by Alma Katsu
And so he kept the night watch, even though it meant barely being able to keep his eyes open during the long, hot, dusty days.
When he first caught sight of Fort Bridger, he imagined it might be a mirage. There were the roofs of a few log cabins, and buildings on the verge of collapse. Stanton hadn’t realized how eager he’d been to get here—to find a little relief from his own thoughts—until their party approached the fort. Now he was surprised by the weight of his disappointment. This place could almost be mistaken for deserted.
Unease grew and spread: Stanton could feel it like a wind touching down, rippling through the group. This couldn’t be Fort Bridger, they told each other. Where was the stockade fence, the stout gate, the cannon? In the distance, a handful of smaller outbuildings cowered together. Two Indians chopping wood in a muddy courtyard looked up as the wagon train rolled past but quickly returned to their work.
They found Jim Bridger, the proprietor, inside one of the dilapidated log cabins. It was dim and so smoky that you could barely see. The cabins were low and long, with few openings for windows, though chinks between the logs let in plenty of drafts. The floors were packed dirt, covered here and there with ragged hides. Two Indian women sat in the corner, hunched over baskets and seemingly oblivious to the smoke from the fireplace. A child played at their feet, scrubbing a thumb in the dirt.
Stanton had heard about Bridger at Fort Laramie, stories of his temper and impatience, all blamed on the many years he spent alone in the wilderness. He had been a mountain man roaming the area for a decade before setting up the fort with his partner, a restless Mexican named Luis Vasquez. Paranoid, prone to take the law into his own hands, was how he’d been described by one of the men at Fort Laramie.
Bridger might once have been strong, even intimidating, but now he was wizened, hollow-cheeked, diminished, as if something had sucked out a good part of his insides. He was dressed in tattered and filthy buckskins. His hair was long, thin, and gray. When he looked up, there was no mistaking the strange brightness in his eyes; the man was crazy.
Donner was so tall compared to Bridger that when he thrust out his hand, he nearly struck the man in the face. “I need to speak to the proprietor of this establishment,” he said in that expansive, confident tone that Stanton had come to know as completely false.
“You found ’im,” Bridger said, without glancing up. Next to him behind the counter was a short, younger man with skin the color of caramel and a dirty apron tied about his waist. They appeared to be taking inventory.
“We’ll be staying here for a couple days to rest the animals,” Donner explained after they’d exchanged names.
“That’s fine. Let us know if you need anything. We got pretty good stocks of supplies,” Vasquez said, wiping his palms on the greasy apron, streaked rust-red and brown as though he had been butchering. “Which way you planning to go? North or west?” Both men seemed keenly interested in the response.
“West, of course,” Donner said. “We’ve come to meet up with Lansford Hastings. He said he’d be waiting here to guide settlers down the cutoff.”
Bridger and Vasquez exchanged a look that Stanton couldn’t decipher. “Hastings was here, but he moved on,” Vasquez said. “A wagon train come through two weeks ago and he set off with them.”
“Two weeks ago!” Donner repeated. “But he promised to wait.”
Stanton resisted the urge to point out to Donner that he’d been warned. Donner had convinced the party to make the journey down Hastings Cutoff, said that Hastings would wait for them. Now everyone would see that they’d taken a gamble—and possibly lost.
“No need to fret,” Bridger said, squinting in a way Stanton assumed was meant to suggest a smile. “Hastings left instructions. Said any wagons that came through should follow their trail. They’re marking it. You won’t be able to miss it.”
Donner frowned. “And what’s your opinion of this trail? Is it any good? We have ninety people in our party, most of them women and children.”
Stanton wasn’t sure why he bothered to ask. Fort Bridger’s fortunes depended on the success of this trail. He hoped Christian decency would keep these men from lying to them outright, but he’d been disappointed by Christian goodness in the past. Few men valued the lives of strangers over profit.
Both Bridger and Vasquez hesitated. “Well, that route is pretty new,” Vasquez said finally.
