THE BROKEN WEDDING
Banion allowed the main caravan two days' start before he moved beyond
Fort Laramie. Every reason bade him to cut entirely apart from that
portion of the company. He talked with every man he knew who had any
knowledge of the country on ahead, read all he could find, studied such
maps as then existed, and kept an open ear for advice of old-time men
who in hard experience had learned how to get across a country.
Two things troubled him: The possibility of grass exhaustion near the
trail and the menace of the Indians. Squaw men in from the north and
west said that the Arapahoes were hunting on the Sweetwater, and sure to
make trouble; that the Blackfeet were planning war; that the Bannacks
were east of the Pass; that even the Crows were far down below their
normal range and certain to harass the trains. These stories, not
counting the hostility of the Sioux and Cheyennes of the Platte country,
made it appear that there was a tacit suspense of intertribal hostility,
and a general and joint uprising against the migrating whites.
These facts Banion did not hesitate to make plain to all his men; but,
descendants of pioneers, with blood of the wilderness in their veins,
and each tempted by adventure as much as by gain, they laughed long and
loud at the thought of danger from all the Indians of the Rockies. Had
they not beaten the Sioux? Could they not in turn humble the pride of
any other tribe? Had not their fathers worked with rifle lashed to the
plow beam? Indians? Let them come!
Founding his own future on this resolute spirit of his men, Banion next
looked to the order of his own personal affairs. He found prices so high
at Fort Laramie, and the stock of all manner of goods so low, that he
felt it needless to carry his own trading wagons all the way to Oregon,
when a profit of 400 per cent lay ready not a third of the way across
and less the further risk and cost. He accordingly cut down his own
stocks to one wagon, and sold off wagons and oxen as well, until he
found himself possessed of considerably more funds than when he had
started out.
He really cared little for these matters. What need had he for a fortune
or a future now? He was poorer than any jeans-clad ox driver with a
sunbonnet on the seat beside him and tow-headed children on the flour
and bacon sacks, with small belongings beyond the plow lashed at the
tail gate, the ax leaning in the front corner of the box and the rifle
swinging in its loops at the wagon bows. They were all beginning life
again. He was done with it.
The entire caravan now had passed in turn the Prairies and the Plains.
In the vestibule of the mountains they had arrived in the most splendid
out-of-doors country the world has ever offered. The climate was
superb, the scenery was a constant succession of changing beauties new
to the eyes of all. Game was at hand in such lavish abundance as none of
them had dreamed possible. The buffalo ranged always within touch, great
bands of elk now appeared, antelope always were in sight. The streams
abounded in noble game fish, and the lesser life of the open was
threaded across continually by the presence of the great predatory
animals--the grizzly, the gray wolf, even an occasional mountain lion.
The guarding of the cattle herds now required continual exertion, and if
any weak or crippled draft animal fell out its bones were clean within
the hour. The feeling of the wilderness now was distinct enough for the
most adventurous. They fed fat, and daily grew more like savages in look
and practice.
Wingate's wagons kept well apace with the average schedule of a dozen
miles a day, at times spurting to fifteen or twenty miles, and made the
leap over the heights of land between the North Platte and the
Sweetwater, which latter stream, often winding among defiles as well as
pleasant meadows, was to lead them to the summit of the Rockies at the
South Pass, beyond which they set foot on the soil of Oregon, reaching
thence to the Pacific. Before them now lay the entry mark of the
Sweetwater Valley, that strange oblong upthrust of rock, rising high
above the surrounding plain, known for two thousand miles as
Independence Rock.
At this point, more than eight hundred miles out from the Missouri, a
custom of unknown age seemed to have decreed a pause. The great rock was
an unmistakable landmark, and time out of mind had been a register of
the wilderness. It carried hundreds of names, including every prominent
one ever known in the days of fur trade or the new day of the wagon
trains. It became known as a resting place; indeed, many rested there
forever, and never saw the soil of Oregon. Many an emigrant woman, sick
well-nigh to death, held out so that she might be buried among the many
other graves that clustered there. So, she felt, she had the final
company of her kind. And to those weak or faint of heart the news that
this was not halfway across often smote with despair and death, and
they, too, laid themselves down here by the road to Oregon.
