Chapter 33

Sam: Preparing for the trip to St Joseph

Okay. Tomorrow we leave for St Joseph. I thought it had been frantic the other day when the men left with the cattle. It wasn't half as bad as it was today.

There were still nine family members at the ranch and I think they must have asked nine questions each before noon. To top it off, Becky picked this morning to be cranky. She spent a lot of time crying and I kept trying to get her to stop. Finally, Delia put Becky in her carrier on her chest. She calmed down quickly and I gave Delia a big smile of thanks.

By mid afternoon, everything had started to calm down. Andy said we were as ready as we'd ever be. I decided to help Maddy make dinner for the family and crew. I had really come to like this woman over the months we'd been here.

"Maddy, does it bother you at all, leaving here?" I asked at one point when we were alone in the kitchen.

"Lands sake, no, child. I may be getting a little old, but I finally have what I wanted all of my life."

I had to grin. I knew she was talking about Rawhide. "I'm happy for you, Maddy," I said. "I think we're all going to enjoy the Oregon country."

Maddy just smiled.

Monday, March 6, 1848

Ed: Day 11 of the Dayton to Boston trip

We got a bit of a late start this morning because of the Charbeneaus. First off, Mrs. Charbeneau had to fix us a big breakfast, then Christina tried to talk our legs off. We didn't mind the late start, because we really enjoyed their company.

Even with the late start, I figure we made around twenty eight miles for the day. We had really shaken out now and were traveling like we had been doing so for years. I figured we were nearing the half way point on our trip to Boston, but since we were basically delayed a day by the sheriff, we probably weren't.

The mules had it easy on this leg of the trip. Divided among the four of them, they had very little to carry. I know Hawk could have carried me all day himself, but I tried to only ride him half of the time. He didn't particularly like that, but he put up with it.

By now, Cassie and I had put in a lot of miles together. Some of them were on foot, but most were on horseback. Whatever the mode of travel, she was a pleasure to be with. Kate was turning out to be just as good a traveling companion as Cassie was.

In warmer weather we would have made a formidable sight. All three of us were dressed in buckskins. All three of us were wearing Colt revolvers belted around out waists. In these colder temperatures, we were all wearing sheepskin coats, which kept our revolvers and our hunting knives covered.

In addition to the revolvers we had to have shot pouches for carrying the balls they shot and powder flasks for the gunpowder. Most people put a dab of grease over the end of each cylinder after they were loaded to prevent two rounds from firing at once.

Cassie and Kate dressed more like men than the women of the time. Their buckskin pants had a smooth front, unlike mine, which had a fly front, rather than a drop front. All of us wore buckskin shirts that fell well below the waist and were worn outside our pants. Our sheepskin greatcoats had been made for us by Mina and they hung to our knees when we were standing.

We all wore round hats made of leather that had been waterproofed. This helped a lot when it was raining. We wore heavy moccasins on our feet that came up and tied with strings around our ankles. During the cold weather, we wore two or even three pairs of heavy wool socks under the moccasins. We all had heavy canvas ponchos for wet weather and we also used them in windy conditions during cold weather.

Since we were starting the second week in March, we expected the weather to start warming up very soon. It would be a relief to all of us to pack away our heavy coats. It would also be nice when we could start bathing in streams again.

Taking a bath in an ordinary was a real pain in the ass. Usually, we would wash what we could in cold water. The water was in a large pitcher in most rooms. There was also a large bowl the water could be poured into. When we did manage to take a full bath, we had to get the tub from the proprietor and fill it with water by carrying it in buckets to our room.

The tub was never designed for relaxing. It was usually short enough that you sat with your knees up under your chin. If you were lucky, you could talk the proprietor out of a few buckets of hot water from the reservoir around his cookstove. You tempered that with cold water carried from the well. All three of us would use the same water for our baths.

The weather was nicer today, with temperatures up in the fifties. It made for good traveling. Unfortunately, we ended up in the middle of nowhere and ended up camping for the night. Ah, well. At least I got to snuggle between two beautiful women.

Sam: Day 1 of the Dayton to St Joseph trip

The sky was just starting to turn grey in the east when we said goodbye to Rawhide's house forever. All of us had been up for hours and we had everything ready to go. The oxen were hitched, the mules were hitched to to the passenger wagon, which everyone had started calling the coach.

Andy and some of the men filled all of the water barrels from the well. Each wagon, except the coach, had at least one and most had two water barrels mounted on the sides. Rawhide had built cages for chickens on the sides of three of the wagons. We only had a few chickens to take with us, but we figured we could buy more in St Joseph.

Another thing we didn't have now, but were hoping to add in St Joseph were hogs. They were going to be a pain in the ass to herd, but they cost almost three times as much in Oregon as they did in Missouri.

When the first wagon started to roll, my heart fluttered. I'm not sure it was so much that we were leaving on our trip west as it was that we were rolling toward our reunion with Ed. Oh, well, either way it was exciting.

