Richard S. Wheeler won a Spur Award for Best Western
Short Novel for his 2010 novel Snowbound,
and it was a well-earned, and deserving honor. Snowbound is less Western and more historical. It chronicles John
C. Fremont’s ill-fated fourth expedition, which was ostensibly to find a
railroad route across the Rocky Mountains at the 38th Parallel
between St. Louis and San Francisco.
The expedition was privately funded by a group of St.
Louis businessmen—with the support of Fremont’s senator father-in-law Thomas
Benton—and while its claimed purpose was to find a railroad route its true
purpose was to rehabilitate Fremont’s public reputation after his
court-martial, and ultimate resignation from the United States Army. The route crossed
the high and rugged spine of Colorado’s Rocky Mountains, where a railroad
passage was unlikely at best, and, to prove something to his detractors, it was
attempted in winter.
Snowbound
is effectively told in an alternating first person narrative. The narrative
perspective changes from chapter to chapter. It is told in the words of several
characters, including Fremont, and several of the expedition members—Dr.
Benjamin Kern, Alexis Godey, its lead scout Old Bill Williams, and others. It
reads much like a diary—the dialogue is minimal, and the story is primarily told
with the internal observations of the narrating characters. It is, through the
horror of the failed expedition, a character study of John Charles Fremont.
Fremont is presented as an enigma. He is narcissistic, admired—idolized,
really—complicated, and, in the end, loathed by some.
The novel’s true power is its powerful description of
the oppressive, brutal cold of the snowbound high Rockies, and the hardship of
the expedition—
“We
all looked pretty grim at times, with icicles dangling from our beards like
chimes and ice collecting in our eyebrows and a rime of frost around our
nostrils.”
“This
was a tumble and rocky land, with giant gray outcrops, steep slopes, somber
pine forests, groves of spidery cottonwoods and aspen, fierce, cruel creeks.
And snow lazily smothered the country. It had caught and settled in every
valley and dip, so that we were crossing spots that were ten or twenty feet
deep, perilously working upslope in a tamped-down trench that reached our
heads.”
“Somehow,
we made camp and got fires going in protected snow pits where the wind would
not snuff them. The snow had diminished, but the heavens scowled at us, and I
had the sense we were trespassers, invaders of a place that was sacred to
others, where no mortal should pass by.”
The hero of the story is Alexis Godey, a former fur
trapper and scout, who is Fremont’s second in command. He is developed as a
quiet, competent, and ethical man. Godey was responsible for saving the bulk of
the expedition’s men when he led the relief party—after reaching Taos with
Fremont, and a few others—back into the Mountains to rescue those stranded by
hunger and cold. While Godey is leading the relief party, Fremont recuperates
in Taos planning the next leg of the expedition to California, and preemptively
blaming the scout Old Bill Williams for the disastrous expedition.
Snowbound
is
a powerful novel of survival, and calamity. It is an introspective
interpretation of one of the most eccentric and dishonest topographical
expeditions of the Western United States. It is a beautifully rendered piece of
literature that captures the stark beauty of winter on the high ranges, and both
the hubris and nobility of men.
I have read many of Mr. Wheeler's novels and have never been disappointed. This one is a terrific read. For people who read westerns you just cannot go wrong with Richard Wheeler.
ReplyDeleteNeil. I agree completely. I've read, probably, around a dozen (maybe a few more) and each has been very entertaining. I especially enjoy his historical and biographical novels.
ReplyDeleteBen
Ben, I have read much about Mr. Wheeler's western fiction and I do want to read some of them. I have a fair idea about his westerns.
ReplyDelete