‡

PART FOUR

[The fiddler plays his "Fugue."]

† July 20, 1846

I once drank with an auctioneer who remarked that there's often a sad story involved when an old toy is found in good condition.

[He prepares and sips another drink. This is an uncomfortably long and uncertain break.]

When our merry band of pie-oh-neeeeers did reach the Continental Divide, a rider I had sent ahead met them with a letter I had written in my own hand.

At this point, they were known as the "Boggs Company" as the newly elected Captain was Lilburn Boggs—the former governor of Missouri who had survived mysterious bullet wounds to the face, skull, and throat after he issued the Extermination Order, expelling members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from the State of Missouri. His own brother, a physician, pronounced him dead and an obituary ran in all the papers, but he somehow served out the remainder of his term and lived another 22 years thereafter.

Despite all practical advice I can offer from my extensive experience, I would have said this to anyone traveling with Boggs that summer: the man clearly had Divine Protection—in just what form is open to interpretation, but SOMEONE was looking out for him!

My open letter was handed directly to the former governor, clearly informing him and anyone else who cared to read that I would be on hand when they reached Fort Bridger. Nevertheless, Lilburn Boggs and his kin took the older Fort Hall route.

Not mine.

[He pauses.]

The Donner Party was born and baptized at the Continental Divide.

[He drinks for a little while.]

Meanwhile, I was waiting at Fort Bridger where gossip had reached me regarding a letter of another nature entirely. It would, in fact, be years before I truly learned of the letter's contents, but...Well, here is what it said. Notice that while Sutter could talk with the best of them, his orthography in the English language was somewhat lacking:

I like to be hospitable, but I am very glad when Capt. Hastings is gone, because he makes me a disagreeable situation, and I don't like to tell him to leave, particular as it is only a few days longer...perhaps nobody will see him here again, as his life will be in danger about his book, making out California a paridise [sic], even some of the Emigrants in the Valley, threatened his life, and by his imprudent writing he made himself the enemy of the Country people.

Now, Dear Reader, rest assured no one had threatened my life in California. And, of course, as it turned out, even I couldn't oversell California, so John Sutter was wrong on that account. However...I had been pushed out—and through no actions of my own. Timing...timing and the womanish chatter of ill-informed men had done me in before the Donner Party even existed. Sutter wanted no part of me.

And even that did not matter much:

During the Gold Rush of '49 yet four years away, Sutter's son arrived from Switzerland and outdid us all, underselling his own father in his ruthless bid to build a city he named Sacramento—just down the road from Sutterville, from his very own father's El Dorado.

That, truly, was the shortcut I'd missed.