Blood of the Hunters

by Jeff Rovin

  If there was any hint that the people Grady or the rest of them encountered were Southerners, they generally passed unmolested. The exception was men on the run. Yellowbelly curs deserved to lose belongings, and probably much worse. During the War, if they had met a deserter from either side, they would tie him to a tree, cut him deep at the insides of his elbows, and let him bleed to death, feeling and listening to the drip of his life going away.

  That is what he wanted for John Stockbridge: an irreversible injury that gave him time to contemplate his sins.

  Cuthbert arrived at the Pap Hotel several hours before his reservation for the bath. He always booked two hours, since he wanted to spend time with Molly. Afterward, when she had finished whatever other appointments had been made, they would dine and retire to the room he had reserved.

  To Cuthbert’s disappointment, Molly was not ready for him when he arrived. She had another client; a soft, middle-aged milksop named Spaulding Doubleday, who had paid for a bath by himself and then a brush scrub. He did not even mind if Molly smoked while she bathed him. In fact, he said he kind of liked it. Doubleday was always her most agreeable client. But she was usually careful not to schedule one of those while Cuthbert was in town. He knew what she did, but he did not like to be near when she washed another man.

  Yi was hanging towels on the line when Cuthbert arrived. It was chronically stuffy in the backyard. The public stables were behind the hotel, with as many mules as horses, and the Poet and Puncher was beside it, with a large and growing compost heap out back. Everyone from the small town seemed to dump there, whether bidden to or not. To the right of the hotel, there was a fenced-in section of chickens, which provided eggs for the tavern. Doris was responsible for harvesting those. Passing directly overhead, the sun baked the smells into an unventilated stew.

  Cuthbert rode in through the alley between the stables and the pub, past the compost. He greeted the Chinese woman with less than his usual smile.

  “Hello, sir,” she said only after he had acknowledged her, little as he had.

  Harry, a black boy, came over from the stable to take the guest’s horse. The owner, Festus—a one-eyed veteran of the winning side—did not have to coax the youngster. Cuthbert dismounted, took his grip from the back, threw it over his shoulder, and pressed a nickel into the boy’s palm.

  “Thank you, Mr. Cuthbert, sir,” the boy said, and walked off, flipping the coin into the air like he was a Vanderbilt. Born free, Harry intended to own “a herd of stables” before he was much older. He was already well on his way to making a down payment on a single stall here.

  Cuthbert felt suddenly ornery and impatient as he passed Yi. He stopped and dropped his grip.

  “Go tell your mistress I’m here.”

  “Busy. Bath.”

  “Yeah, well, tell her to give the man his money back. I’m coming up.”

  Yi hesitated.

  “Go and tell her,” Cuthbert insisted.

  Yi smoothed her short graying hair like she was calming a dog, then went through the back door. There was no screen, just the heavy wood panel.

  Cuthbert did not go through a servant’s entrance ever. He walked back through the alley and around to the front. Raspy Nikolaev was just inside the front door, waiting. The small lobby with its ornate wall lanterns was empty, save for the liveried bellboy beside the registration counter. His uniform was an odd combination of Imperial Army whites and a black beaver hat.

  “Hello, Captain,” Nikolaev said in his heavy Slavic accent.

  “Afternoon, Raspy.”

  The big Russian—nearly a full head taller than the other—put out an arm as Cuthbert attempted to pass. The captain turned to the man.

  “I’m going up.”

  “I prevented Yi from delivering your message.”

  “You overwater carpetbagger, you what?”

  Nikolaev looked over at the grandfather clock beside the counter. “Another twenty minutes, then he will be done.”

  “He’s done when I say. Move your arm, mister.”

  “Only if it is your intention to sit in my gracious lobby. Please, Captain. Please understand. For Molly’s sake.”

  The Southerner tilted his head toward Nikolaev’s ear. “There is a derringer in my hand in my coat pocket. I will shoot your belly, Raspy—I swear on the Stars and Bars—if you do not lower your arm.”

