Blood of the Hunters

by Jeff Rovin

  All of this came up like a remembered dream as Stockbridge reached and then passed the spot where they had met. The scrapes of the wheels on the ledge were still there, the tracks that marked as far as the Keelers had gone. They had outlived the men who had tried to waylay them.

  Stockbridge did not linger here, but he did not hurry. For one thing, he did not know this horse very well. It did not seem to mind him. If the big animal noticed the lesser weight of the new rider, that was in no way evident. Nonetheless, Stockbridge let the animal set its own pace. But there was another reason for caution. There had been a bear trap hidden below; there might be one or more above. He did not know where the men lived, and they might have arranged snares or pitfalls anywhere along the way—not just for him but for any person or animal that came by.

  At least it was quiet up here. The trees creaked, and rocks occasionally slid, and the wind had its own voice that, just now, was humming very low. That was how he was able to hear the clatter of something moving regularly, rhythmically on stone coming from somewhere below. He held up at a spot that overlooked the plain as well as the lower levels of the trail. Though there were several points like that on the way up, the trees were thicker lower down, and they blocked noises from below. Up here, closing in on two thousand feet, there was just open ledge and treetops.

  He saw no one. Turning, he faced a hundred-yard stretch of the trail that emerged from around the mountain to the north and came straight up, in a gentle but narrow slope, before disappearing back into the north.

  The sound grew louder. There was one set of hooves, no talking. The clatter was pretty lively, suggesting there was not a lot weighing the conveyance down, either goods or people. It was probably an empty cart with one passenger, possibly having delivered pelts or firewood to the homesteaders. If it had gone farther, to Buzzard Gulch, it would not be coming back empty but loaded with goods.

  The new arrival surprised Stockbridge. He had not guessed it might be a woman alone, let alone one in a flatlands surrey. And on top of that, a woman who, upon seeing him, stopped the surrey and just stared for a moment.

  “I’m not going to hurt you!” he assured the woman.

  “I know!” she replied. “Dear God, I know!”

  That, too, was a surprise. Most of the time, people saw him and either turned away or backed off, sometimes both.

  Seeing no weapon or anyone behind her, Stockbridge started forward. “I am Dr. John Stockbridge,” he announced. “But you seem to know that.”

  “Yes. I am Miss Molly Henshaw. I work at the Pap Hotel. In Buzzard Gulch.”

  “I’ve never been there.”

  “No. I would have seen you.”

  It was a strange conversation to be having, but then Stockbridge had had several of those since appearing in the Line & Telegram.

  Stockbridge stopped his mount a few feet in front of the surrey horse. Both animals seemed skittish to meet each other. He waited for them to settle.

  “This is an out-of-the-way place to go riding,” Stockbridge said, “especially in a buggy built for Sundays after church.”

  “It was all I could borrow. It was important that I find you.”

  “Why?”

  “Not for anything bad, not . . . not like the others.” She nodded slightly back toward the plains.

  “What makes you think I had anything to do with that?”

  “They were Promise Cuthbert’s men. They came after you because of Grady Foxborough. You’re going after the rest of them, I assume.”

  “The rest?”

  She regarded him. “You’re going to New Richmond.”

  “Ma’am, everything you’re saying is new to me. How many are there?”

  “Four more,” she told him. “You’re telling me the truth. You really don’t know.”

  “Truly, I do not.”

  She pulled her cloak tighter. “Dr. Stockbridge, if we could talk while we ride? It’s chilly just sitting here.”

  “Of course, forgive me.” He started to turn around. “Just one more question. You say you came looking for me—why?”

  “To help. I know a little about you, something more about these people and the man who leads them.”

  “You read about me?” Stockbridge asked.

  “That, and also—I met you briefly in Gunnison. You kindly gave way on a road so I could pass.”

  Stockbridge thought back. He remembered the surrey and, now, the bright face that had looked up at him in the twilight.

