The Second Relief

Based on true events...

I’m chopping frozen meat behind the cookhouse when the shouts start.

Not loud, Not angry, not panicked—just broken, like the sound someone makes when the last thing holding them together gives way. I drop the cleaver and run, apron stiff with yesterday’s blood cracking as I move.

Two men stumble through the main gate of Sutter’s Fort. One limps. The other carries a bundle of rags that might be a child. The rags move. Barely.

Behind them, six others follow—more bones than men, eyes sunken so deep they look blind. I recognize one of them: Reed. He went east months ago, looking for his wife. For the Donner Party.

They found them.

The crowd gathers fast. I push through bodies that reek of unwashed wool and desperation. Reed’s voice cuts through the murmurs like a blade.

“They’re alive,” he says. “Some of them.”