The mouth of the snowman

Page 12.

The mouth of the snowman was arranged with a frown and in place of Higgins heart was a dried apple with two pieces missing. Lorenzo screams echoed throughout the camp and the surrounding mountains. He again screamed out at the top of his lungs, “ Miller, you scum of the earth, I’ll kill you myself”. Granny and the others rushed outside only to be met by Lorenzo who alerted the men and women to arm themselves and keep the children inside. Granny and Myra stood next to Higgins frozen body as Myra covered her face and wept and while Granny comforted Myra she noticed footprints leading away from the camp and into the mountains. The morning stillness was broken by a sudden blizzard of freezing snow. Granny tried to cover Higgins body with piece of canvas but the chilling winds forced her to stop. Granny called out to Myra and Lorenzo to return back to the shelter but as they neared the doorway the sound of a barking dog was heard coming from a nearby tree line. “It sounds like Posse”, Myra was the first to say, “it can’t be”, replied Lorenzo, “ he could have never survived out in these conditions”. 

Granny remained silent and then spoke, “ it’s a trick”, she said, “ a trick by Miller to lured us out one by one”. Granny grabbed her blunderbuss and pulled the hammer back and stood sentry in front of the doorway and told everyone to be quite. Most of the men remained seated and paralyzed with fear but Lorenzo armed himself with a Arkansas toothpick and a pepper-box pistol no on knew he had. Some of the women pulled out long hatpins from their hair and held them out in front of them. If only these folks had known that those same Indians who laughed at them during the early part of the journey had alerted the towns people back in Kansas that the party was in trouble. Some of those same Indians not only knew Potts Miller but they also knew of his terrible secrets and feared his magic but help was now on the way. In all the confusion something remained unnoticed, it was Doris and she was missing, surely it was Miller who had her. Miller who was hiding in a tree line bit down hard on a partially eaten heart he had carved from the body of Gerald Higgins earlier that morning.

Millers hideous face and lips were smeared grey with brain matter and he laughed out loud while he sat across the back of Doris clutching a hemp rope bridle wrapped tightly around her neck. Holding up in a small outcropping of trees just a short distance from the parties shelter he felt brazen enough to call out to the group. “ I’ll never go hungry”, he screamed, “ just as long as I have you fools for the pickings and especially the young one’s so tender and tasty”. Your all doomed, Miller continued, doomed to warm my belly with your brains and red blood. Lorenzo had heard enough and slipped outside of the shelter in a instant. “I’ve got to get him before he gets us”, he called out, “ and besides, that monsters got Doris”. Lorenzo waded knee deep through the snow toward the tree line challenging Miller to show himself as Granny followed not twenty paces behind him. Miller saw them coming and stuffed the half eaten heart into his bearskin coat. “Well”, hissed Miller, “ the bullfighter comes my way, looks like I could use a new set of ear’s”. Miller snorted like a happy hog in slop freely willing to give up his hidden position in the snow covered trees.