Gunnison gave him a moment or two to collect himself, then asked, “Where were you when it happened?”
“In my saloon. The building shook, the roof split apart, half of it gone before you could say billy-hi, and all above you a sky full of light and fire and heat like you never felt. I dove down under a table, and that probably saved me. But the building was ablaze right off. That’s the kind of heat we’re talking about.
“I ran outside, looking for safety. There was none. It was hell out there, people crumpled down like wilted flowers, dead and dying. I saw the Reverend McCree beating flames on himself, trying to put himself out. Old Jed Bloom, who lived in a tent-roof house not far from my saloon, died on his bed, that canvas roof burned away like it was a piece of paper you’d roll yourself a smoke in. I never seen such a thing, and hope I never do again.”
“How did you survive once you were outside?”
“There’s a water trough on the street. I throwed myself into it. The water heated like it was in a pot on a fire, heated fast, but by the time I came out of it, the flash of heat was past.”
“How many died?”
“I don’t know. You never could say how many people were in this town. It was always changing. But I can tell you there’s no more than twenty still left in the town, not counting the soldiers there now. Most others who survived left town right after it happened, right through the burning woods. The rest, dead. All those who are left alive now are them who were lucky enough, like me, to have been indoors when it happened, in places with thick enough roofs and walls to knock off the worst of the heat.”
“So…what do you think it was?”
“I’ll answer you by telling you this: When the call came for Parson Peabody to be given his due offering, he got everything I had in my pocket. What fell on us was the fire of God, and Parson Peabody knew it was coming. So when they said pay, I paid.”
“I thought you said Peabody was already gone when the fire came.”
“He was. But after it happened, him, Rankin, Princess, and one of Rankin’s friends, name of Thomas Shafter, came back into town. The other man who’d gone down with them wasn’t with them when they came back. I suppose he died, or ran off. But the Parson was certainly alive, and Rankin himself was a convert to the Parson. Right in front of everybody Rankin dropped to his knees before Parson Peabody, calling him a prophet and repenting for his sins. And most of us still here, who knew about the prophecy he’d made, knelt right beside him. That man knew the fire was going to fall, Mr. Gunnison. I can’t explain it, but he knew.”
“It was surely coincidence, Mr. Smith.”
Smith firmly shook his hairless head. “You’d not say it if you’d been here. If you’d heard that prophecy and seen how exact it came out, you’d have believed, too. And you’d have paid your offering.”
“Who asked for the offering? Parson Peabody?”
“Not directly. Rankin asked it on his behalf.”
Gunnison frowned. “Did the money go to Peabody after it was collected?”
“I didn’t watch what they did with it. I didn’t care. I just wanted Peabody to go away, and not make it happen again.”
“You believed the parson actually caused the fire to come down?”
“I considered it a possibility. At that point, I could have believed anything.”
“But to think something like this could have been caused by nothing but a common drunkard seems…well, unlikely at best.”
For the first time, Smith seemed offended. “Listen to me, young man: you weren’t here. You didn’t see the sky explode. You didn’t see people’s clothes burning off them while they screamed and ran. You didn’t see Parson Peabody’s face as he predicted it all, like something had just overcome him all at once, some kind of power, or spirit, or something. You can’t judge what happened, nor what anyone here thought about it. I know what I saw, and I can’t explain it.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t intend to—”
“I mean, after what I seen, anything seemed possible. Anything! If you’d been here, you might have believed that the parson was a true prophet, too.”
“Yes. I’m sorry. I really wasn’t trying to—”
Smith tiraded on. “Sure, it seems impossible to you that the parson caused it. But hell, the whole thing is impossible anyway! The sky doesn’t catch fire at night. Hell doesn’t fall from heaven. Trees don’t get knocked flat as matchsticks for no reason. But look around you. It happened! So sometimes the impossible is possible after all.”
“Obviously so. I apologize for offending you. And I hope you’ll let me ask you another question.”
Smith’s anger was mostly vented away now. “Go ahead, then.”
“Where are Parson Peabody and the ones with him now?”
“Gone. Rankin, Princess, and Shafter with him. They got out well before Ottinger and his soldiers came in from Fort Brandon.”
“They’d seen the firefall from there?”
“You could see the thing for miles and miles, I’m sure.”
“Why did they come?”
“I assumed they’d come to investigate it, and to give aid and support to those who were left. Maybe that really was the idea to start with. Now I believe Ottinger has another motive in mind. The sorry old murderer.”
“Why do you despise him?”
“My two brothers were among those his men massacred in Virginia.”
“I’m sorry.”
“There was division in my family during the war, you see. My brothers wore the gray, me the blue. But I lost a lot of my respect for the Union cause after what Ottinger did.”
“There’s plenty besides you who feel the same,” Gunnison said. “Brady Kenton himself despised the man like he was the devil.”
“I think he is the devil,” Smith said, and spat on the ashy ground.
Gunnison asked, “Who is the civilian they brought in on the train with all the scientific instruments?”
