5

In the Fox’s Den

It was nearly dawn before the house quieted, with Ben and each of his sons finally giving in to exhausted sleep. Phillip Davenport, however, had slept long enough. He opened his eyes to a darkness that gave him the sense of a night under a jungle canopy. But this was no jungle. The air was dry, the smell one of lamp oil and smoke rather than moss and musk. Confused, he took a deep breath of that pungent air, awakening a violent, slicing pain to his side. For a moment, the darkness thickened, bringing with it the cloying scent of…man.

He was not alone. What he’d believed to be the comforting, soft growl of an animal beside him was instead the light snores of the worst kind of beast there was: Man.

Adrenaline stirred him. It numbed his pain and drove the blackness from his eyes. The hunt was on, the beast his to take. He rose, stiff but determined, his gaze landing first on a lamp, the wick burned down to nothing, and then…the beast.

A man—a cowboy, from the looks of him—slept in a chair beside the bed. A shotgun rested crosswise in his lap, loosely held in calloused fingers. A cowboy….

The muffled ticking of a clock somewhere beyond this room counted out seconds as awareness dawned. The hunter was at a ranch, the Ponderosa. The hunt…. It had gone wrong, all wrong. He’d been bitten by his prey, shot by the boy who had ruined everything. Bongani should have killed that boy right off. The eldest brother would have proved a superb catch; but the youngest had pulled the prize prey’s attention from the chase, diluting the challenge, making him too easy to track, to find, to catch. Even then, the shot had gone wide, interrupted by that wretched boy’s warning cry. The hunter had missed; then the boy had struck true. Yes. That boy had ruined everything.

And this…. This was their home, both the prey and the boy.

The hunter smiled, inspired by a new challenge. Though weakened by his wound, he still had the hunter’s touch. He relieved the snoring guard of his gun as well as a Bowie knife sheathed low on the man’s hip. Not even the light groan of the door on its hinges awakened the careless guard.

And then the hunter found himself standing in a large room. It was as dimly lit as the bedroom, but the high ceiling and open spaces chased the worst of the shadows, giving off a diffuse, gray glow. That grayness was enough to show him another man at slumber in a chair by the cold fireplace. He would have recognized the man as his brother-in-law, had he looked closer. He would also have seen that Hamilton was not actually sleeping. But the hunter did not look closer. Instead, he turned toward the stairs, certain that was where his new prey would be found: the boy who had ruined the hunt; the boy who should already be dead.

He took the steps slowly, encumbered but undaunted by the constant stab of his wound. He gave no thought to what would come after. The need for escape and the idea of capture had no meaning for him. He, alone, was the hunter. All that mattered was the end of the hunt with the death of the boy.

The stairs creaked with his weight, but the sound was soft, like the call of a mouse, surely nothing that would awaken those who slept above him. He kept his breaths low and steady, having learned from watching great cats on the prowl. There was no greater predator, no greater teacher—and only one greater prize. A lion could be outsmarted. But an intelligent man, a man schooled in the sciences, and, even better, the art of war…that was a creature capable of being  both predator and prey, the ultimate challenger. And that was what the boy had stolen from him. The thrill of the mountain hunt had ended…badly. But this new hunt had already fueled his hunger. The boy’s life would soon be his.

At the top of the stairs, his head spun. He was weak. But the hunt must not be abandoned. The boy was weaker than him, after all. As he caught his breath, he studied the doors in the hallway before him, and then sniffed at the air, gauging, guessing.

Instinct pulled him toward the left. He raised his hand to the first, closed door and turned the knob slowly, cautious. The door eased open in silence. His cold smile widened. This night was his. This hunt was his. And the boy….

The hunter crept across the floor to the bed before him. A small splash of moonlight provided just enough illumination to reveal he had chosen correctly. This was the boy’s room. There, resting upon a small stack of lush pillows, a tuft of thick curls spilled out from beneath a bandage that covered the passage of two bullets, one that had achieved its goal, and one that had not.

The hunter’s heart pumped faster, his grin drawing deeper as he took another step forward, and still another. In a moment he would make up for that last, failed bullet. He carefully set the shotgun down atop the mattress, deciding the knife would succeed where bullets had not, and then he tested his grip, his gaze locked on the tender skin of the boy’s throat. The slice would be quick and deep enough to render the boy’s voice useless the very instant he realized what was happening. He would not be able to cry out to the older brother who had wasted the day protecting him. He would not be able to ruin this final hunt.

The hunter adjusted his grip on the knife’s hilt. He started to raise his arm for the killing blow.

