The Hanging at Leadville / Firefall

by Cameron Judd

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t intend to—”

  “I mean, after what I seen, anything seemed possible. Anything! If you’d been here, you might have believed that the parson was a true prophet, too.”

  “Yes. I’m sorry. I really wasn’t trying to—”

  Smith tiraded on. “Sure, it seems impossible to you that the parson caused it. But hell, the whole thing is impossible anyway! The sky doesn’t catch fire at night. Hell doesn’t fall from heaven. Trees don’t get knocked flat as matchsticks for no reason. But look around you. It happened! So sometimes the impossible is possible after all.”

  “Obviously so. I apologize for offending you. And I hope you’ll let me ask you another question.”

  Smith’s anger was mostly vented away now. “Go ahead, then.”

  “Where are Parson Peabody and the ones with him now?”

  “Gone. Rankin, Princess, and Shafter with him. They got out well before Ottinger and his soldiers came in from Fort Brandon.”

  “They’d seen the firefall from there?”

  “You could see the thing for miles and miles, I’m sure.”

  “Why did they come?”

  “I assumed they’d come to investigate it, and to give aid and support to those who were left. Maybe that really was the idea to start with. Now I believe Ottinger has another motive in mind. The sorry old murderer.”

  “Why do you despise him?”

  “My two brothers were among those his men massacred in Virginia.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “There was division in my family during the war, you see. My brothers wore the gray, me the blue. But I lost a lot of my respect for the Union cause after what Ottinger did.”

  “There’s plenty besides you who feel the same,” Gunnison said. “Brady Kenton himself despised the man like he was the devil.”

  “I think he is the devil,” Smith said, and spat on the ashy ground.

  Gunnison asked, “Who is the civilian they brought in on the train with all the scientific instruments?”

  “A mining geologist, I think.”

  “A geologist? So they think this was a volcano or something?”

  “Nobody thinks that. This geologist just happened to be the only kind of scientist they could round up on short notice. They grabbed the first one they could find and brought him in to figure out what happened here. But not really to figure it out. This soldier told me that the Colonel already has made up his mind about what happened, and just wants this man to back up his story for him—to say that whatever happened, happened because of something some person done.”

  “How does Ottinger plan to explain it?”

  “A bomb. Can you believe that? He plans to claim that a bomb did all this!” Decker Smith made a circular motion with his hand, indicating the surrounding landscape.

  “Nobody who has seen this level of destruction could believe it was a bomb,” Gunnison said. “These trees, all blown down in the same direction, burned on one side…anyone who sees them will know it was no bomb.”

  “Ah, yes,” Smith said. “But what’s been partly burned can be set afire again and burned completely. That’s Ottinger’s plan. He’s going to rekindle the forest fire, destroy all these trees so you can’t tell any more how strong the explosion was. Then, with this geologist backing him up with an official report saying it was no volcano or nothing like that, he can claim that somebody set off explosives in Gomorrah, caught the town on fire, and that the fire then spread into the woods.”

  “So Ottinger doesn’t really believe it was a bomb…he just plans to make that the official explanation?”

  “That’s the long and short of it.”

  Gunnison asked, “But what about the people who witnessed what really happened, and who have already gotten away to tell the tale? Or, for that matter, the survivors he’s still holding? Once they’re let go, they’d contradict such an explanation.”

  “No big problem. Ottinger will just contradict them right back. He’ll say they exaggerated what they saw, or misunderstood it. And let’s face it: Most people will never see this mountain for themselves, and these trees fallen out like they are. Once they’re burned up and the evidence gone, Ottinger can pretty much pass off whatever story he wants to to explain this fire.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “Like I told you: talkative soldiers. One in particular. Young private with a loose tongue and a mistrust of Ottinger.”

  “I guess the real question is, what’s Ottinger’s motive for telling such a big lie, and going to such trouble to cover the truth?”

  “I’m surprised you even have to ask. Can’t you figure it out for yourself?”

  Gunnison gazed blankly at Decker Smith, wondering what he’d missed. “I admit that I can’t.”

