The Last Renegade Read Free

in spite of the fact that he looked nothing at all like the hero described in all twenty-two of the wildly popular dime novels. The fictional Nat Church was in his twenties, easily half this stranger’s age. Nat Church of the serialized adventures had hair as black as tar and eyes so impenetrable that light was neither emitted nor reflected. The man sitting beside Kellen had a face that was infinitely more expressive, eyes that were as gray as the wiry strands of hair at his temples, and a thin face with deep lines that were a map of life experience. The hero of
Nat Church and the Sleeping Detective
and
Nat Church and the Hanging at Harrisonville
had wide shoulders and wore a beaten, buttery-soft brown leather duster, not a woolen coat with the heavy collar turned up to hide a pencil-thin neck, and Church, the hero, sported scuffed brown boots with tarnished silver spurs, not ones that were polished to a military shine. “Are you going to let me see your wound?”
    “Can’t…lift the book…I’ll bleed out.”
    “You were stabbed, is that right? Not shot.”
    “How you figure?”
    Impatient with the man’s need to hear an explanation, Kellen decided to humor him. He said, “You didn’t board the train injured. It’s my habit to watch people at the stops, see who’s coming and going. I saw you walking the platform; saw you waiting to climb aboard. Hands at your sides. Patient to take your turn. Watchful but not worried. I saw enough to be confident that whatever happened, happened after you stepped on the train.I didn’t hear a gunshot. No one in this car reacted as if they’d heard one either. That leads me to conclude you were stabbed.”
    There was humor in Mr. Church’s voice as he whispered, “‘Leads me to conclude.’ You a lawyer?”
    “No.”
    “Sound like a lawyer…maybe a politician.”
    “Neither.”
    Church nodded. “Can’t abide either one. Thought maybe I lost my touch for takin’ a man’s measure.”
    Kellen was curious about what made this Nat Church choose him, but he didn’t take the dangling bait. Maybe it was simply what he’d been reading at the time. He might have been passed over completely if he’d been holding
The Pickwick Papers
.
    “Who did this to you?”
    Again, the small smile. “Ain’t it the way of life that most things is done
by
ourselves,
to
ourselves?”
    “Philosopher? The Nat Church I read about is none of that.”
    “Even a good writer can’t put all of me on the page.”
    “I see. So are you saying you stabbed yourself?”
    “Hardly. Not such a fool as that. Just tryin’ to say that I had some part in it.”
    Kellen watched the man take a short, steadying breath, drawing air through clenched teeth. In spite of the pain, it seemed to Kellen that Mr. Church wanted to take his time, tell his tale slowly in the fashion of Scheherazade, as though he might be granted a night’s reprieve if he could spin the ending to another chapter.
    Kellen put his next question bluntly. “Do you know the name of your murderer?” He gave Nat Church full marks for not flinching. Perhaps he had something in common with the man he purported to be after all.
    “Never saw it coming…crowded in the aisle…people trying to get settled.”
    “One car back? That’s where I thought you boarded.”
    Mr. Church tried to suppress a cough but couldn’t. He pressed the ball of his free hand against his lips.
    Kellen passed him a handkerchief.
    “Thank you.” He wiped his mouth and crumpled thehandkerchief in his fist. “Yes, one car to the rear. Did I say I never saw it comin’?”
    “You did.”
    “Should have seen it. Half expectin’ it since…since forever. Knew what I was up against. Wife would’ve tried to stop me.” A short laugh had him raising the handkerchief to his mouth again. “Damn me if that don’t hurt.”
    It had not occurred to Kellen until now that there might be someone to notify. “Who should I tell? How can I find your wife?”
    “Can’t.