Karina Halle

Donners of the Dead

For everyone who told me to hit “Publish”

A note from the author:

Please keep in mind, Donners of the Dead is set in 1851 – couples were often thrust into marriage together with short courtships, racism was widespread and not overly frowned upon, and women had little to no rights. What wouldn’t fly in today’s day and age was unfortunately the norm back then and I did my best to represent that.

The tale of the Donner Party is one of the more compelling yet horrifying events in American history. During the winter of 1846-1847, the party, compromised of not only the Donner family but various wagons representing a range of families who decided to head out west, were stranded in the Sierra Nevadas due to a series of unforeseen circumstances. The weary wagon trains had already faced starvation, murder and theft on their journey so far and were oh so close to their final destination in the valleys of California when tragedy struck. Some people resorted to cannibalism to survive, eating the frozen flesh of those that had died and a few individuals even got a taste for it, rumored to have resulted in many cold-blooded murders. Though there was a search party that managed to rescue the remaining survivors and it was widely known that the wagon train got stranded in the snows, the reports of cannibalism – and the horrific scenes they witnessed – were actually not made known until several years later – after the time period set in this book.

With that being said, although I tried to stay true to the original tale with research from such books as Wagons West by Frank McLynn, I have taken a few fictional liberties with the story and as a result Donners of the Dead cannot be held as historically accurate. I mean, hello, zombies. If you want to know more about the actual events that took place during that horrendous winter, I highly recommend reading up on it.

Sometimes the truth is more gruesome than fiction.

Additional note:

This book contains excerpts from Madeline Sheehan’s upcoming The Beginning of the End as well as Experiment in Terror #9, Dust to Dust, making the book appear longer than it is.

Chapter One

Pre-Nevada Statehood, 1851

The dreams never start the same, but they always end the same.

In death.

My father’s death.

Sometimes I am six years old again and playing in the Truckee River, throwing up the cold mountain runoff with my tiny hands and shooting shy glances at him as he watches me, the smile spreading wide on his auburn face. Sometimes we are walking hand-in-hand down the dusty dirt road toward Mrs. Young’s homestead where he’ll leave me for a few hours to learn maths while he enquires at Barker’s General Store whether there are any hunting requests for him. And sometimes we are just sitting on the rickety porch back at our old place, watching the insects gather around the lantern as he tells me the Washoe names for them. They always sounded so poetic coming from his native tongue.

No matter how the dreams start though, how wonderful the memories are, I can never enjoy them. I know they are about to be ripped from my heart. In a matter of seconds, the picture changes. In the river, he jumps into the water to join me, but never surfaces again. On the road, he drops my hand and runs away into a cloud of dirt. The worst one is what happens to him while we spend the evening hours on the porch. A low, guttural growl emerges from the surrounding pines, as if the trees themselves have unfinished business with him. Pa gets to his feet slowly, hesitantly, and walks straight into the forest. He doesn’t even send me a backwards glance. Then the pines shake, their silhouettes frenzied against the moon, and I hear him for the last time.

One final scream.

Like always, I wake up covered in a thin sheen of sweat.

As I poured my bedside water jug onto my rag and wet my face, the reality sinks back in. I’m alive, in my bed, but my father is not. He really is dead, and the irony is that I sometimes wish those nightmares were real. At least then I would know what happened to him. Either he drowned, or ran away from me, or the trees ate him. I’d take any of those to at least have an answer of why he left on that tracking expedition and never came back.

This night though, I had no time to feel the heaviness in my heart. Far away hollering interrupted my sleep and I stood without thinking. I fumbled to light the candle in my stall-sized bedroom then quickly slipped on my cloak and opened the door into the main room. It was dark and no one else in my uncle’s house was stirring.

I paused, feeling slightly foolish at my impulsiveness and listened for a few beats, trying to catch my ragged breath.

The hollering started again, coming closer to us. My uncle’s ranch was on the far outskirts of the settlement. Whoever was out there was in serious trouble.

I gathered my cloak closer to me and made my way to the front door, about to open it, when someone on the other side started pounding on it wildly. I nearly screamed. I waited for a break before I opened it and saw our neighbor, Ned Kincaid, on our porch, looking like he’d seen something worse than a ghost.

“Eve!” he managed to croak out before collapsing into a coughing fit. I put my arm around him and began to lead him inside the house. He shook his head and leaned against the doorframe. “No, it’s still out there.”

“What’s still out there?” I looked past him but only saw darkness cloaking the nearby acres and the pinpricks of stars in the sky. There was a strange pounding noise though, faint but wicked, off in the distance. Like Ned had, it was also coming in our direction.

“Nero!” he yelled and glanced behind him, his eyes glowing white from fear.

Nero was Ned’s horse. A magnificent coal-colored stallion that I’d often see trotting proudly in his pasture.

“Evie, what are you doing, who is that?” my Uncle Pat’s voice boomed from behind me. He was standing at the foot of the stairs, lantern in hand, my frail Aunt June cowering behind him and holding onto his long johns.

Ned stepped clumsily into the house and looked at my uncle imploringly. “It’s Nero. He’s sick, Pat. He tried to kill us!”

The corner of my uncle’s mouth turned up at Ned’s outburst.

“Now, Ned, let’s calm down a bit here before we—”

“I’m serious!” he screamed so sharply that Pat’s mouth was replaced with a hard, thin line. I sucked in my breath and took another look outside.

“Perhaps we should close the door,” I said quietly, reaching over for the handle. Whether Nero was actually trying to kill Ned or not, the late September night brought a chill with it.

“No,” said Ned, turning around and placing a wet hand on mine. I looked down. It was covered in blood. “I need you to see this, I need you to believe me. Martha didn’t, she didn’t, and now I don’t know where she is, my God, I don’t know…”

There was a loud, solid thunk on the porch, followed by another. The house shook slightly. I kept my eyes trained on the outside but couldn’t see anything.

But I could smell it. And knowing my tracking skills, I should have smelled it before. It was blood and sweat and hay and horse and something unfathomable. Nero was here, a few feet away from us, hidden by the black night, halfway onto the porch.

A severe chill threaded down my back. My lungs refused to exhale.

I thought about throwing Ned’s hand off mine and quickly shutting the door, but everything happened so fast.

Nero snorted.

Ned gasped.

A flash of red eyes and the horse lunged forward towards the door, his long muzzle snapping at us like a wolf, all white, powerful teeth.

Uncle Pat dropped the candle in surprise and joined me at the door, trying to shut it on the horse who was trying wildly to fit inside the frame, his wide girth only allowing him to come in halfway.

Ned covered his eyes and shrank to the floor while June scooped up the candle before it managed to catch on the nearby rug. Pat and I kept trying to slam the door in Nero’s face, something that, naturally, only made him angrier.

The sides of the doorframe began to crack under the horse’s pressure, the wood splintering. Between my uncle’s grunts, Ned’s childlike wails, and June’s quiet repetition of the Lord’s Prayer, I kept focused on Nero’s head. It should have bothered me to be beating a horse in such a way, but this was no horse. Its eyes were blood red and surrounded by yellow discharge; its mouth was a foaming, angry mess, and its only intent was to do what Ned had said. To kill him. To kill all of us. No, this was no horse. It barely even smelled like one. My father would have known what it was.

Finally, Pat and I made one powerful heave in unison, and the result appeared to shatter the bones in Nero’s once handsome head. He screamed, a mix of anguish and frustration, and then retreated, almost taking the door with him as he went. We slammed it shut and locked it, as if that would prevent Nero from coming in again.

“June!” Pat yelled. “Go wake up Rose!”

“I’m already here,” was his daughter’s reply. I looked to see Rose standing beside June, staring at us in horror.

He nodded, both of us keeping our bodies against the door. “Good, now go get the piano and move it over here. We have to make sure he doesn’t try and get in again.”

June and Rose scampered over to the grand piano that rested in the corner of the room. Rose loved to practice on it after dinner in the evenings, and you could see the reluctance on her fair face as she and her mother leaned against the piano and slowly pushed it toward us until it was in place.

We stepped back and watched the door carefully, our breaths held in our mouths, our fingers twitching nervously. The piano was barely moveable to June and Rose, but they were both small women and Nero was a thousand pound animal. He could easily destroy it in a few seconds.

We waited for a good few minutes, all of our ears tuned carefully, none of us making a sound. Even Ned had stopped his blubbering and was listening in between sniffs. Rose made her way to him and placed her arm gently around his shoulders. I breathed in deeply through my nose and closed my eyes, concentrating on the animal. I couldn’t smell him anymore.

He was gone.

“I don’t think he’s coming back,” I said quietly, my voice sounding deep in the stillness.

“How do you know that?” Pat asked scornfully. “Don’t tell me it’s your half-breed mumbo jumbo.”

That was precisely why, but of course I didn’t say that. I learned a long time ago that talking back to Uncle Pat got you nowhere, and if it did, it was usually a slap across the face.

Pat looked down at Ned on the floor, who was now staring mindlessly at his bloody hands, and calmly said, “Now Ned, let’s start from the beginning.”

“Yes,” I said. “What on earth were you feeding that thing?”

* * *

The next day was hot enough to make my thick braid stick to the back of my neck, taking more than a few minutes for the dry desert air to whisk away the sweat. Even then, I knew that it would be one of the last hot days in September. Autumn was at our doorstep and winter was lurking in the darkness behind it.

After the excitement and horror of last night, I was unable to go back to sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, I’d see the wretched face of Nero trying to eat me alive, all red eyes and snapping muzzle. I’d never seen a horse behave like that in all the world, and the more I wanted to dwell on it, the more I ended up scaring myself. I wasn’t one to scare easily, either.

Unfortunately, as I helped Avery shovel manure from the pig’s pen, he kept bringing it up.

“So tell me again, what did the fella look like?” Avery asked, leaning on the end of his shovel, the sun glinting off his golden hair.

“Who? The horse or Ned?” I asked.

He smirked, his dimples coming out, and wiped his hand across his brow. “The horse, you old biddy. I know what Ned looks like. I know that weasel face anywhere.”

I glared at him playfully. “I think I might take offense to that old biddy comment. If I’m old at eighteen, then you must be ancient.”

He continued his smirk, which was always handsome and never mean-spirited. It was one of the reasons why I liked Avery so much. For the last five years, ever since Avery started working at Uncle Pat’s as a ranch hand, he’d been making my daily chores more bearable. In fact, I actually looked forward to them every day, except for Sundays when we were dragged off to church and seated on opposite sides of the aisle.

He was also one of the few people I could actually call my friend, someone who didn’t care what I looked like or what blood was in my body. When you grow up being half Indian and half white, you figure out pretty soon that you’re not really welcome anywhere. Ever since my pa died, I’d spent a lot of time trying to figure out where exactly I fit in. With Avery, none of it mattered. I was just Eve Smith.

“Fine,” he said. “But if you won’t spare me the details again, at least tell me what happened to Martha.”

I shrugged and tucked a few loose strands of hair behind my ears. I honestly didn’t know what had happened to Ned’s wife, though I was quite certain she was alive and well somewhere. She’d gone missing during the Nero incident and once daylight broke over the valley, Ned and my uncle went out in search of her. I knew I could have been of good use with my tracking skills but my uncle would have never…humored me like that. Regardless, I could sense that she was fine, out there alone and scared, but likely to find her way home eventually.

Though I thought this to myself, I didn’t say anything to Avery. I knew he wouldn’t think any less of me with my “half-breed mumbo jumbo” as my uncle said, but I never wanted to press my luck with him. He liked me and I never wanted to lose that.

“I’m sure Martha will turn up,” I said, and resumed shoveling the smelly manure, keeping focused on the task. I could sense he was studying me the way he often did when I tried to keep the native side of me quiet, and I hoped my cheeks weren’t burning red. If they were, I could blame it on the sun, not the fact that lately my thoughts about Avery were becoming more and more inappropriate.

Eventually, I dared to look at him. But instead of looking at me like I had assumed he was, his gaze was directed over the fence at the road where Rose was walking home from school, dust clouds rising up behind her like brown cotton. I felt a sharp pang of envy in my chest, something I often felt when I thought about my cousin. It wasn’t that she was beautiful and polite, but that she was able to go to school every day and I never was. That was the reason Avery had to teach me secretly a few times a week. When my father disappeared and my mother became little more than a mute, Uncle Pat ruled my life and he saw I was unfit to attend school with the proper folk.

All I’d ever wanted to do was learn, to fill my mind with knowledge and wisdom, while Rose seemed to abhor everything about learning, except when it came to the piano.

And now Rose had something else that I hadn’t—the rapt attention of Avery. Oh, I’d be fooling myself if I hadn’t picked up on it before, but I’d never seen him be so obvious about it.

I cleared my throat and that pang grew deeper when he didn’t break his stare. Rose, as usual, was completely oblivious to the fact that we were out in her farm, toiling away under the hot sun, let alone that Avery was eyeing her like a smartly-wrapped gift on Christmas Day. Rose was never mean or cruel, but the way she usually tolerated me was to pretend I didn’t exist.

“Avery,” I said under my breath, my tone sharper than I would have liked.

Finally he looked at me, caught off-guard. He blinked a few times. “Pardon?”

“I said, I think that Martha will be fine.”

“Oh, good,” he said. If the sun’s glare hadn’t washed out his face just so, he might have been blushing.

I really wanted to say something, something that put him on the spot, just to witness his reaction. But besides being unladylike, I wouldn’t have been a very good friend. I took in a deep breath, rubbed at the knot that was forming in my shoulder, and decided to ignore it all. It was quite ridiculous, at any rate, that I would ever have a chance at Avery courting me. To just be friends with a half-breed was already scandalous enough.

We both went back to working in a silence that was strangely awkward, making the hot air seem thicker than it was, a soup of sweat and dust. It was only by the time we’d started moving around some hay bales up in the loft to make room for the meager harvest at the end of the month, that he asked if I wanted to go over some of the French he’d been teaching me.

With Avery’s help over the last few years, I had learned everything there was to know about history, not just in America, but worldwide; I’d learned proper grammar and penmanship; I’d improved on my mathematic skills and even learned a bit about science. The last thing there really was to learn (at least from Avery) was French. Avery only knew the rudimentary basics, having learned it from his Louisiana grandmother when he was young. I figured French wouldn’t help me here in Washoe or the Utah Territory, but there wouldn’t be harm in it, either.

Twenty minutes later, the hay had been restacked, and Avery and I were sitting on top of a scratchy bale and enjoying the late afternoon breeze while going over nouns. I loved that his full attention was on me as I grappled with pronunciation, even though I sounded quite stupid half the time. Perhaps I was nervous because his eyes were often centered on my lips, which naturally made me think about kissing him, to wonder what it would be like. I didn’t even have anything to compare it to.

“Believe me, you’re a natural at this,” he said to me as I messed up a few more times. “It’s a right shame that your father never taught you your native language before he died.”

I looked down at my hands and brushed the hay from my plain brown dress. Pa had taught me some things, but it seemed the moment he left, everything I knew and understood was whisked away with him.

“I’m sorry, Eve,” Avery said quickly. “I meant before he disappeared. I didn’t mean to imply—”

“It’s okay.” I forced a smile and met his clear blue eyes. “What’s past is past. The language would be no use to me now that he’s gone. I’m quite content with English.”

“Et Français, aussi,” he said.

“Oui.”

He patted me on the hand and a delectable current brushed up my arm, making my heart swell. Oh, he had to know the effect he had on me. As inappropriate as it was, I wondered what it would be like if I kissed him. I feared I was bull-headed enough to do it.

But before I could dwell on it any further, my thoughts were broken up by the rhythmic thump of hoofbeats outside the hayloft, maybe four or five of them traveling in a group. I closed my eyes and concentrated, breathing in deep. I could smell the horses and the smell of steel and leather and sweat. There was something almost foreign about the smell, making me think that the horses and their riders weren’t from around here. After all, the River Bend settlement only had about thirty townsfolk, even with the California gold rush still drawing in pioneers and prospectors.

Avery heard it too, and we got up, edging over to the open side. From up here we could see the road clearly, and a group of five men on horseback, heavily loaded, with packs and guns strapped to their mounts. Their hats were drawn down over their eyes, casting them in shadows and they rode like they owned the ground in front of them.

One of the men was plump like a pregnant sow, another skinny as a birch tree. One was an elderly man with a long grey beard, another was scar-faced and suspicious with a wicked glint to his mouth. The fifth man at the back of the party was built like an ox, with broad shoulders that were rivaled only by the massive brown steed he was riding on. While all the men were looking around with interest, the man at the back faced forward, his posture strong and straight. Then, as if he sensed us, he looked up and over his shoulder, straight at me and Avery.

I gasped and instinctively hid myself back into the shadows of the barn. Even then, the man’s dark eyes were still on mine, locked in like an eagle on a mouse. I quickly appraised his face: black arched brows and sharp cheekbones, slim nose, broad, masculine jaw, and a trimmed beard. If you asked someone to tell you what a “man” was, I was certain he’d be their description.

That was until his lip curled up in a snarl, directed right at me.

“Who the blazes are those men?” Avery asked, seemingly oblivious to the bearded man. Sometimes I forgot that my vision was better than most people’s. The man turned his attention back to the road, so all I could see was the back of his neck and the black handkerchief knotted behind it.

I carefully crept out into the light, and we watched as the men kept riding. Beyond Uncle Pat’s and the Millers’ farm on the opposite side of the road, there wasn’t much more to this end of River Bend.

I breathed out a queer sigh of relief, believing them to be on their way. “I guess they’re just passing through,” I said to Avery. “Looks like they’re well packed, they’re most likely heading across the pass to Sacramento.”

“Looks like,” he agreed. “They better hurry if they want to beat the snow.” But as soon as he said that, the skinny man at the front of the group slowed his horse and raised his hand. They all came to a stop in the middle of the road.

“What are they doing?” Avery asked.

I shushed him, not caring if it was rude, and tried to listen.

“Well, I reckon this here be the end of the road,” the skinny man said. I tried to place his accent. Sounded like just another man from Missouri.

He nodded at Uncle Pat’s and at the Miller’s small farmhouse. “And I reckon one of these here houses oughta be the one we’re looking for.” He looked to Mr. Scar Face and Mr. Grey Beard. “Hank, Tim, you take this one here.” He shrugged in the direction of Uncle Pat’s. “Rest of us, we’ll take this purdy house over there.”

“I’d like to take this one,” the snarly man said, his head tilted ever so slightly toward Uncle Pat’s. I sucked in my breath, so certain that he was going to turn around and look at me again.

The thin man shrugged. “Suit yourself.” The party split into two groups, with this Hank, Tim, and Snarly heading right toward Uncle Pat’s—my—front door.

Avery quickly turned around, trying to look calm and in control, but I could see the tension in his temples and hear the quiver in his voice as he said, “I better go see what these men want. I certainly don’t want any trouble, and your uncle’s still out with Ned. You wait here and stay safe.”

Any other girl would have done as they were told. But besides the fact that I wasn’t like any other girl, I wanted to make sure Rose and my aunt June were okay, as well as my mother, who, thanks to her condition, rarely left her small room upstairs. If these men were up to no good, Avery couldn’t handle himself and protect the women at the same time. He was strong and a good shot, but he’d never been truly tested before.

Avery climbed halfway down the ladder and jumped the rest of the way, running stealthily through the pigs and dairy cows before going in through the pantry’s screen door. I followed behind, hiking up my dress so my boots wouldn’t trip on it, and moved quickly. I got to the screen door just as I heard June and Rose from inside, asking Avery what was wrong, their voices bewildered.

“It’s fine,” I told them as I carefully shut the door behind me. Still, it probably didn’t assuage their fears when I picked up a butcher’s knife from its place on the wall. Their eyes widened at the sight. Rose huddled under June’s arm as Avery scampered over to the front door just as a knock sounded from it. There was no time for me to run upstairs and warn my mother to stay in her room, I just had to hope she’d be smart enough to do so. She never spoke and she was a little neurotic, but she wasn’t stupid.

“Who’s there?” June asked, her voice breaking. “What is it now? Is the rabid horse back?”

I made the motion for her to be quiet, and then stepped in front of them, keeping them confined to the kitchen while Avery grabbed the shotgun off the wall before putting his hand on the knob. “There are a few men here,” I whispered. “We don’t know who they are or what they want.”

“Are they Indians?” Rose asked with big green eyes.

“No,” I said, gazing at her coldly, wondering why I wanted to protect her and her ignorance again.

I turned back to see Avery opening the door a crack, keeping the shotgun behind his back and out of sight. Thank heavens the damage that Nero did last night didn’t affect the door as a whole.

“Yes?” he asked.

I could only see Tim, the older, grey-bearded fellow clearly, though I sensed the other two were right behind him.

“Good afternoon, pardner,” Tim said in a thick Texan drawl. Ooh boy. I’d only met a couple of Texans in my lifetime, and both of them had been trouble. Up close, his eyes were a deep blue and possessed a startling clarity that contrasted with his lined face. “I was wondering if I could speak to the master of the house.”

I could see Avery flinching slightly, wondering if he should lie or not. Though Tim gazed directly at him, I knew he’d seen us in the background. Those kind of eyes saw everything. They reminded me of my father.

“He’s out yonder,” Avery said, and I winced when I heard the warble in his voice. “I work for him. I’m Avery Packwood. How may I be of service?”

Tim smiled, displaying a few missing canines that looked like black piano keys. I could hear Rose suck in her breath behind me, as if people in River Bend were known for perfect teeth.

“Do you know when you expect him back?” Tim was being polite, but I knew the other men behind him, Mr. Scar Face and Mr. Snarl, were otherwise. I didn’t know what these men wanted but I knew it wasn’t trivial.

Avery squared his shoulders, and as he did so, the muzzle of his shotgun tapped against the door. Tim looked down and raised his brow but didn’t say anything.

“He should be back for supper,” Avery said.

“Is that your supper cooking in there now?” a lecherous voice said from the porch. I could hear the man sniffing, Mr. Scar Face, and I immediately felt disgusted, as if he were smelling us—the women. “Maybe we could all have a feast.”

“Ease up, Hank,” Tim warned, his mouth turning grim. He looked apologetically at Avery. “Sorry about that, pardner. We’ve been on the road for an awful long time and it’s been a while since we’ve had a hot meal.”

While I started cursing Avery inside my head if he dared to invite them in, Tim continued. “No matter, we’re used to the lack of hospitality up north here. You see, we only need to ask Pat Smith a question, that’s all. Get his permission for something that we’re doin’. See, who we really want to talk to, who we’re really here for…is a half Injun’ girl called Eve Smith.”

Tim looked past Avery’s shoulder and met my eyes with an air of victory. They were here for me.

Aunt June gasped.

My blood ran cold.

I tightened my grip on the knife.

Chapter Two

“I’m Eve Smith,” I said, my voice surprisingly loud and clear. I could hear June and Rose fretting behind me, but there was no use in pretending I was someone I wasn’t. Besides, I wanted to know why these strange men were here and looking for me. I barely even existed at times.

“Ignore her, she’s lying,” Avery said, trying to block Tim’s eye line. Any other time I would have been touched by his loyalty to me but not now.

I walked across the room, holding the knife in plain sight, and stopped on the other side of Avery. Up close, I could see the puffiness under Tim’s eyes and the red tinge of his nose, more signs of his age. Still, his eyes remained clear as day, even as they crinkled at the corners as I approached. He barely noticed the knife.

“I said, I’m Eve Smith.” I looked dead at Tim, resisting the compulsion to look behind him at the two others. Their silence continued to be menacing.

“Well, how do you do, Eve Smith?” he greeted cordially, tipping the brim of his weather-beaten hat.

“I do just fine. Now how may we help you?”

“Why, aren’t we well-spoken,” he commented. I waited for the comment about never meeting a well-spoken Indian before, but it never came. A smile twitched at the corner of his dry lips as he appraised Avery. “Your friend here was trying to protect you, I reckon, but the fact is, ma’am, we don’t mean no harm.”

“Then what do you mean?” I questioned boldly.

He raised his brow, taking a moment before he spoke. “Me and my friends here, we’re a makeshift search party of sorts. This is the last settlement before we head off into the mountains, and after inquiring at the general store for a local tracker, boy weren’t we surprised when a woman’s name kept coming up.” He looked me up and down. “However, now I see you’re more of a girl than a woman.”

“She’s a lady,” Avery said, his shoulders tensing. “I don’t think you should call her anything less while you’re standing outside her home.”

“My apologies,” Tim offered quickly, though he and I both knew I was the furthest thing from a lady. Aunt June and Rose were ladies. I was just impressed he called me ma’am.

“Besides,” Avery went on, “there are other trackers in the area. I can certainly be of help.”

My heart squeezed at the thought of him going off with these men.

“We might right need the help of a young man like yourself, Avery Packwood,” Tim said. “But Eve’s name kept on coming up. And though we know we might find someone—a man, perhaps—at one of the local tribes, our general consensus is that you can’t trust a savage.”

I bristled at that and Avery shot me a warning glare over his shoulder, knowing I was seconds from saying something hot-tempered. Tim seemed friendly enough, but we certainly weren’t safe yet.

I took in a deep breath. “I’m half-savage. Will that be a problem?”

Tim grinned. “Not with me. Besides, I hear you’re a lady. Now, what we want to know is if you’d be willing to join us on our expedition.”

The moment he said that, there was a flurry of hoofbeats as the rest of the riders appeared just off the porch, obviously coming up empty-handed from the Millers. I could feel the stares as they rode high on their horses, could smell the gunpowder at their sides.

“There is no blazing chance she is going on an expedition with a posse of strange men,” Avery said. Once again, my heart did a skip at how protective he was being, even though I wished he would let me handle this.

“Can the lady not speak for herself?” Tim asked. “Decide for herself? Are you her father?”

“Her uncle acts as father to her,” Avery said. My eyes flitted down to see two drops of sweat slide off the barrel of his shotgun, his hands pale and clammy.

“Then what does her mother say?” Tim looked over me and into the house, his eyes curious, and I knew my mother was there.

I looked behind me quickly. My mother was at the foot of the stairs, her plaid shawl wrapped around her, the ends fraying and moth holes littered throughout. It had been a gift from my father, and as such, she never let anyone touch it or wash it. It was on her all the time. Her golden hair was a mess and sticking out every which way, while her green eyes held only sadness. My mother would have been beautiful, even more so than Rose, whom she deeply resembled, but life had other plans for her.

“She doesn’t speak,” I said slowly, looking back at Tim. “But even if she could, I’m quite sure she’d ask why I should help a bunch of strangers like yourselves.”

Tim leaned against the doorframe casually, pausing briefly to examine the broken pieces of wood. “What happened here? Someone try and break down your door?”

No one said anything. We waited for him to continue.

He did with a tepid sigh. “I’m sure you’re all familiar—more than most folk—with what happened in them mountains over there.” He jerked his head in the direction of the Sierra Nevadas that rose up from the valley. “About them poor Donners.”

“They disappeared,” I said. “A few years ago. Got stuck in the snows.”

“Four years, to be exact,” Tim said. “Then I’m sure you know that one of the search parties that went after them never reported to Sacramento.”

I shook my head. “No, I didn’t know that.”

“Isaac over there,” Tim gestured to the skinny man behind him, the one who had originally told the group to fan out. “His uncle was in the Donner party. And his nephew was part of the search party that went after him. What Isaac wants is to find his uncle and nephew. See, it was last August that his nephew, George Clark, and his search party should have reported into Sacramento. They were supposed to go up the same route as the Donners and find out what really happened, and then report to Sacramento with news. You see, while most of the party had been rescued from the other side of the pass, George didn’t quite believe the tale was so simple. He thought there was more to the story, perhaps more survivors than reported, perhaps his family. But the thing is, George Clark and his team never showed up. It’s been a year now. Just over. No one has seen or heard of them. There were records that the party passed through here last June, but no one has seen them come out the other side. It don’t matter if you’re asking in Oregon City or Fresno, no one has plumb seen ’em.”

“When you say, find out what really happened to the Donner party,” Avery spoke up, “what do you mean? From what we heard, they came across hard times, hard weather. Lost a lot of men, women, and children. Nothing too unusual about that.”

“Well, let’s just say then that George Clark still believed his father to be alive in the mountains there. There were also some, well, let’s call them rumors, that George refused to believe.”

Rumors? I raised my brow but Tim carried on. “Regardless of what happened to the Donners, it’s George’s party we’re concerned about.”

“It’s been a year,” Avery pointed out. “How can you be sure they’re still alive out there?” He gave Isaac an apologetic glance. “Sorry for being so crass, but you must agree.”

Isaac shifted on top of his grey mount. “I have reason to believe he—they—might have found a way to stay alive.” Whatever he believed, however, Isaac sounded awfully grim. His face was both long and pinched, like his cheeks stuck out more than his nose. “Of course, we aren’t from these parts, Ms. Smith, and neither was George. That might have been one of the reasons why they were unable to locate what they were looking for. It could be why they never made it across the pass. I put together this expedition here in hopes of finding George, or at least some answers. Now, I think we have a shot at doing this on our own. But we’re all from Texas and Tennessee and Missouri. We don’t know your land, your terrain. If we had a tracker such as yourself, as well as a few locals such as Avery, we stand a much better chance.”

“Naturally,” Tim said, adjusting the holster around his waist, “we don’t assume you’ll be doing this out of the kindness of your pretty heart. There’s a lot of money in it for you and anyone else who wishes to help out.”

“How much money?” Avery asked. I looked at him, surprised by the sudden eagerness in his voice.

Tim let out a soft laugh. “So, we be speaking your language now, boy? Well, I reckon the lady here would get one hundred dollars, plus a safe route back. You and anyone else who wishes to join us would get fifty. Perhaps seventy five, if you can provide us with an extra horse or mule. We’re needing a pack animal.”

I couldn’t breathe. A hundred dollars. I’d never heard of anyone in these parts having that much. I was sure the only thing that was worth more than that was Uncle Pat’s ranch.

We were all shocked, the silence coating us. I could almost hear the wheels turning in Aunt June and Rose’s heads, coming up with all the stuff they could buy. New wristwatch, new dresses, a new carriage, new breeding stock. I also knew that the money would never truly be mine, so long as I was under this roof.

Somehow, Avery lifted his jaw off the floor and cleared his throat. “You understand that this will have to be discussed with Mr. Smith when he gets back. He is legally in charge of Eve, and I am his employee here at the ranch.”

“I understand,” Tim said, “though I reckon you’d never make so much money even if you worked here for the rest of your life. We’ll give you all time to think about it. But not too much time. We want to get up in them mountains before the first snow falls. We’ll be back tonight.” He dipped his hat to me and the women in the house. “Ma’am. Ladies.”

He turned to leave, striding over to his horse. I stayed at the door, watching them until I saw Mr. Snarl pass by. He glanced at me under his hat and I was struck by how dark his eyes were and their intensity as they looked me over. I realized the whole time we’d been talking with Tim, I’d been waiting for him to say something, to make his presence known. Instead, he and the scar-faced man had stayed silent. I felt like they would have been the enforcers if things had gotten out of hand.

Avery gently pushed me out of the way as he closed the door, making sure to lock it behind him.

For the second time in less than twenty-four hours, I felt like the only thing standing between me and danger was a wooden door.

* * *

The four of us were so tense and anxious that evening, waiting around for Uncle Pat to come back, that we were jumping at every little sound, and barely picked at the mutton stew Aunt June had made. My mother had retired to her room after I gave her another book to read (a nice thing about Rose was that she’d often bring home books from school—I was never sure if it was her own doing or if her mother made her, but the books still came, giving my mother something to do with herself).

We didn’t talk about what had happened. Instead, everyone kept silent, perhaps locked in dreams about a better life. It wasn’t that the Smith’s homestead was lacking in anything—I do believe Uncle Pat was one of the wealthiest in town—but nothing ever came easy for any of the early pioneers. Supplies took forever to come in from the east, and the lack of real civilization in this territory only contributed to the isolation. Naturally, I was born in the small settlement, so I never knew any better and frankly was never curious about the big cities, but I could see Rose’s eyes wet with thought as she imagined spending the money on a stagecoach ticket back to St. Louis.

As for Avery, I wanted to ask him what he’d spend his money on, but I was afraid of two things. If I asked him, it would sound like I wanted him to go, which was the furthest thing from the truth, and I feared that he’d tell me it had something to do with Rose. A ring? Two stagecoach tickets out of here? Anything to buy a future.

I watched him carefully as he put on the fire, seeming to be taller now, stronger somehow. It felt like he’d grown up in the last few hours, standing up to those mysterious Texans and everything.

Thankfully, the house felt more full and relaxed with the sounds of the flames crackling and cooling our nerves. We were right peaceful when the front door jangled before being kicked open.

There was a split second where I thought it was the men and they were back to take me with them, regardless of what my uncle said. Instead it was my uncle, looking worn out, his hair disheveled.

He stopped when he saw all of us in the room, now sitting like eager cats in our chairs, our eyes on him and prodding for information.

“What in the dickens is going on here?” he boomed, shutting the door behind him. “What happened?”

“Did you find Martha?” Avery asked. If I didn’t know he was such an honest man, I would have thought he was just asking to be polite.

He nodded, brows drawn together. “Yep. On our way back. She was up in a pine tree, too afraid to come down. She’s hungry and shook up, but she’ll be all right. Though Ned gave us permission to shoot that dang horse on sight if we ever come across it.” He glanced over the rest of us. “Now you can’t all be that interested in Mrs. Kincaid’s well-being. Come on. Spill it.”

We glanced at each other. Aunt June’s lips were tight and her focus was on Avery. He told my uncle to take a seat in the rocking chair and then explained everything from the beginning.

I don’t know what I was expecting. Maybe for my uncle to think it was a terrible idea. But that wasn’t the case at all, at least not when it came to me heading out there. Dollar signs floated above his head.

“But dear,” Aunt June said, wringing her hands together. “She’s family and we’re responsible for her! We can’t send her off with a bunch of strange men. It’s obscene!”

His shoulder ticked up in a shrug. “Eve can handle herself.”

“Well, I won’t allow it. I wouldn’t do this to Eve or to my own flesh and blood.”

“Then let’s ask Gail, shall we?” He smirked at his own joke about my mother. I started thinking maybe a mountain expedition would be more preferable than spending my days here.

“Patrick,” Aunt June said shrilly. “No. Not unless Avery and a female chaperone go with her. She’s just eighteen.”

He rolled his eyes. “The more people to join her, the less money she gets. And we got married at eighteen. What else is Eve going to do with herself?”

“I don’t care. I promised Gail I would take care of her and that is what I’m doing.”

I couldn’t help but smile at my Aunt. She almost never spoke her mind, let alone stood up for me. Unfortunately, I could tell from the look in his eyes that this only made him despise me more.

“Fine,” he grumbled. “I’ll arrange for a chaperone.” He wagged his finger at Avery. “But just so you know, I’m taking some of your pay as well. It’ll help me find a replacement for you while you’re gone. Lord knows I can’t handle this ranch on my own with the both of you out searching for a lost cause. I don’t know what these men are expecting to find out there, but so long as they’re paying us, I don’t really care either.”

And that was that. My fate was sealed without anyone even asking what I wanted. Oh, I suppose if I had started making a fuss right away things might have been different, but I doubted it. If I refused to go, Uncle Pat would make my life miserable here and I couldn’t leave for good without leaving my mother behind.

“The men said they’d be coming back soon,” June said. “They didn’t seem the sort to have their patience tried.”

Uncle Pat sighed at that and told June to get her shawl, that they were going down the road to the Young’s and enquiring if one of their elder daughters would be willing to come along for a quarter of the pay.

