Blood of the Hunters

by Jeff Rovin

  The men did not ride through the woodlands but took the more direct route down the trail. McWilliams knew the spot where Foxborough hid. They slowed their approach as they neared the bend. Weapons ready, they came around the sharp turn.

  Both men stopped when they saw the wagon tucked in the cold shadow below the cliff. It was situated right below one of Foxborough’s lookout points along the trail. In the back appeared to be a woman and two children; the trail was too bright and the shade too deep to be sure. The new arrivals could not tell whether the others were armed. The men had to assume they were.

  Slowly, the two men moved forward in a line, Woodrow Pound in front with an arrow in his bow. Behind him, McWilliams drew his carbine from the saddle holster. The gunman had a surer seat and was a better shot on horseback. He made sure the barrel caught the sunlight, suggesting to the folks ahead that it would be wise to adopt a civil manner. If Pound fell, McWilliams would fire.

  The two men stopped again when they heard the woman cry a name. Liam rode up, inside of where Pound sat.

  “Dr. Stockbridge?” the man with the carbine said, smiling crookedly. “Do you mean Dr. Vengeance? The killer with a ten-gauge against one shoulder and a chip on the other.”

  “I heard down at Raspy’s it was double-barreled twelve,” Pound said.

  “That could be,” McWilliams said. “Or it could be we were all drunk when we heard it.” He adjusted his hat and looked around. “I don’t see nobody.”

  “Nor hear ’im,” Pound said.

  “I think she’s lying.”

  Pound’s dark eyes were on the wagon. “Okay, now—where’s our friend Grady? You’re here. He isn’t. That suggests you know where he went. He take some stuff and go? Maybe a shotgun, test-fired it?”

  As one, the Keelers did not answer. Lenny shifted dangerously, as threatening as a boy in single digits could be. A metallic point of light emerged from the darkness.

  Pound’s eyes narrowed. He rode forward a few paces. “Liam—is that Grady’s carbine the kid’s holding?”

  McWilliams lowered the brim of his hat and peered ahead. “Damn. How’d you get that, boy?”

  “Let’s get back to the cabin, rouse the others,” Pound said.

  “Yeah,” McWilliams agreed, his eyes searching the ledge for the hint of a shotgun.

  Pound wheeled around but had not yet finished his turn when he stopped. He was staring at something behind them. He swore. McWilliams turned to Pound and saw where he was looking—

  Grady’s horse was standing in the middle of the trail to the west. The man in the saddle was not their point. He held a shotgun in his right hand. It rested against his shoulder, almost as though it were part of the arm.

  “Ben!” Mrs. Keeler cried out.

  “It’s John, Mrs. Keeler,” the rider said solemnly.

  The sad cry that followed felt like a pistol shot in the heart. “But that’s his horse!”

  “I know. Stay where you are.”

  McWilliams was still holding his carbine but was facing the wrong way. Stockbridge’s arm, his right arm, was pointed straight down his side. The Red Hunter was weighing his chances in a draw.

  “I know what you want to do, Liam, but don’t,” Pound quietly cautioned his companion. He lowered his own bow and arrow.

  “He won’t shoot me in the back,” McWilliams said. But he still did not move.

  Stockbridge shouted past the men. “Rachel? Turn the wagon around and head back down the trail.”

  Mrs. Keeler was still sobbing. “But Ben?”

  “He was not up there. I will join you presently. Leave Pama—he’ll be fine there. I think he’s getting used to me.”

  “Ma, please let’s do what Dr. Stockbridge says,” Rachel implored.

  Without hesitation, Lenny urged her from her confused, frozen state. “You lie down. We have to go like Dr. Stockbridge said.”

  Rachel nodded and took her mother’s arm. “Come on. It’s not safe here.”

  Mrs. Keeler moved as if she were sleepwalking, allowing herself to be helped onto the blankets. Rachel hurried to the driver’s seat of the buckboard.

