October skies

CHAPTER 9

3 August, 1856

‘If it ain’t a wheel, then it’s a goddamned axle,’ Keats muttered irritably to Ben and Broken Wing as their ponies trotted side by side towards the growing crowd of people gathering around a wagon that had slewed to one side. He stretched up in his saddle and craned his neck to see over the milling circle of broad-brimmed hats and bonnets.

‘Someone’s goddamned wheel’s buckled, I betcha,’ he added with a hint of disgust. ‘One of them Mormon wagons. If it’s the one I’m thinkin’ of, I heard the wheel creakin’ yesterday. An’ I damned well warned them about it too.’

There were several dozen men, women and children around the wagon, which was canted over at an awkward angle, household goods spilled out across the hard-scrabble ground. The team of oxen had been released from their yokes and now grazed, oblivious to events, on tufts of dry prairie grass some yards away.

Keats dismounted and pushed his way irritably through to the front. He watched as Preston, his sleeves rolled up, helped several other men lift the wagon’s axle onto a block to level the wagon. He waited until the heaving and puffing was done, and the axle firmly secured, before saying his piece.

‘Preston!’ he called out and then nodded towards the discarded broken wheel. ‘No way you gonna fix that.’

Ben dismounted and politely pushed his way through the gathered crowd to join Keats, whilst Broken Wing remained where he was, a respectful distance back. Standing beside Keats, Ben studied the wheel. Five of the spokes had split and the metal rim had buckled and twisted as the wheel frame had collapsed in on itself. Even to his untrained eye, there was nothing at all to salvage from it.

Preston looked up at Keats, taking his wide-brimmed black felt hat off and wiping the sweat from his face on a shirt sleeve. ‘I believe you’re right, Mr Keats. The wheel is, I’m sure, quite beyond repair.’

The trail guide pursed his leathery old lips and shrugged. ‘Well, we can’t sit around here all day talkin’ about it. We got eight more miles to make today before we set down to camp.’

Preston nodded. ‘I understand. But these people, the Zimmermans, need a new wheel making. We have those skills amongst our party.’ Preston pointed to one of the men standing next to him, wearing, like his First Elder and every other man, a white linen shirt, a dark waistcoat and a black felt hat. ‘Mr Larkin is a smith and Mr-’

‘The job’s at least two days,’ cut in Keats. ‘We don’t have the time to spend it so carelessly. The whole train should be moving on.’

Preston’s bushy blond eyebrows knotted above his dark sunken eyes. He gestured towards the family, a couple with a little girl. ‘And leave these people to fend for themselves? Would two days be worth their lives?’ Preston looked at the family. Ben followed his gaze and studied them; both the parents were short and stocky, their child a girl perhaps a year or so younger than Emily Dreyton.

‘Because they will die alone out here, Keats… these good people… this precious child.’

It was the first time Ben had been up close to Preston and heard him speak. There was a powerful resonance to his voice, and a magnetic charm in his long, gaunt face.

‘These people trust me to lead them. I will not abandon them. Not over one broken wheel, which can be replaced with a new one.’

Against his initial judgement from afar, Ben found himself warming to the Mormon leader.

Keats snorted with derision. ‘Then you shouldn’t be a goddamned trail captain.’ He pointed out across the grassy plain, towards a small cairn of rocks.

‘You see those graves by the side of the trail? Those are left-behinds; unlucky folks who saw the beast and didn’t turn. Maybe their wheel broke too, or their oxen died, or they drank foul water an’ got too sick to travel. Whatever… they got left behind ’cause they was slowin’ down their party.’

Keats addressed Mr Zimmerman. ‘You should head back to Fort Kearny. Leave the wagon, load yer supplies on the oxen and turn back.’

Mr Zimmerman turned to Preston. ‘William, perhaps he’s right?’

Preston shook his head firmly. ‘I’ll not leave you behind. No one will be left behind, and that is my final word on this.’

Keats shook his head with irritation. ‘Then my people ain’t wastin’ a moment longer. We’re too goddamned late in the season to be losin’ time like this.’ He turned away from Preston and pushed his way back through the crowd towards his pony.

One of the Mormon men standing beside the wagon’s blocked-up axle turned to Preston.

‘William, we have an ornate table in our wagon. We could use the table-top, cut to size, to replace the wheel. It would be far quicker, no more than an hour or two.’

