Blood of the Hunters

by Jeff Rovin

It took a moment for Cuthbert to realize that not only had the man insulted him, he had maligned the Confederacy. The captain walked back down, his gaze grown sinister.

  “All right, mister, what’s your game? What’s got you suddenly all puffed like a general?”

  “You do, Captain. What has me outranking you, suddenly, is that I can prove you killed Sheriff Peake. You remember Sheriff Peake?”

  Cuthbert half turned toward the wing chair where he had left his grip . . . the bag that seemed a lot thinner without the pearl-handled six-shooters.

  “The belt is right there,” Nikolaev said, pointing to a package shelf behind him. “I’d noticed the guns before, of course. In my business, you miss nothing. But I never had any reason to remark about them. I remember how you didn’t like him wondering about the currency you always seemed to have, you and your men, even though you never worked. Oh, yes”—Nikolaev wagged a cautioning finger—“he talked when he drank. ‘How did the captain and his men come here with Confederate money? They don’t work, but they have all these greenbacks? Why do folks come here asking about missing people?’ He was going out that morning to ask you those questions, Captain.”

  Cuthbert thrust his hand in his pocket, gripped the derringer.

  Nikolaev’s finger, still upraised, rotated toward the back of the lobby. Yi stood there with one of the Colts gripped in her two tiny hands.

  “I said the belt was there, not the guns. I have the other behind the counter. Poor Yi. The recoil will knock her back if she fires, but she will fire. How do you think she became a widow?”

  Cuthbert was angry, but more at himself than at Nikolaev. He was always so careful when he went on a ride. But this time his mind had been red with rage and cloudy with being unrested.

  Once again, the former Confederate released the derringer. There was enough of a soldier and a gentleman left in him to know when he’d been outmaneuvered.

  “All right, Raspy. All right. You made a move. You want something. What?”

  The Russian knocked his heels together and bowed, like the old-world aristocrat he still wished he was.

  “Let Molly be. She went to the church. To pray for Grady.”

  “I thought I was supposed to tell her.”

  “You said that, not I. She came down with our guest, and she could see from my face that something was wrong. I could not lie. I told her what happened, and she ran out, her red shawl trailing like woven tears.”

  Cuthbert did not know if Nikolaev was still taunting him or not. This was the longest amount of talking the two had spoken since the man first came to Colorado. But the Russian wasn’t the issue.

  “Church,” Cuthbert said. “Molly hasn’t said a word to God since she learned to talk.”

  “Perhaps she was secretly devout.”

  Cuthbert shook his head. “Raspy, you are just a big envelope of hot, wordy gas today. I don’t know what game you’re playing, but you’d best stop.”

  “Playing games is not my intention.” He put a pudgy hand on his heart as if that would add to his sincerity. “We are, after all, a small community that depends on one another.”

  There was a hint of retreat in the Russian’s voice. He was a smarter man than he let on.

  “Church,” Cuthbert repeated. “You swear she’s gone there?”

  “On the tsar’s all-seeing eyes.”

  Cuthbert looked from Nikolaev to Yi and back to the Russian. “You give me back my guns?”

  Nikolaev pretended to consider the request. He had already decided. “One, no belt. I need insurance. And you promise not to get rough with Molly. I do not want to forbid you from ever returning.”

  “With what my men and I spend? You’d go broke in a fortnight.”

  “Nonetheless—”

  “Fine, Raspy. You win the bluff.”

  Nikolaev waved his fingers at Yi. Watching the captain with eyes like little machines, she walked over, put the gun on the counter, and left.

  With an annoyed huff, Cuthbert tucked the weapon into his belt, turned, and went back out into the growing sunset.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Juan Juarez sat in the mouth of the cave, listening.

  Small fires burned to the right and to the left of him, in large pits he had hacked from the solid rock when he first arrived in this remote region. He used them for warmth against the frigid night but also to keep eagles from coming after him or his scraps. He always tossed the remains of his meals over the cliff, but bits of flesh remained. It could not be helped. Though he was just forty-seven years old, life up here was hard. Gratifying, private, and beautiful, but never easy. The skin cracked, small bones broken here and there and more than once, his lean, cold fingers were not as supple as they had been. Meat fell, and he left it for the bugs. Eating that, they stayed out of the old skins that were wrapped around his bony form.

