The Quest of Brady Kenton / Kenton's Challenge

by Cameron Judd

  “My sentiments are the same. But the crucial thing now is to make sure you get away from Denver and break Paul Kevington’s trail. You are the one most in danger.”

  Rachel dropped over into the hiding space. He heard her move about a little, settling there. He was sure she was cramped and uncomfortable, but she did not complain. Kenton supposed she was accustomed to discomfort after so much time on the road.

  Kenton found a recess of his own in which to hide, but from which he could also gain quick access to the door. The door remained open, something he expected would be noticed by the railroad crew before this train pulled out. So he had to be ready to make a run for it and draw the railroad men away from the car, if neccessary, and give Rachel a chance to get away even if he didn’t.

  He hoped it would not come to that. He already felt a strong bond with this young woman, whom he had now accepted as his own daughter. Yet it would take time to grow fully accustomed to thinking of himself as a father.

  Kenton settled down as best he could and waited for the train to begin moving. He heard noise elsewhere along the line of cars, cargo being loaded into another freight car. He hoped nothing was to be added to this one.

  * * *

  Paul Kevington, out of breath, sweating, and thoroughly tense, paused at the edge of the rail yard. He had just pulled off what he considered a rather amazing feat. He had passed through Denver, at a time its streets were filled with searching policemen, and had not been stopped, not even noticed, as best he could tell. Not just anyone could have done it so well.

  Even so, he was not in a self-congratulatory mood. He knew he had done a foolish thing back at his hotel room to stab that vagabond and leave him there. Another murder added to his record! And further, one that would easily be traced to him, once the body was found. The only solace he could find was that he was registered in that hotel under the name of Jessup Best rather than his real name.

  He vowed to himself that he would become less impulsive, and keep his temper in check from now on. Impulsive actions could destroy him.

  He scanned the rail yard, wondering where they were. No train had left Denver in the last several minutes; he had been listening and had heard no whistles or chugging locomotives. So his prey should still be close by, though no doubt hidden.

  He looked at the lone train sitting in the yard, obviously almost ready to depart. If Rachel and Kenton had come to the rail yard looking for a way of escape, that train was the only immediate possibility.

  The locomotive came to life, belching smoke and sound. The railroad crew swung aboard. The train was about to pull out.

  Uncertainty struck. Rachel Frye and Brady Kenton were probably aboard that train. In minutes it would be out of his reach. They would get away from him. They could abandon that train anywhere along the line and go in any direction. Brady Kenton could provide protection for Rachel, and resources that would allow her to disappear.

  Kevington thought, If she escapes me tonight, I may never have another opportunity to catch her.

  He had to think fast, and logically. He did not, and could not, know whether they were on that train, but under the circumstances, that was the best presumption. Thus he had to find a way onto that train before it was out of reach.

  And there he faced a problem. Between him and the rail yard was a tall fence, one he was looking through even now. It was too high to vault and offered no handholds to allow him to climb.

  He would have to board that train, somehow, as it left the fenced portion of the rail yard. But that would be risky. By the time the train passed the fence, it would be moving fast. He might not be able to swing himself aboard, or even worse, he might fall off and go beneath the wheels.

  He would just have to take the risk. If Rachel escaped, especially in the company of a man with the American press at his fingertips, he was destroyed.

  He watched the train slowly roll toward the edge of the rail yard. He spotted the place where the tracks exited the rear yard, and where he felt he would have the best opportunity to connect with the train, assuming it was not moving too swiftly by that time.

  Kevington headed for that spot in a dead run, watching the train all the while. He noticed that one of the freight-car doors was slightly ajar. The railroad crew must have overlooked that one. Maybe, if he moved just right, he could throw himself directly into that opening as the car moved past.

