Karina Halle - Donners of the Dead

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.”