by Cameron Judd
To the woman, Gunnison said, “He isn’t dead, ma’am. He has been stabbed, but we don’t know how badly. Are you his wife?”
She glared at Gunnison. “In the eyes of the common law we are! Don’t you go judging!”
“I’m not trying to judge, ma’am,” Gunnison replied. “I’m simply trying to find out if you are able to help us get care for him.”
“Why did you stab him?” the woman demanded.
Frank Turner got back on his feet. “We didn’t,” he said. “Somebody else did. We’re just trying to help him.”
“From the amount of blood he’s lost, I fear for him,” Gunnison said.
Abruptly, the woman ripped open the man’s shirt. Buttons flew. “Somebody got a match?” she said.
Frank Turner struck a match, and held it close to the wounded man’s chest.
The woman examined the wound, and quickly declared, “It ain’t so bad.” She jammed a finger against the cut, making the man howl. “Josh always does bleed like a pig. Don’t you, Josh.”
“Bad wound or not, this man needs a doctor,” Gunnison said.
“I’ll get my brother to tend him,” she said. “He sews up cut horses and such all the time. I reckon a man sews up the same as a horse.”
“That’s a fact,” Turner said. “I’ve been sewed up by horse doctors many a time.”
“But he could bleed to death!” Gunnison protested.
“Don’t think so,” Turner said, striking another match. He knelt and looked even closer at the wound. “She’s right about his wound. You can see the blood starting to congeal there. And look how the wound goes. He was stabbed more or less with a sideways motion. It cut him under the skin, but it didn’t go deep. That kind of wound bleeds a lot, but it’s not that serious. I was cut in just same way myself one time, by a drunk Mexican. I bled a bucketful, but I was fine.”
The wounded man, hearing this, revived a bit. He looked at the woman. “I’m going to live?”
Suddenly the woman was all emotion again. “Oh, yes, Josh, you’ll live! You’ll live to avenge yourself! Who did this to you?”
“The Texan fellow, the one who told us he’d pay us if we ever saw the Englishwoman. But he’s not really Texan … he’s English hisself,” he said.
Gunnison and Turner glanced at one another. Paul Kevington! Who else could he be talking about?
“You’re loco, Josh. Out of your head. I heard the man talk, and that’s Texas talk if ever there was Texas talk.”
“His talking changed … he talked like an Englisher. I swear it.”
“He’s telling the truth, ma’am,” Turner said. “We know who stabbed him. It was an Englishman named Paul Kevington, who poses as a Texas Ranger. He’s good at faking accents, it appears.”
“He said he’d pay me if I found him the woman, but he stabbed me instead,” Crane said to the woman.
“I’ll kill him,” she said. “I’ll hop on the next train and go right up that track and kill him!”
“He ain’t up the track, Ruby. He’s here in town.”
She firmly shook her head. “He is not. Not any longer. I seen him myself, this very evening,” she said. “He leaped onto the last train to pull out of here. I watched him do it, standing right over there. He leaped and hung on, and he’s gone up the track on that train.”
Gunnison went pale. Kenton and Rachel were probably on that train … and now Kevington was, as well. Did Kenton even know? Not unless he had been positioned to see Kevington make the leap.
“We’ve got to stop that train,” Turner said to Gunnison.
“I know.”
“The main office is over there, and the telegraph wire. We can wire ahead to the next station, have the train searched.”
Turner’s suggestion was sensible. It might result in Kenton being arrested and hauled back here into the clutches of Turner’s corrupt lawman cousin, but it might also save his life.
Gunnison reached into his pocket and handed money to Ruby. “Take him to see a real doctor, not just some horse doctor. All right?”
She took the money with wide eyes, and nodded.
Gunnison ran toward the station office, leaving the limping Turner behind, and Ruby the screecher still kneeling on the ground, tending to Josh Crane, a man Paul Kevington had stabbed and left for dead, but who had lived to divulge his crime.
CHAPTER 34
THE man behind the counter in the station house was tired, irritable, and none too interested in what Gunnison and Turner had to say.
