Leaving Independence

Book 3: Go West, Young Man

by William W. Johnstone, J.A. Johnstone

Genres: Historical Fiction; War & Military

Synopsis

Legendary national bestselling Western authors William W. Johnstone and J.A. Johnstone return with their latest installment in the long-running First Mountain Man series.

Independence, Missouri, 1865. Seasoned wagon master Virgil Grissom prepares to lead a new group of families westward across the Oregon Trail. Among them are struggling farmer Matt Moran, his wife Katie, and their three small children. In spite of the long, treacherous journey ahead, Grissom is confident that this solid, hard-working farmer and his family are tough enough to endure the harsh elements, the rugged terrain, and the occasional run-in with hostile tribes. But he’s not so sure about the farmer’s younger brother, Clay, who plans to catch up with them along the trail. Alone. Which has Grissom worried . . .

On the Oregon Trail, a lone man is dead man.

Clay Moran fought hard in the Civil War, serving as lieutenant in the US Calvary. Now that Robert E. Lee has surrendered, Clay is free to head west with his brother’s family. Problem is, the wagon train has left Independence already—and Clay has to go it alone. Luckily, the army let him keep his horse. But when a couple of bushwhackers steal that horse and all his money, he’s left high and dry. If Clay hopes to catch up with the wagon train, he’ll have to rely on his wits. His guts. And every skill he learned in the war. Along the way, he’ll have to do things a man should never have to do—just to survive . . .

JOHNSTONE COUNTRY. GO WEST, LIVE FREE, OR DIE TRYING.

Release date: January 21, 2025

Publisher: Pinnacle Books

Print pages: 320

Sample

Wagon master Virgil Grissom was making his final trip around the wagons circled up on the Kansas prairie west of Independence, Missouri. He would be leading them out onto the two-thousand-mile trail to Oregon Territory at seven o’clock the following morning. While he walked the circle, he couldn’t help wondering how many more years would see the phenomenon of the wagon train endure. The year was 1865 and the railroad was already plotting its path across the country. Once the railroad was completed, the trip to the West Coast would be a matter of days, instead of months. Folks would be able to get there a lot quicker, he thought, but they wouldn’t be able to take a wagonload of their belongings and their horses, too. “Well, at least it’s my last crossing of the country,” he muttered to himself. “This time I’m stayin’ put in the Willamette Valley while there’s still some land left to buy.”

The next wagon he came to belonged to a man and his family who sold their farm in a little town in Missouri called Warrensburg. His name was Matt Moran. He looked like a solid, hardworking man, married to a strong woman named Katie, who seemed a cheerful sort. They had three children: Jim, ten; Sarah, eight; and Hannah, five. Matt had a younger brother, who was to be mustered out of the army now that Robert E. Lee had surrendered. “You gonna be ready to roll in the mornin’, Mr. Moran?” Grissom called out as he walked up to their cookfire.

“We’re as ready as we can be, I reckon,” Matt Moran answered. “Least, Mama says we are, and she’s the boss.”

“I want you to remember you heard him say that,” Katie Moran commented.

Grissom laughed. “I’ll swear to it, Miz Moran,” he replied. Then looking at Matt again, he asked, “No sign of your brother?” Matt’s younger brother was supposed to go with them to Oregon, but he had not appeared as yet.

“No,” Matt answered, “but in the last letter we got from Clay before we left Warrensburg to come here, he said he most likely wouldn’t get here by the tenth of April. The fightin’s over and his unit has already been recalled to be mustered out. So he said he was just gonna catch up with us before we got very far ahead of him.”

“I expect he’s right,” Grissom said. “We oughta make about twelve to fifteen miles a day, especially on the first part of the trip, so he should catch us before long, unless he’s walkin’. He ain’t walkin’, is he?”

“Nope,” Matt answered, “he’s a cavalry officer and they’re lettin’ him keep a horse.”

“How long has it been since you last saw him?”

“It’s been about two and a half years,” Matt said. “I hope he’s wearin’ his uniform, so I’ll be sure to recognize him,” he joked.

“There ain’t been no real Indian trouble out that way for a couple of years now,” Grissom said, “but it don’t never hurt to have a horse soldier along. Mr. Steptoe would probably tell you the same thing,” he said, referring to Elmo Steptoe, whose wagon was behind Matt’s.

