Ralph Compton Blood of the Hunters

PROLOGUE

The Colorado Line & Telegram

October 17, 1883

FROM GUNNISON TO HELL

by Otis A. Burroughs

Until a year ago, it was said that if you were looking for restored health, then you needed to look no further than one John Daniel Stockbridge, M.D. The folks in this bustling city of twenty-five thousand good and honest Christian souls have nothing but fourteen years of happy memories of lives saved, babies born, and grave news delivered with care and heartfelt compassion.

Since a year ago, it was whispered that if you were a black mask looking for sudden death, then you also needed look no further than John Daniel Stockbridge, M.D. These whispers became shouts two mornings past, in a vacant lot south of the Kansas River, just west of the railroad bridge. That was when and where this man is said to have killed an unbeloved cuss by the name of Asa Preston.

Nobody knows much about the deceased, other than that in the three weeks he had been in Gunnison he gambled, had a felonious temper, and was behind in his hotel bill. From his possessions, examined after his demise, he appeared to travel under a variety of names. What has been assembled by your obedient servant through these documents and telegrams ranging from Topeka through Lincoln and back to Gunnison is that at one point, the unmourned soul called Asa Preston was formerly one Adam Piedmont, a practitioner of land-grab schemes. From the only known description, the corpse appears to have been the same man who took the lives of Dr. Stockbridge’s beloved wife, Sarah Jane; his fifteen-year-old daughter, Polly; and his ten-year-old son, Rance.

That description comes from the doctor’s brother, the honorable Jed Stockbridge, now commissioner of the General Land Office in Wichita. Mr. Stockbridge, Esquire, told this reporter, As I said seven years ago, I believe this is the same man who tried to usurp a claim at my assaying office. My brother would not confirm this to me. He said that he had to clean his own soul of this. Apart from that remark, written to me in a state of deepest misery, I have not had a communication from John.

The identity of the killer was never legally adjudicated because Dr. Stockbridge refused to testify and there was only hearsay that they had a grudge against the family.

What is interesting about Dr. Stockbridge, and only adds to the unsavory mystery, is that he closed his practice and appeared to vanish. Prior to this week, he was not known to have set a bone or sewn a wound. Nor was the killer in possession of a medical kit, a horse, or even a grip—only the double-barreled, highly polished waterfowling shotgun he used to dispatch Adam Piedmont most emphatically, and only after he had been shot upon.

It is for this reason that we bequeath to him the sobriquet Dr. Vengeance. As the gentleman is still somewhere among us, I will endeavor to find him and pry from his unsympathetic mouth the full and no doubt captivating story of . . .

Dr. Vengeance!

CHAPTER ONE

The black bear bore the scars of a life lived in the mountains.

The animal lumbered on all fours under a fading sun, his leather-bottomed paws and long blue-gray claws sure on the granite-and-gneiss surface.

He was not yet ready to winter. There was a presence—mostly scents but also sounds and movement—that was unaware that this was his territory. It was unafraid. That meant danger to the bear, his mate, and their cubs.

The threat had to be chased away or destroyed.

The foothills sloped north from the Oónâhe’e River, where the bear made its home. The terrain was treed and still free of the snows that had fallen in the higher elevations. The soil, already frozen, bore no tracks, but that did not matter. The bear’s sense of smell was greater than that of its prey, greater than even that of the gray wolves that stalked him in packs. None challenged him in what the Cheyenne had named Náhko˙heósévóse—the Bear Paw Mountains.

Yet in his sixteen winters, the bear had learned that no animal, not even one that weighed four hundred pounds and could rear to a height of six feet or greater, could afford to be careless. His fur was marked by conflicts with other bears, with mountain cats, with wolves. If not the wolves, then a dislodged rock or storm-weakened tree or landslide could deliver instant death. The bear’s head bore the scar of a tumble on slick rocks by the river near his den.

But this was not a wolf the black bear sought. It was a different scent, a different enemy, one who walked upright and could kill from a distance, from behind a boulder or atop a tree. A foe who dressed in the skins of his kind but was otherwise frail and easily broken.

