by Alma Katsu
Donner jerked around to look at him. “Slaughtered and dressed? You make it sound like the boy was butchered.”
Bryant said nothing. He didn’t have to.
“Butchering implies that this was deliberate,” Stanton said. Even the words had a foul taste. “But if not Indians, then who?”
The set of Bryant’s mouth was grim. “We can’t ignore the possibility that whoever killed the boy is part of the wagon train. Someone already among us.”
The silence was tense. “Nonsense,” Reed muttered. The handkerchief came out, as it always seemed to when Reed was nervous. A tell.
“Surely a man like that would stand out, wouldn’t he?” Donner fidgeted with his coat buttons. “His behavior would give him away.”
Stanton knew that wasn’t necessarily true. Seeing the dead boy reminded him of an earlier time in his hometown in Massachusetts, when he’d seen the woman he loved pulled from the ice-capped water and laid out on the snow. Lydia. Fifteen years had passed and he could still barely stand to remember. She’d looked as though she’d just gone to sleep, her expression as peaceful as that boy’s: a lie. He remembered her dark lashes fanned against skin that had turned pale blue from being in the water so long, her lips purple as a bruise. Something terrible had compelled her across the thin frozen ice of the river that winter day, an evil that lived among them that he had failed to see. In this, at least, his grandfather had been correct. Evil was invisible, and it was everywhere.
“Sometimes a crazy man can act normal when he has to,” Bryant said. “He might be able to hide for a while longer. He might be able to hide his true nature indefinitely.”
Reed swiped his forehead. “All I know is, it’s a good thing Colonel Russell quit when he did. It’s time for a new captain.”
Stanton glanced over at Donner, whose usual swagger looked a little off-kilter in the bobbing light of Reed’s torch. Donner was one of Russell’s lieutenants, and he had obviously loved his appointment and all the little duties that came with it. He liked having a say in the way things were run; he certainly liked being looked up to and seemed to crave the admiration of others. Stanton respected him less for it.
“You’re not going to try to blame this on Russell, are you?” Bryant asked.
“He never should have been made captain in the first place. This wouldn’t have happened under a stronger man,” Reed said, clearing his throat. Stanton thought he knew what was coming next. “My reputation, I believe, speaks for itself.”
“I’d be careful not to overestimate your position,” Donner said, his big wide face shiny as he turned toward the light. “You may be a good businessman, but I don’t know that it counts for much out here on the trail.”
“I’m already one of the leaders of this party, in fact, if not in title. You can’t deny it,” Reed said stiffly. Stanton had to agree; whenever an important decision needed to be made, people almost instinctively turned to James Reed.
“You’d have us kill the first Indian we see,” Donner spluttered. “You’d have us go to war, when we have no evidence whatsoever of what or who killed that boy.”
“I see. And I suppose you think that you would make a better party captain than I would?” Reed’s voice was cutting.
Even in the scant light of the dying torch, Stanton saw Donner redden. “As a matter of fact, I do. I have experience leading the wagon train. People know me—and like me. It’s important to be liked, James—you shouldn’t underestimate that.”
Reed scowled at Donner. “I’d rather be respected than liked.”
Donner gave him a thin, insincere smile. “That’s why you won’t be elected captain. You can’t expect to just step in and boss people around. You have to earn people’s respect—and you haven’t earned it, not yet.”
Reed stopped dead. His head seemed to swell so full with rage that it might burst. “And do you think people respect you? Everyone knows you can’t even stand up to your own wife.”
At this, the rest of the group halted, too. Stanton shifted uncomfortably in the dusty air as he watched George Donner’s face go pale in the darkness until he seemed almost bloodless. He was standing perfectly still, his clublike hands hanging at his sides, towering over James Reed. But Reed stood his ground and, in that moment, seemed the stronger.
Bryant broke the silence and stepped between them. “Gentlemen. It’s late. We’ve all had a shock tonight.”
