Donners of the Dead (5 page)

“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.

F
or 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.