October skies

CHAPTER 25

13 October, 1856

The campfire, placed centrally amidst the small circle of shelters at the Keats end of the clearing, burned noisily, crackling and hissing as it feasted eagerly on the needles and pines that had been tossed onto it.

‘Never been so bleedin’ scared in all me life,’ exclaimed Mrs Bowen. ‘Such a big thing it looked like. I could see it from all the way over ’ere.’

Ben nodded.

You should have seen it up close.

‘Do you think it’ll be back again, Mr Keats? My little ’uns are terrified to sleep.’

Keats wrinkled his nose and snorted. ‘Unlikely. Scared it off good, an’ I reckon the wound will kill it eventually.’ He spat into the fire.

Weyland tossed a small branch on. ‘Am I mistaken then in thinking that bears should be hibernating this time of year?’

Keats shrugged. ‘The snow’s come early. Maybe it caught the bear out. Maybe the bear ain’t fattened himself up enough to go sleep yet.’

Broken Wing muttered something in his language and Keats laughed.

‘What did your Indian say?’ asked Bowen.

‘He said the woods sent the bear to frighten us white-faces away.’

‘The woods?’

‘The Shoshoni — Broken Wing’s people — believe the wood has a spirit. Like everythin’ else… rivers, mountains… all got their own.’

‘That’s ridiculous,’ said Mrs McIntyre.

‘Ain’t no more ridiculous than believin’ there’s devils beneath the earth waitin’ to prod us with their little pitchforks.’

Mrs McIntyre shook her head sombrely. ‘God help us… you’ll bring trouble on us all talking like that, so you will.’

Keats smiled.

‘So your man, Mr Keats, believes the woods would like us to be gone?’ said Weyland.

Broken Wing spoke up. ‘Thisss’ — he gestured to the dark hem of trees beyond the pale moonlit snow on the ground, beyond the warm glow of the fire — ‘not for white-face. Thisss Paiute, Shoshone land.’

‘Indians reckon we belong in our dirty cities, livin’ on top of each other an’ turnin’ the sky grey with our smoke. Not out here in the wilderness.’

Broken Wing cocked his head listening to Keats, then nodded a moment later. ‘Yah.’

‘Hmm,’ growled Keats, ‘reckon the bear came down ’cause he could smell food cookin’.’

The group sat in silence for a while, listening to the light wind teasing the trees. All of Keats’s party were huddled around the fire; Bowen and his family, McIntyre, Hussein and their families, Weyland and his Negro girl, Keats, Broken Wing and Ben — eighteen people, hugging woollen blankets around themselves and gazing into the comforting, flickering light of the fire.

‘Hey, Benjamin,’ muttered McIntyre, nodding, ‘looks like your wayward friends have come to join us again.’

Ben turned round to see Sam leading Emily by the hand towards them. They approached furtively, Sam looking back over his shoulder, past the huddled oxen towards the distant campfire glow coming from the other end.

‘Benjamin,’ Sam whispered hoarsely. ‘Can we sit with your group awhile?’

Ben waved them over. ‘Here, squeeze in.’ He smiled.

Emily shuffled in close beside Ben. Sam found some space on his other side. They held their hands up to the warmth of the fire, savouring it.

‘Momma’s sitting with Preston,’ said Sam quietly.

‘Yes, I left her with him earlier. Oh…’ Ben reached round and pulled something out of his leather satchel. ‘Here you are, Emily. Would you like to play with the doll?’

Her face lit up and she grasped it. ‘Thank you, Benjamin.’ She cast her eyes around the gathered group and, spotting McIntyre’s daughter, Anne-Marie, offered a shy wave to her across the fire.

Keats tapped the bowl of his pipe onto the snow at his feet. ‘Reckon we wanna keep a little more watchful at night, people. Though it ain’t likely we’ll see another bear any time soon, better we be ready for it if we do. Night watch should always have ’least two guns good to shoot from now on.’

‘That seems a sensible precaution,’ added Weyland. ‘And perhaps, ladies and gentlemen, we should consider doubling up on the watch?’

A discussion stirred to life over the matter — whether there were enough men to sustain that kind of rota indefinitely. There were several varying opinions chorused at the same time.

Ben settled back, uninterested in the exchange. ‘You all right there, Sam?’

The young lad nodded and smiled. ‘Yes. Emily and I like coming over here. Emily likes those children,’ Sam replied, nodding at McIntyre’s daughters.

‘What about the other children in your group?’

He shook his head. ‘Stolz’s won’t really play with anyone else. The others don’t really play at all. Poor Em only has me.’

‘I’m sorry not to have seen much of you these last few days.’

‘Momma says you’ve done a wonderful job caring for him.’

Ben hunched his shoulders. ‘I do what I can, which I’m afraid isn’t much. I’m sorry there was nothing more I could do for Mr Lock.’

Sam nodded, gazing at the crackling sparks from the fire lifting up into the ink-black sky. ‘I wish I were like you, Benjamin,’ he said presently.

‘Like me? Good grief, why?’

‘You got education. You know things like medicine and science.’

Ben pulled a face. ‘I don’t know enough. If I’d stayed on a few more years, I could have become a senior doctor. But instead, I’m just a travelling journeyman doctor, hoping one day that I’ll do better as a writer.’ Ben tossed a loose cone into the fire. ‘I wish I was a little more like Mr Preston.’

Sam looked up at him sharply, the good-natured smile wiped from his face. ‘Why?’

‘It takes courage to do what he did. He stood before that bear to save Mr Lock.’ Ben turned to Sam. ‘And me? Well, I was too damned frightened even to move.’

Sam shook his head. ‘It wasn’t courage.’

‘It was an incredibly brave thing to do.’

Sam didn’t reply for a long while, his gaze long and without focus.

‘I’m glad you’re not like Preston,’ he said eventually. ‘Or those others.’

Anne-Marie McIntyre came around the campfire and sat next to Emily. After a faltering, self-conscious start both girls were soon chattering together and passing the doll between them. Ben sat back, watching Sam. The boy seemed at ease, content, watching over his sister — her eternal guardian. He admired the young man’s relentless devotion to her.

Later on, Sam turned to him quietly and asked an awkward question.

‘When we leave these mountains, would you take Em and me with you?’

‘What? I couldn’t do that, Sam. I’m… your mother would-’

‘Momma will never leave Preston,’ muttered Sam, ‘not ever.’

Ben felt an overpowering sympathy for them both, destined to be locked into the isolated, small world that Preston was promising his people in God’s great wilderness, as they patiently awaited an end that would never come.

‘Sam, I couldn’t take Emily from her mother. You… you’re seventeen?’

‘And a half.’

‘Then you’re old enough to find your own way, Sam. But Emily is still just a small child — your mother’s child.’

Sam nodded sullenly. ‘I know.’

Ben placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘Come the spring, when the snow melts, who knows how your mother will feel? Hmm? Perhaps she’ll see things differently.’

Ben sincerely doubted that. But it was all he could think to say at that moment.