章节正文
milk.
"It may save the baby's life," she said. "And they've got cow's
milk. I saw fresh cows with my own eyes. Go on, please, Laban. It
won't hurt you to try. They can only refuse. But they won't. Tell
them it's for a baby, a wee little baby. Mormon women have mother's
hearts. They couldn't refuse a cup of milk for a wee little baby."
And Laban tried. But, as he told father afterward, he did not get
to see any Mormon women. He saw only the Mormon men, who turned him
away.
This was the last Mormon outpost. Beyond lay the vast desert, with,
on the other side of it, the dream land, ay, the myth land, of
California. As our wagons rolled out of the place in the early
morning I, sitting beside my father on the driver's seat, saw Laban
give expression to his feelings. We had gone perhaps half a mile,
and were topping a low rise that would sink Cedar City from view,
when Laban turned his horse around, halted it, and stood up in the
stirrups. Where he had halted was a new-made grave, and I knew it
for the Wainwright baby's--not the first of our graves since we had
crossed the Wasatch mountains.
He was a weird figure of a man. Aged and lean, long-faced, hollow-
checked, with matted, sunburnt hair that fell below the shoulders of
his buckskin shirt, his face was distorted with hatred and helpless
rage. Holding his long rifle in his bridle-hand, he shook his free
fist at Cedar City.
"God's curse on all of you!" he cried out. "On your children, and
on your babes unborn. May drought destroy your crops. May you eat
sand seasoned with the venom of rattlesnakes. May the sweet water
of your springs turn to bitter alkali. May . . ."
Here his words became indistinct as our wagons rattled on; but his
heaving shoulders and brandishing fist attested that he had only
begun to lay the curse. That he expressed the general feeling in
our train was evidenced by the many women who leaned from the
wagons, thrusting out gaunt forearms and shaking bony, labour-
malformed fists at the last of Mormondom. A man, who walked in the
sand and goaded the oxen of the wagon behind ours, laughed and waved
his goad. It was unusual, that laugh, for there had been no
laughter in our train for many days.
"Give 'm hell, Laban," he encouraged. "Them's my sentiments."
And as our train rolled on I continued to look back at Laban,
standing in his stirrups by the baby's grave. Truly he was a weird
figure, with his long hair, his moccasins, and fringed leggings. So
old and weather-beaten was his buckskin shirt that ragged filaments,
here and there, showed where proud fringes once had been. He was a
man of flying tatters. I remember, at his waist, dangled dirty
tufts of hair that, far back in the journey, after a shower of rain,
were wont to show glossy black. These I knew were Indian scalps,
and the sight of them always thrilled me.
"It will do him good," father commended, more to himself than to me.
"I've been looking for days for him to blow up."
"I wish he'd go back and take a couple of scalps," I volunteered.
My father regarded me quizzically.
"Don't like the Mormons, eh, son?"
I shook my head and felt myself swelling with the inarticulate hate
that possessed me.
"When I grow up," I said, after a minute, "I'm goin' gunning for
them."
"You, Jesse!" came my mother's voice from inside the wagon. "Shut
your mouth instanter." And to my father: "You ought to be ashamed
letting the boy talk on like that."
Two days' journey brought us to Mountain Meadows, and here, well
beyond the last settlement, for the first time we did not form the
wagon-circle. The wagons were roughly in a circle, but there were
many gaps, and the wheels were not chained. Preparations were made
to stop a week. The cattle must be rested for the real desert,
though this was desert enough in all seeming. The same low hills of
sand were about us, but sparsely covered with scrub brush. The flat
was sandy, but there was some grass--more than we had encountered in
many days. Not more than a hundred feet from camp was a weak spring
that barely supplied human needs. But farther along the bottom
various other weak springs emerged from the hillsides, and it was at
these that the cattle watered.
