Celia Hayes – The Accidental Texan

Wherein Jon Kettering meets a man who will later … much, much later … become very important.

Monterey was the largest settlement in California, then – and perhaps the prettiest of all the  towns, all set about a neat plaza; all built of the usual mud brick adobe but the folk there took care to whitewash the walls of their houses, which made a sparkling contrast to the rusty-red tile roofs. There was a sandstone church, too – a cathedral, they told us – with a galleried tower and a curving façade that shaped like a fancy bedstead. All around was green, pine trees gnarled by the ocean breeze into fantastic shapes. A party of soldiers in blue uniforms was at drill in the open plaza in front of the Governor’s House – that was where we were told that Colonel Marsh would be found. I decided then that I never wanted to be in any Army, after watching the soldiers tramp across the dusty plaza in a tight-massed group while another soldier – one with a bright red face and some yellow stripes on his sleeve bellowed, “Left, right, left right … harch!” and called them names and used words so abusive that Ma would purely have washed out my mouth with soft soap for saying them.

“Pa, don’t them soldiers know how to walk proper?” I asked, as we waited at the open door to the governor’s house. Colonel Marsh’s assistant, Lieutenant Sherman had told Pa to wait after Pa explained his business. “If they do, why do they have to learn it all over again?”

“I don’t know, rightly,” Pa replied, just as Colonel Marsh’s assistant returned, and showed us into the hallway. There were a couple of chairs with seats of woven rawhide, a single bookshelf, and a desk for Lieutenant Sherman to work at, next to the door which led into the Governor’s private office. This Lieutenant Sherman was a young man with red hair falling over a wide forehead and chin-whiskers. All that hair untidily cut, as if someone had given him a going-over with sewing shears. His unform was a nicer one than the soldiers outside at drill – it fit him better and looked to be made of finer cloth. There was a sword in a long scabbard leaning against his desk, so I guess it was too awkward managing a sword and a chair and a desk all at once.

Lieutenant Sherman had sharp, discerning eyes on either side of a beaky nose, and he said to Pa, “Mr. Kettering – the Colonel will see you now … but privately. I’ll wait with the lad. You’ll have only twenty minutes, so make it brisk; as governor here, he doesn’t have time to waste.”

I started to follow Pa, but Lieutenant Sherman had closed the door on Pa’s back. He gestured towards one of the chairs and sat himself down at his desk.  We looked at each other for a long moment. The front door to the plaza stood open, letting in fresh air from outside, and the distant sound of those soldiers at drill being yelled at. I felt kind of silly, just sitting there and kicking my heels against the chair legs, but I couldn’t stop the question that popped into my mind.

“Do you really like being a soldier?” I demanded.

Lieutenant Sherman had already taken up a pen, dipped it in an open inkwell, and began writing – the pen made a scratching sound on the paper. I could see that my question took him by surprise.

“Well … yes, mostly, I do. Wish I had been sent to Mexico with General Taylor, though – instead of being sent here. It was an interesting journey, though. Most of my friends went to Mexico, to fight. In comparison, it seemed pretty … ornamental being Colonel Marsh’s assistant. I wonder if strings were pulled on my behalf.” He corked up the inkwell, and I think for the first time, he really looked at me. “I knew there were Americans settled here in California … men, mostly. Not many women and children.”

“I’m not a baby,” I replied, a bit indignant. “I’m almost nine years old. I’ve been helping out my Pa build a sawmill … and Mr. Reed said I’m almost as good a rider as his vaqueros.”

“Well then, how long have you been in California? Where did you come from before?” It sounded as if he were fishing around to make conversation to fill the silence. I could hear Pa’s voice, but faintly – not loud enough on the other side of the door to hear his words, and what he was explaining to Colonel Marsh.

“We’ve been in California for nigh on two years, sir.” I replied. “Pa and Ma and my sister Sally came from Ohio, before that. Mount Gilead, Marion County. Pa was the wagon captain of our party, after we decided we didn’t like the first captain. Major Persifor, be called himself. He said he had studied at West Point. He wanted to shoot all the dogs.”

“Ohio? I’m also from Ohio – Lancaster! We were neighbors, almost. Your Major Persifor seems to have been an obnoxious man, to talk of dog-killing,” Lieutenant Sherman brushed his hand over his red hair, and grinned at me, after making a face at the mention of West Point. “Probably did well to get rid of him. You don’t need to call me sir – you can call me Cump, like my friends do.”

“I’m Jonathan, like in the Bible,” I said, as this seemed very like a proper introduction. “But most call me Jon. Why do your friends call you Cump? That’s a name I never heard before.”

