The Hunger(53)

“You—you can’t treat me like a child,” Elitha said. “I’m nearly a grown woman.”

A grown woman—Keseberg’s words echoed in her head. Elitha had no idea what a risk it was for a woman to wander away from the wagon train unescorted.

“This is serious, Elitha, and I need you to listen to me and, most importantly, to obey me—”

She broke off. Even with the children shifting around her restlessly and the wind rattling the sage, Tamsen heard something moving. She went very still, as if some inner coil inside her had been wound tight. Was she imagining it?

Her first thought was of Keseberg. Perhaps he’d followed her, thought he would scare her good. Maybe it was only that sounds carried strangely over the hollow, making it seem like something far away was right beside her.

No. There was movement all around them, as though they were being surrounded.

“Get behind me,” Tamsen ordered. “All of you.” She lifted Elitha’s lantern and adjusted the wick to increase the flame. “Who’s there? Whoever it is, you might as well head back to the wagons. I’ll not put up with any nonsense tonight.”

But the man who hobbled out from the sagebrush and rocks was not anyone she knew. She lifted the lantern higher, and the figure squinted and moved back slightly into the shadows, crouched. She blinked in the darkness. She could see that he was lean and rangy and crusted brown all over like a skeleton caked in mud or as if he’d grown an outer coating of bark. Like he was part of the wilderness.

She blinked again, as the dizziness returned. Maybe it was the headache from earlier returning, or that she’d taken too much willow bark powder to make it go away. She couldn’t be sure of what she was seeing.

“Who are you?” she demanded. The thought of the children behind her amplified her fear; her protective duty rose within her like a fire in the wind. “What do you want?”

No answer. She couldn’t quite make out his face but he stared at her with the intensity of a mountain lion, eyes glittering in the lamplight. He was definitely not an Indian. A mountain man, maybe, attracted by the activity of the wagon train. A white man who’d been in the wilderness a long time, maybe lost and on his own. His eyes had an odd, feral quality to them with no glimmer of human intelligence.

“Be calm,” she said, in a low voice, when one of the children whimpered. “It’s all right.” Could they see what she was seeing?

Then there was a second man, and a third, she could swear. The lantern was too dim to show much: only shadows, impressions, movement. A chill lifted on her neck. The way they moved was all wrong. She thought of Luke Halloran, the broken way he’d crawled and lunged. They were like wolves: They circled the way wolves did, they spoke without saying anything out loud.

Wolves separated their prey, isolated them, and picked them off, one by one.

Tamsen turned and saw Elitha, trembling, too far from the others. Isolated.

Before she could shout, one of the shadows lunged in Elitha’s direction.

Tamsen’s heart sounded a rhythm of panic in her chest, in her head, in the back of her throat. She dove toward Elitha.

Another of the shadow figures scuttled to intercept Tamsen, clawing for her throat. He opened his mouth to reveal a nest of teeth, pointed and inhuman. She swung the lantern with all her might at the man, if that was what he was. The glass chimney shattered as it made contact with his jaw. The fount cracked, throwing oil all over his face.

The children began to bolt. “Stay together!” Tamsen screamed. But it was hopeless. They scattered, children darting through the sage like rabbits, eyes wide with fright.

Within a second, the man’s head was engulfed in flames. The sound that came from him was like nothing she’d ever heard, like a renting of the world itself that briefly revealed the pit screams of hell. He clawed at his face, but that only spread the flames to his hands, then his arms. The fire devoured him as though he were made of kindling. The other two men began to scream and retreat from the one that was burning, scattering like dumb animals.

Tamsen got hold of Elitha. “Go after the children, take them to the wagons—now!” Her heart seemed trapped in her throat, choking her.

“The dead . . .” Elitha muttered, looking stunned and confused.

Tamsen shoved Elitha hard in the back. “Don’t look back, just run.”

The stench from the burning man was overpowering. He flung himself against rocks and scrub as he tried to save himself but only succeeded in setting the whole plain ablaze: sagebrush, reeds, and striplings, all of it caught.

Within seconds the men were lost, as thick billows of smoke funneled toward the sky and made her eyes burn.

She backed away, holding her apron to her mouth, coughing. She wanted to run, but she had no strength left. And she had to try to douse the flames with water from the river, or it would be too late. They would lose everything.

But the fire had taken hold. It raced along the ground, it jumped from bush to bush. Before long, it was a wall of flame in front of her, defying her. Even after dozens of others came sprinting toward her from the camp, the fire spread faster than they could work.

More people came with buckets, and some with shovels, throwing sand onto the fire. Others tried a bucket brigade from the river, tossing bucket after bucket of muddy brown water on the conflagration.

Still, the flames gained.

Samuel Shoemaker wiped his forehead and surveyed the scene. “We’re losing ground. We need to hitch up the oxen and move those wagons.” The men around him began arguing: Could they round up the oxen in time? The animals had already moved away, frightened by the flames. Maybe they could try to push or drag the heavy wagons to safety—though that seemed like a fool’s errand. Some damned the families that had remained back at their campsites, thinking the fire was no threat.