by Cameron Judd
“In that case, I can be back there by sunrise, no problem.”
“Jones is nighting over somewhere?”
“Look, I ain’t answering no more questions until I know I’m getting paid for this.”
“You’ll be paid.”
“But you said—”
“I said the same arrangement as before won’t do. I’ll not have you do this unsupervised. I’m coming with you.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“Colonel, you’ll stand out like a sore thumb.”
“I’ll not be in uniform.”
“Listen, Colonel, me and Murph can do this job best on our own.”
“You’ll do it my way or not get paid. You take me with you, no money up front, and you catch Jones and let me take a direct part in sending him to his hellfire reward, and you’ll get twice the money I promised you before.”
Pride’s eyes gleamed. His grin broadened to reveal more black space, but no more teeth.
“You got a deal, Colonel.”
“Just see you don’t fail to catch him this time.”
“We done got him. Murph is keeping watch on the house where he’s spending the night. If Jones should chance to leave before we get back to Murph, he’s going to follow, and leave a clear trail of sign for us. But it looks to me like Jones is doing no more than taking the main road toward the river, and Paxton.”
“The one that passes by the Rush trading post?”
“That’s the road. The trading post won’t be there much longer, though. Me and Murph are going to burn it down. We had a bit of fun there right recent, and got mistreated for it.”
“I don’t care what you do, or to whom, as long as you give me Jones.”
“You’ll have him, Colonel. You’ll have him.”
When Ottinger rode out of Fort Brandon that night, clad in common civilian clothing, he found himself pondering the possibility of not returning to this place at all, never again donning a uniform. But there were such things as pensions and public face to be considered. He’d be back.
But tonight he’d be no military officer and represent no one but himself. Tonight he’d be only James Bertram Ottinger, a man out to avenge himself for an offense that stared back at him every time he looked in a mirror.
He’d received strange looks from the sentinels as he left the fort in the company of the to-them-unknown civilian Robert Pride. There might be questions later, things to be explained.
The hell with that, Ottinger thought. There are always questions. I don’t care what happens as long as I see Pernell Jones die with his own face ruined, like he ruined mine.
He swore beneath his breath. He’d intended to bring his shotgun with him, for use on Jones. He wanted the man to feel exactly what he’d felt when the shot ruined his face all those long years ago in Virginia. He wanted Pernell Jones to die knowing who had killed him, knowing who was the victor at last. Well, if a shotgun wasn’t to be had, he’d just make do with his knife. It would be a pleasure to work on Jones with a keen blade.
“Can you find your way to the right place in the dark?” Ottinger asked Pride.
“Can’t miss it,” Pride answered. “It’s not far off the main road.”
“I want nothing to go amiss this time.”
“Nothing will. I promise. Twice the money you say? You’ll not try to back out on that once the job’s done?”
“You lead me to Jones, you clear the path to let me get to him, and you’ll have your money. Every cent.”
“That’s what I like to hear, Colonel. That’s the very music of the heavens to my ears.”
They rode on, pushing the horses hard.
Chapter 28
In the Johansen Hotel, Alex Gunnison gave up trying to sleep and rose. He couldn’t account for his restlessness, certainly couldn’t blame it on the bed, which was exceedingly comfortable, or on any lack of weariness, for he was quite tired.
Frustration, probably. A sense of wheels spinning but the wagon going nowhere.
He was beginning to wonder if he’d lost all his common sense.
Gunnison walked across the dark room and sat down in a chair at his window. It was very late; most of the businesses in the little town were shut down and dark, except for a couple of saloons up the street, and a dance hall. He could see the faint glow of doorway lamps burning one street over, in a section of town he’d been told wasn’t frequented by the more upstanding sort of folks. Just a typical mining town.
Except for that atypical house right across the street. Gunnison stared at the place, at the high fence that made it a virtual fortress, and marveled at how difficult it was proving to be merely to make contact with the people inside. He knew Peabody was in there, and Rankin. Yet they might as well be a hundred miles away.