The last of the full moon threw a pale ivory cast over the pines and oaks that stood above and below him on the gentle incline. An occasional cloud briefly blanketed the entire landscape in darkness, and the crunch of fallen leaves now and then dulled his hearing. That did not stop the large nose from dipping, rising, seeking the scent he had picked up by the cave, the smell of the upright killer, the stench of dead hides upon its weak shoulders—

The double-spring steel trap clanged shut an instant before the bear howled. He fell, writhing, swatting at the sharpened metal teeth that chewed through fur and flesh, digging into bone. The creature roared as it twisted on its back, each move causing the teeth to bite deeper, wider. The more the bear struggled, the more its wound opened and the more blood spilled onto the crushed leaves. It coated the animal’s lower leg and poured onto the exposed rock, making it slippery for the men who emerged from hiding. They appeared suddenly, as if the trees had suddenly birthed them, and slowly converged on the fallen beast. Even though the bear was held fast in a trap that was securely chained to a tree trunk, they were not incautious.

They would not have survived the Civil War and eighteen years in the wilderness had it been otherwise.

There were six of them, all in furs and most with caps—fur or Confederate 1st Virginia Infantry. With a seventh, the cook, back at their mountain compound, they called themselves the Red Hunters—just that.

The one man who was bareheaded came forward with a drawn Bowie knife, its blade a spectral white in the light of the moon. He was Captain Promise Cuthbert, and he was here to kill. Like climbing, logging, lovemaking, it was a skill that waned the less it was practiced.

There was a lean six feet of Promise Cuthbert, with black hair that covered the back of his neck and tumbled over two eyes of different colors, one blue, the other hazel. His mouth was a slash cut into a face that had the cheekbones and complexion of a skull.

How often, in the wild, beyond pickets, had he drawn this blade and seen it shine. It almost had moods to him—calm and cold under the moon, fierce and bloodthirsty when used by the fire of a campfire, a flash of lightning when called upon in daylight. The shine attracted the bear’s attention and, with effort that caused the chain to rattle, he stood awkwardly on his three good legs to face what looked like a big white fang. But the movement caused the trap to tug, and the three limbs locked in an unsteady stance—

Stay down, the approaching man said, his voice deep and raw.

Papa needs new shoes, said another.

The bear showed its own teeth in a mouth wide and foul from a recent kill, though it appeared to be more grimace than threat. Cuthbert showed his own wide smile back.

You’re gonna die, he said. It’s gonna happen.

As the man neared, the others closed in behind him. Four of those other men held Springfield short rifles in their cold, bare hands. One held a knife—not a Bowie like the captain’s but a custom weapon that was 9¾ inches overall with a 5⅛-inch drop-point blade and a bone ivory handle. There was no cross guard, just a three-brass-rivet attachment, so the cutting edge could be thrust in as far as the holder felt like pushing. The Springfields were new. They had replaced the old Sharps rifles the men had carried for more than a decade.

The guns had been the contribution of Woodrow Pound, the freed slave who had hooked up with Cuthbert and the others when, migrating west, they found him half dead by the Kansas River in Topeka. The slave had escaped before the War and kept moving west, aimless and alone. A six-foot-seven mass of man, with a long face and a big knob of a chin, Pound was a master with anything sharp or pointed, and he was too rich a find for even former Confederates to leave behind. They’d had plans and the ailing man had needed help. In the almost twenty years since then, the former log splitter had become invaluable to the team. Pound’s initiation had proved that. His job had been to slip into the camp of a U.S. Army patrol one night, cut loose the horses, and make off with the new Springfield rifles while the men, half awake, chased their mounts.

Pound secured ten guns and stuffed a dozen boxes of ammunition into his canvas bag.

The men were happy to be rid of the worn-out Sharps. Anywhere else in the world—on a farm, on the sea, in the desert—a man was as strong as his sinew allowed. But here in the Rockies, in God’s unfinished wilderness, he needed more.

His eyes narrow in his sun-blasted face, the fifty-year-old Cuthbert stopped just out of range of the bear. Holding the knife waist-high, he glared at the animal, his smile flinching wider with each weakening bellow from the big mouth, with each futile tug of the chain.

You are not the master here, Cuthbert snarled. Without turning from the beast, he said to the men behind him, Take it.

