October skies

Bowen stepped forward. ‘Are you sure this is no bear, Keats?’

Keats shrugged. ‘Carryin’ food away like this is jus’ what a bear does. They do that… store their food, pack it in a nook somewhere like a goddamn pantry. But’ — he turned to look up at him — ‘they sure as hell don’t gut an’ clean their kills. Them organs back there is just as good for a bear as the rest.’

‘We should press on,’ said Ben quietly.

‘Yeah.’ Keats turned round and barked over his shoulder. ‘We’ll follow this trail.’

‘Gentlemen,’ called out Weyland from the back, ‘what if there is a bear up ahead?’

Keats shook his head, looked at Ben, exasperated. ‘Reckon ’tween our eighteen guns we might jus’ bring it down,’ he shouted in response.

‘What if it’s them Indians?’ asked someone else.

‘Then reckon we got us a fight on our hands.’

‘And what if they are demons sent by Satan?’ asked Levi Taylor, one of the younger fathers amongst Preston’s church. ‘What if they’re here to get us?’

There was a murmur of assent amongst the Mormon men.

Preston quietened them down with a wave of his hand. ‘We should proceed and have no fear of the Devil’s impish tricks. Trust me. We’re on God’s mission.’ He turned to Ben and Keats. ‘And it is right that Dorothy and Sam have a proper burial, when we find them.’

‘I agree,’ Zimmerman piped up from the back. ‘There’s no way we should leave them out for the forest animals to pick at.’

Keats stood up. ‘Well? We gonna sit around like a bunch of lady folk,’ he grunted, ‘or we gonna go find ’em?’

Preston nodded firmly. ‘Lead the way if you will, Mr Keats.’

Keats glanced round at the group of anxious men. ‘Just remember, folks, we got them goddamned Indians out here in these woods still.’

Ben looked at the snow-frosted tangle of branches, ferns and long-fallen trees ahead of them and wondered whether he would shame himself if they happened across these Paiute.

‘Keep your guns nice an’ handy,’ Keats grunted loudly, ‘and don’t be bunchin’ up right behind me, neither. If I need to turn an’ run, don’t want to be runnin’ smack into one of you fools.’

There was a ripple of hesitant, nervous mirth from one or two of the party as the old man nodded to Broken Wing to lead the way, stepping out of the glade and pushing his way into the foliage, his beady eyes locked onto the frozen dabs of blood that marked the way ahead.

Ben followed him, a few yards behind.

CHAPTER 40

24 October, 1856

As they made their way down a shallow incline, Keats ten yards ahead of them, Broken Wing ten yards further, the Shoshone suddenly dropped down onto one knee and waved for everyone behind to do likewise. The men did so obediently.

Broken Wing studied the scene intently for a couple of minutes before silently shuffling back to Keats and relaying what he’d seen.

Ben suddenly got his bearings and recognised the lay of the land, the dimple in the hillside…

The trapper’s shelter.

Around them, the forest was utterly still and completely silent save for the distant and knowing cry from a cowbird he could see through the winter-stripped branches of a spruce, flying impatient circles high above the trees. Huddled low amongst frozen ferns and twisted thorny briars, Ben’s breath hung before him — anxious clouds of steam that floated lazily up like smoke from the muzzle of a musket. He shivered in the knee-deep snow, partly from the seeping cold, partly from the anticipation.

Whatever had done for Sam and his mother had dragged their bodies up here to this forlorn place. He dreaded what he knew they were going to find.

Keats finally waved an arm for the men to make their way forward and join him.

Ben shuffled forward with the others and presently they knelt beside him, looking out past shoulder-high undergrowth down a shallow slope at the crudely constructed shack, more of it concealed by drifts of recent snow than the last time he’d seen it.

‘Trapper’s place, by the looks of it,’ whispered Keats. ‘No sign anybody been using it recently, though.’

‘It’s abandoned,’ said Preston.

Keats turned to him. ‘What?’

‘We came across it some days ago. It’s not been used in years.’

‘You didn’t think to goddamn well mention it to me?’

Preston frowned indignantly. ‘It’s a man’s grave.’

‘Why the hell ain’t you told me ’bout it?’

‘I’d rather people didn’t come up here and strip it for firewood. The dead man inside deserves at least that.’

Keats shook his head, hawked and spat. ‘Didn’t occur to you that them Paiute might be camping in it now?’

Ben expected Preston to thunder an angry response to save face in front of his men. But instead he was impressed to see the minister nod humbly. ‘You’re right, Keats. I should have mentioned it.’

Keats scowled at him. ‘Yeah, perhaps you should’ve.’ He turned to look back at the shelter. ‘Preston, have your men spread out and along this ridge and ready their guns. We got a good field of fire on ’em if they’re inside.’

Preston nodded and issued the word quietly to his people.

Keats stood up and handed his rifle to Ben.

‘What’re you doing?’