If they wouldn’t let him in, he’d just have to wait it out. All he could do. He could, of course, try to come up with some ruse to get inside—“delivering” something on a wagon, or pretending to be a U.S. Marshal on official business, maybe—but he doubted it would work. And once he revealed his true identity and profession, Johansen might have him prosecuted, if he was authentically the journalist-hater he apparently was.
Wait them out. Kenton would do that. But Kenton had been one of those men who was a remarkable contradiction: seemingly restless and mentally active at all times, but also remarkably patient when he had to be. Gunnison wasn’t like that.
A light came on in a window in the Johansen house, drawing Gunnison’s eye. He dusted off the window pane and looked closely. Through the thin curtains on the other side of the window he could see someone moving, back and forth. Pacing, it seemed.
Apparently he wasn’t the only person who was restless this night.
He felt somewhat voyeuristic, watching a stranger’s window from the seclusion of his dark room, but it really didn’t amount to much. He couldn’t even tell if the figure in the lighted room was a man or woman.
The curtain drew back, and he saw the outline of what appeared to be a man’s head and shoulders, and the arm holding back the curtain. He could make out no features, but the man appeared to be rather shaggy-headed, whiskered…
I’d place a wager that I’m looking at Parson Peabody right now, he thought. He’d be ragged like that.
The figure didn’t let the curtain drop, but stayed where he was for at least two minutes, looking back and forth, then finally craning his neck and looking out the window to his left—Gunnison’s right. Then the man opened the window and thrust his head and upper body out, holding to the sill and looking off in that same direction.
Gunnison realized he was looking toward the saloons.
He almost came to his feet when he saw the man draw back inside his window, tuck the curtain up to one side, then thrust a foot through the opening. He poked his leg about outside, then stilled it, apparently having found a small ledge or some other such foothold.
Great day! The fellow was trying to climb out!
Gunnison watched, breathless, as the man shifted his weight, raised his other leg, and stuck it out the window. He was now seated on the sill, upper body still inside the room, legs out.
Don’t do it! Gunnison mentally urged. You’ll fall!
He wondered if he was duty-bound to raise his own window and holler across at the man. The other hotel guests would like that at this hour, no question! But a man’s life could be at risk.
Gunnison rose and began to raise his window. The man, however, remained perched on the window sill as before, not having moved to venture farther out. Gunnison paused, hoping the man was reconsidering his plan, growing sensibly scared about the danger. Gunnison could recall seeing no substantial ledge of any kind outside that house.
He was relieved when the man pulled his legs back inside and closed the window. The curtain fell back down.
A moment later, Gunnison saw the man’s moving silhouette on the curtain, pacing back and forth, back and forth, faster than before.
Whoever
this fellow was, he was even more restless than Gunnison, and judging from his staring in the direction of the saloon, probably craving liquor.
Brady Kenton, lodged safely in the house of Peter Wilson and family, had anything but a restless night. He slept on a rather thin pallet on a hard floor, but like usual, rested soundly. His ability to rest with full satisfaction in almost any circumstance was something that made Kenton’s roving life much easier for him to bear, but which had always tended to drive Gunnison rather crazy. Kenton had always taken a secret delight in that.
He awakened to a marvelous breakfast cooked by Mrs. Wilson, and to a sense of hope and happiness that almost overwhelmed him. Gunnison was alive and safe, he now knew, and performing the very touching act of taking on Kenton’s quest as his own, thinking as he did that Kenton was forever gone. Better still, Kenton also now knew that Rankin was alive, and where he was…and that he had a woman with him.
Dear Lord, let it be her! Let it be Victoria! It was the most fervent prayer Kenton could put forth, and it played through his mind every moment, even as he laughed and talked with the others over breakfast.