Stanton realized he’d been holding his breath, though it didn’t seem all that likely Reed and Donner would have come to blows. James Reed had a temper, true, but he was prideful and wouldn’t stoop to brawling. Stanton had noticed the care he took with his appearance, his obsessive cleaning of his fingernails and trimming of his beard, the way he endlessly brushed his coat of dust, despite the fact that within minutes it would be dirty again. And Donner was a blusterer but at his core, too soft, almost spongelike, too dependent on others for his opinions and shape. He was the type to get others to do his dirty work for him.
Still, Stanton didn’t like the tension that lingered in the air, even as Reed stalked off without another word.
Donner shook his head. “Madness,” he murmured. Then he bid them good night and turned off toward the camp.
For a second, as Stanton watched him recede into the darkness, he envied Donner his waiting family, the company of a beautiful woman, sleeping children exhaling their sweet night-breath into the summer air.
Bryant exhaled. “I hope to God someone else steps forward to lead us.”
Stanton nodded toward the departed figures, now lost in the darkness. “Would you choose either one, if you had to?”
“I’d go with Reed before I’d go with Donner. The man’s more of a leader. Though if you really want to know the truth, you’d be my first choice.”
“Me?” Stanton almost laughed. “I don’t think you’ll find anyone to second my nomination. The family men don’t trust me, with no wife or children. Besides, I don’t need the headaches—and I like to mind my own business. If you’re so keen on a leader, why don’t you volunteer yourself?”
Bryant smiled wryly. “You’re not going to talk me out of leaving that easily.”
“You still mean to head out, then?” Stanton asked. “Traveling in a small group with whatever got the boy still at large—it could be dangerous.”
“True.” Bryant tilted his head to one side, as if listening to something in the distance. “You know, it all reminds me of something. An old story I heard a long time ago.”
“Something the Indians told you?”
“No.” Bryant’s smile looked more like a squint. “Something odd that happened to me in my doctoring days. Nearly as wild as a fairy story. If I ever make sense of it, I’ll tell you about it,” he said, turning away already and raising a hand in farewell. “Take care, Stanton. I’ll send word when I can.”
As wild as a fairy story. For some reason, Stanton couldn’t shake the words from his mind.
* * *
• • •
STANTON ALWAYS SET UP his campsite apart from its neighbors; he liked the nighttime solitude. He could see their wagons through a scrim of trees, tents set up for sleeping, fires still smoldering against the night; could smell the remains of their suppers lingering on the air. But every site he passed was deserted. Fathers had driven their families inside the tents. It was like this when things got bad: Circles got smaller. People wanted to protect their own.
He knew the mangled body of that young boy should be bothering him . . . and it was. But something else was bothering him, too, persisting like the stench of blood in the air. It was the nagging feeling that something vitally important—some invisible thread—was about to unravel. He’d never liked conflict, but what Donner had said tonight sank in with an uncomfortable clarity. Don’t underestimate the value of being liked, he’d said. Stanton hadn’t gone out of his way to make himself liked;
Bryant was his only real ally, and he was leaving.
And the implication that the boy’s murderer could be among them had put Stanton on edge. There were plenty of men in the party who might count violence, even perversion, among their qualities. He thought back to what Bryant had said about how dangerous tendencies could be hidden. Keseberg was rumored to beat that young wife of his when he thought no one was looking, and Stanton believed it. The man was a self-taught shark with cards and forgot nothing—the exact type to hold a grudge, and to act on one.
Then there was the Graves family’s hired hand John Snyder; he bullied the younger teamsters mercilessly, would often get them to hand over their evening’s ration of beer or take his shift as sentry. Unsavory men all, but all brutal in a common, regular way. Hundreds of men just like them had made their way west; thousands, even. Stanton had a hard time picturing any of them as the kind of monster who would mutilate a small boy. That took a special kind of savagery all its own, and it left a tremor in him, a question with no answer.
He knew he wouldn’t sleep.
All that was left of his neglected campfire were a few dying embers. Too late to cook supper but he wasn’t hungry, not after what he’d seen in the field. He’d rather crawl into his bedroll with the last of his whiskey and try to wipe out the vision that wouldn’t go away. He tried to remember where he had hidden the bottle. As he approached his wagon, however, he heard the sound of movement in the shadows. He wasn’t alone.