“A mining geologist, I think.”
“A geologist? So they think this was a volcano or something?”
“Nobody thinks that. This geologist just happened to be the only kind of scientist they could round up on short notice. They grabbed the first one they could find and brought him in to figure out what happened here. But not really to figure it out. This soldier told me that the Colonel already has made up his mind about what happened, and just wants this man to back up his story for him—to say that whatever happened, happened because of something some person done.”
“How does Ottinger plan to explain it?”
“A bomb. Can you believe that? He plans to claim that a bomb did all this!” Decker Smith made a circular motion with his hand, indicating the surrounding landscape.
“Nobody who has seen this level of destruction could believe it was a bomb,” Gunnison said. “These trees, all blown down in the same direction, burned on one side…anyone who sees them will know it was no bomb.”
“Ah, yes,” Smith said. “But what’s been partly burned can be set afire again and burned completely. That’s Ottinger’s plan. He’s going to rekindle the forest fire, destroy all these trees so you can’t tell any more how strong the explosion was. Then, with this geologist backing him up with an official report saying it was no volcano or nothing like that, he can claim that somebody set off explosives in Gomorrah, caught the town on fire, and that the fire then spread into the woods.”
“So Ottinger doesn’t really believe it was a bomb…he just plans to make that the official explanation?”
“That’s the long and short of it.”
Gunnison asked, “But what about the people who witnessed what really happened, and who have already gotten away to tell the tale? Or, for that matter, the survivors he’s still holding? Once they’re let go, they’d contradict such an explanation.”
“No big problem. Ottinger will just contradict them right back. He’ll say they exaggerated what they saw, or misunderstood it. And let’s face it: Most people will never see this mountain for themselves, and these trees fallen out like they are. Once they’re burned up and the evidence gone, Ottinger can pretty much pass off whatever story he wants to to explain this fire.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Like I told you: talkative soldiers. One in particular. Young private with a loose tongue and a mistrust of Ottinger.”
“I guess the real question is, what’s Ottinger’s motive for telling such a big lie, and going to such trouble to cover the truth?”
“I’m surprised you even have to ask. Can’t you figure it out for yourself?”
Gunnison gazed blankly at Decker Smith, wondering what he’d missed. “I admit that I can’t.”
“Ain’t you ever heard of Confederate Ridge, young man?”
“You mean that place somewhere nearby with the old rebels in it?”
“Not just any old rebels, son. Pernell Jones’s old rebels, these are.”
“Pernell Jones…wait a minute. I remember that name. A Confederate irregular out of Virginia, a raider…”
“And the very man who maimed and blinded Colonel Ottinger with a shotgun blast. You ought to know all about it, if you’re really Brady Kenton’s partner. It was Kenton who told the world the truth about the Ottinger massacre, right in the pages of the Illustrated American. Showed Ottinger for the murderer he is. I’m surprised the man was able to keep up a military career at all after what Kenton wrote.”
“I do remember. He wrote that long before I ever started working with him. My father keeps a copy of that story on his office wall, hanging in a big frame.”
“Therein lies Ottinger’s motive for all of this, young man. He plans to blame Jones and his men for setting the blasts and fires that destroyed Gomorrah and killed all these people. He’ll then have grounds for taking his soldiers in to overrun Confederate Ridge—and I’ll bet you anything you want that Pernell Jones will be killed during the raid. Probably by Ottinger himself. The old bastard had carried a bitter grudge against Jones ever since the war. Everybody knows it. They say that’s why Ottinger came up here from Texas after his wife died. He knew about Confederate Ridge, and wanted to come up near so he could settle his old score with Jones once and for all.”
“One loose-tongued private told you all this?”
“Him and a few others. A lot of it I’d already heard. There’s been a lot of talk about Ottinger drifting up from Fort Brandon ever since he got there.”
“How long will Ottinger keep the survivors confined?” he asked.
“My suspicion is that they’ll send them away soon to Fort Brandon, and there try to convince them that what they remember they don’t remember right, and what they saw was just a bomb of some kind. Ottinger’s already started that process, as a matter of fact. He spoke to the group of us several times, dropping the idea, very lightly, that when you see something bad happen, what is seen is sometimes blown out of proportion by your mind. And he talked a lot about Jones and his Rebs. That confirmed to me that he really does plan to lay the blame for this at Jones’s feet. Now, Mr. Gunnison, I must say good-bye. I’m moving on down the mountain, and I ain’t looking back. God has smit this place, and I want no more to do with it.”
“Mr. Smith, can I quote what you’ve told me?”
“If you keep my name out of it.”
“I will.”
“I’m mighty sorry that Brady Kenton is dead. I’ll miss his work.”
“So will I,” Gunnison replied. “And I’ll miss the man himself far more. Tell me one thing before you go: Which way did Rankin leave? Toward the railhead, or the Fort Brandon Road?”
“The latter. But exactly where he was going, I can’t say. Now, good-bye. I’ve got to get away before them soldiers take a head count and come looking for me.”