They retrieved his bag and the remainder of Kenton’s baggage from the barnlike hotel Gunnison had slept in the previous night. Then Currell led him through town toward Kenton.
Gunnison sized up the man who had rescued him. Currell was built for power. Slender in waist and hip, from there up he was as stout as the big evergreens that towered over the squatty cabins on this part of East Third Street.
“What is it about driving an ore wagon that builds such muscle?” Gunnison asked.
“It’s not the driving; it’s the shoveling. I load my own wagon half the time,” he said.
“You drive for a particular mine?”
“Any that will pay me, but mostly for Squire Deverell. Driving, building, general work—you know.”
“Who is Squire Deverell?”
“Mine speculator who struck it rich. Well, not full rich, maybe, but well enough to show.”
“So how’d you get the job of finding me?”
“Deverell heard Brady Kenton was in town and then happened to see him out his window. Recognized him from his picture in the Illustrated American. Deverell likes Kenton’s stories and pictures, and decided to help him out while he was in Leadville.” Currell grinned. “And I figure he’s hoping Kenton will do a story about him, but if you repeat that, I’ll deny it. Anyway, Deverell had me go fetch Kenton off to some quarters he’s got, and then they sent me to that hotel for you. You were gone, and I figured I wouldn’t find you, but then I saw Chop-off working you over and said to myself: ‘Currell, right there’s your boy.’ You’re danged lucky I found you when I did. Chop-off might have made hash out of you and put your name in the papers. Speaking of papers, are you kin to the Gunnison who runs the Illustrated American?”
“My father.”
“Well, how about that! I really like that paper. Especially them pictures. Does Kenton do all those?”
“I do about half, and half the writing too. But I don’t get much of the credit.”
“That’s the way it usually goes in this old life, I’ve found.”
They continued. Gunnison shifted his carpetbag in his hand, grateful he still possessed it. Since the morning, it had been entrusted, for a fee, to the care of the hotel keeper, and if that had been an uncertain option, it had seemed preferable to lugging the bag about all day in a town with more than its share of thieves. Luckily the keeper had made up in honesty what he lacked in hostmanship, and everything Gunnison left with him was intact when he picked it up.
Currell took lots of turns and shortcuts, and soon had Gunnison disoriented. In the end they came out on Harrison Avenue, a broad street, a finer-looking than most in Leadville and lined with restaurants, book and stationery shops, clothing shops, and liquor stores. They strode to a new building that was empty on the lower level but spilled orange light out of two upper windows.
Currell unlocked the street-level door and handed Gunnison the key. Opening with a clean squeak of new hinges, it admitted them into a dark building filled with the scent of fresh lumber.
“Deverell’s going to open a hardware store in here in a few weeks,” Currell said. “The upstairs is furnished out to live in. That’s where you’ll find your partner.”
Light spilled out at the top of the stairway as a door opened. In it Kenton’s familiar form was silhouetted. “Currell?” his voice boomed down. “Did you find my strayed pup?”
“Got him right here, Mr. Kenton.”
Kenton dug into his pocket, produced an envelope, tossed it down. Despite the darkness, Currell deftly caught it.
“There’s a difference between a strayed pup and an abandoned one, Kenton,” Gunnison called up. “You deserted me, remember?”
“I guess I did at that, Alex. Anyway, you’re back now, and I’ve got some drawings to show you. Currell, you come up and take a look too.”
“Nope. Got to go.” Currell touched his hat and spread his mustache in a sociable smile. He walked out, whistling, and closed the door behind him.
Kenton had already gone back inside the apartment. Gunnison plodded up the plank stairs, making a hollow echo in the empty store building.
Kenton had left the door ajar, and when Gunnison walked in, he was surprised by the pleasant furnishings. By big-city standards, this was no fancy place; by Gunnison’s, after the previous night’s suffering, it was luxurious. The walls were crisp white, the floor varnished to a sheen. The furniture included overstuffed chairs, a sturdy table, a sofa, and a big iron stove for heat and cooking. At the end of the room, a door led into a kitchen, and another opened onto a short hallway, beyond which he saw the doors of what were probably two bedrooms.
“Good to have you back safe and sound, Alex,” Kenton said without looking up. He had a pencil behind his ear and another in his hand, and was leaning over the collapsible drawing board that he had designed and custom-built. He was sketching a saloon scene.
Gunnison slammed down the bags. “Don’t pretend you were worried about me, Kenton. You didn’t waste two thoughts on me, and you know it.”
Kenton looked up, heavy brows lifting over green eyes framed with wrinkles. His frameless spectacles worn only when he was working, rode low on his long nose, their sidepieces losing themselves in his graying sideburns. Hair of the same hue shagged down on the sides, flattened above Kenton’s ears by a full day’s pressure from the band of the cattleman’s hat he always wore. His face was tanned and roughly whiskered, for Kenton generally lacked the patience for a careful shaving job. Snaking out of his left sideburn nearly to the tip of his wide mustache was a long slash scar—a memento of his wartime years. His intense eyes glittered in the light of the twin lamps poised on the flat upper edge of his drawing board.
Kenton took a long breath and exhaled as if to signal that Gunnison’s aggravation was unwarranted. “I had some private business to see to,” he said in his sleepy drawl, “and I didn’t figure you for some runt who can’t get by on his own for a while. But I reckon I do make it hard for you to do a proper job of riding herd on me like your pap wants. Maybe you ought to abandon me. Go off and marry Glorietta Sweat, and rescue her from that last name of hers.”
Gunnison didn’t like it when Kenton made fun of his fiancée’s name. So he shot back, “Yes, Pleasant. Perhaps I should do that.”
Kenton’s brow rose, and his mustache twitched. He despised being called by his middle name, the maiden name of his mother. Gunnison gigged him with it only when Kenton made fun of Glorietta Sweat.
Gunnison picked up his bag and went back to one of the bedrooms, which proved to be as nicely furnished as the main room.
“Currell said this place has been loaned to us,” Gunnison called out to Kenton.
“That’s right. We seem to have found ourselves a friend named Squire Deverell. We’re supposed to go meet him in the morning.” Kenton’s pencil scratched out the familiar rhythm of his signature, marking one more finished sketch. “Well, there’s another one branded and ready to turn loose. Come in here, Alex—tell me what you think.”
Gunnison walked over and inspected the drawing. “Very good,” he said. “Wonderful detail.” And indeed it was. There in one corner was an image of Chop-off Johnson accurate enough to make Gunnison shudder.
Kenton yawned, adjusted the lamps, and set to work on a new sketch, working from a small crude one on his pocket pad.
Gunnison sighed quietly and decided to forget his irritation at Kenton. Pardoning the man’s ways was a skill Gunnison had mastered long ago, for Kenton had provided lots of opportunities for practice. Gunnison was getting so good at forgiving that sometimes he sardonically wondered if he should enter the priesthood.
Returning to his room, Gunnison went to bed, rolled over, and closed his eyes. It felt marvelous, and the covers were warm, but the noise of Leadville seeped through the walls like water through paper, disturbing him. Besides that, he couldn’t get the image of Chop-off Johnson’s glittering knife out of his mind. Sleep would take a long while to come tonight.