by Alma Katsu
If he did nothing he would die. If he called out he might very well die, but sooner and quicker, impaled or gutted or shot full of arrows.
Bryant stood and waved, shouting to get their attention.
Custom demanded an exchange of gifts, so Bryant gave the Indians everything he could spare. His navy blue bandana, picked out by his fiancée in the general store in Independence just before the wagon train pulled out. The band on his hat, braided leather studded with tiny silver beads. And finally, his waistcoat, which he’d bought from a haberdasher in Louisville with his first paycheck as a newspaperman. With each item he passed to them, the men smiled, each in turn, until they decided who would accept which gift. These gifts earned him a place at the fire and a share of their evening meal: acorn bread, vegetable root dried like jerky, and a handful of mushrooms.
He forced himself to eat slowly so that he wouldn’t get sick. He bowed his head to each man in turn to show his gratitude.
They seemed to know the words he’d learned from the Shoshone, and he augmented this limited vocabulary with gestures and pantomime and drawings in the dirt. They indicated that there was a lake ahead, high up in the mountains, but that he should avoid it. They said the lake was home to a spirit that, they claimed, consumed the flesh of men and turned them into wolves.
“Na’it,” one man said to him repeatedly while pointing to the figure he’d drawn in the dirt. Bryant didn’t know what they were trying to say.
He led them up to the cave and showed them the corpse, wondering if they might have known the man in life, if he had been of their tribe. Bryant asked as best he could whether they knew what beast or spirit had killed the man in the cave. To his surprise, they had been repulsed by the sight of the corpse, had insisted on setting fire to it immediately without so much as a prayer.
Perhaps because it was so dark and the nuances were lost, or because of the mushrooms he’d eaten, which he was sure were mildly hallucinogenic, he couldn’t figure out what the drawings were meant to represent. But it seemed the Indians believed that the man’s brutal death was not the work of a man or beast but both, somehow. A man in a wolf’s skin, or a beast in a man’s skin? It was impossible to tell from their drawings, and they spoke so quickly, and so quietly, Bryant could only make out every third or fourth word.
When he woke, he expected to find the hunting party gone. But they were waiting for him, the horses packed and the fire smothered. The senior man wore Bryant’s vest over his buckskin tunic, which made Bryant smile. One of the men offered an arm to Bryant and helped him swing up behind him on horseback, and Bryant gladly accepted. With a grunt, the man in Bryant’s vest turned his paint mare west, to follow the trickling stream toward the snow-capped mountains looming in the distance. He would live, it seemed, a few days more.
He was glad to ride out of the clearing, which still lingered with the faint sweet smell of burned flesh.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
It had to end.
Meet me, James Reed had whispered as he passed by John Snyder. Eight o’clock, at the cottonwood down by the watering hole.
Reed wished he could remain with his family after dinner, reading a story to the children by the light of the fire while Margaret mended clothes and Eliza Williams scoured the dishes. Ironic, when you considered how many nights he’d sat at the family dining table in Springfield, wishing he could steal away to meet Edward McGee.
But he had a reckoning coming with Snyder, one he couldn’t put off any longer.
He hadn’t forgotten the advice Snyder gave him the last time they’d met privately—don’t forget what kind of man I am. Beneath the veneer of civility, John Snyder was a wild beast, and Reed had foolishly given this man the power to destroy him. Reed could barely stand to be in Snyder’s presence any longer, fearing what he might do. If this journey had become a trek through hell, the episodes with Snyder only made it more so, a punishment that, incomprehensibly, Reed seemed to have designed for himself.
At quarter to eight, Reed kissed the children on the head and bade them good night, each in turn. He told his wife that he had to speak to the Breens about some trivial matter; she especially disliked the family, so there was no chance she might ask about the visit later. Once he was out of sight of his wagons, he pulled out his handkerchief and dabbed sweat off his forehead. Once, twice, three times. He stopped himself from overdoing it—lately he noticed his hairline had begun to recede from the habit.
But for good measure, he wiped his mouth three times, too.
