Dead of Winter Read online

  The Rileys went down the hall to the apothecary room, leaving Willow alone at the table. She heard a cough coming from the dark bedroom where Zoé slept. The door stood partially ajar. I should probably go in there and check on her again. Maybe feed her another spoonful of castor oil. But Willow didn’t budge from her seat. The girl’s strange, white-membraned eyes gave her gooseflesh.

  Willow dealt herself a hand of Solitaire. Her fingers trembled.

  There was another reason she was feeling a bit unsettled today. Inspector Hatcher, the man who had sparked life back into her heart, had left this morning on another dangerous mission. She prayed that Tom and the other men returned safely.

  A strange groan sent a chill up Willow’s spine. She turned toward the bedroom, listening. There it was again, a raspy moan from the darkness beyond the doorway. Zoé must have woken up. The door slowly swung open, the hinges creaking. Had the girl gotten out of bed? Impossible. She was tied down. The candlelight in the main room illuminated the foot of the bed. It was too dark to see if Zoé was still in it.

  Willow grabbed a candle and approached the open door to the bedroom, trying to make out the lump buried beneath the covers. “Zoé, everything all right?”

  The girl growled like some kind of animal. In the murky room, her shadow moved on all fours. Willow reeled. The shape of the girl’s head looked all wrong, twisted at an impossible angle. Zoé hissed. A draft blew out the candle in Willow’s hand. Pitch darkness blinded her. Before she reached the door, it slammed shut. “Hey!” Willow twisted the knob, but it wouldn’t open.

  “What’s the matter?” Myrna Riley asked from the end of the hall. Her candle parted the darkness, illuminated the closed door to Zoé’s room.

  “That little hellion’s holding the knob.” Willow put her weight into it, but the door felt like it was nailed shut.

  “Here, lass, step aside.” Myrna pounded. “Child, open the door now, you hear?”

  There was a sound of nails scraping down the door. The two women yelped.

  Behind the door echoed more growls, as if a feral dog were on the other side. Feet scampered across the wood floor.

  Inside the bedroom, glass shattered. The door opened on its own, swinging inward. A cold draft blew Willow’s hair. She and Myrna rushed into the room. The bed was empty, the frayed ropes lying loose across the blanket.

  Willow ran to the broken window. Outside, bloody footprints trailed off across the snowfield behind Hospital House.

  48

  The forest behind Kunetay’s hut was thick with brambles. The hunting party of soldiers spread out through the pines. Every man was quiet except for the sounds of his boots crunching the snow and branches scraping against coats and rifles. Tom, hell-bent on getting the first shot at the cannibal, led the manhunt.

  From behind, Anika called, “Tom, slow down. You’re going to get yourself killed.”

  “We can’t let him get away.” Tom charged forward at an unrelenting pace. He stepped over pools of blood and splintered bones. With each tree he rounded, he anticipated a crazed Indian leaping out.

  The blood trail led into a clearing surrounded by tall spruce. Scattered about were carcasses of dogs and humans who had been torn apart, gnawed upon, and then discarded.

  The soldiers gathered, speechless.

  Among the red footprints were dozens of larger tracks, like the ones they’d found near Sakari Kennicot’s body two days ago.

  Anika crouched beside the bear-sized tracks.

  “Are these from Silvertip?” Tom asked.

  “Maji-manidoog.” Chief Mokomaan said, shaking his head. “Wiitigo.”

  Lt. Hysmith and his soldiers all glanced at one another suspiciously.

  The chief continued speaking in his native tongue, pointing toward the woods surrounding the clearing.

  Tom looked at Anika. “What’s he saying?”

  She stood, dusting snow off her hands. “The wiitigo is an evil spirit that roams the woods in winter. It comes from the islands of Makade Lake and feeds on every animal and man in its path.”

  “Rubbish,” Tom said. “It was Kunetay who murdered all those people last night. I saw what he did to his own family. He turned cannibal.”

  Chief Mokomaan spouted off words in an angry tone, his fierce gaze now fixed on Tom.

  Anika interpreted, “He says it was the wiitigo that turned Kunetay cannibal. He was feeding the others.”