  “I recall it,” he said. “It was brief—”

  “It was enough.”

  “For you to risk your life?”

  “Dr. Stockbridge, I am here because I wish to be. And frankly, you could use an extra set of eyes and ears, could you not?”

  She was not wrong on either count, though Stockbridge also did not want to be distracted looking after those eyes and ears. Still, he knew from treating patients when there was no point arguing with them. Nodding, he finished turning the horse around.

  With Stockbridge riding on the outside of the narrow pass, and amidst the accenting clop of hooves and clack of wheels on stony earth, Molly told him the story of her relationship with Promise Cuthbert and his operation up in the mountains. She revealed how she was able to get away and that when she left Cuthbert had still been in prison. Nikolaev had promised not to forgive him until she’d had time to get to the mountain and hopefully find the man she was looking for.

  Her narrative filled in the gaps in Stockbridge’s knowledge, and he was grateful to know who else might be hunting him. When Molly was finished, she said, “I’ve had my say. Now, tell me. If you’re not looking for them, why are you here?”

  “I’m searching for someone else, Miss Henshaw. Ben Keeler, a trapper who has gone missing.”

  “Keeler,” she repeated. “The captain was looking for a family by that name in order to find you.”

  “That’s the family I helped a little ways back—”

  “And why Grady Foxborough is dead,” she said.

  “Do you think that’s still this captain’s plan? To find them?”

  “I don’t know. When he’s this agitated, it’s impossible to say what he will do.”

  “These other men of his. Where exactly are they?”

  “Not far,” she said, gesturing ahead. “About a quarter mile up the trail.”

  He motioned her to stop and reined up beside her. “Are they likely to see us?”

  “The cabin is set back a ways from a cutoff, which is itself about two, three hundred yards off Peak Road. Unless they’re waiting for you, they aren’t likely to hear. Where do you plan to look for Ben Keeler?”

  “A place called Eagle Lookout, Miss Henshaw.” He pulled the map from his pocket, handed it over. “Have you heard of it?”

  She looked at the map and shook her head.

  “Looks like we have to make our way to the Oónâhe’e River, then travel west from the bend. That’s where Grady found Ben Keeler’s horse, at least according to the black fella who was part of the group.”

  “Woodrow Pound,” Molly said. She made no expression though her mind returned to the gory tableau she had seen below. “The other man was Liam McWilliams.”

  “You saw them back there,” he suddenly realized.

  She nodded.

  “Sorry, ma’am. There was no time to—”

  “There’s another ridge,” she said, looking at the map. “Right below where the horse was found.”

  “I know. I thought I’d go there first. If there’s a way up, saves a lot of riding.”

  “Eagle Lookout,” she said, changing the subject and returning the map. “It sounds fresh. Clean. Better than the town I’ve left behind. I’m eager to see it.”

  With that, Stockbridge put his heels gently against the ribs of the horse, and they started back up t
he trail.

  The ride was cold but scenic and marked by an absence of contact with any of the Red Hunters. When they passed, Stockbridge saw the path that branched from the main trail and the big, brash sign that announced New Richmond. Trees had been hewn to make the cutoff, their stumps manfully pulled out, and there were more rocks that way than this. The path wound up more steeply through a wooded area only to be lost behind a large, striated wall of rock.

  It was a perfect place for a hideout, an ideal warren for weasels.

  Stockbridge looked up the steeper, bolder trail. It had occurred to him that by riding up the path now and unleashing the shotgun he carried under his arm, he could very well end the threat from the men who wanted him dead. A surprise attack, rather than being surprised himself. But he had never done anything prophylactically except in medicine. He would not take a life because someone might have been or even probably was after him.

  Molly seemed to read the mind of the man riding beside her.

  “Yi Huang,” Molly said. “She’s a Chinese woman who works with me at the hotel. She has told me a little about the religion she follows. Taoism. And there’s an idea she believes in more than any other, one that I especially like. She said, ‘Whatever your goal, if you break the harmony of the universe, you have already lost.’ I thought that was beautiful.”

