Blood of the Hunters

by Jeff Rovin

  “Fine words, John, but unless the articles are all wrong, you got to kill the man who wronged you.”

  “Killed, not murdered,” he said. “Adam Piedmont had his chance. So did DeLancy. So did Pound. So did McWilliams. I wanted justice. They chose death.”

  “Men like Cuthbert have no respect for the law, for the church, for anything decent,” Molly said. “He deserves to die.”

  Stockbridge exhaled, noticed Juan standing beside Molly with the horse. His back was to the campfire, his face in shadow.

  “You did not ask, Señor Stockbridge, but I tell you anyway. Back at Eagle Lookout, the señorita saved a man’s life. She is strong. And also I am coming, too. You say what you want about this captain and his men. They may have been, each of them, el ladrón, a thief, but you see how they were also a pack, like the wolves. When they work alone . . . they die. We go as a pack, we are stronger.”

  Stockbridge did not know what to think, let alone how to answer. Then there was a new problem.

  “If you are going to where they have my mother, I am going, too.”

  The voice came from Stockbridge’s right, from just inside the cave. It was Rachel.

  “No, dear,” Molly said. “You should stay with your father, your brother.”

  “I agree—they are going, too,” Rachel said.

  “Rachel, just because Juan and I are doing this—”

  “We are coming,” Rachel said with finality. “I ran away on my own.” She looked at her hands. “I took a life on my own. I will do it again if I have to.”

  Stockbridge was tired, and he was also growing impatient. He wanted to jump on the dead man’s horse, charge down the mountain, shoot Promise Cuthbert on his back dead, kill the cook if necessary, liberate Mrs. Keeler, and ride on—all without breaking his stride. He wanted to be free of this pain and confusion, his and everyone else’s. Reason was failing him, and he feared that if he lost that, he might also lose what was left of his humanity.

  “Rachel, I agree with Molly,” Stockbridge said as rationally as he could. “If we did all of this only to lose you three now—”

  “We feel the same, sir,” she told him. “We are in your debt, all of you, more than I can ever express. But you do not have to look out for the Keeler family. Pa is back. We are concerned about our mother. If—if we did all of this for nothing, if this does not turn out, we want her to know at the very least that we were reunited, if only briefly. That all the Keelers were together at the end.”

  Molly and Juan both looked from the girl to Stockbridge. The doctor knew it was not only pointless to argue but counterproductive, a waste of what energies they had left. The last two Red Hunters would also be tired—

  There are just two now, he reminded himself. And those two do not know what we know.

  An idea began to form, one that gave him hope.

  “Molly, you’ll be driving the surrey?” he asked.

  His sudden acquiescence seemed to surprise her. “Yes.”

  “Juan, you’ll be covering the rear, in case the cook or Cuthbert is already on the road, hidden somewhere?”

  “If that is what you think, sí.”

  “And I can shoot,” Rachel said.

  Stockbridge exhaled slowly. “All right. We must leave at once. If Cuthbert starts to worry about his man not returning, he may take it out on Mrs. Keeler.” He looked from face to face. “I will ride in front with the sergeant’s horse. You will do nothing unless we are fired upon. Is that understood?”

  There was no argument after that. He told Molly that he wanted her to describe the compound. When she was done, the doctor took Juan aside and quickly gave him a set of very clear and careful instructions—along with something he would need.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Standing under the New Richmond sign he had carved with his own hands, smoking and bundled against the night, Promise Cuthbert felt a familiar calm suddenly come over him, the kind of peace he used to know before a battle.

  He had heard the distant shots. A little pop and then a big one. Neither was the six-shooter Alan DeLancy carried. Cuthbert already knew that the last remaining field veteran among his troopers was dead.

  Yet Cuthbert was strangely unmoved. Death had finally caught up with them all, after almost a score of years. He dropped the cigarette, turned, and walked back inside.

