Jasper inhaled to chase the memories away before he turned the fish over and stoked the fire. Jeremiah groaned and sat up. He saw the book sitting beside Jasper and grunted, but didn't say anything. They both stared out over the river for a few minutes until Jasper pulled the fish from the coals. He handed one to Jeremiah.
Jeremiah ripped a steaming piece off and popped it in his mouth, heedless of the pain. "Ya know, I'm not as dumb as you think I am."
Jasper glanced sideways at him. He ate a piece of fish before responding. "What do you mean?"
He nodded at the book. "You and Jed act all high and mighty around me, like I'm a moron. I may not be as learned as you, or as good at plottin' as Jed, but I'm not an idjit either. I know these lands, I know how to navigate them. If it weren't for me, you fellas woulda starved after Pa croaked."
Jasper gritted his teeth. Jeremiah had been in town when Jed shot Pa. He didn't know the truth. The old man was buried six feet in the ground long before he even got home. "I know. You're the best hunter of us."
Jeremiah grunted. "That ain't all. I can read an' do math an' all that borin' stuff, too."
Jasper looked at his brother and raised an eyebrow. "I've never seen you with a book."
The scruffy man shrugged a shoulder. "Well, naw, not since Ma's gone. But when we was younger I used to read all the time. She taught me. Said she wanted me to be one of them liars in New York City. Said she wanted me to go places, be somebody. But then she got sick. You was just a little baby then. She couldn't help out no more an' Pa said I couldn't leave. So I stuck around, helped out. Jed wasn't no good. He was always gettin' into trouble. Him an' that gang of his. You remember them?"
Jasper nodded. "Bobby Blake and Jimmy Two Fingers. I hated them."
"Yep, me, too. Everyone thinks I'm the trouble maker, but I only have fun. I don't mean to hurt nobody. Jed, he likes to hurt people. You know he an' the sheriff were best friends when we was kids growin' up?"
Jasper half shrugged, half nodded. "I remember Connor and Cora coming to the house a couple times when I was really young, but I didn't know they were that close."
Jeremiah tossed the nearly empty skeleton into the river. He watched as the other fish swarmed around, picking the bones clean. "Mmhmm. Afore the McClanes died, they were real close with Ma and Pa. Used to come to the house all the time. Cora was a spitfire even then.” He grinned at a memory from long ago until his face fell. “Then her folks died in that fire. She was at a friend's house. Somehow Connor got out alive. They say he was burned pretty bad. They moved to town with their aunt, Elizabeth. You couldn'ta been more'n five then. She was a real piece of work, that one. A real stickler for rules and all. After awhile, she wouldn't let him come over anymore. Said we was a bad influence. We wasn't. Jed was. But that didn't make no matter."
He picked a piece of bone from his teeth. "You remember Lydia Prince?"
Jasper thought for a minute. "I think so. She and her parents died in that attack on the stage coach, right?"
"Yep. Musta been more'n ten years ago now. Did you know she was engaged to McClane at the time?"
Jasper's jaw dropped. "No, I didn't know that."
"Yep. Nearly broke him. He thinks Jed did it."
"Did he?"
Jeremiah shrugged a shoulder. "Maybe. Maybe not. I wasn't there, but I don't know where he was at the time. Don't matter none, though. Can't change it. Connor was too upstandin' to go after Jed without proof, but it killed what little friendship they had left."
He stood and unzipped his pants. The story continued as the fire sizzled. "He did get revenge on Jed's gang, though. Bobby bit it out in desert. No one saw it, but everyone knows who did it. He was left out there to get ate by the buzzards. It was a revenge killin', no doubt about it, but he deserved it. And Jimmy Two Fingers hanged a few years later for the rape and murder of a town girl, all legal like. Jed, though... the sheriff couldn't pin nothing on him. Never could in all these years. He's too smart."
Jeremiah reached for Nelly's reins and climbed into the saddle. Jasper followed suit. "Why are you telling me all this?"
Jeremiah shrugged. "Dunno. Just felt like the time. You's a smart boy. I never made nothin' a myself, not like Ma wanted me to. Maybe you can. Maybe you can get outta this hell hole an' make a life someplace nice. Someplace like New York City or Phillydelfya. Be a liar or a newspaper man or something."
