Chapter One
A Disorder of Enormous Masses
They set out, fifteen men on fifteen mules, shortly after dawn on August 12,
1842, carrying two days' worth of food — dried buffalo meat, macaroni, and
coffee. In the lead, as usual, rode Kit Carson, threading a trail through
tangles of downed limber pine, across tilted slabs of granite where the mules'
hoofs skated and slipped, beneath waterfalls and around cobalt lakes. And as
usual, calling the shots from the middle of the pack, John C. Frémont
straddled his mule as the alien landscape enfolded him, his quicksilver spirit
veering between exultation and despair. Directly ahead of the party loomed its
goal, the peak Frémont had judged loftiest in all the Rocky Mountains,
snowfields gleaming in the sun, rock towers spiking the sky.
As yet, these two were nobodies, Kit Carson and John Frémont, their deeds
discussed, if at all, only within the arcane circles of their peers and cronies.
But this summer's jaunt would make them famous, launching a joint passage into
the realms of myth that would place them, before the century's end, among
America's eternal heroes. From ... read full excerpt from Newer World: Kit Carson, John C. Fremont, and the Claiming of the American West ebook