Staying the night with the Wilsons had, of course, been unplanned in that they’d stopped only in hope of finding some wine to settle Milo Buckner’s stomach. But there had been much to talk about with these people, and by the time the talking was through, it had grown late, and the Wilsons’ invitation to stay the night had seemed a sensible thing to accept.
Only Pernell Jones seemed uncomfortable with it, Kenton had noticed. He’d gone repeatedly to the front window, looking out toward the rise on the far side of the road. Kenton had asked him what he was looking at, but Jones had answered only with a shake of his head.
Had he not been so preoccupied with the things he was learning from the Wilsons, Kenton might have become a little more concerned than he did about Jones’s strange restlessness.
Kenton was fascinated to hear in some detail the story of Parson Peabody and his prophecy. He was also rather proud of Gunnison to hear that he’d theorized that the destruction of Gomorrah might be accounted for by a meteoric explosion. Kenton had already settled on that as the most likely explanation. Gunnison was beginning to show signs of level-headedness and rational thinking, two things that Kenton prized highly.
They lingered after breakfast only long enough to help Peter and Rory perform a few chores about the place—the standard kind of repayment for hospitality in these parts. Then they mounted up and prepared to move on, Kenton eager to track down Gunnison and Rankin, Jones to reach his brother in Pearl Town. As for Milo Buckner, whose stomach ache had evidently passed if the size of his breakfast was an indication, he seemed happy to be wherever Jones was and to go wherever he went. Kenton admired the man’s devotion to his friend. He was obviously still Pernell Jones’s right hand after all these years.
They said their good-byes at midmorning, saddled and mounted their horses, and rode out.
Jones glanced behind them several times as they rode, as if looking for something or someone, but Kenton remained too distracted to much notice. Milo Buckner noticed, though, and asked about it, but Jones had no more of an answer for him than he had for Kenton the night before.
Ottinger lowered the spyglass. His heart hammered fast and he was full of tense energy and alertness, despite his drinking the night before, and the long nocturnal ride that had brought them to this spot only half an hour before dawn. Here they’d found Murph faithfully waiting, having spent the entire night hidden on the rise, watching the ranch house below.
“I’ll be damned!” Ottinger exclaimed. “That’s indeed Jones—and I’m shot if one of the men with him isn’t Brady Kenton!”
“Kenton? Who’s that?” Murph asked.
As much as Ottinger deplored Kenton, he couldn’t help but look down a little on anyone who had never heard of so famous a journalist. “He’s a man who assassinates other men with words on paper,” he said. “And he’s a man I want to see dead almost as much as Jones. You take care of that for me, gentlemen, and there’s an extra hundred dollars in it for both of you.”
This was heartily welcomed news. “We’ll take care of him,” Pride said. “Who’s the other one?”
“I don’t know,” Ottinger said. “Probably one of Jones’s Confederates. Whoever he is, he’s in damned bad company, and so much the worse for him because of it.”
“We’ll kill him, too, then. Don’t want no witnesses remaining, nohow.”
“We’ll have to follow them,” Ottinger said. “And that worries me. If we keep them in our line of sight, we stay in theirs.”
“Hell, it’s evident where they’re going,” Pride said. “They’re heading toward the river. They’ll take the Rush ferry across it, most likely. Probably stop in at the trading post to eat.”
“There’s a place before you reach that post where a man could set him up a fine ambush,” Murph said.
“Just what I was thinking,” Pride responded.
“Only one problem I can see with that, gentlemen,” Ottinger said. “They’re ahead of us. We can’t reach this ambush spot without passing them.”
“There’s a shorter way than the road,” Pride said. “Rougher, and overland, but it can get us there ahead of them, and they’ll not see us going.”
“We take a risk, letting them out of our sight,” Ottinger said. “What if they turn off some other way? What if they cross the river somewhere besides the ferry, and don’t go by the trading post?”
“They could do that, but it ain’t likely, Colonel. There’s no good road except the one they’re on, and since they don’t know they’re being followed, they’ve got no reason to be evasive.”