“So there’s somebody stowed away on the train,” he said snidely. “It’s against the rules, sure enough, but it happens all the time. And I’m sure as hell not inclined to wire ahead to tell them to delay a running train just to find a couple of stowaway freight-car riders.”
“You don’t understand,” Gunnison said. “There’s not just a couple of riders, but three of them, and one is a great danger to the other two.”
“’Tain’t my problem.”
Turner stepped forward and flashed his badge quickly, then covered it up again. “I’m telling you in the name of the law to wire to the next stop and have that train stopped and searched.”
“Let me see that badge again.”
Turner reluctantly complied.
“Sorry, mister. But I don’t think the Texas Rangers bear much authority in Colorado.”
“Listen to me, compadre,” Turner said, his voice going icy as he launched into a mix of truths, lies, and exaggerations that sounded very convincing. “I’m on special assignment with the Denver police force, and I bear their full authority when I give you an order. I’m on the trail of a murderer out of Texas, an Englishman named Paul Kevington. He is one of the three on the train. The other is an Englishwoman whom Kevington is intent on killing because she is the sole witness to murders he committed. The other man is Brady Kenton, the famous journalist. He’ll be killed, too, if Kevington gets to him.”
“Why would Brady Kenton be riding the rails like some tramp?” the man asked skeptically.
“Have you not been reading the papers, man? Don’t you know that Kenton has gone off track lately? He heaved a man out a barroom window just days ago, and ran from the police this very evening when they were questioning him about breaking into a building that just happened to catch fire while he was in it. The man’s loco, and the law wants him. That’s one more reason for you to do what I tell you. You’ll be quite the hero if you cooperate and help lead to the capture of both Kenton and Kevington.” Frank Turner paused and went on in a much more grim tone: “And you’ll be in one mess of trouble if your lack of cooperation results in them getting away … especially if someone ends up getting killed. I’ll see you answer for it, I vow to you.”
The man looked at Turner’s stony face, swallowed visibly, and nodded.
“I’ll get the message wired right away.”
“There’s a good man,” Turner said, friendly now.
“And when you’re done,” Gunnison said, “tell us where a man might rent a good trail horse nearby.”
Turner looked at Gunnison. “Why do you want to rent a horse?”
“I’m going to follow that train,” he said. “I don’t know if I’ll catch up to it, but if they stop it, maybe there’s a chance. At the very least I can go that train station and find out firsthand the results of that search.”
“I’ll be right beside you,” Turner said.
The telegraph line began its chatter. Gunnison closed his eyes and prayed for the safety of Brady Kenton and Rachel Frye.
* * *
Kenton couldn’t quite understand why he felt so relaxed. He was a fugitive from the law, a man who had just buried his career … but he felt peaceful just now despite it all. Rachel leaned against him, sleeping, and he had his arm around her. His daughter. A piece of himself he’d never known even existed. But now she was near, the darkness was all-enveloping and soothing, and all was well. The rest of the world could fall apart right now and he wouldn’t care.
> Kenton heard a thump above that broke him out of his reverie. What was that? It sounded like someone atop the car …
He tensed, then relaxed again. Probably there was indeed someone up there: the brakeman. Those fellows could move along the top of a rolling train with the grace and stability of mountain goats on rocky crags.
But there was another thump above, heavy and leaden, the sound of something slipping and rolling … then yet another thump, this time on the side of the car.
Kenton glanced down. Rachel still slept heavily. He gently eased her over in the other direction, letting her rest against some of the cargo around them. She did not waken. He rose.
The train began a slow curve, making Kenton stumble slightly as he walked toward the still-open door.
More thumping on the side of the railroad car, like someone kicking … but that could only be the case if the person was literally hanging from the top edge of the car.
Kenton hesitated. If in fact the brakeman had fallen and was hanging on the side of the car, Kenton couldn’t help him without revealing his presence, and ultimately, Rachel’s. On the other hand, Kenton couldn’t rightly let a man be endangered, maybe even killed, just to avoid being discovered as a stowaway.
