McKenzie stood slowly, the cold settling into his bones. The silence around the fire was deep and strangled. Eyes glittered in the gloom—his men, stunned into stillness by the finality of Antoine’s passing. Beyond them, the forest pressed close, a black wall bristling with unknowable presence. Every shadow seemed to twitch with malicious intent. Somewhere in the near distance, a branch snapped. The men stiffened, hands falling to rifle stocks and knife hilts with the practiced ease born of months in hostile country.
He forced himself to turn from Antoine’s still form. There would be time for mourning later—if any such time existed in this forbidding place. Right now, fear was harder to suppress than grief. The men looked to him, their eyes reflecting the flicker of flames and the deeper, wordless question: what now?
"Jacques, Jean-Luc," McKenzie called, his voice steady despite the ache behind his breastbone. "Cover him. We’ll see to him at first light."
The two men knelt beside Antoine and began the grim task of pulling a worn blanket over the body. The others drifted closer to the fire, as if its scant warmth could shield them from the valley’s silent threat. Pierre muttered a prayer, his words half-French, half-Latin, his lips trembling. No one mocked him.
The valley air pressed in, thick with the memory of death and the bristle of eyes unseen. The Shoshone Bannock—they had not shown themselves, but McKenzie sensed their presence in every prickle at the nape of his neck. The trappers’ camp was a wound in the wildness, and the land’s immune response was swift and unforgiving.
He strode to the fire, letting the familiar tang of woodsmoke fill his lungs. The river whispered behind them, its surface black as pitch. He could not look at it now. Antoine had drunk from it, as they all had. Was it truly the river that had carried in the sickness? Or was it something else—something older than water, nourished by trespass and fear?
The men huddled in, waiting for his word. McKenzie felt the moment hang, brittle as ice. He had to act before panic overtook them. But what could he command? To bury Antoine would send a message of ritual and respect, but it also meant disturbing the ground—sacred to the people whose land this was. To burn the body was a mark of desperation, a rite usually reserved for those who bore the taint of plague.
A sudden whistle—a signal, meant for ears that knew its meaning—split the stillness from the direction of the forest. Every head snapped up. Across the fire, Jean-Luc’s face was bloodless with terror.
Another sound followed, softer, from the riverbank: the unmistakable crunch of footsteps. Not animal. Not one of their own.
McKenzie tightened his grip on his rifle. His men fanned out, half-crouched, every muscle taut. The trees beyond the fire’s reach were impossibly dark. Whoever approached did so with intention, unafraid of being heard.
A low voice drifted from the blackness. The words—alien, musical—were Shoshone. The speaker was close. Closer than he had any right to be.
McKenzie swallowed. The valley’s judgment had arrived.