Gulf Storm ~ Opening and Links

 "Gulf Storm"

• A Novelette that continues the Courting Trouble series
• Publishes on August 23
• Pre-order Available Now!

Courting Trouble titles ~ "Spanish Moss", "Texas Sun", and "Gulf Storm"

Bribe. Conspire. Die.

A hurricane threatens to disrupt the wedding festivities of Nedda and Hank.

With the approaching storm are a whirl of human crimes, and an accusation of a past misdeed rages from the shadows.

Will the hurricane’s landfall shred Nedda’s dreams, or will Death wreak its lethal destruction?

Read on for the Opening to the Story. Links follow.

~ 1 ~

Nedda dangled her legs off the sun-silvered dock. Her toes grazing the water, she exchanged glances with the alligator floating yards away, its yellow eyes and armored crown skimming the surface.

She sat in tree-cast shade, on the edge of the blazing sunshine. Two bands of greyish clouds filled the southeast horizon. Birds barely sang through the heat. A heron crept forward on her right, the bank of the bay marshy there and filled with stiff cattails.

She didn’t look away from the `gator. Fresh in memory was its supper last evening, an unwary spoonbill. The frantic flapping wings before the alligator submerged to drown its victim still gave her chills.

A sweet soprano drifted over the bay waters. She leaned forward and spotted the canoe on the inland edge of Back Bay. Mr. Culpepper rowed while his wife in her wide-brimmed straw hat sang “Alice Blue Gown” to the silent birds. Nedda smiled, for her bridal gown looked like some depictions of that. Tomorrow evening she would wear the champagne gold frock. Pearl beads adorned the gossamer lace attached to the chemise bodice. Beneath a silk banded waist, the gossamer lace repeated in decorative scoops over the gathered skirt. The sheer lace and light silk were perfect this late summer season.

Bare feet struck the dock, coming toward her. The alligator sank. She lifted her legs onto the hot dock, the heat quickly drying her skin.

A lanky figure in a white shirt and baggy cut-off khakis dropped beside her. “You’ve missed another argument,” Colfax said.

Draping the pleated skirt of her tennis dress, Nedda wrapped her arms around her knees and scanned the youth. He’d changed over the summer, less skinny boy and more wiry young man. The sun had kissed his blond hair to flax and tanned his pale English skin. The weeks in west Texas had changed him mentally as well. Attempted murder of someone in a close circle had sobered his childish bents. His grandfather’s death in the late spring hadn’t really registered with Colfax until Rhode Tabbert was shot. His enthusiasm for pranks had vanished then.

She leaned her head on her knees, blocking the sun from directly entering her eyes. “Another argument?”

“You missed the one at breakfast?”

“I returned upstairs,” she reminded him. “I had to change. I didn’t think we would play tennis this morning.”

“Too hot for this afternoon.” He glanced at the Culpeppers. “Too hot for boating. This shade’s nice.” He stretched out beside her. “It’s as hot as it was in Oman.”

“Who was arguing this morning?”

“Same as who’s arguing now. Hank and Ray.”

“Two arguments in the same day?”

“Yep. And one yesterday. Makes me wonder if they’re truly friends.”

She eased out a breath, hunting a diplomatic way to relate her fiancé’s assessment of his old friend. “Hank did say Ray could be difficult.”

Colfax snorted. “Did Hank forget what difficult truly means?”

He had wisdom beyond his peers. Had traveling the world granted that discernment? Or had he aged in his scant two months at the Sacred Heart Academy? He was a stranger there, his classmates and masters completely unknown to him, the culture of a Catholic boarding school in northern Louisiana alien to an English prep-school boy.

A splashing caught her attention.

Mr. Culpepper was rowing out into the bay, avoiding the marshy bank to avoid tangling in the cordgrass and saltgrass and duckweed. Mrs. Culpepper leaned over the canoe, peering into the water.

This weekend would be a moneymaker for the Bells, owners and hosts of the Back Bay Inn. Nedda, Hank, and Colfax had arrived late Thursday afternoon. Waiting on the porch, watching them unload suitcases, was Ray Anderson, Hank’s best man. The men had attended university together. Their friendship deepened in war. Yet her whiskers twitched as she shook his hand, limp ice. His yellowed eyes and the heavy bags that sagged onto his sallow cheeks betrayed dissipation.

