The Hanging at Leadville / Firefall

by Cameron Judd

  Mary Deverell smiled through her tears and put her thin hand on Straker’s. “Oh, Mark, what would I do without you? You’re wise and good.”

  “Aunt Mary, don’t you worry—I’ll take care of this scoundrel Brady Kenton.”

  “Thank you. Good night, dear Mark. You’re so good to me!”

  “That’s because I love you, Aunt Mary. Now, you sleep. I’ll stay down here tonight, on the couch, so you can know I’m close.”

  Mark Straker leaned over and kissed Mary Deverell’s wrinkled cheek.

  Chapter 22

  Chop-off Johnson sat in a crouch, panting for breath, his back against a mine building. The uniformed body of Clance Sullivan was stretched out before him. He had just dragged the policeman’s limp corpse to this hidden place, out of the moonlight, for fear someone might see both it and him. He couldn’t imagine why the policeman had died—he hadn’t hit or kicked him all that hard…had he?

  Anyway, the man surely was dead, and all Chop-off could think about was that maybe somebody else had seen the policeman following him out of Leadville. If so, he would surely be blamed for the death once the officer’s body was found. Chop-off felt a great wave of fright. He was in deep enough trouble already, given his failure to eliminate Lundy O’Donovan. To make it worse, he had even taken a bullet wound in the leg from that big man who had emerged from the cabin and chased him. It was just a grazing wound, but a painful one that had festered. Afterward, Chop-off had run away and hidden himself in a forgotten old hut up here in the woods behind this mine, imagining that all the world was out there trying to find and punish him. Only the craving for more opium to dull the pain in his leg and the rising panic had driven him out.

  What could he do? He was afraid simply to leave the policeman’s body. He needed either to get rid of it, as he and Currell had gotten rid of Jimmy Rhoder’s decaying remains, or to make it look as if someone else were responsible for the death. How could he do it? He wished he were as smart as Mark Straker, who always seemed to find a safe and clever way out of his predicaments.

  The thought of Mark Straker brought a fast, heartening inspiration. Why not borrow the idea Straker had planned to use to make Rhoder’s murder look like the work of Garrett? Of course! Smiling, Chop-off stood, peered around carefully to be sure no one was within view, and slipped around to the front of the building behind which the body lay. The moon was irritatingly bright at the moment, spilling a dim glow across the rugged countryside and the never-sleeping town just over the hill. Chop-off eyed the mine’s main building about three hundred yards to the east; if there was a watchman, he probably was there. Sidling against the front of the immediate building, he peered through a window. Though it was too dark to see much, he could make out various bundles, crates, kegs, and the like inside. This was some sort of warehouse. If he was lucky, it would contain what he needed.

  Chop-off picked up a stone, wrapped the tail of his ragged jacket around it, and as quietly as possible shattered one of the windowpanes. Reaching in, he unlatched the window and slid it open.

  Inside, after a frenzy of match-lit searching, he finally found what he hoped for: a length of rope and a keg of coal oil. He checked out the window before tossing the goods out, then, seeing a desk beneath the next window, had a fresh inspiration. Rummaging quickly through it, he found a pencil.

  Once outside again, he closed the window and carried his take around to Clance Sullivan’s body. Chop-off’s leg hurt terribly, and he longed for opium. No time now, though. He dragged Sullivan closer to the back of the warehouse where a beam and pulley jutted out above a closed double door on the upper level.

  Pausing just long enough to catch his breath, the footpad went back around, brought up his keg and rope, then sat down, screwing up his face in discomfort as he bent his wounded leg. So far, his plan was working. No one had appeared, no watchman had shouted at him. Taking up an end of the rope, he wondered briefly how one tied a hangman’s noose, then realized he probably couldn’t tie one with one hand even if he knew how. It would have to be a simple slipknot, the kind he could make one-handed.

  It took him longer than he’d thought it would to tie the knot and loop it around Sullivan’s neck. A flight of steps led up to the closed upper-level doors, and this Chop-off mounted, reaching the loading platform from which he was just able to reach the pulley and thread the other end of the rope through it. He worked it down until it reached the ground, then descended the stairs again.

