This episode of Against the Odds contains depictions of violence.

Please be advised.

William Edd. William Eddie stands on the wooden bench of his family's covered wagon, whipping his oxen.

He urges them forward across the desert terrain.

Come on, come on, move, move.

The oxen struggle to pull the wagon through the thick deep sand.

The wheels can't get any traction, and the wagon keeps slipping sideways.

Eddie hears pots and pans clanking and back.

His oxen are malnourished and weak, but he needs them to keep going.

If the wagon stops, it could get stuck in the sand, and he can't risk getting stranded here in the middle of his desolate landscape.

It's early in the morning on October 8, 1846.

Eddie is part of the Donner Party, a group of settlers headed to California.

About two months ago, their group of 19 wagons took a shortcut that was supposed to shave weeks

off their journey.

Instead, the shortcut led them through a merciless desert.

Now, they're badly behind schedule.

They need to make up time and cross the Sierra Nevada mountains before winter descends,

or they'll get trapped in the snow.

Eddie peers ahead down the trail, but sees only more sand, dotted with scrub brush. He got a late start this morning and the other

wagons are just distant specks. Beyond them, jagged towers of rock jut up from the horizon.

He notices that his wagon is catching up with someone on foot.

People often walk to lighten the load on their oxen, which are exhausted after six months of hard travel.

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