But here also were many scenes of cheer. By this time the new life of
the trail had been taken on, rude and simple. Frolics were promised when
the wagons should reach the Rock. Neighbors made reunions there.
Weddings, as well as burials, were postponed till the train got to
Independence Rock.
Here then, a sad-faced girl, true to her promise and true to some
strange philosophy of her own devising, was to become the wife of a
suitor whose persistency had brought him little comfort beyond the
wedding date. All the train knew that Molly Wingate was to be married
there to Sam Woodhull, now restored to trust and authority. Some said
it was a good match, others shook their heads, liking well to see a maid
either blush or smile in such case as Molly's, whereas she did neither.
At all events, Mrs. Wingate was two days baking cakes at the train
stops. Friends got together little presents for the bride. Jed, Molly's
brother, himself a fiddler of parts, organized an orchestra of a dozen
pieces. The Rev. Henry Doak, a Baptist divine of much nuptial diligence
en route, made ready his best coat. They came into camp. In the open
spaces of the valley hundreds of wagons were scattered, each to send
representatives to Molly Wingate's wedding. Some insisted that the
ceremony should be performed on the top of the Rock itself, so that no
touch of romance should lack.
Then approached the very hour--ten of the night, after duties of the day
were done. A canopy was spread for the ceremony. A central camp fire set
the place for the wedding feast. Within a half hour the bride would
emerge from the secrecy of her wagon to meet at the canopy under the
Rock the impatient groom, already clad in his best, already giving
largess to the riotous musicians, who now attuned instruments, now broke
out into rude jests or pertinent song.
But Molly Wingate did not appear, nor her father, nor her mother. A hush
fell on the rude assemblage. The minister of the gospel departed to the
Wingate encampment to learn the cause of the delay. He found Jesse
Wingate irate to open wrath, the girl's mother stony calm, the girl
herself white but resolute.
"She insists on seeing the marriage license, Mr. Doak," began Jesse
Wingate. "As though we could have one! As though she should care more
for that than her parents!"
"Quite so," rejoined the reverend man. "That is something I have taken
up with the happy groom. I have with all the couples I have joined in
wedlock on the trail. Of course, being a lawyer, Mr. Woodhull knows that
even if they stood before the meeting and acknowledged themselves man
and wife it would be a lawful marriage before God and man. Of course,
also we all know that since we left the Missouri River we have been in
unorganized territory, with no courts and no form of government, no
society as we understand it at home. Very well. Shall loving hearts be
kept asunder for those reasons? Shall the natural course of life be
thwarted until we get to Oregon? Why, sir, that is absurd! We do not
even know much of the government of Oregon itself, except that it is
provisional."
The face of Molly Wingate appeared at the drawn curtains of her
transient home. She stepped from her wagon and came forward. Beautiful,
but not radiant, she was; cold and calm, but not blushing and uncertain.
Her wedding gown was all in white, true enough to tradition, though but
of delaine, pressed new from its packing trunk by her mother's hands.
Her bodice, long and deep in front and at back, was plain entirely,
save for a treasure of lace from her mother's trunk and her mother's
wedding long ago. Her hands had no gloves, but white short-fingered
mitts, also cherished remnants of days of schoolgirl belledom, did
service. Over white stockings, below the long and full-bodied skirt,
showed the crossed bands of long elastic tapes tied in an ankle bow to
hold in place her little slippers of black high-finished leather. Had
they seen her, all had said that Molly Wingate was the sweetest and the
most richly clad bride of any on all the long, long trail across the
land that had no law. And all she lacked for her wedding costume was the
bride's bouquet, which her mother now held out to her, gathered with
care that day of the mountain flowers--blue harebells, forget-me-nots of
varied blues and the blossom of the gentian, bold and blue in the
sunlight, though at night infolded and abashed, its petals turning in
and waiting for the sun again to warm them.
Molly Wingate, stout and stern, full bosomed, wet eyed, held out her one
little present to her girl, her ewe lamb, whom she was now surrendering.
But no hand of the bride was extended for the bride's bouquet. The voice
of the bride was not low and diffident, but high pitched, insistent.
