October skies

CHAPTER 53

28 October, 1856

The Paiute emerged from the mist like half a dozen ghosts. Ben watched the nearest of them step cautiously forward, becoming gradually more defined through the thinning wisps of cold air.

He held a weapon in each hand; a tamahakan in one, a knife in the other.

Keats barked something out, and the Indian stopped where he stood in the snow. The other five joined him and Ben noticed two of them struggling with something held between them. As they drew nearer and their outline became more distinct, he could see it was a body.

The sound of Ben’s shot and Keats’s barked challenge was drawing others from around the camp. He could hear the crunch of feet on snow and the smothered sound of questioning voices emerging from the mist.

‘Tell the Indians I’m a doctor. I can take a look at their man,’ muttered Ben, shouldering his rifle. Keats nodded and uttered a phrase in Ute. The nearest Paiute to Ben seemed to be the one to whom the others deferred. He appeared to be no more than eighteen or nineteen — a man, just. The others, closer now, he could see were a few years younger.

They struggled to understand Keats, the leader cocking his head and frowning.

From a few feet behind him, Ben heard Broken Wing call out sharply, making the language sound far less ugly than the guide had.

Ben pointed to the body. ‘Can you tell them I can look at him?’

Broken Wing nodded and spoke at length to them. There was an exchange amongst the young men, and then the eldest nodded. The others stepped back from the body as Ben warily approached. He knelt down and by the wan light of early morning, most of it lost behind the carpet of mist, he quickly inspected it.

An older man, much older. He was dead, his skin cold and clammy.

Ben looked up at Keats and Broken Wing. ‘Dead.’

Blood, congealed and sticky, had flowed down out of his grey-streaked hair and across his face and neck. Ben carefully probed the matted hair and found a jagged section of bone held by a flap of scalp, and a hole.

‘A blow to the head, a small penetration. I suppose something like a pickaxe, or,’ he said, gesturing at the tamahakan held by the nearest Paiute, ‘one of those might have done this. I would say he died several hours ago.’

‘Ask them what happened,’ said Keats to Broken Wing.

The Shoshone spoke briefly, and the eldest Paiute spoke at length, making up for the gap in their shared vocabulary with elaborate hand gestures that seemed to tell as much of the story as the words. Keats had told Ben that Ute was a universal language shared by the Paiute, the Shoshone, the Ute and several other tribes west of the Nevadas, but they each spoke their own language, a bastardised hybrid of their shared tongue; consequently there was plenty of room for misunderstanding.

Broken Wing turned to Keats. ‘He sssay, white-face demon, it hunt

…’ He struggled to find words in English, then finally relayed the rest to Keats in the version of Ute they seemed to share well between them. The crowd was growing; one huddle Keats’s party, another Preston’s people, warily emerging from their end and suspiciously regarding the others. Keats nodded, digesting it all before turning to Ben, stroking his beard distractedly for a moment.

‘What did he say?’

He spoke quietly, for Ben’s ears only. ‘He said somethin’ about a white-face demon has been… well… huntin’ them. Playin’ with them, last few days.’

There was a ripple of disturbance amongst the gathered people as Preston pushed through to the front. He took one look at the body, his face frozen, expressionless.

The Paiute spoke again with Broken Wing, who translated for Keats.

‘He said the white-face demon’s been watchin’ them for the last two days, and then this morning, as they were spread out foraging, it attacked their elder, White Eagle. They found him already dead.’

There was a murmuring amongst those close enough to hear what was being said. Ben looked up at them to see women and children, their faces all radiating fear as they stared at the young Indian men.

Keats pointed to the one who’d done the talking. ‘They’re afraid of the demon. He’s askin’ if we’ll let ’em in.’

Preston’s gaze fell on the Paiute. ‘To stay amongst us?’

A ripple of unrest stirred the crowd.

Keats nodded. ‘They’re scared of what’s out there.’

The Indian gestured with his hands. The message was clear enough that Ben had the gist of it before Keats began translating. ‘He says they fear what is out there more than they distrust us.’

‘They can’t stay in this clearing,’ said Preston firmly. ‘That is out of the question.’

Keats didn’t bother to translate that for the Indian. Instead he turned to Preston, speaking quietly.

‘Look, we need ’em more’n they need us. They know how to survive in these mountains better ’n we do. And,’ he said, nodding towards the dwindling pile of oxen carcasses, ‘what we got there ain’t gonna last us much longer.’

Preston glared at Keats. His eyes widened, a damp sheen of sweat on his pale face.

‘You don’t understand, Keats. Those…’ He looked over Keats’s shoulder at the nearest Indian. There was a manic undercurrent to the way he spoke, an edgy fidgeting in the way he moved. ‘Those creatures cannot stay with us.’

‘Damned lick-fingered fool, they’re not a danger. They’re more scared than we are!’

Preston shook his head. ‘They cannot stay. Not here! Not in this camp!’

Keats hawked, spat and turned away from him. ‘Fuck it! They’re staying with us.’

Preston cast a glance towards Ben, and then to Mr Hussein and one or two other faces in the crowd that were not of his party, and shook his head.