Ray sidestepped Hank’s question about his early arrival at the inn. In west Texas, a saboteur had avoided answers by asking more questions. Nedda learned from her late employer never to trust a man who wouldn’t answer a direct question.

Ray had then introduced them to his date for the wedding, one Pearl Lawrence, a brassy blonde whose scooped blouse and tight skirt displayed her assets. Hank had taken a deep hissing breath, but he held his tongue. “I work in Galveston,” Pearl announced then introduced them to her employer at the dance club, one Al Rogers, natty in a slim-fitting pin-striped suit with narrow lapels. Rogers offered a jolly smile that didn’t crinkle his eyes. A diamond flashed on his finger as he shook their hands.

Watching from the corner was the quiet giant “Mr. Jerry Phillips. He drove us. He was a boxer,” Pearl added, a bit of pride in her voice.

Mr. Phillips’ broken face testified to his years in the boxing ring. He wore a dark double-breasted suit that strained over his broad shoulders. He measured Hank and Colfax then dismissed Nedda with a single glance, not knowing her Webley weighted her fold-over clutch.

The first argument between Hank and Ray started at dinner. Ray claimed that Hank said he could bring a date; Hank declared that he’d never promised that. The petty dispute ended with the arrival of the dessert when both Mr. Rogers and Mr. Phillips vowed they didn’t expect an invitation to the wedding. “We plan to fish, isn’t that right, Phillips?”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Rogers.”

Silent throughout the argument, the Culpeppers shared over coffee in the parlor that they were happenstance guests. “We booked our cottage in May. We never expected a wedding. I’m excited about it.”

“Thank you. We hoped to have a small wedding,” she shared with the couple. “Hank found this inn when he came to Chambers County for his work.”

“You’re English,” Mrs. Culpepper gushed, and Nedda had to answer a multitude of questions about the royal family and the future monarch. Eventually, the woman asked the reason Nedda had chosen a wedding at the Back Bay Inn rather than in Houston.

“My only requirement for the wedding was tranquility. Hank promised that this was the perfect place. It is beautiful here by the bay, everything green and lush.”

Now Mr. Culpepper allowed the bay’s current to catch the canoe. It pivoted and skimmed toward the inland shore. His wife resumed her dreamy song, muted by a gust of wind.

Nedda returned to Colfax’s talk of arguments before her thoughts had distracted her. “What started the second argument? I saw the bruise on Hank’s cheek. I never expected fisticuffs.”

“What? Oh, that.” He stirred. The sun had cast over enough to burn his foot. Colfax levered up his leg and rubbed his reddened toes.

“You did bring up the arguments.”

He grinned and returned to his supine position. “Something about Texas Petroleum and Refining. I didn’t stay to listen.”

“But Hank receives a bruise on his cheek.”

“You should see Ray’s black eye.”

“I thought you left.”

“I stayed for the fisticuffs.”

“Is Ray with Texas P & R?”

“I don’t think so.”

The oil industry had more dry wells than gushers and mineral licenses that they let lapse, but the companies pumped vast amounts of cash into the pockets of its owners, investors, and workers. Nedda had worked with Hyatt Ingram, a global venture capitalist in petroleum, and she inherited enough shares in his company to stay abreast of the industry. In her home of England, the status line divided blue-blooded nobility from red-blooded workers. In Texas, that line divided the booming oil industry from everyone else. Background didn’t matter; oil did.

For its proximity to the famous Spindletop gusher, Houston had boomed, but the state’s entire east coast had had a roaring economy for over two decades. West Texas had lagged behind the east, but the Buzzard No. 3 well in Hartman County promised to kindle a boom out there.

Was his old friend Ray pushing Hank about Texas P & R? Did he have any fingers in the petroleum pie. If not, he would backpedal into obscurity while his friends rolled in black gold. Those friends headed here, a groomsman for Hank named Paul Jackson, married to Hank’s sister, and Boone Galvin, a war buddy who served as TP&R’s president.

Had Hank considered any of that when he asked Ray to be his best man? No. He remembered the war, when they had each other’s backs during battle, and he harked back to their college days, when their futures shone brightly.

One worked for the black gold. The other aimed for fool’s gold.

That drove Ray’s resentment.

