Love on the Line Read online

The conductor emerged from the train with a lantern and walked it over to the Ranger, who moved within a few feet of Georgie. The light revealed a fine white Stetson. A big bushy beard. An olive shirt. A black string tie. And a gun belt strapped about his hips. A massive emblem buckle made of gold and silver held it together. She squinted, but couldn’t make out the handles of his pistols.

  “And you didn’t see anything?” Landrum asked the short man and his wife. “Hear anything? Nothing at all?”

  “Well, they kept saying, ‘Hands up,’ ” the wife offered.

  Landrum rubbed his eyes. Between the shadow from his hat and the full beard, his face was every bit as hard to discern as the outlaws’. “Any distinguishing features, ma’am? A disfigured eye, a scar? Anything at all would be helpful.”

  The couple looked at each other, as if it would help them remember something profound. But Georgie knew the Ranger was wasting his time. Frank Comer was nothing short of a legend in Texas. He rode fast horses, robbed trains, outwitted the law, and spread his newfound wealth wherever he went. Georgie had no doubt the man could knock on any door in the state and be welcomed, fed, and harbored.

  No. The passengers on this train would become celebrities in their own right and would carry tales of Comer for many months to come.

  The weeping woman refused to be consoled, her hysterics gaining momentum, her sobs sounding like a saw rasping through wood.

  Landrum looked her direction. “Is she hurt or just scared?”

  The gruffness of his voice whipped Georgie up to her full height. She opened her mouth to defend the woman, but the widow herself answered him.

  “Neither, sir. I’m overcome with gratitude. When Mr. Comer found out I was on my way to my childhood home after burying Henry and losing everything, he gave me this.” She opened a gloved hand to reveal a handful of gold coins.

  “He took my gun,” a man farther down shouted, “but then he emptied it and gave it right back.”

  “He signed my dime novel.” A boy with a bow tie and short pants held up his pulp fiction pamphlet. Georgie had seen him reading it earlier on the train. Its cover held a colorful illustration of a masked man with kindly eyes. Thick block letters across the top read, The Legend of FRANK COMER.

  Ranger Landrum moved his attention back to the widow. “That money belongs to the Texas & Pacific, ma’am. I’m going to have to ask you to turn it over.”

  The widow pulled back, then narrowed her eyes, loosened her collar, and dropped the coins right down her bodice.

  Landrum took a step forward. “You oughtn’t have done that, ma’am.”

  Readjusting her collar, she held the Ranger’s gaze. “I’m rather fatigued, sir. If you’ll excuse me, I believe I’ll return to my seat on the train.”

  The woman sailed past him, daring him to stop her, her skirts swishing with each step.

  Georgie bit her cheeks. Any cooperation Landrum might have received had vanished the moment he challenged the widow. And she had a feeling he knew it.

  His fierce gaze moved to the boy with the dime novel.

  “No!” the little fellow screamed, throwing himself into his mother’s arms.

  Swooping him up and hugging him tight, she followed the same path as the widow. The rest of the passengers did the same, all giving a wide berth to Texas Ranger Lucious Landrum.

  Chapter Two

  “A telephone salesman?” Lucious stared at his captain, aghast. “You want me to go undercover as a telephone salesman?”

  “And repairman.” Captain Heywood didn’t even look up from his desk, his pen skating across the paper in front of him.

  “You must be joking.”

  “Do I look like I’m joking?”

  The wooden blinds in the dusty office of Ranger headquarters were tightly closed against the noon sun, but the captain still wore his silver-gray Stetson. Lucious didn’t need to see beneath its brim, though, to know the man wasn’t joking. He’d heard that tone of voice many times before.

  “Sir, I think going undercover is a mistake. My reputation as a Ranger will help flush Comer out.”

  “Like it did last time, and the time before that, and the time before that?” The scratching of the captain’s pen competed with the clicking of the overhead fan.

  “Yes, with all due respect. Just like that.”

  The pen stopped. The brim of the Stetson slowly lifted. “If you’ll recall, Landrum, all those campaigns were unsuccessful.”

  “Not at flushing him out, sir. Only at apprehending him.”

