October skies

CHAPTER 82

2 November, 1856

‘My God! Keats, you’re alive!’ cried Ben. The old guide clung to the shoulder of Broken Wing as they hobbled out of the woods into the open. Ben rushed towards them, the gut-wrenching, plummeting sensation of fear he’d been experiencing a moment earlier replaced by an energetic surge of relief.

‘Oh bloody Christ!’ he yelled with a grin smeared across his face, as his feet carried him across the snow towards them. ‘I thought only the three of us had managed to esc-’

Then his eyes took in the pertinent detail. A broad strip of Keats’s long-faded, polka-dot shirt was crudely wrapped around his waist, soaked with his blood and almost as dark as ink. Keats looked up at Ben; his face, normally the rich golden tan of worn saddle leather, was now ashen.

Broken Wing helped him across to the fire, then gently laid him down. Keats groaned with the pain, holding his hands protectively against the front of his body. Several new dark blotches of crimson bloomed across the material, as beneath the wrap a large wound flexed and opened.

Ben looked up at the Shoshone, his face a question mark. Broken Wing understood and uttered a rapid burst of Ute, gesturing back at the dark apron of trees from which they’d emerged, his hands telling a story Ben couldn’t quite decipher.

Something back in there did this to Keats.

Ben needed to know more. ‘Keats, what happened?’

The old man breathed deeply, gathering his wits and what was left of his failing strength. ‘I seen it, Lambert. I seen the fuckin’ thing,’ he gasped desperately. His eyes, normally narrow flinty slits, were wide and dilated with fear. They flickered from Ben to the trees then back again.

‘Seen what?’

Keats puffed clouds and clenched his eyes shut, grimacing at the pain from his torso. Ben noticed there was even more blood coming down his left leg, soaking through the deerskin. A torn gash in the worn hide above his knee revealed a protruding tatter of bloodied skin.

Ben knelt down beside him, knowing instinctively there was not a lot his medical knowledge could do for the old man.

‘Let me have a look at this for you. The bandage needs re-wrapping. ’

Keats shook his head vigorously. ‘Leave it be!’ He held a hand out. ‘Only thing holdin’ me in one piece is this here bandage. ’ He looked down at it and grimaced. ‘You loosen that an’ everythin’ inside’ll come tumblin’ out.’

Ben suspected it was the same kind of wound he’d seen on the Paiute boy who had carried Emily into the camp. The same deep, horizontal gash that would have lacerated the organs, opened up the stomach lining and intestines, spilling digestive acids and faecal matter inside him. Even if he could completely staunch the flow of blood now, Keats was going to die painfully from the internal damage.

Looking at him now, however, it was obvious most of the dying was done.

‘What happened to you?’

Keats licked his lips, dry and chapped. ‘We heard them Mormons durin’ the early mornin’,’ he wheezed. ‘The ones followin’ after us. There was screamin’ an’ shootin’ behind… every now an’ then. Kept happenin’ through the dark hours. And we got to seein’ less an’ less of their torches. Until eventually there was none.’

Keats opened his eyes again, scanning the tree line. He panted like a winded beast, struggling with the effort of talking. ‘Me, Broken Wing and Weyland… kept movin’ uphill. Thought maybe it was others of our group… who had escaped, was fightin’ back or somethin’.’

Broken Wing squatted down and muttered something in his language, nodding towards Emily. Keats replied in the same language, falteringly, slowly.

‘What? What did he say?’

Keats shook his head, ignoring the question. ‘We was near the pass

… when it happened… when it came right out the darkness at us.’

He closed his eyes again, panting rhythmically, replaying something in his head. Ben noticed he was shaking; his leathery, tobacco-stained lips trembled. The sight of that rattled Ben. He considered Keats unflappable, his gruff, unpolished demeanour impervious to anything. And yet here he was looking frail and frightened and, all of a sudden, a very old man.

He leaned closer to him. ‘Come on, what? Tell me, what was it?’

Keats’s eyes flickered open, focused on something a thousand miles away, then his gaze drifted across to Ben’s face, the here and now. ‘I saw it with my own eyes, Lambert. Ain’t no man… ain’t that son-of-a-whore Preston did those killin’s — like you was sayin’.’ He licked his dry lips again. ‘Saw somethin’ I can’t explain.’

Broken Wing spoke a word Ben had heard the Paiute men utter sombrely amongst themselves over the last few days.

Keats nodded weakly. ‘That’s right… Goddamn right. It ain’t nothin’ natural — nothin’ that by rights should be walkin’ this world.’

Ben heard Mrs Zimmerman gasp. ‘The angel,’ she whispered, ‘come down to punish us.’

‘White-face ssspirit,’ said Broken Wing.

‘That’s what I saw, Lambert,’ gasped Keats. ‘Goddamned fuckin’ demon — no angel. Came out of the trees and took Weyland’s head clean off.’