Once they left out into the early night, Avery, Rose, and I sat around the fire and waited again.

“Eve,” Avery said, leaning forward on his wool pants and clasping his slender hands together. “If you don’t want to do this, just tell me. You have barely said a word about the whole ordeal.”

“It’s not for lack of trying,” I said dryly. “If I had more time to think about this, maybe I’d know how I feel. Honestly, I feel nothing right now. I don’t fear for my life because you’ll be with me. At the same time, I don’t want you to go.”

He nodded slowly and looked to the flames. I was very aware of Rose sitting quietly in her seat, her dress bunched up around her, watching and listening. “See, the problem is I do want to go. But I don’t want you to. And it seems we’re a package deal.” I smiled at that. He glanced at Rose and my smile faded. “Rose, what do you think of all this?”

She beamed at him with her pretty smile and bounced excitedly in her chair, patiently waiting all this time to tell us what she thought. “I think it’s a wonderful idea, this whole thing. How heroic you’ll be, Avery, joining those wild men and rescuing the poor souls out there.”

He sat up straight, chest puffed out like a pompous goose. “You’re right about that. And when I get back, I’ll buy you anything you want.”

When Rose nearly shrieked—as if she wouldn’t get some of the money I earned—and started yammering about getting a fancy cage crinoline because her starched petticoats weren’t holding up, I excused myself and headed upstairs to talk to my mother. The fact that Avery said he’d buy her something and that she was mentioning her undergarments was rubbing me in all the wrong ways, and the fact that I was bothered by that when I had a dire situation on my hands didn’t help.

I paused outside my mother’s door and knocked lightly. I never wanted to barge in on her, and when sometimes she didn’t answer the door, I left her alone. This night, however, I hoped she’d get up and let me in. Though she wouldn’t say a word, she needed to hear from me what was going on and I needed someone to listen. My mother and I had never really been close, but I still knew I could tell her anything.

I waited with my breath in my throat before she finally opened the door. I heard her scuttling back to her chair as I stepped inside the room. It was cold and dark save for a single candle on the bedside table. Aside from the stack of books alongside it, the bed, the washbasin, and the chair she was sitting in, there wasn’t much to her room. It was like she’d never been able to call it home. I guess I wasn’t much different either.

I sat down on her bed, the springs creaking beneath my weight while she stared at the flame dancing above the candle. That was her thing—she never looked like she was even aware of you sometimes, as if her mind was somewhere else. It probably was half the time, yet I knew she was very aware of everything.

“Mother,” I said, my own eyes drawn to the flame as well. I paused, gathering my thoughts. Our shadows danced on the walls. “Mother, I know you saw those men today. Heard them. Maybe you heard more than that. But they’ve asked for me to accompany them into the mountains. Rumor has it I’m the best tracker in town…I guess people didn’t know who to recommend with Pa gone.” I saw her flinch slightly at his name, so I knew she was listening.

I went on. “I don’t want to leave you here, but I know your sister will take good care of you. She was really worried about me, believe it or not, and made Uncle Pat agree to an escort for me. Avery is going too, which is both good and bad. At least you know I’ll be safe.” She continued to watch the flame. “I’m not even sure I want to go, to be honest. I…I have a strange feeling about it. Them showing up. The disappearance of the Donners and their search party. A horse trying to kill us last night because he didn’t get enough oats.”

I was trying to joke about that last part, foolish pride or something, playing off the fear. But my mom looked straight at me like she’d just snapped out of a dream.

I cocked my head, eyeing her quizzically. “What is it?”

She opened her mouth, trying to say something, but nothing came out. This was quite new—usually my mother never even attempted to speak. I watched her closely as she made a motion for a pen. Before I could do anything, she got up, her shawl flapping around her, and pulled out the bedside table drawer. She took out a pen and paper, and for the first time in a long time, she began to communicate with me.

She sat back down and wrote slowly, her forehead deeply creased, as if English was a foreign language, as if she’d never been taught to read and write, as if she’d never been more than a shell.

I tried to read her scrawl upside down.

You need to go.

I swallowed thickly, shocked that she would write that. Didn’t she worry about me? Didn’t she care?

“I’m getting paid but I don’t know how much we’ll get,” I explained, wondering if that was why she wanted me gone. “Uncle Pat will take most of it.”

She shook her head and tapped at the paper again. I nodded, trying to make sense of it, when she started writing again. I couldn’t see over the curve of her hand until she was finished and lifted it up for me to see.

You need to go. You need to find it. What’s out there.

A chill ran down my spine, though it could have been the draft in the room. The nights were getting colder, faster, another reason why I had a bad feeling about the expedition. And yet here was my mother, telling me to go, to find it.

“What is it?” I asked gently.

She shook her head, and as quickly as she had come to attention, her hands folded on top of the note and her eyes went back to the flame, turning glossy green as her mind went elsewhere.

I stayed for a few more minutes, hoping that she would come back to life but she never did. With a heavy sigh, I got up, tucked her shawl around her, and kissed her on top of her head before leaving her behind to her thoughts and the flame.

* * *

It was late when Uncle Pat and Aunt June came back, but they came with news.

Donna Young was one of Eldrich Young’s daughters. She was pleasant and in her mid-twenties, never married and completely devoted to God. She also had a great knowledge of first aid and had offered up a lot of the winter clothing she made on the side. She would be joining me and Avery on the expedition, not expecting anything in return. She said it was God’s will that she help. I wasn’t sure if I believed that but I was in no position to question it. I only felt sorry for her. I had met the men we were traveling with—she had not—and there was no doubt that Uncle Pat had sugar-coated the whole thing to sweeten the deal.

On the way back from the Young’s, they also ran into Tim who had been holing up in the Barker’s barn until it was time. They made the arrangements with him right there and then. Me, Donna, and Avery would join their search party, along with the extra clothes Donna was providing, and Ali, Avery’s mule that he was offering, getting more profit in exchange.

“So when do we get paid?” Avery asked Uncle Al as he rubbed the sleepiness from his eyes, ready to return to his home for the night.

Uncle Pat grunted. “Unfortunately not until you arrive in Sacramento, the cheap bastards. You better not go running off on me once you get to California. You owe me some back wages, don’t you forget it.”

Avery’s eyes flitted up to the second floor, resting on Rose’s room where she was now asleep. “I won’t forget it.”

I cleared my throat. “So when do we leave? We’ll need to hurry on if we want to beat some of the bad weather.”

Uncle Pat gave me a malicious grin. “Bright and early tomorrow morning.”

I gulped and exchanged a wary glance with Avery.

Just like that, everything about my life was about to change. There wasn’t even time to think about it. And yet, as I lay in bed soon after, knowing I had to get up early and leave this place behind, my thoughts kept hovering over what my mother had written. What she could possibly mean.

You need to go. You need to find it. What’s out there.

What’s out there. I didn’t even know if that was a question.

Chapter Three

For the second night in a row I didn’t sleep a wink, and yet I felt as awake as the crowing rooster with one cup of Aunt June’s coffee coursing through my system like gunpowder. I don’t even know how I held it together, but even with jittery nerves and shaking hands I somehow saddled up my horse Sadie and got her outfitted with the packs I would be using.

“Don’t be nervous,” Aunt June whispered in my ear. We were standing outside the house, just by the road, and waiting for everyone else to show up. As our place was the last before the wilderness, I would be the last part of the party to join them. I gripped Sadie’s reins tightly while her dark gentle eyes seemed blissfully half-asleep. I didn’t want to mount up until I absolutely had to—it felt like the moment I sat in the saddle, the real commitment would begin. A small part of me believed that as long as I stood beside Aunt June and Uncle Pat, just holding onto my horse, I didn’t really have to go anywhere.

I gave my aunt a look. “I’m not nervous.”

She smiled. “Avery will be with you. He’s a kind, smart, strong lad. He’ll protect you. And Donna will make polite company. You’re in good hands. These men just want some answers and they believe in you.” I waited for her to say a kind word about believing in me too but knew she would never say anything like that in front of her husband.

I looked over at Uncle Pat. Though the sun was just rising in the east, making everyone’s skin grow gold and beautiful, he had his hat pulled down low and a stern expression on his jowly face. Dawn’s glow couldn’t touch him.

I smelled the horses at the same time that Sadie did, her nostrils flaring and ears perking up, finally awake. They were here.

Moments later the sound of hoofbeats came down the road, a full, lively sound that made my heart beat wildly. There was drama and adventure and danger in that cadence, and the promise of something new.

I could finally be useful.

But as promising as that sounded in my head, as excited as a part of me was getting, that quickly turned to fear as soon as the party reached us.

Avery and Donna were there at the back of the group, the pack mule Ali loaded up and tied to Avery’s dapple-grey horse, Pigeon, taking up the very rear. But in front of me were the rugged and suspicious faces of five strange men, most staring down at me with a mix of doubt and contempt. I did what I could to ignore the piercing stare of Mr. Snarl and focused right on Tim.

Luckily, Tim was at the front and the one who spoke first. “May I just say, Ms. Smith, that we are darn lucky to have you joining us. Ain’t that right, boys?” Isaac nodded and the fatter one made a noise that I think was agreeable, but everyone else stayed silent, never breaking their stare. Tim leaned forward on the saddle horn and nodded at my horse. “That’s a find looking ride there. Appaloosa? I think I see some roan and freckles on her flanks.”

I swallowed hard and tried to stand up straighter. “This is Sadie. She was my…she’s been in my family for a while. She’s a good horse.” I rubbed down her neck and her eyes drooped in response. I was never good at small talk.

He sat back. “Good to know. Well, I’d say we all sit around and get acquainted, but to tell you the truth, there just ain’t much time. I suppose you already know that, knowing the weather and the seasons ’round here.”

And so here it was. Time for me to go.

I took in a steadying breath, and while Aunt June held onto Sadie (which was completely unnecessary since Sadie wouldn’t go anywhere without me saying so), I put my foot in the stirrup and swung my leg over into the saddle. Somehow I was able to do so without my petticoats and pantaloons flashing everyone, which would have been a mortifying start to the adventure.

I looked down at my aunt and uncle and then over at the house. Though Rose was still sleeping as she did late into the mornings, I could see my mom at the window, her face pale through the glass.

“Tell my mother I’ll miss her,” I told Aunt June. “Tell her goodbye and I’ll be back. Make sure you take good care of her.”

She nodded, and I could have sworn her eyes got a little misty. I think it was the most I’d ever said about my mother to her.

“Oh, and say goodbye to Rose,” I said. “Tell her she’s free to take over my chores if she wishes.”

At that she smiled, both of us knowing that Rose would never have to work a day in her life.

I gave Uncle Pat a little wave which he barely acknowledged, and then coaxed Sadie out toward the group, hoping that the other horses were friendlier than their riders were. I started heading toward Donna and Avery when Tim called out.

“Actually, I would rather if you rode up here with me and Jake,” Tim said.

Was he being serious? I halted and looked over my shoulder at him. Mr. Snarl’s name was Jake and Tim wanted me at the front with him?

Tim raised the brim of his hat to see me more clearly. “You’re the tracker after all. You need to be at the front with us at all times. Otherwise, how in the heck are we supposed to find anything?”

He had a point, and one I didn’t even think of before. I looked over at Donna with her neatly-tied bonnet and kind eyes, and Avery’s sculpted face, but they both stared back at me as if this was a good thing. I had kind of hoped that Avery would have insisted in being at the front too, to keep an eye on me, but he just smiled encouragingly.

I sighed and steered Sadie around, taking her past the three other men—Isaac, Mr. Scar Face, and the plump one—until I was right beside Tim, Jake on the other side of him.

“For safety’s sake, Jake will go first. You second. And I’ll be right behind.”

Safety’s sake? I’m sure the question was all over my face because Tim said, “Jake was in the Texas Rangers with me. We fought Monterey together. He’s the best shot I’ve ever met, the best horseman, and—if you believe the rumors—has killed a bear or two with only a pocketknife.”

As I took my place behind him, I actually could believe the rumors. With his broad, burly frame, scarred hands and rows of shotgun shells across his weathered vest, he was both manly and terrifying. I wasn’t sure if it was because he was such a man, a mounted time bomb of testosterone, that made him terrifying or if it was the other way around.

Maybe it was that up this close, his skin smelled warm and good, like toasted pine.

I made a sound like a squeak, immediately hating myself for being so noticeably intimidated. It didn’t matter. Jake had already turned around in the saddle, taking those fathomless eyes with him. With a barely perceptible motion, he signaled to his horse and we were off at a brisk trot.

For most of the ride that morning, as we left the small settlement of River Bend behind, the only home I’d ever known, Tim was chatting away in my ear, making introductions to everyone else in the party. There was, of course, Isaac, who was sitting right behind him. Then there was Mervin Meeks, the pot-bellied fellow, whom Tim said was a well-respected man who put up most of the money to fund the expedition. He’d been Isaac’s childhood friend and was always there to help. The rest I could figure out for myself. He was loud and boisterous, joking with Isaac most of the time. With Mervin in the group, silence was rare.

Then there was Mr. Scar, whose real name was Hank O’ Doyle, a man that scared me more than Jake did. Maybe because Jake never looked behind at me, yet every time I turned my head to make eye contact with Avery, Hank’s leering gaze was right there with his dead, grey eyes. It made me feel like I had centipedes crawling on my skin. The fact that Hank had a face like a badger and was ugly as sin didn’t help.

Tim kept Hank’s introduction short, saying that he rode with them in the Rangers and was crucial to many skirmishes. My guess was that if they ever needed someone ruthlessly killed behind closed doors, Hank was the one to do it. That didn’t make me feel any better.

I wished more than anything that I was riding in the back with Avery. Then I could at least be myself and not worry about saying or doing the wrong thing. While Jake never spoke, Tim asked me a million questions.

“What river is this here?” he asked as we rode along a path worn smooth by elk, aspen trees showing their early autumn gold on one side, the rushing dark water on the other.

“The Paiute Indians had another word for it, but I believe it’s now known as the Truckee River. At least, that’s what we had been told a few years ago. Named after Chief Truckee.”

“Paiute, huh?” Tim said. “Is that what you are?”

“It’s the tribe my father belonged to, yes.”

At that, Jake turned his head to the side and eyed me, as if he had to make sure I was in fact half Indian.

“Fell in love with a white girl, did he now?” Tim commented, almost to himself. “Well, it’s happened before. Just ain’t so common down where we’re from. See, in Texas, the Comanche and Cheyenne Indians…they aren’t always so friendly.”

Jake’s jaw stiffened before he turned back around, guiding us around a boulder.

I didn’t want to talk about my parents. Their relationship was beautiful and tragic and very private.

“Your pappy is dead, ain’t he?” I didn’t have to say anything. He continued, “I’m sorry about that. What happened to him?”

“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “One day he set out on a trek, trying to track a few cows that had escaped our neighbor’s farm. He never came back.”

He fell silent. In fact, everyone fell silent; even the river seemed to reduce down to a gurgle. I suppose our conversation could be heard down the line.

Soon enough though, Meeks started yapping away again, this time directed at Donna and Avery, and the attention was lifted off of me. Tim managed to cease with the questions, and I was able to just try and enjoy the ride.

The sun was shining and high like a gold penny in the sky, and there was a light breeze that rustled some of the loose leaves. I had worn one of my winter dresses and was glad for all the layers of flannel—the air was growing colder by the minute, though I needn’t reach for my thick shawl yet. I had been right about yesterday being the last hot day, especially as we made our way toward the mountains. I knew that realistically we wouldn’t get through them without some snow, I was just hoping it wouldn’t be the severe amount that trapped the Donner Party.

The curious thing about the Donners was that they never came through River Bend. If they had, I was sure Pa or someone else would have warned them about the long winter ahead. They would have been loaded up with supplies and urged to stay in town, and the whole tragedy could have been avoided. I’d heard they’d lost half the pioneers they were traveling with, that wagons had been left behind in the deserts of the Utah Territory before they even reached the Sierra Nevadas. Entire families were wiped out. And yet here we were, setting out after them with a team of eight, hoping to find…something.

What’s out there.

What’s out there?

I suppressed the shiver that threatened my backbone and tried to ignore my mother’s words. Still, the only reason we knew about the Donners and their respective parties on the wagon train was because they were eventually rescued, and by people out west of the mountains. California. According to Isaac, George Clark would have come from the east. And why would Clark set out after them in the first place if they’d already been rescued? I filed that thought away for later.

We rode until dinnertime when Tim told Jake that the “hired help”—meaning Avery, Donna, and I—looked famished. We tied the mule up to a pine and let the rest of the horses graze loose in a field of brown grass while Avery showed off his fishing skills by catching some trout in the Truckee with nothing but a homemade fishing pole.

Though it felt good to be off the horses, we didn’t stay for long. We fried up the fish over a small fire, filled our canteens with the clear, cold river water, and then continued on our way. Tim wanted us to ride as far as we could while we still had the afternoon. Supper would most likely be had in the dark of the looming woods with some of the jackrabbits that Jake casually picked off with his revolver from time to time. He really was a good shot, shooting the animals that even I could barely spot, their tanned hides matching the dry ground.

I barely had a chance to talk to Avery and Donna while we ate, but they seemed to be in good spirits. Avery had enjoyed a tall tale competition with the inventive Meeks, while Donna never stopped remarking on the beauty of the day and God’s blessing. Her talk of the Lord started to annoy a few of the men like Hank and Isaac, but I enjoyed listening to the sing-song quality of her voice, even if my religious views weren’t as strong as hers. I guess like the true half-breed I was, my own beliefs combined Christianity with the spirits and stories of my father’s people.

Everything was fine until an hour or two before dusk, when we entered the forest and began the gradual ascent up the foothills. Having the tall trees block out the dying sun and periwinkle sky made me feel hot under my collar, like I couldn’t breathe and the woods were out to suffocate me. I fell very quiet, no longer listening to Tim’s stories about his time in the Foreign Legion, and instead doubting myself for coming along. Strange how easily I flipped to one side, but I couldn’t quite ignore that terrible feeling that something bad was going to happen.

You’re probably blaming it on the muskrats, I thought to myself. A week ago I’d gone for a ride with Avery and came across a muskrat den close to Lake Bigler. My father had taught me to predict the winter by the thickness of the muskrat’s walls. I couldn’t really tell if the walls were thick or not, but it was a large den and planted that tiny seed of doubt that this could be a tough winter after all.

We eventually stopped in a small clearing by a stream just before night plunged us all into darkness. I helped Donna unsaddle the horses, feed them, and hitch them up for the night, while the men built quick lean-to shelters out of fallen logs, branches, and neighboring boulders. For a troop that appeared to pack so light they hadn’t needed a pack mule until now, I was impressed at the amount of items they had with them. Canvas tarps, muslin sheets, even pillowcases they quickly stuffed with foliage all emerged from their oilskin satchels. Soon, we had a temporary camp complete with shelter, roaring fire, and jackrabbits roasting over a spit.

It turned out that Jake was not only the resident hunter but the resident cook as well. Just as he had handled the trout, he was roasting the rabbits to perfection and boiling beans with pork fat until the mouth-watering smell was overtaking the camp. Donna even looked a bit put out as she sat beside Avery and me on a felled log, having assumed that she would have been the “wife” of the camp, I’m sure.

Tim must have caught me staring because he said, “Jake’s been keeping us well-fed most of the journey, though the deserts were mighty tough on us. You can expect him to take care of the party now that we’re back into fresh game.” He uncorked a bottle of what looked like moonshine and passed it over to Avery. “It would make me happy if you had some.”

Avery took the bottle and a huge swig, nearly coughing most of it up. The men laughed and even I couldn’t help but smile at how terribly enthusiastic he had been. Then he passed the bottle to me.

“A lady of God doesn’t drink,” Donna said, her voice chirping loudly like a bird.

I felt the eyes of all the men on me and Avery looked bug-eyed as he held the bottle out, second-guessing his hospitality.

But I took the bottle from him, looked Donna in the eyes, and said with a dry smile, “Then it’s a good thing I’m not a lady.”

I took a small swig, fully prepared for the burn. I’d had alcohol from time to time, usually Uncle Pat’s whisky that Avery and I used to pilfer from his hiding place in the barn on lonely nights. I managed to keep it down, though I was sure it belonged in a nurse’s kit and not in someone’s stomach, and neatly wiped my mouth. I could feel Donna staring at me in shock and Meeks let out a hearty clap.

“Seems like you got the right tracker, right Tim?” he hooted.

Well, I guess that might have earned me a smidge of respect among them, though I was sure Donna was quickly working out all the ways she could save me from damnation. As a joke I passed the bottle to her to which she staunchly refused and then handed it to back to Tim.

He raised the bottle to me. “There’s no greater woman than a woman that can hold her liquor.” Then he let out a grizzled old laugh.

That was most likely a Texas saying, but I took a strange pride from it anyway.

Everything was pretty upbeat and cheery after that. The jackrabbit tasted delightful and eased my aching stomach which wasn’t used to riding for so long. The fire was hot and bright, making the shadows of the dark forest look far away, and Tim had brought out his harmonica and began playing us a lively tune. If I stretched my mind for a second, I could have believed I was on a trip with a bunch of old friends and not strangers hell-bent on finding a hopeless search party.

Pretty soon, we all wound down for the night. The men had been kind enough to build a separate lean-to for Donna and me, complete with our own fire. From where our blankets were lain down on the soil, soft with pine needles, we looked straight off into the night, as if there were only two of us there. Though I loved my privacy, there was something a bit unsettling about not being able to see the men and their fire. I hoped Avery would have stayed with us, but I supposed that Donna wouldn’t have allowed something so scandalous anyway.

With the chill of night creeping along my bare flesh, I quickly got undressed and into my flannel undergarments and nightgown, and huddled under the layers of buckskin and animal hides. It was strange to have Donna sleeping right under the blankets beside me, even though she was keeping to herself and reciting the Lord’s Prayer over and over again. Somehow, that made me feel alone.

I must have dozed off for a solid amount of time because when I came to, our fire had dwindled down to small, crackling flames and the darkness had crept in. But that wasn’t the reason I was awake.

I rolled onto my back, my nose exposed outside the blankets and growing cold as I breathed in deeply. There was a strange scent around us, like the smell of rotting flesh and something else I couldn’t quite pinpoint. I lay there, listening to Donna’s heavy breathing and wondering if that was the odd, sickly smell that had awoken me, when I heard Sadie whine softly, followed by the stamping of hooves.

Something was disturbing the horses, perhaps a bear or wolves. Maybe that was the smell. I knew it was unsafe for me to go out there, that I should have woken up Avery or Tim, but I wanted to make sure. I quickly climbed out of bed, careful not to let the chill in under the blankets, and slipped on my boots and my heavy wool shawl, wrapping it around my head and all around me so that only my hands were exposed. It was a pity that I didn’t have a knife to protect myself, or even a gun, though I never knew how to shoot one. I could only hope I knew how to scream loud enough.

I stepped out, my eyes quickly adjusting to the shadows beyond the fire, and slowly walked toward the horses, careful not to spook them.

I saw Sadie first. She was looking at me with her head raised high, pulling back on the lead as far as it would let her, the whites of her eyes shining wildly in the dim light.

“Easy girl,” I murmured, keeping my movements still and my voice low. She lowered her head slightly, though the uneasiness in her eyes never left. “What is it?” I whispered.

I started stroking her lightly along her neck, hoping to calm her, but she wouldn’t have any of it. I frowned at her, wondering how the rest of the horses were fairing or if my horse happened to be the neurotic one, and walked under her neck to the other side.

I collided with a large, hard man.

I’m not sure how I kept my scream from escaping and waking the whole camp, but I did. It sat frozen in my throat as I got a whiff of toasted pine and tobacco. It was none other than Jake.

“Going for a midnight stroll?” he asked gruffly. I backed away from him a step until I was up against Sadie’s shoulder. He struck a match and it illuminated his rugged face in orange as he lit the long cigar that was dangling from his lips.

He waved the match until it went out and flicked it into the woods before taking a large drag of the cigar. His face went back to being in the shadows, though I could still see the ember’s glint in his eyes and the way his dark, arched brows knit together in a permanent frown. At first I thought that was just the way he looked at me, then it became clear he looked at everyone that way. He viewed the world like it was a hostile beast.

He wouldn’t have been wrong about that.

“What’s a matter?” he prompted. His voice was very low and gravelly, like he smoked too many cigars in his life, and its roughness did funny things to the flesh at the back of my neck. I tried to place his age but came up empty-handed. Twenty-five, thirty, I didn’t know. He was strangely ageless. “Injun girl don’t speak English?”

No matter his age though, he was a rude bastard.

“Of course I speak English,” I snapped, refusing to be intimidated. “You’ve been hearing me speak all day.”

He scratched at his sideburns. “I tend to tune out when a woman’s speaking.”

I leaned further into Sadie, as if that would help me escape his chauvinism. “That’s probably because a woman’s never said a good thing about you.”

He let out a puff of cigar smoke directed at my face but a light breeze whipped it up into the forest boughs before it could engulf me. “You’re damn right about that.” He cocked his head and looked me over. “Except where it counts, if you know where that is, and judging by what you’re wearing to bed, I reckon you don’t.”

I peeked down at myself and noticed my thick flannel nightgown was showing. I quickly wrapped the shawl tighter around me. “No woman would be foolish enough to wear anything less than this to bed in these mountains.”

He grinned at me, his eyes deeply creasing. “Seems that you care what I think about your apparel.”

“I don’t care about what you think or anything about you,” I said hastily. I held my head high in the air but I couldn’t hide the shakiness that came through in my words.

“Careful, child,” he warned. “I may be the only one left to save you out here.”

I scoffed. “Save me? I don’t need saving. None of us do. Or will.”

He grew silent, taking another long puff. His eyes watched me in the darkness, the wheels in his brain turning. I noticed that without his hat on, he had thick, shiny hair that curled at the back of his neck. “You say that but I don’t reckon you believe that.”

I frowned at him. “This is a search party made up of capable people, isn’t it?”

“Is it?” He took a step closer to me. “Are you capable? If you ask me, I think inviting you along was the worst idea Isaac ever had, and the whole thing about you being a great tracker is a load of horseshit.”

I flinched. I rarely heard anyone use profanity. Oh, Avery sometimes had cussing contests with Uncle Pat, but that was entirely different.

“You more shocked by my mouth or what I just said about you?”

“Both,” I replied quickly. “Both were uncalled for. I never claimed to be a good tracker.” I was getting flustered and hated it. “I can’t help what the people in River Bend think of me. My father was the best, the one everyone used. I’m sure they all think I take after him. I’m sure they think I eat pine nuts for dinner, too.”

He let out a puff of smoke. “Interesting,” he said slowly.

“I beg your pardon?”

“How quickly you downplay the very thing that Tim and Isaac hired you for. If you ain’t a great tracker, then why you here?”

I swallowed thickly. “Because. I didn’t have a choice. My uncle wanted the money.”

“You always have a choice. Either you are a good tracker and believe you can help, or you’re being a lovestruck filly bent on keeping her man close to her.”

I blinked dumbly and he went on, “That Avery kid. You two betrothed or somethin’?”

“He’s just my friend,” I exclaimed in a hush, as if Avery could hear me. I could feel my cheeks getting hot. For pity’s sake, was I really that obvious?

“Well if that’s true, then I guess you are a good tracker. Did your skills bring you out here just now?”

It took a moment for me to remember why I’d gotten out of bed in the first place. “I heard the horses.”

“So did I. Thought I smelled something a little peculiar, too.”

“Rotting meat,” I said absently, thinking back.

He nodded. “Something like that.” He puffed on his cigar and watched the smoke sail up into the darkness. “Huh, I guess you have a lot more Injun blood in you than you look. Might as well be good for something.”

That did it. I was wasting my time talking to this loathsome man when I could have been sleeping. “I think I’ve had just about enough of you,” I told him as I started to leave.

“Oh, darlin’. You’ll never get enough of me, I promise you that.”

“I say goodnight,” I added curtly, leaving him alone with the horses like the animal he was. I crawled back under the hides and hoped my anger would dissipate enough so that I could get some sleep.

Instead, I lay awake till the air became fuzzy and grey, thinking about all the unladylike ways I wanted to punch Jake McGraw in the face.

Chapter Four

“You look a little tired, Eve,” Avery said to me the next morning as I helped him load up the mule. Ali flicked her long, fuzzy ears back and forth as if she felt just as agitated as I did.

“That’s not a very nice thing to say to a girl,” I said to him. He was right, I was tired, too tired to care much what I looked like. The lack of sleep was becoming a nuisance, and the heavy grey clouds that settled in overnight didn’t help either.

He smiled at me. “You’re still pretty, don’t worry.”

I bit my lip, trying to hide my grin. My gaze immediately went from Avery’s familiar and angelic face over to Jake’s craggy one. He was at his horse—turns out his name was Trouble—and intently packing gunpowder into the hollowed horn that hung from the saddle.

“What do you think of him?” I asked Avery as casually as possible.

He looked over Ali’s rump at Jake and shrugged. “I like him just fine. Ain’t nothing wrong with those strong silent types. Almost everyone here is all right, even though Meeks talks too much and Clark won’t talk enough.”

“Almost everyone?”

Avery’s eyes flitted over to Hank O’ Doyle who was polishing a Bowie knife against a rock, his face as mean as the blade. “I don’t particularly trust that man,” he said under his breath. “Something about him gets me the wrong way. My dad used to get that same look about him right before he’d beat my ma.” Avery’s father had left him when he was still a boy, hence why he worked at Uncle Pat’s in order to provide for him and his mother. After she died, he just stayed on.

“Then I’ll be staying as far away from him as I can,” I said solemnly. The fact that he shared my instincts about Hank was unsettling. It was hard to judge what people were like when you were isolated with them.

We watched him for a few moments until it became a risky game then quickly got everything else ready for the trip. Even though the skies hadn’t let loose with rain yet, it didn’t mean they wouldn’t. The weather in the mountains was unpredictable compared to the valley below. Tim came around, puffing on a long pipe, and handed me an oilskin raincoat to keep rolled up beside my pack.

Soon we were all mounted and heading away from the lean-tos, back on the trail made by wagon wheels. As the path grew narrower the higher we went, skirting around tall trees and rocky outcrops, it was hard to imagine any wagon trains coming up here. I voiced this to Tim.

“The Donners gave up on their wagons a long time ago,” he said.

I turned in my saddle to see him packing more tobacco in his pipe, the smoke matching the grey of his frazzled beard. “How come we haven’t seen any?” Seemed unlikely that I would have passed by such a thing without sensing it.

“That’s what I’d like to know,” Tim said. “Anything we find will help us figure out what happened to George Clark.”

“Perhaps there’ve been scavengers,” I suggested.

“Perhaps,” Tim said with a strange gleam to his eye.

We rode on, the trail becoming steeper and steeper. Our horses were growing tired, and when the rain began to drizzle over us, Jake insisted we keep on moving. I clumsily slipped on the coat while in the saddle and asked what the rush was.

For a moment I thought I’d spoken out of turn, but Jake turned his head halfway around, the drops of rain spilling from the brim of hat. “The rush, darlin’, is that we’ve got to make it to the Graves-Reed cabin before nightfall. We ain’t all built for sleeping in the elements like you.”

Before I had a chance to smart at that comment, an unusual smell caught my attention, something like herbs and bone. Jake quickly pulled up his horse and said, “Speaking of Injuns…”

All of us came to a sudden stop. Up ahead on the trail were two Indians walking quietly toward us. Their animal hide coats blended in with the tree trunks perfectly, the feathers sitting atop their long dark hair looking freshly plucked from an eagle. They had no weapons in their sunburned hands but I knew none of us were letting our guards down.

Jake raised his hand in a greeting, though his other one was now resting on his revolver at his hip. “Can you speak to them? They look like they eat pine nuts just like you.”

They were Paiute Indians, I knew that much, and I knew they did a lot more than eat pine nuts. Even so, I wasn’t really one of them. I never had been.

“I don’t really speak the language…” I stammered as they came closer. I could see them peering at me curiously. I wondered if they knew my father. “I don’t know what tribe they’re from, the dialects could all be different. I…my father taught me a long time ago and I don’t remember.”

“Can you try?” Tim asked gently from behind me. “This could get ugly otherwise.”

I didn’t really have a choice. The two men had walked right up to Jake but their attention was all on me. At first I thought that perhaps they were twins since they looked so similar, but I could tell one was a bit shorter and had crooked lips.

The taller one began to speak to me in slow, careful tones. At first I couldn’t understand a thing, but after a while a few words sounded familiar: “No,” “Mountains,” “Dangerous,” “Snow,” “Animal,” and “Men.”

“What are they saying?” Tim asked.

“I think they are saying something about snow, men, animals, danger, and mountains.”

“You only think you know?” Isaac asked, leaning forward with disgust on his narrow face. “Damn it, Tim, what’s the use in having a mountain guide if she can’t even talk to the locals?”

“I never said I was a guide,” I said quickly over my shoulder. I looked back at the Indians who were realizing I couldn’t speak their language and only barely understood it. They were probably “Diggers” anyway, a word the white folk used to describe Indians who didn’t fit into one tribe or another. I guess I was a Digger in my own right.

I decided to try English on them. “What are you saying? There are dangerous snows ahead?” When it was lost on them, I started miming snow and repeated back the word they used for it.

The one with the crooked lips nodded. Something about a big snow coming, though that didn’t surprise me. Again he said “men” and “animal,” then added the word for “eat” and “hungry.” He kept repeating another word that I didn’t know, acting it out by snapping his jaw open and shut and pointing at me, then at Jake and Tim.

I looked up at Jake who was staring at the men with a volatile expression. I could already tell his opinion on Indians was low and these men were probably testing his patience. I hoped he wouldn’t try anything—he hadn’t taken his hand off his gun once.

“I reckon we should be on our way,” Tim announced cautiously. “We won’t learn much more from them, I’m afraid. We should be thankful they’re peaceful and leave while we can.”

“I could scalp them faster than they’d scalp me,” the hoarse voice of Hank rose up from the back.

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Tim admitted. He eyed me carefully. “Do you think they’ll let us go in peace? I didn’t come here to cause any more trouble. Too many deaths on my hands already, and I ain’t ready to add some more.”

I was tempted to shrug and tell him I had no idea because that was the truth. But I decided to go on instinct alone. These men had noble, if not kind, faces. They might have been Diggers and outcasts from the tribe, but they just wanted to help us. They wanted to warn us about something.

I just wish I knew what it was.

I smiled at the men and said thank you in both English and my shoddy Washoe, and raised my hand in farewell. They nodded in understanding and did the same. Then they walked on past our party. I looked over my shoulder before they disappeared into the trees. The last thing I saw was one of the men looking back at me with absolute pity in his eyes. He then shook his head, as if we were all a lost cause, and then was gone.

The air around us smelled like sorrow.

* * *

We were a somber, motley crew when we finally started finding remnants of the previous parties. It started off slowly, at least for me. Sadie’s ears started flicking back and forth as did Trouble’s tail. I smelled that rotting meat odor for a second before it was whisked away. A moment later Jake turned around to face me, his expression in that permanent frown.

“Picking anything up, Pine Nut?”

I ignored my new nickname. “Just that smell again.”

“According to the map,” Isaac shouted from behind Tim, “we should be close to Alder Creek, the first camp for the Donners.”

I’d seen Isaac’s map. It was little more than a few squiggles drawn on crudely-shaped mountains. Still, I had a feeling he was right. Though the rotting meat smell was gone, there was something else. I studied the nearby trees closely and noticed that here and there, the branches were hacked off at eye level. Someone had been collecting them, either to make a roof for a shanty or to burn as firewood.

“I think we’ve already found it,” I said. I nodded at Jake. “Keep on riding.”