  He positioned himself, legs bent, every muscle tense as he locked his eye onto that opening, knowing the timing had to be just right, or …

  But the train was moving much faster now. Too fast, he realized. To leap for that opening would only get him killed in a most horrible way. He watched his opportunity pass. The train, picking up momentum by the moment, was almost completely past him when he saw his only other opportunity. Fighting back the impulse to yell, he sprang forward, toward the moving train. He did not allow himself time to ponder the fact that he was a moment away either from a remarkable athletic success, or death beneath the wheels of the rolling train.

  CHAPTER 32

  BRADY Kenton was standing again in the center of the freight car, looking out to the open door. The dark landscape outside moved past at an ever-accelerating speed.

  He felt tremendously relieved. Fate had been kind. No railroad detective had searched this freight car, and no crewman had come along even to shut the door. So it looked as though he and Rachel had made it out of Denver. He had escaped arrest and jail, and Rachel had gotten away from Paul Kevington one more time. Kenton vowed to himself that she would not have to flee Kevington again. He would protect her.

  Kenton reflected on all that had happened during his brief stay in Denver, and suddenly laughed aloud as he was struck by the oddness of it all. He had assaulted a man, smashed a barroom window, made a drunken fool of himself in public, broken into a magazine publishing house, made an enemy of the local police, sacrificed his reputation and probably his career, had a stranger fatally stabbed in his rented room, and now topped all that off by hopping a freight train like a common vagabond.

  And all he had come to Denver to do was try to find some information about a mediocre serial novel published in a fairly nondescript pulp magazine!

  The funny thing was, he really didn’t care now about how all these things might damage him. Let his job go, let his reputation decline, let even his beloved fame vanish! None of it mattered now. He had finally learned the truth about Victoria, and discovered that he had a daughter to boot. His life had made a radical turn, but he regretted nothing about it.

  Kenton climbed up on a stack of crates. “Rachel! You can come out now. We’re moving, and nobody’s going to be entering this car while we’re in motion.”

  “Good … can you help me out?”

  Kenton crawled across the top of the crates. He lit a match for light, holding it in his left hand as he reached down with his right to help her out. She smiled at him as he pulled her up, and for Kenton it was as if he had known her all his life, not just one evening.

  They climbed down from the crates and into the open center area of the car.

  “I like it better out here,” she said. “I don’t like closed-in places.” She sniffed the air. “You smell like smoke. And it’s not the match or the train’s smokestack—I noticed the smell on you earlier.”

  “I was in a burning building earlier tonight,” Kenton said.

  “Really? How did that happen?”

  “It’s a long story. But suffice it to say, I learned something important when I was in that building. Have you ever heard of a magazine called American Popular Library?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “It’s a magazine based in Denver that publishes novels in serialized form. I was contacted recently by an editor at the Popular Library who knew about my search for Victoria. He had noticed a novel, edited by another editor at the same magazine, with a plot that had remarkable parallels to the parts of Victoria’s story that we already knew. Now that I’ve heard what you ha
ve to say, I realize the parallels in the novel run even deeper. That would mystify me if not for the fact that when I was inside the building today, the one that caught fire, I found a scrap of paper that told me the name of the author of the novel in question.”

  “Paul Kevington.”

  Kenton was surprised. “How did you know?”

  “It is an easy guess. Paul is a very skilled writer, with several publication credits in England.”

  “Well, now he has one in America. As best I can speculate, he sold the novel to the Popular Library to help finance his travels in this country. Though I wouldn’t have thought that a man of his means would require the money.”

  “Paul Kevington and his father did not always see eye to eye. Dr. Kevington was always threatening to cut off his money, or so the servants whispered among themselves. Maybe he finally did so. Maybe he found out about his son’s crimes.”

  “Dr. Kevington has crimes of his own to answer for. His son could hardly be worse than he is.”

  “He’s a wicked man, indeed. I can’t believe that at one time I was in love with him.”

  “He takes after his father,” Kenton said bitterly. “Evil but charming.”

  “He’s more wicked than his father,” Rachel said. “Dr. Kevington at least took great care of your wife after the train accident.”