He edged to the open door, through which a stout wind whipped. He glanced around the edge, hoping to see without being seen in turn.
Sure enough, a man hung there, flailing a little in the wind, clinging to the top of the car desperately.
Kenton instantly forgot his own need to stay hidden. A human life was in danger.
“Hang on, Mr. Brakeman!” Kenton called out to the man. “I’ll help you!”
The man twisted his head and looked in Kenton’s direction. “Bless you, sir!” he said in a voice thick with the inflections of southern Alabama. “I’m about to fall!”
“Don’t let go!” Kenton said. “I think I can reach you … and if you can hook the toe of your boot over the edge of that door latch there … yes, that’s it…”
Kenton strained and stretched toward the brakeman, not sure he could quite reach him without sacrificing his own secure grip on the edge of the door.
But he did reach him. The brakeman gripped Kenton’s arm with one hand, shifted some of his weight onto his foot, which rested on the door latch, and thus relieved some of the strain on the fingers of his other hand.
“What now?” the brakeman asked in a tone mixing desperation and hope.
“I’m going to keep hold of you, and you’re going to have to try to scoot yourself a little closer to the opening here,” Kenton instructed. “Be careful … just inch along. When you’re in front of the door, I can pull you in as you let go.”
“Are you sure?” the man asked. “I’m afraid I’ll fall!”
“You will indeed fall if you stay as you are. You can’t hold your weight forever. It’s your only chance if you try to do as I say!”
Behind Kenton, Rachel was awakened by the noise. She sat up and looked around in the darkness. Kenton was visible to her, limned against the dim light of the nighttime sky. She couldn’t tell what he was doing.
“Brady?” she asked. “What’s happening?”
He heard her but could not at the moment respond, busy as he was. He gripped the brakeman as hard as he could, and with his other hand gripped the door equally hard. The wind tugged at him and also at the dangling brakeman, but despite it, progress was being made, however slowly.
“Easy, careful … there! Almost there … just another half-foot or so…”
The brakeman pulled himself up, let go for half a second, and grabbed hold again, this time a little closer to the opening.
“One more time!” Kenton urged. He wondered if the brakeman had yet thought about the fact that his benefactor was a stowaway. Maybe he would be so grateful for the help that he would not care, maybe would even preserve the secret. Kenton would certainly ask that of him. He wasn’t about to be hauled back to Denver to be harassed and jailed by Henry Turner. Not with a daughter just come into his life. Not with Victoria still alive, waiting to be found again.
“All right,” Kenton said. “The timing has to be right … I’ll count to three, and on three, you let go and swing in, and I’ll pull at the same time.”
Rachel was on her feet, watching breathlessly. “Who is he?” she asked in a frightened tone.
“The brakeman!” Kenton called back to her. “He slid off the top, managed to catch himself on the side … now, sir, together … one, two, three!”
CHAPTER 35
WITH a cry of exertion and aided by Kenton’s sharp pull, the man fell forward into the car. Kenton was knocked back, almost bowling over Rachel. The brakeman lay facedown on the dirty floor of the boxcar, breathing loudly, letting relief wash over him.
Kenton rose and dusted himself off. He winked at Rachel, trying to reassure her, then realized it was too dark for her to see him.
The brakeman sat up, his breathing slowing. “I do thank you, sir,” he drawled. “I’ve never done that before, after all my years in this trade. Thank God you were in here … whoever you are. Is that a woman standing there beside you? It’s too dark to see well.”
“It is. I’ll not lie to you, sir. We’re stowed away here, having had a mutual need to get away from Denver in secret, and swiftly. I assure you that our flight is purely innocent, and ask that you repay my aid to you just now by keeping secret our presence here.”
The brakeman hesitated only a moment before saying, “Under the circumstances, I’m inclined to go along with that. I owe you deep gratitude. Thank you for saving my life.”
“Glad to be of service.”
