Beautiful Ruins (42)

What if the only way to save the ones you love . . . is to leave them behind?

By this time the pioneers have eaten all of their horses and mules and even their pets. People are making soup out of saddles and blankets and shoe leather, anything to flavor the snow water. William Eddy’s family is down to a few scraps of bear meat. He has no choice. He asks for volunteers. By then, only seventeen people are strong enough to try: twelve men and boys, and five young women. They make crude snowshoes out of harnesses and reins and start out. Right away, two of the boys turn back because the snow is too deep. Even with snowshoes, the rest fall two feet with every step.

Eddy leads his party of fifteen away and they struggle; it takes two days just to make it to the pass. On the first night, they camp and Eddy reaches in his pack and—like a blow to the gut—he realizes his wife has packed the remaining bear meat for him. It’s only a few bites, but her selflessness destroys him. She has sacrificed her share for him. He looks back and can just see a curl of smoke from their camp.

What if the only way to save the ones you love . . . is to leave them behind?

They move on. For days and days, the fifteen walk, making slow progress across craggy peaks and snowy valleys. Blizzards blind them and stop them in their tracks. It takes days to go a few thousand yards. With no food except a few bites of Eddy’s bear meat, they grow weak. One of the men, Foster, says they must sacrifice one of themselves for food for the others, and they talk of drawing lots. William Eddy says that if someone is going to be sacrificed, then that man must be given a chance. They should pick two men and have them fight to the death. He volunteers to be one of the men. But no one moves. One morning, an old man and a boy are dead of starvation. They have no choice. They build a fire and eat the meat of their companions.

But we don’t linger on this aspect. It’s just . . . what it is. People hear Donner Party and they think cannibalism, but almost all of the survivors said the cannibalism was nothing . . . it was the cold, the despair, these are the enemy. For days they walk; only William Eddy keeps them from descending into chaos. More men die and the party eats what it can, and still the group walks, until there are only nine left—four of the original ten men and all five women. Two of the surviving men are Indian scouts. The other living white man, Foster, wants to shoot the Indians and eat them. But Eddy won’t let him and he warns the Indians, who manage to escape before Foster can kill them. When Foster finds out, he attacks Eddy, but the women break up the fight.

And why do the men die and the women survive? Because women have more body fat to live off of, and are lighter, so they use less energy walking through snow. It is the great irony: muscles kill men.

Eighteen days. That’s how long the rescue party walks. For eighteen days they stagger through forty-foot drifts, ice so hard it cracks their skin. They are seven skeletons in tatters when they finally descend below the snow line. In the woods, they see a deer, but William Eddy is too weak to lift his gun. It is wrenching—William Eddy finally sees game, tries to shoulder his rifle, and fails. He just drops the gun. And walks on. For food, they graze on bark and wild grasses, like deer. And then, William Eddy sees a curl of smoke from a small Indian village. But the others are simply too weak to move, so William Eddy leaves them behind and goes on himself.

Remember, this is before the Forty-niners and the real boom in California. The state is virtually empty. San Francisco is a town of a few hundred people, called Yerba Buena. Now we’re tight on a cabin at the edge of the mountains. We pull back to see it, idyllic and peaceful, a stream running in front, little patches of snow. We go wider and wider, so that you see this is the only civilization for miles. And there, in the corner of the frame, are two Indians holding up this figure. Now we go closer again, and we see, between the Indians, this gaunt creature, practically a skeleton, wild beard, barefoot, his clothes just tattered rags, staggering to the cabin . . .

. . . is William Eddy! The ranchers get him some water. A bit of flour, which is all his constricted stomach can handle. His eyes well with tears. “There are others . . . in an Indian village near here,” he tells them. “Six.” A party is sent off. He’s done it. Of the fifteen who went for help, William Eddy has brought Foster and the five women to safety and told the ranchers about the others back in the mountains.

But the story’s not over. First act, trek into the mountains; second act, descent and escape; third act, the rescue. Eddy has left seventy people up in the mountains, waiting for help. A rescue party is raised, forty men led by a fat, smug cavalryman named Colonel Woodworth. Eddy and Foster are too weak to help, but Eddy wakes momentarily in his bed to see dozens of men riding past the frontier cabin.

When his fever finally breaks, days later, he asks about the rescue party. The ranchers tell him that Woodworth’s men are camped only two days away, waiting out a snowstorm. A small rescue party of seven made it back to the Donner Party, but they nearly died crossing the pass and were only able to bring a dozen or so people out because of the deep snow and the weakness of the trapped pioneers. Even being rescued was a great danger; several more died on the way across the mountains. After a long pause, William Eddy speaks. “And my family?”

The rancher shakes his head. “I’m sorry. Your wife and daughter were already dead. Your boy is still alive, but was too young to walk over the pass. They left him in the camp.” William Eddy rises from his bed. He must go. His old enemy Foster also left a son behind, and he agrees to go with Eddy, even though they are weak still.