Nate opened his mouth to say the ways of the world would get them killed when his gaze fell on the slope above. The mist—for now that it was closer he could see that it was a vaporous mist and not true fog—was only a few hundred yards above them, devouring everything in its path. As he looked on it swallowed a cluster of pines.
Suddenly the bay nickered and pulled at the reins. The mules started to act up, too. Some uttered loud whinnies that ended in brays. Some whimpered.
“What in the world?” Brother Calvin said, rising.
Nate hadn’t taken his eyes off the mist. It was like white beads of sand suspended in the air. He had never seen anything like it. It rose a good twenty feet into the air and formed an unbroken white wall hundreds of yards across. “Get on your wagons and get out of here.”
“What? Why? We haven’t finished burying our brothers and sisters.”
“That,” Nate said, with a nod.
Brother Calvin looked, and laughed. “That mist or whatever it is? What harm can it do? For such a big man you are awfully timid.”
One of the women anxiously wrung her hands. “I don’t like that mist, either, Brother Calvin.”
“You, too, Sister Edith?” Calvin chortled and moved toward his horse. “I’ll prove to the both of you that your fears are groundless.”
“Don’t,” Sister Edith said.
Nate echoed her. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
Brother Calvin mounted and reined toward the mountain. “Watch and take heed.” He jabbed his heels and trotted up the slope. When he was close to the mist he shifted to grin down at them. Holding his arms out from his sides, he hollered, “Now you will see how silly you’ve been.”
One of the men said, “That’s Brother Calvin for you. He sure is a character, isn’t he?”
The mist swallowed more ground. Now it was almost on Calvin. They all heard his laugh as it closed over him like a shroud. For a few seconds there was silence. Then, from out of the mist, came a scream of pure bloodcurdling terror.
“My word!” a Shaker exclaimed.
“He’s playing a trick on us,” offered another.
“I’m not so sure,” Sister Edith said.
Nor was Nate. He swung onto the bay and rode up the slope. Calling out Calvin’s name, he came to a stop twenty yards from the mist. He thought he heard a soft hissing, but he wasn’t sure. The bay whinnied and shied. “Easy, fella.” Nate patted it. “Calvin?” he called out but got no answer. He reined around but didn’t ride back down just yet.
Sister Edith was hurrying toward her wagon. The others were still by the Pawnee, who was stirring.
“Brother Calvin? Can you hear me?” Now only ten yards separated Nate from the mist. He peered into its depths but saw only white.
Then out lurched young Calvin. His hands were pressed to his fear-struck face. Mouth agape, he gasped and gurgled and made sounds Nate never heard a human throat utter. Calvin saw Nate and thrust out his hands in appeal. Then he screamed and pitched forward. A second more and the mist passed over him, hiding his twitching form.
Nate felt a spike of fear. The mist was almost on him. With a slap of his legs he flew toward the Conestogas. Sister Edith was on her wagon and attempting to turn it, but the other Shakers were rooted where they stood, transfixed by the horrific spectacle. “Run!” Nate bawled. They didn’t have time to reach their wagons and rein the teams around.
The four of them broke into motion. But they didn’t do as Nate had urged. Instead, they ran for their wagons.
“Run!” Nate tried again. He came to the bottom.
Sister Edith had her Conestoga around and it was lumbering off but oh so slowly.
Nate reined toward the other woman. She was almost to her wagon. Bending, he held out his hand and shouted, “Climb on behind me!”
The woman shook her head. Grabbing hold of the seat, she pulled her herself up and frantically began to goad her team.
Down off the mountain flowed the mist, silent save for the slight hiss that was like the hiss of steam and yet wasn’t.
Nate got out of there. He galloped up to Sister Edith’s Conestoga, ready to have her ride double with him if the mist overtook them. She turned on the seat to look back and he glanced around, too.
The Pawnee had sat up and was looking every which way in confusion. He saw the mist. With a sharp cry of fear he was on his feet and running, but he tripped after only a few steps and the mist poured over him. There was another piercing scream.
