The Quest of Brady Kenton / Kenton's Challenge

by Cameron Judd

  “Though Victoria’s protests might hold him back for a time, Kevington intended to kill me. I knew that. I was his prisoner, the man who had come to take away the woman he perceived as his wife, and even though he dared not do it directly because of Victoria, I knew it would happen. There would be an ‘accident’ of some sort, or a disappearance. I was doomed, unless I escaped. But I wouldn’t leave Victoria.

  “It was the same servant who delivered the message to Rachel who proved to be my salvation and Victoria’s. At a great risk to himself, he arranged my escape and Victoria’s. He even had a wagon and a driver to get us away.

  “But it was a nightmare. Kevington pursued us, and with Victoria’s condition, it was difficult to travel. Thank God that there are those in the world who will trust people based on their intuitions and give a hand to you even before they know all the answers.

  “Through the help of good people and, surely, the hand of God himself, we made it to the coast and took passage to the United States. But we knew that Kevington would follow us. I’ve tried to deny it at times, but I can’t. It was for that reason that I didn’t even contact Alex Gunnison, my own partner, when we returned. I know that Kevington will try to get Victoria back, and if he can’t succeed, then I believe he’ll kill her, and me as well. He’ll not be able to bear the thought of Victoria being alive but no longer his possession. And he’ll not be able to bear the thought of me being alive at all.”

  Livingston tapped his fingers on the table. “We’re all in danger, then. Anybody who helps you, anybody who is close to you, anybody who can lead him to you.”

  “Yes. And I suppose it was wrong of me to put you in that situation, Jack. But I had to find a place to hide that would be remote and not easy to predict. Your place here was the closest I could come.”

  Livingston looked Kenton in the eye. “You know that Victoria’s not fully yours yet.”

  It stung, but Kenton did not flinch. “Yes. I know.”

  “She stays in a room away from you. And I know she gets you all angry sometimes.”

  “Not angry. I could never be angry with her.”

  “Hell, if it ain’t anger, it’s something mighty like it. Why, you’ve sneaked down into town and got drunk two, three times since you’ve been here. And every time it’s been after she shrugged you off.”

  Jack Livingston’s forthrightness was not easy to take, not so much because it was brutally insensitive—which was typical of Livingston—but because it was brutally truthful.

  “I know,” Kenton said. “I shouldn’t have done it.”

  “Hell, Brady, it was dangerous. You think that because your hair and beard are different people can’t recognize you?”

  “Look, Jack, I’m not going to defend myself on that one. You’re right. I shouldn’t have showed myself in town. But this is a hard time for both Victoria and me. There have been times she just can’t bear my presence, and when that happens it hurts like a sword run through me. I’ve had to get out and away, or I couldn’t stand it. Do you really think I can stay hidden away in here forever?”

  “Brady, don’t show yourself in town no more. I don’t care how worked up you are. You don’t know that you showing yourself in public hasn’t already caused word about you to get out. For all we can know, Kevington has ears and eyes everywhere. A rich man can afford to buy all the ears and eyes he wants. And all the trigger fingers.”

  Kenton didn’t mention the sketch on the envelope that he’d accidentally left in the Buckeye Cafe … and the fact that it had disappeared. That one worried him a lot. He could take pains to change his own appearance, but his work was as recognizable as ever.

  Livingston was right. He’d been overly careless.

  “I’ll not leave again like that, Jack.”

  Livingston was thinking. “No. You will leave. We all will.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “There’s another place we can go. Even more hidden than this one. It’ll be a place we can hide Victoria a lot better and keep her safe until we know for sure how hard this damned British doctor will try or not try to get her back. My guess is he’ll try hard.”

  “Where is this place?”

  “Have you ever heard of a town called Caylee?”

  “Yes, but the one I’ve heard of is abandoned. A ghost town.”

  “That’s the town. It’s over the Culver Mountain, about fifteen miles from here. Hard miles, just a mule trail, no good road. But there’s a place there we can take Victoria. She’ll be as hidden there as anyone can be.”