  “Ain’t you ever heard of Confederate Ridge, young man?”

  “You mean that place somewhere nearby with the old rebels in it?”

  “Not just any old rebels, son. Pernell Jones’s old rebels, these are.”

  “Pernell Jones…wait a minute. I remember that name. A Confederate irregular out of Virginia, a raider…”

  “And the very man who maimed and blinded Colonel Ottinger with a shotgun blast. You ought to know all about it, if you’re really Brady Kenton’s partner. It was Kenton who told the world the truth about the Ottinger massacre, right in the pages of the Illustrated American. Showed Ottinger for the murderer he is. I’m surprised the man was able to keep up a military career at all after what Kenton wrote.”

  “I do remember. He wrote that long before I ever started working with him. My father keeps a copy of that story on his office wall, hanging in a big frame.”

  “Therein lies Ottinger’s motive for all of this, young man. He plans to blame Jones and his men for setting the blasts and fires that destroyed Gomorrah and killed all these people. He’ll then have grounds for taking his soldiers in to overrun Confederate Ridge—and I’ll bet you anything you want that Pernell Jones will be killed during the raid. Probably by Ottinger himself. The old bastard had carried a bitter grudge against Jones ever since the war. Everybody knows it. They say that’s why Ottinger came up here from Texas after his wife died. He knew about Confederate Ridge, and wanted to come up near so he could settle his old score with Jones once and for all.”

  “One loose-tongued private told you all this?”

  “Him and a few others. A lot of it I’d already heard. There’s been a lot of talk about Ottinger drifting up from Fort Brandon ever since he got there.”

  “How long will Ottinger keep the survivors confined?” he asked.

  “My suspicion is that they’ll send them away soon to Fort Brandon, and there try to convince them that what they remember they don’t remember right, and what they saw was just a bomb of some kind. Ottinger’s already started that process, as a matter of fact. He spoke to the group of us several times, dropping the idea, very lightly, that when you see something bad happen, what is seen is sometimes blown out of proportion by your mind. And he talked a lot about Jones and his Rebs. That confirmed to me that he really does plan to lay the blame for this at Jones’s feet. Now, Mr. Gunnison, I must say good-bye. I’m moving on down the mountain, and I ain’t looking back. God has smit this place, and I want no more to do with it.”

  “Mr. Smith, can I quote what you’ve told me?”

  “If you keep my name out of it.”

  “I will.”

  “I’m mighty sorry that Brady Kenton is dead. I’ll miss his work.”

  “So will I,” Gunnison replied. “And I’ll miss the man himself far more. Tell me one thing before you go: Which way did Rankin leave? Toward the railhead, or the Fort Brandon Road?”

  “The latter. But exactly where he was going, I can’t say. Now, good-bye. I’ve got to get away before them soldiers take a head count and come looking for me.”

  Chapter 11

  Decker Smith slipped away without another word. Gunnison watched him for a while, sneaking, d
odging, working his way across the burned terrain and down the mountain. Before long he was out of sight.

  Gunnison mulled over what he’d heard, wondering how much of Decker Smith’s information he could trust. The parts about Ottinger’s plans and vengeful motivations sounded terribly speculative. He soon realized, though, that none of it really mattered beyond the crucial information he’d picked up about Rankin and the woman called Princess: They were alive, and no longer in Gomorrah.

  Returning to the little shed that was his hiding place, he ate, rested a few moments, then left. He returned to the place where he and Paul Callon had hidden the bulk of their luggage, and from it added to his supplies. Most of it he would abandon, because he was on foot and probably would be for a long time to come.

  The only aspect of leaving here that bothered him was abandoning Kenton’s body. It wasn’t right, leaving him there on the ground, like a dead dog. Maybe, if they really did set the trees afire again, like Decker Smith predicted, they’d find Kenton’s body and give it a proper burial. Or maybe the flames would simply cremate him. There was at least some dignity in that…wasn’t there?

