One old man in the corner [Francis Webster] sat silent and listened as long as he could stand it, then he arose and said things that no person who heard him will ever forget. His face was white with emotion, yet he spoke calmly, deliberately, but with great earnestness and sincerity.
He said in substance, “I ask you to stop this criticism. You are discussing a matter you know nothing about. Cold historic facts mean nothing here, for they give no proper interpretation of the questions involved. Mistake to send the Handcart Company out so late in the season? Yes! But I was in that company and my wife was in it. . . . We suffered beyond anything you can imagine and many died of exposure and starvation. . . . Every one of us came through with the absolute knowledge that God lives for we became acquainted with Him in our extremities!
“I have pulled my handcart when I was so weak and weary from illness and lack of food that I could hardly put one foot ahead of the other. I have looked ahead and seen a patch of sand or a hill slope and I have said, I can go only that far and there I must give up for I cannot pull the load through it. I have gone to that sand and when I reached it, the cart began pushing me! I have looked back many times to see who was pushing my cart, but my eyes saw no one. I knew then that the Angels of God were there.
“Was I sorry that I chose to come by handcart? No! Neither then nor any minute of my life since. The price we paid to become acquainted with God was a privilege to pay and I am thankful that I was privileged to come in the Martin Handcart Company.” (In Remember, p. 139)
Chapter 26
Rocky Ridge to Rock Creek
I
Thursday, 23 October 1856
“Hey!”
Eric’s head came up and he looked around. The wind was whistling around him, and for a moment he thought it was nothing more than its moaning cry. It was about two o’clock in the afternoon. They had been on the trail now for about seven hours, with no food and only handfuls of snow for water. He was light-headed and for a moment wondered if he was hallucinating. His eyes focused on the carts in front of them. Once they had conquered Rocky Ridge, the ground leveled out in a great plateau. Surprisingly rejuvenated by the miraculous help they had received, they had made better time and just half an hour before had overtaken a group of four other carts. Sister James had hoped that Emma and Sarah would be among them, but they were not. It was amazing. Those two girls were making remarkable time.
“Eric! Stop!”
It was Robbie’s voice. Shaking off the lethargy, Eric stopped the cart and looked around. Jane James and her children were just behind the cart, but Robbie wasn’t with them.
“Oh, no!” Mary McKensie was looking back too, but to the other side of the trail. Her face was suddenly twisted with horror.
Eric swung around and nearly dropped the crossbar. In back of the cart about fifty feet, Maggie was sitting in the snow. Robbie was standing in front of her, bent over, shaking her shoulders. “Eric!” It was a cry of great distress.
Instantly he was out of the cart and running awkwardly back down the road, with Mary McKensie and Jane James right behind him. Robbie saw them coming and stepped back. Eric slid to a halt in front of Maggie and dropped to his knees. “Maggie! What’s the matter?”
Her head came up slowly. Her eyes were glazed and she seemed barely to recognize him. Her lips moved but no words came out. After a moment, her eyes drooped shut and her head flopped heavily down against her chest.
“What’s wrong?” Robbie cried.
Eric took Maggie by the shoulders and shook her gently. “Maggie!”
This time her head snapped up. She looked around, a sudden wildness in her eyes.
Mary McKensie was down beside Eric now. She grabbed Maggie’s hands and began to rub them vigorously. “Maggie! Wake up! Look at us.”
“Tired,” she mumbled.
Taking her chin between his fingers, Eric pinched firmly. “Maggie! It’s Eric. Look at me.”
She pulled away, averting his face. “Go away. Want to sleep.”
“It’s the cold,” Sister James exclaimed. “We’ve got to get her up and moving.”
Eric had decided exactly the same thing. Norway was filled with stories of people who had been out in the cold and let their core body temperature drop to perilous levels. He jumped up, stepped around behind Maggie, and dragged her to her feet. She sagged against him. “Maggie! You’re cold. You’ve got to move around.”
“Not cold. Finally warm.” She tried to pull away but was so weak she barely moved Eric’s hands. “Leave me be.”