His hand went to the revolver on his hip just as a figure stepped out of the shadows. Tamsen Donner lowered a shawl from over her head. The sight of her drove through him like a knife. Tamsen Donner was too pretty for her own good.
For anyone’s good.
He pulled his hand back from his holster. “Is there something I can do for you, Mrs. Donner?” He said her name carefully, with purpose.
Her hair was falling out of its upsweep. When was the last time he’d touched a woman’s hair? Back in Springfield, there had been a young widow who worked at the milliner’s on the same street as his shop, a quiet woman who, twice a week, crept up the back stairs to his room over the dry-goods store. The widow’s hair had been a tangle of curls and she’d kept it carefully pinned as though she’d been ashamed of its coarseness, its wildness. Tamsen Donner’s hair was dark and fell like water.
She looked up at his face. “The news is all over camp. My husband was gone and I didn’t know where he’d disappeared to . . . I suppose I wasn’t thinking straight. But all I could think was that I needed someone—and I thought of you.”
The Donners had other men in their party, he knew: George’s own brother Jacob and a few hired drovers for the oxen. Enough to protect the women and children. But she had come here, leaving her daughters behind to seek comfort from a man who was practically a stranger.
She came closer to him, her shawl shifting so he could see her collarbone and then the tops of her breasts, flawless and white, pressed tight against the neckline of her dress. “I hope you don’t mind my coming to see you.”
His throat went dry. He had to force himself to look away from her. “Your husband will be back any minute.”
Her mouth quirked to one side. “My husband?” Her voice was easy, like watching a rock bouncing down a hill. “You know George. He’s good at comforting the others. They need him more than I do right now.”
She said it like it was some sort of sacrifice on her part, coming here. Her fingers were cool on his cheek and smelled of a wild perfume he couldn’t name, like crushed flower petals and the wind through the prairie. She collected herbs and, it was said, concocted potions, and people whispered that she was a witch who could make herself irresistible to men. Maybe she was.
He kissed her.
He wasn’t a saint, wasn’t even a good man. He was strong physically but had always suspected that deep down, he was weak. The soft curve of her lips. Weakness. The light touch of her hair grazing against his jaw. Weakness. The smell of her. Weakness.
He felt her cool hands slide under his jacket and seek out his chest, and the heat of realization rose in him. Tamsen Donner had come here with a serious purpose; he saw that now. She knew what she was doing.
Somehow he managed to turn his head away. “You should know better than to tease a man like this, Mrs. Donner.”
She brought her mouth to his ear. “You’re right. I wouldn’t want to cause trouble.” The words tickled his neck.
The invisible thread was unspooling.
They were in his wagon before he knew how they’d gotten there, had somehow climbed over the backboard, slipped under the canopy and hidden in its dim recesses. There was no room in the fully packed wagon, and in the end he pushed her up against a chest of drawers that had been lashed in place, the floor beneath their feet swaying like the deck of a ship as he took her, grasping and gripping, nearly blind in the darkness of the unlit room.
When he finished she let out a sharp cry—practically the only sound she made—and he found in that second not a sense of freedom and release but a sense of falling backward. He had to put his hand through his hair and breathe deeply to steady himself, even as he watched her immediately put herself back together, tuck her breasts into the confines of stays and bodice, smooth her skirts, sweep back stray curls. She was beautiful. Beautiful and remote—she seemed even more a stranger than she had before.
He shook his head. “We shouldn’t have done this.” The weight of it was beginning to sink in. Donner’s wife.
For a second, something flickered across Tamsen’s face, and the closest word he had for it was fear. But the expression was gone so quickly he thought it might have been a trick of the light. She blinked. “There are many things one shouldn’t do, Mr. Stanton.”
