There’ll be consequences tomorrow.
Ben decided he was going to sleep with his gun loaded and right beside him tonight, if he slept at all.
Vander waited outside the shelter until he was sure the Englishman had gone. Then he stooped down, pushed the fluttering canvas flap aside and entered the muted warmth of Emily’s shelter.
Mrs Zimmerman stirred. ‘What was that? I heard whispers outside.’
‘It was nothing,’ he said, pulling the flap down and weighting the bottom of it with a log. He knelt down beside the huddled form of the girl. ‘You can go now. I’ll mind her.’
She looked at him. ‘Emily has not eaten again today. I keep trying her with broth.’
Vander shook his head. ‘She is already dead. Her body just hasn’t learned of that yet.’ He shuffled to one side to allow Mrs Zimmerman to squeeze past. ‘Go on and be with your husband tonight. I’ll watch over her.’
She nodded obediently and manoeuvred passed him. Then she stopped, an expression of concern on her face. ‘You’re not planning to—?’
‘Planning to what?’
Mrs Zimmerman swallowed nervously. ‘She’ll be all right come morning? Won’t she?’
‘That’s up to the Lord now, isn’t it?’
She studied him uncertainly.
‘Go now,’ he said, ‘she will be fine.’
She nodded and then, after affectionately stroking Emily’s still face one last time, she left the shelter, securing the flap behind her.
Vander sat perfectly still for a while, listening to the sound of the moaning wind, waiting to be sure Mrs Zimmerman had gone. He looked at the sleeping girl. Awake, her small oval face was just as expressionless, those eyes of hers locked into an unmoving gaze that never broke or wandered.
‘Well, Emily? What did those eyes of yours see? Hmm? Enough that tongues may start wagging.’
Her breathing remained regular and quiet.
There’s no longer a human soul there, he decided, looking down at her pallid skin and along the length of her huddled form, covered by several thick blankets.
You’re just an empty shell now, aren’t you, Emily? Something that looks like a little girl, but no longer is.
A guilty, tickling urge stirred inside him, an urge he had promised himself not to allow out again. A promise he had also made to Preston, some years back - not to play with the children in that way any more.
He lay down beside her so that his face was only inches away from hers. He could feel her short breath on his cheeks at regular intervals.
‘Emily Dreyton?’ he whispered.
Her sleep remained deep and undisturbed.
‘Uncle Eric is here,’ he said softly.
There’s no harm in this. Just once more, before I smother her.
Preston knew about the particular . . . interest . . . he had in the children; both Eric and the late Saul Hearst shared different preferences of that same interest. Preston knew what went on, on rare occasions, and disapproved. It wasn’t spoken of, provided they both kept their playing with the children discreet and out of his sight.
He looked down at her and knew she was going to be dead very soon. Preston would be none the wiser if he took his pleasure with her first.
He reached out and grasped the edge of the thick blankets, slowly pulling them down to reveal her pale woollen dress.
There’s no harm. I’m just playing, is all.
He pushed the blankets down to her booted feet, and then his trembling, excited hand wandered back up to the top-most button of her dress, just beneath her chin, and was working it open when he felt a chilled draught that sent the oil lamp beside her head guttering and spitting.
It went out.
‘Who is that?’ Vander snarled angrily, quickly withdrawing his hand.
There was no answer. It was probably Mrs Zimmerman, he decided, having forgotten something. He reached for the box of matches beside the glowing wick of the lamp and shuddered from the chill as he fumbled for a match.
‘You’ve let too much cold in,’ he snapped irritably as he struck the match. It flared brightly for a second, throwing the snug shelter into sharp relief. He turned to scowl towards Mrs Zimmerman, only to find himself staring at two dark holes for eyes.
The match flickered out.
CHAPTER 59
1 November, 1856
Ben heard the very first scream from the other camp only a short while after he’d noticed the grey light of dawn stealing into the womb-like shelter. The scream was shrill and feminine and followed shortly after by the cry of several children.
