“An earthquake,” Maklin spat. “Damn, I hate this geyser country. The sooner I am shed of it, the better.”
“Let’s hope the Shakers are all right.”
“Those idiots? It would serve them right if the earth opened up and swallowed them.”
“Sure it would. You don’t really want them dead.”
“I am not you, Nate. I don’t spare my enemies and I don’t suffer fools.”
They neared the mouth of the valley and drew rein in consternation. Borne on the breeze came screams and cries.
Chapter Sixteen
It was like riding into a nightmare.
Hissing steam rose from cauldron after cauldron. Pools of hot water were bubbling and roiling, some so violently that they spewed hot drops into the air. Part of the corral had broken and horses and mules were running loose. Oxen were milling and lowing. The wagons were undamaged but not the buildings. The roof on the female quarters had partly collapsed. So had the upright timbers on the building under construction and it now lay in ruins. People were scurrying every which way, Shakers and freighters alike. Wails of lament rose with the steam, as well as pleas for succor.
Nate brought the bay to a gallop. He swept past the freight wagons and the parked Conestogas and drew rein. Vaulting down, he ran to catch up to Jeremiah Blunt and Haskell and five other freighters who were running toward the female dwelling.
Blunt glanced at him. “You’re just in time. The roof fell on some of the women. They need our help.”
The doorway was clogged with female Shakers, many wringing their hands, some praying. Blunt shouldered through and Nate followed to where a crossbeam had cracked and come down. From under it jutted a woman’s legs in a spreading scarlet pool.
“Good God!” Haskell exclaimed.
Farther in it was worse. Half the rafters had split in a large room where the women prepared meals. Nearly a dozen women had been in it when the earthquake struck. Some had been crushed to pulp. Others were alive but pinned by the weight of the fractured beams.
Arthur Lexington and other male Shakers had freed one young woman who was writhing in agony; from her knees down, her legs were splintered bone and mashed flesh.
Jeremiah Blunt barked commands and his men leaped to obey. They ran to the largest of the beams. Part of a woman was visible, her shoulder and arm and one leg, intact and untouched. Working quickly, the freighters put their backs to lifting the beam so Nate could get the woman out. Puffing and straining and grunting, they raised the massive weight by slow degrees. The instant it was high enough, Nate pulled. The woman came out from under easily enough, what was left of her.
One of the men turned away and retched.
Sister Amelia would never dance again. The timber had caught her across the top of her forehead and reduced it to a mush of brain and bone and hair. One eye had popped from its socket; the other had rolled up into her head, showing only the white. Her face was barely recognizable.
Nate looked away. He saw several Shakers trying to lift another beam and went to help. This time it was a young woman who had been pinned; her shoulder was shattered. She would live but be crippled for life.
The sobbing and wails, the smell of blood, the dust, and the gathering twilight lent a ghastly pall to the rescue efforts. Nate did what he could and after half an hour was caked with sweat, weary to his core, and sickened at heart. The last of the timbers had been moved. The last survivor rescued. When Jeremiah Blunt nudged him and motioned, Nate nodded and followed him out.
The cool night breeze was invigorating, for all of one breath. Nate sucked it into his lungs and wished he hadn’t. A foul stench filled the valley, a reek like that of eggs gone rotten. Covering his mouth and nose, he breathed shallowly.
“I am not waiting for morning,” Jeremiah Blunt declared. “I am gathering my men and leaving within the hour.”
“I’m surprised you’re not long gone,” Nate said.
“Unloading took longer than I expected. I decided to stay over and leave first thing tomorrow.” He gazed about them. “I’m glad I did. These people needed our help.”
“They shouldn’t be here.”
“Perhaps between us we can persuade them it’s in their best interests to pack up and get out before another earthquake strikes.”
From out of the dark came Maklin. He was covered with dust and favoring his left leg. “I was over at that building they were putting up,” he answered when Nate asked why. “Sprained my ankle helping to lift a beam.” He took off his hat and ran a hand through his hair. “Five men are dead. Three others won’t be walking for a while.”
