The Hunger(50)

“Savages,” Keseberg said. “What am I always saying? They’re all savages.”

Reed had no love for the Indians, per se, but he hated Keseberg and his ignorance more.

Still, at the moment he was most bothered by the corpses, more than he could say. It didn’t make any sense. He had heard how the Indians cared for their dead during the Black Hawk War from one of the scouts.

“Something must have happened,” he said. Under the blazing sun, the blackened faces appeared to grin horribly. “I never heard of a tribe burning bodies like this.”

“Maybe they were sick,” Franklin Graves said. “Had some kind of disease and didn’t want it to spread.”

Disease. The word lingered in the air like a hiss. The group stared at the scaffolds in silence. He knew they were all thinking of Luke Halloran. Had he gotten some kind of disease—the same one that might have struck these two Indians?

“What are these?” It wasn’t until Mary Graves spoke up that anyone realized she had arrived behind them. Elitha Donner, too. Reed had heard she was plucky. Reed thought, however, there might have been something wrong with her; he sometimes saw her walking by herself, murmuring, seeming to argue with the air.

Franklin Graves’s face darkened with anger. “Go on,” he told his daughter. “Get back. This is no sight for a woman.”

But she sidestepped him when he looked as if he might grab her. Reed had to credit her: The girl had spirit.

“There are carvings here,” she said, and brought her hand to the bark of a nearby tree. There were squares within squares, slashes that looked like lightning bolts. Stick figures of men but with strange, heavy heads. “Perhaps there’s a story here as well.”

“It isn’t a story.” Thomas, the boy from Fort Bridger, spoke up. Reed had almost forgotten him. He was always hiding under one of George Donner’s wagons in the evenings, and who knew where he got to during the day. He’d been no help at all during the desert crossing; Reed had half expected that he would run off, as he had done with Bryant.

“These are charms against bad spirits.” Thomas spoke as though he were surrendering each word against his will. “Protection from the hungry ones.”

“For the dead?” Breen moved a hand almost unconsciously to his rifle. “Hell, why do the dead need protection?”

Reed thought back to what Hastings had said when they’d found him cowering in the wagon. Something’s out there eating every living thing.

“So is it spirits that been clearing out all the game from the woods, is that the idea?” Snyder asked. Thomas looked away. A muscle twitched in his jaw.

To Reed’s shock, it was Elitha Donner who answered. “They don’t just eat animals,” she said, in a soft singsong. Her eyes were clear and blue and troubled. “They eat men.”

Reed felt a current of unease travel across his skin. “You’ve been filling her head with tall tales,” he said to Thomas.

“He’s trying to help us,” Elitha barked back, spinning away from Reed. “He’s been trying to help us all along but you won’t listen to him.”

Snyder leaned over Elitha, sneering at her. “You don’t understand, girl—he’s not one of us. He ain’t trying to help you, he’s just trying to get under your skirts.”

“They burned the bodies so the hungry ones wouldn’t get them.” Thomas’s voice was even, but he was obviously struggling to maintain control. He pointed to the basin opening before them and to the mountain in the distance. “We’ve entered the place where the evil spirits live.” He tapped the trunk of one of the trees, pointing to the symbols carved into the bark, then gestured to the bodies. “You may not want to believe me, but the proof is right before your eyes.”

“Proof?” Patrick Breen rolled his eyes. “I don’t see no proof, just a lot of ignorant heathen nonsense. I trust in the Lord—you hear that, boy, the Lord—to guide and protect me.”

At that, the young man stepped back from the crowd, arms raised in surrender. He shook his head slowly as he backed away, a sad smile creeping across his face. “Then the Lord must be mightily displeased with you, because he has led you into the valley of death. Make peace with your Lord before it is too late, because the hungry ones are coming for you.”





CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO





Tamsen felt herself changing, hardening. They’d left the great white desert only to descend into an endless sagebrush plain of the Great Basin. The sun had eaten away at her beauty, ruined her skin and her hair, melted away her graceful curves, leaving her bony and sinewy. Beauty had been her armor. Without it, she’d grown afraid.

Why hadn’t she gotten George to take some of the Nystrom boy’s hair, the boy killed at the beginning of their journey? That would’ve made powerful talismans to protect her children, but she’d been afraid of anyone finding out. She worked secretly because even George didn’t like her dabbling in what he called “heathen practices.” Now there was nothing she could do to help her children, and she was taken aback by her own dread for their well-being. She’d never thought of herself as maternal, exactly, but maybe she’d been wrong.

Perhaps she’d been wrong about everything.