Young Writers Society

Three

The wind has picked up, and the further up the mountain the men reach, the more resistance greets their increasingly cold faces. Miller is the one leading them now. Captain Henreid has instructed him to lead them to the small outpost he constructed along with Worhelm on their run with Monroe. It takes them almost two hours to trek up there. The men are tired, Pierce is injured, as is Wilts and Gilliam, though none of them dangerously so. Nevertheless it takes time for them to reach the outpost.

When they do arrive, the sun tells it’s close to noon, and the men grow disheartened when they lay eyes upon the crudely erected structure. It is not very impressive. After some rest, Henreid has the men resume the construction of a now larger cabin, one to shelter them all. They only have their hatchets, though some of the men dropped it back at the fort, and they have the two heavier axes that Worhelm and Miller left behind the day before yesterday.Pierce and Wilts are ordered to stay put and not strain themselves, and they act as lookouts for potential attackers. Gilliam received several hard knocks in a bout down at the fort, and he is put down next to the base of the cabin, close to the lit fire Holloway has assembled. Gilliam is one of several men who suffer the worst cases of undernourishment, and he is plagued with scurvy.

Over the course of the day, the men take turns constructing the cabin, sharing the one hammer they have and being sparse with nails. In the end, it doesn’t look like a good, sturdy piece of carpentry, and it won’t keep that much of the cold out, but it’ll be shelter. For the men, that was enough for now. Like before, the scenery around them turns still, and besides themselves, they see no other sign of life. That night the men huddle together for warmth around the fire they had moved inside the cabin, its smoke escaping through a gap in the ceiling.

Another night like this was unacceptable. They would all succumb to hypothermia by the morning. As such, the following day Boyd and Holloway volunteer to trek back down the mountain and scout the fort. The rest of the men stay in the cabin for most of the day, trying to conjure life into their frozen limbs, fearing them dead. Captain Henreid and Miller go out in search of any sign of Monroe. Miller returns soon after, and Henreid after several hours. Wiggins and Aramayo take turns as lookouts.

Towards nightfall both Holloway and Boyd return. Despite following what they thought was the same path they took during their trek up the mountainside, they still got lost. Yet, they found and inspected the fort and its surrounding areas and found nothing. No Apaches, no signs of life. As if they just went away after the men sought out refuge in the mountain. Even more noteworthy, is the fact that they found no bodies. Captain Henreid makes the assumption that the Apache brings along their fallen brethren after battle, and that is why they are gone. Not an unlikely scenario. Despite this, he struggles to find a reason for why the bodies of Hawthorne, Worhelm and Branson were apparently nowhere to be found either. Boyd explains that they have no desire to return there, whether the Apaches are there or nearby or not. He struggles to explain and the rest of the night he remains in thoughtful silence except when prompted.

Holloway has salvaged and brought along, with Boyd’s help naturally, a lot more tools, as much pelt as they could haul up on the stretcher they have made earlier for Branson, more pouches of gunpowder, a couple of rifles, a crude bow, and what food supplies they could find. Dried jerky and the depraved remains of deer that should probably not be consumed. And that is all.

Wiggins and Miller prepare a hot stew of the meat, cutting up some of the dried jerky into small pieces to give it some additional flavor to cover up the depravity. They all eat it in silence. With an additional fire inside the cabin, and a bigger fire pit constructed right outside the doorpost, the men again huddle together for warmth that night. The hot meal, additional heat of the fires and most of all the pelts the two men brought along help them survive the night. Nobody is awake to keep a lookout. The next morning everyone is still alive and breathing and fatigue forced everyone into a submission of sleep. Over the following days the cabin is reinforced and expanded upon. The outpost grows, taking on life. Miller and Holloway go out hunting, and Miller is thankful the conditions that were the norm before, still applies. Scarcely minutes go by before they stumble upon wildlife. Holloway has greater abilities with the rifle, and they are able to bring back two deer on average on a hunt, sometimes a buck. More provisions are sorely needed to feed all the men.

Days stretch into weeks, and Captain Henreid sends his men on scouting patrols daily. Several times they trek down to the fort, always somehow getting lost on the way, despite the fact that they should know the route well by now. Every time the men get an eerie feeling of being there, and they soon return up the mountainside. Gilliam dies a slow death. When they can no longer take his moans of anguish, Wilts puts a knife in his throat, ending his agony. Pierce has increasing bouts of uncontrollable dread. Dread that stretches far beyond the threat of the apaches, and end with the rising distrust in his companions. Captain Henreid loses the faith of the men, and it doesn’t take long before his place of command has been lost, and he’s just another man. Holloway and Boyd are more forward. They disappear for hours on end during their hunts. Pierce fears they might one day not return. Aramayo doesn’t talk.

A month has passed since they abandoned the fort. It is early February. There are disagreements in the outpost: Wiggins, Pierce, Aramayo and Miller thinks the weather will allow for safe passage out of the pass at the foot of the mountain, and that they can prepare for a journey across the plains where they will eventually find the great river. Wilts, Boyd and Holloway do not believe this. They want to wait for early spring. Henreid in unsure.

