it hangs at a tilt, like a schooner tacking in a gale.
They ransack the wreckage for any scraps or leavings, ripping boards loose, digging in the dirt. On hands and knees Jim the scavenger finds a tar bucket beneath the broken axle. He scrapes through black skin to uncover a layer of rancid fat, from the days when it had served as a tallow bucket.
He digs out a gob and sniffs it and draws back. But Walter does not hesitate. With greedy eyes and a triumphant shout he scoops it off the paddle and pops it into his mouth.
Hunkered next to the wagon, Jim watches to see what effect this will have. He digs out another gob and sniffs and again can’t bear the smell, despite his gnawing hunger. Walter snatches it from the paddle, gives it half a chew and swallows it, and this too he manages to keep down.
They are both studying the bottom of the bucket. Jim digs out one more mouthful. If he doesn’t swallow it, Walter will. He looks at Walter, who is watching the gob like a mountain lion ready to pounce. Jim takes it into his mouth, feels the tallow slide along his throat and instantly regrets the move. His shrunken stomach begins to convulse. It is like poison. It weakens his knees, makes him blind. His head is ready to explode. The world spins around him, and he falls to his knees, doubled with cramps. Cold sweat coats his body. His face goes white.
Walter is frantic, standing over him. “Don’t die now, Mr. Reed! Please! Please! You can’t die now!”
After ten minutes of agony he vomits out a vile and stringy yellow soup that looks like melting wax. Gradually the convulsive waves let go. He can see again. Half an hour later he can stand weakly, leaning on the horse. Quelling his nausea, he moves one foot, the other, staggers, finally walks. Before long they have reached another precipice, looking down into another valley where wagons are scattered about. But these are not abandoned wagons. They see animals grazing, horses, mules, a few cattle standing in a well-watered pasture, with a stream nearby, a long green meadow bordered with rising stands of pine and fir.
Jim cries out “Hallelujah!” his voice cracked and feeble but full of joy, as they lunge down the incline, the starving horse too weak to ride, the beleaguered pilgrims tumbling and falling toward the wagons.
His Dream
O NCE AGAIN HE is at the summit looking down a rocky wall that drops and drops. Below, beyond, he sees the lake, from here a blue medallion in a bowl made of steeply sloping timber, but not a pleasing blue, not the blue you yearn to plunge into and swim away your cares. It is a heartless blue, the dark pit his wagon will fall into if the chains don’t hold.
He hears the oxen grunt, straining at their yokes. How many, he cannot tell. Four. Eight. Twelve. More? Every animal they have. He hears the lash snap in mountain air so still and crisp each flicking whiplash seems to shatter it. He turns to see whose whip can crack open the air itself and knows before he turns that it is John Snyder standing on a rock above the heaving animals, lashing and snapping and cursing. It is Johnny in his trail hat, with his sleeves rolled back.
Jim calls, “Back off now! Let them be!”
But the teamster doesn’t hear. Jim sees that chain links are spreading open. The load is too heavy. What’s inside the wagon? Who’s inside? Did Margaret unload all the children? Right beside his boot he can see the link stretch across a stony ledge, as the metal spreads and separates.
“Back off, Johnny! She’s gonna tear loose!”
Again the whip falls on the backs of bleeding oxen. A link snaps. A chain breaks, then another, flying out above the void while the wagon is released to tumble down the cliff face. He watches it bounce from crag to crag, as boards fly loose and wheels spin away like pinwheels at a festival, and flour spills over the side. The wagon turns and tumbles, but it does not hit the blue-medallion lake, which grows smaller as the wagon plunges. A
They ransack the wreckage for any scraps or leavings, ripping boards loose, digging in the dirt. On hands and knees Jim the scavenger finds a tar bucket beneath the broken axle. He scrapes through black skin to uncover a layer of rancid fat, from the days when it had served as a tallow bucket.
He digs out a gob and sniffs it and draws back. But Walter does not hesitate. With greedy eyes and a triumphant shout he scoops it off the paddle and pops it into his mouth.
Hunkered next to the wagon, Jim watches to see what effect this will have. He digs out another gob and sniffs and again can’t bear the smell, despite his gnawing hunger. Walter snatches it from the paddle, gives it half a chew and swallows it, and this too he manages to keep down.
They are both studying the bottom of the bucket. Jim digs out one more mouthful. If he doesn’t swallow it, Walter will. He looks at Walter, who is watching the gob like a mountain lion ready to pounce. Jim takes it into his mouth, feels the tallow slide along his throat and instantly regrets the move. His shrunken stomach begins to convulse. It is like poison. It weakens his knees, makes him blind. His head is ready to explode. The world spins around him, and he falls to his knees, doubled with cramps. Cold sweat coats his body. His face goes white.
Walter is frantic, standing over him. “Don’t die now, Mr. Reed! Please! Please! You can’t die now!”
After ten minutes of agony he vomits out a vile and stringy yellow soup that looks like melting wax. Gradually the convulsive waves let go. He can see again. Half an hour later he can stand weakly, leaning on the horse. Quelling his nausea, he moves one foot, the other, staggers, finally walks. Before long they have reached another precipice, looking down into another valley where wagons are scattered about. But these are not abandoned wagons. They see animals grazing, horses, mules, a few cattle standing in a well-watered pasture, with a stream nearby, a long green meadow bordered with rising stands of pine and fir.
Jim cries out “Hallelujah!” his voice cracked and feeble but full of joy, as they lunge down the incline, the starving horse too weak to ride, the beleaguered pilgrims tumbling and falling toward the wagons.
His Dream
O NCE AGAIN HE is at the summit looking down a rocky wall that drops and drops. Below, beyond, he sees the lake, from here a blue medallion in a bowl made of steeply sloping timber, but not a pleasing blue, not the blue you yearn to plunge into and swim away your cares. It is a heartless blue, the dark pit his wagon will fall into if the chains don’t hold.
He hears the oxen grunt, straining at their yokes. How many, he cannot tell. Four. Eight. Twelve. More? Every animal they have. He hears the lash snap in mountain air so still and crisp each flicking whiplash seems to shatter it. He turns to see whose whip can crack open the air itself and knows before he turns that it is John Snyder standing on a rock above the heaving animals, lashing and snapping and cursing. It is Johnny in his trail hat, with his sleeves rolled back.
Jim calls, “Back off now! Let them be!”
But the teamster doesn’t hear. Jim sees that chain links are spreading open. The load is too heavy. What’s inside the wagon? Who’s inside? Did Margaret unload all the children? Right beside his boot he can see the link stretch across a stony ledge, as the metal spreads and separates.
“Back off, Johnny! She’s gonna tear loose!”
Again the whip falls on the backs of bleeding oxen. A link snaps. A chain breaks, then another, flying out above the void while the wagon is released to tumble down the cliff face. He watches it bounce from crag to crag, as boards fly loose and wheels spin away like pinwheels at a festival, and flour spills over the side. The wagon turns and tumbles, but it does not hit the blue-medallion lake, which grows smaller as the wagon plunges. A
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