He shouldn’t have kissed those children, not with his filthy mouth. He was too unclean. They were innocent, those children. The only good, innocent thing in his life. He didn’t deserve them.
He arrived at the appointed place well before Snyder and saw him from a distance, lumbering down the slope in his unhurried way. On the horizon, a brilliant band of orange and yellow dissolved into a thick, nighttime black. Snyder came to an abrupt stop in front of Reed.
As Snyder reached for him, however, Reed stepped backward. He’d played the scene in his head a hundred times but had never gotten past this moment.
“No.” Improvisation would have to do. “Listen. I came to tell you it’s over between us. It has to end.”
Snyder reached for him a second time, more aggressively. “What makes you think you get to call the tune? You’re done when I say you’re done.”
Reed managed to avoid him a second time. “Listen to me. I’m serious. I won’t do this anymore.” Snyder’s face twisted into an ugly sneer. He would be angry now. “I was unhappy, looking for a way to escape. But I don’t have that luxury anymore. I’ve got a role to play. People still look to me—some of them, anyway. If I should fail them, what will become of the wagon train? They need me.”
“Don’t you have a high opinion of yerself,” Snyder said. He took a heavy step toward Reed. “I could tell ’em about you, about what you let me do to you. That you asked for it, you wanted it.”
Reed tried to swallow but found he couldn’t. “You’d be implicating yourself, too,” he finally said. But he no longer knew whether Snyder cared. He felt sick—how could he have let himself fall prey to a man like Snyder? How could he have wanted him so badly?
How was it possible Reed wanted him still? The strong bulk of his shoulders. The moments of hard, rough, frantic forgetting.
“It don’t matter what I done,” Snyder said. “I’m not the one who’s a pervert.”
“Some of those men won’t feel the same way, you can bet on that. They’ll never look at you the same.”
“What about your wife?” Snyder’s expression was pure, vicious glee. “How do you think she’s gonna look at you after I tell her what you done, on your knees, how you begged for more?” He laughed when Reed’s face crumbled.
“You wouldn’t dare,” Reed said. He was light-headed with fear. This was surreal, a bad fever dream. “You don’t have it in you.”
Snyder punched him in the face. The blow landed so hard that Reed nearly blacked out. The next he knew, he was lying on the ground. Snyder straddled his chest. The pain was a relief—it brought him out of the sticky, anxious heat of his thoughts and into the present moment. He gasped for air. Another blow ground the back of his skull into the sand. He was being crushed under Snyder’s weight. He’s going to kill me, Reed realized, struggling to comprehend the notion, even as it was happening.
“Fucking faggots,” Snyder said. But he sounded calm. “I hate fucking faggots . . .”
He wanted to kill me all along.
But before Snyder could strike him again, they both heard voices, too far off to be distinct but unmistakably raised in argument. Then the sound of a gunshot tore through the air, a violent punch that echoed through the hollow. Snyder backed off Reed’s chest, startling like an animal.
“What the hell is going on?” he said.
Reed didn’t answer. With effo
rt, he managed to stagger to his feet and lunge for his horse, barely making it up into the saddle. Blood dripped from somewhere on his swollen face. He was having a hard time seeing straight. His thoughts had gone numb, a faint buzz at the back of his head. It took all his concentration to stay on his horse—part of him wanted to fall off, to fall away from himself and vanish. To be wiped clean from this earth.
By the time Reed rode back to the camp, the argument was in full swing. Diminutive William Eddy was chest-to-chest with Patrick Breen, easily twice his size. Eddy, a dead shot, held his rifle firmly, but he wasn’t threatening Breen with it, at least not at the moment. The two were red-faced, shouting over each other’s words. A small boy, no older than three or four, stood to the side, bawling. A circle had formed around them.
Reed swung wearily out of the saddle, the spot on his face where Snyder had hit him throbbing. He could hardly think through a red haze of pain. “What’s going on here?” His voice sounded distant.
Breen did a double take. “What happened to your face?”