“Oh, God!” Sister Edith cried, and used her whip.
The white blanket was about to enfold the other Conestogas. One of the men had halted and faced it with his head high and his arms outspread. Exactly why eluded Nate. The mist closed about him and a shriek rent the night.
Two of the Conestogas were starting to turn and the last man was climbing onto his when the mist swept over them. This time there was a wail and a screech, and the mist flowed on.
“Ride with me!” Nate yelled to Sister Edith. Her Conestoga wasn’t moving fast enough. The mist would overtake her.
She shook her head and went on urging her mules.
“You won’t make it!”
Edith cracked the whip and bawled at her team. The Conestoga rolled faster, the wheels clattering over the rock, the bed swaying with every bounce. Edith glanced back again and smiled, apparently confident she could outrun the macabre destroyer.
“Look out!” Nate roared. She was making straight for a large hot spring. She heard him and saw her peril and wrenched to turn the team before it was too late—but it already was. With a terrible screech, the Conestoga swerved so sharply that two of its wheels came off the ground. The whole wagon tilted. It was going over. Sister Edith did the only thing she could. She sprang clear of the seat. But her leg caught, upending her, and instead of tumbling to the ground she did a complete flip—and landed in the hot spring.
With a rending crash the Conestoga came down on its side and rolled.
Nate reined toward the hot spring just as Sister Edith broke the surface. She screamed. Her face was blistered, her skin already being sloughed off like the leaves of boiled cabbage. Her eyes found his and she raised a beet-red hand. Then she went under a second and final time.
Nate galloped like a madman. It was nearly half a mile to the buildings. Behind him, borne by the wind, crawled the deadly mist, the Reaper in flowing white.
The freighters had been busy turning their wagons and lining them in a row. Nate figured that the racket explained why no one heard the screams. Most of the Shakers were standing around talking and were startled half out of their wits when he rode in among them bellowing at the top of his lungs.
“Run for your lives! Now! Or you are as good as dead!”
They all looked at him either in confusion or as if they thought he must be mad.
Arthur Lexington materialized, saying, “What is this you’re yelling about, Brother King? Why have you come back? I thought you were helping the burial party.”
“They’re dead.”
“Who is?”
Bending, Nate grabbed Lexington by an arm and shook him, hard. “Listen to me. Do you see that mist?” Nate pointed. “It killed them.”
An uncertain grin split Lexington’s face. “You’re joshing me, I take it? Since when is a mist deadly?”
“This mist is.”
“I think you’re pulling my leg.”
Nate wanted to hit him. “You have maybe four or five minutes before it reaches here. Get your people out before it’s too late.” With that Nate raced to the freight wagons.
Jeremiah Blunt had heard the commotion and was at the last wagon in line, Haskell and Maklin on either side. “What’s all the fuss about? Why all the shouting?”
Nate said, and got it out in as few words as possible, ending with, “Listen to me, Jeremiah. If you don’t get your men out of here right this instant, you’ll all die. Please believe me.”
Jeremiah Blunt gazed down the valley. Unlike Arthur Lexington, he didn
’t scoff. “The mist, you say? He turned his horse and thundered for the wagons to move out. To Nate he said quietly, “Thanks for the warning. Are you coming with us?”
Nate jabbed a thumb toward the Shakers and shook his head.
“There are none so blind as those who will not see,” Blunt said sadly, and spurred toward the head of the train.
Haskell nodded and followed.
That left Maklin. “I’ll stick with you.”
“Not this time.”
“Give me one good reason.”
“Lexington. Knowing you, you might shoot him.”
“I might at that,” the Texan admitted, a twinkle in his eyes. “Don’t be long,” he said, and galloped away.
Nate reined toward the buildings and couldn’t believe his eyes. The Shakers hadn’t moved. They were still standing around talking.
To the west the mist had spread and was bearing down on Second Eden.
Chapter Eighteen
Arthur Lexington turned as Nate vaulted from the saddle with the bay still in motion. Running up, Nate seized him and shook him as a riled bear might a marmot. “What in hell is the matter with you? I told you to get your people out of here.”