From the look on his face I could tell he hated being told what to do by a woman, let alone a half-Indian one. That’s why I said it. I liked seeing his upper lip snarl and those deep, dark eyes narrow into cold slits. I liked that I made this very grown man as ornery as a mule. I liked that I seemed to bother him as much as he bothered me.

We rode for another minute until the trees opened up into a tiny meadow of fawn-colored grass that spread out to the golden alder trees that bordered the edge of the forest. From here you could see the wide expanse of the mountains, their tops covered by low clouds. While the drizzle had stopped where we were, the air had gotten colder and I knew that snow was falling higher up.

A flock of geese suddenly rose from the grass and Jake was quick with his plains rifle, bringing down one with his only shot.

“Another good meal,” Tim commented cheerily. “Well, I suppose we should take a look around here and see what we can find.”

“I reckon we keep going,” Jake said, twisting in his saddle to face him, the leather squeaking against his raincoat. “We can’t stay here, and we have to reach proper shelter before dark.”

“We’re staying here,” Isaac countered, “until we find what we’re looking for. You might be leading us but you’re not in charge of this expedition, Jake. You’re not funding it. And if you want your money, then you’ll have to sit tight and keep your mouth shut.”

I’d never heard Isaac talk so much in one go before, nor mouth off to Jake. The air suddenly rippled with tension, adding to the weighty, eerie quality that the valley was already giving off.

“Eve,” Tim said in his most diplomatic voice, “why don’t you take Isaac around this valley here and see if you can find anything. I think there should be a creek nearby and hopefully remnants of the Donners.”

I raised a brow. When he said remnants of the Donners, did he mean discarded belongings—or discarded bones of the men who died in the snows? I shivered at the thought but dismounted Sadie all the same.

Meeks also wanted to take a look around, and as soon as Hank indicated the same, Avery was joining my side. Tim was already pulling Jake away, wanting to talk to him far from the rest of us. Only Donna remained on her horse, pretending not to be slighted.

“What exactly are we looking for?” Avery asked, arms folded across his chest.

Isaac eyed him carefully before he spoke. “Just signs of civilization. Why don’t you and Hank and Merv take the south end over there? Eve and I will take the north.” He jerked his skinny face to the mountains where the alders thinned out and the grass was lost to trees.

I could tell Avery was apprehensive about leaving my side, but as long as he was with Hank—who was staring me down like a prized buck—I wasn’t bothered. Isaac was strange and pushy but he didn’t give me the same feeling as Hank did.

So I walked with Isaac toward the north end of the field, the rain-wet grass brushing against my dress and soaking the hem. I was grateful for the boots I was wearing, especially as the ground grew soft and marshy, and we eventually came across a creek that snaked just inside the last crop of alders.

“So this is Alder Creek,” Isaac said as if I wasn’t there. He started looking around him for signs. But for me, the signs were obvious. That rotten smell had returned again, albeit fainter, along with the light but still horrid smell of human waste. Isaac obviously couldn’t pick up on it, or he would have remarked something fierce. I suppose I really was starting to prove my worth.

I gestured to the trees on the other side of the gurgling creek. “I believe if you’re looking for anything it will be over there.”

He didn’t look as suspicious as I had imagined he would. “You reckon?”

“Let’s go see.”

The creek wasn’t hard to cross with a few large stones in the middle, and I was glad that we’d found something to appease him.

However, as soon as we came across faded hoof marks and footprints that led us into a small glade, my gladness took a sharp turn towards horror.

There were two small huts composed of felled logs and branches with some mildewed quilts thrown on top. Beyond that was a small semi-circular cabin with a missing roof and fire pit in the middle. Even if I had just seen those two sights, I would have known something was wrong. It was more than a sense or a smell, picking up on who was here before. There was a feeling that something terrible happened here and that feeling was snaking up my body, intent to drown me in it.

Of course it only took me a few steps over to the right, so I could see beyond the makeshift cabin, to see what was causing my hairs to already stand on end. There was a large pile of human skeletons—some men, some women, some children. Some were almost whole, some were missing almost every part of them, but none of them were completely intact. As if that wasn’t odd enough, some of them had what appeared to be bite marks on them and yet the area hadn’t seemed disturbed by animals at all.

“I think we found them,” I managed to say before I realized that any of the bodies could be Isaac’s uncle. “I’m sorry. Do you think that George was one of them?”

But Isaac was paying the skeletons no attention. Instead he went into the cabin, turning over fallen logs and canvas, turning over empty boxes and emptying out an iron pot that was filled with a foul-smelling sludge that caused Isaac to recoil in disgust. Still, he continued on, going to the huts next and disappearing inside. He had wanted me to lead him here but apparently that was as far as my services went.

Finally, when I had grown tired of standing next to the poor, expired bones of pioneers, their sorrowful stench filling my nostrils until I couldn’t imagine what fresh air smelled like, I asked Isaac if I should go and get the others.

He was quick to respond to that and hurried out of the hut, the canvas flapping against him like a wet wing. “No,” he said, his eyes momentarily too wide, a dirty smudge across his face. “No, it’s fine. I’m ready to go on. George wasn’t here. These people were part of the Donner party, if not the Donners themselves. We must move on.”

And as quickly as we had come here, we were leaving. Though puzzled, I couldn’t say I wasn’t glad. The sharp air from the mountains swept toward me and cleared my head as we flocked back to the party. Everyone except Jake and Tim were mounted on their horses and looking bored.

“We were getting plumb worried about you,” Tim said, directed more to me than Isaac. “We were just about to set out after ya. Find anything?”

Isaac shook his head and quickly got on his horse. “No, nothing. Better luck at the next stop.”

I frowned at him while I mounted Sadie. “Well, I wouldn’t quite say we found nothing. There’s a heap of skeletons out there behind some of the huts the parties must have built.”

“Skeletons?” Jake repeated and I caught an odd exchange between him and Tim.

“Yes, yes, the poor souls,” Isaac said quickly. “But it wasn’t George’s party and that’s all I care about.”

“How do you know it wasn’t his party?” Avery spoke up. “If they’re just bones, how can you tell?”

Isaac narrowed his eyes at him before pulling his hat further down on his head. “I can just tell, you understand?”

Avery did, but just like me, there was a flicker of disbelief in his eyes. Of course, there wasn’t much we could do about it except try and argue with him and that was the last thing any of us wanted. The sky was growing darker by the minute, not only with nightfall but with thickening clouds that swarmed toward us from the crests. I knew in my soul that they would be carrying snow and a lot of it. The Indians were bound to be right.

After Alder Creek, we rode as fast as we could, trotting with every open expanse we got, which wasn’t very often. Just as things seemed too dark to see anymore, we came to a large clearing and a proper log cabin in the middle of it. All of us seemed to breathe a huge sigh of relief, and together we made quick work of getting the place outfitted for us.

The cabin itself was damp and cold, as to be expected since it had been abandoned for so long, and the two front windows had cracks in the glass that let in the rapidly cooling air. But Donna, bless her soul, lit a few candles she had brought with her and went about sweeping the place with a makeshift broom made out of pine branches. It was a double cabin that had obviously been constructed long before the Donners, perhaps by some other travelers who wanted to stay awhile. It still had a partition of canvas and a few logs that stopped at the fire pit in the middle, where a fire that Avery had built was burning.

Unfortunately, with the space so evenly split, there would be no such thing as a “ladies only” side. Donna looked like a blonde tomato when she found out Avery and Meeks would be sharing our side of the cabin. Normally I would have felt the same about Avery, for different reasons of course, only tonight, I didn’t really feel anything. The only thing that got to me was the way Jake smirked at me when Avery started making his bed near me.

I was also extraordinarily tired. I barely made it through the goose stew—as delicious as it was—before I crawled over to bed. I promptly passed out even as I heard the moonshine being passed around and the harmonica starting up.

When I woke, I was certain I’d only been asleep for a few minutes. I could hear the fire crackling and feel the heat outside the blanket, the cabin doing a great job of keeping everybody inside warm and protected.

But like the night before, I hadn’t awoken by accident. There was a reason, and while my confused, sleep-deprived brain struggled to figure out what it was, I was hit with the intense aroma of rotting flesh, carried on a hot burst of air.

I opened my eyes.

A pair of pale blue eyes, lit by firelight, were leaning over me. A bloody mouth sneered.

I screamed violently, my voice carrying loud, and quickly tried to push the person off of me. But they were already retreating, making a strange growling, snapping noise like a hungry dog. It ran awkwardly across the cabin, as naked as a jaybird, as blue white as snow, and jumped out through one of the front windows, shattering the glass all around it, before disappearing into the night.

All at once the cabin was plunged into chaos. Donna was screaming her head off and Meeks seemed to be hyperventilating. Avery was at my side and holding my shoulders, trying to speak to me, while Jake grabbed his shotgun and ran out the door in his long johns.

“I don’t believe it,” muttered Tim, pulling on his coat and boots, grabbing his gun and following Jake out the door. Hank and Isaac were silent, sitting up in their beds. They both had the most unsettling, matching smiles across their faces, as if what had happened was a good thing.

“Are you hurt, did he do anything to you?” Avery kept repeating until I brought my attention back to him.

I shook my head. “Was it a he?”

“I think so. It was dark. It was hard to tell. What was he doing?”

I blinked a few times, trying to get my bearings. “I don’t know. He was just staring at me. I…you know, I don’t know. I don’t know.” I kept saying it because I couldn’t quite wrap my head around it. Someone had been in the cabin with us, and while Donna was already muttering something about crazy local Indians, I knew that was no Indian. The man was extremely pale, more white than white; he was almost transparent. His eyes had this milky blue quality, and because of his skin tone, I couldn’t recall if he was white blonde or didn’t have a hair on his head. I’d heard of albinos before, people without pigment, and I wondered what the odds were of finding one up here. What were the odds of finding anyone up here?

While Donna moved on to saying her prayers, Avery took on her theory about the local natives. But I knew it wasn’t true, and judging by the looks on Isaac and Hank’s shadowed faces, I knew they didn’t think it was true either. I didn’t know what they thought at all, but you can bet I was dying to find out.

Soon, Jake and Tim came back into the cabin. I tried to tear my eyes off Jake and his long johns that conformed to his massive body, but it was hard. It was the only thing that momentarily took my mind away from what happened.

Unfortunately, it seemed that Jake and Tim had formed the same opinion as Donna and Avery, though both of them couldn’t fathom why someone would come in here and not hurt anyone, not steal anything, and jump out the window. The glass would have hurt—why didn’t he just go through the door? Was he mad?

And just when they were staring at his escape route, I was hit with another smell. I got out of bed and looked at the window. There was a thin trail of blood leading from the broken glass all the way to my bed. I looked around and saw a few drops of blood on the hides and quickly examined myself to see if I was bleeding. I wasn’t.

“What the dickens?” Avery exclaimed as we saw the trail lead away from my bed and over to Meeks. We all stared at the jolly, plump man in horror as he lifted up his arm. Soon his eyes were just as wide as ours as rivulets of shiny blood ran down his sleeve.

Mervin Meeks was missing his pinky finger.

Chapter Five

The silence stretched out until it was shattered by Meeks’ scream. Avery and Jake jumped to attention, rushing over to him, trying to calm him as he launched into hysterics. I couldn’t move, couldn’t take my eyes off of him. My brain filtered through the last five minutes and brought up the image of a bloody mouth inches from mine.

My Lord. That person, that pale thing, had bitten off Meeks’ finger. He must have been in shock when it happened. How on earth could something like that even happen in the first place? It was unheard of.

“Savages,” Jake snarled, holding up the hand and inspecting it while Avery and Tim were now trying to hold him down. He eyed me with hate. “Your kind of savages.”

I was too dumbstruck to care what he said about me or my kind. As savage as some Indians could be—believe me, I’d been exposed to all the stories—I also knew that none of them would do such a horrible, inhuman thing. Indians would never consume part of another human being. I couldn’t imagine anyone doing so, no matter what color they were or what they believed. They were people, not animals.

Donna finally snapped out of her religious daze and started helping them tend to Meeks’ hand. Tim had poured a lot of moonshine down his throat, so the thrashing calmed, and soon he was passed out. I sat on my bed with my knees drawn to my chest and watched until I noticed Isaac and Hank get up and head outside, blankets wrapped around their shoulders, rifles in tow.

Curiously I got up, slipped on my boots, and followed them out the door. Everyone else was so preoccupied with the disfigured Meeks that they didn’t even notice.

Outside it was crisp and cold, and I wasn’t surprised to see a few flakes of snow starting to fall from the sky. It wasn’t very heavy—just sprinkles—but I knew come morning there would at least be an inch or two on the ground. I was grateful for the ramshackle lean-to on the other side of the cabin where the horses were being kept, sheltered from the elements. I should have gone over and checked on them, but on this moonless night, I stayed by the dim glow of the cabin.

Isaac and Hank were nowhere in sight, but I had a feeling they were trying to track the way the person went. I could smell the person’s boots rising up from the scuffled footprints on the ground along with the scent of Meeks’ attacker, a mixture of blood and rot.

I went as far as I could into the forest without losing sight of the cabin and then stopped. I was better off with the horses than with Isaac and Hank in these dark, unending trees. As much as I wanted to find out what happened, why the pale man had attacked Meeks (and why he hadn’t done the same thing to me), my curiosity needed to be reined in before I did something idiotic.

“You shouldn’t be out here alone,” Jake said from behind me, his feet crunching on the fallen twigs, the air around me becoming more earthy and pleasant as he came closer. “It’s dangerous.”

I turned around to see him a few paces back, still in his long johns, and with a cigar in his hand. I quickly turned my head away—he was not leaving anything to the imagination. His body was massive, broad lines and hard muscle that seemed like it was going to burst out of the red wool.

“Aren’t you cold?” I asked, wishing I felt less embarrassed.

“Naw. You ain’t ever seen a man in his drawers, have ya?”

“A proper lady shouldn’t see that until she’s good and married,” I replied, wondering what wanton, caveman town he was from where folks were seeing each other in their undergarments. Texans were something else.

“You’ve said many times you aren’t a lady.”

He started walking toward me until I shot him a warning look to stay right where he was.

“I only said that once,” I retorted indignantly.

He puffed on his cigar, a few sprinkles of snow coming through the boughs of the trees and settling in his dark, lush hair. “True, but you’ve demonstrated your word many times before. No proper lady comes running out into the forest after she’s been nearly attacked by a savage.”

I glared at him, keeping my focus on his craggy face that looked strangely handsome in the burning glow of his cigar. “The man wasn’t a savage.”

“If that’s the case, then who was he?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted stupidly. “I only saw him for a second and there was barely any light. He was pale though, white as a sheet, with eyes bluer than a robin’s egg. But the same smell that I’ve been picking up the last few days,” I gestured ahead into the forest, “it’s coming from him.”

He frowned, eyes glittering with thought. “Interesting.”

“I thought so.”

“You know what the smell is?”

I shook my head. “Something rotten. But familiar.” I don’t know why I kept on talking, divulging information to him. “The other day, I smelled it on our neighbor’s horse that went rabid and tried to kill us.”

He coughed, his eyes bugging out. “I beg your pardon, Pine Nut?”

I sighed and quickly told him what happened with Nero, knowing it would be met with disbelief.

I turned to face him and was surprised by his silence. In fact, his mouth was set in a rather grim line. “Rabies is Latin for madness.”

I raised my brow. “I didn’t know that. Is it possible that whatever infected the horse had infected this man? He did look rather mad.”

He snorted. “You have to be more than ‘rather mad’ to bite someone’s finger clean off.”

I cringed and looked back at the cabins. “How is Meeks?”

He took in a large drag of his cigar and let the smoke slowly trail out from his full lips. “He’s alive. Unconscious. I don’t know what else we can do for him.”

“Surely one of us will be going back to River Bend tomorrow with him.”

“Won’t be you. Won’t be me.” A smirk tugged at his lips. “Mayhaps it’ll be Avery. I’d hate to see you cry though.”

“Oh, you’d love to see me cry,” I countered. “And I wouldn’t cry over Avery.”

“You two seem awful close for being just a couple of pals.”

“I don’t see how this is any of your business, nor how it could possibly interest you,” I told him. I lowered my voice. “Besides, he is my only friend in this world.”

“I see. That explains it then,” he said, another puff of smoke rising up to the trees.

“Explains what?” I asked defensively. “And why are we always out here sparring in the middle of the night?”

He shrugged casually. “Last night you came out to spar with me, Pine Nut.”

Before I could say anything to that, the faint crackle of crushed ground came from the woods. Isaac and Hank appeared first as shadowy dark forms before I could see them clearly.

“Find anything?” Jake asked them.

Isaac shook his head while Hank’s cold eyes fixed on me.

“Perhaps we need to take the tracker with us,” Hank said, reaching for my arm. I took a step back into a tree, trying to escape his grasp.

“Think it’s a bit late for that,” Jake said to him, his voice taking on an edge. “We’ll have a look around in the morning.”

Hank scowled at him but dropped his hand. “You really think you’re in charge of this, don’t you?”

He shrugged. “I don’t, but I do know better than you. Technically Merv’s in charge cuz Merv has the money.”

“Too bad Merv is in there dying,” Hank said without a hint of remorse.

Jake took in one last puff before he flicked the cigar at the ground between Hank and I. “Tomorrow will figure itself out. Merv may have lost his finger but he hasn’t lost his life. If he seems worse by morning, we’ll get someone to take him down to River Bend.”

“Well it ain’t going to be me,” Isaac snapped at him. “This is my uncle out there.”

“So you keep saying,” Jake said, stroking at his rough beard. “I reckon you must be the most loyal nephew on earth to keep going after him so…passionately.”

The two of them stared at each other in a silent showdown, Jake not breaking his gaze for a second. Finally Isaac muttered, “Get out of my way,” and tried to push past Jake before he realized that Jake was solid and immovable as a tree. He ended up going around him.

Hank stared at me with his leering eyes and licked his cracked lips before he followed after him. I shivered with revulsion.

“Best get you inside too,” Jake said as he eyed me. Little did he know I wasn’t shivering because I was cold.

Once we were back inside the cabin, I saw that Merv was propped up in his bed and still unconscious. His hand was fully-wrapped in muslin with only a small amount of blood soaking through, and his body was piled high with blankets.

Donna was washing her hands in a bowl of hot water beside Avery who smiled at me with relief.

“How is he?” I asked.

“I managed to stop most of the bleeding,” she said, her voice shaking. She pushed her blonde curls out of her eyes with her forearm, her hands still soapy. “The challenge is keeping the wound clean. We’ll need to keep changing the bandages.”

“Will we have to take him back to River Bend?” Jake asked, appearing beside me, still in those long johns.

She kept her God-fearing eyes averted and looked down at Meeks’ body instead. “Not if we keep him here for the next day or two. He shouldn’t be on the move, either back to River Bend or continuing north.”

“Ah, what the hell does she know?” Hank’s voice came from the other side of the cabin.

Donna’s cheeks burned with anger. “I know enough,” she said, lowering her voice. She looked at Jake, keeping her eyes above his neck. “He’ll be too weak to ride. For goodness sake, I feel too weak to ride. That was a horrible thing that just happened. Wicked and evil, like Satan crawled right here in this cabin with us.”

Jake exhaled loudly. “Don’t you think it makes sense then that we move on?”

“We could split up,” Tim mused from the corner of the cabin where he was sitting on a stool, appearing deep in thought. “Some of us can stay here, some of us can keep going.”

“Splitting up didn’t exactly worked for the Donner party, did it?” Jake pointed out.

I looked at Avery in fear, not wanting us to separate. He came over to me and put his hand on my shoulder, his head lowered toward mine. “Don’t worry, Eve, whatever we end up doing, I’m not leaving you. Not until I teach you how to fire a gun, anyway.”

Jake snorted loudly.

Avery lifted his head and gave him a dirty look. “Do you think that’s funny? Eve needs to know how to protect herself.”

His smile twisted. “A woman with a gun is a bad idea, boy. You’d be putting all our lives at risk.”

“Only your life,” I muttered under my breath. From the way his lips twitched further, I knew he had heard me.

He walked over into the center of the room by the roaring fire and addressed everyone. “I know we’re all worried about old Merv here pulling through. I know we’re all worried about finding what we’ve come out here to find. And I know we’re all worried that something or someone has already found us. But there just ain’t no use in worrying tonight. I’ll keep watch until sunup in case the finger-biting bastard comes back. Then we’ll start figuring out what to do.”

With the phrase “finger-biting bastard” rolling around in my head, it was a wonder I got any sleep at all.

* * *

Overnight, five inches of snow had fallen and more kept coming by morning, prompting Jake to nail boards to the broken window. Meeks was in a delirious state, more so than I would have thought. In the end, it was only his pinky finger that was missing, not a leg or anything so crucial as that, and yet he kept moaning about being ruined for the rest of his life. After everything, I would have thought he’d be more concerned with how his finger was taken but he wasn’t.

However, he was the only one who seemed unconcerned about that. As much as Isaac had been chomping at the bit to go forth to the next site, this morning he was hell-bent on finding the culprit. By now, theories about what it was were rampant, especially after they heard my testimony of what I saw. For whatever reason, Isaac and Hank seemed to want to track down this monster, even though the two of them seemed to have little regard for how Meeks was doing.

Naturally, I had to come along. I didn’t mind, especially when Tim said he’d stay behind to watch over Donna and Meeks. The rest of us set out on a long expedition, everyone relying on me to lead the way. The smell of rotting meat only got me so far though. Whatever or whoever that was, they were long gone.

When we paused for food—some leftover stew—Avery took the time to try and teach me how to load and shoot a rifle. I couldn’t say it was a success. Loading the gun itself was a long and complicated process, with having to put the right amount of gunpowder down the muzzle, then placing the ball in there and shoving it down as far as it could go, then adding cloth to the end, plus checking something called the firing cap. It was all way over my head, and even though we were doing this far away from the party, Jake would occasionally watch us and yell at Avery that he should be using a flintlock rifle, that his wasn’t a real man’s gun, that he was teaching me all wrong.

The curious thing for me was that Avery was in very close contact with me the whole time, closer than he’d ever been, and extremely attentive. When he first showed me how to hold the rifle, he put his arms around me, embracing my back. He smelled so good, clean and familiar, despite the fact we were camping and surrounded by light snow. And yet…I felt nothing. I’d always imagined Avery and I getting closer in this sort of way, of course on the more romantic side of things, but my heart never skipped a beat; I never felt all shivery and new. I just felt like he was my good friend Avery teaching me how to shoot a gun. It was comfortable. Nothing more and nothing less.

But by the time I was finally ready to fire at a tree for target practice, Jake shouted for us to get going. As if God waved his hand across the sky, it began snowing harder and growing colder, enough so that my bonnet was crusted with ice and my fingers began to go numb. Isaac wanted to go on and keep looking for the monstrosity, but Jake wasn’t having any of it, and even Hank seemed to agree.

The ride back to the cabin seemed longer, perhaps because we were all growing more miserable by the minute. When we finally arrived, Isaac and Hank abandoned their horses, even though they were steaming with sweat, and rushed on inside to get warm. Avery volunteered to rub them down and I followed suit. It wasn’t really volunteering since we were being paid, and I wouldn’t let a horse be put away without taking care of them first. We even took Trouble and told Jake to go inside and relax, though he seemed a bit hesitant about it. Once again, he hated taking orders from someone like me.

While we worked, taking off the saddles and gear, and rubbing them down with rags warmed by the fire until their coats were dry, I felt like I had a million things to ask Avery—we hadn’t really been alone yet this whole time, and the words had been building up inside of me.

I cleared my throat, ready to talk in privacy about how I felt about Isaac, Hank and this “monster,” but for some reason I was bringing up something completely irrelevant.

“Avery,” I started, unable to keep my lips from being still, “are you in love with Rose?”

He froze just as my heart did. He was shocked as I thought he would be, and I prepared myself for the possible answer.

“Eve…” he began, running his hand through his golden hair. “What a thing to ask.”

“I’m your friend and I can ask such things if I want,” I said.

He frowned at me. “You always were bold but you’ve gotten bolder. I’m afraid these cowboys are rubbing off on you.”

I just stared at him, wanting an honest answer so I could be done wondering about it.

He sighed and leaned his head back, the skin on his neck exposed and pale compared to his tanned face. “Am I in love with Rose? I don’t know. I reckon I don’t know what love is. You know it when you feel it, don’t you? Isn’t that what they say?”

I nodded, though now I had my doubts too. I had started to think I was in love with Avery, but now I couldn’t quite be sure. I would do anything for him…he was as beautiful as anything. He was warm. And most of all, he was safe.

Love was safe, wasn’t it?

“I don’t know,” I whispered to him. I’d thought about telling him how I felt, but it always started with his proclamations first, if there were any. “Do you like her? More than…more than you like me?”

A wash of pity came across his blue eyes, as if he just got the clue. “Oh, Eve. You’re my best friend. The way I feel about your cousin…”

“Is different,” I supplied in a dull voice.

“It is different,” he implored. He slapped the rag on Trouble’s hindquarters and came around to see me.

“It’s because I’m not like you,” I said, looking him in the eye. “White.”

“It’s because you’re not Rose,” he said.

I bit my lip as a million reasons flashed through my head. I wasn’t pretty enough, voluptuous enough, pale enough, well-dressed enough, or smart enough. I wasn’t privileged. Avery wanted a lady and I for sure wasn’t one.

I breathed in deeply through my nose, feeling a queer sense of warmth build inside. I loved Avery. I wanted him to be happy. He was a good man, a handsome man, and my best friend. He deserved a lady above all else. I couldn’t be mad at him because I wasn’t what he deserved, what he wanted.

“Do you know if she feels the same way?” I asked.

He rubbed at his chin and looked away. “I don’t know. And even if she does…feel something, it’s not as if your uncle is going to let her run off with the ranch hand.”

“Unless you had a great deal of money,” I pointed out. “Which this trip will surely give you.”

“I’d give it all to Rose, if she’d have it. I’d buy her anything she wanted.”

“And what if what she wants is to leave River Bend?” I asked softly.

He looked me in the eye, a sad smile on his thin lips. “Then I’ll take her away. As far as she wants.”

“I won’t be there.”

“You could come too, Eve. In fact, I’d want you to come.”

“That would be more than uncomfortable, Avery.”

“It wouldn’t…I promise. Don’t you want to see the world? See more than River Bend and these trees and these mountains? There’s a great big country out there, just waiting for us.”

I did want to see the world. I did want to lay my eyes on new lands and new promises. I wanted to find my place, a place where I could be me and be free from prejudice. Free to live my life and be free from fear. But I’d always imagined it being with someone who wanted me there—and only me. Someone who wanted to start their lives over again with me by their side.

And now I knew for sure that a new life wasn’t in the cards.

After that sobering thought, we ran back to the cabin through the mounting snow to have supper and settle down for the night. Meeks had calmed down a bit, maybe because he was constantly plied with moonshine, and everyone else seemed in relatively good spirits considering. Donna was happy with Meeks’ progress, saying he might be well enough to travel onwards tomorrow if the snow let up.

Unfortunately, the snow didn’t let up. It only got worse. By the time we woke up the next morning, we were in the middle of a blizzard and Jake had to nail the boards across the window shut again. Frost had covered the inside of the walls and the wind was whistling through, angry and bitingly cold, and everyone had to huddle around the fire to keep warm. Even going to the outhouse was a risky excursion for you were snow blind in the endless white. Twice, I bumped into trees thinking I was heading in the direction of the cabin.

The next day wasn’t any better.

Or the next.

The blizzard raged on for five straight days, five full, long days where we were all trapped in the cabin, our tempers starting to flare and our patience greatly diminished. While Meeks was healing, Hank, Isaac, and now Jake were miserable and agitated by the slightest thing. Tim worked extra hard keeping the peace, and even Avery became a bit whiny at the situation. It was almost like talking about Rose made him realize why he was doing this, and that he needed to get back to her as soon as he could. The only upside to the whole thing—as far as I was concerned—was that I didn’t fear the creature would come back. It was impossible for any man or animal to traverse the woods during such a storm.

On the last day of the blizzard, just as dusk was falling, I went out to the outhouse, hoping that the snow would let up a little. The drifts were huge, so tall that the way to the outhouse was now a tunnel with ice walls up both sides and the route wasn’t a straight shot, either. When you were near the trees and the outhouse, the tunnel would bend and you couldn’t see anything in front of you but the blue glow of packed snow.

I made it into the outhouse, holding my breath so I wouldn’t breathe in the overwhelmingly foul smell, and lifted up my ice packed skirts, sitting down on the cold wood. The wind blasted at the sides of the shanty, snow blowing in through the narrow cracks in the wood and tar paper.

When I was finished, I was about to get up, eager to breathe again and return to the warmth of the cabin, when the most peculiar feeling came across me. The skin on my scalp prickled and my instincts were telling me that something was so very wrong.

I breathed in deep to get a trail, but the smell of human waste was too overpowering. I coughed into my shoulder and through my watering eyes saw a shadow pass outside of the door.

I froze, trying to keep my teeth from chattering. I strained to hear if there was someone out there, but was only picking up the tireless wind and blowing snow.

Suddenly, the outhouse shook violently, as if something was shaking it and I feared that something was beneath me, trying to crawl up and out of the sewage. My heart danced with panic even after the shaking stopped.

After a few heavy moments passed and nothing else had happened, I took a step towards the door and put my eye to a small crack and peeked out.

A pale blue eye stared right back.

Chapter Six

I screamed but had nowhere to go, trapped in the worst place possible. I waited with my breath in my throat, trying to figure out my next steps. I couldn’t stay in here—the outhouse walls would crumble with a single blow if the elements didn’t get me first. But to run to the safety of the cabin meant running past those blue eyes.

I decided to go for it. Waiting would kill me otherwise.

I pushed the door open into the blinding howl of white and started running down the tunnel as fast as I could. The snow beneath my feet was hard-packed and growing icier as the evening fell, and my boots slid out from under me. I pushed off of the walls and kept running, feeling like the thing was coming after me.

I ran until the cabin was almost in view.

I ran straight into a man.

I shrieked again as hard, cold hands grabbed my wrists and bent them back painfully, but my voice was lost to the wind.

I knew it was Hank just from the way he was holding on and from the bitter way he smelled. I raised my face to his and saw those grey eyes glaring down at me, the poisonous sneer of his lips, those raised, snaking scars.

“Why you running?” he growled at me, a small bit of spittle coming out of his lips and freezing in his long mustache. His face was so close I had to turn mine to the side.

I eyed him wildly. “There was someone…I saw the man again.”

His grip on my wrists grew tighter and he quickly yanked me toward the outhouse.

“No!” I cried out, trying to get out of his grasp. “I’m not going back there.”

He pushed me hard against the wall of snow, my back sinking into it, the ribbons of my bonnet coming loose. “You take me back there and tell me what you saw. You tell me everything or else.”

“Or else what?” I somehow found the nerve to say.

He pressed hard up against me, the smell of alcohol clouding the cold air. This was far more dangerous than Uncle Pat. I could handle getting smacked around. I couldn’t handle anything more than that. I couldn’t even think about it.

He let go of one of my hands and put his fingers along my cheek. His eyes looked dull, empty as they stared into mine. “I knew an Injun girl just like you once. She wasn’t as pretty as you, didn’t have these lips,” he said as his stiff fingers came to my mouth, “or such a svelte…form. I fucked her several times.” I gasped at his language, and he continued, a weird glaze coming over his eyes. “She didn’t want it but I had her screaming all the same. Screamed even more when I took my knife and scalped her at the end. She was right ugly then. Served her right for being what she was.”

I couldn’t breathe. He brought his face closer. “I need to know what is out there. You keep seeing it and no one else does. You should be my bait. I’ll let it just have a chunk of you before I spring the trap.” I tried to move my face away from his lips but he grabbed my chin and held it, pressing his fingers into my jaw. “Or else you’ll be just as well off as the other Injun girl.”

The fear was so real that I couldn’t even feel the cold anymore. I was just this empty black hole where panic was born.

The sound of a gun being cocked cut through the wind.

“I think it’s time you step away from this Injun girl,” came Jake’s voice, hard as steel.

Hank let go of my face and stepped back, stumbling slightly. Jake rounded the corner, his revolver aimed straight at Hank, his dark eyes staring him down the barrel.

“What do you want, Jake? We were just talking.” He glared, wiping the snow out of his eyes.

“I can see that,” Jake answered. “But perhaps this isn’t the right place for it.”

“Put your gun down, McGraw.”

He answered with a stony nod. “I’ll put it down when you walk back to the cabin and get out of my damn sight.”

Hank staggered toward him, an ugly, twisted smile stretching across his face, and stopped a foot away. Jake towered over him, a commanding presence of muscle and mass, making Hank look like nothing more than an angry little boy. And yet I was more afraid of him than ever.

Hank suddenly grabbed the barrel of the gun and held it steady in front of his own face, grinning into it. I sucked in my breath, expecting Jake to just shoot him right there.

“Here’s your chance to kill me now, just like you’ve been wanting,” Hank said. “You’ve always wanted the excuse to get rid of me. Now would be the time. You could get away with it too. Say you were defending the honor of this Injun whore.” He looked in my direction and spat at the ground between us. “Though no one would believe that. She has no honor, and everyone knows you hate the savages more than I do.”

Jake cocked his head. “I never said I wanted you dead, O’Doyle. I just always wanted you gone.” He took the gun off his face and whispered closely, “Now, go.”

They stared at each other for a few long seconds before Hank stumbled off toward the cabin. “Don’t let your guard down, McGraw,” he yelled back at him. “Not around me. And especially not around her.”

Jake tugged at the end of his hat, snow spilling off the brim, and stuck his revolver back in the holster. He stuck his thumbs through the loops, squared his shoulders, and looked at me. “You all right there, Pine Nut?”

I straightened up and brushed the snow off my back. “I’m fine. I’m surprised you even bothered coming after me, since I’m one of those savages you despise.”

He raised his brow. “And this is the thanks I get for saving your ass.”

“I didn’t need saving.” I swallowed hard and tightened the bonnet strings under my chin.

A darkening cloud came across Jake’s eyes. He walked over to me and put his large, strong hand on my shoulder, his jaw setting in a firm line. “Believe me, darlin’, you did need saving. And I don’t think it’s proper for me to tell you exactly what you needed saving from. You should never, ever underestimate that man.”

I was finally able to look away from the intensity in his eyes and focused on the hand on my shoulder. He abruptly lifted it as if I were burning him. The air between us felt heady and vibrant.

I ignored it and looked in the direction of the outhouse which was now barely visible in the fading light. “I saw it again, you know.”

He frowned, folding his arms across his broad chest. “Saw what?”

I lowered my voice. “It. The pale man. I…I heard him outside of the outhouse and saw a shadow. When I looked through the crack, I saw a blue eye looking back at me.” I felt foolish even saying it since the evidence wasn’t around anymore. I could have even imagined it.

“Blue eye,” he repeated. “Couldn’t have been Avery. Couldn’t have been anyone. They were all back at the cabin. I left as soon as I saw Hank step outside.” I had to admit to myself, I was strangely touched that he was being protective of me, even though I couldn’t quite figure out why.

“So you ran?” he continued.

I nodded. “Then I ran into Hank. He wanted me to…show him, I guess. He said something about using me as bait.” I took in a steadying breath. “I just don’t understand why he and Isaac care so much about this thing now…it’s as if their focus shifted from finding George Clark to hunting it down.” Funny how I could never quite decide on whether to call it a thing or a person.

Jake sighed and stared down at his boots, pressing a hand on the back of his neck. “You’re right about that. I just had this discussion with Tim when we checked on the horses earlier.”

