Strong Cold Dead (Caitlin Strong, #8)

She focused on Dylan, Cort Wesley, and Luke, who were seated in the front row with the other dignitaries at the graduation ceremony. Beyond them was a sea of gowns, caps, and tassels, soon to be flipped from one side to the other before the caps were launched airborne. The warm air smelled fresh and clean, almost like incense. The scent of hope, Caitlin thought to herself, in stark contrast to skunk oil or, worse, the deadly cuitlacoche that had come ever so close to killing thousands, just a few miles away, beneath downtown Houston.

“There’s a boy who goes to this school who’s about the bravest person I know, because he’s not afraid to be who he is. Folks like to think that gets easier as you get older, but it’s really not true. It only seems that way because, by then, most have given up trying. The difference between someone special and someone ordinary is that the one who’s special never gives up, no matter the odds. And the young man I’m talking about had the odds stacked against him, and it’s a credit to you folks out there that he’s been accepted here for who he is and has found a home.”

Cheers and applause interrupted her remarks. Caitlin was glad for that and, even more, for Luke’s smile. She had no speech, just a few notes scribbled on some composition paper torn from a pad she’d bought at a drug store, the fringe fluttering atop the podium before her on the stage. She wore the clothes she always wore, because she figured that’s what people expected from her and would feel most comfortable with. Jeans and a light-blue shirt, Texas Ranger badge pinned to her chest, holstered SIG Sauer clipped to her belt.

As the applause started to die down, she focused on Dylan and Cort Wesley, who were still clapping the hardest of anyone.

*

“I haven’t decided if I’m going back to school,” Dylan had told Caitlin and Cort Wesley the week before, out of nowhere, while they sat on the front porch. “I’m going to need some more time.”

“Doesn’t seem like a difficult decision to me,” Cort Wesley said.

“I’ve got some stuff I need to sort out, Dad.”

“Like what?”

“Stuff. I’m tired of getting involved with people who change me.”

“Ela?” Caitlin said to him.

“I go back there, she’s all I’ll think of. What’s the point?”

Cort Wesley remained restrained. “Getting past it, son.”

“That’s easy for you—for both of you—isn’t it? But I’m not like that. I want to be, but I’m not.” Dylan swept the hair from his face and swallowed hard. “Why do you figure she changed her mind?”

“Because somebody finally changed her,” Caitlin told him.

*

“Texas is full of brave folks, now and in the past,” Caitlin resumed, after checking her notes, finally used to the garbled feedback of her own voice from the speakers. “I’m the fifth in my family to become a Texas Ranger. The first was named Steeldust Jack Strong, and he fought for anyone who was in the right, out of a sense of duty. The Comanche, for example, against none other than John D. Rockefeller. He witnessed the Comanche burn their own land to deny it to Standard Oil. Most figure that was the end of the story, but it wasn’t. Rockefeller had a hatred for Texas that knew no bounds, and he saw his opportunity to get his revenge, once the first oil boom hit, with that strike in Corsicana in 1894. Figured he could move in and pretty much buy up the state. Turned out he didn’t know Texas and he didn’t know Texans, especially one named Steeldust Jack Strong.”





NEW YORK; 1895

John D. Rockefeller was almost always the first one into Standard Oil headquarters on 26 Broadway, where it had moved from Cleveland a decade before. He liked nothing better than to see the sunrise from his office window. But, on this morning, he entered to see his chair already occupied by a grizzled, unshaven man smoking one of his cigars.

“’Morning, Mr. Rockefeller,” Jack Strong greeted him, lifting his boots up atop the man’s desk. “I hope you don’t mind me making myself comfortable while I was waiting for you.”

“How’d you get in here?”

“Why, I took the train, of course. My first time out of Texas since the Civil War.”

Recognition flashed in Rockefeller’s eyes, along with the loathing stirred by the memories of their previous encounters. “Then you’ve never seen a Northern jail.”

“No, sir, I have not. Just like you’ve never seen the inside of a Texas jail—or any cell, for that matter. I don’t do much rangering no more. Figure it’s better left to younger folk like my own son, William Ray, who made this here trip with me, on account of he didn’t want to miss the fun.”

“There’s laws against carrying guns in New York, Ranger.”

Steeldust Jack lowered his boots from the desk, the effort clearly paining him, the years having treated his bad leg unkindly. “That’s fine, ’cause I didn’t bring one. Did bring this, though,” he said, sliding a set of trifold pages from his pants pocket.

Rockefeller took the document in hand tentatively, almost as if he expected it to burn his fingers. “What’s this?”

“A writ signed by Texas governor Jim Hogg, serving notice of suspension of Standard Oil’s business licenses in the State of Texas, subject to investigation for violations of the Sherman Antitrust statutes.”

“You have any idea what you just said, Ranger?”

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