Lexington indulged in his ever-ready smile. “Really, now, Brother King. Did you seriously expect me to believe your far-fetched claim? What do you take me for?”
It was the smile that did it. As eloquently as any words, it said that Nate was not only a liar but a fool and a simpleton. It nearly sent Nate berserk. He shook Lexington harder and drew back a fist to strike him, but at the last instant he shoved the man to the ground in disgust and turned to the startled and stunned Shakers. “Listen to me!” he cried, raising his arms. “You’re in great danger.” He pointed at the approaching pall of death. “That mist is poisonous. Breathe it and you die. I don’t know how or why except maybe it comes out of the ground when the ground shakes. It will kill you if you don’t flee. Get on your wagons. Get on your horses. Now.”
Not one budged. They looked at one another in amazement or doubt and looked at the mist in puzzlement and finally one woman cleared her throat and with a sheepish grin said, “Is this a joke, Brother King? We know the Lord would never let anything like that happen to us.”
“Please,” Nate pleaded. “You’re running out of time.” The mist seemed to have slowed, but it was still inexorably advancing. “Brother Calvin and those who went to bury the bodies are dead. Do you want to end up like them?”
A man gazed up the valley. “Dead? Brother Calvin?” He faced his brethren. “There’s only one way to prove if this man is trying to make a mockery of us.” He went around the building and when he reappeared he was riding bareback. “I’ll investigate,” he announced, and brought his animal to a canter.
“Don’t get too close!” Nate shouted. It was awful to stand there knowing the Shakers were squandering the precious minutes they needed to escape. He wanted to yell, to scream, to pound and prod them into fleeing.
The man on the horse wasn’t much of a rider. He flapped and he flopped, but he stayed on. Then he was at the leading edge of the mist. Nate figured he would stop and call out to Brother Calvin and the others, but to Nate’s astonishment the man did no such thing; he rode into the mist and was swallowed from view.
Nothing happened.
Nate waited for the scream sure to come, but none did. The Shakers were giving him looks that suggested they didn’t approve of his jest. Then a big man with a voice that could carry far cupped a hand to his mouth and thundered, “Brother Simon! Have you found Brother Calvin?”
There was no answer.
Uneasiness began to spread. Nate took advantage by saying, “Now will you believe me? He doesn’t answer because he can’t. I beg you. Leave before it’s too late.”
Some of them started to move, but they stopped when Arthur Lexington strode past Nate and shouted, “Brothers! Sisters! Don’t listen to this man. There is no such thing as poison mist. He wants us to leave because he thinks our coming here was a mistake.”
“But the earthquake—” a man said.
“What about it? There might never be another here.” Lexington moved among them, smiling and touching arms. “Are we to give up after so much effort? After we have come so far? After we worked for weeks to build our cabins? Are we to forsake Second Eden because of a quirk of Nature and this outsider?” He pointed at Nate. “Look at him. He’s a mountain man. He has an Indian wife. He’s lived among them for so long he’s become part Indian himself. He thinks as they do. He takes their superstitions as true, but we know better, don’t we?”
Nate barely held his simmering fury in check.
“The Indians think this is a bad place, so he thinks this is a bad place,” Lexington had gone on. “He wants us to leave. The quake only made him more determined, so he concocts a ridiculous story about mist that kills.” Lexington laughed merrily. “Have you ever heard anything so silly in your life?”
The mist had reached the green belt. Trees, grass, brush, all were being devoured.
Nate tried one last time. “I’m not the fool here. This man is. As God is my witness, I swear to you that what I’ve said is true. Please, please, if you value your lives, flee.”
Lexington laughed louder. “Brothers and Sisters, do you know what I think? I think we should show our mountain man that he can’t make fools of us. I think we should show him that our faith is the true faith.” He gripped a woman’s hand and held it high. “Do as I am doing. Link hands and form into a line. Hurry now, so we can prove him wrong and be shut of this nonsense.”
To Nate’s dismay, they did.