  Cuthbert was not entirely surprised. They were spent, all of them; that was part of it. Not just from this day but from nearly twenty years of unendurable pain. It was a bittersweet relief to realize he no longer had to carry the burden of the lost South. There were no soldiers left to fight for it, to rebuild parts of it, to stand shoulder to shoulder with him, keeping the memories of shared history and camaraderie alive.

  It was done. He was done. Now there was only one mission left, and that was to kill the man who had done this to them. He did not even have the desire to cut him apart, as he had been considering before—stringing him up and dressing him like Baker would gut a deer.

  Stockbridge dead. That was all he wanted. If it meant killing the woman, he would do that. She was very, very expendable. If it meant exchanging his own life, he was prepared to make that deal, too. To live here with just the cook seemed unutterably hollow. What would he do, write odes to the lost world? To the end of civilization as he knew it? There was no way now New Richmond could be that eternal light.

  The walk back to the compound was not long, but it was long enough for him to look into the abyss in his gut and see what was still alive in there.

  Nothing.

  No, that is not true, he told himself.

  John Stockbridge. The name was still unbearably discordant in his ear. The picture in the magazines was burned in his heart, in his mind.

  Die. Die. Die!

  The brief calm was passing, the storm rising again. Bloodlust was returning. The man kicked open the unlatched front door, and he stared at the woman who sat on a rocking chair, her wrists tied to the wooden arms. He considered cutting her throat here and now. His big, dangerous eyes sought Baker. The cook was standing by a counter in the kitchen area. He had been looking out the window toward the stable and the mountain beyond. Perhaps he, too, was looking at the home he had given up to come to these shores.

  Baker turned sharply when the door flew in. Cuthbert glared at him and growled just one word: “Knife!”

  * * *

  * * *

  The unlikely caravan moved slowly down the mountain trail. On point, Stockbridge had to watch the road, listen for sounds from the surrounding terrain. From the War, from living out here, he knew the difference between man and animal noises, the weight of a footfall versus the weight of a paw large or small; the breathing of a bear as opposed to the breathing of a man; the white eyes of an owl and the lesser eyes of a man. He paid especial attention to smells. A horse or an unwashed man was quite distinct from a wolf or a coyote or a bear. Not only did those have their own distinctive odors, but there was always a coating of blood and flesh, fish and fowl on animal coats and muzzles, even on their tongues. Coyotes had a wicked, skillful pack habit of getting close enough so you could smell their breath.

  He had smelled the blood on Rachel’s hands when she arrived. He had recognized the caked, dried smell on his own fingers from the War.

  Juan’s job was to make sure the surrey stayed on the often narrow trail. But Molly was good at that, even with three passengers.

  The Keelers were quiet in their seats. The children had propped Ben in the back, one of Juan’s furs on one side and Lenny on the other. The man held Alan DeLancy’s six-shooter in his right hand. His job, as explained by Stockbridge, would be to cover the sides of the surrey. The doctor did not want the man shooting his daughter, who sat beside Molly. The rifle that Alan DeLancy had carried in his saddle holster she gripped tightly in her lap.

  Stockbridge suddenly raised h
is arm. “Hold!”

  They had not yet turned the sharp curve that opened onto the final descent to the cabin. There was a glow coming from behind the tree line just below.

  “Something burning outside the cabin,” Molly said.

  “Any idea what?”

  “I can’t tell. It’s near the front of the place—there’s only a portal there, the name of the place, no gate.”

  “What’s that name?”

  “New Richmond,” she said.

  The explanation caused some concern. If Cuthbert was burning their ties to the old Southern capital, he was already resigned to death. Then a worse thought occurred to Stockbridge. There was no more wrenching welcome he could give Stockbridge than the burning corpse of Mrs. Keeler.

  Stockbridge moved the little caravan forward. It was a horrifying prospect. If true, it was something of which these children would never be clean. Marriage, children of their own, grandchildren—the reek would be in their nostrils, would burn in their eyes every day of their lives.

  Stockbridge hoped that even in a deranged state Promise Cuthbert had not decayed so irredeemably low.

