Confusion swept through us. We were all out of our sleeping bags. Boyo barked madly in all directions as if birds threatened him from above. Nat’aaggi drew her bow, then knelt & wept. Tillman called for his mother. I heard Pruitt scream from far away.
I do not know how I was so fortunate as to find Pruitt without being lost myself. I stumbled through the dark & gray landscape, followed the sound of his cries. The voices moved, circled me & turned me around, until I could not recall which way I had come. I could not find Pruitt or our camp or anyone else. I thought I heard Boyo whining nearby, then came a muffled yelp, as if the dog had been kicked hard in the side.
I walked on blindly. I called for Pruitt. Without warning I was at the edge of a sheer precipice. I could see nothing beyond my feet but blackness. Far below there was the sound of water flowing over rocks.
At this moment there was a hand at the back of my neck. There was no movement or breath behind me. Only a heavy, cold weight that seemed to reach through my skin & flesh & bone, until long cold fingers tightened like a cinch around my windpipe.
What disturbs me most is my impulse. I stepped forward. Rock crumbled from beneath me, fell silently into the black. I would follow it.
Never before had I considered such an act. Yet it was a thirst; I longed for death as one might long for water. To be swallowed by dark & cold & ice & rock. I strained against it, as one pulls against heavy sleep. I reached for my holster.
I was rescued by a sound. It was not Pruitt’s voice, that much I am certain. Nor was it the shriek of those banshees.
It was the cry of an infant. It came out of the fog: the bleating, pleading, cadenced wail of a newborn. Conjured by my own brain, I was sure, to remind me of Sophie & our child & all that draws me home.
The cold fingers at my throat withdrew. I turned to face my enemy, but there were only clouds coursing by.
It was if I had nearly drowned in icy water, my body ached so, my head numb. I walked as if half-dead back towards camp. Not far from the gorge, I came to Pruitt where he scrambled up the rocks. I shouted to him, but he did not see or hear me.
It was a terrifying & sorrowful madness that clutched him. At the highest point that he could reach upon the rocks, he stood with his arms outspread, his face turned up to the dark sky.
?—?Take me now! You coward. What is this? My God the Father will not have me, you who have made me all that I am.
He clapped his palms hard against the sides of his head, against his chest. —?Here & here & here, he shouted?—?You have made this! You are the devil, if you would make such a man as this.
He folded to the ground like a man who has taken ill. When at last I made my way across the rocks to where he huddled & moaned, I touched his shoulder. He faced me, then, with such wildness in his eyes.
?—?Did you hear it? he asked. —?The baby crying in the fog? It’s my doing. A suffering ghost.
He reached for my pistol, but I overpowered him.
?—?Shoot me. I am begging you, Colonel. He has forsaken me. You must do it for me.
It took all my might to subdue him & bring him back to the others. All the way, his speech was muddled & incoherent.
Upon our return, Tillman shouted for us to identify ourselves or he would shoot. He could see our faces, hear our voices, yet I was hard pressed to convince him. At long last, he pointed his rifle away from us, began firing in all directions. The end of his barrel flared brightly in the dark fog, the shots echoed along the rock faces. I ordered for him to stop.
?—?You’re right, you’re right, he said. —?No bullet is going to stop what’s out there.
We spent the rest of the storm huddled together, our backs to the rocks. Throughout the night, the torment continued, so that we heard screams & cries & arrows flying past, all seemingly within a stone’s throw of us. More than once the ground shook beneath us as if giants thundered past. Pruitt sobbed. Nat’aaggi sat with her knees pulled up in front of her, her knife in hand. Boyo crouched in front of her, a low growl in his throat, ears twitching in all directions. I kept my rifle at the ready, though I knew it could do no good.
At some dark hour, snow began to fall.
How can I describe the eerie silence that greeted us this morning? The storm faded, the visions fled, just as daylight broke through the dissipating clouds. We stood, shook the snow from our clothing. As far as we could see in any direction, the landscape was covered in a thin layer of white. Not a single track or footprint in the snow. Not a whisper of sound. Where just moments before we could hear a riot of suffering & struggle, now there was nothing.
We gathered what we could find of our possessions, sought a more sheltered camp to rest, for we are all of us too fatigued to travel far. Not far away, we passed by the gorge where I had nearly fallen during the night. Tillman whistled in appreciation.
?—?Jesus, Colonel. That would have been a long tumble.
Straight down, perhaps half a mile, a small creek trickled through the jagged rocks.