Chapter 39: Wagons East

All of a sudden, we were moving east rapidly on level ground heading for destiny at a place called Promontory Summit, Utah.

I have to call attention to the fact that we were on level ground at long last.

The days of putting lives on the line in places like the Donner Pass at the high elevations and the whirlwind changing temperatures of the ever-dangerous Truckee slide seemed distant now. Even the challenges of the rolling foothills were no longer a problem. Of course, in the back of my mind, I was always calculating the cost of things and I knew for a fact that each mile we laid of level land track only paid a fraction of the mountainous terrain cost. All things considered, I would have wished it was all level ground because the loss of life and the dangers of the more challenging terrain is what made the entire proposition risky at best.

My connections to the Mormon Church was primarily with personal contacts with various Mormon settlements and the fall-away followers that were either ostracized for some reason or of their own accord looking for something else than the cult-like precepts instituted by God-on-Earth Brigham Young. The old man was an impressive figure and I have to admit I respected his intellect and charisma probably more than most non-Mormons.

I had seen him turn over a wagon load of stacked greenbacks and endless piles of soft leather pokes of gold dust to a bearded man called Doctor Durant surrounded by a passel of Pinkertons and Wells Fargo muscle that was more protection than what the President himself received when he ventured into dangerous territory. The Durant fellow was some sort of scientist type but he had the ear of none other than the already assassinated President Lincoln and was a confidante of the great man, Brigham Young as well.

It was easy to see that the high-up folks at the Central Pacific railroad system were not as impressed with Doctor Durant as I and I suspected it was because of his devious dealings with the land sales that looked more like some sort of con game than legal transactions.

I had already told you that we were on level ground and that was a fact that made everything a bit more comfortable. The days of danger were past at this point and all we were basically doing was laying the track as quickly as possible to claim credit for the cash payment. We were moving through what would be part of the State of Utah at a pretty good clip and I saw in the newspaper out of Denver that they were already planning some sort of celebration at Promontory Summit, Utah not far from Salt Lake City. That was the center of the soon-to-be headquarters of the Mormon church and it was appropriate because old Brigham Young had not only financed the completion of the transcontinental railroad from Omaha near Council Bluffs all the way out to the Pacific coast and the ferry between Oakland and San Francisco.

The great leader’s foresight had hoped for a Mormon Kingdom that stretched from Oregon down to San Diego on the west coast all the way back to Denver, Oklahoma, Nevada and Utah in most of the lands secured from the Spanish land grants and other purchases along the way. He had attempted to make a deal with Jefferson Davis under his schemes as the Washington, D.C. Secretary of War but the American Civil War came along to spoil all those grandiose plans. It looked like the Northern route was pushed to a “back burner” and when it finally came to fruition; it would be a day late and a dollar short.

That dream of “Deseret” and the long-awaited Mormon Kingdom soon turned into a more realistic bid for control of the proposed State of Utah that would give the church the geographic anchor needed to continue the Mormon’s expansion in the frontier lands.

I had left my Indians at the Wild West Show and now our wagons looked more ordinary in settler terms and I knew that this portion of the journey was close to conclusion.

Long before we reached the Salt Lake City area, Rachel left the wagon train to join a Mormon settlement that was short of women due to a virus that had decimated the female segment of the settlement as well as cutting short the lives of a number of young ones that hadn’t had a chance yet to make their own decisions in the world.

My only close female companionship now was that which I received from Mei Ling, the Chinese girl that had been with me ever since the dark days of the mountain passage and threatening snow storms with blocked passes. Our relationship was more platonic than personal but it was relaxed and she was a big help with all of the mundane tasks of moving a cross-country wagon and tending to care and feeding of our domestic stock. I was sure that all of the other members of the wagon train assumed I was in a heated sexual interaction with the bright young thing. It made me smile, because I would have been right in that role in the old days, when stoking the fires of passion was the primary thought on my mind in the nocturnal hours.

The members of the wagon train had shrunk to a shadow of our former glory.