“I was christened William Tecumseh; Tecumseh after the Shawnee chief – my father greatly admired the noble character of the man, and there were too many other boys named William when I was growing up. When someone yelled for William or Bill, half the lads in town answered! Going by Cump just seemed simpler.”

I decided that I really rather liked Lieutenant Sherman – Cump, as I had been asked to call him. It seemed an uncommon liberty to me, being invited to call a grown man by that very curious name – I was certain that Ma and Pa would not approve, but in a way, I felt that I might be honest with him. Perhaps he might explain about soldiering.

“Why do they have to march,” I said, looking out at the group of dusty blue soldiers at drill, and being yelled at by the red-faced fellow with all the yellow stripes on his sleeve. “Don’t they already know how to walk?”

“They have to learn and practice keeping in step,” Cump answered patiently, as if it were a logical thing.

“But why?” I persisted, and Cump sighed.

“Because they have to learn to follow orders without thinking about it, over-much.”

“But why?” I asked again. Cump threw a look at me and ran his hand through his hair.

“Because if they thought too much about the orders, maybe they wouldn’t obey at all,” he explained. “It’s the thing, Jon – sometimes soldiers have to do things as a matter of duty that they wouldn’t do if they stopped and thought about it.”

“Why?” I demanded, as this didn’t seem very sensible to me – and why would any sensible man volunteer to go soldiering.

“Because in battle soldiers have to obey their commander, who likely know more about the war at hand, and the objective to be gained,” Cump explained. “Because the commander will know the situation, better than the men in the ranks. That’s why.”

“I don’t think I would like that very much,” I confessed. “I’d want to know at least as much as a commander before I got into a battle.”

(This will be the follow on book to West Towards the Sunset, with Sally Kettering’s brother Jon as the main character. He is now eight years old, and he, Henry and Pa Kettering are part of the crew building a sawmill on the American River, over the winter of 1847-48.)

The stretch of valley where the mill was to be built was one of those lightly wooded vales, with gentle hills on either side and the ice-cold river winding in gentle bends down the middle between. There were stands of trees – bare sycamores holding up their branches against the cold blue sky, and oaks just shedding the last of their bronze-colored leaves. When we came to that place and set up camp, we saw that Captain Sutter’s surveyor had marked certain large trees with blazes and bits of red rag tied to canes thrust into the soil, Mr. Marshall, with Pa and Mr. Wimmer went to walk along the riverbank, looking for the best site for the mill. The weather was so mild that even though it was coming on to winter, we could still sleep in the open, although Pa set up a tent for us – the wall tent that he and Ma had slept in at night, coming over the trail. Even so, Mr. Marshall told us that it would get cold at night when winter did set in for real. He and Mr. Wimmer commenced planning to build a double cabin – the kind that they called a dog-trot cabin in the South; two rooms on either side, with an open porch in between. Pa thought that we three could get along for the moment with our tent, thick pallet beds stuffed with grass, and every heavy quilt that Ma could send with us.

“When are you going to explain to me how a saw mill works?” I asked Henry, after we finished setting up our camp. Pa and Mr. Marshall had not yet returned from walking the open meadow where the river made a gentle bend, sorting out the best place to start building. They were also marking the trees which would be felled for their timbers, timbers that would be needed for the mill, and to build a cabin for the Wimmers and the Mormon workers.

“I will show you,” Henry replied. He was already whittling out with his fine steel German pocketknife. It looked to me like he was cutting little notches into a rounded piece of wood. “I have studied much – existing diagrams and plans for such. It is in my mind to make a working model. For my amusement and to teach to you.”

When Henry talked of such things to us, he always sounded more stilted; as if he were still thinking in German and putting his thoughts then into English.

“Will it really saw planks?” I demanded, and Henry sent me a sideways smile, as he whittled away.

“It might,” He replied, seriously. “If there is enough force from the water, to work the saw blade. It might not. There is a complicated reason why…”

And he went on explaining it to me, in every detail. It all went into my mind and then trickled right out again – just as Ma’s lessons always did.  I just wasn’t made for book-lessons, not the way that Henry, or my sister Sally was. I had come to that realization in the last year or so; it seemed that Pa had come to the same conclusion.

