CHAPTER 36

 

Final testimony of Virginia Reed, April 1865

 

It has been nearly twenty years since those terrible events.

I shall be forever grateful that the tragedy was named after the Donner family and that our family’s reputation, which suffered enough, was not forever tarnished by the title the Reed Party.

Abraham Lincoln has been assassinated. It is this that impels me to once again put pen to paper. Honest Abe, they called him. I met him once, and in his honor, I have told the true story of the Donner Party.

That people should confess to killing and eating their fellows is terrible enough. Most of the other survivors cannot admit the whole truth about what happened, or they deny it, or have, over time, forgotten the true nature of the horror.

I believe my father, James Reed, remembered everything about those creatures of darkness, but he was a practical, rational man who would never admit to seeing demons, except to me.

When the fateful decision to take the Hastings Cutoff was made, it was Father who spoke most strongly in favor the new route. It was a mistake on his part, but an honest one. We were lied to, manipulated to our awful fate by Lansford Hastings, and later by the famous mountain man Jim Bridger. They were wolves in men’s clothing.

Listen to one last testimony.

One day, in that terrible winter, I ventured out of the cabin, hoping to find the carcass of a horse or ox exposed by the wind and the shifting of the snow. Instead, I found five men crouched over the body of another.

I say men, but they were more like animals than men. They stood upright, but were covered with hair, and their arms and legs were unnaturally long. They were bent over the body, and I realized to my horror that they were eating the corpse.

Hiding behind a tree, I continue to observe them, for I wished to bear witness to this atrocity. When the body was completely consumed, those five creatures transformed before me, turning back into men. They were naked, but they quickly covered themselves, talking and laughing as if nothing unusual had transpired.

I was not surprised to discover that three of the men were Keseberg, Spitzer, and Reinhardt, but then the two others turned around, and the sight staggered me.

I saw the man we had met so long ago in Missouri––Lansford Hastings, who had coaxed us to follow the trail that led us into these mountains. And I saw Jim Bridger, who had reassured us that the path was safe. Their faces were red with blood. I sensed that they knew I was watching, but didn’t care. Indeed, it seemed to me that they wished for me to witness their depravity.

It wasn’t human depravity I witnessed: I am certain of that. People would laugh if I told them this, but these were unnatural creatures, not men.

At first, after our rescue, some of us survivors tried to explain what had happened, but the only thing that made sense to anyone else was cannibalism. I believe now that we humans did not consume our fellows––I myself ate shoestrings and ox hide, insects and tree bark, but never tasted the flesh of another human being––it’s just that everyone has been led to believe we did, because no one is willing to believe the truth.

After so many years, that is what I have convinced myself of, at least.

Nonetheless, the history books shall forever damn us.

As I have recounted, my father eventually reached us, and after some further hardship, we made it to California at last. My entire family survived. During our journey out of the mountains, I made sure that we stayed far away from Keseberg and the others.

No one but me ever knew that Hastings and Bridger had been at that camp.

I spent the rest of my life tracking them all down. It was obvious that each of them met an unnatural end, but I made sure to cover my tracks. I killed them with bullets and blades, and made sure they saw my face before they died.

I saved Keseberg for last.

After we returned to civilization, he was nearly tried for murder, but no witnesses could be found. If all of us had coordinated our stories, something might have come of it, but we could not––or rather, would not. He continued to vehemently deny the charges, and eventually the reporters left him alone.

Years later, I tracked him to a small cabin in the woods. He was hiding in the farthest wilderness of Alaska. It was isolated; there was no one around to stop me, no one to act as witness. Boldly, I walked up to the front door and knocked.

The door opened, and there was Keseberg. His long red hair was streaked with white, and he had even more scars on his face than I remembered. He had a crutch under one arm. “Come in, Virginia,” he said. “I’ve been expecting you.”

He stepped aside to let me pass, remarking, “You’ve turned into a beautiful woman.”

I ignored the compliment. “You are alone?”

“Of course. I have been alone for years. None of my kind wants to run with an old, lame wolf. Besides, the others blame me for what happened. As many of us died as you humans, you know. Turns out we were as trapped as you were. Ah, that was a winter like no other! We couldn’t find prey anymore than your hunters could.”

“You ate us.”

He snorted. “You weren’t worth much. One of you barely made a meal.”

“That didn’t stop you.”

He shrugged. “Of course not. I might remind you, it didn’t stop you humans either.”

This conversation wasn’t turning out the way I had planned. The others had tried to fight, or to run. Keseberg was doing neither.

The cabin had a peculiar odor. I made my way into the simple kitchen, keeping my revolver pointed at Keseberg the whole time. There was a rotten haunch of lamb in the sink, reeking of decay.

I looked around the place. It was clear that Keseberg rarely left the cabin, and that nothing was ever cleaned. It reminded me of the cabins at Truckee Lake.

I turned, startled, as Keseberg entered the kitchen behind me. He could barely walk, and I saw that the arm that wasn’t grasping the crutch was hanging uselessly.

“I relive those times every day of my life,” he said. “I think the Almighty has singled out me, among all the creatures He created on this Earth, to see how much hardship, suffering, and misery a being can bear.”

He hobbled to the kitchen table and stared at me. “Go ahead. I’ve wanted this for a long time. Kill me.”

We stood there for a moment, Keseberg and I, regarding one another across the table. Then I lowered the revolver and did something I had never once, in all my years of planning and searching, dreamed I might do.

I walked away, leaving him a tormented, living monument to those days at Truckee Lake.

His screams rang in my ears as I went out the door. “Kill me! Have mercy! Don’t leave me like this! Kill me!”

 

#

 

For all I know, he’s there still.