Donners of the Dead (7 page)

Soon we were all mounted and heading away from the lean-tos, back on the trail made by wagon wheels. As the path grew narrower the higher we went, skirting around tall trees and rocky outcrops, it was hard to imagine any wagon trains coming up here. I voiced this to Tim.

“The Donners gave up on their wagons a long time ago,” he said.

I turned in my saddle to see him packing more tobacco in his pipe, the smoke matching the grey of his frazzled beard. “How come we haven’t seen any?” Seemed unlikely that I would have passed by such a thing without sensing it.

“That’s what I’d like to know,” Tim said. “Anything we find will help us figure out what happened to George Clark.”

“Perhaps there’ve been scavengers,” I suggested.

“Perhaps,” Tim said with a strange gleam to his eye.

We rode on, the trail becoming steeper and steeper. Our horses were growing tired, and when the rain began to drizzle over us, Jake insisted we keep on moving. I clumsily slipped on the coat while in the saddle and asked what the rush was.

For a moment I thought I’d spoken out of turn, but Jake turned his head halfway around, the drops of rain spilling from the brim of hat. “The rush, darlin’, is that we’ve got to make it to the Graves-Reed cabin before nightfall. We ain’t all built for sleeping in the elements like you.”

Before I had a chance to smart at that comment, an unusual smell caught my attention, something like herbs and bone. Jake quickly pulled up his horse and said, “Speaking of Injuns…”

All of us came to a sudden stop. Up ahead on the trail were two Indians walking quietly toward us. Their animal hide coats blended in with the tree trunks perfectly, the feathers sitting atop their long dark hair looking freshly plucked from an eagle. They had no weapons in their sunburned hands but I knew none of us were letting our guards down.

Jake raised his hand in a greeting, though his other one was now resting on his revolver at his hip. “Can you speak to them? They look like they eat pine nuts just like you.”

They were Paiute Indians, I knew that much, and I knew they did a lot more than eat pine nuts. Even so, I wasn’t really one of them. I never had been.

“I don’t really speak the language…” I stammered as they came closer. I could see them peering at me curiously. I wondered if they knew my father. “I don’t know what tribe they’re from, the dialects could all be different. I…my father taught me a long time ago and I don’t remember.”

“Can you try?” Tim asked gently from behind me. “This could get ugly otherwise.”

I didn’t really have a choice. The two men had walked right up to Jake but their attention was all on me. At first I thought that perhaps they were twins since they looked so similar, but I could tell one was a bit shorter and had crooked lips.

The taller one began to speak to me in slow, careful tones. At first I couldn’t understand a thing, but after a while a few words sounded familiar: “No,” “Mountains,” “Dangerous,” “Snow,” “Animal,” and “Men.”

“What are they saying?” Tim asked.

“I think they are saying something about snow, men, animals, danger, and mountains.”

“You only
think
you know?” Isaac asked, leaning forward with disgust on his narrow face. “Damn it, Tim, what’s the use in having a mountain guide if she can’t even talk to the locals?”

“I never said I was a guide,” I said quickly over my shoulder. I looked back at the Indians who were realizing I couldn’t speak their language and only barely understood it. They were probably “Diggers” anyway, a word the white folk used to describe Indians who didn’t fit into one tribe or another. I guess I was a Digger in my own right.

I decided to try English on them. “What are you saying? There are dangerous snows ahead?” When it was lost on them, I started miming snow and repeated back the word they used for it.

The one with the crooked lips nodded. Something about a big snow coming, though that didn’t surprise me. Again he said “men” and “animal,” then added the word for “eat” and “hungry.” He kept repeating another word that I didn’t know, acting it out by snapping his jaw open and shut and pointing at me, then at Jake and Tim.

I looked up at Jake who was staring at the men with a volatile expression. I could already tell his opinion on Indians was low and these men were probably testing his patience. I hoped he wouldn’t try anything—he hadn’t taken his hand off his gun once.

“I reckon we should be on our way,” Tim announced cautiously. “We won’t learn much more from them, I’m afraid. We should be thankful they’re peaceful and leave while we can.”

“I could scalp them faster than they’d scalp me,” the hoarse voice of Hank rose up from the back.

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Tim admitted. He eyed me carefully. “Do you think they’ll let us go in peace? I didn’t come here to cause any more trouble. Too many deaths on my hands already, and I ain’t ready to add some more.”

I was tempted to shrug and tell him I had no idea because that was the truth. But I decided to go on instinct alone. These men had noble, if not kind, faces. They might have been Diggers and outcasts from the tribe, but they just wanted to help us. They wanted to warn us about something.

I just wish I knew what it was.

I smiled at the men and said thank you in both English and my shoddy Washoe, and raised my hand in farewell. They nodded in understanding and did the same. Then they walked on past our party. I looked over my shoulder before they disappeared into the trees. The last thing I saw was one of the men looking back at me with absolute pity in his eyes. He then shook his head, as if we were all a lost cause, and then was gone.

The air around us smelled like sorrow.

*

We were a
somber, motley crew when we finally started finding remnants of the previous parties. It started off slowly, at least for me. Sadie’s ears started flicking back and forth as did Trouble’s tail. I smelled that rotting meat odor for a second before it was whisked away. A moment later Jake turned around to face me, his expression in that permanent frown.

“Picking anything up, Pine Nut?”

I ignored my new nickname. “Just that smell again.”

“According to the map,” Isaac shouted from behind Tim, “we should be close to Alder Creek, the first camp for the Donners.”

I’d seen Isaac’s map. It was little more than a few squiggles drawn on crudely-shaped mountains. Still, I had a feeling he was right. Though the rotting meat smell was gone, there was something else. I studied the nearby trees closely and noticed that here and there, the branches were hacked off at eye level. Someone had been collecting them, either to make a roof for a shanty or to burn as firewood.

