Markeson Freight Mule Skinners

Ezekiel Thompson sat on the near wheeler of the sixteen mule team and watched the landscape pass by. After six of the month long trips from the rail station in Cheyenne, Wyoming to Denver and back, there wasn't much to see that he hadn't already seen, but it was still a peaceful way to pass the days. There would be work to do tomorrow when the train of freight wagons started down the steep slope into Maverick Valley. Today, he could just sit on the heavy, near wheeler mule, listen to the bells on the collars of the two lead mules, and let the countryside keep him from remembering.

Ezekiel jerked on the jerk line that ran from the near lead mule to start old Herman around the bend to the right in the trail. The mule began to turn and by pushing the jockey stick snapped between them, pushed the far lead mule in the same direction. The other mules did what they'd been trained to do.

The four swing teams behind the lead team began following around the curve. Ezekiel then spoke to the pointers to tell them it was time to do what they'd been trained to do, but most had already jumped the long, heavy chain that connected all the mules to the wagon and were pulling in the opposite direction from the lead team. The wheelers, the rearmost team and the only team hitched to the wagon tongue, began pulling the wagon tongue in the same direction.

The wheelers and pointers, the two teams in front of the wheelers, had been trained to do this, pull the wagon tongue in the opposite direction of the turn, to keep the wagon following the curve instead of following the lead team and cutting off the curve. They would pull by sidestepping around the curve until the trail straightened out. When it did, the wheelers would bring the wagon tongue back straight and the pointers would jump the chain again and resume pulling forward.

There was a slight slope downward at the turn, and Ezekiel pulled the rope tied to the long brake lever that in turn, pulled the linkage connected to the brake bar of the wagon. When the massive wood brake blocks met the iron tires, there was a screeching sound, and Ezekiel felt the drag and saw the chain slack a little. The mules were still pulling, but the drag would keep the heavy wagon from running over the wheelers as they went down the slope.

When the wagons made the descent into Maverick Valley, all the wheels would be chained to the wagons so they wouldn't turn and iron shoes would be chained to those wheels so the rough ground wouldn't wear a flat spot on the iron tires. On this slope though, the rear wheel brakes were enough.

When the trail leveled out, Ezekiel let the brake rope go slack and then looked out over the land in front of him. In the distance, he saw the shining slash of the river where the wagons would spend the night. It was the same river where he'd unrolled his bedroll on this stage of the trip over the past six months after seeing to the mules and then having a meal cooked by Isaac Jones, the man who drove the only normal wagon in the train, the cook's wagon.

The wagon Ezekiel drove, the wagon that clumbered, creaked, and rocked behind the eight teams of mules was a freight wagon, a behemoth of wood held together by strong joinery and iron that weighed almost four tons empty. Depending upon the load, it could carry up to six more tons of freight. That day, Ezekiel's wagon was loaded with picks, shovels, flour, molasses, and corn meal, and all that was headed for Denver where it would eventually end up in the silver mines.

Once in Denver and unloaded, Ezekiel's wagon would be loaded with silver bars smelted from silver ore in Denver and destined for the East. About half a month later, depending upon the weather, those bars would be in a rail car and Ezekiel would be again making his way back to Denver.

On his hip, Ezekiel carried a Remington revolver. Every man in the train of heavy wagons carried a pistol of some sort. That was in case the wagon train was attacked. He had heard the stories of that happening. It was usually a band of outlaws bent on taking the silver.

Ezekiel had not had to use the Remington so far, and fervently hoped he would never have to. He'd been taught to save life, not take life. He wouldn't have to worry much on this half of the trip. All the wagons headed for Denver carried supplies for the Denver stores and mines, and probably wouldn't be attacked.

The other five wagons in the wagon train were the same - huge wagons with seven foot tall wheels with eight inch wide and one inch thick iron tires and hubs as big as a man's chest. Those wheels rolled on cast iron spindles connected to hickory axles almost a foot square in section. It took timbers like that to withstand the torturous twisting and racking the heavily loaded wagons experienced on the rough trail.

On top of those axles, more thick timbers supported the massive bed, a bed three feet wide, sixteen feet long and six feet high, and over the bed, hickory bows supported the canvas top that protected the load from rain.

