‘Actually, it looks like it’s been abandoned for a while,’ said Ben.
Preston nodded. ‘Yes, it would seem so.’
‘Should we look inside, William?’ asked Hearst, one of the men with Preston.
He nodded. ‘Perhaps, to be sure.’ He held out his hand. ‘Your gun please, Saul.’
The man passed him his rifle and Preston pulled back the hammer to half cock and slotted a percussion cap in, the weapon now ready to fire.
‘You men best stay back,’ he said as he stepped towards the entrance. He lifted aside the tattered flap of canvas and called out. ‘Is there anyone inside?’
There was no answer. Ben watched Preston stoop down low and step into the dark interior, admiring the confidence and courage of the man. The others stood in silence, their rifles held ready, listening to the whispering wind in the trees and the hiss of disturbed snow cascading down through shifting branches. From inside the shelter they heard a shuffling of movement, then after a few moments the canvas flapped to the side and Preston emerged.
‘This is some poor soul’s grave,’ he uttered solemnly. ‘By the look of it, quite a few years ago.’
Preston turned round to look at the shelter. ‘He died in his cot, so it seems.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘A lonely death for this man.’ Preston bowed his head. ‘Let us pray for his soul.’
Ben watched the men and Sam remove their broad-brimmed hats and lower their heads. He took his own felt hat off out of respect, and listened to Preston’s sombre words. He finished and the men chorused amen.
Ben nodded towards the shelter. ‘We could use the wood.’
Preston shook his head. ‘We’ll not strip this place for firewood. Let it remain, to mark this unknown soul’s grave. There’s plenty enough kindling lying on the forest floor. Come on.’
He led them away from the clearing, up and out of the dimple. Standing for a moment on a small ridge of high ground and looking through a break in the trees, down the sloping hillside, Ben could see in the distance the large clearing in which their camp nestled. Amidst the churned dirty white of mud and snow, he spotted the small shapes of sluggish movement among the shelters, the tan mass of huddled oxen stirring in the centre and the pall of a dozen wispy columns of smoke snaking up into the heavy sky.
Ben turned to look back down into the dip at the long-dead hunter’s shelter, a forlorn sight, and wondered how it must feel to die alone, and not be missed by anyone.
CHAPTER 22
10 October, 1856
I share this small space with Mr Keats and Broken Wing. I have to admit they have built a very robust and surprisingly snug shelter. There is no room, of course, to stand upright. One enters on hands and knees, and at best, in the very centre of the shelter, may stand, but only if stooped over. At the top, where the saplings converge in a knot of coerced boughs, there is a small gap that frequently needs a stick poked up through it to clear the snow. This small hole in our roof allows for us to burn a modest fire inside, the smoke being very efficiently sucked away through this improvised chimney. Not every shelter, I notice, anticipated this luxury, and I have often seen less fortunate people spilling out of their shelters coughing and spluttering.
I have much to be thankful for, having such experienced and knowledgeable shelter companions. However, I do find many of Keats’s personal habits quite repulsive at such close quarters. His incessant ritual of snorting and spitting, whilst tolerable outside, is utterly unforgivable inside. So much so that I gifted him with one of my own fine linen handkerchiefs — a present from mother. I imagine she would be mortified at the unimaginable material that gets deposited into it every hour of every day. But as a small consolation, now at least my hands are less likely to find congealing, tar-stained globules of mucus on the floor of our shelter.
Ben looked up at them. Broken Wing was absorbed in carving an intricate pattern of criss-crossing lines into the bark of a log. Keats was smoking his pipe silently. Ben wondered how much tobacco the man had brought with him, since he seemed to be always either at the point of filling his pipe or emptying it.
Keats looked his way and took the stem of the pipe out of his mouth. ‘What the hell you scribblin’ ’bout in there anyway? I seen you doin’ it enough. Been meanin’ I gotta ask.’
‘My journal. I…’ Ben shrugged self-consciously. ‘I have always aspired to be a writer.’
‘Thought you was a doctor.’
‘I am, at least… I was studying anatomy before I changed to psychiatry.’
‘Si-what?’
‘Study of the malaise of the mind. But to be a writer of tales, like Charles Dickens — that’s my dream.’
‘Never heard of ’im.’
The fire in their shelter had died down to little more than a bed of embers, which every now and then sprouted a flickering flame.
‘That’s why I came across to the Americas. To explore the wilderness, to have an adventure to write about.’
Keats chuckled. ‘Reckon you got more ’venture than you bargained for, eh?’
Ben smiled. ‘I console myself with the thought that my journal will turn out to be far more interesting than I could have hoped.’
‘Aye,’ grunted Keats.
‘I think I’ve used enough candle tonight.’
Ben closed the lid of his inkpot, noting as he did that it was approaching half-empty and that he’d need to weaken the mix with some water to let it stretch further. He snuffed out the small candle beside him, instantly throwing the shelter into complete darkness save for the occasional guttering flame from the middle that illuminated them with a staccato amber light.
It was then that they heard the first sound of disturbance. A moan that was a note deeper than the wind. Then they heard the muffled scream of a woman.
‘The hell was that?’ growled Keats.
Another, more intense scream.
‘Come on!’
The flap to their shelter swung open, letting in an icy blast. Keats scrambled out, followed by Broken Wing. Ben reached for his poncho and crawled outside. A gusting wind was carrying small, stinging, powdery granules of ice.
The scream came again.
‘Over amongst them Mormon shelters!’ said Keats, immediately setting off across the clearing, pulling out his hunting knife. Broken Wing followed, instinctively pulling out his tamahakan from a sheath strapped to one thigh.
Ben looked down at his hands.
And what did I bring? A bloody writing pen.
He shook his head, chastising himself for not reaching for his gun, then set off after them.
They scrambled through knee-deep snow, around the huddled mass of oxen baying pitifully in the cold, towards the more congested end of the clearing — almost a village-worth of ramshackle shelters clustered around the only construction that looked remotely like a building: their church.
Ben could see movement in between the shelters. The glow of their communal campfire provided enough light to see a confusing melange of fast-moving silhouettes but nothing he could make sense of yet.
They heard the deep moan, and even Ben’s untrained ears identified what he had heard.
‘Bear!’ shouted Keats. ‘Goddamned bear!’
They saw it, reversing out of a shelter, its powerfully muscular hindquarters back-pedalling, its head and shoulders angrily shaking off the pine branches and snow that had tumbled onto its back as it probed inside through the low entrance.
The shelter shook violently as it pulled out and turned round to face the gathering circle of people. Immediately it reared up on its back legs, bellowing furiously and waving two enormous paws in front of itself, claws protruding and glistening like knife blades.
