October skies

CHAPTER 40

24 October, 1856

As they made their way down a shallow incline, Keats ten yards ahead of them, Broken Wing ten yards further, the Shoshone suddenly dropped down onto one knee and waved for everyone behind to do likewise. The men did so obediently.

Broken Wing studied the scene intently for a couple of minutes before silently shuffling back to Keats and relaying what he’d seen.

Ben suddenly got his bearings and recognised the lay of the land, the dimple in the hillside…

The trapper’s shelter.

Around them, the forest was utterly still and completely silent save for the distant and knowing cry from a cowbird he could see through the winter-stripped branches of a spruce, flying impatient circles high above the trees. Huddled low amongst frozen ferns and twisted thorny briars, Ben’s breath hung before him — anxious clouds of steam that floated lazily up like smoke from the muzzle of a musket. He shivered in the knee-deep snow, partly from the seeping cold, partly from the anticipation.

Whatever had done for Sam and his mother had dragged their bodies up here to this forlorn place. He dreaded what he knew they were going to find.

Keats finally waved an arm for the men to make their way forward and join him.

Ben shuffled forward with the others and presently they knelt beside him, looking out past shoulder-high undergrowth down a shallow slope at the crudely constructed shack, more of it concealed by drifts of recent snow than the last time he’d seen it.

‘Trapper’s place, by the looks of it,’ whispered Keats. ‘No sign anybody been using it recently, though.’

‘It’s abandoned,’ said Preston.

Keats turned to him. ‘What?’

‘We came across it some days ago. It’s not been used in years.’

‘You didn’t think to goddamn well mention it to me?’

Preston frowned indignantly. ‘It’s a man’s grave.’

‘Why the hell ain’t you told me ’bout it?’

‘I’d rather people didn’t come up here and strip it for firewood. The dead man inside deserves at least that.’

Keats shook his head, hawked and spat. ‘Didn’t occur to you that them Paiute might be camping in it now?’

Ben expected Preston to thunder an angry response to save face in front of his men. But instead he was impressed to see the minister nod humbly. ‘You’re right, Keats. I should have mentioned it.’

Keats scowled at him. ‘Yeah, perhaps you should’ve.’ He turned to look back at the shelter. ‘Preston, have your men spread out and along this ridge and ready their guns. We got a good field of fire on ’em if they’re inside.’

Preston nodded and issued the word quietly to his people.

Keats stood up and handed his rifle to Ben.

‘What’re you doing?’

‘If them Paiute are inside… gonna go talk to ’em first.’

Keats strode down the incline casually, Broken Wing beside him, and called out in Ute, making enough noise to ensure his approach would be clearly heard by anyone inside. At the bottom of the incline he walked across the clearing, between the old wooden hanging frames a few yards away from the small entrance, and called out again loudly.

From inside the shelter came a sound of startled movement. Ben instinctively flexed his finger on the trigger and lined his sight on the small rounded entrance at the front. A moment later the dangling tatters of canvas that hung down from the door-frame fluttered to one side as several crows emerged, their wings a frantic confusion of dislodged feathers and panic. He watched them flap noisily away, strings of crimson dangling from their beaks.

Battlefield scavengers.

That was how his father used to refer to these birds. As a much younger man, a junior officer in the British army, he had witnessed the morning-after carpet of battle. He had described to Ben seeing the ground undulate with the shimmering beetle-blue of crows’ feathers as they worked on the bloated bodies, and the sky darken with their startled wings — swarming like flies at the sound of a discharged gun, only to return moments later with a renewed vigour to feast on the soft faces of the dead.

Ben waited anxiously along with the others, his rifle braced against his shoulder and aimed at the entrance.

‘If there are Indians in there, they must sleep like the dead,’ muttered Weyland, one eye squinting down the barrel of his gun.

‘Maybe Indian dead too,’ whispered Hussein in reply.

Weyland took a deep breath and let it out in a cloud. ‘I’m not sure I’d find that entirely reassuring, Mr Hussein.’

Broken Wing called out, his sharp voice cracking with the effort. It was the first time Ben had heard the Indian speak in anything other than a soft murmur.

There was no further sign or sound of movement from inside. With a casual hand gesture to Broken Wing, Keats stepped forward. One hand resting on the hilt of his hunting knife, he pushed the tattered canvas flap aside and then cautiously stepped inside and out of sight.

‘The old boy’s got balls of iron,’ whispered McIntyre beside him. ‘Walking in like that.’

Hussein nodded. ‘He has much… kuh… cour…?’

‘Courage?’ offered Weyland.

‘Yes. Is much courage inside him. Much.’

‘That’s for sure,’ McIntyre whispered.

A full minute passed in silence before the flap finally jerked aside and Keats emerged, stooping low through the entrance and then standing erect. Ben watched him breathing deeply for a moment, hands on hips, like someone mustering something from inside. He leaned over and spat… or maybe he was heaving — it was hard to tell.

What’s he seen in there?

Keats wiped his mouth, his cheeks puffed and a languid cloud of vapour rose. Then he turned towards them and silently waved at them to come down and join him.

They rose as one and clambered down the incline, stumbling carelessly on the snow-blanketed branches, twigs and roots, dislodging little cascades of powder that sifted with a gentle hiss down the slope towards the clearing.

Preston approached Keats. ‘You found the body of the trapper in there?’

‘The trapper? Oh, yeah. I noticed him as well.’

Ben regarded Keats’s weather-worn face and saw something in those narrow eyes he’d never seen before.

As well?

‘Preston, you better come look inside with me.’ He turned to the rest of the men, gathered together in front of the entrance. ‘Rest of you spread out an’ keep your eyes wide open.’

He took another deep breath before stooping down, pushing the canvas aside and leading the way in. Preston looked around for a moment at his men and nodded. ‘Do as he says,’ he said curtly. He turned to Vander. ‘Eric, you come with me,’ he said and then followed Keats inside.

Outside, the men spread out in no particular pattern, gazing uncertainly at the wooden hanging frames and the bones of animals dangling from them, the macabre decoration of the row of animal skulls nailed to one of the shelter’s walls.

Weyland sauntered over to where Ben and Broken Wing stood a few yards from the doorway.

‘Can’t say I’ve ever been amidst so many trees and heard it as quiet as this,’ he almost whispered. ‘Can you hear, Ben? No birdsong at all.’

Broken Wing frowned for a moment as he processed Weyland’s drawl, then nodded. ‘Bad spirit ssscare birds.’

‘It’s unnatural,’ Ben heard himself reply, and then immediately cursed himself for sounding like some superstitious old crone.

‘That it most definitely is,’ Weyland said nervously, stroking the handles of his moustache. ‘Very unnatural.’

They heard footsteps coming from inside the shelter; a rapid scraping of feet and then Vander emerged with a face as white as the snow on the ground. He took several staggering steps away from the shack before vomiting.

‘Lambert!’ he heard Keats calling from inside.

Ben exchanged a look with Weyland and Broken Wing and then headed towards the entrance. He shot one last glance at Vander, emptying his guts onto the snow — a steaming puddle of bile that quickly sank down through the fresh powder and out of sight.

Let it not be Sam… please.

He took a final breath of crisp, cold air, suspecting the next breath he took would be tainted with the fetid odour of… something. He ducked down and pushed his way past the canvas flap.