The Hanging at Leadville / Firefall

by Cameron Judd

  Gunnison was disappointed. He’d hoped he might be able to strike up an acquaintance with Johansen and get inside the gate.

  One thing Gunnison was able to verify in the saloon was that the well-known Peabody was indeed at the Johansen residence. Pearl Johansen has sent for him as soon as she heard the story of his fulfilled prophecy about Gomorrah. The saloonkeeper by chance had actually witnessed the arrival of Peabody and company, having been taking a break on the hotel porch, smoking a cigar, when the carriage rolled in. He’d caught a glimpse of three men, and perhaps a woman, though he wasn’t really sure about the woman.

  Gunnison asked the barkeep how he could get to the occupants of the Johansen house, if only for a few moments. The answer was a shrug; that big gate and high wall were never passed by any except a select and predetermined few who had legitimate business there. Pearl Johansen was quite reclusive, and her husband allowed her full rein with her eccentricities and self-isolationism.

  Gunnison was beginning to grow discouraged. It appeared that his only hope of getting to Rankin might be to simply wait him out. Pearl Johansen couldn’t keep Peabody and his entourage inside those walls forever.

  Chapter 26

  There was no question on Kenton’s part that all of this would lead to what might be the best and most amazing story he’d ever written.

  It wouldn’t be merely a story of a seemingly inexplicable destruction of a mountain mining town, as poor Callon would have written. Kenton would use the Gomorrah destruction as merely the starting point of a strange tale of nature turned hostile, of human weakness and human bravery, of the wickedness of a revenge-obsessed military man, and the stoic determination to survive on the part of an old wartime Rebel who now wanted only to be left alone.

  And at the end, God willing, would come the most wonderful ending of all: a reunion with his own long-missing wife. He hardly dared hope for it, so unlikely did it seem, but hope he did.

  Kenton was pleased that Pernell Jones, who had spent so many years trying to cut himself off from the eyes and ears of the world, was now so eager to open himself for public inspection. From the time they’d fled Confederate Ridge, he’d talked candidly to Kenton, seemingly hiding nothing, eager for the hundreds of thousands of readers of the Illustrated American to understand who he was and what had been his purposes in trying to live a life cut off from the “Foreign Nation,” whose laws and jurisdiction he could never personally embrace.

  But as he rode along beside Jones, Kenton had just found one door into his life that Jones declined to open.

  “My brother cannot be identified,” he said. “I’ll not hide his identity from you personally, but in no way can he be named or even described in any way that would make it likely that he would be identified. I don’t even want it said that I have a brother at all. You may merely describe him as an anonymous benefactor whose generosity has made it possible for the free people of Confederate Ridge to survive as a community at times they otherwise would have been forced to disband and disperse.”

  Kenton replied, “But how can I tell your story in any complete way if I’m not to mention your brother?”

  You’re a skilled man, Kenton. You’ll find a way. This is not negotiable. Either you agree, or there will be no further conversation between us, and you and I will go our separate ways.”

  Kenton had never liked being dictated to. It didn’t fit his personality. Besides, he was accustomed to most people all but falling over themselves to cooperate with him in hopes of having their names forever enshrined through mention in an authentic Brady Kenton story. This time, though, he was in a box, and had to admit it.

  “Very well,” he said grudgingly. “Though I don’t like being dishonest with my readers.”

  “There’s nothing dishonest about it. You can speak the truth about him…just very, very little of it. You have to understand, Kenton, that it’s not necessarily a safe thing to be known as my brother, particularly now, with Ottinger out to get me. I could conceive of that devil actually trying to threaten my brother, or his interests, to get to me. He can’t know about him.”

  Kenton had to admit the sense of that, and did.

  “It could also be very harmful to my brother’s business interests if it were known that he and I are brothers.”

  “Your points make sense. You have my firm word. But how does your brother manage to disguise his relation to you otherwise?”