  “That will not kill me, I think. But Yi will run for the sheriff, and I shall be forced to charge you for the bath . . . and the vest.”

  “The sheriff.” Cuthbert snorted. “He’d take an hour just gimping over.”

  “Now you are just being ugly,” Nikolaev huffed.

  Cuthbert looked past the man at Yi. She was standing in the shadows in back, near the door that opened to the kitchen, which was in the back. She was rubbing her head as if she was trying to generate static electricity.

  Dr. Vengeance, a Chink with nerves, and a fat Russian in my way, Cuthbert thought. I’m in a damn circus.

  There is a time when events become so comical that they lose their fascination. His sense of purpose undermined, Cuthbert removed his hand from his pocket. The Russian lowered his arm as well.

  “Will you have a drink with me next door?” Nikolaev asked.

  Nikolaev stepped aside and gestured toward the door that connected his two establishments. Cuthbert plopped his grip on a wing chair, and the proprietor motioned for the bellboy to take it. Nikolaev did not like disorder, either human or in his decor.

  “Leave it in the changing room by the bath,” Nikolaev instructed.

  The men entered the tavern, which was occupied by a spare, midafternoon collection of two prospectors, two cowboys, and a woodsman. The curtains were drawn on the small stage to the right. Cuthbert and Nikolaev made for the bar in the back.

  Cuthbert sat, followed by the Russian. The former soldier slapped his hat on the counter. Dirt puffed in all directions. The Russian removed a silver case from the inside pocket of his vest and selected a prerolled cigarette. He put it in a cigarette holder, which he pulled from his vest pocket. The bartender brought him a match, and the Russian blew smoke.

  “You look like your best friend died,” the Russian said.

  “Actually, Raspy, one of my men did get killed today. Grady.”

  The cigarette and holder sagged. “Captain, I’m sorry! My stupid tongue! An accident?”

  “A cold-blooded murder.”

  “Do you know whose work it was?”

  Cuthbert nodded as Nikolaev instructed the bartender to bring two beers.

  “A lunatic from Gunnison, guy named Stockbridge. Paper calls him Dr. Vengeance.”

  Nikolaev’s expression turned unhappy. “Have you informed the sheriff?”

  “What for? Tom isn’t going to hunt him down. And I got a posse bigger than he could possibly assemble.”

  “You’re going after him?”

  Cuthbert nodded as the beers arrived. He took a short swallow. “Nobody kills one of my people and survives, not even if he has a mortar in place of an arm and a cannonball for a head.”

  Nikolaev made a face at that image. He took a sip of his beer and wiped his mouth with the side of his thick hand.

  “I have not myself seen this man but I have heard he is moshchnyy—tough or rough, I think you would say.”

  “So am I,” Cuthbert said after another swallow.

  “Yes, of course. I am thinking that, possibly, you should not discuss this with Molly.”

  “Why in hell not?”

  “It . . . it might upset her. She knew Grady. From Friday nights, I mean.”

  “Better she should hear it from me than from a bare-skinned slob in the bathtub.”

  “Yes, but that will spoil your evening.”

  Cuthbert swiveled slightly in the stool. It wobbled and squeaked. “You’re babbling, mis
ter. You worried about me or her?”

  “Both!” Nikolaev said quickly.

  “You tub of guts—I hear what you’re saying, but what aren’t you saying? There’s something. I can smell it.”

  “Don’t be like that, Captain,” Nikolaev laughed. “I swear there isn’t anything.”

  “You’re lying.” Cuthbert’s eyes narrowed. “Hold on. You only care about your damn business. Are you trying to tell me this killer was here for a bath? Did Molly actually bathe him?”

  “No, that never happened!” Nikolaev said, no longer laughing. “My eyes have personally never even seen this person.”

  “Your eyes can barely see over your fat cheeks. Then what?”

  “I think you should not wait here while he is out there.” Nikolaev pointed toward the street. “What kind of time will you have with Molly?”

