Blood of the Hunters

by Jeff Rovin

  “I don’t know how I can ever repay this kindness,” Keeler said. “God will bless you both.”

  “Just rest,” Stockbridge said softly, his voice echoing through the cave. “Don’t think of anything but getting strong.”

  “And getting home,” Keeler added.

  “That, too.” Stockbridge smiled down at him.

  The doctor and Molly left then, taking the torch with them. Juan came from around the north side with an armful of branches. He placed them in the two firepits and lit them with the torch. The mouth of the cave glowed orange behind them.

  “This is brighter than any nighttime’s ever been,” Juan said, looking from his fires to the torch. “Merry, like a fiesta!”

  “How’s your head?” Stockbridge asked, setting his shotgun nearby, against a rock, and looking closely at the cut.

  “It is nothing,” Juan said emphatically.

  “It’s not nothing, Juan. It’s still bleeding. You’ve got blood on your sleeve where you’ve been wiping it.”

  Juan’s mouth twisted in surrender. “You going to burn me?”

  “The injury has got to be closed, amigo.”

  The Mexican sighed. He looked at Molly for support, found only sympathy. He backed up against the side of the cave mouth, bracing himself. “Okay. Do it.”

  Stockbridge selected one of the sticks. He rolled the tip around in the flames, against a rock, getting rid of any splinters and hardening the point. Blowing on it, he stood and approached the shorter man. Gently, he pushed Juan’s long hair from his brow.

  “This is going to smart a little,” Stockbridge warned. “Count to three.”

  Juan shut his eyes, drew a breath, held it, and said, “Uno—”

  That was as far as he got before Stockbridge laid the charcoal black brand against the wound. It sizzled for the moment he held it there, Juan at the same time hissing through his teeth, blood vaporizing and filling their nostrils. Juan continued his sibilant exhalation even after Stockbridge had withdrawn the ember.

  “Ow!”

  “Perfect,” the doctor said, examining the cauterized cut.

  “Madre de Dios, that was worse than getting the cut,” Juan said, fanning his forehead with a hand.

  “That’s because you were knocked out, Juan.”

  “Maybe you should do that,” Molly said.

  “Hit my patients? I confess to being tempted, from time to time.”

  Molly had been watching the operation with interest. Stockbridge’s calm professionalism was not surprising. That was how the articles had described his killing. She preferred this. It stirred different things inside of her.

  Juan refrained from scratching what had not really bothered him before but now itched. He reached for his rifle to support himself, remembered that it wasn’t there, and put his hands on his hips.

  “I have to get food. Fish, I think, because I do not have to shoot them or see them.”

  “You’re going fishing . . . in the dark?” Molly asked.

  “Sometimes I get hungry late. I will take the torch—anyone looking for you will only see me.”

  The Mexican retrieved a small net made of twined roots set in an oval frame made from willow. The handle was the leg of a mountain lion. It was withered, the skin mostly gone, but the claws were intact.

  “I shot him in my cave,” Juan said proudly.

  “Impressive,” Molly said, shuddering a little.

  Juan took the torch and walked off in the direction of the Oónâhe’e River.

  “He’s a good man,” Molly said as Juan and the torch disappeared around the southern side of the cave.

  Stockbridge nodded in agreement. With the birch twigs hissing and popping behind him and Ben Keeler snoring in the cave, Stockbridge had done all he could do now—except to turn his attention to the woman at his side.

  “Are you comfortable?” he asked.

  Smilingly, she nodded. “You wouldn’t happen to have a smoke, would you?”

  “I never took it up,” he answered.

  “A pipe would suit you,” she said. “In my line of work, I need it. Relaxes me.”

  “You haven’t met many good men, have you?”

  “I have not. But I haven’t had it as bad as some women. Yi—she’s one of the nicest people you could ask to meet. Because she is Chinese, and a domestic, and polite—no matter what is said to her—no one knows she’s alive. I think that may be worse than having to fight for some measure of dignity. What about you? Dr. John Stockbridge used to spend every day healing. Now, it seems, people come around either to kill you or be killed.”