Jasper laughed. "I think you mean lawyer."
Jeremiah grinned a big, brown grin. "Nope. I mean a liar. They always telling lies, Ma said. That's how they make they money. Lying. You gotta read them books so you know which lies to tell."
Jasper's laugh came out as a snort. "Well, if Ma said so, then it must be true.” He thought for a moment. “Nah, I think I'd rather be a professor at a college or something, though. No lying involved there."
Jeremiah nodded. "That'd be good, too." He appraised Jasper as the horses plodded along the path to town. "You know, little brother, I may be mean to ya, but it ain't to be mean. It's to make you tough. Someday, yer gonna be out there on your own. I won't be around no more. An' you'll need to take care of yerself."
Jasper opened his mouth, but closed it again when he couldn't think of a thing to say to Jeremiah's strange behavior. His older brother ignored him and continued on anyway. "When you was born, I was nine, Jed was eleven. Even then, Ma didn't trust him. She pulled me aside the night you was born. You was laying there on the bed, all swaddled up and sleepin'. 'You protect him, Jeremiah,' Ma says to me. She looked me in the eyes and gripped my arm so tight it hurt. She was a'skeered, I could see that well enough. 'You keep your little brother safe.' I knew she wasn't talkin' about protecting ya from wolves and stuff. She was talkin' about him, about Jed."
Jeremiah pulled his horse to a stop and looked Jasper in the eyes. His face was dead serious. "I'm doing my best, little brother. No matter what it takes, I'll protect you from him. I promise."
Chapter 11
"Mad, Abby, bring the vegetables, please." Ma Crawford nodded toward the kitchen.
Her oldest daughters, Madeleine and Abigail rose from the game of checkers they played on the floor in the corner and walked to the side of the room that served as a kitchen.
"Did you see Amos the other day?" Madeleine gushed as they picked up two wooden bowls full of vegetables from the work table under the window.
Abigail rolled her eyes. Ever since their former schoolmate had been deputized barely a year ago, Madeleine had had her sights set on him. It didn't matter that the man was obviously in love with one of the saloon girls.
"What about Cora?" Abby pressed her lips together to hide her smile as Maddy set off into a rant. She just loved teasing her younger sister.
"I don't know what he sees in her. She's a saloon girl, after all." Madeleine put all the venom she could muster into the words "saloon girl", as if it was the worst profession anyone could possibly choose. To her, it was. "Amos is a good man. He needs a good woman. He needs someone who will take care of the house and keep her knickers on around other men."
Abby laughed. "You mean like you?"
"Yes," Maddy spat. "Of course like me. Can you get better than a teacher? I'm smart, I want lots of children, I am good at keeping house."
"I beg to differ on that last part." Ma smiled as she took the bowl from Madeleine. "Every time I ask you to sweep, it's like I'm asking you to chop off your hand."
Maddy scoffed. "I just don't like sweeping is all."
Ma winked at Abby as they set the bowls on the table. "Sweeping is a large part of living out here, my dear. Between you kids and your pa, if I didn't sweep twice a day, we would be living in a foot of dust."
"Anyway," Maddy said in an attempt to turn the conversation back to where she wanted it to go. "He needs a good woman."
"Bow your heads." Pa ignored Maddy's glare as the rest of the family bowed their heads and clasped hands.
There were six of them around the small table. Ma, Pa, Abigail, Madeleine, Wyatt, and Hannah
. Ma and Pa had moved out west when Abby was two and Maddy was a newborn. Over nearly two decades, they built a nice little homestead away from the corruption and craziness of the east coast. They were half a day's ride from Lonesome Ridge. Madeleine worked as a teacher at the school. It was too far to travel every day, so she rented a room in town. On Saturdays, she borrowed a horse from the stable and rode out to the homestead to spend the weekend with her family.
“Did you see Eva yesterday?” Hannah, the youngest of the four at barely seventeen, asked her older brother.
Wyatt stuffed a carrot in his mouth. “Yup. Mrs. Zane is making her dress, she said.”
