October skies

CHAPTER 78

2 November, 1856

Ben shivered beneath his thick woollen poncho, wrapped tightly around the three of them. There was a growing fug of body warmth in the small spaces between them, enough to keep at bay the worst of the early-morning chill.

He raised his face from the faint warmth inside to look up at the sky. A steely grey light was straining through the clouds.

‘The night’s nearly gone,’ he whispered.

The last faint glowing signs of pursuit had disappeared hours ago.

We’re safe from them now.

Mrs Zimmerman stirred and shuddered with the cold. ‘Thank goodness,’ she muttered, her trembling lips almost blue.

Ben turned to look down inside the poncho at Emily, nestled between them, her head resting on Mrs Zimmerman’s ample chest. Her small frame shivered in an inadequate cotton dress, her breath rattled and chattered, the occasional unintelligible murmur stealing past her lips. Her eyes were closed. She was sleeping.

‘The Devil came to our c-camp last night,’ said Mrs Zimmerman. ‘He came into our camp and turned people — people I’ve known for years — into demons.’

Ben shook his head. ‘It was fear that did that.’ He turned to look at her — a stocky, ruddy-faced woman of middle years, her skin chapped and sore with the cold. ‘That’s all. Fear of the unknown. ’

Ben looked out from the nook they’d found between two spurs of rock. The snow covered rocky, uneven ground that sloped downhill towards a tree-filled gulch. Beyond that, an uninterrupted carpet of woodland shrouded the way they had come during the night. From one small valley, they had stumbled into the next.

They were sheltered here from the sporadic gusts of ice-cold wind. That was good for now.

‘It was Preston,’ he whispered.

‘Preston?’

He nodded. ‘I saw his handiwork. He crafted some disguise out of animal bones and skulls. He wore this disguise and I’m almost certain it was he who killed Vander, Hearst, Sam and his mother.’

‘No.’

The voice came from inside the poncho.

Emily spoke.

‘Dear Lord… Emily?’ gasped Mrs Zimmerman. She pushed aside the woollen cover and looked down at the girl’s pale face, stroking her hair aside. ‘Emily?’ She turned to Ben. ‘God be praised, I thought she would never speak again.’

He hunched over to look closely at her. ‘Emily,’ he said. ‘It’s Benjamin here.’

The girl’s eyes remained closed and her breathing even. She seemed to be still asleep.

‘Emily? Can you hear me?’

Beneath her parchment-thin skin, her eyes moved back and forth, following the progress of some horrendous scene being played out again. Her dry lips twitched and parted. ‘Angel… an angel,’ she muttered sleepily.

‘Emily? It’s Ben. Can you hear me?’

‘… killing Momma… Sam… he’s killing Momma!’

Her voice faded into a sleepy nonsensical drone, and then she was silent.

‘She’s coming back to us,’ Mrs Zimmerman said, a tear trickling down a crimson-blotched cheek. ‘Thank the Lord,’ she cried quietly. ‘She’s finding her way home.’

‘I’ll thank the Lord, Mrs Zimmerman, when we make it down from these mountains and find our way home.’

‘We will, won’t we?’ she asked.

He managed a confident nod. ‘Of course we will.’

Later on, the sky broke up into a mixed chequerboard of heavy clouds and fleeting strips of blue sky that mercifully permitted the respite of the sun’s warming rays through every now and then. They made some faltering progress westward and through a treacherous rocky pass that led down into a much broader valley. Ben wondered if this was the pass Keats had been taking them towards, the pass he’d assured them was his self-discovered shortcut through the peaks — the shortcut he hoped would one day bear his name.

Keats Pass.

The snow-covered hillside sloped gently down through a continuing canopy of firs towards the distant glinting ribbon of a river that snaked gracefully along the valley floor.

Ben felt his heart lift at the sight of it. The river pointed their way out of the mountains, flowing downhill and westward, hopefully leading them towards somebody else; a trapper’s cabin, the winter stop-over of an Indian tribe, the moored resting place of a river-raft, piled high with beaver pelts… perhaps even the crudely constructed homestead of a hardy family of settlers. The river was going to lead them eventually to someone.

By midday they had shambled their way down to a flat shingle bank overlooking the surging flow of fresh water, and Ben, confident they had travelled further than they were likely to be pursued, dug away a space in the snow and set about building a fire around which the three of them now gratefully huddled.

Emily stared wide-eyed at the flickering flames dancing around the crackling wood, the thick smoke of pine needles and moist bark slowly catching. She was humming a tune to herself, a hymn.

‘Little by little, she’s coming back to us.’ Mrs Zimmerman smiled.

Ben nodded. For now, though, his mind was on the gnawing tightness in his belly. There was food to be had amongst the trees, he was sure, if only he knew how to find it, catch it and kill it.

‘I have to eat,’ he said, rocking gently to take his mind off the discomfort. ‘Preston denied our people any of the oxen after we took in those Indians. We’ve been living off packing oats and whatever they could forage for us.’

Mrs Zimmerman shook her head, ashamed. ‘I’m so sorry.’ ‘He was trying to make us leave.’ He looked at her. ‘We should have.’

The kindness of a fleeting blue sky had deserted them once more as a seamless grey blanket of cloud rolled over. They had the fire though, and enough firewood.

‘At least we won’t freeze tonight, eh?’ he said cheerfully. ‘It’ll be better than last night was for us.’

Mrs Zimmerman was about to reply when they heard the rustle of movement amongst the trees. Their eyes met.

‘You hear that?’

She nodded and Ben jumped to his feet. They heard it again. It was not the gentle rustle and dart of a startled animal they’d heard, but the steadily approaching noise of careless feet.

‘Oh please, no,’ he muttered under his breath.

There was no hiding out here on this snow-dusted frozen bank of shingle and silt. They were trapped. He looked down at the fire, and up at the twisting column of smoke, curling languidly up into the sky.

Stupid. We led Preston right to us.

Mrs Zimmerman came to the same conclusion. ‘Please!’ she called out, ‘William Preston, it’s Ellie Zimmerman here! Please don’t hurt us!’

The noise was increasing, picking up pace.

‘Mr Lambert’s been very kind, caring for us!’ she called out again. ‘He’s been very kind. Please, don’t hurt him!’

They heard the crack of a branch snapping, and briar roughly trampled beneath hasty feet — almost certainly the sound of more than one person moving through the trees towards them.

Ben pulled a branch from the fire, one end smouldering and smoking, and held it before him. Then he caught sight of some movement; a man… two men… weaving their way through coarse undergrowth in the darkness beneath the trees, stooping beneath the low, heavy branches of a squat fir tree, emerging, blinking, into the daylight.

‘Oh God…’ Ben whispered.