  “Whenever I ministered to the sick, I would almost always hear them pray to their own god. White people, red men, black folks, yellow—it didn’t matter what they called Him or how they saw Him. It was always the same. They had a humble, very humble manner. They were fearful of judgment. They were sad at the thought of maybe being called to leave this life. I always wondered if Sarah . . . ,” he said, his voice choking and then trailing off. “Sorry,” he said.

  “Your wife?” Molly asked quietly.

  He nodded.

  The woman did not press him to continue. In the context of that story she had read, Molly understood now, most forcefully, that he would do anything necessary to prevent others from suffering such a loss.

  With New Richmond falling well behind, they rode in silent reflection about that goal and none other.

  * * *

  * * *

  Juan Juarez felt as though his land, his home, was being invaded.

  In his years of being a mountain man, he had never found himself so popular . . . or so annoyed. It was at times like these that he felt he should make a second flag, one with El mundo de Juan and the skull and crossbones he had seen in a book about pirates. He would fly it below with a warning to keep away.

  The latest clanking, squeaking, clomping intruders were a man and a woman.

  He saw them as they came around the bend. He did not mind the lady. It had been at least five years since Juan had seen or smelled one, and this woman was lovely on both accounts. She smelled—clean, like flowers—and was even prettier than that wicked she-cat Maria, who had chosen Esteban over him. This one was paler than he had remembered women to be, but better dressed and not so cross. And her hair was not like a raven but like sunshine.

  The man approached with bullet-hard eyes pinning Juan where he stood holding a wooden bowl with a late lunch of stew—fox meat in melted snow, cooked in a clay pot he had made himself. He faced the newcomers with his wooden spoon in one hand, steam from the bowl blowing to the west, off the cliff, like a little version of the clouds above.

  “Hello, friend,” said the man on horseback.

  Juarez just stared.

  “I’m Dr. John Stockbridge. This is Miss Molly Henshaw.”

  “How do you do?” Molly asked.

  Juarez put down the bowl and spoon and took off his fur cap. She smiled appreciatively.

  “I am Juan Juarez,” he said.

  Without shifting his dark eyes, Stockbridge noticed the rifle leaning against the wall just inside the cave. He did not think the man would go for it. Or that it would fire if he did, the barrel being rusted and the stock splintered. He did not see any ammunition nearby.

  “Sorry to interrupt your meal, Juan. We are on our way to Eagle Lookout. We would not have stopped except—we thought this might be a quicker way up, which I can see that it’s not.”

  “You are correct,” Juan said. “You looking for man?”

  “Yes,” said Stockbridge. “A man named Ben Keeler. Do you know him?”

  “No.” Juarez raised a finger above his head. “Man came looking for him. Eagle Lookout.”

  “A man named Grady?” Stockbridge asked.

  “Sí, sí, that was his name.”

  “And the lost man was a fur trapper?”

  “I think yes. This lost man, he had a horse tied to rock. The other man, Grady, he looked around, took it.”

  “Tell me, were there any other signs of Ben Keeler? A fire, a cigarette, food scraps, tracks—anything?”

  Juarez shook his head. “Grady shout. No one answer. We think the man climb up from Eagle Lookout. But the clouds, they do not let us see where.”

  “And if he had come down, that path is the only way.”

  “That way—or this.” Juan tilted his head toward the edge of the ridge, the one that fell into the forest below. He pulled at the jagged hairs of his mustache.

  “Would you have heard him on the trail?” Stockbridge asked.

  “No. Not on foot.”

  “I see. You’ve been a big help, Juan. I’m going to leave my horse, too, if you don’t mind—”

  “Señor, I tell you what,” Juarez said, his eyes still on Molly. “I will go with you. Show you where we were. Maybe help the lady. The ice up there, it can be very unfriendly.”

  Molly smiled her thanks.