  “That’s about the scope of things. And I can’t seem to talk them down.”

  “You’ve tried, I’m sure.”

  “Just yesterday, matter of fact. To one of the Red Hunters. A black man. He seemed reasonable and left.”

  “Woodrow Pound. What do you mean he ‘seemed’ reasonable?”

  “He came after me again this morning, and I had to shoot him. Men don’t know how to tamp down their own fires. They only know how to burn.”

  “Maybe you should retire this, then.” She cocked her head toward the shotgun.

  “I was on my way to do that when all this happened, with the Keelers. I want to move away, move on. But it’s probably an illusion. There would come a day when someone would recognize me or see a picture of me in an old magazine and learn who I really was.” He smiled. “You know, I even thought about going to a city like New York or Boston and just giving in to the whole thing, writing Dr. Vengeance adventures that never really took place and selling them to the magazines. I fancy that I could work up to writing a memoir, maybe take up pipe smoking. Be invited to parties and dinner—”

  “Have men applaud you, and women fight to be on your arm?”

  “It would be different from the way I’ve lived, the way I’m living now.” He shook his head. “I don’t know. If you can’t have your old life back, maybe a complete change is the best thing.”

  “Sometimes, even if you can have it back, change may be the best thing.”

  “Change,” Stockbridge mused. He glanced behind him at the cave. “We’ve got one man who surrendered the company of men for this . . . and another who wanted to bring a new world back to his family. I guess there’s no rule, is there?”

  “No.”

  Molly could not remember the last time she had enjoyed a relaxed conversation with a man—any man, let alone one who was smart and had a sense of humility. She wanted nothing more than to lay her head on his shoulder or lap, sit by the fire, and feel safe and wanted, for just a while. Raspy Nikolaev looked out for her, but she made him a lot of money. This man was different. He did things because he was good.

  And what about me? Molly asked herself. She had come out to help this man; was it because he had been courteous to her on a dirt road in Gunnison or because she yearned for more? The idea of “Molly Stockbridge” seemed stillborn. Yet—

  There was a saying Molly had read in a magazine, “Time and tide wait for no man.” She had never had the opportunity to apply it to her own life—until this moment. Her heart pounding more than it had on Eagle Lookout, she was about to brave a related topic, ask if Stockbridge ever thought he might remarry, when Juan’s voice broke from a distance away.

  “Señor Stockbridge! I have found someone!”

  Stockbridge was immediately on his feet. Scooping a burning stick from the fire, he walked past the cave to see what the yelling was about. He peered into the darkness at two shadowy forms. Within moments he had discerned the silhouette of the fishnet Juan had been carrying.

  “Juan? Who is with you?”

  “I don’t know who she is, Doctor.”

  “She?”

  The figure was clinging to Juan’s right arm, barely able to walk. Stockbridge could not imagine what a wom
an would be doing up here alone.

  “Doctor . . . ?” a woman’s voice said at the same moment that her knees gave out and she stumbled forward into the light.

  “Dear God,” Stockbridge said as he recognized the dim contours of the girl’s face. “Rachel!”

  The physician hurried across the few yards that separated them, dropped the stick, and scooped the girl under her other arm.

  “She is a friend?” Juan asked.

  “Ben’s daughter,” Stockbridge said.

  The young woman went limp, and the men walked her back. Molly was waiting for them at the bend. She stepped aside so they could pass.

  “Did I hear you say she’s Ben’s daughter?” Molly asked.

  Stockbridge nodded as they laid the dirty, exhausted girl beside the campfire. He was shocked by her appearance. Her face, hands, legs were ripped and torn, like a fox that had tried to escape hounds through thick bramble.

  Molly went into the cave and came back with the waterskin. There was a great deal of dried blood on the girl’s hands and dress—more than would have come from rushing through woodland. Molly washed them while Stockbridge checked to make sure that she had not been molested by something other than what was clearly a mad flight. The attentions revived the girl. Her eyes shot open, and she shook her head as her hands moved reflexively in front of her, pushing and sweeping as though she were still running.