  He spilled coal oil over the form of Clance Sullivan, picked up the end of the rope he had just passed through the pulley, and said, “Up you go.”

  With a groan, a heave, and a screeching of the pulley, he strained over toward a nearby tree, in the process hefting up Sullivan’s body until it dangled two feet off the ground. Straining to keep his grip, he wrapped the rope around the tree several times, then managed to tie it off. The knot was loose but sufficient.

  Now sweating and breathless, Chop-off limped back to the corpse and dug into his pocket for a match. Just as he was about to strike it, he remembered the inspiration that had come in the warehouse. He pulled out the pencil stub, picked up a piece of plank from a nearby pile of scrapwood, and scratched out four words. Tossing the pencil away, he placed the plank upright against a stone near the swinging body.

  “Now they’ll be sure to say he done this to you,” Chop-off said in a half-whisper, addressing the corpse. “Got to light you up now, policeman.” He smiled. “And then I’ll go back to Chicken Hill and use the rest of my coal oil, just in case that boy ain’t talked yet after all.”

  He struck the match.

  Chapter 23

  Brady Kenton and Alex Gunnison were simultaneously awakened in their apartment by the clanging of a fire wagon passing on the street. Both rose, met wordlessly in the hall, and walked to the front window.

  A fiery glow rose in the sky to the east. Both journalists watched in silence a few moments, and then Kenton said, “Alex—that fire is on Chicken Hill.”

  “You think…”

  “I don’t know. And I don’t like not knowing. Let’s go.”

  They dressed in a rush. By the time they reached the street, a sizable crowd was already heading toward the fire. A couple of quick inquiries confirmed Kenton’s suspicion that the fire was on Chicken Hill, reportedly at the O’Donovan cabin.

  “It appears Kelly’s policemen didn’t do quite the guard job needed,” Kenton said grimly.

  By the time the journalists reached Chicken Hill, flames were spitting skyward in big orange tongues, licking out of the windows and door of the cabin that had been home to the O’Donovans. Firemen were pouring water on the fire, but it was clear they could hope to do no more than keep the flames from spreading to other structures. The house was lost.

  “I hope…they got out,” Kenton said, panting from his run.

  “Look there,” Gunnison said, pointing. Silhouetted against the flames were Lundy and his mother, both hugged up against the sad old grandfather, who was seated in a big wicker chair that apparently had been saved from the fire. A handful of other possessions lay about them, the total making a pitiful pile there on the hillside. Another pile was heaped nearby; it was laundry. Mrs. O’Donovan, honest Irish laundress that she was, had thought of her customers and saved their clothing, probably at the expense of losing some of her own goods.

  “How did it start?” Kenton asked a man beside him.

  “Don’t know for sure, but I heard it was set deliberate,” he said.

  “By who?”

  “Durned if I know.” The man moved away, backing off from the roasting heat that belched out in all directions around the burning house.

  “Come on,” Kenton said. “I want to talk to Mrs. O’Donovan.”

  They came upon them from the rear. Kenton called her name. Kate O’Donovan and Lundy turned. Tears were streaming down their faces as for the second time in their life in Leadville, a home was taken from them. The first loss had been to lot jumpers—ruffia
ns who took advantage of Leadville’s property laws by forcing residents off property and building a new structure on it, giving them title. Now arsonists had victimized the O’Donovans.

  Lundy’s expression was intensely fearful. He pulled back behind his mother’s soot-smudged skirt as the journalists approached.

  “Who did this to you?” Kenton asked Kate O’Donovan.

  “Faith, if I knew, I would tell,” she said.

  Kenton knelt and looked into Lundy’s face. The boy’s tears streamed down faster; he was unable to hold Kenton’s gaze.

  “I’ll bet you know, don’t you, Lundy?” Kenton said.

  Lundy buried his face in his mother’s skirt and cried harder.

  “Do not push the boy now,” Mrs. O’Donovan said. “He’s much afraid.

  “So I see.”

