October skies

‘Reckon so.’ Keats pulled on his pipe and the embers glowed and crackled gently. ‘One way or ’nother, they’re certain we’re all going to die. I reckon they’ll be waitin’ on that so’s they can come scavenge what they can find.’

‘Were you scared when you and the others ran into them?’

‘Scared?’ Keats considered the question for a moment. ‘Well now, my blood was up. Don’t want to die just as much as you, Lambert.’ The pipe glowed and Ben caught the aroma of tobacco smoke wafting past him. ‘Thing is,’ he continued, ‘them Paiute ain’t afraid to die. Hell, they can’t wait to die an’ join their ancestors in some milk an’ honey land.’

‘It makes a man dangerous, that.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘Belief in a paradise after death. The stronger your belief, the more dangerous you are.’ Ben shrugged. ‘Or at least that’s what I think.’

Keats digested that for a moment. ‘I guess I’d have to agree with you on that, son. A man should value life enough that he’s always afraid to die.’

They listened in silence to the sounds of the woods; the creak of laden branches and ancient swaying trunks, the hiss of a gentle breeze through the tops of the trees.

‘That mean you don’t believe in the Almighty, Lambert?’

Ben often wondered if he did. ‘I don’t know. The more I learn of the mechanics of this world, the less room I can see in it for something like the hand of God, if you see what I mean.’

‘Not sure I do.’

‘I have a book in my trunk, a medical textbook. I bought it in London before I set off. You can see, looking through it, that we know how the body works now, what each organ does for us. But before we knew these things, we believed our bodies were simply clay that God had breathed life into. Do you see? It takes just a small amount of knowledge to undo so much of what we’ve been told to believe for centuries and centuries.’

‘I dunno… seen things in my time that no medicine book gonna explain.’

‘Of course, not everything can be explained. But it seems to me, every week in the medical and scientific journals I used to subscribe to back in London, there is more and more of God’s mysterious work that we can unravel and discover the hidden cogs and gears within.’

Keats thought about that for a moment. ‘Hmm, mebbe so.’

‘To answer your question, though,’ Ben continued, ‘I’m not sure I do believe in a God, not any more.’

‘Shit,’ Keats cackled, then slapped him on the back. ‘You see that bear ’gain, bet a nickel you’ll start praying, eh?’

I probably would.

He smelled another waft of tobacco smoke and then Keats hawked up and spat. ‘Guess I better go and check in on our other watchers,’ Keats grunted. ‘I’ll be back shortly,’ and the glow of his pipe and the outline of his form disappeared into the darkness.

Alone, it was quiet save for the rustle of a fresh breeze through the trees, and the hiss of shifting powder snow. His eyes combed the tree line, a dark wall of foliage just a dozen yards away, drawn instantly to every little rustle of movement out there.

Hurry back, Mr Keats.

It was funny. Back home in West London, in the fashionable and affluent area of Holland Park where his parents had purchased a considerably generous town house for him, he would have turned his nose up in disgust at the sight of the grimy, gaunt and bristly old man. He would have considered him as something less than human; part of the sea of urban misery that loitered suspiciously amongst the back streets and tradesmen’s entrances of Soho, Covent Garden and Piccadilly Square. He had the same grime-encrusted and weathered face that filled the pungent main thoroughfares of the East End.

But right here in this clearing, in the middle of this dark and forbidding mountain forest, he trusted the man with his life.

Ben heard the light crunch of snow underfoot coming from behind him. He spun round to see a dark form standing a few feet away.

‘Who’s that?’ he whispered.

The dark form took another step closer and then stopped. Then he heard the softest whisper. ‘It’s Mrs Dreyton.’

‘My God, what’re you doing out at this time, Mrs Dreyton?’

‘I… I… need to talk to someone.’ She took a step closer to him. By the wan light of the moon, her face appeared almost as pale and luminescent as the snow, her eyes dark pools of torment. ‘You were there. You heard him.’

‘Preston?’

She nodded. ‘I… I’ve been to see him.’

Ben smiled. ‘That’s good. He was asking after you today.’

‘I told him what I… what I know now.’

‘What?’

Her voice broke and she sobbed. ‘I gave him everything. My life, my love… my body, my children.’

‘Mrs Dreyton?’

‘I thought, through him, God was touching me. Touching Emily and Sam.’

‘Dorothy, what you heard him say the other day was nothing more than the product of the medicine, of a fever-’

‘No.’ She shook her head solemnly. ‘I see now his lies have led us to this place. He’s no prophet.’ Dorothy’s hands went to her face. ‘Oh, God, forgive me for following him.’

‘Dorothy, what did you say to him?’

‘That I know he is a liar… and a thief.’

‘A thief?’