For one reason or another they hadn’t made it and now their bleached bones lay somewhere along the trail. They had been given a tombstone with an inscription, or a pile of stones with a cross, or they had been buried in an unmarked grave.

But sometimes the graves were desecrated by Indians or wolves. To avoid such profanation, the emigrants would occasionally bury their dead in the middle of the trail, ahead of the caravan, and all the wagons would drive over the grave, one after another, until the wheels caused all trace of the burial to disappear.

XX. The Bull Rider’s Wife

XX

The Bull Rider’s Wife

She was big and blonde, with long hair and green eyes; she must have been six feet tall.

Her shoulders were broad.

She had a warm, open face, and she provided information to tourists from a mobile home located on a dirt road that led to Chimney Rock.

Chimney Rock was a rocky formation that did resemble a chimney. Some emigrants used to say that it looked like an inverted funnel, but to most of them it suggested a factory chimney or the chimney of a house destroyed by fire. This is what it looked like:

It stood one hundred and fifty metres high and could be seen from far away on the prairie. It served as a reference point. When emigrants spotted the long narrow stone chimney in the distance, they knew that they must soon brave the Rocky Mountains. In fact, on a clear day they could make out the first foothills of the Rockies, the Laramie Mountains, on the horizon.

All day long, La Grande Sauterelle had a premonition that something was about to happen. She didn’t know exactly what, but they should be prepared for something important. When they arrived at the mobile home, the tall woman greeted them Texas-style.

“Howdy!” she said, and cordially shook their hands; they felt like old friends.

“How do you do?” they replied in unison.

The woman shot Jack a look of particular interest.

“We’ve met before, haven’t we?” she asked.

“Yes. No!” he said.

He was very excited. Her face was like Melina Mercouri’s, a face as round as the full moon, and it was lit by the warmth of her green eyes. She was looking at him as if she recognized someone in him or through him. She didn’t know a word of French. He tried to tell her they were from Quebec and all that, but his English was even more infantile than usual, and finally La Grande Sauterelle took his arm as she explained to the woman that they were going to take a look at Chimney Rock and would be back shortly.

“We’ll be back in a few minutes,” she said, with her amazing accent.

“Sure,” said the woman. “Take your time.”