Blood of the Hunters Read online

  Stockbridge dismounted while he was still several yards away so as not to further spook their horse or his own. He tugged Pama along, their horseshoe-clattering approach causing the girl and the boy to turn at the same time.

  “Mister!” the boy cried helplessly.

  “Son, I’m here to help,” Stockbridge said soothingly. “You’ve got to stay calm. All of you.”

  The girl’s pretty, dust-covered face was lined with fear. Because of her position in front of the horse, she could not see how far over the wagon had gone. She only felt each little lurch; her terror came from the seemingly inevitable end. She looked back at Stockbridge with tears beginning to cut lines through the dirt.

  “We’re losing her!” she said quietly, almost mouthing it, as if she did not want the woman to hear.

  She wasn’t wrong, and Stockbridge was sorry that he hadn’t brought a rope. Lariats were heavy and, frozen, weren’t much good anyway. Playing the odds was a necessary evil when trekking through wilderness.

  As he neared, Stockbridge could see the sharply angled wagon and the woman’s right hand clutching the boards on the opposite side. She was on her knees inside, reaching up, trying not to add weight to the dropping tail end.

  “Is that your ma?” Stockbridge asked the boy as he neared.

  “Yes, sir!”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Alice Keeler!” he said.

  “Mrs. Keeler!” Stockbridge said slowly but firmly. “I’m going to walk my horse around, and we’re going to get your hand onto his rein. Then we’re going to help you out. Do you understand?”

  “Yes!” he heard her muffled cry. “Please, God, hurry! The children—”

  In his head, Stockbridge heard Sarah Jane. He gripped the shotgun and tried to redirect his mind.

  “They will be fine,” he said.

  Stockbridge fought Pama with muscle, not big movements that might frighten the other horse. The Walker wisely wished to avoid what, through the metal on its hooves, would feel like an unstable section of ledge. The man saw listing old trees below. For how many decades, possibly centuries, he wondered, had they helped keep the cliff in place? Now several were surrendering to their last freeze and the jostling of the wagon, ready to join the husks and splinters of their countless forebears below.

  Pama did not like the footing or the view. He fought harder, and Stockbridge finally gave up trying to pull him. They were about five or six feet from the cart. He sheathed his shotgun beside the saddle and stopped.

  “What’s your name, boy?” Stockbridge asked.

  “Lenny.”

  “Lenny, I want you to put both of your hands on your ma’s wrist. Just grab her, then dig in your heels like this.”

  Stockbridge kicked his right heel into the ground to show him.

  “When you’ve done that, we’re gonna pull your ma out with the help of you holding Pama. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” he said, then once more emphatically to convince himself, “Yes, sir.”

  The spindly young man did as he was told, leaning back and pushing down, his five thin fingers wrapping around Alice Keeler’s bony wrist like an eaglet’s talons. The woman, panting, her eyes searching for hope, did not yet release her desperate grip on the top panel.

  “Stretch me your other hand, Lenny,” Stockbridge instructed.

  The boy did, his mouth set as he stood like Samson between the pillars at the Temple of Dagon. He was about a foot short of Pama’s bridle.

  “Sir, I can’t reach!”

  Stockbridge could see that. He also could not help since he had to be on the other side of the horse, his weight leaning in the opposite direction. And he couldn’t ask for the girl’s help. With every small slip of the wagon, her own animal fought harder to get away.

  There was no time to discuss the matter with Pama or reason with him. They had, by Stockbridge’s reckoning, only a few moments more before the boy lost his grip and the woman slid down to the rear and the wagon went over—with the horse and most likely with the struggling girl.

  “Son, I don’t want to put my weight on the ledge, so here’s what I’m going to do. Join your free hand to the other and hold your ma tight. I’m gonna move to the left and do something to make the cart move forward. When it does, you get ready to pull your ma back toward the trail.”

  The boy was too busy grimacing and grunting and concentrating to speak. He nodded once.