  “By use of a false name, for one thing. And the presentation of a false family history.”

  “Since I’m to meet him, can you go ahead and tell me his name?”

  “I don’t see why not. His name is one he took from an old seaman we knew as boys, a fellow who had come up from the Carolinas to settle in Virginia. Livesay took on that name, as a matter of fact, when he got into trouble with the law for having very nearly beaten a scoundrel to death, and fled to the sea to avoid the consequences. He’s been Livesay Johansen so long that I don’t even think of him as Livesay Jones anymore.”

  “Livesay Johansen, the mining magnate, is your brother?”

  “He is.”

  “I’ll be! So I suppose it’s Pearl Town we’re going to.”

  “It is.”

  They passed into a broad valley and passed ranch houses, corrals, wide and rolling grasslands, and barns. The day was bright and clear, the air crisp. Kenton, despite all the hard knocks he had endured, felt good and vigorous.

  Milo, however, didn’t. He’d begun to suffer a terrific stomach ache shortly after the trio had ridden away from the vicinity of Fort Brandon, and for the last hour had been declaring that if he didn’t soon obtain a bottle of wine, he’d surely die. “The grape heals the belly,” he said.

  “Or makes you feel so good that you no longer notice you feel bad,” Jones countered.

  “Please, Pernell. Let’s see if we can’t find somebody hereabouts who’d take mercy on me. Just a few swallows of wine, that’s all I need.”

  They soon relented, and before long Kenton raised his arm and pointed at a ranch house ahead, not far off the road. The riders turned their horses onto the dirt avenue leading toward the house.

  A boy emerged from a barn and shaded his eyes with his hand. He peered, then came closer. Kenton noticed that the boy seemed most interested in him.

  “Hello, young man,” Kenton said, smiling. “Is your father or mother close by?”

  “You look like Brady Kenton,” the boy said.

  “Do I? I’ve been told that before. What’s your name?”

  “My name’s Rory. Rory Wilson.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Rory. We came over to ask a favor: If you have any wine about your place, my companion Mr. Buckner back there could use just a small amount to settle a stomach ailment.”

  “We used to have a bit of wine, and sometimes my father had whiskey,” Rory replied. “But not no more. He’s rededicated himself to the service of the Lord, and put away strong drink.”

  “I see.” Kenton looked back over his shoulder. “Sorry, Milo.”

  A man came riding around the barn. He paused to study the newcomers, then came in closer. “Howdy,” Peter Wilson said.

  The three said their hellos.

  “Pap, he looks like Brady Kenton,” Rory said. “Just like that picture that they always print.”

  “You’ll have to excuse the boy,” Wilson said. “He’s recently met a fellow who worked with Brady Kenton, and I guess it’s on his mind.”

  Kenton rose in the stirrups and almost came out of his saddle. “Alex has been here?”

  “Alex Gunnison, yes…my word, sir, there’s no chance you actually are…”

  “I’m Brady Kenton. Yes. I am.”

  Rory went white as snow and backstepped several paces. Peter Wilson blanched as well.

  “But you can’t be Brady Kenton!” he said. “Brady Kenton is dead! Mr. Gunnison told us he was killed in the fire at Gomorrah!”

  Now Kenton did come out of the saddle, and despite the fact that he was a tall a
nd powerfully built man, touched the ground with the lightness of a ballet dancer. He advanced toward Peter Wilson. “Sir, Alex no doubt believes what he told you is true. He found a corpse at Gomorrah, wearing my coat and carrying my pistol. It was a highwayman, who had robbed me. I myself, though unconscious, was alive. And still am, as you can see.”

  “How can I know you’re really Kenton?”

  Kenton frowned, thinking, then bent to the earth and dusted off a broad expanse of bare dirt. Kneeling, he looked at Rory and began to draw with his finger, his hand moving so fast it was hard to follow. Curiosity drew the Wilsons near. From the house emerged Rory’s mother, then the two Wilson daughters. After watching from a distance a few moments, they too came forward to see what was happening.