“Drop it!” a voice called out from somewhere in the darkness beside him. A resounding click made it clear a gun was being readied. “I said, drop it! Believe me; I would welcome a reason to shoot you!”

“No.” The hunter was confused. “This is not possible.”

“Yes, Phillip,” a new voice called from the doorway. The hunter turned his gaze from the dark shadow in the corner to a silhouette blocking the thin glow of a lamp somewhere in the hallway. “This time you are the prey.”

“Preposterous.” He turned back to the bed.

“You are finally going to pay,” the silhouette hissed, “for what you did to my sister.”

“Your…sister?” The silhouette had a familiar voice, one he’d known for years, one he’d thought…silenced.

“Have you forgotten your wife already?”

“My…wife? Yes. My wife. You…your sister. But you…you’re dead.”

“No. She’s dead. You broke her neck.”

“Yes.” He had silenced the sister, not the brother, after all. The brother….

The hunter looked again at the unprotected throat on the boy in the bed. He lay so still, oblivious. The hunter could break his neck just as easily as slice it open. He’d learned the technique from a Turkish assassin only a few, short years ago, practicing first on his wife’s delicate bones…the sister…and then perfecting it on whores. But a man’s neck would break as cleanly as a woman’s; would it not? He could relinquish the knife, as the shadow and the silhouette…the brother…had insisted. Yes. He could let it go and still finish the hunt.

“Drop that knife,” the shadow repeated, “or I will finish what Bongani started!”

“Bongani?” Confused, the hunter studied the shadow. “Yes,” he said, “the boy. He shot the boy.”

“You!” the shadow shouted. “Bongani shot you! In the back. Just. Like. Prey.”

“Absurd. Bongani would never—”

“Bongani hunted you!” the silhouette in the doorway added. “He cut you down when he finally saw the difference between you and decent human beings!”

“No. Bongani is my…my man.” The shadow and the silhouette…they were nothing but forest wraiths whispering lies in the dark. “I rescued him…from slavery. And he….” Another image slid its way into his thoughts, the image of a lion charging him…pouncing…and then a jerk…it twisted as something struck it in the side, giving the hunter time to aim, time to fire. “Bongani,” he whispered, seeing his man beside him, a waft of smoke still seeping from the barrel of his rifle. “…Saved me,” he added in a soft, almost soundless breath.

No, he told himself. He stopped the lion, the hunter. Bongani was nothing but a dog to do his bidding. “I must…,” he turned to look at the boy in the bed. “I must finish the hunt.”

“Drop the knife!”

“What?” Oh yes, the shadow. He’d forgotten the shadow. “Bongani?” he called out. “I need you! Come!” Bongani would quiet the shadow.

“Bongani is dead,” the silhouette said.

Dead? No. Bongani was his man. “Bongani!” he called again.

“He isn’t coming,” said the shadow. “Even if he wasn’t dead, he would not come to you anymore.”

“Unless it was to stop you,” said the silhouette, “to finish the hunt he started in that meadow when he shot you in the back.”

“No. Bongani!”

“Yes,” said the shadow. “He had a conscience after all, which is more than anyone could say about you.”

“He shot you,” said the silhouette. “In the back.”

“Bongani?” the hunter said more softly. He wouldn’t. He…couldn’t. Bongani was…his man. “The hunt,” he said again.

“There is no hunt,” said the silhouette. “Not anymore.”

“No. It is all…all about the hunt. Always…about the hunt.”

“Drop the knife,” the shadow warned.

Knife? The hunter looked to his hand, saw a knife in his grip, and slowly loosened his fingers, letting it slip away. It landed with a dull thud on the carpet at his feet. He didn’t need it. Not now. Not yet. A knife was for gutting after all, was it not? The kill was…it was different. The kill was…. Where?

He looked to the shadow…to the silhouette…to the…bed. The boy in the bed…the boy…. He had ruined the hunt…ruined…everything. And Bongani wasn’t coming. Had the boy ruined that, too?

A lamp sprang to life on the nightstand just beyond his reach. Its glow painted the shadow into the image of the hunter’s original prey: Adam Cartwright.

“You?”

Adam Cartwright moved his hand from the lamp back to a gun resting in his lap; the other arm was held against his chest. He’d been injured…yes…shot by the hunter’s own gun. Though the hunt had not come to a satisfying end, the hunter had enjoyed the company of this prey, and the challenge it had represented. He’d looked so forward to the hunt. Maybe….