“That it is,” Bridger interrupted, his tone brighter than Vasquez’s. “But Hastings is keen on it. He’s been down it with Bill Clyman, you heard of him? Clyman is probably the most famous mountain man in this territory, and old Bill give it his stamp of approval.”
Donner beamed stupidly. Undoubtedly he would repeat this endorsement to everyone in the party. “That’s good enough for me.”
“Tell you what, I’ll saddle up myself and take you to the start of the pass,” Bridger said. “But you’ll want to take a few days to rest up, make sure your animals are well fed and in good shape. We got oats, a little feed corn, too. Nothing between here and John Sutter’s fort in California. This here’s your last chance to fatten ’em up before you head into the mountains.”
“And we’ll make the best use of it, too, sir, you can count on that,” Donner said, beaming at each man in turn as he departed.
Stanton let Donner go alone. He turned to Vasquez. “Do you have a letter for me from Edwin Bryant? He should’ve passed through here a week or so ago.”
He thought he saw a flicker in Vasquez’s dark eyes before Bridger spoke up. “What was that name again?”
“Bryant. A few years older than me, wears spectacles most of the time. A newspaperman.”
Bridger shook his head. “Don’t recall anyone by that name came through this way. There’s nothing here for you, anyway.”
Stanton felt a quick seize of dread. “He was just ahead of us on the trail,” he said. When Bridger said nothing, he went on, “He intended to stop here. He told me so himself.” He didn’t want to think about what could have waylaid him: Bryant injured, dead, or dying.
“No, no, you’re right. He was here, I remember him now,” Vasquez said slowly.
Stanton was relieved to hear that Bryant had come through the fort after all. But there was something that rang false about the way the two men were acting. “Bryant was going to leave a letter for me. Are you sure there’s nothing?”
“Nothing, sir,” Vasquez said. Stanton knew that he was lying.
“Well—you heard Donner. We’ll be here for a few more days. I’ll check back just in case something turns up,” he said as he turned to leave. But Bridger only gave him a stony smile, showing all his teeth.
* * *
• • •
A GRAY RAIN SETTLED OVER them for the next two days. It would help with the drought so no one complained, but it was just heavy enough to make life miserable. Fires sputtered and smoked; families hunkered down in their tents, shivering out their evenings in mud-spattered clothing and boots, scratching at lice and other vermin that seemed to have infested half the wagon party’s bedding and clothes. It was hardest on the older members of the party like Mathis Hardkoop, an elderly Belgian traveling on his own. Hardkoop, no judge of character, had (inexplicably, as far as Stanton could see) come to depend on Keseberg for help, but Keseberg had tired of the old man and—against his quiet wife Philippine’s wishes—thrown him out of his wagon. Weakened by the demands of the trail, Hardkoop quickly developed a bad cough and could be found slinking around the fort with his near-empty satchel and bedroll, looking for a dry place to sleep.
A couple of families escaped the wet and mud by renting rooms from Bridger and Vasquez. James Reed moved his large brood into a bunkhouse that had stood unused since the garrison had moved on the year before. George and Jacob Donner went one better by offering Vasquez enough money to move his family out of their log cabin. The two Donner clans would escape the
drizzle, be able to enjoy hot meals and boil water in Vasquez’s big copper cauldron for hot baths. Stanton was still too much of a Yankee to spend good money when he had a sturdy tent at hand.
Finally, on the third morning of their stay, the rain cleared. Stanton knelt by the river, stripped to the waist, his clothing piled nearby. The water was so cold it took his breath away. Punishingly cold, but again something he had a perverse liking for, no doubt thanks to his grandfather. He washed quickly, only the exposed parts. Donner had promised that it was to be their final day at the fort and everyone was hurrying to get through the last of their chores. He had a long list: inspect the axle and wheels for signs of wear or weakness; clean the harnesses, which had become stiff with sweat; check on the oxen’s and his saddle horse’s hooves. A beast of burden was only as good as its hooves, and no one could afford to lose one of their animals.
He felt the scream as much as he heard it. He knew her voice, felt her cry in his body, as if it were a message meant for him. He reached for the pistol lying on top of his clothing but didn’t stop for anything else. He sprinted in the direction of her voice.
