by Jeff Rovin
The Red Hunter was tired. Not only had it been a late night getting the bear back to the compound, but his morning repose had been interrupted by the shooting. That, plus chopping and then digging in the solid earth had been a chore. Fortunately, he was enraged enough to stay sharp. It was not just Stockbridge—it was himself. He had listened to Pound, and he had let the captain down, and now he was set on recovering his battered honor.
Though McWilliams wanted to get this done, he did not gallop after the Keelers. The onetime corporal did not want to tire the horse, and he did not want to raise too much dust. A man like John Stockbridge, a physician with an eye for detail, he would be watching for that.
But he may also be looking for places where he can peel off and hide, McWilliams thought. Let the wagon roll on, with his horse, while he looked to ambush anyone who was coming after him. It was an old stunt, one he and his comrades had done themselves during the War when facing superior Union numbers. They would tie riderless horses together to leave tracks that suggest an army. Then, one by one, men would hop off—onto rocks, up trees, to the roofs of sheds, anywhere they would leave no footprints. Then they would wait to pick off men in pursuing units.
The ground was flat on the plains, without much opportunity for a man to seek cover. But there were boulders. Or maybe Stockbridge would not even try to hide. That story the newspaper had printed, it said he had faced that Adam Piedmont all proud and fearless. He might choose to plant himself and that Tennessee Walker between the wagon and anyone coming after it.
That would be welcome. That fancied-up Parker Brothers had breadth but McWilliams’ carbine had range. He was prepared now to go shot for shot with that vile assassin and his cannon.
After nearly an hour of careful attention to the trail, McWilliams suddenly saw the tracks shift, wagon and horses both, from the weathered roadway to a well-worn path through the plains.
“Water,” he realized with both clarity and satisfaction. Now he knew exactly where they were.
McWilliams stopped and dismounted. He let the horse graze on scrub as he considered his next step. To go to Stockbridge or to let Stockbridge come to him? That was the question. He looked at the trail ahead of the turnoff. Going up the mountain, the wheels had come this way. No doubt they would go back that way once the watering was done.
The thing about waiting, though, was that Captain Cuthbert might change his mind and decide to reach the plains and go west, come this way instead of going to Buzzard Gulch. He was angry, and after chewing on that, he might decide on immediate gratification. Cuthbert said he had once fought a duel before the War. This was that kind of affront.
If Cuthbert changed his plans, McWilliams wanted the captain to find Stockbridge slung sideways on the saddle of Grady’s horse.
“Bastard’s got that family to look out for,” McWilliams reminded himself. “I only got me to watch.”
That was it, then. McWilliams would go west up the trail a bit and circle toward the water from that direction. Stockbridge would be looking toward the cutoff, assuming pursuit was coming from the foothills . . . from the north, not from behind.
Mounting and setting off at a slow gallop, the Red Hunter decided to seek his prey with the sun full upon the killer, causing him to stand out from the rest of the dirt.
* * *
* * *
The wind made a fluttering sound as it came around the hills, like a big waving flag. Nearby the watering hole were three mounds, about twenty feet high on average, probably left there when the earth had fallen in around them. That happened a lot with underground water, as the underpinnings fell away. The ground did not crack but sagged, as here.
The pond was only about ten feet across and protected from the wind by the northernmost of these hills. The cutoff took a dogleg turn around it, like a camel’s hump, so as not to force a wagon to travel over it. The outcropping blocked the wagon and its occupants from anyone who might have been coming from off the trail—and also made it difficult to see anyone who might approach from that side.
Stockbridge had walked to the top of that rise and squatted there, watching. He had instructed the Keelers to remain behind until the horses were done. Being horses, they were not greedy. They took only what drink they needed, then fed on the brush a while. The horse patties they left behind ensured that more grass would grow, part of nature’s brilliant if malodorous design.
