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 that’s funny? Eve needs to know how to protect herself.”
His smile twisted. “A woman with a gun is a bad idea, boy. You’d be putting all our lives at risk.”
“Only your life,” I muttered under my breath. From the way his lips twitched further, I knew he had heard me.
He walked over into the center of the room by the roaring fire and addressed everyone. “I know we’re all worried about old Merv here pulling through. I know we’re all worried about finding what we’ve come out here to find. And I know we’re all worried that something or someone has already found us. But there just ain’t no use in worrying tonight. I’ll keep watch until sunup in case the finger-biting bastard comes back. Then we’ll start figuring out what to do.”
With the phrase “finger-biting bastard” rolling around in my head, it was a wonder I got any sleep at all.
Overnight, five inches of snow had fallen and more kept coming by morning, prompting Jake to nail boards to the broken window. Meeks was in a delirious state, more so than I would have thought. In the end, it was only his pinky finger that was missing, not a leg or anything so crucial as that, and yet he kept moaning about being ruined for the rest of his life. After everything, I would have thought he’d be more concerned with how his finger was taken but he wasn’t.
However, he was the only one who seemed unconcerned about that. As much as Isaac had been chomping at the bit to go forth to the next site, this morning he was hell-bent on finding the culprit. By now, theories about what it was were rampant, especially after they heard my testimony of what I saw. For whatever reason, Isaac and Hank seemed to want to track down this monster, even though the two of them seemed to have little regard for how Meeks was doing.
Naturally, I had to come along. I didn’t mind, especially when Tim said he’d stay behind to watch over Donna and Meeks. The rest of us set out on a long expedition, everyone relying on me to lead the way. The smell of rotting meat only got me so far though. Whatever or whoever that was, they were long gone.
When we paused for food—some leftover stew—Avery took the time to try and teach me how to load and shoot a rifle. I couldn’t say it was a success. Loading the gun itself was a long and complicated process, with having to put the right amount of gunpowder down the muzzle, then placing the ball in there and shoving it down as far as it could go, then adding cloth to the end, plus checking something called the firing cap. It was all way over my head, and even though we were doing this far away from the party, Jake would occasionally watch us and yell at Avery that he should be using a flintlock rifle, that his wasn’t a real man’s gun, that he was teaching me all wrong.
The curious thing for me was that Avery was in very close contact with me the whole time, closer than he’d ever been, and extremely attentive. When he first showed me how to hold the rifle, he put his arms around me, embracing my back. He smelled so good, clean and familiar, despite the fact we were camping and surrounded by light snow. And yet…I felt nothing. I’d always imagined Avery and I getting closer in this sort of way, of course on the more romantic side of things, but my heart never skipped a beat; I never felt all shivery and new. I just felt like he was my good friend Avery teaching me how to shoot a gun. It was comfortable. Nothing more and nothing less.
But by the time I was finally ready to fire at a tree for target practice, Jake shouted for us to get going. As if God waved his hand across the sky, it began snowing harder and growing colder, enough so that my bonnet was crusted with ice and my fingers began to go numb. Isaac wanted to go on and keep looking for the monstrosity, but Jake wasn’t having any of it, and even Hank seemed to agree.
The ride back to the cabin seemed longer, perhaps because we were all growing more miserable by the minute. When we finally arrived, Isaac and Hank abandoned their horses, even though they were steaming with sweat, and rushed on inside to get warm. Avery volunteered to rub them down and I followed suit. It wasn’t really volunteering since we were being paid, and I wouldn’t let a horse be put away without taking care of them first. We even took Trouble and told Jake to go inside and relax, though he seemed a bit hesitant about it. Once again, he hated taking orders from someone like me.
While we worked, taking off the saddles and gear, and rubbing them down with rags warmed by the fire until their coats were dry, I felt like I had a million things to ask Avery—we hadn’t really been alone yet this whole time, and the words had been building up inside of me.
I cleared my throat, ready to talk in privacy about how I felt about Isaac, Hank and this “monster,” but for some reason I was bringing up something completely irrelevant.
“Avery,” I started, unable to keep my lips from being still, “are you in love with Rose?”
He froze just as my heart did. He was shocked as I thought he would be, and I prepared myself for the possible answer.
“Eve…” he began, running his hand through his golden hair. “What a thing to ask.”
“I’m your friend and I can ask such things if I want,” I said.
He frowned at me. “You always were bold but you’ve gotten bolder. I’m afraid these cowboys are rubbing off on you.”
I just stared at him, wanting an honest answer so I could be done wondering about it.
He sighed and leaned his head back, the skin on his neck exposed and pale compared to his tanned face. “Am I in love with Rose? I don’t know. I reckon I don’t know what love is. You know it when you feel it, don’t you? Isn’t that what they say?”
I nodded, though now I had my doubts too. I had started to think I was in love with Avery, but now I couldn’t quite be sure. I would do anything for him…he was as beautiful as anything. He was warm. And most of all, he was safe.
Love was safe, wasn’t it?
“I don’t know,” I whispered to him. I’d thought about telling him how I felt, but it always started with his proclamations first, if there were any. “Do you like her? More than…more than you like me?”
A wash of pity came across his blue eyes, as if he just got the clue. “Oh, Eve. You’re my best friend. The way I feel about your cousin…”
“Is different,” I supplied in a dull voice.
“It is different,” he implored. He slapped the rag on Trouble’s hindquarters and came around to see me.
“It’s because I’m not like you,” I said, looking him in the eye. “White.”
“It’s because you’re not Rose,” he said.
I bit my lip as a million reasons flashed through my head. I wasn’t pretty enough, voluptuous enough, pale enough, well-dressed enough, or smart enough. I wasn’t privileged. Avery wanted a lady and I for sure wasn’t one.
I breathed in deeply through my nose, feeling a queer sense of warmth build inside. I loved Avery. I wanted him to be happy. He was a good man, a handsome man, and my best friend. He deserved a lady above all else. I couldn’t be mad at him because I wasn’t what he deserved, what he wanted.