The Hunger(67)

Harriet Pike, William’s wife, broke through the cluster of onlookers a split second before her mother, Lavinah. Both women dropped to their knees beside the dead man, Harriet shaking him by the front of his shirt, as though that might bring him back to life. “William! What have you done?” she screamed, her voice painfully raw, as though she’d drunk lye.

Lavinah wrapped her arms around Harriet to calm her, but she was still shaking. “Their boy is missing,” Lavinah said to George, her hands clutched tight to Harriet’s arms. Harriet was wailing so loud it was hard to hear her mother speak. “William woke in the middle of the night to find him gone. He got it in his head that your wife was responsible.” She glanced at Tamsen. “We begged him to come to his senses, but he would not be persuaded. When he left, we thought it was to look for the boy. We had no idea he would come here.”

“There’s a child missing . . .” George repeated, seemingly coming out of a stupor.

“Henry, my grandson. He’s only one year old,” Lavinah said, fighting tears.

“I found this.” Harriet withdrew something from her pocket and held it out in her flat palm for all to see. Tamsen recognized it right away; it was one of the charms she’d given her children to carry for protection. A good-luck charm. It seemed ridiculous that a primitive and harmless trinket could cause such fear and suspicion. Besides, its presence didn’t prove her guilt; it easily could’ve fallen out of the pocket of one of her daughters, but Tamsen didn’t dare say so, knowing it could implicate the girls instead.

“Do you deny this is yours?” Harriet thrust the talisman in Tamsen’s direction.

Tamsen remained silent. To speak would be just as damning.

To her surprise, though, Mary Graves pushed her way through the crowd that had gathered, an indignant look on her face. “Why, that’s ridiculous. How is that proof that Mrs. Donner had anything to do with your child’s disappearance? Anyone could’ve put it there. Someone who didn’t like her, for instance.” Tamsen saw how Peggy Breen and Eleanor Eddy shrank back at Mary Graves’s suggestion.

“That’s enough out of you.” Franklin Graves was suddenly at his daughter’s side, the brute giving her a rough jerk to silence her.

But Charles Stanton, tall and strong and determined, put an arm on Mary to steady her. Tamsen felt a violent pang at the sight of him. He was clearly smitten with Mary. She had lost him entirely to the girl now, and though she’d given up on him for herself, the realization still stung.

“With respect, Mr. Graves,” Stanton said, “you shouldn’t speak to your daughter like that. She’s talking sense—more sense than anyone else I’ve heard tonight.”

Franklin Graves glared at him with real hatred in his eyes. “Why, you’ve got a nerve talking to me like that. I ought—”

But before the argument could escalate further, Graves was cut off by George, who stepped in front of Tamsen, sheltering her with his broad body. “Now listen to me, everyone . . . You’re wrong, Mrs. Pike. My wife has been with me all night in our tent, I can assure you. She couldn’t have left that item at your campsite. You have my word on it. We need to turn our focus toward finding the boy.”

“Not you,” Franklin Graves said. “You’ll be doing no such thing. We got rid of Reed when the power had gone too far to his head, and now looks like you’re the next. Can’t have murderers among us and I don’t care the reason.”

George swelled like a tom turkey puffing out its chest. Tamsen had seen that look before when he was ready to reprimand a servant or take the foolish preacher back in Springfield to task. “What utter nonsense!” His voice rose over their heads, sounding more confident than he had in months. “I will not waste my breath defending Tamsen—I have already done so on too many occasions. As for William Pike . . .” George paused, standing over the man’s body, where his wife still wept. He swallowed hard, then looked around at the gathered crowd. “Pike was a good man. But he was acting out of fear. This is what happens when we give in to our fears. I do repent for it, but I will never apologize for protecting my wife.”

Charles Stanton stepped forward. “There is a child missing and we can’t go on shouting and deliberating until he is found.”

But as if in direct response, everyone began talking at once: Peggy Breen sputtering, Patrick Breen rushing to his wife’s defense, Jacob Donner wedging himself between the Breens and his brother, Harriet Pike still wailing over her husband’s prone body. Finally, Franklin Graves broke through the cacophony once more. He wagged a finger at George Donner. “Enough! I daresay I speak for everyone when I say I’m done with you . . . you Donners, with your money and your arrogance, and now this! Going around thinking you’re better than everyone else—and another man dead! Who’ll be next, I ask you?” The crowd had gone quiet, listening to Graves, and a tremor of fear moved through Tamsen. “I’ve had enough! From now on, you keep to yourselves if you know what’s good for you.” He cut a line with his arm in the air as though severing all connection with them.

For a moment, George Donner seemed horror-struck, the color drained from his face, as he realized what this meant, what Tamsen had already realized. The Donners would be pariahs to the rest of the wagon train—would be left to fend for themselves just as Reed had—and it was all Tamsen’s fault. But he recovered quickly, gathering his wife protectively under one arm. “As you say—so be it,” he said as he turned his back on the crowd.