Keeper of the Books (Keeper of the Books, Book 1)

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Book: Read Keeper of the Books (Keeper of the Books, Book 1) for Free Online
Authors: Jason D. Morrow
heads. Every capable man in the country will be looking for you.” He held out a hand. “Please…the book.”
    Nate looked down at the leather-bound manuscript in his hands. Could it be true? Was there a world within these pages? An escape? It didn’t make any sense. But the disappearance of Stew and Ralph didn’t make sense either.  
    The sound of gunfire broke into his thoughts and each of them jumped to the floor. Glass and wood particles showered all around them as the sheriff and bounty hunter unloaded their ammunition on the cabin. They didn’t care who they hit. They were going for the kill. Nate looked at Joe as they covered their heads. He had gotten his little brother into all of this. What would their mother have thought of them now? What would their father have thought? They hadn’t been raised to be men like this. Was this what his life had come to? Was he destined to either be hung by a rope or shot through the chest?
    But Montgomery offered a third option.
    “The book!” he repeated over and over as he covered his ears. “The book is everything! It means more than I could ever explain. You were meant to be a part of it!”
    Meant to be a part of it? Perhaps Montgomery was crazy.  
    “Throw me the book, or we will all die!”
    The bullets weren’t letting up. The bounty hunter probably wasn’t running out any time soon either.  
    Joe held his pistol up. “We can take them Nate! We’ve been in worse fights than this!”
    Nate shook his head. This was supposed to be the last job. He knew all about Levi Thompson. Joe was the best marksman around, but Thompson was never a man to let up. He was a relentless bounty hunter, hungry to catch his prey, especially the Cole brothers.  
    Nate gripped the book and tossed it toward Montgomery. At first, he thought he had made a mistake when the man’s eyes lit up so, but Montgomery quickly recovered once the book was in his hands.  
    The firing ceased. Despite ringing ears, Nate could hear footsteps moving toward the cabin. He pulled a pistol from its holster and got to his knees. He let off three shots before ducking back down as more firing ensued from the outside.  
    “Look at me!” Montgomery commanded. He was flipping the pages of the book. “Normally, you could flip to the end of a book, or to the beginning. But do you see this?”
    The pages just kept turning. It never stopped no matter how long Montgomery kept his fingers on the pages.  
    “There is no ending to it,” he said. “Not yet. All you have to do is start reading it and you will be there…away from here!”
    The sheriff and bounty hunter were getting closer. Nate could hear them shouting orders at each other between shots.
    Montgomery held up the open book. “Look!” He pointed to the pages. One of them was blank but the other…
    Nate didn’t understand. On the left page, the text was moving. It was as if some invisible person was writing the text onto the paper as they stared at it. “What is that?”
    “That is what is happening in Galamore right now,” Montgomery said. “The following pages are blank because it is the future. It hasn’t happened yet. Turning to the front of the book is the past.”
    “Get the dynamite!” they heard the sheriff say.  
    Joe cursed. “We’re out of time.”
    “Come with me,” Montgomery said. He began flipping through the pages. He looked up at Joe and Nate one last time before he turned his eyes to the book and started reading.  
    He was like a spirit, the way Montgomery disappeared into thin air. His face was drawn toward the pages like someone was pulling him in. Then, as though he had dived into a pool, he was gone, leaving only Joe and Nate alone in the cabin.
    “Did you just see that?” Joe shouted. “That’s what happened to Stew and Ralph! That’s what happened today! Did you see it? Did you see it?”
    Nate saw it. And with the threat of bullets over their heads and the mention of dynamite, he feared it might be the

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