dirty and naked except maybe for a lousy rabbit skin, and they ate anything -lizards and gra.s.shoppers and pursy crickets that would gag a man. They lived in huts of gra.s.s and willow that were just half-circles, open to the south. The huts reminded him of swallows' nests, niched around the way they were, except that birds were better builders.

The camp had been a good camp anyhow, or not so bad as some, no matter if gra.s.s and wood were scarce and the Indians pretty sorry. A change of victuals helped the train, as did the proof that human life of sorts could live in such a country. And the great springs that burst out of the solid north wall of the Snake gave the people something new to talk about. Spring After spring, there was, like sunken rivers pouring out, which Summers called the Chutes.

More sand came afterwards, more sage, more rocks, more nogra.s.s, more no-water, more worn-out stock, more of the h.e.l.l of the Snake though they had borne out from it to cut across a bend it made.

Now when they were about to come to it again, to lower down the bluff and try the ford, Evans told himself that if any train could get to Oregon, this one could. It had the best pilot that he knew of, best man and pilot both. Its stock was poor but no poorer than would come behind. Its wagons were as good as others would be by the time they reached the ford. But it was the men he counted on, the men and women and spirit of the company. They had their faults, he knew. They had their differences and sometimes spoke severe, what with sand in their teeth and worries in their heads, but they wished well for one another and they hung together. Here where sometimes he'd heard the trains split up, old On-to-Oregon stayed one. Looking down the line from head to tail after the long drop to the Snake came into sight, he felt a kind of wrathy pride. d.a.m.n the Snake and all its sorry kin of sage and sand! d.a.m.n the crossing! They'd make it -he and Summers and Patch and Mack and Daugherty and Shields and Gorham and all the rest, clear down to Byrd. They'd make it or go down trying and still d.a.m.n the Snake to do its d.a.m.nedest.

Once he'd wondered if they'd keep him captain. That was when he'd outfought Tadlock and dared the other men to try to hang the Indian, but nothing came of it except they showed in little ways they didn't hold a grievance, maybe knowing without saying that they had been wrong. Only Daugherty had spoken open, saying, "I'm hopin' you'll forgit it, Captain. It was the divil in us, temptin' us to mortal sin." He had grinned and added, as if to give warning that he was his own man yet, "An' let us hope them Injuns quit their thievin' ways, or else to h.e.l.l I'll maybe travel still."

They were for him, Evans told himself while he watched d.i.c.k coming into sight from below the brow of the bluff. They were for him and he was for them and each was for each other, and they'd get across the Snake and pull up safe in Oregon.

Summers rode alongside to say, "We can make it, I'm think in', without hold-back ropes or anything. Steep but not to bad."

"Hold up!" Evans called to Patch, whose two wagons were in the lead ahead of him. He lifted his hand for a stop behind. The rearward wagons closed up slow and came to rest, the oxen dragging to a halt without command and sagging afterwards as if from the little weight of yoke. He said to Summers, "Maybe we better hitch a rope to the first wagon and some of us walk along, just in case."

Summers gave a nod.

Evans faced down the line and yelled through his hands, "All out!" though nearly everybody was. The call was relayed to the rear by other voices. He waited, watching, until the last of them was down. The last was Mrs. Byrd, moving heavy with the child in her, and it occurred to Evans, seeing her, that he might as well have let the people sit until their turns came up. He stepped down the line, motioning to the nearest men. "Mack! Fairman! Carpenter!" Brother Weatherby came up with them, gray as a desert gra.s.shopper from marching in the dust to save his horse. "Summers thinks we can drive down all right, but let's the bunch of us walk down with the lead wagon and see how it goes. We can stop her if she wants to run."

They followed him back to the head of the column, where Patch stood with his lead team and Summers waited to show the way. One of them had tied a rope to the rear axle. Mrs. Patch stood back with the second team, quiet as always and as always somehow noticeable. Evans thought while he spoke that you couldn't throw off on these two Yankees. They were cool and heady customers. He said, "All right, d.i.c.k. You ne'en to help, Brother Weatherby."

