Donners of the Dead

He nodded slowly and looked to the flames. I was very aware of Rose sitting quietly in her seat, her dress bunched up around her, watching and listening. “See, the problem is I do want to go. But I don’t want you to. And it seems we’re a package deal.” I smiled at that. He glanced at Rose and my smile faded. “Rose, what do you think of all this?”

She beamed at him with her pretty smile and bounced excitedly in her chair, patiently waiting all this time to tell us what she thought. “I think it’s a wonderful idea, this whole thing. How heroic you’ll be, Avery, joining those wild men and rescuing the poor souls out there.”

He sat up straight, chest puffed out like a pompous goose. “You’re right about that. And when I get back, I’ll buy you anything you want.”

When Rose nearly shrieked—as if she wouldn’t get some of the money I earned—and started yammering about getting a fancy cage crinoline because her starched petticoats weren’t holding up, I excused myself and headed upstairs to talk to my mother. The fact that Avery said he’d buy her something and that she was mentioning her undergarments was rubbing me in all the wrong ways, and the fact that I was bothered by that when I had a dire situation on my hands didn’t help.

I paused outside my mother’s door and knocked lightly. I never wanted to barge in on her, and when sometimes she didn’t answer the door, I left her alone. This night, however, I hoped she’d get up and let me in. Though she wouldn’t say a word, she needed to hear from me what was going on and I needed someone to listen. My mother and I had never really been close, but I still knew I could tell her anything.

I waited with my breath in my throat before she finally opened the door. I heard her scuttling back to her chair as I stepped inside the room. It was cold and dark save for a single candle on the bedside table. Aside from the stack of books alongside it, the bed, the washbasin, and the chair she was sitting in, there wasn’t much to her room. It was like she’d never been able to call it home. I guess I wasn’t much different either.

I sat down on her bed, the springs creaking beneath my weight while she stared at the flame dancing above the candle. That was her thing—she never looked like she was even aware of you sometimes, as if her mind was somewhere else. It probably was half the time, yet I knew she was very aware of everything.

“Mother,” I said, my own eyes drawn to the flame as well. I paused, gathering my thoughts. Our shadows danced on the walls. “Mother, I know you saw those men today. Heard them. Maybe you heard more than that. But they’ve asked for me to accompany them into the mountains. Rumor has it I’m the best tracker in town…I guess people didn’t know who to recommend with Pa gone.” I saw her flinch slightly at his name, so I knew she was listening.

I went on. “I don’t want to leave you here, but I know your sister will take good care of you. She was really worried about me, believe it or not, and made Uncle Pat agree to an escort for me. Avery is going too, which is both good and bad. At least you know I’ll be safe.” She continued to watch the flame. “I’m not even sure I want to go, to be honest. I…I have a strange feeling about it. Them showing up. The disappearance of the Donners and their search party. A horse trying to kill us last night because he didn’t get enough oats.”

I was trying to joke about that last part, foolish pride or something, playing off the fear. But my mom looked straight at me like she’d just snapped out of a dream.

I cocked my head, eyeing her quizzically. “What is it?”

She opened her mouth, trying to say something, but nothing came out. This was quite new—usually my mother never even attempted to speak. I watched her closely as she made a motion for a pen. Before I could do anything, she got up, her shawl flapping around her, and pulled out the bedside table drawer. She took out a pen and paper, and for the first time in a long time, she began to communicate with me.

She sat back down and wrote slowly, her forehead deeply creased, as if English was a foreign language, as if she’d never been taught to read and write, as if she’d never been more than a shell.

I tried to read her scrawl upside down.

You need to go.

I swallowed thickly, shocked that she would write that. Didn’t she worry about me? Didn’t she care?

“I’m getting paid but I don’t know how much we’ll get,” I explained, wondering if that was why she wanted me gone. “Uncle Pat will take most of it.”

She shook her head and tapped at the paper again. I nodded, trying to make sense of it, when she started writing again. I couldn’t see over the curve of her hand until she was finished and lifted it up for me to see.