  “What others?” Tom asked.

  She gestured to the many footprints in the snow. “There are more wiitigos out there hunting in a pack.” Anika put a hand on Tom’s shoulder. “We must go, before they return to feed again.”

  49

  Fort Pendleton

  Avery Pendleton trudged across the snowfield, following the small bloody footprints. Damn that heathen child. He glanced over his shoulder at Willow and Doc. “What the hell was Zoé thinking?”

  “I don’t know.” Willow sloughed through the snow, holding up the hem of her dress. “She just turned wild and escaped out the window.”

  “She may have dementia.” Doc coughed into his handkerchief.

  “You shouldn’t be out here,” Willow said. “Let Avery and I find her.”

  Doc carried his medical kit. “The girl needs immediate attention. With her running barefoot in this mess, I might have to amputate a few toes.”

  “That girl is nothing but trouble,” Avery said. “We never should have allowed her into the fort.”

  His wife scoffed. “That’s Pierre’s daughter you’re talking about. You would have just left her in the woods to die?”

  “She was already deathly ill,” Avery said. “If she had died out there, it would have been the priest’s fault for sending her. Now she’s become my responsibility. If she dies while in our possession…”

  “We’ll find her,” Willow said.

  The trail showed disturbing signs that the girl had fallen a couple times in the knee-deep snow. Red patches and streaks indicated that her hands were equally as shredded as her feet. The failure of Pendleton’s company suddenly flashed before his eyes. The Montréal partners were going to have his neck in a noose if this incident led to any kind of feud among the wintering partners.

  Avery followed the continuation of bloody footprints, wondering if the frozen corpse he was sure to find at the end of this trail would also mean the downfall of Pendleton Fur Trading Company. Master Lamothe had the power to bring down this company if he felt Avery was at fault for his daughter’s death.

  A gunshot blasted, echoing across the fort.

  Avery hurried between two cabins. Twenty yards away, the animal caretaker, Farlan McDuff, was gripping a shotgun outside the barn.

  Avery screamed, “Goddamnit, McDuff! What are you shooting for?”

  “I saw some animal attacking me goats.” The Scotsman pointed to the thatch-roofed pen next to the barn. The mewling goats were bumping against one another.

  “You fool, that was a child, not an animal.” Avery grabbed McDuff’s shotgun.

  “It didn’t look like no…”

  The herd cleared to reveal a slain baby goat, its throat ripped out. Next to it was a severed human foot. The girl’s blood trail ended at the barn’s open double doors. From inside came the sound of a child wailing.

  “God damn it, McDuff!” Avery tossed the shotgun. He looked across the fort to see if anyone had come running in response to the gunshot. No one did. Fortunately today all the soldiers were out in the woods. The watchtowers were empty.

  Doc examined the severed foot. “We need to do something.” The physician started for the barn, but Avery grabbed his arm. “Not yet, Doc.”

  “But Zoé could be bleeding to death.”

  “Well it’s her damned fault for leaving the hospital,” Avery said.

  Inside the barn, the girl’s wailing changed to a sputtering, croaking sound and then went silent.

  “Dear God, she’s dead,” Willow cried. “You fools killed her!”

  Avery put his
hands on his wife’s shoulders. “Woman, calm yourself! I’ll handle this matter.” The chief factor paced. He saw himself sitting before his board members, trying to explain how he could have let such an atrocious incident happen under his command. His partners could never know this happened. After a moment of thinking, a solution began to form. Avery rubbed his palms together. “Doc, McDuff, listen up.”

  The doctor and stubble-faced caretaker gathered with the fort chief and his wife. Avery pointed down at the severed foot. “This never happened. If we find her dead, we must dispose of her before anyone knows how she died.”

  Willow said, “You can’t be serious.”

  “I’m dead serious. If word of this gets back to my partners, you and I could lose everything.” She glared at him with hateful eyes, but he knew how much she loved her fancy dresses and furs and servants and all the accoutrements that went along with being his wife. She would keep quiet. Avery could see the other two men were thinking it over. “Doc, the girl was your responsibility. Do you want her death tainting your record?”

  The old man shook his head.

