Chiefs by Stuart Woods Read Free Book Online Page B

feel too good about either one of them. I can’t give you much advice about when to shoot at a man, Will Henry, unless he’s trying to kill you. You’ll have to work that out by yourself. But I’ll tell you this, you’d better work it out in your mind right now, ‘cause when the time comes you won’t have time to think about it.”
    Will Henry’s breath was coming more easily now; he stood up and filled his lungs. “Well, thanks for the advice, Skeeter. If I ever recover my health enough to use it, it ought to come in real handy.”
    “I’m just giving you the little lecture I give when I get a new deputy. You’d be surprised the way some of ‘em act as soon as they get a badge on. I have to pick ‘em real careful.” Skeeter traced some obscure pattern in the dirt with a toe. “I wouldn’t have picked you, Will Henry. If Holmes had asked my advice I’d of told him to find somebody else.”
    Will Henry was stung. “You think I’d push people around?”
    “Oh, no, no, no. That’s not why I wouldn’t of picked you. Just the reverse. I don’t know if you’ve got it in you to be hard enough. I think you’re likely to hesitate when the time comes. That’ll breed disrespect, and word’ll get around. You won’t be able to keep things straight. And when that happens, Carrie’s going to have good reason to worry. Somebody’ll kill you, Will Henry, as sure as you’re standing there.”
    They were both silent for a moment. It occurred to Will Henry that this must be one of the most solemn moments of his life. Skeeter Willis, with patent sincerity, was giving him the most earnest possible advice, based on knowledge and experience. The man was trying the very best he knew how to help him survive the work he had chosen to do. Will Henry was moved.
    “Skeeter, I understand you, and I’ll try to remember what you’ve told me. I reckon if I don’t die in bed it won’t be your fault. Thank you.”
    Skeeter heaved a deep sigh and nodded. He patted Will Henry’s shoulder heavily a couple of times, gave him a small smile, and walked away toward his car.
    Will Henry stopped in front of the house and looked at it. Although chilled from the walk home, he felt compelled to pause and reflect. The night was clear and very cold, even though it was not much past six. The rising moon gave the white frame house a luminous quality. It looked secure and inviting. He still felt somewhat disoriented. Only the day before he had left the house he was born in, left a country life, changed irrevocably his existence. The farm was receding into the past at an astonishing rate; it surprised him to feel, standing in front of this strange house, that he had arrived home. Inside, his wife was preparing a supper she had not grown or picked or plucked. His children would get up tomorrow morning and walk a short distance to school, and afterwards would play with other children who lived only a few yards away. Tomorrow, his work would allow him to walk on pavement in shoes he normally wore only on Sundays. People would seek him out with their problems, or simply pass the time of day. People. He would see more people in a day than he normally saw in ten. He had a place, a position in other people’s lives, for the first time. He would not disappoint them.
    In one short day he had single-handedly captured two armed bank robbers in a manner that, if anyone other than Frank Mudter ever found out about it, he would never live down; he had almost seen his son kill his daughter with a pistol he himself had left loaded and within reach; and he had been knocked on his ass by the sheriff of Meriwether County. It was less than an auspicious beginning, but it was, by God, a new beginning.
    He climbed the steps and went inside.

    Chapter 8.
    HOLMES closed the front door and carefully hung his coat in the hall closet.
    “Hugh?” The call came from upstairs. “Is that you?”
    “Yes, Ginny, I’m home.” He heard her start for the stairs, and he