The Work and the Glory (542 page)

Nooning was the word they used to describe the midday stop. Used to give the animals a chance to rest and graze and the people an opportunity to get something to eat, normally the nooning stop lasted an hour and a half to two hours. Because they had not gotten off until after nine o’clock, word was passed back that today the stop would be no more than an hour. This was not a real problem. Usually the noon meal was a cold meal anyway—hardtack, dried fruit or raisins, maybe some bread and cheese. Mostly the people rested, along with the animals, before moving on again. The Steeds ate quickly, then went to the wagons and squeezed in as best they could to try and grab a quick nap.

Nathan and Josh had volunteered to watch the oxen, which had been unhitched from the wagons. It was not that they worried about them straying too far during the short stop. Rather, it was a new problem which had come to plague them. It was the same reason why the people crowded into the wagons rather than spreading blankets or straw mattresses out on the prairie as they usually did when the weather was dry. The concern was snakes. The three days of warm weather which had finally come over the plains produced a mixed blessing. The roads were drying out, the creeks were subsiding to normal levels, and the campsites were no longer unbearable swamps. And the prairie rattlesnakes were coming out of hibernation.

At first there had been only one or two, and they were sluggish enough to present no real threat. But the previous afternoon, when the temperature had approached seventy, the serpents had started appearing with alarming frequency. For those walking close to the wagons, there wasn’t any real danger. The noise of the moving company frightened the snakes away. At rest, when all was quiet, it was a different matter.

The real problem was the stock. Out in the deeper grass one could be almost on top of one of the rattlers before the low buzzing sound sent an instant chill up the back. That meant problems for the grazing animals. Two oxen had been bitten the previous day; three more and a horse had gotten it this morning. The prairie rattler was a smaller snake, usually only a foot or two long, and its bite for a large animal was not typically fatal. But it could make a full-grown ox sick enough that it could no longer pull a wagon or even keep up easily with the rest of the herd. If it was bitten more than once, death could result. Right now the Saints didn’t need that kind of setback.

Nathan moved ahead of the animals slowly, thumping the grass with the shovel handle he carried. The oxen were bunched behind him, heads down, munching contentedly, as if they knew that he and his son were keeping them safe. Nathan looked to his left. On the other side of the animals Josh walked along, whistling a tune and beating a shovel on the ground in time to the beat of it.

“Anything?” Nathan called.

“I’ve seen a couple slither away. How about you?”

“Only one.”

His son nodded. “Uncle Joshua was telling me that out on the Sante Fe Trail they saw rattlesnakes that were six and seven feet long and thicker than a man’s arm.”

Nathan pulled a face. He hated the snakes and couldn’t imagine what it would be like to deal with something so much bigger than these. “Yeah,” he said. “He told me that too.”

“He said they called them diamondbacks because of an unusual pattern of markings on their skin.”

“I saw a skin of one of those in Independence once. A teamster had brought it in from Mexico. No question about why they call it that. The pattern was made up of almost perfect diamonds all along it.”

“Joshua says that if a diamondback strikes your horse, it could die if you don’t do something about it real quick.”

“Well, thank heavens we don’t have to worry about diamondbacks out here.”

“Worry about what out here?”

Both father and son turned to see Lydia coming toward them, picking her way through the grass, watching carefully where her feet were stepping.

“Diamondback rattlesnakes,” Josh said clearly. He was still intrigued with the whole idea of something that big and that dangerous.

There was a quick shudder. Lydia had overheard her son’s conversation with his uncle about the big snakes and it had left her skin crawling. She didn’t want to think about it. “How are they doing?” she asked, gesturing toward the oxen as she caught up with Nathan.

“Fine. They do good on this old dried grass. I’m glad we traded off the horses. They don’t fare nearly as well on this kind of feed.”

Josh called over to his parents. “Looks like they’re starting to hitch up, Pa.”

Nathan turned. Across the creek, men and boys were pushing their oxen back toward the wagons. He could see the banner that marked Brigham Young’s wagon and saw that someone was already hitching a yoke to one of his wagons.