  “I thank the Savior that we are alive,” she said. “A roof over one’s head can be found again; the life of a boy and an old man cannot be.”

  “Very true,” Kenton said. He looked at Lundy again. “Son, I won’t press you, but if you have withheld anything that needs telling, you’d best speak before there’s even more loss.”

  Kate O’Donovan exclaimed, “Mr. Kenton, please do leave him be for now!”

  The old grandfather stirred in his chair and made a guttural sound, staring as an infant might at the fire, seeing but not comprehending. Moving colors, ravaging heat. To him, that was all it was.

  Kenton said, “Mrs. O’Donovan, I just can’t leave it be right now. You realize that whoever set your house afire probably was trying to kill Lundy. Lundy knows something someone doesn’t want known, even though Lundy has been too scared to say it. Am I right, son?”

  Gunnison watched out of the corner of his eye as Lundy finally nodded.

  “Do you know who set the house on fire, Lundy?”

  “I think I do.” The last time Gunnison had heard Lundy’s voice, it had been screaming, sounding quite different from the quiet near-whisper it was now.

  “Did this same man attack you at the mine?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who?”

  Tears gushed anew. “I’m afraid,” he said. “He’ll kill me if I tell. He’ll kill Old Papa and Mama.”

  “You’ve got to tell us, Lundy. It’s important we know. This man let you get away from him one time, and also spared the life of Alex here—but apparently he has changed his mind. It’s not just your safety and your family’s at issue anymore—it’s Alex’s as well.”

  When Kenton said that, Gunnison’s stomach rolled over twice, like a trick dog upon command. He could not restrain himself from asking his own question then: “Lundy, was it Briggs Garrett?”

  Lundy shook his head. “It was a man with one arm,” he said.

  Gunnison was so surprised, he sank to his haunches on the ground. “Chop-off Johnson? It was Chop-off Johnson who attacked us at that mine?”

  “I don’t know his name. I’ve seen him before in town. There was another man at the mine with him, too. Somebody I’ve seen, but I don’t know his name.”

  “I had wondered how a one-armed man could have gotten a corpse and an unconscious man out of that shaft all alone,” Kenton said. He paused, thinking. “If it was Johnson who was poking about your house last night, then he surely has a bullet in him. I shot at him, and I hit him. Lundy, when you saw the one-armed man tonight, did he look wounded?”

  “He had a bandage on his leg,” Lundy said. “I saw it when he set fire to the house.”

  “You actually saw him torch your house?” Gunnison asked.

  Lundy nodded. “He threw coal oil or something on the wall, then a torch. I was too scared to yell until it was already burning. It’s all my fault.”

  “Nonsense,” Kenton said. “Don’t even think that. Lundy, listen: We’ve got to go talk to the law. Chop-off Johnson needs to be in jail.”

  Gunnison rose from his crouch. “Look,” he said, grasping Kenton’s arm and pointing.

  There, barely visible in the circle of light cast by the flaming house, was a dark and familiar figure. He had only one arm and was creeping away from the scene.

  “You there!” Kenton yelled. “Hold it right where you are!” Kenton began trotting toward him.

  Chop-off Johnson saw him coming, turned, and ran.

  Gunnison commanded his legs to move, but they would not. Like Lundy, he was paralyzed with fear of the one-armed man. Only after Kenton had vanished into the dark did Gunnison snap out of the spell and go after him.

  Across Chicken Hill Gunnison ran, looking in all directions, but he could not find Kenton or Johnson. It seemed impossible they could have gotten away so quickly, but then he realized that once out of view, the pair could have gone in any direction. Suddenly the dark cabins around, empty because all the occupants were at the fire, seemed ghostly and threatening. Around any of their corners Chop-off Johnson might be lurking, ready to kill should Gunnison come too close. His first encounter with the man came back clearly—the long blade of the footpad’s knife and his attempt to disembowel him.

  Gunnison wanted to shout for Kenton but was afraid to. Moving slowly now, carefully, he advanced, looking all around as he went. The wind sang around the houses and in the treetops. Voices and the clatter and ruckus of fire fighting carried down from the direction of the O’Donovan place. Gunnison’s pistol was heavy in its holster. Could he use it if need be? Gunnison had never shot at a man before. Tonight he might have to.