  With a lingering look at Dr. Stockbridge, the girl made a chucking sound to get the horse moving. The wheels sounded like a nest of crickets as she put the wagon through a tight turn and retreated to the east.

  The two men of the Red Hunters watched in silence. Then they turned back to Stockbridge. Save for two daunting pinpoints of reflected sun, his eyes were lost in the dark beneath his Stetson. The shadow seemed almost like a mask, something the Red Hunters had once half jokingly said they should wear to instill fear and cooperation.

  Stockbridge was not a joke.

  McWilliams was sitting there, itchy and mad. Pound could see it in his little tics and twitches. The former slave wondered if Stockbridge could see it, too.

  The answer was a shotgun blast into the air beside them. The two men and their horses jumped, the horses most of all. Stockbridge was right: Pama started but did not run. He had no trouble controlling the smaller, older Palomino he was astride.

  Even before the echo of the shot had died, before a few pebbles unhappy with the sound had finished falling from the ledge, while McWilliams and Pound were still settling their mounts, Stockbridge was again composed and ready.

  “What happened to the rider of this Palomino?” the new arrival demanded.

  “To hell with you!” McWilliams cried.

  “We don’t know,” Pound replied with a cooler voice. He glared at McWilliams, who snorted but settled some.

  “I don’t believe you,” Stockbridge said back. “I’ll ask it simpler. Is he alive or dead?”

  “We don’t know that either,” Pound said. “That’s the truth. This was Grady’s horse.”

  “What happened to Grady?” McWilliams demanded.

  “Grady is deceased. I didn’t have time to bury him. If you are inclined to, he’s right up top on the ledge.”

  The speaker’s casual manner caused McWilliams to raise his rifle and start to turn. Pound moved between his companion and Stockbridge, one hand raised to show the doctor he meant no aggression.

  “Not here, not now!” Pound said to the other through his teeth.

  McWilliams hollered inarticulately at Stockbridge, a cry that seemed to start somewhere around his knees, but he did not raise the rifle higher or finish his turn.

  Stockbridge relaxed but did not lower the shotgun. “I’ve shown you how easy it is to answer a question, so one more time. I am looking for the man whose horse this lawfully is.”

  “And I’m telling you, you killed the only man who could say,” Pound replied.

  “Then let’s try this. Who are you two?”

  “We’re mountain men,” Pound answered. “We like to live where it’s clean and quiet.”

  “Wearing boots from an Eastern catalogue and a holster that’s gunsmith leather and not stag hide? That’s not the truth.”

  “It is the truth,” Pound insisted.

  “Your friend Grady was what we called a spotter during the War,” Stockbridge said. “He picked off supply lines—in this case, your man picked off goods. I’m guessing you use what you need and sell what you don’t. You probably live low enough in the mountains so you don’t get too snowbound. How many of you are there and where are you?”

  “You ask too many questions, Stockbridge,” McWilliams said.

  “Liam—,” Pound said.

  “No, the man runs off his mouth like he owns the place and us. Tell you what, Dr. Vengeance. We’re through jawing. We won’t go after the lady and her kin, but we are leaving. We’re going to go collect our friend and comrade. You want to shoot us, shoot us. You want to tail us, tail us. Up to you. But the men up there”—he pointed—“they aren’t gonna be happy when they learn what you done. I suggest that when you go after tho
se folks below, you keep going—as fast as your big horse can take you.”

  “I’m still not satisfied with the progress of our conversation,” Stockbridge said. “But you’re right. That family needs seeing to, so I’ll ask you something easy. Then we can all be on our way. Okay?”

  McWilliams was still. Pound nodded.

  “Where was Grady coming from, and when, first time he came in with this mount?”

  “It was about two weeks ago or so,” Pound told him. “He was still at the higher elevation then, the last time for the season.”

  “On the Craggy Plains?”

  “No. Grady didn’t go there.”

  “Oh?”

  “Had problems with his wind. That’s a little too high for him.”

  Stockbridge believed that. The man had had chewing tobacco instead of a pouch and fixings. “Where would he have been, then?”