“All right. Let’s turn them around and take them back.” He raised his hands and moved toward the oxen, calling softly. They hesitated for a moment, then began to turn. “You go out in front, Josh,” Nathan said to his son. “Your mother and I will bring them along.”

“Watch for snakes,” Lydia called anxiously.

“Yes, Mama.”

Nathan decided to take her mind off the rattlers. “Is Tricia asleep?”

“Yep. She ate like a little piglet and then promptly fell asleep again.”

Nathan grinned, proud and pleased. Little Tricia was proving to be as easy to handle as she was beautiful. She ate greedily about every two hours. Fortunately Lydia’s milk was ample, and they could already see that the baby’s fat little cheeks were rounding out even more than when she was born. She also had a double chin now. Delay the feeding much beyond the two-hour mark and she squalled angrily. But once fed she either went right back to sleep or lay awake with her eyes open, perfectly content to watch what was going on around her.

Lydia raised her arm and pointed eastward, back over the way they had come. “Oh, look, Nathan!”

He turned to where she was pointing. “What?”

“Look at the color of the hill there.”

And then he saw it too. The gentle rise that started fifty or so yards from where they were rose to the skyline. It was in full sun, which was slightly behind them now. A very subtle shading of green could be seen here and there through the golden brown. It wasn’t dramatic yet. The much higher grass of last summer was still the dominant color, but there was no question about it. The new grass was coming up and would soon replace last year’s dead crop. They had seen the new shoots coming up everywhere beneath their feet the last few days. But this was the first time when you could actually see it on a hillside.

“It’s beautiful.”

Nathan nodded, knowing that she meant far more than what the eye was taking in. The beauty was in the promise that it held. It meant that the worst of the cold, wet weather was behind them. It meant that more forage for their stock—even the horses—would soon be plentiful. It meant that the roads would be dry and hard again. It meant making twelve or fifteen miles a day instead of two or less. “Yes, it is,” he agreed.

As they drew nearer to their wagon, a movement caught his eye, and he saw that Emily and Rachel were sitting on the tongue of Nathan’s wagon, laughing and giggling together. Lydia laughed softly. “I don’t think those two slept very much.”

“The Barker boy?” Nathan guessed.

“Of course.” The Barkers were traveling just a few wagons in back of the Steeds, and their sixteen-year-old son kept managing to lose control of the milk cow. She would invariably come forward enough—with a little encouragement from the boy, Nathan was sure—that Barker could smile shyly at the two cousins when he came to retrieve her. The last time, he had even worked up sufficient courage to say hello. For two fourteen-year-old girls, that was adventure enough to keep them breathless and giggly for several days.

As they moved the animals back toward their wagons, Nathan looked around. It was another warm day. The wind had been blowing steadily out of the south since the previous night, and it was warm and humid, probably nearing seventy once again. It felt wonderful and would help them make good time for the rest of the day. He slipped one arm around Lydia’s waist. “It does feel good to have spring finally here, doesn’t it?”

As soon as the animals were hitched up, the Saints were on their way again. The wagons fell into single file to cross the creek at the one spot where the banks gently sloped down to the water. Once across, they spread out somewhat again. When a wagon company of this size rolled along, especially when they were crossing open prairie and there were no well-established roads, they did not all stay in one long, single-file column. They would spread out, sometimes covering a front half a mile wide, each subgroup within the group picking their own route so as to avoid one another’s dust and also to avoid packing down the prairie sod so tightly that it was like driving across large cobblestones. That also helped when they nooned, since all the stock would not be competing for the same grass. Since they had come across the creek, the usual order of march had mostly disintegrated. It turned out that the Steeds became their own little group, with Solomon’s wagon in the lead and the others following close behind. While they were not farthest out in front by any means—President Young’s group was clearly in the lead—the Steeds were along the ragged front line of the march.

“Papa! Look!”

Rachel’s cry brought Nathan’s head up with a jerk. He and Solomon were out in front a few yards. They walked steadily, heads down, shovel handles poised, watching for snakes. For a moment Nathan saw nothing. He turned to look back at Rachel.