  Kenton stood. In the dirt was a nearly perfect rendering of Rory’s face. Even in such a crude medium, the distinctive, universally recognizable drawing style of Brady Kenton was evident.

  “Dear Lord!” Peter Wilson muttered. “Corey, do you see that?” He pulled his wife close to him, and with his arm around her shoulder, stared at the remarkable rendering. He looked up at Kenton. “You are him. You really are.”

  “Have been since birth, sir.”

  “I’ll be!” Peter Wilson laughed. “Who’d have thought we’d be visited by Kenton’s partner, and then Kenton himself!”

  “I have to find Alex,” Kenton said. “Where is he now?”

  “Gone. On up the road. Chasing after a preacher who foretold the falling of fire on Gomorrah. Parson Peabody, this fellow is, and with him a man named Shafter, another one named Rankin, and a woman.”

  Jones spoke. “Your partner must be planning to write about this preacher.”

  “It’s not that,” Rory said. “He said he was looking for Mr. Rankin, who had information about the wife of a friend of his.”

  Kenton lowered his head, unable to speak. On what had begun as a day of lightheartedness, Kenton was suddenly overcome with emotion. Alex is looking for Rankin for me, because he believes I can’t. He’s trying to find what he can about Victoria, in my place!

  “Mr. Kenton, are you well?”

  “I’m very well, thank you,” Kenton wiped his eye. “Very well indeed.”

  “I think perhaps everyone should come inside,” Mrs. Wilson suggested.

  “Kind of you,” Kenton said.

  Milo Buckner grinned. “I ain’t sure all that’s happened here, but I gather it’s good that we stopped. Fortunate thing I had that bellyache, eh?”

  Jones was the last to enter the house. As he reached back to pull the door closed, he noticed two mounted men on a low rise a a few hundred yards away, watching. Squinting, he looked back. One had a spyglass against his eye and was looking back at him.

  Disturbed, Jones closed the door, but said nothing to the others of what he had just seen.

  Chapter 27

  After nightfall, the same day. Colonel J.B. Ottinger stared at his reflection in the mirror, and hated what he saw. Once handsome and admired, now he was disfigured, physically ruined, and growing old to boot. It had been so many years since Pernell Jones’s shotgun blast had damaged his face that it seemed he should be accustomed to it by now, yet he wasn’t. He never would be.

  Sometimes he stared at himself like this for an hour or more. Especially since the loss of his wife, the one good and fine thing in his life for most of his years. After the war and the incident in Virginia that had made him so infamous, she had been the only stable factor in his life. She had stuck by him, been loyal, never believing the stories told about him. She’d once burned a copy of Gunnison’s Illustrated American, page by page, to demonstrate to him her belief in him and her disdain for those who dared to criticize him. He smiled at the memory; that copy had been of the very edition that included Kenton’s ruinous, famous article, the one that very nearly destroyed his military career.

  Ottinger stared at the scars marring his face, and the marble dullness of that unseeing eye.

  He hated Pernell Jones. Hated Brady Kenton. Hated all who whispered about him, pointed their wagging fingers…hated even God Himself, for having taken away his wife and leaving him alone.

  He would not go to his grave until he’d evened every balance. He vowed it to his reflection.

  Turning away from the mirror, Ottinger paced back and forth in the small bedroom. He despised this place. Fort Brandon was a squalid hellhole, miserable and cramped and all in all one of the worst posts in which a military man could find himself. But Ottinger had come here willingly, sure that from this vantage point so close to Confederate Ridge he could at last achieve his vengeance upon the despised Pernell Jones.

  Vengeance…he’d been so close! But even that had been taken away.

  He couldn’t believe they’d escaped him so efficiently. An entire compound full of people, vanished, dispersing into the mountains like mist dissolving in sunlight, and just as untraceable.

