CHAPTER 29

RACHEL continued her narrative. “This time, though, it proved even harder to track you. I would hear that you were at one place, working on a story, only to find when I arrived there that you had unexpectedly moved on.” She hesitated, then continued: “I hope you forgive me, Mr. Kenton, but people were saying unflattering things about you in some of these places, saying you were distracted, haphazard, uncaring about your work. Some attributed it to bad habits … overdrinking, if I may say it straight out … while others said you were distracted by your quest for your wife.”

“Both evaluations are true,” Kenton said with brutal honesty. “My professional behavior over the past year has been anything but exemplary, as Alex Gunnison would certainly confirm to you. I have been obsessed with looking for Victoria, and I have been too quick to seek comfort in a bottle. I’m a far from perfect man, Rachel.”

“I would expect nothing different, Mr. Kenton. As it has been taught to me, only one perfect man has ever walked this earth.”

Kenton smiled. “Indeed.”

She went on. “Suddenly, I found your clearest track yet: an announcement that you were to be a speaker at a special celebration in Leadville, Colorado. I was thrilled, but also frightened. The announcement was widely published. Paul Kevington would surely see it, too. By then, I had picked up evidence he was following me once more. Knowing he would go to Leadville was almost enough to make me stay away, but in the end the chance to find you was too irresistible. I went to Leadville, hoping that I could find you before Paul found me.

“But when I reached Leadville, you were not there. Your partner, Mr. Gunnison, was speaking in your place. And indeed Paul had followed me. Scared, desperate, nearly starved, I sought out Mr. Gunnison in hopes that he could protect me and take me to you. He hardly knew what to make of me, but he was very kind, and gave me shelter and food. Then, while he was away briefly from his hotel room, Paul found me. He attacked me in the hotel hallway. I fought him, and managed to escape. I hid, then slipped onto a train and escaped Leadville. Mr. Gunnison had told me that you had come to Denver. So I came here to find you … and now I have.”

Kenton reached out and gently touched her hand. “Indeed you have. And I’m glad. I believe your story. Gunnison told me things about you, things that had been told to him by a man I am now sure was Paul Kevington in the guise of a Texas Ranger. He said you had committed murder in England and killed a family in Texas, and that you would kill me if you got the chance. But I don’t believe that. There is no falsehood in what you have said to me. I’m sure of it.”

“I have told you the full and absolute truth,” she replied firmly. “I am no murderer. The only murderer is Paul Kevington himself. He is the man who murdered my mother in England. And there was no murder in Texas except his killing of the Ranger.”

Kenton suddenly turned his head and raised his hand, signaling for silence. He had heard a noise around the back of the shed. Rachel heard it, as well. Kenton felt her surge of fear like an electrification of the atmosphere around him.

“Who could it be?” she whispered.

Kenton again signaled for her to be quiet. He rose silently, and crept back toward the source of the sound …

An explosion of activity ensued. Someone scrambled wildly away, making abundant noise. Kenton scrambled, as well, but not in time to catch whoever it had been. He caught a faint glimpse of someone vanishing into the night.

Rachel was on her feet. “Was it him? Was it Paul?” Her voice was tight with terror.

“No, I don’t think it was,” Kenton replied. “Kevington wouldn’t run. Kevington, I think, would take this opportunity to deal with the problem you—and now I—pose to him.”

“Then who?”

“Probably just a vagrant. Such types tend to hang about rail yards.”

“Did he hear my story? Why did he run? What will he do?”

Kenton shrugged. “I don’t know, and it probably doesn’t matter. The thing for us now is to get on a train. Look there. I think I see an opportunity for us.”

He pointed toward a train that had slowly circled into the station yard during the latter part of Rachel’s narrative. One of the sliding cargo doors on one of the freight cars was slightly ajar. And at the moment no one was positioned in the rail yard to allow them to see that side of the train. If Kenton and Rachel could move swiftly enough, and if they could avoid drawing the attention of anyone in the locomotive or on the caboose, they could get aboard and hide themselves.

“Now?” Rachel asked.

“Now,” Kenton replied.

They left their hiding place, and advanced swiftly across the dark rail yard toward the open door of the freight car.

*   *   *

Gunnison had never been so worried about Brady Kenton, and that was saying a lot, because over the years he had grown expert in worrying about the man. This time he felt a sense of guilt, as well. He had left Rachel Frye, a woman about whose murderous tendencies he had been clearly warned, alone in Kenton’s room. Now she and Kenton were both gone, and there was blood everywhere in the room.

Maybe she had stabbed him and dragged off his body. Maybe he had staggered off on his own, badly wounded and bleeding. In either case the thing to do now was to find help, even from the very police Kenton had fled. Kenton’s life might depend on it.

Out of breath from running, Gunnison finally arrived at the police station. There was still much activity going on about it, the search for Kenton still under way. Gunnison rushed toward the door.

The door opened when he was within a few feet of it. He jerked to a halt as Frank Turner emerged, slapping his big hat onto his head with a vigor that suggested he was not in a good mood.

He seemed surprised to see Gunnison. “Back so soon?” he asked. “I was just headed for that barroom to wait for you, and get out of this sorry place.” He thumbed over his shoulder toward the station interior behind him.

“Mr. Turner, let me pass,” Gunnison said. “I need to see a policeman. I think Brady Kenton may be badly hurt, or worse.”

“Hurt? How so?”

Though he considered shoving past Frank Turner to go inside, Gunnison quickly related what happened: the dark and empty room, the blood on the floor.

“Wait,” Turner said. “Let me go with you. I can be of more help to you than any man you’ll find on this police force here, and that’s not bragging, just telling the truth.”

“No offense, Ranger Turner,” Gunnison said, “but I think I need an official policeman for this one.”

“If you want help from someone who’s more concerned about doing things right than harrassing folks he don’t like, then I’m your man, not anybody inside that building.” Frank Turner said this so forcefully that the words bore weight. He looked Gunnison squarely in the eye. “Take me to this room. If there’s tracking to be done, I can outtrack any man within the bounds of the city, and once again it’s not bragging, just telling the facts as they are.”

Gunnison hesitated, stammering something vague.

“Listen to me,” Turner pressed. “My cousin in there cares not a whit about Brady Kenton, about you, or about anything but using the law to his own ends and for his own satisfaction. He’s been ranting and going on about all the trouble he intends to bring on Kenton, whom he hates as a ‘Lincolnite.’ The great war never ended for my cousin, you see. If you allow Henry Turner to search for your friend, you’re not likely to see him found alive.”

That was enough to persuade Gunnison. “Let’s go,” he said.

He and Frank Turner headed back in the direction Gunnison had come, Gunnison all but running, Turner doing his best to keep up on his limping leg.