He shook her again, more roughly now. To his astonishment, she was instantly strong again. She whirled on him, her eyes blazing. “Go away!” She straightened, standing clear of him now. “Leave me alone.”
“No. You’ve got to walk, Maggie. Please. You can’t stop.”
She backed away, her hands up to ward him off. “Can’t go on. Go away.” She sank back down to the snow, and curled up in a ball. “So tired.”
“Please, Maggie, please!” Robbie was sobbing now.
Eric bent down and grabbed her hands. He jerked her up roughly, making her stand again. She erupted with a terrible fury, swinging wildly at him. “Leave me alone!”
He sidestepped it but didn’t move otherwise. She came at him, her fingers like claws, aiming at his face. Instead of backing away, he moved forward and slapped her sharply across the face. Her eyes flew open and she cried out in pain.
Behind him, Eric heard Maggie’s mother gasp. Jane James uttered a low cry.
For a moment, Maggie gaped at him. He slapped her again, harder this time. In an instant there was an angry red mark on her cheek showing the outline of his four fingers. Recognition came back to her eyes. “I hate you!” she burst out.
“Do you, Maggie?” he taunted.
She lunged at him. He jumped back, then laughed in her face. “Try it again.”
With a scream she ran at him, lumbering awkwardly in the snow. He jumped backward, motioning with his fingers for her to come at him. “Come on, Maggie. You are very slow.”
Screaming, she came for him. He danced backwards, staying off the trail, making her plow through the deep snow. After two or three minutes of that, she came to a stop, like a deer run to ground by the cougar. She bent over, hands on her legs, breathing in great gulps of air. He stopped, watching her warily. She was staring at the ground, her eyes wide, her nostrils flaring in and out.
And then gradually her face began to change. The tension around her mouth dissolved. Her eyes became rational again. Finally, she turned and looked at him. There were tears in her eyes now. He took a tentative step forward. “Maggie?”
She nodded, her lower lip trembling.
“I’m sorry.”
There was a strangled sob of release and she fell forward into his arms.
She clung to him fiercely as he stroked her hair, kissed her cheeks, touched her face. Finally, he pulled back, looking deeply into her eyes. “You are not going to die on me, Maggie McKensie. Do you hear me? I will not let you.”
•••
Olaf and the Nielsons reached the top of Rocky Ridge about noon and collapsed in silent heaps on the snow-swept landscape. Olaf lay back in the snow, not caring that the wind whipped snow across his face like a file on a piece of metal. He wasn’t moving any longer and that was all that mattered.
He heard a whimpering sound and looked up. Young Jens Nielson, scarf tied across the lower half of his face, was standing beside him, his arms drooping and his head slumped against his chest. “I’m cold, Olaf.”
Olaf sat up immediately and opened his arms. “Come here.”
The boy turned and backed into Olaf’s lap. Olaf untied the scarf and let it drop, then pulled him close, feeling him shivering through his clothing. On the other side of the cart, Elsie Nielson was talking to Bodil Mortensen, trying to get her to respond. Bodil was staring at nothing, swaying back and forth like a dried reed in the wind.
“Where’s Papa?” Jens asked.
&
nbsp; Olaf scooted around so that they were facing down the trail. The last fifty or so feet of the trail was filled with jagged spines of rocks, six to eight inches high, which marched away from them in long, parallel lines. Below, just at the base of the last long incline, a solitary figure hobbled slowly towards them.
“Is that Papa?”
“Yes. He’s hurt his foot somehow. But he’s coming.”
They watched together as Jens, Sr., made his way up the final hundred yards of Rocky Ridge. As he reached them and saw Olaf with his son, he nodded. “Thank you for pulling the cart up with Elsie, Olaf. Let me rest and then I shall take my turn again.”
“You rest and then we shall see.” Olaf’s eyes dropped a little. “Is your foot all right?”
There was a slow shake of his head. “It is not good.”
“Did you cut it, Papa?” little Jens asked anxiously.
His father came over and dropped to the ground beside them. “No, my son. It is just the cold.”
