The Devil's Breed

The front left wheel went gngn-ick! gngn-ick! every turn on its axis but there was no time to stop and grease it so they all just tried to shut the noise off and focussed their tired eyes on the road ahead and above.

Between the setting of the sun and the snow starting to come down in flakes as big as a baby's thumb, there was precious little of the road to see. It snaked upward, this they knew, but which way and how it was a surprise always left for the last possible moment.

Gabby was in front of the team of oxen, lantern in one hand, heavy furs making her look like the cub of a bear, shouting and pointing and trying to help her father who was grunting at the beasts and pulling the reins and whipping and sweating even in the damnable cold cause he knew even one yard in the wrong direction was going to send them back down to the bottom of the valley. All dead and in pieces and ready for God's Judgement.

Not that it mattered any in which state the body was once dead. Wolves were gonna eat them anyway, anyhow, and them bastards cared not for any which way dinner was served. They'd been howling all day long, until one didn't know anymore if it was them or the wind making all the ruckus of sinners' souls burning in hell on a slow fire.

Thought of fire made him longing for some warmth. There wasn't to have any. If it was of any consolation, he guessed them settlers in the wagon were just as cold, and the same could sure be said for the wolves. He kicked and Hickory sidestepped, heaving and pulling taut the rope that from the animal's neck went to the back of the wagon, steering its back left and right. Wheels skedaddled away from the edge of the track and for a moment longer they were alive. Hickory was almost frothing at the mouth he was so dead tired, and them howling sons of bitches in the woods made him mighty nervous, to the point he had bound a scarf across his ears hoping to muffle the sound some. It was no easy travel staying on top of a contrary beast in merciful conditions, and tonight it was none the merciful at all.

Wind was sweeping down the mountainside like an invisible avalanche of cold and screeches.

Snow came horizontally, like bullets of ice, or in swirls liable to grab you and blind you and unhorse you.

Cold couldn't care less for the clothes you were wearing. He was lucky he had this fur coat he had traded off a drunken Injun at Fort Missoula in exchange for half a bottle of rye and spit. Still, even his bones shivered.

Day might as well be dead, clouds hanging so low and dark no part of a red sunset could be seen. The world had gone black and white like one of them photographs in a fancy book. White was losing fast though. Black was like a miner's big hand closing around the face of an urchin.

'Hey! Hey! Hey!' he shouted with a bellow almost ripped his lungs in twain. Head popped out of the opening in the canvas. All of the settlers' family had carrot hair and freckles so much of them from afar they looked like they had no white skin on their cheeks. Boy's name was Rip and he had this mischievous expression on his face like every moment he could prank you. He could tell by the glint in his eyes that for the rascal this was an exciting night of adventure and danger.

'Tell your Pa we need to find a place to stop mighty quick! This ain't no track to navigate at night in the middle of a blizzard!'

Head disappeared back in. He hoped they were gonna find some place flat and protected by trees any time soon. He also hoped the old man was going to let him sleep inside the wagon, but Will had no liking for him, and was powerfully protective of his two girls and his wife. Wife was shaped like a barrel of gunpowder, and he wasn't going anywhere close to her anytime soon. The girls though. He could see the old man's point. He had seen men getting into fistfights or gunned down for women less easy on the eyes than Gabby or Helen. Gabby had been on his mind a lot, since he had seen him bathing in the river further down the valley five days before, and they had kissed and the girl had not ran away from his nakedness.