The Darkness You Fear

by Duncan McGeary

  The camp smelled of decayed flesh, and parts of animals big and small were strewn about the clearing. There was no campfire. The werewolves didn’t need fire for warmth or protection.

  Virginia should have been cold, and she should have been night blind, just as she should have been frightened. But she was none of these things. When she finally started a fire, it was not for warmth or vision, but as a weapon.

  The branch she was holding in the fire flared. She threw it into the middle of the drunken trio. They rose up, snarling, unable to see her through the fire’s sudden glare. She was among them before they knew it.

  She fired her pistol, and it blew the largest creature’s jaw off. He was twice as tall as her, and his long arms swiped out at her, his claws barely missing her. She dropped the expended weapon and charged him. She drove her bowie knife into his chest and shoved it upward into his heart.

  He fell before the others could even react. Virginia’s knife was wrenched out of her hands, stuck between two of his ribs.

  Claws dug into her back, and she cried out despite herself. The cry seemed to give the creatures courage, for they howled in triumph and closed in on her.

  She lunged through the gap between them, an opening so small that any other human would have missed it or been too slow to make it through before it closed. Then she was behind one of the monsters. She jumped onto his shoulders, put an arm across his throat, and began to squeeze.

  The creature’s thrashing kept his fellow werewolf from approaching. He heaved and twisted, but she held on and squeezed ever tighter until he stood unmoving, gurgling, and then toppled over. His head struck a rock and cracked open.

  Virginia leaped off the body and whirled around just as the remaining monster rammed into her, his fangs cutting into her arm and shoulder. He was trying to get his jaws down on her, to inject her with his unnatural blood, to turn her into one of them.

  She reached out for the still-burning branch and shoved it into the creature’s huge red eyes, and he howled. As he exposed his neck, she grabbed the same rock that had cracked the other werewolf’s skull and slammed it into the monster’s throat. His throat crushed, the monster rolled away, turning human, his hands grasping at his neck as if to open a passage for air.

  “You!” he gasped.

  She recognized him: Peter Graves, who had been a young boy when the Donner Party was trapped. He’d not been a werewolf then, but had been turned in the meantime. No matter. He had slaughtered the Whitman missionaries and was as guilty as any.

  Virginia stood over him until his thrashing slowed and his eyes dimmed.

  After a time, she realized she was still holding the rock, which she looked at curiously, coming back to herself. She was suddenly immensely tired.

  She was Virginia Reed Whitford again, not the Canowiki, and she could barely stand. She stumbled over to the first werewolf and grabbed the handle of her bowie knife. With both booted feet pressed against the creature’s unmoving chest, she finally pulled the knife out.

  She reached for her pistol and almost fell over.

  Her horse was used to the smell of blood by now. He let her approach without shying away. She managed to get into the saddle. She rode back down into the valley. In the distance, she could see the lights of the mission.

  Should I tell them? she wondered as she dismounted. She made a hasty camp and lay down to rest for the night. It would be another half a day’s travel to the mission, and she wanted to go home.

  She fell asleep still pondering the question.

  Chapter Two

  Portland, Oregon Territory, July 1851

  Dearest Frank,

  By the time you read this, I will be home, at your side. These thoughts and feelings will be a part of the past by then, but I want you to understand what is happening at this very moment.

  You will discover that I was wounded while I was on this journey. I will try to hide it from you, but you’ve always been good at seeing through me. My only justification is that I have an obligation, as the Canowiki, to fight these creatures. It is not only revenge that motivates me. I must defend humanity from the monsters of the world or I am derelict in my duties.

  I will not lie to you again. I thought perhaps I could keep these incidents to myself, but it is becoming harder and harder to hide my actions. I have no choice but to continue, wherever and whenever my road leads me, unless and until another Canowiki comes to take my place—and I fear that will only happen when I have been defeated. I should never have brought you into this, but I was weak.

  Pray forgive me, dear husband.

  Love,

  Virginia

  After finishing her letter to Frank, Virginia wrote a quick note to her parents in San Francisco to inform them that though she would be passing through the city on her way to Sacramento. She would not have time to visit them and that she would see them at Christmas.

  Virginia sent the letters off with the steamship company; the same company on whose ship she was about to embark. The letters would probably sit in purser’s office for days, if not weeks, if experience was any guide.

  I am a coward, she thought. She should tell Frank about her adventures to his face, but she preferred to put it in writing, hoping, perhaps, he would read the letter before she returned. Hoping, perhaps, the letter would be lost. Hoping, perhaps, that by the time he read it, things would have changed.

  She didn’t deserve him. He was decent and forbearing, tolerant of her eccentricities. She tried to fit in with the other ranch wives, and sometimes she even succeeded in forgetting, for just one meal or for just one dance, who and what she was. Then the festivities would recede before her eyes, and she would see among the celebrants the husband who was planning to beat his wife that night for flirting, the wife who was stealing kisses with the foreman, the rancher who was stealing his neighbor’s cattle and rebranding them.

  None of it was her business, but she couldn’t help but see it.

  Her friend Feather had given her a name. The Indians called the possessor of these abilities a Canowiki.

