CHAPTER 6

GUNNISON awakened early the next morning, eager to get up and away from Leadville. He couldn’t stop thinking of his home and his wife.

But first there was breakfast to be had. He left the hotel and went toward the nearest restaurant, looking for flapjacks and coffee.

Gunnison was on his second cup when another man entered the cafe. He seemed familiar, but Gunnison couldn’t immediately place him.

Ah, yes. It was the man who had spoken to him in the hallway of the hotel, while Rachel shrank back into the shadows. Gunnison smiled and nodded a greeting at him.

To his surprise, the man looked at him coldly and seated himself at his table so his back was turned to Gunnison. Gunnison frowned, sipping his coffee and wondering what he’d done to offend the man. It both troubled and annoyed him.

Gunnison paid his bill and was about to leave, but a burst of resolve came over him. He’d find out just what had caused this stranger to be so unfriendly all at once.

He turned and walked over to the man’s table. By now the fellow was busy with ham and eggs, and glanced darkly up at Gunnison only once before focusing his attention on his plate again.

“Pardon me, sir,” Gunnison said. “A word, if I may.”

The man still didn’t look up. “Suit yourself,” he said.

“I’ve always been told that the gentlemanly thing to do is to look at those to whom you’re speaking,” Gunnison replied.

The man did look up, sharply. “I agree—if both parties in the conversation are gentlemen.”

That made Gunnison angry, but more than that, perplexed. “That’s quite an unexpected thing to say to a man you spoke to with seemingly the greatest respect only last night.”

“That’s because at the time I spoke to you, I wasn’t aware of certain aspects of your behavior.”

“I beg your pardon?”

The man glared at Gunnison. “I make no claim that I’m a candidate for canonization, Mr. Gunnison, but I do see myself as a moral man. One who believes in faithfulness within marriage.”

“What are you driving at, sir?”

“Need you ask? You, Mr. Gunnison, are a married man. You said so yourself in your speech—which, let me say now, I didn’t enjoy nearly as much as I told you I did. I was simply trying to be polite to you because you’d been so ill-received and I felt sorry for you.”

“I am a married man. And a faithful one.”

“Faithful! Keep in mind, sir, that my room was next to yours. I heard the fighting and shouting, you and some female most certainly not your wife, shouting and cursing, going at it like cats and dogs—no doubt having gone at it like rabbits before that. Or perhaps she was a lady and refused you, and that was the reason for the row.”

Gunnison could have justly struck the man across the face for those comments, but the content of what was said had caught his attention. “Wait a minute—there was fighting in my room?”

“Why, you know there was! I could hear you right in the middle of it!”

“No, sir. If you heard a man in my room, it wasn’t me. If I may, sir, I’d like the opportunity to sit down here and clarify something that you have misperceived, quite honestly, I assume.”

“Well, I don’t … I’m not really sure I … oh, suit yourself.”

Gunnison pulled back the chair opposite the man and sat down. “There was indeed a woman in my room last night, but not for what most would assume—as you have—were inappropriate reasons. She had come to me in hopes of finding out how to contact Brady Kenton, and I saw that she was hungry and ill. When she nearly fainted, I took her into the room to let her lie down, while I left to buy her food. When I came back, the door to the room had been opened, a couple of things were askew, and she was gone. But I knew nothing of a fight. I swear that to you, before God.”

The frowning man fidgeted. “Pardon me for saying so, but your story sounds suspect, Mr. Gunnison, and I’d disbelieve it in most circumstances … but I did see that woman at the back of the hallway when I came up, and know that you are telling the truth when you say she seemed ill. In fact, I’d noticed the same woman in the crowd while you spoke. She was very ill at ease, looking around, almost distraught. She seemed to be afraid.”

“She was afraid. She told me that there is a man who has been hounding her. She’s been fleeing from him here, while trying to find Brady Kenton at the same time. That’s her tale, anyway.”

“I saw no man giving her any heed when she was listening to you speak.”

“I never saw her from the stage. I was too busy suffering the woes of an unwelcome speaker to notice any particular person.”

The man paused, thinking, then drew a deep breath and thrust his hand across the table. “Mr. Gunnison, I owe you an apology, and I hope that you’ll shake my hand in acceptance of it. My name is Timothy Kempson; I’m a wholesaler of dry-goods supplies, from Cleveland.”

Gunnison shook the hand. “I understand your misperception of the situation, Mr. Kempson. If I’d heard what you did, I’d have perceived it the same way. But all that’s to the side now. At the moment I’m worried about this poor woman.” Gunnison confided to Kempson his suspicion that she was delusional, running from a man who perhaps did not even exist.

“Well, the man I heard in that room, and out in the hallway immediately after, certainly did exist. I assumed it to be you, of course.”

“A voice like mine, then? Someone about my age?”

“About your age, perhaps … but now that I listen to you more closely, in fact, the voice was quite different. More like her voice, in its way of speaking, anyway.”

“An English accent, you mean, like hers?”

“Oh, is that it? Yes! I detected she had an odd way of speaking, but couldn’t account for it exactly.” Kempson actually blushed. “The truth is, Mr. Gunnison, I’m not a much traveled man. This Leadville trip is the first time I’ve been out of Cleveland in fifteen years. I’m embarrassed to tell you that I’d never heard an English accent before. Never met an Englishman or Englishwoman in my life, or if I did, I didn’t know it.”

“Did the man you heard have an accent just like hers, then?”

“Well, with the yelling and all, it’s hard to tell much about accents … but yes. I’d say it was the same accent.”

“Interesting,” Gunnison said. “Then her phantom pursuer—if that’s who he was—is probably also from England.”

“I wonder where she is now?” Kempson said. “She seemed to be very upset, to say the least. Lord, I feel a fool for making such a foul accusation against you. I can generally tell when a man is telling the truth and simply making excuses—and you’re telling the truth.”

“Yes, I am. And I wonder what became of her, too.”

“Did she ever say who is after her?”

“No. I had little opportunity to have much conversation with her. When I came back and found her gone, I assumed she’d simply left. There were a couple of things knocked over, but I didn’t consider the possibility of a fight. The door had been opened, not kicked in, and I’d left it locked. Why would she have opened it to a man she was scared to death of?”

“Maybe she thought it was you, returning with food.”

“Maybe … or maybe she had detected he was coming, and had opened the door to let herself out so she could run. I did think I saw her looking out the window after I went out onto the street. Maybe she saw him out there, too, and decided to run, but got cut off by him in the hall before she could get out of the building.”

“All I know is, there was a man and a woman, screeching and yelling and cursing at each other in the doorway and then in the hall. Well, the man was doing all the cursing.”

“Might he have carried her off? Or did she get away from him?”

Kempson recollected a couple of moments. “Couldn’t tell for sure … but it seems to me they both left on foot, running, her ahead of him. He could have caught her.”

“You didn’t look to see?”

“Yes, but it happened fast. By the time I got my head out the door, they were gone. A couple of others on the floor also took a look, but they were even later at it than me.”

Gunnison felt quite disturbed. Maybe he, like Kempson, has misperceived a few things. Maybe Rachel Frye was neither criminal nor insane. Her male antagonist certainly didn’t appear to be imaginary.

Maybe her claim to be Brady Kenton’s daughter wasn’t a figment, either.

“Mr. Kempson, sir, thank you for your information,” Gunnison said, standing. “I intend to thank you by paying for your breakfast.”

“Why, sir, there’s no need for—”

But Gunnison was already at the counter, laying out money. He gave Kempson a wave and final nod, and headed out the door and back to the hotel.