October skies

‘Well, you know, don’t sound too interested. Who knows? It might be another journalist who’s on the same story.’

Julian chuckled. ‘I’ll be sure to sound extremely casual about everything.’

Then the conversation came to an unexpected halt. This time Rose stepped in. ‘So when are you coming back?’

‘I booked a flight back on Friday. We should arrange with Grace to have another visit up to the site. See what other bits and pieces we can dig up.’

‘She won’t like it if I say it like that.’

‘Well, obviously we’re not going to run a JCB across the place — just a little trowel work, that’s all. Actually, having read most of the journal, I think I understand the layout of that clearing. I think it’d be a cinch, for example, to locate Preston’s shelter.’

‘Yes?’

‘And’ — Julian let slip a nervous chuckle — ‘who knows what crazy stuff we’ll find if we do, hmm?’

Rose shuddered. ‘Spooky stuff.’

‘Oh, that’s for sure.’

CHAPTER 51

26 October, 1856

He listened to the howling wind outside, knowing that it was bringing with it many inches of snow that would be covering the entrance to the shelter. But it was a warm shelter, so much better than the hastily erected lean-tos down the hillside in the clearing. A good place from which to do work.

Yes.

A good place to become something more. He looked around at the tools hanging from lumber nail hooks; sharp tools, unused for many decades. On the floor beneath them nestled an ancient-looking flintlock weapon, from another time, perhaps even a previous century — no good to anyone now. The tools, however, he could use.

You are strong.

The voice inside him made him shiver with delight.

I hope so.

He looked down at the canvas sack of bones; daring to pull open the threaded mouth of the bag, he glimpsed the small cluster of dark-coloured, almost black bones inside.

You came to me.

Yes. I chose you. The other was wicked.

Preston.

You are a good man.

I try so hard to be.

He resumed his work with the sharp tools — the dry brittle scrape of metal on dry bone. Rasp… rasp… rasp.

You will help me?

I will.

We can help each other, can’t we?

Yes.

He resumed his work, shards of bone gathering on the dry earth floor at his feet — his work at becoming.

CHAPTER 52

28 October, 1856

It has been some days since the split. I am losing track of how many days now. I think I might be wrong on today’s date, but how would I know?

We are like two tribes now, warily regarding each other across a rapidly diminishing island of ox meat. The others will no longer take Keats’s supervision on the sharing of the meat. They help themselves too readily to what’s there, and even I can see that this store of food will be exhausted long before the snow clears.

Keats and Broken Wing have attempted to forage for additional food, but there is little that one can feed on during the winter.

What we fear now is that the others will decide not to share the oxen any longer. That surely is a matter of certainty.

Ben shuddered with the cold seeping relentlessly through his poncho, seeping into and tightening his fingers so that it made holding his pen difficult.

We are posting our own guards now, as much to keep an eye on the others as to keep an eye on the woods. I share the early watch this morning with Mr Hussein.

He studied the stocky brown-skinned man standing next to him and staring out into the featureless misty grey before them. Ben found him to be an interesting man, from an exotic world far away. Through the still, early hours of the morning they had talked in quiet whispers, as long a conversation as Ben had yet had with the man. Hussein told him how he and his family had travelled here from Persia to discover for themselves this new world. They had come, he said, because several years ago, Hussein had read a book about the war with the British and had read a translation of the Declaration of Independence in Arabic. The words had proven so powerful and so moving to him that he resolved, then and there, to sell his businesses and home, gather his family and come to this faraway place that promised freedom and tolerance for all, regardless of creed or colour.

Ben was curious about Hussein’s faith. It was a religion of which he knew precious little. Hussein had shown him a small, beautifully decorated book, his Qu’ran, and told him of the articles of faith, the pillars of Islam. Listening to the man describe his faith, it occurred to him how practical it sounded compared with the doom and gloom of sermons he’d heard from so many school chapels that harked back to a medieval past of bloodshed and brimstone; depictions of hell and demons and raging fires stoked to sear the souls of those not worthy enough of God’s dominion.

By contrast, Mr Hussein’s description of his faith sounded refreshingly forgiving, peaceful, tolerant. Perhaps the thing he was most taken aback by was the profound elevation of women as almost sacred, to be protected and revered.