  Standing in the midst of the empty Confederate Ridge, he’d felt something inside grow tired and old, and for the first time he’d faced the possibility that he’d never have the privilege of seeing Pernell Jones pay at all. Ottinger would go to his grave, and Jones would go on…and that would be the greatest of many injustices that an uncaring universe had thrown in his lap.

  Ottinger would gladly die and put it all behind, but not without the satisfaction of seeing Pernell Jones pay for what he’d done. And Brady Kenton, too, if it could be achieved. A damned assassin, Kenton was. Nothing but a damned assassin, but one who used words instead of bullets.

  Words were worse. They brought pain that lasted much longer.

  Ottinger poured himself a glass of whiskey from a decanter on a desk in the corner. He sipped slowly, and let his eyes drift over to the wardrobe, which stood ajar, the faint glow of lamplight penetrating into it and revealing the clothing that hung there.

  Civilian clothing. In his position, Ottinger seldom had reason to wear his civilian garb.

  The thought had come lately that maybe he should change that. Put that civilian clothing on, and toss away the uniforms for good. Take into his own hands the matters he wanted to see dealt with…

  A rap on the door startled him. He turned. “Yes!”

  “Colonel, sir, you have a man who has come to see you.”

  “Who?”

  “He says his name is Pride. He says you know him and will be glad to see him and hear what he has to tell you.”

  Pride? Ottinger tried to think who this would be. The last man named Pride he’d known was…

  He swore softly. Could it be?

  Ottinger tossed down the rest of his whiskey and wiped off his mouth with the back of his hand, He quickly hid the glass and whiskey bottle, checked to make sure his pants were hitched, and went to the door. He hoped they wouldn’t smell the whiskey on him too strongly. He’d imbibed more than once tonight.

  He opened the door and stared at the civilian who stood there beside the soldier who’d knocked.

  “Sir, this man says he has important information for you.”

  “Yes…right. He can come in. You can go.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  When the door was closed, the whiskered, weathered newcomer grinned at the Colonel, displaying more gaps than teeth. “Hello, Colonel Ottinger. Didn’t expect to see old Robert Pride at your door, did you?”

  “I must say I didn’t. Given my past experience with you and your partner, I’m surprised you have the courage to show yourself to me.”

  “What happened before just happened, sir. We gave it the best effort we could. Pernell Jones was just too slick to be caught, much less killed.”

  “How difficult can it be to kill a man?”

  “Not hard at all, if you’re talking blowing a man’s head off from behind a tree on a road somewhere. Mighty difficult, if you have such requirements as you put upon us. You weren’t content for us just to kill Jones. No, you had to have him suffer this way and that first, and know before he died that it was you who arran
ged his killing. We just couldn’t make that happen with all them restrictions.”

  “Why are you here now at this time of night?”

  “Because I think we might be able to do better for you than we did last time.”

  Ottinger took a moment to realize what this implied. “You have Jones?”

  “We know where he is, let’s put it that way. Murph’s keeping watch on the place right now, to make sure he stays put. Me, I just put in a long, hard ride to get here. Didn’t expect to find you awake, to tell the truth.”

  “I don’t sleep much at my age. Tell me where he is!”

  “We’ll do better than that for you. We’ll bring in the sumbitch’s head on a stick, if you want it. But only if the same arrangement as before stands.”

  “How do I know you really have him?”

  “You got to take my word, I reckon.”

  “You’ll be wanting advance money, I suppose?”

  “Like I said: same arrangement as before. But this time, we don’t fail. This time we really bring him down.”

  Ottinger shook his head. “No. The prior arrangement won’t do.”

  “What? You don’t want him dead no more?”

  “Oh, I want him dead. But this time, I’ll not trust the job to be done by two men acting unsupervised. How far away is Jones right now?”

  “I rode over three hours to get here. Without a fresh horse, it’ll take me quite a stretch longer to get back.”

  “You’ll have a fresh horse.”