The Hunger(25)

The man fell backward in the dirt and Stanton resisted the urge to shoot him again. Instead, he turned to Mary, who was still on the ground. “Are you okay? You weren’t hurt, were you?”

She shook her head. She was so pale he could see the tracery of veins in her cheeks. “I’ll be all right.”

There was a bright slash of red on her shoulder. “What’s that?” Stanton asked.

She touched the spot with a trembling hand. “It’s nothing. A scratch.” She lifted her chin in the man’s direction. “I was going to see what was keeping my brothers—we’d sent them for a bucket of water—when he came rushing out of the woods. The next thing I knew he had grabbed me and—” She stopped, drawing in a deep breath, and once again Stanton could see that she was trying not to cry.

“He can’t hurt you. I’ll put a bullet between his eyes if he so much as tries to get up off the ground.” Already, the man was twitching again. Not unconscious, then.

But she didn’t seem to be paying attention to him. She tried to get to her feet again. “My brothers—have you seen my brothers?”

“Take it easy. I’ll look for them just as soon as I get you back to camp.” He started to help Mary off the ground when he heard shouting. Just then, several men from the party crashed out of the woods.

“What’s going on here?” George Donner was the first to arrive, a hand clamped to his hat to keep it from blowing off his head. William Eddy and Jim Bridger were steps behind him. Bridger had leashed up a fierce-looking dog. It snarled at the blood in the dirt. “Who fired a gun?” He stopped short when he saw the man on the ground. “Dear God, what in the name of heaven . . . ?”

Bridger held the dog back with difficulty when it lunged for the stranger. Funny, Stanton thought; the old man didn’t seem surprised at the scene.

“I heard Mary scream,” Stanton said. Mary leaned heavily against him, and Stanton was all too aware of Eddy scowling. “I found this man attacking her.”

Donner looked repulsed. “His face . . .” Donner shook his head. “What’s wrong with him?”

“Take it easy now, everybody.” Bridger kept his tone friendly. He handed the dog’s lead to Eddy and crouched next to the man, binding his hands with a piece of rope. Stanton noticed that the man’s wrists were chafed nearly raw. He had sat up but didn’t resist; Stanton could tell he was frightened of Bridger’s dog, but Bridger handled him carefully nonetheless. “This here man is that prisoner I was telling you about. Must’ve got out.”

“Prisoner?” Donner obviously knew nothing of the stories Bridger had been telling his new visitors over the last couple of rainy nights. Stanton himself had only caught whispers of it. “What did he do?”

“He didn’t do anything,” Bridger said with a shrug. “Leastways not like you’re thinking. Was one of ’em prospectors got lost out in the woods a few years back now. He got a fever in his brain and went off his nut. You see the way he’s acting. We’ve been holding him for his own good, so he won’t hurt hisself.” Bridger gave Stanton a contemptuous look. “I’m doing this out of the kindness of my heart. I coulda left him to wander in the woods forever, y’know.”

“I’m sure your Christian charity is an inspiration to us all,” Stanton said, not bothering to keep the sarcasm from his voice. Whatever had chafed the man’s wrists nearly raw, it wasn’t the kindness of Jim Bridger’s heart. Why would he insist on keeping a dangerous man locked up when there were women and children around? And not for weeks or even months but for years? Stanton got a chill thinking about it—as though this monstrous prisoner had been some sort of a pet to Bridger.

Donner and Eddy offered to help Mary Graves up to the wagons. While Bridger forced his prisoner to his feet, Stanton stood, troubled for reasons he couldn’t explain, watching Mary moving clumsily between her two escorts, still troubled by the memory of her scream. When she was nearly out of sight, she looked back over her shoulder at him. Her pale gray eyes were the same color as the sky.



* * *



? ? ?

NEAR NIGHTFALL, Stanton packed his things. He was ready to leave Fort Bridger and its madmen and its secrets behind. Chaining up couldn’t come a moment too soon.

Without warning, Lewis Keseberg stuck his head inside Stanton’s tent. “Donner wants you to come with me.”

Not so long ago, Donner would have come directly had he wanted to talk. Maybe even brought a bottle of whiskey to share. Stanton wasn’t sure when things changed between them, and why.

Stanton looked up from the knife he was sharpening, whetstone in his lap. “Can it wait until tomorrow?”

“You’re going to want to come. He’s questioning an Indian boy who crawled out of the woods.” Keseberg’s rotted teeth gleamed wetly in the dark. “Said he was traveling with Edwin Bryant.”

Stanton was on his feet and outside within seconds. At the barn, a handful of men stood in a circle around a skinny dark boy, sitting on a bale of hay and draped with a dirty horse blanket. Only his head was visible, his black hair hanging in filthy tangles. This had to be the Indian guide Bryant had hired before departing from Fort Laramie. Stanton had heard of him, a Paiute orphan converted by missionaries, but hadn’t met him. He seemed far too young to be leading men through uncharted territory.