It had been several days since the remainder of the Hathaway wagon train to California had left me behind. The rest of the party left us behind on account of one of the men's sisters dying of the dreaded Cholera. Captain Atticus Hathaway, the leader of the wagon train we were on, had decided that it would be best to leave the men that had been in close contact with the deceased woman and her brother behind, and go their separate ways to California. Well, I was one of the people who had been in close contact with Mick Johnson and his sister. That included my wife Nelly, and my brother Ned and his wife Susan.None of us had developed any symptoms of the dread disease, and we were about to start moving towards California on our own as planned, when it happened.