  “So now you got a third story. Worried about Molly, worried about me, and now it’s about justice.”

  “Is it not? To you?”

  Cuthbert relaxed. He turned back to his beer. “Well, there’s truth in that. Reason I even came to see Molly first was—she’s caring, knew Grady. I wanted to be the one to tell her.”

  “Very thoughtful.”

  “She’s also sociable, knows people. I wanted to find out about the people who Stockbridge was with when he killed Grady. He may still be with them.”

  “Who are they?”

  “Family name of Keeler—a mother, a daughter, a son. Father is out in the mountains somewhere, doing the devil knows what. You ever hear of them?”

  “No, but who do I hear of besides men who need to eat, drink, sleep, or bathe?”

  Cuthbert was silent as he drank more of his beer. He thought through another gulp. “I got about ten minutes anyway. Might as well see gimpy Tom.”

  “A good idea, and consider pursuing your man before he moves on. Men who kill, run.”

  “Not this fella. Not what I’ve heard. He lost a family. Maybe he’ll want to stay and endear himself to a ready-made one.”

  Nikolaev waited, smoking, sipping beer, as Cuthbert eased from the stool and walked out the front. He seemed to move like a drag-belly hog. When he was finally gone, the Russian pushed through the connecting door and hurried up the stairs.

  His brain was storm tossed with possibilities, none of them favorable. Client or no, he had to let Molly know that the man with whom she was secretly smitten was the man her lover had come to kill.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Sarah Jane Stockbridge had been a teacher, and she schooled her children. She especially loved arithmetic. She would have written her husband’s mood on the slate as:

  the weight of the day + the weight of life = melancholy

  Add three murders to the equation? Stockbridge did not want to tote that sum.

  How long can you work opposed to your nature and training before you turn the shotgun on yourself?

  If, at the moment, his own actions on the plains did not give him pause, grief, or cheer, they unsettled some part of him that a decent family of two ladies and a boy could cheer the loud, violent demise of a human being. Not that he blamed them. It only made him sad that such was what the world had become.

  Rachel was the first to spot the colorful Cheyenne blanket in the amber glare of the sinking sun. At Mrs. Keeler’s urging, they waited until she could make out, with her own searching eyes, that it was Stockbridge wearing the blanket.

  But then tired of waiting, Lenny first, and Rachel second, leapt from the wagon and hugged the rider’s legs. There was something akin to awe in the eyes of the boy. The man had ridden out with a plan to protect them, had tested it with his life, and had returned to them. Lenny had never felt unsafe, even when his father was away. But for the first time in his life, he had someone to look up to other than Benjamin Keeler and the elderly priest at the Buzzard Gulch church who sometimes came to see them, old Reverend Michaels. Lenny liked the preacher. He said gentle, peaceful prayers and told stories about a sister who was a sharpshooter out west.

  Alice Keeler didn’t believe those stories, always saying, after he’d gone, that it was an unlikely skill for a woman to have. But it was the reason Rachel had asked her father to teach her to shoot. The girl had her heroes, just like her brother.

  Mrs. Keeler finally came over and took his rein hand between hers with gratitude in her heart and a smile. Stockbridge gave her a moment to thank him, then warned that they should move on.

  “There may be a bunch of these men out there.” He cocked his head toward the mountains. “We’ve inflicted a pair of wounds, and they won’t be happy about that.”

  “What should we do?” the woman asked.

  “Get you home, for one thing, and then I can go back to see about them and your husband.”

  “Dear God, Dr. Stockbridge. What have we brought you into?”

  “Mrs. Keeler, there’s no time or need for that. If you’d get back in the wagon . . . Lenny and Rachel, hitch these horses to the back. How much farther do we have?”

  “About five miles that way,” Lenny said, pointing to the northeast. “I read that on a map.”

  “Good man. We have to press on. It won’t be safe out here, not when that one doesn’t return.” He indicated the plain where the dead man lay.

  “Of course,” Mrs. Keeler said.

