Free The Last Renegade by Jo Goodman Page A

“I don’t share his interests. It’s a disappointment to him.” He briskly rubbed his hands together and returned to his seat on the trunk. “What about you? I seem to recall that you’re a newcomer to Bitter Springs. Am I remembering that right?”
    “I wrote to Mr. Church that I was.”
    “Then he might have told me. I still have Finn’s voice rattling in my brain, so it’s difficult to recall where I heard it.”
    “Yes, well, Finn knows something about everyone in town. Rabbit knows the rest.”
    “They take after their grandfather.”
    “Their grandmother. Heather Collins knows it all, and if you forget that, she’ll remind you. I’ve spoken to the boys about the guns. They gave me their word that they won’t tell anyone else what they saw in your bag.”
    Kellen was not confident he could trust the boys, but it was clear to him that she did. “Good to know.”
    “I came here from Sacramento.”
    “With your husband.”
    A brief hesitation, then, “After Adam, not with him. He wasn’t my husband until I got here.” Her glance swiveled to the empty glass on the table. “I think I will take that drink if you don’t mind.”
    “Of course. Let me see if I can find another glass.”
    “There should be one in the bathing room.”
    He returned with it in short order, splashed it with a good measure of whiskey, and handed it to her. “How long ago did you arrive in Bitter Springs?”
    “Six years ago. Adam won the Pennyroyal in a card game.”
    Kellen’s eyebrows lifted. “I’ve heard of things like that. Never knew them to be true.”
    “This is true. He won it in a poker game that lasted three days. It came down to Adam and Mr. Israel Dunkirk of the Pacific Coast Railway. They had already cleaned the lint from the pockets of every other man at the table. The Pennyroyal was just one of the holdings he took away.”
    “The game was here?”
    “No, Sacramento. Adam had no business being at that table, except that he parlayed a small stake into a bigger one and eventually bought himself a seat.”
    “He was a gambler?”
    “Not as a rule.”
    “Lucky then.”
    She shrugged. “Not as a rule. I’ve always assumed he cheated.”
    Kellen laughed.
    “I’m serious,” she said.
    “I know you are.”
    She laughed then, too, and sipped her drink. “This is good whiskey. Very smooth.”
    “Better than the stock in your saloon?”
    “Buy a few drinks and decide for yourself.”
    “I might.”
    “I’ll reimburse you. Room and board. Your drinks. Whatever you like.”
    “You’re hiring me?”
    “Yes.”
    “The same arrangement you offered Mr. Church?”
    “I don’t know your experience. Perhaps you aren’t as practiced.”
    Kellen refrained from pointing out that he was alive while Nat Church was very much not. Standing, he picked up the Colt with the ivory grip, hefted it once, and then expertly spun it clockwise, then counter, and finally pretended to holster it at his side. After a pause, he set it back on the table.
    “That’s all well and good, Mr. Coltrane, but nimble fingers don’t necessarily mean a steady hand. I want to know if you can shoot the eye out of a chicken hawk when he’s circling the henhouse.”
    “Probably not. Did Nat Church say he could?”
    “No. But it might be useful.”
    “If we were after chicken hawks. But we’re not, are we? I was thinking you were after larger prey. The Burdicks, for instance.”
    “I’m not after anyone,” she said.
    “Protection,” he said. “A peacemaker.”
    “Yes.”
    “There might be a price.”
    She closed her eyes briefly. “I am not naïve.”
    Kellen was not certain he agreed. “Someone else has to make the first move.”
    She nodded.
    “I thought that had already occurred. Didn’t you tell Church there were men already dead?”
    “I did, but every circumstance is different, and except for…”Her voice trailed away. She cleared her throat and finished. “The proof of fault has not been