The Last Renegade (13 page)

In his room, he immediately stowed the guns, holsters, and ammunition in the valise and pushed it back under the bed. He would require more ammunition and a gun belt for the .44. The other Colt felt too light in his hand and didn’t have the range he wanted. It was a safe assumption that Nat Church did not strap on both weapons at the same time. The .45 with its shorter barrel was likely the last chance piece. Kellen decided that was the best use for it, tucked out of sight, perhaps at the small of his back, where it did not show under his duster.

He shrugged out of his coat and threw it on the bed, then went to the bathing room and ran hot water in the tub. He stripped, folding and stacking his clothes on a stool as he removed each piece. Too impatient for the water to reach his chest, he kept it running and slipped into the tub when it was only a few inches deep. He splashed water on the sides and back of the tub, then eased into a comfortable recline and closed his eyes.

Within moments he was asleep.

Mrs. Sterling had her hands full of dough and boys. She punched the dough hard enough to make a small dust cloud of flour rise from the breadboard. “Isn’t your granny missing you about now?”

“Doubt it,” said Finn.

“Don’t you have chores?”

Rabbit rubbed his chin the way his pap did when he was thinking deeply. “No,” he said finally. “I believe we got them all done. Pap asked us to bring the new feller here and that’s what we did.”

“Who is our new guest?”

“Mr. Jones. Mr. John Paul Jones. Just like the admiral.”

Mrs. Sterling grunted softly as she folded the dough and put her fist into it again. “That’s a lot of name to live up to.”

Rabbit nodded. “He says he’s no kin to the other. I asked. We had to explain it all to Finn since he didn’t know who John Paul Jones was.”

Finn took exception to this. “Sure, I knew. I watched him get off the express train same as you did.”

“The
other
John Paul Jones. The naval hero.”

“Oh,” Finn said. “Well, there’re no stories about him in my reader.”

“That’s because you’re still in the primer.” Rabbit could not have put more disdain in his voice. “When you get in the third reader, you’ll learn all about him.”

“Well, I know about him now, don’t I? And I don’t think he’s as interesting as Mr. Coltrane.”

Mrs. Sterling stopped what she was doing and cut the heel from a loaf of bread that was still warm from the oven. She spread a dollop of blackberry jam on it and handed each boy half. “I swear you two have a leg as hollow as Eli Burdick’s.”

“He eats you out of house and home?” asked Finn. “That’s what the Widder Berry says we do. Except she has a hotel, so I don’t think she’s saying it right.”

Rabbit jabbed his brother with an elbow. “Eli drinks. That’s what Mrs. Sterling’s saying. He drinks a
lot
.” He looked at the cook for confirmation. “Isn’t that right?”

“You did not hear it from me.”

“I didn’t. I heard it from my granny.” He jabbed Finn again. “Stop that.”

Finn looked up from the slice of jam bread. “What?”

“Stop sprinkling me.”

Finn’s look of bewilderment was sincere. “I don’t—” A droplet of water splashed his jam bread. Studying it, his eyes crossed. “Hey! How did you do that?”

Mrs. Sterling looked up from her work to see what this fresh round of bickering was about. She was in time to see a water droplet hitting Rabbit’s stubborn cowlick. Her eyes lifted to
the ceiling. Another droplet was squeezing its way between the tin tiles. It hung for a moment, fell, and another one took its place.

“Oh, dear.” She grabbed her apron to clean flour off her hands. “You boys run up to Mr. Coltrane’s room and turn the water off. I’ll find Lorraine.”

Rabbit and Finn stared at her, hardly believing their good fortune.

“Go! Now!” She clapped her hands together to startle them to activity. “Hurry.”

They jumped off their stools and tried to elbow each other out of the way as they ran out of the kitchen for the dining room and the main staircase.

“Should’ve gone the other way,” Rabbit said as they charged up the stairs.

“Was goin’ to,” Finn said, “but you pushed me this way.”

“Did not.”

“Did.”

Rabbit got the edge in the footrace when they rounded into the hallway and he had the inside curve. Finn grabbed the hem of Rabbit’s jacket and hung on. They skidded to a halt outside of Mr. Coltrane’s door with Rabbit slightly overshooting his mark.