  As they reached the last stretch of road, about a half mile long, Stockbridge was somewhat relieved that Molly’s sense of things seemed to be right. From what he could tell through the trees, the fire was high among the trees, flaming from the ground to about fifteen feet up.

  It was dark, but growing brighter as they descended due to the blaze. He half turned toward the others.

  “I’m watching ahead. You look and listen to the sides of the trail.”

  A palpable tension fell on the group in a way that the smoke did not. That pall twisted skyward—the anxiety and trigger-tightening readiness was low, chest high and buzzing.

  And then, just below the burning signpost, Stockbridge saw something that caused hate to rise anew. There was a figure lying across the trail. It was spread-eagle, on its back, head toward the burning sign. Each of the four limbs was lashed to a tree, creating an asymmetrical sight—less like a human than like a marionette that had been carelessly flung aside.

  It was Mrs. Keeler. She was writhing weakly and trying to cry out, but there was a cloth stuffed deep in her mouth and tied around the back of her head.

  Stockbridge stopped and leveled his shotgun ahead while he looked furtively from side to side. Molly halted when Stockbridge did. She and then Rachel saw the woman a moment later.

  “Mother!” the girl cried, simultaneously leaning forward as if to get out of the surrey.

  Molly shoved her back with a strong hand. “No!”

  Behind the girl Ben and Lenny stirred. Molly turned and warned them back. “Don’t get her killed! Let John handle this!”

  “Listen to Molly!” said a voice from among the dark trees to their right.

  Promise Cuthbert came forward a little, into the glow of the burning entranceway. He was pointing a rifle at Mrs. Keeler’s head. “Baker?”

  “Here.”

  The new voice came from the opposite side of the trail. The cook stepped from the shadow of a large boulder. He was holding a six-shooter on the woman.

  “Captain Cuthbert,” Stockbridge shouted, “what do you want?”

  “First, monster, that you not use my rank. You make it poisonous.”

  “All right.”

  “Second, you put your shotgun under your chin. I want you to end your wretched, unnatural life. Then and only then will I instruct Mr. Baker to cut the woman free. Everyone else will be allowed to go then.”

  “Molly, too?”

  “Molly especially,” Cuthbert said bitterly.

  “Can I trust him, Molly?” Stockbridge said loudly enough for Cuthbert to hear.

  “He—he never lied to me,” the woman replied. “But, John—”

  “There, John! Straight from the mouth of Jezebel,” Cuthbert said. Then, heaving like a dragon ready to blow fire, he shouted, “I trusted you, Molly! I cared for you!”

  “I only bathed you,” she responded coldly.

  Cuthbert stiffened, then laughed maniacally. “That’s good. Very good. But I know you. You’re trying to make me mad so I turn the gun on you. Stockbridge kills me, and the little lady beside you—she takes a chance at getting Baker. But that all depends on me being stupid! Do you think I’m stupid?”

  “You are many terrible things, but not that,” Molly agreed.

  The man continued laughing. “Still pushing, still goading. Well, whore, it won’t do you any good. Be grateful that I still have enough affection for you not to shoot you out of hand.” He tilted his head, chuckled. “I notice the surrey is riding heavy. Who do you have in back—I can’t see. The other Keelers?”

  “Yes!” Lenny cried out. “Me and my pa!”

  Hearing that, Mrs. Keeler struggled helplessly at her bonds.

  Cuthbert shook his head. “The boy. He went up with Alan DeLancy. Maybe we need another execution before Dr. Vengeance dies. Tell me—did you kill my sergeant, Molly? That shot—was he killed with a concealed derringer?”

  “No, I killed him,” Stockbridge replied. “With my shotgun. I offered him amnesty—he declined.”

  “DeLancy was a hero to the last, a true son of the South.” With a final hiss of dragon fire, Cuthbert glared at Stockbridge. “I’m waiting. If I have to wait much longer, I will put a bullet in this woman’s leg. Then another. And you won’t be able to treat her, Doctor. Because if you move off your horse, except to fall dead, I will kill her.”

  Not wishing to provoke the Southerner, Stockbridge lowered the shotgun and swung it up clockwise so the barrel was under his jaw.

