The Quest of Brady Kenton / Kenton's Challenge

by Cameron Judd

  “Tell me where you saw them last.”

  “You aren’t going looking for them, are you?”

  “I am. Please tell me! It’s important.”

  The man explained as best he could to a nonresident how to find the place where he’d finally abandoned his chase. Gunnison thanked him and headed off in that direction as fast as he could go.

  But as he did, Gunnison wondered why he was doing this.

  Although really he knew why: the idea of standing by while a woman was abused was something he would not tolerate. Especially one he knew, at least a little.

  Even though Rachel had merely whisked in and out of his life like a cloud of dust on a breeze, he felt he knew her to some measure, and that she was therefore to a degree his special responsibility.

  If some scoundrel was hurting Rachel, he’d have Alex Gunnison to face because of it.

  * * *

  He soon found the area the shopkeeper had described, and realized he’d been here during his previous Leadville sojourn. Not far from here had stood a billiard parlor that had burned. The area had changed a lot, but still had enough of its old landmarks to help him get his bearings.

  But he didn’t see Rachel or her pursuer. Probably they’d gone a long way from here by now. He hoped she’d gotten away from him.

  Gunnison stood there helpless and out of breath. He looked all around, wondering where she had gone, then sighed and knew he had to give up.

  He headed for the street, frustrated in his helplessness. He couldn’t explain the mystery of Rachel Frye, but he instinctively felt a deep sympathy for her. He hoped it hadn’t been she the shopkeeper saw being beaten. He hoped she escaped whoever was pursuing her.

  Gunnison stopped, turning. He’d heard something …

  It was unmistakable. A woman’s outcries, a man’s grunted curses, the sound of something brutally thudding on flesh …

  Gunnison ran back the way he’d come, leaped a fence, dodged around an outbuilding, avoided the bite of a frightened dog whose sleep he interrupted by stepping on its tail, then vaulted another fence.

  There she was in a little empty, weedy grove along a back street, kneeling with her arms over her head to protect herself from the blows being rained down upon her by a burly, dark-bearded man with a stick in his hand. He cursed her with each blow, and she let out cries of terror and pain at every impact.

  CHAPTER 8

  GUNNISON, furious, leaped straight at the man from behind. He bowled him over hard, landing atop him. The fellow was too surprised to fight back, and lost his grip on the stick he’d been using as a club.

  Gunnison balled up his fists and began pounding the man around the head and neck, striking hard, irrational in his fury. It was the first time Gunnison had ever seen a woman being struck so brutally, and it stirred up an animalistic hunger for vengeance. He intended to beat this man until he was either dead or wishing he was.

  Rachel began wailing and screaming; the sound simply drove Gunnison all the harder. Then he realized there was something odd about it, and turned just in time to see her coming at him with the same stick the man had lost …

  It wasn’t Rachel.

  This woman was a stranger. Similar to Rachel in height, build, and hair color, but with a face revealing many more years than Rachel’s, and with an accent that was more southern Georgia than Britain.

  In the wake of that surprise, an even bigger one presented itself. The woman began to hit Gunnison around the shoulders with the stick.

  “Don’t you hit my Freddie!” she screamed, her voice harsh. “You leave my Freddie alone!”

  Gunnison couldn’t believe it. He ceased his own attack and shifted to defense, throwing up his arms much as the woman herself had been doing only a minute before.

  “Quit that!” he shouted at her. “What are you doing? I’m helping you, can’t you see?”

  “Don’t you beat my Freddie!” she yelled again. “He’s my sweet husband, my sweet husband!”

  Gunnison fell off the man, literally pounded off him by the woman. The man helped, too, giving a big upward shove that bucked Gunnison off like he was a horseman on a wild mare.

  As he hit the ground, Gunnison knew he was in trouble. He’d made a dreadful mistake, and it would cost him. This was obviously one of those couples who hate and abuse one another, but despite all the pain they generate will abide no outside interference in their private war.

