The Quest of Brady Kenton / Kenton's Challenge

by Cameron Judd

“If you do, I truly would like to go with you.”

  “We’ll see. I don’t think I’ll make any big decisions. Not until Roxanne gets home.”

  “You’ll be glad to see her, eh?” Connery smiled brightly and winked.

  “I will. And not just for the reasons you’re obviously thinking about.”

  CHAPTER 5

  The train came to a halt with an ear-buffeting metallic screech and the piercing hiss of steaming brakes. Alex Gunnison stood on the platform so excited he was hardly able to restrain himself from dancing.

  She descended, wearing her beauty like a robe, and he went to her nearly on a run, throwing his arms around her and kissing her right there in the midst of the crowd.

  “Welcome back, Roxanne!” he said. “You don’t know how I’ve missed you!”

  She squeezed him until he couldn’t breathe. “Of course I know. You think I didn’t miss you just as badly?”

  “Then you should have come home sooner.”

  “I couldn’t cut the visit short. It had been too long since the last one for me to do that.”

  “I know. But I can’t help but be selfish. I want you all to myself.”

  She gave him the kind of smile that could still melt him despite their several years together. “I’m glad. Now tell me: how are the cats?”

  “Fine. I’ll bet you thought about them more than about me.”

  “Nonsense! Did you water the plants every day?”

  “Of course.”

  “Oh, Alex, can we go to Barrigan’s tonight? I’d love to sit back and relax and enjoy a good meal and just have the chance to look at you for a while.”

  “A marvelous idea. I’d already thought of doing that even before you mentioned it. I ate there while you were gone.… The place isn’t the same without you.”

  He carried her bags in one hand and held her arm in the other, happy to be with her again. He put aside thoughts of Brady Kenton and decided, almost unconsciously, not to mention tonight his upcoming trip to England. There would be time for that later.

  Brady Kenton had intruded into the life of the Gunnisons for years. Tonight he would not.

  * * *

  But as Gunnison and his wife were finishing their meal, lingering over dessert and coffee, Brady Kenton did intrude.

  “Oh, I just remembered…” Roxanne said suddenly. “The strangest thing … Wait a moment.…” She began digging in her bag.

  “What are you up to?” Gunnison asked.

  “Wait.… Ah, yes, here it is.” She pulled a ragged envelope from her bag and laid it on the table in front of her husband’s plate.

  Gunnison picked it up. “It appears to be an envelope addressed to the Buckeye Cafe in Culvertown, Colorado.”

  “Look on the back.”

  Gunnison flipped it over and stared in silence.

  “Whose work would you say that was, Alex?”

  Gunnison was gazing at a casual pencil study of a man in a vest and sleeve garters, carrying a food-laden tray.

  “This looks like Kenton’s work.”

  “Yes.”

  “Where did you get it?”

  “I found it in that cafe, the Buckeye.”

  “What were you doing in Culvertown?”

  “It was a side trip. I went with one of Aunt Karen’s friends to visit her brother there. We ate at this cafe, and I found the envelope on the table.”

  “It’s astonishing! I’ve never seen such a good imitation of his work. Or maybe it isn’t an imitation at all. Maybe this is some old sketch done by Kenton years ago.”

  “The man in the sketch is a waiter in the cafe … the same waiter who waited on our table.”

  “Well, so he’s worked there several years.”

  “He was wearing the same clothes as you see in the drawing.”

  “So the cafe has a uniform code of dress for its employees.”

  “Look at the postmark date, Alex.”

  Gunnison flipped it over. The postmark was only days old.

  To his mind came the words of the man who had approached him in Barrigan’s: My brother Cordell swears, absolutely swears, that he saw Brady Kenton himself not a week ago, in Colorado … says he knows for a fact this was none other than the man.

  Gunnison was now almost sure that Brady Kenton really was back in the United States, in Colorado … yet he had made no contact.

  Roxanne looked closely at her husband. “Alex … should I not have showed you that sketch? You look upset.”