“We should try again, you and I,” the hunter said, excitement building within him anew, now that his preferred prey was close once more. Without taking his eyes from that one, the hunter’s hand moved outward to indicate the newest prey, the boy in the bed. “He ruined what should have been a fine hunt. When you are well again, we should try.” His smile this time was born of delight rather than cunning. “And Bongani….” Where was Bongani?

The preferred prey curled his brow, his eyes narrowing, his lip rising in a snarl of disgust.

“Bongani is dead,” said the silhouette, “and there will be no more hunts, brother.” Hamilton came into view in the doorway. The silhouette was gone, chased away by Adam Cartwright’s lamplight.

The hunter smiled at the man who’d started calling him brother years ago, even before the hunter had taken the sister for his bride. “No more hunts? Don’t be ridiculous. Of course there will be! We have had some fine hunts, you and I. You should join us for this one. You would find it a splendid challenge.”

Hamilton turned his gaze to the preferred prey, mimicking that one’s disgusted snarl.

Presuming that snarl to signify Hamilton’s dismay over having to miss such a spectacular hunt, the hunter offered a solution. “Whatever prior commitments you have, cancel them. The hunt must take precedence.”

Hamilton huffed like a frustrated bull. “Come along, brother,” he said, lowering his weapon and reaching forward to take the hunter’s arm. “We must discuss your commitment.”

“What?” The hunter was confused. “My only commitment is to the hunt.”

A metallic snap pulled his attention back to the bed. The boy had awakened; and somehow he’d managed to take the hunter’s borrowed shotgun to hand. The boy…tonight’s prey was challenging the hunter with a gaze that lacked focus and a one-handed, shaky grip on the weapon. Yet the young prey held its jaw in a rigid line that gave proof of the deadly threat it posed. It was young. And injured. And Angry.

Something else snapped then, something that had been coiled tightly in the hunter’s thoughts.

Given enough time, that young prey would become the charging lion. And Bongani wasn’t coming to ensure the hunter made the killing shot.

Bongani wasn’t coming…. He had betrayed the hunter. And the young prey was injured and enraged.

The hunter had no choice but to strike.

XxXxX

Adam could see Joe’s eyes were unfocused, his cheeks flushed with fever. He was able to pull the trigger nonetheless, reacting more quickly than either Adam or Breckinridge the instant Phillip Davenport threw himself forward. Adam watched, frozen as much by the impossibility of what was happening as by his infirmity while Davenport yanked the shotgun from Joe’s tenuous grip the instant Joe’s bullet exploded from the barrel, flying wide and embedding itself in the wall.

The shotgun clattered to the ground at Adam’s feet, finally prompting him to move. Stunned and oddly oblivious to the gun in his own light grip, he surged out of the chair. His breath caught as tensed muscles tugged at his wound. The world around him blackened, closing in upon him until he could see nothing beyond the hunter and Little Joe.

“Move!” came a cry from the doorway.

His thoughts entirely focused on Davenport and Joe, Adam could not see the frustration that accompanied Hamilton’s plea. He had no idea he was preventing Hamilton from taking a shot by putting himself directly into the man’s line of fire. All Adam knew was Davenport already had one arm pressed down against Joe’s throat, and his other hand had wormed its way beneath Joe’s neck to cup around the back of Joe’s skull. Joe’s eyes were wide, desperate, his face red, his good hand clawing uselessly at the arm stopping his breath.

“Damn you!” Adam shouted, grabbing hold of Davenport’s shoulders. “Let him go!” But he was too weak, and the beast that Davenport had become was too strong. A sharp stab of pain at Adam’s shoulder told him he’d torn Paul Martin’s stitches, but he could not stop fighting.

And then someone else, someone stronger still, yanked him backwards, tossing him aside until he tumbled against the chair. Darkness threatened. He forced it back, swallowing deep gulps of air that made his shoulder burn with as much fire as he felt in his heart, a fire that refused to allow him to give up.

When his vision finally cleared, he was staring at his own, dropped gun. He had it cocked and ready before he could even think about taking aim. And then…he couldn’t. He couldn’t get a shot. Hamilton was in his way, pulling at Davenport and beating him with everything he had, pummeling him with fists that landed fierce and yet—somehow—ineffective blows.

“Move away!” Adam tried to shout, though his voice was raw and raspy.

Hamilton heard him, even so. He moved without question, giving Adam a clear shot. But when he targeted Davenport’s head, Adam’s hand began to shake. He raised his other hand to steady it, pulling hard against the freshly opened wound in his shoulder.

“Shoot him!” Hamilton shouted.

