“I am sorry,” Nate said.
“I think that’s when I knew it had me too.”
Erleen interrupted. “What had you? Make sense, will you?”
“Hush, dear,” Peter said. “Let Mr. King handle this.”
“But—”
“Hush.”
Nate was staring at Philberta’s eyes, at her dilated pupils. “You told us that when you first settled here, everything was fine for a while. There were a lot of elk and deer for the supper pot. But the game grew scarce and there wasn’t as much to eat. Isn’t that what you said?” For a few moments he thought she wouldn’t answer.
“Yes.”
“But that’s not the truth, is it?”
Erleen interrupted again. “Are you saying she lied to us? Why on earth would she do that?”
“Consarn it all, Erleen.”
“Be quiet, Peter. I am so confused I could scream. What is Mr. King implying?”
Nate didn’t take his eyes from Philberta, and her needles. The tips were spattered with dots no one else had noticed. Red dots. “I’m saying the game in this valley wasn’t wiped out by hunting.”
“Then how?”
“They killed everything they could catch, didn’t they?” Nate said to Philberta. “And they are still at it.”
“Everything, yes. Rabbits and squirrels and snakes and birds. Deer and elk. Small or big, it makes no difference. They can’t help themselves.”
“Do you know why?’
“He thought he knew but he was wrong.”
“When your family settled here, you ate whatever you thought was safe. Just like you did back in Pennsylvania.”
“Sully watched the animals. He always watched the animals. He saw the squirrels eat pine cones so we ate some. I never liked them. They were too hard. We had to break them open, and there wasn’t much to them when we did.”
“What else?”
“Birds’ eggs.”
“What else? There has to have been more.”
“There were mushrooms.”
“I thought so.”
“Sully picked several kinds. One was white and tasted like chicken. I liked that one a lot. Another looked like a prune or a fig. Eating it made me hot and prickly.”
“Surely my brother knew that some mushrooms are poisonous?” Peter said, aghast.
“Give him more credit,” Philberta said. “None of us died. Not from the mushrooms, or from the thorn apples. Everyone says they are bad, but Sully saw birds picking at them and brought some for me to cook. I chopped them up and mixed them with the mushrooms.”
“Both at the same time?” Nate was appalled. It was worse than he thought. Far worse. And it explained everything.
“What’s wrong?” Erleen asked. “Why do you look as if she just kicked you?”
“Some mushrooms make us sick but don’t kill us. Some do strange things to our minds. They put our heads in a whirl, as the Shoshones like to say.” Nate paused. “In other words, they drive us mad.”
“Oh, no!”
“Then there are the thorn apples. Maybe you’ve heard of them under another name. Jimsonweed. It can be used as a poultice for sore joints. But only in moderation. If taken internally, it twists our minds and our bodies. Our temperature climbs to over a hundred. We become irrational.” Nate looked up. “There is an old saying about jimsonweed.”
“Hot as a fire and mad as a wet hen,” Aunt Aggie said.
“That’s the one.”
Erleen shook her head in bewilderment. “So what you are saying is that the whole family ate the mushrooms and the thorn apples and went stark, raving mad? That it drove them to kill every living thing in the valley?”
“Ask your sister-in-law.”
Philberta was knitting once again, the click-click-click of her needles a counterpoint to the silence that had fallen. All of them were staring at her in mixed horror and sympathy.
“Does this mean Sully is still alive?” Peter asked. “That he is out there somewhere prowling around like some wild beast?”
“Sully is dead,” Nate said. “I saw his body with my own eyes.”
“Then who has been doing all the killing?Sully’s boys? Norton, Liford and Blayne?”
“They have done a lot.” Nate watched the knitting needles. “But I doubt they have done all of it.”
“Who else?” Aunt Aggie said.
“Whoever killed Sully poked out his eyes. That Blackfoot had an eye missing too, remember? Not clawed out or dug out. There weren’t any scratch marks. The eyes were poked out,” Nate stressed. He was tempting death, but it had to be done. He had to know—they all had to know—beyond any shred of doubt. “It would take something long and thin to do that.” He pointed at the knitting needles. “It would take them.”
Philberta shrieked and came out of the rocking chair in a lightning-quick lunge. Even though Nate was expecting it, even though he was balanced on the balls of his feet, he nearly lost one of his own eyes. A needle lanced out, but she wasn’t quite fast enough. He felt stinging pain as the tip dug into his temple. She speared at his other eye and he threw himself backward.
Snarling and snapping her teeth, Philberta swung at the others. Aunt Aggie grabbed Tyne and skipped out of reach. Anora, seeking to do the same, tripped and fell. Peter sprang to help her. Erleen was rooted in shock, her mouth agape. Philberta stabbed her in the neck.
“Erleen!” Peter cried.
Wheeling, Philberta bounded for the front door. Nate grabbed at her but missed. Unlimbering a flint-lock, he thumbed back the hammer.
“Aunt Philberta!” Tyne wailed.
Nate didn’t shoot. He had her dead to rights. All he had to do was stroke the trigger, and he didn’t.
The next instant Philberta threw the bar down and flung the door wide. She glanced back, her face a contorted mask of insanity, an unholy glow in her demented eyes. “Hickory, dickory, dock, the mouse ran up the clock!” she screeched, and was gone.
Nate mentally cursed himself for a fool.
Erleen had a hand to her neck. She tottered as blood seeped between her fingers. “Peter?” she bleated in fright as her knees started to buckle.
Nate went to catch her, but Peter got there in time. He gently carried her to the blankets and carefully laid her down. Aggie and the girls clustered around them.
Not Nate. He ran to the front door in time to catch sight of Philberta as she vanished into the undergrowth. A high, keening laugh wafted on the wind, the sound of lunacy run rampant.
Nate almost went after her. But the family needed him. And he wasn’t sure but that Philberta would lead him into a trap. Her insane sons were out there, and if they could catch him as they had caught Ryker—Nate closed and barred the door.
Tyne and Anora were crying. Aunt Aggie was trying to comfort them. Peter was bent over Erleen, his handkerchief to her neck.
“How bad is she?” Nate asked.
“The needle missed her jugular. She’ll live, but she needs bandaging.” Peter looked over his shoulder. “Do you think my sons are—” He stopped, unable to say it.
Nate could give them false hope, but what purpose would it serve? “They would have shown up by now if they were alive.”
“We must hunt Philberta and her boys down and put an end to this,” Peter declared.
Gesturing at Erleen and the girls, Nate said, “Now would be a bad time to leave them alone.”
“What do we do, then? Stay in here and wait for my sister-in-law and my nephews to come to us?”
“Stop thinking of Philberta and her boys as people. They aren’t quite human anymore.”
“God help us,” Aunt Aggie breathed. “Isn’t there something we can do to bring them to their senses?”
“Not that I know of,” Nate said.
“I refuse to give up hope.” Agatha said. “Some shred of humanity must remain.”
As if to prove her wrong, from the woods outside rose savage howls and snarls.