There was no actual seat on the wagon for the driver. It wasn't really practical to use reins to guide the mules because the reins would have been so long. Just holding the weight of eight pairs of reins, the longest pair of which would be a little over a hundred feet long, was more than a man could manage for very long at a time. The differing lengths would have also made it difficult for the driver to give all the mules the correct pull on the reins at the same time. The mules nearest the driver would have received the command sooner than the lead mules because of the taking up of the slack and the stretch of the reins.

The teamster, known by most as a mule skinner, sat on the left wheel mule and directed the lead mules with a single rein called a "jerk line". A steady pull meant turn left and one quick jerk meant to turn right. Lead mules were smarter and better trained than the other mules, because they were the only mules the mule skinner could directly control. On a sharp bend, the mule skinner couldn't even see the lead mules, so they also had to be smart enough to follow the trail. They wore bells on their collars to give the teamster some idea of where they were and what they were doing.

Mule skinners knew every mule by name and also spoke commands to them. They also carried a long whip to remind the wheelers and pointers of their job. It was that whip that gave them the name "skinners", though most never hurt a mule with the whip. Besides the mules being valuable for the work they did, mule skinners did their job because they just liked mules. The whip was just used as an extension of the mule skinner's arm to deliver a reminding tap to the rump of a mule who didn't act quickly enough.

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As the wagon made its way through the valley between two high hills, the beginnings of the mountains in the distance, Ezekiel mused that he was sitting on a plodding mule in the middle of nowhere. He should have been riding in a carriage pulled by a light and nimble horse down the streets of Philadelphia or some other eastern city.

That had been his plan, but that plan had been rudely interrupted. Ezekiel was in within weeks of graduating from the Perelman School of Medicine when the southern states began seceding from the Union. He saw no reason for alarm, even when the Confederacy shelled Fort Sumpter and forced the Union Army garrison to surrender. If there was to be a war, it would be in the South and it would be quickly won by the Union Army.

That dream ended when the Confederacy attacked the Union Army on northern soil at Antietam Creek near Sharpsburg, Maryland. The Union Army stopped the attack and forced the Confederacy to retreat back to Virginia, but the toll on both sides had been heavy. Word quickly reached Philadelphia of thousands dead and many more thousands wounded. Doctors were needed and they were needed badly. Like many doctors in the northern states, Ezekiel traveled to Sharpsburg as quickly as possible and began treating the wounded.

By the time all the casualties of Antietam had either been treated or died, Ezekiel was numb to the sight of mangled bodies and the dead, and saddened by the cause of so much death and suffering. He'd seen young men nearly cut in half by shrapnel from a cannon shell, and other young men who had lost a leg or arm because of the destruction caused by the minié balls used by both sides. Ezekiel knew he couldn't stop the war, but he thought he should do what he could to ease the pain and suffering of the men who would continue to be injured. He enlisted in the Union Army and was given the title of Surgeon with the rank of Captain.

Over the months and then years, what Ezekiel had thought would be the satisfaction of knowing he'd helped men heal and get on with their lives became the despair of knowing no matter what he did, many were going to die. It wasn't just the battle wounds. Disease was rampant on both sides. It was not unusual for dysentery to strike an entire company and render them unfit for battle. Many of those men would die and those who lived faced months of weakness until they recovered. Other diseases like cholera and the grippe caused more sickness and deaths.

Ezekiel could somewhat rationalize the deaths from disease. There were no real cures for most serious diseases, and with so many men living so close together, it only took one or two to infect the others. By the time the disease was identified, it had already spread and there was little that could be done besides make the sick as comfortable as possible. The strong survived and the weak died, just as had always been the case.

What broke him was the battle wounds and specifically, the number of amputations.

Ezekiel had been taught how to properly do amputations. The method was to cut the skin at the amputation site and then peel it back up the damaged limb to form two flaps. The underlying tissue was then cut through to the bone and the bone sawed in two with a small saw. The skin flaps were then used to cover the stump and sewn together.

