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PART THREE

But write it, I did. And once my guide was written and once The Emigrants' Guide to Oregon and California was sold, it was time to return West, late in the summer of 1845. This second crossing of the Continent was of an entirely different sort of character than the first.

On my first crossing, of the Plains and deserts and mountains and the great North American River Systems on either side of the Continental Divide, I was one of 160; on this second trip, I was one of 11. Gone were the wagons, the women, and the children. We were a hearty team of horses and men and, accordingly, we reached Fort Laramie, a trip of 700 miles, in relatively little time.

Freshly provisioned and rested following a pause for our jaded horses, we pressed onward to California, arriving at Sutter's Fort on Christmas Day of my annus mirabilis, 1845! And, oh, were they surprised to see us! Oh how were they surprised to see us, riding in fine form, bringing yuletide cheer over the Sierra Nevadas, no worse for the wear. We came across the plane to New Helvetia through the lacy sieve of a cool December mist, January nipping at our heels.

Ah, this was perpetual spring! The valley quails called and the American River ran and you can imagine my shock when Sutter looked at me through his eyes, his vacant, Swiss-alpine-sky-blue, debt-forgetting, recklessly, helplessly American eyes, shook his head, and snorted. One of his minions, who had met us further back on the trail, heralded my arrival and Sutter glared as he returned the favor with scarcely a nod, before he finally opened his mouth and called me the luckiest man he'd ever met: "Just ahnozer day or so, my boy, and you'd have been frozen stiff as a poker."

The minion added that men don't get lucky like that twice.

The next afternoon, the winter's first blizzard would come and even the mountain's valleys would go white in the distance. The weather would stay mild down on the plain—as though someone had merely dropped a giant sheet over a model in the middle distance.

Of course, we had not known as we rode in that the Sierra Nevadas would remain insurmountable until April.

I simply replied I had never been in California at this time of year before.

[The fiddler strikes up an agreeable ditty, such as "Loop #4, Spirits."]

John Sutter warmed up again and called me inside for a drink. I pointed out that I had not been so cavalier in my Guide—and directed his attention to page 144 (I had a copy printed for him, of course) as we sipped some of his finest brandy: "Unless you pass over the mountains early in the fall, you are very liable to be detained, by impassable mountains of snow, until the next spring, or perhaps, forever."

[He inhales sharply as the fiddler ceases his fiddling abruptly.]