  Stockbridge dropped Pama’s reins. The horse might run, but there was nowhere to go but up. The handsome mount was smart enough to stop when the threat was out of sight and hearing.

  After Pama was released, he bucked up Peak Road and stopped, facing the other direction. Stockbridge paid him no further attention as he walked over to the hitch rail. He was facing Mrs. Keeler, with the girl behind him.

  “Little lady,” he said over his shoulder, “the horse is gonna bolt. You get out of the way when it does, y’hear?”

  “Yes!”

  As he spoke, Stockbridge had drawn his serrated knife. He extended his left arm, placed the jagged blade against the horse’s rump, and drew it toward him. Just a small nick. The Paint neighed, loud, and jumped ahead. The wagon came with it, the rear wheels banging hard on the rocks but holding to the axle. Lenny did admirably as he had been instructed, pulling hard on his mother’s wrist, and the woman came flying over the side. Stockbridge dropped the knife and, seeing that the girl had jumped clear, ran ahead. He threw out his arms as Alice Keeler came down, and swung to his right, hugging her to him. Had she landed on the ground, she would have been crushed by the rear wheels as the wagon rumbled by.

  The woman was not screaming, only breathing hard, and he laid her gently on the road.

  “Let me hear who’s okay!” he shouted, less for information than to rally the children.

  “I’m fine. How’s Ma?” the girl cried from somewhere on the other side of the wagon. She had fallen, and Stockbridge could barely see her through the stirred dust.

  “I’m all right. Thank God!” the woman cried.

  “God—and this man,” Lenny added. “He saved us, too. I’m . . . I’m fine, sir.”

  Leaving the family for a moment, Stockbridge hurried up the trail to grab Pama, this latest to-do sending him blindly toward a west-facing cliff. He did not bother trying to take Pama by the tail, since a horse was able to do harm from both ends. He risked an extra few steps and lurched for the reins, pulling back and half sitting like he was on a stool to turn Pama around.

  It took a few seconds for the horse to quiet, more a result of the threat being instantly forgotten than by Stockbridge’s weight beside him, pinning him to the spot.

  The doctor recovered his shotgun and snuggled it under his arm.

  He pulled the Walker toward the wagon.

  “It’s all right. You’re fine. You’re safe,” he said.

  Stockbridge was pleased when the young girl appeared at his side. Judging from the tears in her blouse and the dust that covered her, she had taken a hard fall.

  The wagon horse being all right, the girl reached out the slender fingers of her right hand stroking Pama’s forehead.

  “I’ve got him,” she said protectively.

  “What’s your name?” Stockbridge asked.

  “Rachel.”

  “Then I leave him to you, Rachel,” Stockbridge said, smiling.

  Stockbridge turned and saw the woman standing a few feet away. She was leaning a little to the left, having taken a hit on her hip from something inside the wagon. But there was strength in the rest of her posture and in her resolute expression.

  Behind her, the boy was climbing into the wagon. The hook on the back flap had held, but they were at a severe enough angle that some of their belongings might have slipped over the panel.

  Stockbridge faced the three.

  “Al
ice Keeler, Lenny, Rachel—I am Dr. John Stockbridge. I am happy to make your acquaintance.”

  “As are we,” the woman said as gracious as she was grateful.

  “I, uh— I was up the trail a way, headed west, when I heard the shouts. Glad I did.”

  He walked toward Rachel, who had fully calmed Pama.

  “He is beautiful,” she said.

  “A little high-strung yet, but a trip over the Rockies should cure that.”

  “Where are you headed, Doctor?” Rachel asked. “Exactly, I mean?”

  Stockbridge stopped. It was the first good look he had at the young woman. He put her at about fourteen or fifteen, thin but not gaunt. Pretty, though that was hidden somewhat by the smudges and the tangle of long blond hair that had fallen free of the bonnet that lay on the road. The doctor walked over and retrieved it for her. He swatted it against his hip out of view of the horses, then put it in the wagon.

  “I don’t know where I’m going, Miss Keeler.”

