Free Donners of the Dead by Karina Halle Page B

Pine Nut.”
    Before I could say anything to that, the faint crackle of crushed ground came from the woods. Isaac and Hank appeared first as shadowy dark forms before I could see them clearly.
    “Find anything?” Jake asked them.
    Isaac shook his head while Hank’s cold eyes fixed on me.
    “Perhaps we need to take the tracker with us,” Hank said, reaching for my arm. I took a step back into a tree, trying to escape his grasp.
    “Think it’s a bit late for that,” Jake said to him, his voice taking on an edge. “We’ll have a look around in the morning.”
    Hank scowled at him but dropped his hand. “You really think you’re in charge of this, don’t you?”
    He shrugged. “I don’t, but I do know better than you. Technically Merv’s in charge cuz Merv has the money.”
    “Too bad Merv is in there dying,” Hank said without a hint of remorse.
    Jake took in one last puff before he flicked the cigar at the ground between Hank and I. “Tomorrow will figure itself out. Merv may have lost his finger but he hasn’t lost his life. If he seems worse by morning, we’ll get someone to take him down to River Bend.”
    “Well it ain’t going to be me,” Isaac snapped at him. “This is my uncle out there.”
    “So you keep saying,” Jake said, stroking at his rough beard. “I reckon you must be the most loyal nephew on earth to keep going after him so…passionately.”
    The two of them stared at each other in a silent showdown, Jake not breaking his gaze for a second. Finally Isaac muttered, “Get out of my way,” and tried to push past Jake before he realized that Jake was solid and immovable as a tree. He ended up going around him.
    Hank stared at me with his leering eyes and licked his cracked lips before he followed after him. I shivered with revulsion.
    “Best get you inside too,” Jake said as he eyed me. Little did he know I wasn’t shivering because I was cold.
    Once we were back inside the cabin, I saw that Merv was propped up in his bed and still unconscious. His hand was fully-wrapped in muslin with only a small amount of blood soaking through, and his body was piled high with blankets.
    Donna was washing her hands in a bowl of hot water beside Avery who smiled at me with relief.
    “How is he?” I asked.
    “I managed to stop most of the bleeding,” she said, her voice shaking. She pushed her blonde curls out of her eyes with her forearm, her hands still soapy. “The challenge is keeping the wound clean. We’ll need to keep changing the bandages.”
    “Will we have to take him back to River Bend?” Jake asked, appearing beside me, still in those long johns.
    She kept her God-fearing eyes averted and looked down at Meeks’ body instead. “Not if we keep him here for the next day or two. He shouldn’t be on the move, either back to River Bend or continuing north.”
    “Ah, what the hell does she know?” Hank’s voice came from the other side of the cabin.
    Donna’s cheeks burned with anger. “I know enough,” she said, lowering her voice. She looked at Jake, keeping her eyes above his neck. “He’ll be too weak to ride. For goodness sake, I feel too weak to ride. That was a horrible thing that just happened. Wicked and evil, like Satan crawled right here in this cabin with us.”
    Jake exhaled loudly. “Don’t you think it makes sense then that we move on?”
    “We could split up,” Tim mused from the corner of the cabin where he was sitting on a stool, appearing deep in thought. “Some of us can stay here, some of us can keep going.”
    “Splitting up didn’t exactly worked for the Donner party, did it?” Jake pointed out.
    I looked at Avery in fear, not wanting us to separate. He came over to me and put his hand on my shoulder, his head lowered toward mine. “Don’t worry, Eve, whatever we end up doing, I’m not leaving you. Not until I teach you how to fire a gun, anyway.”
    Jake snorted loudly.
    Avery lifted his head and gave him a dirty look. “Do you think