The Last Renegade (49 page)

“You know that some of them will never be convinced that you’re not Nat Church.”

“Just as long as there’s no confusion in your mind.”

She nodded, smiling softly. Her eyes took him in. “Oh, there’s none. I know the fundamental difference.”

“And that is?”

“Nat Church might save the day, but he never wins the woman.” She leaned in, whispered against his ear. “Or wins her over. Take me to bed, Mr. Coltrane.”

Their narrow berth wasn’t far, but his writing desk was closer. They pushed the working manuscript aside. Pages fell, scattered. Some slid under the upholstered bench. Others fluttered to the floor under the chair. Several more slipped under
the stove, where the heat toasted the edges and curled the corners. One page, the first page, traveled farther than any of the others, resting for a time on the lid of one of Kellen’s trunks before finally falling into the sliver of space behind it.

While all the other pages were later collected and reordered, much of that accomplished between laughter and lovemaking, neither Kellen nor Raine could put their hands on the first one. Their search for it, which occupied them now and again between Chicago and New York, came to nothing, and although Kellen regretted the loss of the page, especially as he was forced to rewrite it, he did not regret how he had come to lose it.

An ending with Raine cradled in his arms would always be more satisfying than any beginning without her.

October 1889

Bitter Springs, Wyoming

Finn Collins decided he would stare at Priscilla Taylor’s braid until his eyes crossed. The braid, perfectly plaited with every hair still in place at the end of the day, rested along the line of Priscilla’s ramrod straight backbone. Priscilla never slumped on her bench. She never fidgeted. The braid never moved except when Priscilla raised her hand to answer a question; then it slid ever so slightly to one side and the tip curled like an apostrophe. Or maybe a comma. Those punctuation marks were suspiciously similar, except one was high and one was low. It was no wonder he got them confused.

“Finn?”

Finn did not stir. In point of fact, he did not hear his name being called. He sat with his elbows on the desk, his head cupped in his hands. His chin and cheeks rested warmly between his palms. His eyes had begun to relax. Priscilla had two braids today. Two ramrods. And when she raised her hand to show everyone that she knew the answer to something no
one cared about—like the name of the fifth president—the tail of one braid curled in a comma, the other in an apostrophe.

“Carpenter Addison Collins.”

Finn came to attention with the jerkiness of someone suddenly roused from a deep sleep. His elbows slid off the edge of the desk, his head snapped up, and his feet, which had been swinging in a lazy rhythm under the bench, kicked spasmodically before slamming hard to the floor. He blinked widely. There was only one person who called him by all three of his proper names.

“Gran?”

Thirteen of Finn’s classmates were moved to laughter. Finn’s brother, Rabbit, was an exception. He glanced over his shoulder at Finn and rolled his eyes. Somehow he managed to convey disapproval
and
embarrassment. Just like Granny.

Finn felt color rush into his face and knew his cheeks were glowing like hot coals. If someone poked at him, he was sure he would burst into flames. For himself, he didn’t mind so much. In some ways it would be a relief. More concerning was that no one would be safe from the conflagration. Priscilla’s braids would take to the fire like a candlewick. She’d whip her head around then, he was certain of it, and shoot tongues of fire at anyone who tried to save her. Stupid girl. She would burn down the school. Probably the town. It would be his fault because no one ever blamed girls. To save the school, the town, to save everyone, really, he had to act. The solution was clear.

He yanked hard on Priscilla’s offending braid.

She squealed. It was a sound no one had ever heard her make before, but everyone knew how a piglet sounded when it was in want of its mother’s teat. Priscilla squealed like that, and all eyes shifted to her. A moment later, so did the laughter.

Priscilla swiveled on her bench seat, slate in hand, and swung it at Finn’s head. Finn ducked instinctively, but he was never in any danger. Miss Morrow stepped in and stayed Priscilla’s arm. Out of the corner of his eye, Finn saw her calmly remove the slate from Priscilla’s hand and set it gently on the desk. She had a small, quiet smile for Priscilla, one that was more understanding than quelling. For the class, she effectively used a single raised eyebrow to stopper the laughter. It was
Finn for whom she had words. He held his breath, waiting for the pronouncement.

“Finn, you will stay after the others leave today.”