“Never mind that,” Reed said. His breath came a little easier now. He blinked, trying to clear his vision. Took out his handkerchief and began to wipe down his face, carefully, methodically. “What’s the argument about?”
Breen made to grab the crying little boy, but Eddy stepped in front of him. “I’ll tell you what happened—this little thief broke into my stores and stole the biscuits we were saving for breakfast.”
Biscuits. Reed had had his last biscuit a week ago. Probably nobody in the party had enough flour left for biscuits except the Breens and the Murphys. He thought of the incident with Stanton and the gun. It was a miracle no one had forcibly tried to take food away from the Breens yet, under the circumstances. Not that he could say this to Patrick; he had firearms and he was prepared to use them.
“They’re just biscuits, Mr. Breen. What do you propose we do—hang the boy?” He looked down at his handkerchief, which was now drenched in his own blood, and then quickly back at Patrick Breen.
“Nobody’s going to lay a hand on Peter,” Eddy said. “Not unless they want a bullet in the gut.” So the kid was Eddy’s son.
“He’s a thief. He deserves a good whipping.” Breen spat, barely missing Eddy’s shoe. “Kids don’t come up with these ideas by themselves.”
“What are you saying?” Eddy’s voice was dangerously low. “Are you saying I put him up to it?”
“The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, is all.”
Eddy began to shoulder his rifle and Reed only just managed to push the barrel aside. “Will, you don’t want to do that.”
“You came around asking for food,” Breen said. “Don’t deny it.”
“You refused to give me a bite,” Eddy returned. “Not very Christian of you. My family is starving and you got cattle on the hoof. You won’t slaughter your livestock even if it means saving my family’s lives.”
When Breen frowned he was an ugly man. “It ain’t my fault your cattle run off or that you didn’t bring enough provisions with you. I might let you buy a cow if I had one to spare, but I brought these cattle with me for a reason.”
“This is an emergency. None of us knew what we were signing up for.”
Reed’s head throbbed. He needed a cold compress and willow bark powder. He could still hear Snyder’s voice in his head, like the shard of some fractured dream. Faggot. “The Eddys are not alone,” he said, stuffing the soiled hanky into his pocket and doing his best to draw up his height. Even still, his voice sounded thin above the shouting. “It’s no secret that a good number of families are nearly out of provisions.”
“That’s right,” Amanda McCutcheon said. Already, her face looked hollowed out, as if over the course of the journey all her fat had simply burned away in the heat. “If my Will don’t get back soon, I’m going to be in desperate straits.” Will had gone ahead with Stanton to seek out supplies—with Reed’s permission.
Reed held up his hands to quell the murmuring. Panic, barely suppressed, vibrated the air almost constantly now. And who, besides a monster, would be able to stand by and watch a child starve to death? Patrick Breen would. Of that he was sure. This party had its share of monsters.
And sins.
“We have to face the possibility that Charles Stanton and Will McCutcheon may not return,” he said, sternly but calmly, “or may not return . . . in time. It’s a long, dangerous way to California.”
Lavinah Murphy squinted at him. “What do you propose we do about it?”
He was so tired. “You know my thoughts. We must pool our food—”
He was nearly drowned out by an explosion of protest.
“—and begin strict rationing. It’s the only way,” he persisted.
“Why should my family suffer because someone else was too cheap to bring enough?” Patrick Breen was shouting now. “It’s not my fault. It’s their tough luck. I’m not going to let my children starve.” Some in the crowd murmured in agreement.
Things were turning ugly faster than Reed expected. “Let’s not start with blame. Every family in the party has had plenty of bad luck . . .”
“Easy for you to say. You’re one of the ones who needs help, not one who’d be making the sacrifice,” Lavinah Murphy said.
Faggot. I’m not the one who’s a pervert. Was it possible that what had happened in the desert, that all his losses, the cattle roll-eyed and plugged with bullets, or vanished overnight, was punishment for his own wrongdoings? “True, Mrs. Murphy,” he said quietly. “True enough. But didn’t I sign a voucher promising to pay John Sutter for any charges Stanton incurs on our behalf? I’m not without generosity.”
