The old saddle Alex Gunnison had purchased from Peter Wilson fit his newly purchased horse perfectly, but his own rear very poorly. As he dismounted near a clear brook that ran down from the mountains and went to it to drink, he did so gingerly, his legs sore and chafed, his rump more sore yet.
Gunnison knelt where the brook swirled into a tiny, bay-shaped recess in the stony bank, forming a slow-moving whirlpool of water deliciously cool and fresh. Gunnison looked at his moving reflection as he drank and thought, with secret pride, that his days of roughing it had certainly toughened him. His skin was browned, his face ruddy, his whiskers darkening his jawline. The grime of travel covered his clothing, masking the fine cut of his trousers and the tailored lines of his shirt. With his coat on and his hat jammed down low over his slightly curling hair, Gunnison thought he looked as rugged as any denizen of this territory he was likely to encounter.
He stood, stretching, and fed his horse some oats out of the supply he’d bought from Wilson. He was in an isolated area, no visible dwellings around, no chimney smoke rising from beyond the next hill.
He wondered how long it would be until he reached the community of Paxton. Also, he wondered if Parson Peabody, Rankin, and company had even come this way at all. Though he told himself he was tracking the group, the truth was he was counting much on luck. The Wilsons had said Parson Peabody’s group had headed generally toward Paxton, and on that basis alone he was traveling this way.
He’d just started to sit down on a rock and rest his bones a few moments when the sound of a man’s singing voice reached him from the other side of a hill just beyond the spring. He stood, wary, not fully pleased to be meeting a stranger in this unfamiliar region. He reached beneath his coat and thumbed off the leather thong holding his pistol in its holster, just in case.
The man who came over the hill stopped singing as soon as he saw Gunnison, but after only a couple of seconds, picked up his tune again. He was astride a mule, his long legs sticking down straight as sticks on either side, booted feet in stirrups that seemed set just a little too low. He was armed with a pistol stuck backward in a holster on his left side, and with a battered Henry repeating rifle sleeved on the side of the saddle.
The song was one Gunnison had heard before, either in a saloon or in church. Funny how so many drinking songs and hymns had similar-sounding tunes.
The man pulled the mule to a halt and looked squarely at Gunnison as he finished his song’s last line:
“…and home again I go, to see my sweeeeeeeeeet lady!”
He warbled a little on the extended “sweet,” and grinned at Gunnison when he’d finished.
“Well, now! Did you hear that?” he asked. “I’ve long wondered how them truly good singers make their voice have that little quiver like that, and now here I’ve gone and taught myself to do it!”
“It sounded very good,” Gunnison said. This wasn’t just prudent flattery. The fellow’s voice was indeed a fairly good baritone, and that warble had been worth hearing.
“I thank you, sir,” the man said. “Mind if I have a bit of water from your spring?”
“Isn’t my spring. I’m just passing through.”
“I know. I pass it all the time myself. Just trying to be polite to you, that’s all.”
Gunnison grinned. This cheerful fellow was hard not to like.
The man swung down off the mule and advanced toward the spring. The mule went with him, and they drank together. Gunnison noted that the man drank downstream from the mule, so that what it slobbered out he instantly imbibed. It didn’t seem to bother the man at all, though it did rather bother Gunnison.
“My, my, ain’t nothing better than fresh water when you’re thirsty,” the man said, rising. “Young man, my name’s Peabody…”
Peabody!
“…Millard Peabody. I’d shake your hand if the stream was a bit more narrow, you obviously being the fine young Christian you are.”
“My name’s Gunnison. Alex Gunnison. Pleased to meet you, Mr. Peabody.”
“Got a question for you, young fellow: You ain’t going to rob me here, are you?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, good. I thought you might. A fellow about your age once tried to rob me here at this very spot.”
“It wasn’t me.”
“No, no, I’m sure ’twasn’t. ’Less you’re a ghost. He lies buried over yonder, right where I planted him. I don’t allow myself to be robbed, you see. Really hated to pull the trigger on one so young.”
“You needn’t worry about me, Mr. Peabody. All I ask from you is some information, if you’ve got it.”
“What I know, you’ll know. Ask right on.”
“I happen to be looking for a man with the same last name as you. A sort of preacher that might have passed through here, maybe heading for Paxton. They call him Parson Peabody. I don’t think anybody’s ever told me his first name.”
“Peabody, huh?”
“Mister, you wouldn’t be the same Peabody, would you?”
“Afraid not. Honest truth is, I ain’t named Peabody at all.”
“Beg pardon?”
“I don’t usually give my name out to strangers on the road, young man. For reasons of my own. You ought not be so ready to give yours, if you’ll take some advice from a stranger.”
Gunnison knew this attitude well. He’d traveled with Kenton enough to learn that the farther west of the Mississippi one traveled, the more private a man’s name and business became. Rare was the occasion when one could ask a man what he was doing, where he was going, even who he was, without generating great offense. Even those who readily told their names, as “Peabody” had, often—like he—were not giving their real names at all.
“Wasn’t trying to pry, mister. It’s just that I need to find this Parson Peabody, and some people with him.”
“I know where he is…if you’re looking for the man who said the fire would fall on Gomorrah.”
“That’s him.”