  “It’s just that … it’s a bit of a shock, seeing what appears to be an authentic Kenton drawing, but which couldn’t be.”

  “I know,” she replied. “It’s impossible. I inquired of the proprietor about the sketch, wondering if he knew who had left it. He didn’t, but a waiter gave a description of a man who sounded remarkably like Kenton himself. He said the man had dined alone and seemed melancholy.”

  Kenton … dining alone. Perhaps he had failed in his quest to bring back Victoria and had been so depressed he had gone into hiding in a remote Colorado mining town. It wouldn’t be the first time Kenton had gone off to hide and lick his wounds.

  Gunnison wondered if Kenton was drinking again. And where was Rachel Frye, his daughter? She’d gone with him to England. Had she not returned?

  Questions abounded, demanding answers, and Gunnison sat staring off into the dark corner of the restaurant, feeling frustration and restlessness rise because just now those answers could not be found.

  “Alex, did you hear what I said?”

  “Of course I did. You were talking about this sketch.”

  “No … I was telling you how eager I am to get you home and alone.”

  He smiled. “Intriguing, I must say. How could I have missed that?”

  Gunnison folded the envelope and put it in his pocket, determined to forget about Kenton for the rest of the evening.

  He doubted he would succeed. The questions were just too big to be forgotten.

  * * *

  When Alex Gunnison left the house to go to work the next morning, Roxanne stood in the doorway and waved him away with a bright smile on her face.

  As soon as he was out of sight, though, the smile vanished, and she closed the door with her heart heavy and her brow creased by a frown.

  Something was wrong with Alex. Something was so on his mind that it was pushing her out of his attention.

  She wondered desperately what it could be and why he would not tell her about it.

  That sketch on the envelope, maybe. Perhaps that had disturbed him in some way. She wished she hadn’t shown it to him.

  Returning to the bedroom, she looked on the bureau where Alex had placed the envelope last night. The envelope was gone. He’d taken it with him to the office.

  CHAPTER 6

  Billy Connery stood by the window, looking at the sketch where the light was brightest.

  “Amazing indeed,” he said. “You know Brady Kenton’s work better than any man alive, Alex, but if I was asked to judge, I would have to say that this is indeed his sketching.”

  “You’re right on both scores: I do know his work better than anyone does, and I can vouch for that as an authentic Kenton sketch.”

  “Which means the man is indeed back in the country and apparently spending his time in Colorado.”

  “Yes, but in hiding, it would seem. If not in hiding, at least cutting himself off from his friends.”

  “Why would he do such a thing?”

  “He would do it only if something was very wrong. He’s hiding because he must.”

  “Or because he wants to. Because he is in some sort of despair,” Connery said.

  “Yes. That could be. So what now?”

  “Well, if it’s my advice you’re asking, I say throw aside my earlier encouragement for you to go to England and replace it with encouragement to go to Colorado.”

  “My thoughts exactly. Colorado it is.”

  “We can perhaps come up with some pretext … a story we are to do abo
ut something or another. The shepherds of the Colorado mountains, perhaps.”

  “Already did it, back in ’79.”

  “We’ll think of something.”

  “I gather you’re planning to go as well.”

  “Of course! Who else can help you more? And if we’re to make the pretense of going to produce a story and art, it would be expected that I would go along anyway.”

  “That’s true.”

  “And as I noted earlier, there’s no one else you could go with who wouldn’t become a millstone around your neck, because there’s no one else but me who knows Kenton is still alive.”

  “Maybe I should take Roxanne. Maybe it’s time I told her the truth.”

  “Kenton told you not to.”

  “Yes. But Kenton has always thought he could run every aspect of my life for me. I’m getting tired of having to keep a secret from my own wife just because he wanted me to, for some inexplicable reason.”

  “That’s your judgment to make, Alex. You’ve already taken me into your confidence on the matter. If you want to tell your wife as well, that’s your choice.”