  Virginia had known she was different from the moment her family was caught in the snows of the Sierra Nevada with the Donner Party. She had protected her family and her friends from those who preyed on them. The Reed family had survived, and they had not resorted to “extreme measures.” But Virginia never felt normal again after that ordeal. She was no longer just an ordinary young woman, no matter how she tried to be a dutiful wife and good neighbor.

  She checked out of the hotel, the proprietor raising his eyebrows at her formal dress and stylish hat. She had arrived late the previous night, dusty from the trail, having sold her horse to the local stable for half of what it was worth. In the dim light of the front office, the clerk had called her “mister.” She had laughed, taking off her hat and shaking loose her blonde hair. Instead of being embarrassed by his mistake, the clerk had frowned at her brazen behavior.

  Now, as she walked through the streets, her saddlebags traded for a proper carpetbag, she sensed men watching her. There were few other women on the street, and men accompanied those few. She hadn’t gone very far before she received her first offer to carry her bag. She smiled brightly and turned down the help. The bag was too heavy for most men to carry, filled with gold as well as her guns and ammunition.

  Portland was a vibrant town; the bounty of the sea and of the wilderness lined its docks and streets. Virginia could hear shouts from the fish market, whose tables were overflowing with salmon. Raw lumber was piled in every vacant lot, and next to almost every vacant lot, a structure was under construction. The stumps of the trees from which the lumber had been harvested still lined the streets. Before she had left Illinois, she had heard this place was called Stumptown. Few people wanted to live here then, preferring the more civilized Oregon City.

  Virginia looked at the forested hills, at the Willamette River, and thought that Portland would soon overtake Oregon City.

  As she neared the steamship’s gangpla
nk, a dockworker all but wrenched the carpetbag from her hands, thinking to help her across the divide. The bag slammed to the ground with a clank, and the man backed away, wide-eyed.

  “Thank you, sir,” Virginia said, picking up her bag. “But I wish to carry my own things.”

  The man opened his mouth to say something, then looked around at the other dockworkers. “Sorry, miss,” he muttered. “It slipped out of my hands.”

  She smiled brightly and walked up the plank and onto the deck. She stowed the carpetbag in her room, then went back up on deck to watch the ship’s departure. It was starting to drizzle even though the skies were blue. Virginia had heard grumbling about the clouds and rain in Portland, but to her, it was a refreshing change.

  As she watched the town recede into the mist, she felt a sudden longing to live there. How many times during that terrible winter in the snows had she wished they had stayed on the path to Oregon instead of taking the disastrous detours, the “shortcuts” that Lansford Hastings and Jim Bridger had promised, that had led them to the slaughter in the Sierra Nevada?

  But if they had gone to Oregon, she never would have met Frank Whitcomb. She closed her eyes and imagined him standing next to her.

  Virginia spent almost no time in her cabin that first night, instead wrapping a blanket around herself and sitting on one of the deck chairs. By the second night, men were once again approaching her, but now she was Mrs. Frank Whitcomb. She was wearing her large gold wedding ring, and she politely declined their company.

  They arrived in San Francisco late on the third day.

  To Virginia’s surprise and delight, her parents were waiting for her on the dock.

  “How did you know I was coming?” she exclaimed.

  “Your letter arrived this morning,” her father said smugly. “There is a new mail ship that is faster than any ship before. We weren’t going to let you pass through San Francisco without seeing us.”

  “Of course I’m happy to see you,” she said, feeling guilty. “It’s just that I’ve neglected Frank for so long…I’m sure you understand. And I knew we would be seeing each other soon.”

  Her mother was staring at her dolefully. Virginia didn’t know what to say, so she clasped her mother in an embrace. Margret Reed stiffened for a moment, then melted into her daughter’s arms. Unlike Virginia’s father, her mother had seen Virginia using her abilities, and though she had never said anything, she had been slightly uncomfortable around her daughter ever since then.

  James Reed understood only that Virginia had shown remarkable courage and resilience in the face of adversity. Or so he pretended. But she’d seem him staring at her speculatively more than once. He too had seen the monsters. He must have suspected that for Virginia to have fought them off, it had taken more than mere courage.

  Virginia stayed the night with her parents. James Reed had done well for himself. They lived in one of the new homes constructed on the hills above the wharf. He insisted on paying for the stagecoach and saw her off early the next morning.

  He hugged her and whispered in her ear, “Be careful, daughter. You are not invincible.”

  “Hardly,” she whispered back. “But I do what I must.”

  He held her at arm’s length and stared into her eyes, and he must have seen the resoluteness there, for he shook his head ruefully. “I don’t know why I worry about you. You’re more capable than any of us, including me.”

  “Oh, Father, you’re being silly.”

  He laughed. “Perhaps.”

  The stagecoach didn’t stop when evening fell, and Virginia fell asleep to the back-and-forth swaying, waking only when she heard the drivers’ shouts. They arrived at the station just as the sun was rising.

  She wasn’t surprised to find Frank waiting for her. Things were changing fast on the western edge of America. Gold was bringing money and people and industry, and transportation and communications were improving with every day. Soon the West would be settled, at least the parts on and closest to the coast. Soon the West would be indistinguishable from the East.

