“Watch out, you young fool!”
The shout, delivered in a coarse and unpleasant voice, was all but lost in the clatter of wagon wheels. Alex Gunnison scrambled out of the way of the speeding wagon just in time, fell at the edge of the boardwalk, dropped his carpetbag, and twisted his head in time to see his wife’s precious letter, in which he’d been engrossed for the fifteenth time that day, fall under the wheels. It was smeared into the moist dirt street by the front wagon wheel and shredded by the rear one.
The driver, a freighter who’d just unloaded his wagonload and was speeding off with utter unconcern for public safety, hollered some foul words across his shoulder at Gunnison and was gone in a great rumble.
Gunnison stood, slipped in a previously unnoticed heap of fresh horse dung, and promptly fell again, across his own well-stuffed carpetbag.
He reddened as onlookers on the boardwalk laughed.
Hard-hearted town, he thought. First they try to run you down in the street, then laugh at you for surviving.
He stood, successfully this time, and looked at the ruined letter with a sad sigh. A thought that was becoming more frequent passed through his mind again: The life I lead is not one for a married man.
He retrieved the tattered letter, not because it was in any shape to keep, but because he didn’t want some stranger picking up its fragments and reading the intimacies his beloved wife, far away in St. Louis, had written to him.
Picking up his carpetbag and hat, he strode on toward the railroad station. Turning a corner, he passed a church just as the doors opened and a crowd surged out, all smiles and cheerfulness. A moment later, through their midst, a bride and groom emerged. Gunnison paused to watch the celebration, and smiled as the bride paused to kiss a man, evidently her father, on his whiskered cheek.
Gunnison began to feel even more dejected. He longed to see his own wife. He sadly fingered the ruined letter in his pocket.
What kind of profession was this traveling journalist business, anyway? For the sake of Gunnison’s Illustrated American, America’s most popular national magazine—the creation and namesake of publishing magnate J.B. Gunnison, Alex Gunnison’s own father—Alex Gunnison was spending more days of his precious young manhood away from his beloved wife than with her. Their most frequent contact was through letters and wires.
At the time of his own wedding, the plan had been for him to give up his life as assistant and professional shadow for the famous, eccentric Brady Kenton, America’s best-known writer/illustrator and the single greatest asset of the Illustrated American.
It hadn’t worked out that way. Gunnison was nearly five years into his marriage, and still traveling the country with Kenton, doing his best to keep up with him, and when possible, to keep him out of trouble. Both jobs were difficult at best.
He should never have let Kenton talk him into staying on this long. It was all Kenton’s fault—Kenton and his blasted persuasiveness.
Making Gunnison’s life all the harder was Kenton’s tendency to wander off by himself, leaving Gunnison alone and clueless to try to figure out where he had gone, and why. It was no way for a man to treat a partner. Yet it was so much a part of the life routine of Brady Kenton that Gunnison had come to expect it.
Its familiarity made it no less annoying, though. At times like this, abandoned by the man who was supposed to be his professional partner and tutor, Gunnison could very nearly hate Brady Kenton. How many elaborate showers of abuse had he rehearsed, honed, polished, to heap upon the man when next he saw him? But he knew he wouldn’t. As always, when he saw Kenton next, he’d be glad to see him. Anger would give way to relief, and they’d go on as before, through the same familiar, obnoxious cycle.
Mere days ago, he had been with Kenton in eastern Montana, working on what was to Gunnison a rather boring story about ranching, when Kenton had vanished. He’d received a batch of mail forwarded to him from the Illustrated American home office. Kenton went through it, turned brooding and moody and incommunicative all at once—a mood that alternated, oddly, with barely restrained bursts of excitement. Kenton had studied one letter intently, over and over, and jotted down notes on every available scrap of paper. He drank a little too much, too, as he sometimes did in times of depression or excitement.
Then, before Gunnison knew it, Kenton was gone.
Once Gunnison realized that Kenton had abandoned him yet again, he began the search-and-follow process that had led him this far. Some of Kenton’s left-behind scribbled notes gave him the lead he needed. Gunnison had taken the train west.
As best Gunnison could ascertain from the notes, Kenton was headed for the mountains and the mining town of Gomorrah, southwest of where Gunnison was now, to meet a man who had written to him, promising some valuable information.
What that information purported to concern astonished Gunnison so much, though, he could hardly believe he was rightly interpreting the notes.
“Well, well! It’s Alex Gunnison himself! I do believe my eyes haven’t deceived me!”
The voice from behind, unexpected and instantly identifiable by its slightly high pitch and subtle Irish accent, made Gunnison cringe. He turned reflexively, too quickly to hide his expression of surprise.
