Ralph Compton The Convict Trail Read Online Free PDF Page B

she said. “I want to thank both of you for saving her life.” The woman kissed Sam on the cheek, then got up on her toes and did the same to Kane. “I’ll never forget you, Marshal,” she said.
    Kane shook his head, his eyes questioning. “Lorraine, why that man?”
    The woman took the question in stride, showing no surprise. “Barnabas told the truth. I was working the line in Abilene when he found me. He married me and gave my daughter his name.”
    â€œNellie Hook,” Kane said. “Was it worth it?”
    Lorraine took a quick glance over her shoulder, then turned back to the tall lawman. “Logan, look at me. I’m a homely woman, no great catch. When Barnabas asked me to be his wife I jumped at the chance. I was already getting too old to work the line, so what was ahead of me? A hog ranch at best, dead from disease or some drunken cowboy at worst. What would happen to my child then?”
    Lorraine unbuttoned the top of the shirt she was wearing and pushed it off her shoulder. Her skin was laced all over with the pale scars of bite marks. “Is living with Barnabas really any worse than this?”
    Kane was shocked into silence, the tracery of arced scars more eloquent than any of the woman’s words. Finally he managed, “Lorraine, I’m sorry. I’m not by inclination a questioning man.”
    The woman buttoned her shirt. “You got nothing to be sorry for, Marshal. You didn’t put the scars there. Men who visit girls on the line act like animals.” She shrugged. “And animals bite. I reckon it’s just a fact of nature.”
    Sam had been listening and watching, and now he said, “Coffee’s biled, ma’am, if you’d care fer a cup.”
    Lorraine shook her head. “No thank you, Sam. I have to get back. Barnabas is eager to leave.”
    â€œWhere you headed?” Kane asked.
    â€œThe Territory.”
    â€œThem’s badlands up there, ma’am,” Kane said. “It just ain’t safe for a lone man to be travelin’ with a woman and child. What’s your husband’s line o’ work anyhow?”
    The woman’s quick eyes revealed her unease. “Marshal, maybe you should ask him your ownself.”
    â€œLogan, if’n you won’t, I will,” Sam said. “Why would a crippled man take a white woman and her young daughter into the Indian Territory? It don’t make a lick o’ sense.”
    â€œNo, it don’t,” Kane agreed. “Maybe I can talk to him.”
    A painful look crossed Lorraine’s face and she laid her fingertips on Kane’s arm. “Be careful. Barnabas loaded his shotgun again.”
    The marshal smiled and touched his hat. “It always pays to be careful, ma’am.”
    Hook’s welcome was less than cordial. “What the hell do you want, Kane?”
    â€œYour woman says you’re taking her and Nellie into the Territory. Is that wise?”
    â€œWhat business is it of your’n?”
    Kane pulled back his vest, uncovering the star pinned to his gun belt. “This makes it my business.”
    For a few moments Hook was silent, making up his mind about something. His scattergun was beside him, propped against the seat. Finally he said, “All right, then I’ll let you meddle in my affairs for the last time.” He motioned with a hand to the wagon bed. “The wooden box back there behind the seat—open it up, see what you see and be damned to ye fer a bad egg.”
    Ken stepped behind Hook and found a box of rough-planed mahogany. He lifted the lid on the box and looked inside. A dozen hemp ropes were neatly coiled, already noosed with the hangman’s knot and next to them, made from rough cotton, was a pile of black hoods. A worn Bible lay on top of lengths of rope long enough to bind a man’s hands and feet, and under those lay a .38 caliber Smith & Wesson revolver.
    Kane stepped to