Blood of the Hunters

by Jeff Rovin

  Grady Ambrose Foxborough had not gotten much sleep after the bear hunt, but that did not matter to the sun. He woke with it, every day, even when it was hidden in a snow squall. The truth was, he loved being up alone, which was one reason he loved his job as point for the Red Hunters. Just being by himself had been what allowed him to come up with that name. The bounty wasn’t wanted men. It was actual bounty: goods and pleasures.

  There was tedium, yes. And risk: not just from always unpredictable human prey but from predators—those on four feet, those who flew, those who writhed on cold, scale-framed bellies. And there was the weather, which was rarely calm or accommodating. Even in the summer, the winds and floods up here were sudden and merciless.

  But it was better than being in the crippled South, where he had grown up, loved, and fought. He had been a corporal, a scout in the War, sneaking right up to the Union pickets and reporting what he saw to Captain Cuthbert or field headquarters. Afterward, he had gone home to New Orleans where every street, every face was a reminder of the horrors that had been inflicted by the War and by Reconstruction. And also by the citizens themselves. The state had been torn by Lincoln’s offer of amnesty during the War: Rejoin the Union and there’d be no hard feelings.

  The people had argued, fought, and dueled over every topic from food spices to horse-trading, but none more than that topic.

  When it was all over, the sundered population suffered from abusive carpetbaggers, vengeful men who had been slaves, Indians who did the dirty work of Northern politicians who wanted a reason to crush the Chickasaw, Shawnee, Cherokee, and Cheyenne. The poor, naive savages did not know they were being used, only that they were being paid in silver and alcohol.

  Not just his native Louisiana, but the whole of the South was a swamp. So like so many in the fallen Confederacy, Foxborough had gone west. He had asked his fiancée to go with him. Flora, who had been betrothed to him before secession, chose to stay with her ailing father and their struggling crawfish business.

  Foxborough had written to her, once, shortly after he had reconnected with Captain Cuthbert in Gunnison. That was fifteen years ago. He never heard back.

  You make your choices; you live with them.

  Foxborough liked it here, in what he called the “Wide Open.” Even though the mountains closed them in, the skies were big and clear and blue. That was important as he waited for travelers to pass by. If they had something the Red Hunters could use or trade, he stopped them. Most agreed that living was more important than gold or food, boots or heirlooms. And sometimes there were women.

  Man does not live by plunder alone, Foxborough knew.

  Up here, women were not as cooperative as they were at Raspy Nikolaev’s tavern—but they cost nothing and were a whole lot nearer.

  Now, in the early morning, an hour after his arrival, lying on his belly, Foxborough saw coming up the Peak Road a bounty of possibilities. Two horses—one of them a beautiful Tennessee Walker—two women, a wagon that was not worth much but held what looked like blankets and sundries that were worth a closer look. The only resistance looked like it would come from the lone rider up front, though it would be easy enough to take care of him. The only reason for not shooting him outright was he had a nice Cheyenne blanket.

  Shame to put buckshot in that.

  There were some nice boots on the man, too, plus a canteen and what looked like some kind of shotgun. Foxborough did not want to ruin any of that if it wasn’t necessary.

  Carefully and quietly adjusting his lay, Foxborough aimed at a spot ten feet below, exhaled, and put the first and hopefully only shot into the ground between the two horses.

  The cart horse reared, and the Walker up front whinnied and would have panicked if not for the strong hand of the rider. The people in the wagon all looked up. The man in the saddle did not. He turned the horse to the right, toward the shelter of the cliff abutting the trail.

  A veteran, Foxborough thought. Someone who knew to seek cover pronto.

  The girl with the reins fought to calm the horse. She was good, focused, strong. From here he could not tell how old she was. A teenager of some years, he hoped.

  Foxborough remained on the ground, his chin just at the edge of the ledge.

  “You folks in the wagon—y’all climb down with your hands up and no one gets harmed,” he shouted down.

  “Ben? Ben, is that you?” the woman in the back of the wagon cried up.

