Chapter 33: Reaching South Pass

 

Frost covered the ground when Jenny woke up. Mac said they were near the summit. After breakfast she wrote:

 

Monday, July 12th—Greasy bear meat for supper and again for breakfast. Something happened with Mr. Abercrombie on the hunt, but Mac won’t tell me what. Wood is scarce.

 

When the company got underway, she walked beside the wagon to stay warm. Rachel and the Pershing twins joined her.

“Where’s Esther?” Jenny asked.

Rachel shook her head. “Ain’t seen her today. Nor last night neither.”

“We’ll find her at noon,” Jenny said.

One of the twins limped, complaining of a cut on his bare foot.

“What happened to your shoes?” Rachel asked.

“Don’t fit no more,” the boy said. “Took ’em off.”

Rachel glared at him. “Where’d you leave ’em?”

He gestured behind them.

Rachel pulled him back toward their last camp. “Someone else can wear them, if you can’t.” They left Jenny to walk alone.

After another meal of bear meat at noon, Mac helped Jenny saddle Poulette. She couldn’t catch her breath in the thin mountain air. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I should be able to do this myself.”

Mac smiled and lifted her onto Poulette. “No reason for you to when I’m here.”

“How far to the pass?” she asked.

“A day. Maybe two.”

They climbed through the afternoon through monotonous terrain. Same dry soil and stark granite hills. Same sun beating down as they trudged higher in the mountains. Similar crossings of the Sweetwater as it twisted through the heights.

At day’s end they camped where the river joined another small creek. Esther stopped by while Jenny washed dishes.

“I can’t stay,” Esther said. “I just finished helping Ma with supper.”

“Can I do something for your mama?” Jenny asked.

Esther shook her head. “She’s settled now. Maybe tomorrow we can walk together. Mrs. Abercrombie says she don’t need me tomorrow. I told Rachel I’d take the children and let her stay with Ma.”

Jenny wrote before she went to bed:

 

July 12th, evening—One of the Pershing boys lost his shoes. I wonder if my child will cause me such trouble.

Tuesday morning Esther hurried over to where Jenny rode Poulette. A band of children—the Pershings, Otis Tanner, and others—frolicked along, the boys teasing the girls with sticks and insects.

“Do you want to ride?” Jenny asked Esther. “I’d walk, but it’s so hard to breathe in the mountains.”

“That’s what Ma says. I’ll ride a spell.”

Jenny guided Poulette next to a stone, and Esther climbed up behind. The little mare took the added weight without a sound.

“Ma don’t leave the wagon no more’n she has to. I don’t remember her being so poorly with the other babies.”

“The journey’s hard on all of us. Even Mac stops to catch his breath sometimes,” Jenny said. “Ever since he was sick.”

“I’m hoping Ma’ll be better after her confinement.”

“How are you doing?” Jenny asked.

She felt Esther shrug behind her. “Mrs. Abercrombie’s kind enough, but she don’t stand up to her husband. Daniel tries. He tells me I can help Ma, then backs down when his pa complains. It’ll be better when Ma don’t need me so much. Rachel does what she can.”

“Rachel’s a good girl.”

Esther laughed. “She pestered me something fierce when we were little. Now she’s good with the young’uns and can cook. But I’ve always been the one Ma turned to most.”

Through the morning they rode up a long wide valley, barren except for bitter smelling sagebrush. The children ran from bush to bush until they were sunburned and wind-chafed.

Jenny’s lips were parched. She went to the wagon to get a drink. Mac rode Valiente nearby. “It’s right around here,” he said. “South Pass.”

“How can you tell?”

“Frémont map says it is.”

Jenny gazed around. It all looked the same—snowcapped mountains on every side of the valley, wind blowing without end. “What’s Captain Pershing say?” she asked.

“Zeke’s scouting today. Captain’s driving his wagons.”

“Does Zeke know where we’re going?”

“We follow this valley,” Mac said. “Can’t get lost.”

Soon Zeke galloped back to the wagons, hollering, “South Pass! We’ve crossed it.”

“How do you know?” Mac asked.

“Water’s flowing west. We’re over the summit.”

Captain Pershing saddled his horse and rode ahead with Zeke. When they returned, the captain confirmed, “Spring up ahead. Pacific Spring, it’s called. Water runs to the Pacific from here. We’ll rest there this afternoon and head on tomorrow.”

They camped when they reached the spring on the western slope of the mountains. The terrain hadn’t changed—still barren and windblown. But the travelers were jubilant, perched as they were on top of the world.

“Halfway to Oregon,” Mac said grinning.

Jenny smiled back, wishing the entire trip was behind them.

The festive mood continued through the evening. They sang and danced to mark their crossing into Oregon Territory, but Jenny didn’t feel a part of the merriment. What did it matter if they were through the pass? More months of arduous travel lay ahead. Childbirth. And an uncertain future at the end of the road.

As she watched the dancing, she wrote:

 

Tuesday, July 13th—Went through South Pass. Half the journey yet to come. “To the far, far off Pacific sea,” the song says. Oregon still feels far away. And so far from home.