The Hanging at Leadville / Firefall

by Cameron Judd

  Jones stared at his own feet a few moments, then looked up at Kenton again. “Mr. Kenton, you’ve been run through the mill, I know, but do you have the strength and interest to attend a little gathering? To see how we do things here at Confederate Ridge?”

  “Of course.”

  “Good. We’ll try to round up some paper and pencils for you. This may be something you’ll want to record, because it may be the last time that our people gather here together, ever again.”

  Chapter 20

  Peter Wilson, who after the prayer meeting sold a good horse at a good price to Gunnison, bore a strong physical resemblance to his son, Rory, but lacked the boy’s ebullient personality. As he sat sipping coffee from a cracked cup and nibbling on the last biscuit left from supper, Wilson looked back at Alex Gunnison in a way that at first made Gunnison wonder if he looked like a criminal. After a time, though, he began to realize that this was just Wilson’s ordinary look. He flashed that same suspicious look at his son, his wife, his two plump daughters, both of whom were flashing very different kinds of looks at Gunnison. He was beginning to wish he hadn’t accepted the invitation to spend the night here.

  Gunnison, uncomfortable under the hungry gaze of the two girls, shifted his posture in his chair and laid his left hand across his knee to make sure that his wedding ring was visible. He glanced at one of the daughters, ignored the smile she flashed him, and continued the conversation he was carrying on with Wilson.

  “Rory tells me that the preacher himself had a troubled manner about him as he spoke,” Gunnison said.

  Wilson swallowed the last of the biscuit. “Yes, it struck me that way, too. He seemed a man under a great burden…maybe scared by his own message.”

  “Did he strike you as sincere?”

  “Oh, yes. He believed what he was saying. But he had little spirit about him. I figure I’d be much the same, if the Lord had laid such a terrible message on my heart.”

  “You really do believe that Peabody is speaking a word from God?”

  “Yes.”

  “What exactly did he say?”

  “He spoke about judgment, about God’s wrath against sin…it was frightening. The kind of thing to bring you to your knees in prayer. I won’t shy away from telling you I did just that.”

  “Did he say that there would be more fire from heaven?”

  “He said that Gomorrah had gone across a line of sin that could not be crossed again. Its judgment was inescapable. But for others, for us, it wasn’t too late to repent. And if we would, the fire might not fall.”

  “So you repented.”

  “We did.”

  “That’s a good thing, I’m sure.”

  “Yes.”

  Gunnison cleared his throat uncomfortably. He glanced once more at the staring daughters. “Rory told me there was an offering taken for Peabody.”

  “There was. I didn’t begrudge it. Even a prophet has to live.”

  “Did the preacher say, directly or indirectly, that giving his offering was an essential part of the repenting process?”

  As Gunnison had feared, Wilson seemed offended by the question. “Listen, young man, if you’re implying that I, or the other people around here, are gullible fools who emptied their pockets for no reason, then I think you should rethink your thinking, right fast!”

  “Sir, I’m sorry. I’m not trying to offend.”

  “There was an offering took, yes. But the preacher said nothing about it, asked not a penny.”

  “But the man with him, Rankin…”

  “Well, yes. That’s who it was who took the offering, with the help of another fellow.”

  “Did Rankin equate giving to the offering with repenting?”

  “Look, the Bible itself says the worker is worthy of his hire. It says the servants of the Lord should be supported.”

  Gunnison needed to hear no more; Wilson’s defensive, evasive answer was tantamount to an affirmative.

  “Yes,” Gunnison said. “It does teach that.”

  Wilson stood and went for his pipe on the mantelpiece. He took down a tobacco bag that hung from a rack of antlers attached decoratively to the wall above the fireplace. As he filled his pipe, he asked, “Do you have a family, Mr. Gunnison?”

  “I’ve got a wife,” Gunnison said, raising his voice a little to make sure the Wilson daughters heard him clearly.