  “Lady, didn’t you hear me? You three step down.”

  “Do it,” the man under the ledge told them.

  “You come out, too, mister!” Foxborough called down.

  “We’re coming!” the woman in the back of the wagon told him. She rose and climbed out, helped by the boy sitting on the buckboard. He held her hand as she got down while the girl beside him tied the reins to the side rail. Then she got out, followed by the boy.

  “Very good. Very smart,” Foxborough said approvingly. “Now, you with the Walker, can you hear me?”

  “I hear you.”

  “Good. You join the others with your hands up or I’ll put a shot in you!”

  “You might want to rethink this,” Stockbridge cautioned.

  Foxborough laughed. “You offering terms to the man with the rifle pointed at your family? What are you, loco?”

  “We’re not his family!” Mrs. Keeler cried.

  “Shut up!” Foxborough yelled. “Mister, you coming out or am I putting the lady down like a tasty old deer?”

  Foxborough waited, his heartbeat climbing in a way he had not felt since the War, a way he liked. The man in the saddle was silent. The horse was silent. A veteran for sure, probably planning something.

  “Hey, is everyone here deaf? Mister, you come out where I can see you, or I put a shot in the lady.”

  “No!” Rachel shouted, and ran to a place between her mother and the man on the ledge.

  Emboldened, the boy yelled, “Ma, get under the wagon!”

  “Lady, you do that, and I target the clever lad,” Foxborough said.

  “Don’t do that!” the man’s voice called from under the ledge.

  Foxborough chuckled. “I knew you had a breaking point, mister. Out, hands up!”

  The onetime corporal continued to stare down the barrel of the rifle as he lay on the hard ground. His fingers, clad in deerskin, cradled the weapon and rested on the trigger. It was aimed just beyond the lip of the ledge where the rider had retreated. The scout was listening more than watching.

  There, he thought with relief as he heard the hooves clop on the dirt of the dry, sunlit trail.

  A few moments later, the horse and rider came from their place of sanctuary. The man was still mounted. The point had not expected that, not that it mattered. Most riders put the horse between themselves and him for protection. Not this man.

  He cared. He was going to do whatever Foxborough wanted to protect the other three.

  Just beyond the lip of rock, Foxborough saw a leather glove, then another, raised high. The man below was obviously a powerful rider, guiding the horse with his thighs, knees, and heels. The horse emerged fully from hiding, then out of the shadow of the cliff—

  The saddle holster is empty, Foxborough thought just before the right-hand glove of the man below came apart in tatters, riding a storm of buckshot and fire. The air itself shook as though it had been punched from a wide circle around the explosion. But Foxborough heard and felt none of it. Also lost in the deafening explosion were the corporal’s hat and the top of his skull.

  Dropping his left hand, John Stockbridge scooped up the reins and steadied the once-more panicked horse as, like they were posing for a daguerreotype, the Keeler family momentarily stood motionless at the wagon. Only Rachel moved when, deciding the trail was not safe, the horse decided to try to turn back.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Stockbridge kicked his
heels gently against Pama, guiding him over to the wagon, where he swung down beside the Keelers. His arrival seemed to break the spell, and Alice Keeler began to cry.

  “Lord, what have we done to offend you?”

  The doctor dismounted and holstered the shotgun. By then, Lenny had already put his arms around her.

  “It’s okay. We’re all safe,” he said.

  “I’m very sorry,” Stockbridge said earnestly. “There was no other way.”

  Mrs. Keeler’s right arm was outstretched and grasping. Handing the horse’s reins to Stockbridge, Rachel went over and joined the embrace.

  “If I’d shot the ledge, the rocks might have hit you . . . hard,” Stockbridge continued.

  “I—I do not judge your tactics, Dr. Stockbridge,” the woman said, breathing hard to calm herself. “You saved us. The outlaw brought this on himself.”

  “In your glove,” Lenny said, half turning at something just remembered. “You hid it in your glove!”

  “Did you know him?” Stockbridge asked.

