Donners of the Dead (16 page)

Question was: would he come back?

“You all right?” Jake asked Isaac, the reluctance heavy in his voice.

“Oh, I’m all right,” Isaac said with twitching eyes, getting to his feet. “I’ve never been better.”

He headed toward the cabin, leaving me and Jake together in the snow. The reality of the moment began to seep in with the cold. If I didn’t get both of us inside soon, we were going to get frostbite, but the last place I wanted to go was in the cabin with a total madman.

I stood up, wincing at the burning sensation of the ice on my soles, and hooked my hands under Jake’s good arm. “Come on, we have to go in.”

He stared at the woods for a moment before he looked up at me and frowned. “After all that’s happened, I’m surprised you’re not leaving me out here to die.”

“I’m not a savage.”

He smiled handsomely and with a shake of his head said, “No, you aren’t. And you’re not a lady either. I reckon you just might be perfect.”

My heart skipped a beat. I blamed it on waning adrenaline.

Our eyes met for a thick moment before I helped him to his feet and got him inside. Tim had already covered Donna up with an animal hide so none of us had to see her. Not that Isaac cared—he was sitting on a stool in the corner and staring down at his hands, his crazed eyes deep in thought. What were we going to do with him?

I wanted to patch up Jake but Tim was insistent that I take care of myself and warm up my frozen feet by the fire. I wondered about his change of heart and the way he’d reversed to being the caring, fatherly type but I guessed that after everything we just saw, I really was the least of their problems.

I sat down by the fire and did my best to ignore Isaac. There was something so unbelievably unsettling about the way he was staring so intently and at absolutely nothing. He must have felt like God with what he did to Hank but that was no act of God at all. God didn’t slice the noses off of dying women. God didn’t create monsters. Monsters created themselves.

Jake sucked in his breath and I swiveled my attention to him instead. He was sitting completely shirtless on the table as Tim poured iodine on his wound. The gunshot didn’t look too bad but then again I was distracted by his body. I felt deeply ashamed and slightly animalistic to admire Jake’s chest at a time like this, but it couldn’t be helped. My eyes were drawn there like it was instinct. Sure, I’d seen bare-chested men before but none of them had ever appeared so…sexual. None of them were built like a house, strong and firm and wide, with muscles that didn’t end and a dusting of hair that screamed he was nearly a beast himself.

To make matters worse, Jake caught me staring at him. I quickly looked away, turning back to the fire, hoping he wouldn’t draw my behavior to anyone’s attention. He may have saved my life but he wasn’t exactly a gentleman.

But Jake only hissed as Tim pulled the bullet out of him and patched him back up. I stole peeks at the scene, both horrified and fascinated.

“You’ll be good as new in a few days, I reckon,” Tim said. He poked his finger at a raised scar on Jake’s abdomen. “Remember how long this one took?”

“Forever,” Jake groaned. “Damn Mexicans.”

“And this won’t take as long. It was a clean shot. You’re lucky Hank wasn’t shooting a rifle or we’d be singing a different tune.”

Jake looked over at Donna’s lifeless body underneath the hides.

“I reckon we should bury her,” he said.

“With what shovels?” Tim asked.

“Well, we can’t just haul her out to the woods to be pecked on by animals. Or worse—Hank. She deserves better than that. She had no idea what she was getting into.”

“Neither did we,” Tim said. “Not for true.”

“And I would be lucky if I would be treated the same if I died.”

So as the day wore on and Isaac stayed motionless inside, the three of us went out to bury Donna. Tim and I took on the task of carrying her since the bite on my shoulder was pretty much nothing compared to Jake’s wound, and we brought her out to a pretty patch by the lake. The ground here was easier to penetrate, and though she might not stay buried for long, it was the act and the final respects that actually counted.

The three of us dug what we could with axes and our hands. Tim did most of the work since he was the only one uninjured, and even though it took a long time, it was worth it. We placed Donna in the shallow grave and sprinkled the first dirt on her, each of us reciting something nice about her.

I didn’t really know Donna at all, but she liked me and treated me as an equal. She may have been God-fearing but she saw the good in everyone, no matter the cost. Perhaps that was what cost her her life.

