The thought disgusted her—until she heard another noise, also close by. As if something were hurrying toward her. She held still, not daring to open her eyes, and heard a soft, thudding sound, quiet grunts, then dragging, and finally heavier soft footsteps in the snow. They receded and she finally dared to open her eyes. And saw the shadowed shape of one man lugging another. One of the freighters? She shifted her eyes, saw no one where she had guessed Norbert had been.
It was then that the low sounds of pain came to her. The horses were in trouble. But she didn’t dare move. What if it was Rollie, gone mad and killing everyone? He seemed the sort of man who might lose reason and become more of a monster than he already was.
Then a new thought stabbed her and she knew with certainty it had to be the answer—the Indians had found them. Maybe they had been following them for some time, and had only now begun to move in on them.
Her hands and feet were bound tight. Long ago they stopped aching and now throbbed, but she was unable to free herself, was unable even to stand. She counted herself lucky that Rollie cared too much for his liquor to remember his threats to molest her. She also knew that could only last for so long before the foul man eventually approached her.
But if it was the Indians, and since she had slept away from the men, as Rollie had ordered her, trussed and tossed aside, should she make a sound? She did not care a thing for any of them. Not after they had left her sister and Charlie behind, both long dead now, the blaze consuming them.
She bit the inside of her cheek hard enough to draw blood. Anything less and she knew she would cry out at the horrid memory of it. As much as she would have liked to hear Rollie and Bo and Shiner and Norbert scream in agony as the Indians tortured and killed them, she also didn’t want to alert them to her own location.
If she couldn’t see far into the night, she didn’t think the Indians could do any better. She had heard tales about them, people saying that they could see in the dark, change shape and fly like owls or buzzards, wiggle around like snakes, and travel in packs like wolves. She didn’t much care about or believe any of it. She wanted to not be seen and to hear those bastards die. Hearing the four freighters give up the ghost would barely begin to make the hurt go away.
With no parents left, Hester had had no one else in the world but Delia. Then Delia married that bum, Vincenzo—without telling Hester. And then he left her and Delia became ill and begged Hester to help her find him again. All of that was bad enough, and yet it was all Hester had. And then Rollie stole it all from her.
Lying on her side behind a log in the snow, frozen and shivering, Hester vowed that if the Indians didn’t finish the man’s life, she would. She felt bad for whatever had happened to the animals, and hoped Mabel-Mae wasn’t among those hurt. But she also felt a strange satisfaction when she heard the half-drunk freighters come awake at the sounds of the animals stamping loose around the camp, then stumbling their way out into the night.
“What’s happening? Someone tell me what’s going on here.”
It was Rollie, and Hester wanted to shout to him that he was going to die. Sooner or later, she would see it done, or see to it herself.
Chapter 31
“Delia!” Charlie hissed, nudged her hard in the shoulder. “Delia! Wake up! Get up now, girl—we got company!”
And that was all Charlie had time for. The first wolf loped into view close enough for the firelight to bounce off its eyes, sniffing and surveying the curious fire and the big man staring at him, waving a torch and shouting.
“Charlie? What’s happening?”
Delia sounded confused, and he reckoned that within seconds she’d be more frightened than confused. “Wolves, Delia. Stay calm. I didn’t want you to wake up confused. Now, take that long stick there and burn the end up good, get a flame going on it. Good. And take this.” He tossed his knife beside her. “Keep it in one hand and that burning stick in the other. And angle yourself so your back’s mostly to the fire, so you can see out.”
“What am I looking for, Charlie?”
He stole a glance at her. For a sickly girl, he was shocked to see there was almost a smile on her face. “Wolves, I told you. You’ll see their eyes glowing, reflecting the light from the fire. Now, keep a sharp lookout. I have to light those other fires I set up. Then if you’re up to it, you can help me tend them. We should have enough wood to keep them at bay.”
“What about the meat? Wasn’t there enough oxen for them? Charlie—you’re not saying that there are so many wolves that all that meat isn’t enough for them?”
