Read Online Dead Man's Hand (Caden Chronicles, The) by Eddie Jones - Free Book Online
Authors: Eddie Jones
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parents happy and me occupied. What better cover than to say he let a kid detective investigate the crime and found no evidence of a murder?
The door swung open next to me. I peeked out and saw Dad enter the passenger car.
“We missed you this morning at breakfast,” he announced, taking the seat beside me. “Everything okay?”
I told him I wasn’t interested in sitting around listening to people debate how they were going to spend their vacation, especially since I had a murder to solve.
“So you still think that scene you saw in the hayloft was real and not just two actors practicing?”
“I know it, Dad. No one can stare at the ceiling that long without blinking.”
“Okay. Just wanted to make sure our vacation isn’t boring you.”
“It’s a lot more exciting than I expected. Thanks for going to bat for me with the marshal.”
“Just keep in mind, Nick. He’s doing you a favor. Don’t do anything that’ll give him or me a reason to regret this.”
Mom and Wendy sat in front of Dad and me. Other passengers were still filtering in and getting settled. At the front of the car the conductor pulled out a small leather book and began reading. I slumped against the window, enduring a ballad about a black crow. The track had veered away from the creek and begun a long, curving climb up the mountain. Below my window a muddy river wound its way through a deep gorge. The train’s whistle rebounded off canyon walls, giving the experience a nostalgic flavor.
After polite applause, the conductor introduced our next lecturer: a “rip-snorting, hard-charging, straight-shooting cow-poke comic named Quick Draw Guffaw.”
I took this as my cue to stretch my legs and wander the train, checking out the dining car (vending machines), gambling car (small booths set up for bingo), and restroom car (Gunslingers, Miss Kitty). Tour completed, I returned to my seat.
“Since many of you are unfamiliar with the ways and history of these parts,” Guffaw announced, “I’d like to give a full and inaccurate accounting of the significant historic events that shaped the Old West.”
Dad nudged me with his elbow. “You listening, Nick?”
I nodded, even though my mind was still on the case. And on the Bible in my room. I wanted to ask Dad if he and Mom had found a Bible marked up with verses about ghosts but decided against it. I figured the less I said about the scary scripture, the easier it would be for me to determine if they were clues to the killer.
Guffaw, wearing white pants, vest, and coat, stood erect, one hand resting on the doorway for balance, the other clasping an unlit cigar. “Years ago in a galaxy far, far away, during a time when writers such as Mark Twain, John Steinbeck, and Louis L’Amour wrote descriptive and sometimes boring novels about the harsh environment settlers faced on the great American frontier, buffalo roamed and ranged and left large pie-shaped piles, all-natural organic fertilizer, on the messy plains. This made tracking, hunting, and killing buffalo easy. You only needed to follow the smell.”
I sat up, smiling. Dad, too.
“Whole states, many of which hadn’t even been invented yet, scrambled to accommodate the buffalo; not to mention those notoriously wily varmints, politicians.”
Dad leaned over. “Better than the poetry reading?”
“Definitely. And way better than the history lectures I got in civics class.”
Wendy turned and glared. “Would you two hush? I can’t hear.”
“Within this rustic, rustbelt political landscape,” Guffaw continued, “young male and female deer and antelope frolicked and fawned all over each other to such a degree that parents often forbade these rambunctious couples from seeing each other outside of school. This led to such great works of literature as
Romeo and Joliet
, from which we get the classic line: ‘Romeo, Romeo, where art thou commuter train to Chicago, oh Romeo?’”
I saw the side of Mom’s face and her furrowed brow.
The door swung open next to me. I peeked out and saw Dad enter the passenger car.
“We missed you this morning at breakfast,” he announced, taking the seat beside me. “Everything okay?”
I told him I wasn’t interested in sitting around listening to people debate how they were going to spend their vacation, especially since I had a murder to solve.
“So you still think that scene you saw in the hayloft was real and not just two actors practicing?”
“I know it, Dad. No one can stare at the ceiling that long without blinking.”
“Okay. Just wanted to make sure our vacation isn’t boring you.”
“It’s a lot more exciting than I expected. Thanks for going to bat for me with the marshal.”
“Just keep in mind, Nick. He’s doing you a favor. Don’t do anything that’ll give him or me a reason to regret this.”
Mom and Wendy sat in front of Dad and me. Other passengers were still filtering in and getting settled. At the front of the car the conductor pulled out a small leather book and began reading. I slumped against the window, enduring a ballad about a black crow. The track had veered away from the creek and begun a long, curving climb up the mountain. Below my window a muddy river wound its way through a deep gorge. The train’s whistle rebounded off canyon walls, giving the experience a nostalgic flavor.
After polite applause, the conductor introduced our next lecturer: a “rip-snorting, hard-charging, straight-shooting cow-poke comic named Quick Draw Guffaw.”
I took this as my cue to stretch my legs and wander the train, checking out the dining car (vending machines), gambling car (small booths set up for bingo), and restroom car (Gunslingers, Miss Kitty). Tour completed, I returned to my seat.
“Since many of you are unfamiliar with the ways and history of these parts,” Guffaw announced, “I’d like to give a full and inaccurate accounting of the significant historic events that shaped the Old West.”
Dad nudged me with his elbow. “You listening, Nick?”
I nodded, even though my mind was still on the case. And on the Bible in my room. I wanted to ask Dad if he and Mom had found a Bible marked up with verses about ghosts but decided against it. I figured the less I said about the scary scripture, the easier it would be for me to determine if they were clues to the killer.
Guffaw, wearing white pants, vest, and coat, stood erect, one hand resting on the doorway for balance, the other clasping an unlit cigar. “Years ago in a galaxy far, far away, during a time when writers such as Mark Twain, John Steinbeck, and Louis L’Amour wrote descriptive and sometimes boring novels about the harsh environment settlers faced on the great American frontier, buffalo roamed and ranged and left large pie-shaped piles, all-natural organic fertilizer, on the messy plains. This made tracking, hunting, and killing buffalo easy. You only needed to follow the smell.”
I sat up, smiling. Dad, too.
“Whole states, many of which hadn’t even been invented yet, scrambled to accommodate the buffalo; not to mention those notoriously wily varmints, politicians.”
Dad leaned over. “Better than the poetry reading?”
“Definitely. And way better than the history lectures I got in civics class.”
Wendy turned and glared. “Would you two hush? I can’t hear.”
“Within this rustic, rustbelt political landscape,” Guffaw continued, “young male and female deer and antelope frolicked and fawned all over each other to such a degree that parents often forbade these rambunctious couples from seeing each other outside of school. This led to such great works of literature as
Romeo and Joliet
, from which we get the classic line: ‘Romeo, Romeo, where art thou commuter train to Chicago, oh Romeo?’”
I saw the side of Mom’s face and her furrowed brow.
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