  “Had to . . . get . . . away!”

  “Rachel, you’re all right. You’re with friends,” Stockbridge said softly.

  She reminded Stockbridge of men he had treated in the War. They would come to after a concussion on the battlefield and, without thought, just an instinct to survive, would thrust a bayonet or call to retreat or shout to a comrade about an unseen danger.

  The girl blinked her eyes. The doctor leaning close was the first thing she saw. Her expression of pinched panic turned to overwhelming joy and tears of relief. She heaved herself forward and hugged his neck.

  “Thank you, Lord. Thank you.”

  “What are you doing up here?” Stockbridge asked.

  Her trembling fingers clutched his long hair as she wept into his cheek.

  “I killed a man, Doctor. I . . . I had to. . . . I stabbed him. . . . God save me. I stabbed him over and over and over. Blood was everywhere!”

  “Was someone chasing you?” Molly asked.

  “Not . . . chasing. Trapped. Cornered.”

  Stockbridge completed his examination. He smoothed her garments and nodded at Molly that Rachel was all right. Then he regarded the girl with as kindly an expression as he could find.

  “Rachel, where are your mother and brother?”

  She eased back to the hard earth. Juan had removed his gloves, placed them in the net, and hurriedly crafted a makeshift pillow to slip beneath her head.

  “Three men came to the house. They forced us to go with them to a place in the mountains. It is not far from here, I think.”

  “A large cabin? New Richmond?” Molly asked.

  “Yes, that was the name. I took a horse and I rode, and then I ran and ran.”

  “Did they follow?” Stockbridge asked.

  Rachel nodded. The doctor regarded Juan, who nodded knowingly and went back to watch the road from behind the edge of the cave.

  “Was one of the men Promise Cuthbert?” Molly asked, her voice hard.

  Rachel nodded. “Cuthbert . . . DeLancy . . . Tunney. Those were the names.”

  “Who did you kill?” Molly inquired.

  “Tunney. I went outside to . . . to . . . He followed me, was watching. I had the knife from our kitchen.” She looked at Stockbridge. “They wanted to use us to kill you.”

  “Your mother and brother are still there?” Stockbridge asked.

  “Yes. I don’t think they will be hurt. Not yet. But”—she began to sob again—“I don’t know. I was afraid for them, for all of us, and I had to do something!”

  “What you did was not just right. It was brave,” Stockbridge said. “Very brave.”

  Her eyes stared up at him, imploring. “We have to do something.”

  “We will,” he said. “Rachel—I have something to tell you.”

  “Pa?”

  “We found him. He’s here—weak but alive.”

  The girl’s face was suddenly alive. She was overcome again, only this time with joy.

  “Take me to him!” she cried, struggling to rise. “Father? Father!”

  Stockbridge and Molly helped her up, caught up in the moment and wanting to soften her pain by reuniting Rachel and Ben Keeler. As the two women shuffled into the cave, Stockbridge looked out into the darkness beyond.

  That turnoff from the main trail. That was where the two Keelers were. He had to go there.

  Stockbridge turned toward the cave as Rachel reached her father. In the faint glow, he saw her fall beside him.

  “Father!”

  The shape of Ben Keeler formed itself from the furs. He sobbed, his hands reaching up and grabbing Rachel’s. The two came together in an embrace that both warmed and saddened Stockbridge. He remembered the last time he had held his wife and children. They were already gone, but they were his loves, his life, and no less. Since that moment, he had known in his soul that every villain he met would wear that creature’s cold expression. Every wrong he encountered had to be met by right.

  Promise Cuthbert was about to learn that.

  Stockbridge did not linger but strode to his horse tucked deep in the cave. As he walked it out, Molly came running after him.

  “Wait for us,” she said.

  “Ben and Rachel—they cannot be left alone here.”