We made camp early that day, and, because of the programme to stay a
week, there was a general overhauling of soiled clothes by the
women, who planned to start washing on the morrow. Everybody worked
till nightfall. While some of the men mended harness others
repaired the frames and ironwork of the wagons. Them was much
heating and hammering of iron and tightening of bolts and nuts. And
I remember coming upon Laban, sitting cross-legged in the shade of a
wagon and sewing away till nightfall on a new pair of moccasins. He
was the only man in our train who wore moccasins and buckskin, and I
have an impression that he had not belonged to our company when it
left Arkansas. Also, he had neither wife, nor family, nor wagon of
his own. All he possessed was his horse, his rifle, the clothes he
stood up in, and a couple of blankets that were hauled in the Mason
wagon.
Next morning it was that our doom fell. Two days' journey beyond
the last Mormon outpost, knowing that no Indians were about and
apprehending nothing from the Indians on any count, for the first
time we had not chained our wagons in the solid circle, placed
guards on the cattle, nor set a night-watch.
My awakening was like a nightmare. It came as a sudden blast of
sound. I was only stupidly awake for the first moments and did
nothing except to try to analyze and identify the various noises
that went to compose the blast that continued without let up. I
could hear near and distant explosions of rifles, shouts and curses
of men, women screaming, and children bawling. Then I could make
out the thuds and squeals of bullets that hit wood and iron in the
wheels and under-construction of the wagon. Whoever it was that was
shooting, the aim was too low. When I started to rise, my mother,
evidently just in the act of dressing, pressed me down with her
hand. Father, already up and about, at this stage erupted into the
wagon.
"Out of it!" he shouted. "Quick! To the ground!"
He wasted no time. With a hook-like clutch that was almost a blow,
so swift was it, he flung me bodily out of the rear end of the
wagon. I had barely time to crawl out from under when father,
mother, and the baby came down pell-mell where I had been.
"Here, Jesse!" father shouted to me, and I joined him in scooping
out sand behind the shelter of a wagon-wheel. We worked bare-handed
and wildly. Mother joined in.
"Go ahead and make it deeper, Jesse," father ordered,
He stood up and rushed away in the gray light, shouting commands as
he ran. (I had learned by now my surname. I was Jesse Fancher. My
father was Captain Fancher).
"Lie down!" I could hear him. "Get behind the wagon wheels and
burrow in the sand! Family men, get the women and children out of
the wagons! Hold your fire! No more shooting! Hold your fire and
be ready for the rush when it comes! Single men, join Laban at the
right, Cochrane at the left, and me in the centre! Don't stand up!
Crawl for it!"
But no rush came. For a quarter of an hour the heavy and irregular
firing continued. Our damage had come in the first moments of
surprise when a number of the early-rising men were caught exposed
in the light of the campfires they were building. The Indians--for
Indians Laban declared them to be--had attacked us from the open,
and were lying down and firing at us. In the growing light father
made ready for them. His position was near to where I lay in the
burrow with mother so that I heard him when he cried out:
"Now! all together!"
From left, right, and centre our rifles loosed in a volley. I had
popped my head up to see, and I could make out more than one
stricken Indian. Their fire immediately ceased, and I could see
them scampering back on foot across the open, dragging their dead
and wounded with them.
All was work with us on the instant. While the wagons were being
dragged and chained into the circle with tongues inside--I saw women
and little boys and girls flinging their strength on the wheel
spokes to help--we took toll of our losses. First, and gravest of
all, our last animal had been run off. Next, lying about the fires
they had been building, were seven of our men. Four were dead, and
three were dying. Other men, wounded, were being cared for by the
women. Little Rish Hardacre had been struck in the arm by a heavy
ball. He was no more than six, and I remember looking on with mouth
agape while his mother held him on her lap and his father set about
bandaging the wound. Little Rish had stopped crying. I could see
the tears on his cheeks while he stared wonderingly at a sliver of
broken bone sticking out of his forearm.
Granny White was found dead in the Foxwell wagon. She was a fat and
helpless old woman who never did anything but sit down all the time
and smoke a pipe. She was the mother of Abby Foxwell. And Mrs.
Grant had been killed. Her husband sat beside her body. He was
very quiet. There were no tears in his eyes. He just sat there,
his rifle across his knees, and everybody left him alone.
