Free By Starlight by Dorothy Garlock

red and orange. The car bounced and swayed as it drove the dirt road, making a symphony of creaks and groans. For the last couple of hours, things had been peacefully quiet for Jack, driving under the moon and stars. However, with his nagging companion awake, things had already begun to change.
    If there was one thing Ross Hooper was good at, it was complaining.
    “Ain’t it just like the Bureau to be too cheap to put us in a train? A sleeper car wouldn’t ruin my back! Chaps my hide, I tell ya!”
    Jack considered explaining, for the third time since they’d set out from Seattle, that the reason they were driving to Colton was so that they’d have a means of escaping should things become too dangerous, but he knew his words would be wasted. Ross heard only what he wanted to hear.
    As if he were trying to further annoy Jack, the man belched loudly. “Like it ain’t bad enough already, now my belly’s givin’ me grief!”
    From the moment Lieutenant Pluggett had told him who would be accompanying him on his next assignment, Jack had dreaded the thought of being in the other man’s company. As soon as they’d set out, it had been one grumble after another, a seemingly endless litany; he’d fussed about the food, the weather, the time Jack had told him to be ready to travel, the task the Bureau had given them, the car they were to drive, and especially the partner he’d been saddled with, everything under the sun.
    In his mid-fifties, Ross looked like a man well on his way to sitting on a porch, enjoying his retirement. With narrow, watery eyes that peered out from a particularly dull, jowly face, he was plump enough to rest his hands on the paunch of his stomach. His clothing was a mess; food and sweat stains dotted both his trousers and shirt, while his suit had been wrinkled well before he’d slept in it.
    “Wonder if it was somethin’ I ate,” he said as he rested his head against the car window. “Just had to have been…”
    Ross Hooper had been employed by one form of law enforcement or another since well before Jack had been born. Most of Ross’s years had been spent with the Pinkerton agency, but he’d left under unknown circumstances; everyone just assumed he’d been fired. He wasn’t very good at his job; Jack wasn’t the only agent who didn’t want to work with him. He was the type of cop who dealt with trouble by using his fists instead of his head, the sort who would rather knock a guy unconscious than let him make a confession.
    Jack had to wonder if Ross was capable of pulling off their ruse. Pluggett had instructed them to pose as advance men looking to buy up land for a speculator with deep pockets back in Seattle. The thinking had been that if the townspeople of Colton figured they stood to make a windfall of money, it might loosen their tongues to talk about all the goings-on, including any rumors about someone running illegal Canadian booze. While Jack could be as silver-tongued as the devil himself when he wanted to be, Ross Hooper was the type of man who’d have trouble coaxing a starving horse to a bag of feed. If Ross wasn’t good enough, if they failed at their task, Jack could forget any chance of a promotion.
    And now, as if things hadn’t been bad enough, he had to listen to his fellow agent prattle on about his indigestion.
    Jack couldn’t shake the feeling that this was exactly what he deserved.
     
    The faded red windmill at Roland Gambill’s farm was the first thing Jack saw that told him how close he was to his old home. Ever since the dawn broke, he’d watched out the window for something to slide by, some sign of the life left years ago, the life he’d never planned on returning to. Now there it was, whipping past, almost close enough to touch.
    He was heading back to Maddy Aldridge.
    In the seven years since he’d left Colton, Jack had done his best to forget all about his old life. Since joining the Bureau, he’d buried himself in his work, spending countless