He grabbed his gun, already carefully loaded and ready to fire - something he’d done quietly last night whilst the other two slept. His head throbbed from weariness, not certain whether he’d actually managed any sleep last night or not, since climbing back inside after his encounter with Vander.
Another piercing scream shook away the last of the fatigue. He wrapped his poncho around his head and shoulders and struggled to push the snow away from his opening, like some small rodent emerging from its burrow.
Clambering to his feet outside, he noticed the wrapped-up heads of several others emerging, pushing aside drifts of fresh snow as the screaming continued. The six Paiute had already climbed out of the shelter they had made, their blades drawn. Keats squeezed out of the shelter and joined them.
‘What the hell’s goin’ on?’ he muttered irritably.
‘Coming from their side,’ replied Ben.
Ben took a step up a drift of snow, gaining just a few inches’ height as it squeaked and compacted beneath him. He craned his neck to look towards where the screaming was coming from. There was plenty of activity on the other side; a milling crowd of men, woman and children, agitated, pacing, praying.
‘Something’s happened over there,’ uttered Ben.
Keats called out to Broken Wing. The Shoshone nodded. He turned around to look for the others - McIntyre, Weyland, Hussein, Bowen. ‘All of you, come with me and bring your guns,’ Keats barked loudly.
They converged as they rounded the smooth nodules of white that marked the oxen boneyard below, then spread out warily as they drew closer, guns cocked and ready, but, under Keats’s instruction, barrels aimed downward.
Ben could hear no more screaming as they drew nearer. Instead there was a keening moan from several women, rocking back and forth on their knees, and amongst the others the frantic, whispered rattle of prayer. Above them, he had noticed from the far side of the clearing, was what he presumed was a shank of meat, suspended from a tree to keep it from scavenging animals.
Keats led them forward, stepping through them. ‘What’s goin’ on?’ he barked out loud. None of them seemed to notice Keats or the others, their attention directed towards the carcass dangling above them.
As they drew closer, Ben’s eyes made sense of the gently swinging object.
‘Oh my God,’ he whispered.
He recognised the man, despite some disfiguration of the face and dried blood caked around his mouth - it was Eric Vander. His naked body suspended from a noose strung up to the overhanging bare branch of a large dogwood tree. The body swung with the creak of the rope, twenty feet off the ground. A blade had worked on his bowels and, beneath the tangled string of intestinal cord that dangled down from his gut, almost to the ground, lay a small pool of blood and offal, frozen solid during the night.
‘Oh, God, help us,’ muttered McIntyre, his voice muffled through the woollen scarf wrapped around his head.
Ben could see a blade had also been at work on the man’s groin. His genitals had been removed. Looking up at Vander’s face, he realised where they’d been placed.
‘For Christ’s sake, someone cut him down!’ Keats shouted angrily at the muttering, praying crowd.
Mr Zimmerman emerged and climbed up into the tree, his boots slipping perilously on the frosted branch that stretched a couple of dozen feet over the clearing from the forest’s edge.
Ben watched the
man hunker down halfway along the branch and produce a knife. He swiped a couple of times at the rope cinched around the branch. With a crack of twine snapping, the branch lurched upwards several inches, freed of the dead weight as Vander’s body tumbled down. There were cries and whimpers at the appalling sight of his stiff body buckling on impact with the ground and lolling over at an awkward angle, a rigid arm pointing to the sky, one leg snapped and twisted like brittle firewood by the fall.
The crowd drew back from it instinctively.
Ben moved forward into the cleared space, Keats quickly beside him as he knelt down beside the body. Vander’s eyes stared lifelessly back at Ben, wide and terrified and milky from death. He leaned forward, studying them closely.
‘What’re you doin’, Lambert?’ Keats muttered.
‘The eyes. I believe sometimes they can capture an image, like a photograph, of the last thing a victim sees.’
‘Really?’ Keats sounded impressed.
Ben nodded, leaning closer still. ‘Something I read before I came out. Scotland Yard police routinely photograph the eyes of the dead.’
He studied them intently but could see nothing in the clouded iris. The expression on Vander’s face told him more.
