My father was the only one who had horses to his wagon. The wagons
went in single file, and as the train wound and curved I saw that
the other wagons were drawn by oxen. Three or four yoke of oxen
strained and pulled weakly at each wagon, and beside them, in the
deep sand, walked men with ox-goads, who prodded the unwilling
beasts along. On a curve I counted the wagons ahead and behind. I
knew that there were forty of them, including our own; for often I
had counted them before. And as I counted them now, as a child will
to while away tedium, they were all there, forty of them, all
canvas-topped, big and
massive, crudely fashioned, pitching and
lurching, grinding and jarring over sand and sage-brush and rock.
To right and left of us, scattered along the train, rode a dozen or
fifteen men and youths on horses. Across their pommels were long-
barrelled rifles. Whenever any of them drew near to our wagon I
could see that their faces, under the dust, were drawn and
anxiouslike my father's. And my father, like them, had a long-barrelled
rifle close to hand as he drove.
Also, to one side, limped a score or more of foot-sore, yoke-galled,
skeleton oxen, that ever paused to nip at the
occasional tufts of
withered grass, and that ever were prodded on by the tired-faced
youths who herded them. Sometimes one or another of these oxen
would pause and low, and such lowing seemed as
ominous as all else
about me.
Far, far away I have a memory of having lived, a smaller lad, by the
tree-lined banks of a
stream. And as the wagon jolts along, and I
sway on the seat with my father, I
continually return and dwell upon
that pleasant water flowing between the trees. I have a sense that
for an
interminable period I have lived in a wagon and travelled on,
ever on, with this present company.
But strongest of all upon me is what is strong upon all the company,
namely, a sense of drifting to doom. Our way was like a funeral
march. Never did a laugh arise. Never did I hear a happy tone of
voice. Neither peace nor ease marched with us. The faces of the
men and youths who outrode the train were grim, set,
hopeless. And
as we toiled through the lurid dust of
sunset often I scanned my
father's face in vain quest of some message of cheer. I will not
say that my father's face, in all its dusty haggardness, was
hopeless. It was dogged, and oh! so grim and
anxious, most
anxious.
A
thrill seemed to run along the train. My father's head went up.
So did mine. And our horses raised their weary heads, scented the
air with long-drawn snorts, and for the nonce pulled
willingly. The
horses of the outriders quickened their pace. And as for the herd
of scarecrow oxen, it broke into a forthright
gallop. It was almost
ludicrous. The poor brutes were so
clumsy in their
weakness and
haste. They were
galloping skeletons draped in mangy hide, and they
out-distanced the boys who herded them. But this was only for a
time. Then they fell back to a walk, a quick, eager, shambling,
sore-footed walk; and they no longer were lured aside by the dry
bunch-grass.
"What is it?" my mother asked from within the wagon.
"Water," was my father's reply. "It must be Nephi."
And my mother: "Thank God! And perhaps they will sell us food."
And into Nephi, through blood-red dust, with grind and grate and
jolt and jar, our great wagons rolled. A dozen scattered dwellings
or shanties
composed the place. The
landscape was much the same as
that through which we had passed. There were no trees, only scrub
growths and sandy bareness. But here were signs of tilled fields,
with here and there a fence. Also there was water. Down the
streamran no current. The bed, however, was damp, with now and again a
water-hole into which the loose oxen and the saddle-horses stamped
and plunged their muzzles to the eyes. Here, too, grew an
occasional small willow.
"That must be Bill Black's mill they told us about," my father said,
pointing out a building to my mother, whose
anxiousness had drawn
her to peer out over our shoulders.
An old man, with buckskin shirt and long, matted, sunburnt hair,
rode back to our wagon and talked with father. The signal was
given, and the head wagons of the train began to deploy in a
circle.
The ground
favoured the
evolution, and, from long practice, it was
accomplished without a hitch, so that when the forty wagons were
finally halted they formed a
circle. All was
bustle and orderly
confusion. Many women, all tired-faced and dusty like my mother,
emerged from the wagons. Also poured forth a very horde of
children. There must have been at least fifty children, and it
seemed I knew them all of long time; and there were at least two
score of women. These went about the preparations for cooking
supper.
While some of the men chopped sage-brush and we children carried it
to the fires that were kindling, other men unyoked the oxen and let
them stampede for water. Next the men, in big squads, moved the
wagons snugly into place. The tongue of each wagon was on the
inside of the
circle, and, front and rear, each wagon was in solid
contact with the next wagon before and behind. The great brakes
were locked fast; but, not content with this, the wheels of all the
wagons were connected with chains. This was nothing new to us
children. It was the trouble sign of a camp in
hostile country.
One wagon only was left out of the
circle, so as to form a gate to
the corral. Later on, as we knew, ere the camp slept, the animals
would be
driven inside, and the gate-wagon would be chained like the
others in place. In the
meanwhile, and for hours, the animals would
be herded by men and boys to what scant grass they could find.
While the camp-making went on my father, with several others of the
men, including the old man with the long, sunburnt hair, went away
on foot in the direction of the mill. I remember that all of us,
men, women, and even the children, paused to watch them depart; and
it seemed their
errand was of grave import.
While they were away other men, strangers, inhabitants of desert
Nephi, came into camp and stalked about. They were white men, like
us, but they were hard-faced, stern-faced, sombre, and they seemed
angry with all our company. Bad feeling was in the air, and they
said things calculated to rouse the tempers of our men. But the
warning went out from the women, and was passed on everywhere to our
men and youths, that there must be no words.