‘We foolishly allowed ourselves to mix freely with you, to share food and comfort with you. And this after God came directly to me!’ he said, thumping his chest with an open palm, ‘To me! And told me I must lead my people away from the contamination of outsiders. Look at us now,’ he said, sweeping them all with his dark eyes.

‘My people are living cheek by jowl with papists,’ he said, directing his gaze at McIntyre, and then down at Ben. ‘Atheists’ — he looked at Hussein — ‘and infidels.’

He then turned to study the six Indians, their dark, tattooed skin, their heads shaven like Mohawks, the shrivelled and dried totems of a long-ago raid dangling from leather thongs making them appear grotesque.

‘And now we are to add Satan’s gargoyles to the list.’ Preston’s voice drew quiet and ragged, for the benefit of Keats only. ‘It’s not a demon out there, fool. It’s something far more frightening.’ He smiled. ‘For you, that is.’

‘What’re you talkin’ ’bout, Preston?’

‘A force you can’t begin to imagine: God’s rage. It’s out there now, in those trees, looking down upon us all. Your people will all die badly, Keats! Mark this warning! A force you can’t begin to imagine will come for these demons, and rip to shreds anyone it finds with them.’

‘They’re not demons!’ Keats snapped. ‘Goddamn Indian savages maybe, but they ain’t no demons or gargoyles or nothing!’

Ben glanced at the Paiute standing silently, bewildered as they watched the heated exchange.

‘You welcome evil into your home and you become evil. Do you understand that?’

Both men remained silent for a moment, their eyes locked on each other.

The guide turned his back on Preston and took several steps towards the eldest Indian. He spoke in Ute and gestured and the Indian replied, but Ben’s attention remained on Preston, who looked on in silence, taut muscles working beneath his gaunt cheeks as he bit down on his anger.

Ben wondered how much of his bottle of laudanum was left.

Standing behind Preston, he noticed a small group of the Mormon men, amongst them Vander, Zimmerman and Hollander, had brought guns and held them ready, undoubtedly loaded and primed to fire.

This isn’t good.

Just a nod or a word from Preston and he suspected every one of them would open fire on the Paiute, perhaps on them, without a second thought. Of that he had no doubt. And that’s what Preston’s considering right now, isn’t it?

The exchange in Ute between Keats and the Indian continued, both of them, it seemed, oblivious to the growing current of tension and whatever conclusion Preston was silently and very rapidly approaching. Zimmerman cocked the hammer on his rifle; the click sounded deafening even through the deadening wisps of mist that were swirling about them.

‘Keats!’ Ben shouted out, automatically swinging his own gun up from the ground. Hussein, standing beside him, also armed for guard duty, did likewise. Weyland stepped forward, pulling a Colt revolver from beneath his long winter coat.

The guide stopped, turned and saw the hesitant stand-off, guns readied on both sides, raised, but not quite aimed… not yet. The threat of an immediate exchange of gunfire was implicit; it remained just a few badly chosen words away. He laughed — a wheezing convivial campfire cackle that instantly made the frozen tableau look ridiculous.

‘Oh dear,’ he said, grinning and shaking his head. ‘Well, this ain’t a smart way to go now, is it? Goddamn stupid, if you ask me.’ He looked at the half-dozen rifles held ready amongst the men standing behind Preston. ‘See… reckon it would be you and me, Preston, who’ll be the first to get a lead shot, eh? Don’t make no sense, that.’

Preston said nothing, grinding his jaw in silence.

‘How ’bout we all lower our guns an’ we put this down as a little misunderstandin’?’

The men standing behind Preston looked to him for a sign, a word of command.

‘See, we all need each other. Biggest thing we need to be considerin’ now ain’t no demons or monsters, but this winter and makin’ do ’til spring.’ Keats turned to look out at the faint outline of the trees. ‘An’ whatever’s out there in them woods, the more eyes we have’ — he nodded towards the Paiute — ‘keepin’ a watch out, the better for everyone, right?’

Ben noticed some murmurs of agreement amongst their people, but a stony silence from Preston and the gathered crowd behind him.

Keats slowly stepped forward, stretching out a hand. ‘Preston? You know I’m talkin’ sense here. Them Paiute can stay with us, on our side. An’ we’ll keep it like it is… ain’t none of my people, nor these Indians, goin’ to step beyond them oxen. How’s that sound?’

Ben was close enough to Preston to see he was trembling; subtle repeated tics on his face and hands that shook gave him the air of a badly stacked lumber pile ready to tumble.

Preston shook his head almost imperceptibly. ‘A storm is coming, Keats.’

He turned away from them towards his people and spread his hands. He spoke quietly to the armed men standing next to him and gently ushered them away. The crowd, men, women and children, drew away into the mist, heading back towards their side of the camp. The rumpling sound of boots on compacted snow slowly diminished as they faded into the grey.

Ben thought he saw Preston’s tall frame lingering on in the mist as his people trooped back, and thought he heard whispered words, perhaps intended for his ears, perhaps not.

He will come for you all, and soon.