Now she sounded scared, and for that he was glad. Wouldn’t do to have her think this was a game. “No, I reckon not, Delia. But we’ll get a few curious ones here. Maybe nothing more.”
But as he turned to light the first small fire, a sharp bark, close by, made him crouch low. He saw a glint of wetness and the shine of an eye as it leaped, openmouthed, at him. Charlie had enough time to drop his torch and touch off a trigger. Kaboom! The sound pulsed outward like the sound big rocks make cracking together underwater. For a handful of moments, all else was silent. Charlie heard no other close-by wolf sounds. He snatched up the torch. “Delia? You okay?”
“Yes. Did you get it?”
“I believe I did. Hang on, I’ll take a look. . . .” He kept the shotgun at the ready, but jammed the torch outward quickly. There at the edge of the firelight lay a sprawled heap, out of reach, surrounded by spatters of darkness on the snow around it. He hoped they would not see more blood before morning. But Charlie knew better than to trust in hope. Every time he had in his life, it seemed to let him down. No, sir, it was better to rely on your strength and a good shotgun.
It felt odd to heft one again, and it felt very odd to have once again shot something with one. But—and he hated to admit it, hated the thought of revealing that old, buried side of himself—it felt good too to have a shotgun in his hands. And besides, he reasoned, using it to defend a young lady seemed fitting somehow.
“Why did it want to attack us?” Delia appeared by his side, holding her own weakly flickering torch.
“Might be it got caught up in the frenzy up there and thought there was more grub to tuck into down here.” He gestured with his chin. “Keep low, now, and stay behind me. No telling what’s next.”
“You don’t think that was the only confused wolf out here, do you?”
“No, and I hope you’re not thinking this is a game, Delia. Confused or not, those wolves have teeth and they mean business.”
“The wolves or the teeth, Charlie?” They’d been crouched side by side, talking in low whispers, scanning the black night around them, which seemed to press in, sending wavering shadows from the weak light from their torches and the scattered fires around them.
“What?” said Charlie.
“Nothing, I’m fooling with you.” Delia grimaced, held a hand to her belly.
“Hey, I told you about kidding around—Delia, what’s wrong?” Charlie hesitated, but leaned the shotgun against a log to help the girl ease back down to her blankets. “You overdid it, huh?”
She nodded.
“You want some of your medicine?”
She shook her head. “Can’t.”
“Why?”
“It’s gone,” she said through gritted teeth.
“But I thought you still had some left.”
“Wasn’t that much. I’ll be fine, Charlie.” She looked up at him, her eyes glazed and a forced smile on her mouth. As she looked past him, her smile turned into a scream. “Charlie! Look out!”
Charlie spun, his right arm arcing out, the glowing torch whooshing. The first thing he saw was a large lobo, too big by half, stiffened in a crouch, poised between two smaller campfires as if they meant nothing at all to it. The beast’s eyes danced dark, then bright with the reflected flickering light.
Charlie fancied he could sme
ll the beast from across the few feet that separated them. It reeked of blood and hair and raw flesh and something more, a stink overriding all the others—something he couldn’t name, as if the word animal had its own smell. And it was a sharp-toothed thing.
They stared at each other’s eyes, but Charlie also noticed its long, pointed ears were angled back. Its wide head appeared to flatten in rage as if it were willing itself into a living wedge, ready for attack. Its lips were raised impossibly high, the long, curved teeth beneath flecked with spittle and small snags of gristle. One of its long teeth, he saw, had snapped off down near the point, and it made the creature appear even more menacing.
But it was the perfect, rattling sound rising from deep within the creature’s chest that froze Charlie’s blood. That, and the fact that the shotgun sat propped against the log, the butt of it not four inches from the wolf’s right front paw. Charlie took all this in within seconds of turning, of catching the wolf in the act, as if he were a shopkeep nabbing a schoolkid with his hand in the gumdrop jar.