There were two things Stockbridge did not want. One was to be caught here by hostile riders. The other was to be stuck here at night. Predatory animals would come to use this water, and if they were coyotes or bobcats, they would not hesitate to tackle a horse or a boy. And a fire would be out of the question. It would tell the dead man’s friends exactly where they were.
It being somewhere around three o’clock, they would have to start moving very soon. He had forgotten some of the patience he learned practicing medicine. He forgave himself, though, since the equation had been altered. Lives were still at risk, though from sudden, violent aggression. He wished that if anyone was following, they would show themselves now.
As the horses finished up, Stockbridge went fifty yards south to the pond. Sitting with her feet in the water, Mrs. Keeler looked as though she wanted to ask again what she had asked before: Did he think those men were out there? She refrained, he suspected, because the children seemed relaxed, having spent several minutes splashing each other, and she did not want to worry them. Smiling, Stockbridge calmly addressed the others.
“I’m going to start back. You folks follow but don’t try to catch up. I want some distance.”
“Why is that?” Rachel asked.
“Shush,” Mrs. Keeler insisted.
“Hey, Dr. Stockbridge, look!”
Lenny had been sloshing toward the edge of the pond. He was pointing toward the west, just north of one of the other little hills. There was a cottony cloud of dirt with a point of brown, like a stem, where it met the ground.
A rider and his dry, dusty trail. The man must have thought he was hidden by the low hill. Either that or he suddenly realized he wasn’t. Either way, he was in a hurry.
“Lenny—get in the wagon and push your belongings to this side. Rachel, unhitch the horse. Mrs. Keeler, you help her. Then all of you get in the wagon and lie behind the water barrel and the other goods.”
Stockbridge pointed to the western side of the wagon, the one facing the dust cloud. “Make sure everyone can lie flat behind it.”
“Yes, sir,” the boy said, jumping from the water and putting his young shoulders to work.
“Are we in danger?” Mrs. Keeler asked.
“Best to assume so,” Stockbridge said.
“Do we tether the horses?” Rachel asked.
“No. If there are shots, we don’t want them tugging the wagon around. They’ll scatter to safety. Go now!”
Mrs. Keeler was suddenly about survival, like Stockbridge had seen mothers become at the approach of a tornado or an army. While the men ran plows and horses to safety, or took up arms, the women got their children into cellars or attics or hidden rooms. He could not help but think that people were all still animals in that regard, no different from a fox or a bear.
Stockbridge took a moment to look north, up the cutoff. He did not see anyone else in the direction of the trail, but that did not mean no one was waiting. The rider—he might be looking to flush them into a volley from that direction, like quail from the brush.
“Why don’t you just shoot him, Dr. Stockbridge?” Lenny asked as he helped his mother up. Rachel was just finishing with the horse.
“I got power, but the carbines they were carrying have range,” the doctor answered.
“We have that other man’s rifle!” the boy reminded him, raising it high.
“Get down!” Mrs. Keeler shouted.
“I can shoot it!” Rachel insisted.
If Stockb
ridge fell, he worried that just one man, with a rifle, probably with side arms, might exact vengeance lower than killing. Blood was not always enough to satisfy a man’s thirst.
“Stay sheltered,” Stockbridge said. “If the attack gets past me, then you are to protect yourself, your family. Shoot the big target, the horse, then the man before he can get up. If it’s me coming, I’ll fire three shots. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Dr. Stockbridge,” she answered.
Rachel lay in the wagon and found a slot between the boards to put the rifle, and Stockbridge strode to the pond, where, having supped and drunk, Pama stood at rest. Stockbridge looked out again. The rider was nearer, most likely the hothead who had held his fire back on the trail. In the mind of the Confederate, it was to be a joust, then, mounted champion against a hated emblem of the Union.
During the War, Stockbridge had seen too many heroic charges into the mouths of Union guns. Southern pride, the code of one who was or who fancied himself a gentleman. Then it had inevitably and ineffably resulted in gray coats spread across fields and valleys with patches of red crawling outward beneath the hot sun.
Such an action here was likely to result in Stockbridge’s death. Up north, he had learned to be more practical about combat.
