Weyland took a deep breath and let it out in a cloud. ‘I’m not sure I’d find that entirely reassuring, Mr Hussein.’
Broken Wing called out, his sharp voice cracking with the effort. It was the first time Ben had heard the Indian speak in anything other than a soft murmur.
There was no further sign or sound of movement from inside. With a casual hand gesture to Broken Wing, Keats stepped forward. One hand resting on the hilt of his hunting knife, he pushed the tattered canvas flap aside and then cautiously stepped inside and out of sight.
‘The old boy’s got balls of iron,’ whispered McIntyre beside him. ‘Walking in like that.’
Hussein nodded. ‘He has much… kuh… cour…?’
‘Courage?’ offered Weyland.
‘Yes. Is much courage inside him. Much.’
‘That’s for sure,’ McIntyre whispered.
A full minute passed in silence before the flap finally jerked aside and Keats emerged, stooping low through the entrance and then standing erect. Ben watched him breathing deeply for a moment, hands on hips, like someone mustering something from inside. He leaned over and spat… or maybe he was heaving — it was hard to tell.
What’s he seen in there?
Keats wiped his mouth, his cheeks puffed and a languid cloud of vapour rose. Then he turned towards them and silently waved at them to come down and join him.
They rose as one and clambered down the incline, stumbling carelessly on the snow-blanketed branches, twigs and roots, dislodging little cascades of powder that sifted with a gentle hiss down the slope towards the clearing.
Preston approached Keats. ‘You found the body of the trapper in there?’
‘The trapper? Oh, yeah. I noticed him as well.’
Ben regarded Keats’s weather-worn face and saw something in those narrow eyes he’d never seen before.
As well?
‘Preston, you better come look inside with me.’ He turned to the rest of the men, gathered together in front of the entrance. ‘Rest of you spread out an’ keep your eyes wide open.’
He took another deep breath before stooping down, pushing the canvas aside and leading the way in. Preston looked around for a moment at his men and nodded. ‘Do as he says,’ he said curtly. He turned to Vander. ‘Eric, you come with me,’ he said and then followed Keats inside.
Outside, the men spread out in no particular pattern, gazing uncertainly at the wooden hanging frames and the bones of animals dangling from them, the macabre decoration of the row of animal skulls nailed to one of the shelter’s walls.
Weyland sauntered over to where Ben and Broken Wing stood a few yards from the doorway.
‘Can’t say I’ve ever been amidst so many trees and heard it as quiet as this,’ he almost whispered. ‘Can you hear, Ben? No birdsong at all.’
Broken Wing frowned for a moment as he processed Weyland’s drawl, then nodded. ‘Bad spirit ssscare birds.’
‘It’s unnatural,’ Ben heard himself reply, and then immediately cursed himself for sounding like some superstitious old crone.
‘That it most definitely is,’ Weyland said nervously, stroking the handles of his moustache. ‘Very unnatural.’
They heard footsteps coming from inside the shelter; a rapid scraping of feet and then Vander emerged with a face as white as the snow on the ground. He took several staggering steps away from the shack before vomiting.
‘Lambert!’ he heard Keats calling from inside.
Ben exchanged a look with Weyland and Broken Wing and then headed towards the entrance. He shot one last glance at Vander, emptying his guts onto the snow — a steaming puddle of bile that quickly sank down through the fresh powder and out of sight.
Let it not be Sam… please.
He took a final breath of crisp, cold air, suspecting the next breath he took would be tainted with the fetid odour of… something. He ducked down and pushed his way past the canvas flap.
CHAPTER 41
24 October, 1856
For a moment he stood stock still. It was too dark to make sense of his cluttered surroundings. He allowed a moment for his eyes to adjust.
‘Lambert,’ he heard Keats’s voice growl quietly, ‘over here.’
Soon he could pick out the dark shapes around him. He shuffled his foot forward, finding, to his surprise, two very steep steps taking him down.
The floor of the shelter was dug out of the ground.
Of course, that made sense. The shelter was more protected from the elements this way and that much more insulated. Ben had expected to be stooping uncomfortably as he made his way through the interior. Instead, having taken two steps down, he was standing erect. He reached a hand up and found a foot clearance above his head before his fingers brushed against branches and dried mud, crumbs of which rattled down through his fingers.
Thin beams of light speared down through slender cracks in the roof and front wall, dappling the uneven earthen floor with pin-pricks of light.
His eyes adjusted, he could make out some things he expected to see: bales of dried and compressed beaver pelts, traps hanging from hooks on the wall along with a few simple tools with which to work wood, and a bag of long iron lumber nails. On a crude workbench he saw skinning and gutting knives, a tub of salt…
He heard the shuffling of feet nearby. ‘This way, Lambert,’ Keats grunted again quietly.
He looked towards where the voice had come from and saw the shack was divided by a flimsy partitioning wall — no more than a row of stout branches standing vertically side by side from floor to ceiling, and a wattle of strips of bark woven through them. Keats stood in a gap in the middle of the partition staring impatiently at him.
‘In here,’ he said. ‘We found one of ’em.’
Ben felt his heart sink. ‘Which one?’
Keats offered him a weak smile. ‘It ain’t Sam,’ he reassured him quietly.
He made his way towards the opening, but Keats remained where he was, blocking his way. He leaned forward so that the bristles of his beard almost tickled Ben’s face. ‘You done a bunch of doctorin’… so I guess you’ll be readier than Vander was. It’s the Hearst fella.’
Ben felt a small rush of relief and then felt immediately guilty. ‘What condition is the body in?’
‘Well, it ain’t pretty,’ he whispered.
Ben nodded, took a deep breath and vowed silently that he’d remain calm and composed in front of the other two men. Keats stepped to one side and allowed him through.
This second half of the shelter was smaller. It was where the trapper once slept. There was a small gap in one wall, a deliberate hole — a window of sorts — that was almost entirely plugged by the snowdrift outside. It allowed enough diffused light in to the dark interior that he could immediately discern what he’d been called in to examine.
‘Oh my God,’ he whispered.
Nailed to the wall with several of the long lumber nails he’d seen on the workbench, was the naked body of Saul Hearst. He was pinned upside down in a parody of the crucifixion posture, his arms splayed, one nail through each wrist, and his feet crossed, a single nail through both of them. From his pelvis to his chest, a knife had been at