  Skin weathered from years on the trail was as much a badge of the job as the five-pointed star on the captain’s lapel. “And apprehending him is the result we’re after.”

  “Which I plan to do. I will do. But he could rob a dozen more trains in the time it would take me to discover his whereabouts were I to go undercover. If you’d let me have a company of men, we could go into Washington County, flush him out, and then I’d have him.”

  Heywood returned his pen to its holder and leaned back in a wooden chair almost as old as he was. Its springs creaked in protest. “That’s what you said last time.”

  “I brought in six of his men.”

  “None of whom are talking.”

  “We found out Comer’s laying low. We found out he and his men own land in Washington County. That they’re holing up in their farmsteads and splitting their time between farming and thieving.”

  “We already suspected that.”

  “And now it’s confirmed.”

  “You got nothing from the train passengers.”

  Lucious tightened his jaw. “They protect him, sir. They believe the newspapers and he plays on it. They have no idea of his real nature.”

  Heywood placed his elbows on the arms of the chair, lacing his fingers together. “You don’t have to go undercover, Landrum.”

  Lucious allowed himself the first easy breath he’d had since entering the office. “Thank you, sir.”

  “I’ll send Harvey in. He won’t mind going undercover.”

  “No.”

  Heywood lifted a brow. “No?”

  “I don’t need Harvey or anyone else doing my job for me.”

  “Good.” Heywood sprang forward and shuffled through a stack of papers, sending dust wafting through the air. “You’ll check in with . . .” He extracted a page from the middle of the pile, dropped it in front of Lucious, then tapped it with his fingernail. “A Miss Georgie Gail. She’s switchboard operator for the Southwestern Telegraph and Telephone Company. She’s been told a troubleman is on his way.”

  Lucious skimmed the assignment.

  NAME: Lucious Landrum

  COMPANY: “A”

  ALIAS: Luke Palmer

  POSITION: Telephone salesman/repairman

  Incl. bill collection, books, accounting

  LOCATION: Brenham, Texas

  OFFICES OF: Georgie Gail, Operator

  Southwestern Telegraph and Telephone Company

  Lucious looked up. “Luke Palmer, sir?”

  Heywood had already returned to the document he’d been working on previously. “Thought it would be easy to answer to, Luke being a shortened version of Lucious and Palmer being your mother’s maiden name.”

  Lucious dragged a hand across his mouth. “Would it be all right if I just did repairs and the bookkeeping?”

  “You got something against selling telephones?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do. It’s dishonest, sir.”

  Heywood whipped up his head, brows lifted. “Dishonest?”

  “Those contraptions aren’t reliable. They barely work under the best of circumstances, but you can always count on them to go down in emergencies. They’ll lull people into a false sense of security. I’d just as soon not be party to it.”

  Had he voiced his concerns to anyone else, they wouldn’t have understood. But Captain Heywood did. He knew better than any the distrust Lucious had for modern communications.

  “You’re the best tracker we have, Lu
cious,” the captain said, gentling his voice. “And I need you. But I didn’t sign off on this without some reservations. The sheriff of Washington County is incompetent. The townsfolk think Comer’s a hero. And you tend to grow a mite impatient with that kind of thing. It’s occurred to me, more than once, you might not be the right man for the job.”

  Had Heywood walloped him in the gut, it couldn’t have caught him more off guard. He’d looked up to this man his entire life. Working for him had been a privilege. An honor. To discover his captain had doubts did not bear thinking.

  “Is there a manual of some kind?” Lucious asked. “I don’t know the first thing about telephones.”

  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 was in this untenable position because of it.

  He allowed himself a long sigh. It wouldn’t have been so bad if the men were holed up in one place like a typical gang. Then he’d just track them, find them, and capture them.

  But nothing about Comer was typical. He took his time. He thought ahead. And he garnered citizen support.

  Now he was spreading out his men. Turning them into farmers while things cooled down.

  Luke repositioned himself in the saddle. For all he knew, they’d been farmers all along. Maybe they’d been living in Washington County for generations and came back to warm, cozy homes after every single job.

  The boys he’d gathered up at this last robbery hadn’t told them much, but it would sure explain why he’d had such a confounded time finding a hideout. The only time he came close to catching them was right after a holdup.