“No doubt,” she offered mildly, “we’ll hear the reason for both arguments before dinner.”

Colfax grunted. He threw an arm over his eyes. “Let me nap, Nedda. Haven’t played tennis in months.”

The sun peeked through a wide arc of clouds and glinted on the bay waters. A dragonfly buzzed over the youth. He didn’t stir, and the flyer passed over. A spoonbill flew past, white wings widespread as it soared above the waves, restless as the tide came in. Oaks on the distant shore created a lush green backdrop. Nothing moved, the bay waters tranquil, a stronger breeze cooling the perspiration on her arm, all quiet and peaceful. The atmosphere she wanted for her wedding. After four years of global jaunts with her former employer Hyatt Ingram, this settled peace lured her.

Hank had known the perfect spot for their nuptials.

She closed her eyes and remembered the long drive here. Only in the last few miles had the land drawn her. Piney woods enclosed the hard-packed dirt of the road to the back bay area. A planked bridge crossed a little silver creek that separated the island from the country propre. Their tires had rumbled across the bridge, sending birds into the air at the unusual thunder. When the road swung away from the bay waters, the trees opened back to reveal the white-washed Back Bay Inn. Columns supported three stories of porches. A riotous garden bordered the front porch and framed wide steps. Nedda had sighed at the glory of star pentas, zinnias and salvia, backed with globe amaranth.

In the cooler shadows inside the inn, zinnias graced the check-in desk of the entryway while three bouquets decorated the long dining room table, open to the hallway. She discovered later that the host’s wife Mrs. Bell freshened the flowers daily while her two daughters-in-law ran the maids and the kitchen.

Bootsteps hit the planks of the long dock. She lifted her head and gave a smile to the younger of the Bell sons. “Hello, Eddie.”

Colfax stirred, proof that he hadn’t been asleep. He sat. “Going fishing in the twilight?”

Eddie grabbed the line for a dinghy bobbing alongside the dock and began towing it to shore. “Bringing the boats in. Storm’s coming from the Gulf.”

Wide bands of clouds swirled to the south, white and puffy in the outer bands, greying toward the southeast.

The wedding! “When is the storm expected?” Nedda rolled to her feet and brushed off her tennis dress.

“Landfall’s tonight or early Saturday. The wee hours.”

Landfall was an odd term to use for a storm.

“Will it be gone by Saturday evening?”

“Should be pushed through by then. Dad has better answers for you, Miss Courtland. I need to get these boats in.” He dropped into the water’s edge and began towing the red dinghy onto the bank.

“I’ll give a hand,” Colfax volunteered. “All these boats, Eddie?”

“All of them. Thanks for the help. We need to get them past the trees.”

The youth measured the distance from the dock, a good 30 feet although the bay’s bank was only six or so feet. “That’s high.”

“Might have a storm surge twice that. Grab this.” He tossed a rope to Colfax then reached for the blue dinghy nudged in the cattails at the bank.

Nedda waited until they had wrestled the blue dinghy up the bank then started for the inn.

An engine’s putter drew her attention to the road.

Bright yellow flashed through the piney woods then emerged. A new Cadillac Phaeton rolled slowly over the dirt so it didn’t stir up dust. Two people sat in the front seat, and Nedda added a spurt to her step to meet them at the inn.

The Cadillac stopped before the steps as the inn door opened. The senior and junior versions of the Bells came onto the porch. The engine cut. A man slipped out and headed around the hood as Nedda reached hearing distance.

“Welcome to the Back Bay Inn,” Mr. Bell said. “Junior, help them with their luggage.”

The man opened the passenger door. A woman slid out. Her hat came into view, a cream-colored cloche with a dark ornament. She wore a cream dress covered with polka dots. The man offered his hand then led her up the steps while Junior opened the trunk, American for boot. He lifted out a valise and two suitcases.

Mr. Bell ushered the couple inside. “My wife will assign your room. What’s that? Oh yes, they arrived late yesterday,” and Nedda realized who this couple had to be. “Mr. and Mrs. Paul Jackson” was the name she’d written on the envelope, but Mrs. Jackson was Hank’s sister Flo, and the man had to be his groomsman and work colleague Paul Jackson.