Mary Graves.
She was on her back in the dirt, scrabbling backward. The shock of seeing her that way was nothing compared to the surprise of seeing a man standing over her. He was filthy, his skin nearly leprous from neglect, his eyes red and wet. The stink coming off him was overpowering and nearly made Stanton choke.
These thoughts passed through Stanton’s mind in an instant. Later he would remember nothing but a vision of two scabrous hands gripping Mary’s shoulders, before he drew a bead and squeezed off two shots automatically.
The bullets caught the man—if he could be called that—in the back. He released his grip on Mary, then toppled forward. Mary had to shove him hard to keep him from rolling on top of her. She tried to stand but sank down in the dirt again. She was very pale, and Stanton could see she was doing everything not to cry.
Stanton was surprised that the man was still alive; he was pretty sure that he’d put both bullets in him. He crouched next to him to see if there was anything he could do. “Don’t thrash, you’ll only bleed more,” he ordered, but when he held a hand out to get the man to lie still, the stranger lunged toward him, nearly taking off Stanton’s fingers with rust-colored teeth. Stanton struck him hard in the face; his bones felt spongy, almost rotten.
The man fell backward in the dirt and Stanton resisted the urge to shoot him again. Instead, he turned to Mary, who was still on the ground. “Are you okay? You weren’t hurt, were you?”
She shook her head. She was so pale he could see the tracery of veins in her cheeks. “I’ll be all right.”
There was a bright slash of red on her shoulder. “What’s that?” Stanton asked.
She touched the spot with a trembling hand. “It’s nothing. A scratch.” She lifted her chin in the man’s direction. “I was going to see what was keeping my brothers—we’d sent them for a bucket of water—when he came rushing out of the woods. The next thing I knew he had grabbed me and—” She stopped, drawing in a deep breath, and once again Stanton could see that she was trying not to cry.
“He can’t hurt you. I’ll put a bullet between his eyes if he so much as tries to get up off the ground.” Already, the man was twitching again. Not unconscious, then.
But she didn’t seem to be paying attention to him. She tried to get to her feet again. “My brothers—have you seen my brothers?”
“Take it easy. I’ll look for them just as soon as I get you back to camp.” He started to help Mary off the ground when he heard shouting. Just then, several men from the party crashed out of the woods.
“What’s going on here?” George Donner was the first to arrive, a hand clamped to his hat to keep it from blowing off his head. William Eddy and Jim Bridger were steps behind him. Bridger had leashed up a fierce-looking dog. It snarled at the blood in the dirt. “Who fired a gun?” He stopped short when he saw the man on the ground. “Dear God, what in the name of heaven . . . ?”
Bridger held the dog back with difficulty when it lunged for the stranger. Funny, Stanton thought; the old man didn’t seem surprised at the scene.
“I heard Mary scream,” Stanton said. Mary leaned heavily against him, and Stanton was all too aware of Eddy scowling. “I found this man attacking her.”
Donner looked repulsed. “His face . . .” Donner shook his head. “What’s wrong with him?”
“Take it easy now, everybody.” Bridger kept his tone friendly. He handed the dog’s lead to Eddy and crouched next to the man, binding his hands with a piece of rope. Stanton noticed that the man’s wrists were chafed nearly raw. He had sat up but didn’t resist; Stanton could tell he was frightened of Bridger’s dog, but Bridger handled him carefully nonetheless. “This here man is that prisoner I was telling you about. Must’ve got out.”
“Prisoner?” Donner obviously knew nothing of the stories Bridger had been telling his new visitors over the last couple of rainy nights. Stanton himself had only caught whispers of it. “What did he do?”
“He didn’t do anything,” Bridger said with a shrug. “Leastways not like you’re thinking. Was one of ’em prospectors got lost out in the woods a few years back now. He got a fever in his brain and went off his nut. You see the way he’s acting. We’ve been holding him for his own good, so he won’t hurt hisself.” Bridger gave Stanton a contemptuous look. “I’m doing this out of the kindness of my heart. I coulda left him to wander in the woods forever, y’know.”