The four Springfields erupted as one and the top of the head of the big beast was lost in waves of red. Animal brain and bone were blown across the oak behind it. But only across the top of the head. The pelt would go to shoes and at least two coats, while the snout and the teeth had commercial value. Though the men lived off the land, they also bought the comforts they required. For that, they needed goods to sell in Gunnison or farther east in Denver. Bear teeth were popular for jewelry, the nose and other parts, dried organs mostly, for medical potions.

The bear fell on its big belly with a thump, its limbs splayed. The men lowered their rifles and came in closer.

Already looks like a coat, barrel-chested Liam McWilliams snorted.

Except for the parts that are my shoes, said the short, wiry Alan DeLancy.

Brain over brawn, observed the hulking Zebediah Tunney, oblivious to the irony in the remark. He was more like the bear than he was like the others, a Texan who used to fight bulls for pocket change.

As the others stood around, Pound slipped his knife into the bear’s mouth and began to remove the jaw. The teeth would come out later, with pliers, back at the cabin. Cuthbert took his Bowie to the animal’s abdomen to empty the beast’s torso.

The cold orbs above watched his grisly deed without judgment. It was impartial to the exposed red sinew, the still-warm intestines being carelessly tossed aside and sparkling with fake life. The meat and some of the edible viscera—the heart, the liver—would be harvested over the next hour. The paws, too, would be cut away for sale as candleholders. What was salvaged would be carried to the sprawling log cabin below, lower in the foothills. It would be carried by a thirteen-hand packhorse that always rode with them. The animal was standing mutely upwind with the other horses, in a glade, after having carried the trap up the winding mountain trail.

Ironically, it was easier when they hunted men up here. It took only one or two members of the Red Hunters to do that. Men did not have the sharp instincts of beasts.

Save for Pound—who had learned all his lessons in bondage—that was something each of the men had relied on during the Civil War. The men had served under Colonel Patrick Moore. They had specialized in night raids on Union encampments: taking or scattering horses, stealing or disabling weapons, grabbing powder or food or clothing or uniforms, and killing whenever possible. Cutting a throat from behind or putting a knife in a man’s back—anything that would have diminished enemy numbers and undermined morale. Their carte de visite had been a bloody palm print, left at the scene of the action.

The men had been barely twenty then. Moore had culled them from the ranks of outcast aristocrats: wealthy scions of great families who were gamblers, profligates, wags, womanizers. No drinkers, though: It would have been one thing if they had done something that had resulted in their own deaths. Moore could not allow one man to jeopardize the unit.

On the battlefield, the men had been filled with idealism and rage. They had gone from wayward colts to stallions ready to hurt you with both ends—biting, kicking, attacking. They had found their calling.

After the War, far from being spent, the men found themselves insatiably hungry. As Cuthbert had told the others around a campfire, while eyeing his Bowie knife, "Damn my eyes. I got nowhere to put it." It was a week after the dismal surrender at Appomattox Court House, and the men had still not gone home.

To what? their point man, Grady Ambrose Foxborough, had asked the departing Colonel Moore.

To rebuild, the officer had replied. "There’s not much else to do. Go back to your family in Canada."

It was good sense but spoken without conviction. When Moore had ridden off, the gaunt, narrow-faced, sandy-bearded Grady had spit at the idea of working on the family ferryboat. He had traveled south at fifteen to learn the tobacco trade. The only place he could do that now was Connecticut, and he would be damned if he would work for a Yankee.

The War had left most of their comrades tired and beaten. Like the colonel, they took Mr. Lincoln at his word, that there would be a general and kindly amnesty. Now that they had just learned he was dead, no one was particularly glad. No one knew what would happen next . . . especially with Andrew Johnson taking his place. He had been a fence-straddling Tennessee governor and senator who showed too little heartfelt affection for his native land. Less than Lincoln had, in fact.

The other reality was that four years ending in defeat had left them with humiliation and a hunger to destroy. They had talked about going north as bandits, living off the land and leading hapless Union soldiers into deadly ambushes.

But the focus of both the North and the South had shifted to the West, and the men decided to go that way. The wilderness held an appeal that the benighted North did not. So they packed their hate and gear and, unlike the James brothers, they did not strike at towns and institutions.