Oh, it was a rare time, those first weeks in the Coloma valley, setting up to build Captain Sutter’s mill! None of Ma’s lessons that always made my poor head ache as if someone was pounding on it with a hammer! The constant soft splashing of the river, the last few leaves on the nearly-bare trees rustling in the light breeze, and the way that the morning fog left glistening droplets on the branches, which sparkled like diamonds once the sun burned off the fog … But there were chores in plenty – but outdoors, and variable, which was much more to my liking. Holding the hammers and saws for the carpentering crew, bringing them dippers of cold water when they were thirsty, watching them fell and trim trees. Pa let me handle a small hand saw, so that I could help trim smaller branches. Within the first week, a cabin of unpeeled logs Mr. Wimmer’s family, and the workers had been built and nearly completely roofed,

I liked the passel of young men that Mr. Marshall had hired, and Mr. Wimmer supervised as I came to know and work with them. They were  all militia volunteers for the Mexican War and sent out to California as part of the Army – but seeing that they were all devout Mormon, they were well-mannered and clean-living to an unusual degree, having eschewed strong drink, and even the drinking of tea and coffee!  Pa remarked quietly to Henry and I that this put them farther over the edge of the temperance side of conduct than any hard-shell Baptist that he had ever heard of. They were all bound for their new colony of Deseret, when winter was over, and spring thawed snow in the high mountain passes. Brigham Young, who was the chief apostle of the new Saints, as they called themselves, had decreed that they would establish the perfect new city for themselves, out in the howling desert wilderness near the great inland Salt Lake. We had not passed through that desert, but some that we had met in California had – and they said nothing good about the awful desert country. I reckoned myself that it was several degrees awfuler than the desert between the Humbolt Sink and the Truckee. I couldn’t see how any sane body would want to set up housekeeping there, and I said so to Pa when we talked of this.

“Having failed in attempts to build such a perfect communal establishment for themselves in the settled country, Mr. Young has decided that the howling wilderness would be the better choice for his folk.”

“Why would that be?” Henry wondered. We were sitting at our fire, a little apart from where the others were camped in and around the half-built log house. “Were they not agreeable to their neighbors?”

You must recall that Henry Steitler’s pa and ma were foreigners, only come to America a year or so before we set out on the trail to California – so Henry might not have paid much mind to the ruckus that had been raised about Mormons in Missouri and Iowa and other like places.

“No,” Pa replied. “For whatever reasons, good or bad – or Mormons, good or bad – their neighbors were not agreeable to them. I’d guess that Mr. Young has decided that they can only get long with their neighbors – if they have no neighbors.” Pa looked over to where the Mormon lads were laughing and joshing around their own campfire as the sun slid down over the far hills in a blaze of gold and orange glory, sending shadows reaching out across the narrow valley. He sighed a little. “It’s gonna be a hard row their chief apostle has set them to hoe – I wish them all the luck in the world, but I just don’t see how they can make a garden out of a desert that forbidding.”

“You think they will fail at that – their Deseret city?” Henry was fascinated. He recalled our desert crossing as well as any of us.

Pa shook his head. “I don’t see how they can, even with the best will in the world – not on land so hostile to everyone but poor naked Indians, living off crickets and grubs … no, nothing will come of their Deseret.”

I remembered this exchange most particularly – because it was one of the very few times that Pa was wrong.

So, having completed the YA novel about the emigrant trail, I was thinking over how to make it into a series, along the lines of Little House on the Prairie. The trouble is that with my original protagonist, Sally, in West Towards the Sunset, being twelve years old in that book … she would grow up. I wanted to keep the main character of a series as a tween or teen, but still incorporate their participation in all kinds of interesting events over the following twenty years after 1846. And then I had a thought – each YA novel could feature a subsequent tween or teen in the Kettering family, starting with Sally’s brother Jon as a main character … and then with two more siblings!
And that was inspiring – especially since the milieu of the various precious metal rushes would allow more liberty to a male character … so on with the follow-up, featuring Jon Kettering! Then I am plotting taking the younger sister, presently a baby, to Virginia City in the Silver Rush, and the very youngest Kettering boy, as yet unborn, working in a newspaper office with a very young Samuel L. Clemens. Each book, as in the Texas frontier series will be free-standing, but linked. So behold — the first half chapter of Hills of Gold!