Adam blinked away a resurgence of the darkness. His aim dropped a fraction.

“Hurry!” Hamilton pressed.

Adam was dimly aware of Hamilton grabbing something from the floor. He blinked again and tried to still his hands, focusing on Davenport’s shoulder as Hamilton raised whatever he’d retrieved into the air.

“He’ll kill him!” Hamilton shouted.

Adam took the shot.

XxXxX

Dizzy with shock, Ben grabbed for the doorjamb to prevent himself from collapsing. He could hear his men downstairs shouting out in alarm, and Hop Sing racing up toward him, gibbering away in Chinese. But he could not pull his gaze from the horrific scene he’d come upon at the very moment of the final shot.

Adam had fired that shot. He was now on the floor, bleeding again from his shoulder wound, a dazed and pained look in his eyes. Hamilton Breckinridge was leaning against Joe’s nightstand, breathing in quick, panting breaths, a Bowie knife held loosely in his hand. An instant earlier, he’d held that knife high over his head in a two-fisted grip, clearly prepared to plunge it into Phillip Davenport’s spine. Adam’s shot had stilled his hand.

Adam’s shot…. That shot had struck Phillip Davenport somewhere in his neck or his shoulder; it was impossible to tell just yet. All Ben knew was Davenport had fallen into a bloody heap at Joe’s bedside. And Joe….

Numb, Ben stumbled forward. He didn’t know…couldn’t tell if his youngest son was still breathing. Joe’s eyes were closed; and he was lying still…so still.

“Joe?” Adam called out softly, his voice strained.

Little Joe did not move.

“Joseph?” Ben echoed as he approached the bed. But the boy gave no indication of having heard him.

When Davenport’s body prevented him from moving closer still, Ben sat down on the mattress and reached forward to place a trembling hand on Joe’s chest. “Little Joe? Can you hear me, son?”

After an agonizing moment of uncertainty, he felt it. Joe’s chest rose and fell beneath his prodding fingers, drawing in small, barely discernible breaths. Thank God, Ben said silently, closing his eyes in quiet relief.

“Pa?” Adam asked in a whisper.

“He’s alive.” Ben took a deep breath of his own before setting to work.

Once he’d convinced himself the blood on Joe’s nightclothes was Davenport’s, he gave his attention to Adam. Hamilton and Hop Sing had already helped him to his feet; but Adam seemed none too anxious to tear his gaze away from Little Joe.

“How could he…?” Adam struggled to say. “I never thought….”

Ben grasped his good shoulder. “Let’s get you back to bed, son.”

Adam did not seem to have heard him. “I couldn’t move him. I couldn’t….”

Realizing Adam had shifted his gaze to Davenport, Ben had no interest in following it. But then he noticed Hamilton was looking there as well.

“He was strong as a bull,” Hamilton said. “He should not have been so strong. He was wounded, weak.”

“Desperate,” Ben offered. “Desperate men find strength in their very desperation.”

“But why?” Hamilton asked. “What makes a man so desperate to kill another?”

“What makes a man hunt another? Only God can say what drove him to do the things he did.”

“I am the hunter.” At first, Ben wasn’t sure he’d heard anything; the words had been hushed, no louder than a breath. But then they were repeated. “I am the hunter.” And Ben knew it had been Phillip Davenport who’d spoken.

Reluctant and enraged, Ben looked down at the fallen murderer. Davenport’s eyes were open and looking outward at nothing at all, as though he was speaking to some unseen spirit.

“I am the hunter,” he said again, his brow furrowing, puzzled. “I am….” And then his brow rose, his eyes widening in surprise. No…fear, Ben decided. With one, final rattling breath, he passed from this earth, the fright never passing from his gaze, not even when his eyes grew cloudy.

Ben was disturbed to find comfort in that.

XxXxX

In the following hours…and days…Adam found that the house had lost its sense of home. Safety became a word, nothing more. He started at every stray sound, feeling like a skittish animal cowering at every clap of thunder. Wary of shadows stalking his family in the night, he had no hope of shutting those shadows out; whenever he closed his eyes, he saw Bongani squeezing the life out of Hoss, or Davenport maniacally attacking Joe.

Logic told him he was being a fool. Both the hunter and his companion were dead. The house was as secure as ever.

But logic could not quiet the restless beating of his heart at any light footstep in the hall, even Hop Sing’s familiar shuffle. Logic had no power in dreams haunted by the ghosts of a killer as well as his victims. And logic…. Well, logic did make it clear he had good reason to continue to worry over Little Joe.

