Afghan Storm (Nick Woods Book 3) Read online

  “Mr. Zachary, come quick,” the boy panted, still standing in the doorway, holding it open. Little Joe, probably about ten, wiped down tables and picked up plates down at Frank’s Saloon. An easy enough job, but tonight he looked panicked and out of breath.

  “What’s the trouble,” I said, easing my chair to the floor and taking my boots off the desk.

  “Down at Frank’s Saloon.” Little Joe gasped between his frantic details. “Big guy named Bill Garland. And two others.”

  I stood. Looked over at the double barrel shotgun leaning in the corner. Decided two barrels wouldn’t do against three men. “What happened?” I asked as I grabbed my hat and started for the door.

  “This huge guy Bill Garland beat up two men. Bad.”

  “Oh?”

  “Even kicked them when they were down. Used the toe of his boots, too. Right in their sides. He hurt 'em bad. Real bad. Better hurry.”

  “Bill Garland, eh?” I repeated as we walked down the dusty street. I knew Garland had quite a reputation. He’d made a name for himself after killing six men in fair and square gunfights. I’d need to be doubly careful tonight.

  I took a deep breath, flexed the fingers in both my hands, and asked, “Why didn’t Frank pull out his trusty double-barrel shotgun from behind the bar? He knows how to deal with out-of-control drunks. Been doing it for years.”

  “He started to,” the boy said exasperated, “but Bill Garland’s two partners drew on him first and took his gun.”

  I pulled the brim of my hat lower. I kept my eyes on the doors of the saloon ahead, while keeping my peripheral vision on the dark shadows along the street.

  “Now,” the boy said, walking fast to keep up, “they’re claiming they’ll have one final drink, as well as take a bottle to go. And when Frank said they owed him five dollars for the drinks, plus damages of fifteen dollars for all the tables and chairs they broke, Bill Garland said 'no way.' He said that Frank actually owed him twenty dollars for the fact he’d gotten hurt fighting.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Yeah, that’s what Bill said, but it ain’t true a’tall. I saw the whole fight, and Bill never even got a lick landed on him.”

  “Sounds ’bout right,” I said. I edged closer to the darker side of the street, now just fifty feet away from the doors.

  “Bill Garland told Frank he ought to run a safer establishment, and that because of hurting his back while fighting to defend himself, he wouldn’t be able to work for a couple weeks.”

  “What did Frank do?” I asked, lowering my voice. I motioned for the boy to do the same.

  “He argued at first,” Joe whispered, “but when Bill Garland said they’d bust the place up more if he didn’t pay, he handed them twenty dollars and gave them a new, unopened bottle of whiskey. Just like they asked.”

  “He did?” I asked, skeptical. Frank Connors was the toughest saloon owner I knew, and he’d been handling drunks and gunfighters for years. Had killed quite a few, too.

  “Of course he gave them the money,” the boy replied. “They’ve got his shotgun, and they’re threatening to break up the place worse than it already is. And all the other people in there are scared to death.”

  I felt a bit of fear -- real queasiness -- down in my gut.

  “Stay back,” I said.

  Chapter 2

  I waited outside the saloon doors in the shadows, ignoring the row of horses tied out front. Normally, Marshal Harrison and I took care of the rowdies. But tonight Marshal Harrison was a full day’s ride away, escorting a prisoner back to Belleville for trial.

  I waited a moment longer, thinking through the various scenarios that might occur. It’s one thing for two Marshals to back down three angry drunks. It’s quite another for one man by himself. Especially a young man my age. Young and small in the West reads amateur and pushover, whether true or not.

  I eased through the saloon doors, my hand resting on my pistol. I had every intention of talking Bill Garland down. No gun work for me tonight, since according to his reputation, he’d killed six men in fair and square gunfights.

  No doubt he could beat me if it came down to pistol work, and I had no desire to gamble on a pistol fight with him. Not unless I could get behind a table or an edge of the bar. I’m not partial to fair gunfights.

