Snow Mountain Passage by James D Houston Page B

because his wife and child are with us. But why in the world would Stanton come back into this unforgiving land? “Would you?” Elizabeth Graves once asked, with an accusing eye. “If you was a single fella and no ties to anyone, nor any family calling?”
    But here he is, a hundred miles north and east of the fort, with seven mules loaded and two more men, thanks to Captain Sutter, two Indians hunkered in the sun, watching and waiting. McCutcheon came down with a fever, Charlie tells him, and had to stay behind. It’s malaria, Charlie thinks.
    “You’ll see him when you get there. Hard to believe a man that big and strong could get so weak he can hardly walk.”
    From Charlie he learns that the battle for California has already been waged and won. In the five months since they crossed the Missouri, the towns and bays and presidios all along the coast have been taken without firing a shot. It has been declared a U.S. Territory, with a military governor in charge. Sutter’s Fort has been turned into an army garrison during what they call “the period of transition.” Not all the Mexicans are happy about the new arrangement, Charlie says. Just last week he heard about some kind of rebellion in Los Angeles. Captain Fremont and his troops have already started down to take care of it. Fact is, everywhere you go you hear stories about our women getting captured and violated, and children getting kidnapped. The Mexicans are beasts, they say, torture their enemies and rape without mercy. That’s why you see these wagons here in Bear Valley.
    “They came over with the Hastings bunch. Some were here when I came through two weeks ago. Some are still here. People are sick, of course, or worn down from the crossing, or waiting for fresh animals to be brought up. But you’ll meet some who are just plain scared. Hastings pumped ‘em full of stories about how we got to band together and subdue the Mexicans and make room for a new place in the world. Then they got this far, and word comes trickling up the mountain about what the Mexicans are doing to our people. I heard one story about a fella from Virginia, got captured and forced to crawl around on his hands and knees till this vaquero rope-tied him like a calf and castrated him in front of his wife and children and then branded him with a red-hot iron. Ya see, some of these folks are afraid to move. It’s too late to turn back, and there’s no will to go forward. They’re sort of paralyzed, waiting for somebody to tell ‘em what to do. They curse Lansford Hastings for bringing them all this way and then riding off into the sunset. He doesn’t have any wagons of his own, nor any family. He’s just like me. He can come and go as he pleases.”
    “And what about the Mexicans? Is it true what people say?”
    “Hard to tell,” Charlie says. “I myself have yet to run into one.”
    “All the way from here to Sutter’s Fort and back?”
    “At the fort I saw two fellas looked like they could’ve been. But maybe they were Indians.”
    “What does Sutter say?”
    “Well, now, Captain Sutter, he’s a special case, since he will tell you he is part Mexican himself.”
    “I thought he was Swedish.”
    “Fact is, he’s a Swiss.”
    “I believe Hastings described him as Swedish.”
    “That is just one more thing Mr. Hastings got wrong. Sutter comes from Switzerland. But he also happens to be a citizen of Mexico. That’s how he got hold of so much land.”
    “I’ll be damned,” says Jim. “Whose side is he on then? Ours, or theirs?”
    “I heard it depends on which way the wind blows.”
    These two could talk for hours, trading news, and they would, if this were after sundown instead of after sunup. Charlie feels the burden of his mission, pushing east now at a steady pace. Last night he camped lower down the valley. He wants to make the Yuba River today, and Jim is tempted to join him, tempted to turn around right now. Charlie and his two Indians, along with these