October skies

The guide looked up from cleaning his pipe.

‘What are we going to do? The food we have won’t last us until spring.’

‘We sit tight for now, Lambert. Whatever killed ’em folk gonna come back an’ do it again, I reckon.’ He smiled. ‘An’ if it’s happy killin’ them, not us, I ain’t complainin’.’

Broken Wing translated for Three Hawks. The Paiute said something and Broken Wing nodded.

‘What’s that he said?’ asked Ben.

‘Three Hawks sssay… white-face devil came with others. Will kill others.’

As the fire settled to embers, Three Hawks left to rejoin the Paiute, no doubt to exchange bemused observations on the white-faces. Broken Wing and Keats wrapped themselves tightly in blankets and hides and were soon asleep, Keats with his thick and irritating nasal rumble, Broken Wing soft and even like a woman.

Ben lay awake, troubled by what the Indian had said.

Whether a devil or, as Keats said, craziness, he knew somehow that Preston was going to bring death to this clearing. And he realised with certainty that there was perhaps only one way it might be prevented. If he wasn’t already too late, that was.

Ben stepped out into the gusting night, immediately blinking back soft, clotted flakes of snow blown across the ground and into his face. He could hear the clatter and whack of something loose amongst their shelters being bullied by the wind, and the muted roar of trees around the clearing sounding very much like a restless sea as they swayed in unison.

He could see virtually nothing, just the next few yards in front of his feet, which disappeared through the new snow, down to the older, compacted and ice-hard layer below. Ben oriented himself and headed for the far side, stooped low and leaning into the freezing blasts, tears welling in his eyes and freezing on his cheeks. He decided to give the oxen’s graveyard a wide berth, wary of tangling his feet amidst the ribcages and creating a commotion that might be heard above the restless weather.

He suspected they would still have a man or two on watch at night, but with visibility down to little more than the stretch of an arm amidst the swirling flurry, it would be for no more reason than to guard the appropriated meat.

She’s up ahead. Not far.

Ben was familiar enough with the lie of the land, perhaps more so than any other person camped here, having made plenty of visits across this no-man’s-land to care for Preston and Emily.

The first of their shelters lay ahead of him, a hummock of snow, the entrance marked only by a corner of tarpaulin flapping noisily like a pennant. Beyond it, another and another — all looking like identical mole hills.

If she can talk… tell them whom she saw… who killed her mother and Sam…?

Ben wondered if that would be enough, though. He had no idea, for sure, how tightly they were holding on to the idea that Preston might be some prophet — that only by his side lay salvation and the way out of this wilderness.

I can tell them about the laudanum, the fevered confession, Dorothy coming to me.

Even as he considered that, he knew the odds were against him, especially if there had already been suspicions voiced that he might have been responsible for killing the Dreytons.

The thought filled him with an intense anger and revulsion. There had been nothing inappropriate in his friendship with Sam. He had merely seen himself in the boy; a younger version of himself, a curious young mind questioning the world, yet being suffocated inside Preston’s bizarre religious strictures.

Even if he could not get Emily to talk, he resolved to take her away from these people. Perhaps if he took her with him tonight, and Preston arrived on their side with a posse in the morning to reclaim her, he could quietly do a deal with the man. It would be one less mouth for his people to feed, and should she begin to talk about what she had seen… better for him, maybe, that she be talking to outsiders instead of to his loyal flock?

Crouching low in the snow, his poncho fluttering around him, he looked from one shelter to the next, watching for any signs of movement. He could see no one. Ahead of him lay the hump he recognised as the Dreytons’ shelter. He took several quick, loping strides towards it, kneeling down and preparing to lift aside the canvas flap.

He hoped to find only Mrs Zimmerman inside. The woman had seemed just about the only one of these people he could reason with. Perhaps she’d come with him too.

‘I thought you’d return,’ a voice hissed over the rumple of wind.

Ben turned to see the broad and stout outline of a man.

‘Who’s that?’ he whispered.

‘You know who,’ said Vander, leaning forward. He held a long-bladed knife in one hand. ‘And you have no business here.’

Ben stood up. ‘I thought I should look in on Emily.’

‘William told you, all of you, that you are to stay to your side.’

‘I know. But listen.’ Perhaps I can make him see. ‘She must know who killed her family. We have to try to bring her out of this shock.’