Keats shook his head. ‘Like I already said, this ain’t clearing till March.’
‘Would the wagons not be shelter enough?’
Keats looked at Broken Wing and repeated something in an Indian tongue. The Indian snorted with dry amusement.
‘Gonna get a lot colder than last night. You gonna have to build yourselves proper winter-overs.’
Several more voices amongst the gathered men — now numbering about forty — were raised in concern. Ben noticed none of them, neither Preston’s men nor Keats’s party, were happy with the idea of admitting defeat so readily.
‘Quiet there!’ barked Preston.
There was silence.
‘Mr Keats knows better than anyone here what winter in these mountains will bring.’ Preston looked around at the men. ‘We shall take his very good advice, and be thankful to God that he sent this man along with us.’
Preston turned back to Keats. ‘Not a one of us has had to build a winter shelter in haste from a wagon. How do you suggest we proceed?’
‘You gotta build yourself a sturdy frame from the lumber, to start,’ Keats replied without a beat. ‘Gotta be a good goddamn frame too; there’s plenty of snow gonna drift up, and that weighs some.’ He pointed to the nearest conestoga. ‘Good solid planks there along the length of the trap will do fine. The canvas goes over the frame, then you gotta cut yourself as much pine as you can for warmth — pile it on top of the canvas, thick as you can. The snow that’ll gather on top of that will keep you warmer still.’
Preston nodded.
‘Frame’s gotta be strong, though,’ said Keats. ‘Gonna be your home for near on six months, I’d say.’
CHAPTER 19
30 September, 1856
Ben stood back, exhausted by the morning’s work and sweating profusely, despite having stripped down to his shirt and rolled both sleeves up. Faint vapours of steam rose from his damp, exposed forearms, and out through the unbuttoned neck of his shirt.
He watched Broken Wing working with several spruce saplings, bending their pliable length to form an onion-shaped dome, the tapering ends at the top bound tightly together, the thick bottoms wedged deep into the ground. Meanwhile Keats returned with another armful of pine branches and dropped them on a substantial pile beside the frame to their shelter.
‘You helpin’, Lambert? Or just gonna sit on your ass and watch?’ he growled.
‘Sorry.’ Ben jumped.
Broken Wing finished securing the frame of their shelter and spoke in his tongue to Keats.
‘He’s asking for your canvas sheet.’
‘Oh, right. I’ll fetch it.’
Ben hurried over to where his two ponies were huddled together, and pulled out his tarpaulin from a saddle pack. He returned and handed it to the Indian. Broken Wing turned it over in his hands, studying it, and then looked up at Ben, flashing him a quick grin and a nod.
‘Isss good,’ he uttered in a chopped, guttural manner. It was the first time, Ben realised, that he’d heard the Indian speak in English.
‘C’mon, Lambert, help me get some more of this. We gonna need to pile it high on top of the canvas.’
Ben followed Keats to the edge of the clearing, looking around him as he stepped through the snow. The clearing was alive with activity and noise. The hacking of axes and zipping of saws through lumber bounced and echoed around their little world, framed on all sides by tall spruces and firs that grew up gentle slopes surrounding their bare basin.
He saw a team of Mormon men bring down an entire tree. A barked warning, then a creak and crash as it swung down amidst a cloud of dislodged powder snow. Then the men swarmed upon it. Other men worked diligently on their wagons, easing out lumber nails, carefully cannibalising the precious planks to use for their frames.
‘Here,’ said Keats, pointing to a pile of pine branches ahead at the edge of the clearing. ‘Take those back to Broken Wing.’
Ben bent down and scooped up as much as he could carry, the coarse needles and cones scratching his bare forearms. He stood up and looked into the thick tree line in front of him, an ascending gradual slope of tree bottoms, a world of only two colours — white, and the dark grey-green of bark.
‘Move yourself, Lambert,’ grunted Keats as he took an axe to a nearby fir and hacked another low-hanging and heavy branch from it.
Ben staggered back across the clearing with his load, nodding politely to Mr Bowen and Mr McIntyre, both working together on building their frames from the planks harvested from their traps.
He dumped his load of branches on the pile and looked at the progress Broken Wing had made with the canvas. It was already wrapped tautly around the sapling frame, and their shelter, for the moment, looked like a low, bulbous tepee.
‘Will that be strong enough, do you think?’ asked Ben.
The Indian looked up at him, his face a questioning frown.
‘The frame?’ said Ben, reaching over and running his fingers along one of the ridges beneath the tarpaulin. He gestured at the pile of pine branches. ‘These branches are very heavy.’
Broken Wing nodded. ‘Isss ssstrong.’ He whacked the frame with one hand. It creaked alarmingly, but barely moved.
‘It’s fine, Lambert,’ said Keats, approaching with another armful of branches that he dumped down on top of the pile. ‘The weight of this lot, an’ the weight of the snow, will make it stronger.’ He grinned, a mouth with as many gaps as teeth. ‘It’s all in the shape, lad.’
Ben nodded. ‘Yes, I suppose, like arched brickwork spreading the load.’
Keats shrugged. ‘Reckon.’
At that moment, Ben spotted Preston approaching. The minister, like every other man in the clearing, had shed his long dark coat, his white shirt and dark waistcoat and stood in a vanilla cotton undershirt, circled with dark patches of sweat.
‘Mr Keats!’ he called out breathlessly, as he took the last few strides through the snow towards them. ‘Mr Keats,’ he said again as he drew up beside them, ‘I suggest we have a clear plan for our camp, where things should be, if we are to winter here.’
Keats stroked his chin for a moment and nodded. ‘Reckon so.’
‘May I suggest the oxen be corralled centrally, in the middle of this clearing.’
Ben looked around. The clearing was roughly oval, about a hundred and fifty yards, maybe two hundred in length — an oasis of open space in an endless sea of unbroken woodland that continued all the way up to a horizon of bare, craggy peaks.
‘You un’erstand the oxen will die, Preston? They’re our food now.’
‘Yes, indeed. I suggest if we corral them all together in the centre of the clearing, in the space between your shelters and ours, they’ll keep each other warm and last longer.’
Keats pursed his lips. ‘Make better sense to kill ’em all now. Longer they live, the thinner they’ll get.’
Preston glanced towards the assembled herd of beasts — well over a hundred of them. For the moment, there was meat and muscle under their tan hides.
‘I’d like to keep them alive a little longer, just in case this early snow is a passing thing.’
‘It ain’t passing.’
‘Nonetheless, for now, I’d prefer to keep them alive.’
Keats shrugged. ‘The cold’ll get ’em before they starve, anyways.’
‘We shall have to be sensible and fair with how we ration out the food,’ Preston uttered thoughtfully. ‘You say we’re likely to be stuck here until spring?’