Charlie knew he had to get to that gun, but all he had was a torch in his hand. He’d wasted vital seconds staring down the wolf, and then it occurred to him that it might have been a game on the wolf’s part to let others creep in silently behind the girl.
Charlie also knew that the second he moved, he’d have the better part of a hundred pounds of savage fury launch right at him. Nothing for it, he figured, and thrust the torch at the beast while he shouted, “Heeyaaah!”
The wolf leaped straight at him, gnashing its teeth and emitting a snarling sound more menacing than anything Charlie had ever heard from a town dog. He missed jamming the torch down the beast’s gullet by mere inches. Instead it glanced off the leaping wolf’s shoulder, singeing hair and causing little other damage.
Charlie dropped the sputtering stick and kept his bulk firmly positioned before the beast, and despite his size, the impact of the thrashing wolf—all muscle and hair and rage—rocked him back on his heels. He dropped to one knee and worked to keep his face away from the lunging, snapping head. Its foul breath clouded his face, but he kept his left forearm between his face and the wolf’s, under the snapping jaw.
Behind him he heard Delia screaming and hoped she wasn’t being attacked too, but he had his hands full. He let go his precious hugging hold around the wolf’s ribs and jamming his right arm higher, pushed back against it with his left arm, pinning the thrashing wolf’s neck between his arms. He felt something snapping, heard the ravening growls become gagging sounds, and still he didn’t let up.
The wolf’s legs all the while thrashed and clawed. Charlie felt some of his previous wounds open, felt the wash of hot blood, some from new gashes in his gut, chest, and legs, and still he squeezed. More snapping, he felt the wolf’s windpipe collapse, and soon much of the fight ebbed from it.
Still Charlie squeezed, and standing again, he gave one mighty bellow and jammed his arms together. The wolf’s head popped backward at an unnatural angle, and Charlie heard a sound like a carrot snapping; then the wolf went limp in his arms. He grabbed its thick coat in his fist and peeled it away from his chest, holding the fresh kill aloft.
The big man stared at it a moment, his chest heaving, his groaning voice a ragged sound. Then he swung the dead creature back and tossed it with a shout as far as he was able into the black night.
He seemed to regain his senses then and he spun to look at Delia, expecting the worst since he no longer heard her screams. His heart clawed its way up his constricting throat—she was gone!
“Delia!” he shouted, not seeing the log before him. As he sprawled forward over it and into the snow, a gunshot boomed in the night, the flash blooming but a few yards ahead.
“Charlie . . . are you hurt?” Delia rushed back to him, dragging the shotgun by the smoking barrels.
Charlie struggled to his knees. “What happened?”
“You were fighting off that wolf and I saw another one coming up behind, so I did a stupid thing and threw my stick at it. Then I saw the shotgun, so I crawled over and got it. The other wolf came closer as I grabbed the gun, and as it was about to leap at me, you snapped the neck of that one you were fighting with! I didn’t take my eyes off the other wolf, though. But it must not have liked what it heard, because it backed up. Then you shouted and it turned away. I don’t know what came over me, Charlie, but I . . . I took off after it!”
“But you’re okay? You’re not hurt?”
“No, I’m fine, fine. . . .” Her voice grew weaker and she dropped before him in the snow.
“Oh no, no, no, girl, I promised I’d take care of you and ol’ Charlie ain’t doing a very good job of it, is he?” He scooped her up, grabbed the shotgun, and retreated to the fire.
Once again, Charlie found himself nursemaid to the sickly girl. Her color was the worst he’d seen it. In all his days, he’d never seen a person look so gray. Even in the weak firelight her coloring looked like a stormy sky. He shucked his big coat and wrapped her in it, something she’d staunchly refused to allow him to do before. He snatched a handful of shells from the pocket, cracked the barrels, and stuffed two more into the shotgun.
