Deep in the Heart of Trouble Read Online Free PDF Page A

appraise his merits then and there. In spite of his irritation, he straightened his shoulders.
    “You needn’t get defensive, Mr. Bryant. There is nothing lacking in your physique. It’s your gumption that I’m concerned about.”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “The fields require a man who can keep calm in the face of danger. I can tell by looking that you’re strong, but I’ve no way of measuring your courage.”
    He set his cup on the edge of the mahogany desk, careful not to rattle the china. “Are you questioning my manhood, Miss Spreckelmeyer?”
    She sighed. “It’s nothing personal, just a requisite for the job.”
    His jaw began to tick. In spite of his troubles, he’d still grown up a Morgan. He might have his hat in hand right now, but he had more mettle in his little finger than this gal could possibly have from the top of her ridiculous hat to the tip of her bicycle shoe-clad toes.
    All those newspaper articles he’d read about her came back to him now. He leaned toward her. “There is a difference,” he said, “between wearing trousers and being a man.”
    Her breath hitched, and for the first time since he’d met her, she seemed at a loss for words. She recovered almost at once, however, dabbing at the corner of her mouth with her handkerchief.
    “Nevertheless, the oil field is no place for novices. Seasoned oilmen can be killed or crippled in a day’s work.” She shrugged. “I’m afraid we can’t help you.”
    Tony speared Spreckelmeyer with a questioning stare. Surely the man wasn’t going to allow her to make such a decision for him?
    But the expression on the old judge’s face was unreadable. He held Tony’s gaze a moment, then shifted in his chair to address his daughter. “What about that well out on Fourth and Collin, Essie?
    We could use another man out there.”
    Her head was shaking before he got the words out. “But he has no experience at all.”
    “Neither did Jeremy, and look at him now. A derrickman at the ripe old age of eighteen.”
    “That was different,” she said. “That was back in the old days.”
    Spreckelmeyer chuckled. “Four years ago hardly qualifies as ‘the old days.’ ”
    “In the oil patch it does.”
    The judge said nothing. Tony could not believe this woman held the kind of power she did. Oh, but he’d like to take her down a peg or two. Instead, he kept quiet and waited.
    She cocked her head to the side. “Do you really wish to give him a try, Papa?”
    Spreckelmeyer shrugged. “He’s certainly a strapping fellow.”
    “And yet he would have us believe he did desk work for a major competitor. He’d have to have had schooling for that.”
    Tony leaned back in his chair, forcing himself to assume a casual air. Clearly, his trouser comment had hit its mark. He knew he ought to leave well enough alone, but temptation overrode caution.
    “Would you like to see my grade-school cards, Miss Spreckelmeyer?” He patted his pockets as if he always kept them at hand. “Or perhaps you could write for references to the schoolmarm from my hometown?”
    It was on the tip of his tongue to reveal he’d learned Spencerian penmanship, bookkeeping, banking, and business ethics at no less an establishment than the Bryant & Stratton Commercial College. But those kind of credentials didn’t measure an oilman’s fortitude.
    She stood imperiously, like she was ready to shake the dust of Tony Bryant off her fancy bicycle shoes. He rose politely in response.
    “Do what you want, Papa,” she said. “But I won’t take responsibility for hiring this one.”
    There was no mystery now as to why this woman had never married. He watched her bloomer-clad body stride out of the room, the blue bird in her hat quivering.
    Good, he thought. Now he and the judge could talk man-toman. As soon as the door clicked shut, Spreckelmeyer smiled. “Think you could work for a woman, Mr. Bryant?”
    “That one?”
    The glint in the judge’s eye spoke volumes. “None