The Last Renegade (48 page)

The saloon fell quiet as John Paul Jones took a moment to look every man with a gun pointed in his direction in the eye. What he saw made him sink slowly into his chair.

Raine looked up at Kellen, her voice gentle but clear. “I think Nat Church would agree with what you said earlier. Sometimes there’s no accounting for the way a story ends.” She rose on tiptoe and whispered in his ear. “Even when you’re the one writing it.”

When Judge Abel Darlington returned to Rawlins after presiding over the trials in Bitter Springs, he showed everyone in the courthouse his signed copy of
Nat Church and the Chinese Box.
In the event that someone construed the novel as a ten-cent bribe, he was careful to explain that he had accepted the gift when the trials were over, not before they began. Regardless, he told his clerk, as satisfied as he was to finally pass sentence on John Paul Jones and Uriah and Eli Burdick and oversee the apprehension and incarceration of Isaac Burdick, and as pleasing as it was to take possession of
Nat Church and the Chinese Box
with the author’s bold signature and personal inscription on the cover, the most gratifying aspect of his visit to Bitter Springs was quietly changing the status of a certain marriage from fiction to fact.

The judge slid his copy of the Nat Church adventure across the desk for his admiring clerk to study. “The author told me afterward that my signature on that marriage record was infinitely more valuable to him than his would ever be to me. You should have seen the way he looked at his wife when he said it. I can’t help but think well of a man like that.”

The clerk nodded, mildly distracted as he picked up the dime novel and examined the cover. “I’m sure, Judge, but tell me, what is Nat Church really like?”

Many of the passengers on No. 38 of the Union Pacific line found it a pleasant diversion to wonder aloud about the couple in the private Pullman coach. As the couple rarely left their luxury accommodations when the train stopped on route to New York, there was little opportunity to observe them. The assistant conductors and porters were polite in taking inquiries but remained maddeningly mum. Someone who had boarded the train in Rawlins remembered a crowd of people at the station in Bitter Springs and the crowd still being there when the train pulled away. He thought that was where the couple had gotten on because folks on the platform waved hats and handkerchiefs, and two little fellas ran alongside the train until they just plum tuckered out.

The man from Rawlins couldn’t tell anyone much about Bitter Springs except that he heard the town had a decent hotel and might be the first in the territory to get a government dam and reservoir. A couple of farmers were interested in what he had to say about the water, but it wasn’t information that appealed to the gossips and speculators.

Some passengers remembered there was an unusually long stop when the train reached Westerville. It went well past the twenty minutes generally allowed for filling the water tanks, and the passengers who got off to eat at the station restaurant were afforded the unexpected treat of ordering, eating, and digesting their food before the call to board forced them to leave their tables. The stop became worth noting when no one remembered seeing the couple in the restaurant, although many people recalled seeing them leave their coach. Some folks said they walked arm in arm toward the town. Others said it was merely shoulder to shoulder on account of the cold. One passenger repeated an exchange she overheard between two porters: The couple went straightaway to the graveyard.

The No. 38 train rolled on with all of the questions that followed unanswered.

Kellen put down his pen, leaned back in his chair, and stretched his arms wide. It was indeed a luxury to spread his arms and unfold his legs and not have to consider the comfort of his fellow passengers. “I could swing a cat in here and not hit anyone.”

Raine did not look up from her reading. “Hmm.”

He grinned, watching her. She was curled in the corner of a thickly padded upholstered bench, close enough to the stove to feel its pleasant heat but not so close that she did not need a shawl over her nightgown. It lay loosely across her shoulders; she absently stroked the fringe where it clustered just below the knot between her breasts. A small vertical crease appeared between her eyebrows as she slipped the page she had been reading under the stack of papers in her lap and concentrated on the one on top.

“Maybe two cats,” he said. “Different directions.”

“Hmm.”

“You haven’t heard a word I’ve said.”

“I’m pretending not to hear. Let me read.”

Kellen supposed he should be gratified she was engrossed, but then he was struck by the thought that perhaps she was pretending that as well. He observed her for several long minutes before he finally surrendered to niggling doubt.

