October skies

CHAPTER 18

30 September, 1856

It seems Keats was right. We should have left that crippled wagon behind and moved with greater haste.

Now with the morning I can see what sort of a predicament we are in. To my inexperienced eye, this doesn’t look like snow that will melt away under a few hours of sunshine.

Ben looked up from his journal and out through the open canvas flap. The pale morning sun was a pitifully weak glowing disc in the white sky. The forest surrounding the clearing was uniformly white, the tall Douglas firs and spruces each bearing their own thick burden of snow. Against many of the wagons thick powdery drifts had piled up, almost completely burying their wheels.

Last night, as the snow came down in gusting diagonal streaks — enormous flakes the size of a child’s fist — Ben had hurriedly tried to improvise a bivouac. It was too dark to hack branches from the trees around the clearing. The best he could manage was to roll himself up snugly in his poncho, inside his bedroll and canvas tarp, moisture-sealed with linseed oil, and shelter beneath the trap of Mr McIntyre’s conestoga, whilst his two ponies shivered together out in the open. But McIntyre wouldn’t have it when he heard Ben shuffling around beneath their cart and insisted he come in with them for the night.

The otherwise uncomfortable squirming of fidgeting children was pleasantly comforting and, more importantly, warm. The McIntyres were kind to have offered him a space, but with three children in the back of the wagon, the arrangement could only be for the one night.

There was a stirring in the wagon and a chorus of croaky ‘good mornings’ exchanged, amidst plumes of condensation. Outside, Ben could see there was already a flurry of activity. Keats was already up and taking note of the downfall. His flinty old face, normally frozen into its one and only expression of tired sufferance, was now drawn into a stretched scowl of concern. Ben watched him talking quietly with Broken Wing, both looking up repeatedly at the featureless white sky. Other people were rising, emerging from their wagons, pushing cascades of snow off their laden canopies, dropping out of the back into knee-deep drifts and yelping with surprise.

Keats nodded firmly, the discussion with Broken Wing concluded and a decision made. ‘Goddamned snow’s here now!’ he bellowed angrily. His voice echoed back off the trees a moment later. ‘There’ll be no going anywhere now!’ He stamped snow off his boots and deerskin britches. ‘Damn it!’

Ben put away his writing things.

‘C’mon! Everyone up! We’ve got work to do!’ Keats was barking out orders to everyone, his people and Preston’s, to get up, to get to work.

‘That’s it! C’mon! Everybody up! Your wagons ain’t wagons no more. They gotta be turned into winter shelters!’

Ben thanked Mr and Mrs McIntyre for taking him in last night. Considering how deep the snow was, he realised he would have had to dig himself out — if he hadn’t frozen to death in his sleep. McIntyre was already sorting through his tools. Mrs McIntyre flashed him a smile. ‘Well now, we’re all in this together, Mr Lambert, aren’t we?’

‘Everyone up! C’mon! There’s work to do! Plenty of it!’ Keats’s voice echoed around the clearing. ‘Get up and grab your tools!’

Ben disentangled himself from the splayed limbs of the still-sleeping children and climbed out through the canvas opening, shuddering as a blast of freezing air enveloped him — a contrast to the warm fug of body heat built up in the McIntyres’ wagon overnight.

He dropped off the trap, knee-deep into the snow, and found himself wincing at the bright, upward-reflected glare all around him. Looking around, he hadn’t realised how big the clearing was. Last night, the wagons had limped into this place after dark, with snow reducing visibility to just a few dozen yards. There had appeared to be space enough to spread out off the track and corral the oxen together, and so they had, expecting that with first light, they would hitch up again and be moving on.

Ben watched as men obediently stirred from every wagon — Preston’s people as well as Keats’s — each brandishing a saw or an axe. They waded through the snow towards Keats. He saw the tall, slender frame of Preston amongst them, almost a head taller than most of the stocky men of his church.

‘Gentlemen, join us here in the centre!’ Preston’s voice boomed across the clearing. ‘With your tools, if you please!’

Ben made his way towards Keats. Broken Wing stood silently beside him, his head covered with a red woollen cap.

‘Good morning,’ said Ben.

‘What’s good about it?’ spat Keats angrily.

Men gathered about him. Preston pushed his way through them. ‘Mr Keats, it appears then that the weather has let us down.’

‘You could say that,’ the old guide replied dryly.

‘Will this lot melt, do you think?’

Keats shook his head. ‘Nope. This ain’t a warning of winter… this is it for real. It just arrived last night, and ain’t goin’ nowhere till spring.’

‘Could we not at least try for your pass?’ asked Preston.

‘Too goddamn steep. You want the ground clear, dry an’ hard. An’ sure as hell it ain’t any of those right now.’

‘So you’re saying we’re stuck here?’

‘Unless we leave here on foot.’

Preston shook his head. ‘No… no, that would be impossible. These wagons contain all my people have. Everything. ’

Keats nodded. ‘They’d lose it all, that’s for sure. Anyway, you’d be a fool tryin’ to make it out on foot through the winter. Not even Indians an’ trappers’ll do that if they can help.’ Keats nodded to the people emerging from their wagons. ‘An’ you got women and little ’uns to worry ’bout.’

Preston nodded contritely. Ben sensed there was an unspoken apology in the subtle tip of his head. ‘You are a man I presume who has experienced a winter in the wilderness.’

Keats snorted sarcastically. ‘Reckon a few.’

‘Then I shall bow to your greater experience. What are we to do?’

The old man sucked a lungful of chilled air in through his bulbous, pockmarked nose. Ben suspected that deep down, the guide was probably savouring a moment of schadenfreude at Preston’s expense.

‘Well, if we’d left that lame wagon, we’d have made it through. But I reckon winter’s here now. So… best we can do, Preston, is think about turnin’ this space in the woods into a winterin’ camp. That means you gotta turn those wagons of yours into shelters.’

There was a ripple of consternation amongst the men nearby.

‘Yeah, that’s right. You’re gonna break ’em up for lumber that you can use to build-’

‘I can’t do that!’ called out one of the Mormon men. ‘My wagon cost me the best part of fifty dollars!’

Other voices murmured in agreement.

‘Should we not just wait for this snow to clear?’ asked another.

Keats shook his head. ‘Like I already said, this ain’t clearing till March.’

‘Would the wagons not be shelter enough?’

Keats looked at Broken Wing and repeated something in an Indian tongue. The Indian snorted with dry amusement.

‘Gonna get a lot colder than last night. You gonna have to build yourselves proper winter-overs.’

Several more voices amongst the gathered men — now numbering about forty — were raised in concern. Ben noticed none of them, neither Preston’s men nor Keats’s party, were happy with the idea of admitting defeat so readily.

‘Quiet there!’ barked Preston.

There was silence.

‘Mr Keats knows better than anyone here what winter in these mountains will bring.’ Preston looked around at the men. ‘We shall take his very good advice, and be thankful to God that he sent this man along with us.’

Preston turned back to Keats. ‘Not a one of us has had to build a winter shelter in haste from a wagon. How do you suggest we proceed?’

‘You gotta build yourself a sturdy frame from the lumber, to start,’ Keats replied without a beat. ‘Gotta be a good goddamn frame too; there’s plenty of snow gonna drift up, and that weighs some.’ He pointed to the nearest conestoga. ‘Good solid planks there along the length of the trap will do fine. The canvas goes over the frame, then you gotta cut yourself as much pine as you can for warmth — pile it on top of the canvas, thick as you can. The snow that’ll gather on top of that will keep you warmer still.’

Preston nodded.

‘Frame’s gotta be strong, though,’ said Keats. ‘Gonna be your home for near on six months, I’d say.’