Under father's directions the company was working like so many
beavers. The men dug a big rifle pit in the centre of the corral,
forming a breastwork out of the displaced sand. Into this pit the
women draggedbedding, food, and all sorts of necessaries from the
wagons. All the children helped. There was no whimpering, and
little or no excitement. There was work to be done, and all of us
were folks born to work.
The big rifle pit was for the women and children. Under the wagons,
completely around the circle, a shallowtrench was dug and an
earthwork thrown up. This was for the fighting men.
Laban returned from a scout. He reported that the Indians had
withdrawn the matter of half a mile, and were holding a powwow.
Also he had seen them carry six of their number off the field, three
of which, he said, were deaders.
From time to time, during the morning of that first day, we observed
clouds of dust that advertised the movements of considerable bodies
of mounted men. These clouds of dust came toward us, hemming us in
on all sides. But we saw no living creature. One cloud of dirt
only moved away from us. It was a large cloud, and everybody said
it was our cattle being driven off. And our forty great wagons that
had rolled over the Rockies and half across the continent stood in a
helpless circle. Without cattle they could roll no farther.
At noon Laban came in from another scout. He had seen fresh Indians
arriving from the south, showing that we were being closed in. It
was at this time that we saw a dozen white men ride out on the crest
of a low hill to the east and look down on us.
"That settles it," Laban said to father. "The Indians have been put
up to it."
"They're white like us," I heard Abby Foxwell complain to mother.
"Why don't they come in to us?"
"They ain't whites," I piped up, with a wary eye for the swoop of
mother's hand. "They're Mormons."
That night, after dark, three of our young men stole out of camp. I
saw them go. They were Will Aden, Abel Milliken, and Timothy Grant.
"They are heading for Cedar City to get help," father told mother
while he was snatching a hasty bite of supper.
Mother shook her head.
"There's plenty of Mormons within calling distance of camp," she
said. "If they won't help, and they haven't shown any signs, then
the Cedar City ones won't either."
"But there are good Mormons and bad Mormons--" father began.
"We haven't found any good ones so far," she shut him off.
Not until morning did I hear of the return of Abel Milliken and
Timothy Grant, but I was not long in learning. The whole camp was
downcast by reason of their report. The three had gone only a few
miles when they were challenged by white men. As soon as Will Aden
spoke up, telling that they were from the Fancher Company, going to
Cedar City for help, he was shot down. Milliken and Grant escaped
"It may save the baby's life," she said. "And they've got cow's
milk. I saw fresh cows with my own eyes. Go on, please, Laban. It
won't hurt you to try. They can only refuse. But they won't. Tell
them it's for a baby, a wee little baby. Mormon women have mother's
hearts. They couldn't refuse a cup of milk for a wee little baby."
And Laban tried. But, as he told father afterward, he did not get
to see any Mormon women. He saw only the Mormon men, who turned him
away.
This was the last Mormon outpost. Beyond lay the vast desert, with,
on the other side of it, the dream land, ay, the myth land, of
California. As our wagons rolled out of the place in the early
morning I, sitting beside my father on the driver's seat, saw Laban
give expression to his feelings. We had gone perhaps half a mile,
and were topping a low rise that would sink Cedar City from view,
when Laban turned his horse around, halted it, and stood up in the
stirrups. Where he had halted was a new-made grave, and I knew it
for the Wainwright baby's--not the first of our graves since we had
crossed the Wasatch mountains.
He was a weird figure of a man. Aged and lean, long-faced, hollow-
checked, with matted, sunburnt hair that fell below the shoulders of
his buckskin shirt, his face was distorted with hatred and helpless
rage. Holding his long rifle in his bridle-hand, he shook his free
fist at Cedar City.
"God's curse on all of you!" he cried out. "On your children, and
on your babes unborn. May drought destroy your crops. May you eat
sand seasoned with the venom of rattlesnakes. May the sweet water
of your springs turn to bitter alkali. May . . ."
Here his words became indistinct as our wagons rattled on; but his
heaving shoulders and brandishing fist attested that he had only
begun to lay the curse. That he expressed the general feeling in
our train was evidenced by the many women who leaned from the
wagons, thrusting out gaunt forearms and shaking bony, labour-
malformed fists at the last of Mormondom. A man, who walked in the
sand and goaded the oxen of the wagon behind ours, laughed and waved
his goad. It was unusual, that laugh, for there had been no
laughter in our train for many days.