  “No greater care than I would have provided for her,” Kenton replied. “It was I who should have had the opportunity to nurse her back to health. She was … is … my wife, stolen from me by a man who had no right to her. I have spent most of my adult life missing her, aching for her, hoping against hope that she could somehow still be alive, even during those times I felt I knew she had died. Don’t ask me to find anything praiseworthy in Dr. David Kevington. I despise the man.”

  It was too dark for her to see his face, but she could feel the intensity of his bitterness. “What will you do now that you know where she is?” she asked.

  “I’ll go and take her back,” he said without hesitation.

  “Dr. Kevington will not allow it. He’ll die before he lets her go.”

  “Then die he will. I’ll be happy to oblige him.”

  She said nothing more. Kenton realized that his harsh and angry words had darkened her spirits. He wished he hadn’t spoken.

  “Let’s put such grim talk aside for now,” Kenton said, smiling even though he knew she couldn’t really see him. “Now is the time to simply be glad that we’re safe, and that we’ve been brought together. I would not want to end my life never knowing that I and Victoria had a daughter.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Kenton,” she said softly.

  “Please … Not Mister Kenton. A daughter shouldn’t call her father ‘mister.’”

  “What would you like me to call you?”

  “Just call me Kenton, if you’d like. Everyone else does.”

  “People call you only by your last name?”

  “Most do.”

  “I don’t want to call you what everyone else calls you. May I call you Brady?”

  “You may. Victoria called me that. Hearing you say the name is like hearing her say it.”

  “I’m glad … Brady.” She paused and gripped her stomach, which had just rumbled. “Excuse me! I’m hungry, too.”

  “So am I. But we have nothing to eat.”

  “Then let’s rest instead. I’ve found that when you’re hungry and can’t get food, you can sleep and not feel it so much.”

  They sat down on the floor, feeling the lulling rumble of the train beneath them. Rachel leaned against Kenton, relaxing, and fell asleep with remarkable ease.

  Kenton initially felt tense having her so close, for this was all very new to him and she was still virtually a stranger, but at last he too relaxed. But he did not sleep. Instead he simply let himself experience the closeness of his own flesh and blood. It was unfair that he had not known her before now. It was unfair that she had been stolen from him just as Victoria had.

  The balances had been uneven for a long time. Soon Brady Kenton would level them. He promised it to the darkness around him.

  CHAPTER 33

  ALEX Gunnison and Frank Turner, both out of breath and sweating, stopped and looked at one another as they heard the sound of the train departing Denver. They were nearly to the train yard, but now it seemed they might be too late.

  “Kenton is on that train,” Gunnison said between gasps. “I would bet on it.”

  Turner nodded. He was equally out of breath, and obviously in pain. He was favoring his bad leg despite efforts to hide it.

  Gunnison ventured, “Would you like me to go on alone and let you rest your leg?”

  “I can keep going as long as you do.”

  “Then let’s move on. Maybe we’ll get lucky and find them still at the rail yard.”

  When they reached the rail yard, they arrived at the same spot that, unknown to them, Paul Kevington had stood not long before. They both looked across the now-empty yard. “Not a sign of them,” Turner said. “They’re on that train, sure as the world.”

  Gunnison sighed loudly. “Maybe it’s for the best. He would only be arrested if he were found still in Denver. At least we know from the note he left that the blood in the room isn’t his, or hers.”

  “Let’s take a better look around. Maybe they’re just hiding.”

  They began walking the perimeter of the rail yard, still outside of the surrounding fence. At last, though, they came nearer the shed beside which Kenton and Rachel had hidden, though they had no way to know this.

  “I can’t believe what Kenton has done,” Gunnison mused, growing angry in his frustration. “Running from the police! Breaking into buildings! He’s thrown away a career that he spent years in building. My father will fire him for this, and Kenton deserves it.”