  His eyes were hollow but they reflected contentment. His face tended to be gaunt though the bushy beard and spiky mustache concealed that fact. He whistled a lot, partly to entertain himself, partly to keep his lips from cracking in the often bitter cold.

  Deeper in the cave were a pottery wheel he had built himself, the handmade spears used for hunting and fishing, and the furs he had taken from animals smaller than a bear and less feral than a wolf. He used them for clothes and blankets, and he had even used a fox skin to make a flag. With a burning stick, he had seared the words El mundo de Juan on the tanned side. It had been draped along the entrance for over two years until a blizzard carried it off. He wondered if God had been cross with him for his vanity, or maybe it was the angry spirit of the fox. The Cheyenne had years ago warned him of the animal spirits in the mountains. Juan was a Catholic who, with the blessings of Padre Alvarez, had left the constant wars in Mexico to come here. He departed on foot with a wooden cross that was being replaced with a gold one in their little church.

  Juarez sat and Juarez waited and Juarez listened. Since the visit by the man named Grady Foxborough, listening had become an obsession. Juarez was afraid—not of Grady, but of the man whose horse had been taken. More specifically, the ghost of the dead man whose horse had been taken. He believed in a Holy Ghost, so why not an unholy one?

  To those he met while heading north, Juarez had alternately called himself a prospector, a hunter, a trapper, a missionary—all things he had been during the two years of his journey. Now he just had the hollow-cheeked, sunken-eyed, scruffy-bearded look of a mountain man—a hermit.

  His cave was located a rough hundred-foot climb below Eagle Lookout—rough because there was an overhang that was impossible to surmount for someone not a ghost. The only way to get up there, from his abode, was to spiral around the mountain—a journey that could take the better part of a day, depending on snow, wind, and cold.

  So Juan Juarez rarely went up there, and save for one occasion, he did so only in the spring, to collect eagle eggs for his meals. Sometimes the eagles built nests low enough to make that possible.

  The exception was over a week before when Juan had heard noises from above.

  It was just before sunset, and it had sounded like there was a horse stomping on his head. Since those animals, not even the boldest mustangs, did not run wild up here, and riders rarely went above the high trail that wound around the peak—there was no higher trail beyond that, just mountainside—Juarez could not imagine who was up there.

  When he woke the next morning, there were no sounds. Then he heard rumbling. Landslides were not uncommon—but landslides and whinnying horses together, above, were.

  Fearful, but concerned that he was soon to have a neighbor—especially one who was tearing things apart—Juarez had decided to investigate. He had pulled on his patchwork of furs, grabbed his old rifle—which was little more than a walking stick, since it had not been fired since the previous winter when he ran out of bullets—and made his way around the cliff.
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  On the way, Juan had been surprised to meet a man who was coming up the high trail on horseback. This could not have been the horse Juarez heard. He had already gone a quarter mile to the east, too far to hear anything from above. But good Lord Jesus, he hoped this was not an invasion. That was why he had left Mexico.

  But there was, his sharp eyes had noted, a reason to not be entirely rude. The stranger had had guns and, more important, a well-stocked saddlebag that might contain a needle and thread. Juarez’s garments needed repair, and he was tired of sewing with thistle and vines.

  “Hola!” Juarez had said affably.

  “Howdy,” Grady Foxborough had responded. “Speak English?”

  “Sí,” the man responded, then shook his head. “Learn a little from gringos on way here.”

  “What’s your name?” the newcomer asked. “I’m Grady Foxborough.”

  “Juan Juarez.”

  “Hello, Juan. You must have strong lungs, amigo. Where’d all the air go?”

  “God blow it away. This His place,” Juan said.

