Chapter 78: Celilo Falls

 

The wagons sat on the east side of the Deschutes River where it joined the Columbia. The Deschutes was a hundred yards wide with a rapid current. High cliffs rose above both sandy banks.

Mac rode Valiente over to Franklin Pershing, who stood listening to the Indian guides argue among themselves. “What’s going on?”

Pershing scratched his beard. “Some think we should ford, others want to float the wagons.” He pointed at a sand bar where the Deschutes pushed into the Columbia. “If we ford, we cross to that island, then to the far side. Can’t go direct across. Too deep.”

“Sand looks too soft to bear the wagons. What if we cross upriver?”

Pershing shook his head. “Zeke and Joel rode a few miles south to look. The rapids are too steep and rocky. River drops twenty feet in thirty yards. And above the cascade, there’s deep pools. Best to cross here.”

“All right.” Mac nodded. “Empty a wagon and try the ford.”

“We’ll take one of mine.” Pershing walked off, shouting orders at Zeke and Joel.

Mac helped the Pershings unload their wagon. Zeke drove it to the sand bar, an Indian guide wading ahead. The wheels sunk in the sand, but the team pulled the wagon over the bar, into the churning water beyond it, then on to the west bank.

“Let’s try a wagon half full, with extra teams,” Mac said.

The second wagon made it across as well, though the teams strained to get the load across the wet sand.

“It’ll take all afternoon to haul everything,” Pershing said. “Two trips for every wagon.”

Mac shrugged. “What choice do we have?”

He ordered one platoon to unload on the near side of the river, another to reload on the far bank. By now the travelers were expert at tackling these tasks. Some women tended large stewpots and brought plates to feed the men, others minded the children or crossed the river to sort wet provisions and repack wagons.

Mud from churning wagon wheels and animal hooves was visible well into the Columbia’s current. By late afternoon all wagons had crossed. None had capsized, though one of the few remaining barrels of flour had fallen into the water and been lost.

Men’s shirts stuck to their backs with sweat and their chests heaved from the grueling work. Oxen hung their heads, blowing and snorting. “We’ll rest here,” Mac decided.

“There’s a better camp at the top of the hill,” Joel said.

“It’s steep, and we’re tired,” Mac said.

“Better grass above. More space to spread out.”

Mac squinted at the slope of the hill. “We’ll have to double team the wagons again.” He turned to the men. “Do we have another hill in us?” he asked.

A few nods, no verbal dissents.

“All right. Let’s go.”

The sun had almost set when the last wagon reached the plateau. As Joel had promised, the grass was thicker, but wind howled down the Columbia River gorge. “Take care with fires and tents,” Mac told the sergeants as he headed to his wagon and Jenny.

She handed him a plate of stew when he dropped to the ground beside her.

“It’s what we ate at noon,” she said. “No time to cook anything new.”

“I’m too tired to care.”

Cool air gusted across the plateau—a sign of autumn. Brilliant stripes of red and white light rose in the sky beyond the Columbia. “Northern lights,” Mac said, pointing out the luminous display to Jenny.

“Mmm.” She paused, then whispered, “Mrs. Tuller talked to me again.”

“I told you, Jenny, no one can make us get married if we don’t want to.”

“Do you want to?” she asked. “Really, what do you want?”

Mac exhaled slowly. He should have given her money and left her in Independence. Money would have helped her avoid the stigma of being alone and pregnant. She would have been all right. “Jenny, I made you an offer, and I meant it. I will marry you and stay in Oregon if that’s what you want. I became responsible for you when I took you away from your home. We’ve done well together. Most men and women can’t say any more than that.”

“Do you love me?”

Love? He’d wondered that once or twice himself. She was a pretty thing. He liked her well enough, better than most girls he knew back East. She worked hard. He remembered her soft, cool hand on his forehead at Ash Hollow. How she pestered him about caring for her baby if she died. Her smile and windblown hair as they stood together on the banks of the Snake. “I find you pleasing. We could make a good life together.”

“You’d want to bed me.”

Mac knew how she felt about men, but bedding was part of marriage. “Yes.”

“You could bed me without loving me?”

“Most men can.” He had with Bridget.

“I can’t,” she said, her voice choked. “I don’t know if I could even if you loved me. I won’t marry a man who doesn’t love me. And William, too.”

“Then you’ve decided.”

“But the Tullers are set on us marrying.”

“What’s the worst can they do? Tell the rest of the wagon train?”

Jenny’s eyebrows shot up her forehead. “You think they would?”

“What difference does it make?”

“No difference to you.” Jenny’s voice cracked. “You’re leaving come spring. I’ll be in Oregon with these people.”

