October Skies (35 page)

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.

 

‘Can I top your coffee up?’

‘Yes, please,’ she answered, eyes still locked on the laptop’s screen and the lengthy email she was tapping out.

‘Real good brew,’ the waiter added. ‘Ground the beans myself, just for you.’

Irritated at her train of thought being broken, she looked up . . . and caught her breath.

‘Here you go.’ He poured a rich dark blend into the dregs of her cup.

She figured he was three or four years younger; at a guess, still at college. Gorgeous didn’t do justice to his sculpted cheeks and warm Travolta eyes beneath a floppy fringe of dark brown hair.

‘Thank you,’ she said.

His eyes narrowed curiously. ‘You British?’

‘Yeah, well . . . uh . . . English, actually.’

He grinned. ‘God, I love that.’

Rose’s cheeks burned, caught off guard by such intimacy. ‘What? What do you . . . ?’

‘The way you guys say that: act-u-all-y. That’s just s-o-o-o British.’

‘Oh, God, that’s embarrassing,’ she muttered self-consciously. ‘I’ll remember not to use that word again.’

‘No way, I love it,’ he said. ‘You staying in town?’

She shook her head. ‘No, I’m just passing, really.’

‘Where you going?’

‘Where I’m going you probably haven’t heard of, but I’ve just been up to Portland.’

‘Cool,’ he said, ‘that’s where I go to college. Linguistics and media.’

Rose smiled and nodded, wondering what to say to that.

‘So . . . are you, like, on holiday?’

‘Um, no, not really, it’s work. I’m doing some research.’

‘Yeah? Cool,’ he said. He glanced over his shoulder quickly. ‘Look, uh, my shift manager would kick my ass if he heard me, but are you, like, in town tonight?’

She felt the colour drain from her face as she looked up at him - a lean young man with the chiselled contours of a Calvin Kline model.

What? Is he actually hitting on me?

‘Umm, I’m . . .’ She looked out at the mid-afternoon sky. It was still several hours’ drive back to Blue Valley, and whether she grabbed a motel room here, or booked back into the room she had been occupying for the last fortnight, it was still thirty-nine bucks out of the dwindling slush fund.

‘Only, I know a nice bar nearby,’ the waiter continued. ‘Nice food, nice place. Just a drink and a burger. I’m buying.’

‘I, uh, I really, I’m . . . I wasn’t . . .’ she stammered awkwardly.

Dammit, Rose, get a grip. You sound like a retard.

The young man shrugged apologetically, realising he’d caught her on the hop. ‘Sorry, there’s me diving in like that,’ he said quietly. ‘I just fell in love with that accent when you asked for a table earlier,’ he added, taking a step back with the coffee pot in his hand. ‘I finish up here at six, if you wanna go get something?’

Rose managed a composed smile. ‘I’ll think about it.’

She watched him head back to the counter, irritated with herself for being caught off balance and coming across as a gibbering idiot.

She slurped a mouthful of her coffee and sneaked a discreet glance at him.

Gorgeous though, isn’t he?

He was. But she reminded herself that she was just a frumpy plain Jane, and that after he got over the novelty accent and got his cookies, he’d be off just like every other bloke.

Back to work, girl.

There was an email that needed writing and sending ASAP. What she’d uncovered this morning was rich pickings, very rich pickings indeed.

Rose nodded, happy with that, checked her laptop was still getting a decent wi-fi link and then hit ‘send’. She knew Julian would be jumping up and down with excitement over this.

She smiled, pleased with her legwork up in Portland. It would be satisfying to show Jules she could do just as well as him at trawling for facts. Maybe he might start thinking of her as more than the technology geek in their partnership.

She looked up and caught sight of the waiter, gracefully weaving his way between some tables to deliver an order to a table of truckers. He handed out several plates of food and tossed the men some false small talk before heading back to the counter. He caught her sneaking a glance and offered her a snatched, coy smile as he rounded the counter and headed into the kitchen through swing doors.

Rose felt an uninvited tingle of excitement and a momentary stab of guilt.

Just a burger and a beer, then I’m heading off . . .

 

Snow cascaded down; giant feathery flakes that tumbled from the heavy sky above and settled with a whisper. The afternoon was almost as dim as night, the weak and lethargic sun hidden away from sight behind the surging grey blanket of cloud.

The gathering around the fire in the middle of the Keats party camp was well attended, the flames licking high, pushing out an undulating envelope of warmth that embraced the small gathering. The flickering light of the fire glinted in the eyes of everyone, intense and wide with anxiety, as they listened to the burning crack of damp wood and fir cones, and considered what needed to be discussed.

In silence they stared at the six Paiute who, in turn, warily stared back.

‘So, their leader, the older-lookin’ one’ - Keats gestured towards him - ‘is called somethin’ like Three Hawks. That’s if I was understandin’ him right.’

Mr Bowen regarded them unhappily. ‘See, ’ow do we know we can trust ’em? I got a wife and little ’uns to worry about. These ’ere bastards were going to do for us last time we ran into them.’

‘But they didn’t, though,’ said Ben, ‘did they?’

Bowen curled his lip uncertainly. ‘They’ll do us in our sleep. Take what we got and disappear, just you see.’

‘Fact is,’ said Keats, ‘they’re here because somethin’ out in those trees scared ’em into our camp, Bowen. Maybe they’re wonderin’ whether they can trust us, eh?’

Bowen said nothing.

Ben looked at Broken Wing. ‘Can you ask them whether they’ve actually seen what’s out there?’

Broken Wing asked the question. Three Hawks listened and then nodded and conferred quietly for a moment with the younger ones sitting either side of him.

‘Mr Keats, can you tell us what they’re saying?’ asked Weyland.

‘Dunno, they’re talkin’ too fast. Wait a minute . . . let ’em talk it out.’

After a few moments, it seemed some consensus was arrived at. Three Hawks turned to Broken Wing and Keats, speaking slowly and signing at the same time.

‘None of them have seen it clearly,’ Keats translated. ‘But one of them’ - he nodded towards one of the younger Paiute - ‘said he caught a glimpse of it in the woods. He was the one who found their elder, White Feather.’

Three Hawks spoke again with Broken Wing. Keats waited until they’d finished, then asked Broken Wing in Ute what the man had said.

‘He ssssay . . . demon, large . . .’ said Broken Wing, his hands gesturing around his head, ‘isss . . . like bone . . .’

‘A skull?’ offered Ben.

Broken Wing nodded. ‘Ya! Ssskull, large ssskull. And, bonesss . . .’ Broken Wing’s hands mimed protrusions all over his body. ‘Like ssspines.’

Keats spoke quickly with Broken Wing in the Shoshone dialect, scowling with disbelief before he repeated what he’d heard. ‘They said it is a giant, three men tall. Yet moving silently like a spirit.’

Ben shook his head. ‘I can’t believe he saw that.’

Keats waved a hand dismissively. ‘Hell, you’re right not to. Damned Indian folk have a habit of exaggeratin’ everythin’.’

Ben remembered reading the journals of an explorer in Africa. He had made the same observation of tribes he’d encountered. It was not that these savages were deliberately exaggerating their tales, it was simply that they didn’t have an agreed metric for measuring and comparing. Big basically meant anything bigger than the storyteller. Big could mean any size. And stories that passed from one teller to another had a habit of inflating.

Keats was listening to Broken Wing again. Then, when the man had finished, he relayed what had been said.

‘They believe it’s a white man’s devil. A devil that came into the woods with us.’ He looked across the clearing at the shifting silhouetted figures on the far side of the camp. ‘He believes it came from amongst the others.’