Love on the Line - Deeanne Gist [108]
Name: Lucious Landrum Rank: Private
Age: 23 Years & 8 Days Where Born: Indianola, TX
Height: 6’ Occupation: Grocer
Hair: Brown Enlisted Where: Rusk Co
Eyes: Blue Enlisted When: 22 Jan 1900
Complexion: Light Enlisted By: Capt. C. L. Heywood
It was signed and sealed by the Adjutant General and the Captain of the Ranger Force.
She looked up. “You’re twenty-six now?”
He nodded.
“I believed you before you showed me all that,” she said, handing it back to him. “I was just curious.”
Refolding the document, he tucked it inside the case, then slipped it into the pocket on his bib and snapped it closed.
“Have you eaten?” she asked.
“Mrs. Sealsfield had some sandwiches set aside. I ate one on the way over.”
“Well, I haven’t. Come into the kitchen while I find me something.”
She fried a slice of ham, whipped up some gravy, and asked him about his growing-up years.
Leaning back in a spindly chair, he spoke at length of his father, their hounds, and the deer, fox, and raccoons they’d hunted. She noticed he skipped over any mention of birds.
Over their meal, she told him of her father and his reaction to her ambition of becoming a boy. His pride, as well as her mother’s horror, when she won the prize for being best in Greek studies.
Though Luke attended Soule’s Commercial College as an adult, he admitted to playing hooky from school as a child, preferring to ride, shoot, swim, and fish.
He shook his head. “I’ll never forget the time a bunch of us were at our favorite swimming hole trying to catch fish with our bare hands. We’d muddied the water good with all our thrashing about, making it impossible to see.”
They’d moved into the living area where he’d made a small fire. The pleasant odor of burning wood permeated the room. He sat facing her on the couch, his arm hooked across its back, his knee hiked up onto the cushion.
“I plunged my hands into the water and right smack-dab onto a big ol’ catch. I was boasting about its size before I ever even swung it up out of the water. Told my friends there wasn’t a one of them who’d be able to beat mine.”
Leaning against the corner of the couch, she tucked her feet up under her skirt and smoothed its hem over her boots.
Amusement played across his features. “And that certainly ended up being the case, for in my hands was the biggest water moccasin you ever did see.”
She sucked in her breath. She’d never personally known anyone who’d been bitten by the deadly snake, but she’d read many accounts of those who had—and died because of it.
“Fortunately,” he continued, “I had it good and tight about the neck so it couldn’t bite me, but it immediately coiled itself around my arm.” He smiled. “You’ve never seen a bunch of boys move so fast. I waded out of the water calm as you please, though I thought I was dead for sure. I strode up to one after another asking them to unwind it, but none of them would have anything to do with it.”
She bit her lip, trying to picture a seven- or eight-year-old Luke. “What did you do?”
He gave her a wry look. “Told Alec I’d beat him to death, cut off his ears, and skin him alive if he didn’t unwind that stupid thing.”
She curled her knees up closer to her chest. “Did he?”
“He did. His face was awfully gray, but he unwound it. After about a yard or so, he undid the last coil. I flung the thing down and stomped on it good.”
“In your bare feet? It didn’t bite you?”
“Nah. I’d practically choked it to death already.” His smile slowly faded. “I sure do miss him, Georgie. I’d give anything to go back and redo that last night I saw him.”
A log on the fire collapsed, popping and throwing sparks.
She reached out a hand. “He could have said no. Nobody made him race down that street with you.”
He hooked his fingers with hers. “He’d have done anything I asked. He idolized me and I knew it.”
“Which was also his choice.”
He tugged on her hand, but instead of going to him, she looked at the timepiece above her breast. “It’s getting late.”
“Are you coming over here or not?”
“Not.” But she smiled to lessen the refusal.
After a