Pins (10)

Sierra Nevada US
1849

Emmett woke in the night bursting for a leak. He lifted Abigail's sleeping head, and extracted his arm. The horse stepped restlessly as he slipped out of the tent.

He urinated by a juniper shrub. Beyond the roof of the cornice, snow danced wildly, and the night sky was flushed with fuchsia streaks. A weird oscillation undercut the howling wind, and he turned and took several steps up the escarpment. The dip and the overhang rendered the hollow a shadowy void. The noise clarified into a shrill sibilant sound that wormed into his ear, and was both familiar and doom-laden. 

The horse was pawing the ground. Emmett climbed a few more feet, and through a mesh of snow and scrawny branches he saw the shape of a rider on the mesa. In the frame between the banks preceding the hollow the roseate glow briefly illuminated a white horse, a long duster coat, and a felt crowned hat. A face shrouded in cloth. Emmett turned and lurched back down the incline.

He dived into the tent, tore the backpack open, and removed the Colt. Abigail looked up, bleary-eyed and confused, and he clamped a hand over her mouth. She frowned and flinched, and then her eyes widened in horror. A hypnotic and probing hiss rose above the gale. Abigail moaned beneath his hand, and he heard the horse snort and stamp outside. His body tensed and he scrambled back out. 

A wall of flakes obscured his vision. The horse was brewing, pulling on its ropes, its nostrils flared. Emmett stroked it, scratched it, muttered to it. It swung its snow-laced forelock out of its eyes and stepped quickly. Abigail stuck her head out of the tent and looked at him. 

He tried to think quickly. He did not want to sit and wait for another awful attack. He turned and stared into the darkness below the cornice. There was no clear pathway. Towering cliffs flanked a murky shaft, as if the mass had been hewn in two. The shrubs thinned, and the slope disappeared between feathery drifts into the indiscernible belly of the mountains. He swallowed and ran his hands through the horse's mane.

They packed up hastily and mounted in the shadows of the hollow. Emmett nudged his heels into the reluctant horse's flank and guided it into the void below. Shrieks echoed in the gap. Abigail closed her hands over her ears. Emmett leaned low over her and clutched the reins. The noise faded as they rode into the black depths.  

For a while they passed in absolute darkness, and were required to dismount and lead the horse by a length of rope attached to its hackamore. The walls of the ravine pressed close. Erosion over time had carved misshapen sculptures in the rock, and as their eyes grew accustomed to the stygian dark, it seemed as if immured souls were straining to reach them from their granite tomb.

Eventually, after many hours of slipping and skittering through shadows, they hit the base of the ravine, and the land levelled. The steep banks opened out, and they could hear the sound of water. The horse settled, and they remounted and rode by the bank of a river fringed by dense red firs and black cottonwood. 

Emmett felt his nerves settle, and Abigail dozed before him. Snow came to the depths of the ravine as spare soft down. Morning cast a buttery yellow hue over green banks, bright splashes of magenta fireweed, and scarlet skyrocket. 

At a shallow slope by the water Emmett led the horse down to drink. Between a gap in the trees on the far bank, there was a ledge crowned with shadbush and juneberry, and from its lip a glistening waterfall fell over a succession of steps. The distance between the colossal rock faces to their left and right was substantially greater, as if to make allowance for this hidden fantasia, and they sat and ate biscuits in the first peaceful place they had found since their father had died. The immediate terror of the vision on the mesa left Emmett, but he remained wary, and did not want to linger too long.

After they had eaten they pressed on, sticking close to the trees above the river. As they passed through the ravine Emmett considered their situation, and in his mind he formulated a course of action that involved turning back. He envisioned throwing their pursuers by returning to the valley and the railroad, and from there to Folsom or Roseville. He could locate some of their father's more kindly associates; Crocker, or Stanford. Find a warm house for a while, and proper meals. Make Abigail happy. Keep the pins safe until he could suss them out. Maybe bury them somewhere for a time.

Dusk had fallen, and various narratives were playing out in his head, when he saw the Chumash girl amongst the cottonwood ahead. He started, closed his fingers over the reins, and squeezed backwards. 