  “Eagle Lookout, west of where Oónâhe’e River turns. It’s not far from the trail and convenient to watering horses.”

  “And ambushing trappers?” Stockbridge said with distaste.

  “Grady swore he found that Palomino.”

  “I like to presume a man innocent, so we’ll leave it there. But I’ll be taking this horse back to the family that rightly owns him.”

  Stockbridge gave the horse a gentle nudge with his knees and started forward. The two other men stood where they were, even as Stockbridge passed by, presenting his back. It was not that Stockbridge was especially trusting of these two, particularly McWilliams. He did not need to be. If the Walker so much as whinnied or backed up a step, Stockbridge would duck low, turn, and blast everything behind him.

  He didn’t think the black man would permit that. Pound was the more rational of the two, as many former slaves tended to be. Bondage had taught them not only to do things silently but not to provoke anger.

  Pama was calm, and when Stockbridge grabbed up the reins, the Walker followed on his own.

  Eagle Lookout.

  He knew the Oónâhe’e from maps he had studied in Gunnison, when he was plotting his westward trip. It meant “frog,” and the river was named for the fact that the Cheyenne had followed it up, carrying frogs in baskets. As high as one of the animals could be carried without freezing, that was how the Cheyenne could settle what was safe for papooses.

  The location was curious, though, if Pound had been speaking the truth. It did not intercept where Ben Keeler was supposed to have been. Craggy Plains was to the west, and lower, separated by a wide valley.

  But there’s the necklace.

  It was a puzzle—one that required both identification from Mrs. Keeler and some answers about what else her husband might have been doing in the mountains, far from where a trapper going about his business might have been. . . .

  CHAPTER SIX

  The Red Hunters called it a cabin, but their residence was substantially more than that. It was a compound, a combination of a long barracks and numerous outbuildings all nestled in a natural fortress.

  The main building was made to endure time and relentless elements. It was constructed of logs and stone, put together by the men who lived there from trees they cut on the surrounding land. The squat, sure edifice was set in the middle of a stretch of flat land, far enough from the surrounding cliffs to survive an avalanche, should it come, and adjacent to a tributary of the Oónâhe’e River that ran clear to the lower foothills. The Red Hunters used it for washing and bathing. Many a Cheyenne or settler came to those tributaries looking to drink or bathe and found, instead, Grady Foxborough.

  In addition to the cabin, there were a stable and, beside it, a barn. The former was entirely made of oak, which allowed the passage of wind and ventilation, while the barn was stone and tree, like the cabin. Three other structures completed the compound: a toolshed stocked mostly with items that had belonged to those passing through, a sturdy outhouse, and a large root cellar, which had meat, vegetables, and an ample supply of spirits. There was a stone well beside it, always rich with sweet mountain water. The underground waterway was extensive, stretching from the mountains to the plains, where it fed watering holes for miles around.

  Every now and then, Franz Baker made halfhearted attempts to plant a vegetable garden, mostly for potatoes and carrots, but the lack of sun and the short growing season made the enterprise more trouble than it was worth. The scars of his failed efforts decorated the area out back like a patchwork quilt of dark brown fossilized mud. Also, the surrounding cliffs—which afforded the settlement protection from often battering winds—tended to keep the cold locked in place. It swept from above like an invisible waterfall carrying away seeds and plants along with the smell of the horses, pigs, and chickens. It wasn’t easy lugging vegetables from Buzzard Gulch or the more distant but better-stocked Stackpole, but Baker had to do it only a few times a year. The root cellar kept food cold and unspoiled up here.

  The cook actually did not mind the occasional trip for provisions. It was the only time he got out. Just like during the War, he had to stay by the mess wagon while the others fought and drank and found whatever women were to be found.

  “The only female flesh I ever handle is dead,” he had complained during the War. “And chicken or deer at that.”

  “At least you’ll survive this damn thing,” then-Captain Promise Cuthbert had said.

  “Lest the Blues target the grub wagon, try to starve you gentlemen into surrender,” he said. “I hear we had savages with flaming arrows do that to them.”

