Captain Mark Halloway's Arc

Chapter 2 of 4

Halloway rode out at dawn. He had sent one man north with a week of food and a blanket. Now he knew the boy would freeze before he froze right. Halloway had no gear for the deep cold or the broken ground along the river. He needed better. He needed men who had crossed that country and lived. So he turned his horse toward the Blackfeet camp. The teepees stood in a cluster near the trees, snow banked along their seams. A warrior worked a horse at the edge of the camp. He was tall and heavy through the shoulders, his black hair in two braids. He did not stop brushing the animal when Halloway reined in. Running Wolf. Halloway had traded with him twice. Both times the man had watched him like a slow storm. "Your soldier walked north," Running Wolf said. He did not look up. "Another one." "Two," Halloway said. "I need to follow. I came for gear. Snowshoes. Furs. A guide if you'll sell one." Running Wolf set the brush down. He led Halloway inside, where a fire burned low and old men sat along the hide wall. One of them began to speak. Running Wolf translated in a flat voice. "He says the thing in the north is not new. It ate men here fifty winters ago." Running Wolf paused. "A man who starves in the cold and eats the dead becomes it. The hunger never leaves him. He stops aging. He wears a soldier's coat, old, from a war before your war. He looks young. He looks human. He is not." Halloway kept his face still. Folklore. He had written that word in his report. But Daniel was gone, and now Tim walked the same trail. "I don't need the story," Halloway said. "I need to reach my man." Running Wolf stared at him a long moment. Then he nodded. He gathered a bundle: wide snowshoes, a heavy fur, strips of dried meat. He pushed them into Halloway's arms. "No charge," Running Wolf said. "You will pay in the north." Halloway strapped the gear to his saddle. "Guide me." "No." Running Wolf's jaw tightened. "My people do not walk toward it. We lost brothers to it. I will not lose more." He stepped close. "Your man who went three days ago is dead. The one you sent yesterday still walks. Ride hard and you may reach him before dark." Halloway mounted. The furs weighed warm against his legs. He had what he came for. He had no guide, and he carried a story he did not believe pressing against one fear he could not name. Running Wolf caught the bridle. "Soldier. The old uniform. If you see a young man in it, smiling, cold and alone out there—do not share your fire with him." Halloway turned the horse north. Behind him, the camp went quiet. Ahead, the river bent into the pines, and the mountain rose white and silent above the trees.