Instead, they withdrew. No longer guerrillas camping in the wild, they built themselves a fortress.

*   *   *

The six men were back at their cabin before the midnight owls had begun their nightly symphony. The meat and organs were placed, for now, in boxes that had been built and sealed with wax for that purpose, then set in the cold earth. Their cook, named Baker—Franz Baker, shortened from Diefenbach—would cut and cure the meat over the next two days, well before the snows came to their ledge and buried the crates. The bear would be for winter emergencies. Weather permitting, they would continue to kill smaller animals from squirrels to anything with feathers for food. When they needed something else, there were always settlers and frontiersmen, Indian parties and occasional military patrols, surveyors and wagons. The winter was easier on the plains below the foothills. There was never a lack of travelers.

The men did not hesitate to take what they required or just wanted—especially smoking tobacco and liquor—and, if necessary, killing to get it. Occasionally there were women with the mountain travelers. The Red Hunters did not kill them, though many died trying to get away.

The Red Hunters worked up here unmolested. The nearest law was in Buzzard Gulch, and gimpy Sheriff Tom Neal was not inclined to come after them.

Behind them, the remains of the black bear were already being scavenged by other predators—a scruffy, rogue red fox and an already emaciated raccoon, along with the insects the two mammals ignored. The feast would go on uninterrupted for days and would likely continue as wolves and foxes found and killed the family the bear had left behind.

And there was something else. Though the Red Hunters did not know it then, there was something ahead of them. Something they would not find so easy to snare as a bear.

CHAPTER TWO

There were three reasons why Dr. John Stockbridge had stuffed the newspapers against his chest, under his charcoal gray greatcoat.

One was warmth. Setting out from Gunnison three days previous—after a week of lying low, avoiding one Mr. Otis Burroughs—he found the air had turned seasonably cold. But not this cold. Folded in half, the dozen pages provided some insulation against the cold. Since it would take him a few days to make his way through the cold foothills of the Colorado Rockies, that was a major concern.

Another was sanitary. The absence of anything but brittle leaves was a reality this time of year—and those were uncomfortable against the skin of any man who intended to add to the moose chips and horse patties of the mountain pass.

The last reason was to start a fire. Dry grass was tough to bunch together; it broke easily and blew off even more easily. He couldn’t ignite particles of grass. But wrapping them in newsprint, he could place them on the ground and strike a flint, and then he’d be off on a cloud, as his late wife used to say.

Stockbridge tensed as her round face and loving smile appeared vividly in his memory—and then transformed into the way he found her, bloodied and torn.

Don’t! the man warned himself as his bare fingers dug into the hard earth on either side of him. Do not!

It took a moment for the tall, strong-jawed physician to settle back against the tree trunk. The image of Sarah Jane did not fade as quickly as the tightness in his chest or the longing in his heart. She and their children had been gone nearly ten years, but to the forty-five-year-old, the hurt was always there, always fresh.

He picked up the shotgun that lay by his side, the barrel rested on a small rock to keep it handy but off the ground. It was a customized double-barreled Parker Brothers heavyweight, loaded with buckshot called co killer. It stayed lethal for up to fifty yards with a swath of nearly half that. The shells were kept in a gun belt that he rarely took off. He would never again make the same mistake he had made that fateful day, entering his home unarmed.

Never.

The weight and feel of the gun relaxed him, and after a full minute, Stockbridge set it back down. The dry newspaper against him crinkled loudly as he eased back once again, this time to stay. A hilt poked him in the side, and he adjusted it. Stockbridge also wore a serrated bread knife in a sheath on his belt. When grasses weren’t available, like here on a ledge, he used that to cut kindling. It was easier to saw tree limbs than to hunt for patches of brush. There was a quality of self-protection to that knife as well. For one thing, the attention of his adversaries was invariably drawn to the shotgun he carried at all times. More than once he had used that distraction to reach and use his knife. For another, in close, most opponents would watch for a stabbing movement, alert for the cocking of the elbow followed by a thrust. Few would expect a lateral cut.

The fire danced fitfully at his feet, warming his toes and drying the boots that stood beside them. Stockbridge did not understand how the soles managed to suck in water even from dry ground, but they did.

"You don’t realize how much your weight squeezes it from the