  “Where you coming from?” her mother asked.

  “Gunnison.”

  “You took care of folks there?” Rachel asked.

  “I did,” Stockbridge answered, showing no expression. He turned his gaze toward Lenny. “How’s it look back there?”

  “Not so great. We lost the rifle.”

  “I know,” Mrs. Keeler said. “I couldn’t grab it.”

  “Also a few tins of beans went over, and the shovel was tied to the ax that Ma struck. Also my book—”

  “Will we be able to go on?” Rachel asked, a little desperate and cutting her brother off.

  “Sam Hill, I don’t know!” Lenny said.

  “Hush that,” Mrs. Keeler cautioned.

  This was not Stockbridge’s concern. He had made it a habit, in his practice, of giving families time alone to discuss whatever diagnosis he had just given them. It kept him from getting too emotionally involved. With a woman, a daughter, and a son about the same ages as his own family, it was best to go.

  He took Pama from Rachel, thanking her with a smile.

  “If you’re all right, then, I’ll—”

  “Dr. Stockbridge, we are not all right,” Rachel said.

  There was an urgency in her tone that surprised him.

  “What’s the problem?”

  The girl looked at her mother. Mrs. Keeler limped forward and her son jumped down to lend a shoulder. She did not resist.

  “Ma?” Rachel coaxed.

  The woman seemed to be weighing not just the moment but whatever it was that had brought them up here—and near to death. She stopped by Stockbridge, her gray eyes turned toward him with a sense of sadness he had not noticed before.

  “Doctor, my husband, Ben, is a fur trapper. He goes out from April to September, sometimes to October if the weather holds. He always comes up with a sledge full of all kinds of pelts. But he has never . . . never been out till now.”

  She paused and choked back tears. Rachel walked over to her. She reached into a pocket and drew out a handkerchief.

  “I’m okay,” Alice Keeler said. She looked back at Stockbridge and smiled through tears. “That’s been Ben’s way since he and I were wed back in ’sixty-nine. He would go out in the spring, and then I would have him through the winter.”

  “It’s hard weather up here,” Lenny contributed. “Pa doesn’t like for him or us to get snowed in down below.”

  “Where do you live?”

  “On the homestead outside of Buzzard Gulch,” Rachel told him.

  “It’s a cabin my pa and ma built,” Lenny added.

  Stockbridge smiled at the boy, but he held the shotgun tight at his side, along his leg. He felt his fingers trembling and his soul turning dark. If you had been five minutes earlier! he screamed inside.

  “Maybe your pa thinks you’re grown enough to take care of things,” Stockbridge said.

  Lenny grinned. “I can chop wood okay, though we just lost our ax.”

  “It’s not us I’m worried about,” Mrs. Keeler said. “My husband is strong and resourceful, but he has never wintered out here.” She teared up. “He survived the War, though. He’s a rugged man.”

  “Were you in the War?” Lenny asked.

  “I served as a medic with the Fifty-first Ohio Infantry,” Stockbridge said.

  Mrs. Keeler seemed relieved to hear that. Even eighteen years after the armistice, people were touchy about what side someone had been on.

  “My brother was with the First Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment, a sergeant with Company H. He died from typhoid. His wife tried to keep the millinery shop going. She died more slowly from a broken heart.”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am. A lot of men . . . boys . . . did not come home. And a lot of us still haven’t reconciled the whys and wherefores of the whole thing.”

  “Pa sold her furs,” Lenny said. “That’s how they met.”

  Rachel had been shifting uneasily during the conversation. “Ma, you still haven’t said if we’re going on.”

  “I don’t see as we have a choice,” the woman replied. “Your pa may be held up somewhere.”

  “If he is, we lost the tools to help him,” Rachel pointed out.

  “This is your pa we’re talking about, girl. We’ve got our hands, and there are limbs to leverage rocks. If he’s hurt—well, those same branches can make splints.” Mrs. Keeler gestured broadly ahead. “He may have made a crutch and is on his way back slowly. He may be around a turn just ahead.”