‘What’s that stickin’ out of his mouth?’ asked Keats.
‘See if you can guess.’
The guide’s eyebrows locked in thought for a moment, then he looked down at the jagged wounds around Vander’s groin, and nodded.
His own genitals in his mouth?
Ben was wondering what the hell that meant - it had to signify something, surely - when he heard a commotion coming from the back of the crowd. He heard a woman’s voice, shrill and sobbing. It drew closer. The crowd parted and he saw Preston leading through a woman, his arm around her narrow shoulders. He saw the body, and calmly turned her around so that her back was facing the ghastly sight.
‘Sophia . . . again, tell these people here what you told me,’ he said gently.
She nodded. ‘I . . . I . . . saw . . . the angel,’ she muttered between sobs, ‘last night . . . I saw it.’
Ben saw eyes widen and lips move amongst the gathered faces.
‘I . . . I . . . was out . . . to relieve myself. I saw it.’ Her small voice crumpled into a mewling whimper.
Preston rubbed her back encouragingly. ‘Go on, Mrs Rutherford. Tell them.’
She nodded again, and took a breath. ‘It . . . it . . . was . . . made of bones.’ She shook her head, trembling as she struggled to recall what she’d seen. ‘I th-thought I was having a nightmare. Tall . . . tall, it was . . . m-moving through our camp.’ She looked up at Preston and shook her head. ‘Please . . . please, don’t let it come for my ch-children,’ she pleaded with her hoarse, broken voice.
Preston nodded, whispered an encouragement, then held her tightly for a moment before letting her step back through the crowd towards her husband.
The minister turned and took in the sight of Vander’s crumpled body: contorted, twisted and brittle. For the briefest moment there was no reaction on his face - a dull, lifeless response that seemed at odds with the tender reassurance he had offered the woman a moment earlier. Then his face darkened and he turned to address his people.
‘Another judgement on us! A second judgement! This is His warning!’ Preston spun round to look at Ben and Keats. ‘And it is you He is warning us of!’
An uneasy murmur stirred through the gathered people like an autumn draft through dry leaves.
‘The outsiders are poisoning this place like bad water,’ he spat angrily. ‘And here they are, bringing those evil demons right into the heart of our camp’ - he pointed to his shelter - ‘within just a few yards of our sacred place!’ He took a step forward. ‘You’ve walked the Devil’s servants, his eyes and ears, his scouts, right up to our door. Don’t you see what you’ve done?’ He pointed at Broken Wing. ‘Don’t you see the face of the Devil in his eyes?
Broken Wing defiantly returned Preston’s glare.
‘Don’t you see him looking out at us, mocking us, enjoying the spectacle?’
‘That’s enough!’ shouted Keats.
‘You’ve tainted us with those devilish creatures,’ he said, thrusting a finger towards the Paiute, standing back from the crowd, ‘that you’ve foolishly embraced into our camp.’ Preston gestured towards the crumpled cadaver in the snow. ‘That, I fear, will be the last of our warnings! All the outsiders must leave this place today!’
Keats stood up. ‘Don’t be a fool, Preston!’
‘You must leave before night!’
‘No one’s leavin’ here. We’d die without shelter and food.’
Preston strode forward until his face was only inches from Keats’s.
‘Don’t you see, Keats?’ Preston muttered quietly so that only Keats could hear. Ben could see that his eyes were intense, bloodshot and dilated with fear, anger or excitement - it was impossible to tell. Flecks of spittle dotted his dark beard. ‘My God, don’t you see? I’m doing what I can to save you.’
‘Save us?’
‘If you and your people stay another night, you’ll test the Lord’s patience too far. He’ll come like a storm. His angel will descend and rip you, perhaps even us, into bloody coils of flesh!’
‘What goddamned angel?’
Preston ignored him. ‘My people have a mission that cannot be started with you here. You have to leave!’ For a fleeting moment, his face softened and he spoke quietly. ‘I’m sorry, but that is how it is.’ He shook his head with regret. ‘I have been foolish and far more tolerant than I should have been. Your people are not welcome here any longer.’
