The Hanging at Leadville / Firefall Page 33

  “Kenneth, listen to me,” Jones said firmly. “This is the United States Army we’re talking about. We resist them, we’re just giving them a reason to bring in more soldiers and swarm over us like ants. We’ll hand Ottinger even more grounds to treat us like a hostile enemy. We can’t engage them in any kind of fight. Remember what our philosophy here has always been: We aren’t seeking to continue a lost war, only to continue our lives. We just want to leave alone, and be left alone. If we take up arms against an official United States military force, we will throw all that away.”

  “Pernell, you’re just talking about rolling over and letting them kick us! We have to resist!”

  “No.” Jones swallowed hard, his next words obviously difficult to get out. “We can do only one thing: leave. Immediately and finally.”

  Silence held a few moments. A woman said, “You’re saying we must leave our homes?”

  “I can’t order anyone to do anything,” Jones said. “You’re not soldiers and I’m not a commander. But it’s my belief that the only sane and safe option is for us to abandon Confederate Ridge. Probably for good.”

  This generated several stunned reactions and protests. Kenton noted a few people beginning to weep.

  “But where would we go?” a woman asked.

  “It would be necessary for us to scatter. To dissolve ourselves as a society and a community…perhaps forever. Or perhaps until we could find a way to re-form ourselves, maybe north of the border of the United States. Maybe south of it.”

  “But if we separate, how would we ever come together again?”

  “All of you know my brother. You know how and where to reach him. He could serve as our point of reference, to come together again. It would take a long time to come about, I think. But it could be done.”

  The people weren’t eager to hear these words or to accept this option. Protests rose to the sky with the smoke of the bonfires, and the more distant smoke rising from Gomorrah Mountain, now burning out of control and spreading wildly across the countryside, though still far away from Confederate Ridge.

  Jones lifted his hands again and spoke earnestly. “It’s a hard thing to say, I know, but you have to understand our situation. Ottinger has found a pretext that will allow him to come after not only me, but all of you. And he’s not using some private hired guns this time, but United States soldiers.”

  “I still say resist them!” the man called Kenneth yelled. Others shouted agreement.

  Jones shook his head. “Don’t even consider it,” he said. “It would be suicide.”

  “Better to die a brave man than live a coward!” Kenneth replied.

  Jones stared at him. “If you are implying that I’m a coward, Kenneth, I think you know better.”

  The man blubbered and blustered, then hung his head. “Yes. I’m sorry. It just burns in me to think of turning tail.”

  “You’re like me, Kenneth. No wife, no family to consider. But think of it from the standpoint of some of the others here who do have families.”

  Kenneth thrust his hands into his pockets and stared at his feet.

  Kenton was already dreaming up possible titles for the story he would write about this, picturing designs for the ornate frontispiece sketch that would sit like a crown on the head of the article. He played with ideas for how to word that crucial opening sentence.

  “I can’t bear for us to leave our homes!” a woman declared in a high, emotional bleat.

  “It ain’t right, Pernell!” her husband said.

  Jones said, “There’s no other way.”

  “A vote!” another man said. “We haven’t took a vote!”

  “Fine,” Jones said. “All of you out there, grown men only, indicate what you want. Those of you who say stay and fight, raise your hands.”

  The man who had called for the vote, plus a few others, shot hands up. Jones counted them quietly.

  “All right. Those who believe we must leave, like sign.”

  The hands went up much more slowly, but the numbers were far greater than those of the first voters.

  Jones nodded. “It’s decided, then. We go.”

  “When, Pernell?”

  “This very night. I’m convinced Ottinger won’t let this compound remain unmolested for even one more day. We must get out of here before dawn.”

  Chapter 22

  As battered and exhausted as he was, Brady Kenton felt almost none of it as he observed, from a participant’s perspective, the evacuation of Confederate Ridge.