The method produced a clean, sealed wound that would heal well, but when the doctors on the battlefield attempted to use that method, it took so much time other men were bleeding to death because they weren't being treated quickly enough. After a time, the accepted method of battlefield amputation was to put the wounded man to sleep with chloroform and once he was quiet, to make one cut to the bone around the limb above the injury and then saw the bone in two.

Any large blood vessels were sutured or cauterized shut, and then the stump was covered with a bandage and left to heal on its own. The entire operation could be accomplished in less than two minutes. Many men did heal, but many still died, not from the surgery, but from the infection that spread quickly from the stump to their whole body.

When the war finally ended and Ezekiel was mustered out, he thought about going back to Philadelphia and picking up where he'd left off, but realized he wasn't the same man he'd been then. Before, he'd been excited to take his place among doctors who made people's lives better. Now, he was a man who'd seen too much death. He couldn't be a doctor again. Every time he looked at a wound or treated some disease, he'd remember the field hospitals behind the lines, remember he'd failed more often than he'd succeeded, and would lack the confidence he'd had before the war.

Ezekiel did go back to Philadelphia to show his mother and father he'd made it through the war, but then packed what few belongings he had into a canvas bag he could carry over his shoulder. He included the small case with the medical instruments he'd used during the war not because he intended to use them, but because they would remind him of what he'd experienced and why he wasn't going to be a doctor again.

On the first of June, he boarded a train for St. Louis, Missouri and the West. In St. Louis, he found work on a steamboat heading up the Missouri River, but soon tired of being on the water with only an hour or so on land every day. When the steamboat docked in Omaha, Nebraska, Ezekiel stepped onto the dock and began looking for work. He'd heard there were towns springing up along the new transcontinental railroad and there were many jobs to be had.

The office of the H. Markeson Freight Company was right beside the dock so Ezekiel went in and asked if there was any work available. The balding man with glasses on his nose and garters on his sleeves looked him up and down, and then asked if he'd ever driven a horse or mule.

Like every storekeeper, Ezekiel's father had owned a wagon and a team to bring goods from the railroad to his store, and it had been Ezekiel's responsibility to feed and water Joe and Jack and clean their stalls. When he was old enough, he made the trips to the railroad and back.

"Yes, Sir, I have."

The man smiled. "Think you could drive a mule team?"

"I don't know, but I'll try as hard as I know how."

The man sighed.

"Well, we need drivers and I suppose you can learn. You take the next train to Cheyenne. If you can't afford a ticket, you can help Jasper load freight and then ride in the freight car. When you get there, go to the Markeson office and ask for Harrison. I'll send him a telegram and tell him you're one of his new drivers."

When Ezekiel got off the train in Cheyenne, he asked where the Markeson office was, and the conductor pointed to a storefront across the street. Ezekiel walked across the street, and when he went inside, saw another man, just a boy of maybe eighteen really, standing in front of the counter. The man behind the counter was smiling.

"So, you think you can drive mules?"

The boy grinned.

"Yep. My daddy had a team of mules for our farm in Virginia. I know how to talk to mules so they'll do what I say."

The man looked at the boy.

"Then why ain't you there helpin' your daddy farm?"

The boy looked at the floor.

"Our farm isn't there any more. Daddy went off to the war and got himself killed at Gettysburg. Daddy was just a sharecropper and Mr. O'Grady, the man who owned the farm, was the mayor of Little Fork. When the war ended, the Union said Mr. O'Grady had helped the Confederates and they took our farm along with everything else Mr. O'Grady owned. They sold our farm to a man from New York. I came out here to find work. I couldn't stay back there any longer."

The man behind the counter frowned.

"Heard that afore. Damned shame what the war did to people. You go down to the mule barns by the blacksmith shop and you tell Willard that Jason sent you. That's me. Drivin' a freight team ain't like driving a plow or a farm wagon, but he'll show you how. You got a gun?"

The boy frowned.

"No. Will I need one?"

The man nodded.

"Yep. There's rattlesnakes out there. You don't need to fret much about the ones that slither on the ground. It's the ones that ride horses you gotta worry about. Go down to the general store. They'll sell you a revolver. Don't let them sell you a rifle. No place to carry a rifle on a mule."