Weatherby said, "Why not?" as if there wasn't any answer, not even his sixty-four years.

Patch popped his whip and the oxen leaned into the yoke and the wheels turned and the front ones headed down.

The way was long and steep, but not so steep by d.i.c.k's meandering that two or three men, depending on the load and team, couldn't manage trouble if it came. Patch's outfit reached the bottom without real need of help. Still, it seemed wise to send men with each wagon.

The plan took time and wind but worked out safe. The loose stock came behind, footing careful down the pitch and breaking to a heavy, stumbling run for water. Evans saw, before he went to look across the ford, that gra.s.s was scant here too. It added to his maybe-foolish load of worry to think that poor teams would make a poor out at getting through the Snake.

The crossing didn't look so risky, though, being broken by two islands that sat like low rafts in the stream.

"It's far across and swift," he said to Summers and the other men who'd lined up along the bank, "but it don't look so deep."

"Deeper'n you'd think," Summers answered. "Water's so clear it makes the bed look close."

"How deep?" Evans glanced up at Summers, sitting thoughtful on his horse.

Summers shrugged. "Not too deep. Way to look at it is, it ain't easy, but it ain't beyond doin', either. We'll make it." Evans tilted his head and saw the white sun veering down.

"d.i.c.k," he said, "there's gra.s.s aplenty on them islands."

"Plenty."

Evans spoke to the others as well as to Summers. "Let's push the livestock to 'em and let 'em get their bellies full and then line out in the morning. They'll be rested and fed both."

It was Byrd who answered first, saying, "Amen to that." In his fair, ungrown-up face Evans caught the shadow of alarm, and he wondered, as before, how the man had raised the s.p.u.n.k to start out in the first place. He belonged in town.

Summers was saying, "Good idee," and the rest were nodding.

"Let's circle up, though maybe there's no need of it, and git the work stock over."

While he and Brownie freed their teams, Evans thought again of Byrd, thought of him with a little of embarra.s.sment, as if Byrd's weaknesses rested on him. Like some other unmanly men he'd known, Byrd must be a clever man in bed, judging by the flock he'd fathered. It was vexatious to feel responsible for him, and yet he did and more so maybe than with most, remembering the words that Mack had overheard and told him. Back there at Fort Hall Tadlock was working on Byrd, arguing for California. Byrd had answered, "I'll stay with Evans and Summers. If any can, those two will see the train through."

To Evans there was a kind of womanish faith in that answer that, right or wrong, seemed to put an extra burden on him.

He laid the yoke down and let the team step out and saw his in-law daughter looking at him. "Wore out?" he asked, making himself smile.

She gave him just the ghost of an answering smile. "I'm all right."

Evans was up early. The dark still hung here in the bottom though overhead the sky was lightening. He stopped outside his tent and looked off to the water, seeing it as just a fluid dullness, without the shine of sun or moon or stars. The voice of it came to him, the whishing mutter of its strength. All night he'd heard it, even through his dreams.

He shook himself against the chill, against the inward funkiness of early morning, wishing with a sudden impatience that all the camp was up, ready for a try that weighed heavier with waiting. Right now, with the blood flowing weak in him after sleep and the dark cast of dawn lying on his spirit, d.a.m.n if he wasn't as bad as Byrd, empty-chested before a danger built up in the mind. They'd get across, down to the last setting hen and chick. It was his being head rooster that put the foolish fidgets in him.

He walked down toward the water, flushing up a ground bird that rustled out of sight. Close up, the river still ran black. lie couldn't see the bottom of it. Out in the stream the islands floated like clouds made out at night. The shapeless movement that he saw might be the livestock, getting up to graze.