  “You could be right. Well, Juan and”—he looked up reverently—“and God, Your Highness, I’m looking for a man who was following this trail up. Came through about two days ago. You see such a fella?”

  “Maybe. I hear horses.”

  “Where?”

  “Señor, you have—to sew?”

  “So?”

  Juarez had made a motion with his pinched fingers.

  “You mean a needle?”

  “Sí, sí!”

  “I don’t have that, muchos sorry.”

  Juan had scowled. The man’s carbine looked like a twelve gauge, not a ten gauge. He could not even trade his help for bullets.

  Bundled against the wind in a heavy sheepskin, Foxborough looked around at the gray cliff to one side and a precipice on the other. “Mister—Juan—do you live up here?”

  “Sí. Not a nice place. You would not like.”

  “I can see that. I wasn’t thinking of moving here.”

  Juan’s temper relaxed a bit.

  “Listen, Juan—where are you headed?”

  “Heard a horse. No horses up here. I usual no hear anybody, except me.”

  “It wasn’t my horse, was it?”

  Juarez shook his head.

  “Do you mind if I come along to where you were going? To where you heard the horse?”

  Juarez spit—and the stranger’s hand slapped down to his gun belt.

  “No!” Juan said, holding up one hand and pulling at his lips with the other. “Fur from collar blow in mouth!”

  Foxborough snorted. “That gun of yours—it even work?”

  Juarez shook his head yes . . . then no.

  “Tell you what. You help me, and if we find a gun up there, it’s yours. Deal?”

  Juarez had not even thought of that. He did not dislike the man, and as long as he was not going to settle here—

  “Okay, you can follow. But I don’t know why anybody would come up here. There is nothing.”

  “Well, I ask you, Juan: Why would somebody come up here searching for nothing?”

  “You are,” Juarez said.

  Foxborough laughed. “Maybe you’re correct. But this friend of mine, a trapper, is kind of loco.”

  “Come,” the Mexican said, and trudged past Foxborough. “Cold here.”

  The Southerner followed.

  The trip had taken nearly three more hard, leg-wearying hours. A low cloud layer had gathered around them, adding chill and obscuring their view, and there was increasingly icy ground caused by condensation from those clouds. In addition, the trip was made hazardous by a narrowing path that became little more than a rock-strewn band some five feet wide.

  If Juarez was not exactly a stranger in a strange land, he felt like Moses on Sinai, with his rifle staff and blowing cloak of black bear.

  The path had finally broadened as it led to a ledge about the size of the small cemetery back in Chihuahua, the one with just nine departed. This was Eagle Lookout. There was a horse away from the ledge, by a cliff—a restless and unhappy animal with its reins tied around a rock. Juarez could see the beginnings of its ribs. What he could not see was a rifle. The man must have taken it with him.

  “That’s why the horse make noise,” Juarez said, walking over and stroking the animal’s side. The horse flinched. There were bird droppings on its back. “He scared and hungry.”

  “He’s also still saddled,” Foxborough observed.

  “Is this the trapper’s horse?”

  Foxborough nodded. “He obviously did not intend to stay away this long.”

  The Southerner dismounted and looked up, squinting through the shrouding clouds. He could dimly see, and also hear, the nests on outcroppings above. But there was nowhere a man could just disappear. The trapper, or whoever had been riding the horse, had not fallen over the ledge. There was a faint coating of undisturbed ice particles and intact eagle droppings on the overlapping slabs of slate. Except where the horse had stepped, all around the rock, or licked at the ice underfoot, nothing had been disturbed.

  That was when Foxborough spotted a few dislodged chips of rock around the horse. He had looked up as far as the clouds permitted, some ten feet above.

  “Damn. He had to have gone that way.”

  “Sí. Nowhere else.”

  “Do you know what’s on top?”

  “Just mountain, I think. But I have never been there. The trail, it ends here.”

  “Then he had to have gone up the mountain—and here, since that’s where he left the horse. May have even used the saddle for a boost up.”

  “Maybe a rope? The rock is slippery—the birds.”