Keats’s face darkened angrily. ‘My folks have every right to winter here. You can’t make us leave.’
‘You have to.’
‘We try an’ make our way outta these mountains whilst winter’s on us, we’ll die out there.’
Preston took several steps back from them and raised his voice. ‘They must leave our side of the camp now!’ he commanded, then, pointing towards the Indians, he added, ‘Take those dark creatures with you. I can no longer ask my people to tolerate them near this place.’
Mutterings of agreement rippled across the crowd and one of Preston’s men pushed his way to the front, shouldered his rifle and aimed it squarely at Keats’s head.
‘I’ll not let you bring God’s anger to my family’s door!’
‘Mr Stolz!’ called out Preston. ‘Hold your fire! We need no more blood spilled this morning!’
Another couple of men stepped forward, each holding a rifle, and from the stern expression on their faces, they were prepared to use them.
‘You must return to your side and prepare to leave, before God decides to make an example of you right here and now!’
Ben stood up. ‘Come on, Keats,’ he spoke quietly. ‘We should go.’
The guide nodded. They both backed away from Vander’s body and began to pick their way through the gathered crowd. Ben could sense the cold, steely gaze of their eyes on them as they made their way through to join the rest of their group, waiting in a small huddle, their weapons held ready.
My God, thought Ben, this is a hair-trigger away from being a massacre.
As they drew up beside the others, the silence was broken by one of the younger Paiute who suddenly began shouting. Ben turned to see what was going on. The young man was pointing towards the gathered Mormons and hurling a stream of Ute at them.
‘What’s he saying?’
Keats shook his head. ‘I ain’t getting’ it all . . . too fast.’
The Indian took several threatening steps forward, his tamahakan raised threateningly, and pointed once again.
Ben followed the direction of the young man’s glare and saw that it was Zimmerman he was addressing with another screamed release of anger.
‘I sssee you.’ Broken Wing hastily translated the Paiute’s words out of the side of his mouth. ‘Killer of Lazy Wolf.’
Keats shook his head and mut
tered to Ben. ‘It was Hearst shot the Indian, not Zimmerman. The boy’s mistaken.’
The Paiute took a dozen intimidating steps forward, and then tossed his weapon into the ground, the handle sticking up out of the snow. He screamed in Ute again.
‘Lazy Wolf hold no weapon.’
He took another couple of steps forward until he stood opposite the man. Mr Zimmerman aimed his gun. ‘Stay where you are!’ he yelled.
The Indian understood and stopped in his tracks. Then, he spoke loudly. The gestures that came with it weren’t hard to decipher. But then the Indian finished, turned round and headed back towards his tamahakan. Zimmerman called out. ‘What the hell did the thing say?’
Keats bit his lip.
‘I said . . .’ Zimmerman swung the long barrel of his musket towards Keats. ‘What the hell did it say?’
‘The Indian said . . . when the fighting starts, he will find you, and cut your heart out.’
Without hesitation, the musket in Zimmerman’s hands swung back towards the Paiute, and then a plume of blue smoke erupted with a deafening boom.
A large star-shaped exit wound erupted from the top of the Indian’s torso, hurling out on to the snow tatters of deer hide, skin and blood. The Indian staggered a foot forward, reaching out for the handle of his war-club, sticking up out of the snow, then collapsed.
A second deafening boom erupted from behind Ben. He turned and saw Three Hawks with his ancient flintlock raised and a ring of gunsmoke rolling away from the tip of its four-foot-long barrel.
Zimmerman fell backwards amidst a puff of crimson.
Another shot rang out from amongst Preston’s men and a lead shot hummed between the Paiute and the others like a hornet.
‘Stop!’ Keats bellowed angrily.
Bowen and Weyland both discharged their weapons, one shot failing to find a target, the other clipping the arm of a woman. She dropped to her knees and screamed.
In the momentary lull before another shot could be fired Preston strode forward in front of his people. ‘Stop this!’