Matt knew why Grissom made the remark. Elmo Steptoe, a bowlegged little man who talked bigger than the shadow he cast, was burdened with the care of three daughters and no sons. His and Cora’s last try for a son resulted in a stillbirth, which was a tragic event, especially for Cora, but the baby was another girl, too, which was discouraging for Elmo. He seemed cursed with an inability to produce a male heir. Ike Yocum, Grissom’s cook and wagon driver, was convinced it was because Elmo didn’t have a hair on his head above his sideburns. Of course Grissom didn’t pass that information on to Elmo. To make matters more mystifying, Elmo’s eldest, Irene, was fifteen years old and from a kind fluke of nature in the mating of equal parts Elmo and Cora, had turned out to be a decent-looking girl. Behind her, Millie, twelve and Cassie, ten, also looked promising to cause Elmo to eventually lose the hair of his sideburns when they got a little older and the young men discovered them. What seemed the more remarkable to Matt and Katie was the fact that they learned all this on their first night in camp when they met Elmo at the gathering in the center of the circle of wagons.

“Well, I’ll see you at four in the mornin’,” Grissom said to Matt and Katie. “I’d best go see if Mr. Steptoe and his ladies are ready to go.” He continued his inspection of the circle of twenty-four wagons, a smaller number than in his previous trains but enough to discourage any small bands of Indians.

“I’m glad to see we’re going to get started in the morning,” Katie remarked to her husband when Grissom walked away. They had been parked there since the ninth for the scheduled departure on April tenth, but tomorrow would be the thirteenth of April. “I’m worried that we don’t have enough food to get us there as it is,” she complained. “I was beginning to believe we were going to eat it all up while we were parked here.”

“I know,” Matt replied. “Grissom said we would have left on the tenth, if it had been just one wagon that didn’t show up, but there were three of ’em. All three showed up; the last one pulled in today. And on the good side, it gave Clay three less days to make up while he’s tryin’ to catch up with us.”

“I suppose that is a good thing,” Katie conceded, “if, in fact, he shows up.” She remembered a carefree Clay Moran, who was prone to drift with the wind before he left to join the army.

“I expect he will, since he sent us the money to pay for his share of the food,” Matt said.

Matt and Katie both bolted upright the following morning upon hearing the sudden sound of Virgil Grissom’s bugle for the first time. Far from an accomplished bugler, Grissom was able to manage a string of unrelated notes sufficiently loud enough to be heard by everyone in the circle of wagons. “Well, sweetheart, he’s playin’ our song. It’s time to go to Oregon,” Matt said as ten-year-old Jim stuck his head inside their sleeping tent.

“Does that mean it’s time to get up, Pa?” Jim asked.

“That’s what it means,” Matt answered. “Get that fire started for your mother while I take care of the horses. Are Sarah and Hannah up?”

“I don’t know,” Jim answered. “I didn’t look in their tent.” There were two sleeping tents, one for the grown-ups and one for the children. But Jim preferred to sleep in a blanket under the wagon instead of sleeping with the girls.

“Well, tell ’em to get up, so they can help your mother get breakfast,” Matt said as he was pulling on his boots. “Then get the fire goin’.”

“Yes, sir, but I got to go pee first,” Jim said.

“All right, but don’t go too far. It’s pitch black. Won’t nobody see you. I’ll be over at the creek with the horses. After you get the fire goin’ good, you can go ahead and pack up the girls’ tent.” Grissom had gotten there early enough to claim a choice camping spot close beside a healthy creek that eventually emptied into the river. The new grass was just beginning to grow, so there was ample grazing for Matt’s horses close to the creek.

When he got back to the wagon, the sun was still struggling to get up, but the tents were packed up and breakfast was well on the way. Sarah and Hannah were cheerfully helping with any little job Katie could trust them with. Just like a great big picnic, Matt thought. I wonder how long that’s gonna last.

Katie thought it appropriate to start them off with a good breakfast on this first day of a journey that would change their very lives. When her husband first started thinking about giving up on their modest farm in Missouri and following the confident dreamers to the fertile valleys in the west, she was not enthusiastic about it. But the more depressed Matt became about the potential yield he would be able to get from their small farm, the more Katie knew something had to change. Then Lamar Johnson, who owned the huge farm next to theirs, offered to buy their farm and Matt accepted the offer even before consulting her. Seeing how excited Matt was over it, she chose to embrace his decision enthusiastically.