The horse stopped, and the girl moved back into the wall of trunks. She lingered, met his eyes, and looked away. Abigail stirred beneath him. The girl clung to the cottonwood. Wind brushed the dangling leaves above. Emmett caught the girl looking behind him, and he glanced backwards, noting a flurry of movement in the trees. He bit the inside of his cheek, and raised his hands.

'Please ma'am,' he said, pushing a smile. 'Please, we don't mean no bother. We've had a hard time and we're right lost and we ain't et proper in a good while, we... '

Emmett heard more movement around him, and Abigail hissed and elbowed him in the stomach. Stories of scalping and mutilation whipped through his mind. Gory images. His nails dug into the reins.

The girl hovered near the trunk. The horse stepped anxiously, and they remained in a silent stand-off for several seconds. Then the girl raised her right arm abruptly, and stepped out of the shadow of the trees. Emmett heard more rustling, and slumped. He felt as if something bad had been averted. 

Moonlight glazed the river to their right. He watched the girl as she approached them. She was wearing a deerskin skirt and moccasins, and he guessed her to be around his age. Her hair was long and dark, and her eyes were large and hazel. He straightened his back, opened his mouth, and felt Abigail's elbow in his ribs again. The horse sniffed and backed up.

'Menyaawap yuxpan,' the girl said. She crossed the distance to them slowly. Emmett could see her peering at him. 

'Maa eyiiw,' she muttered. Emmett's right hand dropped and moved to his belt. There was rustling amongst the tapestry of leaves. He saw more deerskin, and then he saw arrowheads glinting in the vegetation. 

'Please ma'am... ' he said.

'You are sick,' the girl said, stopping several paces from them. Abigail inhaled, turned her head, and looked up at him. Emmett was momentarily thrown. He relaxed his arms.

'No, ma'am,' he said. 'Not sick. Lost. We're lost. And hungry. Our Daddy was kilt, and we've had a heck of a time in these here mountains, and these varmints are on our tail, and... '

'Your eyes,' the girl said, pointing a slender finger towards her own left eye. 'You are sick.'

'I telt him,' Abigail blurted. 'I telt him but he don't listen to me.'

Emmett lifted a hand to his face reflexively, and looked away from the girl. He felt an odd flicker or urge inside of himself, and he saw again an image of the hill by the stream, the grey world, and the white roots. His heart felt heavy. 

'You are also in danger,' the Chumash girl said. Her English was overtly precise and formal, and it was hard to read tone or intent. She walked forward until she was beside the horse, and raised her hand again. Figures moved within the forest. The horse nickered and brayed, and the girl stroked it and offered her hand to Abigail. 

'We have watched. There are nochuza tracking you,' she said. 'You are in great danger. You are in great danger, and you are sick,' she repeated, looking again at Emmett.

Abigail took the girl's proffered hand and eased off the horse. The girl lowered her gently to the ground.

'I telt him,' Abigail said. 'I said that - '

'I ain't sick,' Emmett said, swinging his left leg off the saddle and dismounting. 'I just ain't been eatin' proper and I got in a bit of a dust-up early on and - '

'See he done talked right over me, he don't listen to me,' Abigail shouted. She looked imploringly at the Chumash girl. A wedge of moon was cut from the darkness above the escarpments around them. The waterfall glistened across the river.

'My brothers do not listen to me, either,' the girl nodded. Emmett flapped his hands in frustration. The girl watched him and smiled distantly.

'We should leave this place whilst there are nochuza nearby,' she said, taking Abigail's hand. 'You have not been fully aware of the danger you are in. It is not far to go, but it is well-hidden, as needs must. There you can rest and eat, and my grandmother can see to your health.'

Abigail looked up at Emmett. Her face was streaked with dirt and her eyes were hopeful. She looked tiny at the feet of the enormous cottonwood trunks, hand-in-hand with the Chumash girl. Emmett sighed and nodded. He led the horse by the reins and followed them into the forest. Darkness closed around them once more, and he was aware of other figures moving between the trees.

'What is nochuza?' he heard Abigail say. 'Is that them bandits?'

'I think you would say night birds,' the Chumash girl replied.

The trees seemed to group together as they progressed. Interlocking boughs cut moonlight into patterned shafts, which expired on a forest floor resplendent with bluebells and cinquefoil. Emmett had a feeling akin to the sight of the white obelisks; that of passing into another ancient realm.
 

https://www.abctales.com/story/stephen-thom/pins-11