  “No,” Mrs. Keeler said.

  “Should I go look to be sure?” Lenny asked.

  “No!”

  The woman relaxed a little, softened. “How do you feel, Doctor? A man of medicine forced to do . . . that.”

  Stockbridge picked what was left of the glove from his shotgun. “I feel like he left me no options.”

  “Did you ever have to doctor bad men?” Lenny asked.

  “Sometimes. In the War, I treated Rebels who a minute before had been shooting at me. Humanity is a necessary thing.”

  “That’s why we bless our meals,” Mrs. Keeler said. “We were given dominion over animals, but it is unfortunate that they die so we may live.”

  “My pa and I fish,” Lenny told Stockbridge. “I never like when they flop on the ground.”

  “That’s enough talk,” Mrs. Keeler said. She looked up at the cliff, suddenly remembering that it was a man who had died and not a salmon. The bandit’s hand was hanging over the ledge, unmoving. The rifle had dropped to the ground.

  Stockbridge noticed the gun and retrieved it, handing the carbine to Lenny.

  “You know how to shoot, son?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Watch your women,” he said, turning to Pama. “I’ll be going up there, see if I can find out who he was.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Stockbridge looked at the singed leather he’d tossed by his foot. “I also need his gloves.”

  “Do you think he had an accomplice—someone who may have heard the shot?” Rachel asked.

  Stockbridge was impressed with the fur trapper’s daughter. “That’s another reason to go up and find out who he was, maybe where he came from.”

  “We’re waiting for you, yes?” Mrs. Keeler asked.

  “Against the cliff, out of the sun, I’d suggest.”

  “And safe from anyone else who may be up there,” Lenny offered.

  “You read my mind, son,” Stockbridge said. “Would you mind watching Pama till I return?”

  “That’s his name?”

  “That’s his name,” Stockbridge replied, turning before he had to explain it. He started out for a spot about thirty yards back where the slope looked as if he could climb it without much difficulty.

  The spot he’d seen was the site of an old rockslide. The stones were still piled one atop the other, and he managed to make it up without dislodging any more. The climb was only two dozen feet or so. He found himself in an expanse of woods that ran into a sheer cliff several hundred feet high. Like some men Stockbridge had met on his long, strange journeys, the ridged, cleft face bore the scars of the years proudly.

  Ducking low branches and listening for any distant sounds, Stockbridge made his way toward the ledge where the body still lay. He felt a little different about the man now that he was up here—no longer a threat eliminated but a corpse, like a battlefield casualty once the shooting had stopped.

  The dead man was dressed in buckskins and fur boots, both weathered. They were about twenty miles from Buzzard Gulch, the nearest town, and the people there did not have much of a selection of anything. The shoes were not sturdy enough for long mountain walks. There had to be a horse somewhere.

  He would look for it when he was done. Right now he had to work quickly.

  Companions, if any, would have heard that shot. And they would have known that the loud report did not come from the carbine Stockbridge had recovered.

  Squatting beside the man, the doctor turned him over, his head flopping grotesquely. It was gone above the forehead, the skin and skull ragged from the blast. His eyes were still in place, and staring, and Stockbridge shut them. He had never liked being stared at by dead men. It was an unflinching window to another world, one Stockbridge would get to know soon enough, as all men did.

  His wife’s eyes had been like that before—he thought while fighting back a scream that, had it started, would never have stopped—he had shut them.

  The pockets had chewing tobacco and nothing else. There was nothing written, no indication of who this man had been or where he had lived. He did wear a set of bobcat teeth on a leather strap. The hide looked like it was from a smaller animal, possibly a fox, judging from its color and delicacy. Necklaces made from bison or bear tended to be thicker and used for bracelets. Stockbridge took it, not for himself but because men like the dead man did not make things—they took them.

  From Ben Keeler?

  There was no way he could take the time to bury the man. It would take too much time to haul rocks, and the ground was too hard—even if he had a shovel. A pick was needed.

  “Sorry,” Stockbridge said, yanking off the man’s gloves before rising. “You belong to the land now.”