You need to go. You need to find it. What’s out there.

A chill ran down my spine, though it could have been the draft in the room. The nights were getting colder, faster, another reason why I had a bad feeling about the expedition. And yet here was my mother, telling me to go, to find it.

“What is it?” I asked gently.

She shook her head, and as quickly as she had come to attention, her hands folded on top of the note and her eyes went back to the flame, turning glossy green as her mind went elsewhere.

I stayed for a few more minutes, hoping that she would come back to life but she never did. With a heavy sigh, I got up, tucked her shawl around her, and kissed her on top of her head before leaving her behind to her thoughts and the flame.

*

It was late when Uncle Pat and Aunt June came back, but they came with news.

Donna Young was one of Eldrich Young’s daughters. She was pleasant and in her mid-twenties, never married and completely devoted to God. She also had a great knowledge of first aid and had offered up a lot of the winter clothing she made on the side. She would be joining me and Avery on the expedition, not expecting anything in return. She said it was God’s will that she help. I wasn’t sure if I believed that but I was in no position to question it. I only felt sorry for her. I had met the men we were traveling with—she had not—and there was no doubt that Uncle Pat had sugar-coated the whole thing to sweeten the deal.

On the way back from the Young’s, they also ran into Tim who had been holing up in the Barker’s barn until it was time. They made the arrangements with him right there and then. Me, Donna, and Avery would join their search party, along with the extra clothes Donna was providing, and Ali, Avery’s mule that he was offering, getting more profit in exchange.

“So when do we get paid?” Avery asked Uncle Al as he rubbed the sleepiness from his eyes, ready to return to his home for the night.

Uncle Pat grunted. “Unfortunately not until you arrive in Sacramento, the cheap bastards. You better not go running off on me once you get to California. You owe me some back wages, don’t you forget it.”

Avery’s eyes flitted up to the second floor, resting on Rose’s room where she was now asleep. “I won’t forget it.”

I cleared my throat. “So when do we leave? We’ll need to hurry on if we want to beat some of the bad weather.”

Uncle Pat gave me a malicious grin. “Bright and early tomorrow morning.”

I gulped and exchanged a wary glance with Avery.

Just like that, everything about my life was about to change. There wasn’t even time to think about it. And yet, as I lay in bed soon after, knowing I had to get up early and leave this place behind, my thoughts kept hovering over what my mother had written. What she could possibly mean.

You need to go. You need to find it. What’s out there.

What’s out there. I didn’t even know if that was a question.

Chapter Three

For the second night in a row I didn’t sleep a wink, and yet I felt as awake as the crowing rooster with one cup of Aunt June’s coffee coursing through my system like gunpowder. I don’t even know how I held it together, but even with jittery nerves and shaking hands I somehow saddled up my horse Sadie and got her outfitted with the packs I would be using.

“Don’t be nervous,” Aunt June whispered in my ear. We were standing outside the house, just by the road, and waiting for everyone else to show up. As our place was the last before the wilderness, I would be the last part of the party to join them. I gripped Sadie’s reins tightly while her dark gentle eyes seemed blissfully half-asleep. I didn’t want to mount up until I absolutely had to—it felt like the moment I sat in the saddle, the real commitment would begin. A small part of me believed that as long as I stood beside Aunt June and Uncle Pat, just holding onto my horse, I didn’t really have to go anywhere.

I gave my aunt a look. “I’m not nervous.”

She smiled. “Avery will be with you. He’s a kind, smart, strong lad. He’ll protect you. And Donna will make polite company. You’re in good hands. These men just want some answers and they believe in you.” I waited for her to say a kind word about believing in me too but knew she would never say anything like that in front of her husband.

I looked over at Uncle Pat. Though the sun was just rising in the east, making everyone’s skin grow gold and beautiful, he had his hat pulled down low and a stern expression on his jowly face. Dawn’s glow couldn’t touch him.

I smelled the horses at the same time that Sadie did, her nostrils flaring and ears perking up, finally awake. They were here.