That caused Olaf to start. He had noticed Jens limping heavily about an hour before. He thought the Dane had maybe slipped on the uneven ground and twisted his ankle, or perhaps had bumped against one of the sharp rock edges that were so prevalent along the trail here. Now he saw that Jens’s boots were coming apart. The entire toe of the left boot had popped open. The right one had a ragged hole on one side and the sole was flapping loosely. The boots were soaked, and Olaf thought he saw a patch of bright red on one of the stockings.
His eyes widened, but Jens, watching him, shook his head quickly. “I do not want to worry Elsie,” he whispered. “I just need to rest.”
Olaf felt terrible. He had received a new pair of boots from the rescue wagons. His feet had been terribly cold all day, but the boot soles were thick and protected him from the rough, uneven road. Jens had not gotten any replacement boots because none were large enough to fit him. He had been given a new pair of woolen socks, but that was all.
Jens turned and gazed back the way he had just come. From here they could see a full half mile of the trail. A group of carts was coming around the side of the hill where the trail disappeared again. In a moment two wagons also appeared. It was John Chislett’s rear contingent and the company’s supply wagons.
Little Jens shivered involuntarily and Olaf pulled the boy in closer to him. He looked at the sky. It was still the color of lead, but thankfully only a few snowflakes were coming down, no different than it had been all morning. If it had been a blizzard . . . Then Olaf laughed mockingly at himself. Maybe there wasn’t a lot of snow coming down from the sky, but it had been a blizzard all the way up. There had been a dozen or more places where the wind was blowing so hard that visibility had dropped to the point that they could barely see the cart in front of them.
He turned and looked to the south. From here atop Rocky Ridge he could see they had reached an enormous plateau, flat as a board for several miles. That would make the pulling easier. On the other hand, there would be no shelter here from the merciless wind.
Elsie came around, pulling Bodil along beside her. There was some color now again in Bodil’s face and she was talking softly to Elsie. Elsie looked down the trail and saw the carts and wagons. “Are we going to wait here for Brother Chislett and the others?” she asked hopefully.
Jens shook his head. “He’s still half an hour away, as slow as they’re coming. We’ve got to move on.”
“Will you carry me, Papa?” the boy said from Olaf’s lap.
Jens turned to his son, and then Olaf saw him recoil in horror. He recovered quickly and held out his arms. “Come here, son.”
Young Jens stood up and went over to his father, turning to sit in his lap as he had done with Olaf. Then it was Olaf who gasped. The white spots on the boy’s face looked like they had been pasted on. There was one on his chin, just to the left of center, two high on his cheekbones, and one at the tip of his nose.
“Elsie?” Jens called softly. “You’d better come look.”
•••
When they stood up to go ten minutes later, they had been able to bring back a little color to the frostbitten areas. As Elsie looked on, weeping quietly, Jens took his son’s face in his hands and held his cheeks in his palms. At first the boy liked it; then as the spots began to thaw he started to cry. It was a sound that wrenched Olaf’s heart like nothing he had ever heard before.
Finally the senior Jens took his hands away. He gently wrapped the scarf back around his son’s face, then turned to his wife. “Elsie. We have to go.”
She nodded. The other carts they had been with had moved out five minutes before. “I know.”
“We’ve still got ten or eleven miles to go. If it gets dark . . .” He looked away.
“I don’t want to get back on the cart, Papa,” Jens wailed. “It’s so cold up there.”
Jens bent down and took his boy by the shoulders. “Jens, Papa can’t carry you. I wish I could, but Papa’s feet are not good.”
“I’ll carry him.”
Jens jerked around. “But—”
Olaf ignored the look. “He’ll be warmer on my back.” He looked to Elsie. “It would mean you and Jens would have to pull the cart alone.”
“Let me try him just for a while,” Jens said.
Olaf shook his head. Elsie was shaking hers as well. “You can’t, Jens, and you know it. I can pull the cart.”
“I could try to carry him for a little while,” Bodil said.