  With the saloon doors open and my hand on my pistol, I took in the scene. All the customers appeared to be in a state of shock. No music came from the normally loud piano and the men at the crowded tables sat still with downcast gazes. No one talked. No one played cards.

  To my right, two men lay on the floor among the remnants of at least three shattered tables and a couple dozen broken glasses and plates. One of them was groaning and holding his side. The other was out cold in a small pool of blood that ran from his mouth. A tooth lay in the blood.

  To my left stood Bill Garland, leaning on the bar, with his partners on both sides of him. All three men had their backs turned to me, but I knew Bill stood in the center. His reputation billed him as a hoss.

  Most small men learned to expertly wield a pistol, while big men preferred to handle things with their fists. Bill Garland was an exception to the rule: A big man who could shoot with the best of them. At least, that was his reputation.

  The bar had cleared out around them, and the folks who normally lined the bar stood against the walls. Everyone looked like they wanted to leave, but no one dared pass Bill Garland and his friends. It was as if the three men had some kind of contagious disease.

  I stood just inside the doors and looked the three men over. Bill Garland was every bit the giant his reputation claimed. A big, ham-fisted man at least two heads taller than most in the room. A striped shirt strained to hold in his thick, wide back. And on the other side, the shirt struggled to contain his gut.

  He had to weigh more than two hundred pounds. Why anyone would be stupid enough to try to take him on in a fight was beyond me. You don’t fight draft horses. Especially draft horses with a gunfighter’s reputation. At least now I knew why no one had broken up the fights to keep the men from being kicked while they were down.

  Bill Garland was the most intimidating presence I’d ever seen. And dating back to my war years, I’ve seen a few men who’d scare the living daylights out of you.

  Bill’s two buddies didn’t look like pushovers either. One was a scraggly, bearded Mexican. He wore a sombrero and looked about fifty. Old to be staying out late and carrying a fancy, ivory-handled pistol tied down to his leg. The other one was a tall, lanky white man probably in his mid-twenties. He had the look of a cocky Texan, since he wore a huge, high-crowned, wide-brimmed hat pushed back on his head.

  I knew standing behind them that I was in deep shit. Some men carry experience in the way they stand, the way they talk, the way they look. These men were fighters and killers. They would have even been a challenge for me and ole’ Marshal Harrison together. I didn’t want to consider how it would turn out for just one young deputy.

  Chapter 3

  I considered sliding out of Frank’s Place -- the name of the saloon -- and pulling my pistol from behind the cover of the wall below the saloon doors. Maybe after I’d shot one or two of them, they’d decide they ought to leave, though big Bill Garland might take more than two shots to put down.

  But before I could back out, Frank Connors, the saloon owner who stood behind the bar, looked up. Bill Garland, standing in front of him, saw his eyes move toward the saloon doors and turned to see who had entered. I heard several people audibly gasp, probably figuring a shootout would happen immediately.

  “What seems to be the problem?” I asked, wanting to speak first.

  Bill Garland, now enraged, threw his mug to the floor as hard as he could, shattering it into a thousand pieces.

  “What do you want?” he demanded, practically sneering.

  “I’m the law,” I said, “so don’t do anything stupid like going for your gun. I came to resolve this dispute.”

  I said it
as deep as I could, but it came out shakier than I wanted.

  Bill laughed and smiled at the Mexican. The Mexican placed his hand on the ivory-handled pistol, which I thought was a little bold, while the lanky feller remained leaning on the bar, seeing no threat and keeping his eyes on the bar owner.

  I shifted my eyes from Bill to the Mexican.

  “If you draw and manage to kill me, you’ll have a posse the size of the Comanche nation coming after you,” I warned, nodding toward the roughly two dozen men sitting at tables or lining the walls. “Led by a handful of U.S. Marshals. And that’s if these fine folks let you walk out of the saloon alive.”

  Bill Garland walked toward me, a monstrous hulk that caused the floors to creak.

  “Son,” he said, “if you’ve got a lick of sense, you’ll leave us the hell alone. We’ll bury you before the hour is over, and these fine folks you mentioned won’t do a damned thing. Just like they didn’t earlier when I was tossing around and kicking their friends.”

