Longarm Double #1 by Tabor Evans

Author:Tabor Evans
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2010-03-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 2

While waiting for the rations he’d drawn to be assembled, Longarm had gotten directions to help him find the road he’d take out of San Antonio. After he’d reached the end of the town, he’d have to rely on the army ordnance maps he’d picked up at the same time. He rode due west from the quartermaster depot. The houses of San Antonio lay to his left; the city was just changing the direction of its expansion from west to north. The line of closely settled streets stopped nearly two miles from the depot, though there were a few scattered dwellings, mostly small truck farms, between the body of the town and the military installation.

Longarm was taking his time, getting acquainted with the habits of the gray horse. Tordo had been trained well. The animal responded to the pressure of a knee and the touch of a boot toe with as much readiness as it did to the rein. For the most part, after he’d satisfied himself that the dapple could be trusted, Longarm let the horse pick its own way across the grassy, tree-dotted, saucerlike plain that sloped gently to the banks of the San Antonio River, which now lay just ahead.

He’d reached the riverbank and was looking for signs of a ford when thudding hoofbeats caught his attention and he turned to look behind him. Mrs. Stanley, mounted on a roan that must have been her second choice of the horses in the corral, was overtaking him fast. Subconsciously, Longarm noted that she sat the horse well, holding easily to the saddle as the roan loped toward him. He reined in and waited. She drew alongside and brought her mount to a halt.

“If you’re looking for a ford, the best one’s only about two hundred yards upstream,” she said. “If you don’t mind company, I’ll ride with you a little way.”

“You’ll be wasting your time, if you’re scheming to talk me into swapping horses,” Longarm warned her. “Otherwise, I’ll be right pleased to have you ride alongside me for a spell, Miz Stanley.”

“I promise that I won’t try to persuade you.” She seemed to have gotten over her fit of anger; her voice was light and pleasant. “I really rode after you to apologize for the way I acted back at the corral. I don’t usually behave so thoughtlessly.”

“Wasn’t no need to come apologizing, ma’am. I don’t hold grudges over things that don’t amount to a hill of beans.”

“Just the same, it was childish of me. I understand why you’d need the best horse you can find, in your job. It must be a dangerous one.”

“I reckon it is, sometimes.” Longarm wasn’t given to dwelling on the danger of his work. In his book a job was a job, and a man did it according to his best lights.

“Here’s the ford,” she said, pointing to the spot where the river’s olive green water took on a lighter hue as the stream spread to run wide and shallow over a pebble-covered underwater limestone shelf.

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