October Skies (38 page)

He suspected they would still have a man or two on watch at night, but with visibility down to little more than the stretch of an arm amidst the swirling flurry, it would be for no more reason than to guard the appropriated meat.

She’s up ahead. Not far.

Ben was familiar enough with the lie of the land, perhaps more so than any other person camped here, having made plenty of visits across this no-man’s-land to care for Preston and Emily.

The first of their shelters lay ahead of him, a hummock of snow, the entrance marked only by a corner of tarpaulin flapping noisily like a pennant. Beyond it, another and another - all looking like identical mole hills.

If she can talk . . . tell them whom she saw . . . who killed her mother and Sam . . . ?

Ben wondered if that would be enough, though. He had no idea, for sure, how tightly they were holding on to the idea that Preston might be some prophet - that only by his side lay salvation and the way out of this wilderness.

I can tell them about the laudanum, the fevered confession, Dorothy coming to me.

Even as he considered that, he knew the odds were against him, especially if there had already been suspicions voiced that he might have been responsible for killing the Dreytons.

The thought filled him with an intense anger and revulsion. There had been nothing inappropriate in his friendship with Sam. He had merely seen himself in the boy; a younger version of himself, a curious young mind questioning the world, yet being suffocated inside Preston’s bizarre religious strictures.

Even if he could not get Emily to talk, he resolved to take her away from these people. Perhaps if he took her with him tonight, and Preston arrived on their side with a posse in the morning to reclaim her, he could quietly do a deal with the man. It would be one less mouth for his people to feed, and should she begin to talk about what she had seen . . . better for him, maybe, that she be talking to outsiders instead of to his loyal flock?

Crouching low in the snow, his poncho fluttering around him, he looked from one shelter to the next, watching for any signs of movement. He could see no one. Ahead of him lay the hump he recognised as the Dreytons’ shelter. He took several quick, loping strides towards it, kneeling down and preparing to lift aside the canvas flap.

He hoped to find only Mrs Zimmerman inside. The woman had seemed just about the only one of these people he could reason with. Perhaps she’d come with him too.

‘I thought you’d return,’ a voice hissed over the rumple of wind.

Ben turned to see the broad and stout outline of a man.

‘Who’s that?’ he whispered.

‘You know who,’ said Vander, leaning forward. He held a long-bladed knife in one hand. ‘And you have no business here.’

Ben stood up. ‘I thought I should look in on Emily.’

‘William told you, all of you, that you are to stay to your side.’

‘I know. But listen.’ Perhaps I can make him see. ‘She must know who killed her family. We have to try to bring her out of this shock.’

Vander didn’t immediately respond and Ben allowed himself to hope the short Dutchman was considering that seriously.

‘She’s witnessed the face of God’s rage, Lambert. You think anyone can come back from seeing that? Her mind is completely gone.’

Ben shook his head. ‘She’s in shock.’

Vander stepped forward, his knife held in front of him. ‘I see the Devil in you, Lambert. You should leave now, before someone guts you like a pig.’

‘It’s Preston, isn’t it?’ Ben blurted.

‘What?’

‘It’s Preston who killed them. He did it to convince you all that—’

Vander reached out and grabbed him angrily. ‘God’s rage will be visited on you next,’ he spat, ‘if you say that again. And if not God’s, then mine.’

He pushed Ben away. ‘Back to your side . . . and keep your sick poison over there. You have Indian boys to befriend now.’

‘Vander, listen to me. This will end in all of us dying, unless Emily talks to us and tells us what she saw. I think Preston has gone insane.’

The man reached out with frightening speed, grabbed the gathered layers of clothing around Ben’s neck and pulled him forward. He could feel the tip of Vander’s knife pressed into one ear.

‘I could push this in and kill you, just like that.’

Ben felt his bladder loosen. A warm trickle that quickly cooled.

‘I could cut the tongue from your mouth, Lambert. But . . .’ He smiled. ‘I’d much rather watch you starve with the others.’

He pushed Ben away.

‘The storm is coming and it’ll wash you away like so much shit.’

Ben took a step back.

‘Go!’ Vander hissed.

Ben turned and headed back to his side of the camp, wondering if Vander would run along and tell Preston of this incursion. He could imagine Preston marching over in the morning, accompanied by an armed guard, to make some punitive example of him. There would undoubtedly be a stand-off once more. He wondered if it would go beyond that and turn into a bloody massacre.

He cursed his bad luck at being discovered by Vander, and wondered if he’d made things worse by attempting to sneak across under the cover of night and the gusting wind.

There’ll be consequences tomorrow.

Ben decided he was going to sleep with his gun loaded and right beside him tonight, if he slept at all.

 

Vander waited outside the shelter until he was sure the Englishman had gone. Then he stooped down, pushed the fluttering canvas flap aside and entered the muted warmth of Emily’s shelter.

Mrs Zimmerman stirred. ‘What was that? I heard whispers outside.’

‘It was nothing,’ he said, pulling the flap down and weighting the bottom of it with a log. He knelt down beside the huddled form of the girl. ‘You can go now. I’ll mind her.’

She looked at him. ‘Emily has not eaten again today. I keep trying her with broth.’

Vander shook his head. ‘She is already dead. Her body just hasn’t learned of that yet.’ He shuffled to one side to allow Mrs Zimmerman to squeeze past. ‘Go on and be with your husband tonight. I’ll watch over her.’

She nodded obediently and manoeuvred passed him. Then she stopped, an expression of concern on her face. ‘You’re not planning to—?’

‘Planning to what?’