  It was a remarkable and moving sight. Despite their emotion, despite knowing that the odds of every single one of them coming together again as before were slim; the people moved with a fluid efficiency to gather what they needed and to abandon the rest. They saddled horses and pack mules, cried and hugged and cried some more, then within an hour of having made the decision, abandoned the Confederate Ridge enclave.

  Kenton stayed close to Jones, as did Milo—still Jones’s right hand after all these years, Kenton observed. Jones was generous, giving Kenton a horse, an old but efficient saddle, and even a good Colt pistol and ammunition. He tried to persuade him to take a rifle as well, but Kenton would not do so.

  As the group moved through the dark mountains without the benefit even of torchlight, two things were evident: They knew every mountain trail intimately, and they were no strangers to fast group flight. Kenton marveled at their efficiency, their trail skills, their determination. He’d never be able to endure their familial, cloistered way of life, nor share their isolationist philosophy, but he found he could understand them nonetheless, and even admire them.

  Jones in particular he thought admirable. The man might view himself as just one more resident of the Confederate Ridge community, but Kenton saw that he was far more. Jones had the qualities of natural leadership. It was no wonder he had been so effective as a guerilla warrior during the great civil conflict, and so feared by the Yankee squads he stung like a hornet time and again in the wilderness regions of Virginia and Tennessee.

  When the great moving pillar of people began to disperse at key points along the way, Kenton realized that this flight was in no way random. They’ve planned this all…long in advance! he thought. This was made evident by the natural and orderly way the group broke apart, different individuals and families taking different mountain trails. He wondered how it must have been to live in a society that was so insecure, so subject to interference, that it had been necessary to develop an advance pattern for its self-destruction.

  The group went on, growing smaller all the while. Jones spoke little, withdrawn inside himself, yet also wary and attentive, keeping watch for pursuers. Kenton himself worried about this, especially at the beginning, but less as time passed and it became clear that no one was on their trail. Kenton realized that the out-of-control forest fires that were spreading from Gomorrah Mountain were actually working to the advantage of the Confederate Ridge refugees, diverting the attention and manpower of the soldiers, giving more time for flight.

  Kenton found much satisfaction in knowing that Colonel Ottinger had made a fundamental miscalculation. He had assumed that Jones and the people of Confederate Ridge would remain where they were. He had assumed he had all the time he needed to deal with them.

  He’d find himself overrunning an empty stockade. The mental image made Kenton smile.

  By the time dawn came, Kenton, Milo, and Jones were alone. The populace of Confederate Ridge had entirely broken up, like smoke dissolving to nothing.

  As Kenton lay down at last to sleep, hidden away with his two companions in a mountain hollow, only then did he realize that he had not the slightest idea where they were going, or even if Jones and Milo wanted him along.

  At this point, he was far too tired to care.

  About the time Kenton was falling asleep, a band of exhausted, ash-covered soldiers stood in the midst of the Confederate Ridge compound and watched Colonel J.B. Ottinger seem to fade away before them.

  He stood
alone, unsmiling, unspeaking, the morning sun bright on his disfigured face but murky in his dead eye. He looked very old.

  His troops hated him by now. They’d begun to hate him slowly, by stages, almost as soon as he’d arrived to take command at Fort Benton. The soldiers had known of Confederate Ridge a long time, just as they knew of the personal history between Ottinger and Jones. If any had doubted that Ottinger’s coming to Montana had nothing to do with his hatred for Jones, they’d lost that doubt now. The entire Gomorrah incident made it undeniable.

  The nearby ridges flamed now, burning over many miles, hopelessly out of control. For a time the soldiers had tried to contain the blaze once it spread beyond the planned reburn area, but the wind and the dry mountains, which had seen no rain for a month other than that one storm that had put out the original Gomorrah fire, combined to make it impossible. Stopping the fire the soldiers had started was now in the hands of God and nature alone.

  As exhausted as they were after all their slavish labor, though, Ottinger had ordered them to ready their arms and march to Confederate Ridge, there to demand the surrender of the enclave and to take into military custody its leader, Jones.