  “And McDuff, you stupid fool. You blew off a little girl’s foot. I’m willing to overlook this, if you’ll keep hush about it.”

  McDuff nodded. “Whatever you say, Master Pendleton.”

  “Good. Then we’ll go in there together. Retrieve her body. McDuff, you take her outside the fort and bury her in the woods.”

  “Ground’s too frozen.”

  “Then take her far off and leave her for the wolves.”

  “Avery, how can you be so heartless?” said Willow. “Maybe there’s hope. She still could be alive.”

  “Doubtful,” Doc said. “She’s lost too much blood.”

  “But what if she is?”

  Avery glared at his wife, wishing she were anywhere else. The woman was too damned emotional. He thought of asking McDuff to go in there and finish off the heathen in case she was still hanging on to a thread of life.

  “If she’s still alive, then there’s a chance I can stop the bleeding,” Doc Riley said. “I could do surgery on her leg to make it look like I amputated the foot due to frostbite, which she is certain to have by now. Then the blame falls back on the priest for sending her out into the storm.”

  Avery liked the plan. “Do you have a tranquilizer in that kit of yours?”

  The old man pulled out a syringe. “This will put her out till Christmas.”

  “Good, then let’s go in assuming she’s still alive. Willow, stay outside and let us know if anyone is coming.” Avery grabbed a lantern that hung near the door and lit it.

  “McDuff, when we find the girl, you wrap her up in one of those horse blankets while Doc sticks her.” Raising the lantern, Avery stepped through the entrance, his boots padding across dry earth and hay. The musty barn had no windows. Gray light filtered in through cracks and holes in the timber walls. The space beyond the haystacks was as pitch dark as a coal mine. The dirt floor was littered with bloody feathers. The sight of this brought a moan from Farlan McDuff. “Ah, me chickens.”

  Crimson puddles led to a large chicken coop at the far corner.

  “Zoé?” Avery eased toward the open wire-mesh door. A shadow shape moved on all fours, retreating away from the light.

  “Oh shite, she’s still alive,” said the doctor.

  “Be careful, sir,” McDuff said, holding up the horse blanket.

  “Doc, ready with your needle?”

  “Ready.”

  “I’ll flush her out.” Avery peered into the coop, his lantern lighting up a dozen mutilated chickens. Zoé was crouched in the back corner. Her face and chest were covered with blood and feathers. Strings of entrails dangled from her mouth. The girl looked so thin and frail. Avery opened the door farther. “Come on out, Zoé.”

  The girl craned her head, drawing back her lips like a dog, exposing gray gums and gnarled teeth. Growling, she scampered across the dirt floor.

  Avery kicked the door closed and dropped down the latch just as the girl rammed against the cage.

  Bony fingers, pale as alabaster, clawed through the wire mesh.

  50

  At half past midnight, Farlan McDuff climbed out of bed cursing the moon. He could hear his goats outside at the barn, bleating and running back and forth, their hooves pounding the frozen ground.

  “Ah hell,” McDuff pulled on his clothes and fur parka, grabbed his double-barrel shotgun, and stepped out the back door.

  The two-story barn’s silhouette stood roughly fifty paces behind McDuff’s cabin. The dark shapes of the herd were running around inside their pen. “Something’s definitely got ’em spooked.”

  The livestock caretaker knew his twenty goats like they were his own kin. He could tell all of them apart and had given each a name.

  As McDuff made the cold hike toward the barn, he searched around for the mongrel causing the disturbance. He hoped it was just a dog. Anika Moonblood, who lived in a cabin across the cemetery from McDuff, had a wolf-dog named Makade. It was a real nuisance, always sniffing around the barn and unsettling the goats and chickens. He’d like to kill the bastard, but the last thing McDuff wanted to do was start a feud with an Indian witch.

  Earlier today he had thought he was shooting at the wolf-dog, when instead he had shot the girl. What a mess that was. He had aimed at the ground behind her and didn’t mean to hit her. But the damage was done, her foot blown off at the ankle. McDuff felt sore about the whole experience, but a bit relieved, too, once he saw that she had caught some form of rabies. She had killed his youngest goat, Little Micmac, which broke McDuff’s heart.