  “But a ghost town, Jack? I don’t want Victoria to have to live in some run-down abandoned cabin.”

  “She won’t have to.” Jack Livingston leaned a little closer and lowered his voice, as if about to say something secretive in a crowded restaurant. “There’s one house there that’s not run-down at all. You can’t tell it much from the outside, though.”

  “What the devil are you talking about?”

  Livingston lowered his voice even more. “Uh, Brady, I might as well tell you, in case you don’t know it already: I ain’t exactly a saint. I’ve done some things that wouldn’t win me a gold star at church of a Sunday morning.”

  “Well, all right.”

  “One of the things I’ve done is, I had something of an association with a certain woman who wasn’t my wife … but she was the wife of another man. The mayor of Culvertown for some years, as a matter of fact, up until she died a couple of years ago and he moved off to Colorado Springs.”

  “What does this confession of yours have to do with a house in Caylee?”

  “We would meet there. That’s the point. Maude’s husband was a fearsome jealous man. We knew we couldn’t risk getting together here in Culvertown, not even here in my house. Too many prying eyes.”

  “Not to mention a wife of your own.” Kenton’s tone was icy. As a man who had missed his own wife for many years, he had little use for marital infidelity.

  A married man should honor his wife, Kenton believed, and give himself to no other.

  “My wife was dead before any of this happened, Brady. I was never unfaithful to her.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  “Anyway, Maude and me would meet over in Caylee. She’d claim to be off on a trip to see her sister, who suffered terrible with the gout for many years, but in fact she’d spend a good part of the time with me in Caylee. There was a house there that I fixed up good and pretty on the inside, though I left the outside looking all weathered and run-down. You’d hardly know unless you look hard that it wasn’t just another relic. The way it’s situated, you can hardly notice the place at all, anyway. But it’s there.”

  “I’ll be!”

  “Maude’s been gone for two years and I ain’t had cause to be at that house, but I did go by about six months ago just to take a look at it. It’s still in right good shape on the inside. Victoria could be comfortable there, and hidden away where nobody is likely to see her. There’s nobody else at all living in Caylee.”

  Kenton pondered this. The idea was appealing. Certainly not as a permanent arrangement, but as a good one for the moment. In such a place Victoria could grow strong again, and he could care for her like he wanted to.

  “What about food and so on?”

  “I’d provide it,” Livingston said. “I’d haul anything you need in on a pack mule.”

  Kenton nodded slowly. “Jack, I think maybe that’s an offer I’m inclined to accept. If Victoria is willing, that is.”

  “Then I’ll help you. But the truth, Brady, is that I think the wisest thing you could do is go to the law. Just tell them your whole story and ask for protection.”

  “I’ve thought the same thing many a time. But there are uncertain things … and the fact that Victoria is scared to death to bring the law into the situation. Victoria is afraid that Kevington will somehow be able to use the law to his advantage. And mostly she’s afraid … blast it, I may as well admit that I’m afraid, too … that if we sho
w ourselves this early, Kevington will do something extreme. He’d rather have Victoria dead than taken away from him.”

  “You can’t hide forever, Brady.”

  “I know. I know … and it worries me. Because I don’t think Kevington will stop until he finds us … until either he has stolen Victoria back or both Victoria and I are dead.”

  At that moment there was a series of loud knocks on the front door.

  CHAPTER 20

  Kenton came to his feet, glaring toward the door, then looking wildly at Jack Livingston.

  Livingston got up more slowly, frowning. “It probably ain’t nothing,” he said. “People come up from time to time, wanting to meet me because I got this reputation of being a strange old hermit.”

  “Should you answer the door or let it go?”

  Livingston gnawed at his lower lip, frowning some more as he thought about it. Another round of knocking rattled the door.