“I need to hear it from you, Raine. Is it good enough?”

His question brought her head up sharply. “Good enough? Don’t you know?”

He shook his head, gave her a slightly sheepish smile. “I never know.”

“It’s better than good enough, Kellen. It might be your finest story yet. I can say that—”

Kellen put out a hand to stop her. “‘Better than good enough’ was good enough. I have modest expectations. I don’t need to hear more than that.”

“You interrupted me, and now you have to listen. This is going to sell as fast as Mrs. Sterling’s cherry pie on Washington’s birthday.”

“Fast is good. More would be better.”

“Naturally it will be more. Mrs. Sterling only makes a dozen pies.”

He laughed. “All right. That is an excellent distinction. Thank you.”

Raine lifted the pages briefly. “Will your father read this?”

“Once it’s published.”

“You won’t show it to him before that?”

“We’ll reach New York before we get to New Haven. I’d like to put it in my publisher’s hands first.”

“You could show it to your father and then send it to New York. You usually send your work by post, don’t you?”

“Usually, yes.”

“Then…”

Kellen shook his head. “You haven’t met my father, Raine, so you can’t know, but you will meet him, and then I believe you’ll understand. He has always wanted something for me that I’ve never wanted for myself. I couldn’t possibly disappoint him as frequently or as deeply as I do if that were not the case.”

“But to call yourself the black sheep…you’ve never been that.”

“An overstatement, but not as large as you might think. I write as Max McCartney for a reason, Raine. My father teaches Homer, and he frequently reminds me that Nat Church can never be mistaken for Ulysses.”

“Nat Church is heroic. So are you.”

He grinned again. “You’re going to say that to my father, aren’t you?”

“Yes, and more besides.”

“Then I can honestly tell you that I have never looked more forward to Sunday dinner with all my family present.”

Raine pressed her lips together. Humor edged out censure. “You shouldn’t expect that I will be disagreeable. I merely intend to hold firm to my opinions.”

“Well, that will certainly win the admiration of my mother and sisters.”

“Your father?”

“Grudging respect.”

“And your brothers?”

“Rob will want to marry someone just like you, and Michael will wish he had.”

Laughing, she waved him and his comments away. Her eyes returned to the page.

Kellen clasped his hands behind his head as he slid lower into his chair. “Did you know that some passengers believe we’re European royalty?”

She sighed. “You’re not going to allow me to read anymore this evening, are you?” When he shook his head, Raine set the pages aside. “European royalty? Who told you that?”

“One of the porters. Hayes, I think. The soft-spoken one.”

“Hmm. Do we have a particular country to call our own?”

“Holland is popular. Denmark also.”

“I’m sure they’re both lovely, but I fancied the rumor that we were Annie Oakley and Frank Butler.”

“It would be unusual for them to travel without the rest of the show.”

Raine’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve
met
them?”

“I have. I traveled with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show for a spell.” He dropped his folded hands to his lap. “Let’s see, that was about a dozen stories ago.
Nat Church and the—
”

“Shooting Contest,
” said Raine. “I know. I read it. Honestly, Kellen, you might have told me before now. What was she like?”

“Tiny.”

“And Mr. Butler?”

“Taller.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’ll read the book again.”

“That would be more instructive than relying on my memory.”

Raine snorted. “You don’t forget anything.” She cocked her head and regarded him for so long and with such intensity that he actually squirmed.

“What is it?”

“Did Miss Oakley and Mr. Butler teach you to shoot?”

Kellen relaxed. “Well, I could shoot a gun before I met them, but they showed me the fast draw and how to hit what I was aiming at more often than I missed.”

“And what about picking the locks at the Pennyroyal? It seemed to me that you were in and out of the rooms at will.”

“
Nat Church and the Best Gang.
Tutoring compliments of a Chicago hotel thief.”

“I know you’re a better card player than you let on. I watched you lose when you could have won, and that isn’t easy to do.”

“Hmm.
Nat Church and the Frisco Fancy.
”

“You sent a telegraph message to your brother without Mr. Collins’s help.”