  With impressive skill and haste, the children tied the reins to the buckboard, and within a few minutes, they were headed back to the trail.

  The passage was without event for most of the journey—until the left rear wheel snapped and dumped the wagon hard onto that side. The children managed to grab the buckboard side rails to keep from spilling over. Mrs. Keeler slid back but was unhurt, having fallen on one of the blankets that protected her from the growing cold.

  The wagon was a loss, however. The one lantern they had brought was shattered and unsalvageable. Stockbridge cut away the ropes that held the backboard shut and tucked them into his coat pocket.

  “Mount up and ride,” Stockbridge said without hesitation. “Mrs. Keeler, your husband’s horse is the gentlest. I suggest you ride him.”

  There was no debate, though Mrs. Keeler remarked, “This has been a most ill-omened journey.”

  “We’re alive, thanks to Dr. Stockbridge,” Rachel said. “I consider us fortunate.”

  “Yes, I’m sorry,” Mrs. Keeler said with a trace of shame. “There is certainly that.”

  It was a bold remark for the girl to have made, contradicting her mother. But Mrs. Keeler was either too tired or suddenly aware of the ungrateful sentiment she had expressed to disagree. As they rode, and after the sun had set, she took to reciting Scripture—such as she remembered. There was a certain poetry to hearing God’s words as one of His most majestic earthly acts unfolded.

  “Ma does that at the end of every day,” Lenny confided to Stockbridge, who was riding alongside him. “That’s why we had our Bible, the one we lost. She believes it helps God to find us.”

  “She may not be wrong,” Stockbridge said.

  “I hope she isn’t,” Rachel said. “I don’t like to think of Pa alone out there with no one watching over him.”

  “I have a question. Maybe you can answer it,” Stockbridge said. “Did your father ever do anything out here except trapping? Did he ever talk about doing something else?”

  The children looked at each other in the last of the light. They shook their heads.

  “He talked about how it would be nice to be home more,” Rachel said, “but there were no jobs he could do in Buzzard Gulch. The Indians worked on whatever construction was needed. They got paid in liquor, which wouldn’t have helped Pa.”

  “He didn’t drink,” Lenny offered.

  Stockbridge nodded, but if the black man had told the truth—that, found or stolen, the horse had been at Eagle Lookout—it suggested something e
lse was likely afoot.

  It was necessary to stop about an hour out so that, with Rachel’s help, Stockbridge could make and light a pair of torches. He used rope he had taken from the wagon, wrapping it tight around the tops of two branches and tying it there. It burned slow, long enough to get them where they were going.

  The Keeler home was modest bordering on spare. Set beside a small patch of garden growing carrots and peas and protected by chicken wire, the house was a hodgepodge of log, stone, and thatch, suggesting that Ben Keeler would not have been hired to do construction even if there had been no Indians in the vicinity. But it was solid, and it retained heat, thanks to thick mud he had packed in to seal every seam. The long eaves, on every side, were supported by branches that helped to protect all four sides from rain. Not enough mud washed away to threaten the occupants with wind or leaking.

  There was a slanting wood stable with two stalls. With Stockbridge holding the torch, Lenny and Rachel reintroduced their father’s mount to his home, stabled the cart horse, then did their best to accommodate the new animal they had acquired. They left Pama out front, tied to the well. A habit Stockbridge had acquired during the War was to sleep near his horse, in case medical attention was needed in the field. He had also made it a practice to mark the trail in his head in the event of a nighttime retreat. He had done so now. If the men came after them, Stockbridge would be ready with his mount and a knowledge of the terrain that newcomers would not possess.

  As soon as she was inside, Mrs. Keeler was comfortably in charge. She lit a fire in the modest hearth—the only illumination—dispatched Lenny to the well for water, and sent Rachel for the sewing box so the woman could repair Stockbridge’s coat after dinner.

  “The wind out here—Ben always said . . . says . . . you don’t want it running up your spine,” Mrs. Keeler told him.