The Vanishing by Bentley Little Page A

or game. Dried meat was a luxury now, and water was rationed severely. Supplies were running low, particularly for some of the larger families, and if they didn’t replenish their stocks soon, they would have to start slaughtering the animals—which would devastate most of the travelers, nearly all of whom had invested every cent they had in the world in what they were bringing along.
    And then, water.
    They were passing through an area of hillocks and saw, in the basin between two mounds, a pond. It was small and muddy, to be sure, but it was water and, judging by the bugs flying about it, fresh. Marshall happened to be riding near the front of the train and was one of the first to spot the watering hole. Late-afternoon sunlight glinted off its mottled surface, creating dancing shadows on the shallow slope surrounding it. Excitedly, he slowed his mount, but when he saw those before him continue on without pause, he rode up to the wagon master. ‘‘Uriah!’’ he called.
    The other man turned slowly.
    ‘‘Where are you going? There’s water here, fresh water.’’
    ‘‘No!’’ Caldwell stated flatly. His voice was firm, almost angry, and it was clear that he would brook no argument.
    ‘‘The horses need water. All the animals do. Hell, we do.’’
    ‘‘No!’’ Caldwell repeated. He glared at Marshall with something like hatred. Or fear.
    Marshall looked over at some of the other men riding nearby, wondering why none of them were arguing, standing up for themselves.
    ‘‘It’s cursed!’’ Morgan James avowed, answering his unspoken question.
    This was getting ridiculous. No matter how strange this plain might seem, here was a watering hole that could refresh the horses and even the other livestock that had been brought on this journey. To pass it by was a sin as far as he was concerned, and Marshall refused to succumb to the superstition that had apparently affected everyone else.
    ‘‘I am watering my animals!’’ he announced loudly to anyone who would listen. He swung his mount around and rode back to grab the reins of his packhorses. George Johnson looked longingly at the pond and nodded his support, but most of the others pretended they had not heard, and all of them continued on without pause. Emily Smith, that pious shrew, even looked in the opposite direction, away from him, shielding the eyes of her young son from the sight of him dismounting and leading his animals to drink.
    He was so angry that his face felt hot and his hands were shaking. It was all he could do not to curse his fellow travelers as they passed by with their poor bedraggled livestock. What was the matter with them? He understood that many people were very religious—living in this hard land made them so, gave them hope that their lives would improve after they were dead—and he, too, had felt the strangeness of this supposedly haunted plain, but for farmers and ranchers to let nebulous fears keep them from practical obligations like the care of their animals was idiotic. No, it was more than idiotic. It was wrong.
    He felt proud, defiant, as he watered his horses, but the moment the end of the wagon train passed by— Clinton Haynes on his newly broken black stallion—the temperature seemed to drop, and though Marshall hated to admit it, he was frightened to be left alone here. Fear changed to sadness as a gentle breeze, carrying scents of long ago, tenderly touched his face. In what seemed like an instant but had to have been the culmination of a long, slow process, the sun disappeared behind the hillock, making the muddy water darker. He was filled with a deep, intense melancholy. He had no idea what lay behind these emotions or where they came from, but he sensed that they were of this land, and he urged his horses to drink faster, though he knew they could not understand.
    When the animals had had their fill, he pulled them away, tied the reins together and mounted up. He’d considered replenishing one of his