(I promise – I am also working on the final wrap-up of the Luna City Chronicles. Yes, I can multi-task…)

It was a small thing, that bright pebble in the millrace – but what an avalanche that it started! I was there at the very start of it all, because Pa was a carpenter, working at the job he had been hired to work on, and he took along me and our sort of foster brother, Henry Steitler to help, early in the winter of 1847. Henry was sixteen then, and well-grown; he loved to build things, and work out better ways to make things work. He counted as a man, as things went, then. His father had died in an accident on the trail, and well… he had been part of our family ever since. He was tall and fair-haired, like me, so people just naturally took us to be blood-kin.
My name is Jonathan Mathew Kettering, and I had turned seven years old, on the early winter day that our wagon company came down the Yuba River track into that wide valley in the center of California. When I was eight years old, Pa and Henry and I went to work on Mr. Sutter’s new sawmill, in the hills. I wasn’t interested in any kind of school that involved reading books, to Ma’s despair. I escaped Ma’s notion of lessons any ways that I could, preferring to run wild in the woods and hills with my best pals, Will and Jimmy Greenwood. The Greenwood boys were part Indian and came by those ways naturally. Their older brothers were in the trail-guiding trade, their pa was Old Man Greenwood, the famous mountain man.
“Those wild boys are the worst kind of influence on Jon!” Ma exclaimed, the evening that Pa came home from Sutter’s place and told us that he was considering taking me to work on the sawmill in the hills. “Indeed – take Jonny-cakes with you, Elkanah.” (Johnny-cakes was my nickname among the family.)
“Might as well start him off, learning a good trade,” Pa agreed, and so that was what happened. I didn’t mind much. I really didn’t care anything for book learning, as it made my head ache something fierce.
We Ketterings and Henry Steitler had arrived in California as part of a company of ox-train immigrants in the trail season two years previous to the time of the story that I am telling. My Pa, Elkanah Kettering was captain of that company. Pa was a sensible man, and there was an old mountain man with us, Choctaw Joe Bayless, who knew the trail and the conditions in the west. Choctaw Joe had all that, as well as acquaintanceship with many of the tribes that we encountered. He knew their languages and their ways, right well enough, to ease our passage, and our company arrived safely in California, with the addition of a baby girl born on the very day that Pa’s company tackled the last high pass through the mountains.
A wagon company which followed the same trail as us, some weeks later had not such good fortune. They were stranded in deep snow for months. Half of them starved to death before rescue parties could be organized and come to their aid. Their awful suffering has been warning and a cautionary tale, ever since. My sister Sally’s best friend was one of the survivors – Ginny Reed. Sally threatened to scalp me good, if I ever asked Ginny anything about it. Ginny didn’t like to dwell on it, none.
So that was how Pa planned our winter in the hills – helping to build Captain Sutter’s sawmill. Ma and my older sister Sally were taken up with caring for our new baby sister, Emily-Anne. Our womenfolk were all planning to spend the months that we were away in our small cabin, on a patch of land near Sutter’s place, a settlement which was growing right crowded, even then. I had no interest in babies, anyway, no more than I had in Ma’s school lessons. Pa was saving up to purchase a nice tract of land closer to the coast, where he could plant wheat and run cattle, Ma could have her splendid garden, and we all live together in a big new house that he would build for us, rather than the cramped little cabin of unpeeled logs. Well, that was Pa’s intent, anyway. Before things changed.
Captain Sutter was the big impresario of those parts in the earlies. He had ambitious plans, when he hired Pa along with Mr. Marshall and a crew of Mormon boys to build a sawmill, on the south branch of the American River. Those hills that were like knees to that tall mountain range, mountains that were a barrier between California and the desert that we had crossed barely two years before. The river poured down from the foothills, and Captain Sutter hoped that the spring flood would power his mill. Pa needed the money to buy that tract of land that he had his eye on, so he took Captain Sutter’s coin. Captain Sutter needed lumber, lumber to build all those houses for those new settlers coming to California, now that it looked likely for it to become an American territory. The war with Mexico over it all seemed likely to be settled in our favor.
Anyway, we took off, up the rough track to the hills above the American River, just as winter set a white veil over the high mountain peaks beyond. Pa drove a wagon filled with supplies, canvas for tents, and trunks full of carpentering tools. I rode in the wagon with him, and Henry rode his tamed Indian paint pony that his father had bought from some Kanzas Indians, back when we started out on the trail. That pony was getting real-well mannered, finally, although it wasn’t anything for looks.
There were a number of picks and shovels among the gear in the wagon, and some wheel-barrows, as well.
“You see, Johnny-cakes,” Pa explained, “We’ll have to dig a mill-race, to channel the water from the river to turn a wheel that runs the saw. Dig the race, build the mill – all from the bare ground.”
“A lot of work,” Henry added. His pony was picking a careful way along side our jolting wagon. “But it saves a lot of work, in the long run.”
“A proper mill, so I am told, saves the work of thirty men working a pit-saw, day and night, sawing lumber from logs,” Pa explained. I thought about how I’d much rather be with Pa and Henry, working at building that saw-mill no matter how hard it might be, rather than doing home chores for Ma and enduring her efforts to teach me book-learning.