"Give 'm hell, Laban," he encouraged. "Them's my sentiments."
And as our train rolled on I continued to look back at Laban,
standing in his stirrups by the baby's grave. Truly he was a weird
figure, with his long hair, his moccasins, and fringed leggings. So
old and weather-beaten was his buckskin shirt that ragged filaments,
here and there, showed where proud fringes once had been. He was a
man of flying tatters. I remember, at his waist, dangled dirty
tufts of hair that, far back in the journey, after a shower of rain,
were wont to show glossy black. These I knew were Indian scalps,
and the sight of them always thrilled me.
"It will do him good," father commended, more to himself than to me.
"I've been looking for days for him to blow up."
"I wish he'd go back and take a couple of scalps," I volunteered.
My father regarded me quizzically.
"Don't like the Mormons, eh, son?"
I shook my head and felt myself swelling with the inarticulate hate
that possessed me.
"When I grow up," I said, after a minute, "I'm goin' gunning for
them."
"You, Jesse!" came my mother's voice from inside the wagon. "Shut
your mouth instanter." And to my father: "You ought to be ashamed
letting the boy talk on like that."
Two days' journey brought us to Mountain Meadows, and here, well
beyond the last settlement, for the first time we did not form the
wagon-circle. The wagons were roughly in a circle, but there were
many gaps, and the wheels were not chained. Preparations were made
to stop a week. The cattle must be rested for the real desert,
though this was desert enough in all seeming. The same low hills of
sand were about us, but sparsely covered with scrub brush. The flat
was sandy, but there was some grass--more than we had encountered in
many days. Not more than a hundred feet from camp was a weak spring
that barely supplied human needs. But farther along the bottom
various other weak springs emerged from the hillsides, and it was at
these that the cattle watered.
We made camp early that day, and, because of the programme to stay a
week, there was a general overhauling of soiled clothes by the
women, who planned to start washing on the morrow. Everybody worked
till nightfall. While some of the men mended harness others
repaired the frames and ironwork of the wagons. Them was much
heating and hammering of iron and tightening of bolts and nuts. And
I remember coming upon Laban, sitting cross-legged in the shade of a
wagon and sewing away till nightfall on a new pair of moccasins. He
was the only man in our train who wore moccasins and buckskin, and I
have an impression that he had not belonged to our company when it
left Arkansas. Also, he had neither wife, nor family, nor wagon of
his own. All he possessed was his horse, his rifle, the clothes he
stood up in, and a couple of blankets that were hauled in the Mason
wagon.
Next morning it was that our doom fell. Two days' journey beyond
the last Mormon outpost, knowing that no Indians were about and
apprehending nothing from the Indians on any count, for the first
time we had not chained our wagons in the solid circle, placed
guards on the cattle, nor set a night-watch.
My awakening was like a nightmare. It came as a sudden blast of
sound. I was only stupidly awake for the first moments and did
nothing except to try to analyze and identify the various noises
that went to compose the blast that continued without let up. I
could hear near and distant explosions of rifles, shouts and curses
of men, women screaming, and children bawling. Then I could make
out the thuds and squeals of bullets that hit wood and iron in the
wheels and under-construction of the wagon. Whoever it was that was
shooting, the aim was too low. When I started to rise, my mother,
evidently just in the act of dressing, pressed me down with her
hand. Father, already up and about, at this stage erupted into the
wagon.
"Out of it!" he shouted. "Quick! To the ground!"
He wasted no time. With a hook-like clutch that was almost a blow,
so swift was it, he flung me bodily out of the rear end of the
wagon. I had barely time to crawl out from under when father,
mother, and the baby came down pell-mell where I had been.
"Here, Jesse!" father shouted to me, and I joined him in scooping
out sand behind the shelter of a wagon-wheel. We worked bare-handed
and wildly. Mother joined in.
"Go ahead and make it deeper, Jesse," father ordered,
He stood up and rushed away in the gray light, shouting commands as
he ran. (I had learned by now my surname. I was Jesse Fancher. My
father was Captain Fancher).