Charlie didn’t dare look down at his own chest, legs, and arms. He knew what he’d see, shredded clothes and blood and welts from the wolf’s thrashing claws. He jammed more wood into the hungry sparking and snapping fire, and stuck another long branch in to make a new torch. Then he dragged more wood to the smaller fires, several of which had petered out to mere glowing coals, all the while casting an eye toward the dark around them. He was bothered and confused by the sudden attacks of the wolves, but he was even more bothered by the fact that now he didn’t hear a thing.
“Charlie?” Delia’s voice was little more than a whisper.
He kneeled by her side. “Hey there, Miss Delia. How you feeling?”
“Like I could drink some water.”
“Okay, then. Here we go.” He retrieved one of the tins he’d had close by the fire melting snow into water. “Nice and warm for you.”
She sat up and took the can from him, sipped from it. “Thank you, Charlie. I hate being thought of as someone who’s useless.”
“Oh, Miss Delia, you could never be—”
“Charlie, please.” She held her steady gaze right on him, her mouth set in a hard line, and she looked like her sister, Hester, when she did that. He nodded.
She closed her eyes a moment, then opened them again. “Charlie, I have a cancer. Somewhere in my belly.” She patted her midsection. “Two different doctors said so. And it sure hurts sometimes. I didn’t want to say anything, but now with the laudanum gone, I am afraid I will be of even less use to you, and you deserve to know why. I had half a thought to using the other barrel on myself when I’d finished off that wolf, but you didn’t reload that first barrel after you fired it, Charlie.”
He tried to smile, but couldn’t do it. “I reckon . . . I’m out of practice, Delia.”
“Can you . . . let me lean against you, Charlie? Maybe sort of hold me awhile? Hester used to. It helps a little.”
“Why, sure, sure.” He scooched over, his back partially to the fire. He arranged her so that the crux of two logs shielded her from another attack, and he vowed to himself to stay as close as he could to her for the rest of the night. He wished morning was a whole lot closer.
She leaned against him and he wrapped his right arm around her, gently patting her shoulder and arm. Such a tough little thing, he thought. And so young to have such a bad thing happen.
The shotgun stood upright on his left thigh, both hammers peeled back, his finger outside the guard in case he dozed and touched off the triggers.
A few minutes passed. The dark, close up, was quiet. Far off, he heard the yowling and arguing sounds of the wolves having their fill of the oxen carcasses. Must be like Christmas to them, thought Charlie. He and Delia had managed to
kill three of them, but he reckoned that wasn’t but a smidgen of the whole pack. He figured Delia had gone to sleep, but then she spoke.
“It’s all my fault, you know.” Her voice was quiet, as if she were talking to herself.
“You okay, Delia?”
She nodded. “I’m the one who wanted to come all the way out here. If I hadn’t been so desperate to see Vin, Hester and I would still be back East. None of this would ever have happened.”
Charlie felt her shiver, heard a sniffle. Had to mean she was crying. He patted her shoulder again. “I tell you what. I for one am glad you all came along. Oh, I’m not happy you have had such a rough time of it, but if I learned anything this last week, it’s that bad things happen, for sure. But good things tend to follow up right on behind ’em. You know what I mean?”
“No, I don’t think you’re right, Charlie.”
“What? How’s that? I met you and your sister, didn’t I? And I ain’t no ogre.”
Delia pushed away from him, looked at him. “Oh, Charlie I didn’t mean that. Of course you’re the best thing about this terrible journey, but . . .”
Charlie smiled at her. “I’m joshing you, girl.”
She laid her head back against him.
“Now, don’t you mind. I know what you’re driving at and I can’t say you’re right either. So let’s call it a conversation we can have tomorrow when you’re a-whomping on my head.”
“Okay, Charlie. . . .” And by the sound of her voice, Charlie could tell she’d finally fallen asleep.
Chapter 32
Norbert came to and the first thing he saw was a stream about twice as wide as a man was tall, a cutbank sagging directly across from him, clumps of snow stiff and unmoving curling over the iced flow. Most of the stream had frozen over, damping the sound of the flow. It all had a familiar look to it—and then he realized that the snow made everything look the same.
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