When she was finally buried in a thin layer of frozen soil, we looked out to the lake. A goose was calling in the distance and a flock of them flew overhead through the gauzy mist that was hovering around the shore. Jake made a measured movement to grab his gun, but I put my hand out and steadied him. It would only aggravate his wound more and Donna deserved the grace of animals more than we deserved our supper.

That evening Jake and I went to sleep as soon as the sun went down. No one wanted to eat, no one wanted to talk. There just wasn’t much to say. All most of us wanted was for the morning to come so we could be back on our way to River Bend.

Isaac was on one side of the room, and Tim was nearby and staying up as long as he could. I was alone in my bed with Jake in the bed next to me. It felt strange for him to be sleeping there all hurt and shot up and so close to me but not close enough.

I rolled over and stared at him in the flicker of the fire, my eyes drifting over his striking profile—the slight bump on his nose where I was sure it had been broken once, probably in a bar brawl, the way his lips looked inviting even when in sleep. I could tell Tim, who was propped up by the door with a rifle, was watching me, wondering what to do with me when this was all over.

I could only wonder what Jake thought. There was nothing between us and so many bigger issues to worry about, but I felt an odd pang of fear in my chest, this hollowness carved out, when I thought about saying goodbye to him. To get out of these mountains alive was all we could wish for.

And yet, for some reason, I lay on the floor of that cabin and watched Jake sleep—wishing for more.

A
t first I
wasn’t quite sure how it happened. When I opened my eyes in the grey light of dawn, I found myself inches from Jake’s chest. I sucked in my breath and slowly raised my head to see him peering down at me through his long lashes.

“Morning,” he whispered gruffly as he watched my eyes widen, a trace of a smile on his lips.

What the dickens was I doing, lying next to him like this?

Then it all came back to me. Visions of sleep and snow and the grainy reality of dreams.

A nightmare.

In it, I had been walking through the woods hand in hand with my father, snow falling softly around us. Unlike my other dreams, I wasn’t a younger girl but as old as I was now, and we were in these very mountains, not the safe world he’d been a part of. My father was ageless, with kind eyes that twinkled in the fading blue light. The world around us was silent and he kept repeating a word over and over again. I had no idea what it meant, until finally he stopped and held me close to him.

“It means strength, Evangeline,” he said softly. “You must draw strength from fear or fear will make you weak.”

“I don’t need strength,” I whispered back to him, holding onto his hand. “I have you.”

He pulled away and looked me up and down, his eyes flitting through a range of different colors—brown to hazel to red to grey. “There is no me. There are only monsters inside of angels and angels inside of monsters. Choose wisely.”

He stepped away from me and his face contorted with pain.

“Papa,” I cried out as his skin turned ashen and pale, his eyes glowing blue. A horrible, beautiful blue. I reached for him but immediately took my hand back when the smell of rotting meat took over.

He grinned at me like a savage wolf. “Which one am I?” he asked in a snarling voice, his words dripping with an animalistic quality, steaming saliva that came from his mouth and hit the snow with a hiss.

He was a monster inside of an angel.

I turned and ran, and like in all dreams, I ran fast enough to fly, and then slow, like I was slogging through oatmeal. Suddenly the cabin appeared in the woods, the hanging lamp by the door wide open and waiting.

I ran into the cabin, still smelling the monster that was my father, knowing he was right on my trail.

I yelled for help from Jake and Tim and stopped dead when I saw Avery lying motionless on the table. I ran for him, trying to speak his name, but the words wouldn’t come and his eyes wouldn’t open.

Then the door behind me slammed shut. Everything went black.

Except for two blue glowing eyes, right where Avery should have been.

Claws dug into my back, ripping me apart like my spine was a seam.

I woke up with a start, covered in sweat and breathing hard. My back ached as if the claws had been real. I couldn’t figure out if I’d been screaming or not, but Tim was sitting by the door, asleep with his head against it. I remembered getting up and looking at Jake as he lay there, deep in sleep. Fear was motivating me and this was how I was drawing strength from it. I lay down beside him, feeling more afraid than proud, and promptly fell asleep.