"Lie down!" I could hear him. "Get behind the wagon wheels and
burrow in the sand! Family men, get the women and children out of
the wagons! Hold your fire! No more shooting! Hold your fire and
be ready for the rush when it comes! Single men, join Laban at the
right, Cochrane at the left, and me in the centre! Don't stand up!
Crawl for it!"
But no rush came. For a quarter of an hour the heavy and irregular
firing continued. Our damage had come in the first moments of
surprise when a number of the early-rising men were caught exposed
in the light of the campfires they were building. The Indians--for
Indians Laban declared them to be--had attacked us from the open,
and were lying down and firing at us. In the growing light father
made ready for them. His position was near to where I lay in the
burrow with mother so that I heard him when he cried out:
"Now! all together!"
From left, right, and centre our rifles loosed in a volley. I had
popped my head up to see, and I could make out more than one
stricken Indian. Their fire immediately ceased, and I could see
them scampering back on foot across the open, dragging their dead
and wounded with them.
All was work with us on the instant. While the wagons were being
dragged and chained into the circle with tongues inside--I saw women
and little boys and girls flinging their strength on the wheel
spokes to help--we took toll of our losses. First, and gravest of
all, our last animal had been run off. Next, lying about the fires
they had been building, were seven of our men. Four were dead, and
three were dying. Other men, wounded, were being cared for by the
women. Little Rish Hardacre had been struck in the arm by a heavy
ball. He was no more than six, and I remember looking on with mouth
agape while his mother held him on her lap and his father set about
bandaging the wound. Little Rish had stopped crying. I could see
the tears on his cheeks while he stared wonderingly at a sliver of
broken bone sticking out of his forearm.
Granny White was found dead in the Foxwell wagon. She was a fat and
helpless old woman who never did anything but sit down all the time
and smoke a pipe. She was the mother of Abby Foxwell. And Mrs.
Grant had been killed. Her husband sat beside her body. He was
very quiet. There were no tears in his eyes. He just sat there,
his rifle across his knees, and everybody left him alone.
Under father's directions the company was working like so many
beavers. The men dug a big rifle pit in the centre of the corral,
forming a breastwork out of the displaced sand. Into this pit the
women draggedbedding, food, and all sorts of necessaries from the
wagons. All the children helped. There was no whimpering, and
little or no excitement. There was work to be done, and all of us
were folks born to work.
The big rifle pit was for the women and children. Under the wagons,
completely around the circle, a shallowtrench was dug and an
earthwork thrown up. This was for the fighting men.
Laban returned from a scout. He reported that the Indians had
withdrawn the matter of half a mile, and were holding a powwow.
Also he had seen them carry six of their number off the field, three
of which, he said, were deaders.
From time to time, during the morning of that first day, we observed
clouds of dust that advertised the movements of considerable bodies
of mounted men. These clouds of dust came toward us, hemming us in
on all sides. But we saw no living creature. One cloud of dirt
only moved away from us. It was a large cloud, and everybody said
it was our cattle being driven off. And our forty great wagons that
had rolled over the Rockies and half across the continent stood in a
helpless circle. Without cattle they could roll no farther.
At noon Laban came in from another scout. He had seen fresh Indians
arriving from the south, showing that we were being closed in. It
was at this time that we saw a dozen white men ride out on the crest
of a low hill to the east and look down on us.
"That settles it," Laban said to father. "The Indians have been put
up to it."
"They're white like us," I heard Abby Foxwell complain to mother.
"Why don't they come in to us?"
"They ain't whites," I piped up, with a wary eye for the swoop of
mother's hand. "They're Mormons."
That night, after dark, three of our young men stole out of camp. I
saw them go. They were Will Aden, Abel Milliken, and Timothy Grant.
"They are heading for Cedar City to get help," father told mother
while he was snatching a hasty bite of supper.
Mother shook her head.
"There's plenty of Mormons within calling distance of camp," she
said. "If they won't help, and they haven't shown any signs, then
the Cedar City ones won't either."
"But there are good Mormons and bad Mormons--" father began.