‘What did it look like?’

‘Bones, an’ a skull… Goddamned graveyard come to life,’ he snorted with a dry scaffold smile.

Bones.

‘Fuckin’ thing moved so fast. I got me a little powder, but no shot left… might’ve put a ball in it if I had. If I got me another few-’

Ben placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘Keats, listen to me. I think it might be Preston. It has to be.’ He looked around at the others. ‘Preston in some sort of… of a disguise.’

Keats grabbed his side and cackled. ‘Ain’t… that… fuckin’ zealot fool,’ he grunted. ‘Maybe them Paiutes was right… after all.’

‘What do you mean?’

Keats smiled. ‘Mebbe… we took a little madness into the woods with us.’ Keats grunted painfully, looking down at his seeping bandage. ‘Gonna have me a one helluva fuckin’ scar to show off.’

Broken Wing spoke, and gestured with some urgency towards Emily.

‘What? What’s that you’re saying?’ he said, looking up at the Indian.

He gestured to the trees. ‘It comess. Iss come for Am-ee-lee.’

‘What?’ Ben looked to Mrs Zimmerman. ‘Why? Why would Preston want her?’

She shook her head, confused. ‘Emily is his daughter… most of the children were his.’

Broken Wing shook his head. ‘Not Presss-ton.’

‘Then it’s the angel!’ whimpered Mrs Zimmerman. ‘The angel wants us all… all of th-those that followed Preston!’

‘It’s nothing of the sort!’ snapped Ben. ‘It’s a man, that’s all! And if it isn’t Preston, then it’s someone else amongst your group, someone who’s gone mad!’

‘It come,’ uttered Broken Wing, ‘it come this way.’

‘You’ve been followed?’

Broken Wing pointed to the fire, the column of smoke. ‘It seee sssmoke.’

‘Oh God have mercy on us,’ cried Mrs Zimmerman, burying her face in her hands and sobbing.

Ben turned back to Keats, perhaps the only other person here he felt he could engage with rationally. ‘Keats, what the hell do we do?’

There was no reply. The old man was lying perfectly still.

‘Keats?’

Broken Wing knelt down and held a hand above the guide’s nose and mouth, feeling tentatively for the warmth of his breath. Ben could see by the pallor of his skin that it was too late.

The Shoshone’s expressionless eyes met Ben’s. ‘Kee-eet… isss

…’ He splayed the fingers of one hand. Instinctively, Ben comprehended the unfamiliar gesture.

Dead.

Broken Wing anxiously looked over his shoulder, back into the woods. Speaking rapidly in Ute he pointed at the fire, the rising smoke, and then gestured towards the trees. And Ben realised what he was pointing out.

The smoke will attract… him… it, to this place.

‘We go… now!’ said Broken Wing, pointing towards the riverbank as he stepped around the fire towards Mrs Zimmerman, reaching out to grab an arm to lift her off the ground.

He’s right; we must stick to the riverbank. Stay in the open.

The apron of ground between where the trees petered out and the river flowed afforded them a chance to react if it attempted to rush them.

‘Come on,’ Ben said to Mrs Zimmerman, ‘we have to go now. He’s telling us this thing’s nearby and coming for us… for Emily. We have to move. Now.’

He bent down to pick up Emily, but she seemed no longer so listless and was able to pull herself up, as if inch by inch she was returning to this world.

‘Foll-ow ri-verrr,’ said Broken Wing, pulling Mrs Zimmerman to her feet.

All of a sudden, the stillness of the woods was shattered by something moving deep within, beyond sight — something moving too quickly to concern itself with stealth.

‘Oh shit!’ he whispered.

Emily looked towards the trees, no more than fifty yards away from where they stood on the riverbank. Her pale blue eyes came alive. She seemed to be almost back in this world with them. A small hand reached out for Ben’s poncho, and tugged on it.

‘Mr Lambert,’ she said in a quiet voice, ‘there really are angels.’

Broken Wing snapped out something in Ute and pulled a knife from his hide belt. He pointed along the bank, and Ben understood it was the only way for them to run.

Ben bent down and pulled Keats’s hunting knife out of its sheath. The heavy blade felt reassuring in his grasp. He placed a hand on Keats’s still-warm face. He would have liked to have a moment to assure the old man that he had brought his journal with him, that he’d make it out of the woods, eventually back to London, and Keats’s name would end up in print, immortalised. That would have given the guide something to smile about.

‘Goodbye, Keats,’ whispered Ben.

Broken Wing, meanwhile, pulling Mrs Zimmerman along with him, began to make his way close to the water’s edge, keeping his eyes on the tree line running parallel to the river.

‘Come on, Emily,’ Ben said, grabbing her hand. ‘We have to go.’