Keats shook his head with irritation. ‘Then my people ain’t wastin’ a moment longer. We’re too goddamned late in the season to be losin’ time like this.’ He turned away from Preston and pushed his way back through the crowd towards his pony.
One of the Mormon men standing beside the wagon’s blocked-up axle turned to Preston.
‘William, we have an ornate table in our wagon. We could use the table-top, cut to size, to replace the wheel. It would be far quicker, no more than an hour or two.’
Keats heard that and turned round. ‘Anythin’ but a proper crafted wheel will put a strain on that axle. The damn thing will snap the first rock it hits.’
‘Then we will proceed with a greater degree of caution,’ Preston replied firmly.
‘This wagon will slow us all down, Preston.’
‘Then we can start out a little earlier each morning.’
Keats shrugged casually. ‘Shit. Do what the hell you want; my party’s movin’ on.’ He swung himself up onto his pony. ‘But I’m tellin’ you, this wagon will slow you down. And you and your people will get caught in those mountains when the snow comes.’
‘God will decide our fate, Mr Keats. Not some little man who chooses to dress like an Indian to impress his clients. If it is His wish that we make it across to the other side, then the snow will come a little later, rest assured.’
‘Pfft.’ Keats spat on the ground and nodded for Ben and Broken Wing to follow him. ‘C’mon,’ he grunted.
Ben pulled himself up, and together they headed away from the crowd towards their wagons, taking their turn at the rear of the column.
‘Bunch of goddamned fuckin’ zealots,’ Keats muttered to himself, ‘goin’ t’ get ’emselves in real trouble.’
Ben looked across at him. ‘So what are we going to do?’
‘What’re we goin’ do?’ he looked at Ben incredulously. ‘Hell, we’re goin’ to leave ’em fools in our dust.’
The group stirred uneasily at the suggestion.
‘Leave them?’
Keats turned to Giles Weyland. ‘Yes, Mr Weyland, we leave ’em right here and we press on.’
Weyland sported long, almost feminine, auburn wavy hair and a beard carefully trimmed down to little more than a golden tuft on his chin. ‘But, sir, did we not unite with them out of concerns for our safety?’ he replied in the mellifluous and languid tones of a Virginian. ‘The Indians that lie ahead of us, sir?’
It was that particular issue, Ben noted, that seemed to be on their minds — the safety in numbers. Only yesterday they had passed a roadside message, the ‘bone express’, as Keats referred to it. Carved onto the weathered boards of an abandoned conestoga, surrounded by the withering carcasses of half a dozen horses, they found a warning left by a group of overlanders that had passed this way earlier in the season.
Indians up ahead. Party attacked. Some killed. Be vigilant.
‘We got us a choice here,’ said Keats. ‘We got two different things to busy ourselves worryin’ about, folks; the weather and them Indians,’ he snorted and spat. ‘Now them Indians? May be a problem, may not. But the weather? That’s as regular as a goddamned clock. That snow will come in October, mark my words’ — he looked across at Ben — ‘whatever the hell that Preston says about God willing it or not.’
Keats’s profanity sent an uncomfortable ripple amongst his party. The dark-skinned man, Mr Hussein, stepped forward.
‘My faith is different one to this Preston,’ said Mr Hussein, his accent thick and his English laboured. ‘The name we are use for pray to him is Ullah. But is same God. I am agree with Preston, not leaving one behind. It is haram.’
Keats shook his head. ‘Horse crap,’ he muttered.
‘Look ’ere, Keats,’ said Bowen, ‘I ain’t too sure I want us splitting up from that Preston lot, not with us ’aving them savages up ahead to worry about.’
Keats looked across to Ben and McIntyre. ‘I agree with Mr Bowen,’ said the Irishman. He met his wife’s eyes and she nodded. ‘See, Mr Keats, I think I speak for most of us,’ said McIntyre, looking at the others before he continued. ‘I think we’re more worried about the Indians than we are about snow.’
Ben found himself in agreement. ‘Is that not why we hooked up with the others in the first place?’
There was a silence amongst them. They watched their trail captain weighing things up. He narrowed his eyes, scratched his chin and cast a glance towards the peaks on the horizon, then turned to Broken Wing.
The Indian shrugged casually.
Keats sighed. ‘You folks all of the same, stupid, get-yourself-killed opinion?’
Heads nodded silently.
‘What if we were to start a half an hour earlier each morning, as Preston suggested, and take a little less resting time at noon — can we not make up for the slower pace?’ offered Ben.
Keats stroked his bristled chin as he considered the suggestion.
To Ben’s surprise the old man finally nodded.
‘Fine,’ he said, looking back at them. ‘But when — and mark my words, folks — when that stupid make-do wheel or the axle holdin’ it breaks, we won’t be discussin’ it like some goddamned town council meeting. We leave them behind. Understand? ’
They nodded in unison.
CHAPTER 10
5 September, 1856
It has been hard work in recent days. I have not written a word in here for a while!
We left the plains in the last few days of July and entered the Rockies. The trail through those spectacular mountains was not as hard as I had anticipated. Our trail captain, Keats, put the fear of God in us, ensuring we hasten on at every moment despite being slowed down by the crippled Mormon wagon.
We crossed South Pass on the last day of July, gently descending from the mountains on to land so bare and arid that I can barely imagine anyone could survive here. But Keats assures us they do; Ute, Shoshone, Bannock… they all manage after a fashion.
We have started to see graves more frequently by the trailside. Sometimes in ones or twos, sometimes, it seems, whole parties. There are those that have died because their horses have failed them and those that have died from sickness. Some of the graves were opened and the bodies unearthed. Keats said Ute most likely did this, scavenging for items, clothes. Indians, he says, do not bury their dead; once the spirit is gone, they consider what’s left as mere carrion.
He said the same fate awaits the Zimmermans when their wheel finally collapses, or their stressed axle breaks. Out here in this salty plain, he says, they will die quickly and be scavenged first by Indians, then by vultures…
‘Mr Lambert?’
Ben stirred.
‘Mr Lambert… Benjamin?’ a voice whispered out of the darkness. He put down his pen and screwed the lid tightly on his precious inkpot.
He recognised the voice coming out of the night nearby. The lad had sneaked out under cover of dark several times before.
‘Samuel?’
Into the small pool of flickering light from his writing lamp, the lad emerged, hand in hand with Emily, a grin of mischievous excitement stretched across her small bonnet-framed face.
‘Emily too?’ He looked at Sam. ‘Will she not be in trouble, being out this late?’
‘Momma’s at an Elders’ meeting with Preston.’
‘Momma won’t find out,’ said Emily. ‘They pray and talk late.’
Ben smiled. ‘All right then. But I’d hate for you two to get in trouble.’
Both of them shrugged.
‘Come on the pair of you,’ said Ben. He nodded towards the campfire, around which the children from the