“It could have been worse,” Blunt said.
Maklin tilted his head and went to put his hat back on, and froze. “What the hell are those things?”
Nate looked in the direction the Texan was staring. The pale specters had reappeared up near the caves high on the north side of the valley. Far more of them than the last time. They were larger, too. Coiling and writhing as before, they slowly oozed down the side of the mountain.
“Looks like fog or mist to me,” Jeremiah Blunt said.
Nate agreed. It was rare to see fog that high up, though. Usually fog clung to the valley floors. He put it from his mind. He had more important concerns. “Let’s go talk to Lexington right this minute.”
“Count me in,” Maklin said.
The Shaker elder was at the hub of a score of Shakers. They were arguing heatedly. Lexington acted relieved when Blunt called to him.
“Did you hear them? My own people, saying I’ve been wrong and we should pack our wagons and leave Second Eden.”
Nate said, “You can’t stay, not after this.”
Arthur Lexington sniffed. “It’s a setback, is all. We will rebuild, make our buildings stronger. The brothers and sisters we have lost will be mourned and we will get on with our lives.”
“Damn you,” Maklin said.
“Here, now. I won’t be addressed like that, Brother.”
His hand a blur, the Texan seized Lexington by the front of his shirt. Nate went to intervene, but Jeremiah Blunt put a hand on his arm and shook his head.
“I’m no brother of yours and never want to be. How many of your followers died? Twelve? Fifteen? And you’re so pigheaded, you won’t take the rest out before the same happens to them.”
Lexington smiled his benign smile. “Earthquakes are rare, Brother Maklin. You know that as well as I do. There might not be another for a thousand years.”
“Or it could happen again tomorrow.”
“Please, Brother.” Lexington pried at the Texan’s fingers. “I appreciate your concern. I truly do. But this display is unseemly. You must learn to trust in the Lord as I do.”
Nate gazed toward the buildings. Torches had been lit and lanterns brought and the dead were being laid out in rows with blankets placed over them.
Cursing lustily, Maklin shook Lexington and drew back a fist as if to punch him.
“I would rather you didn’t,” Jeremiah Blunt said.
Reluctantly, Maklin lowered his hand—to one of his silver-inlaid pistols. “I should shoot him. It would be best for everyone.”
“You wouldn’t!” Arthur Lexington bleated.
“He won’t,” Blunt said.
Maklin gave Lexington a push that sent him stumbling against Nate, who caught him to keep him from falling. “Stay away from me, mister. I’m leaving with the captain and until then, come anywhere near me and I’ll blow out your wick. So help me God.” He turned and stalked off.
“My word,” Lexington said. “What has gotten into the man? I can understand a fit of pique, but honestly now. He can’t blame me for an act of nature.”
Nate went after the Texan. He found him standing much too close to a hot spring. “Are you all right?”
“I haven’t been all right since Na-lin died. I may never be all right again.” Maklin tiredly rubbed his eyes and then pointed at the mountain to the north. “Have you noticed? It’s a lot thicker
now.”
The fog or mist or whatever it was had spread. Many of the writhing tendrils had merged, coalescing into a large bank that was slowly creeping lower. For some reason it made Nate’s skin crawl.
“In an hour or so it will reach here,” Maklin observed.
“By then we’ll be gone.” Unnoticed, Jeremiah Blunt had come up behind them. Big hands on his hips, he stared somberly back at the laying out of the deceased. “There’s no talking sense into that man. I thought maybe I could, being a Christian. I quoted Scripture. I reminded him we are our brother’s keeper. I mentioned that God sends His rain on the just and the unjust. It did no good. He refuses to leave his Second Eden.”
Maklin cussed and gestured at the boiling pool. “I should toss him in. No one will know. With him and Sister Amelia gone, the rest should be easy to convince.”
“Two wrongs don’t make a right.”
