October Skies by Alex Scarrow Read Free Book Online Page A

it’s the one I’m thinkin’ of, I heard the wheel creakin’ yesterday. An’ I damned well warned them about it too.’
    There were several dozen men, women and children around the wagon, which was canted over at an awkward angle, household goods spilled out across the hard-scrabble ground. The team of oxen had been released from their yokes and now grazed, oblivious to events, on tufts of dry prairie grass some yards away.
    Keats dismounted and pushed his way irritably through to the front. He watched as Preston, his sleeves rolled up, helped several other men lift the wagon’s axle onto a block to level the wagon. He waited until the heaving and puffing was done, and the axle firmly secured, before saying his piece.
    ‘Preston!’ he called out and then nodded towards the discarded broken wheel. ‘No way you gonna fix that.’
    Ben dismounted and politely pushed his way through the gathered crowd to join Keats, whilst Broken Wing remained where he was, a respectful distance back. Standing beside Keats, Ben studied the wheel. Five of the spokes had split and the metal rim had buckled and twisted as the wheel frame had collapsed in on itself. Even to his untrained eye, there was nothing at all to salvage from it.
    Preston looked up at Keats, taking his wide-brimmed black felt hat off and wiping the sweat from his face on a shirt sleeve. ‘I believe you’re right, Mr Keats. The wheel is, I’m sure, quite beyond repair.’
    The trail guide pursed his leathery old lips and shrugged. ‘Well, we can’t sit around here all day talkin’ about it. We got eight more miles to make today before we set down to camp.’
    Preston nodded. ‘I understand. But these people, the Zimmermans, need a new wheel making. We have those skills amongst our party.’ Preston pointed to one of the men standing next to him, wearing, like his First Elder and every other man, a white linen shirt, a dark waistcoat and a black felt hat. ‘Mr Larkin is a smith and Mr—’
    ‘The job’s at least two days,’ cut in Keats. ‘We don’t have the time to spend it so carelessly. The whole train should be moving on.’
    Preston’s bushy blond eyebrows knotted above his dark sunken eyes. He gestured towards the family, a couple with a little girl. ‘And leave these people to fend for themselves? Would two days be worth their lives?’ Preston looked at the family. Ben followed his gaze and studied them; both the parents were short and stocky, their child a girl perhaps a year or so younger than Emily Dreyton.
    ‘Because they will die alone out here, Keats . . . these good people . . . this precious child.’
    It was the first time Ben had been up close to Preston and heard him speak. There was a powerful resonance to his voice, and a magnetic charm in his long, gaunt face.
    ‘These people trust me to lead them. I will not abandon them. Not over one broken wheel, which can be replaced with a new one.’
    Against his initial judgement from afar, Ben found himself warming to the Mormon leader.
    Keats snorted with derision. ‘Then you shouldn’t be a goddamned trail captain.’ He pointed out across the grassy plain, towards a small cairn of rocks.
    ‘You see those graves by the side of the trail? Those are left-behinds; unlucky folks who saw the beast and didn’t turn. Maybe their wheel broke too, or their oxen died, or they drank foul water an’ got too sick to travel. Whatever . . . they got left behind ’cause they was slowin’ down their party.’
    Keats addressed Mr Zimmerman. ‘You should head back to Fort Kearny. Leave the wagon, load yer supplies on the oxen and turn back.’
    Mr Zimmerman turned to Preston. ‘William, perhaps he’s right?’
    Preston shook his head firmly. ‘I’ll not leave you behind. No one will be left behind, and that is my final word on this.’
    Keats shook his head with irritation. ‘Then my people ain’t wastin’ a moment longer. We’re too goddamned late in the season to be losin’ time like