“And?”

His eyes flitted up to mine. “And Isaac Clark has always been obsessive. I suppose he’s switching from one obsession to another.”

“No,” I said. “That doesn’t make sense. This whole trip doesn’t make sense. Why hire me as a tracker to find someone that’s most likely dead? Does he really believe that his uncle is alive out here?”

“No. I reckon he doesn’t.”

“Then why are we here?” I watched his face carefully and saw him flinch. “Do you know?”

“No,” he said thickly.

I frowned, wishing I had more light to study him in. “Would you lie to me?”

“Pine Nut, I don’t know you well enough to lie to you,” he said. He then looked up at the sky. “We should get you back inside. The storm is letting up but you look right cold.”

He was right. The flakes were falling more slowly and the wind was down to a rustle. Of course the mere mention of it being cold and I started to shake and shiver uncontrollably.

He stared at me for a moment, his rugged face looking torn, before he quickly put his arm around me and led me toward the cabin. There was something so wonderfully solid about the gesture, the feeling of him behind me, that it made me momentarily forget who this was. He may have just “saved” me, but it was still Indian-hating Jake McGraw, and we mixed about as well as oil and vinegar.

Just as we got under the slight overhang and he pulled away, putting his hand on the door knob, I reached out and grabbed the sleeve of his coat. He looked down at me expectantly.

“Should we tell the others what I saw?” I asked quietly.

He took off his hat and shook the snow off of it. His hair was messy, giving me a weird urge to run my hands through it. The thought was surprising and I tried to push it out of my head.

“Guess it depends if Hank’s been shooting his mouth off about it,” he mused. “If he hasn’t, let’s just keep it between you and me for now. Avery, Donna, Meeks…they don’t need the worry. And neither do you. Tim and I will take turns on watch tonight, just in case. You’ll be safe.”

And I believed him.

Once I got inside, it took most of the night to get some feeling back into my limbs. The cold really seized hold of me and could scarcely let go, even when I was practically sitting on top of the fire. Avery was giving me an odd feeling too; he kept looking between Jake and me as if there was something more to the story or something between us. I really wanted to tell Avery about what had happened, but I couldn’t risk it in the cabin with everyone around us, especially since Hank seemed to have kept his mouth shut and passed out on the middle of the floor.

Eventually, when everyone went to sleep, I finally grew warm. The last thing I saw before I closed my eyes was Jake sitting by the door, his rifle in his hand, staring out into space. I was warm, and for that night, I was safe.

* * *

The next morning felt like Christmas. The snow had stopped completely overnight and the temperatures were rising back to normal levels. Though it was a challenge for the men to dig us out of the cabin and get the horses up on firmly packed snow, they were able to do it and soon all of us were setting out on our way further west. Five days in a cabin with these people was far too long of a time.

As before, I was right behind Jake and in front of Tim, and Tim was back to telling me stories that sounded too unbelievable to be true. It didn’t matter though. I was so happy to be out of that cabin, to have fresh, mild air in my lungs and sun at my back. Even Sadie was rambunctious, all that pent up energy from being cooped up in the shanty. She was a little thinner than before, with not much feed to go around while the snows had fallen, but I knew she’d pull through. She was tough, just as my father had raised her to be.

As we climbed further into the mountains trying to reach our final destination, Donner Lake, my thoughts kept going back to my father. I wondered if he would know what it was out there. If it really was a rabid man or something else. My father and his people believed in a great deal of creatures and spirits most white folk would scoff at. I wondered if this was something he would recognize, if it had a name. Or if it was an infected mountain man gone mad.

The Diggers we had met, they seemed to know what it was and that it was out there, waiting for us. I felt like kicking myself for not understanding what they were trying to say. At the time, the words they’d strung together made no sense but now that I’d seen it, it was obvious: “Snow,” “Man,” “Animal,” and “Eat.”

I could only hope that on our way back down—if Isaac could ever find what he was looking for—that we would run into them again. My curiosity about the creature was both eating me up inside and filling me with fear.

Jake turned around in his saddle and eyed me underneath the brim of his hat, as if he sensed the tension in me. Sometimes he looked downright concerned about my well-being. When I stared back at him, trying to neutralize my face, he nodded up at the trees. “Are these here pinyon pines?”

I studied the large pines we were riding beside. “Looks like.”

“Think you’d be able to harvest some pine nuts out of them?”

I gave him a disgusted look.

“What?” he asked. “I’m being right with you. We’ve got enough food for ourselves for the next while so long as I can go back to bagging some rabbits and deer, but I’m a bit concerned about the horses here.” He smacked Trouble’s shaggy rump which caused him to flick his tail. “Pine nuts are high in calories. It’ll get ’em through this if we can’t find grass.”

“The harvesting season is over,” I said. I hated that I did actually know a thing or two about pine nuts. The way Jake smirked at that admission made it even worse.

“Too bad,” he said, then turned back around. I stuck my tongue out at him then couldn’t help but smile at myself. It was funny how being trapped in a cabin with someone for five days could make you feel like you knew them for a long time, even when you hadn’t.

I could have said the same, too, about almost everyone else. Donna proved how dedicated and resourceful she was with the way she looked after Meeks while he proved how quickly he could spring back from such a horrific event. He’d lost some of that spark, that jovial quality that had lightened our spirits before, but after the first two days had passed, he refused to feel sorry for himself. His change in attitude was probably one of the reasons why he was healing so nicely.

Tim too had gotten to feel more like a fatherly figure to me while I began to see Avery as more of an equal than anything else. It was like once I realized his feelings (or lack thereof) toward me and started interacting with everyone else, my silly infatuation with him began to dissipate. Had my crush on him stemmed from the fact that he’d been the only boy around me, the only person to really show me any kindness until now?

I was mulling that over when Jake abruptly brought his horse to a stop, causing Sadie to skirt around him. I pulled back on the reins and looked dead ahead to where Jake’s unwavering focus was.

The smell of rot hit me before my eyes picked up on it. Far up the path, in the middle of the snow, lay a body, lifeless and immobile. Its skin was pale, though not as white as the snow, and was clothed in what looked to be animal hides.

“Are they dead?” Jake asked me quietly as the rest of the group came to a halt behind us.

“Smells dead,” I said. We exchanged a meaningful glance. Even though it looked different from what I’d seen before, we were still too far away to properly check, and the smell was still the same as before: rancid and unforgettable.

“Don’t you think we oughta go over there and check?” Tim asked. “They could need our help.”

I shook my head. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“Oh, goodness me,” Donna cried out from the back. I turned to see her bring her horse around Avery’s and toward us. Her face was collapsing with concern. “Someone’s hurt out there.”

Jake raised his hand to motion for her to stay put. “We don’t know that just yet.”

She shook her head, her blonde curls springing. “But they could be alive. We have to go check on them.”

“We’ll have to ride past, at any rate,” none other than Isaac shouted. “We’ve got guns if anyone tries anything.”

Donna frowned at him with disdain. “Tries anything? There is a poor soul out there who needs our help.” She gave us the same look. “You should be ashamed to call yourselves Christians. My heavens.”

And then she clucked to her horse and started off toward the fallen body.

“Donna, no!” Jake yelled. He kicked Trouble’s flanks and started after her. I was about to head out too but he yelled at me over his shoulder, “Everyone stay back!”

Donna was already dismounting and running through the snow toward the body, her calico skirts held high. Jake was quick off his horse, seeming to vault off with ease, but it was too late. Donna was already bending over the body and touching its shoulder with her hand.

“I think he’s alive!” she cried out excitedly.

Jake was so close to getting to her, just a few feet away, when the fallen person lifted up their head, and with an open, snapping mouth, engulfed Donna’s outstretched hand.

It was alive, indeed.

My hand flew to my mouth in horror as Donna let out a horrific scream that was made of terror and pain. Jake grabbed her around the waist and pulled her back and out of the way. But it was too late. She was missing her hand from the wrist down. It was now in the unhinged jaw of the person who was sitting up in a squatting position, hair wild and white, clothes cloaked around it like a dressed-up dog. Blood poured down its chin, staining the snow.

Before it could even move, however, Jake had his revolver out and shot the man through the chest. The man slowly looked down at the bloody hole with idle curiosity before chomping down the rest of Donna’s hand, her fingers twitching from the movement like she was waving goodbye. Jake watched, totally frozen, as the man swallowed it down like it was a piece of roast, his crazed, pale eyes glued to us. Then, with a final smack of his bloody lips, he ran off into the trees and disappeared.

Meanwhile Donna was still screaming and bleeding profusely, blood spurting everywhere. Jake ripped off his coat, trying to wrap it around the bloody stump. It took all of us a moment to snap out of the shock of what just happened.

I immediately kicked Sadie over to them and jumped off of her into the snow, running toward the horror, while Isaac and Hank spurred their horses off into the trees in the direction of the man, hooting and hollering in their pursuit.

Jake was trying to hold her in place, but Donna was wild and even too much for a man like him. I quickly grabbed his coat and tried to hold it on the stump, trying not to breathe in the stench of rot and blood nor look too closely at what was unfolding, while Jake held her back. Soon Tim and Avery were at our side, with Meeks too disabled to do anything but watch a fate worse than his own.

“What the hell was that thing?” Avery shouted. It was rare to hear him curse but I’d be surprised if we weren’t all cursing now. “What was that? A person?”

I shook my head, tears of horror and frustration threatening the sides of my eyes. “I don’t know. It looked like a man, but no man could do this.” And that was true, not only on the moralistic side of things but physical as well. Donna had small hands, but he had put his entire mouth around it and bit it right through like he was eating a carrot.

“Demon!” Donna shrieked, flailing against us. “Demon! The Lord is angry with me!” Then she started babbling too fast to make any sense and began to collapse to the ground. Tim and Jake lowered her gently, and once her head was back against the snow, she promptly passed out.

“Please don’t let her die,” I said out loud, though I wasn’t sure to whom. I liked Donna a lot and she would not have been here in this situation if it wasn’t for me.

Jake felt along her neck and gave me a nod that looked exceedingly grim considering his face was streaked with her blood. “Pulse is weak, but it’s there.” He looked to his coat I was holding around the stump, how the blood kept pooling out underneath. “We need to stop the bleeding right now or she will die.” He looked to Avery. “Avery, I need you to go get the first aid supplies from the mule’s pack. Bring everything we didn’t use on Merv.”

Avery nodded, happy to be useful, and took off back toward Meeks and the mule. Only the crunch of his footsteps stopped right away.

I looked over my shoulder to see Avery standing still in his tracks. Further down was Meeks on top of his horse. Both of them were staring at something that was crawling slowly out of the forest, heading right for them.

Chapter Seven

While the man who attacked Donna had been partially clothed with disheveled white hair, this man was naked and ice blue. He looked just like the one who had taken Meek’s pinky.

Now he was pulling himself forward on his hands and knees as he came out of the snowbank, struggling to get up. I couldn’t help wondering if he was hurt or dying, even though there was no blood on him. Was this some sort of ruse that these creatures put on, pretending to be wounded or dead to gain sympathy? Surely they had to be smart enough to know it wouldn’t work a second time.

“Meeks, get out of there!” Jake yelled at him. But Meeks seemed too scared to even get his horse to move. Avery reached behind him for his knife, not taking his eyes off the creature who was still crawling forward toward Meeks.

I looked to Jake. “Throw Avery your gun!” I said frantically.

His eyes widened. “I don’t reckon a gun will do the trick.”

“Jesus Murphy, that just can’t be,” Tim swore and brought out his revolver. “This will at least scare the horses away.” He fired a shot at the creature and hit it in the shoulder, the snow around it quickly growing red with blood.

It didn’t stop him but it did scare the horses, so much that Meek’s palomino reared up, and with Meek’s useless hand, he was unable told on. He went flying off the back of the horse, landing in a puff of snow just a few feet away from the creature.

We all held our breath as the creature raised its head to look at Meeks. Then with one last burst of energy, the creature lunged and landed right on top of him.

Meeks screamed, trying to fight him off while Avery started sprinting toward them, his knife out.

But it was too late. Meeks was too injured, too fat, too slow. The creature buried his head into Meeks’ chest and with wet snarls, started feasting on him right there and then. Meeks screamed and screamed and then suddenly stopped. His heart was dangling from the creature’s bloody mouth.

I fought the urge to vomit while Jake was up on his feet and running toward Ali the mule, who was still trotting off in the distance in fright from the gunshot and the screaming. I had no idea what he was doing, and now Avery was at the creature, his knife raised in the air.

The creature cried out as Avery drove his knife into its back, again and again, until it swiped at Avery, knocking him a few feet back.

“Avery!” I yelled, and got to my feet, trying to get to him before the creature did. However weak it was before, it was now growing stronger by the minute.

The creature leaped at him, tackling him into the snow, while Avery tried to hold him back, keeping his snapping jaws just inches away from his face. Blood poured into Avery’s eyes and he was being overpowered with every second that passed.

I wasn’t going to make it to him in time. I wasn’t even sure what I was going to do to help him without getting myself killed, but I had to do something.

And apparently, Jake thought he had to do something too.

“Don’t move!” Jake yelled as he came running toward Avery, an axe held high above his head. I didn’t know if he was talking to me or Avery—probably both. I froze and Avery quickly turned his head to the side, closing his eyes tightly.

Jake swung the axe down like some kind of mythical god, his large muscles straining through his thin shirt as he let out a war cry, and the blade met with the back of the creature’s neck.

The axe didn’t go all the way through, just enough so the creature’s head was half off and Avery was able to roll out of harm’s way. Jake pulled the axe out and brought it right back down, this time severing the creature’s head. It rolled across the snow until it settled face up, those glazed blue eyes looking blankly at the sky.

Jake stuck out his hand and helped Avery to his feet. “Are you all right, boy?”

Avery nodded quickly, but I could tell he wasn’t all right, not mentally anyway. None of us were. Meeks was lying in the snow in a pool of his own blood, his heart having been ripped out and eaten by the same creature, man, monster that Jake just decapitated, while Donna was unconscious in Tim’s arms having lost her whole damn hand to another one of the monstrosities.

Jake looked around, his hand flexing on the handle of the axe. “I’ll go gather up the horses, while you guys get the first aid kit and fix her up best you can. We need to keep moving if we want to save Donna, and I reckon we’re much closer to Donner Lake than we are to the our last camp.”

“You reckon?” I repeated. “You don’t know?”

He shook his head and gave me a leveling look. “Isaac and Hank are gone, and we can’t wait around for them to come back. Isaac has the map. If we lose the trail, I’m afraid you’ll have to lead us there. And you’ll have to hurry. We may have killed one but there’s at least one still out there.”

With that in mind, Avery and I quickly got the kit from Ali and tended to Donna the best we could. In fact, all we could really do is apply the same treatment to her that she did to Meeks.

Poor Meeks. I kept looking behind me at his mangled, lifeless body that was constantly being shadowed by scavenger birds overhead. Jake quickly shot one before it had a chance to feast on him, saying it would make a good roast. He then picked off a few more birds that tried to peck at Meeks. I watched him carefully and knew from the pained look on his face that he was trying to be good to Meeks, even in death. It hit me even harder to see emotion on someone as stoic as Jake McGraw.

As soon as Donna was bandaged up and laid across the front of Jake’s saddle, we were on our way, heading back through the woods with her horse in tow behind Ali. We traveled for about an hour, all four of us looking to the forest with trepidation, certain that one of the monsters would come back for us. Every thump of melting snow, every crackle of a tree branch made us jump in our saddles.

I was trying my best to keep my senses on high alert, paying attention to any peculiar smells or noises, but after a while, we lost the trail just as Jake feared and it was up for me to find our way to Donner Lake. I could only hope that the lake truly was closer to us because we should have been heading back toward civilization. As far as I was concerned, no amount of money was worth any of our lives and yet Meeks had already paid that debt.

Truthfully, it was hard trying to find the trail. Many times I led everyone to a cliff face or an impassable river before we had to double back and find the way again. I knew they were getting impatient with me but I was trying my very best. The rapidly melting snow made it harder, messing up what could have been a scent trail and obscuring signs of passage. With the clock ticking away and all our lives on the line, not just Donna’s, I started to panic.

Then, when the path seemed to narrow again and it became nearly impossible to move forward, I spotted a piece of cloth hanging from a tree branch. It was dark green and blended in, and had no real smell to it except pine, but it was there and a sign we were in fact on the right path.

Soon the sky started to spread out above us as the trees became sparse. We turned a corner and came across a wide open space with snow-capped peaks in the distance. Donner Lake was frozen over, and on the other side were two log cabins, as if they’d been waiting for us.

We were too tired, our nerves too shot, to even smile at the sight. We could only coax our horses to go a bit faster until we were riding up to the front door.

The first cabin looked about as well-made as the previous camp. It had no glass in the narrow windows, only rotten shutters, but the building was bigger and looked strong enough. To the side and nestled in the trees was another cabin, this one missing the entire front wall. The inside was pretty much empty with the floorboards mostly ripped up leaving dirt in some places. There was no stable or shanty for the horses, so I suggested keeping them in there in case another storm blew through.

“Are you sure?” Tim asked me. He was staring down at me as I dismounted as if I was doing something wrong. “Seems the better idea would be to just let them roam free. I don’t think they’re going anywhere.”

“And if it snows?” I asked. “If they run onto the lake and fall through?”

“Tim,” Jake spoke up. “If Eve wants to put the horses away in there, let her. There’s no harm in it, and besides, she’s right.” He looked up to the sky. “Just because it’s warmer and it’s stopped snowing, doesn’t mean it’s over. Winter is still on its way.”

He dismounted, and together he and Avery lifted Donna’s deadweight off of Trouble. Jake shot me a quick look. “We’ll need your help first, though.”

I nodded. “Of course.” I grabbed the first aid pack off of Ali and followed the men into the cabin. It was dark and musty inside, and smelled absolutely horrible. I was surprised I hadn’t noticed it earlier. It wasn’t the same rotting scent of the creatures but it was revolting all the same. I put my hand over my nose as Tim quickly pushed open the shutters, flooding the cabin with stark rays of light and letting more air in.

With the darkness cleared, our eyes were now free to feast on the terror that lay before us. The entire cabin was in disarray: chairs and beds were turned over, straw strewn everywhere, even a child’s doll was torn in half. But none of that could hold a candle to what lay in and around the fire pit at the side of the cabin.

Piles of burnt bones—human bones—were stacked, spilling out onto the floorboards. In front of the fire lay two large pots, both of them crammed full of what looked to be children’s severed limbs.

There were no words.

But somehow Tim found them.

“Just what the hell happened to these people?” he exclaimed softly.

We all looked at Donna, limp in Jake’s strong arms. Piece by tragic piece, we were starting to have an idea. The snow storms weren’t the only danger the Donner party had faced. Not by a long shot.

* * *

While Tim and Jake cleared out the scene of carnage from the cabin, I helped Avery tend to Donna. She was still unconscious, though Avery had found a small packet of opium buried deep within the first aid pack, a remedy better than moonshine should she wake up.

When we’d done what we could for her, I threw on my thick shawl and started for the door.

“Where are you going?” Avery asked, wiping his hands dry on the last clean cloth we had. If we wanted to keep Donna’s wounds clean someone was going to have to start doing laundry soon and I had a feeling it would be me.

I looked over at Tim and Jake, who had gotten a fire started in the cleaned-out pit and were boiling water to make tea and coffee. They both eyed me in such a way that it made me feel on edge.

“I’m putting the horses away,” I said to Avery without taking my eyes off of them.

“I’m going with you,” he said. He grabbed his coat and shrugged it on. “I’m not letting you out there alone with those crazed people.”

Jake let out a dry laugh at the word “people” but didn’t say anything else.

“Sure,” I said. “I can use the help.”

We headed out into the dusk. There was little light left so Avery grabbed the kerosene lantern that was hanging by the door and we walked over to the horses that had already gathered inside the cabin anyway. Though the day had been mild, the dripping sound of melting snow had stopped and my breath was clouding around me. The night would be cold but as long as we all made it through alive, that was enough for me. I had a hard time complaining about trivial things when someone like Meeks had lost their life in such a brutal way.

The empty cabin had hard-packed dirt which was perfect for the horses, and they were all huddled together with their gear still on. Though it was cold, the missing wall was south-facing and only a little bit of snow had drifted through the roof. Avery and I quickly started getting them untacked, and once he had only his own horse to do, I went around with the lamp and tried to make the cabin a safer place. There was a section of broken and loose floorboards near the middle that could cause a problem if one of the horses stepped on it.

I started prying them off the ground and putting them off to the side when my hands went through the dirt beside one of the boards. Curious, I pushed it aside and looked down. There was a square hole cut into the ground, not too deep and about two feet wide and long. In the middle of the square was a leather satchel. And in the satchel was a gleam of gold.

I blinked, feeling stuck in place, and tried to make sense of what I was looking at. I bent over and brought the lamp closer. Now the gold danced with the light, sending off a beautiful glow like a million summer sundowns. I was transfixed. With one hand I reached into the bag and carefully pulled out a heavy bar of gold, its surface chilled and shiny smooth.

“Avery,” I said breathlessly, afraid that if I looked away, the gold would vanish. “Avery, you won’t believe what I found.”

I heard nothing in response. I smelled only tobacco smoke.

I turned around, and in the shadows, saw Tim standing behind me with a gun to my head. Jake was off to the side of him, his revolver aimed at Avery who was scowling at him with his hands in the air.

“If I was you, Eve,” Tim said with a smile that didn’t match his eyes, “I would kindly drop the gold.”

I didn’t know what to say, or what to do.

“I said,” Tim repeated, “drop the gold. Drop it and get up and come over here.”

“Tim,” Jake warned. “It’s fine.”

“People change when they see money,” Tim explained. “They change even more when they see gold. Come on, Eve.”

I dropped the bar with a clatter and slowly got to my knees. “Tim,” I said, trying to reason with him, “why are you pointing a gun to my head? To both our heads? What did we do? What’s going on?”

Tim sighed. “Guess I do owe you an explanation. You did find what we’ve been looking for, after all.”

“I thought you were looking for George Clark,” I said. I exchanged a wary look with Avery, and it was apparent he thought the same thing too.

Tim lowered the gun. “George Clark is dead. Or so we all assume. He was never related to anyone in the Donner party and was never involved in the search for them. George Clark was a prospector from Sacramento who struck gold in the foothills and became filthy rich. He was heading back over the mountains from the west when something happened to him and the three fellas that were with him. Only one man made it out of the mountains and turned up at Isaac’s door, a man who had gone half-mad. He later died, killed himself in some awful suicide, but he’d already told Isaac everything he needed to know. Mainly, there was a fortune left behind here in these hills. That fortune was just in your hands.” His eyes flitted over to the hole full of gold, the bars gleaming in the lamplight.

Out of everything he’d just told me, all the horrible truths, I could only think of one thing. I looked over at Jake who was keeping his gaze to the ground, as if he was ashamed, even though his gun was still aimed in Avery’s direction.

“You lied to me,” I yelled at Jake, my heart breaking with indignation. “You said you didn’t know why we were here.”

He swallowed hard, and when he looked up at me, a sad smirk was playing on his lips. “Guess I do know you well enough.”

“You know nothing about me,” I sneered, “or anything about being an honorable man.”

He cocked his head. “Well, I can’t know everything.”

Tim cleared his throat, and I was suddenly aware of how hot my face was. I felt utterly betrayed, stupid and foolish. Tim had been such a fatherly figure to me, and Jake…well, I didn’t know what I thought about Jake. But him lying to me near tore me up inside. I was angry that he had such an effect on me—I shouldn’t have even been surprised.

“Now this ain’t the end of the world,” Tim said, putting his gun in his holster and motioning for Jake to do the same. “We can get through this just fine if the two of you behave.”

“You actually think we’d take the gold and run?” I asked, for the thought hadn’t even crossed my mind.

“My, you are an innocent one, aren’t you Eve?” Tim asked. “You need to change that real fast or this world is going to eat you up.”

“Literally, it seems,” Jake added, though he was back to not looking me in the eye.

“We should get a move on back inside,” Tim said, taking his gun out and gesturing to the cabin with it. Night had already fallen and the wind was picking up, whistling over the unseen lake. “Donna may need you.”

When I didn’t move, Tim waved his gun again. His eyes weren’t mean but I didn’t want to test his patience. I looked at Avery and nodded. We walked off toward the cabin, Tim right behind us. I could hear Jake making his way to the wood boards and covering up the hole, I guess in case Isaac and Hank came back. It was clear now that this was an every man for himself operation.

As if reading my mind, Tim said, “You know one bar would be enough for you to start a new life, Eve. The best life you could imagine.”

“Are you trying to tempt me?” I said in a dull voice as the wind whipped my hair out of my braid.

“Just trying to get you to see why we came all the way out here. What it’s worth. We’ve all put in time with the Rangers or other jobs, and we’ve all bled more than we should have for it. The beauty of this fair country is that every man has the opportunity to make the most for himself. We’re just being Americans.”

With that, he opened the cabin door and led us in. Donna was lying in her bed and slowly rolling her head back and forth, a few moans slipping out of her mouth. All the gold in the world couldn’t buy her another hand.

We went over to her as she was starting to stir, and I put the back of my hand to her forehead. She was burning up and clammy and her eyes were rolling back in her head. Avery brought out the small vial of opium and sprinkled a few drops in a metal jug of water, briefly shooting a wary glance at Tim who was stoking the fire. As he shook it around, Jake came back in the cabin, shutting the door behind him.

He paused near us and stared at Donna, taking his hat off his head and holding it to his chest. “How is she?”

I could only glare at him. “Why do you care?”

Avery shot me a look to be quiet and raised her head while he brought the jug to her lips. Most of the water dribbled out of her mouth, but some managed to go down.

“I may have brought you here under false pretenses,” Jake said, “but the offer still counts. Your tracking got us here, got us to what we needed. We’ll pay you handsomely.”

“But not in gold.”

“What’s fair is fair,” Tim said, the flames crackling dramatically behind him. “And the last thing we want is for a member of our team to die. Donna was hired just the same as you was. We don’t want anything to happen to any of you.”

“Is that why you just held guns to our heads?” Avery scowled, darting hateful eyes toward them as Donna appeared to drift off into a drug-induced sleep.

“I said things will be fine if the two of you behave and I mean it,” Tim said. “Tomorrow we’ll head back to River Bend, get out of here while we can. Get Donna the help she needs and you’ll both get paid.”

“What about Hank and Isaac?” I asked. Not that I cared a whit about Hank.

“They wouldn’t hang around for us, that’s for certain,” Tim said.

“And what about the…the men…those creatures out there? What about them?” I asked. “We can’t just go on our merry little way knowing what lives in the mountains.”

“Oh, I reckon you can tell anyone you damn well please. And with the money you’re making, you can move far away and pretend this whole thing never happened.”

I sighed and rubbed my hands against the apron of my dress. We all knew the money was Uncle Pat’s, and even with Avery taking my side, he would never believe what we saw. Once Avery and Rose left for the big city, I’d be all alone. I figured I’d never get another night’s sleep for the rest of my life as long as I knew what lived in the Sierra Nevadas, never be able to wash the image of Meek’s torn heart out of my head.

Chapter Eight

Dinner was a quick meal of roasted hawk, a tough and wiry meat that I couldn’t get down. It reminded me too much of what went on today. I just picked at the food and barely managed to drink a cup of weak tea before I excused myself to go out to the outhouse, taking a lantern and my heavy shawl with me.

“I’ll go with ya,” Jake said, easing his massive frame from the wooden bench.

I stopped by the door and narrowed my eyes at him. “You will not.” I didn’t want him anywhere near me.

“It’s for your own protection,” he said gruffly, putting his hand on the butt of his revolver.

“No, it’s not. It’s so I don’t take off with the gold.”

He jerked his head in Avery’s direction. “Wrong you are. I know you wouldn’t go anywhere without him.”

I exhaled sharply through my nose and then stormed off into the night. I hadn’t been to the latrine yet, so I didn’t even know where it was, but I was too proud to stop walking.

“If you take another step,” Jake warned, his voice drifting up from behind me, “you’ll walk right into the lake. And that ice ain’t gonna hold you no matter how trim your figure.”

I paused and looked down at my boots. The snow in front of me was colored differently, lit up by my lantern. He was right. The smell of frozen lake water, of ice and marsh, permeated my nostrils. I should have noticed, but I was so wrapped up in my head that I didn’t. I could scarcely think.

“The outhouse is out by the other cabin,” Jake said. “I’ll have to escort you there.”

“I don’t need your help,” I said, turning around and rushing past him.

All of a sudden he reached out and grabbed my arm, pulling me close. I nearly dropped the lantern, the light swinging around us, casting shadows across his face.

“Eve,” he grunted, loosening his grip on my arm. “I’m sorry I lied.”

“I don’t care,” I said, my chin held high.

“But you do. You’re mad.”

“You make me mad.”

“Then you care.”

I wrestled my arm out of his grasp but stayed in place, not wanting to back down, just because he was a foot taller than me and twice as wide, just because there were still bloodstains on his face from earlier, just because he held a gun to Avery’s head.

And that was the tricky thing. He saved Donna and Avery’s life today. He wasn’t a bad man, despite how rude he sometimes was. And yet his lie spurred me deep inside. Maybe because I took his word as truth.

“I don’t know why I care,” I slowly admitted. “I think I’m just about losing my mind out here.”

“I ain’t going to hurt you, you know that,” he said. He licked his lips and looked back at the cabin. “I ain’t going to hurt Avery either. And I don’t think Tim will do anything, he’s just scared to lose everything since we’ve come so far.”

“But you have lost everything!” I cried out. “You’ve lost Meeks. You’ve lost the other two. You’ve lost your secrecy.”

He shook his head, his expression turning grim. “No. This is nothing. I’ve lost everything before.”

“Oh, is that so? What could you have possibly lost? A bet? A hand at poker?”

He dipped his chin and looked me square in the eye. The intensity of his gaze reached deep into me. “I lost my wife and I lost my child. They were killed while I was away fighting in Monterrey with the Rangers.”

I was not expecting that. I must have stared at him like a right idiot, trying to figure out what to say. The best I could do was a weak, “Sorry.” I sure felt foolish now, trying to trivialize it all. “What happened?”

A wash of fire came across his gaze. “Injuns. They came to steal our horses. My father-in-law and my wife and my little boy, they killed and scalped them. Left the bodies behind for me to find.”

I felt like my heart had been smashed with a hammer. I put my hand to my chest and looked away from his eyes; the small glimpses of hatred and sorrow in them were too much to bear. But pity was the last thing he wanted from me.

“That explains why you hate Indians so much,” I said, trying to keep my voice light. “Though I really don’t need to remind you that we—my people—we aren’t all the same. The ones who did this to you are savage people, not just savage Indians.”

He pursed his lips. “Let’s just say I have some trust issues then.”

“Still doesn’t explain why you’re a jackass.”

Jake broke into a wide grin. “A jackass, is that right? Well I reckon you’re correct. I suppose I was just born a jackass.”

The severity of the situation came back to me like the gust of chilled wind that made his hair dance. The monsters. The gold. And we were just out here talking like none of that was going on. I looked to my feet, suddenly conscious of how close we’d been standing. The snow glowed yellow in the light of the lantern.

“I guess lying goes with the territory of being a jackass,” I added.

I heard him scratch at his sideburns. He let out a long breath that froze into a cloud. “I guess that’s true as well. But I only lied because it was easier.”

I raised my brow. “At least that’s honest. You’re a jackass and a liar. What else do I need to know about you?”

“I’m a great kisser.”

I almost laughed, but before I could, his warm, rough hands were on my cheeks, cupping them gently, his lips pressed against mine. It was wrong and hard and wet, and though his mouth was only on mine for a second, just long enough to feel the softness of his lips underneath all that pressure, it succeeded in taking my breath away.

He pulled back and gave me a lopsided grin. I was flabbergasted, the feeling of his stubble against my cheek still tingling my skin.

“Well, how did I do?” he asked, his eyes dancing playfully. “I was right, wasn’t I?”

I couldn’t find the words. Jake McGraw just kissed me. Not Avery as I’d always imagined, but Jake. A man. A Texan. A liar and a jackass.

“Speechless for once? Heck, I should have kissed you much earlier if I knew that would be the aftermath!”

I shook my head, too many feelings swarming through me. “That was a horrible thing to do!” I told him, smacking him against his arm. I nearly hurt my hand in the process; he was built like a rock.

He rubbed his chin and peered down at me with his head held high. “You don’t say? Maybe I should try again someday, see if I can change your mind.”

“Don’t you dare!” I yelped, pushing my finger into his chest. “That is no way to treat a woman.”

“Actually, that’s exactly how you should treat a woman. Give her what she wants.”

My head jerked back. This man was unbelievable.

“That is not what I want,” I scoffed. “I don’t know what signals you think you’re picking up on…”

“Smoke signals.”

I shot daggers at him. “But you’re a lying, swine-kissing bastard who just earlier held a gun to my friend’s head.”

“Maybe I don’t like your friend.”

I threw my hands up. “Why wouldn’t you like Avery?”

“Maybe I don’t like the way you look at him.”

My mouth flapped open for a moment. “How do I look at him?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “I mean, I didn’t like the way you were looking at him. Before.”

“Before what?”

“Before all of this,” he said, his voice becoming low. “Before you started looking at me that same way.”

He stared at me like he could find his truth somewhere in my eyes.

“You’re out of your darn mind,” I told him, hoping my cheeks weren’t turning pink. I didn’t look at Jake in any way other than with disgust. I brushed past him toward the outhouse. “I have other business to do, more important business than to stand around in the cold and argue with you.”

“You’re the only one arguing, Pine Nut,” he called after me. I could hear his boots crunch in the snow. I guess he really wasn’t going to let me use the latrine alone.

By the time I found the outhouse though, I was glad for it. Though it didn’t have a tunnel in the snow like last night, it was still black and isolated and I went back to being very afraid of the things that lurked in the dark.

“I’ll be waiting right here,” Jake said, standing between the hut and the horses with his rifle out.

Though I held my breath in the latrine, I was grateful for the privacy, and the fact that he couldn’t see my face as I tried to digest what had happened.

The son of a bitch had kissed me. It was quick and fast and nothing like I thought it would be, but he’d kissed me all the same.

I was glad he couldn’t see the odd smile that found itself on my face.

* * *

Hours later, when I was settled in my bed of straw and hides on the floor, sleep wouldn’t come for me. I kept getting up to check on Donna and having her sip more of the poppy-laced water and change her dressing. I don’t know how I kept it all together while I did so—the wound was getting worse, judging by the smell, and though it had stopped bleeding, there was a sickly black color building up on the stump that was hard to wash away.

Donna herself was either out cold or delirious and muttering the Lord’s Prayer over and over. Her skin had taken on this sickly ashen tone, and she was burning up, no matter what I did. Staring down at her, I felt nothing but remorse and guilt. It was my fault she was here, and I knew that even if we left tomorrow—which I somehow doubted since Jake’s word wasn’t reliable—she wouldn’t make the journey home.

And sometimes I doubted if we would too. When I put a cool compress on her forehead and turned around to eye the rest of the cabin, I couldn’t understand how Jake, Tim, and Avery could sleep so soundly. They were out like a cow kick to the face and I envied them. Were they such men that they weren’t afraid of the monsters that could be lurking outside the cabin at any notice? Or were they so hung up on money and greed that the flesh-eating monstrosities were just a mere obstacle in their way? Did hope make them feel invincible, and if I had some faith in our outcome, would I be invincible too?