Moments later the sound of hoofbeats came down the road, a full, lively sound that made my heart beat wildly. There was drama and adventure and danger in that cadence, and the promise of something new.

I could finally be useful.

But as promising as that sounded in my head, as excited as a part of me was getting, that quickly turned to fear as soon as the party reached us.

Avery and Donna were there at the back of the group, the pack mule Ali loaded up and tied to Avery’s dapple-grey horse, Pigeon, taking up the very rear. But in front of me were the rugged and suspicious faces of five strange men, most staring down at me with a mix of doubt and contempt. I did what I could to ignore the piercing stare of Mr. Snarl and focused right on Tim.

Luckily, Tim was at the front and the one who spoke first. “May I just say, Ms. Smith, that we are darn lucky to have you joining us. Ain’t that right, boys?” Isaac nodded and the fatter one made a noise that I think was agreeable, but everyone else stayed silent, never breaking their stare. Tim leaned forward on the saddle horn and nodded at my horse. “That’s a find looking ride there. Appaloosa? I think I see some roan and freckles on her flanks.”

I swallowed hard and tried to stand up straighter. “This is Sadie. She was my…she’s been in my family for a while. She’s a good horse.” I rubbed down her neck and her eyes drooped in response. I was never good at small talk.

He sat back. “Good to know. Well, I’d say we all sit around and get acquainted, but to tell you the truth, there just ain’t much time. I suppose you already know that, knowing the weather and the seasons ’round here.”

And so here it was. Time for me to go.

I took in a steadying breath, and while Aunt June held onto Sadie (which was completely unnecessary since Sadie wouldn’t go anywhere without me saying so), I put my foot in the stirrup and swung my leg over into the saddle. Somehow I was able to do so without my petticoats and pantaloons flashing everyone, which would have been a mortifying start to the adventure.

I looked down at my aunt and uncle and then over at the house. Though Rose was still sleeping as she did late into the mornings, I could see my mom at the window, her face pale through the glass.

“Tell my mother I’ll miss her,” I told Aunt June. “Tell her goodbye and I’ll be back. Make sure you take good care of her.”

She nodded, and I could have sworn her eyes got a little misty. I think it was the most I’d ever said about my mother to her.

“Oh, and say goodbye to Rose,” I said. “Tell her she’s free to take over my chores if she wishes.”

At that she smiled, both of us knowing that Rose would never have to work a day in her life.

I gave Uncle Pat a little wave which he barely acknowledged, and then coaxed Sadie out toward the group, hoping that the other horses were friendlier than their riders were. I started heading toward Donna and Avery when Tim called out.

“Actually, I would rather if you rode up here with me and Jake,” Tim said.

Was he being serious? I halted and looked over my shoulder at him. Mr. Snarl’s name was Jake and Tim wanted me at the front with him?

Tim raised the brim of his hat to see me more clearly. “You’re the tracker after all. You need to be at the front with us at all times. Otherwise, how in the heck are we supposed to find anything?”

He had a point, and one I didn’t even think of before. I looked over at Donna with her neatly-tied bonnet and kind eyes, and Avery’s sculpted face, but they both stared back at me as if this was a good thing. I had kind of hoped that Avery would have insisted in being at the front too, to keep an eye on me, but he just smiled encouragingly.

I sighed and steered Sadie around, taking her past the three other men—Isaac, Mr. Scar Face, and the plump one—until I was right beside Tim, Jake on the other side of him.

“For safety’s sake, Jake will go first. You second. And I’ll be right behind.”

Safety’s sake? I’m sure the question was all over my face because Tim said, “Jake was in the Texas Rangers with me. We fought Monterey together. He’s the best shot I’ve ever met, the best horseman, and—if you believe the rumors—has killed a bear or two with only a pocketknife.”

As I took my place behind him, I actually could believe the rumors. With his broad, burly frame, scarred hands and rows of shotgun shells across his weathered vest, he was both manly and terrifying. I wasn’t sure if it was because he was such a man, a mounted time bomb of testosterone, that made him terrifying or if it was the other way around.