“Morse Code. I learned that writing
Nat Church and the Sleeping Detective
.”

Raine nodded slowly. “I also thought you were unusually confident when it came to orchestrating the trial at the Pennyroyal.”

“My brother is a lawyer.”

“Somehow I don’t think that accounts for it. I’m torn between
Nat Church and the Committee of Vigilance
and
Nat Church and the Hanging at Harrisonville
.”

Humor tugged at Kellen’s narrow smile. “I might have learned a thing or two while I was researching those stories.”

Raine fell quiet, thinking. “Researching them? I think you lived them. When you stepped off the train in Bitter Springs, did you know that you would have to call on every one of those experiences?”

“When I stepped off the train, I didn’t know there were two guns in my bag. I didn’t know there was a redheaded woman waiting for me or that a killer was sleeping down the hall from my room and that another hired gun would take up the room next door. What I did know was that a man who called himself Nat Church died sitting beside me. It seemed to me that I should find out why.”

“I don’t think anyone else could have done what you did for Bitter Springs, but if you’d told me at the outset that you wrote
dime novels, that you were Nat Church’s creator, I would have sent you away.”

“It’s my recollection that you tried.”

“You wouldn’t go.”

“Couldn’t.”

Raine drew her knees toward her chest and hugged them. “You made them all turn on one another. I never thought I would see a Burdick give up another Burdick.”

“It was the interview with Uriah that made me think it was possible. I watched him set his sons against each other.”

“I saw that same thing over the years,” she said. “But I never realized there was a way to take advantage of it. That was your doing.”

He shrugged. “I had a lot of help. Ellen’s jury. Walt. Sue Hage. Mr. Collins. Everyone came forward. And then there was Mr. Jones’s testimony at Uriah’s trial. Judge Darlington could not get him to
stop
talking.”

Raine remembered. Jones had hoped to save himself by implicating Uriah in every one of the murders that he or Reasoner had committed. They had all been ordered, and Jones offered his bank deposits as proof that he had been paid. As it happened, Mr. Webb at the Cattlemen’s Trust kept very good records.

Uriah hanged, but then so did Jones. Eli, with his knowledge of the murder contracts, was found guilty as a conspirator and followed Isaac to prison escorted by a half-dozen U.S. marshals. There was no one left to come to his rescue. The vast Burdick holdings were scheduled to be sold at auction. The interested parties were mostly local ranchers and Eastern speculators. First, though, there had to be a new appraisal by a legitimate government surveyor. Ted Rush made sure everyone heard him say that Uriah Burdick was spinning in his unmarked grave.

Raine smoothed her nightgown over her knees and tucked her bare toes under the hem. “Nat Church made a good choice when he found you on that train.”

“I don’t know that he could have gone any farther. Or maybe he stopped when he did because he saw what I was reading and liked the irony of it.”

“Or maybe he just liked the looks of you. I did.”

Kellen’s narrow, secretive smile played about his mouth. “You thought I was a shootist.”

“You made certain I thought that, and I can own that it was a comfort in the beginning, but I also came to realize you were a good man, and that was infinitely more reassuring. I trusted you would do what was right even if it wasn’t what I wanted.”

“I am certainly glad that you kept that last part to yourself. I would have folded as quickly as Jem Davis with a pair of sevens.”

Chuckling, Raine left the bench in favor of Kellen’s lap. She nestled, content in the cradle he made for her. “You would have bluffed. You
did
bluff. I gave you any number of opportunities to tell me something about you that I didn’t know, and you never once offered that you were Nat Church.”

He regarded her with an arched eyebrow.

“You know what I mean,” she said. “I had to arrive at the truth on my own. That’s when you finally folded. I think everyone else in Bitter Springs had already seen your hand.”

“I gave away a lot of copies of
Nat Church and the Chinese Box
to make certain they did.”

“It was an inspired move. Masterly, really. You packed the saloon.”

He shook his head. “
You
brought the men in, Raine. I only needed to give them a reason to trust that I could end it.”