  He had a point there, but I tried not to show anything as I looked up at him. He moved his head closer, lowering it a bit, and said, “Little man, I suggest you leave now while you can and let us handle this disagreement with Frank here.”

  His breath smelled of beer and peanuts, and it was hard not to recoil from it. But, somehow I managed to answer him.

  “Ya know, if I was a tub of lard as big as you, I’d talk big, too. And if I wasn’t planning on hitting the sack soon, I’d show you why it’s best to keep your mouth shut. But, that’d take two hours and get me all sweaty and probably a bit busted up, so if you don’t mind, let’s settle this tomorrow.”

  Bill pulled in his gut and hitched up his pants. I could tell the tub of lard comment had hit home. I doubt anyone had gathered the nerve to mention it before.

  I thought he was going to reply, but instead he slapped me. Openhanded with his right hand. And he was WAY faster than I expected. Not to mention, he hadn’t telegraphed the move by flinching or moving his shoulder. I never saw it coming and my head rang from the force.

  I tasted blood in my mouth and tried to collect my wits.

  “Little man,” he said, leaning in again with his revolting breath, “you shut your mouth or I’ll slap you silly from one end of this room to the other.”

  I’ve fought big men before and whooped most of ’em. But, it takes a lot of space and time, to wear them down. Most lack agility and move slow and give away what they’re doing by leading and flinching.

  Bill Garland didn’t fit in that category, and it occurred to me that I was in deep shit. I didn’t have any men on my flanks as I’d had in war. And I didn’t have anyone who’d have my back in this saloon -- those along the walls and at their tables were too intimidated.

  I’d never been so scared in my life. I knew for sure he was way more than I could handle, and that he’d very likely lame me for life if we fought and he kicked me while I was down. That slap – the force and weight of his hand – had felt like getting kicked by a horse. He’d probably nearly killed the two men lying on the floor. A kick from Bill Garland, if he were enraged and landed it well, could quite possibly kill me. A ruptured organ or cracked skull seemed completely reasonable.

  The man in me wanted to fight. Every muscle fiber and piece of binding sinew in my body screamed at me to fight him. And I felt the men of my family – a line of tough hombres as stout as bulls and as stubborn as mules – looking down on me.

  But despite the pressure of being a man and having a family lineage to uphold, every bit of common sense told me that a fight was what he wanted. He wanted to lame me for life to add to his already growing fame. As I considered these thoughts, Bill Garland saw I was going to do nothing.

  “Little man, at least you got more sense than ya got stature.” And with that, he turned and lumbered back to the bar.

  I stood there dazed. My face pounded with heat and pain from his heavy-handed slap, but as I looked around and saw everyone staring at me, embarrassment hit home. This man turned his back on me, because he didn’t see me as a threat. Worse, he’d slapped me, because he thought I was a joke. I’d have rather been punched. Maybe knocked out, or even injured and helpless from a broken jaw. At least then I’d have an excuse for not confronting him again. But to slap me? Like a girl?

  So, instead of lying in the floor with a broken jaw having given it my all, I had to stand there, watching Frank Connors behind the bar and a couple dozen friends look at me pitifully. As if they felt sorry for me.

  It hit me that my whole life had come down to this moment. I could turn and walk out, but my reputation as a man would be over. All my war experience. Worthless. Me gunning down the Jones brothers after they robbed a bank. Forgotten. And worst of all, the reputation of my Zachary family name would collapse into a cowardly rubble. All because I’d let a man slap me and didn’t have the nerve to do a damn thing about it.

  I knew, as I stood there ashamed, that I had to act, though it was clear I’d probably get seriously injured. Possibly even die, but I had to act. To do nothing was worse than serious injury or death. To just stand there would be to surrender my manhood and everything I’d worked to earn since my first fist-fight as a boy.

  Bill Garland’s two friends had turned from looking at me, as well, and now all three of them faced Frank again, who looked even more scared now that the law -- his final hope -- had fallen short of proving a savior.