  “Hell, I’m answering. I’d rather know it ain’t Kevington than think it might be. If there’s a problem on the other side of that door, then bring it on and let’s deal with it.” Livingston reached under his vest and brought out the small revolver he carried there. “I ain’t answering it alone, though,” he said, shaking the pistol.

  Kenton produced a derringer from his own pocket. “I’m of the same mind as you, Jack.”

  Kenton and Livingston walked together toward the front of the house, keeping their footsteps light so as not to forewarn whoever was outside of their approach. Kenton positioned himself so that he would be hidden when the door was opened.

  “Who the hell is it?” Livingston bellowed through the door.

  “My name is Billy Connery,” came the reply, in an Irish brogue. “I work for the Illustrated American, and I think there may be someone here I need to see.”

  Kenton felt like going through the floor. The Illustrated American had tracked him down! Dear Lord, if they knew he was alive, knew he was here, what else did they know?

  He wondered for a moment if this was a ruse. But he knew there was a Billy Connery working for the magazine, an Irish illustrator hired about the time of his own disappearance. Kenton had picked this up through simply reading the magazine itself. Connery worked with Alex Gunnison quite closely. And Alex was probably worried about Kenton because of his lack of communication with him.…

  It all fell together in Kenton’s mind. Alex Gunnison had launched a search for him, had somehow detected his presence in Culvertown, and had sent his new partner to find him. Maybe Gunnison himself was somewhere in town, too.

  “Ask him to slide his identification card under the door,” Kenton whispered. “The Illustrated American issues standard identification cards.”

  “I want to see some identification!” Livingston hollered through the door. “Prove to me you’re with the Illustrated American!”

  “Just a moment.…”

  A couple of moments later, the edge of a card appeared under the door. Livingston knelt and picked the card up, glanced at it, and handed it to Kenton.

  There were no images on Illustrated American credential cards, so Kenton could not match the name on the card, that of William Clive Connery, with the so-far unseen face on the other side of the door. But the card was the authentic item. The accent sounded real enough, too.

  He handed the card back to Livingston. “Maybe we should let him in,” he whispered. “I think this is all on the up-and-up.”

  “But how in hell did they track you here?” Livingston whispered back.

  “I don’t know. I think we’re going to have to talk to him, though, and find out. If they could find us, so could Kevington.”

  Livingston nodded, then put his face close to the door. “Step back.… I’m opening this door. You come in slow and easy. I’ve got a pistol in my hand, and if I so much as don’t like the way you look, I’ll blow you straight to perdition! You understand me?”

  “I do, sir. You have naught to fear from me.”

  Naught to fear from me.… Kenton frowned. It was as Irish-sounding a phrase as he had ever heard, spoken in a distinctly Irish manner.

  Too Irish, maybe? Too distinct? Maybe that brogue didn’t sound quite authentic after all. He experienced a moment of doubt.…

  But Livingston had opened the door by this point and was stepping back to let their visitor enter.

  * * *

  As he entered the house, McCurden tried to come across as nervous, harmless, and even a little scared.

  Kenton, behind the door, had a chance to study the new arrival before the new arrival saw him. Something struck Kenton as not right. He’d never met Billy Connery and had heard no descriptions of him, but for some unexplainable reason this man didn’t strike him as being authentic. Kenton wished that they hadn’t opened the door, or at least that he had hidden himself more completely.

  “Mr. Livingston, sir, I’ve heard much about you,” McCurden said.

  “Why are you here?”

  “I’m looking for Mr. Brady Kenton, sir. I have reason to believe he may be here.”

  “Ain’t you heard? Brady Kenton is dead.”

  “No, sir. With all due respect, we both know he’s not. I was sent here to find him.”

  There was no point in playing games. Kenton would be seen at any moment anyway. He stepped out from the corner so suddenly that the newcomer drew in his breath sharply.

  McCurden looked into the face of one of America’s most famous journalists and couldn’t suppress a smile and a hungry glitter in his eye.

  “Hello, Mr. Kenton.” He thrust out his hand. “Billy Connery. It’s an honor to meet you.”

