Free Mobley's Law, A Mobley Meadows Novel by Gerald Lane Summers

was asking myself the same question. Oh, I’ve got a destination all right, Waco and then Austin finally, like I said. I’ve only been a judge in Texas for a few weeks. My nomination was ratified by the Senate last month, but I could have gotten down to Austin by train from Fort Smith. I just wanted to see the country. When I got past that bitty little town of Dallas, the prairie reminded me so much of the sea I decided to set out on my own.
    The buckskin jacket, now, is for looks as much as comfort. My grandmother did the beadwork. Nice, ain’t it? She’s full Cherokee. Anyway, my old grandfather said the jacket might scare off bushwhackers, or at least give them pause before they came after me.”
    Juan smiled. “You mentioned dropping anchor in Cuba. You’ve been a sailing man, then?”
    Mobley leaned back and blew smoke through his nose. “Four years. I served as Mate on the Helen Rose , during the war. Privateerin’ mostly; up and down the coast and all over the Caribbean. Angus Meadows, my grandfather, owns the Meadows Line Shipping Company. He’s a powerful, crafty old man. Served as a Marshall in Tennessee in his early days, but then became a sailor and finally a ship owner. He didn’t want me slogging around in the infantry getting myself killed durin’ the war. Figured I’d stand out too much on the battlefield and have no chance. Go to sea , young man , he said. So I did. Once his mind is made up, the family tends to do what he says.”
    Mobley hesitated as he considered how much more to tell. There was something about Juan. A deep form of intelligence and intuition. They’d just met, but already Mobley admired the subtle way the man slipped up on what he wanted to find out. It was a talent Mobley sorely lacked.
    Mobley thought of his grandfather, how his own life had been marked by rebellion against his stepfather and then acquiescence to the old man. Should he have objected to Angus’s manipulation, been more rebellious?
    No, he loved the old man too much. Besides, his grandfather had an uncanny way of knowing exactly what Mobley really wanted. He’d helped him get into Harvard, but surely knew it would not be a good fit. In the end, he’d accepted Mobley’s decision to clerk for and read the law with Judge Wild Eye Sagen, even though he’d personally hated the man with a passion. When the war came, he knew Mobley would not fight against his relatives in Georgia but would do something, anything, to get into the action. Sending him to sea had been the perfect answer. After the war, things were completely different and much had happened since.
    Mobley shifted his focus back to the fire. He suddenly felt as if he had said too much, though in fact, he had said little at all. Sparks rose well into the air as he pushed over several sizable chips with his stick to allow the air a better flow to the fire. He settled back. Juan politely waited for him to continue, then seemed to shake himself.
    “You’ll have to excuse all my prying, Mobley. This has been a strange day and I haven’t had anyone to talk to for more than a month. If you get tired of my talking, just roll over and ignore me. I seem to have a million questions on my mind. Like, what exactly is a circuit judge, and what does he do?”
    Relieved at the change of subject, Mobley smiled, put his hands behind his head, fingers interlocked, and launched into a spiel on judicial history, a subject he loved. “In the old days, when there weren’t many courthouses, judges had to ride around their territory. That’s how they came up with the term. It was a better system in those days, as far as I’m concerned. Now, they’re building fancy courthouses all over the place, and the judges get to thinkin’ of themselves as royalty, with their robes, titles and all. But that’s not me. I figure to be where things are happening or do something else.”
    Juan nodded. It made sense. The man was a rebel in his own way, fighting against the tide.