Karina Halle - Donners of the Dead

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.

“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.