The Hanging at Leadville / Firefall Read online

  “Trouble?” The rifle lowered an inch or two. “What do you mean by that?”

  “My name is Brady Kenton. I’m associated with Gunnison’s Illustrated American. This is my partner, Alex Gunnison. We gave Lundy some help yesterday when some other boys were trying to take money from him, and he wanted to repay us by showing us something he thought we would want to include in the newspaper. He led Alex to an abandoned mine outside of town and…it’s a complicated story, Mrs. O’Donovan. It would be much easier to tell without a rifle under our noses.”

  She looked both intrigued and cautious, but after a moment she bit her lip and lowered the rifle. “Lundy spoke of meeting you, and said you paid him money for something or another,” she said. “Come in, then. If you know aught about my Lundy, I’m wanting to hear it.”

  “He’s not here, then?” Gunnison asked.

  “Indeed he’s not, and that’s why I’m in the state I am.”

  With the rifle lowered, Mrs. O’Donovan looked about half a foot shorter than before and sad rather than maniacal. She stood aside to let the men enter the little shack, which consisted of three rooms: the main room into which they had just come, of which one corner was a kitchen, and two bedrooms, one off the side, the other off the rear.

  “I’ve seen your name and picture in the Illustrated American, Mr. Kenton,” she said wearily. “My husband, God rest him, liked you quite a lot.”

  “I’m gratified, then,” Kenton said. “I’m sorry Mr. O’Donovan is gone.”

  “Aye, it’s been hard it has. We’ve lost our first home to the lot jumpers and had to sell our little mine for lack of means to work it, but we get on with me taking in washing. But please, tell me about Lundy.”

  Gunnison took over the story, giving every detail, and what she heard clearly worried her. Tears began streaming down her face. “So it was a dead man he found!” she said. “Lundy told me he had found something important but wouldn’t say aught of what it was. The boy likes his secrets too much. Oh, I wish he would come home so I could know he is well.”

  For Kenton’s part, he was beginning to fear Lundy never would return, that whoever he had scuffled with at the mine, whether Briggs Garrett or someone else, had killed him. But the fact remained that Gunnison had not been killed and even had been dealt with mercifully at some difficulty. That alone gave hope that maybe Lundy also had been spared.

  But there was a difference between Gunnison’s circumstances and Lundy’s that tempered the hope. Gunnison had seen no faces, heard no names. He had been unconscious when he was hauled up out of the shaft. Lundy, on the other hand, had probably seen who attacked him, maybe knew him, and that made him a threat that Gunnison was not. Kenton said nothing of this to Mrs. O’Donovan, seeing no value in worrying her more than she already was.

  “Is there any place Lundy goes often other than here—a hiding place maybe?” he asked.

  “Perhaps a thousand, for all I know. I’m so busy with my washing and the care of Old Papa that I mostly let Lundy run on his own.”

  “Old Papa, you say…would Lundy have told his grandfather things he might not have told you?”

  “Aye, I believe he tells him all he knows, but it makes no difference. Old Papa is not right.”

  “Beg pardon?”

  She tapped her head; the implication of mental disorder or injury was clear. “I can’t tell you even to this day if he knows who I am. But I love him dear; Old Papa and Lundy and Mother Church are all I live for, now that my Jock is dead and buried. God has taken much, but left much as well in Old Papa and my fine lad.” Then her face crumpled as she fought to hold back a sob, and Gunnison knew she had just realized again that her lad was not home.

  “I wish I hadn’t gone with him to the mine, Mrs. O’Donovan,” Gunnison said, fighting back emotion. The stress of the long night was beginning to break him down. “Then none of this would have happened.”

  “’Tis not your fault,” she said, wiping a tear on the back of her hand. “Lundy always finds trouble, with or without help.”

  At that moment, a dog snarled and barked at the back of the house; then there was a commotion, another bark, and the fearful yell of a man as something banged against the rear wall.

  Chapter 17

  Kenton and Gunnison leapt up as one. “Check the back room!” Kenton ordered as he threw open the front door and went out, reaching under his coat for his Colt.