We had the one wagon through much of our trip last year, so wagons weren't entirely new to us. We now had nine wagons with us, including the coach. Andy started out driving the coach, but Maddy finally told him to get out. She said she had been driving mules all her life and she was quite capable of continuing to do so.

Andy looked a little lost, but I told him I thought he should be leading our miniature wagon train and that he'd do far better for us as an outrider.

To set the stage, so to speak, our wagon drivers were Maddy, Clint and Brad White, Jon and Shack Vencille, Rawhide, Davy Beale, Jesse Cooper, Tuck Holt, and Roy Silvers.

The family members were Delia, Dalia, Becky, and I in the coach. Sarah Beth, Mindy, Mandy, Andy, and Tommy were on horseback. As the trip progressed, Mindy, Mandy, or Sarah Beth would occasionally ride in the coach for a while.

It really didn't seem like a lot of people, but when you started adding them up, there were eighteen of us. That was eighteen people to feed. We made it clear up front that everyone was responsible for their own clothing, so we didn't have to worry about that.

It took us about an hour to get shaken out so we were traveling without running over each other, but once we were moving as we should, we made fairly good time. Andy said he thought we made around nineteen or twenty miles for the day, before we camped on a nice little stream.

I was very comfortable riding in the coach. I think Becky liked it better than being in a house. The gentle rocking of the coach seemed to be soothing to her.

Tuesday, March 7, 1848

Ed: Day 12 of the Dayton to Boston trip

The country we were traveling through was hilly, but not mountainous. We followed a nice valley between the hills all day. The hills surrounding us and the trees kept any wind we felt to a gentle breeze and it was really quite comfortable.

We saw something toward the end of the day that I had read about, but had never paid much attention to. We saw a canal with a canal boat being towed along by mules on a tow path. It was a page right out of history and we were all fascinated by it.

"Couldn't we just load on a canal boat and ride it to Boston?" Cassie asked.

"I'm not sure you could get there from here," I said with a grin. "By this time, the canals were fairly extensive. If I remember right, the Erie canal ran all the way from Lake Erie to the Hudson River. Somewhere around 350 miles, I think. The trip took nine or ten days. Not much faster than we are traveling by horse. The problem is, the canals here in Pennsylvania run every which way. It'd probably take a lot more time to go by boat than it would to go by horse."

"Well," Cassie sighed, "It was just a thought. I certainly don't want to delay us. I'm missing Sam and Delia pretty bad."

"We all are, hon. I'd say we have nine or ten more days to Boston, then at least we'll be heading toward them instead of away."

We did find an ordinary where we could spend the night. We were treated to a very nice Dutch meal with some fantastic sausages. The serving girl told us that most of the area was populated by German or Dutch emigrants.

Sam: Day 2 of the Dayton to St Joseph trip

I guess we had all been spoiled a little, living in Rawhide's house for the last several months. I don't think there was one of us who didn't wake up with creaky bones. Delia, Dalia, Sarah Beth, and Maddy made a good breakfast for all of us while the men hitched the oxen and mules.

I spent my time feeding and changing Becky. Maddy had said I should buy a dozen diapers for Becky before she was born. I had been thinking about the trip, so I bought two dozen. I was really glad I had. That girl can pee more than any baby I've ever seen.

Every night we'd wash out the day's diapers and hang them around the outside the covered wagon Delia and I were sleeping in to dry. I didn't know what we'd do if it was raining. I guess we could hang them inside the wagon or under it. With two dozen diapers, we had enough for at least two or three days.

It didn't take nearly as long to get shaken out for the trail today as it had yesterday. Andy wanted the wagons to travel in a single line and each day he'd move another wagon up to the front and put the front wagon at the back of the line again. He said it didn't matter much now, but when we got into dryer country, the front wagons wouldn't be eating nearly as much dust.

We crossed several creeks during the day and I could see the advantage of the oxen. They didn't seem like dragging the wagons up out of the creek beds was any problem at all. They might be slow and plodding, but they sure were strong.

We were in hilly country with very few roads. The roads we saw weren't going in the direction we wanted to go, so we were traveling cross country. There were still quite a few towns around, but we had resigned ourselves to the fact that we were traveling pretty much on our own.

When we stopped for lunch, I talked with Andy for a bit. "Do you think we're following the same route as the cattle?" I asked him.

Andy took a sip of coffee and said, "Yep. It's easy to see the trail they left. I don't think we could miss them."

"It might be easy for you to see their trail, but I have been looking and I haven't seen a thing."

"That's because you haven't been looking for the right things," Andy said with a big grin.

"What should I be looking for?"

"Well, you can see the hoof prints of the cattle where we cross creeks. For another, you can see the tracks left by the wagon wheels any time we cross soft ground. If you get down and look at the grass, you can see where the cattle have cropped it when they stop for a few minutes. You also look for broken tree limbs where the wagons or the cattle have brushed against them. There are a lot of different things that show where horses, cattle or wagons have been."