  Kenton did not want to shake hands with this man. Some inner alarm was sounding. But he shook the hand anyway.

  “No one was to know I was alive,” Kenton said, in no humor for preliminaries and false friendliness. “How did you know?”

  “I was informed by Mr. Gunnison. I don’t know how he knew.”

  “Gunnison the father or Gunnison the son?”

  Everyone knew that Alex Gunnison was the partner of Brady Kenton, so he seemed the more likely choice. “It was Alex who told me.”

  “Alex told you … after I made him vow not to tell anyone?”

  “He’s concerned about you.”

  “How did he know I was here?”

  The questions were growing harder. But it wouldn’t matter much longer. This pair was about to experience a jolting encounter with the truth. “I don’t know,” McCurden said. “He didn’t tell me.”

  Kenton stared hard at the newcomer. “Who else knows?”

  “Dr. David Kevington knows. That’s what has Alex worried. He’s afraid Kevington might try to find you and take Victoria back. You do have Victoria, don’t you?”

  Kenton glanced at Livingston, whose look let him know that Livingston had the same suspicions he did.

  “Tell me, Mr. Connery, how is Sarah?”

  “Sarah?”

  “Alex’s wife.”

  “Oh, of course. Sarah is doing well.”

  “You’ve talked to her?”

  “Not long ago, as a matter of fact.”

  “Did she mention to you that her name isn’t Sarah, but Roxanne?”

  McCurden glared at him. “And my name isn’t Connery. It’s McCurden.”

  He pulled a pistol from beneath his coat with unexpected speed and dexterity and aimed it at Livingston’s face.

  CHAPTER 21

  For a moment, everything was frozen.

  Then Kenton brought up his own derringer, ready to use it, but McCurden swung his pistol and knocked it from Kenton’s hand. It clattered across the floor.

  Kenton was astonished, also embarrassed. Being outmaneuvered by this younger and swifter man made him feel old and clumsy.

  Livingston lunged at McCurden as he whipped the gun at Kenton, but again McCurden was too fast. He swung the pistol back and struck Livingston on the temple, very hard. Livingston let out a grunt and fell to his knees. McCurden brought
up his foot and kicked Livingston in the forehead with his heel. The blow was tremendously powerful, knocking Livingston backward.

  “No more!” Kenton said. “No more! You’ll kill him!”

  “Damn right,” McCurden answered. And he kicked Livingston again, on the side of the head.

  Kenton threw himself at him, but McCurden dodged, then whipped him with the pistol. Kenton stumbled to the left, fell.

  Victoria’s voice came from upstairs. “Brady? What’s happening?”

  McCurden was kicking Livingston yet again. Then he reached under his vest and came out with a knife.

  “No!” Kenton shouted. He scrambled to his feet.

  McCurden tried to stab Livingston, but Kenton knocked him off balance just in time. The blade missed.

  McCurden was limber and quick, however, and managed not to fall. He danced over Livingston’s crumpled form and turned.

  Kenton did not care at this point what happened to him. He had to stop McCurden at any cost, to keep him from getting to Victoria upstairs.

  “Brady?” she called, her voice full of alarm. “Brady, what’s happening?”

  McCurden took two steps back, steadying himself. He raised the pistol and aimed it at Kenton.

  “Freeze! Don’t move an inch, you bastard! I’ll kill you right here, then go up and kill her!”

  Kenton could not find his voice. He stared at McCurden, eyes glaring with hate.

  “But first, I kill him.” And swiftly he raised the blade again, came down with his full body, and stabbed Livingston in the side. He left the blade where it stuck and was up again in a flash, laughing.

  Livingston made a faint sound, moved a little, then was still. Kenton could tell from the sound of Livingston’s last exhaled breath that he would not draw in another.

  “I’ll kill you,” Kenton said, hardly able to comprehend what had just happened. “Whatever it takes, I’ll kill you.”