She bypassed the luggage and approached as the man bent to sign the desk ledger. “Florence Jackson?” she ventured, extending her hand. “I’m not quite certain where Hank is. I am Nedda Courtland.”

The woman turned. Only then was Nedda certain, for she looked upon a feminine version of Hank: tall, slender rather than lanky, with those startling blue eyes and high cheekbones. “Call me Flo.” Her handshake was firm but gentle and quick. She had Hank’s drawl, and humor sparkled in her blue eyes. “I’ll have words with my brother later. He is an atrocious correspondent, and his telegrams are worse. He never mentioned that you are English. Or how you met. Or the reason he didn’t bring you to visit. One telephone call from a god-forsaken place in west Texas, then in another call he’s tells me that he’s found his woman and she wants me to be her maid of honor.”

“Hartman County in west Texas,” Nedda supplied, “and it is god-forsaken. Less so now that oil’s come in.”

“Buzzard No. 3,” her husband added, joining their conversation.

“You men do not know how to name oil wells. Miss Courtland, this is my husband Paul.”

“Hello. Flo, I do regret that we had no time to visit. Until Monday we were in west Texas. Tuesday he spent at Texas P & R headquarters—.”

“Yes, Paul saw him there. And that’s all they did, see each other in passing.” She gave a wry grimace.

Her husband’s eyes twinkled. “He was in meetings with Galvin. I was meeting with our engineers.”

“Men have no accounting of what is most important. My brother’s fiancée is more important than test patches and drill samples! But Hank could have brought you to me on Wednesday.”

Nedda shook her head. “That was not at all possible. You see, I needed a bridal gown.”

“Oh, yes! What did you—?”

“Flo, honey, let’s delay this a bit,” her husband interrupted. “Once you start talking about the wedding, an hour will pass.”

“Oh, Paul! But I am that interested. An hour on the wedding, an hour on your first meeting with my brother, a third hour on his proposal. Give me fifteen minutes to freshen up, Nedda.”

“Would you like tea? Or lemonade? We can have it in the parlor.” She glanced to Mrs. Bell for approval.

That woman was avidly listening. She tapped the desk bell four times. “Lemonade and cookies, yes?”

“Perfect, Mrs. Bell.”

“Find that brother of mine,” Flo urged. “I need to bend his ear about the proper treatment of his bride.”

“Clarrie.” Mrs. Bell handed a key to her oldest granddaughter. “Second floor, Room H.”

As the Jacksons started behind Clarrie, Junior Bell came with a suitcase in one hand, a valise tucked under his arm, and a train case in his other hand.

Nedda leaned over the desk. “My key, please, Mrs. Bell. I should freshen up before tea with my future sister-in-law.”

“Lemonade and cookies will be waiting in the parlor when you come down, Miss Courtland.”

 . ~ . ~ . ~ .

 Although the windows were opened to admit the breeze, the plantation shutters were closed, shadowing the parlor. The slats were angled to diffuse the light. Remembering dreary summer days of her childhood, Nedda gloried in the Texas sunlight, brighter than London’s had ever been.

The promised tray—with a pitcher, glasses, and a tray of cookies—rested on the coffee table before the lengthy Chesterfield sofa when Nedda reached the parlor, fresher through the swift use of soap, water, powder, and a slimming handkerchief frock with a diamond print. She entered as the sleek-suited Al Rogers swiped cookies from the tray.

At her appearance he smiled. His eyes still didn’t reflect anything. “Caught with the goods.”

“Please, help yourself to some lemonade, too. I can ring for more glasses. Mr. Phillips,” she knew he was there but she had to look over her shoulder to spot him in a dimmer corner, “do have some cookies. Do you want lemonade?” She rang the metal bell resting on the mantel. A crewel-worked bell pull hung to the mantel’s left, but she doubted it still connected to the servants’ call board. “Shall I bring you a plate of cookies?” She laded four onto a plate as she asked.

“No, ma’am. Miss. None for me, Miss.”

“A shame. These are lemon, too, I think. Quite refreshing in this heat, don’t you think so, Mr. Rogers?”

He dusted cookie crumbs from his fingers with an embroidered handkerchief. “Quite refreshing,” he echoed, mimicking her accent.

Nedda gave him a sharp look.

Mrs. Bell appeared. “These gentlemen would like lemonade and cookies as well, Mrs. Bell. Is that possible?”

