The Last Handful of Clover - Book 1: The Hereafter

1.27 The Backout

August 4, 1857

When the brilliant blue of the summer sky had faded into a uniform gray, Gus Humphries put aside his book and laid a half dozen strips of salt pork into his cast iron pan. While the pork was heating over his modest fire, he paused for a moment to run his fingers over the small volume's title page.

Leaves of Grass, Brooklyn, New York, 1856, the title page read, across from an artist's depiction of the poet. Whitman looked much as Gus remembered him in the portrait: A black felt hat with a wide rim, riding high on his forehead, his head cocked to the left, his shirt open to a patch of dark chest hair, and an expression on his angular face that was far more serious than Gus knew the poet to be.

He turned the page to read again the inscription written on the back of the title page. But at that moment the pork began to sizzle. Not wanting to risk getting any splatters on his most prized possession, which he'd kept in pristine shape since they left Arkansas, Gus quickly wrapped the book in its scrap of oilcloth. And with a sigh burdened by memories, he stuffed it into the saddlebag he kept next to his bedroll. For a few minutes, he stared at the sizzling pork, savoring the quiet of the evening.

Gus was a very private man.

Despite his job managing the cowhands for the Fancher party, he loved these quiet evenings with just his horse, his memories, his books, and the birds for company. Down the slope and to the north, he could see the twinkling campfires and oil lamps of Salt Lake City already kindling in the early evening gloom. And after all these weeks on the trail, the sight of that city made him uncomfortable.

Gus had long ago accepted that he was a trail rat. He'd lived a life in the dust and on his horse—alone, for the most part—and he expected he'd die that way, eventually.

Still, the lights in the broad and open valley of the Great Salt Lake were pretty. Kind of like stars that had fallen into the dry bed of the ancient lake.

As he turned the pork, he noticed that each time he looked up more lights had kindled across the valley. Some were fires like his own, likely from new arrivals who had yet to build their homes in the valley. But a surprising number were oil lamps in windows of one- and even two-story homes. They were far larger and more numerous than the previous summer.

This wasn't his first trip across the Salt Lake Valley. This year he was the foreman for the Fancher wagon train, and responsible for seeing that their accompanying herd of cattle kept pace with the train as it moved west toward California. But Gus had been a cowhand on several drives, some with immigrants, and some just driving a herd to the booming mining camps that were popping up across the Sierras. He had crossed the Salt Lake Valley before anyone lived here but the Goshute and some wild horses. And he had come through both before and after Brigham Young brought his flock west.

The Mormons certainly are an industrious folk, he thought, looking at the twinkling lights. Never in his sixty years had he seen a settlement grow like this one. The amount of work the Mormons were doing to turn this barren wasteland into a home for their people was humbling.

Now, he just hoped that the Fancher train would get out of this valley with their skins still attached to their backs.

Captain Fancher and his wagon train from Arkansas had no idea what they'd dropped into, but Gus could sense it. It was like Salt Lake City was a nest of bees after it had been hit by a crab apple.

We've walked into this city at the wrong time, he thought.

Just to the south, Gus could see their more than fifty wagons spread out across the encampment. Even though the risk of Indian raids here was minimal, they still had their wagons in a circle, mostly out of habit. But even so, their relief at being off the plains and through the Wasatch was palpable.