I made a move to head back to my bed when I noticed Avery’s eyes were open and staring at the ceiling. For one horrible moment I thought he was dead, and the ground felt as if it were falling out from under me. But he slowly turned his head and gazed right at me. Then he put his finger to his mouth and looked over at Tim and Jake, passed out in their beds.

He rose with caution and came over to me. He was fully dressed, and only then did I notice he had picked up his satchel from beside his bed.

He coaxed me with his eyes to stay quiet then led me to the far corner of the cabin. “We’re making a run for it,” he whispered in my ear.

“What now?” I asked harshly.

“We have to go. There’s no way they’ll bring us back home alive.”

“They won’t hurt us,” I said feebly.

His eyes turned caustic. “And you’re taking someone’s word on that. We can’t trust them. We have to leave now, it’s our only shot.”

“But the monsters…”

“There are monsters in here too, you know.”

I wasn’t sure why I was stalling. “What about Donna?”

He glanced at her sadly. “We could try to take her, put her on Ali. But honestly, Eve, I don’t think she’s going to make it. She’s dying, you know that, don’t you?”

It was painful to swallow. I nodded. “What if they catch us?” I looked over at Jake and Tim sleeping. “They could wake up at any second.”

Avery smiled smugly. “I gave them a bit of opium in their tea. Just enough to make them sleep better.”

I shook my head. “I don’t know, Avery. I just can’t leave her here. Don’t you understand? It’s my fault this happened to her. If I hadn’t gone on this cursed trip, none of this would have happened.”

“That’s not how it works, so get that guilt out of your little heart.” He put his hand on my arm and squeezed it, trying to give me comfort. “If we don’t leave, she will die here. Even if they let us go back to River Bend tomorrow, she’d still die. We can take her with us if you want, but I think it’s a big mistake.”

“Then that settles it,” I said with determination. “We’re taking her. And while we’re at it, we’re each getting a bar of gold. Payment that was owed.”

He stuck out his lower lip, impressed. “All right. That’s what we’ll do. Come on, let’s get her out of here before they wake up.”

While Avery quietly ran out into the night to saddle up our horses, I quickly slipped on my dress, shawl, and boots, and grabbed my own satchel and the first aid pack while darting nervous looks at Jake and Tim, certain they’d wake up and catch us. I really wanted to believe Jake when he said they wouldn’t hurt us, but that was back when we were “behaving.” Now there was no telling what kind of men they’d become.

I’d be lying to myself though if there wasn’t a small part of me that hated leaving Jake this way, without saying goodbye. All I could do was shake it out of my head and blame it on female foolishness. One damn kiss had turned my insides all askew.

When Avery came creeping back in, we worked quickly to pick up Donna. She wasn’t a heavy girl but as deadweight, it took both of us to haul her off her bed and out through the open door.

“Where are we putting her?” I said through heavy breaths, her mass weighing down my arms. It was startlingly cold outside and I foolishly hadn’t put on my gloves. My fingertips and the end of my nose were numbing over. There was no light outside either, except for the moon that was shooting through cracks in the dark clouds. Everything glowed a sparkling white, though I felt the menace behind all the beauty.

He jerked his head toward Sadie who was eyeing us nervously. “Even if we tied her to Ali, there’s a chance she could fall off. Better we put her across Sadie’s withers and you hold on to her. You’re so light anyway, she’ll be able to carry the both of you even at a gallop.”

“What if they come looking for us in River Bend?” I asked. We brought Donna over to Sadie, and with all our might and as gently as we could, pushed her up across her neck, between her mane and the saddle horn.

“Well, we’re better off facing them there than up here, don’t you think?”

I nodded. With one last look at the cabin and the frozen, white expanse of Donner Lake, I swung myself up on Sadie and followed Avery and Ali deep into the darkening woods.

We weren’t able to ride as fast as we wanted, not at first anyway. This was the same expanse we had troubles with earlier and the trail was still hard to find, even heading back in the other direction. It was steep and narrow, and many times I was holding onto the belt we’d strapped around Donna’s middle for dear life, tree branches slapping my bonnet off my head. It wasn’t until the trees thinned out just enough to let the silver moonlight in that we really let the horses open up, going as fast as Sadie could handle with Donna’s cumbersome weight.

Because Ali the mule was tethered to Avery, and the trail wasn’t wide enough for two riding abreast, there were moments where I’d completely lost sight of them. Usually I’d hear the hoofbeats up ahead, a dull sound in the thick snow, and as soon as I rode around the bend, I’d see him and Ali’s scraggly tail flying straight back.

But when we came to a narrow passage that twisted between ice-covered boulders and frosted trees, it took me a while to catch up. I had to slow to a trot to let Sadie navigate the snaking trail, hearing nothing but the frothy sound of her exhalation, and when the path finally opened up, there was nothing in front of me but wide open trail.

“Avery?” I called out. My voice was quickly swallowed up by the trees that all seemed to lean inward, their branches heavy with ice and snow. Only a tiny sliver of moon lit up the sparkling white of the trail, casting everything else in eerie shadow.

“Avery!” I said again, louder this time. Sadie snorted and began to paw the ground with impatience, our breaths intermingling and hanging around our faces. I looked around me and saw nothing but the trees.

I closed my eyes and tried to breathe in the land. The cold stung my nose and burned down my chest, but as far as I could tell, Avery had still headed straight along the path. Perhaps his horse took off on him or he just got so caught up in the moment that he forgot to wait for me.

None of those situations were likely though. But I had to have hope. Hope made you invincible.

I exhaled and nudged Sadie into a slow canter, my eyes flitting back and forth among the trees, looking for signs of life and death. I rode and rode, the only sound the crunching of the snow under Sadie’s hooves and the whistle of the frigid wind blowing past my ears. Fear was a heavy hand at my back, panic was a breath on my neck. If I didn’t keep my head on straight, I’d submit to both of them.

Then I saw it.

Avery’s horse standing in the middle of the trail, motionless.

Riderless.

The rotting stench of blood and death filled the space around me as whisper light snow fell from the sky.

I pulled back on the reins, slowing Sadie down, and brought her over to Avery’s horse. He was still, with his head down to the snow. He almost looked like a statue, but I when I came closer, I could see his nostrils flaring, pale puffs of frozen breath coming out. His eyes were focused on the trees to the side of us.

I looked over to the shadows, and though I couldn’t see what he could, I could definitely smell it. Wherever Avery was, I could only pray with all my strength that he was okay somewhere, that he was far away from where I was, from the impending death that thickened the air.

They came without warning.

One pale monster on one side of the trail, another pale monster on the other. They both sprung from the forest undergrowth, causing the snow to scatter like diamonds in the wind. I had no time to act, but Sadie did. She reared as the two creatures came scampering toward us like albino apes, their eyes looking ghostly in the stark moonlight and focused solely on me.

While Avery’s horse made a run for it one way, Sadie was spinning on her hindquarters and bolting back the way we came. I made fists in her mane and flattened my body against Donna’s back as we galloped along as fast as we could before we hit the twisty passage from earlier. Through here I let all control of Sadie go and just closed my eyes and held on. I had to trust that she knew we were both in danger and let that animal instinct lead to our escape. There was no reason to fight and many reasons to flee.

We’d slowed down to a quick trot as she navigated the passage and almost made it back onto the open trail when a shadow flashed across the snow.

Seconds later something slammed into my back and I felt searing teeth in my shoulder. One of the creatures had leaped off the rocks and onto Sadie’s back.

I screamed, trying to lean over in the saddle to fight if off, and as my horse leaped forward, she bucked and I jerked my body to the other side. The creature let go and toppled to the ground in a heap.

I tried to look behind me to see what had happened, but all I could see was a haunting glimpse of blood on my shoulder before Sadie bucked again violently. I kicked her flanks, trying to get her to move forward instead, but she only sprinted for a few yards before she bucked again, as if doubly making sure the creature wasn’t on her.

I was still slightly sideways in the saddle and already off-balance. The buck lurched me forward against her shoulder, and before I could grasp what was happening, the snow was rushing up to meet my face.

I landed with a thump on my good shoulder and immediately rolled over, all too aware of where I was. Sadie galloped off down the trail, Donna still attached to her by the belt, her blonde curls bobbing along until the horse disappeared from sight.

I quickly got to a crouch and inspected my shoulder for a moment before turning my eyes back to the creature who was twitching on the hard-packed ground. My shoulder was bleeding, and the pain was starting to settle in my nerves, but I had no time to think about it. I had no time at all if the monster started to get up.

And it did. Slowly. First one elbow jerked up, then the other. With great effort, it pushed itself off the ground, its long, straggly hair hanging down its face, its head filled with bald patches. He—for at times like this it did seem human—wasn’t like the other ones I had seen, and it appeared he had on torn, knee-length pants if not a shirt.

It raised its head and looked at me. There was no air in my lungs now, the whole forest seemed to still at that moment, as if it too were chilled by the monster’s presence, the smell of evil.

It was when it smiled at me with bloodstained teeth that I snapped out of it. It was both living and dead, human and creature. I leaped to my feet and started running in the direction of Sadie. If it was weak, maybe I could outrun it; I had to try. My chest seized with panic as I tried to gain traction on the ground and found myself slipping from the ice that was formed as the night continued to deepen.

I looked over my shoulder as I tried to get steady, cursing my poorly made boots, and saw that it was now rapidly limping toward me on all fours. I turned around, the palms of my bare hands scraping along the snow as I attempted to push myself up.

It lunged for me with skinny, outstretched fingers. I opened my mouth to scream but horror seized my throat and the monster seized my legs, its fingernails digging into my pants like claws. I rolled over onto my back and tried kicking at it. I got it once—hard—in the face, shattering its jaw. But its grip on my calves barely loosened and it dragged me toward its bloody, unhinged mouth that snapped open and shut like it was about to devour me whole.

I thought of Meek’s heart, of Donna’s hand, and knew that the fates had it in for me. I wasn’t invincible, I was hopeless, and I was going to die out here feeling like I never really lived. The feeling that I never really got a chance was worse than what I knew was coming.

A human mouth wanting to eat me for dinner.

Chapter Nine

I tried to kick again at the ugly, demonic face but it was no use. My boot was jerked off, ice cold nails dragging along my foot. I shut my eyes and prepared for the slaughter.

A loud blast ricocheted through the forest, vibrating through my bones. The hands let go of my foot and I lifted my head to see a gaping red hole taking over the top half of the creature’s head, brains visible through the bone and muck.

I quickly twisted around to see Trouble thundering toward me with Jake astride him, rifle pointing right at the creature’s mangled face and passing through a puff of grey gunpowder that was hanging in the air. Jake vaulted off his horse and expertly reloaded his gun as he ran toward me.

I gazed up at him, for a moment thinking he meant to shoot me dead too. But he just placed the muzzle of the rifle into the mouth of the creature and pulled the trigger. With a giant explosion that crackled through the trees and made my ears ring fuzzy, the creature’s head came right off, scattering onto the snow like mutilated rose petals.

Jake holstered his rifle down his back and looked at me. He was breathing hard and his eyes were slightly wild, but he looked in complete control, dressed up like he was going for a long ride. He put his hand out for me to help me up, but as soon as he saw my shoulder he quickly dropped to his knees.

“Are you okay, did he get you?” he asked gruffly, his hand hovering above the wound as if he wasn’t sure it was okay to touch me or not.

I shivered away from his fingers and could only nod. I was afraid if I said anything, I’d cry instead. I couldn’t process anything that had happened and my brain felt like a lightning storm. On top of that, I was feeling ashamed that I’d run from him and scared because he’d found me.

“We’ll get you back to the cabin,” he said, lifting me up under my good arm. “Though you should be fine. I reckon he didn’t get you bad, though had I not shown up, you’d probably be missing your foot right now.”

He brought me over to Trouble, his grip on my arm firm but gentle. Before I could try to get on the horse, he picked me up and propped me on the saddle as if I weighed nothing more than a feather. Then he swung his leg up and around until he was pressed right against my back, his arms around my sides, his mouth at my ear.

“I’ve got you safe but we’re going to have to go fast for a bit, just to get out of here. I don’t want to see if he has any buddies hanging around.”

He clucked Trouble into a smooth gallop, the horse all too eager to leave the carnage behind. The movement rocked my body back against his. I closed my eyes, taking small pleasure in feeling safe.

“What happened to Avery?” he asked in a low voice, his breath tickling me.

I could only shake my head.

“Fair enough. Come on, I found Sadie further up the path and hitched her to a tree.”

I turned my head, nearly meeting his lips dead on. “Is Donna okay?”

His mouth ticked up. “She’s still on the horse, if that’s what you mean. You sure tied her tight. Knocked her right out, too. You musta given her something much stronger than you gave me.”

My eyes widened frightfully. “It was Avery.”

He gave me a subtle nod. “I reckoned it was. I guess he didn’t give enough of the funny stuff for my height and weight. Tim was still out last I checked.”

“He doesn’t know?”

“That you and Avery took Donna and some gold and hightailed it out of there? No, he doesn’t.”

“Are you going to tell him?” I asked weakly.

“Don’t see why I should,” he said. “Though I’ll have to tell him what Avery did. I’ll leave you out of it, no worries there, Pine Nut.”

We came around a bend and I could hear Sadie whinny. She was tied up to a low branch, Donna still lying across her shoulders. I held my breath, wondering if she was still alive, and then exhaled noisily when I saw her back rise and fall. In hindsight, my desire to take her with us was nothing but foolish. I wondered how much of it was to ease the guilt that kept eating away at me.

Back at the cabin, Tim was still asleep and snoring away. I was so tired and relieved to be alive that I was delirious. I tried to change Donna’s bandages but Jake insisted he fix me up first, calling me his number one priority. My shoulder wound ached, and though I passed on having the opium, I did swallow a few burning shots of moonshine to ease the pain. Luckily—if I even had luck anymore—the bite wound was fairly shallow.

“Do you think I’ll have rabies?” I panicked at the sudden thought.

“Hard to say,” he said grimly. He had cut through the cloth around the wound and taped the last strip of muslin gauze on top of it. “There we go. All done. Sorry I ruined your dress.”

I let out a dry laugh. My dress was already covered in dirt, blood, and who knows what. The rare moment of lightness only lasted a moment though before the fear was back to plague me. “What if I’m infected?”

“You know, I’m not too sure if that’s what’s going on here,” Jake said, his fingers gently tracing the edge of the gauze, making sure it was flat. My skin danced in response, a reaction that still surprised me. “This seems much more than a case of rabies. This is far, far worse, I reckon. This is a danger unlike any I’ve ever seen. And believe me darlin’, I’ve seen a world of horror.”

I was too afraid to ask if I’d be okay from the bite. It seemed lately all I’d known was fear.

My eyes went to his face, the firmness of his jaw, the little scar that caused a slash through the dark hair on his chin. “If it’s so dangerous, why did you come after us?” I whispered. “To get your gold?”

“No,” he murmured. “To get you.” He gently ran his hand down my arm and then met my eyes. “You’re worth much more than gold.”

I stared at him, lost in the coffee brown depths of his eyes, clamoring onto the words that just came from his lips. I could have stared at him forever. It pushed my reality behind me in a haze.

But he cleared his throat and gave me a sad smile. “You need to rest, Pine Nut. I’ll take care of Donna here. You just get some shut-eye. In the morning we can head back to River Bend. Find Avery. And leave this mad world behind.”

I didn’t fall asleep feeling invincible, but there was a tiny ember of hope burning somewhere deep inside.

* * *

“Well, well, well, lookee here. A right Injun Sleeping Beauty.”

My eyes snapped open to see Hank standing right above me. He looked unharmed but dirtier and a bit more crazed in the eyes.

“Give her some room,” Jake said, appearing at Hank’s side and pushing him away from me.

I snapped upright, bringing the animal fur blanket to my chin. Hank and Isaac were peering down at me with disdain while Tim was standing over Donna and sipping from a steaming cup.

“What time is it?” I asked. I felt like I’d been sleeping all morning.

“Time to answer a few questions,” Tim said, his voice hard. “Mainly, what the heck happened?”

I quickly glanced at Jake. His eyes were imploring me to lie, to tell him that Avery forced me to leave. With only him on my side it seemed I had no choice.

But as Jake once said, I always had a choice.

“Avery wanted to go, get out of here and get back to River Bend. Back to safety. I suggested we take a gold bar each as payment that was owed to us.”

Jake let out a small groan of disappointment. I went on, ignoring him, “I couldn’t leave without Donna though, so we brought her along too. Not too far in I got separated from him. Those same monsters we saw yesterday, they were back, but different ones this time. If it wasn’t for Jake finding me, I’d be dead.”

Tim glared at Jake. “How courteous of him. I suppose you never found Avery and I suppose Avery has the gold.”

I nodded. “We only took three—one for me, for him, and Donna. That was it. We only took it because it was fair.”

“That’s horseshit!” Hank yelled, spittle flying out of his mouth. “You’re an untrustworthy little tramp. We almost got ourselves killed out there trying to find these beasts and meanwhile you’re trying to rob us blind. That gold is my gold.”

“Actually,” Isaac said from his position against the door, “that’s my family’s gold. But I feel just as slighted.” He eyed Tim. “What do you plan on doing with her?”

“Now wait a minute here,” Jake said, raising his palms. “There is nothing to do. She won’t do it again.”

Hank spun around, getting in his face. “And you of all people trust this redskin here? I’m starting to think you’ve been compromised by the savage.”

Jake cocked his head, his lip snarling. “She’s just a young girl. She is no threat to us. She helped us find the gold, whether she meant to or not, and it’s only fair we bring her back to her home safe and sound.”

“Nuh-uh,” Hank said, shaking his head back and forth like a dog. “No can do, McGraw.” He pointed at me, his finger shaking. “I suggest we get rid of her right here, right now.”

I gasped, my eyes growing large. Hank looked ready to pounce and Jake grabbed hold of his arm before he could do so.

“You lay a finger on her and I’ll kill you,” he sneered in his face.

“I’d like to see you try,” Hank said right back.

“Fellas,” Tim said in a low voice. “No one is killing anyone yet. Let’s not be irrational. Let’s talk like men. Jake is right. She’s just a girl and she’s injured on top of it. We have bigger fish to fry here. We’ve all seen what’s out there, we’ve all seen what they can do.” Everyone’s eyes flew to Donna, who was looking hours from death. “And we’ve all found what we’re looking for. I say we pack up and go.”

“If we go to River Bend, she’ll tell,” Hank said, sounding as insolent as a little boy.

“Then we go somewhere else,” Tim said. I couldn’t figure out then if he meant to take me with them or not. Lord, I hoped not. I had never wanted to see Uncle Pat and Rose so much in my life. At least I knew where I stood with them.

“Can’t trust a savage,” Hank said, spitting on my bed. “Especially can’t trust one that’s already tried to steal from you.” A vicious smile spread across his face, a smile that struck fear in me like a bolt of lightning. “I’ll just make it impossible for her to leave. She can’t leave without her horse.”

He ripped himself out of Jake’s grasp and headed to the table where he’d hung his holster, clearly intent on putting a bullet through Sadie’s head.

“No!” I screamed and jumped to my feet. I ran straight to him and tried to wrestle the gun out of his hands but I was weak in the shoulder. Hank brought the butt of his gun down on my head and I immediately fell to the floor in a dizzying mess. The cabin spun around, stars of pain bursting in my skull, as Hank ran out of the door with Jake yelling after him and in pursuit.

“Please,” I cried out in pain, a fist where my heart was. He couldn’t kill my horse. That was all I had left of my father. I staggered to my feet, stumbling to the door, the faces of Isaac and Tim blurred and out of focus, a hot sticky fluid running down my head.

A gunshot rang out.

Sadie.

I screamed again and flung myself out the door and barefoot into the snow, the world tipping. Sadie and Isaac’s horse peeled out of the shanty and galloped off into the woods. Sadie was alive. Gone but alive.

But Jake was a different story. He had been standing between me and the cabin, and a red stain began to spread on his arm. He looked at me in surprise as he collapsed to his knees.

Hank stood behind him, smoking revolver in his hand. “I told you to watch your back, Jake.”

“Jake!” I cried out and ran over to him, falling to my knees beside him. Hank had shot him in the back, where the arm met the shoulder.

“Might as well finish her off too,” Hank said from behind us, his boots crunching in the snow as he came closer.

Before Hank could reload his gun, Jake’s eyes flared and he quickly twisted at the waist, barely lining up his sight, and pulled the trigger. The bullet went right into Hank’s stomach.

Hank cried out, dropping the gun as his hands flew to his gut where blood began to leak onto the white snow. “You,” he snarled at Jake before he keeled over face first.

“And I told you I wanted you gone,” Jake said gruffly. “This will just be a slower, more painful way for you to leave.”

I knelt beside him, unsure of what to do. My hand went to his face, caressing it gently, his stubble rough against my skin. “Are you going to be okay?”

“I’ll be right as rain,” he said, giving me a winning grin. Then he winced, eyes shut hard from the pain.

“Tim!” I yelled toward the cabin. “Jake needs help.” I tried to help him to his feet but he was so heavy and unsteady, and it wasn’t like I was feeling one hundred percent.

I looked up to see Isaac standing in the doorway and thought he was coming to help me get Jake to his feet, but he just stood there with an absolutely macabre look on his pinched face. He smiled wide at the sight of Hank’s body then spun around and went back in the cabin.

I exchanged a worried look with Jake.

“Tim!” Jake yelled.

Suddenly there was the sound of a scuffle inside, a chair being knocked over, Tim grunting something, followed by the sharp, metallic smell of poisoned blood. Before we could say anything, Isaac came back outside, holding something red and dripping in his hand.

“You’ve gone mad!” Tim yelled from inside. “You’ve all gone mad!”

Jake and I watched as Isaac walked right past us with a trail of crimson dots behind him. He stopped by Hank and kicked him in the side. He moaned, still alive. Then he crouched down and rolled Hank over onto his back.

“Hey, Hank, buddy,” Isaac said to him with that terrible smile on his face. “I reckon this is the time to see the truth. He put his hand on Hank’s mouth and forced it open.

“What are you doing?” I exclaimed. Jake tensed beside me as we watched Isaac stick a bloody, fleshy object into Hank’s open mouth. I didn’t even want to dwell on what I thought it looked like.

Another gun blast boomed, this time from the cabin. Our heads swiveled to see Tim coming out, a revolver in hand, shaking his head sadly.

“What in damnation is going on?” Jake demanded.

Tim glared at Isaac in disbelief. “Isaac has gone crazy! He just went and sliced off Donna’s nose. I had to put her out of her misery.”

So it was exactly what it looked like. I swallowed down the vomit that was fighting to come up. I never thought the horrors could get any worse, but they were, day by day. I gingerly eyed the gruesome scene again as Isaac moved Hank’s jaw up and down and leaned over him, hands bloody on his face.

“That’s it,” Isaac said. “Swallow the flesh. The flesh will give you life.”

He turned to smile at us. “We’ve had our theories, ever since Dale Thompson showed up at my door, hollering about the living dead and cannibals and bars of lost gold. He said that George and the others had died at the hands of a wild mountain man, then died at the hands of each other. He refused to eat the flesh of another, so he ran. I guess he thought if he told me, I’d do something about it.” He looked at Hank who was now very slowly chewing Donna’s cut-off nose. “And I did. I shot him and made sure no one else knew about the gold or the…side effects. You, Eve, of all people should have known about the Wendigo.”

I eyed him with panic. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I managed to say.

“The Algonquin Indians out east believe in the Wendigo, that you become one if you eat human flesh. You will have power and eternal life.”

“The Wendigo is a myth,” Tim told him, disgust ripe in his voice, “so that people don’t resort to cannibalism, to what you’re doing right now. Damn it, Isaac, this is going too far. You’re acting like a goddamn maniac!”

“The Donner party did it to survive.”

“Then the Donner party turned into raving cannibals. This isn’t survival. Hank got shot fair and square. He pulled on Jake first. Let him die.”

“And what if I’m right?” he asked quietly, smiling once he saw Hank had swallowed.

“If you’re right and it’s not a myth, you didn’t just give Hank life. You gave him an insatiable thirst for human flesh. You saw the bones in the cabin.”

Isaac rocked back on his haunches and stared down at Hank who had finished chewing and was lying still. “Now we wait.”

My grip tightened on Jake’s good shoulder. We may have not had this Wendigo legend in my culture, but I’d seen more than enough already to know that it was more than a myth. We could not afford to dismiss this as one of Isaac’s crazy rants. Maniacs often told the truth.

“Jake,” I whispered. “I think you need to reload.”

“Already on it,” he answered. “Can you grab my powder horn?”

I reached down and pulled up the horn all while keeping my eyes on Isaac and Hank.

“He’s lost his damn mind,” Tim said from behind us, going back into the cabin.

Isaac had lost his mind, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t telling the truth. Jake took the horn then asked me to reach out and grab his rifle from his back holster. I did so, accidently brushing it against his wound. He ground his teeth in pain but didn’t say anything.

Meanwhile, Isaac hadn’t noticed that Jake was loading his rifle. He was in a daze, like a mad scientist, waiting to see if his creature would rise.

“I really oughta show you how to shoot and load the proper way,” Jake said in a low voice, gritting his teeth as he had to reach forward and jam the ball down the muzzle.

“I can use your revolver,” I whispered.

“Pine Nut, a revolver won’t do shit when the time comes. Can you reach into my vest pocket and pull out a piece of flint rock?”

Though he was speaking calmly, there was an urgency to our actions. I felt like a clock was ticking down, the hand moving closer to either Hank’s death or resurrection.

The clock struck quicker than a snake.

I closed my fingers over the sharp piece of flint when Hank gave out an ugly scream and sat straight up. He opened his mouth and went for Isaac’s jugular but Isaac had at least predicted this.

Isaac pistol whipped him across the face and then kicked him right in the stomach where his gunshot appeared to be healing itself before our eyes. Hank flew backward, snow flying up in the air, a savage cry escaping his bloody lips.

Jake swiped the flint out of my hand, and in the most frantic yet controlled manner I’d ever seen, fixed it to the hammer. Before he could aim it properly however, Hank was scrambling to his feet and running in the direction of the woods.

Isaac got to him first. He fired, shooting Hank in the arm. Jake propped himself on one knee and took aim. He got Hank’s calf just as he disappeared into the trees. It did not kill him, it did not slow him down, but at least he was running away from us.

Question was: would he come back?

“You all right?” Jake asked Isaac, the reluctance heavy in his voice.

“Oh, I’m all right,” Isaac said with twitching eyes, getting to his feet. “I’ve never been better.”

He headed toward the cabin, leaving me and Jake together in the snow. The reality of the moment began to seep in with the cold. If I didn’t get both of us inside soon, we were going to get frostbite, but the last place I wanted to go was in the cabin with a total madman.

I stood up, wincing at the burning sensation of the ice on my soles, and hooked my hands under Jake’s good arm. “Come on, we have to go in.”

He stared at the woods for a moment before he looked up at me and frowned. “After all that’s happened, I’m surprised you’re not leaving me out here to die.”

“I’m not a savage.”

He smiled handsomely and with a shake of his head said, “No, you aren’t. And you’re not a lady either. I reckon you just might be perfect.”

My heart skipped a beat. I blamed it on waning adrenaline.

Our eyes met for a thick moment before I helped him to his feet and got him inside. Tim had already covered Donna up with an animal hide so none of us had to see her. Not that Isaac cared—he was sitting on a stool in the corner and staring down at his hands, his crazed eyes deep in thought. What were we going to do with him?

I wanted to patch up Jake but Tim was insistent that I take care of myself and warm up my frozen feet by the fire. I wondered about his change of heart and the way he’d reversed to being the caring, fatherly type but I guessed that after everything we just saw, I really was the least of their problems.

I sat down by the fire and did my best to ignore Isaac. There was something so unbelievably unsettling about the way he was staring so intently and at absolutely nothing. He must have felt like God with what he did to Hank but that was no act of God at all. God didn’t slice the noses off of dying women. God didn’t create monsters. Monsters created themselves.

Jake sucked in his breath and I swiveled my attention to him instead. He was sitting completely shirtless on the table as Tim poured iodine on his wound. The gunshot didn’t look too bad but then again I was distracted by his body. I felt deeply ashamed and slightly animalistic to admire Jake’s chest at a time like this, but it couldn’t be helped. My eyes were drawn there like it was instinct. Sure, I’d seen bare-chested men before but none of them had ever appeared so…sexual. None of them were built like a house, strong and firm and wide, with muscles that didn’t end and a dusting of hair that screamed he was nearly a beast himself.

To make matters worse, Jake caught me staring at him. I quickly looked away, turning back to the fire, hoping he wouldn’t draw my behavior to anyone’s attention. He may have saved my life but he wasn’t exactly a gentleman.

But Jake only hissed as Tim pulled the bullet out of him and patched him back up. I stole peeks at the scene, both horrified and fascinated.

“You’ll be good as new in a few days, I reckon,” Tim said. He poked his finger at a raised scar on Jake’s abdomen. “Remember how long this one took?”

“Forever,” Jake groaned. “Damn Mexicans.”

“And this won’t take as long. It was a clean shot. You’re lucky Hank wasn’t shooting a rifle or we’d be singing a different tune.”

Jake looked over at Donna’s lifeless body underneath the hides.

“I reckon we should bury her,” he said.

“With what shovels?” Tim asked.

“Well, we can’t just haul her out to the woods to be pecked on by animals. Or worse—Hank. She deserves better than that. She had no idea what she was getting into.”

“Neither did we,” Tim said. “Not for true.”

“And I would be lucky if I would be treated the same if I died.”

So as the day wore on and Isaac stayed motionless inside, the three of us went out to bury Donna. Tim and I took on the task of carrying her since the bite on my shoulder was pretty much nothing compared to Jake’s wound, and we brought her out to a pretty patch by the lake. The ground here was easier to penetrate, and though she might not stay buried for long, it was the act and the final respects that actually counted.

The three of us dug what we could with axes and our hands. Tim did most of the work since he was the only one uninjured, and even though it took a long time, it was worth it. We placed Donna in the shallow grave and sprinkled the first dirt on her, each of us reciting something nice about her.

I didn’t really know Donna at all, but she liked me and treated me as an equal. She may have been God-fearing but she saw the good in everyone, no matter the cost. Perhaps that was what cost her her life.

When she was finally buried in a thin layer of frozen soil, we looked out to the lake. A goose was calling in the distance and a flock of them flew overhead through the gauzy mist that was hovering around the shore. Jake made a measured movement to grab his gun, but I put my hand out and steadied him. It would only aggravate his wound more and Donna deserved the grace of animals more than we deserved our supper.

That evening Jake and I went to sleep as soon as the sun went down. No one wanted to eat, no one wanted to talk. There just wasn’t much to say. All most of us wanted was for the morning to come so we could be back on our way to River Bend.

Isaac was on one side of the room, and Tim was nearby and staying up as long as he could. I was alone in my bed with Jake in the bed next to me. It felt strange for him to be sleeping there all hurt and shot up and so close to me but not close enough.

I rolled over and stared at him in the flicker of the fire, my eyes drifting over his striking profile—the slight bump on his nose where I was sure it had been broken once, probably in a bar brawl, the way his lips looked inviting even when in sleep. I could tell Tim, who was propped up by the door with a rifle, was watching me, wondering what to do with me when this was all over.

I could only wonder what Jake thought. There was nothing between us and so many bigger issues to worry about, but I felt an odd pang of fear in my chest, this hollowness carved out, when I thought about saying goodbye to him. To get out of these mountains alive was all we could wish for.

And yet, for some reason, I lay on the floor of that cabin and watched Jake sleep—wishing for more.

Chapter Ten

At first I wasn’t quite sure how it happened. When I opened my eyes in the grey light of dawn, I found myself inches from Jake’s chest. I sucked in my breath and slowly raised my head to see him peering down at me through his long lashes.

“Morning,” he whispered gruffly as he watched my eyes widen, a trace of a smile on his lips.

What the dickens was I doing, lying next to him like this?

Then it all came back to me. Visions of sleep and snow and the grainy reality of dreams.

A nightmare.

In it, I had been walking through the woods hand in hand with my father, snow falling softly around us. Unlike my other dreams, I wasn’t a younger girl but as old as I was now, and we were in these very mountains, not the safe world he’d been a part of. My father was ageless, with kind eyes that twinkled in the fading blue light. The world around us was silent and he kept repeating a word over and over again. I had no idea what it meant, until finally he stopped and held me close to him.

“It means strength, Evangeline,” he said softly. “You must draw strength from fear or fear will make you weak.”

“I don’t need strength,” I whispered back to him, holding onto his hand. “I have you.”

He pulled away and looked me up and down, his eyes flitting through a range of different colors—brown to hazel to red to grey. “There is no me. There are only monsters inside of angels and angels inside of monsters. Choose wisely.”

He stepped away from me and his face contorted with pain.

“Papa,” I cried out as his skin turned ashen and pale, his eyes glowing blue. A horrible, beautiful blue. I reached for him but immediately took my hand back when the smell of rotting meat took over.

He grinned at me like a savage wolf. “Which one am I?” he asked in a snarling voice, his words dripping with an animalistic quality, steaming saliva that came from his mouth and hit the snow with a hiss.

He was a monster inside of an angel.

I turned and ran, and like in all dreams, I ran fast enough to fly, and then slow, like I was slogging through oatmeal. Suddenly the cabin appeared in the woods, the hanging lamp by the door wide open and waiting.

I ran into the cabin, still smelling the monster that was my father, knowing he was right on my trail.

I yelled for help from Jake and Tim and stopped dead when I saw Avery lying motionless on the table. I ran for him, trying to speak his name, but the words wouldn’t come and his eyes wouldn’t open.

Then the door behind me slammed shut. Everything went black.

Except for two blue glowing eyes, right where Avery should have been.

Claws dug into my back, ripping me apart like my spine was a seam.

I woke up with a start, covered in sweat and breathing hard. My back ached as if the claws had been real. I couldn’t figure out if I’d been screaming or not, but Tim was sitting by the door, asleep with his head against it. I remembered getting up and looking at Jake as he lay there, deep in sleep. Fear was motivating me and this was how I was drawing strength from it. I lay down beside him, feeling more afraid than proud, and promptly fell asleep.

Now that it was morning and I was right up against him, the fear was gone and the embarrassment came flooding in. I had behaved like a little girl who had a bad dream.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered quickly. I knew my face was growing red despite the chill in the air.

As I made the move to get up he said, “No.” He licked his lips. “Stay. It’s still early.”

I paused, wondering why he’d want me to stay by his side. Could he have actually liked the fact that I slept beside him as a wife would do with her husband? I suddenly felt very young.

I got up anyway and looked around the cabin. Dawn was just breaking somewhere beyond the trees, ushering in just enough pastel light. Tim was stoking the fire, and from what I could tell, Isaac was still asleep.

“Did you have a bad scare?” Jake asked.

I turned to see him trying to sit up. I went to him and grabbed his arm. “Lie back down,” I said.

“I’m fine.” He grunted and eyed my hand on his arm. “But I don’t mind you holding onto me.”

“Jake,” Tim said as he came toward us with a steaming cup of water. He held it out for him, his eyes passing briefly over me. “I scrounged up the last of the coffee kernels. You think you’ll be all right enough to make it back home today?”

Jake nodded and took the cup. Before he had a sip he gestured to it as if to offer me some. I shook my head politely.

“I reckon I should be okay. I also reckon we wouldn’t have a choice even if I wasn’t. Hank is apt to come back at any time.” He looked to sleeping Isaac as he said that. “We’re just lucky nothing happened to us last night. We can’t trust a madman.”

“I was up and ready for it if that were the case,” Tim said.