With that in mind, Stockbridge made his plan and his decision, both at the same time. The attacker was looking into the sun, and if the doctor did this right, he would undermine the advantage of range held by the Southerner. . . .
* * *
* * *
The wind was coming from the east, bringing grit and bits of dead grass with it. Riding directly into it caused bite and distraction. McWilliams slowed for a few moments in order to tie a bandanna neckerchief across the lower part of his face. He pulled down the brim of his ten-gallon hat with a rounded crown. It blocked his vision a little, but it kept the dirt from his eyes. He kicked his horse back to a gallop, then kicked it again for a little more speed. Someone was out there: Dark figures were moving in a blurry smudge on the horizon. He wanted to reach them before they fled.
McWilliams made out the figure of a horse and someone dark atop it. The rider was bent low, almost as if he was hiding behind the neck of the horse. The Hunter smiled, his own hot breath warming his mouth behind the fabric.
“That’s him. That’s the devil!”
It was to be charge against charge. The carbine was still in its holster, and McWilliams yanked it out by the stock, tossed it up, and caught it as it dropped back down.
Though the horse was stirring up clouds that seemed to run with it, then ahead of it, then enveloped it, McWilliams caught flashes of the same coat he had seen on the trail.
“The diagnosis is death, Doctor!” he cried, raising the carbine above his head.
The horse was breathing hard beneath him as, with an experienced eye, McWilliams gauged the distance. They were about a quarter mile apart. He had shot a man dead at seventy-five yards. Not at a gallop, but then McWilliams did not intend to keep up this pace. He’d close the gap just a little more, take down the big target, the dark Walker, then dismount and send the ambusher to hell. The body would be a gift to Promise Cuthbert—an act of contrition, an offering, like a cat with a field mouse deposited at a doorstep.
The distance narrowed, and so, suddenly, did the eyes of the Red Hunter. The horse was not the Walker; it was the one the Yankee had been riding on the trail: Grady’s horse.
“You stinking bastard! You figured some of me out!”
Stockbridge was flaunting his corrupt deed of horse thievery and daring Grady’s friend to shoot it.
“I can’t hit you clean,” the man said into the warm vapor collecting on his neckerchief. The neck of the horse was still in the way. “I gotta wait till you’re a little closer.”
His own dust swirled round as McWilliams crossed the dry plain. His eyes never left the target, especially as he neared the outside of his range. His palm held the carbine tightly, felt the weight of it, the power of the death it would bring to the hated Dr. Vengeance.
Now.
McWilliams reined and stopped and in the same motion dismounted to the left, the north side. He crouched, pushed up his brim with a thumb, then raised the gun and aimed. The shape of his target, the charging greatcoat, its tails flying, was hazy but visible within the tawny cloud. He did not blink, despite the pelting dust.
“Die!”
He fired.
McWilliams’ own horse bolted, as expected, as did Grady’s horse. The Palomino lowered its head, kicked, and flew off with Stockbridge still in the saddle. McWilliams rose and pumped two more shots into the man, into his side and back. The fringes of the greatcoat blew in the wind.
So did the empty sleeves. They had been tied around the neck of the horse before coming loose and sagging along the sides.
McWilliams lowered the rifle. “What the blazes?”
Shaking its head from side to side, Grady’s horse ran to the south a bit before stopping. Perspiring beneath his own coat, McWilliams rose, still targeting the figure that held its seat before him. The dust had calmed and fallen. The wind kicked up some grains, stirred the tail of Grady’s horse, and blew the garment, as a whole, this way and that on the animal’s back.
McWilliams approached the animal, which was hazed by the dust of its retreat. He saw the holes he had made in the garment, but there wasn’t any blood. It was then he noticed that the reins had been run through the sleeves.
He stiffened and glared to the east. The family had not left; he could still see the wagon. But Stockbridge had probably used this distraction, this delay, to get away, up the cutoff.
