The Hunger(21)

One mistake in particular.

His wife had met Edward McGee once, when she had paid an unexpected visit to see Reed at the warehouse one day. He’d thought then that she’d heard rumors and had come downtown to see for herself. But she had never spoken a word about it to Reed, had never voiced a single suspicion. She had even shaken hands with Edward. Reed could see it still, that strange, half-mocking smile on Edward’s lips as he took Margaret’s hand in his.

But that was done. He had to put the past behind him. He had to put his fears and his guilt behind him. Had to push the idea of that teamster Snyder’s hands around his throat—or around his wrists—out of his head for good. He had to do better. Though it was irrational, impossible, some small part of him believed it was his own sin that caused the Nystrom boy to be killed—that attracted the devil to their camp in the first place.

But no. He had to keep his head about him. Everything would be different once they reached California. Reed squinted up at the sky. The sun was inching higher. Soon they would be off again.

He pulled out the list of inventory and began recounting everything. But no matter how many times he did, the truth kept coming back up. There just wasn’t enough.

Something would have to be done.





CHAPTER EIGHT




Indian Territory


Dear Charles,

I write this letter lost in the wilderness beyond Fort Bridger—perhaps from the Wasatch Mountains? I am not sure—and with no idea whether you will ever see this. After the ordeals of the past few weeks, all I know is that I must make a record of what I’ve learned. If this letter finds you, Charles, do not try to follow me. What I do, I do in the interest of science and the truth.

Right as I was leaving Fort Laramie I hired a guide, a young Paiute seventeen years of age, named Thomas. He was converted by missionaries (who gave him his Christian name) six years ago, and has been living among whites ever since. He told me that he knew of the Washoe living near Truckee Lake that I am seeking and that, because there had been a Washoe orphan living with the missionaries who’d raised him, he could communicate with them. He had heard of the Anawai, too, though he didn’t seem to like to talk about them.

You can imagine how delighted I was to secure a guide who knew the area and this tribe, and even spoke their language. Not five days out of Fort Laramie, Thomas got his first test as our small band came across a Paiute hunting party. The braves were friendly and shared a meal with us that evening around a campfire. They answered my questions about the Anawai. In fact, my interest made them quite animated. They tried to convince me not to meet with them, claiming this particular group was exceptionally dangerous.

As best I could tell from Thomas’s interpretation, the Anawai had turned away from their traditional gods and now worshipped a wolf spirit indigenous to the valley in which they lived. The Paiute claimed that the Anawai could suddenly turn quite ferocious and be filled with an unquenchable bloodlust. They ascribed all sorts of atrocities to the group, but from here the story became difficult to follow and exceeded Thomas’s ability to translate.

The fact that this strange information seemed oddly similar to Farnsworth’s story of human sacrifice made me all the more determined to press on. The rest of the group, unsurprisingly, was reluctant to proceed. You know these fellows—Newell, Anderson, the Manning brothers—big, strong men whom you’d never accuse of cowardice. I managed to convince them to continue on to Fort Bridger with me, pointing out that the wagon train would pass through there and they could always rejoin your group at that time.

After I’d calmed the others, Thomas took me aside. I could tell that he was spooked as well. He told me that he wanted to turn back. I reminded him that I was paying him for his service and that it was an all-or-nothing deal; if he wanted to see one penny from me he would need to stay until the end. He wasn’t happy, as you can imagine, and said that given the danger he wanted to be given a gun. But he’d been so skittish, I wasn’t convinced he could be trusted not to fire off at any old target—myself included. Besides, I confess I had heard too many stories of Indian guides turning on their employers, even if Thomas appeared to be a good kid, and so I refused. I pointed out that he was surrounded by men with firearms and that we’d see to his safety. Still, he was skittish until we reached Fort Bridger.

I was never so happy to see a broken-down little hole-in-the-wall like Fort Bridger in my life. As you will see, it is nothing like Fort Laramie. Jim Bridger, one of the owners, candidly told me that their fortunes had suffered when the Greenwood Cutoff became popular last year. Now, wagons bound for Oregon bypassed his fort completely. The outpost is like a ghost town.

I learned just how desperate things were the next evening as we sat around a bottle of rotgut in Bridger’s office. In a moment of drunkenness, he told us of an incident that happened six years earlier, of a group of prospectors who became lost while traveling through the area now known as the Hastings Cutoff. Some said they had starved, others said they’d been massacred by the unpredictable Anawai. Bridger had gotten to know the prospectors when they’d passed through the fort and so he set out to find them. The situation seemed hopeless; the territory was vast and their resources too few. They were just about to give up when one of the prospectors stumbled into the search party’s camp. Unfortunately, the poor soul had lost his mind after living like an animal in the woods and was unable to tell anyone what had happened to the others.