One of the strangers came to our fire, where my mother was alone,
cooking. I had just come up with an armful of sage-brush, and I
stopped to listen and to stare at the
intruder, whom I hated,
because it was in the air to hate, because I knew that every last
person in our company hated these strangers who were white-skinned
like us and because of whom we had been compelled to make our camp
in a
circle.
This stranger at our fire had blue eyes, hard and cold and piercing.
His hair was sandy. His face was shaven to the chin, and from under
the chin, covering the neck and extending to the ears, sprouted a
sandy
fringe of whiskers well-streaked with gray. Mother did not
greet him, nor did he greet her. He stood and glowered at her for
some time, he cleared his
throat and said with a sneer:
"Wisht you was back in Missouri right now I bet."
I saw mother
tighten her lips in
self-control ere she answered:
"We are from Arkansas."
"I guess you got good reasons to deny where you come from," he next
said, "you that drove the Lord's people from Missouri."
Mother made no reply.
". . . Seein'," he went on, after the pause accorded her, "as you're
now comin' a-whinin' an' a-beggin' bread at our hands that you
persecuted."
Whereupon, and
instantly, child that I was, I knew anger, the old,
red, intolerant wrath, ever unrestrainable and unsubduable.
"You lie!" I piped up. "We ain't Missourians. We ain't whinin'.
An' we ain't beggars. We got the money to buy."
"Shut up, Jesse!" my mother cried,
landing the back of her hand
stingingly on my mouth. And then, to the stranger, "Go away and let
the boy alone."
"I'll shoot you full of lead, you
damned Mormon!" I screamed and
sobbed at him, too quick for my mother this time, and dancing away
around the fire from the back-sweep of her hand.
As for the man himself, my conduct had not disturbed him in the
slightest. I was prepared for I knew not what
violent visitation
from this terrible stranger, and I watched him warily while he
considered me with the
utmost gravity.
At last he spoke, and he spoke
solemnly" target="_blank" title="ad.严肃地,庄严地">
solemnly, with
solemn shaking of the
head, as if delivering a judgment.
"Like fathers like sons," he said. "The young
generation is as bad
as the elder. The whole breed is unregenerate and
damned. There is
no saving it, the young or the old. There is no atonement. Not
even the blood of Christ can wipe out its iniquities."
"Damned Mormon!" was all I could sob at him. "Damned Mormon!
Damned Mormon! Damned Mormon!"
And I continued to damn him and to dance around the fire before my
mother's avenging hand, until he
strode away.
When my father, and the men who had accompanied him, returned, camp-
work ceased, while all
crowdedanxiously about him. He shook his
head.
"They will not sell?" some woman demanded.
Again he shook his head.
A man spoke up, a blue-eyed, blond-whiskered giant of thirty, who
abruptly pressed his way into the centre of the crowd.
"They say they have flour and provisions for three years, Captain,"
he said. "They have always sold to the
immigration before. And now
they won't sell. And it ain't our quarrel. Their quarrel's with
the government, an' they're takin' it out on us. It ain't right,
Captain. It ain't right, I say, us with our women an' children, an'
California months away, winter comin' on, an' nothin' but desert in
between. We ain't got the grub to face the desert."
He broke off for a moment to address the whole crowd.
"Why, you-all don't know what desert is. This around here ain't
desert. I tell you it's
paradise, and
heavenlypasture, an' flowin'
with milk an' honey
alongside what we're goin' to face."
"I tell you, Captain, we got to get flour first. If they won't sell
it, then we must just up an' take it."
Many of the men and women began crying out in
approval, but my
father hushed them by
holding up his hand.
"I agree with everything you say, Hamilton," he began.
But the cries now drowned his voice, and he again held up his hand.
"Except one thing you forgot to take into
account, Hamilton--a thing
that you and all of us must take into
account. Brigham Young has
declared
martial law, and Brigham Young has an army. We could wipe
out Nephi in the shake of a lamb's tail and take all the provisions
we can carry. But we wouldn't carry them very far. Brigham's
Saints would be down upon us and we would be wiped out in another
shake of a lamb's tail. You know it. I know it. We all know it."
His words carried
conviction to listeners already convinced. What
he had told them was old news. They had merely forgotten it in a
flurry of
excitement and
desperate need.
"Nobody will fight quicker for what is right than I will," father
continued. "But it just happens we can't afford to fight now. If
ever a ruction starts we haven't a chance. And we've all got our
women and children to
recollect. We've got to be
peaceable at any
price, and put up with
whatever dirt is heaped on us."
"But what will we do with the desert coming?" cried a woman who
nursed a babe at her breast.
"There's several settlements before we come to the desert," father
answered. "Fillmore's sixty miles south. Then comes Corn Creek.
And Beaver's another fifty miles. Next is Parowan. Then it's
twenty miles to Cedar City. The farther we get away from Salt Lake
the more likely they'll sell us provisions."
"And if they won't?" the same woman persisted.
"Then we're quit of them," said my father. "Cedar City is the last
settlement. We'll have to go on, that's all, and thank our stars we
are quit of them. Two days' journey beyond is good
pasture, and
water. They call it Mountain Meadows. Nobody lives there, and
that's the place we'll rest our cattle and feed them up before we