McWilliams ran back toward his horse, which was on his left. “You can’t run, you coward!”
“I haven’t,” a deep voice informed him.
McWilliams looked across the saddle. Stockbridge was standing away from his own steed about fifty feet to the north. He was wearing a blanket over his shoulders. The double-barreled shotgun rested along the inner sleeve of his white shirt, like a splint. Stockbridge’s finger was on the trigger. It was a formidable sight, reaching lower along his leg than his other arm.
“You damn coward!” McWilliams roared. “You circled round so you wouldn’t have to face me.”
“I’m facing you now. You’ve got your carbine—use it.”
It was a stupid, reckless challenge, McWilliams thought. The shotgun was pointing down. McWilliams was holding the rifle across his chest, and he had the shield of the horse. All he had to do was swing the repeater over the saddle and fire.
The Red Hunter’s move was not a thought but an impulse. He snapped his elbows to his side, the carbine was up and leveled, his eye behind it, his index finger in place—
Stockbridge barely raised the shotgun more than a few inches. He fired under the horse, between its legs. The scattershot peppered McWilliams’ lower legs from feet to shins. He shrieked and crumpled at the same time as the carbine discharged into the air. The frightened horse ran, and then McWilliams hit the ground, moaning and bloody. He lay on his side, trying to bring the carbine around.
“Don’t!” Stockbridge warned. “I can still fix you—”
“Go to hell!”
“Not me and not today.”
McWilliams raised the gun and tried to aim on his trembling shoulders. Stockbridge blew the repeater away, along with the man’s hands, with a second discharge. Pellets also struck the face, neck, and chest of the Red Hunter.
Liam McWilliams flopped back, still breathing, blood running from over a dozen holes at both ends of his body.
Stockbridge walked over and looked down at him. There was no saving him now. The doctor did not even try.
“If you can talk, I’ll relay any messages you have.”
But McWilliams could not talk. He just shook violently, then, suddenly, fell very still. Stockbridge exhaled through his
nose. Once again, death had come for no mortal, earthly reason other than someone being stupid and rash.
Or maybe it was vanity with this one. Pride at having been humiliated on the trail and rushing out to prove himself.
In any case, it was a waste of something precious. Stockbridge felt sorry for him.
He decided to leave the body. The doctor did not want to believe of himself that he was leaving it as a warning—even if it was the truth. But there was something on the horse’s saddle that alarmed him: the faded impression of a red hand at the rear of the kneepad. It had the look and feel of some kind of band—outlaws, mustered-out soldiers, he didn’t know what. But there were likely more. He used dirt to scrub away the image so as not to alarm the Keelers.
He had other reasons, too, for leaving the man. He did not want to spend any more time out here than necessary. There was at least one other man, the black man with the bow and arrow. He did not want him to know where Stockbridge or the Keelers were; turning in a dead man, having an inquest, would surely tell them.
Stockbridge put on his greatcoat, which had two holes where his heart would have been. The man had been a good shot, if not a wise one. He picked up the carbine, collected both horses and his coat, and walked back to Pama. He fired three shots from the rifle, as he told Rachel he would so she would not accidentally shoot him when he returned.
After looking around and making certain that the man had come alone, the doctor mounted Pama and made his way slowly back to the watering hole, the two other horses trailing obediently behind.
CHAPTER TEN
For Promise Cuthbert, it was a relatively short ride into Buzzard Gulch.
Though the path he took was sloped and not generally traveled, it had one advantage. The sun did not turn its eye on this side of the mountain until late afternoon and the foliage was thick trunked and tall. As a result, the ground remained cold and hard, offering good footing. His horse, a strong Appaloosa, took the journey pretty much on his own. Which was a good thing. Cuthbert’s mind was on Grady, on his two craven Hunters, and on his hatred for a man who would kill over a few possessions. Cuthbert and his men did not regard what they did as stealing; they saw it as reparation. Compared to what all of them had lost in the War—their homes torched and possessions stolen or destroyed—this was little enough compensation.