  “They ain’t got the Indians or the smarts to do that,” Sergeant Alan DeLancy had said.

  “I think you’re safe, Herr Baker.” Cuthbert had grinned, slapping the cook on the shoulder.

  So he was. They had all survived the War, every one of the Red Hunters. Promise Cuthbert had taken that as a sign that whenever and however the struggle ended, the core of them was meant to stay together. A new family to replace the flesh-and-blood family he had lost to fire and retribution. Since they had rejoined out here, they had looked after one another like the brothers they were—brothers at arms as well as brothers of the Deep South.

  Except for Woodrow Pound, who typically kept to himself making new arrows or bows and reading. He had first taught himself to read, then spent his free time occasionally playing checkers with Baker or seeing the world without ever leaving the pages of the books he picked up on trips to Gunnison.

  That was the other thing about the compound. It was not just a collection of walls and rooms, floors and handmade furniture. It was a state of mind. It had a name, which was emblazoned on a large wooden board that stood high atop two oak-sturdy posts: New Richmond. It was the small but assertive rebirth of a fallen civilization, transplanted to the West. There would not be any cotton or tobacco or peaches up here in the cold, sunless heights. The men could not even get an apple tree to grow here. But over cigars and drink, purchased from that Russian curiosity Raspy Nikolaev in Buzzard Gulch, the men would talk about ways the West could be shaped using the mistakes of the past.

  “Without the leg-irons,” Woodrow Pound would suggest as he cut new shafts or feathers or shaped new arrowheads. He never drank or smoked, not having had the chance to acquire a taste for doing so as a slave.

  “That condition was the idea of our Northern brothers,” Promise Cuthbert would answer back. “Importing you all, I mean. We had men here for those chores. The Indians.”

  Pound was not interested in debating men who believed that any soul should be enslaved. He had other reasons for staying here. The Red Hunters needed his skills, and he liked being the equal to men who could have been former masters. To him, New Richmond was a place where he could be the first man of his heritage to rise to Southern aristocracy.

  His old friend, an elderly slave named Freddy Hat, would have found that amusing or uplifting or both. He could hear the dead man’s voice in his ear.

&nbs
p; “Woodrow Pound, Prince of New Richmond. I like the kick of that mule.”

  Right now, however, events were such that every filament of routine was rudely and suddenly torn and shredded.

  The return of McWilliams and Pound had not been one of fellowship and celebration. For the first time since their founding, New Richmond and the Red Hunters had their first taste of grief—and, worse to some, of failure.

  Wrapped in a bearskin cloak that was itself wrapped in the clinging smell of old grease, Baker was outside, sitting on a rickety stool, sitting over a pit used for collecting blood and guts. He was in the process of skinning three hares for stew, all of which he had shot himself. The open hole was far from the cabin and helpful keeping varmints like raccoons away from the residence. When there got to be too many in that population, he sprinkled the pit with arsenic. He remembered the powder from when he had been a seven-year-old boy. The newspapers in Bonn told how an English confectioner accidentally put the stuff in sweets and poisoned more than two hundred people. That sounded like the kind of job he wanted. When he had been fourteen, he went to sea as a cabin boy, then worked in the galley for a dozen years before coming to these shores. He never did poison anyone, but it was nice knowing he could.

  The offal pit was also far enough from the water table so that what they pulled from the well did not taste of blood.

  Baker’s oval, gray-bearded face took one look at the parcel the two men were bringing in, then a shorter, glancing look at the slumped shoulders of the men, then went back to work. He knew whom they were bringing back, and he did not want to be a direct part of what was sure to follow. He had served with the men in the War, but, as a recent immigrant, he had not been invested in their cause. Like Pound, he was an outsider on the inside.

  DeLancy and Tunney came out when they heard the horses. They had the same immediate understanding as Baker, though their response was considerably less serene. Tunney swore loudly, and DeLancy said something in French that the others did not understand the meaning of—though they grasped the shock and disbelief.