Nate was watching the spectral bank. It enveloped everything in its path. He wondered why it was so pale.
“King? Did you hear me?”
Nate faced the captain. “Sorry. I wasn’t listening.”
“I’ll be ready to leave within the hour. Are you coming with us? Or do you plan to stick around?”
Before Nate could answer, another tremor shook the Valley of Skulls. It wasn’t as severe as the last, only a mild shaking that nonetheless set Nate’s pulse to racing.
“Well, that does it,” Jeremiah Blunt said, and made for the buildings. “Mr. Maklin, you’re with me.”
Nate listened to the bubbling of the hot spring. The rotten-egg smell was stronger. He held his hand over the lower half of his face as he trailed after them. A blanket was being draped over the body of Sister Amelia. Other Shakers were clustered in small groups and appeared to be arguing. The freighters were over by the corral, waiting for their boss.
Nate was suddenly homesick. He was filled with a great yearning to be with Winona, Evelyn, and Zach. If he slipped away now, under the cover of night, he could elude the Pawnees and be in King Valley in eight to ten days. His mind made up, he bent his steps toward the bay.
“Brother King! A word with you if you please.”
Nate halted. The last person he wanted to talk to was Lexington. “Make it quick. I’m lighting a shuck.”
“Are you indeed? That’s a pity. I had a favor to ask.” Lexington wagged the lantern he was holding toward the row of bodies. “We need to bury the departed as soon as practical.”
“What’s stopping you?”
Lexington leaned so close their shoulders brushed. “Have you ever heard the expression out of sight, out of mind? I prefer to bury them down the valley a ways. Since you were down there just the other day with Brother Maklin, I thought perhaps you would escort some of my people to a suitable spot.”
Nate was puzzled. “You and the others must know this valley better than I do.”
“To the contrary. We have been so busy organizing and building that there has been precious little time for exploring. I was to the end of the valley once, but that was months ago and I don’t remember a blessed detail.” Lexington lightly took hold of Nate’s sleeve. “Please. It would only take an hour or two of your time and we would be ever so grateful.”
Nate hesitated.
“I would ask Brother Maklin, but you’ve seen how he is when he’s around me. I very much doubt he would help.”
Nate heard himself say, “All right. Throw the bodies over horses and tie them so they won’t fall off.”
Lexington reacted as if he had been prodded with a sharp stick. “You can’t be serious. That’s no way to treat the departed. We’ll load them in wagons. It won’t take long, I assure you.”
While the freighters were hitching their oxen, the Shakers hitched their mules. One by one the bodies were reverently carried to Conestogas and carefully placed inside. Nate figured one or two wagons was enough, but Lexington insisted on only putting three bodies in each. “After all, we don’t want to cram them in like stacks of firewood, now, do we?” In all, it took five wagons. Lanterns were hung from each to help light the way.
Nate no sooner took the lead and bellowed for the drivers to head out than a young Shaker with curly corn-hued hair and white teeth came up alongside him, riding a sorrel.
“I’m to go with you, Brother King. I’m Brother Calvin. I’m very pleased to make your acquaintance.”
Nate grunted.
“Brother Lexington wants me to sing over the bodies,” Brother Calvin explained.
“Won’t reading from the Bible do?” Nate wanted to get it done and get out of there.
“Oh, we’ll do both. We must honor our brothers and sisters by showing the respect they deserve. After Brother Benedict reads, I’m to raise my voice to heaven, as Brother Lexington put it. I have a fine singing voice if I do say so myself. I should think four or five songs would be appropriate. Have you any suggestions?”
“It’s not smart to stay there too long.”
“What can happen? We’ll be in the open. If there’s another quake, it’s not as if the sky will fall on us.” Brother Calvin chuckled.
The dark hid Nate’s frown as he reined wide of a boiling pool. Behind him, strung out in a row, the Conestagos creaked and rattled. Three of the five were driven by men. Women handled the other two.
“I envy Sister Amelia and the others,” Brother Calvin remarked.
