The Hunger(47)



But Tamsen just shook her head. “I never told anyone.”

“Forgive me if I don’t take your word for it.” He gathered up the reins, ready to swing into the saddle, but Tamsen touched his arm for his attention, as quickly as though she were touching a hot iron.

“I’m sorry, Charles,” she said, in a low voice. “Listen to me, won’t you? I am not as bad as you may think.”

He squinted and turned away. The mountains that had looked like distant hieroglyphs, ragged tears in the sleek shell of blue sky, now seemed far closer. He could make out snow-capped peaks, valleys already frozen over with ice that never melted. He had to hurry.

“No,” he said finally, though he still wouldn’t look at her. He thought of Lewis Keseberg’s hot, whiskey-laden breath, and the reckless way he’d dived after Stanton, almost like an animal. There was no way Tamsen would allow a man like him into her bed, or even, he hoped, conspire with him at all. He let out a sigh. “I suppose you are not.” He knew Tamsen was much like the revolver itself—powerful, deadly even, but only when put in the wrong hands.

He glanced down at his own, then gripped the reins, mounted, and spurred his horse into a gallop.





CHAPTER TWENTY




Indian Territory


My dearest Margie,

I am lost. For how many days, I can no longer say with confidence. I write to you as a diversion, to lift my spirits. I don’t know if I will come across another human being, someone who will send this letter on its way to you. If I don’t, I’ll leave it by a river or other place where it stands a chance of being found.

My food is gone. There is no game to be had. I’m only able to survive because of what I learned from Miwok Indians I met years ago, “diggers” forced to forage for their survival. I have been experimenting with anything that looked edible, even bitter acorns and weeds, but because of the drought even these are in short supply. I might’ve killed and eaten my horse if I thought I could get out of the wilderness on foot. I may still be forced to, if things don’t get better soon, though the thought fills me with revulsion.

In this near-delirious state, I recently stumbled on the remains of what looked to be a camp. There was a clearing with a ring of stones laid around an old fire pit. Due to time and weather a single rough lean-to of unstripped logs was falling apart, its roof collapsed. I shifted through the dirt around the fire pit and found things that made me think white men had been here, a group of prospectors, most likely: a tin coffee cup, a half-decayed book of psalms with many of the pages torn out (no doubt for kindling), a few silver coins, two empty bottles that could only have contained whiskey. Among these few items, however, there were many, many fragments of bone. There must have been game here not long ago, I thought, though there was none now.

The bones were curious, however: too big to be rabbit, the wrong shape to be deer. I blame my confusion on a delirium brought on by starvation, or maybe it was just that I somehow anticipated the truth, a truth too horrible to contemplate outright.

It wasn’t until I went into the lean-to that I realized something gruesome had happened here. There were human skulls scattered about the floor of the hut. They’d been cracked open, each one of them, as though bashed in with rocks. The long bones I found there were unmistakably human, with their thinner cortical walls. The heads of the major bones—the ones found at the joints, hips and shoulder and so on—were not intact, which they would be if the body had been torn or fallen apart, but showed distinct signs of cleaving. Indeed, there was a rusty hatchet nearby; there could be no question of how these people had met their end.

I staggered outside, dizzy from horror. Whose camp was this? Bridger and Vasquez had told me of vanished prospectors several years back, and this had to be it. I found prospecting tools, pickaxes and shovels, moldering under some bushes.

I struggled to recall how many men Bridger had said were in that party. What could have happened to them? Who had killed them? Was it the Anawai? None of the evidence pointed to them, though none pointed away from them, either. The cause was just as likely to have been a disagreement among the group that got out of control. An insane stranger stumbling out of the woods. A pack of outlaws, torturing them to give up a cache of gold they were sure the men were hiding. There are, I suppose, any number of reasons a group of men might have turned on one another.

Even though I am not one to spook easily, I knew I could not spend the night there. I rode away as quickly as my horse would take me, eager to leave it far behind.

I have been riding ever since.

Margie, seeing that this might be the end for me, it seems only fair that I should explain why I decided not to remain with you in Independence but continued west. While we had talked about it—and bless you for not trying to stop me—I didn’t give you the full truth. You asked me, before I left, why I was so fascinated with Indian folklore and I gave you the answer most people will accept, namely a curiosity about their ways, a desire to contrast their beliefs with those of Christianity and so forth. I didn’t mean to deceive you or talk down to you but was afraid that if I spoke with frankness, you might have second thoughts about marrying me and I was afraid to lose you. Here in the wilderness, I’ve had plenty of time to think about our time together, to think about you, and I see now that I should’ve told you my true motives. Forgive me for not trusting you with the truth before now.

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