It leads to a violent confrontation. Boyd threatens to kill Wiggins if he tries to undermine him, and Holloway gives Aramayo a beating. In the ensuing chaos Henreid pulls a rifle on Holloway and to his own surprise actually squeezes the trigger. It has no gunpowder and only produces a click. The action nevertheless triggers an enraged response from Holloway, and both Wilts and Pierce has to pull him back before he beats Henreid to death. Wilts, Pierce and Miller manages to cool the situation, and as night falls on the outpost the men all go to sleep in the cabin, though there is a notable divide between them.

Three days later Pierce, Wiggins and Aramayo leaves the encampment in the middle of the night. Only Miller is aware. He has agreed to stay behind for now.

After they leave, the weather takes a turn for the worse. Boyd is awoken to what almost amounts to a blizzard. He debates going out after them, but believes he will perish in the tough conditions himself. The howling wind gives life to the great emptiness around the cabin, and it takes a while before the man falls back into sleep.

Four

The trio of men takes the north route, instead of going down the mountainside and past the slopes, where the fort lies. This takes them a ways further up the mountain, but eventually they will have a clear cut path out of the pass and down the northern mountainside. They have brought along what pelts they had and both Aramayo and Pierce have fashioned warm pouches that contain boiled water out of water skins that Miller has sewn for them. Their packs carry what sparse supplies they could bring, among them one of the axes, flint, and one pot, while Pierce and Wiggins carry their rifles slung over their shoulders. They have two gunpowder pouches each.

Night turns into day, and the day turns into night again. The men are forced to take shelter in a cave they stumble upon. A general confusion has lain down upon the men; they should have breached the pass by now and their descent down the mountainside should have been underway. Yet the pass keeps growing wider, and at times it contracts into narrower and narrower paths, taking the men into valleys before they again enter what looks to be the pass again.

Supplies have diminished into nothing, and neither Pierce nor Wiggins are able to hunt anything. Aramayo has been hit with fatigue, and he can barely support himself. A thick mist has covered the snowy landscape, and Wiggins is unable to keep sight on where the mountain peak is. They nevertheless keep walking for the remaining hours of daylight left. Towards nightfall on the second day they can see light in the distance, guiding them through the fog. When they have trudged closer to it through the now heavy snow, they realize they have somehow returned to the cabin. The light is from the large pit fire outside. Wiggins remarks how this is impossible. They have marched in the direction of true north for a day and a half, and during the last hours of this second day, they have done the impossible feat of getting turned around enough and somehow stumbled upon the cabin they left behind. Pierce has reached a breaking point; he does not want to return there, but he’s dying from the cold, and Aramayo is unable to walk for himself. They have no other options.

Approaching the cabin, they see it has grown substantially, more so than one would think possible in the amount of time that has passed. Someone has erected a pole in the middle of the outpost, a skinned and twigged piece of wood buried into the ground. A figure is sitting slumped against it, covered in snow. Wiggins walks up to it and brushes away a layer of white. It is Captain Henreid. His throat has been cut; the oozing blood frozen to his coat. A shudder ripples through the two men. Aramayo appears unconscious.

Another building has been built at the edge of the outpost. It is bigger than the cabin, and further beyond that, among the trees, there’s a third structure, a smaller one. Wiggins carefully checks them both out while Pierce sets Aramayo down by the cabin; the insides of which looks empty.

The third building is a storehouse. Wiggins can smell it before he can see properly. Creeping back to the bigger structure, he listens intently to life on the inside, but he can hear nothing. He signals for Pierce to approach him, and he gestures with his rifle. Pierce leaves Aramayo behind and creeps towards Wiggins. Both outside the door, they check their rifles and prepare to enter the lodge. Inside, they find the four remaining men asleep on cots. Miller and Wilts awakes at the intrusion and alerts Holloway and Boyd. A confrontation follows, but it goes about peacefully and without violence. The three of them were presumed dead. Two weeks have gone by. Yet the trio had only counted the sun set twice. Confusion settles deeper, paranoia and hysteria creep upon the men. In the end they decide to sleep; the trio of men need warmth and Aramayo desperately so. He is brought into the lodge and put down by the fire. Neither of them speaks of Henreid, and when the sun announces the break of morning outside, the weather is clear.

Aramayo is burning up. Extreme fever has settled in him, and the men know he will not live. Holloway volunteers to end it, and the others leave him to it, walking instead over to the smaller cabin where they talk. Miller later stands in the doorway when he catches sight of Holloway returning from the direction of the storehouse. Just as no questions were asked concerning Henreid, no questions are uttered now. Yet Miller has repugnant thoughts over what Holloway did to Aramayo’s remains.