  “Or he may have fallen, as we almost did,” Rachel said.

  “Hush! The Lord God just saw fit to save us, and He did so for a purpose. If that purpose is to help your pa, we have no right to think otherwise.”

  “We—we lost your wedding Bible, too, Ma,” Lenny said softly. “Pa’s writing inside—”

  “No matter. I carry our vows here,” she said, placing a hand on her chest. “Besides, my Ben has his pocket Scriptures. When we find him, we will have that.”

  Lenny’s eyes turned toward Stockbridge. “You’re a doctor, sir.”

  It wasn’t a request for Stockbridge to do anything; it wasn’t a solicitation for help or advice. It was a boy seeking comfort. Again, Stockbridge heard the voice of Rance inside his skull—

  “He is a doctor who helped us and has a place to go,” Mrs. Keeler said.

  The woman indicated for Lenny to stand aside. He did so reluctantly. The woman made her way to the side of the wagon, wincing with every step. There was obvious relief when she reached the side of the wagon and gripped the top board.

  “Children, if you would help me back to my place, we’ll go on.”

  Stockbridge looked at Rachel. “I take it you were driving.”

  “I was.”

  “Animals take to her kindly,” Mrs. Keeler said.

  “I saw that,” Stockbridge said. “I’ll tell you what. Since we both appear headed in the same direction, I would be happy to travel a bit with you—if you’ll have me.”

  By their expressions, the children immediately embraced the idea. But they said nothing, deferring to their mother.

  “As long as we do not take you out of your way, Doctor, we would be most grateful to have you.”

  “We’re headed to Craggy Plains,” Lenny said. “Do you know it?”

  “Never heard of it,” Stockbridge told him. “But the name makes it seem like a place a man should see.”

  “And we don’t have to worry about being charged by a moose, do we, Dr. Stockbridge?” Lenny asked, looking at the shotgun.

  “Boy, don’t be melodramatic!” Mrs. Keeler said.

  “He’s not at all, ma’am,” Stockbridge said. “He’s being a boy.” Peering out from beneath the Stetson, the dark eyes caught a spark of sun as they turned to Lenny. “You will not have to worry about moose or bear or anything else.”
<
br />   The boy’s mouth smiled, all adult teeth and gaps.

  “Lenny?” his mother said, turning toward their rig.

  “Sorry, Ma.” The boy had replied to his mother, but his eyes and attention were still on Dr. Stockbridge.

  Leaving the boy and Rachel to help their mother into the wagon, Stockbridge mounted Pama. He crushed down his own reservations, the feelings this would draw like a well bucket. If his being here could provide a measure of solace, or help, he would stay—unless and until the scales tipped and his memories became too real.

  As soon as the children had taken their places, Mrs. Keeler sat herself among two blankets that had been beneath her. The doctor realized, watching her, that the hip injury was not new. It was probably the reason she had been in the back. The springs under the buckboard were old and rusted and would have caused discomfort to bones that were equally set in their ways.

  The small caravan headed west along the rocky Peak Road, Stockbridge in the lead. Based on what he had heard, he did not hold out much hope for the survival of Ben Keeler. If all things were equal, an injured man might survive for a while. There were water and small game. And a trapper would know how to catch it after his ammunition ran out. He would surely have the furs to keep warm. But there were other predators out here as well. Big cats, black bear, gray wolves, and birds of prey that might attack a man even if he weren’t wearing the skin of a rabbit or a fox. The claws, teeth, talons—those were the real danger.

  And gangrene. The green death had cost more lives than the loss of blood in his hospital tents.

  Death. That is it, isn’t it? he asked himself. Ben Keeler had nothing to do with his being here. Stockbridge had immediately felt protective of the family. That kind of connection was something he had avoided with Betty, swore to avoid for however long he lived. Yet here you are.

  It was the last thought Stockbridge had before a loud report broke the peace.

  CHAPTER THREE