October skies

The Indian swayed momentarily before collapsing onto the snow, calling out something loudly. To Ben’s ears the words were unintelligible, but he noticed they were the same, over and over.

Keats noisily pushed through the crowd, barking at people to get out of his way.

‘The Indians are still out there,’ somebody in the crowd gasped.

The old guide emerged from the throng and knelt down beside the prone body of the young Paiute. Ben stepped forward to join him, crouching down quickly to examine the wound but knowing — as he had with the Zimmerman girl — that there was too much damage to save the young man. He looked at Keats and shook his head.

The Indian was still chanting something.

Somebody in the crowd muttered, ‘Those dark demons’ve killed the Dreytons,’ and there was a ripple of reaction through the crowd, followed by an outbreak of muttered, whispered prayers amongst them. Whether they were praying for Emily, her family, themselves or for the Indian, he couldn’t tell.

Keats grunted irritably at the growing cacophony of noise behind him. The young Paiute had stopped chanting and was now whispering. Keats crouched down close to the young man, who looked now to be only a few moments away from death, placing one gnarled cauliflower ear close to the Indian’s lips. Ben noticed tiny flecks of dark blood dotting Keats’s cheek as the Indian panted, and desperately whispered something.

‘What’s he saying?’ Ben asked quietly.

‘Can’t fuckin’ hear,’ Keats hissed. He turned to face the crowd. ‘Shut up!’ he barked angrily at them. The praying and hubbub of noise immediately settled down to a gentle rustle of breathing.

He dipped down again to listen to the dying Indian. The Paiute seemed to rally enough strength for his tormented and distant eyes to focus for a moment on Keats. He grabbed the old man’s arm and gasped something to him; a quick rattle of Ute that Ben wasn’t confident the old guide entirely understood. Then the young Indian’s eyes rolled, showing just the whites, and a last fluttering breath came from his mouth, flecking his lips with sprayed dots of blood.

They heard the distant caw of a murder of crows circling high above the trees some way into the forest, and the sibilant whispering of someone still praying amidst the crowd.

Ben reached out and closed the Indian’s eyes; even in death, the look of them unsettled him.

He turned to Keats. ‘So are you going to tell me what he was saying?’

Keats looked at him and shook his head, confused. ‘Didn’t seem to make much sense.’

CHAPTER 36

Tuesday

Shepherd’s Bush, London

‘So,’ said Sean Holmwood, tucking a fork into his pasta carbonara, ‘that sounds like an intriguing find.’

Julian returned a wry smile. Sean always calmly understated things. That was probably what made him such a good commissioning editor — he never gushed praise or approval; instead, he exuded it cautiously behind a poker face.

Julian nodded. ‘It’s not just the story of a bunch of settlers caught out by a particularly bad winter either, Sean. There’s a lot more to this.’

Sean’s fork stopped midway from his plate. ‘Oh?’

Julian leaned forward and lowered his voice. The corner of the bistro in which they were sitting was far enough away from the other patrons that it was an unnecessary precaution, but nonetheless he felt the need to keep it down.

‘This guy leading the larger of the two parties,’ he said in a conspiratorial whisper, ‘Preston… he’s like, I don’t know, like some sort of a David Koresh figure.’

‘Koresh? Koresh… I know the name.’

‘The Waco siege.’

Sean rolled his eyes. ‘Of course, yes.’

‘This guy, Preston, he seemed to have a hold on these people; a really unhealthy hold over them. Lambert — the guy whose journal I have — has written an incredibly detailed account of what happened up in those mountains. And I’m telling you, Sean, it’s really good stuff.’

Julian took a sip of wine.

Sean nodded. ‘Go on, Jules, you’ve got me interested.’

‘This Preston bloke appears to have led his congregation into the wilds with the intention of setting up his own small community, with their very own version of Mormonism. Do you know much about the Mormons — the Church of Latter Day Saints, Sean?’

Sean frowned. ‘Aren’t they like the Amish or something? Wear funny hats and beards?’

‘Uhh, no… they’re not really anything like the Amish.’

‘Maybe I’m thinking of Quakers.’

Julian shook his head. ‘Nope, not even close.’

Sean shrugged. ‘Well, which Christian sect are they then?’

‘I’ll be honest with you, Sean, I’m not even sure they’re Christian.’

Sean looked confused. ‘Not Christian? What the hell are they?’

‘They’re one of a kind. I suppose you could think of them as nineteenth-century scientologists.’

‘A cult.’

Julian nodded. ‘I don’t know where you draw the line between a cult and a religion. But, yes, I suppose back then it was more like a cult. Their religious texts are really quite incredible.’

‘Not the Bible then?’