While she shot a glance at Mr. Rogers, the older woman avoided looking at Mr. Phillips’ ruined face. “Of course, Miss Courtland.” She retreated, and in seconds they heard the desk bell ring out several times.

“A ring for each grandchild?” she mused aloud

“That would account for it. Did I hear you right, Miss Courtland? Your wedding is Saturday?”

“Yes, that’s correct. Rev. Thomas—he dined with us last evening—.”

“Before Ray Anderson stuck his oar in.”

“Um, yes? Rev. Thomas will perform the ceremony.”

“And Anderson’s still best man?”

“Yes.” Nedda elongated the word, her whiskers twitching again. She glanced at Mr. Phillips, but he remained stolidly stoic.

“Know what you’re in for, marrying an oil man?”

“I do not have on blinders, Mr. Rogers.”

“You like horseracing?”

The question almost seemed a non sequitur, but a wary whisker warned that it was not. “Steeplechases.”

“That’s where they jump.” He nodded. “Higher risk. Higher bets. Your bet must be pretty high on your man. He’s got secrets, though. My friend Anderson knows what they are. It’s dangerous when somebody knows your secrets. Even more dangerous when those secrets get shared with a loose-mouthed girl like Pearlie.”

Voices stopped him, then Flo entered the parlor, talking over her shoulder to her husband.

And Hank.

Hank was here, scowling when he caught sight of Al Rogers and Jerry Phillips. Does he know these two men from Galveston, or is he merely displeased at their presence in the parlor?

Nedda hated herself for wondering. Tomorrow she would marry Hank. Critiquing his acquaintances before she’d had more than a couple of hours in their presence seemed disloyal.

Mr. Rogers stood, buttoning the slim-fitting jacket with its bold pinstripe. “Good day to you, Miss Courtland.” He walked out. Jerry Phillips followed.

Flo cast herself onto the sofa. “Tell me everything! How you met my brother. When you met him. How he won your heart. How he proposed. When he proposed. When you decided on this weekend for your wedding. How you planned a wedding from all the way over in west Texas! And how you bought a bridal gown in one day. One day! I took weeks to decide on my gown. I want to know everything!”

Her husband groaned. “Beware, Miss Courtland. My wife will ask questions until she has all the answers.” He palmed several cookies. “Where’s your roadster, Hank? I didn’t see it.”

“Needed more space. I’m in the Packard Touring Car.”

“The green one? Nice. Come see my new Phaeton.”

Hank swiped a handful of cookies and left with Paul Jackson.

“How you met my brother,” Flo prompted. “When and where and how and why.”

Nedda launched into the story that began in New Orleans with poison and death.

She didn’t remember her conversation with Al Rogers until much later.

Find your copy of "Gulf Storm" at these links~

Texas Sun ~ Opening and Links

 Texas Sun ~ Means. Motive. Opportunity

The grime of a working oil field draws together people at odds with the summer heat and with each other.

In the heady flush of a new romance, Nedda tries to ignore the blazing tensions, yet troubling shadows have gathered.

Then Death makes his entrance, and the grim pressures erupt.

LINKS Below.

. ~ . ~ . ~ .

Opening ~ 1 ~ Means

The morning blasted, bright white.

Colfax Ingram grabbed Nedda’s arm and jerked her behind the cab of the big Army truck as a second explosion shuddered the oil patch.

Shouts erupted. Debris rained onto the steel truck hood. She cowered against the mud-caked wheel as pings and clangs and clunks broke over them. Colfax crouched beside her until the debris stopped pinging on the Liberty truck. Then he leaped to his feet and ran toward the yelling men.

Nedda straightened and braced a hand on the steel heated by the Texas sun. She dreaded looking toward the drilling floor.

Her tall Texan, closer to the explosion and danger, remained upright.

The oil derrick remained erect, ninety feet into the blue sky, not yet hazed with summer heat. Leroy clung to the top and shouted down.

Her Hank deflected questions from Denny, the youngest roustabout. Colfax loped toward them.

The motorman Fuller levered up from the engine. He had flung himself across the equipment that ran the bit chipping deep into the ground. Centered under the derrick, O’Hara swung a chain to release it from the pipe.