Infection and fever plagued Adam’s youngest brother for so many hours Adam started to lose track of one day’s ending and another’s beginning. He watched Joe struggle day and night, listening to mumbled cries that told him Joe’s dreams were visited by his same ghosts. In time, as Joe grew stronger, Adam grew weaker, until he found himself trapped in his own bed, and locked into his own dreams.

And then one day he opened his eyes to find Joe sitting beside him. “What are you doing here?” he asked groggily.

Joe’s brows rose. His eyes rolled. The grin he tried to contain dug divots into his cheeks. “Well that’s a fine how do you do!”

“I mean…shouldn’t you be in bed?”

“I seem to recall asking the same of you more than once in recent days.”

Adam sighed. “I suppose you were right. That probably means I am, too.”

“Maybe. But….” Joe went silent, turning his gaze to the window.

“But what?”

When Joe looked back his way, Adam was disappointed to see the dimples gone. “Out on that mountain,” Joe said, “you spent that whole time, all of it, looking out for me. And even when we got back here…even though we were home and you didn’t have to anymore…you were still looking out for me…when you should have been looking out for yourself.”

“Don’t kid yourself. You did your fair share. If you hadn’t been looking out for me, you wouldn’t have that second crease in your head and I….” Adam stopped the words from coming, and then wondered why. “I’d be dead,” he finished bluntly.

Joe’s eyes started to glisten. “I’m sorry, Adam! I can’t help thinking if I’d left like you wanted, like you tried to tell him…if you’d been totally on your own out there…I bet you would have outfoxed him.” Despite his rising tears, Joe smiled at Adam with something that looked disturbingly like admiration, a look he’d used to give years ago to the older brother who was already doing a man’s work while he’d still been very much a little boy.

“No, Joe,” Adam quickly corrected. “I was wrong to ask him to let you go. Even if he’d agreed, he would have seen to it you never got away.”

“Don’t forget he was a man of his word. If he agreed—”

Adam gave his brother a pointed stare. “He would have slipped something into his terms, a loophole he’d make sure I overlooked. And then, I assure you, any outfoxing I might have managed would have been outdone by my worrying that I’d find you just like….” Adam clamped down on his jaw, seeing his ghosts again with vivid clarity: first, the woman; then Hank; then…. He worked to force the images as deep into the recesses of his mind as he could. “Just like you and I found all the others,” he added softly.

Seeming to struggle with the same images, Joe looked to the ground.

“Let’s just say we’re even,” Adam said to Joe’s responding silence.

And then it was clear Joe could say nothing. He was fighting too hard to keep his feelings from overwhelming him. Adam often wasn’t sure whether Joe’s inability to rein in his emotions was a gift or a curse. Right then, as tears threatened to spill despite the small grin reawakening those divots, Adam took it as a gift.

“Think you can make it back to bed on your own?” Adam asked.

“I made it here, didn’t I?” Joe answered, a quiver in his voice.

“Then go. We really are home. It really is over. And I think it’s safe to say we can each look out for ourselves for a while.”

Joe nodded, pulling in a breath so deep Adam envied it; his own breathing was still clipped, thanks to the wound in his shoulder. After a moment, Joe rose and started a slow, limping trek to the door.

“Joe?” Adam called out as his brother reached the threshold—although he wasn’t sure exactly what he wanted to say. When Joe turned to look back at him, the words that finally came were the same ones he’d said to Hop Sing a few days before; and they were just as fitting now as they’d been then. “Thank you.”

Joe gave him another glistening grin. “For what? Waking you up just now?”

This time, Adam grinned back. “For negotiating a better price than I dared imagine back in Placerville, and….”

Joe pulled down his brows, the action obvious from across the room for the way it pulled at the bandage still circling his head. “What do you know? I actually forgot all about that.”

“Yeah? Well, don’t forget it. You did good back there. Just like you did good out on that mountain.”

Joe’s chest rose and fell. His voice softened. “Wish I’d done better.”

“We’re both still here. I’d say we both did well enough.”

“Maybe.”

“No maybe about it.”

“Whatever you say, older brother.” It was a phrase Joe had often used, usually infused with anger, frustration or sarcasm. This time, Joe said it differently, as though somehow he’d suddenly found a degree of value in the words.

Adam smiled sadly, staring at the door long after Joe closed it behind him. “…And for looking out for me,” he whispered finally, knowing only the ghosts could hear him. Then he closed his eyes again, and was both surprised and grateful to see nothing more sinister in the darkness than Little Joe’s grin.

XxXxX

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