Finn kept his head down, his eyes averted. He knew better than to look pleased. He kept his voice small, penitent. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Is there something you want to say to Priscilla?”

Now Finn looked up and stared squarely at Priscilla’s back. “Sure is. Prissy, that pigtail is nuthin’ but a temptation. And now that I heard you squeal, well, giving it a yank now and again is a thing that can’t be resisted.” He risked a glance at Miss Morrow. For reasons he did not entirely understand, she looked as if she was going to choke on her spit. “That’s all I got to say, ma’am.”

Tru Morrow covered her mouth with the back of her hand and politely cleared her throat. “We will speak later, and you can write your apology.”

Finn’s narrow shoulders slumped. Staying after school with Miss Morrow was nothing but a pleasure. Writing, whether it was an apology to Priscilla or “I will raise my hand before I speak” twenty times, well, that cast a long shadow on the pleasure of Miss Morrow’s company. His pap would tell him that a man has to pay for his pleasure, and it seemed to Finn that his pap was proved right again. He tucked that thought away so he could use it when Pap asked him to account for his behavior today. There was nothing like flattering a man with the rightness of his thinking to stay another lecture on the same subject. Granny would be a little trickier. She wasn’t impressed by flattery, and it seemed that a man paying for his pleasure had a different meaning to her because when Pap said it she snorted and set his plate down hard. If she didn’t have a plate in her hand, she just cuffed him.

Finn sighed. He would consider the problem of his granny later. Miss Morrow was walking to the front of the classroom. His eyes followed her. The carefully tied bow at the small of her back perched as daintily above her bustle as a bird hovering on the edge of its nest. It was as severe a temptation as Priscilla Taylor’s braid. Even if he could keep himself from tugging on
it, he still might blurt out the question he was asking himself: How did she tie it?

Finn sat on his hands. For the moment, it was the best way to stay out of trouble.

Tru Morrow stood to one side of the door as she ushered her students out. She made certain they left with their coats, hats, and scarves. Most of the girls wore mittens or carried a muff. The boys, if they had gloves, wore them. Those with mittens simply jammed their hands into their pockets. Mittens were for girls and babies, she’d learned. Finn had explained it to her.

She closed the door as soon as the last student filed out. The bitter in Bitter Springs didn’t refer to the quality of the water, but the quality of the wind. Born and raised in Chicago, she had been confident that she understood cold. She was familiar with the wind blowing over the water of Lake Michigan, funneling ice into the collective breath of the city. That was frigid. It was only October, and she was coming to learn that there was a qualitative difference between frigid and bitter. Here in the high plains country, wind seared her lungs. It was so cold, it was hot, and even when she sipped the air carefully, she seemed to taste it at the very back of her tongue. Bitter.

Tru lifted her poppy red shawl and drew it more closely around her shoulders. The wool felt substantial and warm and smelled faintly of smoke from the stove.

“Finn, would you add some coals to the stove? Half a scoop. That will keep us warm long enough for you to write your apology.”

Finn stood. Tru sensed his uncertainty as she passed him.

“What is it?” she asked without pausing.

“Well, it’s just that you’re awful confident that I know what I’m apologizin’ for.”

Careful not to smile, Tru took her seat behind her desk. She folded her hands and placed them in front of her where Finn could see them. Her posture was correct, spine perfectly aligned, shoulders back, chin lifted. She envisioned herself as a model of rectitude, and she was impressed with herself even
if she could see that Finn wasn’t. It was probably her eyes that gave her away, she thought. She had been told they were a merry shade of green, a color, according to her father, that could not be easily captured by an artist’s palette because the substance of it was a quality of character as much as a quality of light. It was a fanciful notion, but one she brought to mind when she was in danger of taking herself too seriously.

Now was such a time. She relaxed her spine and leaned forward, unclasping her hands as Finn moved to the stove to add coals. She smoothed back a wayward coil of hair that had been pushed out of place by her brief encounter with the wind. She could not help but notice that Finn’s eyes followed this small movement, and when her hand fell away from her hair, he remained exactly as he was a moment longer, transfixed. She could only guess at what he was thinking.

“Are you tempted to give my hair a tug?” she asked.

Finn blinked. “How’s that again, ma’am?”

