canteens, but the water was too muddy for human consumption, and right now he just wanted to get out of here.
He could no longer see the wagon train, but the tracks were easy enough to follow. Besides, twilight was approaching. They had to make camp for the night, so they couldn’t be too far ahead.
Emerging from between the hillocks, he came out on flat ground. There were patterns in the movement of the meadow grass, waves created by the wind that spoke to him on some level and reminded him of things of which he did not want to be reminded.
Dark things.
He had been going west, but now he was going south, and when he swung right to adjust, he suddenly found himself facing north. The horses seemed confused, too, and he maintained a tight rein on his mount as he kept toward the setting sun. The swaying grass seemed more ominous now, the densely packed stalks higher than they should be, the wind patterns creating long black shadows that looked like figures darting left and right.
As the sun went down in the east and night settled over the plain, Marshall realized he was lost. He should have caught up to the wagon train by now, should at least have been able to hear the others or see their campfire. But the only sounds that came to him on the wind were an odd wooden tapping and a persistent whisper that made him think of the voices of the dead.
He considered making camp but was filled with the certainty that if he did so, he would never catch up to the wagon train. He needed to keep on going until he found them again. Though it shamed him to admit it, Caldwell and the others had been right; he’d been wrong. He shouldn’t have stopped to water his horses.
Fortunately, it was a bright night. The moon came out early and was bigger than it had any right to be, bathing the plain in a silvery-blue light. Ahead, on a slight rise, he saw a squarish shape that seemed completely incongruous in this land of flat ground and rounded mounds, and that almost certainly had to be man-made. It definitely did not look like anything they had seen for the past week, and his hope was that it was a building, a settler’s house where he might get some directions and maybe something a little stronger than water to drink. He spurred his horses onward but slowed as he approached the structure. He could see from here that there were no pens or corrals, no animals of any kind. The place not only seemed empty but did not appear to be intended for habitation. Perhaps, he thought, it was a storehouse of some sort.
All three horses were still roped together and, dismounting, he tied the mare to a large rock. The building itself was a mud hut with a sod roof, although as he drew close, Marshall saw that what he’d taken for an exposed wooden beam on the east corner of the structure was actually a length of bone.
Human bone.
He did not believe it at first. Though the moon was large and low, full and brighter than he had ever seen it before, lunar light played tricks with shadows that sunlight never did, and even when his eyes confirmed that the object was indeed a bone, he continued to believe for several moments that it was the bone of an animal. An elk or buffalo that had died in the mud, perhaps. This close, however, he knew it for what it was, and the chill that passed through him made him shiver like a naked woman on a winter night. His instinct told him to turn tail and run, grab the horses and get away from here as quickly as he could, and it took every ounce of courage he had to disobey that impulse.
He forced himself to walk up to the hut and around it. There were no windows and no door, giving further credence to the possibility that this might be some sort of storehouse, and he wondered if there might be food in here, supplies. He understood that even if there were, the stores belonged to someone else, but he and the others on the wagon train were hurting, and he felt no qualms about appropriating some necessities for the trip.
He
He could no longer see the wagon train, but the tracks were easy enough to follow. Besides, twilight was approaching. They had to make camp for the night, so they couldn’t be too far ahead.
Emerging from between the hillocks, he came out on flat ground. There were patterns in the movement of the meadow grass, waves created by the wind that spoke to him on some level and reminded him of things of which he did not want to be reminded.
Dark things.
He had been going west, but now he was going south, and when he swung right to adjust, he suddenly found himself facing north. The horses seemed confused, too, and he maintained a tight rein on his mount as he kept toward the setting sun. The swaying grass seemed more ominous now, the densely packed stalks higher than they should be, the wind patterns creating long black shadows that looked like figures darting left and right.
As the sun went down in the east and night settled over the plain, Marshall realized he was lost. He should have caught up to the wagon train by now, should at least have been able to hear the others or see their campfire. But the only sounds that came to him on the wind were an odd wooden tapping and a persistent whisper that made him think of the voices of the dead.
He considered making camp but was filled with the certainty that if he did so, he would never catch up to the wagon train. He needed to keep on going until he found them again. Though it shamed him to admit it, Caldwell and the others had been right; he’d been wrong. He shouldn’t have stopped to water his horses.
Fortunately, it was a bright night. The moon came out early and was bigger than it had any right to be, bathing the plain in a silvery-blue light. Ahead, on a slight rise, he saw a squarish shape that seemed completely incongruous in this land of flat ground and rounded mounds, and that almost certainly had to be man-made. It definitely did not look like anything they had seen for the past week, and his hope was that it was a building, a settler’s house where he might get some directions and maybe something a little stronger than water to drink. He spurred his horses onward but slowed as he approached the structure. He could see from here that there were no pens or corrals, no animals of any kind. The place not only seemed empty but did not appear to be intended for habitation. Perhaps, he thought, it was a storehouse of some sort.
All three horses were still roped together and, dismounting, he tied the mare to a large rock. The building itself was a mud hut with a sod roof, although as he drew close, Marshall saw that what he’d taken for an exposed wooden beam on the east corner of the structure was actually a length of bone.
Human bone.
He did not believe it at first. Though the moon was large and low, full and brighter than he had ever seen it before, lunar light played tricks with shadows that sunlight never did, and even when his eyes confirmed that the object was indeed a bone, he continued to believe for several moments that it was the bone of an animal. An elk or buffalo that had died in the mud, perhaps. This close, however, he knew it for what it was, and the chill that passed through him made him shiver like a naked woman on a winter night. His instinct told him to turn tail and run, grab the horses and get away from here as quickly as he could, and it took every ounce of courage he had to disobey that impulse.
He forced himself to walk up to the hut and around it. There were no windows and no door, giving further credence to the possibility that this might be some sort of storehouse, and he wondered if there might be food in here, supplies. He understood that even if there were, the stores belonged to someone else, but he and the others on the wagon train were hurting, and he felt no qualms about appropriating some necessities for the trip.
He
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