Dearest Mother,
I pen these lines with a heavy heart and a coating of dust that has become my second skin. This Utah Territory has not proven to be the land of bountiful white gold we were promised when we departed the civilized world so many months ago. The promise of deep powder remains as elusive as a ghost mine, always a glimmer on the horizon rather than a weight beneath our boots. A grim, frigid haze has settled over these valleys—a "dirty inversion," the locals call it—and the spirits of the men are sinking faster than a lead weight in the Great Salt Lake.
We thought we had struck a rich vein of heavy weather earlier this month, raising our hopes that Providence had finally looked kindly upon us. But alas, the clouds have turned to stone and the wells have run dry once more. Word has reached our camp from the eastern settlements of snow that falls frequent and deep back home; the cruel irony of our situation here on the frontier is not lost on us.
Our lead scout, a peculiar and quirky fellow by the name of Evan, continues to lead weary missions into the high country in search of a storm. He wears a mask of optimism, yet I suspect he knows that we know that he knows our efforts are largely futile. He speaks of "low confidence" and "splitting systems," which is surely a scout's way of saying the trail has gone cold.
Some men have taken to worshipping a cetaceous deity they call simply "the whale." So warped by drought and sun that their minds have turned to slurry, as what proper-minded man would pin his hopes on a large aquatic mammal?
Whispers have circulated 'round the cookfire of a legendary prognosticator known simply as “The European.” The men say he sees a change in the heavens around the turn of the month, but such tall tales have rarely yielded anything but heartache in the past.
Send your prayers for us, dear Mother, for we are wandering a desert of ceaseless despair.
Your devoted son,
Olivus N. Utah
