28. Trapped
Iwrestled one of the bunks across the floor and used it to block the door. Neither Doug nor the creature would be able to get inside with us, at least. Not that I imagined they’d leave us to starve to death in peace.
Of course, eventually I’d have to go outside for more firewood. They didn’t have to try to get inside; they had only to wait for us to emerge one at a time, to be picked off.
I was thinking about Doug and the creature as if they were on the same side. Was it because my brother had become so monstrous in my mind I conflated the two, or because they were actually working in concert?
And how had Doug survived in the first place? With no supplies, no warm clothing, no fire?
It was unnatural. Just like the thing that haunted us.
We settled into morose silence, concentrating on keeping the stove burning. No one said the obvious: that we were just killing time until the end came for us, one way or another.
This claim was supposed to have been the answer to all of my problems. And of course it would have solved some of them; money always did. They said money can’t buy happiness, but I’d been cold and hungry many times when Doug and I were first starting out. We were both a lot happier once we could afford food in our bellies and a roof over our heads.
Having no financial worries ever again was a powerful thing. But even without that goal, the arduous trip, the uncertainty of mining, all the dangers of the arctic, would have been worth it to finally satisfy Doug.
He could have stopped always looking for the next horizon. Stopped scheming and set aside the life of a confidence man. Seen the world and been content to leave me behind while he did so.
I flinched at the thought. I was nothing without my brother. He’d spent so long telling me whom to be.
And I’d let him. It was easier than the alternative. I’d been running from myself since the day Bessie died, and following Doug provided the perfect solution. A new name, a new town, a new invented background filled with loving parents and no dead sister…
That was no longer an option. I couldn’t be what Doug wanted anymore, had no choice but to be me.
If only I was enough to save us.
Needing a distraction from my thoughts, I picked up Doug’s guidebook and flipped idly through it. Unfortunately there were no chapters on what to do when trapped in a remote cabin with no food, while being hunted by a monster that seemed to know our very thoughts.
Every underlined manner of death laid another stone on my heart. I’d never imagined Doug would be capable of killing over gold. Doing murder so he could have a large fortune instead of a small one.
He’d always wanted more. But it had given him drive, ambition. Kept us alive and free.
It had gone rotten inside him, somehow. When, I couldn’t say—upon arriving here? Or had it been like that a long time, and I’d just never noticed?
I reached the back of the book and started to close it, when something caught my eye. Doug had taken advantage of the blank pages at the end to write. His normally neat hand was scrawled and hasty, but still clear enough for me to read.
I had the dream again.
There’s so much gold here. I can’t wait to see the look on Dad’s face when I show up on their doorstep in a suit from Savile Row. I’ll have a pocket watch inlaid with diamonds, and emerald cufflinks, and arrive in a coach with liveried footmen. And when he asks for some money, I’ll laugh in his face. He always said I’d never amount to anything, but which of us is the real failure now, Dad?
The character of the writings changed after that.
Something spoke to me last night. Not just a dream, even though I awoke in the snow.
This must be about the night I’d found him sleepwalking outside. The creature had lured him out there.
But it hadn’t killed him, when it must surely have had the opportunity. Why?
It saidIt didn’t speak in words. But I understood, anyway. And it knew—I don’t know how, but it knew about Dad, and Colin, and Tommy. I could see the gold shining out from under the ground.
It was going to tell me a secret about the gold, I’m certain it was. But Colin woke me up, damn him.
I hope I dream about it again. I need to find out what it knows.
Creating a sense of curiosity, the desire to learn the secret way to get rich…well, we’d run that swindle ourselves a time or two. Doug had walked right into it.
And lost a lot more than his money.
Something bad happened today. We had a visitor.
Why did he have to come here? I didn’t want to hurt him.
I didn’t want to.
He didn’t leave me a choice. He was going to tell everyone. Then some of his friends would come here, and set up claims, and have eyes on our business. The plan wouldn’t work—everyone would know we had help.
If they thought we cheated Eleanor and the Kilgores, they’d put us out to die in the wilderness, just like that poor bastard in Dawson. Colin and I would both perish.
