Blood of the Hunters

by Jeff Rovin

  Without turning, Mrs. Keeler said, “Rachel, go get our things.”

  The girl hesitated. Now she was annoying.

  “Rachel, go!” her mother repeated.

  The girl pivoted and did as she was instructed.

  “Just clothes,” Cuthbert told the family. “If I see a gun, whoever’s holding it dies with the same in their hands.”

  Mrs. Keeler’s eyes fell to his gun. “Bravely spoken.”

  He smacked her with a hard backhand. She staggered back. Rachel and Lenny both ran forward, but Mrs. Keeler stopped them.

  “Yankee sass,” Cuthbert said. “No culture, no respect. Just crude, animal prickles.”

  The woman’s cheek burned, and her lips pursed tightly. She thought better of replying in kind. “Let a man be known by his actions. You’re one of those men, the ones who were with Grady.”

  Cuthbert’s eyes flared. “Don’t you dare speak his name! You don’t have that right.”

  “In my own home? On my own land? I will not only say his cursed name, but I will speak what he was: a bandit, no better. From hiding, he ambushed and tried to rob two women and a boy.”

  His face a mask of hate, Cuthbert cocked the firearm and pointed it at the bridge of her nose. Lenny jumped forward and stepped between them. He bundled her in his arms, his back to the gunman.

  “Captain, don’t!” DeLancy yelled. He had come around from the side when he heard the shouting. “Not that and certainly not here. We have a mission.”

  “A mission,” Cuthbert repeated, almost reverently. Just like in the War, the Red Hunters shoulder to shoulder. DeLancy was right. The captain could not let this sack of bones in a housedress stop the mission.

  Cuthbert released the hammer, stepped back, then used the gun to motion the two Keelers out. They waited while Rachel joined them, her eyes on Cuthbert like a she-wolf’s on a ram. Rachel helped her mother with her fur coat, which hung on a peg beside the door. Rachel tossed Lenny his own wool garment, then grabbed the rabbit-fur cloak her father had made for her.

  “Private Tunney!”

  “Yes, Captain?”

  “Go to the stable and get whatever horses they’ve got!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Rachel put her arms around her mother and hugged her. Lenny stood before them, shifting from foot to foot, his fists at his side. He looked like he wanted to say something, do something. What stopped him was not cowardice. He was thinking about his mother’s grief if he got himself shot and died. Rachel seemed to sense that and, reaching out with one hand, lightly rested it on his shoulder and pulled him in.

  Watching them, Cuthbert said, “I had family, too. A wife back home and brothers in blood out here.”

  “I’m sorry,” Alice Keeler said sincerely.

  “The tears of a Yankee,” he scoffed. “Where you from? New York? New England?”

  “Pennsylvania.”

  “Gettysburg,” he muttered. He stepped closer again, his gun hand shaking, eyes livid. “We should have had you there. We pushed all the way up, but you had the guns and you had the numbers. It wasn’t for lack of courage or resolve. You had the damn guns!”

  DeLancy came over. “Save it for who deserves it, sir.”

  “None of them is innocent,” Cuthbert sneered. “Somewhere in their clan, they got our blood on their bayonets. I want to wipe it on their hair, on their pale faces, on—”

  “Captain,” DeLancy quietly coaxed him, “the mission.”

  Once again, the Confederate leader eased back.

  Save for the slapping of Tunney’s boots, the cawing of a few crows, and the gentle whoosh of the cold wind, there was no sound. Not until the big man returned leading two saddled horses and wearing a pleased grin.

  “Lookee!”

  His two companions looked over.

  “Grady’s horse!” Tunney said proudly.

  DeLancy saw Cuthbert’s eyes turn to feral slits. The captain raised his right hand and pointed his Colt at the Palomino.

  “Captain!” DeLancy yelled.

  Tunney stopped. At this distance he was not quite sure where the six-shooter was aimed.

  “Sir!” the private said with a sudden look of panic.