  But Jones was gone. The stockade was empty. And after a feeble effort at tracking and pursuit, even Ottinger had to realize that it was hopeless. His men were far too weary, and Jones and his people had too great a start.

  So Ottinger stood there near the Confederate Ridge stockade well, alone, old, his spirit seeming to die while his men silently watched.

  An under officer approached him. “Do you have orders for us, sir?”

  Ottinger said wearily, “Set the stockade ablaze.”

  “Ablaze, sir? Begging your pardon, sir, but we’ve already lost control of the earlier fires, sir. It could happen on this ridge as well.”

  “I’ve given my order. Carry it out.”

  They did set the log fort ablaze, and all the buildings inside it, and for an hour watched it all burn. Then, at Ottinger’s orders, they returned to Gomorrah, there to rest for a few hours and break their camp before beginning the march back to Fort Brandon, a place they normally deplored, but which by comparison to what they’d endured at Gomorrah, now seemed a welcome refuge and familiar home.

  When they’d rested for a time, Kenton, Jones, and Milo Buckner made a fire, cooked food and coffee, and talked about the immediate future.

  Though these men were quite different from him, and during the war had been his enemies, Kenton was naturally drawn to them. They were tragic figures, in their way, attempting to live an independent, autonomous life that could never fully succeed, yet this was part of what was intriguing about them.

  “You said you’d write about us, Kenton, and tell the true story. Did you mean it?” Jones asked.

  “I did. I only regret I saw so little of your way of life…I saw only the end of it all.”

  “It’s not the end yet,” Jones said. “We’ll find our way together again, most of us, anyway. And someday find a place far enough away that we can live and truly be left alone.”

  “Pernell, you have to face the facts: That would be easier said than done,” Milo Buckner said. “It would be hard indeed to survive if we were too far cut off from your brother.”

  Jones watched the steam rise from his coffee, and nodded. “Yes. I know.”

  “I never knew you had a brother,” Kenton said. He’d known a fair amount about Pernell Jones back in the war days, but had never heard of a brother until Jones had mentioned one during his final talk to the people in the Confederate Ridge compound.

  “I do,” Jones said. “A fine brother…and Milo’s right. Without ready access to him, I don’t know if we could have survived here like we did.” He stood, swore softly, and began pacing about. “I don’t like to say it, don’t even like to admit it to myself, but I suppose we haven’t been as self-sufficient at Confederate Ridge as it might appear. Without my brother’s support, we would have been a very impoverished people at times.”

  Kenton paid close attention. He’d wondered almost as soon as he’d seen the cloistered community of Confederate Ridge how such a group could have survived so well without outside commerce or subsidy. Evidently they hadn’t.

  “So your brother has helped you?”

  “Yes. Yes, many times. He has always believed in us, understood us, and helped us…all without really being part of us. He’s deeply involved in the commerce of the Foreign Nation. Quite wealthy, he is. His generosity has, from time to time, been what allowed us to go on.”

  Kenton felt mildly disappointed. The idea of a self-sufficient, self-sustaining community of stubborn isolationists appealed to his romantic side more so than that of a group that required occasional injections of support from the outside in order to survive. Rather than being independent from the commerce of the “Foreign Nation” of the United States, Jones and his people had actually been indirectly dependent on it.

  “Where does your brother’s wealth come from?” Kenton asked.

  Jones said, “Tell you what—why don’t you come see for yourself?”

  Milo Buckner grinned. “I was hoping that’s where we were going, Pernell!”

  “So you don’t care if I travel with you a while longer?” Kenton asked.

  “I was counting on you doing so.”

  “So was I,” Kenton replied. “There’s still much I need to learn about you and your people if I’m to write about it as I should.”

  “Then meet my brother you shall.” Jones went back to the battered coffee pot, which Milo had brought out of Confederate Ridge slung by a string to the horn of his horse’s saddle, and poured a fresh cupful for himself. “Tell me something, Mr. Kenton: What brought you to these parts in the first place? The fire at Gomorrah?”