  He looked at Gomorrah, the town he’d never even fully entered, for one last time. “Paul, good luck with your story,” he said. “I’ll look forward to reading it.”

  Alex Gunnison turned his back on Gomorrah and headed west, hoping that, somehow, he could find the trail of Rankin and his companions.

  Gunnison was long gone by the time darkness fell, and so did not see the man who strode in through the night from the burned-out woodlands toward Gomorrah. This was a man in pain, joints aching, head throbbing. He did not understand why the landscape around him was burned and the trees gone. He could not comprehend why there were reddened blisters on his face, why even part of his hair was singed away. He could remember no fire, for he had been unconscious until only a couple of hours before.

  The last thing Brady Kenton could remember was traveling up the lonely road toward Gomorrah, eager to meet the man named Rankin who had contacted him, dropping tantalizing hints about Victoria being alive. And then…he wasn’t sure after that.

  A robbery, he thought. He seemed to remember that. A man rising from the brush, catching him by surprise. Striking him on the head, hard. He remembered falling, weak and helpless. Feeling his coat stripped from him, his possessions taken. He remembered the man’s laugh as he put on the coat. “Fine fit!” he’d declared. “Just like it was made for me!” He vaguely remembered seeing the man picking at the Masonic pin on the lapel.

  Then he’d passed out. And everything had been black, for a long time.

  He stopped, staring into the town of Gomorrah, more confused than ever. The town wasn’t as it should be…it was substantially…gone.

  He stood still for a full minute, trying to figure out what had happened. Nothing made sense.

  At last he saw a man walking through the dark streets of the town. A soldier? Why would a soldier be here?

  It didn’t matter, though. He was thirsty, hurting, hungry. He needed help.

  He walked slowly toward the ruined town, trying to call out to the soldier. At first he could not find his voice, but at last it came. The soldier stopped, turned, half-raised his rifle, but lowered it again and advanced.

  Kenton was deeply relieved. He speeded up, trying to close the gap between himself and the approaching soldier, but he was weak, and dizzy, and fell.

  The soldier came on, calling now for help.

  Kenton was too dazed to really take in what happened over the next hour or so. He heard words spoken at him, saw faces before him. One of them appeared to be that of Colonel J.B. Ottinger—a human devil if ever there was one! He assumed he was hallucinating, but just in case, mumbled out his name as Grant Houser, one of his several aliases.

  He was in Gomorrah, but in what building he didn’t know.

  Oh, no. He was hallucinating again. The face of that rather obnoxious young journalist from the Observor, Paul Callon, was floating around in space above him.

  First he’d hallucinated that human devil Ottinger, now an irritating competitor. Why did his illusions have to be so unpleasant?

  “Hello, Kenton,” Callon’s face said. “Glad to see you coming around at last. Glad to see you alive at all, for that matter.”

  Good Lord…the illusion talked! Or maybe it wasn’t an illusion at all.

  “You look like someone has run you through a wringer,” Callon went on. “Several times. I didn’t recognize you at first. Of course, I wasn’t expecting to see you at all. Last time I saw you, you were a charred corpse.”

  Charred corpse? Ah, yes, this was definitely a hallucination. The Callon-shaped thing was babbling nonsense.

  “I wonder if Ottinger recognized you? You really don’t look yourself at all,” said the Callon phantom.

  Kenton licked his very dry lips. “That isn’t really you, is it, Callon?”

  “One and the same.” Callon reached down and touched his shoulder. A flesh-and-blood touch. No hallucination after all!

  “Thunderation, Callon! I didn’t expect to see you here…wherever ‘here’ is.” Kenton licked his lips again and tried in vain to swallow. “Water…is there water?”

  “Got a whole bucket of it over here. Hang on.”

  Callon vanished, then returned with an overflowing dipper in his hands. He knelt beside Kenton’s bunk and helped him get himself upright to take a swallow. When that water passed his lips and flooded down his throat, cool and refreshing, it was on the whole one of the finest experiences of Brady Kenton’s life.

  “Thank you, Paul.”