  The thought that Zoé was still locked up inside the chicken coop didn’t make him sleep any easier. McDuff didn’t know why the fort chief wanted to keep her alive. She had clearly changed into something that was no longer a little girl. Then a thought struck McDuff. What if Zoé broke out of her cage? Impossible. He had built that cage strong enough to hold wild hogs.

  He reached the pen. The goats were gathered in the far corner, climbing on top of one another as if trying to escape over the fence. Everything was moving shadows against a white ground. It was darker than usual tonight. The moonlight shining through the clouds offered just enough illumination to see a couple mounds that McDuff knew by the knot in his gut were dead goats.

  “Ah, ballocks.” He grabbed the lantern he kept hanging at the barn’s entrance and lit it. He stepped into the pen and held the light over the two mounds. Sure enough, some predator had gotten into the pen and torn two of the goats to pieces. “What a bloody mess. Zoé!”

  McDuff searched around to see if that damn girl might have broken out after all. The last time he saw Zoé, she seemed to have grown, her spine and limbs long and bony. She had paced her cage on all fours, hobbling like a wounded jackal. Had she grown strong enough to bust loose?

  “Child, are you out there?” A disturbing mewl from the darkness made McDuff’s scrotum tighten. He approached the frightened herd. “Easy there, I’m here now.” He could hear teeth crunching. He held up the lantern. The goats split off into two herds running along the fence in opposite directions. Only one remained—the billy goat named Haggis. He had a large head with thick, curled horns. Haggis’ snout was dripping with red muck. The ram’s teeth moved side to side as he chomped on raw meat. On the ground was another dead goat.

  Haggis looked up at McDuff. The caretaker gasped. The horned goat’s eyes had turned solid white. The fur on its face and body hung in patches like it had some form of mange. The billy goat ambled toward him, bleating and shaking its head.

  McDuff backed toward the center of the pen. “No, Haggis.” He set the lantern down and aimed the shotgun, his arms shaking. As McDuff was about to pull the trigger, something bumped his legs from behind. He fell hard on his rump. The shotgun flew out of his hands. McDuff searched around, confused. At the edge of the lantern glow stood the other goats, surrounding him in a perfect circle.

  Every goat had poached-white
eyes. They mewled together.

  McDuff crawled for the shotgun.

  The curled-horned goat roared. The herd charged toward the old man in the center of the circle. As Haggis bit into his throat, McDuff feared he was going straight to hell, because his last image was the goat-eyed face of the devil.

  51

  The next morning, the soldiers found Farlan McDuff’s bones in a red pile, his hair-covered skull sitting atop the stack. The goats were gathered in the far corner of the pen, pale white eyes watching Tom, Lt. Hysmith, and the other soldiers. The herd appeared to have the same disease as Zoé. Several mounds of fur and gore lay strewn about the pen, victims of the hungry herd. The lead billy goat, with its red-stained face and curvy horns, charged the fence. Tom and his gunmen fired shots into the pen, ripping the ram to pieces. They turned their rifle barrels toward the herd and dropped every last goat.

  The soldiers made a bonfire and burned the infected bodies. Under Master Pendleton’s orders, they threw McDuff’s bones onto the flaming heap for safe measure. The stench of cooking meat and burning fur made Tom’s eyes water. Some of the dead goats spasmed, their legs kicking and heads jerking as the fire consumed their bodies.

  The soldiers looked in shock at the loss of the animal caretaker. Tom had only known Farlan McDuff a couple weeks. Chris had taken a shine to the old Scotsman and helped him feed the animals in the evenings. McDuff had been one of the few villagers whom Tom had felt comfortable allowing them to spend time with his son. Seeing the man’s bones pop like logs in the fire filled Tom’s stomach with acid. As he and the soldiers silently watched the fire, Willow ran toward them, screaming about Doc Riley.

  52

  Tom and the soldiers marched to Hospital House. All the front windows were broken. Doc Riley was making a hell of a lot of racket inside. The garrison aimed their rifles at the two-story white house.

  Tom shouted, “Doc, why don’t you make this easy and come on out?”

  A shriek sent nervous looks among the soldiers.