  The woman caught Gunnison a hard blow across the temple, stunning him. Gunnison fell to one side. The man kicked him, driving him the rest of the way down.

  Stars exploded somewhere deep in Gunnison’s skull. His vision went black, white, black, then dissolved into a sea of swirling colors. Another blow struck his head, jolting him farther toward senselessness, but leaving him still with just enough awareness to marvel that a woman he’d possibly saved from being beaten to death was now seemingly trying to inflict that avoided fate upon her very rescuer.

  He felt a big hand dig under his jacket … no, no … the man was taking Gunnison’s own pistol! And Gunnison was losing consciousness and couldn’t stop him.

  As Gunnison seemed to be turning and twisting into a deep pool of darkness, he found the strength to pray that he would not meet his end like this, shot to death in a Leadville back lot with a pistol stolen off his very person.

  He collapsed facedown, eyes closing, the end surely near …

  He was almost unconscious when he heard the blast of the gunshot, deafeningly loud.

  * * *

  Gunnison woke up on a bed, staring at an unfamiliar ceiling while two equally unfamiliar male figures loomed at his bedside. “Hello, young fellow,” the smaller and older of the two said to him. “My name is Dr. Silas Jackson. You’re in my office, and, I’m glad to say, still among the living.”

  Gunnison thought hard … it was difficult to do so with a brain still groggy. “I was … shot.”

  “You surely almost was,” the second figure said, and as soon as he heard the voice say those four words, Gunnison was transported straight to Texas. The accent was Texan, top to bottom.

  So was the man’s look. Gunnison took in a lean, sun-browned face, whiskered; a pair of piercing black eyes beneath thick brows; a firm chin; and trail clothing that managed to hang neatly on his lean and muscular frame despite being rumpled and somewhat dirty. His hat, a rich brown that was not far from black, was still on his head and was the only fully clean item of clothing on him. Almost as meticulously kept was the leather gunbelt strapped around his waist, though Gunnison could see only a little of this because of the long black linen duster the man wore.

  “The name’s Best. Jessup Best. Former Texas Ranger, now a detective for private hire.” Best put out his hand for Gunnison to shake, and Gunnison managed despite feeling very weak and sore. “Your name is Gunnison, I think.”

  “That’s right.”

  “I seen you on the stage, talking.”

  “You should have had mercy—shot me then.”

  Best threw back his head and laughed heartily. “A man who can keep his humor about him even after being pounded on the noggin by a madwoman and the man who loves to beat her is a man I can admire. You from Texas, Mr. Gunnison?”

  “No. Missouri.”

  “Oh, well. Can’t win them all. Your partner Kenton is a Texas boy, ain’t he?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I come to Leadville because of Kenton.”

  “So did a lot of people. And quite a few of them booed me when they found out Kenton wasn’t here.”

  “Well, I had reason beyond just wanting to hear him speak to find Mr. Kenton.” Best shifted his hat back on his head a little and turned to the doctor. “Doc, reckon me and Mr. Gunnison could have a private moment here? I need to talk to him a bit about some things best kept just between the two of us. No offense intended.”

  “No offense taken,” the doctor said. “I’ve got rounds to make anyway. Just leave him lying down for now. I don’t know how bad a
head blow he took. Sometimes the effects take a while to show themselves.”

  The doctor exited, heading out the door and onto the street, taking his black bag with him.

  Best sat down on a tall stool beside Gunnison’s bed.

  “Need to talk to you, sir. Tell you a few things and ask you a few questions, too.”

  “I’ve got one for you first. How is it I don’t appear shot, when I heard the pistol going off?”

  “That was my pistol you heard, sir. I heard the fighting and came upon the scene in time to see that sorry son of a gun just about to pop a cap right into your head with what I think was your own pistol. I drew and shot before he could. He took the slug through the arm. He’ll get to keep his arm, but suffice it to say he won’t be beating his woman with it for a few months.”

  “If you’d shot it completely off, I’d have no objections.”