Hannah sighed and stared off into space. “I can't wait to be a bridesmaid. It's going to be great.”
“Always a bridesmaid, never a bride. Isn't that how the saying goes, Abby?” Maddy's wicked grin had her older sister blushing.
“I've only been a bridesmaid twice, and I'm not in any hurry to get married, thank you.”
"Abby was thinking about going into teaching," Ma Crawford cut in as she passed the bowl of steamed green beans around the table.
Abigail rolled her eyes. "No, Ma. You want me to go into teaching."
Ma Crawford gave the exasperated sigh she had mastered years ago. "You have to do something, Abby. You can't stay around here all your life."
"Why not?" Pa gave Abby a small smile as they spoke over each other. She was his best helper and everyone knew it. Without her around, he would have struggled to manage all the chores.
"Don't encourage her, Abraham. She needs to start a family of her own before it's too late."
"Ma, do we have to have this conversation every time we eat?"
"Fine, fine. We'll talk about something else." Ma lapsed into silence with a scowl on her face, clearly uninterested in talking about anything else.
Silence fell over them for several minutes, broken only by the clanking of forks and cups.
"Mr. Bell says he saw a dead buffalo the other day." Wyatt poked at the beans his mother had forced him to take, but didn't eat any of them. "He says it was ripped apart, probably by lions."
Hannah rolled her eyes. "There are no lions in the west, Wyatt."
"How do you know? Maybe one escaped from that traveling circus that came through here a couple years ago."
"I doubt it."
His argument was cut off by a sharp scream from outside. Everyone froze until Pa cried out. "The cattle!"
He rose from the table so fast that his chair toppled over behind him. He snatched the rifle from beside the door and raced out into the dark. Abby was right behind him, grabbing her own rifle. She stopped at the door. “Get into the bedroom, Ma. Just in case.” Then she was gone.
Ma rose and shuffled the other kids into the bedroom. They huddled together in the corner between the wall and the bed, away from the window.
"Lions," whispered Wyatt as he gave Hannah a knowing nod.
"Shut up," she hissed back as she reached over Maddy to smack his arm.
Outside, Abby and her father were creeping toward the barn. Pa carried his shotgun in one hand and a lantern in the other. The lantern bobbed as they walked, casting strange jumping shadows over the ground. Pained screams still echoed out through the night, mingled with snarls and growls that were unfamiliar.
Pa held up his hand as they reached the door. Abby crouched beside it and held her shotgun at the ready.
The screams stopped short, but they could hear muffled grunts from inside. "What is that?" Abby whispered.
Pa scrunched his face up and shook his head. "I don't know. Stay here."
He pushed the door open and peeked inside. "Oh my God..."
The grunts stopped instantly as he spoke out loud.
"Shit." Pa took a step back. "Run, Abigail."
Abby rose and stumbled away from the barn. "What is it?" She raised her shotgun toward the door.
Her father stepped in front of her. "Go, Abby. Just go. Don't stop until you reach the house."
She took several stuttering steps and turned back toward the barn. A growling moan echoed from just inside the door.
Pa turned and saw Abby standing just behind him. He ran to her and gave her a rough shove. "Don't look back! Just run!"
The terror in his eyes got her moving. She took off at a run. Behind her, the shotgun barked once, twice. Then Pa screamed.
Abigail tripped over her feet as she tried to simultaneously move forward toward the house and turn back toward her father. The shotgun spun out of her hands and landed in the bushes next to the stairs.
The lantern flew from her father's hand and crashed onto the dry grass. Flames licked across the ground toward the barn. The growing flames silhouetted two men. At least, Abby thought they were men. Their skin was ashy gray in the orange light.
For a brief moment, Abby watched in horror as they bent over her father and tore chunks of flesh from his body. His screams pierced deep into her soul.
Then one of the men looked up. Her eyes met his. He snarled and rose from his crouched position with her father's blood dripping down his chin. He stared at her long and hard. Time froze as her heart stopped beating and her breath hitched in her chest. Then he took a step toward her.
