Donners of the Dead (10 page)

I made it into the outhouse, holding my breath so I wouldn’t breathe in the overwhelmingly foul smell, and lifted up my ice packed skirts, sitting down on the cold wood. The wind blasted at the sides of the shanty, snow blowing in through the narrow cracks in the wood and tar paper.

When I was finished, I was about to get up, eager to breathe again and return to the warmth of the cabin, when the most peculiar feeling came across me. The skin on my scalp prickled and my instincts were telling me that something was so very wrong.

I breathed in deep to get a trail, but the smell of human waste was too overpowering. I coughed into my shoulder and through my watering eyes saw a shadow pass outside of the door.

I froze, trying to keep my teeth from chattering. I strained to hear if there was someone out there, but was only picking up the tireless wind and blowing snow.

Suddenly, the outhouse shook violently, as if something was shaking it and I feared that something was beneath me, trying to crawl up and out of the sewage. My heart danced with panic even after the shaking stopped.

After a few heavy moments passed and nothing else had happened, I took a step towards the door and put my eye to a small crack and peeked out.

A pale blue eye stared right back.

I
screamed but
had nowhere to go, trapped in the worst place possible. I waited with my breath in my throat, trying to figure out my next steps. I couldn’t stay in here—the outhouse walls would crumble with a single blow if the elements didn’t get me first. But to run to the safety of the cabin meant running past those blue eyes.

I decided to go for it. Waiting would kill me otherwise.

I pushed the door open into the blinding howl of white and started running down the tunnel as fast as I could. The snow beneath my feet was hard-packed and growing icier as the evening fell, and my boots slid out from under me. I pushed off of the walls and kept running, feeling like the thing was coming after me.

I ran until the cabin was almost in view.

I ran straight into a man.

I shrieked again as hard, cold hands grabbed my wrists and bent them back painfully, but my voice was lost to the wind.

I knew it was Hank just from the way he was holding on and from the bitter way he smelled. I raised my face to his and saw those grey eyes glaring down at me, the poisonous sneer of his lips, those raised, snaking scars.

“Why you running?” he growled at me, a small bit of spittle coming out of his lips and freezing in his long mustache. His face was so close I had to turn mine to the side.

I eyed him wildly. “There was someone…I saw the man again.”

His grip on my wrists grew tighter and he quickly yanked me toward the outhouse.

“No!” I cried out, trying to get out of his grasp. “I’m not going back there.”

He pushed me hard against the wall of snow, my back sinking into it, the ribbons of my bonnet coming loose. “You take me back there and tell me what you saw. You tell me everything or else.”

“Or else what?” I somehow found the nerve to say.

He pressed hard up against me, the smell of alcohol clouding the cold air. This was far more dangerous than Uncle Pat. I could handle getting smacked around. I couldn’t handle anything more than that. I couldn’t even think about it.

He let go of one of my hands and put his fingers along my cheek. His eyes looked dull, empty as they stared into mine. “I knew an Injun girl just like you once. She wasn’t as pretty as you, didn’t have these lips,” he said as his stiff fingers came to my mouth, “or such a svelte…form. I fucked her several times.” I gasped at his language, and he continued, a weird glaze coming over his eyes. “She didn’t want it but I had her screaming all the same. Screamed even more when I took my knife and scalped her at the end. She was right ugly then. Served her right for being what she was.”

I couldn’t breathe. He brought his face closer. “I need to know what is out there. You keep seeing it and no one else does. You should be my bait. I’ll let it just have a chunk of you before I spring the trap.” I tried to move my face away from his lips but he grabbed my chin and held it, pressing his fingers into my jaw. “Or else you’ll be just as well off as the other Injun girl.”

The fear was so real that I couldn’t even feel the cold anymore. I was just this empty black hole where panic was born.

The sound of a gun being cocked cut through the wind.

“I think it’s time you step away from
this
Injun girl,” came Jake’s voice, hard as steel.

Hank let go of my face and stepped back, stumbling slightly. Jake rounded the corner, his revolver aimed straight at Hank, his dark eyes staring him down the barrel.

“What do you want, Jake? We were just talking.” He glared, wiping the snow out of his eyes.

“I can see that,” Jake answered. “But perhaps this isn’t the right place for it.”

“Put your gun down, McGraw.”

He answered with a stony nod. “I’ll put it down when you walk back to the cabin and get out of my damn sight.”

Hank staggered toward him, an ugly, twisted smile stretching across his face, and stopped a foot away. Jake towered over him, a commanding presence of muscle and mass, making Hank look like nothing more than an angry little boy. And yet I was more afraid of him than ever.

Hank suddenly grabbed the barrel of the gun and held it steady in front of his own face, grinning into it. I sucked in my breath, expecting Jake to just shoot him right there.

“Here’s your chance to kill me now, just like you’ve been wanting,” Hank said. “You’ve always wanted the excuse to get rid of me. Now would be the time. You could get away with it too. Say you were defending the honor of this Injun whore.” He looked in my direction and spat at the ground between us. “Though no one would believe that. She has no honor, and everyone knows you hate the savages more than I do.”

Jake cocked his head. “I never said I wanted you dead, O’Doyle. I just always wanted you gone.” He took the gun off his face and whispered closely, “Now, go.”

They stared at each other for a few long seconds before Hank stumbled off toward the cabin. “Don’t let your guard down, McGraw,” he yelled back at him. “Not around me. And especially not around her.”

Jake tugged at the end of his hat, snow spilling off the brim, and stuck his revolver back in the holster. He stuck his thumbs through the loops, squared his shoulders, and looked at me. “You all right there, Pine Nut?”

