The Hunger(82)

The row of skulls winked at him in the firelight. The flames danced, vibrant gold and blood red.

In his hands, Bryant turned over the haft with Keseberg’s name on it, and memories of Keseberg on the wagon trail came back to him. A series of mostly ugly encounters: Lewis shoving his still-pregnant wife back into their tent. Lewis picking a fight with James Reed. Lewis sitting outside his camp, cutting up rabbits he’d caught for dinner, his hands washed in blood, a look of concentration on his face, as Halloran’s little dog paced excitedly nearby. Bryant recalled the knife slipping in Keseberg’s damp hand, the blade catching the flesh of his palm. Blood swelling, a fat line of red. Halloran’s terrier seeing his chance and lunging at Keseberg’s hand, lapping up the rabbit meat—and Keseberg’s blood—hungrily.

A deep horror stirred within Bryant as he thought of that dog, thought of Keseberg’s mean face and presumptuous swagger. How the man had roamed among them like a form of plague himself—something disgusting, something to be feared.

The more he turned the pieces over in his mind, the more he was sure he had something. A hunger that spread from man to man. A disease, perhaps invisible at first—or invisible in some, like the girl from the Irish family who’d all gone mad and became something more like wolves than humans. They had celebrated her good fortune, believing she had survived where the others had succumbed—until the day, many years later, that she was found squatting over a neighbor’s baby, her mouth and hands smeared with blood.

A disease that turned some men into monsters. But others were able to hide their monstrosity on the inside.

Bryant sat bolt upright, bathed in sweat. The implication stared him in the face.

Keseberg’s uncle had carried the disease.

That was how the sickness got here. That was how the prospectors had all died.

Keseberg’s uncle, like the Irish girl, must have been carrying the disease in his blood, perhaps even unbeknownst to him. He had been the one to bring it to this territory a half-dozen years ago, causing an outbreak that had not only resulted in the death of the rest of his group but subsequently rocked the local tribes, amplifying some of their ancient belief systems and driving fear throughout the inhabitants of the mountains.

And if this was true, it was even possible that others in his family carried the disease . . . or some sort of trait that allowed them to survive it.

Others like Lewis Keseberg.

It might be a long shot, but if he was right, then everyone in the Donner Party—nay, everyone in the entire territory—was in jeopardy. He had to warn them.

But then he paused. He thought of what lay ahead—not for him personally, but for the future of science.

A new letter began in his head.





CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX





For two days after she regained consciousness, Virginia refused to say why she had come or what had happened at Truckee Lake. At first Elitha thought she was just being stubborn, until she realized from Virginia’s gestures and frantic signals that Virginia did not want the grown-ups to know.

Whatever had happened, she was ashamed. Even at night, alone, she would say very little. She did tell Elitha about the slaughtering of the cattle, the strange behaviors, and that fighting had broken out. How the younger ones, teenagers and children, were succumbing first. “They say it’s a sickness,” she said. Virginia’s extra-wide eyes made her look perpetually surprised. “They say Mary Murphy has got it now, too.”

“Is that why you left?” Elitha asked. “Were you afraid you were going to catch it, too?” But Virginia didn’t answer, only saying that Mr. Stanton and Mr. Eddy had gone for help but failed and Mr. Keseberg was trying to make himself the leader. But she would say nothing more, and when Elitha tried to get details from her, she only pulled the blanket up to her chin and pretended to go to sleep.

The adults debated what to do with her. “We can’t send her back, not until she heals,” Jacob said, still worried about Virginia’s mother, Margaret. “It’s not like we can send her back by herself, and we can’t spare the men from standing watch,” Betsy said. Even Elitha could see that Betsy was feeling overwhelmed with so many children and so few adults.

“If Virginia made it here by herself, the way must be reasonably passable,” Tamsen had said, sizing the girl up shrewdly. But Virginia insisted it had taken her the better part of an entire day and that she’d nearly gotten lost and it was practically a miracle that she got to Alder Creek at all.

“Don’t send me back. Please,” she begged.

Several days after her arrival, on a surprisingly clear day blowing no snow, Lewis Keseberg arrived at the camp so early that the bonfires hadn’t yet burned themselves out.

“I had a feeling she might be here,” Keseberg told Jacob and Betsy and Tamsen. They stood together outside in the chilly dawn. The damp wood smoke still hung in the air. “She worried her mama something awful. I come to fetch her back.” Mr. Keseberg was being much nicer than normal.

“And Margaret Reed sent you?” Tamsen said. Elitha could see that Tamsen wasn’t fooled.

“I come because I’m the one in charge,” he said, a little too loudly. “It’s not like she has a husband to take care of these things and keep her girl from running wild.” Virginia absorbed this blow quietly, without blinking. Everyone knew James Reed had likely frozen to death somewhere in the wilderness. “Now, come on. We need her. We’re almost through slaughtering the cattle. Even the girls got to pitch in.”