  “Then wait for me. Juan can stay.”

  “No.”

  She pulled at the shoulders of his coat. He looked down at her dark features, only the bright eyes clearly visible.

  “I’ve come this far, John. Don’t make me chase you!”

  Stockbridge was tired and angry, and he was horrified by the descent of man into something less than a beast. He was even ashamed of what he had become—Dr. Vengeance. He was about to debate her when the question became moot.

  There was a voice calling from down the trail.

  A voice that sent fear racing along John Stockbridge’s backbone.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  On the outside, the man who loomed ahead on Peak Road was indistinguishable from the rock cliff beside him. On the inside, however, Cuthbert’s scream still rang in his skull.

  “She killed Zebediah!”

  If there was a state of mind beyond madness, Promise Cuthbert had found it. No longer man but devil, he was flushed red, with invisible horns of hate rising from him like the heavy, weathered body of the most vicious stag, an animal of mythical venom. Until now, pulling the yoke of the fallen South had been his sole burden. Now he hated at an even greater magnitude.

  “You bitch!” he had screamed over the gutted body. “You demon!”

  DeLancy had been the one who had described the corpse. He had already mounted and ridden after the fleeing girl. Still crying out, his lungs and fire seemingly bottomless, Cuthbert jumped on his own frightened steed. He turned sharply toward Baker.

  “Keep those two here! If they try to leave, kill the boy!”

  With that, the officer—who saw himself as an avenging angel, not a devil—galloped after DeLancy.

  Alice and Lenny Keeler remained huddled together behind the cook, unsure what had happened at first—but quickly realizing that Rachel had somehow killed the man who was guarding her and was attempting to escape.

  “She cannot outrun them,” Mrs. Keeler said fearfully.

  “She’s not on foot,” Lenny said, having peered past Baker and counted the horses.

  “God protect her,” the woman said.

  “God alread
y protected you,” Baker replied. He turned to the woman. “I would’ve bet a gold bar against you living another minute. I never seen the captain like this, not even in War.”

  “Then, sir, please—you have to let us go,” Mrs. Keeler said. “At least let the boy go.”

  “No, Ma!”

  “I won’t cross the captain,” Baker had said.

  The degeneracy of these men, of this situation, was beyond anything Mrs. Keeler had ever known outside the pages of her Bible. In the absence of any other succor, she turned Lenny away from the door and went to the hearth, where they fell to their knees and prayed.

  The pursuit of Rachel Keeler did not last long. Darkness and an unforgiving terrain forced Cuthbert and DeLancy to turn back before the Keelers had sent very many humble words to their Maker.

  The horses clomped back hard, Cuthbert dismounted harder, and he entered the cabin like a storm. Without preamble, he went to where the Keelers were praying and grabbed Lenny by the neck. He yanked him up and threw him toward DeLancy. It happened so fast that Mrs. Keeler was still on her knees before she fully realized what had happened.

  “Take him, Sergeant,” Cuthbert roared. “Go out and—”

  “No!” Mrs. Keeler screamed. She threw herself at Cuthbert, wrapping her spindly arms around his legs as if stopping him from moving and stopping time from moving were somehow possible.

  He kicked her off and drove the toe of his boot into her belly.

  “Ma!” Lenny shrieked.

  DeLancy had the boy by the shoulders and held him firm. Cuthbert swung toward Lenny like a wolf on a cornered hare.

  “Take that little shit out and have him call for his sister,” Cuthbert hissed. “Put a knife to his throat if you have to, but get him to yell loud. Loud, you hear?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I want him to cry so loud that, by God, heaven itself will shut its cursed ears.”

  “Captain, yessir. But we got other unsettled business out there—”

  “Stockbridge? You afraid of him hearing, Sergeant?”

  “You know that ain’t it. I see him, I shoot him dead. But to do that, I need my arms free. It might be better if we tied the boy to a tree, y’know. If he stops screaming, we cut her.” He had nodded toward the woman.