  Gunnison did want to tell her yet also didn’t. He knew Roxanne. She would be very displeased that he’d kept the secret from her as long as he had and would let him know it. She’d also never be able to keep it quiet, he feared. Willingly or unwillingly, she’d let it slip. And she would resent that he’d told Billy Connery before he told her.

  “I think I’ll hold quiet for now,” he said. “But she’ll think it strange that I’ve gone to Colorado right in the wake of her just getting back from there. She’ll know it’s because of the envelope.”

  “Then perhaps you shouldn’t keep quiet.”

  But Gunnison was thinking hard all at once. “I’ll tell her I’m going to find the man who did the sketch in hopes of hiring him because of his obvious skills.”

  “In other words, that you’re looking for someone to replace yours truly.”

  “Don’t get sensitive on me, Billy. We both know it’s just a cover story.”

  “Shall I begin to make the arrangements?”

  “Don’t take this wrong, Billy, but if I’m going to Colorado ostensibly to find another artist, it wouldn’t make sense for me to be taking you along.”

  Connery was crestfallen. “I don’t want to be left out of this one, Alex. I’m as intrigued by this as you are.”

  “I understand. But I think it’s going to be just me this time around.”

  Connery returned the envelope to Gunnison’s desk with a sigh. “Very well, boss and governor. If you want Billy staying behind, Billy stays behind.”

  “Don’t be peeved at me, Billy.”

  “Peeved? Don’t know the meaning of the word,” Connery said tightly, leaving the room without another glance at Gunnison.

  * * *

  The task of sorting and distributing the heap of mail that came almost daily to the offices of the Illustrated American was the prized and much-protected duty of Joe Stamps. Stamps was a somber man in his forties who looked fifteen years older than he was and whose mind had never developed beyond that of a boy. Gunnison’s father happened to be a tenderhearted and progressive man who held the unusual view that society was obliged by common decency to provide a place and livelihood for those whose mental situations made it pretty much impossible for them to do so on their own.

  He had hired Stamps shortly after the Illustrated American had moved to its current office building. Stamps had initially roused concerns among the less progressive-minded staff members, but time had proven him to be a good and reliable man with a strong sense of duty.

  Stamps took his job very seriously, and on the rare occasion he made a mistake, distress almost overwhelmed him. When he entered Alex Gunnison’s office, Gunnison knew at once that something had gone wrong.

  “What is it, Joe?” Gunnison asked.

  “I’ve made a mistake,” Stamps replied, his voice tight. “I know how important it is for letters to reach you fast, and I try my best to make sure they do. But sometimes things fall off the table in the mailroom. Sometimes even when I look, I’ll miss them if they fall in behind something. I’m sorry.”

  “So you’ve found a letter that had fallen behind a table?”

  “Yes, sir. It should have come to you a week ago. I’m sorry that it’s wrinkled and dirty.”

  Stamps extended a crumpled envelope, smudged with grime.

  “Thank you, Joe.”

  “I’ll try not to let it happen again, Mr. Gunnison. Please don’t take away my job.”

  “No one is going to take away your job over one lost letter.”

  “Thank you, sir. I really do appreciate it.”

  “Fine. You’re welcome.”

  “I only wish I had looked sooner behind that table. Then maybe it wouldn’t have been lost at all. From now on I’m going to look behind the table every day. No, twice a day.”

  “Good.”

  Gunnison was studying the return address of the envelope in his hand. It was that of a hospital in New York. He’d hoped it would be the identifying code name and address he and Kenton had worked out.

  “Thank you again for not taking away my job, Mr. Gunnison.”

  “Fine. You can go about your work now, Joe.”

  Joe thanked Gunnison yet again as he headed out the door.

  Gunnison tore the envelope open. The letter was written in a nearly illegible hand, clearly the product of someone working in a hurry. He had to read slowly just to make out what it said.