  “John, no!” Molly screamed.

  “Molly, see that Rachel looks away,” he entreated with great solemnity. “Also her brother.”

  “John—?” she implored.

  He put the barrel against his jaw. “Do what I asked. And nobody do anything stupid. I’m accepting this man at his word.”

  Hesitating, but only until she heard the hammer of Cuthbert’s gun go back, Molly instructed the two Keeler children to do as Stockbridge had asked.

  Rachel wept and Lenny quietly implored his father to use the gun, but Molly repeated the doctor’s full order in a way that left no room for further discussion. The children turned away and shut their eyes, both of them crying.

  Molly looked ahead, expecting to see Stockbridge do something other than what he had agreed to. The idea that he would bow to this fiend, even to save her and the Keelers, was unthinkable.

  There was a sudden, sick, low gurgling sound to the left of the trail. At first, she thought that a big cat had grabbed Baker—but they would have heard rustling, a cry, something. Cuthbert must have thought the same thing because he looked over, though the gun remained pointed at Mrs. Keeler.

  It was a reflexive move on Cuthbert’s part, the instincts of an old soldier, and it cost him. By the dying light of the burning sign, Stockbridge lowered the shotgun, targeted Cuthbert, and fired. The blast whizzed over Mrs. Keeler on its way to the chest of his target. The Confederate captain cried out and crumpled even as, across the trail, Baker fell forward, clawing at his sliced throat. Juan stepped out into the faint glow, Stockbridge’s serrated bread knife in his hand, the cook’s blood warm and dripping from the blade.

  Juan looked over at Stockbridge, not with triumph but grim resolve. The plan had worked the way the doctor said it would.

  “If we are stopped,” he had instructed, handing Juan the blade, “stay far enough back so you can hunt your way around and tend our flank.”

  It was a lot to ask of the man, to kill, but the Mexican understood it might be necessary. He, too, had grown instantly fond of the Keelers. Stockbridge had trusted that he would do what was necessary, and not stain his conscience, to protect them.

  Even as both Southerners fell, Stockbridge dismounted quickly and
ran ahead to put himself between the badly injured Cuthbert and Mrs. Keeler.

  “Cut her loose, Molly!” the doctor cried without taking his eyes off the fallen officer.

  All of the Keelers followed her from the surrey, Lenny lingering to help his father out. While they gathered around Mrs. Keeler, freeing her and helping her up, Stockbridge stood over the panting, bleeding Promise Cuthbert. The man’s middle was open, and there was no chance of saving him. But the victor did not gloat. No one had won here.

  “One man,” Cuthbert gasped. “One . . . damn . . . Yankee.”

  “And a Mexican,” Stockbridge said. “And a woman. It’s no longer a world built for you, Captain.”

  “No,” he agreed. “I thought . . . I thought I could . . .”

  The man’s lips froze, his eyes locked on the flickering remnants of a flame burning just out of his sight, and his chest fell still.

  “It’s a fool’s errand to hold tight to the memory of a ghost,” Stockbridge said to the dead man. “I should know.”

  He looked over at the Keelers, who were gathered on the rough trail, propping one another up, hugging and crying and saying over and over how much they loved one another. Ben even made room for his Palomino, who nuzzled his master.

  Molly was standing beside them, with Juan. She excused herself and came toward Stockbridge while Juan went back to see about the horse he had left behind.

  “You made plans of your own,” she said. It was not an accusation but an appreciation.

  “You and Juan were right about what you said—a pack, a team.”

  “But the doctor used it surgically,” she said with admiration.

  Just then, to their right, the sign collapsed in a heap.

  “New Richmond is no more,” Molly said.

  “Not as it was, no.”

  “What do you mean? Could—could you settle here?” she asked hopefully.

  “I was thinking that if they can bear up with the memory, it would be a place for the Keelers to relocate. Ben can go back to his trade, maybe teach his boy. He would only have to be gone a few days, maybe a week at most. Better for all of them.”