“May I ask your name, sir?”
Kenton paused. “Do you mind if I don’t say?”
“I’ll make no demands. Thank you again for saving me. Lord! I thought I was dead for sure!”
Kenton said, “I’ve not told you my name, but do you object to saying yours?” As he did, he reached over and placed his hand on Rachel’s arm, an unplanned gesture. When he touched her, though, he felt the tension of her muscles. She was rigid as a post, staring directly at the brakeman, who was invisible in the darkness except for his general outline.
The brakeman stood. Kenton heard the sound of metal against leather and knew a pistol had been drawn from beneath the brakeman’s jacket.
But he wasn’t a brakeman at all. Kenton knew it now, and knew who he was even before he spoke.
“Well, Mr. Kenton,” he said, the Alabama drawl gone, his inflections now the precise ones of upper-crust British society. “I didn’t fancy we would meet in this way, and certainly I didn’t think that I would be placed in the situation of owing you my life.”
Rachel leaned against Kenton, her body even more tense. She made a small, strange noise somewhere deep in her throat and Kenton could almost smell her terror.
“You do owe me your life, Mr. Kevington. And I hope that you will let that fact affect your next actions. Leave us be. Put that gun away.”
“Ah, sorry, old man, but I can’t do that. Your daughter there, sorry to say, saw something she shouldn’t. I can’t allow her to go on being a threat to me.”
“She’s no threat. Your crime occurred in England, and this is the United States. No one here is looking for you.”
“Not entirely true … Texas has quite an interest in me. That’s been one of the things that has made it interestingly ironic to go around portraying a Texan, as I have. And I’m afraid I’ll soon have a bit of a problem in Denver, as well, once they discover a certain body in the hotel room I’d rented.”
“Why are you telling us these things? They only incriminate you. Let us go. Forget about us, and don’t add to your problems by harming us.”
“My responses to that are related. First, I don’t intend to harm you at all. I intend to kill you. And therefore there’s no reason to be all that careful about what I say to you. You’ll never have the opportunity to repeat it to anyone.”
Kenton’s brain was runnin
g at full speed as he searched for some way to stretch this situation out, buy more time. Kevington was only a couple of trigger-squeezes away from killing them on the spot.
“Then do me the favor of answering some questions for me before you do me in,” Kenton said. “Why did you kill the man in Texas?”
“Oh, that. It wasn’t planned. Unfortunate, really. Texas Rangers, I discovered, have an aversion to bank robbery, and I’d pulled off one of those, you see. They made the mistake of pursuing me. I killed one of them. The name Jessup Best was scratched into the leather of his gunbelt. I read it myself. Even borrowed the name as my alias in my later travels. I enjoy irony, you see.”
“It wasn’t by bank robbery alone that you’ve paid for your travels in this country,” Kenton said. “You’ve turned author, as well.”
Kevington laughed. “Ah, yes! The Grand Deception. Not the best piece of work, admittedly, but not bad. The storyline is one that I’m sure is of special interest to you, eh, Mr. Kenton?”
“It was that storyline that drew me to Denver, to try to find the ending of the story in advance of its publication. A savvy editor at the Popular Library noted the parallels to my Victoria’s story, and alerted me. I came right away.”
“Really? And did you read the end of the novel?”
“No. But I did discover the author’s identity.”
“Bah! That’s no great achievement. It’s the plot that matters! By the way, the novel ends with the death of Candice. Death by murder … killed by her own son. Quite a tragedy!”
Kenton felt weak suddenly. Had this devil murdered Victoria? If not, did he plan to do so? Or might he simply be toying with him like a cat toys with a mouse before killing it?
Whatever, Kevington clearly was enjoying himself. “By the way, Mr. Kenton, what was that phrase you just used? ‘My Victoria’? Sorry to bear this bad news to you, but she hasn’t been ‘your’ Victoria for upward of two decades. My mother loves my father, the man who saved her life. She no longer thinks of you, much less cares about you. She is far from being your Victoria.”