  Once he was through reading it, he laid the letter on the desk and stared at it a moment. Then he picked it up, folded it and placed it in his pocket, and set out at once to find Billy Connery.

  CHAPTER 7

  Billy Connery lowered the letter and frowned thoughtfully. “This Rachel Frye, that’s Brady Kenton’s daughter, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “And she went to England with Kenton.”

  “She did.”

  “Then how has she come to end up in a hospital in New York?”

  “A good question.”

  “Perhaps we can wire the hospital and find out.”

  “I intend to do that. I expect we’ll find she’s still there. It’s a charity-based hospital, the letterhead indicates, so I doubt they’d throw her into the streets.”

  “I wonder if Kenton knows she’s there?”

  “I can’t believe he would. He would never stand by while his flesh and blood was in some kind of medical crisis.”

  “This seems to be a common refrain.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “This thing of ‘Kenton would never’ do this or do that. Kenton would never come back to the United States without letting you know. But obviously he has. Kenton would never let his own daughter languish alone in a hospital far from him. But again, it appears he has.”

  “I can assure you, there has to be a reason for whatever he’s doing. I’ve known Kenton a long time. I know the man he is.”

  “Unless the man he is now isn’t the man you’ve known. Something might have happened to change him.”

  Gunnison couldn’t deny this possibility. Kenton had a history of occasional lapses into despair and drinking, and at such times he would become different than he was in better times. Kenton’s bad periods were inevitably triggered by negative events—severe disappointments, failures, personal crises of one kind or another.

  Gunnison was fairly sure now that Kenton’s quest to find his wife in England had failed. This blow, which would be the worst of his life, might have driven him further than ever before into drinking and self-isolation.

  He had to find Kenton and help him, or Kenton might not be around much longer to be found at all.

  “What will you do now?” Connery asked, handing the letter back to Gunnison.

  “Go to New York.”

  “I’d like to go with you.”

  “No. I have another job for you. I want you to go to Colorado in my place.”


  “Really? To look for Kenton?”

  “Yes. I need to go to both Colorado and New York, and clearly I can’t pull that one off.”

  “You know that I’ve never met Kenton.”

  “No, but you’ve seen more than enough pictures of him. Besides, it might be good to have someone looking for him whom he’s never met. If he saw me before I saw him and if he didn’t want me to find him, he’d simply disappear. You’ll be able to find him without rousing suspicion … I hope.”

  Connery, beaming, pumped Gunnison’s hand. “Thank you, Alex. I’ll not let you down. If he’s there to be found, I’ll find him.”

  “You’ll have to be careful how you proceed. Kenton is clever, and if he’s trying to hide, he’ll not be easy to locate.”

  “It doesn’t appear to me that he’s been particularly clever,” Connery replied. “He did a sketch and simply left it in a cafe to be found.”

  “I admit that does seem careless, if he’s trying to stay in hiding. But maybe it was a simple oversight on his part.”

  “I will be careful. And if Kenton is in some sort of bad situation, I’ll do all I can to help him.”

  “Watch out for yourself as well. Kenton may be hiding because he’s in danger. If you find him, you could be in danger, too.”

  “What kind of danger?”

  “I don’t know. All I know is that Dr. David Kevington is a determined and dangerous man, willing to do whatever it takes to gain and keep what he wants. He kidnapped Kenton’s wife years ago and hid her away like his personal treasure. If Kenton managed to get her away from him, Kevington would probably know no limits in how he’d react, trying to get her back.”

  Connery pondered this a moment. “Kenton could be hiding from Dr. Kevington, then.”

  “Maybe. We can’t know until we find him. But, Billy … if you do find Kenton, please be sure that you don’t accidentally help somebody else find him, too.”

  Connery took this in thoughtfully, then nodded. “I will indeed proceed with great caution. And you do the same.”

  “I will.” Gunnison shook the letter. “I wish this told me the reason that Rachel is hospitalized.”

  “Whatever it is, it must be no small thing, to keep her nearly unconscious for weeks.”