  “Oh, no. I came earlier than that. I was to meet a man in Gomorrah. He’d contacted me, telling me he had information that would be important to me. I was about halfway up Gomorrah Mountain when I was attacked by a highwayman and robbed. The sorry thief left me unconscious in the forest, took my possessions, even my original coat and pistol, everything, and apparently headed on up toward Gomorrah. Actually, I suppose the poor devil saved my life. He was apparently just outside town when the fire came down. Burned him to a cinder. I was farther down the mountain, unconscious on the ground, so I survived with nothing more than a fairly mild scorching.”

  “Speaking of that fire…what do you think it was?” Milo asked.

  “I couldn’t say,” Kenton replied. “It certainly wasn’t man-caused, and was nothing volcanic, or lightning-related. I can only surmise that something fell from the sky and exploded just above the town.”

  “A meteor,” Jones said. “That’s been my suspicion from the outset. One bursting through the atmosphere so fast it generates intense heat and disintegrates with an explosive force.”

  “A meteor…like a falling star?” Milo said.

  “That’s right.”

  “Mercy!”

  “It’s an amazing thing to consider,” Kenton said. “It’s a telling thing about Ottinger, too, that the man could find nothing in such a fascinating event except a handy pretext for trying to settle a personal score.”

  Jones stared across the mountains. “I hate him. I thought about slipping away, heading back, and finding him. If he wants to kill me, let him see if he’s man enough to do it face-to-face.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t do that, Pernell,” Milo said.

  Kenton shifted the conversation back onto its original course. “Where does your brother live, Pernell?”

  “A couple of days’ ride from here. You may be surprised to meet him. But what about this man you were to meet in Gomorrah? You never met him, I’m sure.”

  “No, I didn’t,” Kenton said. “Now I don’t know if he’s dead or alive. If alive, he’s at Fort Brandon, a place I certainly can’t safely go.”

  “So what will you do?”

  “Hope he’s alive, and that he contacts me again through the offices of the
Illustrated American. It’s all I can do at the moment.”

  “Tell you what. Let’s take a look at Fort Brandon first, from a distance, anyway. Maybe we’ll spot him.

  “It’s a good idea. Can you spare the time?”

  “Fort Brandon’s not far out of our way.”

  “I do appreciate it.”

  “Glad to have you with us, Kenton. Glad to have you writing about us, and about Ottinger.”

  “I intend to bring him down completely this time.”

  “He had his men shooting at you, Kenton. He wants you dead. He’ll try to get you again, as he’s tried with me many times.”

  “Let him try,” Kenton replied. “Let him try.”

  Chapter 23

  The old saddle Alex Gunnison had purchased from Peter Wilson fit his newly purchased horse perfectly, but his own rear very poorly. As he dismounted near a clear brook that ran down from the mountains and went to it to drink, he did so gingerly, his legs sore and chafed, his rump more sore yet.

  Gunnison knelt where the brook swirled into a tiny, bay-shaped recess in the stony bank, forming a slow-moving whirlpool of water deliciously cool and fresh. Gunnison looked at his moving reflection as he drank and thought, with secret pride, that his days of roughing it had certainly toughened him. His skin was browned, his face ruddy, his whiskers darkening his jawline. The grime of travel covered his clothing, masking the fine cut of his trousers and the tailored lines of his shirt. With his coat on and his hat jammed down low over his slightly curling hair, Gunnison thought he looked as rugged as any denizen of this territory he was likely to encounter.

  He stood, stretching, and fed his horse some oats out of the supply he’d bought from Wilson. He was in an isolated area, no visible dwellings around, no chimney smoke rising from beyond the next hill.

  He wondered how long it would be until he reached the community of Paxton. Also, he wondered if Parson Peabody, Rankin, and company had even come this way at all. Though he told himself he was tracking the group, the truth was he was counting much on luck. The Wilsons had said Parson Peabody’s group had headed generally toward Paxton, and on that basis alone he was traveling this way.