Finn grabbed the glass knob and twisted it, but Rabbit got inside first. Neither of them bothered to shut the door but commenced to shouldering each other out of the way as soon as they were inside. They squeezed through the bathing room door together and lost their footing in the puddles on the floor. Finn thumped on his butt and bounced like a skipped stone before coming to a halt beside the tub. Rabbit had more forward momentum and went down face first, grabbing the stool as he fell and upending all the neatly folded clothes stacked on it.

The commotion roused Kellen from a deep sleep. He required a moment to make sense of where he was and then another moment to make sense of what he was seeing. He sat up, reached for the taps, and turned them off. He felt between his feet for the drain plug and gave it a tug. The water level started to dip almost immediately.

He looked over at the boys. They were frozen in place. Finn’s head barely cleared the lip of the tub, and Rabbit was lying spread-eagle on the floor, clutching the stool but none of the clothes. “Don’t you have chores to do at home?”

They shook their heads in unison.

“Huh.” Kellen plugged the drain again and leaned back. He rested his arms on the rim of the tub. He was not abandoning a warm bath. “Did you bring a mop? Some rags?”

They shook their heads again. Rabbit offered, “Mrs. Sterling told us to shut the water off.”

“Seems as though you should find something else to do since I took care of that job for you.”

The boys frowned. There was some kind of hole in that logic, but they couldn’t see their way through to it.

“There are extra towels in the bottom of the wardrobe. Put one by the stove where it will be warm for me and use the rest of them to wipe up. You might as well take my clothes and the towel I was going to use out of here. Wring them out at the sink first, then lay them over a chair in the other room and move the chair closer to the stove.” A thought occurred to him. “And don’t catch anything on fire.”

“Yes, sir,” said Rabbit. “Right away. We can do that.”

Kellen nodded and closed his eyes. He listened to them scrambling to their feet and their under-the-breath jabs, but he did not comment. The boys thrived on an audience. It was no surprise that their grandparents set them loose on the town the moment they found themselves at sixes and sevens.

Rabbit and Finn marched back and forth between the two rooms in the completion of their new chore. Finn poked around a little in the bedroom, trying to see if he could find the guns, but Rabbit caught him and wouldn’t let him out of his sight after that.

Finn was wringing out the last wet towel when the cavalry arrived. It was the Pennyroyal cavalry so Finn was not impressed that Walt was carrying a mop or that the Widder Berry had a bucket full of rags. He also thought it was strange that for all the fuss about a little water spilling into the kitchen, neither one of them rushed into the room. Walt let the Widder Berry go first, real gentlemanly-like.

“Well,” Raine said, surveying the scene. “Rabbit. Finn. You have done an admirable job here. Leave the towel, Finn. I’ll take care of it. You boys need to go. Tell Mrs. Sterling I said you could have a couple of brownies to take with you. She won’t believe you, but you’ll wheedle them out of her anyway.” Behind her, she heard Walt chuckle quietly, and out of the corner of her eye, she saw Kellen’s mouth twitch.

The boys thanked her and darted through the small space that separated her from Walt. When Raine heard the door slam behind them, she set her bucket on the floor. “I’ll step into the other room, Walt. Mop up what the boys couldn’t.” To Kellen, she said, “We’ll speak later.”

Kellen took that to mean she would corner him at dinner or soon afterward. When he walked into the bedroom after Walt left, he found Raine was waiting for him. She was sitting on the bed since every other available surface had some article of clothing hanging from it. Her knees were drawn up and her heels hooked on the iron bed frame. Most surprising, she had thrown his beaten leather long coat around her shoulders and was huddled inside it. Kellen pushed aside the chair that was blocking the heat from the stove, but that was done primarily for his comfort. She had his coat. He had a towel.

Her concession to his modesty was to close her eyes.

“I think you’re peeking,” he said.

“No,” she said. “I’m not. And don’t flatter yourself that I’m lying.” Which, of course, she was. Kellen Coltrane had broad shoulders and a torso that tapered to a vee. The towel hung loosely on slim hips. Droplets of water clung to the ends of his longish hair. Most of them fell when he rubbed the back of his neck. She followed the line of one particular drop all the way to the arrow of hair below his navel. She raised the collar of his coat and ducked her head to hide the flush in her cheeks.

He made a circling motion with his index finger, indicating she should turn around. When she didn’t, he asked, “Do you mind?”