  Juan finally looked away, turning his eyes to the shotgun. “One thing, though. If you are thinking to fire that up there—I would not. The rocks like to make a loud noise, but they do not like to hear one.”

  “I understand,” Stockbridge said. “We appreciate everything you’re doing.”

  Juarez put the bowl back in the cave and covered it with a wooden lid. Then he collected his walking-stick rifle and pulled a heavy bearskin from the wall.

  “This is quite a place you’ve made for yourself,” Molly said admiringly. Curious, she had followed him just a little. “Large, roomy.”

  “You know, it is nicer than what I have in Mexico. Colder, sí, but a better view.”

  “And privacy,” she said longingly. “Quiet.”

  Stockbridge had come up behind Molly. “I know what you said. But are you still sure you want to come? I don’t think Juan would mind you resting here.”

  “No, she make it friendlier,” Juarez agreed.

  “Thank you both,” Molly said. “But we should be starting out. According to the map, we’ve got a bit of a walk to make before nightfall.”

  Juarez shrugged, and Stockbridge kneed the horse, turning it in a tight circle. Molly snapped the reins and transited the front of the cave, backing in carefully in order to turn. The unlikely party was in motion, in search of quarry that was no less improbable—a fur trapper who had gone hunting for something other than fur.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Alan DeLancy and Zebediah Tunney did not feel a special sense of urgency when they finally came down the mountain. They saw no clouds of dirt rising from the plain, suggesting neither travelers nor a dust devil, and no one dwelt between them and the homesteaders. Their ride was leisurely; they half expected to stop and turn around when they encountered McWilliams or Pound or the two of them together coming the other way with their prisoner.

  That did not happen, and the longer they rode, the more concerned they became. It was possible the men had not found the man they pursued. It was possible they had gone on to see what Captain Cuthbert had learned. What was not possible was what the two riders actually encountered.

  Riding along the trail below the foothills, they s
aw the buzzards flocked on the plain and figured that a deer or a bear was beneath them. Nothing smaller would have accommodated so many birds without them squawking and biting at one another.

  Then they saw the bow and arrow.

  The men stopped and sat transfixed by the impossible.

  “Woodrow,” DeLancy finally whispered.

  He drew the Colt from his holster and put six rounds into four birds. The rest of the flock took wing, hovering. The four dead creatures spilled their blood onto what was left of Woodrow Pound, a sight worse than any the men had ever seen on the battlefield.

  The men dismounted and tied their horses to the charred, broken cacti on the north side of the trail. They knew at once what Pound had done.

  As they searched for rocks and began piling them on their dead friend—shooting birds that insisted on trying to return—the men knew that Pound’s target had survived. There were hoofprints headed up to the mountain and away from the mountain. The ones going up seemed fresher.

  It couldn’t have been McWilliams. They would have seen him. It had to be Stockbridge. But there were also wagon wheels. It might just be a traveler. That thought offended the men deeper, thinking that this was how Woodrow Pound would be remembered by whoever had passed—a mass of chewed-up skin and gut.

  What the tracks did not tell them was where McWilliams might be.

  It was only after burying Pound, and saying a heartfelt farewell, that they noticed the discarded horse leg. Tunney squatted and examined the protruding bone.

  “Bear trap,” he said with certainty.

  “I don’t recognize the color,” DeLancy said, indicating the leg. “Could be Stockbridge’s.”

  “Why would he carry it with him?” Tunney asked with disbelief.

  “We’ll find that out when we find him,” DeLancy said.

  The men rose, Tunney angrily flinging the leg like a boomerang, out toward the foothills.

  “He didn’t go north, so I say we continue east, see if Liam’s out there.”

  Tunney did not disagree, and after mounting up, the men continued along the trail. Almost immediately they came upon the horse. It was spread across the trail with both sides athwart, having been tugged this way and that by four-legged predators. Coyotes, most likely, since the thing had been chewed apart in small pieces.