Where Trails Run Out

By Anna Prince Redd

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Chapter 3

Synopsis: A company of twenty-four young men and two families — James L. Davis, his wife Mary, and their four children; Henry H. Harriman, his wife Elizabeth, and their five children — are called to explore a route from Cedar City, in Southern Utah, to San Juan County, Utah.

The two families are to remain in San Juan and, at a point where the Montezuma Creek comes into the San Juan River, are to establish an outpost and prepare for the coming of the main company of settlers, members of the San Juan Mission. The twenty-four scouts are to return to their homes and report their findings.

The purpose of the mission is to cultivate and maintain peaceful and friendly relations with the Indians, who are almost the sole occupants of the large isolated country. While driving her team at night, across a sultry, menacing desert, Elizabeth has a frightening experience with a strange, mysteriously inexplicable Indian.

Elizabeth is told to say nothing of her experience. She complies, but has the feeling that she will see the Indian again and that he will know if she needs help. The company goes on toward the Colorado River. At Lee’s Hogback there is an accident to one of the wagons, which careens from the ridge, and its two drivers and their goods go rolling down the steep ledge.

“Hold the line! Keep moving!” Silas Smith shouted. “George, keep ’em on the move or we’ll all go over!”

“No one is hurt!” George cried. “The men are already cutting the teams free of their harnesses. Don’t look down! Keep moving, straight to the top!”

“Every man to the front who is not driving a team,” Silas ordered. “Hold the wagons on the trail by hand! We can’t lose another outfit!”

Alternately urging and commanding, the two leaders succeeded in holding the line till the last wagon reached the top of the spiked divide. There, five men were detailed to help get the broken wagon and the crippled teams back up the sliding ledge. The other men had held the wagons to the road by sheer force of numbers and determination. And then it was over. The ridge flattened out, its sides plumed up and slid away into the desert. The mammoth hog had reclined, needing no shade and no water for its rest.

Once over the hogback, Elizabeth and Mary climbed wearily from their wagons and lifted their younger children down beside them.

“Lee’s Hogback!” Mary exclaimed, and stood staring back at it.

“Let it lie!” Elizabeth said curtly. “We have work to do! The children are clamoring for food, and the whole camp needs rest and water.”

“Water!” Mary exclaimed, “I’d give a bucket of gold for a drop of it!”

“George says we can only stop an hour, Mary. The sun is getting low and we have miles to go before we ‘night camp’ at Bitter Springs.” Elizabeth was systematically arranging utensils and food for a quick meal for the men, and as she talked she worked rapidly.

Mary spoke uneasily, “Oh, Elizabeth, what if there shouldn’t be any water when we get to Bitter Springs.”

Elizabeth paused in her work to look at Mary. “Why, we’d just die, I guess,” she said. “But the Lord has seen us over that place,” she flung a defiant glance back at the hogback, “and my opinion is that he’ll keep on lookin’ after us. This is a mission. You remember in the Book of Mormon when Nephi and his brothers Laman, Lemuel, and Sam were sent back to Jerusalem to get the records from King Laban, Nephi said: ‘I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them.’ ”

“That is good scripture,” Mary agreed, and added emphatically, “the main company had better read that passage. They’re going to need that kind of faith if they accomplish the thing they have been commanded to do.”

“Do you wish we could have stayed to come with the main company?” Elizabeth asked, not looking at her friend and almost ashamed of the implied weakness.

“Of course, I do,” Mary answered. “I don’t think the Lord will blame us, either. Someone has to go so it may as well be us. The men seem to tackle a job better if there are women along to fight for.”

Elizabeth said affectionately, “I wouldn’t worry so if you weren’t going to have a baby, Mary. You never have been strong.”

‘That worried me at first, too, Elizabeth. But I’m getting stronger every day.”

And so they talked, snatching moments between their cooking, looking after each other’s children, laughing at remembered things back home …

It was midnight before they reached Bitter Springs. The brackish water did little to relieve their thirst, but they drank it and went to bed, exhausted, on the hot sand.

Dawn comes early to the desert. The sun comes up, not leisurely as if it had rested well, but blazing wrathfully, discomfited by its bed of prickly-pears and sand. Tall cactus trees, brittle-looking as the rays of the sun, stretch their limbs and stand in resignation.

With their thirst but bitterly satisfied, the heat soon became intolerable to the weary train which had started traveling before daybreak. The children cried and tossed fitfully from side to side in their rocking wagons. Long before noon the cattle were bawling their discontent, lowing dismally to their scattered calves. The horses were white with caked lather, and sweat and sand rimmed the bloodshot eyes of the men. But in spite of it all, they made thirty miles that day only to find a dry camp that night.