  Gunnison drew his own Colt from under his jacket and bolted for the back room. Running to the window, he threw open the shutter and looked out. In the darkness there was wild movement, more barks and yells, and someone running away, obscured by darkness. The dog raced after him.

  Kenton came around the side of the house. “There!” Gunnison shouted, and pointed in the direction the man had run. Kenton took off.

  Turning, Gunnison started to run to the main room but stopped with a yell when he saw he was not alone. In the unlit room sat a man in a chair, weaving from side to side, one arm drawn up under his chin. Gunnison lifted his pistol before he realized this was the man Mrs. O’Donovan had called Old Papa.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” he mumbled, but Old Papa did not respond. He was not looking at Gunnison, and for all the young man could tell, could see and hear nothing. Seeing the shape the poor fellow was in roused in Gunnison a burst of new sympathy for the O’Donovan family and made him admire the resilient Mrs. O’Donovan for her dedication to caring for so unfortunate a man.

  Gunnison went past the man and back to the main room, then out the front door into the night. Circling the house, he ran toward the place where the running man, the dog, and Kenton had vanished into the darkness.

  Others were appearing, drawn by the stir and noise. “Who goes there!” yelled an Irishman.

  “Trouble yonder!” Gunnison shouted, pointing ahead, then running on. The man followed. By the time he had gone another hundred feet, three others had come out to join the confused chase.

  The dog was barking madly and making fighting snarls. They saw Kenton ahead. At almost that moment, there was the roar and flash of a pistol being discharged. It wasn’t Kenton who had fired but the unknown party he was pursuing. The dog redoubled its clamoring. Kenton stumbled back as if he might have been struck.

  “Kenton!” Gunnison shouted.

  “I’m all right!” he yelled back. He ran farther into the night, and now Gunnison could see him no more.

  The gunshot stirred the men with Gunnison to a frenzy but also made them fall back. Gunnison continued ahead alone, and one other faltered, then came after.

  Ahead, Kenton again came into view, poised with pistol in hand, looking about. From the darkness another shot erupted. Kenton drew down and back as it rang. A slug slammed into the dirt at his feet.

  Kenton lifted his Colt. It spat fire, and someone in the dark grunted and yelled. Mad scrambling followed. Kenton advanced, went out of view. In a few moments, he returned, pistol dangling at his side.

  “Gone,” he said. “Got clean away.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “I am,” he said. “Alex, I think I shot him.”

  Clance Sullivan stood silently in the corner of the office as City Marshal Pat Kelly leaned forward in his chair, Kenton seated across from him, very serious but calm despite the intense questioning to which he had been subjected. Having received the same, Gunnison had not done as well as Kenton and even now was dabbing nervous sweat from his forehead. The rising sun spilled in through the marshal’s office window. It had been an amazingly long and busy night.

  Gunnison had expected nothing good to come of this interrogation. The initial treatment given the journalists at the station had made him fear Kenton might face an assault charge. But now Kelly had a few cups of coffee down his gullet and seemed a touch more amiable than before.

  By now, the entire story had been spilled, from the disappearing corpse to the absence of Lundy O’Donovan and the journalists’ fears for his welfare. Clance Sullivan had told his story, too, and
had surprised both Gunnison and Kenton by not seeming quite as antagonistic toward them as when he had left them at the abandoned mine.

  Kelly stood and stretched, then paced in silence, thinking. Clance, Kenton, and Gunnison watched him expectantly. He had been in office only since April, having succeeded Martin Duggan, who had given Clance his job. Kenton had overheard somewhere that since Duggan’s departure, crime had greatly worsened in Leadville, and there was talk among merchants and leading citizens of taking the law into hand more informally and violently.

  Kelly faced Kenton and sat down on the corner of his desk. “Mr. Kenton, given that several witnesses say you were shot at before you fired, I’m not going to jail you. But don’t think I believe all you and Mr. Gunnison are telling me. The story is a lot to swallow. Dead men don’t get up and climb out of mine shafts, and killers don’t soak citified young dandies in whiskey and dump them in Stillborn Alley.”

  Kelly looked Kenton in the eye as he continued. “I believe you are lying to me, and until I get to the bottom of this, I want both of you to remain in Leadville.”

