CHAPTER 8

GUNNISON, furious, leaped straight at the man from behind. He bowled him over hard, landing atop him. The fellow was too surprised to fight back, and lost his grip on the stick he’d been using as a club.

Gunnison balled up his fists and began pounding the man around the head and neck, striking hard, irrational in his fury. It was the first time Gunnison had ever seen a woman being struck so brutally, and it stirred up an animalistic hunger for vengeance. He intended to beat this man until he was either dead or wishing he was.

Rachel began wailing and screaming; the sound simply drove Gunnison all the harder. Then he realized there was something odd about it, and turned just in time to see her coming at him with the same stick the man had lost …

It wasn’t Rachel.

This woman was a stranger. Similar to Rachel in height, build, and hair color, but with a face revealing many more years than Rachel’s, and with an accent that was more southern Georgia than Britain.

In the wake of that surprise, an even bigger one presented itself. The woman began to hit Gunnison around the shoulders with the stick.

“Don’t you hit my Freddie!” she screamed, her voice harsh. “You leave my Freddie alone!”

Gunnison couldn’t believe it. He ceased his own attack and shifted to defense, throwing up his arms much as the woman herself had been doing only a minute before.

“Quit that!” he shouted at her. “What are you doing? I’m helping you, can’t you see?”

“Don’t you beat my Freddie!” she yelled again. “He’s my sweet husband, my sweet husband!”

Gunnison fell off the man, literally pounded off him by the woman. The man helped, too, giving a big upward shove that bucked Gunnison off like he was a horseman on a wild mare.

As he hit the ground, Gunnison knew he was in trouble. He’d made a dreadful mistake, and it would cost him. This was obviously one of those couples who hate and abuse one another, but despite all the pain they generate will abide no outside interference in their private war.

The woman caught Gunnison a hard blow across the temple, stunning him. Gunnison fell to one side. The man kicked him, driving him the rest of the way down.

Stars exploded somewhere deep in Gunnison’s skull. His vision went black, white, black, then dissolved into a sea of swirling colors. Another blow struck his head, jolting him farther toward senselessness, but leaving him still with just enough awareness to marvel that a woman he’d possibly saved from being beaten to death was now seemingly trying to inflict that avoided fate upon her very rescuer.

He felt a big hand dig under his jacket … no, no … the man was taking Gunnison’s own pistol! And Gunnison was losing consciousness and couldn’t stop him.

As Gunnison seemed to be turning and twisting into a deep pool of darkness, he found the strength to pray that he would not meet his end like this, shot to death in a Leadville back lot with a pistol stolen off his very person.

He collapsed facedown, eyes closing, the end surely near …

He was almost unconscious when he heard the blast of the gunshot, deafeningly loud.

*   *   *

Gunnison woke up on a bed, staring at an unfamiliar ceiling while two equally unfamiliar male figures loomed at his bedside. “Hello, young fellow,” the smaller and older of the two said to him. “My name is Dr. Silas Jackson. You’re in my office, and, I’m glad to say, still among the living.”

Gunnison thought hard … it was difficult to do so with a brain still groggy. “I was … shot.”

“You surely almost was,” the second figure said, and as soon as he heard the voice say those four words, Gunnison was transported straight to Texas. The accent was Texan, top to bottom.

So was the man’s look. Gunnison took in a lean, sun-browned face, whiskered; a pair of piercing black eyes beneath thick brows; a firm chin; and trail clothing that managed to hang neatly on his lean and muscular frame despite being rumpled and somewhat dirty. His hat, a rich brown that was not far from black, was still on his head and was the only fully clean item of clothing on him. Almost as meticulously kept was the leather gunbelt strapped around his waist, though Gunnison could see only a little of this because of the long black linen duster the man wore.

“The name’s Best. Jessup Best. Former Texas Ranger, now a detective for private hire.” Best put out his hand for Gunnison to shake, and Gunnison managed despite feeling very weak and sore. “Your name is Gunnison, I think.”

“That’s right.”

“I seen you on the stage, talking.”

“You should have had mercy—shot me then.”

Best threw back his head and laughed heartily. “A man who can keep his humor about him even after being pounded on the noggin by a madwoman and the man who loves to beat her is a man I can admire. You from Texas, Mr. Gunnison?”

“No. Missouri.”

“Oh, well. Can’t win them all. Your partner Kenton is a Texas boy, ain’t he?”

“That’s right.”

“I come to Leadville because of Kenton.”

“So did a lot of people. And quite a few of them booed me when they found out Kenton wasn’t here.”

“Well, I had reason beyond just wanting to hear him speak to find Mr. Kenton.” Best shifted his hat back on his head a little and turned to the doctor. “Doc, reckon me and Mr. Gunnison could have a private moment here? I need to talk to him a bit about some things best kept just between the two of us. No offense intended.”

“No offense taken,” the doctor said. “I’ve got rounds to make anyway. Just leave him lying down for now. I don’t know how bad a head blow he took. Sometimes the effects take a while to show themselves.”

The doctor exited, heading out the door and onto the street, taking his black bag with him.

Best sat down on a tall stool beside Gunnison’s bed.

“Need to talk to you, sir. Tell you a few things and ask you a few questions, too.”

“I’ve got one for you first. How is it I don’t appear shot, when I heard the pistol going off?”

“That was my pistol you heard, sir. I heard the fighting and came upon the scene in time to see that sorry son of a gun just about to pop a cap right into your head with what I think was your own pistol. I drew and shot before he could. He took the slug through the arm. He’ll get to keep his arm, but suffice it to say he won’t be beating his woman with it for a few months.”

“If you’d shot it completely off, I’d have no objections.”

“Shot his head off would have been best. The world don’t need the likes of him. There’s laws about such things as murder though, so I let him live.”

Best had a twinkle in his eye and an ever-present lightness of manner that Gunnison liked. Best was a man confident in himself, his perceptions, and his ability to handle what they told him, and it showed.

Gunnison found himself reminded of Kenton both because of Best’s confidence and the Texan accent. Kenton had never lost his own drawl, no matter how far he’d traveled or how many governors and presidents he’d dined with.

But now Best grew somewhat more serious. “I told you I came here because of Kenton. But it ain’t what you’re probably thinking. I came because I knew Kenton being here would be likely to draw a certain somebody here … somebody I’ve been chasing now for quite a good while, under private hire.”

“Who would that be?”

“Depends on what name she’s using at any given time.”

She? “Would the name she’s using at the moment by any chance be Rachel Frye?”

“It would, Mr. Gunnison. It would. I take it you’ve run across her?”

“Yes. She came to my hotel room, looking for Kenton. And she said there was a man pursuing her.”

“That would be me.”

“If so, then I can tell you she’s very terrified of you, sir, and talks about you like you’re the devil himself.”

“I don’t doubt it. To her I am a devil. Because if I catch her, she’ll wind up back in Texas facing a devil of a penalty for a devil of a crime.”

“What crime?”

“Murder, Mr. Gunnison. The foulest and bloodiest murder seen in Texas for many a year.”