  “Then you picture yourself in the kind of situation I was. You look up in the sky one night and you see fire flash across the darkness. You see a mountaintop go into flames. Then, not long after, you see people who’ve come down from that mountain, burned and hurting and scared to death, telling that a preacher prophesied it all, and by gum if it didn’t happen just like he said. Then that same preacher shows up and tells you that the same blasted thing could happen to you and your family…you think you’d take chances with your own safety and that of your own? Would you?”

  “No, I suppose I wouldn’t.”

  “You’d pray to God, you’d turn from your wicked ways, you’d pay whatever offering was asked; that’s what you’d do. You wouldn’t risk the safety of yourself and your own loved ones. And if some slick-dressed little news scribbler came around asking you a bunch of questions to imply you’re a fool, you’d not be very pleased about it.”

  “Obviously I’ve hurt your feelings. I do apologize.”

  The daughters smiled at Gunnison, and quietly sighed in unison. Apparently he had a very appealing way of apologizing.

  Wilson shrugged and chewed on his pipestem. “Don’t worry about it. Didn’t mean to say so much.”

  “Mr. Wilson, you’re right that I didn’t witness these things myself, and indeed I might have reacted just like you did if I had seen them. But you and I both know that people are capable of cheating and lying, especially if there’s money to be made. Maybe Rankin has sincerely changed his ways…or maybe he’s using this prophet fellow as a way of gouging money out of sincerely frightened people.”

  Wilson exhaled slowly. “I know. And down inside, I’ve wondered.” He looked at Gunnison. “Rory says you believe it was some kind of shooting star that might have caused the fire.”

  “I don’t really know what it was. It’s just a guess.”

  “Tell me why you’re so interested in all this. Are you trying to write a story about it?”

  “I’m trying to find Rankin for the sake of a friend of mine. Rankin maybe has some information he needs. About my friend’s wife.”

  “I see. Well, too bad you didn’t come sooner. He’s long gone now.”

  “Yes. Any idea where?”

  “Wherever there’s people. The preacher said he was going to travel from town to town, giving warning about the fire from heaven. Getting people to repent.”

  “With Rankin collecting money at every place.”

  “Reckon so.”

  “Any idea which town he was heading to next?”

  “They headed in the direction of Paxton.”

  Gunnison nodded. He’d heard of Paxton. Just another little mining town in the Montana mountains.

  “That’s where I’ll look, then.”

  “Listen, if you’re Brady Kenton’s partner, then where is he?”

  Gunnison didn’t want to answer, but he did. “Brady Kenton is dead. He was killed in the fire at Gomorrah.”

  “Lord…I’m sorry.”

  “I am, too, Mr. Wilson. I haven’t yet found it in myself to truly believe he is dead.”

  The Confederate Ridge compound, revealed to Kenton as he followed Jones and Milo out of the cabin, was bigger than he would have expected, had he had opportunity to develop any specific expectations. Kenton walked into a broad, packed-dirt central area and watched the people of the compound gathering around a well in the dead center of the enclosure, which was lighted by three bonfires. There was a small platform around the well; Pernell Jones stepped upon it, his expression solemn.

  Kenton took a quick look around. The stockade stood about twelve feet high on a
ll sides, with numerous cabins like the one he’d just left built all around. There were other buildings, all made of logs, scattered around the enclosure as well, but farther inside, not against the walls. There were a couple of small barns, a few sheds and privies, a sizeable stockpen in which cattle meandered, and a corral well stocked with horses. He counted no less than three gardens. He spotted one cabin with a cross mounted atop it: obviously a church building. Beside it was a small, enclosed graveyard with a few smaller crosses stuck in it. All in all, the whole thing reminded Kenton of typical stockades from the earlier days of what was now the East. It was neat, well-kept, and more impressive than Kenton had expected. Confederate Ridge was not some mere mountain hideout. This was a true community, maintained well and having about it the feeling of a small, peaceful village that just happened to be enclosed behind walls.

