The Hunger(88)

“Why don’t you come with me?” The older man had just peeled off his filthy jacket to ready himself for bed and stood before his nephew in his stained shirt. He fixed those wolf-bright eyes on him. “What’s keeping you here, anyway? This lousy farm? Because it looks like another in that string of failures of yours, son.”

“Don’t call me son,” he said, stung. “This is what I want to do. This is my choice.”

His uncle shrugged. “Suit yourself, but you’re making a mistake, my boy. There’s a reason why we Kesebergs are always on the move. If you stay in one place, they will catch onto you.”

The family curse.

It’s not going to get me. Not that he could say this to his uncle; it would be like waving a red flag before a bull. “I’ll be careful.”

But the older man wouldn’t give up. “I worry about you. You haven’t spent enough time with the Keseberg men, your father away in jail, you living in the new world with no uncles, no grandfathers. You don’t know what it will be like, how the feeling comes on you so strong that you can’t say no to it. When it does, how will you take care of yourself?”

For an instant, Lewis Keseberg was eleven years old again and standing next to his father in the smokehouse. A huge carcass hung from a meat hook, swaying gently. He could still hear the drip, drip, drip of blood hitting the muddy puddle under the body, still smell the iron tang in the air. The shape of the carcass not like an animal at all, but like a human.

The surge of something like desire that moved through him so powerfully he swayed, too.

How that feeling had never fully left him since.

A shiver ran down his spine.

All Lewis wanted was to get away from Uncle Reiner, from the eyes like fire and the carrion stink of him. “I’ll be fine, Uncle. My father taught me enough. I can get by.” He could hold it down—the lust, the thirst, the hunger.

Reiner rolled on his side to face the fire. “You think you know what’s in store for you but you don’t. Go on to bed, boy. One day, you’ll see.”

No, Lewis Keseberg decided as he climbed the ladder to his sleeping loft, putting distance between him and that frightening old man. It was good, in a way, Reiner showing up like he had. There were times Lewis could feel his honorable intentions slipping away from him. There were times, nights especially, when it was hard to resist the hunger that burned in his veins, when he gripped the corners of his bed and bit his knuckles and held in a rage that wanted to devour him, or wanted him to devour the world—he wasn’t sure which. Sometimes he wanted to give up, give in to the curse. Keseberg men, we were made like this; it’s in our nature, it’s in our blood. But seeing Reiner was as good as getting hit by a bolt of lightning. Lewis didn’t want to end up like that, always on the run, untethered, alone.

Though as he lay in the dark, imagining grabbing his uncle’s neck between his hands and squeezing so hard the skin turned purple and blood dripped from his lips, Lewis knew the odds were stacked against him. That Reiner was probably right—it was only a matter of time.





DECEMBER 1846





CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE





Mary named the snowshoe party Forlorn Hope because that was what they were: the wagon party’s last hope. In the end, only eight of them set out: Mary and Stanton; her sister Sarah and her husband, Jay; Franklin Graves, though he seemed too sickly and had lost half his weight; Salvador and Luis, the two Miwoks who had accompanied Stanton from Johnson’s Ranch; and William Eddy.

The Murphys and the Breens refused to participate, which Mary found a relief. They ridiculed the idea and predicted the group would be back in a day—if they didn’t freeze to death. It was unclear if Salvador and Luis really wanted to go, their loyalty to Stanton at its limit, but they didn’t seem to want to stay behind with the men who had just killed the Paiute boy.

The ones leaving were reluctant to take much; there were so many remaining who needed to be fed. Patrick Breen and Dolan said that they should leave with nothing. They were going to die anyway, and whatever they took would go to waste.

They chose their provisions carefully. They were weak, and every ounce would matter if they needed to run. They packed an ax, some rope (tied around Eddy’s waist like a belt), and a blanket each, worn over the shoulders like a cape. Stanton and Eddy each took their rifles. Margaret Reed and Elizabeth Graves snuck them a few days’ worth of dried beef. At the last minute, Mary saw Stanton slip some extra items in his coat pockets, though she didn’t know what they were.

It wasn’t snowing the morning they left, a good sign. Elizabeth gave Mary’s father a brief kiss, the first sign of intimacy between them that Mary had seen in a long while. The loss of both William and Eleanor had been almost too much for her mother to bear.

Mary found it was harder to say good-bye to her remaining siblings. This was the first time in their entire lives they would be separated. The three younger Graves sisters and two boys hugged Mary and Sarah tightly. “Don’t cry. We’ll send help and then we’ll all be together again,” Mary said, hugging them in return. She wasn’t sure if she really believed what she was saying.

As the dawn broke over the horizon, bright pink with a fine edge of blue, they started toward the mountains.





CHAPTER FORTY