I had to do it. It was self-defense.
God. Doug was obviously referring to the murder of poor Tommy Tatum. Trying to justify to himself why he’d killed an innocent man in cold blood.
Anna’s gone. Good riddance.
Why is everyone else so lazy? We need to dig out my gold!
The pile is growing, but there’s so much more still in the ground. I can feel it calling to me.
They’re all cowards. Scared of voices. Don’t they understand we need to get my gold?
It talked to me again today, down in the mine while the others huddled in the cabin like a bunch of babies afraid of the dark.
I should just go ahead and get rid of them. They won’t work anymore, so what use are they to me? I have a better partner now, anyway, one who keeps me company while I dig. Who needs any of them when I have it?
Even Colin’s betrayed me. It’s the fault of that Steve—I see how Colin looks at him.
If Steve is gone, Colin will come to his senses.
Oh, he acted shocked when he realized what I did to the dog-sledder. As if he doesn’t have any blood on his hands. I never believed he didn’t mean for Bessie to die.
I jerked back as if struck. How could he think such a thing, even in the privacy of his own mind?
Bessie got all the attention, all the love, from our parents. We worked ourselves to the bone on that farm, while she was a spoiled brat. When the train crashed, he saw his opportunity and took it. He’ll deny it, but I know the truth.
That was the last of the writings—he must have scribbled it down shortly before the attempt to murder Steve. I stared at the words, reading through them again and again, and felt like I was falling.
Of course I felt guilty for Bessie’s death. I was her brother. I loved her, and I’d stood by and let her die.
HadI let her die? Or had I simply failed to die alongside her?
I put my hand to the bandage on my forehead, the old wound reopened and bleeding underneath. The heat of the stove against my skin was nothing to the heat of the inferno that had engulfed the dry wooden boxcars and their cargo. Bessie lay trapped, surrounded by flames, burning timber atop her. Her body incinerated until all that remained were fragments of bone.
God only knew what the train had been carrying. Fusel oil, gunpowder, some other thing set alight by a spark and capable of roaring up into a catastrophic blaze in a matter of seconds. It had all happened so fast.
Tears gathered in my eyes. I’d been a child, frozen in terror, because what else could I do? Burn alive myself?
Yes, said my guilt. I owed her that.
No, that was madness. It wouldn’t have brought her back or fixed anything. Just as walking into the snow now and letting myself freeze solid wouldn’t fix anything.
If anything could even be fixed.
“Are you all right?” Steve asked.
I blinked rapidly. He sat across from me, body stiff from the bandaging around his ribs, eyes red from his own tears of grief. Eleanor seemed to have dozed off in her chair.
“No,” I said honestly. “Doug wrote some things in the back of the book…”
“Anything interesting?”
“If you consider his descent into madness interesting.” I passed him the book. “The last things he wrote—I swear, if I could have saved Bessie, I would have.”
“I know.” His expression was gentle, far more so than I deserved. “And I know…at least, I believe…you meant to talk Doug out of cheating us.”
“I never meant any of this to happen.” He handed the book back, and I flipped through it once again, in case Doug had made notes elsewhere in its pages. “The gold was supposed to fix everything. Make Doug happy. Give me a different life.”
Our voices must have woken Eleanor, because she said, “Gold meant I’d never be under the control of a man again. I’d be free to chart my own course.”
“If I’d been rich to start with, I could have kept my son, paid for a doctor…” Steve shook his head and laughed. “As if any amount of money now could change the past. God, I’m an idiot. At least everyone else wanted something within the realm of possibility.”
My page-turning slowed. I stared at a chapter heading, an idea slowly forming in my mind. Steve noticed and asked, “Colin? What is it?”
“We can’t stab the…whatever it is to death,” I said, turning the book so they could see. “But what if we can trap it?”
* * *
Eleanor perked up. “Trap it?”
I tapped the chapter titled Food and Furs - Animals and their habitats, traps and snares, and other advice on acquiring fresh meat and furs for use or trade. “We convert the mineshaft into a pit trap. Place sharpened stakes at the bottom. It falls in, and we make a run for it. It might not die, but we would have a chance to get away while it’s stuck down there.”