After breakfast, she and the girls cleaned up the dishes while Matt and Jim packed up the wagon and hitched up the horses. At seven o’clock sharp, Grissom sounded the signal with his bugle, then stepped off the side of his wagon into the saddle on the buckskin gelding he rode. While Ike Yocum started his wagon on the first mile of a journey that would take months to complete, Grissom rode back to make sure all the other wagons kept up. Ike knew the road as well as Grissom, so he needed no guide, but after Grissom was satisfied that all the wagons were keeping pace, he would normally ride on ahead of the train to spot any trouble. The first few days of travel were usually enough to get the folks accustomed to the routine of the wagon train. But soon after that, they would be faced with their first river crossing when they reached the Kansas River. Once they made that crossing, they would feel as if they were seasoned travelers.

Matt and Katie had met the family in the wagon directly in front of them at the social get-together two nights before. Vernon and Molly Tatum were from Iowa and they had a boy Jim’s age they called Skeeter. The two boys hit it off right from the start. Skeeter had a little brother, four years old, who would obviously be their designated pest. Vernon played the fiddle, so he was eager to find any other musicians on the wagon train. He asked Matt if he played an instrument and Katie answered for him. “He couldn’t carry a tune in a five-gallon bucket.”

“I’m more of a foot-tapper,” Matt said.

“But not anywhere close to the time of the music,” Katie remarked.

“She’s awful hard on you, Matt,” Vernon japed.

“She’s just a little bit jealous because she can’t do all the steps I know when we’re dancin’,” Matt declared.

“Ha!” Katie laughed. “You’ll see what I mean if I ever get him to dance. He looks like a grizzly bear stalking a deer.”

“I can’t wait to see that,” Vernon remarked. “We’re gonna have to find some more boys with instruments. There’s bound to be somebody else. We’ll probably find out tonight after supper.”

When they started out from the Missouri, Katie sat in the driver’s seat beside Matt and the girls rode in the wagon. Jim started out to Oregon on foot, however. The wagon train had not gone a great distance before he had company when his two sisters hopped out of the wagon to join him. They found the bumpy ride in the wagon too uncomfortable to tolerate. The only set of springs on the wagon was under the driver’s seat, and after a while, even they were not enough to keep Katie from joining her children on foot. They were not alone. Before long, most of those who could walk, did, so the horses were not alone in appreciation of the noon and five o’clock rests.

Vernon Tatum had to wait no longer than the first night on the journey to find out if there were any other musicians on the train. It turned out that there were quite a few musical instruments among the wagons and several were good enough to perform with others. So a band was quickly created with sometimes as few as three and sometimes as many as six artists, but usually four regulars. It was evident from the start that Vernon was the most talented of the musicians, so he was the leader. The presence of some musical instruments was something Virgil Grissom had been hoping for. It always helped keep up the morale of the travelers to have music at the social hour after supper, especially later on when the going got rough. He got a big fire going in the middle of the wagons to encourage the travelers to come from their wagons to socialize. “Whaddaya think, Mr. Tatum?” Grissom asked. “You boys gonna be able to make a big enough racket to pull some of the folks outta their wagons?”

“Ain’t no doubt about it,” Vernon replied. “We’re about ready to cut loose with one now, just as soon as we get John Henry’s banjo in tune with the rest of us.”

“You ain’t waitin’ on me,” John Henry Hyde declared, then assaulted the helpless instrument with a vengeance.

An amused spectator, Molly Tatum chuckled at her husband’s efforts to put the ensemble together. “I don’t know, Mr. Grissom,” she remarked, “I believe you’re gonna get a racket all right, but it might scare folks away, instead of bringing them out of the wagons.”

“They’re gonna get it together,” Grissom said. “There’ll be folks out here dancin’ before you know it.”

Molly laughed. “There might be folks out here, but if they feel like I do right now they won’t be doing much dancing. I need a big bottle of liniment. I ain’t walked that far in my life.”

“It won’t be long before you’ll be used to that,” Grissom predicted.

Grissom’s prediction proved to be true for Katie because she took only a couple of days to adjust to the daily schedule of the wagon train. She even boasted to Matt that she and the children were going to walk all the way to the Willamette Valley while he sat on his behind. They got to know more and more of their fellow travelers, primarily at the social hour after supper every night. It was at one of these social hours that Grissom announced they would be making their first river crossing two mornings from that night. “We’ll travel all day tomorrow to get to the Kansas River, camp on the east bank, and cross over the next mornin’.” His announcement brought an immediate murmur of concern from the travelers. “I’ll be ridin’ on up ahead of you to check the condition of the riverbanks and I’ll pick the best place to cross. I don’t expect any trouble a-tall. I hope you used that wax in the can I gave each one of you to seal up any cracks in your wagon boxes. If you didn’t, it’d be a good idea to use it tonight or tomorrow night.” The murmuring returned and the topic of conversation was set for the remainder of the night. “Now go on and enjoy the rest of the evenin’,” he concluded.

