Renegade's Pride. B.J. Daniels

here wasn’t just about facing Lillie. It meant facing his childhood and the man this town thought he was. Thought he would always be.

      He’d grown up on the wrong side of everything. It wasn’t just that he lived out in the sticks in a dilapidated old house, that his father was never home because he was on the road with a traveling carnival doing cowboy rope tricks or that his birth mother had taken off when he was ten, leaving him with his father’s mother.

      His grandmother had been nice enough, though too old to discipline him. He’d run wild. That hadn’t changed when his grandmother died and his father brought home Shirley Perkins to be his stepmother. Shirley had a son, Emery, younger than Trask, wilder than him too.

      Fortunately, they hadn’t stayed around long, either. By fifteen, he found himself on his own. No one even knew that his father had died in a vehicle accident while caravanning with the carnival in the Southern states. Trask certainly didn’t tell anyone for fear of where the authorities might decide to put him. The owner of the carnival had contacted Trask and had Wild Bill Beaumont cremated, the ashes sent to Trask in a cardboard box, which he’d buried up here on the mountain, not far from where he had spent most of last night and today.

      Feeling like life just kept kicking him down, he’d developed a bad attitude that went well with his bad temper. The only good thing in his life had been Lillie. Not that most of her family wanted him anywhere near her.

      It was easy to look back and understand why when he’d gotten in trouble nine years ago, everyone thought he was guilty. Also why he’d done the only thing he knew. He’d run.

      But in those years he’d changed, he’d grown up, he’d come to terms with his earlier life, and now he was back. Back to show everyone, especially Lillie, that he’d changed.

      That meant proving first that he hadn’t killed Gordon Quinn.

      He looked out over the valley. This spot on the side of the mountain provided a great view. He could see if anyone was coming up the trail below him. Not that he expected anyone to come looking for him. He knew in his heart, in his soul, that Lillie wouldn’t have called Flint on him. At least that hadn’t changed about her.

      Night was coming on fast now. A cold blackness puddled under the pines around him. Montana’s big sky deepened under a blanket of cloud cover.

      He threw another log on the campfire and watched the sparks rise like fireflies into the night sky. He’d had years to think about who might have murdered Gordon. What he didn’t know was whether he was an easy scapegoat or if he had been purposely framed.

      At the sound of a twig breaking, he picked up the rifle lying next to his bedroll.

      “It’s just me,” came a voice from the darkness.

      He relaxed but still held the rifle until his friend topped the rise. It was going to be a dark night, clouds hiding the stars and moon. There was just enough light to make out his friend Johnny Burrows’s silhouette as he walked toward the fire. He carried a heavy bag over his shoulder, which he laid down with a grunt.

      “I forgot how far it was back in here on foot. I’m not as young as I used to be,” Johnny said. “I brought you groceries.”

      “You’re sure you weren’t followed?”

      “No one knows you’re back in town, right? So no one has any reason to tail me, but I took the usual precautions.”

      When they were boys, they often took off for the mountains rather than go to school. Looking back, Trask knew that it was his fault that Johnny was in trouble with his father a lot of the time. He was the one who talked his friend into skipping school. Johnny was always afraid he would get caught—and often did.

      It was only one of the reasons Johnny’s father, John Thomas “J.T.” Burrows, didn’t like Trask and didn’t want his son associating with him.

      But Johnny had remained a good friend all these years despite some problems nine years ago.

      Johnny stepped to the fire to warm his hands. “You sure this is a good idea?”

      “The fire?”

      “Coming back here like this.” Johnny had stayed in town after graduating from college and ended up working with his father in the construction company where he’d worked in high school. Gordon Quinn had been one of the original partners, along with J.T. and Skip Fairchild.

      Thanks to Johnny, Trask had been able to keep in touch and had known what had been going on in Gilt Edge—and especially with Lillie.

      “You have a better suggestion?” Trask asked, now surprised Johnny hadn’t been happy to hear that he’d come back to clear his name.

      “Maybe you should go to the sheriff and turn yourself in.”

      “Turn myself in to Flint Cahill? The hanging sheriff? Right. Just throw myself on his mercy. I don’t think so. Especially since we all knew how he felt about me dating his sister.”

      “It was more serious than that with Lillie, wasn’t it?”

      Trask said nothing for a few minutes as he picked up a stick and poked at the fire. “I’ve never been able to forget her. It’s the main reason I came back.” When his friend didn’t comment, he looked up at him. “What?”

      Still Johnny hesitated.

      “You aren’t going to tell me that she’s now seeing someone.”

      “No, but Junior Wainwright has been trying to get her to go out with him for the past few years.”

      A fist closed on his heart. “But she hasn’t gone.”

      “No. She’s dated a little, not much, just like I’ve told you.”

      Trask’s first thought was to find Wainwright and set him straight. But that was the old Trask. “She can date anyone she wants.”

      Johnny laughed. “When you told me that you’d changed, I didn’t believe it.” His friend eyed him. “Maybe you have changed. The old Trask—”

      “Would have gone after him,” Trask said “I know. That’s one reason that the sheriff thinks I killed Gordon.”

      “I had to put up with him at the construction company, so I can understand why you got into it with him.” Trask had been working for Gordon on his ranch when he’d caught him beating a horse with a two-by-four. He’d pulled the man off, taken the board away from him and warned him if he ever saw him treating an animal like that again, he’d kill him.

      It had been a stupid threat, but he’d been so angry, so horrified by what Gordon was doing. Unfortunately, several of the other workers had overheard his threat to kill the man. Worse, when Gordon told him to mind his own business and fired him, Trask had told him what he could do with his job. Gordon called him a few names and Trask slugged the man and knocked him down.

      He’d regretted it at once, but it was too late. Gordon threatened to have him arrested for assault and things went downhill from there.

      “I would think things are better at the construction company with Gordon gone,” he said now. Johnny’s father had insisted his son learn the business from the ground up after college.

      Johnny looked past the fire for a moment. “You know I never thought you killed him.”

      “I appreciate that. Unfortunately, you were one of the few.”

      “It was just bad timing. If you hadn’t gotten into it with him that day...”

      “And run,” Trask said with a groan. “At the time, it seemed the only thing to do. Lillie had told me that Flint was looking for me. Even though I swore I didn’t do it, I didn’t even think she believed me. I was afraid I would get railroaded. Flint would have loved nothing better than to see me locked up in Deer Lodge. Anywhere away from his sister.”

      “I just don’t understand what you hope to find out after all these