“I’m sure your Christian charity is an inspiration to us all,” Stanton said, not bothering to keep the sarcasm from his voice. Whatever had chafed the man’s wrists nearly raw, it wasn’t the kindness of Jim Bridger’s heart. Why would he insist on keeping a dangerous man locked up when there were women and children around? And not for weeks or even months but for years? Stanton got a chill thinking about it—as though this monstrous prisoner had been some sort of a pet to Bridger.
Donner and Eddy offered to help Mary Graves up to the wagons. While Bridger forced his prisoner to his feet, Stanton stood, troubled for reasons he couldn’t explain, watching Mary moving clumsily between her two escorts, still troubled by the memory of her scream. When she was nearly out of sight, she looked back over her shoulder at him. Her pale gray eyes were the same color as the sky.
* * *
• • •
NEAR NIGHTFALL, Stanton packed his things. He was ready to leave Fort Bridger and its madmen and its secrets behind. Chaining up couldn’t come a moment too soon.
Without warning, Lewis Keseberg stuck his head inside Stanton’s tent. “Donner wants you to come with me.”
Not so long ago, Donner would have come directly had he wanted to talk. Maybe even brought a bottle of whiskey to share. Stanton wasn’t sure when things changed between them, and why.
Stanton looked up from the knife he was sharpening, whetstone in his lap. “Can it wait until tomorrow?”
“You’re going to want to come. He’s questioning an Indian boy who crawled out of the woods.” Keseberg’s rotted teeth gleamed wetly in the dark. “Said he was traveling with Edwin Bryant.”
Stanton was on his feet and outside within seconds. At the barn, a handful of men stood in a circle around a skinny dark boy, sitting on a bale of hay and draped with a dirty horse blanket. Only his head was visible, his black hair hanging in filthy tangles. This had to be the Indian guide Bryant had hired before departing from Fort Laramie. Stanton had heard of him, a Paiute orphan converted by missionaries, but hadn’t met him. He seemed far too young to be leading men through uncharted territory.
“Where’s Edwin?” The words were out before Stanton knew he’d spoken. He just managed to keep from lunging at the boy when the boy did nothing but shake his head.
“He told us that Bryant decided to go ahead on his own and dismissed him from service,” Donner said. H
ands buried in his pockets, he paced restlessly, and Stanton could tell that he, too, found that story unlikely.
Reed stepped closer to the boy, screwing up his face. “Bryant wouldn’t let you go unless you’d done something to make him. Did you try to steal from him? What was it, boy?”
The Indian pushed hair out of his eyes. “I didn’t steal nothing, I swear.”
“But he didn’t dismiss you. You lied about that, didn’t you? You ran away. You’re a coward,” Reed said. The boy hung his head again and muttered something indecipherable. Reed looked back at the others. “The only question that remains is what to do with him.”
“We leave him here, of course,” Donner said, and stopped pacing to stare at Reed. “What else is there to do? We can’t take him with us.”
Stanton thought of the wild man in Bridger’s makeshift stockade, the raw wounds on his wrists. Could they just hand the boy over to Jim Bridger?
“Why not take him with us?” Keseberg asked. “Coward or not, he knows the area and we need a guide. He can lead us to Hastings. That can be his punishment for deserting a white man in the wilderness.” It was one of the more reasonable thoughts Stanton had ever heard out of Keseberg’s mouth.
“You cannot make me work for you,” the boy said.
“We won’t cheat you,” Reed said. Although he and Keseberg despised each other, it was obvious he agreed with the suggestion. “But you heard these men: You can’t stay here. You have nowhere else to go. You’ll come with us or you can walk all the way to Fort Laramie.”
The boy looked from one of his captors to the next. Stanton thought for a moment that he might jump up and try to run away. “You cannot make me go with you. That way—that way is bad. There are bad spirits waiting for you ahead. You cannot pass. It is not safe.”
Bad spirits. Stanton thought of messages sent through dreams, of the little talismans of bundled sticks and lace he’d seen Tamsen carrying around with her when she thought no one was watching. When he shouldn’t have been watching.