The next morning there was the same sun, the same blistering wind, the same hot sand in their eyes. And they had to go another thirty miles, without water, for the next spring had been dry.

The cattle, tongues lolling and eyes bulging, refused to take another step and gave up beside the road, only struggling up and on again at the merciless prodding of the drovers, and then some of them falling dead a little farther along the way.

Up and down the sluggish line rode George Hobbs and Silas Smith.

“George, we’ve gone sixty miles without water,” Silas cried. “A fourth of our stock is dead, and the men and women are but little better. What are we going to do?”

“There’s nothing to do but hold on and keep moving!” George yelled at the line: “Only ten miles more, and we’ll roll in water! Keep moving! Keep moving!”

Stoical in the face of it, Elizabeth and Mary drove behind their men. Ten miles . . . nine . . . eight . . . and, at last, only one more mile. Water! Water! They prayed. The spring could not, must not be dry!

.

. ((In June 1948, about a year after this installment was published, the Goblet of Venus was toppled by vandals. The most common story is that some boys from Blanding with a Jeep and a chain pulled it down, but since the crime was never officially solved it is difficult to know how far to trust this story.))

The first men to reach Willow Spring sent up a shout and, almost before their own thirst was satisfied, they began to fill their barrels, buckets, pans, and cups to take back to the parched train in the rear. Some of the boys, laughing wryly, even filled their hats with the precious water and went staggering back to help their friends

An hour later, half dead, the company pulled up at the spring. Night, drenched with unexpected dew, cooled their veins and healed their eyes with sleep.

At the Indian village of Moenkopi President Smith was warned that his company would never be permitted to cross the Navajo Indian Reservation into San Juan. Hobbs, too, had been advised to turn back. They had met at a blacksmith’s shop to pool their views.

“They say it can’t be done, Silas,” George drawled, whittling away at a stick.

“Never mind what they say! What do you say?” Silas questioned hotly.

“I say it can,” Hobbs replied, settling himself cross-legged in the shade of a squawbush near the shop. “But, Silas, we’ve got ten teams to shoe yet. The confounded Indians are slow as sorghum in winter. We’ve paid ‘em in corn and shirts, now they want shoes and pants. They’ll keep us here all summer!”

“Well, give ‘em shoes and pants then, George.”

“Whose, besides mine?”

Silas’ eyes twinkled. “I used to wear buckskins,” he said. “And where we’re goin’ there’s not enough rain to worry about them shrinking.” Then, serious again, he ground a rock to bits beneath his heel. “Give ‘em any bloomin’ thing they want, only let’s get out of here!”

“I talked with John W. Young,” George reported. “He’s been here a good many months trying to build a woolen mill. So far he’s met nothing but opposition all the way. He says the Indians here are used to the whites, but, once we cross into San Juan, we’ll be in their territory and they’ll fight us every step of the way.”

“We knew that when we started out, George. And I can’t say that I blame the Indians. they haven’t forgotten the drubbing they got from Kit Carson and the Government. and, furthermore, it is still fresh in their minds that the whites have just killed four of their young men.”

“The white men who were responsible for that were not Latter-day Saints, Silas.”

That will make little difference to the Indians,” Silas answered. “With them, it’s still an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.”

“Well,” George drawled, “Brigham Young was famous for goin’ where folks said he couldn’t. I reckon he’d not like to hear a son of his say that a call of the Church can’t be fulfilled.

“Mr. Young spoke sincerely, George. He firmly believes that we’ll not get twenty miles inland from the river.”

“Have you talked with Brother Wilford Woodruff, Silas?”

“Yes. He came to my camp last night and brought some missionaries with him. They are to preach to the Indians and help us out.”

“Good! We’ll take them right up to old Chief Peogament and introduce them to him,” George said.

Silas smiled. “We can use the missionaries, all right. But what we need right now, George, is grain and wagon parts.”

George reminded him that there were no wagon parts, and precious little grain in Moenkopi. “But there is wool,” he added. “Could we use any of that?”

“Wool makes good pads for horses’ sore shoulders, George. Take that and anything else you can get around here.”

Silas sat down beside George in the scant shade of a squawbush. “I’m worried, George,” he admitted. “There are plenty of white trappers and traders who would stir up trouble around here, even if the Indians were inclined to be peaceable.”

George poked a deep hole in the sand with his forefinger. He picked a centipede off his sleeve and dropped it into the hole. “Yep. they’re as poison as that critter I just buried,” he declared, tamping the sand into the hole with angry jabs.