“No, I don’t. I really don’t.”

Perhaps she wasn’t looking, he thought, and then wondered why she wasn’t. If there was ever an opportunity to reverse
their positions,
he
would be looking. He wouldn’t make her guess. His eyes would be wide open.

“I need to get my clothes,” he said. When she didn’t respond, he just shook his head and went to the wardrobe to take out what he needed. He threw it all over one arm and carried it into the bathing room and closed the door.

“I visited Ellen’s grave this morning,” he called out.

The oddness of that struck Raine dumb.

“I wanted to pay my respects.”

She found her voice. “That was kind of you.”

“I saw your husband’s marker just where you said it would be. How did he die? You’ve never said.”

“Didn’t I? I suppose not. Uriah Burdick shot him dead.”

Kellen opened the door and came out as he was putting on a silver-threaded vest. He was wearing black woolen trousers and a shirt with suspenders. “Uriah Burdick? Did I hear you right?”

Raine raised her head above the coat collar like a turtle coming out of its shell. “Yes. Adam was playing cards with the Burdicks. Uriah accused him of cheating, which he was, and killed him for it. Adam had a death wish, Mr. Coltrane. He had a cancer inside him. He knew it before we came out here, and Dr. Kent was treating him, but neither of them held out any hope. Adam did well for a while, did most of the work here on his good days, but then the pain set in permanently and there was no help for it. He wanted to die, and I wouldn’t let him. That’s why he invited himself to play poker with the Burdicks and why he allowed himself to be caught. He was no clumsy card sharper. No one had ever called him out before. He knew what he was doing.”

“I’m sorry.”

“So am I, Mr. Coltrane.”

“Did it happen here at the Pennyroyal?”

She nodded. “In the saloon. At the same table you were sitting at last night. I wasn’t there; neither was Ellen. Adam spared us that. Howard Wheeler came upstairs to find me. Witnesses to the shooting swore the cards were on Adam’s person. They also found a Remington derringer in his boot,
and the Burdicks claimed he went for it. I didn’t challenge anyone because it did not matter. Knowing Adam as I did, I am confident he arranged his own death.”

Kellen picked up his boots from where they rested beside the stove and carried them to one of the trunks. He pushed aside the damp towels spread out across the lid and sat. “Did you think of returning to California?”

“No. Not for a moment. This is home.” She hesitated, looked away toward the window. The view from where she was sitting was an endless expanse of sky. “I think about going places,” she said quietly. “St. Louis maybe. Chicago. I think I would like to see New York.” She pulled her gaze away and returned to Kellen. “But I know that no other place will hold me forever. This place will always call me home.”

Kellen wondered how much of that call came from the graveyard. Adam and Ellen were buried in the shade of a young cottonwood. All the graves were neatly tended, even the ones outside the cemetery proper marked with crude wood stakes that labeled the deceased as scoundrels and no-accounts. It was a serene setting, where the contemplation of life was more in keeping with the purpose than ruminating about death.

“Where else did you go this morning, Mr. Coltrane?”

Kellen finished pulling on the first boot before he answered. “Kellen. I got a horse from Mr. Ransom, who must be your waitress Emily’s father. I thought I might get the lay of the land. I followed the river for a while. Went into the hills.”

“That’s what the boys thought you probably did. Finn and Rabbit saw you at first light. They can see the livery from their bedroom window.”

“They’re observant.”

“They’re nosy. I’m sure they almost killed each other trying to get to the attic window. That’s how they followed your progress.” She waited, but when he didn’t say anything, she added, “They told me you had your guns. Were you target shooting?”

He nodded. “I thought I was far enough away to fire some rounds without being heard.”

“You were. At least no one who’s come in here today
mentioned it. The boys figured that’s what you were going to do. They have it in their minds that you’re a shootist. It was part of my arrangement with Mr. Church that discretion would be observed, and now there are two young boys who can barely contain their excitement that there is a shootist in our midst.” Raine let the coat fall off her shoulders, but she still kept it close. It smelled faintly of horse, saddle soap, and the man…Kellen. “I just can’t help but think Mr. Church would be handling this more discreetly.”

“Mr. Church is dead.”

Raine’s head jerked back. “Forgive me. I forget that he was your friend.”