The Last Renegade by Jo Goodman Read Free Book Online

you?”
    Kellen set his jaw and kept his eyes on the hotel. He spoke softly between clenched teeth. “I’ve never been tempted before.”
    “See?” Finn said to his brother. Then the full import of what Kellen said came home to roost, and he pressed his lips tightly together.
    Rabbit felt compelled to explain. “It was an accident about the guns,” he said. “The bag was heavier than I thought so Finn was helping out. We grabbed the opposite handles at the same time and the bag opened. The Colts were there, right on top. Guess you wanted it that way so you could get at them quick. I figure you for a detective with the railroad, but Granny says Finn’s got a lurid imagination, and he figures you for a shootist.”
    It was an earnestly delivered explanation. Kellen nodded once, accepting it as close to the truth as he was likely to hear. “Your grandfather figures me for a gambling man.”
    Rabbit made a dismissive motion while holding the reins. The mare sidled to the left. “He doesn’t know about the Colts. Besides, Pap thinks everyone’s a gambler, but that’s because our father is. That’d be Pap’s son. On the road to ruin, Granny says.”
    “Your father doesn’t live in Bitter Springs?”
    “Used to. Now he rides the Union Pacific. And plays cards with men who have more money than sense.”
    Kellen supposed that Rabbit was repeating something he heard regularly from one or both of his grandparents.
    “Maybe you met our pa,” Finn said. “Thomas Jefferson Collins.”
    “No, I’m afraid not.”
    Finn’s shoulders sagged. “Didn’t think so.”
    “I don’t play cards with professional gamblers. It’s unlikely that our paths would cross.”
    “Oh.” Kellen heard the boy’s disappointment. He laid one hand on Finn’s knee and placed the other over Rabbit’s doubled-up fists. He tugged the reins to the right and gave Finn’s knee a squeeze.
    They traveled the last one hundred yards to the Pennyroyal in silence.
    Walter Mangold leaned his broom against the porch rail the moment the buckboard stopped in front of the hotel.
    The springy buckboards were sagging under the weight ofthe trunks. “Both these trunks yours, sir?” he asked the stranger in the front.
    Finn spoke up first. “And the bag. Better not forget the bag.”
    “Right,” said Walt. “Why don’t you and Rabbit take one end of a trunk while I take the other? Pass me the reins, Rabbit. I’ll tether Ginny.”
    “I got it,” Rabbit said, jumping down.
    Once Finn was over the seat, Kellen stood. “I’ll take my bag.” He jumped lightly off the wagon and onto the porch steps at the same time Rabbit climbed up to help his brother. Kellen took the valise from the boys, making a fist around both handles to make certain it wouldn’t open, and swung it against his thigh. He was prepared for the heaviness of the bag as he hadn’t been when he carried it off the train. The extra weight of it was now explained.
    Nat Church. Kellen remembered seeing Church bent over in his seat, riffling through his own valise. If he had gotten there a few moments earlier, he might have caught the older man in the act of transferring the guns. It made Kellen wonder what else Church had redistributed. There had been nothing in the former marshal’s bag to identify him as a citizen of anywhere, and the single photograph of a handsome woman they all assumed was Church’s dead wife was a standard studio portrait. The gold lettering in the right-hand corner that might have told them the name of the studio had faded to illegibility. When the doctor suggested that Mr. Church should carry the photograph to his grave, the conductor agreed. The rest of Church’s belongings became the property of the railroad.
    Except for those things Nat Church had not wanted the railroad to have.
    While Walt, Rabbit, and Finn saw to the off-loading of his trunks, Kellen went inside.
    He set the valise at his feet before he tapped the bell at the registration desk. He