Beyond the planked drilling platform, the job foreman Rhode Tabbert and the driller Witt straightened from their crouch. They’d been shack-side of the platform, closest to the explosion, and the shockwave had rolled over them first. Tab brushed dirt from his shoulders. Witt spat on the ground then peered at the derrick’s top. He gestured at Leroy then turned back to Tab.

Heart beating again, Nedda looked for the explosion’s cause.

Splintered planks, twisted pipes, and warped tin littered the ground beyond the derrick, flung outward from a churned-up crater in the desert floor. The tool shack had disappeared.

She came around the Liberty’s front and perched on the heavy steel bumper. Her movement caught Hank’s attention. He tapped his head then pointed at her. She sighed then fetched his battered hat from the cab and crammed it on her head. Then she picked her way to the derrick, watching the ground to avoid curled pieces of knife-sharp tin and shards of splintered wood.

The explosion had catapulted the drilling pipes stacked beside the tool shack. Twisted and bent, they littered the desert. None had landed near the truck.

As she approached, Leroy began his climb down. At 90 feet in the air, he more than doubled the distance from the truck to the destroyed shack, but he reached the drilling platform before she reached Hank and the others.

She stepped over a twisted and torn pipe, unusable. The drilling would have to stop now.

Hank McElroy shouted at the motorman. Fuller bent to the engine. It sputtered to a stop, leaving a strange silence.

Broken by raised voices. Tab and Witt, arguing. Again.

Nedda reached the men. Without looking, Hank stretched back his hand. She took it, and he drew her to his side.

Colfax started around the drilling platform.

“Stop, boy,” O’Hara snapped.

He stopped, but the twitch of his shoulders expressed disagreement. “The danger is over.”

“Let O’Hara go first,” Hank said.

“I’ll go with you.” Of an age with Colfax, Denny had revived with the excitement.

“Ain’t no reason,” O’Hara groused. “Ain’t nothing left.” They all looked at the cratered epicenter of the explosion.

Fuller wiped his hands on a greasy rag. “No more drillin’ without new pipe.” He nudged a warped pipe with his boot. “Can’t use nothin’ of what we had.”

“When does the next train run?” Hank asked, a question Tab should answer, but he was ensnarled in another argument with Witt.

None of the roustabouts looked at the two men who had charge of the oil patch. “Thursday,” Fuller said.

Hank wiped the sweat trickling down his temple. He gave a short nod, moving ahead without Tab and Witt. “I’ll telephone the office to send a shipment.”

“You do that.” The motorman rubbed his stubbly jaw as he looked over the debris field. “I guess we’ll clean up the mess.”

Denny groaned.

“I’ll be back to help after I contact the office.” Hank turned toward the truck.

“Wait.” Nedda dragged down his hand and dug her brogans into the sand of the desert. “What caused the explosion?”

Hank stopped. He gave no sign of the need for haste, only a willingness to accept her question as necessary. In the three weeks since they’d met in New Orleans, not once had he slighted her input, treating her like a partner as well as a beloved, a courtship that she preferred over flowery words.

O’Hara sighed heavily. He wiped his brow then re-settled his hat. “Might’ve been me. Weren’t no problems with the refining barrels this morning, but I might should’ve checked it closer.”

“How much oil had you refined?”

“Enough to run the engine for a week. The diesel we had were running low.”

“That’d account for the second explosion,” Fuller mused.

“Yep.”

“Then what the f—beggin’ yer pardon, ma’am.” Denny flushed under his work grime. The bruising sliding under his right eye flared purple. “What the heck caused the first explosion?”

“What indeed?” Hank sounded grim.

He had a right to be grim. The oil patch was nearly a year beyond the predicted two years of drilling. In the last few months one problem after another had plagued the roustabouts, troubles enough that Texas Petroleum and Refining had first sent Rhode Tabbert as foreman to speed up drilling and then sent Hank to determine if the patch was worth further investment.

And Hank had asked Nedda to accompany him. Curious about field drilling and pleased at his invitation, she accepted. Colfax came with her, off for the summer months from the Sacred Heart Academy.

“Tab, get over here,” Hank shouted.

The argument stopped.

The foreman came, trailed by the driller who ran the oil patch.