They'd got the stock out there all right and afterwards, after food and coffee, had made light of the crossing, saying shoo, it wasn't anything. Critters now and then had had to swim and the current sure enough was swift, but still it wasn't anything. And, with gra.s.s and rest, the teams would be still stronger.

They'd soon see how it was, Evans thought, while there slipped into his mind the way the river reared against the horse he'd used to drive the loose stock over. The eastward sky was showing red. An hour or so, and they would see. There was just breakfast to get and eat and clean up after, and tents to strike and loads to load and the stock to push back and hitch. Then they'd see.

Except for being unloaded, the wagons were ready, or as ready as the place allowed. By d.i.c.k's advice the men had gone wood hunting yesterday and had found a little, mostly smallishsized. Evans had thought it next to nothing, not much more than good enough for fires, and had said to Summers, "Them poles wouldn't float a cart."

"Don't aim to float the wagons, Lije. Not here."

"Don't?"

"Tide's too stiff. A floatin' wagon might draw the teams along with it."

"So what?"

"What we want is for the wheels to set solid on the bottom. We'll lay the wood on top the wagon boxes -that'll give us extry weight- and h'ist the flour and such on top of it, so's to keep it dry."

There wasn't wood enough to help out much. Here and there the men had found a small and lonesome tree and here and there a piece of punky drift. They laid their pickings over the wagon beds and, to piece them out and get the spoilables above the waterline, used plows and pack saddles and boxes emptied into others.

Evans turned away from the river, hearing sounds in camp, and saw Summers riding up. Behind him the arches of the wagons had divided from the dark.

"Got 'er figgered out, Lije?" Summers asked.

"Sure. All we have to do is cross and then think about the second crossing."

"Second ain't so bad. Close to Boise, too, where there's help if need be." Summers smiled while his eyes studied Evans' face. "You sleep any?"

"Sure."

"Ain't no sartain-sure way against accidents, Lije. If'n one happens, no one'll fault you 'less you do yourself."

"I know that."

"Know it but can't feel it," Summers answered, gazing off beyond the river. "That's what makes you a good captain, I reckon, but it's hard on the gizzard." His eyes came back to Evans. "I swear, Lije, back in Missouri I never thought to see you playin' mother hen."

"Me neither."

"Best put four yoke, anyhow, to a wagon, an' up to six to some."

"That'll mean usin' some teams twicet."

Summers bobbed his head. "With a long string of critters, enough will have footin' if others has to swim."

"I see."

"An', Lije, I'm thinkin' we need a rider at each side, upstream and down. Up man could have a hold-rope on the lead ox nearest him."

"Down man would have a poke, I reckon. Which side is dangerest?"

"Down, I figger. Yonder there's a ripple it would be bad to sag below. Let swimmers do the ridin', Lije."

"That's a job for me then."

"You're a fish," Summers answered, nodding. "Hig's hard to beat, I seen down on the Bear."

"I'll ask him."

Summers clucked to his horse. "Thought I'd scout acrost and find out how to go."

Evans watched the horse take to the river. He saw it splash in, unwilling but helpless under d.i.c.k's strong hand, and brace against the sweep and feel ahead for footholds while the water Mse. At one place it had to swim, and d.i.c.k lifted himself to keep from getting any wetter than he had to. They came out, streaming, on the nearer island.

Evans faced around and made for camp. There was other work to do while d.i.c.k did his.

The sun was above the hills by the time the train was ready. Evans had put his own wagons first in line, six yoke to the big one, four to the small, thinking it his duty to try the danger first. The other wagons curled behind his, some prepared to go, some waiting for ox teams to come back. People stood by them or perched inside or watched from on the bank, their talk littled by the thought of things to come.

Sitting his horse by the lead yoke, Evans squirmed around. His eyes met those of Brownie, who sat in the big wagon with Mercy by his side. He rode back toward them and pulled up and said, "I still don't like it. Let's have a try at her, with me up there, before you young'uns launch."