“I think we’ve already found it,” I said. I nodded at Jake. “Keep on riding.”

From the look on his face I could tell he hated being told what to do by a woman, let alone a half-Indian one. That’s why I said it. I liked seeing his upper lip snarl and those deep, dark eyes narrow into cold slits. I liked that I made this very grown man as ornery as a mule. I liked that I seemed to bother him as much as he bothered me.

We rode for another minute until the trees opened up into a tiny meadow of fawn-colored grass that spread out to the golden alder trees that bordered the edge of the forest. From here you could see the wide expanse of the mountains, their tops covered by low clouds. While the drizzle had stopped where we were, the air had gotten colder and I knew that snow was falling higher up.

A flock of geese suddenly rose from the grass and Jake was quick with his plains rifle, bringing down one with his only shot.

“Another good meal,” Tim commented cheerily. “Well, I suppose we should take a look around here and see what we can find.”

“I reckon we keep going,” Jake said, twisting in his saddle to face him, the leather squeaking against his raincoat. “We can’t stay here, and we have to reach proper shelter before dark.”

“We’re staying here,” Isaac countered, “until we find what we’re looking for. You might be leading us but you’re not in charge of this expedition, Jake. You’re not funding it. And if you want your money, then you’ll have to sit tight and keep your mouth shut.”

I’d never heard Isaac talk so much in one go before, nor mouth off to Jake. The air suddenly rippled with tension, adding to the weighty, eerie quality that the valley was already giving off.

“Eve,” Tim said in his most diplomatic voice, “why don’t you take Isaac around this valley here and see if you can find anything. I think there should be a creek nearby and hopefully remnants of the Donners.”

I raised a brow. When he said remnants of the Donners, did he mean discarded belongings—or discarded bones of the men who died in the snows? I shivered at the thought but dismounted Sadie all the same.

Meeks also wanted to take a look around, and as soon as Hank indicated the same, Avery was joining my side. Tim was already pulling Jake away, wanting to talk to him far from the rest of us. Only Donna remained on her horse, pretending not to be slighted.

“What exactly are we looking for?” Avery asked, arms folded across his chest.

Isaac eyed him carefully before he spoke. “Just signs of civilization. Why don’t you and Hank and Merv take the south end over there? Eve and I will take the north.” He jerked his skinny face to the mountains where the alders thinned out and the grass was lost to trees.

I could tell Avery was apprehensive about leaving my side, but as long as he was with Hank—who was staring me down like a prized buck—I wasn’t bothered. Isaac was strange and pushy but he didn’t give me the same feeling as Hank did.

So I walked with Isaac toward the north end of the field, the rain-wet grass brushing against my dress and soaking the hem. I was grateful for the boots I was wearing, especially as the ground grew soft and marshy, and we eventually came across a creek that snaked just inside the last crop of alders.

“So this is Alder Creek,” Isaac said as if I wasn’t there. He started looking around him for signs. But for me, the signs were obvious. That rotten smell had returned again, albeit fainter, along with the light but still horrid smell of human waste. Isaac obviously couldn’t pick up on it, or he would have remarked something fierce. I suppose I really was starting to prove my worth.

I gestured to the trees on the other side of the gurgling creek. “I believe if you’re looking for anything it will be over there.”

He didn’t look as suspicious as I had imagined he would. “You reckon?”

“Let’s go see.”

The creek wasn’t hard to cross with a few large stones in the middle, and I was glad that we’d found something to appease him.

However, as soon as we came across faded hoof marks and footprints that led us into a small glade, my gladness took a sharp turn towards horror.

There were two small huts composed of felled logs and branches with some mildewed quilts thrown on top. Beyond that was a small semi-circular cabin with a missing roof and fire pit in the middle. Even if I had just seen those two sights, I would have known something was wrong. It was more than a sense or a smell, picking up on who was here before. There was a feeling that something terrible happened here and that feeling was snaking up my body, intent to drown me in it.

Of course it only took me a few steps over to the right, so I could see beyond the makeshift cabin, to see what was causing my hairs to already stand on end. There was a large pile of human skeletons—some men, some women, some children. Some were almost whole, some were missing almost every part of them, but none of them were completely intact. As if that wasn’t odd enough, some of them had what appeared to be bite marks on them and yet the area hadn’t seemed disturbed by animals at all.

“I think we found them,” I managed to say before I realized that any of the bodies could be Isaac’s uncle. “I’m sorry. Do you think that George was one of them?”

But Isaac was paying the skeletons no attention. Instead he went into the cabin, turning over fallen logs and canvas, turning over empty boxes and emptying out an iron pot that was filled with a foul-smelling sludge that caused Isaac to recoil in disgust. Still, he continued on, going to the huts next and disappearing inside. He had wanted me to lead him here but apparently that was as far as my services went.

Finally, when I had grown tired of standing next to the poor, expired bones of pioneers, their sorrowful stench filling my nostrils until I couldn’t imagine what fresh air smelled like, I asked Isaac if I should go and get the others.

He was quick to respond to that and hurried out of the hut, the canvas flapping against him like a wet wing. “No,” he said, his eyes momentarily too wide, a dirty smudge across his face. “No, it’s fine. I’m ready to go on. George wasn’t here. These people were part of the Donner party, if not the Donners themselves. We must move on.”

And as quickly as we had come here, we were leaving. Though puzzled, I couldn’t say I wasn’t glad. The sharp air from the mountains swept toward me and cleared my head as we flocked back to the party. Everyone except Jake and Tim were mounted on their horses and looking bored.

“We were getting plumb worried about you,” Tim said, directed more to me than Isaac. “We were just about to set out after ya. Find anything?”