Nedda hadn’t determined the problem between the two men. Tab had a forceful personality and snapped his orders, but he worked alongside the men. He didn’t have the experience of Witt and O’Hara, but he knew engines and stringing pipe as well as Fuller. Witt’s nasal twang edged across bone, but he’d grown up drilling oil. What he didn’t know wasn’t worth knowing. He didn’t lay about with his orders. Tab irked the man, and Witt didn’t let a day pass without a handful of arguments.

She glanced around the gathered men. Luck had saved them from injury, but the explosion could have seriously harmed one or more of them.

Or killed one of them.

Cold ran over her, dissipating the summer heat.

While Hank spoke with Tab and the roustabouts, she turned to Colfax. “Are you coming to town?”

“I’ll stay here. Give them a hand with clean-up.” He grinned, a sudden shift of his oft-solemn face. His grey eyes had a curious gleam. “Maybe find out how crude oil is turned into diesel.”

“You do that.”

He gave an abrupt nod then turned away, punching Denny high on his arm. The two trotted away to gather ruined pipes.

Hank caught her hand. “We’re going.”

When her tall Texan moved, he dropped that slow drawl and went. She had to lengthen her stride to keep up.

Tab’s presence at the truck surprised her, but it made sense. The foreman would know the number of supplies the office would need to replace.

Hank boosted her to the driver’s seat and climbed up as she slid to the middle. Tab waited at the grill to prime the engine. He stared at the oil patch.

Hank fiddled with the gears. “Crank it.”

Tab gave three hard, fast turns. The Liberty’s engine sputtered then caught with a revving roar. As he came around the engine cab, Nedda opened the passenger door. He climbed in as the big motor sputtered then settled into a muted roar.

Hank leaned forward and unclamped the wind shield. He motioned, and Tab copied him. With the glass down, the wind from their movement would cool the building heat.

“What was it this time?”

Tab grunted. “Same old, same old.”

Nedda caught a breath, but Hank said nothing. He turned the army truck in a tight circle then headed for the track that aimed for the town. The Liberty bounced over rocks, jostling them on the hard seat. She leaned into Hank to avoid bumping Tab. The breeze tugged at her hat, and she dragged it off her head to hold in her lap.

Hank didn’t wait long. “Tell me.” He raised his voice over the motor and wind. “Or is he still on about giving Stevie’s money back?”

“That, too.”

“What’s first?”

Tab watched the scrub of the passing desert, wattle and mesquite, the tall blooms of agave cactus and clumps of creosote brush. A tall bird streaked from under a mesquite and ran across the track to disappear in burnt red rocks. “Witt thinks we’re drilling in the wrong place.”

“Now he agrees with you? Nearly three years on this patch, he’s argued that there’s oil in the hole, and now he decides you’re right?”

“We’re not as deep as we could be. We’ve had bad luck. Drill bit broken. Engine giving out or blown to bits. Pipes the wrong size. Other patches aren’t having these problems. We should strike soon.”

“Tab, what are you saying?” Hank shifted gears as the truck labored up a rise. “Now you think there’s oil here?”

Tab compressed his lips and looked back at the desert. “I think it interesting that Witt wants to find another patch on the same day that the shack exploded.”

“Sabotage?!”

Tab shrugged. “It’s a dirty word, but it fits.”

“Witt has brought in wells for us before.”

“I’m not accusing. Maybe it is coincidence.”

“You think Witt and O’Hara—.”

“I don’t know what to think, and that’s truth, Mac. My gut’s telling me, told me all morning, that we’re close. It’s deep and massive, and we just need faith.”

“Your gut’s telling you to keep the faith?”

Tab huffed a laugh. “Yep, exactly that. And for you to use the `phone at Doc Turner’s.”

“Not the depot?”

“Nor the grocer’s,” Nedda added, naming the most public of the three telephones in town.

She said nothing about the explosion. She kept quiet whenever Hank talked with Tab about the oil business. Conversation about Texas P & R didn’t concern her. She did question whatever affected Ingram & Son Investments, for she had responsibility and interest in that company. In her travels with her late employer Hyatt Ingram, she’d gleaned information about leases and mineral rights and contracts. She knew finances and the business side of petroleum. High up in Texas P & R, Hank knew both sides of the oil industry.