The boy thanked the man and then left. Ezekiel stepped up to the counter.

"The man down at the dock in Omaha said you might have a job for me. After hearing what you asked that boy, I'll tell you I've never worked a mule, but I have driven a team of horses and wagon some. I don't have a gun either, but I can get one."

The man smiled.

"Had two drivers quit when they got to Denver. Wanted to go find their own silver, they said. You an' the boy'll take their place"

He shook his head then.

"Don't you make the same mistake. The money's to be made haulin' freight, not diggin' in the dirt and rock. Ain't none of them prospectors never made no money. They always give up and start workin' in the mines. Bad job, that. Cold as a witch's teat on the shady side and black as the ace of spades in them mines.

"You go down to the mule barn like I told that boy. Willard'll show you what you need to do."

Ezekiel had gone to the general store first, and found the boy standing at the counter looking at the revolvers. He walked up beside the boy and asked if he'd found one he liked. The boy looked up and shook his head, and he was frowning.

"I don't know what I should get. I've shot a rifle, but I never shot a revolver before."

As Ezekiel looked over the array of revolvers, he saw what he wanted. As an officer, he'd learned to load and shoot the Colt Army model, but hadn't been issued one because the field hospitals were always some distance from the fighting. He'd seen many men come in with revolvers though, and had talked with them when he checked on the progress of their treatment.

Many men carried Colt revolvers and seemed to like them, but the men who carried the Remington Army model swore by them. In a battle, the ability to quickly fire as many rounds as possible was crucial to survival.

The Colt had six chambers, but had to have one uncapped chamber under the hammer so the revolver wouldn't accidentally fire if it was dropped. The Colt could fire five rounds before the user would have to reload, and reloading could take several minutes.

The Remington also had six chambers but the Remington had safety slots in the cylinder where the hammer rested until cocked, so all six chambers could be loaded.

The Remington had one other feature that made it better. The cylinder could be quickly taken out and replaced with another that was already loaded with powder and ball. The caps would have to be put on the nipples then, but the pistol could be ready to fire again in less than a minute.

He asked the storekeeper to see the.44 caliber Remington in the middle of the second shelf. When the storekeeper handed him the revolver, he said he'd traded a prospector a side of bacon and fifty pounds of dry beans for it, so he'd sell it for ten dollars. A pouch of balls, a tin of caps, and a pound of powder would be another dollar.

As Ezekiel looked over the pistol, the boy asked if a Remington was a good pistol. Ezekiel replied it was one of the best, to which the boy replied he'd get one too, but he didn't have ten dollars.

The storekeeper smiled and asked the boy how much money he did have, and the boy replied he had four dollars. The storekeeper grinned and reached for a pistol on the bottom shelf.

"Just got this in trade for a new Colt. It's a Starr - thirty-six caliber. It's not the gun the Remington is. I wouldn't lie to you about that, but it shoots and you don't have to cock the hammer like with the Remington. All you have to do is pull the trigger. I'll sell it for that four dollars you have."

The boy shook his head.

"I'll pay you three if you throw in fifty balls, a box of caps, and a pound of powder...and a powder flask."

The storekeeper scratched his head."

"Can't do it, boy. I got a single shot pistol I can sell for three, though. What are you gonna need a revolver for?"

The boy shook his head.

"The man down at the freight office said I needed a revolver because of men trying to steal the freight on the wagons."

The storekeeper raised his eyebrows.

"So, you're going to be a mule skinner? You look pretty young to work mules, but I guess they think you can. Can't sell the Starr for three and throw in balls and powder too. How about three and seventy five cents."

The boy shook his head.

"That won't leave me enough money to get anything to eat. How about three and two bits, and you give me a canvas sack for the balls?"

The storekeeper shook his head.

"You drive a hard bargain for a boy, but I'd hate to send a man out in that country without a pistol. Three and a half. That's as low as I can go and I'm not making a cent on the deal."

The boy dug into his trousers and pulled out some coins, counted out three dollars and fifty cents and laid them on the counter. The storekeeper put fifty balls in a canvas pouch, put the pouch, a tin of caps and a powder flask on the counter and picked up the coins. He turned to Ezekiel.