“Do you honestly believe that wagon will float?” Mildred Lewis asked her husband.

“I don’t know,” Quincy answered, “Grissom seems to think so, and I reckon he ought to know.”

“But you told me our wagon, loaded like it is, weighs close to two thousand pounds,” Mildred said, “and nothing about that wagon looks like a boat.”

Overhearing their conversation, Eleanor, John Henry Hyde’s wife, touched Mildred’s elbow and said, “I’m like you, honey, I don’t see how that wagon can float, either. And look at that big ol’ moose I’m married to. It’ll surely sink with him driving it.”

Mildred chuckled. “Maybe you’d better make him swim across the river and you drive the wagon.”

They set out again the next morning, and after the noontime rest for the horses and dinner, Grissom rode on ahead of the wagons on his buckskin gelding to check the condition of the riverbanks. His intention was to select the place that looked to be the easiest crossing, then he would guide Ike to that spot to circle the wagons for the night.

When he arrived at the river, he found evidence of a couple of earlier crossings, and they were both in the section of the river most commonly used in years before. The banks looked solid and in good condition on both sides. At first glance, he could see no reason why the horses would have any difficulty pulling the wagons up the bank on the other side. From memory, he knew the deepest part and the strongest current was closer to the other side. So he started the buckskin across to determine how far he would get before he had to swim. He found that there had not been perceptible changes in the river’s channel. The buckskin only had to swim a little over twelve feet before his hooves found the bottom again and he walked on out of the water and up the bank. Grissom decided there should be no trouble as long as the drivers kept their horses moving at a constant pace, all the way across the river. He knew he could count on Ike to do that, but as a precaution, after Ike crossed over, they would unhitch his team of horses. Then if any of the wagons needed help, they could use that extra team to pull them up the bank. Satisfied that it should be a routine crossing, he rode back across the river and went to meet the train.

As he expected, Grissom met the wagon train about two miles short of the river at five o’clock, according to his pocket watch. He wheeled the buckskin around to come up beside his wagon. “Any trouble?” Ike asked.

“Nope,” Grissom answered, “looks the same as the last time I saw it and the river ain’t high. Shouldn’t be any trouble.”

“We’ll see, I reckon,” Ike remarked. “First river crossin’, the first timers usually bring the trouble with ’em. Who you gonna cross behind me?”

“I ain’t had much chance to really get to know the folks on this train, but from what talkin’ I have done with ’em, I’m thinkin’ about Moran. He strikes me as the type that don’t get too nervous about anything. Whadda you think?”

“Good a choice as any, I reckon,” Ike said. “He looks like the kinda man that don’t scare easy.”

“When I line ’em up tonight, I’ll set him number one behind you,” Grissom said. He changed the order of travel every night so nobody had to eat all the dust every day on the trail. So that’s what he did when they reached the river, circled the wagons with Matt Moran lined up behind Ike and everybody else behind him. Then, as he did every night, he lined the wagon tongue up with the North Star, so he would know his directions in the morning. There was much discussion that night after supper and many questions regarding the smaller children. Grissom stressed the importance of keeping the small ones inside the wagons and to keep the wagons moving at a steady pace, especially in the deep part. The musicians didn’t stay very late that night, since their minds were on the preparation of their wagons for the crossing to come first thing in the morning, too. As a result, very few of the settlers lingered.

In the morning, the wagon train was awake early and anxious with about half the settlers up and about before Grissom’s four o’clock bugle sounded. Breakfast was finished and the horses hitched up and ready to start well before seven, so Grissom gave the signal to go ahead and start. Ike gave his horses a yell and a slap with the reins, and they started down the bank toward the water. Ready to follow Ike, Matt started his horses after him with Katie on the seat beside him and the girls sitting right behind them. Grissom, who had been standing beside the wagon, urged him to keep moving once he entered the water. Young Jim Moran and his new friend, Skeeter Tatum, swam across to save the extra weight on their parents’ wagons, so they declared. Sarah complained to her parents that Jim was just showing off and was going to drown. “You think we better call him to the wagon?” Katie asked Matt.