  “Shot his head off would have been best. The world don’t need the likes of him. There’s laws about such things as murder though, so I let him live.”

  Best had a twinkle in his eye and an ever-present lightness of manner that Gunnison liked. Best was a man confident in himself, his perceptions, and his ability to handle what they told him, and it showed.

  Gunnison found himself reminded of Kenton both because of Best’s confidence and the Texan accent. Kenton had never lost his own drawl, no matter how far he’d traveled or how many governors and presidents he’d dined with.

  But now Best grew somewhat more serious. “I told you I came here because of Kenton. But it ain’t what you’re probably thinking. I came because I knew Kenton being here would be likely to draw a certain somebody here … somebody I’ve been chasing now for quite a good while, under private hire.”

  “Who would that be?”

  “Depends on what name she’s using at any given time.”

  She? “Would the name she’s using at the moment by any chance be Rachel Frye?”

  “It would, Mr. Gunnison. It would. I take it you’ve run across her?”

  “Yes. She came to my hotel room, looking for Kenton. And she said there was a man pursuing her.”

  “That would be me.”

  “If so, then I can tell you she’s very terrified of you, sir, and talks about you like you’re the devil himself.”

  “I don’t doubt it. To her I am a devil. Because if I catch her, she’ll wind up back in Texas facing a devil of a penalty for a devil of a crime.”

  “What crime?”

  “Murder, Mr. Gunnison. The foulest and bloodiest murder seen in Texas for many a year.”

  CHAPTER 9

  GUNNISON felt the hackles on the back of his neck rise. “Who did she murder?”

  “The family who hired her as a maid. Fine people, fine as could be, name of Rawlings. They took in a poor little orphaned English girl, hired her, gave her boarding and food, made her like one of their own family. But one thing they didn’t know about this gal: she’d come from her native land because she was fleeing the charge of murder. Murder of her own parents. Then, once here, she did it again. Murdered the Rawlings family, husband and wife and daughter. Cleaned out as much as she could in cash and jewels and fled.”

  “Are you sure? She didn’t strike me as the kind to do something so wicked.”

  “Can’t really judge folks that way, Mr. Gunnison. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, both as a Ranger and after, it’s that you can’t tell from looking on the outside what there is down on the inside of a man … or a woman.”

  “You’re no longer a Ranger … so you’re chasing her as a hired gun, basically?”

  “‘Hired gun’—don’t know if I like that term. I’m not planning to shoot anybody, unless I have to.”

  “Just a way of speaking.”

  “The answer is yes, I’m hired. Relatives of the slain.”

  Gunnison was thinking. “How did you happen to be close by just when I was about to be shot?”

  “I’d been following you. Figuring you’d be a lure for our lady friend.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I know she came to Leadville looking for Brady Kenton. With Kenton winding up not being here, it made sense she would go to see you instead, to try and find out how to get to him.”

  “Mr. Best, someone came after Rachel Frye while she was in my hotel room. I was gone to find her food. There was a row of some kind. I had told that the man who fought with her had an English accent.”

  “It’s no surprise. There’s people of all kinds in Leadville.”

  “But if you are the man who has been chasing her, who would the Englishman who came up to my room have been?”

  Best shrugged. “I can’t say. If I had to guess, I’d peg it as someone who saw you leave your room and decided to take advantage of your absence to rob you. He probably didn’t know he would find someone still in the room. And I can imagine how she would have reacted … she’s a violent woman. Quite honestly, Mr. Gunnison, if she was in your room, you’re lucky to not have been hurt, or worse, by her. It may be for the best that that intruder showed up and ran her off.”

  Gunnison thought that over. “She told me something very strange…”

  “I can guess. She told you that Brady Kenton is her father.”

  “How did you know?”