Boyd and Holloway later attempt to reach the fort again, following the slopes downwards. They want to scout it out once more, before they begin a trek past it and over the plains to the great river. Weather permitting; the cold season is on the verge of ending. Yet hours go by, and when they should without doubt have reached it, they are still descending the slopes. In fact it is not even in sight. Boyd makes the decision to turn back, and Holloway sullenly accepts. Another hour passes, and despite keeping their eyes up they suddenly catch sight of the fort above them, and the slopes have grown wider than their usual narrowness. Holloway refuses to believe they have simply passed it on their way down, but cannot wrap his head around what has happened. Boyd leads them up into the fort, going through the broken down main gate and into the courtyard of it. To their horror, bodies lay strewn about the place, Apaches with bullet wounds protruding from their abdomens, and their fellow comrades lying dead in their own pool of blood, axes and arrows weighing them down. Both of the men are horrified, scared and shake as they search the area, keeping a watchful eye and keen ears on anything of alarm. The blood is fresh, and as Holloway kneels down to inspect the body of an Indian he’s very sure he shot over a month ago, he catches sight of a rifle lying on the frozen ground; it’s Wilts’ rifle, and a thin spiral of smoke still emits from its chamber. He’s picked it up, but he drops it to the ground when he notices.

Inside one of the barracks, Boyd approaches the bed where Branson lies. He’s still alive, yet not conscious. Boyd then breaks down into barely audible cries interspersed with maniacal laughter; tears are streaming down his cheeks.

Outside Holloway has run away, down the slopes again, heading for the plains that brought them to this god-forsaken mountain in the first place.

It is nightfall when Boyd eventually emerges from the barracks. He has not laid a hand on Branson, who still lays unconscious inside. After taking a deep breath of the midnight air and pulling his coat protectively around himself, he walks over to the body of Worhelm and picks up the rifle the dead man carried. He proceeds to re-powder it and then shoulders it, where it joins the one he brought with him from the outpost. Then, as the wind is picking up, he starts making his way up the slopes again.

Six

Making good time, despite his initial urge to not return to the outpost, Pierce is able to follow the bloody footprints before they are covered up by the falling snow. Though the blood soon dissipates from within the prints, the prints themselves remain, and he follows them without pause, sometimes not even looking up to see where they lead him.

The weather has picked up over the course of the night, and a full blown blizzard is making its presence known. Pierce’s eyesight is failing him and the footprints are getting covered up with fresh snow and it’s getting harder and harder to track them. As if his life depends on it he begins to run, feverishly scanning for tracks in the snow. Then he stops. The wind sprays flakes on his face, and he squints as he turns around and around in circles, looking desperately around his surroundings. Just a moment earlier he could have sworn he heard the distinct voice of Lieutenant Monroe pleading for assistance. For now it is gone. He prefers it being the wind playing tricks on him. As he sprints into a run again though, he can again hear it, this time Monroe is screaming unintelligible words and grunts into what feels like a direct route to Pierce’s ears. He decides not relent his sprint, however; Monroe is dead. He’s already dropped the sack of canteens.

Immediately after this, he emerges from the woods and the first thing he sees is the base of an unfinished cabin. Though he knows within, he’s still not fully aware that he’s somehow dashed through the forest after the footprints and now somehow emerged back to where he started off from. Though, the outpost is not as it was. It looked exactly like it did that night when Miller led them up from the fort to the small outpost they’d established during their hunt with Lieutenant Monroe. Confused and bewildered, Pierce walks the entire length of the tree-line towards the spot he’d found Miller shot dead. To his surprise, Miller’s body is still lying there where he left it. He kneels down and puts a hand on his neck, feeling the cold skin bite against his hand.

Then, as he’s about to roll him over on his stomach, a loud rolling bang erupts behind him, followed by an agonizing scream. He instantly throws himself around, landing on his side, and he tries to take cover behind the snowbanks. From where he lies he can see Wiggins has been shot dead by Boyd, who is pacing back and forth before the large lodge they’d built. The smaller cabin has replaced the unfinished structure that were there moments before, and further down the tree-line the storehouse stands once again. Trying to control his almost hyperventilated breathing, Pierce forces his eyes shut and crouches his body down further behind the snowbank.

Then Boyd, who is now terrifyingly close to Pierce, suddenly shouts Holloway’s name into the onslaught of wind rushing past him. Then he’s off running, away from the outpost, possibly chasing something he has seen.

Pierce doesn’t let go of the opportunity and quickly gets to his feet and rushes back into the forest behind him, though not before hastily flipping Miller over on his stomach and retrieving the knife he has sheathed in a scabbard; it’s covered in what is presumably Wilts’ blood, and its bone handle slips straight into Pierce’s hand and is pulled free as he takes off running. The wind does not let up for the next two days.

Down at the foot of the mountain, the Apache returns to the place where the fort should be erected into the mountain pass like a flag, yet it is not there. Women and children are with them as well. There is no wind, no blizzard, and in the sky there are birds soaring. Slowly but surely the Apache men and woman approach the entrance to the pass, where they lay down offerings of animals, beautiful crowns of flower petals, and trinkets. None go any further.

Then they leave.