  The gloves were old and worn, but they fit. With a heartfelt sigh, the doctor walked to the ledge and tested the sturdiness before putting his full weight on it and leaning out. “Everyone okay down there?”

  “We’re well, Dr. Stockbridge,” Mrs. Keeler replied.

  “I’ll be coming back down in a minute,” he said. “I want to have a look around.”

  “Please be careful!” Rachel called up.

  Careful?

  That was a word he had ignored for most of his life. His War service, his move to Colorado with his young family, his pursuit of Piedmont. Nothing, ever, had been careful.

  Turning and wending his way through the trees, his shotgun swinging like a clock pendulum ticking death for any accomplices, Stockbridge stalked toward the shadowy woodland beyond. It was the only place to conceal a horse that would not have been visible from the ledge. The grass was brittle and crushed in spots. Twigs were freshly snapped and hanging, too high for a buck but about the height of a man’s shoulder. The dead man had come this way.

  Sunlight and shadow played like a zoetrope that he had seen back in Gunnison, a spinning wheel of still images that seemed to move when viewed through a slit. The trees seemed to be in motion, bending north as though in obeisance to the mountain beyond. The ground was more level up here, then flat, and soon the trees gave way to an open field.

  Stockbridge stopped suddenly. There was a horse ahead. There were no supplies and no packed saddlebag, and the saddle was beside it. The horse had to belong to the dead man. Stockbridge jogged ahead. As he neared, there were disturbing signs about where the horse had come from.

  This was not the kind of place Ben Keeler or any other trapper would have gone. There were no water and no fat trees or big rocks, no high grasses for predators or prey to hide in. No one but a bushwhacker like the dead man would have had reason to be here.

  So what is the horse of a trapper doing tied to a tree up ahead?

  As Stockbridge neared, he saw that it bore the marks of a sledge hitch on its brown-and-white-mottled hide. The marks were distinctive, the kind he had s
een during the War. The carryalls were made of poplar or some other light, flexible wood, woven to carry considerable weight. There was no way that even the most careful trapper could have prevented the shifting and abrasion of such a conveyance.

  Goddamn the man, he thought as he approached the quiet animal.

  Stockbridge had had a feeling that the necklace hadn’t belonged to the gunman. A man who would have bothered to make such a trophy in the first place would likely have killed the cat with a knife. He would not have fought a cat unless the cat had attacked him. And he would have cut out the teeth right there, a memento of a dangerous encounter he had survived.

  Stockbridge felt hollow in his gut as he walked, heard the adornment clattering in his deep pocket. A trapper would have had the time and the reason to make such a thing. And not necessarily for himself, but for a son he loved and missed. Stockbridge had, with a lead ball he had removed from a famed Colorado lawman. His son had been wearing it on his belt buckle the day he died.

  Nearing the horse, Stockbridge took care to look for signs of anyone approaching. He did not see dust kicked up anywhere against the clear sky to the east or the west of the looming peak. He did not hear anyone calling or hooves pounding. He moved cautiously, his shotgun loaded and ready. He saw the tracks the horse had made coming to this spot—from the west, higher up on the Peak Road.

  This man did live here, then.

  Finally reaching the horse, he heard nothing but wildlife and wind—

  Until he heard Mrs. Keeler scream his name.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  In the past, one shot barely got the attention of the Red Hunters. It was usually a warning, fired by Foxborough. But two shots, especially one that boomed in a way a rifle did not, and fired some small time apart, suggested trouble.

  Riding out from the compound built in the shadow of Tustine Peak, below the rich hunting grounds of Craggy Plains, Liam McWilliams and Woodrow Pound were prepared for trouble. With eagle eyes set in an aquiline face, his long brown hair in a ponytail, McWilliams had often ridden out to help Foxborough, when he had been trapped by Union soldiers, and he had usually been the man who rode out to check on his friend and help him with any booty. Pound rode out this time because the black man’s weapons were blade and arrow, and danger sometimes called for stealth.