The Hunger(85)

When Keseberg lifted his foot to give Thomas another kick, Elitha lunged. She threw herself at him, knocking him backward and pinning him in the snow. He thrashed, trying to unseat her.

“Get off me, you stupid bitch.” He shoved her to the ground. Snow slid down her skirts and beneath her collar. The cold made her gasp. She was tired. Tired of fighting him.

“Leave us alone, just leave us alone,” she shouted. Keseberg came for her again and she closed her eyes, waiting for his fist. A strong hand grabbed her and hauled her up from the snow.

“Come on.” It was Thomas. Turning, dizzy, she saw Keseberg hanging back, doubled over as though looking for patterns in the ice. She and Thomas plunged through the snow, floundering, struggling to their feet each time. Thomas looked over his shoulder at her. His face was flushed and his breath ragged, pulling her so strongly that her shoulder burned.

“Run, run,” he kept saying. But why, she wanted to ask him. They were way out in front of Keseberg, halfway to the cabins. They didn’t have to run anymore.

Then she saw what was in his other hand: a small knife, no bigger than what you’d use at the dinner table. A fine, thin line of blood clung to the edge, and a line of blood was visible on the snow behind them, like a fine skein of red thread. Keseberg wasn’t following them. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t let them get away if he could help it.

Thomas, Thomas, she thought. What have you done?





CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN





Mary Graves watched that next morning as Mary Murphy escaped from her family’s cabin with the Eddys’ baby in her arms. Eddy and William Foster followed her tracks in the snow, but by the time they caught up to her, the teenage girl had already killed the baby and was devouring her liver. Eddy shot the girl where she stood, Foster unable to do anything to stop him.

After Mary Murphy came Eleanor Graves, Mary’s own sister, who had taken to dancing barefoot in the knee-deep snow, her toes going blue and frostbitten. When her mother tried to force her into the tent, she screamed and pulled away, bolting for the woods, her long dark hair streaming wildly behind her like a wave good-bye.

“We’re going to leave. We’re going to make a run for it,” Stanton promised Mary. He had sharpened his hunting knife and was cutting an old deer hide into strips. “We’re going to make snowshoes. It’ll be easier to get through the snow. I saw a pair in my grandfather’s house . . . I never used them but I think I remember how they were made.”

“We’re going with you. I think we’re strong enough not to slow you down,” Sarah Fosdick, Mary’s sister, said when she saw what they were doing. She sat next to Mary and began stringing strips of hide to wooden frames they’d made from the staves of empty flour barrels.

They sat together through the afternoon working on the snowshoes. Miserly slivers of sunlight fell through the cracks in the walls to illuminate their work. There were little children underfoot everywhere in the cabin since the adults were afraid to let them outdoors. Mary glanced guiltily at the children, knowing she would be leaving soon but they would not.

We’ll send help as soon as we’re able.

Sarah was sitting next to her on the floor, humming while she laced deer hide strips to a frame, but when they heard the shot, she stiffened and looked at Mary. She asked, “What could that be?”

The few remaining cows started lowing, panicked.

Stanton was the first one out the door. Franklin Graves and Jay Fosdick snatched up their rifles and were right behind him.

There was a second gunshot and a tangle of raised voices. Then a volley of shots, sounding like thunder.

The waiting was unbearable. Mary’s mother, Elizabeth, knew what it meant when Mary got restless. “Don’t go out there,” she warned. “Mr. Stanton can take care of himself.”

There was another volley of shots, a few sharp cries. Mary could wait no longer. She leapt to her feet and ran outside.

There was yelling down by the lake, coming from behind a curtain of pines and boulders. Mary started to run in the direction of the voices, slipping in the choppy snow.

Finally, she found Stanton. He had an arm around Thomas, the Indian boy. He’d been wounded—shot; his right shoulder was pinched high and he had a hand pressed to his ribs. Blood showed through his jacket, a dark spreading patch. “What happened? Will he be all right?” she asked, running up to them.

She saw her answer in Stanton’s expression. “Tell Mrs. Reed to boil some water and make bandages.” Margaret Reed wouldn’t lift a finger to help, Mary knew that. The woman hated Indians as much as her husband. She caught herself wishing Tamsen were here; Thomas would stand a better chance with her.

Amanda McCutcheon agreed to tend to Thomas. Elitha Donner had joined them by now, pale with fright. She obviously loved the boy. Amanda had Thomas strip off his clothes from the waist up, then sit on a stool. She sluiced water over the opened flesh, careful not to touch the wound herself. The cuts went deep, gaping so wide that Mary thought she could see to the rib bones. She forced herself to watch everything Amanda did, knowing it could come in handy. Any one of them could be the next to die, especially the ones nursing the sick.

“Hold this,” Amanda said, guiding Elitha’s hand to clamp the end of a bandage against Thomas’s side while she wound the rest around his torso.

People were talking outside the shelter, too low to hear. Mary left Thomas to dress and tiptoed to the entrance.