Mrs Zimmerman swallowed nervously. ‘She’ll be all right come morning? Won’t she?’

‘That’s up to the Lord now, isn’t it?’

She studied him uncertainly.

‘Go now,’ he said, ‘she will be fine.’

She nodded and then, after affectionately stroking Emily’s still face one last time, she left the shelter, securing the flap behind her.

Vander sat perfectly still for a while, listening to the sound of the moaning wind, waiting to be sure Mrs Zimmerman had gone. He looked at the sleeping girl. Awake, her small oval face was just as expressionless, those eyes of hers locked into an unmoving gaze that never broke or wandered.

‘Well, Emily? What did those eyes of yours see? Hmm? Enough that tongues may start wagging.’

Her breathing remained regular and quiet.

There’s no longer a human soul there, he decided, looking down at her pallid skin and along the length of her huddled form, covered by several thick blankets.

You’re just an empty shell now, aren’t you, Emily? Something that looks like a little girl, but no longer is.

A guilty, tickling urge stirred inside him, an urge he had promised himself not to allow out again. A promise he had also made to Preston, some years back - not to play with the children in that way any more.

He lay down beside her so that his face was only inches away from hers. He could feel her short breath on his cheeks at regular intervals.

‘Emily Dreyton?’ he whispered.

Her sleep remained deep and undisturbed.

‘Uncle Eric is here,’ he said softly.

There’s no harm in this. Just once more, before I smother her.

Preston knew about the particular . . . interest . . . he had in the children; both Eric and the late Saul Hearst shared different preferences of that same interest. Preston knew what went on, on rare occasions, and disapproved. It wasn’t spoken of, provided they both kept their playing with the children discreet and out of his sight.

He looked down at her and knew she was going to be dead very soon. Preston would be none the wiser if he took his pleasure with her first.

He reached out and grasped the edge of the thick blankets, slowly pulling them down to reveal her pale woollen dress.

There’s no harm. I’m just playing, is all.

He pushed the blankets down to her booted feet, and then his trembling, excited hand wandered back up to the top-most button of her dress, just beneath her chin, and was working it open when he felt a chilled draught that sent the oil lamp beside her head guttering and spitting.

It went out.

‘Who is that?’ Vander snarled angrily, quickly withdrawing his hand.

There was no answer. It was probably Mrs Zimmerman, he decided, having forgotten something. He reached for the box of matches beside the glowing wick of the lamp and shuddered from the chill as he fumbled for a match.

‘You’ve let too much cold in,’ he snapped irritably as he struck the match. It flared brightly for a second, throwing the snug shelter into sharp relief. He turned to scowl towards Mrs Zimmerman, only to find himself staring at two dark holes for eyes.

The match flickered out.

 

Ben heard the very first scream from the other camp only a short while after he’d noticed the grey light of dawn stealing into the womb-like shelter. The scream was shrill and feminine and followed shortly after by the cry of several children.

He grabbed his gun, already carefully loaded and ready to fire - something he’d done quietly last night whilst the other two slept. His head throbbed from weariness, not certain whether he’d actually managed any sleep last night or not, since climbing back inside after his encounter with Vander.

Another piercing scream shook away the last of the fatigue. He wrapped his poncho around his head and shoulders and struggled to push the snow away from his opening, like some small rodent emerging from its burrow.

Clambering to his feet outside, he noticed the wrapped-up heads of several others emerging, pushing aside drifts of fresh snow as the screaming continued. The six Paiute had already climbed out of the shelter they had made, their blades drawn. Keats squeezed out of the shelter and joined them.

‘What the hell’s goin’ on?’ he muttered irritably.

‘Coming from their side,’ replied Ben.

Ben took a step up a drift of snow, gaining just a few inches’ height as it squeaked and compacted beneath him. He craned his neck to look towards where the screaming was coming from. There was plenty of activity on the other side; a milling crowd of men, woman and children, agitated, pacing, praying.

‘Something’s happened over there,’ uttered Ben.

Keats called out to Broken Wing. The Shoshone nodded. He turned around to look for the others - McIntyre, Weyland, Hussein, Bowen. ‘All of you, come with me and bring your guns,’ Keats barked loudly.

They converged as they rounded the smooth nodules of white that marked the oxen boneyard below, then spread out warily as they drew closer, guns cocked and ready, but, under Keats’s instruction, barrels aimed downward.

Ben could hear no more screaming as they drew nearer. Instead there was a keening moan from several women, rocking back and forth on their knees, and amongst the others the frantic, whispered rattle of prayer. Above them, he had noticed from the far side of the clearing, was what he presumed was a shank of meat, suspended from a tree to keep it from scavenging animals.

Keats led them forward, stepping through them. ‘What’s goin’ on?’ he barked out loud. None of them seemed to notice Keats or the others, their attention directed towards the carcass dangling above them.

As they drew closer, Ben’s eyes made sense of the gently swinging object.

‘Oh my God,’ he whispered.

He recognised the man, despite some disfiguration of the face and dried blood caked around his mouth - it was Eric Vander. His naked body suspended from a noose strung up to the overhanging bare branch of a large dogwood tree. The body swung with the creak of the rope, twenty feet off the ground. A blade had worked on his bowels and, beneath the tangled string of intestinal cord that dangled down from his gut, almost to the ground, lay a small pool of blood and offal, frozen solid during the night.

‘Oh, God, help us,’ muttered McIntyre, his voice muffled through the woollen scarf wrapped around his head.

Ben could see a blade had also been at work on the man’s groin. His genitals had been removed. Looking up at Vander’s face, he realised where they’d been placed.