  “Kenton?” It was a whisper rather than a shout, for he feared shouting. No answer returned.

  On he went, looking, seeing nothing, yet feeling through some innate sense that Kenton and Johnson had come this way.

  Then suddenly he knew he was not alone.

  “Gunnison?”

  He recognized the voice at once. “Currell? Is that you?”

  “What’s happening up there?” George Currell asked.

  “Fire at the O’Donovan place. Set by Chop-off Johnson.”

  There was a long silence. “He’s alive, then,” Currell said in a flat tone, almost as if he were disappointed. “He’s just been hiding out, that’s all.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Nothing, nothing—just shut up and leave me alone!” Currell sounded distressed and defensive—a sudden transformation. He turned and dashed away into the night.

  Feeling suspicious, Gunnison wondered if he should go after Currell and leave Chop-off to Kenton. He decided he could not do that; he had to know his partner was safe.

  Movement in the darkness ahead. He bolted forward.

  The moon was a come-and-go light in the sky, and the clouds that had blocked it for the last several moments let it shine through now. There was Kenton, pistol drawn, running around the corner of a shed below. Here there were houses, sheds, outbuildings, stockpens, chicken coops. The rears of houses and commercial structures were ugly there in the uncertain moonlight—Leadville with its trousers dropped.

  Gunnison was already bearing down on the place he had seen Kenton before it hit him that he should be more cautious. Chop-off Johnson was probably armed. The excitement of the chase and his concern for Kenton had so overtaken Gunnison that he had forgotten common sense. He pulled back into the thick nightshadow beside a woodshed.

  The back door of the closest house opened, and a shirtless man in trousers and galluses came out with a shotgun. He peered around in the dark, stooped over a little, like a farmer looking for foxes in his henhouse. Gunnison hugged back against the shed.

  The man with the shotgun stared directly at him, but Gunnison could not tell if he’d been seen. Moonlight washed over the shotgun bearer, but Gunnison remained in the shadows. The man looked from side to side. At last he shook his head and reentered his house.

  Gunnison waited a few moments—sure enough, the curtain in the nearest window moved; the man was still watching. After a time there was no more such movement, and Gunnison felt safe in moving again.

  In all this time Gunnison
had heard nothing to indicate where Kenton and Chop-off might have gone. He had lost precious time just now.

  Gunnison slipped away from the woodshed, and as quietly as he could, left the backlot and got onto a small alley street running parallel to the backsides of a row of buildings. Music from a nearby saloon rippled on the breeze. He advanced. A dark alley opened to his right, and he let it swallow him.

  Halfway down the alley, he again felt the presence of another. “Kenton?” he said.

  A moment later, he knew it was not Kenton. A figure materialized before him, almost invisible in the blackness. A cool metallic surface brushed his arm, and a pricking knifepoint stung his skin.

  “Money.” This was a to-the-point footpad.

  Gunnison backed away from him. His hand went beneath his coat, and he grasped his pistol.

  The footpad slashed at him. “Money!”

  “I’m getting it for you,” Gunnison said. Then he drew the pistol and swung it. Metal pounded skull, and the footpad went down, shuddering all the way. Gunnison stepped across him to continue down the alley.

  Around the corner, a hand caught him from the side and pulled him down. The moon sailed out from behind another cloud and threw a thin ray down into the alley. It caught Chop-off’s ugly grin and glinted on his uplifted pistol.

  “Now I’ll do what should have been done back at that mine,” he said. The moon sailed behind another cloud.

  The roar of the shot was deafening—but then, Gunnison’s pistol had always had a noisy report, and the closeness of the alley made it even louder. Chop-off’s scream joined the echo of the shot. Suddenly he was there no more.

  Gunnison pushed up and looked for him, but Chop-off, like the burned corpse in the mine, had strangely vanished. Gunnison wondered if his shot had struck Chop-off or just scared him off.