CHAPTER 3

The jail was small, dirty, stinking of old coffee and older cigar smoke. The town marshal who ran the place had bleary eyes and the look of too much liquor about him and eyed the Stetson-wearing Kenton with suspicion and Gunnison, who was clad in a business suit, with something approaching disdain.

“Why should I let you see my prisoner?” the marshal said to Kenton. “What business is he of yours?”

“None at all, sir,” Kenton replied with a smile. “But he is a man who just robbed ten banks in succession and killed five officers of the law in the process, and it would be of tremendous interest to my readers if I could sketch this scoundrel before he disappears into the bowels of the courts and then on to the gallows.”

“Ain’t no concern of mine.”

“Perhaps this is,” Kenton said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a roll of bills. He tossed it onto the desk in front of the marshal.

The marshal eyed it without words.

“I could arrest you for trying to bribe an officer.”

“And I could report you to the town fathers for drinking on the job.”

“Hell, they know I do it already.”

“Take the money, Marshal. Give me fifteen minutes with the prisoner. That’s all I ask.”

The marshal reached over and took the money, pocketing it. He gestured with a toss of his head toward the big door leading into the rear cellblock.

Kenton and Gunnison followed the slightly staggering lawman through the door. The prisoner who was Kenton’s target was in a cell on the left side of the cellblock; another prisoner, apparently drunk, was in the other.

“Who the hell is this?” growled the bank robber.

“His name’s Brady Kenton. He’s with the Illustrated American. This other fellow with him is his son.”

“I’m not his son,” Gunnison quickly corrected.

The marshal said nothing, just backed away from the cell and let Kenton go nearer to it. The bank robber was spread out across his bunk, staring at Kenton with a hateful gaze that it seemed to Gunnison was a little less authentic than it had been before he found out who Kenton was.

“I’ve heard of you, Kenton,” he said. “I got no use for scribblers like you.”

“America wants to know you, my friend,” Kenton said, already beginning to sketch. “America is like that, you know. Crime and criminals intrigue us in the land of the free.”

“I didn’t give you no permission to sketch me.”

Kenton just smiled and kept on sketching, and it was obvious that the man really didn’t mind. It was an honor to be the subject of a sketch by the famous Brady Kenton.

It happened fast. The marshal made a strange, grunting sound. Gunnison turned and saw that the drunk in the cell behind him had put an arm through the bars and grabbed the marshal by the neck. His other hand was even then pulling free the Colt in the lawman’s holster.

The lawman wrenched himself free, but the pistol remained in the prisoner’s hand.

“What the—”

The pistol boomed, incredibly loud in the small space, the stench of expended gunpowder instantly burning Gunnison’s nose. The marshal screeched as the bullet entered his thigh, dropping him to the floor at once.

Kenton had wheeled, letting his pad fall, and was making for the prisoner with the pistol before the man could withdraw too far back into the cell to be reached and before he could finish off the marshal with a second shot.

“No, Kenton!” Gunnison shouted.

But it was too late. The pistol went up, booming again, the bullet passing through Kenton’s forehead and exiting the back of his head.…

*   *   *

Gunnison sat up with a grunt of alarm and stared wide-eyed across his desk.

A few moments later he was able to breathe again.

A dream. Thank God it had only been a dream!

But the events in the dream were based on a memory; they had been real, for the most part. The drunken and bribed marshal, the bank robber lounging on his cell bunk, the drunkard in the cell grabbing the pistol … all this had happened several years before, much as Gunnison had dreamed it.

But in the real-life version, Kenton had been able to grab the pistol away even before the prisoner could wound the marshal.

Gunnison closed his eyes and shuddered, unable to shake off the dream image of Kenton’s head being shattered by that bullet.

Why would he dream such a thing?

He knew why. Because he was worried about Kenton. That maybe this time Kenton had run across a situation that he couldn’t get the best of and it had gotten the best of him instead.

Gunnison rose, left the office building, and walked the lonely and dark way to his house, where he climbed into his cold bed and longed for his wife’s return.

*   *   *

Gunnison arrived late at the office the following morning and was relieved that his father was not there to see it. Thank God for business travel!

But James Brooney, his father’s unpleasant and nitpicking personal assistant, was there and stared at Gunnison with his usual cold arrogance. Word of this would get back to Gunnison’s father. Brooney would make sure of it.

“Good morning, James,” Gunnison said brightly as he passed the man who had become his in-office nemesis. He’d long since quit trying to win James over; clearly James viewed him as an heir unworthy to the throne he was soon to receive, and nothing Gunnison could do would change that. So now he just enjoyed what fun he could with James.

“Got something I want you to do for me today, James,” he said in dead serious tones. “I want you to arrange to have the name of the magazine changed before the next edition.”

“Change the … What do you mean?”

Gunnison paused at the door of his office and frowned at James as if he couldn’t believe how dense the man was. “I said I want the name of the magazine changed. Right away.”

“Sir, you can’t change the name of the magazine without your father’s permission!”

“Who says I can’t? I’m going to be the publisher soon enough.… Can’t I call it what I want?”

“You aren’t the publisher yet, sir.”

“Maybe I am. Maybe I got a letter from my father telling me that now I’m the man in charge.”

“May I see this letter?”

“Who are you to make demands on me, James? I’m the one in charge here! And I want to name my magazine … Let me see.… How about … The Flatulent’s Friend? That’ll do. Go have a nameplate designed right away.”

James, who had absolutely no sense of humor and was extremely prudish, reddened nearly to the shade of a tomato. “Sir … I can’t do such a thing! It’s atrocious.… Your father will … Sir, you can’t mean it!”

“Of course I can’t mean it, James. I’m just joking with you. When are you going to learn to laugh a little?” Gunnison swept into his office and closed the door, smiling to himself.