I straightened up and brushed the snow off my back. “I’m fine. I’m surprised you even bothered coming after me, since I’m one of those savages you despise.”

He raised his brow. “And this is the thanks I get for saving your ass.”

“I didn’t need saving.” I swallowed hard and tightened the bonnet strings under my chin.

A darkening cloud came across Jake’s eyes. He walked over to me and put his large, strong hand on my shoulder, his jaw setting in a firm line. “Believe me, darlin’, you did need saving. And I don’t think it’s proper for me to tell you exactly what you needed saving from. You should never, ever underestimate that man.”

I was finally able to look away from the intensity in his eyes and focused on the hand on my shoulder. He abruptly lifted it as if I were burning him. The air between us felt heady and vibrant.

I ignored it and looked in the direction of the outhouse which was now barely visible in the fading light. “I saw it again, you know.”

He frowned, folding his arms across his broad chest. “Saw what?”

I lowered my voice. “It. The pale man. I…I heard him outside of the outhouse and saw a shadow. When I looked through the crack, I saw a blue eye looking back at me.” I felt foolish even saying it since the evidence wasn’t around anymore. I could have even imagined it.

“Blue eye,” he repeated. “Couldn’t have been Avery. Couldn’t have been anyone. They were all back at the cabin. I left as soon as I saw Hank step outside.” I had to admit to myself, I was strangely touched that he was being protective of me, even though I couldn’t quite figure out why.

“So you ran?” he continued.

I nodded. “Then I ran into Hank. He wanted me to…show him, I guess. He said something about using me as bait.” I took in a steadying breath. “I just don’t understand why he and Isaac care so much about this thing now…it’s as if their focus shifted from finding George Clark to hunting it down.” Funny how I could never quite decide on whether to call it a thing or a person.

Jake sighed and stared down at his boots, pressing a hand on the back of his neck. “You’re right about that. I just had this discussion with Tim when we checked on the horses earlier.”

“And?”

His eyes flitted up to mine. “And Isaac Clark has always been obsessive. I suppose he’s switching from one obsession to another.”

“No,” I said. “That doesn’t make sense. This whole trip doesn’t make sense. Why hire me as a tracker to find someone that’s most likely dead? Does he really believe that his uncle is alive out here?”

“No. I reckon he doesn’t.”

“Then why are we here?” I watched his face carefully and saw him flinch. “Do you know?”

“No,” he said thickly.

I frowned, wishing I had more light to study him in. “Would you lie to me?”

“Pine Nut, I don’t know you well enough to lie to you,” he said. He then looked up at the sky. “We should get you back inside. The storm is letting up but you look right cold.”

He was right. The flakes were falling more slowly and the wind was down to a rustle. Of course the mere mention of it being cold and I started to shake and shiver uncontrollably.

He stared at me for a moment, his rugged face looking torn, before he quickly put his arm around me and led me toward the cabin. There was something so wonderfully solid about the gesture, the feeling of him behind me, that it made me momentarily forget who this was. He may have just “saved” me, but it was still Indian-hating Jake McGraw, and we mixed about as well as oil and vinegar.

Just as we got under the slight overhang and he pulled away, putting his hand on the door knob, I reached out and grabbed the sleeve of his coat. He looked down at me expectantly.

“Should we tell the others what I saw?” I asked quietly.

He took off his hat and shook the snow off of it. His hair was messy, giving me a weird urge to run my hands through it. The thought was surprising and I tried to push it out of my head.

“Guess it depends if Hank’s been shooting his mouth off about it,” he mused. “If he hasn’t, let’s just keep it between you and me for now. Avery, Donna, Meeks…they don’t need the worry. And neither do you. Tim and I will take turns on watch tonight, just in case. You’ll be safe.”

And I believed him.

Once I got inside, it took most of the night to get some feeling back into my limbs. The cold really seized hold of me and could scarcely let go, even when I was practically sitting on top of the fire. Avery was giving me an odd feeling too; he kept looking between Jake and me as if there was something more to the story or something between us. I really wanted to tell Avery about what had happened, but I couldn’t risk it in the cabin with everyone around us, especially since Hank seemed to have kept his mouth shut and passed out on the middle of the floor.

Eventually, when everyone went to sleep, I finally grew warm. The last thing I saw before I closed my eyes was Jake sitting by the door, his rifle in his hand, staring out into space. I was warm, and for that night, I was safe.

*

The next morning
felt like Christmas. The snow had stopped completely overnight and the temperatures were rising back to normal levels. Though it was a challenge for the men to dig us out of the cabin and get the horses up on firmly packed snow, they were able to do it and soon all of us were setting out on our way further west. Five days in a cabin with these people was far too long of a time.

As before, I was right behind Jake and in front of Tim, and Tim was back to telling me stories that sounded too unbelievable to be true. It didn’t matter though. I was so happy to be out of that cabin, to have fresh, mild air in my lungs and sun at my back. Even Sadie was rambunctious, all that pent up energy from being cooped up in the shanty. She was a little thinner than before, with not much feed to go around while the snows had fallen, but I knew she’d pull through. She was tough, just as my father had raised her to be.

As we climbed further into the mountains trying to reach our final destination, Donner Lake, my thoughts kept going back to my father. I wondered if he would know what it was out there. If it really was a rabid man or something else. My father and his people believed in a great deal of creatures and spirits most white folk would scoff at. I wondered if this was something he would recognize, if it had a name. Or if it was an infected mountain man gone mad.

The Diggers we had met, they seemed to know what it was and that it was out there, waiting for us. I felt like kicking myself for not understanding what they were trying to say. At the time, the words they’d strung together made no sense but now that I’d seen it, it was obvious: “Snow,” “Man,” “Animal,” and “Eat.”