"We haven't found any good ones so far," she shut him off.
Not until morning did I hear of the return of Abel Milliken and
Timothy Grant, but I was not long in learning. The whole camp was
downcast by reason of their report. The three had gone only a few
miles when they were challenged by white men. As soon as Will Aden
spoke up, telling that they were from the Fancher Company, going to
Cedar City for help, he was shot down. Milliken and Grant escaped
- hatred [´heitrid]
n.憎恨，敌意 (初中英语单词) - unusual [ʌn´ju:ʒuəl] a.不平常的；异常的 (初中英语单词)
- shower [´ʃauə] n.展出者；阵雨；淋浴 (初中英语单词)
- indian [´indiən] a.印度的 n.印度人 (初中英语单词)
- circle [´sə:kəl] n.圆圈 v.环绕；盘旋 (初中英语单词)
- barely [´beəli] ad.公开地；仅仅 (初中英语单词)
- harness [´hɑ:nis] vt.上马具 n.马具 (初中英语单词)
- impression [im´preʃən] n.印刷；印象；效果 (初中英语单词)
- knowing [´nəuiŋ] a.会意的，心照不宣的 (初中英语单词)
- identify [ai´dentifai] vt.认出；鉴定；验明 (初中英语单词)
- compose [kəm´pəuz] v.组成；创作；作曲 (初中英语单词)
- clutch [klʌtʃ] v.抓住 n.爪子；控制 (初中英语单词)
- instant [´instənt] a.立即的 n.紧迫；瞬间 (初中英语单词)
- working [´wə:kiŋ] a.工人的；劳动的 (初中英语单词)
- excitement [ik´saitmənt] n.兴奋；骚动；煽动 (初中英语单词)
- shallow [´ʃæləu] a.肤浅的；表面的 (初中英语单词)
- considerable [kən´sidərəbəl] a.重要的；值得重视 (初中英语单词)
- driven [´driv(ə)n] drive 的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- continent [´kɔntinənt] n.大陆，陆地 (初中英语单词)
- complain [kəm´plein] vi.抱怨，叫屈；控诉 (初中英语单词)
- learning [´lə:niŋ] n.学习；学问；知识 (初中英语单词)
- ragged [´rægid] a.衣服破烂的 (高中英语单词)
- roughly [´rʌfli] ad.粗糙地；毛糙地 (高中英语单词)
- sewing [´səuiŋ] n.缝纫；(书的)装订 (高中英语单词)
- whoever [hu:´evə] pron.任何人，无论谁 (高中英语单词)
- learned [´lə:nid] a.有学问的，博学的 (高中英语单词)
- trench [trentʃ] n.&v.(挖)沟，(挖)战壕 (高中英语单词)
- drought [draut] n.旱灾；干旱 (英语四级单词)
- seeming [´si:miŋ] a.表面上的 n.外观 (英语四级单词)
- morrow [´mɔrəu] n.翌日 (英语四级单词)
- arkansas [´a:kənsɔ:] n.阿肯色(州) (英语四级单词)
- nightmare [´naitmeə] n.梦魇；恶梦 (英语四级单词)
- bodily [´bɔdili] a.身体的 ad.亲自 (英语四级单词)
- volley [´vɔli] n.&v.齐射；(话)迸发 (英语四级单词)
- holding [´həuldiŋ] n.保持，固定，存储 (英语六级单词)
- unborn [,ʌn´bɔ:n] a.未生的；将来的 (英语六级单词)
- alkali [´ælkəlai] n.(化学)碱 (英语六级单词)
- leggings [´legiŋz] n.绑腿，裹腿 (英语六级单词)
- glossy [´glɔsi] a.光滑的，有光泽的 (英语六级单词)
- nightfall [´nait,fɔ:l] n.黄昏；傍晚 (英语六级单词)
- awakening [ə´weikəniŋ] n.&a.觉醒(中的) (英语六级单词)
- surname [´sə:neim] n.姓氏 (英语六级单词)
- bedding [´bediŋ] n.寝具；垫草；基础 (英语六级单词)
- calling [´kɔ:liŋ] n.点名；职业；欲望 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
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