The Hunger(51)

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    LATE SEPTEMBER AND the mountains were closer still, white-fleeced and rutted with shadows. But down on the plains, it was hot. She was more grateful than usual that evening as they made camp. She had walked the entire day to spare the oxen and couldn’t wait to take off her boots, though she dreaded it, too, because the first moments of relief were always followed by an ache so deep she might never stand again.

Tamsen felt ill as she sat down on a rock and took a bit of willow bark powder to ease her pain. She knew she wouldn’t eat her dinner tonight. Over the past few weeks, she had taken to skipping meals whenever possible so there was more for the children. The two families were top-heavy with men. Nearly as many teamsters as family members, plus Betsy’s teenaged sons from her previous marriage. Men had big appetites and Tamsen was afraid the girls would be edged out. It was easier, in a way, to put her girls first. Sometimes she thought her own hunger was too much, that if she were to eat a full meal again it would kill her. The wanting of it was so bad it erased her completely—she no longer knew herself.

Sometimes she forgot to respond to her own name.

And then there was Keseberg. She was doing her best to avoid him after he did a strange thing shortly before Stanton left. He had found her in a rare moment alone, one of the few times she was away from the wagon, where George now spent most of his days, as well as from all of her children. “I know you want him gone,” he’d hissed at her, speaking not of Stanton at all but of her own husband. Somehow he had been able to tell she was tired of the tedious discontent of her marriage. “And I can make it so we’re both happy.”

She had recoiled from him—his reeking breath, his leering smile, and worst of all, the look of knowing in his eyes. “You don’t know me,” she’d replied, as calmly as possible. “You don’t know what I want. If you did, you’d know that I don’t want you.”

It was enough to send him slinking away, muttering, “This ain’t the end of it,” over his shoulder. It seemed she’d made another enemy without meaning to.

She’d been racked with nerves to find her pistol missing the next day, and further confused when Stanton accused her of conspiring against him. It was only later that she figured it out: Keseberg had meant to kill Stanton and pin his death on her, as some sort of petty vindication for her dismissal.

She had been disappointed, yet relieved, to have Stanton gone for a time. He had insinuated, even briefly, that she had made Lewis Keseberg her latest lover, which was outrageous on many counts. Keseberg revolted her, for one thing—physically, morally, in every way imaginable. But what sickened her nearly as much was the readiness with which Stanton had leapt to the conclusion. It only proved to her that Stanton couldn’t and never would understand her at all.

No, none of these men could, and it was a fact Tamsen was coming to grasp more clearly by the day; even as hunger ravaged her from within, it seemed to carve out space for her to see things plainly.

She took more of the willow bark, then closed her eyes and took a deep breath, listening to the evening routine: Samuel Shoemaker and Walt Herron unhitching the oxen and driving them to the riverbank; George and Jacob setting up the tents; Betsy getting ready to make dinner. Through it all floated her daughters’ high-pitched voices. Frances, Georgia, Eliza, Leanne—she ticked off the names in her head as she heard them speak.

She opened her eyes. Where was Elitha? She jumped up, nearly crying out at the pain in her feet, and rushed over to where the girls were playing beside the cookfire and Betsy was starting to set up the tripod. As always, they’d set up at a distance from the rest of the wagon train, far away enough to pretend the others didn’t exist, close enough for safety. The four girls were playing cat’s cradle with a bit of string, but there was no Elitha.

“Where’s your sister? Why isn’t she with you?” Tamsen demanded. She hated the worry that had wormed into her heart.

Their innocent little faces tightened suddenly. “She went to look for something,” Leanne said, cowering in anticipation of her mother’s wrath.

“You’re coming with me. We’re going together to look for Elitha, do you hear me? Hurry along now.” They had to come with her, there was no alternative. She didn’t trust anyone to keep them safe, not even Betsy. No one else understood that evil was only an arm’s length away, waiting to swoop down on them, whether animal or spirit—or man.

They swept through the camp. Anyone she asked about Elitha only shrugged or gave her a blank look. They wanted nothing to do with her and, besides, were anxious to put the long dusty day behind them.

Keseberg: She saw him from a distance, swaggering like he always did, and leering at her with a look of narrow dislike. A sudden certainty coiled in the bottom of her stomach: Keseberg knew where Elitha was. Hadn’t she caught him staring in her daughter’s direction on other occasions? And he wanted to hurt Tamsen, he’d made that clear.

“Go back to the wagons,” she told her children. “Quick, now.”

“I thought we weren’t to leave your side,” said Leanne.

“Don’t backtalk me. Just do it.” She had to push Leanne in the direction of the wagon, but still she merely ducked away under the Breens’ baseboard, hanging back with her three sisters.

Keseberg loped casually toward her, hitching up his belt, smiling with long, gray teeth. He had a colorful shawl yoked around his shoulders. She had never seen it before, but dimly it registered some association.