I nearly smiled, knowing Tim had been asleep when I woke up from my dream. His eyes darted to me for a moment but I kept my mouth shut. He may have held a gun to my head the other day, but I wasn’t about to rat him out. Not now. It seemed like everything was so unimportant when we were surrounded by death and snow. Angels and monsters.

And yet I still held onto Jake’s arm, my fingers burning into his bare skin. Somehow that seemed important.

I let go and pressed my hands together. I looked expectantly at Tim. “Should I start packing our stuff up?”

He shook his head. “Not with your shoulder. You did enough for us yesterday. Thank you.” He cleared his throat and ran his hand through his thin hair. “You both just take care of yourselves. Isaac, when the crazy bastard gets up, he and I will pack everything up. Then we’re out of here.”

“I can’t let you do everything,” Jake said with annoyance, his dark brows knit together. “I’m not crippled. It’s just a damn bullet wound.”

Tim shot him a placating smile. “You can go out and get us dinner. We’re fresh out of food anyway.”

Having slept in my clothes, I made my way over to the pot of water that had been warmed by the fire and quickly washed my face and ran a twig brush over my teeth, all while keeping my eyes focused on Isaac. Though he himself hadn’t acquired a taste for flesh, he had been the Dr. Frankenstein to Hank’s monster, a story I had read a few years ago. But while that monster seemed to be misunderstood, Hank had been a monster to begin with, and Isaac had seemed hellbent on making him worse. From what we’d all seen, he’d succeeded.

When Isaac began to stir, I quickly turned and left the area, not sure if I could even look into his eyes after what he’d done to Donna. An immoral part of me wished Hank had eaten him.

I caught Jake just as he came back into the cabin from the outhouse.

“Grab your shawl,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because I said so,” was his answer. He picked up his rifle and headed back out into the snow.

I sighed though I was happy to leave the cabin. I quickly wrapped my heavy shawl around me and slipped on my boots, heading out into the frozen air.

It was a fair morning—the sun was just starting to slice through the trees like golden glass and the sky was a cool blue peppered by dark clouds. It was the kind of weather I knew would change, that any moment a storm could come rolling down the white peaks and across the frozen lake. I had to hope we’d already be on our way.

“Where are we going?” I asked Jake, trotting after him, the air sticking needles in my lungs.

“You heard the man,” Jake yelled back. “We’re getting dinner. We’ll need something to eat when we leave this place.”

I gripped my shawl tighter beneath my chin. “This isn’t exactly safe,” I said as we disappeared further into the trees following what looked like a deer path. I kept expecting to see Hank at every turn.

Or Avery.

Or my father.

I had to shake my head and steady my heart which started to skip over those last thoughts. It had been a dream, that’s all. There was no reason to think that Avery had turned into them. There was no reason to think my father had either.

Except for the fact that they both disappeared. One a few years ago, one a few days ago. But knowing what I knew now, what I’d seen, I couldn’t help but fear for their fates. For fates worse than death.

Suddenly I bumped into Jake’s hard back and gasped from the impact.

He turned around, one hand on my good shoulder and peered at me intently. “Ease up, Pine Nut. Did you hear what I said?”

I shook my head. “Sorry,” I managed to say.

“You have that look in your eyes again.” He leaned in closer, as if he was really examining me. With him so close, it was hard to meet his gaze. I looked down at his scuffed boots. My goodness he had large feet.

“That look,” he said, “that you had last night.” I froze. His hand on my shoulder tightened. “I wasn’t all that asleep. I saw your face. You had a scare.”

I think I’m having a scare right now. I looked up at him. “Aren’t we all having a scare?” I squinted at him. “Or are you too bad and brave to be scared?”

“Oh darlin’,” he said, grinning, “I get scared. Perhaps about different things than you, but I do get scared. I ain’t too brave,” he leaned in closer, his breath freezing between us, “or too big to admit that.”

I wasn’t sure what to say to that. I gestured helplessly to the gun. “At least you have that.”

“You’re right about that, though we both know an axe does a better job. But if you can shoot these apes in the face and at a close enough range, you can take their head off all the same.”

I shuddered.

He took the gun and placed it in my hands. “And that’s why I’m teaching you how to shoot one.”

“Avery already taught me,” I said with a frown.

“The boy had the right intentions,” Jake conceded, “but he did not teach you properly.”

He pressed the rifle harder into my hands so that my fingers had to curl around the cold, heavy weight. “This is life or death out here. I want you to be able to catch our food just as I want you to be able to blow the head off Hank. You hearing me?”

I nodded. I had to say, “I thought you said women shouldn’t handle guns.”

He straightened up and I let out a small breath of relief. “Actually, I reckon I said you shouldn’t handle a gun. Guess now I’m less inclined to believe that you’ll shoot me. Call it a hunch, but I’m starting to think you might even like me.”

I gave him a wry smile, trying to ignore my increasing heartbeat. “I’m not sure how accurate your hunches are.”

He tipped the brim of his hat up at me. “Probably more accurate than your aim will be.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “I haven’t even tried yet.”

“Just keeping you on your toes. You do better when you’re feisty. Like most women, of course under different circumstances.” There was a salacious spark in his eyes that made me wonder what he was talking about. Then, as soon as I figured it out moments later, I turned away so he wouldn’t see my blushing face.

“All right, we better get started,” I said quickly. “It may take me some time to prove you wrong.”

“Pine Nut, you’ve already proved me wrong,” he said. “I have no doubt about this.” He took my elbow and led me further along the path, the rifle in my hands, until we came to a large clearing.

“Where are we?” I asked. The tops of marsh grass poked up through the snowdrifts like a shorn porcupine, while a few ponderosa dotted the area before it gave way to dense forest again.

“How should I know?” he said with a one-shouldered shrug. “But it gives us room for target practice. First you shoot the tree, then you shoot the rabbit, then you shoot the zombie.”

“Zombie?” I repeated.

He shrugged again. “I met a fella in Mexico who told me about some story from the West Indies. They believe in the walking dead down there. Witchcraft and what have you.”

I swallowed uneasily, thinking back to Frankenstein’s monster. “These aren’t the undead. These are monsters, horrible, terrible creatures far worse than that.”

“Hence why we have to shoot them. Now straighten up.”

He came over to me and gently positioned my upper body so that my posture was ramrod straight. Then he went around me so that his arms covered mine and his chest was pressed against my back.

“Relax,” he whispered in my ear, “you can’t shoot when you’re tense. I should know.”

“I thought you’d get relief once you shoot.”

He paused, his mouth at the back of my head. “I’m going to assume I’m taking that the wrong way.” His breath tickled.

What way was that? I tried to figure it out but he put more pressure on my arms, moving them to his liking. “That’s better,” he continued. “Just relax. I’m not hurting you am I?”

“No,” I said in a small voice. My shoulder twinged a little but it wasn’t bad. “Is this hurting you?”

“I’m a hard man to hurt,” he answered. He made me lift up the rifle and place it on my good shoulder. “You’re lucky it’s the other shoulder that’s wounded, otherwise I think this would sting.” He instructed me how to hold it properly and how to line up targets through the line of sight, the pointy triangle on the end of the barrel.

“Now you know how this works, right?” he said into my ear. I had to ignore the heat his breath was generating, the way it tickled down my neck and back. I had to. “You pull the trigger and the hammer comes down. The piece of flint strikes against the pan. There’s a spark. It ignites the powder in the pan, and in turn the powder in the gun. The bullet has nowhere to go but out.” His mouth came closer to my ear. “Right at your target,” he added in a gravelly voice.

I suddenly became acutely aware that he had ever so subtly pressed himself up against me until we were almost in an embrace. I didn’t want to say anything—and I didn’t want him to move. There was something about the way his rock hard, strong body was encompassing mine that made me feel more combustible than the rifle in my hands.

At the same time, these feelings inside my body and inside my heart were filling me with confusion and fear. I needed to concentrate. I needed to survive.

I don’t know how I found my voice, but I did. It was quiet and shaky. “Do I need to know how to load it?”

“Darlin’,” he said. “I can load a muzzleloader faster than anyone I know, and I still don’t think it’s going to be enough when the time comes.”

“If the time comes,” I corrected him.

His voice lowered. “You know it is coming. You know we’re not getting out of here without a fight. These mountains, those monsters, they won’t let us go so easily. It’s calm right now, and right now is where this moment will stay.”

“Like the storm clouds on the mountains.”

“Just like. They’ll come down soon and sweep away that sweet sunshine just as the monsters will come out of the trees at some point and try and sweep us away. Only difference is we can’t change the weather, but we can change our survival. We can’t shoot the clouds, but we can blast a damn bullet through one of their heads.”

His grip tightened around my wrists. “This is the moment. We need to take it.” His breath at my ear and my own breathing seemed to match, to build. Heat flared at my back. There was no cold, there was no chill. Just him. Just heat. “Aim at that first tree. Pull the trigger.”

I did.

The air exploded around us, and my hands felt like they were being ripped apart in a black cloud of powder. The force pushed me back into Jake, who held on and kept me steady, kept the rifle from dropping out of my hands.

“My word!” I exclaimed, trying to straighten up.

“It’s got a kick,” Jake said as he took the rifle from my hands.

I peered through the smoke that was hanging around in the cold air. “Did I hit the tree?”

He laughed. “No, you sure did not.”

I grimaced, suddenly defensive. “I wasn’t expecting that. You make it look so easy.”

“I make a lot of things look easy,” he said as he pulled the horn of powder from his holster. “But the secret is practice. You do something and you do it enough, you’ll be good at it. Even if you haven’t done it in a while, you’ll pick right up where you left off.” There was an almost velvety quality to his voice as he tapped the powder down the muzzle of the gun. “Everyone’s first time tends to be…awkward. The second time is always less painful. You may even enjoy it.”

I frowned at his tone, but he continued to load it and pointed out what he was doing. “Now remember,” he said, staring me square in the face, his dark eyes determined. “Gunpowder is highly combustible. The slightest spark, the slightest anything will set it off. Treat it with respect. Never look down the barrel. Never hold it near your face. You understand?”

I nodded quickly. I was still shaken from the first shot. He didn’t need to scare me twice.

“Now, I reckon you should get us our dinner.”

“What?” I exclaimed. “I beg your pardon, but I can’t shoot anything. You saw what I just did.”

“You took a good piece out of the air. That’s still something.”

“Jake!”

“Eve,” he said back and put the rifle in my hands. “Trust me. You’ll do just fine.”

“But I didn’t hit the tree and that wasn’t even a moving target.”

“I trust in you,” he said in a measured voice. “You will do just fine. Come on, let’s go get us something to eat.”

He steered me around so we were heading back the way we came. As we walked, I kept taking in the ground, watching for the prints of jackrabbits. We were quite high up in the mountains so I wasn’t sure if they would be around, but sure enough I saw some marks and droppings as we went.

As cute as I thought rabbits were, I’d grown up living off the land and had no problems eating them as food. I just didn’t think I’d be able to shoot one, and with each shot I would take, we would use precious gunpowder. I don’t know why Jake had faith in me to hit it, but he did. He did even if I didn’t.

He did, and he was one of the few people left alive that felt that way.

The jackrabbit looked as if it had veered off into the forest, so I automatically headed that way with Jack right behind me.

“You know something?” he said. “You ain’t that bad of a tracker.”

I scoffed. “It ain’t that hard when you’re following rabbit droppings on snow.”

“I mean it though. I’m glad you’ll be able to fend for yourself out here should anything happen.”

I shot him a worried glance over my shoulder. “That’s not exactly positive talk there.”

He smiled kindly, the tanned skin around his eyes crinkling. “I’m just being realistic. I don’t plan on dying anytime soon, but we both know the possibilities are there. With your gun and your tracking, you can find yourself all the way back home.”

“I’d rather not go it alone,” I murmured.

“As do I. And I give you my word I will do whatever I can to protect you while I can.”

“And I’ll protect you.” Even though we were still walking through the forest, my pace had slowed while that warm, intangible feeling came back to dance with me.

He didn’t say anything for a moment. The only sound was the soft crunching of snow beneath our boots.

He cleared his throat. “Not sure if I’m worth protecting, Pine Nut. First chance you get, you’re getting out of here. Take the gold and start a new life.”

“Is that what your plans are?”

“They were,” he said thoughtfully. Another pause. “Things change. Now my plans are keeping you alive and getting you back home.”

“And where will you go?”

“If I’m lucky, anywhere my heart desires.”

I wasn’t sure what to say to that but it didn’t matter. A faint sound on the forest floor brought my senses away from my swirling heart all the way to my limbs. I froze as Jake did the same. I concentrated and could hear the delicate thumps continue to our left.

Without looking behind me at Jake, I raised the rifle up and aimed it low to the ground and right through a line of trees. If I was right, a rabbit would come bounding through at any moment and I would have to be quick.

I waited with my breath in my mouth, afraid to let go of it. Any minute now.

I put my finger on the trigger and prepared for the kickback.

The foul stench of death filled the air, seeping into my nose, my skin, my pores, and every single hair on my body stood on end.

The rabbit bounded past.

I didn’t shoot.

I was already turning around and looking at Jake with fearful eyes as he growled, “Run!” under his breath.

We took off through the forest, Jake careful to keep me in front of him as we ran. I hadn’t seen the monster but I knew it had been there, somewhere. It could have been in the trees above us, in the bushes below, behind boulders. It could have been anywhere, watching us, chasing us, wanting us, because all I could smell was that terrible odor, the one that made me want to both vomit and cry with fear.

It was enough to let me know it was there. Like Jake had said, our moment was over. Things were changing.

We ran all the way back to the cabin, and it was only as we entered the open, skirting around the frozen edge of Donner Lake, that I dared to look behind us.

There was nothing there, not that I could see, but the smell, I just couldn’t get it out of my brain.

We burst into the cabin, sweating and breathless. The silence was thick and there was another smell. Something cooking.

“Tim?” Jake yelled, and we both peered around the corner at the fire where Isaac was sitting in his long johns and stirring something in the giant pot. “Where’s Tim?” he asked Isaac.

“He’s gone,” Isaac said calmly. He eyed us. “Is something the matter?”

Jake sneered at him in disgust. “Yeah, Isaac, something is the matter. We’re getting the hell out of here. Where’s Tim?”

“I told you,” he said, looking back to the pot. “He’s gone.”

“What are you eating?” Jake asked, peering over at the pot. “Tim said there was no more food left.”

“I improvised,” Isaac said. “Tim isn’t as resourceful as I am.”

Jake patted the gun in my hand and whispered, “Keep an eye on him.” He turned and ran out of the cabin, yelling for Tim.

I stared at Isaac and he stared right back at me, his eyes glinting coldly despite the fire’s warm glow.

“You’re a pretty girl, you know that,” he said.

I pressed my lips together in a hard line and waited for Tim to come back. Isaac was crazy; I couldn’t converse with a madman.

He dipped his spoon into the stew and ate a few bites. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and sat back in his chair. “I never was a good cook like Jake was. I’ve been eating this and eating this and it just don’t taste right. It’s hard to make do when all you have is a pinch of pepper.” He looked to me. “I’d offer you a taste, but I’m afraid I’d no longer have an advantage.”

I had to ask. “An advantage?”

He nodded slowly. “You’re weak. I’m strong. It’s how I’ll win.”

My throat felt thick. Oh, why wasn’t Jake coming back? “Win what?”

“Have you ever heard of selective breeding?”

“No,” I answered cautiously, hoping he wouldn’t indulge me.

“It’s the theory that if you only breed—create—strong animals, they will only create stronger animals, and in the end, only the strong survive. They have the advantage.” He smiled absently, clearly suffering from dementia, and looked back at his stew. He stirred his spoon around in it until food from the bottom surfaced at the top.

Within the thick, brown liquid I saw an odd white shape.

An egg? I thought to myself. Where on earth would he get an egg?

Only it wasn’t an egg.

It looked at me.

Isaac scooped it up in his spoon.

And it looked at me.

“I win,” Isaac said before he shoved the eyeball in his mouth.

And all at once it hit me. The smell of death that wouldn’t leave my nostrils wasn’t an after effect. It was here in the cabin with me. Death was all around me.

Unable to look away, I noticed another eyeball in the stew and what looked to be a toe.

Tim was in the stew.

Isaac was a monster.

Isaac had the advantage.

I opened my mouth to scream when I should have raised my gun and fired. The timing cost me.

Suddenly Isaac was at my side, and he backhanded me so hard I flew back in a sea of stars and clouds.

“Do you see now?” he bellowed.

I tried to get up from the floor, I tried to get the gun, but Isaac was at me, stepping on my wrist and about to break it. I stared up at him through the wild hair in my face, everything moving and dizzying. This wasn’t real. Not now.

“Do you see how you’ll lose?” he continued, his voice seething. “And I will win. And others like me will win until we consume the entire human race. This pathetic human race. We will be apart. We will be separate. We will live forever. We will be unstoppable.”

“I reckon I can stop you,” came Jake’s voice. Hard and steady as always.

In the nick of time, as always.

Isaac whirled around to face Jake who was standing in the doorway with a revolver pointed at him. I yelped in pain as he took his foot off me. I tried to scoot away, my throbbing wrist in my hand, until I was backed up against the wall. I eyed the rifle which I couldn’t get to without Isaac noticing.

“McGraw,” Isaac said. “You were the best shot, the best man. I brought you because I thought your morals could easily be bent. Everyone’s heard the rumors about you, that you’re a killer with no heart and no soul. You cut the necks of puppies and rape the finest women.” I widened my eyes at that and looked to Jake. He was staring daggers at Isaac, but he wasn’t moving and he wasn’t reacting. He was keeping as still as possible, his gun trained on him.

Isaac continued, “And yet you looked at me and Hank yesterday as if we were the scourge of the earth. That disappointed me. How strong you could have become if you chose this eternal life.”

“It’s not eternal,” Jake said.

He pulled the trigger and the bullet soared through Isaac’s head. It never came out the other side.

Despite everything, I expected Isaac to fall down, to crumple, to die. But he just stood there, his back to me, and started laughing. He was shot in the head, in the face, and he was laughing.

Chills ran down my spine. The same chills gripped my chest with an iron fist the moment Isaac turned his head and stared down at me. Half of his face was gone, his eyeball blasted into his skull leaving a dark red and black hole of bone, brain, and blood. It was so disgustingly gory it didn’t even seem real. How could it?

And yet, as Jake loaded up, Isaac talked to me. “Only the strong survive, because the strong have no fear.”

Despite the very real fear and horror I was feeling, I had to give his words a second thought. They sounded so similar to my father’s.

Another gun blast made me jump out of my daze. This time Isaac lunged toward me just as Jake took his shot. The bullet whizzed somewhere overhead while I screamed and tried to fight off Isaac.

His hand went around my throat, and his open, bloody mouth went for my face.

Chapter Eleven

Isaac was going to eat me alive.

“Eve, don’t move!” Jake yelled, as if I could.

There was a thunk and suddenly Isaac lurched to the side, sputtering blood from his mouth which sprayed all over me. He didn’t fall over, and the grip on my neck barely loosened but it was enough for me to rip myself away from him. I scrambled out of his reach just as Jake pulled me up.

Isaac was moaning like a crazed animal, blood pouring from the back of his head. It was then that I noticed Jake hadn’t shot him—he’d thrown his gun at him instead.

I looked at him, openmouthed.

He gave me a grim smile. “No time to reload.”

He then went for the gun that was lying beside Isaac but Isaac wasn’t as hurt as he seemed. No, of course he wasn’t. Not with Tim’s flesh rolling through his system, putrefying his veins.

He sprang up and jumped on Jake. I never would have believed that skinny Isaac would be able to overtake such a muscular beast as Jake, but he did. They both fell to the floor, Jake’s mass shaking the cabin. He tried his best to fight off Isaac, and I remained frozen in place, trying to figure out what to do. If I tried to pull Isaac off of him, he’d only bat me away like a pesky fly.

I spun around and ran to the rifle I dropped early and picked it up, ever so wary of it accidently going off. I stepped right up to Isaac and aimed it at the back of his head. But at this range, with Jake’s own head right underneath his, his face growing red with strain as he tried to keep Isaac back, I’d kill both of them. Or I’d at least kill Jake.

I looked around and spied the axe resting against the wall near the fire. I gently but quickly placed the rifle on the ground, far away from Isaac and Jake, and ran over to the axe. It was heavy and cold and hard to wield between my two hands, but I had to try and make do with it.

I scampered back over to them, trying to raise the axe above my head, my eyes glued to the back of Isaac’s neck, which was now coated in a stream of sticky blood. This seemed impossible but there was no time to be realistic here. Realism would kill us all.

“Jake don’t move!” I yelled, my arms shaking, my wrists burning.

He grunted something in response but I was already in motion. I brought the axe down, feeling gravity take the weight the rest of the way, and somehow the sharp blade connected with Isaac’s neck. The sound was sick and thudding, like the way Uncle Pat used to slice through hardened meat.

Isaac roared and tried to get up but his movement merely put the blade in further. There was a crunch as it cut through the spine and then the roaring stopped. I let go of the axe in horror at what I had done and it stayed put, lodged deep inside. Not deep enough to slice his head clean off, but deep enough nonetheless.

“Grab the rifle and run to the horses,” Jake said to me as Isaac collapsed on top of him in a mess of blood and fluid.

I did as he asked, hearing the thump of Isaac and the thump of his decapitated head as Jake finished the job. He joined me moments later. With Sadie and Isaac’s horse gone from yesterday, there was only Jake, Tim and Hank’s horses. As much as I hated Hank and still feared him, I couldn’t leave his horse out here in the mountains.

I quickly attached him to Tim’s horse and started throwing the packs onto his back. Tim had pretty much finished the job of packing everything up. He must have gone back inside to get a few more things when he found Isaac inside, plotting his demise. As duplicitous as Tim had turned out to be, I had a soft spot for the charming old man and wished he hadn’t died in what must have been the most horrific way possible.

When I was done, I mounted his horse and Jake came jogging out of the cabin, absolutely covered in blood, the axe in his hands. Even though I had just witnessed it with my own eyes, it was still hard to comprehend.

He ran up to his horse and secured the axe to his saddlebags and jumped on. “Toss me the rifle.”

I did as he asked, wincing. But he caught it safely and brought his horse right beside me. He handed me a revolver. “This will be easier to shoot when you’re up there.” His eyes became dark. “We’ll have to ride hard, you understand. Isaac is dead, we both made sure of that, but there are others out there. I feel it, deep in my bones that we aren’t out of the worst of it. Are you ready?”

“More than I’ll ever be.”

He gave me a curt nod. “Then let’s get off this mountain.”

I quickly stuffed the revolver into the holster that ran across the front of Tim’s saddle and wheeled the horse around as Jake yelled at Trouble, kicking him a few times.

All three horses took off in a mad gallop, as if they knew they were leaving death behind. The frozen expanse of Donner Lake disappeared behind us.

* * *

When Jake said we had to ride hard, he sure wasn’t kidding. We rode as fast as we could through the rough terrain, past the twisting places where I had originally lost Avery. My heart lurched with sadness at the memory, but I had no choice but to put it aside for now. I could only hope that he was still alive and still Avery.

We were lucky the weather held up and the temperature kept climbing the further down the mountain we went. There was still snow, but it was hard-packed and easy to navigate. Our horses were frothing with foamy sweat, and despite twenty minutes where I had to beg Jake to let them walk and get water from a partly-frozen stream, they were pushed to the limit.

As was I. Jake was adamant that we keep going all through the day, until either we or the horses collapsed.

Well, I was the one to collapse first. It must have been the middle of the night, Jake lighting the way with the lantern dangling from his hand, and I, cold and delirious from the constant motion and lack of food. I felt my eyes closing, my consciousness slipping, and everything went away.

When I woke up I had no idea where I was. All I knew was that I was warm and somewhat comfortable. The world around me was still and silent except for the gentle crackle of a fire.

I heard someone breathe out heavily. I lifted up my head to see Jake sitting across the fire from me, knife in hand, skinning a raccoon.

“Glad to see you awake, Pine Nut,” he said in a low voice. He lowered his eyes to the task at hand and gave me a half shrug. “Was starting to think you might never wake up.”

I groaned and eased myself up on my elbows. I was lying beneath a few animal hides with a thin one beneath me. I looked around to see I was tucked under a lip of a rock face, a small shallow cave that had just enough room for me to sit up in. The fire was outside in the open with Jake situated on a short log.

“What happened?” I asked.

“You right fell off your horse, that’s what,” he said matter-of-factly. “I didn’t notice till you hit the ground. You were out.” He swallowed hard and ran his hand through his thick hair that gleamed in the firelight. “Gave me quite the fright.”

I scooted closer to the fire and sat cross-legged. “And here I thought you didn’t get frightened.”

He looked up and gave me a tight smile. “I said I got scared about different things. This,” he quickly pointed the knife at me before going back to skinning, “you. That’s what scares me.”

“I scare you?”

His lip twitched up into a smirk. “You’re terrifying.”

I opened my mouth and then shut it, unsure of what to say. Finally, awkwardly, I said, “Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he said quickly. He put the knife down and lifted up the pink raccoon carcass. “I haven’t felt scared in years. It’s a nice change.”

I watched him carefully as he sharpened a thick branch and stuck it through the raccoon, then placed the animal between two Y-shaped sticks, creating a spit. He worked with ease, despite the injury on his shoulder. I was watching that wound too, but so far it hadn’t bled through the gauze or his shirt. Patches of dried blood clung to his clothes and on his neck, but the rest of him looked clean. When I listened hard I could hear a stream babbling nearby.

“Where are we?”

“No idea. Somewhere near the first cabin we stayed at but not near enough.”

“Are the horses are okay?”

“Horses are fine.”

“You’re okay?”

He stared at me across the fire, and there was something in his dark eyes that burned even brighter. “I am now.”

He didn’t look away, not for a few heady seconds, so finally I had to. I lost my gaze to the flames and cleared my throat. “What was your wife’s name?”

I don’t know why I said it. I don’t know where it came from other than the question had come into my mind every time Jake had gotten this look in his eyes, a look that told me he had been through so much, seen through much, felt so much.

I kept my eyes focused on the fire but still saw him stiffen at the question. He was probably going to be mad.

I licked my lips and apologized again. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.”

“No, no,” he said with a sigh. “It’s fine. Her name was Marie. My son was Sam.”

“What did they look like? What were they like? If you don’t mind my asking.”

“I don’t mind you asking,” he said gently. He rested his elbows on his knees and folded his large, calloused hands together and looked off into the night sky, at the few stars that were peeking over the tops of the trees. The moon was bright even when hidden by clouds.

He took in a deep breath. “I met Marie when I was eighteen. She was sixteen. I’d just left home, wanting to join the Rangers. Said my goodbyes to my folks, who were probably quite glad I was leaving, and moved to San Antonio. Met Marie the first night I’d been accepted into the Rangers. It was…customary, I suppose, to celebrate. I was taken to a brothel,” my eyebrows shot up, “and she was the woman I was given. She was only sixteen at the time and I could tell she was nervous around me—skittish. Turns out it was her first time. Wasn’t mine. She was a beautiful girl, really. Long, curly blonde hair, eyes as blue as cornflower. I was a goner.” He sounded wistful as he said that, and I felt an uncalled for yet vicious strain of jealousy run through me. “She’d been given to the brothel by her father just the week before. A low-life piece of hog’s ass is what he was. I guess I fell in love with her that night. I couldn’t stop going to see her. She’d never take any payment, and sometimes we never made love, we just talked about our hopes and dreams.”

Jake reached over and turned the raccoon over in the fire, trying to darken the other side. His arched brows were furrowed, eyes lost in thought. “It kept on that way for quite some time. But there were problems. Two of them. One was that I was jealous. I loved her. She was my woman. No one else owned her but me. Not the other men who came to see her, not the madam. It made me sick inside to know I had to share her. The other problem, the more noble problem, was that her daddy used to beat her and beat her bad. It didn’t stop when she got to the brothel, not by a long shot. I’m sure she thought that place would be the last place he’d ever go, but she underestimated her dear daddy. He’d show up there a few nights a week, drunk. He’d fuck a few whores then find Marie.”

I noticed I was holding my breath, my fingers gripping the edge of the animal hide as he talked. He went on, his voice lowering, a hard edge coming on. “He’d find her and smack her around. Sometimes he’d break a bottle over her head. Sometimes he’d touch her in ways the other men would. One day I found her passed out in the corner of her shit-filled room, blood all over her. I decided I couldn’t let her—us—live this way anymore. I asked to be transferred over to the Mexican border and I took her with me. It wasn’t easy but that’s what guns are for. We never looked back.”

“Wow,” I said breathlessly. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Our lives got better after that,” he said, still staring off into the distance. “A few months later we found out she was pregnant. It was a tough pregnancy and I was gone with the Rangers half the time. It was hard on us. My father had died by then, but I asked my mother to come down and help take care of Marie in my absence. She and I grew closer after that. Like Marie’s father, mine beat me and my ma too. Now that she was free of him, I felt like I was starting over with a new family.

“Finally, Sam was born and I was lucky to be home to witness it. My whole life changed at that moment, I can hardly explain it.” He grinned to himself and my heart did a backflip. “I’d always been a loner as a kid. The lone wolf, they’d call me back in school. I was happiest that way. But once Sam was born and I looked into his blue eyes and looked at Marie and my mother, I knew that somehow, despite everything I’d thought, the tough and dangerous life I’d wanted, I was meant to be a father. A family man. For a while there I even thought about quitting the Rangers. Marie, as you can imagine, was plumb excited about the idea. We thought since we were raising a few horses already that we could turn it into something more lucrative. Leave the violence behind. And I tried.” He paused and rubbed at his chin. “I tried, but there was this battle in Monterey that I had to fight in. One last thing, I’d told her, one last time. Anyway…you know the rest.”

“Do I?” I really was prodding now. “What happened between then and now? How…how on earth did you handle that? How did you survive?”

“We all find ways to survive. There were a few moments where I put the pistol to my head and said a prayer. I don’t know why I never pulled the trigger. Perhaps I was too scared. Too cowardly.”

“Perhaps you had hope.”

He gave me a sad smile. “Darlin’, if I had hope you can bet your bottom that I wasn’t aware of it. There was no hope. There was nothing but hate. Anger. It consumed me. I wanted to help rid Texas of the Mexicans that took me away and the Injuns that killed my family. That’s all I wanted.”

“And you never loved again.”

He grew silent and rotated the spit again. “I wasn’t about to get close to anyone, not in that way.”

I wasn’t about to ask about the other way. I didn’t need to know.

“What does it feel like?” I asked him. “Being in love?”

His eyes darted over to me. “You don’t know? What about Avery?”

I shook my head. “I…I think I was infatuated with Avery. I always had been. He’d been the only person who cared…I thought that’s what love was.” I felt horrible even saying his name but out it came.

“I see,” he said, slowly nodding. “Well, I don’t know. I reckon it’s different for everyone. With Marie it hit me hard and fast like a sledgehammer. It didn’t mean it meant any less. I suppose…” He trailed off. “I suppose other times it comes slowly. Gradually. Sneaks up on you.”

“Like a wolf.”

“Love is a wolf,” he said, the fire dancing in his eyes. “Perhaps that’s why they howl in the dark of night. Love drives them mad like it does to everyone. Fast or slow, whatever way it hits you, love will drive you mad.”

“Does it not seem so silly to be talking about such a thing when we’re out here with the wolves and the monsters in the trees?”

“No, Eve,” he said. “It’s not silly. We’re still human even in the face of beasts, even with our lives at risk. When you’re close to death, love is sometimes the only thing that makes sense in life.”

I was about to tell him that we weren’t close to death when I noticed that beneath his jacket, blood was starting to seep through his shirt.

“Shoot,” I swore under my breath.

I quickly grabbed my boots and slipped them on while noticing that he had taken them off when he put me to bed. There was something so disarming about the image of caveman Jake McGraw taking the time to undo my boots before tucking me in. It melted away some of the ice that had built up inside me.

I made my way over to the packs and brought out what was left of the first aid supplies—gauze, cloth, and tape—and came over to his side.

He looked down at the blood that was seeping through his shirtfront. “I’m fine. Go get some rest.”

“Like hell I will,” I said determinedly.

He grinned at me. “I’m liking your language.”

I didn’t feel the need to apologize for my cursing. I came behind him as he sat on the log and slowly helped him remove his jacket. “Do you have any moonshine left?”

“I reckon there might be some left in the flask.”

He nodded over to the packs and I quickly retrieved it.

“You planning on getting me drunk, Pine Nut?”

“I’m planning on cleaning your wound, Ranger.”

“Ranger? I like that.” He nodded. “I like that a lot.”

“Lift up your arms,” I instructed him.

“Bossy.” But he did as I asked. I carefully pulled the shirt off of him and he immediately started shivering from the cold air.

“I won’t be long,” I said to him, coming around to his side. With his body, such a perfect specimen of a man, I wished it could take all night.

I bit down on my tongue to bring me back into the present and poured a little bit of the moonshine on his wound, wiping it around and getting rid of most of the blood.

“Easy,” he said with a wince. “You want to give me the rest of it? I feel like I might need some liquid courage tonight.”

“Just a moment,” I said. I came closer to him, feeling the heat of his body on one side of me and the fire on the other. I poured a tiny bit more on the wound and dabbed it gently. Jake’s eyes were close to mine, his lips inches away as he watched me working. I couldn’t meet his eyes—I wouldn’t.

I spent far too long pressing the cloth into him, to the point where he wasn’t even wincing anymore. Finally he shifted slightly, the sound of the fabric of his pants sliding across the log, and I felt his strong fingers brush against mine, taking the flask out of my hands.

I breathed out as he moved his head away from me to swallow down the rest of it. He coughed from the alcohol’s burn and I started layering the gauze. I worked slowly, more for other reasons than because I wanted to be gentle. With him so close to me, his warm skin beneath my fingers so surprisingly smooth, I felt like I couldn’t leave his side. I also felt like I couldn’t get closer. I was stuck in some sort of limbo.

“Eve,” he said in a silken voice.

“Yes?” I whispered. The world felt like it was changing around me. I noticed I had moved closer to him, somehow, that I had finished bandaging him already and yet my fingers were resting on his chest, pressing into him. The trees and the sky, they had grown blacker than obsidian, and the only thing lit, the only thing visible, was his bare body, glowing gold in the firelight.

Beneath my hands, his heart was beating wildly.

“Are you scared?” he asked softly. His face had come closer again, his lips near my cheek then near my ear. From the way my skin prickled, the way the hairs on my neck stood up and the shivers that slinked down my spine, I would have to say that yes, I was scared.

But now I didn’t know of what. This fear was new. I was scared of Jake. I was scared of myself.

And I think I liked it. I liked this kind of fear. It was doing curious things to my insides, putting me through a beautiful sort of pain that was so very foreign to me.

“Because,” he said with a gruff voice that warmed my stomach, “the longer you touch me, the more scared I get.”

I bit my lip. “What do you think I’m going to do?” I whispered.

He shook his head once. “No. Not you. You’re too innocent. It’s what I’m going to do. What I want to do. What I feel like doing. And Lord knows how very wrong it is to have these thoughts. Especially about you.”

“I’m not so innocent,” I managed to say, even though I could barely imagine what his thoughts could be about. He’d already kissed me once before. He couldn’t possibly want what I didn’t dare imagine he wanted. Not with me. Not with the inexperienced, young, half-Indian girl from River Bend.

He leaned in until his lips brushed against my earlobe. “You are innocent, just like your name before she ate the apple, that forbidden fruit. And I love it.”