  Kenton felt the familiar tug of his journalistic impulse. This was a surprising place, an unusual place, a place that deserved to be written about. This was a town that was on no map, a dwelling place of people who considered themselves not Americans but independent entities. He wished he had his sketch pad. All he had, though, were a few scraps of paper Milo had handed him, and a couple of stubby pencils. He could do a bit of note-taking, but that was about all.

  Kenton spoke to Milo. “I didn’t realize there were so many here. Especially so many women and children.”

  “We’ve established a fine place here,” Milo answered. “Many of us here have married and brought wives here, raised children. Now some of the children have grown and married one another to start whole new families.”

  “I think you’re about to outgrow this place.”

  “I don’t think it’s going to matter after tonight,” Milo said.

  Kenton might have asked how it was that such a community could be maintained without the support of commerce, with the outside world. Self-sufficiency, in his experience, could only take people so far, and his impression was that Confederate Ridge had moved beyond that point. He wondered if there was some outside source of supply or subsidy…maybe some network of underground commerce, or some benefactor, who was helping keep this community alive. He’d try to find out later.

  Kenton drew quite a few curious, hard stares as he neared the crowd. He suspected that it was rare indeed that a strange face appeared among this little population.

  Chapter 21

  Jones cleared his throat and spoke from the platform. “That man there with Milo is named Brady Kenton,” he said. “Many of you have probably heard of him. He writes stories and draws pictures for the Illustrated American magazine.”

  Kenton usually saw smiles and nods of welcome when he was recognized in a crowd, but these people didn’t seem to care. They continued to glare at him, most looking even more mistrustful now that they knew he was a journalist. The few young children in the crowd scooted behind their mothers’ skirts and peered at him unblinkingly, maybe wondering what breed of devil this stranger was.

  “Mr. Kenton, you probably know, was brought to us by Milo and his scouts. They rescued him fleeing from Ottinger’s soldiers, who were shooting at him.”

  The harshness vanished from most of the stares he was receiving. Any enemy of Ottinger’s was apparently a friend of theirs.

  Jones went on, “Mr. Kenton, though not one of us, and a Lincolnite in former days, is nevertheless a man who has done many good things. In my opinion, the best was that he wrote stories many years ago that exposed to the world the kind of beast that J.B. Ottinger is, and this despite the fact that he and Ottinger were both on the same side during the late war. So I hope you’ll make him welcome during this brief time we have remaining together.”

  There was no general rumble of welcome, however, because that last sentence instantly drew all attention away from Kenton.

  A man near the front of the crowd asked, “What do you mean, ‘brief time,’ Pernell?”

  Pernell Jones had the demeanor of a man who has just lost a close loved one. He looked sadly across the group and appeared to be blinking back tears. “My friends, we’ve lived as a community for many a year. Like a family, we’ve been, making our own way, living in peace with one another, being our own little nation. We’ve lived as man was intended to live: free. We ought to be proud of it. I am. I think you are, too.

  “This mountainside has provided a good home for us. We’ve lived quite a few places over the years, but this place here, I think, has been the finest of them all. It’s a place I would have wished could go on forever. But it can’t.”

  Jones paused to let his statement sink in. Kenton watched the crowd shift and whisper and murmur. Kenton did his best to commit the scene to memory, hoping to re-create it on a sketch pad later, and jotted notes to retain the gist of Jones’s words.

  “Few of those out there in the foreign nation who have known of us have understood us,” Jones said. It took Kenton a moment to realize the “foreign nation” referred to was the United States. “They’ve thought of us as hostile and warlike. They’ve assumed we’ve pulled ourselves apart from them because we want to continue to fight them. We all know that’s not how it is. We want nothing more than for them to ignore us as we ignore them.”

  He paused, struggling with rising emotion. “But there are those who refuse to ignore us. There are those who refuse to drop old grudges. As I’m sure you know, I’m talking specifically about Colonel J.B. Ottinger.”

  Mere mention of the name was enough to generate angry grumbles among the people.