He felt stung, struck by the memory of his grandfather telling him, Don’t tempt the devil, boy, as though he could still feel the crack of the old man’s belt buckle in his face after he was caught kissing a neighbor’s daughter out in the churchyard when he was nine years old. How miserable he’d been growing up in his grandfather’s house. And angry at his father, too, for leaving him and his mother there.
He realized now that his head was clearing, that his back was stinging with a high, sharp pain. He reached to the side of his neck and felt blood. “You scratched me?”
She looked at him with eyes so dark they were almost expressionless. Unreadable. She brought a hand to his face almost casually. “I hope there won’t be any trouble.” This time when she said it, it carried a different tone.
“Is that a threat?”
But she didn’t answer him. Instead, she swung gracefully over the backboard. He listened as her light footstep faded away. Too late, he saw that she was one of those temptations better left untried, like a whiskey so potent that it left you blind.
He should try to reason with her. He swung out of the wagon and dropped to the ground, shocked when a teenaged girl startled backward out of the underbrush, looking frightened and lost. Panic seized him. How long had she been standing there?
Before she could bolt, he called out to her. “Wait there. You, girl—who are you? Are you one of the Breens?” There were so many children in the wagon train, it was impossible to keep track.
She stiffened, frozen to the spot as though she’d forgotten how to run away. “No, sir. I’m Elitha Donner.”
Worse and worse. “What are you doing here?” he demanded.
“I—I was sent out to collect firewood. I was just on my way back to my family, I swear it.” Her face was bright red and shiny and the angle of her lip made her look mulish. More telling, however: There was no wood in her arms.
“Tell me what you saw, Elitha,” he said, and took a step toward her. “Go on. No lies.”
He hadn’t meant to frighten her. But Elitha turned and sprinted back into the woods like a spooked deer. His first urge was to run after her, but he checked himself
. It wasn’t right for a grown man to chase a child through the woods, especially not after what they’d found out there tonight.
He turned back to the wagon, intent on finding that bottle of whiskey. He knew what was waiting for him tonight: a visit from Lydia. Between the boy and Tamsen, he now knew it was inevitable. Poor Lydia would appear in his dreams, clothes clinging to her blue-tinged body, asking him to save her. I need you, Charles—words she had never said to him in life but were reflected in her eyes every time she appeared in his dreams. How could he have known her so well and not known the terrible truth?
Help me, Lydia. He turned back to his campsite, to the fire leaching smoke. Help me see the monsters this time.
CHAPTER FIVE
Fort Laramie, Indian Territory
My dear Margie,
At last, we have reached Fort Laramie, deep in the Indian Territory. After living out of my saddlebags for six weeks, I was more excited than I thought possible, both because of the promise of a shave and hot bath in an honest-to-goodness tub and because of the possibility that there might be a letter from you waiting for me.
You may be gratified to learn that I spent the entire first week after leaving Independence wondering if I’d just made the biggest mistake of my life. After waiting forty-two years to marry, how could I willingly ride away from the woman with whom I’d decided to spend the rest of my life? Once the shock had worn off, however, I made it a point to get acquainted with a party that joined the wagon train outside Independence. The newcomers, about six families in all, several of them quite well off (to judge by their wagonloads of furniture, servants, and even rumors of fortunes in silver and gold coin) came from Springfield, Illinois. We were also joined by a handful of single men looking to make their fortune in the West.
The most prominent member of the party is, undoubtedly, George Donner. He heads the entire Donner clan, which is composed of not only his family but also that of his younger brother Jacob. They appear to be simple men but they must be shrewder than they look, for people say they had owned a considerable amount of property in Illinois. The elder Donner is fond of quoting from the Bible but routinely mixes up the passages. I question whether he’s wise enough to lead, but then again, he is roundly trusted by all, precisely because he knows how to offend none. The most notable thing about him, besides his size (portly), is his wife, Tamsen. Most of the men in the party have fallen in love with her; nonetheless, I have observed in her a certain hardness that edges close to cruelty. I have seen her make servants cry, and act coldly to children other than her own. She shuns women who are not as pretty as she, and has a reputation for dabbling in witchcraft—likely a rumor born of the other women’s jealousy.