Olaf thought his heart would break as he looked into the face of this nine-year-old little woman. “Thank you, Bodil. You are as good to Jens as any sister ever could be. But I am going to do it.”
Jens, Sr., stood there, his brow furrowed and his mouth tight. Finally he looked at Elsie. “I can pull if you can push.”
She started to shake her head.
“I can pull if you can push,” he said again.
Their eyes locked and after several seconds she finally nodded. “All right.”
“Come on, Jens,” Olaf said, squatting down. “Climb up on my back. Olaf will keep you warm.”
•••
Maggie walked along beside the cart, holding onto the shaft next to where Eric stood. She didn’t lean on the cart for support, but she found it strangely comforting to keep hold of it, as if she might lose her way otherwise. And it was important to her to be close to Eric. She realized with a deepening sense of awe and gratitude that he had saved her life this afternoon. And now, though the tiredness was more complete, more utterly total than anything she could have imagined, she walked with a determination that was as deep and as absolute as her exhaustion. She was going to live. She had to. Wondering what she could do that would ever repay Eric for the gift he had given her, it had come with sudden, perfect clarity. It was so simple. He had saved her life. Now she would give it back to him, for the rest of their time on earth and for all of eternity. She hadn’t told him that yet. Perhaps tonight when they finally reached camp.
Then her eyes caught sight of a change in the landscape. They were coming around the bend of a hill and dropping down into a low, narrow valley. It was lined with trees, stripped bare for the winter. “Is that the Sweetwater?” she cried in sudden excitement. “Or Rock Creek?” She had heard Brother Kimball telling some of the emigrants that Rock Creek Camp was near where the stream emptied into the Sweetwater River.
“No, Maggie,” Eric said.
Her countenance fell. “Oh.”
“I think it’s Strawberry Creek. But that means we’re only three or four miles from camp now.” He glanced up at the sky. The snow had all but stopped, and the gray cloud cover seemed a little higher and thinner. He guessed that it was about four o’clock. If he was right, they should make camp before dark, a prospect that cheered him immensely.
Jane James was in the shafts with Eric at the moment, with Mary McKensie pushing. Robbie plodded alongside with Mary Ann and Martha James. George, who was seven, and little John, who was four, were wrapped up in a quilt atop the cart
and seemed to be asleep. Eric looked at Robbie closely. He hadn’t spoken at all for over an hour, an alarming sign in light of his usual enthusiasm and optimism. But he seemed to be all right, just completely worn out.
Suddenly Jane James let out a low cry. “Look, Eric! There’s a handcart.” She was pointing at where the trail intersected the trees. And, sure enough, there was a single handcart waiting there. Two figures were standing beside the cart. Whether it was Jane’s cry or the sound of the wheels on the rocky trail that turned them around wasn’t clear, but they did turn. As they did so and were silhouetted against the snow, Eric was surprised to see that both wore dresses. Two women alone?
Suddenly one woman began to jump up and down in great excitement. They heard a cry, but the wind whipped it away. Then it came again. “Mama! Mama!”
Jane’s hand flew to her mouth and there was a cry of exultation. “It’s Sarah and Emma! Thanks be to God. We’ve found my daughters.”
•••
Sarah and Emma had made excellent time. Even though there was only the two of them and they had the more heavily laden cart, they were both still in good health and they were young. But Strawberry Creek had stopped them. They weren’t with anyone else. The wagons had earlier broken through the ice, but it had frozen over again with a thin skin that showed the water flowing beneath it. It was fifteen to eighteen inches deep and looked terribly cold. So they decided it was finally time to stop and wait for their mother.
As mother and daughters talked quietly, Eric walked down to the creek and examined the ford. The stream was twenty or thirty feet across. He walked back to the two families. “How many pairs of dry shoes do we have?”
Sarah and Emma raised their hands, as did their mother, but Jane said that she didn’t have a change of shoes for the younger children. Neither did Sister McKensie and Robbie. Eric turned to Maggie. She shook her head slowly, shrinking back at the sight of the water.
He smiled thinly. “I didn’t think so.” In one smooth motion he swept her up in his arms and started for the creek.