  “We had no intention of leaving in any case,” Kenton said. “Our intention is to do the work we came to do, and now, to find Lundy O’Donovan and make sure he’s safe.”

  “I think you need not worry over Lundy. I know that little scamp; he’s unsupervised and used to running about on his own, and likely will turn up presently with some explanation for his absence that’s even more cock-and-bull than all you’ve told me. Lundy’s full of imagination. Likely as not, he did tell you there was a body in that mine; it’s not the first time he’s spun tales and stirred up the gullible.”

  Kenton stirred in his chair and shot an acid glare at the marshal. Kelly saw he had Kenton’s goat and obviously was gratified by it. “Here’s what I think happened, Mr. Kenton. I think Lundy worked up a good story that prompted Gunnison here to go with him to that mine. Lundy’s got no father now and likes attention from any man who’ll give it. At the mine Gunnison took a tumble into the shaft and knocked himself cold. For all I know, he did honestly think he saw a dead body in that hole—a keen blow on the head can have you seeing angels and flying elephants and dancing girls on the rooftops. Lundy got scared that Gunnison had killed himself falling down the shaft, so he ran off to hide. He was afraid to come home, thinking somebody might have seen him with Gunnison and come looking for him after Gunnison’s been gone awhile. In the meantime, Gunnison came around enough to climb out of that shaft, wander back to town, and head for a saloon, hoping to clear his head. He got good and drunk, passed out in Stillborn Alley, woke up, and staggered around the streets, and Officer Sullivan came along and found him. Once Gunnison was back in your company again, Mr. Kenton, he either dreamed up a story to cover himself for being drunk, or maybe he had heard the rumors about Briggs Garrett and was so addled, he convinced, himself he really had found a burnt corpse of Garrett’s trademark variety. You proved gullible enough to believe him, Mr. Kenton, and so rounded up Officer Sullivan again, went out to the mine, and of course found nothing.

  “Officer Sullivan had the sense to know fact from make-believe and took his leave of you. But you weren’t so quick to see the truth, and decided to go off looking or Lundy on Chicken Hill. You found his mother all stirred up because her boy hadn’t come home, and convinced yourself even more that all the fantasies were true. Then somebody wandered by the O’Donovan place at the wrong time, got spooked by the dog and then by you when you tried to chase him down, and he went for his gun and led you to do the same. And now here we are. Make sense?”

  He stopped and looked at Kenton almost smirkingly. Kenton just looked back at him and said, “May we go now?”

  “In a few minutes, yes. But do stay close by. Shooting men in the dark is serious business, Mr. Kenton.” An officer knocked on the door. “A moment, please,” said Kelly. He went to the door, talked in whispers with the officer, then motioned for Sullivan to come with him. They went out, leaving Kenton and Gunnison alone.

  After some silent moments, Gunnison asked, “Do you believe Kelly’s explanation?”

  Kenton looked at him. “Do you?”

  “I admit it sounds like sense. It explains all the facts without introducing disappearing dead bodies and long-dead outlaws stealing away little boys. The only trouble is, it isn’t true. I know what I saw.”

  “And I believe you,” Kenton answered. “Truth is a funny thing; it has twists and curves you wouldn’t expect. It’s sometimes not logical—any more than I am gullible. I resent him calling me that! Before this is done, I’ll show that smirking jackass who’s gullible!”

  The office door opened again. Kelly walked in, a big smile of satisfaction on his face.

  “Mrs. O’Donovan just paid us a call,” he said. “She has Lundy with her. He came home on his own not an hour ago.”

  “Thank God,” Gunnison said, scooting to the edge of his chair. “Now maybe I can get some vindication.”

  Kelly aimed his aggravating grin at him. “I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed, Gunnison. It appears you’re singing a solo in this particular choir.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Lundy says there was no body in that mine, that he didn’t scuffle with anyone while you were in the shaft, and that he generally doesn’t know what the devil you are talking about.”

  Gunnison sank back in his chair and felt like crying.

  As the journalists returned to their apartment, Gunnison moaned in the pain of shattered credibility. He was now sure either Lundy had lied or that he himself was insane—and he wasn’t eager to accept the latter alternative.