  Callon laid the dipper aside. “Better lie down again, Kenton.”

  “No…no, I want to sit up.” Kenton rubbed his temples gently, eyes closed.

  “I must say you’ve recovered quite nicely from your recent death,” Callon said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Gunnison and I found a body outside town. Burned to a crisp, wearing your coat, bearing your pistol. We were sure it was you.”

  “Gunnison is here?”

  “Not right here precisely. I left him out in the forest outside town.”

  “He believes I’m dead?”

  “He may have already so informed the Illustrated American.”

  “Thunderation.”

  “For what it’s worth, he was very grief-stricken when we found your corpse.”

  “Obviously it wasn’t my corpse, Paul.” Kenton twisted his neck, wincing. “If it was wearing my coat, it had to be the highwayman who attacked me while I was coming up to Gomorrah. He took my pistol, too.” He looked at Callon suddenly. “Burned to a crisp, you say?”

  “That’s right. Just like the town itself, and much of the mountaintop. You’re a bit on the charred side yourself. I suppose you must have been lying senseless out in the woods when the firefall came. By the way, I found an old coat in that wardrobe yonder that looks like it would fit you. You’re welcome to it—the original owner is probably dead and gone.”

  “Thank you. What was that you said about a firefall? What’s a firefall?”

  “Well, you’ve just asked the question of the hour. Something very strange happened on this mountain, Kenton. An explosion that killed much of the population and spread fire through the town and the woods. And now the army has come in, from Fort Brandon, and taken the town over.”

  “Fort Brandon?” Kenton frowned. “Thunderation…then that was Ottinger I saw!”

  “That’s right. He’s here. The man in charge.”

  “I wonder if he knew me?”

  “Hard to say. Like I said, you don’t look yourself right now.”

  “I told him my name was Houser.”

  “Good thing. I doubt that Ottinger has any affection for Brady Kenton.”

  “No. Not at all.” Kenton paused, then said, “He even hired a man to kill me once, after I exposed him in the Illustrated American.”

  “What?”

  “The effort f
ailed, obviously. It was never repeated. I just let it go.”

  “Colonel J.B. Ottinger actually tried to have you assassinated?”

  “Yes. I’ve never mentioned it to anyone. Not even Alex. For heaven’s sake, don’t you dare spread the story.”

  “The man must be insane!”

  “Mad with vengefulness. Willing to do anything to even a score, and unwilling ever to drop a grudge. Other than that, as sane as you or I. But evil. Very evil.”

  “What will you do, Kenton? You’re in his hands now.”

  “Where are we?”

  “Locked up in this cabin. One of the few structures to make it through the firefall mostly unscathed. I’ve been here since early yesterday morning. They caught me sneaking about.”

  “What’s become of Gunnison?”

  “I wish I knew. He may still be hiding out in the woods. I wish I’d stayed out there with him…I’m achieving nothing locked up in here.”

  “Paul, I was to meet a man here, named Rankin. A very important meeting, for personal reasons. Do you know if he survived this great fire?”

  Though Gunnison had told Callon the reason Kenton had come to meet Rankin, Callon thought it prudent not to reveal to Kenton that he knew something so personal. “I don’t know. I don’t know much of anything. How can I, locked up here?”

  “Why did they put you here?”

  “Because they determined that I was a journalist, and Ottinger has no use for journalists.”

  Kenton pondered deeply. “I wonder if the fact they’ve put me in here with you indicates that I’ve been recognized as a journalist, too?”

  “Maybe. Or maybe it’s just the most convenient place to lock up stragglers who stray into this burned-out town.”

  Kenton sniffed and frowned. “What is that horrific stench?”

  “That’s one question I can answer: It’s the dead, my friend. The dead of Gomorrah. Lined up in rows in a tent not far from this cabin. Growing quite ripe by now. There’s a little hole through the wall over there; I look through it to see what’s going on outside. I saw soldiers with shovels a few minutes ago. A burial detail, I suppose. It’s about time. They’ve been photographing the bodies.”