Page 31 of Lawless Ride

“Don’t know yet. We have to see the features and a lot depends on the price.” He looked straight at me.

“I’m not current on laptop prices,” I admitted. “See what they’ve got and then we’ll decide.”

“I want to look at the cameras for the back field while we’re in that store,” said Harlan. “Save us a trip.”

“What will they run on? Batteries?” I asked.

“We need to find out.” Harlan laughed. “Long way to run an extension cord.”

Edge Electronics. Cut Bank.

After Harlan listened to all the lowdown on the field cameras and the salesclerk gave us a demo of how they worked, he decided we needed three to cover the area where the rustlers would run through our land.

I agreed with the spots he had chosen and concurred that we needed three. We moved on to the laptops in a different department and he was shown a lot of different makes and models.

When it came down to it, Harlan picked the one he liked, and I coughed up six hundred bucks.

Wild Stallion Ranch.

Back home for chores and dinner and afterwards Harlan set the laptop up on the kitchen table and got busy. The girls watched him for a while, then they got tired of him not talking to them and they went upstairs.

Once the three kids were all occupied, I left for my last run of the day to the station. I had to feed the prisoners and then I’d drop into the roadhouse and drink a pitcher of Miller—alone.

Dry Run Roadhouse.

Saturday night and the band and the crowd were both loud. The Dry Run was the only place to be in Coyote Creek on a Saturday night. Being the only choice helped to make it number one.

I sat at the end of the bar and drank a pitcher of Miller and talked to Jack between customers. Turned out it was so busy, he barely had time to talk to me at all.

Around nine-thirty Savanna came in alone, and since she couldn’t sit at the bar any longer because of the breakup with Jack, I joined her in a booth near the dance floor.

“You all alone tonight?” She laughed. “What did you do with your growing family?”

“Bought Harlan a laptop and now he can’t leave home.”

“That’ll do it.”

I waved Tessa over and bought Savanna a drink and me another pitcher.

“Solve Tory Masters’ murder yet?”

“No, but we went back to the scene today and Harlan found Tory’s cell phone under the bed where he died. Tomorrow, Harlan will get all the texts and messages from the phone, and we might make serious progress.”

“I heard you had Tanya Boyd in your jail.” Savanna smiled.

“You know her?”

Savanna shrugged. “She’s been in the store. I know her to see her and that’s all. I heard her husband can be a prick.”

“Yeah, I’ve talked to him a couple of times. He’s not the friendly type.”

“What about Josie?” asked Savanna. “She’s a bit of a loose cannon.”

I chuckled. “I’ve got her locked up too. Her and her brother Grant Andrews.”

“Yeah, I forgot she used to be an Andrews. That family is a wild lot. Art is the worst.”

“Broke his nose two or three times already. He ain’t a big fan of mine.”

---