Breen shook his head. His beard and hair were overgrown. They were all starting to neglect themselves, losing the will to keep themselves clean and tidy. To remain civilized. Day by day, they grew wilder, filthier, more animal. “It’s easy enough to make promises when it’s not food out of your mouth.”
There would be no resolution, Reed could see that. But things could get very ugly, very fast. Every man in the party had a rifle and would use it to defend himself. On the other hand, Reed’s heart went out to William Eddy, who’d counted on finding game to feed his family. He was a crack shot, the odds had been in his favor; how was he to know the plains had been unaccountably depleted? Today it was the Eddys who were suffering. But tomorrow it would be the McCutcheons and before long, his own family.
He caught sight of his wife, making her way to the gathering. How small she looked, wrapped in her shawl. She was still mourning the loss of their wagon. She blamed him, he knew. He thought not of her belongings but of his daughter’s doll then, the bisque and calico scraps—frayed, love-worn—buried in the earth miles back, a final bit of hope now covered in dirt and gone.
Reed was just about to speak again when John Snyder pushed his way to the front of the crowd. Reed hadn’t seen him approach. He would have thought Snyder was drunk if he didn’t know there was almost no alcohol or beer to be had. Besides, there hadn’t been any time—he had just been close enough to smell him, to smell the familiar reek of his sweat, the smell of harness leather on his fingers.
“Hang on, everybody,” Snyder said. “Before you listen to one more word from that man”—he jerked his head in Reed’s direction—“there’s something you should know about him. He’s not the man you think he is.”
The air went out of Reed’s lungs. Even after Snyder’s attack underneath the cottonwood, even despite the burn of bloodthirst he’d felt in Snyder’s muscles, his anger, the blood staining Reed’s handkerchief—despite all of it, he’d still thought that maybe the teamster wouldn’t dare make good on his threats . . .
“What are you talking about?” Breen asked, and Reed could see, on Snyder’s face, how much pleasure he was taking in the sudden hush of attention: the same pleasure he always took in crushing and destroying, in leaving o
pen wounds.
Reed never gave Snyder a chance to respond. He couldn’t afford to. If he let Snyder speak, he’d be strung up by nightfall.
He launched himself at Snyder, knocking him to the ground. For a moment they were pressed together, cheek against cheek. Snyder’s hands on his wrists felt familiar, the breath on his face intimate. Reed couldn’t see what the others were doing but he heard their shocked murmurs, the sharp intake of breath. He expected someone to separate them, but no one came. No one stopped him.
The tender spot on his face throbbed; his aching head pulsed like it was set to explode.
The seconds passed like hours. Snyder had a choke hold on him, but Reed would not surrender his grasp on Snyder’s collar. Finally, Snyder let go of Reed’s throat but only to reach for his belt, for the hunting knife kept there in a sheath. Reed had seen Snyder play with it a dozen times. Snyder meant to kill him; there wasn’t a question in Reed’s mind.
Faggot. Faggot. What about your wife?
One second, Reed was waiting to feel the knife plunged into his side, cracking his ribs apart. But the next, it was his hand holding the knife.
He thrust it to the hilt in John Snyder’s chest.
For a split second, Reed felt relief fly through him, as though this, in the end, were what he’d wanted all along. Sweet air rushed into his lungs even as Snyder went soft, letting out a long dry hiss like the sound of wind escaping the plains. Then Reed stared, with no feeling at all, as John Snyder fell back, lifeless, his eyes rolling open and unseeing to the sky.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Mary Graves had been just about to turn in for the evening when she heard the swell of voices and saw people rush past their campsite. Had something terrible happened? Her first thought was of another fire, or an Indian attack, or a raid on the remaining cattle.
Her heart sped up. She followed the crowd to the Donners’ campsite. George Donner, sitting by the fire, looked up at the sudden interruption. Lewis Keseberg and William Eddy held James Reed between them. Reed looked terrible. The man was shaking uncontrollably. A huge welt was rising on his forehead, and a dark bruise blackened his jaw. Then she saw that his hands were wet with blood.