I couldn’t suppress the shiver. I slowly moved my head toward him so that our noses rubbed against each other. One of my hands went for the side of his head, my fingers sinking into his soft hair. I couldn’t control myself, my actions were apart from my brain, and suddenly I understood why he was afraid of what he would do. I should have been afraid of myself, too.

Instead, I welcomed it. He could have been the apple that changed Eve’s innocence. He could have been the snake. And I suddenly didn’t care.

Chapter Twelve

We were too close. It was all too much.

I shook my head and steadied my breath which was coming out hot and ragged. “My innocence is gone. But whatever I do have left, I want you to have it.”

“You’ll always be innocent to me,” he murmured, barely moving his lips, his gaze never leaving mine.

“Then…” I said, my heart thudding in my chest as I traced his rough jaw with my fingers, “you’ll have to at least try and take it.”

“Oh darlin’,” he said huskily. “You have no idea what you’re asking of me and I might be not be good enough of a man to say no.”

“I have some idea,” I whispered, “if you just point the way.”

He broke into a wide grin and let out an amused chuckle that lasted a shining second before he suddenly grabbed my face, his large hands taking up both sides of it, and kissed me.

Hard.

And still his lips were soft, covering mine, and I felt the hot, wet pressure of his satiny tongue push into my mouth. I welcomed it and moaned once it touched mine. My cheeks flamed with heat, but I couldn’t tell if it was because I was self-conscious or it was the fire that was inside of me, burning up in my chest and belly.

I felt my innocence being charred.

And as he kissed me, I kissed him back. I found myself being dragged into a warm abyss that was just his hands and lips and tongue and us kissing each other like we were afraid to stop, like we’d die if we stopped.

The world outside us stood still and it was just him and I melding together in front of the flames, feeding on each other, because with each kiss it only stoked my hunger, a hunger for him, his body and mind and heart and soul and everything so very brave and strong about him.

“Oh, Eve,” he spoke against my lips before he brought his to my neck and started sliding them down to my collar bone. I couldn’t help but moan again, my body overloaded with these feelings and sensations I had never felt before. It was an assault and I was both fighting back with my mouth and surrendering at the same time.

He cupped my chin and pulled back a few inches, his eyes shining and his lids heavy, looking almost sleepy if not for the lust that sparked behind them. “This is why I was afraid,” he whispered intensely. “I was afraid I would do this to you.”

I leaned my forehead against his and tried to catch my breath. I squeezed his hair in my hands. “You’re not hurting me,” I said.

“But am I hurting me?” he asked. I peered at him. He trailed the soft tip of his nose across the bridge of mine and closed his eyes. “What happens after this? What happens if I lose you?”

“You won’t,” I said. “We’ll be home tomorrow and then we’ll go where you said you’re going.”

“Where was that?” He kissed the corners of my lips, his beard rough on my face. Something inside me ached with yearning, ached for him to continue.

“Wherever your heart desires,” I answered.

“And if you’re what my heart desires?”

I paused. “Then I’ll be safe with you.”

“You’ll be more than safe,” he murmured, and placed his lips back on mine. “I’ll keep you more than safe.”

Then he got to his feet and pulled me up with him.

“Come,” he said, taking me by the arm and leading me to the cave. “I’m getting cold and there’s a better way to keep warm.”

We both ducked under the lip of the cave and squatted by the animal hides I had been under earlier. He lifted a corner back and gestured for me to get inside.

We couldn’t be going to sleep, I thought, not after all that. Then from the sensual gleam in his eyes, I gathered that we wouldn’t be sleeping at all.

I was terrified again. Frozen in place. Torn by the yearning inside and the need to preserve myself. This was all so new to me and so sudden.

“Eve,” he whispered, coming over to me. He ran his hands through my hair. “You’re beautiful. So beautiful.”

“So are you,” I said back, feeling stupid.

He paid that no attention. He let his hands drift down to my collarbones where he started running his fingers back and forth, so rough on my skin, stroking desire back into me.

“When I first saw you,” he said, “I hated you. I hated you, Eve, because I reckoned you were the prettiest damn woman I had ever seen and there was no way you could ever be mine. I was dealt the losing hand before I even rode into your town. You understand why now.”

“What changed?” I whispered.

He shrugged. “The cards are the same. My balls are just as big. I suppose I’m only feeling lucky.”

I smiled shyly. “I think you might be lucky after all.”

“I know I already am. The moment you kissed me back, that was all I needed.”

“Are you sure?” I ran my finger over his full lips. “Could I need more and not know about it?”

He smiled and kissed me. “Do you feel this,” he said against my mouth. “Do you feel this kiss deep down inside?” As our tongues and lips danced and tangled, his fingers slowly went down the front of my dress, unbuttoning it.

I nodded. I felt like my insides were beyond hot now—I was hot enough to melt gold. I wanted the dress off of me just to get relief.

Jake wasn’t wasting any time. He worked slowly but steadily until I was bare down the middle. He placed his hands on either side of the dress and pulled it apart, revealing my cotton long stay underneath.

I blushed. I was far from naked but no man had seen me this exposed before.

“You damn women wear so many layers,” he grumbled good-naturedly while he quickly took off the rest of my dress and pulled the stay and petticoat over my head until I was in just my corset and cotton pants.

He had no patience for the corset. He ripped it down the middle, just ripped it apart with his bare hands until my breasts sprung out of it. I gasped, fully exposed.

“I’ll buy you another…” He trailed off and stared with hungry and adoring eyes that fixated on my bare upper body. I immediately went to cover up my chest with my hands but he was fast and gently held my arms down.

“No,” he said huskily. “No, let me look at you. Your skin.” He came closer and placed his lips on my shoulder, skirting the gauze. “Your skin is the color of rich tea with lots of sugar. I want to drink you right up. I think I might.”

His lips and tongue were startlingly hot against my bare body in the night air and the heat only grew, like cinnamon and flames, as he ran them down toward my breasts.

I stiffened as he reached my nipples but that soon melted away as his mouth encircled them. I moaned and closed my eyes, my head rolling back, as I felt my body spark, ready for ignition. Each lick and suck made a pressure build between my legs until it was too much and there was nothing more that could be done. I squirmed from his insistent mouth and groaned, trying to find some relief. I was afraid the feelings would consume me, all of me, from the inside out.

What was happening?

“You taste so good,” he whispered. His hands went from my breasts and down toward my pants, pulling at the buttons by the waist.

“Please don’t stop,” I cried out, no longer caring how I sounded to him. When he stopped, my nipples only hardened more and I was nearly begging him for the sensation to continue.

“I’m only getting started,” he said, his tongue flicking at them until my legs started moving restlessly. “This is just the beginning.”

“I don’t know how to make it stop, to stop what you started,” I said with a groan.

“I’ll take care of you,” he said thickly. “Just trust in me. Lie back.”

I did as he asked and he pulled my pants right off. I immediately shut my eyes to him, to the ceiling of the cave that danced with cobwebs and flickering shadows, to the fact that I was completely naked in front of him.

And yet the shivers had stopped. I was no longer cold. Or perhaps I was, but it took second place compared to what I wanted, needed. I never knew I had been missing out until now.

He squeezed my thighs and made an appreciative murmur before he ran his hand between them. My legs parted involuntarily, as if my body knew what to do before I even did. I had to trust in him and trust in that.

He would keep me safe.

His hand found the wet space between and gently pushed in. I cried out softly, from shock of the intrusion and then from a faint tinge of pleasure.

“Let me take care of you,” I heard him whisper.

He placed his finger at one spot and began to rub gently, back and forth. Everything tingled, radiating outward as the heat from my belly pooled downward. I started raising my hips into his hand, wanting more and not being able to handle it. My legs spread further and then it felt like everything else was too. My body yearned for something and yearned badly.

“Jake,” I moaned. “What is happening?”

“Shhh,” he said gently. With his hand still rubbing now, faster, slicker, he lay on top of me and kissed me. He kissed my mouth, my neck, my breasts, my nipples. He kissed me everywhere in places I’d never dreamed of, all while making me feel things I never thought were possible, that I never knew existed.

There was barely time to be afraid when all I wanted right then was him and all I got was him.

Finally, the relief came. The pressure was stacked and stacked and stacked between my legs until there was no place for it to go. I felt like my body was thrust into another world, another plane of existence, as waves of pleasure and tingling ice and fire tore through me.

I felt like I was being ripped open in the most pleasing way and all that was left after was just me. Bare-souled with a full heart.

“Oh,” I said breathlessly, my head lolling back and forth along the animal skin, trying to bring myself back to the cave. I’d been somewhere else, somewhere…beautiful. “I can’t even describe it.”

“Good thing, darlin’,” he said. “Because I can’t either. All I know is that it ain’t over yet. Are you ready for me?”

“There’s more?” I exclaimed. I lifted my head to see him sit back and start undoing his pants.

He shot me a sly grin. “There’s more. There’s a new world out there.”

“And meanwhile all this innocence has held me back.”

“Nah, Pine Nut,” he said. “It only made you what you are. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

He yanked his boots and pants off until he was in his short long johns and then tugged those off too.

I immediately turned my head, completely unprepared for what I was going to see.

“You could have warned me,” I admonished him.

“If we’re going where my heart desires, well, let’s just say you’ll be seeing this a lot.”

I blinked, afraid to look again. I’d never see a man like…that. In that state. It was shocking and tantalizing all at once and I couldn’t imagine what we were about to do.

Well, now I could. My insides still throbbed and tingled, and as tense as I felt, part of me stayed willing.

“Just lie back,” Jake said again. “I promise I won’t hurt you much. It will only hurt the first time, and if I play my cards right, it shouldn’t be for long.” He paused. “The pain, that is.”

“Something about the first time being awkward,” I said remembering his metaphors for shooting the rifle.

“That went for everyone else,” he said, gently kissing my cheek. “Not for me. Now relax. And let me in.”

I gripped the edges of the hides, the opposite of relaxing, and held my breath as he went between my legs. I felt him, hard, stiff and large, and I couldn’t comprehend how he was even going to fit, how love-making even happened between a man and a woman. As I started to wonder about how it was possible for babies to even be born when the act seemed impossible, he pushed inside of me.

He was slow. He was gentle. He took his time. He asked after me. But it still hurt like nothing else, like I was being split in two. I cried out and tears teased at my eyes.

But I never asked him to stop. And he never let up his gradual ways. He just kept coming in, steadily, then back out. A slow rhythm began to build and his hands went back to the place they were before. Soon I was relaxing and his body was coming into mine, the hairs on his chest tickling against my bare breasts, his breathing heavy and labored. A thin sheen of sweat coated his forehead, settling in the lines where his face remained in throws of concentration and lust. If he was in any pain from his wound, he wasn’t showing it. He was only showing his need for me, his eyes flashing with it every time our gazes locked.

The feeling was incredible, his body so rough and ready and large and me so small beneath him. I felt like a woman—like his woman—something new to me. I felt my old life seep out of me as he poured his in.

Though the pressure had never relieved again on my end, it had on his. His thrusts became fast, feverish, his eyes burning into mine as if he was trying to capture my spirit with them.

“Eve,” he groaned into my mouth as his body began to shudder. “Oh, Eve.”

With a sigh he rested his sweaty body on top of mine. I put my hands on his wide back and moved my fingers up and down his spine. I held him close to me, feeling so very close to him, closer than I’d ever felt to anyone. He was inside of me still but I never wanted him to leave. I never wanted to be apart again.

Later, we lay beneath the hides and I was nestled in the crook of his arm, my hand on his chest. It was still pitch black outside, but the fire was roaring hot, and I was warmed inside and out. The intimacy I felt was unexpected, the connection between us had grown deeper and tangible. I felt like it added another level to my existence.

“How long have you been without your father?” Jake asked, his fingers playing with my hair.

I looked at him in surprise. I didn’t think he’d been listening when I had told Tim about him.

“For too long,” I answered. “I think because I don’t know if he’s alive or dead, it makes time even longer. Sometimes I’m afraid I might not remember him though I know it hasn’t been that long.”

Silence cloaked the cave. Finally he said, “I’m sorry.”

“So am I.”

“And your mother? Is she still alive?”

That was debatable. “She is. But…she’s not the same. She’s not really my mother anymore. I was always more of my father’s child than hers. After he died, she withdrew from me even more. She stopped speaking. She stopped looking after me. That’s when we had to move in with my aunt and uncle. They take care of my mother…”

“But they never really take care of you.”

“No. I took care of myself.”

He exhaled though his nose and held me closer to him. “When we get out of here, we can bring your mother along if you want.”

I turned my head to look at him. He had such a magnificent profile. “You mean that?”

He smiled softly. “I told you that I was going where my heart desires. It desires you. We’ve got gold and a reason. We can go anywhere you want, we can take anyone you want.”

I was touched at the sincerity in his voice. I wasn’t quite sure if my mother would ever leave her sister’s side, but it was nice to know that the option was there. As for me, I couldn’t comprehend having the means to leave and not leave River Bend. With Avery gone, I’d be at the mercy of Uncle Pat. He was my last saving grace after my father had left.

I studied Jake’s face, his gruff beard, the hard lines of his jaw and chin contrasted with the kindness in his eyes, the way he appraised me even as I was lying in his arms. Perhaps this funny beast of a man would be my saving grace as well.

* * *

“Eve, get up!” Jake’s haggard voice broke through my dreams. I groaned, feeling a sore ache between my legs, and rolled over. I had slept like a log. The light was grey; morning was here.

And all was not well.

“Eve!” he yelled again, and the hides were suddenly thrown off me. I yelped and scrambled for my long stays and quickly covered up my indecency.

I suppose I wasn’t moving fast enough though as Jake tried to get me up. He grabbed my arm and pulled.

“What is it?” I cried out, feeling the panic rolling off of him. When Jake panicked, I knew something was very wrong.

“We have to go. The horses are gone.”

My stomach sank. “What do you mean the horses are gone?”

“I mean they are gone,” he said. He grabbed the pack that was in the corner and shook it. “This is all we have left.” He rummaged through it and pulled out two bars of gold. “Thank the damn Lord we at least have this.”

“Did they take off in the night?” I asked. I had been too involved with him last night to have been paying the horses any attention. “Weren’t they hitched to a tree?”

“They certainly were. I made sure of that. I didn’t want to risk losing them to their free-roaming fancies when we’re all the way out here.” He paused. “There are tracks too.”

“What kind of tracks?” I asked slowly.

“Human tracks,” he answered grimly.

At that, I quickly shoved on my stays and dress—I wouldn’t have bothered with the corset even if he hadn’t destroyed it—and slipped on my boots. “I don’t understand,” I finally said, my heart racing. “If it was…them…why didn’t they take us too?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Perhaps they knew we’d put up too much of a fight. They are weak without human meat, least that’s the way I reckon.”

“So they ate the horses instead?” I asked, horrified.

“Either that or they took them to ride them.”

“They couldn’t. You’ve seen them. They’re too much like animals to have that kind of thought.”

“True,” Jake said as he started folding up the hides and threw everything back into the pack. “But Isaac was still fairly human when we found him, probably because he hadn’t eaten all of the stew. Perhaps they go in and out depending on how much meat they’ve had, perhaps they have to resort to other sources of meat to stay alive. They’ve lived in these mountains for long enough, they have to be surviving on something. The animals probably give them another few days to live, just as they would to us.”

“Then they might be around here watching us,” I said, my stomach still sick over the idea of the monsters eating Trouble. Judging from the pained expression on Jake’s face, he felt the same way too. “Do you think the horses can turn? I saw what happened to our neighbor’s horse, Nero.”

“I don’t know what that was. Perhaps just an omen.”

An omen I should have paid attention to.

“What are we going to do?” I asked as I crawled out of the cave and surveyed the scene. Sure enough, the horses were gone. The smell of rotted flesh competed with the smoldering ashes of the fire. The tracks left in the snow were a mix of bare feet and boots. It was wishful thinking to imagine we were victims of ordinary horse thieves. In these bloody mountains, nothing was ordinary.

“We have no choice,” Jake said, placing the pack on his good shoulder. “We’ve got to walk and we have to walk soon.”

He walked over to me and kissed my forehead. The warmth of his lips on my skin gave me a boost of much needed strength.

He placed the rifle in my hands. That gave me strength, too.

We took off away from the cliff face, me with the rifle, him with his revolver and the infamous axe, and headed through the narrow path through the trees. It was obvious from the way the snow here was trodden up that we not only passed through here before but the monsters did too. If they did eat the horses, at least they didn’t do it at the camp. I had the terrible, terrible image of them leading Trouble back to a darkened wood where hundreds of the monsters sat on their haunches like gargoyles, waiting for their next meal.

“Jake,” I said after we’d been walking for a few hours. My legs were stiff and my feet were cold. The snow was lessening as we went down, but there was still enough to make things both difficult and pretty.

“Mhmm” he grunted, his voice strained. He was feeling it too.

“What if there are more?” I asked.

“More?” he repeated without turning around.

“More of them. What if there are too many? What if they discover River Bend and the rest of the country? What happens then?”

“I reckon we should worry about that once we’re done worrying about ourselves.”

I tugged on his jacket sleeve until he stopped and looked at me. He raised up the brim of his hat and I could see sweat gathered at his temples.

“But what if?”

He sighed and looked up at the trees. He shrugged. “I don’t know. I’d like to think they’ll stay here and die here.”

“But this is the only trail over to California. The wagons going westward, they have to go up to Oregon in order to reach the Pacific. More and more people will go through here and more and more people will…turn.”

“Turn?”

“Turn into them. Become addicted to human flesh, to the power it gives.”

He chewed on his lip. “You know, I’d kill someone for a cigar right now. Look, I hear what you are saying. But we can’t do anything about that at this moment. I promised to keep you safe just as you promised to keep yourself safe. If we happen across them, we’ll kill them best we can, even if they wave the white flag and surrender. But for now, we can only worry about each other.”

I nodded. I knew what he was saying, but that didn’t erase the fear. I didn’t think anything could. Every heavy step we took through the forest, surviving on snow water and the last of the raccoon meat, was a step of dread. I feared every shadow, every smell, every sound. We were on foot, and despite our weaponry, we were still at the mercy of God or luck or the mountain or something beyond our control.

We went onwards though, because to stop was to die. We trudged through the snow—step by step by step—and we lived in the constant anxiety that nothing was safe except for each other.

As the sky turned purple with dusk and cast a lilac glow on the snowy trail, we’d been walking for eight hours and I couldn’t go another step. Everything was painful, everything burned—my legs and feet felt foreign to me; I never knew they could hurt so much.

Jake, determined to reach the nearest cabin, picked me up and threw me over his bad shoulder. I wanted to protest, to fight it, to keep walking, but there was nothing I could do. I was all out of strength.

I put my faith in him and let him carry me, all while trying to keep conscious. My view was the wet-looking snow on the ground, and it was too awkward to raise my head and look at anything else so I concentrated on the sounds and smells. I expected to come across the putrid smell of them at any minute, rendering our escape futile, but it didn’t come. Instead, we found the cabin. We found shelter.

“This is a sight for sore eyes,” Jake said. I could hear the exhaustion in his voice, none made easier by carrying my frame.

We went inside and he gently lay me down beside the blackened fire pit. I sat up and looked around while he took off his pack and fumbled for matches. It was late afternoon and there was enough light coming in through the one working window door to illuminate things. It wasn’t as cold either, and I had hoped the snowbanks between the cabin and the outhouse had melted some.

At that thought, a pitter patter began to sound on the thin roof. Rain.

Jake cocked a tired eye to the ceiling. “Looks like the snow is over for now. We’re that much closer to River Bend.” That filled me with a dangerous spark of hope—we had a chance. Unfortunately it all hinged on whether we could make it through the night. I wanted to keep going, but I knew that neither of us had it in us.

He turned over the logs in the pit until he got a few that weren’t charred and started a fire. Soon the cabin was warm and toasty while the rain fell heavier, dripping through the roof in some places. There was something almost romantic about the scenario, like a scene from a romantic poem, but even though my heart and body yearned for Jake with a startling ferocity, the fear and exhaustion was too much.

My stomach growled noisily. I eyed Jake in embarrassment.

He smiled wearily. “I wish we had something more to eat. I’m famished too.” He looked to the window. “Not sure what I can scrounge up in this weather. I think most animals are taking shelter.”

“Don’t go,” I told him. “I’ll be fine.” The need to have him close to me outweighed my empty stomach.

“Are you sure?”

“I don’t think I can handle being alone,” I said. “I don’t think I can handle much of anything anymore.” Heat pricked behind my eyes, and before I knew it, tears were falling down my cheeks, salty on my lips. I couldn’t remember the last time I had cried and yet I was suddenly doing so in front of Jake.

“Hey, now,” Jake said softly. He got up and sat beside me, wrapping his arm around my shoulder. He gently brushed my tears away with his thumb and then kissed the wet trails they’d left behind. His lips were so warm and soft and made my heart flutter with gratitude and hope.

“Sorry,” I sniffled.

“You ain’t got nothing to be sorry about,” he said, kissing the corner of my mouth. He tucked my hair behind my ears. “You’ve been dealt a rotten hand in life, Eve. There’s plenty to cry about.”

“So have you,” I said.

“I have,” he said in a low voice, giving me a nod. “But that’s only more the reason why I wouldn’t leave your side. I need you too. I reckon that might seem silly to hear from a grown man, but the truth is that I need you very much. In this short time, you’ve given me purpose. To love you. To protect you.”

To love me? I stared at him in shock. He loved me? How could that be?

He only smiled at my expression. “I think we all need a chance to cry sometimes, don’t you?”

My heart was still beating over the word love. “Have you cried?”

He nodded. “I’m done crying though. I reckon your pretty tears are enough for the both of us.” He unraveled the animal hides and spread them out on the ground. “Here, lie down and rest. I’ll keep an eye out. I’ll keep you safe.”

I don’t even think I got a chance to say thank you before I promptly fell asleep.

Chapter Thirteen

I was back at River Bend, sleeping in Uncle Pat’s hayloft. It was dark outside—dark as sin, and the sound of crickets filled the air.

I slowly got to my feet and breathed in the familiar smell of hay and wood and manure. It felt good to be back, as if I’d never gone anywhere, as if it had all been a realistic dream about blood, snow and a man.

Monsters.

I was about to head down the ladder when a strange sound caught my attention.

I walked to the edge of the hayloft and looked over the edge.

All the animals in the pens were gone. The house was completely black. My mother stood with her back to me in the middle of the paddock, muttering the same phrase over and over again.

She was speaking!

I tried to call after her but my throat froze, keeping my voice inside. Now I was the mute one.

I found my way through the dark, climbing down the ladder, and stealthily made my way towards my mother. I didn’t want to scare her, and yet something deep inside told me to approach with caution. Perhaps it was the strange, sour smell that was growing more pungent by the moment.

When I was close to her I finally began to make out what she was saying.

“You need to find it,” she whispered. “What’s out there.”

“You need to go. You need to find it. What’s out there.”

“What’s out there.”

“What’s out there.”

She kept repeating this over and over again in ragged little whispers.

Finally I found my voice.

“What’s out there?” I asked.

My mother stiffened and fell silent. The straps of her bonnet blew in the breeze. I stared at her back then down at her hands. They were paler than snow and dripping with blood.

“Mother?”

“You know what’s out there.”

I shook my head, wanting to reach out for her but being too afraid. That horrible aroma was growing stronger and there was something so terribly wrong about all of this.

I eyed the dark house. “Where is Uncle Pat?”

“They’re all gone.”

“Where did they go?”

“They were consumed.”

I nervously wrung my hands together. I’d lost all feeling in them. “They got consumption?” I asked carefully.

She shook her head. “No,” she said.

She turned around to face me. Her eyes were blue and blank, her skin pale grey. Blood was smeared around her mouth. “I consumed them.”

She smiled, and instead of having teeth, there was a row of gleaming eyeballs like bulging white grapes.

I woke up with a jerk and had to gasp for my breath. It was dusk, with only a faint, grainy light before me. I heard a faint dripping sound and Jake’s steady breathing, and had to take a few moments to bring myself back to the present.

It was a shame the present wasn’t much better than my dream had been.

I rolled onto my back, feeling the ache throughout my body and stared up at the ceiling. We could have only been sleeping for about an hour since there was a bit of natural light left. As scary as the dream was, I felt sleep pulling me back under, my body and mind aching for solitude. I could only hope that I would find it in a dreamless state.

I was in a half-asleep limbo when I smelled it. I couldn’t figure out whether the odor was in my dreams or in real life, but from the way my skin prickled with gooseflesh, the way the hairs stood up and my chest felt full of ice, I knew to trust my body. It knew the difference between the dangers that were real and the dangers that weren’t.

The danger was real.

I swallowed hard and gently nudged Jake. He awoke quickly but fell silent the moment he breathed in. He could smell it too.

We looked at each other, our eyes shining in the waning light. He slowly sat up and reached for the axe that was beside him. I went for the rifle that was nearby, my fingers grasping the cold steel. We got up to a crouch and then waited.

At first there was only the smell, slowly growing stronger until my eyes watered and it was painful to breathe it in.

Then came the sounds.

Scratching on the walls of the cabin. A shadow passing by the window.

Faint snarls, conjuring images in my head of wet saliva and sharp teeth bared by pulled back lips.

The thin line between man and animal.

I started to shake with fear, the rifle jangling in my hands. Jake put his hand on my arm and gave it a comforting squeeze. His eyes told me everything was going to be all right.

His eyes were lying.

We were surrounded by the living dead—how ever could we be all right?

We waited. It felt like forever.

The scratching continued, nails being run up and down the cabin walls. I wondered why on earth they were doing that, why they didn’t just come in and take us. Were they trying to frighten us? Were they too weak, gone too long without human meat, and this was the best they could do?

It was driving me mad. The scratching, those depraved moans and snaps from drooling mouths. Jake and I were trapped, completely surrounded, and we never knew when they were going to attack.

Then finally something happened.

The door to the cabin slowly swung open. We couldn’t see who or what had opened it. There was a thump.

A pale, spindly arm reached through the open door, long clawlike nails dragging on the dirt floor.

I gasped as another arm followed suit. Together they pulled along the ground until a torso came into view. It carried the face of death—hollow cheeks, pronounced bones stretched across wrinkled skin, thinning white hair, and frozen eyes. It turned its head, staring blankly at us. It opened its mouth to show just a few teeth and let out a terrible cry that went straight through me like a slick blade.

I raised the rifle at it and took aim.

“Blow its head off,” Jake said gruffly.

I pulled the trigger.

The bullet shot out in a black puff, the force rocking me back, but I had prepared for it this time. It struck the monster right in the head, and at that close range, it practically turned his brains into mud—red mud that splattered on the walls behind us and plopped down onto the floor.

“Nice shot,” Jake commented, one brow cocked. “I knew you were a natural.”

I smiled uneasily but there was no time to take pride in it. Though the scratching and moans stopped momentarily after the gunshot, they quickly started up again, louder this time and more menacing.

I looked at Jake, wishing I had more courage. “I have a feeling that the others won’t be so easy.”

“Well they obviously know we’re in here. What do you want to do? I don’t reckon we can hide in here forever. Something’s got to give. I’ve been in enough standoffs to know that.” He took the rifle from me and quickly began to reload the muzzle.

My body felt numb with fear. I wanted to close my eyes and wish the situation away. I wanted to be anywhere else but in this cabin, surrounded by creatures who wanted a taste of my flesh for their own attempt at immortality. I thought about Isaac and wondered if it had been worth it. If it had been worth it to kill Tim and eat him in hopes of living forever. It hadn’t worked for him—he hadn’t eaten enough of the stew to become fully monstrous even though he had been a monster to begin with. I wondered about the beasts outside, if they had all turned because they wanted a chance of survival, or if they were like Hank and Isaac and wanted a chance of being something more than human. Something completely inhuman.

He handed the rifle back to me then brought out the revolver from his holster, the axe in his other hand. We were a poorly armed ragtag team, but if the rest of the monsters were as decrepit as the last one, if there weren’t that many of them, then maybe we had a chance in hell.

I made a move toward the door when Jake stuck his arm out and held me back. He nodded at the fire. “When all else fails, I believe fire will work just as well.”

“I can’t exactly hold a torch around all this gunpowder, can I?”

“That’s why I said, when all else fails.”

I took in a deep breath. If we failed, we failed. There were no other options when you’re dead. Well, unless you wanted to become a monster. I know I certainly didn’t, even if it did mean a way to prolong my life.

All of a sudden the moaning and the scratching stopped. We looked at each other in wonder. I breathed in. The stench was still there, still pungent. There may have been no noise but they were definitely still outside the cabin.

Waiting.

I took in a deep breath, tightened my grip on the rifle, and walked toward the door. I had to know. I had to get this over with.

In unison, Jake and I stepped together into the doorframe, weapons drawn.

The sight took my breath away and replaced it with pure primal fear.

There were over a dozen monsters standing outside the cabin, staggered about, all of them facing us with expressions of hunger and mindless hate. Some were as close as ten feet away, close enough for me to note the glassiness of their eyes, the way their hair was falling out of their heads, the way their bare, blue cold feet shriveled in the snow. Their mouths were open, drooling, with grey tongues lolling around beside black gums.

All of them wanted to eat us.

We didn’t even get to make the first move.

The closest one lurched forward, long, spindly hands clawing for us beneath a snapping mouth.

Jake stepped in front and to the side of me, and with a war cry, swung the axe like a bat. It cleanly sliced the monster’s head right off so that it flew backward into the snow.

There wasn’t a moment to appreciate it. Now the monsters were staggering forward toward us, some faster than others, some looking more human. All were terrifying in their depraved addiction.

I screamed as one lunged for me and pounced at my feet, grabbing hold of my leg and trying to bite it. It felt too dangerous to shoot him without blasting my own leg off so I kicked him in the head with my other boot until he let go, his fingernails digging so deep into my skin that he ripped away the hem of my dress and the bottom of my pants.

Meanwhile, Jake was trying to take on two of them that had leaped for him at the last minute. He lobbed one head off but was tackled to the ground by the other, and in too close to properly swing the axe. I was wondering how risky it was for me to shoot and hope not to hit Jake when he managed to get an arm free and shoved the barrel of the revolver in the monster’s open mouth. He grinned at the beast before he pulled the trigger, and his head exploded in a red rain shower.

The zombie came back for my legs but Jake was able to throw off the decapitated one and get a good swing with the axe, chopping the monster right in half, intestines spilling out like ribbons. Unfortunately, it did nothing to slow the monster down, and it kept on going for my leg with its angry teeth and nails.

Jake reached down and pulled the monster back by its wiry white hair so its wrinkled grey-white throat was exposed. Before I realized what he was doing, he’d brought out the sharp Bowie knife and started slicing through the neck, spilling crimson rivulets of blood.

I looked away from the sight just in time to see another monster coming for us. With shaking hands, I brought the rifle up to my line of sight, but the movement from the monster at my legs was putting me off balance. If I missed, it would take time to reload and we may not even have the chance to.

The monster was right at us, its dead, leering eyes fixated on Jake. Just as it was about to reach him, Jake finished slicing through the other monster’s head. He turned and threw the knife at the attacker, getting him right through the eye where it remained lodged. I was free to move, and it gave Jake enough time to get back and swing the axe. This time the axe went right down the middle, splitting the head and brain into two neat halves.

We watched, our breaths in our throats, before the monster fell to the side, dead.

All victories were short-lived. The monsters kept coming, still about a dozen of them. Jake did what he could with the axe and I tried to save my shot for when it really counted. After he beheaded three more and still more came after us, he threw a crazed look back to the cabin.

“I can’t keep this up,” he said breathlessly. “We need to get my revolver reloaded. There are paper cartridges in the pack inside. If we bar the door, perhaps we can buy some more time before we take the rest of them out.”

He didn’t need to tell me twice. We turned back into the cabin and slammed the door behind us. There wasn’t much in the cabin to prop against it, but Jake ripped up a loose wooden plank and stuck it between the handle.

As soon as he did that, the door began to shake and blue fingers appeared under the door, wiggling at us, taunting us. It was only a matter of time before they decided to come through the window.

Luckily Jake was fast. He loaded up all the chambers of the revolver and then spun it around. He kissed it quickly and gave me a shy look. “It may not take someone’s head off but it’ll help. The Texas Navy made this gun. They’ll never let you down.”

“There’s no time to rhapsodize about your gun!” I admonished.

“Even after last night?” Jake asked with a wag of his brows.

I narrowed my eyes.

“Pine Nut,” he said quickly, “nothing wrong with a little joke before victory.”

“You better be certain about that,” I said just as the glass on the window shattered with a monster trying wildly to climb in.

Jake took aim and shot the monster in the head. The bullet barely did anything but it was enough to get him to pull back. Unfortunately, he was replaced by another monster.

At the same time the boards on the broken window—the one the first monster had crashed through all those nights ago—began to groan and splinter from the deathly hands pulling from the other side.

It was followed by a clunk above us and the frantic sound of the roof being ripped apart. They were mad and through with waiting—they were coming in.

It happened all at once. The door broke down, the windows were busted through, and a jagged hole appeared in the ceiling above us, two blue eyes peering down at us with hunger. We staggered backward toward the far wall and Jake started swinging.

I really thought he was going to kill them all. Despite his injury, he swung that axe like a god, his muscles great and straining, his strength seeming to be too large for the cabin to contain. He managed to decapitate nearly all of them, their heads and lifeless corpses scattered about.

He almost made it.

But it just wasn’t enough.

The monster from the ceiling dropped onto his back just as the two others went for his legs. He fell to the floor, collapsed under the weight, the axe under him and immovable.

“Eve!” Jake screamed. The terror in his eyes was unmistakable as they clawed their way into him. “Leave! Get out of here! Go!”

But I wouldn’t do that. I aimed the rifle at the monsters, trying to get a good shot, but it was nearly impossible.

“Eve, go!” he yelled again, fighting back against them with kicks and punches the best that he could. “Please leave, I can’t keep you safe if you’re here! Go, NOW!”

But I couldn’t.

“You promised me!” he bellowed in anguish.

I took aim at the one on his back, the strongest one, the one doing the most damage.

I pulled the trigger.

The gun blasted with a puff of black smoke.

And I missed. The bullet went flying into the door instead.

I couldn’t believe it.

I missed.

And that was the only shot I had.

Jake was screaming again. I gave him a sad look.

“I am so sorry,” I whispered, unable to process that we were going to lose this battle. I was going to lose him before my very eyes.

“I can’t lose you too!” he cried out as he flipped onto his back and punched the monster in the face. “I won’t lose you. Please go!”

I found strength somewhere deep inside me, coiling around my heart and guts like a steel cage. I could do this. I could save him.

I looked down into the flash pan on the rifle, still full of gunpowder.

I ran over to the fire, picking up a lit log.

“Jake!” I screamed. “Cover yourself.”

Jake figured out what I was going to do. He managed to punch the monster in the face enough so that he was able to crawl away a few feet.

I threw the rifle at the monsters. It landed at their feet. One even picked it up. I couldn’t have asked for better than that.

As the monster stared down the barrel in demented curiosity, I threw the flaming log over at him.

It collided with the rifle.

And everything exploded.

I went flying backward, landing on the ground in a heap. My head spun, wasting precious seconds while I tried to get my bearings. Once I did, I was up on my feet and making my way over to the wreckage.

Two of the monsters were fully engulfed in flames, writhing on the ground, while the other had exploded into charred crisps.

Jake was twitching, face down, his arm on fire.

I screamed and ran over to him, throwing off my cloak and wrapping it around his arm to put out the flames.

He groaned and I knew he was alive.

“I take it all back,” he said, his voice cracking in agony.

“Take what back? Jake, Jake are you going to be okay? Oh God.”