  “Yeah, I didn’t see one on the horse. But to throw it up there in this wind—it wouldn’t get him very far.” Foxborough shook his head. “Keeler, you lunatic. What were you thinking? Juan, you know what’s on the north face?”

  “More rock. More eagles. You can see it from the lower trail.”

  “No openings?”

  “I never see one.” He shrugged. “But then I never look.”

  “Does it ever clear up here? Can’t make out very much.”

  “Sí. Weather changes pretty fast. But—you could start climbing, it’s clear. Before you go ten feet . . . it’s not.”

  Foxborough slapped his reins in the Mexican’s hand like he was a stable boy. Now Juarez disliked him. The Southerner stepped back as far as he dared, and Juarez did not care if he fell. Eagle Lookout had a slight slope toward the abyss where there was a mix of peaks, ledges, and, below that, tall pines. If a strong wind came around the slope, it would be easy to tumble over.

  Foxborough turned his face up and put his hands on the sides of his mouth and shouted, his voice echoing. “Hey! Hey, you with the Palomino!”

  “Not so loud!” Juarez said with urgent hand motions. “You bring this wall down.”

  “Good point, old man.”

  You are idiot, young man, Juarez thought.

  The two men fell silent then, listening through the wind. There was no reply, no sound of movement above.

  After a minute of not moving, Juarez was looking down when he noticed something beneath his furry boots, something that concerned him.

  “We should not stay too long,” the Mexican said.

  “Why not?”

  He pointed down. “There is blood under the ice.”

  Foxborough went over and looked around at the ground, more carefully than before. “What do you think did that?”

  “Eagles bring food to the nest. It bleeds. Come dark, maybe they think we are food.”

  “It’s been a couple of days, maybe a week—they haven’t attacked the horse.”

  “Horse is too big to carry. My feet and hands, they look like foxes. Your cap,
a raccoon.”

  Foxborough sighed. “You may have a point. Anyway, it doesn’t look like ole Keeler is anywhere near.” Foxborough came back then and took the reins. Of both horses.

  “We should not leave horse?” Juarez asked.

  “To die? No. That would be cruel.”

  “Man may die when he come back.”

  “If he comes back,” Foxborough had said. “For all we know, he went up and fell from there. Anyway, he can make it down on foot just as okay. You got up here.”

  “I wasn’t hungry or thirsty. Or tired. Or maybe lost.”

  “Look, Juan, I admire your compassion, but Ben Keeler is probably beyond hearing,” Foxborough said. “If he isn’t, then he’ll find you, or maybe he’ll find me, and when he does, I’ll give him back his horse.”

  Foxborough noticed then a necklace made of cat’s teeth draped over the pommel. He took it off, slipped it over his head. “You see him, you give him food. He’ll know we were looking after his interests.”

  Juarez did not care for that idea. But if this Keeler was lost or had fallen, it was true that the horse would die. He did not want to see that either. He also wanted this Grady to leave now, before it grew dark, so he made no protest. Not that the man would have listened. He was a stiff-necked one—the kind of aristocrat the Mexican had wanted to leave behind when he came up here.

  The two men and the two horses reversed course, Juarez in the lead, on foot, Foxborough riding his horse and pulling the Palomino behind. It was slow going, since the downward slope made the men want to speed up—which would have put them right off any number of sharp turns in the cliff.

  They made it back to Juarez’s level without incident, and the other man and his horses stayed on the trail to head home.

  “Sorry you didn’t get the rifle,” Foxborough said. “But I tell you what. You still stand a chance to make some profit. If you see Ben Keeler, bring him to me on the lower trail, at the last rise. I’ll give him his horse and you a rifle. Okay?”

  “I will tell him,” Juarez promised, then added quietly, “either in person or in my prayers.”

  Now, more than a week after that journey, Juarez sat by his twin campfires and watched as the sun disappeared somewhere behind his mountain. The clouds had remained, snow had fallen, and then the clouds had started to break. As he sat there, a misty white puff was all that remained. A sunset wind came along and pushed at it, and the cloud flew off like an angel.