That was all the urging she needed. She climbed to her feet and raced up the stairs, slamming the door closed behind her. She stumbled across the room and yanked open the door to the bedroom. Her sisters screamed as they scrambled over each other to try not to be in front.
"It's me. Shhh, it's just me." Abby whispered. She pressed her ear against the door. Slow steps thudded across the porch and the door to the house crashed open so hard the windows rattled on their frames. "Out the window." She urged her family up and to the small window.
Wyatt hoisted Hannah up onto the sill. Her eyes met Abby's briefly before she disappeared out into the growing night. Madeleine was already climbing up on Wyatt's knee before she was on the ground.
"Wyatt, go." Abby's eyes darted between the window and the door as her brother hefted himself up and out. She heard him grunt as he hit the ground.
The bedroom door rattled. "Abby."
Abigail turned from the window. Her mother stood with her back pressed against the door. She held a broomstick in her hands. "Go," she said.
Abby shook her head. "No, Ma. I won't leave you."
"You have to. Save them, Abby. Please. No one else can.” Tears welled in her eyes as the door slammed against her back again and again, trying to shove her away from it. “I love you. Go." Then she turned her back and threw the door open. With a scream, she launched herself at the man.
"No!" Abby stared in abject horror as her mother grappled with the intruder, torn between helping her mother and protecting the rest of her family. For one intense moment, he looked away from her mother and his eyes met Abby's. She gasped. His eyes were the dull emptiness of death.
"Abby, go!"
Her mother's cry snapped Abby out of her daze. She threw herself over the window sill. Her brother and sisters were huddled outside, waiting. Maddy was sobbing and Hannah was shaking with fear.
"Around the house. To the horses." The three horses were in a corral on the side of the house, away from the barn where the cattle had been. Pa's horse, the Crawford's old plow horse, and the horse Madeleine had borrowed from the stables were all snorting and shuffling in annoyed confusion when they arrived.
"Hurry." Abby vaulted over the fence and led Pa's horse back to it so Hannah could climb on as Madeleine got on her own horse. Wyatt mounted the plow horse and they were ready to go. She opened the gate and then swung up behind Hannah.
Madeleine led the way out of the corral, but in her heightened state of panic, she steered the horse toward the barn. The other man who had attacked Pa saw them as they exited and made a beeline toward them. His gait was slow and halting, but Madeleine’s horse fed off her fear. She had such a tight grip on the reins that the poor creature didn't know which way to turn. His instincts collided with his training and in the
confusion, he reared back and threw her to the ground.
Madeleine’s screams rent the air, but they were cut short as she hit the ground. Her neck was bent at an uncomfortable angle and her eyes stared into the night.
“Maddy!” Abby shouted for her sister as more men swarmed out of the barn, drawn by the noise. They descended upon the still warm body like a horde of dogs.
With tears threatening her vision, Abby steered her horse away from the barn toward the road. "Wyatt! This way!"
The boy made to follow, but his horse was slow and scared. The man who had been angling for Maddy was nearly at his flank. He lunged at Wyatt and latched onto his leg with a death grip. Wyatt shouted and kicked, but the man's teeth sank into his ankle.
Abby spun her horse around and raced at the man. As she rode by, she drove her foot into his head. He released his grip on Wyatt and fell to the ground. Wyatt kicked his horse into gear and they fled to the road. The men fell further and further behind until they were out of sight. Abby kept them running until the horses were slathered in sweating and breathing so hard she thought they might collapse. Only then did they slow down. Hannah sank against Abby's back and wept. Tears streamed down Wyatt's face. Abby buried her pain deep beneath the hate and anger that was growing in her heart.
Chapter 12
Little Bear beckoned for Charity to move next to David. Her body was still weak and shaking, but she dragged herself across the floor until she was next to her husband. He stared at her. Not at her, but at the blood covering her mouth and dress. The strange hunger in his eyes both excited and terrified her. It was the same hunger she felt when she saw Isabelle.
"You are not like the others." The translator settled back onto the floor by Little Bear's side and relayed his words.
Charity looked up at the young man's empty eyes. "What others?"
He waved a hand at David and the soldier. "The others like us. The other turned ones."
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