I don't know how much of the details
came through of what happened to Wolfinger, the fellow who
didn't show up at the campsite back there in Nevada
on the Humboldt River.
He shows up now, while the whole camp is stuck
in the snow in the Sierra.
The Donners are in their hut.
At this point, everyone has been indoors for about seven weeks.
There has been no new food brought into the camp.
And when the snow first fell, though they were reduced
to about a third of their oxen, since they expected the storm
to stop immediately, they didn't take any precaution
to pen up those oxen.
And they all either froze in the storm or ran away.
So they've been without food for a month and a half.
"A Death-Bed Confession."
"Sleet hit the hut and the bare bows chattering overhead
and almost tore loose the roof of canvas and hide.
I gathered green branches and built a bed for my family
and Wolfinger's widow, who lived with us.
To keep out water after this, we chinked the holes in the roof
with rags.
Tamsen took my knife to cut up a quilt if we needed more.
But by now, the roof seemed secure.
However, we worried about the poor health of the Wolfinger
woman and set her near the door.
We built a blaze outside.
By the firelight, I discovered the dark tissue,
the discolored skin on her fingers.
We removed her shoes.
Her toes, too, had been frostbit.
While we knelt over her in the heat, huddled in the door hole,
Batiste crawled past the three of us
and slid into the hut, feet first.
He stood up in the low room, his breath blooming
over the small ice balls that caught like burrs in his coat.
He had something to say to me and my wife
and waved us away from the widow.
We just found Reinhardt.
Noah and I thought he was dead.
He sits in the snow and holds his hands
in his lap, stares straight ahead at the trees.
I think the sleet woke him up.
Imagine that.
He swears he's alone.
He can't feel his hands or feet.
Before I said to bring him in, I asked Batiste,
did you take his gun?
No, does he have one?
I led him by the arm across the room.
You'll have to feel him for it.
But do it, I said, or he'll kill you.
When the widow is awake, he said,
I'm afraid she'll remember Reinhardt's face.
Just bring him here.
Don't worry about her.
She's sleeping like a bear.
She won't hear anything.
The sleet had quit when I looked out.
Do you need any help?
Batiste shook his head.
He's so skinny he won't be hard to carry.
They brought Reinhardt to our hut.
One went in back and one in front.
They lowered him on the snow and slid him through the door.
When they let go, he flopped around the room,
flinging his legs on the floor.
I was afraid he'd kick the widow in the back,
but she rolled over in her sleep,
and he saw her face just as we pulled him out through the hole
into the firelight.
I sat on his chest, wanting to keep the weight of my knees
on his arms.
But behind my back, his legs quivered like snakes.
He squirmed side to side.
Our fire glistened on his face.
When he moved his mouth, I bowed my head to listen.
He said in a soft voice, I helped to kill her husband.
Do you remember?
We dropped behind everyone else on the Humboldt River.
Me and Spitzer worked together.
We took Wolfinger.
His wife was riding up with yours.
No one was near us.
I wrapped my belt around his throat and fired one shot.
I cut his money belt, but Spitzer got his watch,
and we split his gold.
We laid his corpse across his horse,
rode off half a mile behind a little hill,
and hid him in the brush.
At length, Reinhardt grew calm.
A coma left him listless.
When he relaxed, his legs didn't shake.
Before the widow woke up, he had died.
We dug a shallow grave near the creek,
not striking solid mud below the snow, soft snow, which
we smacked down with the spade.
Then we crawled back inside.
Later, we had to steal out at night and dig him up
to remove what we could for meat--
arms and legs at the start, then the heart and all
of his liver, as well.
We would not have done this, but it was so long
since anyone had eaten a meal.
When we returned to the hut, my wife was weeping.
And I told her, I suppose he lost his life to no purpose.
But in this way, if we share his corpse,
he may save someone else.
Some nights, the air froze our tracks
and preserved the prints where our boots sank down
in the drifts going to the graves.
But these were buried when the wind arose,
shrouding the creek, blowing oblivion over the low shrubs,
and snapping the aspens.
So we ate and went to bed at night and awoke in the morning.
Seeing the surrounding mountains grow remote and insignificant,
the vague slopes never dissolved but disappearing day
by day in the omnivorous wind.
Even the large pines that stand out like landmarks here
in the meadow were lost in the easy lambence of the snow.
The only permanence is in our past,
where the prairie withdraws while winter forms
a wide quiet with so little color
that the covered shapes feel familiar."