  “Because Rachel Bryan Smith Harrington Bailey Frye Jackson … I can’t remember all the other names she’s used … has claimed to be the daughter of everybody from Robert E. Lee to the man in the moon. Hell, she’d have claimed to be your daughter if you’d been a little older. But mostly she’s claimed to be the daughter of Brady Kenton. And the purely queerish thing is, I think she believes it.” Best pointed at his temple and made circles with his finger. “The woman is loco. And dangerous. And I intend to find her. Any notion as to where she is now?”

  “No. But I thought that was her today, being attacked.”

  “No! Did you?”

  “It was part of the reason I was so fast to jump in and try to help her.”

  “You believed she was being attacked by the mysterious man who’s been trailing her.”

  “That’s right.”

  Best laughed again. “And it turned out to be nothing but a couple of married folks who make a habit of beating up on each other!”

  Gunnison smiled, though it didn’t seem that funny to him. It wasn’t Best who’d almost had his head blown off with his own pistol. But he couldn’t fault Best, whose fortuitous arrival, and quick gunman’s skill, had probably saved his life.

  “So about Kenton being her father … there’s no chance of it being true?”

  “Oh, no. Just a tale she tells. It opens doors for you if people think your father is somebody famous. But I do think she believes it’s true when she says it. Where is Kenton?”

  “Denver. Visiting an editor for the American Popular Library.”

  “But she doesn’t know that?”

  “She knows he’s in Denver. I told her that much.” He wished now that he hadn’t.

  Best nodded, more serious again. “That’s good information for me to have.”

  “You think she’ll go looking for him there?”

  “She might.”

  “Would she be dangerous to him?”

  “She could be.”

  “Has she threatened him?”

  “Not directly … but look at what she did in England, and in Texas. She’s got murder in her soul, that woman does.”

  “I’ve got to warn Kenton,” Gunnison said. “No … I’ve got to go join him, so I can watch for her. Kenton is approached by a lot of people … he wouldn’t know her from anyone else, but I would.” He started to sit up, but a sudden burst of wooziness made him halt.

  “Whoa, partner,” Best said. “I don’t believe you’re up to running around just yet. A blow to the noggin takes some getting over. The doc told me you might be laid up for a time.”

  Gunnison groaned and lay back down. This was unbelievable. If only he’d simply gotten up this morning, minded his
own business, left the hotel, and let Rachel Frye go her own way! He’d not be lying here helpless with a throbbing head.

  On the other hand, had he not gone looking for her, he’d not have met Best, either, and learned the truth about the woman.

  “What will you do, Mr. Best?” Gunnison asked with eyes closed. “Go to Denver to find her?”

  “Unless I find evidence she has remained here or gone elsewhere, that’s the likely bet,” Best drawled.

  Gunnison opened his eyes and looked at Best. “How long has she been following Kenton?”

  He cocked a brow, thinking. “I don’t know exactly. I only learned in the last two, three months about her starting to claim to be his daughter. That was no grand thing, because she’s made the same claim regarding several other celebrated types, but when I began to hear from folks who’d seen her that she’d been talking about trying to find Kenton, then I realized that a good thing had come about. All I had to do was track Brady Kenton, and she was bound to show up sooner or later.”

  “Why hasn’t she been able to connect with Kenton already?”

  “Why, Mr. Gunnison, you know better than anybody how busy he is. He moves around a lot, but mostly where he goes ain’t known to the general public in advance. That was what made this scheduled appearance of his in Leadville so important: it was one of the few times people could know in advance where Kenton was going to show up. When I heard about it I knew she’d probably show up here—which she did, though Kenton didn’t.”

  “She’s probably still in town,” Gunnison said. “There’s been no train out, I don’t think, since yesterday afternoon.”

  “There’s no assurance she’d ride the train, but quite likely you’re right. Her only other options besides stowing away in a freight car are walking or persuading somebody who’s going to Denver to take her with them. If the former, she ain’t gone far, and the latter ain’t likely.”

  “So you may still be able to catch her right here in Leadville.”

  “I hope I can. That would be best for me, and for Kenton, too. We’d get her out of the way before she could go bothering or threatening him.”