“I’ll talk to the Tullers.” Mac sighed. Jenny was right. He had to make sure she wouldn’t be pilloried once he left.

In the morning Mac found Doc. “Jenny talked with Mrs. Tuller yesterday,” he began.

“So I heard.” Doc quirked his eyebrow while lighting his pipe.

“Jenny doesn’t want to marry me.”

“Did you ask her right?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did you ask her like you meant it?”

“I did mean it. I told her we could make a good life. I told her I’d stay here with her. I can’t lie and say I love her. She still said no.”

“So you’ve done your best, McDougall?” Doc puffed on his pipe.

Mac nodded. He’d taken Jenny away from a miserable situation in Missouri, and she had become his responsibility. He’d tried to do the right thing. What more could he do? “It’ll be all right if you and Mrs. Tuller don’t tell anyone.”

Doc squinted, his brow furrowed. “Don’t you know us better than that by now? We won’t hurt Jenny. Nor her child.”

Mac saddled Valiente and ordered the wagons to fall in line. They were following the Columbia again, west toward The Dalles.

Zeke rode up to Mac. “Celilo Falls straight ahead. No room past ’em on the bank. We’ll have to climb the hills.”

Mac cupped his ear. “Is that what I hear? I thought it was the wind.”

Zeke shook his head. “Nope. It’s Celilo.”

“Have you found a campsite for tonight?”

“Not yet. Joel and I’ll ride ahead. Doubt we can make The Dalles tonight. Take another day.”

“Let me know what you find,” Mac said.

Flashing a grin, Zeke saluted and rode off.

Mac was eager to reach The Dalles so he could decide on the route to Oregon City. But for now, he would spend the afternoon with Jenny, he decided, heading Valiente back toward the wagons.

“Jenny,” he called when he approached their wagon. “Let’s go see the falls. I’ll saddle Poulette.”

“What about William?”

“Put him in the sling.”

Jenny smiled and gathered up William.

Mac left Pershing in charge and escorted Jenny through the hills toward the river. Esther and Daniel went with them, Esther carrying Jonah. It was as nice a day as when the four of them had ridden to the natural rock bridge, back in mid-June, over three months ago.

So much had happened, Mac mused. Esther and Daniel married. Jonah born, Mrs. Pershing dead. Pershing displaced, and Mac now leading the wagons. Abercrombie and his platoon gone. William. What more would happen before they reached Oregon City?

“Mon Dieu!” Jenny exclaimed at the edge of the bluff above the falls. Mac could barely hear her over the roar of the water.

The Columbia, a mile wide in some places, here squeezed between rocks only sixty feet apart. The rushing current cascaded between basalt cliffs in a roiling froth of spray and waves, eddying at the bottom in large whirlpools.

“People float through that?” Jenny asked.

“Pa says people portage around the falls,” Esther said, her voice filled with awe.

“A body couldn’t possibly survive those rapids,” Daniel said, wiping a hand across his face. “And the falls beneath The Dalles are worse.”

Mac grunted. He hoped the Barlow Road would be the better option, for Jenny’s sake. But he had to reserve judgment.

“Look!” Esther said, pointing at Indians fishing in the churning waters. They balanced on rocks in the water or on rickety wooden scaffolding cantilevered over the raging current, spears in hand. “How do they keep their footing?”

“Don’t know,” Mac said, “but I hope they’ll sell us some salmon.”

They rode along the plateau above the river until they came to another stretch of rapids where the Columbia again narrowed and fell amidst large boulders. Spray shot up to the heights where they rode. Jenny pulled the sling more tightly around William as the wind blew mist into their faces.

“We’d best get back to the wagons,” Mac said, grinning. “Don’t want them to think we’ve drowned.”

They turned away from the river. Zeke rode toward them. “Camp’s just ahead,” Zeke said. “Site’s got grass, but we’ll have to haul water from the river. I left Joel there.”

Mac decided to find Joel, and took the touring party with him, letting Zeke return to the wagons alone. The campsite was above a pool of water right below the rapids they had surveyed. More Indians fished in the pool.

“Let’s go talk to them,” Mac said to Joel. “Daniel, you stay with the women.”

Mac and Joel picked their way down to the Columbia and hailed an Indian brave. “Fish?” Mac asked, describing a salmon with his hands.

The Indian nodded and pointed at Mac’s shirt. They reached agreement, and Mac took off his shirt in exchange for the salmon.

In the evening, after more bartering between Indians and emigrants, the travelers dined in comfort.

“If only the wind didn’t blow so badly,” Jenny said, rocking William beside their campfire. “This could be a heavenly place.”