Arthur Lexington beamed and nodded and said words of encouragement, and when the line was formed, they stood facing the approaching mist, all with the same beatific smiles.
By then the mist was only a few hundred feet away. A mule that had strayed from the broken corral was nipping at grass and was covered in a matter of moments.
“See?” Lexington crowed. “Did that animal act panicked? It did not. Do we hear its death cries? We do not.”
Nate ran to the bay and swung up.
“Raise our voices in song, brethren!” Arthur Lexington urged, and launched into “Rock of Ages.”
Nate brought the bay to a gallop and didn’t look back until he was past the cabins and the parked Conestogas.
The Shakers were still singing. Above them loomed the creeping shroud. They sang, and the mist flowed over them. For a few seconds the singing went on and then it abruptly stopped. From out of the mist came cries and yells and then the screaming began.
“The horror,” Nate said. He stopped looking. The screams and shrieks went on and on. He would never forget them, not for as long as he lived.
The freight wagons had stopped outside the valley. Jeremiah Blunt and Maklin and Haskell were waiting. Blunt stared at Nate, the question in his eyes, and Nate shook his head.
“Damn.”
“I tried my best. They wouldn’t come.”
“Don’t blame yourself. Some folks just can’t be reasoned with. Especially when they think they are right and the rest of the world is wrong.” Blunt gave a toss of his head. “Well, then. Are you coming with us or going your own way?”
“My own,” Nate said. He had his reason.
Each of them offered his hand in parting and when it was Maklin’s turn, Nate glanced at his palm and said, “For me?”
“I have an extra and you might need it.” Maklin smiled. “If you ever get to Texas look me up. My folks live in San Antonio.”
“I just realized. You’ve never told me your first name.”
“Marion.”
“Marion Maklin?” Nate grinned.
“It’s worse than that. Marion Maurice Maklin.” The Texan sighed. “My pa was half drunk when he named me.” He touched his black hat. “Take care, mountain man.”
The freighters and their wagons melted into the night.
Nate watched until they were out of sight. He was suddenly lo
nely. Reining into the forest, he rode until he came to a clearing. He climbed down, stripped the bay, and spread out his blankets. He lay on his back with a pistol in each hand and tried to sleep, but he kept hearing the screams and shrieks. An hour or so before sunrise he finally dozed off.
The chirping of finches woke him. Nate’s stomach growled, but he ignored it and saddled the bay. He headed south, knowing it could happen at any time, the Hawken always in his hands. Noon came and went. By the middle of the afternoon he was having doubts until sparrows took noisy flight behind him.
Nate rode on. He was deep in the mountains he loved, the mountains he knew as well as he did the back of his own hand. The mountains were part of him and he a part of them. He was as much at home here as a city dweller on a city street. Here, he had the edge over the warriors out to count coup on him.
A ground squirrel scampered from his path, its bushy tail erect. A horned lark and its mate stared at him from a branch, the yellow of the male’s throat as bright as a sunflower. A little farther on a hare went jumping in flight. In the winter it would be white, but now it was brown and blended into the brush.
Nate climbed until he was among white-bark pines. The nuts were a favorite with bears, both grizzlies and blacks. Squirrels cached them in cold weather. The trees grew to a height of sixty feet and were spaced well apart, exactly as Nate wanted. He ascended until he came to a boulder that jutted out of the earth like the jagged prow of a sunken ship. Reining behind it, he climbed down and let the reins dangle. He moved to a tree that afforded a view of the slope below, and hunkered.
Nate figured it wouldn’t be long. His enemies were far from their own land and would want to end it sooner rather than later. The prairie was their home, not the mountains.
Two riders appeared, smack on his trail.
Nate had expected three. He watched behind them and scoured the woods to each side, but there were just the two unless one of them had circled ahead like the last time. That bothered him. He didn’t want to have to watch his back.
The two below came closer. Kuruk was in front, his gaze glued to the bay’s tracks.
Nate judged the time to be right. Cocking the Hawken, he stepped from under the pine. The pair whipped around but turned to stone when they saw his leveled rifle.
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