She was pointing out ahead of them but slightly to the left, toward the southwest. Then he saw it. About a half mile away, a thin line of gray smoke was rising upward from behind the next gentle rise. It was light enough in color that it was hard to see it clearly against the sky. Nathan lifted a hand and shaded his eyes.

Joshua and Derek came running up to join them. Nathan’s son Josh was only a few steps behind. “Is it . . . ?” Derek said, squinting and leaning forward.

“Yes,” Joshua said flatly. “Something’s burning.”

“What is it, Solomon?” Jessica called.

“Is it just a campfire, Uncle Joshua?” Rachel asked nervously.

Joshua and Solomon looked at each other. Solomon shook his head. “I didn’t see anyone camped out ahead of us.”

“Me neither.”

Josh shook his head. “Not camped, but I did see a couple   of wagons to the south of us a few minutes ago.” He frowned. “If they were carrying coals in a bucket and it somehow spilled . . .” He didn’t finish.

Joshua grunted angrily. His first thought had been Indians. It was well known that farther west the Indians would start grass fires out ahead of the white man’s trains to drive away the buffalo and to leave the invaders’ animals no forage. But they weren’t in Indian Territory yet. There had been absolutely no word of any Indians in their vicinity, so that was highly unlikely. The sky was clear, so it was not dry lightning. But coals? Some families did not like to start a fire each night with a flint. So they would shovel the hot coals of their fire into a bucket, cover them with a layer of ashes to insulate them, then hang them on a hook on the outside of the wagon. If the wagon had been jarred sharply enough, it could have knocked the bucket off its hook.

Even as they watched, the column of smoke doubled in size and turned darker. The wind gusted. It was blowing straight into their faces and Nathan got his first whiff of smoke. In what seemed like only another moment, the column of smoke became a wall of dirty gray, flattening out as it moved toward them in the wind. Suddenly a man appeared on the top of the rise ahead of them, frantically waving his arms. “Fire! Fire!” came the faint cry.

That did it. Nathan leaped into action. “Josh! Derek! Get the wagons together. Wet blankets and quilts and sacks.” They turned and ran to the wagons. Nathan lifted his shovel. Joshua stuck his head inside his wagon and brought out a gunnysack. Then he darted around to the water barrel and shoved the sack into it.

Solomon raced to his wagon and grabbed a blanket. As he shoved it into his water barrel, he shouted to his wife. “Jessica! Have everyone get rags and wet them. Tie them across their faces.”

Joshua stopped only for a minute to touch Caroline’s arm. “Get the younger children into the wagons.” He swung away. “Josh! Derek! Pull the wagons into a tight circle.” All up and down the line now they could hear shouts and see people running. He jerked his head around and groaned. The smoke was a massive wall now.

Nathan, Joshua, and Solomon came together near Solomon’s wagon. They stopped, gaping. Still about a half mile away, the first flames had crested the rise, and they could see the bright yellow-orange ribbon weaving and dancing and leaping and spitting great clouds of smoke. The sight of it changed Nathan’s mind.

“There’s no sense going out to help those other wagons now,” he cried. “It’s either blown past them, or—” He shrugged that off, not wanting to think about it. “I think we’d better make our stand here.”

“Agreed,” Joshua said. “We can start cutting a fire line. Get the wagons behind it.”

Nathan shook his head, not in disagreement but in discouragement. “We’ll have to work fast. With the wind, the sparks will be flying.”

“I know,” Solomon replied. “But we can—”

“Nathan! Joshua!”

They turned. A man on horseback was coming at a hard run toward them, waving his hat. It was Albert Rockwood, their captain of fifty. He pulled up sharply, the horse’s hooves sliding on the thick prairie grass. “Brigham wants us to pull in closer. Fight it together.”

“Can we get back across the creek?” Derek called. He and Josh were already pulling the wagons in closer together.

“No! There’s already a solid line of wagons trying to get across the ford. Everywhere else the banks are too steep to cross. We’ve got to fight it here.”

“What about a counter fire?” Nathan said suddenly.

Rockwood whipped around. “A counter fire?”

“Yes. What if we start a fire of our own? Put a circle of men around it. Do a controlled burn so it doesn’t threaten those behind us. Then we could pull the wagons back into the burned area.”