Keats heard that and turned round. ‘Anythin’ but a proper crafted wheel will put a strain on that axle. The damn thing will snap the first rock it hits.’

‘Then we will proceed with a greater degree of caution,’ Preston replied firmly.

‘This wagon will slow us all down, Preston.’

‘Then we can start out a little earlier each morning.’

Keats shrugged casually. ‘Shit. Do what the hell you want; my party’s movin’ on.’ He swung himself up onto his pony. ‘But I’m tellin’ you, this wagon will slow you down. And you and your people will get caught in those mountains when the snow comes.’

‘God will decide our fate, Mr Keats. Not some little man who chooses to dress like an Indian to impress his clients. If it is His wish that we make it across to the other side, then the snow will come a little later, rest assured.’

‘Pfft.’ Keats spat on the ground and nodded for Ben and Broken Wing to follow him. ‘C’mon,’ he grunted.

Ben pulled himself up, and together they headed away from the crowd towards their wagons, taking their turn at the rear of the column.

‘Bunch of goddamned fuckin’ zealots,’ Keats muttered to himself, ‘goin’ t’ get ’emselves in real trouble.’

Ben looked across at him. ‘So what are we going to do?’

‘What’re we goin’ do?’ he looked at Ben incredulously. ‘Hell, we’re goin’ to leave ’em fools in our dust.’

The group stirred uneasily at the suggestion.

‘Leave them?’

Keats turned to Giles Weyland. ‘Yes, Mr Weyland, we leave ’em right here and we press on.’

Weyland sported long, almost feminine, auburn wavy hair and a beard carefully trimmed down to little more than a golden tuft on his chin. ‘But, sir, did we not unite with them out of concerns for our safety?’ he replied in the mellifluous and languid tones of a Virginian. ‘The Indians that lie ahead of us, sir?’

It was that particular issue, Ben noted, that seemed to be on their minds — the safety in numbers. Only yesterday they had passed a roadside message, the ‘bone express’, as Keats referred to it. Carved onto the weathered boards of an abandoned conestoga, surrounded by the withering carcasses of half a dozen horses, they found a warning left by a group of overlanders that had passed this way earlier in the season.

Indians up ahead. Party attacked. Some killed. Be vigilant.

‘We got us a choice here,’ said Keats. ‘We got two different things to busy ourselves worryin’ about, folks; the weather and them Indians,’ he snorted and spat. ‘Now them Indians? May be a problem, may not. But the weather? That’s as regular as a goddamned clock. That snow will come in October, mark my words’ — he looked across at Ben — ‘whatever the hell that Preston says about God willing it or not.’

Keats’s profanity sent an uncomfortable ripple amongst his party. The dark-skinned man, Mr Hussein, stepped forward.

‘My faith is different one to this Preston,’ said Mr Hussein, his accent thick and his English laboured. ‘The name we are use for pray to him is Ullah. But is same God. I am agree with Preston, not leaving one behind. It is haram.’

Keats shook his head. ‘Horse crap,’ he muttered.

‘Look ’ere, Keats,’ said Bowen, ‘I ain’t too sure I want us splitting up from that Preston lot, not with us ’aving them savages up ahead to worry about.’

Keats looked across to Ben and McIntyre. ‘I agree with Mr Bowen,’ said the Irishman. He met his wife’s eyes and she nodded. ‘See, Mr Keats, I think I speak for most of us,’ said McIntyre, looking at the others before he continued. ‘I think we’re more worried about the Indians than we are about snow.’

Ben found himself in agreement. ‘Is that not why we hooked up with the others in the first place?’

There was a silence amongst them. They watched their trail captain weighing things up. He narrowed his eyes, scratched his chin and cast a glance towards the peaks on the horizon, then turned to Broken Wing.

The Indian shrugged casually.

Keats sighed. ‘You folks all of the same, stupid, get-yourself-killed opinion?’

Heads nodded silently.

‘What if we were to start a half an hour earlier each morning, as Preston suggested, and take a little less resting time at noon — can we not make up for the slower pace?’ offered Ben.

Keats stroked his bristled chin as he considered the suggestion.

To Ben’s surprise the old man finally nodded.

‘Fine,’ he said, looking back at them. ‘But when — and mark my words, folks — when that stupid make-do wheel or the axle holdin’ it breaks, we won’t be discussin’ it like some goddamned town council meeting. We leave them behind. Understand? ’

They nodded in unison.