They were silent for a minute and then George continued, “I’ve been thinking about Mrs. Davis, Silas.”

“We’d better leave the Davises here, George,” Silas replied.

“And leave Mrs. Harriman to take care of Mrs. Davis?”

“No. We have to have one woman along to help keep the hotheads in check. They are itchin’ to start shootin’ as it is.”

“I guess you’re right, Silas, but it will be hard on the woman. I’ll see that the Davises are taken care of here. and we’d better leave the stock here, too. We’ll have enough to do to look after our own hides.”

“That’s the size of it,” Silas greed. “The sooner we hit the trail the better, too. The hardships of travel road building, and well digging will help to keep dissatisfaction down.”

The two men rose and shook hands, then each went his own particular way, George to get the outfits in shape for the rough roads ahead, and Silas to procure funds and food for his men.

* * *

To a woman there is no greater loneliness than being alone with a crowd of men, even when a husband and brothers are along. Women afford each other kinship that the company of men does not supply. Elizabeth helped Mary get settled in the large tent that the men had put up, and everything she did showed her solicitude. she made beds, cooked, and sewed, and left a blessing with each one of the homely tasks. Tears often welled in Mary’s eyes as she lay on her bed and watched Elizabeth’s def hands.

“I’ll miss you, Mary,” Elizabeth confessed. The last task was finished. There was nothing more to do but talk as casually as they could and pretend to have the courage expected of them.

Mary could not say goodbye to Elizabeth. “it’s not goodbye, it’s adios,” she said bravely. “I’ll be joining you soon. James says it will only be a few weeks.”

Elizabeth agreed, smiling for Mary’s benefit. But she had a disquieting sense that things would never be the same with them again. Once they reached their destination, each one would settle on her own land and their houses might be miles apart. She would see Mary again, that was practically sure, but it would be different. They would never be as close to each other in the new settlement as they had been while traveling to get there. But whatever came, she promised herself, she would always love Mary and pray that their two lives might go on together.

* * *

For two uneventful days the company drove over drab desert sand, making ten miles each day. Nothing unusual happened; then, suddenly fear was all around them. It was nothing they could see or hear or touch, yet it was there. It followed the train in shadow by day and staked it by night. this was a country of such vast silences that the small noises of the wheels as they churned the sand, were distracting. The creak of leather and chain was cymballed against the towering cliffs, as the wagons were catapulted from table land to canyon bottom, adding to the fear and the mystery of the unknown.

“We are surrounded, Silas,” George Hobbs said trimly, riding beside Silas, his eyes straight ahead. “They have been gathering for days. Ever since the first three miles out.”

“Indians?” Silas asked, showing no surprise. “I guess that’s what I’ve been smelling. Our own campfire smells could hardly carry that strong.”

They rode in silence again, keeping close watch on all sides.

Presently Silas spoke. “Where do you suppose those four scouts we sent out are keeping themselves? I should have had a repot of this gathering. if there is an ambush –”

“There won’t be,” George interrupted. “Chief Peogament hasn’t joined his tribes yet. He knows what the water layout is, and he figures the rain gods will take care of us and save him the trouble. His hordes are following us to pick our bones.”

An hour later the train climbed out of the canyon and came to a sudden halt. Not more than fifty feet from the mouth of the canyon a forest of greasewood blocked their way. Miles wide, dense as fog, guarded, and as twisted and tangled as the tentacles of an octopus, it confronted the astonished company.

“I calculate that Peogament’s got more on his side than his rain gods,” Silas decided, stopping dead in his tracks. “I reckon we’re here for some time. We had better start digging a well.”

George’s eyes were glued to the thicket. He sat his horse erect and watchful. “It doesn’t look promising,” he agreed curtly.

“There is double meaning in your words, George. What do you see?”

“A thicket,” George answered. “What do you see?”

“A thicket,” Silas replied, nettled out of his usual good-natured drawl. “A very deep thicket!”

The company pulled up beside its leaders, staring incredulously at the forest.

“Whatever that forest holds is its own secret now,” Silas said, looking at George for enlightenment. But he got no response. “Make camp!” he shouted. “And pull in close together. Guards out!”

Elizabeth covered her face with her hands.

“I’m glad you are not here, Mary,” she whispered to the great str4etches of broken country that lay between her present dark camp and the warmth and security of Mary’s tent. “I’m glad you are not here, waiting for what the night, or the dawn, or tomorrow’s dawn may bring!”

(To be continued)