‘Yup.’
‘Hmm.’
Keats bent down and picked up his deerskin jacket. Now they were just standing, the cold was beginning to bite. ‘Reckon we need to be careful with the food from now on,’ he said, fastening the toggles. ‘Start as we mean to go on.’
‘Yes, of course.’ Preston nodded. ‘One of my people, Mr Stolz, is a butcher by trade. He might be best qualified to deal with each carcass as it becomes available.’
‘I think Mr Bowen is as well,’ cut in Ben.
‘Then, I reckon, they can both be in charge of the ox meat. That good for you, Preston?’
Preston nodded, even managed a faint smile. ‘That seems fair.’
‘Also gonna need regular firewood comin’ in.’
‘Yes, I suppose we can arrange some kind of rota. Start a firewood pile in the centre and make sure that it’s kept topped up each day.’
Keats grunted agreement. ‘An’ we need to ’rrange a night watch. Never know what’s out there in these woods, even in the winter.’
Preston looked surprised. ‘Is there likely to be anything out there, Mr Keats?’
Keats glanced towards Broken Wing, and they exchanged a few words in his language.
‘Broken Wing says it’s possible some Paiute huntin’ party might be aroun’.’ Keats looked up at the trees. ‘Hell, might still have a bear or two out there lookin’ to fatten up, yet. Be worth havin’ someone awake with a loaded gun.’
‘Yes, I agree with you.’
Keats managed a laugh.
‘What’s the matter, Mr Keats?’
Keats looked at him and shook his head with bemusement. ‘Seems like we foun’ ourselves agreein’ on a whole buncha things. Hell… never would’ve expected that.’
‘Perhaps it’s God’s will, Mr Keats, that we are marooned here together,’ Preston said, offering a genial smile, ‘that we can learn a little from each other.’
Keats’s expression froze for a moment. Ben half expected a caustic reply, but instead his craggy face split into a grin, his laugh a loose rattle. ‘Well, you can put in a good word for me if you like, Preston.’
Preston nodded politely. ‘We shall include you and your people in our prayers this evening.’ He turned to observe the men in his group working vigorously with their axes on the thick branches they had hacked from the trees. ‘And I will call a meeting amongst my people directly. As you suggested, we shall arrange things like the firewood and the allocation of meat from the oxen.’
‘Good.’ Keats nodded. ‘An’ mine’ll do likewise.’
Preston turned to go and then stopped, his eyes turning on Ben. ‘Mr Lambert?’
‘Yes?’
‘Would your knowledge of medicine be available to all of our… small community?’
‘Good grief, yes… yes, of course,’ Ben replied.
‘We would of course pay for any medicines we consume, and your services-’
Ben shook his head. ‘That’ll not be necessary, Mr Preston. I believe we’re all together in this now. I have a good supply of medicines in my chest, and I’ll certainly have enough time on my hands to practise doctoring.’
Preston’s long and normally severe face cracked with a good-natured smile. ‘That’s generous of you. My thanks.’ He nodded politely at Keats and then turned away, pushing through the deep snow towards the nearest of his men.
Keats looked up at the darkening grey sky. ‘Shit. Gonna start snowin’ again,’ he muttered.
CHAPTER 20
Sunday
Blue Valley, California
Rose watched the upload bar slowly creep forward.
‘There you go, Jules,’ she said, stretching tiredly in her chair. He was going to love it, she was sure. She’d edited together a three minute ‘sizzle’ — a montage of footage from the site, the surrounding woods, a couple of quick establishing shots of the Sierra Nevadas taken from a professional online image and video library, and some sepia portraits of emigrants ready to set out from Independence. Over this she had laid some of Julian’s commentary, and some of Grace’s comments — that earthy Midwest ‘Marlboro’ voice of hers played beautifully against the images.
In the background she had laid down a fantastically haunting and chilling piece of music she’d found on the net; a piece of traditional folksy Americana played on a guitar and a violin.
Having completed the editing and composited a final build, she had sat back and watched the short piece at least a dozen times. Every time, the hair on the nape of her neck began to tingle and rise.
He’s gonna love it.
Rose checked her watch and realised it was three in the morning.
She looked around her motel room. It was a tip, littered with a couple of empty pizza boxes and soda cans, her clothes lying in a mouldering pile at the end of her unmade bed. The muted TV in the corner flickered with the images of a twenty-four-hour news station.
It reminded her very much of her student digs from a few years ago. Only back then it wasn’t just her mess, it was the communal mess of half a dozen of them: ongoing-party mess — empty cider cans, unwashed dishes, overflowing ashtrays, and half-empty packets of cigarette papers… all very cool, very young, very groovy. Looking at the squalor around her right now in her silent motel room, this mess made by one lonely person just looked very sad.
Why the hell did I hit on him like that?
The thought came out of the blue. Rose winced. Keeping busy these last two days and nights, she’d managed not to think about it. But now, having got the job done, there it was: an awkward exchange of mumbled words clumsily loaded with a suggestion.
Check out my broadband.
She shuddered.
What was I bloody well thinking?
Julian had distinctly recoiled with embarrassment. She looked in the vanity mirror above the dresser.
Look at me. A twenty-five-year-old frump.
Her rat-brown hair was pulled back into a practical bun. Her red-rimmed eyes, fatigued from forty-eight hours of staring at a monitor, were small and unappealing. She hated her stubby nose and thin, uninviting lips… and out of view of the mirror was the one-stone-over, bottom-heavy figure she preferred to keep hidden beneath baggy jeans. On any normal high street, she looked average. But amongst the glamorous, waif-like media moppets that populated the world of digital TV, Rose felt like a sack of potatoes.
It was a sad state of affairs that Julian, a man fifteen years older than her, had politely turned her down. And Jules was hardly Johnny Depp, with a choice of fawning waifs to choose from.
She looked at a segment of digital footage on her laptop — Julian talking to camera. She smiled.
Not so much Johnny Depp as a downmarket Louis Theroux.
Again her mind drifted painfully back to that maladroit exchange, and she cringed.
‘Forget it,’ she muttered. ‘Do some more work.’
She watched the loading bar on the screen near completion. Now that Jules had his sizzling trailer to show off at the meetings he’d arranged, she’d decided it might be a useful idea to research this story from the urban myth angle. This small town — Blue Valley — had more than its fair share of them, according to Grace. Rose wondered if they linked back somehow to this lost wagon train. Inevitably most urban ghost stories tend to originate from a root event, usually quite mundane. She wondered whether most of the interesting tales they’d recorded last week whilst interviewing the locals — stories of shrouded figures, walking skeleton-men and glowing