He tried to sit up, his eyelids fluttering. “I take it back, that you’re a good shot. You’re lousy. And you’re right stupid. You should have run.”

“I’d never leave you,” I told him, trying to get him to his feet.

“Don’t let that be your downfall,” he said.

“Can you get up?” I asked, still holding the cloak around his arm. The fire was out, but now I was afraid to look at the damage underneath.

He nodded and got up, clearly in pain. “I do think we need to get out of here. There’s no telling if this was all of them.”

“I sure hope it was.”

“I never saw Hank,” he remarked grimly.

I swallowed hard. “Neither did I.”

We exchanged a heavy look. It wasn’t over yet. We had no choice but to keep running.

I grabbed the pack and the weapons, and we left the bloody, smoldering massacre behind.

Chapter Fourteen

We ran for a long time, through the black night, through the rain that picked up again, until there stopped being snow beneath our feet. It didn’t relieve me—nothing would. I kept grabbing onto Jake every few minutes, knowing he was in pain from his burn but so grateful that he was alive. It was as if I had to keep making sure that he was safe and with me and that we had survived.

But I felt like our survival so far meant nothing until we got off the mountain. Yes, the monsters were all dead, but how did we know that was all of them? We had never seen Hank. Was it possible that he was still behind us, scavenging on his brethren? Was it possible that he was trailing us in the shadows?

We walked until we found the shelters that we had built our first night out. One was destroyed, the makeshift roof caved in, perhaps by the snow that had fallen, but the other one, the one I had slept in with Donna, was still standing. It pained me to think about Donna, and of course Avery, how long ago it felt in some ways, yet in others it felt like just this morning. Donna’s kind words, Avery’s comfortable presence.

Now Jake and I were hunkering down, wrapped in animal skins. He promised me he would keep watch, and as much as I wanted to help him, to tend to his wounds the best I could and make him better, I couldn’t. He didn’t have any alcohol for the pain and my body pulled me into sleep. Even fear couldn’t keep my eyes open. Not this time.

I woke up at the crack of dawn, my head nestled against Jake’s shoulder. He was awake but barely. He looked so terrible that I felt like crying. His skin was greenish white and clammy, his forehead feverish to the back of my hand.

“Jake,” I whispered, trying to get him to look at me. I brought his chin toward mine with my fingers.

He tried to smile but failed. His eyes were drooping shut and unfocused. I looked down at his arm and nearly dry-heaved. His jacket and shirt sleeve underneath had completely burned away, leaving his skin raw and exposed. It was a black and pink mess of burned and blistering flesh.

I put my hand to my mouth. “Jake. No. We have to fix you, now.”

I went for the pack but remembered I had used the last of the first-aid supplies on his shoulder, another thing we probably had to worry about.

He shrugged out of my grasp. “No, Eve, no. We have to go.”

He tried to get up but swayed unsteadily.

“But the burn,” I said. “It’ll probably lead to an infection.”

He gave me a lazy but pained glance. “Darlin’, you saved my life back there. It won’t be for nothing. I promise you that. We’ll get ourselves to River Bend. It’s not far now. And we’ll get ourselves both fixed up.”

As much as I wanted to argue with him, I knew that I couldn’t. He was right. Unless I found a natural healing agent such as wild honey, which was impossible at this point, we couldn’t do a thing. It tore me up inside—yes I did save his life, but it was my fault for missing in the first place. If I had just shot properly, the monster would have died and Jake would have survived unscathed.

This time I carried the pack, the axe, and the rifle. As dirty and tired and hungry as I was, I wasn’t about to let him shoulder all the weight.

We went off into the woods, at first walking as fast as we could, but over time Jake grew tired. His pace slowed, his long legs tripping him up. A few times he started to pitch one way or the other, and it took all of my minute strength to keep his massive body from both falling to the ground and crushing me.

We were moving into new terrain, I could feel it in the air around me. The smell of sweet pine and decaying leaves, the freshness to the ground that was untouched by snow and sprinkled with light rain. The ground beneath our feet became more level and the path wider. The carved-in ruts of wagons appeared. Here and there I could make out horse tracks in the dirt, some of them even heading in our direction. There was no time to check on how fresh they were though, there was only time to get us home.

It was early afternoon when Jake collapsed.

I wasn’t positioned well enough to get a good hold on him. He buckled to his knees and then fell face forward with a thump.

“Jake!” I screamed, and dropped to the ground beside him. He was completely motionless—dead weight.

Frantically, I tried to turn him over but he was too heavy. I put my fingers to his neck, and despite him being cold as stone, I could find a faint pulse. He was alive but that barely did anything to abate the pinch in my heart. How was I going to get him out of here? How could I make him better?

He was going to die out here from the burn and I was going to be forced to watch. It wasn’t fair. After everything, it wasn’t fair.

I spied the trees alongside the path and put my pack and weapons down over there. Then I went back over to Jake. I would drag him over to the tree and sit him up with what little resolve I had left.

I grabbed under his shoulders and tried to pull, both sorry and relieved when he gave out a small moan of pain.

Then I froze.

The quiet snap of a branch behind me.

Oh dear Lord, no.

I eyed the weapons that were so close and yet so far and slowly turned around, afraid to let go of Jake.

An Indian man was standing in the trees, his bow raised and arrow aimed right at me.

I didn’t know what to do. The man just stared at me, his eyes yielding nothing. He kept the arrow pointed in my direction. He was obviously Paiute but wasn’t one of the two men we had met on our way up.

“Please help me,” I said in English before trying to find the word in Paiute. I could only say “Please.” I hoped the pleading in my eyes and the futility of the situation would be enough to convey the rest.

I waited, holding my breath, not wanting to let go of Jake if this was to be the end. I’d never been so afraid of my own kind before, but then I’d never had an arrow aimed at me. I wished more than anything that my father was here.

Finally, the man lowered the arrow. He turned around and walked back into the forest until he was swallowed by the trees.

I watched and waited, thinking he would come back and shoot me. Then I was afraid he wouldn’t come back at all. He could help heal Jake better than I could.

I carefully placed Jake’s upper body back on the ground and took off into the trees after the man. I ran, tripping over roots, my hair wild in my face, as I searched for him. Despite the cowhide smell from his clothes, I couldn’t track him, couldn’t follow his path. I turned around, feeling lost and trapped, and realized I was alone and had left Jake undefended.

I began to panic and tried to follow my tracks back the way I came, my senses warped and frayed. Just when I thought I was following the right trail, I heard another snap behind me.

I whirled around and waited, my breathing short and tense, my nerves fried. I felt like something was watching, but who? The man? Or something else?

“Hello?” I said, trying to sound forceful. “Is anyone there?” I tried to repeat the same thing in Paiute as best I could.

Only silence. Was there an arrow to my head or was it all in my imagination?

I breathed in deep, expecting to find traces of rotten death in the air but instead there was something else. Something I’d smelled before yet couldn’t place for the life of me. My heart was racing too fast, the whoosh of my blood too loud in my ears for me to pick up anything but my own fear and desperation.

Another snap came rattling through the deep woods.

Then another.

In the shadows something was moving, coming toward me at a steady pace.

I had no weapons. I had nothing.

With my heart in my throat, I turned around to flee.

“Eve?”

Someone called my name.

Not just any someone.

I stopped and looked over my shoulder.

Stepping out from between the pines were the two Indian fellows I had originally met, the ones that looked the same. They had their hands raised in peace with concerned looks on their faces.

And behind them was a tall white boy with golden hair.

“Avery!” I cried out, unable to believe it. I blinked a few times before I started running toward him. He ran to me and caught me just as my legs gave out, my whole body succumbing to the relief and exhaustion.

“Careful,” he said with a chuckle. “I’m not one hundred percent yet.”

“You’re alive,” I sobbed into his chest as he held me up. “How are you still alive?”

“With a little help,” he said. “But we’ll get to that later. Where is everyone else?”

I shook my head. “There is no one else. There’s only Jake and I. I had to leave him when I saw the other Indian. He needs help, Avery. His arm is burned. I think it’s infected and killing him.”

He patted my head. “If you want these Indians to fix him, they can.”

“Of course I do!” I cried out and looked up at him. Tears welled in my eyes. “Please, Avery, I’d do anything for him.”

He gave me a funny look then said to the others, motioning forward, “There is another man. Needs help.”

Though they probably understood the gist of it, I repeated “man” and “help” to them in their language. Finally they got it and started off the way I had come, their tracking skills far better than mine at this point.

I watched them go, and then Avery patted my head again. “It’s nice to see you again, Eve. Jake will be good as new when they’re done with him. Then we’re almost home.”

I nearly cried from relief. Then I plumb fainted.

* * *

I came to when a vile stench filled my head. My eyes burst open to see a cup of ammonia-scented liquid being swayed underneath my nose. I looked up to see Avery holding it.

“I reckon it’s like smelling salts,” he explained with a shrug. “They haven’t worked on Jake though.”

I sat up, my head woozy, and looked around. We were gathered in a long but low-ceilinged cabin that looked as if pioneers had built it. Now it was taken over by the Paiute Diggers. I was lying on a bed of animal hides by a fire that burned in the middle of the room. On the other side of the fire was an old man with deep, wrinkled grooves in his old face and long white hair. The jewelry around his neck and the wise look in his eyes as I stared at him across the fire told me he was a respected elder, perhaps even a chief. To the side of him were the two familiar Diggers and the straight-faced one that had the arrows. Nearest to me was Jake, who was also lying on animal hides.

He was bare-chested and his arm was covered in something black and shiny, as was the wound on his shoulder. He looked as if he was out cold, his breath slow and laborious.

“Is he going to be okay?” I croaked. The sight made my heart bleed.

Avery nodded and put a bowl of dried meat in front of me. I couldn’t stand the thought of eating it, but he only put the bowl closer to my mouth. “It’s dried venison, Eve. Nothing else. You must eat.”

Gingerly, I took a piece and sighed in relief when I realized it was venison. Still, it took a lot of effort to keep it down. I kept thinking about the monsters.

When Avery was satisfied with the two pieces, he handed me some roasted pine nuts which I managed to eat with more enthusiasm.

“Slow, slow,” the old man across the fire said in a rich voice. I looked to him in surprise. He smiled kindly. “You have been starving. You must eat slow or you will get sick.”

“You speak English?”

He gave a simple nod.

I eyed Jake. “Is he really going to be okay?”

He nodded again. “Yes. Bad burn but he will heal. So will his bullet wound.”

I felt myself tearing up. “Thank you, thank you so much.”

A small smile teased his lips. “My name is Brave Dicutta. Your friend here has told me what happened to you in the mountains.”

I placed a small amount of the pine nuts in my mouth and closed my eyes, savoring the taste. I just wanted to think about food and the relative safety around me. I wanted to think about Jake and how he was going to be all right. I didn’t want to relive what happened to us.

So I asked about Avery instead.

“Well,” Avery said, drawing his knees up to his chest, “I couldn’t tell you what exactly happened other than I was ambushed from above. One minute I was riding hard and the next one I was nearly knocked off my horse. I fought back but the creature was strong. Took a few bites of my side and back.” He lifted his arm to point out the area. I could now see there was bandaging underneath his shirt. He shivered from the memory. “I did what I could to fight back and I guess it was enough. It fell to the side and I somehow stayed on. My horse kept going like mad, but eventually I fell off too. I don’t really remember. I was just certain I was going to die. Then I woke up to see our old Indian friends here. They took me back, healed me up.”

I looked to Dicutta. “What were they doing so far up in the mountains?”

“They were worried about you,” he said. “They told me they saw you and your men heading up. We knew what was up there. They tried to warn you. I do not blame you for not believing them. It is almost impossible to believe. But, as you know now, it is very true.”

“How long has this been happening?” I asked.

He motioned for the arrow man to come over. The arrow man did so in silence, bringing with him a long pipe. He gave it to Dicutta who nodded in thanks. Arrow man went back to the Diggers’ side.

As Dicutta dipped the pipe into the flames to light it he said, “Do not mind him. He doesn’t say much but he meant no harm to you or your friend. As you know, we have to be careful out here. When they found Avery, they weren’t sure if he was still man.”

I shot Avery a look. His face was grim in the dancing light.

“To answer your question, Eve,” Dicutta went on, putting a gentle emphasis on my name, “we do not know for sure how long this has been happening. In these parts there has always been the story of the Chinoka, a man who became stranded in a snowstorm with his family. When his youngest son died from the cold and Chinoka was starving, he ate him. After that, Chinoka became so much stronger that he became insatiable for the taste. He killed his wife and other child, ate them, then ran off into the woods where he stayed. He survived the storm but knew he was no longer welcome with his tribe, so he lived in these mountains, preying on those unlucky enough to get in his way.”

“We were told a similar story, about a monster called the Wendigo.”

He puffed on his pipe in thought. “I have not heard of Wendigo, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this exists elsewhere in the world. To consume another human being is one of the greatest taboos—now we see there is a reason for this.”

“So the Chinoka is what killed the Donner Party?”

“I don’t believe so. Chinoka, so far, is just a story, but the Donner Party was real. Faced with the hardships they had gone through, I am not surprised that some of them may have resorted to cannibalism to survive. I suppose many that were accounted for as dead were never really dead at all—but missing.”

“Now they can be accounted for as dead,” I said gravely.

Dicutta raised his brows. Taking in a deep breath, I recounted what had happened to us after Avery and I had been separated. Aside from the occasional grimace or swear from Avery, both of them were silent as I went through every grim and startling detail. It goes without saying that I left out the more private moments between Jake and I. I could already tell Avery was having a hard time with the fact that I cared so much about saving Jake’s life. It wasn’t as if Jake had been all that honorable when Avery and I had taken off in the night.

“You have certainly been through a lot,” Dicutta said. He looked at me with scrutiny. “Tell me, you have Paiute blood in you?”

I nodded. “Yes. My father was Paiute.”

“He is no longer around?”

I looked down at my hands. “No. I believe him to be dead.”

“What was his name?”

“My mother, she would call him Yanny. His real name was Yahuski.”

Dicutta’s eyes went wide. The Diggers began to murmur something.

Avery squeezed my arm with comfort as I looked to Dicutta. “Do you know him?” I asked excitedly.

“Yes,” he said, but his smile was sad. “Even though he was from a neighboring tribe, I knew him.”

My lungs felt as if they were seizing. This was the moment I had been waiting for, the chance to find out the truth. Only now, after all I’d seen, I was afraid of the truth. I was afraid that he’d tell me that my father had disappeared in the mountains and become one of them. Every time I saw the monsters, I kept thinking that one of them would be my father, that I’d recognize his humanity among the animals.

“Can you tell me what happened to him?”

He blew out a ring of smoke so that it floated up to the ceiling. He watched it in silence. The cabin was deafening, suffocating, because of it. I needed to know.

“Your father,” he said slowly, “was a great man. Very generous, very friendly. If you ever had a problem, you could go to Yahuski. He would help you. Perhaps because he was nice and giving and everyone liked him, there were a few that did not. When he met your mother, a few members of the tribe were angry. They told him he could never come back. He chose your mother—he chose love—instead of those who would rather see him banished, despite all the good he had done. And so, he left. He went to go live with your mother. He then had you. From the reports of a few of his tribe who would go into town to barter, he had a good life.”

“He was happy,” I told him as lush memories of my father rolled through me.

“And some people don’t want other people to be happy,” said Dicutta. “Your father went on an expedition through these mountains, looking for lost cattle. He was ambushed by a couple of his tribesfolk. Men who were bitter. Angry. Jealous. They took everything he had and killed him. I am very sorry, Eve. Very sorry for your loss.”

I was stunned. I sat there, blinking, trying to take it all in. Avery squeezed my arm again, and though I was glad for his comfort, I wanted Jake to provide it instead.

“So he never became a monster?” I asked.

Dicutta shook his head. “No. Men are the real monsters here. They often are.”

I needed time to process all of it, but I was already feeling a strange sense of relief. I had never believed my father would come waltzing back into my life; in my own way I had already grieved for his death. But now I knew. Now I had answers. As sad and unfair as it was that his life was taken out of jealousy, I could put my aching heart to rest.

Dicutta watched me closely for a couple of long minutes, the fire crackling between us, before he finished up his pipe then slowly got to his feet, making his way over to Jake to check on him.

I was about to inquire how he was when Dicutta silently waved me over.

Avery helped me to my feet, and I went to Jake’s side, already feeling stronger thanks to the venison and pine nuts.

I stood beside Dicutta, finding out that I was nearly a foot taller than the old man. We peered down at Jake who was slowly moving his mouth back and forth, eyes fluttering and brows pressed together. Dicutta took my hand and placed it on Jake’s heart.

“This is where you belong,” he said. I felt the heat of Jake’s skin and the steady beat of his heart underneath my palm. “He is your tribe.” I looked down at Dicutta. His eyes twinkled. He walked away, leaving me and Jake alone. I could see him motioning to Avery to give us space.

I kept my hand to Jake’s heart, the steady pulse bringing me more peace. With my father gone and my heritage mixed, I never felt like I belonged anywhere. Now I knew—I belonged with Jake. We were a tribe of two, but a tribe all the same. Two broken people looking for their place in the world and finding each other. Dicutta could see that. It was time I saw it too.

Jake’s head rolled to the right and his mouth opened. I couldn’t make out what he was saying, but I was thrilled he was in some form of consciousness.

I leaned down and whispered in his ear while pressing lightly on his heart, “Jake, it’s Eve. Can you hear me?”

He mumbled something.

“Jake? Do you know where you are?”

“Pine nuts,” he murmured.

“What?”

He turned his lips toward my ear. “You smell like pine nuts. Pine Nut.”

I pulled back and saw him grinning lazily at me, his eyes tired but shining.

A huge smile stretched across my face. “You’re going to be okay. You collapsed but these nice Paiutes took care of you. Avery is alive too!”

“Well I’ll be…” he remarked. He took his hand, and with some effort placed it on top of mine. His heartbeat tickled my fingertips. He stared up at me, his eyes searching mine, filled with something I couldn’t describe but felt all the same. “I wasn’t ready to leave you.”

“And I wasn’t ready to leave you.”

He managed a sly grin. “I imagine it would be hard to leave me after that time in the cave.”

I gasped, trying not to laugh, and smacked him lightly across his taut stomach. With burning cheeks, I looked over my shoulder to see if Avery or Dicutta had noticed but they were busy talking to the others on the far side of the cabin and preparing some food.

I looked back at him, shaking my head. “Jake McGraw, you are incorrigible.” I quickly gave him a kiss on the forehead.

He coughed with a wince then said, “If being incorrigible is what it takes to get you to kiss me, you may have a problem on your hands.”

I let out a small laugh and reached for his hand. I squeezed it and looked deeply into his eyes, hoping I could tell him how I felt without saying it.

From the soft nod he gave in return, I knew he understood me.

Chapter Fifteen

“You won’t believe your eyes, Eve. I’m serious,” Avery said as he yanked at my arm, pulling me out of the cabin and into the golden sunshine.

“All right, all right,” I told him with a smile, picking up on his strange enthusiasm. It was the third day of us staying in the cabin with Dicutta and the Paiutes. Jake was almost good as new but Dicutta wanted him and I to rest up for another day. We had a long walk ahead of us to get down to River Bend and we needed the extra care and nourishment to feel better.

I had just been having a bowl of broth with Jake and Dicutta when Avery burst into the cabin, telling me he had something to show me. I exchanged an inquisitive glance with Jake but got up and followed Avery.

“What is it?” I asked. It was late afternoon and we were finally having a bout of good weather after two days of drizzle and mist.

“Winneca found something,” he said, pulling me to a stop. Winneca ended up being the name of the unsmiling arrow man. I still didn’t know what to make of him, but it was apparent that he and Avery were on a first name basis.

“What did—” I began. I trailed off as soon as I smelled her.

Sadie!

She whinnied at the sight of me as Winneca led her out of the aspen trees and toward us. Behind him were Ali the mule and Avery’s horse, Pigeon. Though it was heartbreaking what happened to Trouble, I assumed the same thing had happened to my horse. I was absolutely overjoyed to see her, and from the way she nuzzled me, I think she felt the same.

I suppose she was on her way back home when she found the other horses, and then together Winneca found them. Though he never smiled when I thanked him, I’d forever be indebted to him.

The next day, the three of us set out to find our way back home. I gave Jake Sadie, despite his insistence that I shouldn’t pander to him, and rode Ali instead. Dicutta and his men gave a heartfelt goodbye, and I promised him to keep myself safe during the journey. I also wanted to promise that I’d see him again, but the truth was I knew I wouldn’t. If the three of us got back to River Bend, there was no way I would stick around the town, let alone head back into the Sierra Nevadas. Though I hadn’t discussed it further with Jake, I knew that my life belonged with him, and our lives would be led somewhere far away from this land.

The thought of starting my life over was exciting. As we rode away from the Paiute camp and found the wagon ruts heading east, I wanted more than anything to talk to Jake in private. Though I knew we weren’t out of the woods yet—so to speak—we hadn’t had a real, moment of time together since we were alone in the cave. Everything after that special moment was a race against time, a battle against death.

But with Avery riding in front of us, it just didn’t feel right. Avery quite rightly knew there was something between Jake and I now. Even though we weren’t too physically affectionate with each other in the company of others, that didn’t stop us from trying to say everything with our eyes and body language.

It also didn’t stop Avery from addressing it midway through the day.

He cleared his throat and said over his shoulder, “So I take it you two are courting now, is that correct?”

Jake turned around in his saddle to look at me, waiting for my response. I couldn’t help but smile at the sight of his ruggedly handsome face. My goodness, I was lucky to have such a man when I used to not know what a man was. Jake had been such a surprise.

He smiled right back, white teeth against his dark beard, and said, “I reckon you’re correct, Avery. I hope you don’t have a problem with that.”

He shook his head. “No. I don’t trust you, Mr. McGraw, but I do trust Eve. Anyone she desires, she is fit to have.”

I changed the subject. “And Avery, with that question in mind, will you be courting Rose as soon as we get home?”

He shot me a smile over his shoulder. “Your uncle will fire me over it, but yes, I will be. Doesn’t matter since we still have those gold bars in Ali’s pack. I’ll buy Rose and me a new life.”

Just as me and Jake will, I thought. And my mother, of course, if she wishes to come with us. I started imagining the greener pastures ahead, the books I could read, the schools I could go to. A life with the bravest Texan the world has ever known. These thoughts kept me going during that long ride until the trees turned to grass and the grass turned to desert, and there was the civilization of River Bend before us.

I wanted to cry. As much as that place had been my prison, it had also been my home, and after everything I’d gone through, it shimmered in front of me like Mecca.

“There she is!” Avery announced. He spurred his horse into a trot, and we followed behind him, eager to reach our destination. I rode with the silliest grin on my face, my hair blown back by the wind.

But, as we rode, the more my grin began to fade.

There was something wrong. Even though Uncle Pat’s was at the outskirts of town, there was something so still about the place. No sign of life there or at the Millers across the way.

As we got closer still, I saw the doors to both houses were open and chicken and livestock were wandering freely on the streets, looking lost and agitated. Those were Uncle Pat’s animals—even with Avery gone, he would have never let that happen.

“Something is wrong,” I whispered. I wasn’t sure if they heard me, but from the way they were slowing down and reaching for their guns, it was obvious they felt the same way too.

The horses were raising their heads and prancing underfoot as well, picking up on something. I breathed in deeply, trying to get my tracking skills back to the way they were. I wasn’t picking up anything, but that didn’t mean there was nothing there.

We dismounted by the gates and hitched our horses to the fence, not willing to let them run off. From the way Sadie was showing me the whites of her eyes, I knew that’s exactly what she would do.

“Guess we should find out where everyone is,” Jake said gruffly, eyeing the house suspiciously. I looked up at my mother’s window but the blinds were drawn.

“They could be inside,” I offered meekly.

He shook his head. “Nah. You know and I know it. Even Avery here knows it. There’s no one here. No human, anyway.”

He handed me the revolver. “Try not to set this one on fire.”

He gripped his axe and nodded at Avery who had his pistol in his hand.

As much as I liked that Jake was including me in this ambush, a part of me wanted to stay back by the horses and hide. But I couldn’t do that, not after everything we’d been through. This was still my house, my mother and family were in there, and I had to have a part in uncovering the truth.

We crept toward the porch, our footsteps echoing loudly on it. Jake raised the axe and nudged the door open with the toe of his boot. It opened wider with a loud creak. If there was anything in there, they definitely knew we were there too.

We stepped inside. The house was completely empty. There was no sign of a struggle, no nothing. There was an overwhelming smell of vinegar hanging in the air, and it was hard for me to get my bearings through it. We walked around the main floor while I kept an eye on my mother’s door. It was nearly closed and I swear I saw it open just a crack.

Was my mother in there? Did she know what was going on? It would be so like Uncle Pat to leave her behind if they suddenly up and left.

I broke away from Avery and Jake while they checked the kitchen and the room downstairs. I quietly ran up the stairs, hoping that my mother would come out if she saw me.

I stopped at her door and breathed in deep, filling my lungs, before I pushed it open.

It was empty and dark with the curtains drawn.

I stepped back into the hallway when Jake yelled from below, “What are you doing up there? Get back here goddamn it!”

I ignored him and looked at my aunt and uncle’s room at the end of the hallway. I walked toward it, the revolver getting slippery in my hands.

This room too was completely dark, the curtains also drawn. I could barely see a thing. I took a few steps into the room, heading toward the bed when I slipped and fell. I landed on the ground with a thunk as the smell of blood filled my head. I cried out, suddenly aware of what I had slipped on, and tried to get to my feet, only to slip again.

A half-eaten arm rolled out from under the bed.

I screamed.

A rusty creak sounded behind me.

I turned around, leaning back onto my elbows in time to see the doors of the giant armoire opening and Hank coming out of it. I barely had time to realize how badly he reeked of vinegar and how it had covered up the rotten flesh smell before he was upon me. This time, instead of snapping jaws, he was clumsily holding a knife, fierce hatred in his grey, dead eyes.

He stabbed downward and I rolled out of the way. He was moaning something that sounded like English but didn’t make any sense. Even if it did make sense, I couldn’t comprehend anything except that I had to fight back. I had to survive.

I screamed for Jake as the knife came down again. When he missed, he grabbed my arm and held it to the floor, poised to slice it right off. I had nowhere to go and Hank was too strong.

I closed my eyes, prepared to feel my limb being severed.

Suddenly there was a great thwack, followed by another one.

Warm liquid splashed on my skin.

His grip on my arm loosened.

I opened my eyes to see my mother standing over me with an axe in her hands, one foot on Hank’s back as she pulled and tried to remove the axe from the back of his head.

It didn’t matter though. He was dead enough. He collapsed to the ground in a lifeless heap. My mother gave me a short smile just as she got the axe back and swung one more time. Hank’s head came right off, washing me and the walls in blood.

“Can’t be too careful,” my mother said, staring down at his body.

The first words I’d heard her say in years.

Then Jake and Avery were at the door, guns and axes ready for battle. I quickly got to my feet while Jake inspected the body and Avery ushered me and my mother out of the room and into the hallway.

I collapsed into my mother’s thin arms and thanked her for saving me. She held me cautiously at first, as if she wasn’t really sure who I was, then her hug grew stronger. “I’m so glad you came back,” she said in a hush.

I closed my eyes at the sound of her voice. How sorely I had missed that, missed her embrace.

“What happened?” Avery asked her. “Where is everyone?” From the way his voice choked up at the end, I knew Avery was preparing for his world to come crashing down.

She took in a deep breath and spoke to him over my head. “My sister and her husband are gone. It started a day ago. This…beast of a man. This devil, he went to the Miller’s. From my window I saw him staggering up the road, coming from the mountains, and go into their house. I heard screams. I didn’t know what to do. Then he came here, covered in blood. I heard the screams from downstairs…my sister,” she broke off. “She was downstairs. I should have warned them but…my voice. I didn’t know how. I looked in time to see him bite her by the neck and take her to the floor. I couldn’t watch the rest. From the sounds, I knew what was happening. Patrick was next. He went down to fight him, fired a few shots. The beast didn’t die, it only ran after him. There was nothing I could do. I was in my room and Rose was in hers. While the beast was going after Patrick, I grabbed Rose and brought her into my room. Locked the door. There’s a storage compartment under the floor of my bed. We both squeezed in there and hid…until now. It wasn’t hard for me to stay silent.” She pulled away and wiped at the tears that were streaming down her cheeks. “I heard your scream. I knew your scream. The scream of your nightmares. I couldn’t hide anymore. I couldn’t stay silent anymore.”

“How did you know to take off its head?” Jake asked.

She gave him a wry look. “When someone gets shot in the head and doesn’t stop, the next best thing is just to remove it. At the very least, he wouldn’t be able to see.”

I shuddered and Jake reached for my hand, squeezing it. I could tell my mother wanted to say something about that, but when I looked at her, she only gave me a tired smile.

“Why did it smell like vinegar?” I asked. “I don’t understand.”

“The kitchen smells like vinegar too. All the bottles are emptied,” Jake said. “Maybe Hank was trying to cover his smell up. He knew you were a tracker, and it’s obvious he was here for a reason. For you.”

“But how could he know, be intelligent, be human enough, to know to do that?”

Jake shrugged. “I reckon Hank still fought to hold onto his humanity as long as possible. Maybe by eating a lot, maybe by eating a little.”

I snorted with contempt. “He was not a virtuous man.”

“Not out of virtue,” he said. “But because that would be the ultimate advantage, as Isaac would have said. Inhuman strength with the sharp mind of a killer.”

“Hank?” my mother asked.

“You probably wouldn’t recognize him, but he was one of the men on the expedition,” I explained, knowing we had a long night ahead of us while we got her caught up on exactly what happened out there.

“Where is Rose?” Avery asked. I’d noticed he’d turned quiet, rubbing his hands anxiously on the front of his shirt.

“Rose?!” my mother yelled. “You can come out now.”

There was a shuffling sound from my mother’s room, and moments later a shaky and disheveled Rose appeared with frightened tears in her eyes. Avery ran right over to her and scooped her into his arms, holding on tight.

My mother looked up at me. “June is gone. And I’m going to take care of Rose the way that June took care of you. It’s time for me to be a mother again. For both of you.”

I squeezed Jake’s warm hand and smiled at her. Despite the blood and the death and the sadness that we stood in the middle of, I was standing with everyone I ever cared about.

I was standing with my tribe.

* * *

Later that night, the five of us loaded up the carriage with Sadie and Avery’s horse at the reins and Ali trailing behind, and headed out into River Bend. So far it seemed that Hank’s appetite never stretched further than the Smiths and the Millers. I was glad that the town was spared the wrath, but as we watched the familiar faces as they sat on their porches, waving at us in their oblivious ways, we all knew we couldn’t stay there anymore.

We buried June and Uncle Pat in the field adjacent to the house and said a few words while Rose sobbed into Avery’s embrace. I felt so very bad for her and for my mother too. We may have had our differences, but when it came down to it, they didn’t deserve this death. We wanted to do the same for the Millers as well, but when we went inside their house, the only sign of them was blood.

My mother said a prayer. That would have to be enough.

It was a couple hours’ ride to the next settlement of Truckee, but at least we could get a room there. Take a few days to reflect, to breathe, to take comfort in each other before we decided what to do with ourselves.

As Jake drove the carriage and the faint lights of Truckee glittered in the distance, I leaned into my mother.

“What did you mean,” I whispered to her, “when you wrote down that I had to go. I had to find what’s out there.”

She stroked my hair. “Well, little girl. Let’s say I had a dream about your father.”

“You dreamed about Pa?”

She nodded. “I see him in my dreams every night. That night he told me that you had to find it, what was out there. He seemed frightened. It frightened me. I asked him what he meant by it and he explained that there are angels inside of monsters and monsters inside of angels, and you had to figure out what was which. You had to find it—and find yourself—out there.”

I pondered that for a few moments before she asked, “Do you think you found yourself?”

I nodded, suddenly filled with the powerful glow of self-assurance. I eyed Jake’s back until he turned his head to look at me, always feeling my presence. He gave me a charming grin before turning his attention back to the road.

I smiled back. “I found him.”

The horse’s hoof beats carried on into the dark night.

Epilogue

Oregon City, Oregon – 1857

“Mama!” Ruth cried out in bloody murder.

I dropped the dishes into the bucket of water and ran out into the yard, my heart in my throat.

Please don’t let anything happen to my baby girl, I thought. Oh Lord, please.

I ran off the porch and looked around, unable to spot her. I panicked, not feeling this afraid since, well, since that time in the Sierra Nevadas.

“Ruthie!” I yelled, hiking up my skirts and running around the corner as fast as I could. I could hear her crying again, though it was so hysterical it almost sounded like laughter.

I barreled around the house, following the sounds until I came right up against the fence around the corral.

In the middle of it, Ruth was sitting astride a year-old calf that was trying to get rid of her. Holding her in place was my husband Jake McGraw, wearing a stupid grin on his handsome face.

“What in the dickens are you doing?” I cried out, climbing over the fence and stomping up to them.

Ruth was giggling her head off. At the sight of me, the calf widened its eyes and tried to take off. This time he was successful, and before Ruth fell to the ground, Jake had her in his strong arms, her little legs kicking beneath with glee.

“That was fun!” she cried out. “I want to ride again.”

“You can ride my shoulders,” Jake said. “Pretend it’s a piggy-back ride.” He flipped her chubby but light body up onto his shoulders, taking hold of her legs while she wrapped her little arms around the hat on his head. “Oink, oink,” he added.

He grinned down at me, a toothpick in his mouth. “Did we give you a scare?”

“Yes!” I cried out, and punched him lightly on the chest.

“That’s not very ladylike,” Jake commented.

“Mama ain’t a lady!” Ruth exclaimed.

“You got that right, half pint,” he said, giving her legs a squeeze.

“I’m serious, Jake,” I scolded him. “You nearly gave me a heart attack.”

“That’s nothing new, you’ve been a barrel of nerves ever since your mother left.”

It was true. My mother, who was now living in Salem with Rose, her husband Avery, and their five children, had come to visit. Naturally since it was a long journey from their land in Salem up to our small farm in Oregon City, they had to stay more than a few weeks. I loved my mother a lot—we’d grown so much closer over the years—but she was still my mother and loved to nitpick everything. Even though she loved to read, she still didn’t quite approve of my writings for the local women’s journal, nor did she approve of Jake raising cattle when Oregon was a land made for produce. Avery and Rose had many orchards, I guess that brought them a cleaner, greener lifestyle than one filled with ink-stained fingers and cow manure.

Still, we were happy. And we never talked about what happened in the mountains—there was no need to. Though reports of the Donner’s cannibalism eventually came out, future pioneers and gold-seekers never reported any casualties or monsters in the woods. I suppose we had killed them all.

At least, I liked to think that.

“I’ll tell you what,” Jake said, reading my face. “Tonight I’ll go out and shoot us a duck. I’ll roast you your favorite.”

I stood on my toes and kissed his rough cheek. “You always were a better cook than me.”

“Everyone knows this,” Jake said. “Even Ruth.”

“That’s right,” she said, though from her voice you could tell she was just trying to be funny. She often was. She took after her father.

I brushed the dirt off of her calico dress and hung onto Jake’s arm like the girl I was, a girl still madly in love, and grinned up at him. “Let’s get you both cleaned up if we’re going to feast on something so fine.”

We walked back to the house, arm in arm, my tribe of three.

THE END

Keep reading for an excerpt of Madeline Sheehan’s The Beginning of the End and Karina Halle’s Dust to Dust (Experiment in Terror #9, the final installment in the series).