  Virginia looked forward to that day, for she sensed that when the wilderness was gone, the creatures who infested the wilds would be gone as well.

  She smiled at Frank, who looked away, frowning.

  Oh, dear, she thought. I never should have written that letter.

  Frank wasn’t his usual easygoing self on the way back to the ranch. Even though they were sitting right next to each other on the buckboard, he didn’t say anything beyond vague pleasantries until they reached home. But the second the door closed behind them, he confronted her.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” he shouted. “You could have disappeared; you could’ve died. I would never have known what happened to you!”

  Virginia stood near the door, frozen. She remained silent.

  “What must you think of me?” Frank demanded. “That I can’t help you? Have you no respect for me at all?”

  She let him shout himself out. He could never stay angry for long. It simply wasn’t his nature. He stomped about the room, and then, in the middle of his tirade, stopped abruptly and sat down on the divan, putting his head down into his hands. Virginia sat next to him, pulled one of his hands away, took hold of his chin, and turned his head toward her. He wouldn’t look her in the eye at first. When he finally did, what she saw in his face wasn’t anger, but fear.

  Few men wanted to believe their women were emotionally stronger than them, though many might know it in their hearts. Fewer still wanted to believe the fairer sex to be mentally stronger than them, though a few of the smarter men might suspect it. But no man wanted to believe his wife to be physically stronger than him, to be better in a fight, to be the protector, not the one who needed protecting.

  Virginia admired Frank for understanding that she was all these things and accepting it. But she didn’t like to rub his nose in it.

  “It is something I must do,” she said softly. “You know this.”

  He nodded. He was staring at the opposite wall, but his eyes were unfocused, as if he was far away.

  “I thought I could accept it,” he said. “But I feel so useless…”

  “Frank,” she said. “Without you, I can’t do any of it. You are my strength. I am merely the tool that God is using.”

  He took both of her hands in his. “Never again, you hear? Don’t you dare leave without me. Wherever you go, I go with you.”

  “Who will take care of the ranch, Frank?” she said.

  “You have gold,” he said. “Don’t deny it. I’ve seen it. We can hire caretakers.”

  Beneath the back shed, Virginia had buried enough gold to last them a lifetime, and she knew where to go to get enough to last a hundred lifetimes. After confronting the Ts’emekwes, she had returned to their cave. The giant creatures whom she had once feared she would have to fight to the death were gone. She hoped they had taken her advice and moved far away from civilization. She’d heard few reports of the Skoocooms since, and the giant ape-like creatures were quickly passing into legend. Perhaps, in time, they would be forgotten. She hoped so.

  The cave was buried under a landslide, but because Virginia knew where to look, it hadn’t taken much digging for her to uncover the cavern with its walls of solid gold. She didn’t tell Frank, who was working hard—but happily—to keep the ranch.

  “You don’t love this land for the money it brings, Frank,” she said. “You love it because it is your home; it is in your blood. It was the land your father cleared, that your mother and brothers lived on. I would never take you away from this.”

  He didn’t answer, because he knew she was right. “We can hire a foreman, a crew,” he insisted. “I don’t have to be here every moment. I love the land, but I love you more.”

  “Perhaps we could do that,” she said. But you would never be happy.

  She stood up. “We can talk about it tomorrow. I need to sleep, dear husband. I’ve missed you. I want to hold you.”

  Virginia chan
ged into the heavy flannel nightgown that she saved for the coldest nights. When the lights were out, Frank put his hand on her stomach questioningly. She raised the gown, and they made love, slowly at first, but then feverishly, and she felt the wounds in her back opening from the friction.

  In the middle of the night, Virginia awoke, feeling moistness beneath her. She waited for hours for Frank to awaken. She pretended to be asleep when he finally got out of bed, and then waited until she heard the door slam before getting out of bed herself. The back of her gown and the bedding were drenched in blood. She took off the nightgown and quickly gathered up the bedding, took them into the laundry room, and hid them. She had told Frank in her letter that she was wounded, but telling and seeing were two different things.

  She cleaned herself up as best she could. She was already healing. She was the Canowiki.

  Frank would want to make love to her again that night, but she would coax him to being gentler, and the threat would pass.

  He must never believe I am truly in danger, she thought.

  Virginia was cooking eggs and bacon when Frank returned from milking the cows. He was his usual cheerful self. Neither mentioned the drama of the previous day.

  “By the way,” he said after breakfast, “there’s a letter for you in the study. It’s from Oregon City.”

  “Oregon City? Who’s it from?”

  “Someone named Mary. I couldn’t make out the last name.”

  Mary? Virginia wondered. The name sounded vaguely familiar. She closed her eyes and tried to remember where she had heard it before. Mary…of the green eyes and freckles?

  “Could it be Mary Perkins?” she asked as he began to hand the letter to her.

  He squinted at the return address. “I think that might be it. Who’s Mary Perkins?”

  She sat down at the table and Frank sat across from her, as if sensing there was a story in the offing.

  “I don’t know if I’ve told you this,” she said. “My father took me on a trip to Independence in the spring of 1845.”