  Jones then began to reveal information that, until then, had been known only to a few. The crowd received it in stunned silence, for it was inherently shocking news. “I’ve decided to reveal to you all that on several occasions since the end of the great and lost war, Colonel J.B. Ottinger has made attempts on my life,” Jones said. “I’ve not revealed it until now because I saw no need for it. In most cases, the attempts were rather pitiful, done by inept men Ottinger hired as assassins. Two of these men made the mistake of making their attempts in areas and situations in which I was able to defend myself. One of them admitted—before they died—that Ottinger had hired them. The remarkable thing was that this was done while Ottinger was still in Texas, and we were already here. From that far away, he tried to hire out my assassination! It shows the depth and persistence of the man’s hatred.”

  Kenton could feel the tension and anger of the crowd growing.

  Jones continued: “As time passed, Ottinger hired increasingly better, more dangerous, would-be assassins. Each failed, nonetheless. Some of them betrayed him, making no real effort to kill me, and I suppose satisfying themselves with however much of their pay he’d given them in advance. But I began to realize that, eventually, these failures and betrayals would only make Ottinger grow more hungry for my death. I knew that eventually, he’d involve himself directly in the business of seeing to the death of the man whose shotgun mangled his face.

  “When Ottinger’s wife died and he arranged for transfer to Fort Brandon, only a few miles from here, this bore grim tidings for me…for us. I knew his motive for coming. I knew he was moving himself into a better position, a place closer to me, so he could oversee my demise.”

  Kenton was intrigued. If not for what he’d personally seen of Ottinger’s mad, manipulative obsession in the Gomorrah incident, he’d have probably wondered if Jones were simply being paranoid. But he knew enough of Ottinger to know this was no exaggeration. Back before his disfigurement, Ottinger was known as a handsome and very vain man, quick to pose for portraits, photographs, eager to be at the head of any crowd. It was no wonder that such a man would be so obsessively hateful toward the one who forever ruined his appearance.

  Jones went on. “I had hoped against hope that somehow Ottinger would simply give up, or at the very least, that he would keep his attempts on my life aimed purely at me alone. But it hasn’t happened that way. And now, with this strange event that has happened at Gomorrah, Ottinger has seized an opportunity to compromise us al
l.

  “Our scouts, as you know, have been secretly watching the soldiers since they arrived. In some instances they’ve been able to overhear some important things as well. The gist of what they’ve learned is this: Colonel Ottinger intends to officially blame the destruction of Gomorrah on those of us in this compound. He’ll label us as violent, obsessed, old unreconstructed Rebels who planted a bomb or set a blaze in the town as some absurd act of war against the United States. And he’ll use that as a pretext to overrun us as common outlaws and seditionists.”

  “Pernell, can I ask something?” a man near the front said.

  “Of course you can, Michael.”

  “I saw what destroyed Gomorrah. Several of us did. It fell from the sky, like a ball of fire, and exploded like no bomb I’ve ever heard of or seen. It laid the trees out like twigs and ignited near a whole mountaintop at once. How in the world could Ottinger hope to persuade anyone that we here could come up with an explosive big enough to do that kind of damage? Nobody will believe him!”

  Jones succinctly explained Ottinger’s apparent strategy of relighting the fire and destroying the evidence of the fall pattern of the trees.

  “But we’ve got Brady Kenton here!” someone hollered. “Get him to write the truth!”

  Kenton spoke up. “You can rest assured that I will indeed write the truth,” he said. “I’ve exposed Ottinger once, and will happily do it again.” Particularly since he murdered poor Callon. I’ll see the man tried and hanged!

  “I think we can trust Kenton to be true to that pledge,” Jones said. “But there’s one thing I don’t want Brady Kenton to have to write. I don’t want him to have to describe another Ottinger-led massacre. And that’s just what will happen if Ottinger actually besieges us here. This isn’t a normal man we’re dealing with. This is a man obsessed by hatred, who’ll use his authority and his troops for his own personal ends.”

  “We’ll fight the bastards!” someone exclaimed. “This is a strong fort! We’re strong men!”