“You’ll not find him at Paxton. He’s done been there and gone. I seen him there, heard him preach. His name’s been fresh on my mind, which is why it’s the name I gave you instead of my real one, which is Tom Smith…or maybe Luke McGlue, or maybe something else entirely.”
“Did he still have a couple of men and a woman with him?”
“He did. One of them was right keen on taking up offerings, I’ll tell you.”
“Where did they go after Paxton?”
“My belief is they went about ten miles on beyond, to Pearl Town.”
“Don’t recall I’ve ever heard of Pearl Town.”
“Ain’t much there. A little town, mostly cabins and shacks. One fine hotel, though. Not that it’s needed. It’s just there because old Johansen wants it to be.”
Johansen…that name tried to connect with some vein of memory or recognition in Gunnison’s mind, but didn’t quite make it. “Who is Johansen?” he asked.
“One of the richest men in the Montana Territory. He owns three good mines there near Pearl Town. Didn’t find them, just bought them from them who did, at a high price that he’s earned back again many times over. He grew up back East somewhere, poor family, and became a sea captain. He made himself rich in shipping, then decided to put the sea behind him, head out West, and get into mining. Built himself a fine house, that big hotel—just because he wanted a fine hotel to lodge the folks who come to visit him—and stuck a big ship’s mast down square in the middle of the town street. They used to call the town Mast Town before Livesay Johansen named it Pearl Town after his wife. What Johansen wants, Johansen gets, you see. He owns not only his mines in his own vicinity, but parts of several others all across this territory, not to mention so much grazing land back in the eastern end of the territory that you could walk all day and never leave Johansen land. Even without his mines, Johansen would do quite well from his ranching.”
“Why do you think Parson Peabody’s at Pearl Town?”
“Because when he left Paxton, he and his friends did it in company of some of Johansen’s men, riding in a Johansen carriage. You know Johansen’s things by the big fancy ‘J’ printed on their side. It’s on his vehicles, his hotel, and half the other buildings in town. Hell, he’d stamp it on the people of his town if they’d let him. Bunch of folks walking around with big ‘J’ letters on their faces, that’s what it would be.”
“I wonder why he’d want to see somebody like Parson Peabody?”
“He probably didn’t. It was probably his wife who sent for them. Strange, strange woman, that Pearl is. Kind of witchy and peculiar.”
“You seem to know a lot about the Johansens.”
“Worked for him a spell while the place was still called Mast Town, back before I went into business for myself. I tended bar in the Johansen Hotel. Poured many a drink for Mr. Johansen during that time. Sort of got to know him, and a more salt-of-the-earth fellow you’d never find. But only one time did I even lay eyes on his wife. She spends most of her time in that big house he built for her, talking to the souls of dead people and doing what she calls ‘spirit traveling.’ Claims she can make herself leave her body and go wherever she wants. All the way to Boston, if she wants, without her body ever leaving her chair. Hell, she might be flitting right over us right now, like a jarfly, and us not even know it.” He glanced skyward, tipped his hat, and said, “Afternoon, Mrs. Johansen.”
Gunnison grinned. “She sounds like a peculiar woman indeed.”
The other put a finger to his lips. “Hush that! She might be hovering around above you, listening.”
Gunnison laughed. “Why would somebody like her want to see a common preacher like Parson Peabody?”
“Common preacher? You call rightly predicting the destruction of a town by fire from above, of all things, as the act of a common preacher? It’s very uncommon, and just the sort of thing to thrill the soul of Pearl Johansen.”
“Well, that makes sense. Tell me how I can get to Pearl Town.”
“Head on like you are, up this road, until you reach Paxton. Take the left fork in the road and bear down toward the river. You’ll reach Joe Rush’s trading post and ferry before long. Once you get across the river, stay on the road for maybe six more miles, and you’ll find Pearl Town.”
“I appreciate your help…Mr. McGlue.”
“Always glad to be of service.”
He went on, traveling the opposite direction from the one Gunnison was going, singing his song again. Gunnison watched him until he was out of sight, and at that moment appreciated very much his line of work, prone though he was to often resent its rigors, the separation from his wife that it inevitably involved, and the frequent loneliness. Still, it brought him into contact with interesting human beings, like this fellow.
He thought, Wait until I tell Kenton about this fellow. This is just the sort of character he enjoys.
Gunnison winced. He’d forgotten yet again. His days of sharing anything with Kenton were forever gone.
Sorrow overwhelmed Gunnison, but also another feeling, one that had been arising steadily, though nonsensically, since he’d left Gomorrah Mountain. It was the notion that Kenton, somehow, was still out there, alive as ever. It couldn’t be, of course—he’d seen his dead body, smelled it, for heaven’s sake—but even so, the feeling persisted, strong enough that Gunnison had not yet felt any strong impulse to rush to notify the Illustrated American of Kenton’s death.
He knew it was only wishful thinking. If only it could be true, though! If only Kenton really could be alive!
This surely must be the way Kenton felt when he thought about his lost Victoria, Gunnison considered. There’s something in us that just won’t let go sometimes, something that won’t let hope die even in the face of the most overwhelming evidence.
Gunnison rested a few minutes more, then remounted and continued on down the road toward Paxton.