BIRTH OF AMERICA BOOKS (tm)

TRAILS OF THE WHITE SAVAGES

REAL PEOPLE, TRUE STORIES

HISTORICALLY ACCURATE AND FUN TO READ

(They're written like novels with dialogue based on journals, diaries and newspapers)

HISTORY AS IT HAPPENSä IN HIGH ACTION AMERICAN HISTORY BOOKS

CHAPTER 45

ICE, WONDERS AND SKYFIRE ............LATE FALL 1833

When Joe Walker scanned the majestic rampart of what some called the Sierra Nevada Mountains rising into the clouds, he felt this journey was his own beginning. He was Swift's Lemuel Gulliver going where others had never been. Would he meet six inch Lilli-putians or 60 foot Brodingnagians, men with great intellects and no sense or civilized horses dictating to human brutes. Whatever was there, Joe Walker would see it, breaking trail for wagons full of children, spinet harpsichords and hope.

The lake they reached in early October did not disappoint Walker. Its water tasted like lye, suitable for washing clothes without soap. Pumice stone floated on it like dumplings.

He sent scouts to find game and a pass through the mountains. They returned with neither, finding only a frail colt that had to be killed and parsed out among his hungry legion.

Walker dispatched more scouts to find the path to the clouds, but none did. While he, Zenas Leonard and George Nidever searched for it, two Indians leaped up and ran at Nidever. He thought they were after him, so he fired, killing both as Walker had at Horseshoe Bend. Learning they were only frightened nomads, Nidever told Walker, "I am so very sorry," but they were dead.

So Nidever secreted their bodies in a rocky ravine and said, "May God bear them upward into the wonders above and spare the soul of this sinner."

Nobody had ever dreamt of mountains this steep, but Walker led them into the high country where the air knifed a man's lungs. The horses starved amid barren stones and the men ate gin berries picked from the junipers, staring at the everlasting snows awaiting them above.

As they broached the snows, Walker watched his be-loved horses turn helpless. Floundering in drifts, they had to be lowered down cliffs on ropes and boosted like feeble old men.

The trappers' days grew into agonies of icy starvation, and still they climbed -- making less than ten miles per day. With supplies exhausted and no game in sight, Walker hunkered down in the snow with his freezing men. Some vowed to go back to buffalo country in spite of the majority vote to go on. "All we have is horses. Kill the weakest three." Their meat was black, stringy and tough, fit only for a dog, but it was eat that or die.

Once they reached the Sierra's icy summit, they became its hostages, for it was endless. Day after day, they inched west among drifts ranging from ten to 100 feet deep. Walker walked about them, determined no man should die, pointing west when they fell at his feet. The horses got stiff and stupid, and more had to die to feed their masters. Joe Walker couldn't watch these faithful creatures shot, willing to serve, but too weak to walk. And still they struggled west with each mile stretching into a continent and no earthly sign of man nor beast.

Small lakes bordered by lifeless grass teased the horses, affording scant nourishment while the men starved between horse murders. For the first time, Walker wondered if they would become frozen mummies for other explorers to marvel over.

Barely seeing the panoramic vistas that might be their last glorious visions on earth, they crept, staggered, crawled and dragged each other west. But all stared in wonder at the freshets shooting from under snowbanks to gather in a spectacular fall from a lofty precipice exploding into spray and mist in the glorious valley a mile below. They knew not that they were the first white men ever blessed to see the Yosemite Valley.

When all had lost hope, Joe Meek brought in a basket of acorns a fleeing Indian had dropped. An inch to three inches long, and an inch thick, the acorns were delectable roasted in the hot ashes of their otherwise barren fires.

Sight of the enchanting but unattainable valley below only heightened Walker's sense of imminent death atop towering perpendicular scarps. Then Nidever reported, "It's not much of a path, but it goes down, and there's deer and bear sign on it."

Walker led their zigzag descent from the giddy heights, so awed by the beauty below he hoped to have it as his last thought on this earth. In the midst of his idyllic pondering, somebody shot a small deer. He ordered it cooked, but by the time the coals were hot, it had been eaten raw as if by wolves.

After reaching a game rich area of oak bushes, two black tailed deer and a black bear fell to their rifles and were quickly roasted and eaten.

Having spent a month in the stark mountain crossing, Walker was delighted to see stands of white cedar, balsam and a strange tree with red wood showing through its lightning scars. Huge oaks spread to shelter elk, deer and antelope. Then they found Brobdingnag and stood in awe at its creatures towering to the clouds! Zenas Leonard wrote in his journal: "In the last two days traveling we have found some trees of the red-wood species, incredibly large -- some of which would measure from sixteen to eighteen fathoms [96 to 108 feet] round the trunk at the height of a man's head from the ground."

They descended into lush country the likes of which neither Walker nor the rest had ever seen before. Beautiful plains laced by rivers and vigorous black walnut, oak, elm, mulberry, hackberry, alder and sumac. Fat wild horses of every color frolicked about, tantalizing the jaded expedition horses with noble brute appeal.

Around November 7th they found five huts populated by 15 or 20 Indians, that took time, and no small amount of smoking to calm. Though the Indians signed poorly, the symbol of friendship embodied in smoking their pipe said enough between them and Joe Walker. Naked except for skin shields on their loins, they lived in huts of logs and slept on beds of grass. They did not know where the Spanish were, but had two knives and a blanket with a Mexican design.They traded five fine horses with Spanish brands for a yard of scarlet cloth and two knives. Their scraps said they lived on horsemeat and acorns. Next morning they pointed west as Walker waved good-bye to them, a far finer thing than his bloody encounter with the Paiutes.

Next night Walker encamped them amid a pastoral painting by the greatest of all the masters. They supped on roast elk, posted one sentry and slept like hibernating bears -- until they were startled by repetitious thunder.Walker's men leapt up, shouting,"Earthquake!" Walker muttered, "Ground'd be shaking. It's the Pacific dashing her waves against a rocky shore."

Zenas Leonard didn't voice his beliefs, but wrote: "The idea of being within hearing of the end of the Far West inspired the heart of every member of our company with a patriotic feeling for his country's honor, and all were eager to lose no time until they should behold what they heard."

Walker led his men toward the ever expanding roars, but made camp on November 12, 1833 in another glorious setting near the mouth of the San Joaquin River without reaching the ocean. Shortly after they entered their blankets, the sky burst into flaming streaks and cannon blasts with heavy bodies crashing to the ground around them. Their horses had to be roped and held by wild-eyed trappers. One yelled, "What is this mad place we've come to?"

Joe Walker, himself quite shaken, spoke calmly as he could, "Seen the stars fall before in Tennessee. It's the Leonid Meteor showers, apt to come in November from vicinity of the constellation Leo -- or so my mother said. She wasn't scared o' skyfire, so I don't think we oughta be. Besides, there's nothing you can do about it, so let's watch God show off."

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