Daniel James Brown

George Donner, believe it or not, is still alive even though his hand has been infected and this infection is creeping up his arm.

He's got gangrene.

He's got gangrene spreading.

But he and his wife, Tamsin, are still alive.

Tamsin, sometimes called Tamsin, are still alive.

The things are very, very grim at the Donner family camp as well.

Yeah, well, that's why I do like to remind people, and in my book I try to approach it to some extent, that this is also a survival story.

And that's what's always interesting to me as a writer, is people that confront great adversity.

And that's why I focused on this one young woman, Sarah Graves, who was a member of the Snowshoe Party, who lost both her father and her husband on that expedition.

But there were survivors, and those people did remarkable things in order to survive.

So I like to celebrate that.

Yes, that's true.

I think in all cases, except for Luis and Salvador, these Miwok boys who were pretty clearly killed by William Foster on the way out.

And there's also the possibility, to be honest, that Luis Keesburg, Luis Keesburg was the last survivor, the last living person at the lake.

And when he was found, he was surrounded by butchered bodies.

And he also had in his pockets gold coins that had belonged to the Donner family.

So there is and was, always has been, a certain amount of suspicion about whether Keesburg killed the other three.

There were four survivors at that point, whether Keesburg killed any of the other three.

And in fact, Keesburg later in life was demonized as a deliberate cannibal, whether true or not, that followed him for the rest of his life.

Yes, but even before the last of the survivors were brought out of the mountains, there were, I guess we'd call them cabloid stories that were largely fabricated, but which dwelt very heavily on the cannibalism.