“I wonder if they do suspect someone’s after them,” Ottinger said. “Jones has looked over his shoulder several times.”
“All the more reason to give him nothing to spot. I think it’s a reasonable chance to take to assume they’ll keep to the main road. If they do, we can ambush them. If they don’t, we’ll just have to find their trail again and get them somewhere else. It shouldn’t be overly hard to do.”
Ottinger watched the trio of riders moving down the road, growing more distant by the moment.
“You’re sure we can reach that ambush point before they do?”
“If we ride steady, and start now.”
“You know the way?”
“Like the back of my hand.”
“Lead on, then, Mr. Pride. I’m putting my trust in your judgment. Don’t let me down.”
Parson Peabody sat up as the door to his room opened. Rankin thrust his head inside, his face wearing a frown.
“You’re still in bed? Great God, man, the woman’s waiting for you! You were supposed to be giving her more of your ‘teaching’ almost an hour ago! You’ve been sleeping all this time?”
Peabody brushed back his hair with his finger. “Please, Mr. Rankin, I’m sick. I’m really sick…I need medicine bad.”
“Hell, drop this ‘medicine’ nonsense! You’re aching for liquor because you’re a drunkard who can’t live without the stuff, and you may as well admit it. But you know we can’t risk you drinking here. The old woman’ll smell it on you, and that would be the end of this little party! She’s strong against whiskey, and she’d never stand for her little pet prophet drinking any of it.”
“I don’t want to be here, Rankin. I’m tired of this, I’m sick…and I don’t have nothing more to teach her. I’ve said everything I can say, over and over again. And I can’t understand the things she asks me. She believes in some strange things.” He rubbed his face with his hands. “God help me, I need a drink!”
“You’ll get all the drinks you want when we’re finally through here.” Rankin stepped all the way into the room and closed the door. He approached Peabody’s bedside and pulled up a chair beside it. As hard as it was to retain any kind of patience with this simple, whiskey-ruined man, he forced himself to speak softly and kindly. Peabody was at the moment the best moneymaker he’d e
ver found for himself, and he intended to use him until the last cent that could be made through him was in his pocket. “Listen to me, Parson,” he said. “I know this is hard for you. I know that Mrs. Johansen is a strange woman, and talks in ways you and I can’t understand. I know she believes in things you don’t. But it’s important that you go along with all this for now. I believe it’s God’s will for you to. Do you realize who her husband is? Do you realize how much wealth he has, and how freely he lets her spend it? If we can spend even just a few more days here, with you ‘teaching’ her, we’ll leave this place with more money than either one of us have ever seen in our lives.” He paused. “Money for you to use to spread God’s word far and wide. Maybe even build you a church of your own. She’s already paid us more than a thousand dollars, Parson! Far more than we were getting through those collections at your preaching services. And she’ll give a lot more before we’re through.”
In fact she’d already given a lot more than Rankin had revealed. In his possession was a little more than three thousand dollars given to the Parson’s “ministry” by the very odd and eccentric Mrs. Johansen. Peabody knew of only a third of that amount, and Rankin planned to keep it that way.
Peabody listened, thinking hard, but shook his head. “It’s just too hard, not having whiskey. Too hard.”
“You can do it, just a while longer. You’ll have whiskey soon, I promise. But not in this house. We just can’t risk it.”
Peabody looked at Rankin. “I need to know something…about you. Do you really believe in me? That God spoke through me about that fire?”
“You know I do.”
“You still blaspheme God’s name. You don’t seem to care about nothing but the money.”
“The money is what will let us build you a church to spread the word.”
“And you’re cruel to Princess. You were so mean to her you made her go away.”
Rankin’s cheek twitched just a little, under his left eye. Peabody had touched on a sensitive topic. Princess had in fact left him, only the day before. He hardly cared, in one way—Princess had become much less important to him since Parson Peabody had turned into such a money factory. But it hurt his masculine pride that she had deserted him.