Now that it was morning and I was right up against him, the fear was gone and the embarrassment came flooding in. I had behaved like a little girl who had a bad dream.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered quickly. I knew my face was growing red despite the chill in the air.

As I made the move to get up he said, “No.” He licked his lips. “Stay. It’s still early.”

I paused, wondering why he’d want me to stay by his side. Could he have actually liked the fact that I slept beside him as a wife would do with her husband? I suddenly felt very young.

I got up anyway and looked around the cabin. Dawn was just breaking somewhere beyond the trees, ushering in just enough pastel light. Tim was stoking the fire, and from what I could tell, Isaac was still asleep.

“Did you have a bad scare?” Jake asked.

I turned to see him trying to sit up. I went to him and grabbed his arm. “Lie back down,” I said.

“I’m fine.” He grunted and eyed my hand on his arm. “But I don’t mind you holding onto me.”

“Jake,” Tim said as he came toward us with a steaming cup of water. He held it out for him, his eyes passing briefly over me. “I scrounged up the last of the coffee kernels. You think you’ll be all right enough to make it back home today?”

Jake nodded and took the cup. Before he had a sip he gestured to it as if to offer me some. I shook my head politely.

“I reckon I should be okay. I also reckon we wouldn’t have a choice even if I wasn’t. Hank is apt to come back at any time.” He looked to sleeping Isaac as he said that. “We’re just lucky nothing happened to us last night. We can’t trust a madman.”

“I was up and ready for it if that were the case,” Tim said.

I nearly smiled, knowing Tim had been asleep when I woke up from my dream. His eyes darted to me for a moment but I kept my mouth shut. He may have held a gun to my head the other day, but I wasn’t about to rat him out. Not now. It seemed like everything was so unimportant when we were surrounded by death and snow. Angels and monsters.

And yet I still held onto Jake’s arm, my fingers burning into his bare skin. Somehow
that
seemed important.

I let go and pressed my hands together. I looked expectantly at Tim. “Should I start packing our stuff up?”

He shook his head. “Not with your shoulder. You did enough for us yesterday. Thank you.” He cleared his throat and ran his hand through his thin hair. “You both just take care of yourselves. Isaac, when the crazy bastard gets up, he and I will pack everything up. Then we’re out of here.”

“I can’t let you do everything,” Jake said with annoyance, his dark brows knit together. “I’m not crippled. It’s just a damn bullet wound.”

Tim shot him a placating smile. “You can go out and get us dinner. We’re fresh out of food anyway.”

Having slept in my clothes, I made my way over to the pot of water that had been warmed by the fire and quickly washed my face and ran a twig brush over my teeth, all while keeping my eyes focused on Isaac. Though he himself hadn’t acquired a taste for flesh, he had been the Dr. Frankenstein to Hank’s monster, a story I had read a few years ago. But while
that
monster seemed to be misunderstood, Hank had been a monster to begin with, and Isaac had seemed hellbent on making him worse. From what we’d all seen, he’d succeeded.

When Isaac began to stir, I quickly turned and left the area, not sure if I could even look into his eyes after what he’d done to Donna. An immoral part of me wished Hank had eaten him.

I caught Jake just as he came back into the cabin from the outhouse.

“Grab your shawl,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because I said so,” was his answer. He picked up his rifle and headed back out into the snow.

I sighed though I was happy to leave the cabin. I quickly wrapped my heavy shawl around me and slipped on my boots, heading out into the frozen air.

It was a fair morning—the sun was just starting to slice through the trees like golden glass and the sky was a cool blue peppered by dark clouds. It was the kind of weather I knew would change, that any moment a storm could come rolling down the white peaks and across the frozen lake. I had to hope we’d already be on our way.

“Where are we going?” I asked Jake, trotting after him, the air sticking needles in my lungs.

“You heard the man,” Jake yelled back. “We’re getting dinner. We’ll need something to eat when we leave this place.”

I gripped my shawl tighter beneath my chin. “This isn’t exactly safe,” I said as we disappeared further into the trees following what looked like a deer path. I kept expecting to see Hank at every turn.

Or Avery.

Or my father.