  He’d be right on them, then—poof. They were gone.

  He lifted his hat, then settled it back on his head. Their living as farmers was going to complicate the tracking. Especially if they really did farm—which he figured they must or it would arouse suspicion.

  Either way, he was going to have to cozy up to every farmer around. He’d have to sit there drinking coffee and spitting chew until he could encourage them to talk freely about themselves and their neighbors. It was bound to take the rest of spring and maybe even the summer.

  He rubbed his eyes. A telephone salesman. He hated telephones—any communication that relied on man-made devices. He clearly remembered his hometown of Indianola after it had been hit by one of the biggest hurricanes the U.S. had ever seen. Trees were uprooted. Entire buildings were gone. Telegraph wires were down. Horses couldn’t get through. And two and a half miles of railroad tracks had been destroyed.

  None of it had stopped Captain Heywood, then a young Ranger just starting out. Luke was ten when Heywood rode in sitting tall and ramrod straight in the saddle while wading through the debris which had, the week before, been a thriving coastal town. He’d helped clean up. Helped the injured. And helped bury Luke’s father, who’d lost his life in the tragedy.

  Now, not only was Luke going to have to hoodwink folks into investing in those newfangled claptraps, he was going to have to waste time with niceties and social chatter. As different from Lucious Landrum as he could be.

  Rule #11: Be courteous and polite, and don’t be afraid to hand out a little jolly occasionally. It doesn’t hurt anybody’s feelings to be jollied a little.

  Slowing down his mare, he picked his way across a series of railroad tracks and reined in at the depot.

  Inside the small clapboard building, every surface was covered with polished oak—the walls, the floor, the rafters, the bench. Two arched ticket windows directly opposite the entrance held a series of vertical wooden bars. No one stood behind them.

  To his right, a group of boys between the ages of five and twelve faced the wall. They’d pressed themselves together so tightly, their bums looked like a cluster of oversized grapes.

  Above them and mounted to the wall was a three-box telephone. The hand of the tallest boy covered its mouthpiece. The receiver was somewhere in the midst of them.

  Sniggers, snorts, and giggles erupted spontaneously, followed by a series of shushes. Amusement tugged at Luke. Whoever was on the party line
would have their business known all over town within the hour.

  An explosion of guffaws rocked the boys backward, loosening the taller one’s grip on the mouthpiece. Several grabbed their stomachs and bent over. Another fell to the ground in an effort to outdo the rest. Their boisterous laughter bowed the walls of the depot.

  Chuckling, Luke took a step toward the ticket window to ask for directions. Before he could reach it, the door flew open. A girl of about nine stomped in.

  “Fellers! That is quite enough.” She stood in rolled-up, baggy overalls with feet spread, fists on her hips. If it hadn’t been for the dirty braids resting on her shoulders, he wasn’t sure he’d have even known it was a girl.

  She marched into the pack of them, shoving them aside as if they were swinging doors to a saloon. The boys, still caught up in hilarity, allowed her to manhandle them . . . until she tried to take the receiver from the oldest boy. He immediately lifted his arm, putting it well out of reach.

  “Give me the phone, Kyle.”

  “Come and get it, Bettina Hyena.”

  The nickname didn’t even faze her. Clearly, it was one she’d heard many a time before. “Miss Georgie sent me down here, so hand it over.”

  Luke glanced at the ticket counter. An old-timer with round glasses and bushy white brows watched from behind the grill, but made no effort to assist the girl. If anything, he appeared amused by the boy’s challenge.

  Bettina flipped a braid behind her. “I’ll go up there and git that thing, Kyle. You know I will.”

  “I’d like to see you try.”

  All laughter and fidgeting stopped. Luke tensed.

  Slim as a bed slat, the boy had gotten a jump on his height. A tiny collection of facial hair tickled his chin and along the spot where sideburns would eventually grow. This was not just a boy, but a boy on the cusp of manhood. The only way that gal could reach the receiver was if she were to climb him like a flagpole. And Kyle knew it.

  Luke stepped up to the group. “I believe this little lady’s asked you for the phone, son.”

  Kyle started, as did the other boys. Clearly, they’d not even noticed him.