  Kenton walked along with his head down, his brows lowered over his eyes. The wind made the brim of his hat wave and flutter as he listened to Gunnison complain. “Oh, cheer up, Alex! We’ll get at the truth in the end,” he said. “We’re not going to sit on our rumps and let this go by. We’re going to find the answer—and maybe Briggs Garrett in the process. If the man is alive, I intend to know it.”

  “That sketch in your room showing Garrett hanging the bridge burners—it had the detail of an eyewitness drawing,” Gunnison said.

  A moment of hesitation, then; “That’s because it was an eyewitness drawing, Alex. I saw the whole sorry thing.”

  Suddenly Kenton’s interest in coming to Leadville made a lot more sense to his partner. “So your search for Garrett is a personal one.”

  Kenton touched the scar across his cheek. “More personal than you know.”

  Alex wanted to learn more, but Kenton did not seem inclined to talk further and Gunnison was too bone-weary to press him. They stopped at a bakery and bought a loaf of bread, then reached the apartment, exhausted. It had been a long and strenuous night, so after a quick meal of sorts from the loaf, they retired. The sunlight pouring in around the edges of the window curtains did nothing to hamper their rest. Alex Gunnison slid into an oblivion almost as deep as that of the gruesome former human being he had fallen on in Deverell’s mine shaft, and Kenton began snoring almost as soon as his body touched the bed.

  Chapter 18

  For a long time, Gunnison’s sleep was dreamless, but then he began to imagine himself in the scene Kenton had sketched. His hands were bound behind his back, a rope around his neck. Beside him were other men similarly situated. He was standing on the back of a flatbed wagon beneath the burned-out hull of what had been a railroad bridge.

  Below stood a group of butternut-clad rebel soldiers, at their head a man with an uplifted saber. His face was featureless, like the face in Kenton’s picture. He lifted the saber higher, then slashed it down, and the wagon beneath Gunnison’s feet moved.

  Suddenly Gunnison was swinging, his breath painfully cut off. Struggling for air, he kicked and flailed, pulled at his bonds, but found himself unable to break them. Through reddening eyes he saw one of the rebels coming to him, a bucket of coal oil in his hand. Liquid splashed on him, then the faceless man approached, his feet for some reason echoing loudly
as they pounded the earth, and in his hand was a torch—

  Gunnison awoke with a barely stifled shout, his pillow wet with sweat.

  They had slept most of the day, exhausted from the harrowing events of the previous night. Gunnison ached from the physical punishment he had endured and felt emotionally drained. The afternoon was waning when the two journalists left their quarters and found a café where they quietly ate. Afterward, they walked through Leadville’s crowded streets together, and for the first time Kenton opened up to Gunnison his wartime past and the background of his interest in Briggs Garrett.

  “I knew Mickey Scarborough well in those days,” he said. “We served the Union together, along with Victor Starlin, though not as regular soldiers. Espionage, infiltration, and sabotage beyond enemy lines was our specialty. It was all very secretive, directed through confidential channels, and I suppose that’s most of the reason I have never told you about it. Confidentiality was pounded into us—we were never to reveal what we were doing, or for whom, no matter what the cost. Though we were directed by the government, officially we held no status, nothing to allow us to be traced. We knew that if we were captured, we were on our own, officially disavowed.

  “Scarborough, Starlin, and I all had to deal with Briggs Garrett during the war. For Starlin and me, it was only one time, the time Garrett gave me this.” He rubbed the scar on his face. “For Scarborough, there were three encounters; he knew Garrett far better than I did. Garrett left a scar on Scarborough just as he did on me, but a different sort of scar. His voice.”

  “So that’s the secret behind that voice of his!” Gunnison exclaimed. He had heard of Scarborough’s publicity device.

  “Yes. His voice became like it was because at least once in his wretched life, Briggs Garrett failed to complete a lynching,” Kenton said. “Scarborough’s neck survived the snap, and Garrett was interrupted by the approach of a Union company before he could finish the task. But the noose had damaged Scarborough’s throat. His voice was different.” Kenton smiled faintly. “It was just like Scarborough to turn an injury to his advantage. But the fact is, Scarborough never forgave Garrett for what he did. It gave him a personal reason to see Garrett punished.”