Love on the Line - Deeanne Gist [6]
Heywood had the grace not to smile, but Lucious could see he was pleased. Opening a drawer, he removed a pale blue booklet. “Take this. It’s a repair and sales manual. You need to read it start to finish and become proficient as quickly as possible. It took some mighty convincing to get SWT&T to let us use one of our men.”
“SWT&T?”
“Southwestern Telegraph and Telephone Company. They want to expand their business. I assured them I was sending my best man and that he’d sell a lot of phones for them.”
Lucious held his face in check. “I’ll see to it, sir.”
“Good.”
Picking up the manual, he headed to the door.
“Landrum?”
Lucious turned.
The captain’s expression grew steely. “I want him. Alive if you can. Dead if you have to. But I want him. If he slips through your grasp again, I’m putting Harvey on it.”
“I’ll bring him in, sir.” As he pulled the door open, it took every bit of control he had not to slam it behind him.
Luke caught his first glimpse of Brenham, a predominantly German town, astride a paint horse and on a tenderfoot saddle no respectable lawman would own. During his five-day ride in from Alice, he’d memorized the twenty-three Rules for Troublemen as presented in his SWT&T manual.
Rule #1: Put up a good front. It is not necessary to advertise any tailor shop; neither is it necessary to go about your work looking like a coal heaver. Overalls can look as respectable as anything else, but they must at least show they are on speaking terms with the laundryman; and shoes must have a bowing acquaintance with the bootblack.
He hated this. No Stetson. No Lucchese boots. No gun belt. No Padgitt saddle. No mustache. No trousers, for crying out loud. He’d hidden his pistols—Odysseus and Penelope—along with his badge, inside a specially designed compartment of his suitcase.
His mahogany-and-white tobiano shook her mane, no doubt in protest to the indignity of having to ride through town with this godforsaken saddle strapped to her back. He’d picked up the mare last week, and though he’d compromised his standards on everything else, he drew the line at horseflesh. If the unexpected happened, he wanted an animal he could rely on.
Patting the mare’s neck, he murmured words of sympathy and urged her onto a wooden bridge crossing the Hog Branch River. Her clopping hooves captured the attention of a couple of boys with rolled-up pant legs and minnow nets. They quit their wading along the bank to stretch out and wave.
Luke tugged his hat. The moment his fingertips touched the rim, he was again reminded he’d had to pack his Stetson away. In place of the fine nutria fur was a brown duck farm hat, which—if Sears, Roebuck could be believed—would hold up in any kind of weather. He’d spent all week dirtying it and beating it, along with his new overalls and plow boots. Hopefully they looked well-worn, yet still decent enough to suit SWT&T.
A breeze whisked across the river, the leaves of a live oak flapping like coattails of men on the run. With the wind came the aroma of spring. In the distance, a quail whistled in appreciation.
He scanned the terrain, zeroing in on the bird’s call, narrowing its hiding place to either the yaupon or the mesquite. He was almost on top of it before it burst from the mesquite and startled his horse.
Controlling Honey Dew with one hand, he “drew” with his other, pointed his finger and clicked his thumb down. “Pow,” he murmured. “Gotchya.”
Hunting quail ranked right up there with hunting outlaws. He loved how the bobwhites hunkered down until the last second, then erupted from their refuge, giving him but a split second to take the shot. Not with a pistol, of course, but with his Remington. Still, he’d had to leave his shotgun behind. For manhunts he needed his rifle. He adjusted the 1895 Winchester encased in a long scabbard on the left side of his horse, then looked for more birds.
He’d flushed out Comer just as he had the quail. Three times. And each time, Comer had either known he was coming, or he was receiving divine intervention. Whatever the case, Luke