“I wondered if you were tempted to yank on my hair.”

He ducked his head, cheeks flushing, and hurried to the stove. “Uh, no. No, ma’am.” Finn used the sleeve of his shirt like a mitt to open the stove door and toss half a scoop of coals inside. “Wasn’t tempted at all.”

Tru watched Finn poke at the fire and warm himself in front of the stove long enough to provide an explanation for his rosy cheeks. “I just wondered,” she said. “After all, my hair is the same color as Priscilla’s.”

Finn turned his backside to the stove and stared at her. “I sure hope you’ll pardon me for setting you straight, Miss Morrow, but you ever hear tell of a man named Rumple Sticks?”

“Rumplestiltskin?”

“That’s the fellow. You know of him?”

“I believe I’ve heard of him.”

“That’s good because I couldn’t explain it all. Rabbit’s better with stories than I am. Well, anyway, I can see you want me to get on with it. It’s like this: Priscilla’s got hair that puts me in mind of the straw that Mr. Stiltskin wanted for his spinning wheel, and your hair is what Mr. Stiltskin spun it into. So you see, one color’s not at all like the other. Yellow. Gold. I got
some idea there’s a big difference.” Finn rocked back on his heels. “Besides, you got your hair lassoed so tight to your head that it would be hard to know what thread to pull.”

Now it was Tru who blinked and blushed. “How old are you again, Finn?”

“Ten. Or I will be soon enough.”

“So you’re nine. Maybe you shouldn’t be in such a hurry to grow up.”

Finn moved away from the stove and shut the door. “That’s what everyone says. Even Rabbit. He’s eleven and thinks he can say things like that now. Sort of like he’s wise. He’s not.”

Tru knew better than to make any judgment on Rabbit’s wisdom. Finn was certain to carry the tale, and it did not take much provocation to start a war of words between the brothers. She’d seen them use elbows and fists like periods and exclamation points to punctuate their threats.

“Sit down, Finn, and clean your slate. I trust that given sufficient contemplation you’ll arrive at what you need to write.”

His shoulders slumped, and he jammed his hands in his pockets. “Suppose I will.”

“You’ll read it to the class tomorrow morning, first thing after prayers.”

He grimaced but slid into his seat without a word.

“And perhaps at the end of the day, you will be so kind as to help me clean all the slates.” She reasoned that if she found small tasks for him to do, he might not choose getting into trouble in order to remain in her company. He would probably tire of that soon enough. This was her first encounter with a boy’s infatuation, and she had been slow to recognize it for what it was. Her sense was that it would pass quickly. She thought she might be a little sorry when it did.

Tru left the schoolhouse ten minutes after Finn shuffled out. He had done everything he could think of to draw out his time. She admired his creativity, was even a tad flattered by his motives, but was careful not to encourage either. She listened with half an ear when he prattled on about the most recent
visitor to Bitter Springs and nodded at what she hoped were the proper intervals when he gave a full account of the birth of a foal in Mr. Ransom’s livery just that morning. He also added a rapid, if somewhat incoherent, story about the milliner’s daughter accepting Mr. Irvin’s proposal of marriage. Finn wasn’t clear if it was Millicent Garvin who was marrying the undertaker, or her younger sister Marianna, but there was definitely a wedding being planned because Mrs. Garvin was ordering catalogues and silk from Paris.

Tru thought that even if she hadn’t been apprised of some of the town’s more interesting citizens when she interviewed for the teaching position, it would not have taken her long to identify Heather Collins, grandmother of Rabbit and Finn, as the one who invariably had her ear to the ground and her tongue positioned for wagging. While her husband was the station agent for Bitter Springs, and privy to all the comings and goings of the trains and travelers, he was still merely the human hub. Mrs. Collins, on the other hand, was the human hubbub.

Tru had a suspicion that Finn’s ear was similarly pressed and his mouth similarly positioned as his grandmother’s.

Pulling her scarf up so that it covered her mouth and the bottom half of her nose, Tru stepped out of the schoolhouse. Wind whipped at her skirts. She ignored the flare of her petticoats but surrendered to the shiver that rattled her teeth. She tucked her chin against her chest and watched her step on the uneven ground as she bucked the wind.