  Shooting them in the back would be illegal and wrong, and drawing on them and asking them to disarm would only work for a few minutes. Even though I knew they’d drop their gun belts, I also knew I’d never get them to walk down the main street to the jail without jumping me.

  Even if I did get them down the street, I’d have to get them in a cell somehow. Alone.

  I cursed the fact Marshal Harrison wasn’t in town and had left me alone, and I cursed the fact I’d let Bill Garland slap me like I was nothing in front of so many people. My brain told me I’d have been better off not coming into the saloon at all when the boy Joe showed up. But that old family blood of mine had made me respond to the boy’s request.

  I’ve never felt so many eyes on me as I felt that night, and I’ve never felt so clearly that my life hinged on a single moment.

  And that’s when I saw the stool. It was to Bill’s left and behind him. It had probably been the Mexican’s, and he’d pushed it back when Bill had turned to face me earlier.

  I moved toward the stool and grabbed a leg with each hand down toward the base. As I pulled it up with both hands, I realized it was far heavier and stouter than I expected. But with hardly a pause and with all the power I could garner, I spun in a complete circle and arched the stool from low to high, swinging it with all my weight and momentum.

  I’ve cut a lot of wood and know that nothing creates power like long arcs, and I created a lot of power that night. Anger, shame, and adrenaline caused me to yank that stool off the floor and swing it as I’d never swung anything in my life.

  The four-legged, thirty-pound walnut stool hit Bill Garland so hard across the shoulders that it likely injured him for life.

  The stool slammed into him in the back of the neck and right shoulder area, and it didn’t even break -- the stool was that solid. Bill screamed, almost like a girl or a deer that’s been fatally hit, and as he fell, he twisted toward me and went for his gun.

  Time slowed down, as it always does in those moments, and I saw Bill’s friends looking at me in shock in my peripheral vision. Too stunned to move. Too shocked to see I was no longer behind them, standing there helpless. The “little man” in over his head.

  But, Bill, grievously injured as he fell to the ground, reached for his pistol. I’ll always believe he did it because he thought I’d smash him again with that stool when he hit the ground. Right in the face.

  I wouldn’t have -- because it would have been unnecessary and would have left me vulnerable to his friends -- but, Bill didn’t know that. And as he clumsily went for his gun,
I shoved the stool at him to startle him, drew my pistol, cocked it, and shot him right in the chest – about four inches to the left of his heart. Not a great shot, but first shots rarely are.

  As the stool rolled away and he clutched at his chest, I cocked again, aimed better, and shot him one more. Even more accurate this time. About an inch off the mark.

  My ears rang from the shots and smoke rose from my gun as I cocked it a third time and aimed it at the Mexican. Right at his head. About a foot away. I figured he’d be a far greater threat than the tall lanky Texan, who was still young and hopefully pretty green.

  The whole series of events took less than a couple of seconds.

  “You’ll regret that,” the Mexican said, looking from the barrel of my smoking gun to the bloody floor where Bill Garland lay.

  “I’m just getting started,” I said, my voice having returned to its normal octave with the rebound of my courage.

  Chapter 4

  Standing there with my pistol, I knew the tide had turned. Thirty seconds ago, I’d been a young man who’d been slapped and humiliated in front of roughly twenty-five people. Now, I’d just killed the great Bill Garland, and his reputation had been transferred to me.

  It hit me that I was no longer some minor Deputy Marshal in some no account town. I’d killed a famous man. A serious threat. I was no longer just a nobody.

  Still aiming at the Mexican’s head, I commanded, “Drop your gun belt, nice and slow. I’d hate to accidentally shoot you. I’m a little jumpy tonight.”

  The Mexican did nothing, and I wondered what I’d do if he refused.

  “I’m not taking off my gun,” he said, and his deep voice, his aged confidence, his weathered face did something to me. It was his cockiness that drove me to the edge of my limit.

  I raised the front of the gun barrel just a couple inches and fired. The blast shook the room, and the Mexican nearly jumped out of his skin as the bullet passed inches over his head and into the wall. I think he thought I meant to shoot him, and I have no doubt he filled his pants. I know I would have.