Free Outlaw Train by Cameron Judd Page A

know what was probably luring him inside the emporium. Youthful though Oliver was, he was sufficiently precocious to appreciate feminine beauty as much as an older lad would. The scoundrel of a boy was sneaking into the emporium to ogle Katrina Haus.
    Katrina Haus. Something about the woman unnerved Luke and filled him with suspicion. That whole “communication with the dead” business in particular. Why did that nag at him so? He was struggling to make a mental connection he couldn’t complete.
    It came to Luke that the arrival of Oliver Wicks might be fortuitous. Oliver was a boy of insatiable curiosity, interested in the goings-on of the town, whether his business or not. And because of a quirk in his heritage and upbringing, he had ways of finding answers that often evaded those in the adult world. More than once Luke had taken advantage of information Oliver had provided him. At least three minor local crimes had been solved partially because of intelligence provided by the alwayssnooping boy.
    The quirk in Oliver’s heritage was the background of his widower father, a native Englishman named Philip Wicks. Wicks, a busy and talented carpenter in Wiles, was known across the county for his agility in clambering about on the framing lumber of unfinished houses. He had applied his athleticism in a different manner in younger days back in England.
    Philip Wicks had been a “second-story man,” breaking into and robbing homes by employment of superior climbing ability. The criminal career he’d pursued as a young London man had grown out of his childhood activity as a “climbing boy” and “budge,” a lad who was able to clamber into houses and the like and open them on the sneak to allow burglars to enter after dark. Rumors around Wiles had it that he’d left England to avoid prosecution that would have put him into incarceration for much of his life. Luke had heard the stories but had no interest in old crimes committed in a distant country. As long as Wicks remained a law-abiding citizen of Kansas, the law of Wiles would leave him alone.
    Luke had never seen evidence that Wicks had continued any criminality on this side of the Atlantic, but one remnant of his past was obvious: his son, Oliver, had inherited his father’s climbing skills, love of high places, and interest in the world of rooftops, balconies, and rails. Every citizen of the town was accustomed to seeing young Oliver balancing like a circus athlete on hitch rails, swinging like a monkey from rafters, tightroping his way dangerously down the ridgelines of high roofs, or leaping across deep alleyways from one rooftop to the next.
    Most of the townfolk took an accommodating attitude toward “Oliver the Climbing Boy,” as he was usually designated. He was an oddity, a conversation piece, a sort of town mascot made all the more interesting by the trace of British accent he’d picked up from his father.
    But there were some in the town who held a low view of Oliver Wicks. They saw him not as a colorful and unusual point of personality in their town, but as a misbehaving and potentially dangerous boy driven by base and criminal impulses.
    “After all, Deputy,” Clara Ashworth had once said to him, “the boy has been caught looking in windows. And not windows anyone could look through, but ones only he can reach. He watches people, that vile creature does. Watches them through windows they never would imagine anyone could reach. God only knows what that boy has seen!”
    There was some exaggeration in her accusations, Luke realized…but only some. Oliver indeed had been caught looking into second- or third-floor windows,twice at Gable House Hotel and once at the house of Bill and Beatrice Parmalee, who lived between Wiles and the little outlying community of Doggett. Beatrice had accused the boy of attempting to watch her change clothes, but no one had believed that. The woman weighed well over two hundred pounds and had a face and shape fit for a