“Too late now,” Matt answered her. “I ain’t worried about him anyway. I know he can swim. He’ll be all right. It’s the other boy I don’t know anything about.” He watched the wagon in front of him as the water rose up toward the top of the wheels, trying to see if he could tell when Ike’s horses were swimming. He couldn’t be sure, but at least the wagon didn’t sink. Maybe Grissom knew what he was talking about, he thought. He had said that the deepest part was only a little over twelve feet wide, and the horses would strike solid bottom again by the time the wagon had to float. So they would pull it onto solid bottom just as long as they kept moving. He had no sooner thought that when his horses started swimming, so he immediately encouraged them to swim hard. He glanced at Katie beside him and said, “We’re gonna find out if this wagon can float in about two seconds.” In a few moments, they felt the whole wagon sway with the current and sink slightly, just enough to make Sarah and Hannah both squeal fearfully. Then the wheels struck solid bottom again and the horses pulled the wagon up the other bank.

Matt drove the wagon up to park it behind Ike’s, who had continued quite a way off the bank, to leave room for all the wagons to line up in that day’s marching order, Matt assumed. He climbed down from the wagon and helped Katie down and then the girls. “Are we supposed to unhitch the horses?” he asked Ike when he saw him unhitching his.

“No,” Ike answered, “Grissom wants me to have a team handy in case somebody needs some extra help.”

Matt and Katie took the girls back down to a spot on the riverbank out of the way to watch the wagons coming across. Below them, closer to the water, they saw Jim and Skeeter, safe and sound, although soaking wet. “He could go up to the wagon and put on some dry clothes,” Katie commented.

“He’ll walk ’em dry by the time we stop for dinner,” Matt replied. “Besides that, him and Skeeter are tryin’ to show each other who’s the toughest.”

Listening to her parents’ conversation, eight-year-old Sarah offered her opinion. “They’re just trying to show who’s the dumbest.”

They continued to watch the crossing as wagon after wagon came across with no more difficulty than they had experienced. It was not until the fourteenth wagon in line that a mishap occurred. The wagon belonged to Harlan Rice, who had fought a long, losing battle with alcohol before embarking on this journey with his wife, Annie, and his two daughters, Alice, thirteen, and Jenny, ten. Before leaving Missouri to start Harlan’s promise of a new life in Oregon, he had hidden four bottles of corn whiskey in a big sack of old blankets and rags. This was in case of a bout of the shakes that he couldn’t rid himself of, or a task that he wasn’t confident in achieving. Crossing the Kansas River was a task he was not confident in achieving. So to help steady his nerves, he took a couple of belts of corn whiskey while Annie and the girls were at the fire cooking breakfast. He immediately felt a calming effect, so he took the bottle out of its hiding place and placed it in the front corner of the wagon bed at the foot of the driver’s seat. He threw his coat over it, so Annie wouldn’t see it. He was counting on the fact that Annie and the girls would probably walk along beside the wagon until they got closer to the water before they climbed on. He was right in his assumption. So he took advantage of the opportunity to draw courage from the bottle while he could.

“Best stop for a minute, Mr. Rice, and let your women climb in the wagon,” Grissom called out to Harlan as he rode up to the edge of the river. “You need to keep a steady pace once you get in the water.”

“Yes, sir, Captain,” Harlan called back cheerfully, “I’m gonna keep a steady pace.” He pulled his horses to a stop. Annie and the girls climbed aboard quickly and Harlan started his horses again. “Here we go, keepin’ a steady pace,” he declared.

Alice and Jenny squeezed in the back in any little spaces they could find in the packed wagon box while their mother climbed back in the seat beside their father. “You sound like you’re in a silly mood this morning,” Annie commented as she sat down in the seat beside Harlan. “I thought you weren’t sure our wagon would float.”

“Not me,” he replied. “Those wagons up ahead of us are all floatin’ across, and if they can do it, I damn-sure can do it.”

She paused to give him a look. There was something odd about the silly grin on his face. “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear you’ve been drinking again.” He just gave her a wide smile. “What the heck is wrong with you?” she asked, still thinking he was acting oddly. Then she knew it. “You’ve been drinking. Where did you get any whiskey? Oh, Harlan, why? At a time like this, why?”

“I ain’t been drinkin’,” he insisted. “Why don’t you get in the back of the wagon with Alice and Jenny? They might be scared when we get out in the middle of this river.”