  Cuthbert held his shooting stance. It was not thought but instinct that told him to reunite the horse with its owner the quickest way he knew how. But some part of his brain took control and told him the way to remember Grady was by chasing Stockbridge down on the back of the Palomino.

  Once again, the hammer was released, and the Colt went down. Both Tunney and DeLancy exhaled.

  “The lady’s with you, on point all the way to the cabin,” the captain told DeLancy. “Put the boy on my mount and the girl on the nag. I’ll bring up the rear on Grady’s horse.” He looked at the huddled Keelers. “Any of you try to break away, any of you talk to each other, any of you try to slow us down and you get to die in your home, on your land. Nod if you got that.”

  The heads of the three Keelers moved slowly up and down—the children only after their mother had done so.

  Within minutes, the horses and riders were on the trail headed toward the mountains.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  John Stockbridge felt the rumbling of the rockslide in the soles of his feet and along the iron barrel of the shotgun instants before he heard it. He thought, at first, it was coming from somewhere outside this cone of a promontory, perhaps from the poking and pulling they had done on the other side.

  He was already moving toward the trail to steady the animals; the rumbling ceased before he reached them. After taking a moment to settle them, he turned back toward the cloud-shrouded cliff. That was when he saw dust darkening the clouds.

  “Molly!” he called up.

  The word was smothered by the ugly brown haze above.

  “Molly! Juan!”

  He listened. The silence was thick as death. He was about to shout again when he thought he heard a cry. There were sounds that could have been talking. Low, monotone, possibly afraid that something else might fall.

  Stockbridge stepped back. There had been a sloping path inside—he had heard that much. Molly and Juan had used it to enter. It was possible that their combined weight had been too much for the ridge. Or maybe something they had done to try to free Ben Keeler had caused a rockfall.

  He looked up along the cliff. If he went up and there was another collapse, they would lose the animals for sure—and he might be injured. That would help no one. If there were instability in the structure, he might only make it worse. He did not even have a rope to throw them.

  Too many field surgeries, too many sudden military skirmishes, had left the military doctor confident in his ability to improvise. This was a hard-learned lesson to the contrary, a rebuke to the legend of Dr. Vengeance. So was his having let the others go up there unprepared.

  Being angry at myself for that is not going to help get them out.

  More pebbles fell. Grass from one of the nests came fluttering down, along with several twigs.

  “The cone is unstable,” he thought aloud as he looked up “You climb up, you could fall. You climb up, it could fall.”

  And yet the wall falling might be exactly what he wanted—as long as it fell down or out. There was likely enough fallen stone inside to block it from tumbling in.

  Stockbridge recovered his hat, stepped a few feet from the wall, and raised his shotgun. A loud sound, along the wall, would rattle the exterior surface. The outside stones might give way and fall toward him. That did not give Stockbridge a lot of room to duck and dodge, but he had to take that risk.

  The horses and surrey were well enough back that they might not be struck. But there was a good chance the horses would panic, so he hurried over. He tied the reins to each other, with very little slack, and then he took the blanket from inside the carriage. He bound the l
eft foreleg of one horse to the right foreleg of another. They protested, but a three-legged horse wasn’t going anywhere.

  Stockbridge rushed back to the cliff and raised his shotgun so it pointed north along the wall, the barrel aimed away from the horses and from himself. He did not believe in prayer, but he offered a silent one now. It was not, after all, for himself the words were intended. They were for two souls who had taken his cause as their own and for the family who needed their man.

  Stockbridge was about to try to tear down a part of God’s abode on earth. He did not dare to pray for a favorable reply.

  He shouldered the shotgun and fired twice. The powerful blasts punched through the clouds and echoed above. The rolling boom faded right into the sudden, rising, louder thunder of rock. That roar became a quaking that shook Eagle Lookout above and below. Stockbridge jumped back and to the north as far as he dared. Chunks of the cliff fell away, tumbling outward, landing around Stockbridge with a force that caused the ledge itself to crack. He hurried over to the horses, the two of them rearing and trying to bite each other. Stockbridge put the shotgun down, grabbed the conjoined reins, and pulled down, his weight on them. In addition to forcing the horses into a semblance of calm, he was away from the center of what was now an avalanche. His back was pelted with ricocheting stones, mostly pebbles that did nothing more than tear small rents in the sleeve of his coat.