  “A man, just like a cat, can get his tail caught under the rocker sometimes,” Turner said. “I’ve done it myself. Hey, who is that coming there?”

  Gunnison had just spotted the same fellow. “I don’t know, but he looks hurt.”

  Indeed, the man staggering and stumbling in their direction did appear to be injured. Or very drunk. When he was close enough, they noticed his shirt was crimson with blood.

  Gunnison and Turner moved as one toward the heavyset man, who appeared ready to collapse at any moment.

  “Hey, now, friend,” Turner said. “Have you hurt yourself in some way?”

  “I’ve been stabbed,” the man replied weakly, in a tone that indicated he could scarcely believe it.

  “Stabbed? Where?”

  The man gestured at his chest. He staggered to the left. Gunnison reached out, and steadied him.

  “I think you should sit down,” Gunnison said.

  It was an unnecessary suggestion. The man was growing so weak he could do nothing else. He slumped heavily to the ground.

  Gunnison and Turner knelt beside him.

  “He said he would pay me,” the man mumbled. “He gave me the money, but he took it back.”

  “Have you been drinking this evening, amigo?” Turner asked.

  “No. Not drinking. I just told him what I saw, like he wanted, and then he…” The man’s voice was growing softer. He was obviously on the verge of fainting.

  “He’s losing consciousness,” Gunnison said to Turner. “We’ve got to find this man some help.”

  “Not exactly the best timing,” Turner observed.

  “Certainly not.” Gunnison looked around helplessly. “How are we going to locate a doctor at this time of night? And what about Kenton?”

  “Kenton probably has already moved on,” Turner said. “Unless we find him soon we can only assume he hopped the train.”

  “Hopped the train,” the injured man repeated, mumbling. “Hopped the train, yes. I told him they were going to hop the train. I told him he needed to hurry if he was going to catch them. Then he stabbed me and took back the money.”

  Gunnison was inclined to ignore this apparent babble as nothing more t
han that, but Turner narrowed one eye and looked closely at the man. “Are you telling me you saw somebody hop a train tonight?”

  “Didn’t see them hop the train … but they were waiting for it. I know they were going to hop it. I told him that, and he stabbed me. He shouldn’t have stabbed me.”

  “No, he shouldn’t have. Who did you see about to hop the train?”

  “That man, that woman.”

  “I think I’d best run find a doctor,” Gunnison said.

  “Wait. Wait just a moment.” Turner leaned even closer to the man. “You saw a man and a woman here at the rail yard, waiting for a train?”

  Gunnison suddenly grasped where Turner was leading and was embarrassed he hadn’t caught on more quickly. The man’s seeming babble suddenly became much more interesting.

  “Yes. I saw them. There, near my shed.”

  Turner asked, “Did you hear the woman speak?”

  “Yes. She talked a lot. She was … was…”

  “Foreign? British, maybe?”

  “Yes. British. Talked different … kind of funny.”

  Gunnison asked, “Where are the man and the woman now?”

  The man was unable to answer. He slumped to the side, eyes closing.

  “We’ll get no more from him,” Turner said. “But he’s verified for us that Kenton and the woman were here.”

  A harsh screeching pierced the darkness, followed by the appearance of a broad, feminine form moving fast in their direction. Gunnison was so startled he almost yelled. Something about the situation made him flash back to that incident in Leadville in which his attempt to save a battered woman had only resulted in his being battered himself.

  “Oh, my poor Josh! What have they done to you, Josh?” The woman spoke in the same screeching tone in which she had screamed.

  She dropped to her knees, gliding to the side of the wounded man. She struck Turner’s legs in the process, bowling him over. He fell to the ground with a grunt.

  She wrapped her arms around the wounded man. “Oh, Josh! Are you dead, Josh? Are you dead?”

  Gunnison, tense as he was, had to fight away the impulse to laugh at Turner, who was struggling to get back on his feet. His fall had been most undignified.