Any Thursday (Donovans of the Delta) by Peggy Webb Page B

somebody’s toes, I might as well turn in my typewriter.”
    John picked the envelope up and handed it to him. “I think you should read it before you make that decision.”
    Jim ripped the letter out of the envelope. It was the same as all the others he’d received, a crude poem handwritten on unlined dime-store paper.
The mighty warrior drew his bow and shot into the night. The arrow turned, came back to him, and gave him quite a fright. It ripped into his floating house, trailing streams of fire. It ripped into his blackguard heart, branding him a liar.
    Jim wadded the paper into a ball and tossed it back onto the table. John’s suntanned face was unreadable as he smoothed the paper and stuffed it back into the envelope.
    “This one is worse than the other two, Jim.”
    “I’ll concede that, but I’ll be damned if I’ll request protection.”
    “From a very practical standpoint, I think we can ask the police to beef up the patrol along the waterfront.” John pulled off his glasses and tapped the frames against the brown envelope. “This floating house is obviously your houseboat. It sounds like they mean to torch it.”
    “Most cowardly deeds are done at night. I’ll ask Colter to help me keep a lookout. His boat is in the slip next to mine.”
    “Hmmm.” John closed his eyes and leaned back.
    Jim was familiar with that non-answer. It always meant that John Searles was thinking, and that when he had finished, he’d do exactly as he pleased, no matter what anyone else thought about the matter. Their clashes had been titanic and legendary around the publishing office, for John’s stubbornness matched his own. That was the first thing Jim had noticed when he’d come to work for him eight years before, that and his age. He was barely three years older than Jim, but he looked ten years younger. Wealth does that, Jim mused. It cushions the shocks of real life.
    Jim waited. Only one thing was certain: Whatever was decided today would not affect their relationship. The respect they held for each other more than balanced their tempers.
    “This is what we’ll do.” John flashed his pleased, boyish smile as he looked up. “I’ll arrange for extra security around the waterfront—a private company— and you’ll go to Texas.”
    “So . . . you’re going to send me into hiding again?”
    “Yes. You did quite well with that Donovan wedding assignment in Greenville. And those pieces you did in Charleston and Savannah were superb. I thought I’d send you out to Houston to cover the opening of a new multimillion-dollar spa. It’s called The Magic Touch, and it will be crawling with celebrities. The story will make a nice addition to America’s Elite .”
    “That Donovan assignment was more dangerous than a firing squad. I would have been safer in San Francisco.”
    “What?”
    “Nothing. Just reminiscing.” Cramming his hand into his pockets, Jim turned toward the window that looked out over his beloved city.
    Hannah’s image filled his mind. He saw her as clearly as he had six weeks earlier, her red dress billowing, her dark hair tumbled. Fire and smoke. And he’d been burned. The only cure would be to step into the fire again.
    Resolutely he turned to face his publisher. “I have a counterproposal.”
    “I’m listening.”
     o0o
    The commuter plane began its descent toward Glacier Bay.
    Jim, who’d always thought San Francisco was God’s gift to mankind, found himself holding his breath over the grandeur of the scene below him. Enormous mountains capped with snow and shrouded with mists presided with ancient majesty over the lush forest of spruce and hemlock. Gleaming pinnacles of ice rose up from the water, tips of the glaciers that guarded the ends of the fjords. As the small plane dipped lower, he could see bright ribbons of color, patches of yellow dryas and strips of scarlet fireweed, wildflowers he’d read about in the guidebook to Alaska.
    A saying of the Hoonah Indians, Glacier Bay’s