  After what seemed an eternal span, the cascade stopped well before Stockbridge was aware of it. The airborne particles were thick, and his hearing was cottony. The unexpected calm of the horses, like the sudden end of a squall, was the first indication he had that the cataclysm was over.

  With the ground beneath him steady, Stockbridge raised himself. He slowly let up on the horses’ reins, and when they made it clear they weren’t going anywhere, he undid the blanket and tied it around his waist. If anyone was injured, it would make a good tourniquet.

  Stockbridge felt confident leaving the animals. If anyone came looking for them, they would not leave without exploring the rockfall.

  Grabbing the waterskin strung from his saddle and tying it to his belt, Stockbridge picked up the shotgun and waited impatiently for the haze to clear. The air remained stubbornly white and heavy, and he could hear nothing.

  Impatiently waving his hat from side to side, he finally started through the granular mist. The nearer he came to the cliff, the more he could see. The first things he saw—gratefully—were rocks. They were piled high on the outside in an angled mass, like some ancient ziggurat. The cone had collapsed outward, as he had hoped, though he could not tell if any rocks had fallen inside. Though stones were still falling, most of those came from somewhere above the clouds, to the east. There was nothing left on this side to collapse.

  Reaching the base of the structure, he put his hat back on. Coughing from the powder, he held his breath and leaned forward. He held tight to his shotgun and used his free hand to grip the rocks as he walked up the side.

  “Molly!” he called out. “Juan?”

  There was no answer, and he began to fear that as many rocks had fallen in as out; it was impossible to tell. It would not be the first time people had been injured or killed because John Stockbridge did not have time to bother with the law—either the laws of man or, in this case, the laws of nature.

  Small stones dropped from under his feet, almost spilling him over several times. He had gone about ten feet up before the air began to clear of dust. He was nearly at the cloud layer when he heard moans from inside the cone. He moved faster, his toes and heels digging in, until he was at the top of the pile and could see inside.

  The tester of airborne grit was underlit by the lantern. Through it, Stockbridge discerned three figures lying on the ground. The rockslide had not formed a pile inside, but the collapse of the ridge had left him with something resembling titanic steps. His descent was inelegant. He sat on the top block, hung his legs over, jumped, and repeated. He did this four times until he was on the ground.

  All three figures were ghostly white, covered with rock dust. One figure, the farthest, had spots of red on his head. As he neared, again waving his hat, Stockbridge could see that it was Juan. Molly was the nearest. She was the one who had been moaning. Between them, lying quite still, was the man they had been attempting to rescue.

  Stockbridge got on his knees beside Molly. She was on her right side, that arm beneath her and the other with its fingers wrapped in the outstretched hand of Ben Keeler. Stockbridge poured water into his palm and then onto her eyes. The cool water caused her lids to flutter. She blinked, then rolled her open eyes toward the face looking down at her. Her pasty lips parted.

  “I heard . . . a shot . . . ,” she said. Her voice was caked and raw, but the smile that came with it was like the sun.

  “Everything’s all right. Can you sit?”

  “I . . . I think so. All parts of me ache . . . so nothing is broken.”

  It was curious reasoning, but Stockbridge knew she was right. Except for ribs and skulls, most broken bones left an area numb. He set the shotgun down, put his strong hands under her left arm, and helped her slowly into a sitting position.

  “Would you believe,” she said slowly, “this is how I started the day? Yi Huang helping me sit? Funny thing is . . . I feel better now.”

  It was probably the shock of what had happened that was making her talk. With a reassuring hand on her shoulder, Stockbridge left her sitting there, and he went over to Juan. The man was on his face, unconscious, apparently having struck his forehead on the ground. Stockbridge carefully turned him over and poured water on his face and in the wound. It was a bad cut, but Stockbridge did not see bone. He used his serrated knife to cut off a swath of blanket and, dampening it, laid it on Juan’s forehead to try to cool the swelling. He felt the man’s arms and legs; nothing appeared to have been broken there.