Even as I said it, the plan sounded flimsy. Steve wouldn’t be able to move quickly, we’d have to stop frequently for warmth and food as well as rest…
“We have to at least try,” Eleanor said.
We both looked to Steve. He stared at the stove with a pensive expression. “What do you think this thing is?” he asked after a long moment.
I remembered the conglomeration of bone and hide I’m glimpsed earlier. The strange tracks we’d found; the scratches on the cabin. “It’s made out of the creatures we dug from the mine,” I said. “And that Bill and Clarke did before us.”
“And Anna,” Steve said quietly.
Eleanor shuddered and wiped at her eyes. “Is it some sort of ghost? I can’t believe I’m saying that; it sounds so irrational.”
“But we’ve left the rational behind,” I finished.
Steve shifted slightly, then winced and stilled. “It’s something old. Something we disturbed by coming here. We trespassed where we shouldn’t, and took what didn’t belong to us. It wants to punish us for that.”
His words sent a chill up my spine. “How does it know our thoughts? Our secrets?”
“I don’t know. And I could be wrong.” He shook his head. “I never believed in devils, but maybe it is one. Or something completely different. We don’t know anything about it, except it uses old bones as a body, it can pluck thoughts from our heads, and it wants us dead.”
“It needs some sort of physical form—I think we can surmise that.” Eleanor sat up straighter as something occurred to her. “Which means it can be trapped. I’ll help you, Colin.”
“I can—” Steve began, then let out a gasp of pain when he tried to stand up.
“You rest as much as possible,” she ordered. “We need you to be able to leave quickly once the creature is trapped.”
He settled back with a frown. “Speaking of which, how do we get it to fall into the mineshaft?”
I’d thought of this already, but saying it aloud made it desperately real. “One of us needs to be bait, to lure it to the right place,” I said. “Steve, you’re in no shape to do that. Eleanor, your nursing skills could make the difference between life and death.”
“Colin…” Steve began, then trailed off.
I straightened my shoulders and met their eyes in turn. “I’m both fit and expendable. There’s no other choice for bait but me.”
* * *
We decided to wait until the sun came up, though that phrase meant little more than a slight lightening of the southern sky for a scant four hours. Still, it would give us a bit more visibility, which meant we might have a better chance of spotting the creature if it came for us.
Eleanor went to the back of the cabin to curl up in bed and get what sleep she could. I should have done the same, but my nerves were wound tight as wires. I was proposing to undertake something extremely dangerous; if these were to be my last hours, I preferred to spend them with Steve.
“I’m sorry again, for everything,” I said as I poured us both coffee.
“I know.” Steve accepted the coffee, our fingers brushing as he did so. “I forgive you.”
My throat tightened as I sat down. “I don’t deserve it.”
“That’s not for you to decide, is it?”
The thought startled me. “I…I suppose not.”
He nodded, as though the matter was settled. “I’m sorry your brother turned into someone you no longer recognize.”
I leaned forward, the heat of the stove warm on my face. “I can only wonder if he was always like that, and I never saw it. Or if being here warped him somehow. Or some combination of the two.”
A log on the fire popped loudly. Steve took a drink of coffee, watching me over the rim of the cup. “Do you think he’s still alive?”
“It seems impossible…but who else would have destroyed our food? The spirit—creature—would have ripped things apart. Not opened up cans and slit sacks with a knife.”
How could Doug have done this to me? The others, perhaps, but I was his brother. I’d followed along in his wake my entire life, and he’d always taken care of me.
Or he’d merely used me to further his own schemes, and I never realized it. A mark like any other.
Steve took my hand in his, squeezing it. “Please be careful. I don’t want you to die.” He swallowed and met my gaze. “I need you.”
I scooted my chair closer, so I could kiss him without his having to bend his torso. His lips tasted of coffee, warm and wonderful. Once we were done, I leaned my forehead against his and listened to our breathing.
I could have stayed like that forever.