"We argued that out once, Pa," Brownie answered. "Lemme take the first team over. Me and Mercy ain't afraid. We got to go over sometime."

"Later's better, after we see."

"If all was to wait, you'd have to bring the wagons back to carry 'em across. Three crossings, that'ud make."

Evans flicked the end of the bridle reins against his opened palm, weighing one thing against another though he knew the choice was made. Young ones were hard to scare, believing they would live forever. Danger was a tonic to them. Why, right now, this minute ahead of risk, there was a lookingforward in their faces, a keen excitement more fit for newjoined man and wife than the sober manner that he'd wondered at. His gaze traveled back to the second wagon, where Becky sat, anxious but contained, as if she told herself here was a thing they had to meet.

"Never won an argument in my life," he said to the couple while he grinned at them. "Keep on d.i.c.k's tail now."

He remembered then he had put aside his goad. He rode to the second wagon and picked it from the wheel it slanted against. "Goin' to make it, Becky," he said. "Goin' to get to Oregon."

Her eyes were solemn. "You be careful, Lije. I'm as scared for you as anybody."

He raised the goad, saying with it that he would, and reined around.

They were waiting for him, Hig mounted yon side of the string, the rope from the near leader's horns dangling in his hand, and d.i.c.k ready to lead away.

"Reckon we're set," he said to d.i.c.k and saw that d.i.c.k's gaze was fixed behind. Turning, he saw Byrd hurrying up. "Evans," Byrd said, "I'm nervous -about the children."

"They'll be all right."

"I know, but do you suppose you could take them?"

"First trip?"

"Your wagons are better and your teams stronger."

"You kin use my oxen."

"I just have the one wagon, too."

"Makes a big load all right," Evans answered, remembering how Byrd's light and flimsy second wagon had gone to pieces on the Green.

"And I'm not much of a teamster." Byrd spoke as if he'd like to think there were other things he was pretty much of. "Don't take a teamster. Just takes a setter."

"Still-"

"Whyn't you wait until we try her out?"

"I'd like for the children to go in your wagons," Byrd said simply.

There it was again, Evans thought, the womanish faith in him, the clinging confidence that made him feel half sheepish but somehow answerable. "Bring 'em up if you're bound to," he said.

There were nine Byrd children, not counting the one unborn. Byrd herded them up. The oldest in the bunch was Jeff, who was maybe twelve and fair and open-faced like his father. He climbed into Brownie's wagon and took the toddler that Byrd lifted up. Three others climbed in after him. The rest would wait for Becky's wagon.

"Ready," Evans said.

"Here we go, hoss," Summers said to Brownie. He kicked his horse and reined around. Brownie hollered at the team.

The oxen took to the water slowly, staring out across it as if to calculate their chances. Already the current was bucking against d.i.c.k's horse.

Here was the deepest part, from sh.o.r.e to nearer island, the deepest but not the swiftest or the riskiest. The water climbed List, up the legs of the leaders, to their bellies, up their bellies, streaming around the little dams that their bodies made. Evans wrenched his horse close, so as to be able to use the poke.

The lead yoke sank into a hole and lined out, swimming, giving to the current, their chins flattened on the surface. Evans punched at them, shouting, "Gee! Gee!" above the washing of the water. He felt the cold climb up his legs and felt his horse change gait, from jolt to fluid action, and knew that it was swimming. He held it short-reined, angled against the stream, while he worked the goad. Across the swimming backs he saw Hig's rope tighten like a fiddle string.

The leaders caught a foothold and staggered on and drew the next yoke over, and Evans looked behind him and saw the wagon lurching and Brownie grinning wide and Mercy holding the Byrd baby like the mother of it.

The island neared. In the wide and busy water it was as if the island swam to them. The oxen pulled up on it and drew the wagon after.

"How's that?" Evans yelled to Brownie while the team held up to blow.

The answer had the tone of spirit in it. "Ought to be hitched to a duck."

"Watch them wheelers do their part."