  Then Dr. John Stockbridge turned his professional eye to Ben Keeler. He did not want to bring a body back to the family.

  The trapper was on his back. This close, Stockbridge could see, then hear him breathing. The doctor’s sigh almost became tears. He poured a few drops from the waterskin into the man’s mouth. Ben’s tongue responded, and he swallowed the water down. Stockbridge set the skin aside and quickly examined the man’s body.

  The trapper was emaciated and dehydrated; that much was immediately apparent. His clothes were rags, and both ankles were cut and swollen. He did not know if the man could walk, though there were no protrusions suggesting a break.

  “His feet . . . were trapped,” Molly said. “But he could feel them.”

  Stockbridge nodded. They would have to carry him, probably using the blanket as a stretcher.

  “Hey! What happened?”

  Stockbridge looked to his right and saw that Juan had risen on an elbow. The damp towel was in his hand, and he was facing the back of the cave. Then he noticed his rifle, smashed beneath the rocks just beside him.

  “The wall fell in,” Stockbridge said. “It barely missed you.”

  Juan turned. “Doctor?”

  “Keep that cloth pressed to your forehead,” Stockbridge said. “You’ve got a nasty cut.”

  “Sí, señor!” Juan replied. He did as instructed and smiled at Molly. “You are good?”

  “Good enough, Juan.”

  Juan’s eyes fell to his side. “Better than my poor rifle. I’m sorry,” he said to the gun. “You were a good companion. You provided for me, in your youth.”

  Stockbridge continued to check Ben Keeler carefully for cuts, bleeding. He did not look at the man but read his body with his fingertips. He had perfected this skill during the War, as it caused less pain to wounded soldiers if movement was minimal. It also left his eyes free to watch what nurses were doing for others.

  As Stockbridge worked, Juan sat, then rose.

  “Aiii . . . ,” the Mexican wheezed.
>
  “Watch yourself,” Stockbridge cautioned.

  “At least you left a blanket for me to fall on,” Juan said, pointing at the ground.

  Molly stood next, leaning on a fallen rock to help get her feet under her. She reminded Stockbridge of a tightrope walker he had seen with his wife and son at a circus in Denver, her arms slowly rising while her body wobbled uncertainly. In the midst of the rubble and disorder, it was an unexpected thing of beauty.

  Stockbridge finished his examination. A second dribbling of water into Keeler’s mouth was finally enough to elicit a sound.

  “Thank you.” The man’s baggy eyes, undilated from the dark, opened a moment later. “And God bless you.”

  “Maybe one day,” Stockbridge said. “Ben Keeler, you’ve got a lovely wife and two beautiful children who are waiting to see you.”

  Tears spilled from the man’s blue eyes. “I—I never thought I would hold them again.”

  Giving the man his privacy, Stockbridge rose and recovered the blanket, which he spread beside him. Together, the three gently eased Keeler onto the floral-patterned quilt, Keeler making sounds—not pain but with apparent delight at feeling something soft for the first time in months.

  They agreed that Molly would go first, guiding and helping to steady Juan, with Stockbridge in the rear.

  “I heard a bang and a bang,” Juan said as he discarded the compress, then spit on his palms to get a good grip on the blanket. “I see now—you shoot the mountain down, señor?”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  “Like Joshua,” Juan said.

  Stockbridge dismissed the analogy with a frown. “On three?”

  The others agreed, and as one, they raised Ben Keeler knee-high. Molly went back to collect the lantern.

  As they walked, Stockbridge kept careful watch on Juan. Blood dribbled down the bridge of the Mexican’s nose. The man was so game, which caused Stockbridge to stew about what Juan had called him. He did not like the press creating Dr. Vengeance when they should have been reporting actual news, and he liked even less when a good, unassuming man like this elevated him—or anyone—to an exalted level, let alone that of a biblical patriarch. It was both grandiose and embarrassing.