The sight of Paul Callon’s grinning face, ruddy and broad, topped with curling dark hair and framed by thick sideburns, greeted him. Callon advanced, hand outthrust, small eyes moving quickly, sizing up and evaluating Alex Gunnison from head to toe.
Gunnison knew what Callon was doing: He was examining him for any possible clues about why he might be here in Greer City—a map or train ticket sticking out of a pocket, perhaps, clothing freshly rumpled in the back to indicate recent long travel on train or stage, the amount and type of dirt on his shoes, and so on.
Callon fancied himself an expert in observation and deduction. He overrated his detective skills, but as a journalist for the National Observor and Gallery, a publication that fought hard for market inroads against the Illustrated American, was a talented and formidable competitor. He was an excellent writer, one of the nation’s most skilled illustrators, and a work-alone reporter with the aggressiveness of a rabid dog. Everyone associated with the Illustrated American, including Gunnison, wished he’d find a new line of work.
Nevertheless, there were professional courtesies to maintain, civilized men and all that sort of thing. Gunnison put out his own hand. “Paul, good to see you,” he lied with a smile.
“Ah, yes. Always a pleasure when our paths cross,” Callon lied right back, pumping Gunnison’s hand with vigor. “But I must say I’m not surprised to see you. You’re on your way to Gomorrah, no doubt.”
Gunnison was surprised. “Well…yes. I am. Are you?”
“Oh, certainly. Astonishing, isn’t it? Have you any theories about how to explain it?”
“Explain it?”
“Yes. What do you think it is? What caused it?”
“Caused it…”
Callon laughed. “Are you going to repeat everything I say, Alex?”
“No. No…I’m sorry.” He surrendered. Time to confess. “Paul, I’m afraid I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Callon cocked a brow. “Then why are you going to Gomorrah?”
“To find Brady Kenton. I think he’s already gone there.”
Callon’s face fell. “Kenton is in Gomorrah?”
“I have reason to think so.”
“Blast it all! I’d hoped I could, at the least, be among the first journalists there.”
“Paul, obviously something has happened at Gomorrah that I don’t know about.”
Callon seemed stunned to hear Gunnison say this. “You mean you actually haven’t heard about the Gomorrah incident?”
“No, I admit I haven’t.”
“Well, surely Kenton has—why else would he have gone there?”
“Personal reasons, I think.”
Callon looked condescendingly smug. “And he didn’t take you with him. He’s abandoned you like this before, hasn’t he?”
There was no point in trying to cover up what was, unfortunately, a well-known truth within Gunnison’s professional circles. “Yes. Several places. Dodge, Leadville…”
Callon suddenly grew serious. “Alex, how long has Kenton been in Gomorrah?”
“I don’t really know. He could have been there a couple of days, I suppose. Why?”
Callon blanched. “Oh, my. Competitor though he may be, I’m not happy to hear that. I hope he’s all right.”
Gunnison stepped forward and grabbed Callon by the collar. “What do you mean, ‘all right’? Why shouldn’t he be? Exactly what happened at Gomorrah?”
Callon, stunned by Gunnison’s aggressiveness, said, “There was a fire. A very big one…many people killed. If Kenton was there…”
“A fire?” Gunnison let go of Callon. “Is that all? Well, I would think Kenton would certainly have every chance of holding his own in a fire.”
“This was no ordinary fire. It was more an explosion. Very big. Very.”
“What kind of explosion?”
“That’s the very question I hope to answer. It’s the one I assumed you were going to Gomorrah to answer yourself.”
“A bomb of some sort, you think?”
“From the sound of what I’ve heard, it would have to be one very big bomb.”
“Where did you hear about this?”
“Rumors, really. Second-hand talk. But I know for a fact that there have been people who have come out of Gomorrah, telling a whale of a story. They say that fire fell from the sky, burned the town, killed most of the residents, and exploded all across the mountaintop night before last.”
“Fire from the sky?” Gunnison laughed heartily.
Callon glared at him. “You think it’s just a wild story. Maybe it is. But the rumors are persistent. I think there’s something to it. It’s at least worth investigating.”
“Pardon me if I find the notion of fire from above a little hard to swallow.”
“Then don’t go to Gomorrah. Leave the story to me.”
“I’m going to Gomorrah, but I’m not chasing some sort of absurd story. I need to find Kenton. I hope there’s a train line leading to Gomorrah. I was on my way to the station to find out.”
“I’m ahead of you on that one. I’m afraid there is no rail line up Gomorrah Mountain.”
Gunnison sighed. Bad news. “A stagecoach, then?”
“Cheer up. There’s no rail line up the mountain, but there is a new spur line that goes to the base of it.”
“Good.” Gunnison put on a false smile. “So I suppose you and I are going to be traveling partners for a spell.”
“So it appears.” Callon smiled right back, just as fulsomely.