"Provisional? Provisional? What is it you are saying, sir? Are you
asking me to be married in a provisional wedding? Am I to give all I
have provisionally? Is my oath provisional, or his?"
"Now, now, my dear!" began the minister.
Her father broke out into a half-stifled oath.
"What do you mean?"
Her mother's face went pale under its red bronze.
"I mean this," broke out the girl, still in the strained high tones that
betokened her mental state: "I'll marry no man in any halfway fashion!
Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't I think? How could I have forgotten?
Law, organization, society, convention, form, custom--haven't I got even
those things to back me? No? Then I've nothing! It was--it was those
things--form, custom--that I was going to have to support me. I've got
nothing else. Gone--they're gone, too! And you ask me to marry
him--provisionally--provisionally! Oh, my God! what awful thing was
this? I wasn't even to have that solid thing to rest on, back of me,
after it all was over!"
They stood looking at her for a time, trying to catch and weigh her real
intent, to estimate what it might mean as to her actions.
"Like images, you are!" she went on hysterically, her physical craving
for one man, her physical loathing of another, driving her well-nigh
mad. "You wouldn't protect your own daughter!"--to her stupefied
parents. "Must I think for you at this hour of my life? How near--oh,
how near! But not now--not this way! No! No!"
"What do you mean, Molly?" demanded her father sternly. "Come now,
we'll have no woman tantrums at this stage! This goes on! They're
waiting! He's waiting!"
"Let him wait!" cried the girl in sudden resolution.
All her soul was in the cry, all her outraged, self-punished heart. Her
philosophy fell from her swiftly at the crucial moment when she was to
face the kiss, the embrace of another man. The great inarticulate voice
of her woman nature suddenly sounded, imperative, terrifying, in her own
ears--"Oh, Will Banion, Will Banion, why did you take away my heart?"
And now she had been on the point of doing this thing! An act of God had
intervened.
Jesse Wingate nodded to the minister. They drew apart. The holy man
nodded assent, hurried away--the girl sensed on what errand.
"No use!" she said. "I'll not!"
Stronger and stronger in her soul surged the yearning for the dominance
of one man, not this man yonder--a yearning too strong now for her to
resist.
"But Molly, daughter," her mother's voice said to her, "girls has--girls
does. And like he said, it's the promise, it's the agreement they both
make, with witnesses."
"Yes, of course," her father chimed in. "It's the consent in the
contract when you stand before them all."
"I'll not stand before them. I don't consent! There is no agreement!"
Suddenly the girl reached out and caught from her mother the pitiful
little bride's bouquet.
"Look!" she laughed. "Look at these!"
One by one, rapidly, she tore out and flung down the folded gentian
flowers.
"Closed, closed! When the night came, they closed! They couldn't! They
couldn't! I'll not--I can't!"
She had the hand's clasp of mountain blossoms stripped down to a few
small flowers of varied blooms. They heard the coming of the groom, half
running. A silence fell over all the great encampment. The girl's father
made a half step forward, even as her mother sank down, cowering, her
hands at her face.
Then, without a word, with no plan or purpose, Molly Wingate turned,
sprang away from them and fled out into a night that was black indeed.
Truly she had but one thought, and that in negation only. Yonder came to
claim her a man suddenly odious to her senses. It could not be. His
kiss, his arms--if these were of this present time and place, then no
place in all the world, even the world of savage blackness that lay
about, could be so bad as this. At the test her philosophy had forsaken
her, reason now almost as well, and sheer terrified flight remained her
one reaction.
She was gone, a white ghost in her wedding gown, her little slippers
stumbling over the stones, her breath coming sobbingly as she ran. They
followed her. Back of them, at the great fire whose illumination
deepened the shadows here, rose a murmur, a rising of curious people, a
pressing forward to the Wingate station. But of these none knew the
truth, and it was curiosity that now sought answer for the delay in the
anticipated divertisement.
Molly Wingate ran for some moments, to some distance--she knew of
neither. Then suddenly all her ghastly nightmare of terror found climax
in a world of demons. Voices of the damned rose around her. There came a
sudden shock, a blow. Before she could understand, before she could
determine the shadowy form that rose before her in the dark, she fell
forward like the stricken creature.