“You envy them being dead?”
“Oh, goodness no. I envy that when next they open their eyes, they will be in the throes of heavenly glory.” Calvin lifted his rapturous face to the stars. “They are the lucky ones. We are still earthbound.”
Nate looked up, too, and noticed that the roiling white bank was a lot lower and flowing a lot faster.
Chapter Seventeen
Brother Calvin didn’t like the first spot Nate picked. “It’s too near a hot spring. Those who come to pay their respects will have to put up with the stink.”
Nate’s uneasiness grew the farther they went. The fog or mist was a quarter of a mile above them when they came to a flat area within a stone’s throw of the base of the mountain and far enough from any of the boiling springs and bubbling mud pots that Brother Calvin said it would do.
The Shakers brought lanterns and set to digging. The two women helped, sharing the work equally with the men.
Nate dismounted. He offered to lend a hand, but Brother Calvin told him they could manage on their own. Nate held the bay’s reins and gazed down the valley at the lights and the activity. Jeremiah Blunt and the freighters were hitching teams and getting their wagons ready. In Nate’s opinion Blunt was smart not to wait until morning.
Nate wished he could persuade Brother Lexington to do the same. The Indians had been right. The Valley of Skulls was bad medicine. No wonder they stayed away.
A pale gleam caught Nate’s eyes. It was another skull. Larger than a buffalo’s, it had a hole near the end of the jaw that might have been a horn. He wondered what sort of creature it could have been and what it died of.
Brother Calvin and the others finished one grave and began another. They weren’t digging deep, only enough to keep scavengers from getting at the bodies.
Nate began to pace, the reins in his left hand. The bay clomped behind him, turning when he turned. He patted it and stared up the mountain. The ghostly bank was spreading ever lower.
Nate faced the Shakers. Almost too late he heard the smack of running feet, and whirling, he was just in time to raise his arm and ward off a blow that would have buried a knife in his chest. The Pawnee holding the knife howled and tried again.
Swiftly backpedaling, Nate leveled his Hawken. He thought it would be an easy kill, but the warrior knocked the barrel aside and was on him again in the bat of an eye. Nate drove the stock at the man’s face, but the warrior nimbly darted aside.
Nate hadn’t expected this. Not here, not now. He worried there might be more than this one warrior, that he’d get an arrow in the back, and had to resist the urge to loo
k behind him. He focused on his attacker and only his attacker and when the Pawnee thrust at his stomach he unleashed a roundhouse that raised the man onto the tip of his toes and left him sprawled in an unconscious heap.
The Shakers ran over. Brother Calvin knelt next to the Pawnee and felt for a pulse. “He’s still alive. Thank God you didn’t kill him.”
Nate would just as rather he did. He pointed the Hawken.
“What on earth do you think you’re doing, Brother King?”
“Covering him while you tie him.”
Brother Calvin put a hand to his throat as if appalled. “Oh, I could never do that.”
“Why not?”
“It would be violence against my fellow man. We of the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing don’t believe in violence. We are pacifists. Surely you know this.”
“If he comes around he’ll try to kill me again, and he might kill you while he’s at it.”
“I’m sorry.” Brother Calvin shook his head and the other Shakers, who had hurried over, nodded in agreement.
“Fetch me a rope, then, and I’ll bind him myself.”
Brother Calvin grinned in amusement. “Were we to do that, it would be the same as binding him ourselves. I am afraid that any tying that must be done is yours to do.”
“Don’t you get it?” Nate asked. “Just becaue you don’t believe in violence doesn’t mean he doesn’t. The world is full of men just like him who would as soon slit your throat as look at you.”
“Honestly, now, Brother King,” young Calvin said good-naturedly. “This is between the two of you. We have no quarrel with him or any of his tribe. To us, even the red man is our brother, and we will seek to live in harmony with them as we do with all living things.”
“Life isn’t the way you think,” Nate said.
“That’s beside the point. We live by our faith, not according to the ways of the world.”
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