“The hell you haven’t been drinking! I can smell it on you now. We were worried about having enough money to buy our land in Oregon, and you’ve been throwing it away on whiskey.”

“Oh, quit your blubberin’,” he said. “I just brought a little bit along to take when my back problem kicks up from drivin’ this damn wagon. Whiskey’s the only thing that helps.”

“You ain’t got no back problem,” she mocked. “You just ain’t got no backbone. Maybe I’ll have to raise the money to pay for our land. Can’t depend on a drunk. Maybe I can find a whorehouse and get a job.” That was always her favorite threat.

“It would have to be a helluva cheap one,” he countered.

“As long as they didn’t let drunks like you in,” she responded to his insult.

In the back of the wagon there was no trouble hearing every word exchanged between their mother and their father, even with their hands clamped tightly over their ears. “Don’t pay them no mind,” Alice told her younger sister. “It’s just words. They’re just trying to hurt each other’s feelings.” Then they heard Grissom’s voice close to the wagon and the sound of their horses’ hooves striking the water.

“Pick ’em up, Mr. Rice! You’re gettin’ too big a gap between you and Steptoe.”

“Aye, aye, sir, Captain!” Harlan japed. “I’m gettin’ ready to set sail.” His speech already beginning to show signs of slurring, he flogged his horses with the reins. Annie cringed when she heard his attempt to be clever. Grissom was puzzled by Harlan’s strange behavior as well, but since he closed the gap between his and Elmo Steptoe’s wagon, Grissom ignored it and continued back along the line of wagons. He only nodded to Bryan Roland, who was driving the wagon behind Harlan’s, since Bryan seemed to be having no trouble at all.

“Are you sure you’re all right, Harlan?” Annie asked, concerned more about their safety as the shallow water became deeper and deeper, and the horses were obviously working harder. “You know I can drive this wagon if you ain’t feeling up to it right now.”

“What the hell’s the matter with you?” Harlan responded. “ ’Course I’m all right. That’ll be the day, when I have to have you drive the wagon for me. You just be ready to help the girls in case this wagon starts to sink when we hit the deep part.” Steptoe’s wagon continued along in front of them with no delays, so Harlan did his best to keep the same pace as they approached the deepest part of the river. “They’re swimmin’!” Harlan suddenly blurted when the horses reached the channel of the river. “Get ready! They’ll pull this wagon off the bottom. Hah, hah, giddy-up,” he shouted to the horses. The horses worked hard to obey his commands and pretty soon they found footing and started pulling up the other side. The front of the wagon settled slightly when the front wheels were pulled into the deep water, causing Harlan to fear it was going to sink. His reaction was to flog the horses to pull harder. When the rear wheels reached the deep water and the back of the wagon sank a little like the front had, Harlan was afraid it was going to keep sinking. In a fit of panic, his natural reaction was to haul back on the reins as hard as he could to stop the wagon right there.

“What are you doing?!” Annie screamed. “Don’t stop them!”

He looked at her, terrified, unable to speak. The wagon was now fully afloat. The current was not terribly strong, but it was enough to gently turn the wagon downstream. Consequently there was a problem where there had been none before. With the help of the current, there was more than the two-thousand-pound weight of the wagon pulling against the two horses, and was more than they could overcome. Standing in water up to the point of their shoulders, the horses held the wagon where it was half-sunk. But the current caused it to turn a full ninety degrees, and they could not pull it up the slope. When Harlan obviously didn’t know what to do, Annie took the reins out of his hands and tried to get the horses to pull on out of the water. But the best they could do was hold it where it was.

“What the hell . . . ?” Ike blurted when he saw what had happened. “They need help! We gotta tie my horses onto ’em!” he shouted out, but Grissom was all the way down at the last wagon on the other side of the river. Ike backed his team of horses down to the water’s edge. One of the men already across and now standing on the bank to watch saw what Ike was attempting to do.

“Here!” John Henry Hyde shouted. “Gimme the rope! You hold the horses!” The big man grabbed the rope and plunged into the river. He went under the surface and tied the heavy rope to the wagon. His head popped up above the surface then and he yelled, “Pull ’em on up, Ike!” Ike immediately popped his reins, and together, the four horses pulled Rice’s wagon up the slope. Still in the water, John Henry tried to swing the back of the wagon around in an effort to straighten it a little to make it easier. . .