Mike Wong fell asleep while everybody in the wagon bitterly argued about whether or not to take the ferry, or caulk the wagon and float across the river on their own. After an eternity, Mike finally stood up.
"Enough!" He shouted. "Since you guys can't come to a damn agreement, we are going to FORD THE DAMN RIVER."
The wagon plowed into the Green River, and slowly everybody watched as the water started to get higher. After seeping in through the bottom of the wagon, the water began to pour out of the open back. The river showed no signs of shallowing as the current began to pick up.
The oxen were the first to go. They panicked and charged away from the wagon, away from the river and back to the shore. The unfortunate Conestoga was now at the mercy of the mighty Green. One of the panicked oxen grabbed Wayne Poe and dragged him into the current. Dalton tried to swim out and save him, but Spanky intervened and grabbed Dalton. Watching the current drag off Wayne Poe, Dalton was furious.
Without any prompting, he landed a right hook right on Spanky's jaw, dislocating it. Uraniun finally hears the commotion over the sounds of the torrential river and tries to intervene in the struggle.Unfortunately, Spanky overpowers them and tackles Dalton, causing all three of them to lose their balance and fall out of the back of the wagon. Mike Wong turns around just in time to see the three remaining men tumble out of the wagon and into the river.
Awake at last on the opposite shore of the river, Mike Wong looked around. He had made it across the river. So had most of the wagon. Okay all the oxen were gone, and so was most of the ammo, but it was a miracle that he made it across. Taking stock of what was left, the wagon was in pretty bad shape.
The biggest problem was the lack of oxen. Without those he's never make it to Oregon. What made it worse, nobody he talked to wanted to trade away their oxen. After what seemed like months of begging and pleading, Mike finally found somebody to trade him for an ox. one single ox.
He didn't need the extra clothes anyway. Without anybody else, they were just excess weight on the wagon.
It was 144 miles to Soda Springs. With 16 Oxen he would have been there in a day, but now there was only one.
There was a tombstone off the trail, it was odd, and Mike stopped to take a closer look at it.
What the hell. That HAD to be a coincidence. There must have been another Mike Wong who died shortly after crossing the Green River. He must have been related to that andy fellow. That was just... not possible.
But then, something odd happened, Mike wasn't feeling well. That night he could have sworn that he saw an odd thing in the sky, and it was moving. He tried to look closer but all that he could see was that it was roughly triangular in shape, and yet somehow not. Although it did strongly resemble the shape of his knife.
Trying to keep himself warm, all he could do was reminisce about his life back in Boston, and the winters that he loved as a child. Winter, when Mike was a kid, it was the best time of the year. Now though, now he was doing everything that he could to avoid it. Mike wanted to be in Oregon by Christmas, and that was looking increasingly unlikely. As he was lost in his own thoughts, a small slow flake landed on Mike's nose. Followed by another, and pretty soon it was impossible to even see your own hand in front of your face.
Mike stopped the wagons for the day, and it wasn't until the next morning that he was able to start moving.
Soda Springs and Fort Hall passed by in an instant. Mike barely noticed that his Typhoid had flared up, or when another Blizzard hit the wagon. Everything seemed the same. He just kept the wagon going, until he heard it.
CRUNCH!
It was a sickening sound, wet and rich, like somebody had just taken a club to the ribs. He looked over at his lone ox. It's Femur had snapped. Mike Wong grabbed some spare parts from the wagon and with the extra clothes, he made a crude split for the animal.
The splint worked, Mike and his ox made their way toward Oregon. However, the snow and blizzard had strewn rocks all over the trail, making it rough and difficult to navigate. The ox, already with a broken leg was in severe pain, wailing and moaning every step.
Mike had heard the lamentations of the animal, but seemed oblivious to it. In reality, he knew that if the winter got any worse, he would die. Eventually, the ox just gave up, collapsed onto the ground and sleep for the final time.
Mike was devastated, he knew now that he was going to die on this trail. He shouldn't have ignored all those warnings about the danger of the trail. But it was too late for that now. He was stranded on the trail, in the middle of winter. He was desperate now, if he had an ox, then he could make it to Oregon. That's all he needed, was just one ox.
One ox in the dead of Winter.
Day's later, somebody was finally willing to trade away an ox. Mike Wong kept going, the bitter cold of December a hell of a strong motivator to make it Oregon.
Shivering in the freezing cold, Mike was suddenly surprised to find that he was sweating. The trail blurred and appeared to split in two before him. It was as if the whole world was falling apart. Perhaps the "Peak Cattle" doomsayers were right. "Peak Cattle?" Mike began to wonder what mad dream brought that idea forth.
The Snow was all over the trail, it was barely visible anymore. The Sierra Nevada mountains had closed in and the hard winter meant that snow could come at any time. Mike was still suffering from a fever, and in one of the harshest winters of the 19th century.
Without warning, a violent and bitterly cold gale dumped snow all over the Conestoga wagon. The lone Ox screamed and whinnied and refused to move another inch. The blizzard would blow and cover the entire trail with a soft, white powder. No more travelling would be done that day.
The next day, Mike woke up, the sweat from his fever had frozen solid. He could barely breathe, the snow drifts had piled up around the wagon, and tons of it had gotten into the wagon. Mike tried to get up, but found that he lacked the strength to get up from his frozen tomb. Michael Wong took one last look around the wagon, and the banker from Boston closed his eyes and slept for the last time.
Mike woke up in the wagon, and he heard somebody outside the wagon. He got up, somehow feeling much better, and noticed that Dalton, Spanky, Uraniun, and Wayne Poe were outside arguing about the river crossing. Looking farther outside, Mike realized something. He was back at the Green River crossing again. Was it a dream? A second chance? No matter, his party had spent a month settled at this river crossing, and he knew what to do.
Mike Wong was going to take the ferry.