Convinced of oil in west Texas, Texas P & R used science and common sense to sink three wells in the vastness of Hartman County. The first well, close to the town clustered around the depot, had come in with a gush and enough oil to pay for its investment. It ran slow, though, and sputtered, promising a bust rather than a boom. Buzzard No. 2, dry for two years, was abandoned to throw all efforts at the third site. Buzzard No. 3 gave just enough oil to promise more further down.

If Buzzard No. 3 came in, it would be the first benefit the town had seen since its founding in the far-off dry past of the Chichuahuan desert. The land didn’t welcome them, producing nothing in soil baked by a blazing sun into dry rock and sand. The people depended on trucked-in food to survive. Only nocturnal animals and spiny or thorny plants thrived in Hartman County.

At Nedda’s warning about the gossip that spread when people overheard telephone conversations, Hank swore.

The Liberty truck jerked over a rock and ground to the top of the rise, offering a wider view of the desert.

He leaned forward, glaring at Tab. “What was the argument this morning?”

“Witt wants to move a mile to the south.”

“We don’t have a mineral rights agreement one mile to the south.”

“No, we don’t. And we’re not likely to get it. At least, I’m not. Land’s owned by Collier.”

“The railroad clerk?”

Nedda’s wince echoed Hank’s. Mr. Collier worked for the railroad. A lonely man with a lonely occupation, time had aged him early. He remained protective of the people in “my town”. When Hank had arrived, Mr. Collier approached him with complaints that the people who’d signed leases to Texas P & R had been duped.

“We can offer him an improved lease.”

“He won’t sign it.” Tab sounded sure, his gaze on a trail of Texas longhorns maneuvering through a thicket of mesquite. “He’s not an easy one to talk to.”

“If the oil comes in,” Nedda said quietly, “he’ll be a wealthy man. Have you pointed that out? It would matter to some.”

“Don’t see it mattering to Collier,” Hank rebutted. “He likes being cranky and lonely.”

She glanced at Hank. How had he missed—? She shook her head. Sometimes men missed the obvious. “He’s in love with Millie Donovan.”

“So?”

“She’s in love with the idea of leaving Hartman County. She knows an oil man will eventually leave a no-name town and take his new wife with him. Out of here. Gone for good.”

Hank paused the truck to pick the track down the rise. “Explain to a blind man, please.”

“Tab’s an oil man.”

Beside her, Tab stiffened. Hank looked around her at the foreman. “I haven’t seen you with Millie.”

Tab kept watching the cattle. “No, that’s over.”

Three words, but they confirmed what Nedda had guessed after a single evening of watching the young beauty interact with the oil men. Millie had ignored Tab the entire evening.

Hank looked confused. “She flirts with Denny.”

“That’s not serious. Denny isn’t important to her. He’s too young.”

Tab grunted. “She didn’t stop her brother when Stevie punched Denny.”

“Exactly. She didn’t care. She has her sights set on Leroy or Fuller. I haven’t decided which one. She may not have decided.” Tab shifted, uncomfortable with Nedda’s insights. She continued, undeterred. “Leroy might be more impressionable, but he’s a stubborn streak. Fuller’s steady. Or maybe she wants to make Mr. Tabbert jealous.”

Very carefully, Tab leaned away from her, pressing against the truck door as if she were a sybil to avoid.

“Witt would see all of that,” Nedda added, more certain now, “especially since he watches everything after he leaves the poker game. He sees how Millie serves Mr. Green without interacting with him, that she blushes whenever Mr. Collier compliments her, that she tries to coax Stevie not to risk so much during the game. She teases Denny, and she flutters her eyelashes at Fuller and Leroy. And Witt watches all of you.”

“Trouble all around,” Hank said and started the truck down the rise.

The big Liberty jolted and slipped over rocks, but gradually it crept closer to the distant cluster of buildings that formed the no-name town around the Hartman County railroad depot.

. ~ . ~ . ~ .

“Texas Sun” is the second of three novelettes in this tie-in series to M.A. Lee’s Sailing Into Mystery stories and Into Death novels featuring the artist Isabella Newcombe Tarrant. Nedda Courtland enters 1925 America with these stories as she is Courting Trouble.

. ~ . ~ . ~ .

LINKS

Zon https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FH5VHQ4V

B2R https://books2read.com/u/4XM6k6