Guns of Vengeance

By Douglas Sandler

The year is 1872 with the civil war over former union officer Allen Johnson and his wife Susan move to Red Rock, Texas to start over. He takes the toenmarshal job and things are good. The Edwards gang rides into town and rob the bank, kill townsmen and kidnap his wife.

When he finds her dead body in a brutal state the badge comes off and Mexico is about to get bloody. Hell has nothing when compared to a husband bent on revenge

contains adult content and graphic violence

• Language: English
• Publisher: douglas sandler
• Release date: Dec 6, 2018
• ISBN: 9781721955145

Douglas Sandler

Douglas Sandler (b. 4/13/67-) Born in Brooklyn, NY I am the author of 9 indie books.I Graduated from Gulf Coast Community College with an A.A. History in May 2010 and an A.A.S. in Paralegal studies from Gulf Coast State College (former Gulf Coast Community College) in May 2012. I graduated from Florida State University Panama City, Florida with a B.S. History/Political science 2017 and finally a Master's degree from Purdue Global in 2021.

Book preview

Chapter One

The dusty streets of Red Rock, Texas simmered in the rising, mid-morning summer’s heat. At 11:45 A.M. the temperature was already topping the nineties and climbing steadily toward what would be a record level for the first week of June. Even for Southern Texas, the weather was extraordinarily hot, and no one moved about the streets except when absolutely necessary.

Fat black flies hummed lazily in and out of the shadows around Andrew’s livery stable at the east end of town.  Allen Johnson lounged casually in the doorway of the town Marshal’s office, scanning the almost empty street with eyes narrowed against the sun’s glare.

Allen Johnson was a Union captain in the Civil War and a Police Lieutenant in New York City when in 1868 moved with his wife to Red Rock, Texas. He would not be due to make his morning rounds for another half hour, but already the back and armpits of his shirt were damp with sweat. The summer heat seemed to reach out to him and clinch him in an unnerving fist, slowly draining him of energy. It was only the thought of Susan which had given Johnson the vitality to report for work that day, and now just thinking of her again seemed to recharge him somehow, giving him renewed vigor.

He could picture her smiling face as clearly as if she stood there before him and for one fleeting moment he almost imagined that he could smell again the fragrance of her hair. He had met Susan when he was on leave in New York City in 1864. She was the daughter of a banker, and they met at a Broadway show and were married two months later.  He and Susan had been married for four years, and during that time it seemed it seemed that his all-encompassing love for her had been multiplied tenfold. He awoke each morning with her smile and returned home each night to the warm and passionate circle of her arms. Susan more than anyone else had persuaded him to take the marshal’s job when it was offered to him fourteen months earlier, and it that way as in every other, she had served to make him a better man.

This particular morning, however, Susan was more strongly upon Allen Johnson's mind than ever. This morning over an unusually elegant breakfast, she had announced that she was carrying a child inside her.

Johnson was still not entirely comfortable with the idea of being a father and holding the responsibility for two other lives in his hands, but Susan assured him that they were strong hands and that together through their love. They would be well able to cope with any situation which might confront them in their lives together, Allen Johnson listened and believed.

He would, of course, retain the marshal’s job for a while longer, at least until they had enough money laid down to purchase the old Davidson spread north of town. So far the job of policing Red Rock had been surprisingly easy. Things had been quiet for the most part, and Johnson was thankful that his year of service he had been forced to draw his gun only twice. He had fired it only once in anger, to wound a drunken renegade who was terrorizing the customers and ladies at the Lucky Six Saloon.

Johnson supposed that the changing times must be responsible in large part for the peace he had enjoyed as marshal of Red Rock. It was 1875, after all, and with President Grant in the White House, the nation was well on its way to total recovery from the ravages of civil war.

Large parts of Eastern Texas were still enmeshed in violent lawlessness, true but Red Rock lay south of that problem, and the town had been blessed by a merciful shortage of both outlaws and carpet baggers. Five mounted men came down the street, riding in from the west end of town, almost shoulder to shoulder. Allen followed them with his eyes, examining each in turn with a lawman’s professional curiosity toward strangers.

Johnson’s first impression was that the men seemed an unusually mixed bag, the farthest from him, riding a sorrel mare, was the largest of the five men, fully six feet six inches tall, the man wore a leather vest with no shirt beneath, Indian fashion exposing his muscular chest and shoulders. He had a long whitish scar ran from the man’s left temple diagonally to the tip of his chin, distorting the perpetual grin which he wore.

Next to the big man rode a slim Negro well dressed and complete with string tie, looking for the entire world like an advance man for some traveling minstrel show. The image was not enhanced by the twin navy colts the black man wore around his waist thrusting out from beneath his suit coat. The third rider was also the oldest, a grizzled man with stringy gray hair cascading over his collar and prickly beard stubble to match. His lined and weatherized face gave the impression of a man accustomed to long hours in the baking sun, as he passed by, Johnson noticed that the man was missing his right hand, and in its place, he wore a long wicked hook of glinting steel.

The second to last rider and the closest to Johnson as they passed, was a man of the almost stately bearing. His clothes were trail dirtied and mismatched, but on his head, he wore a fading officer’s hat of the late Confederacy; Johnson surmised that the man had learned his erect posture during the war, very probably while serving with the cavalry from the way he rode his mount. The rider next to the stately bearing man was Swedish looking with twin Colt .44’s on his hips.

Allen Johnson himself had served with the winning side in the War Between the States, and he felt no animosity now against old symbols of the late war. He had served with the infantry witnessing and inflicting his share of violent death and, he had served under officers displaying every shade of the human spectrum from heroism to cowardice. He prided himself on being able to recognize most of those human traits on sight, but what he read in the face of this stranger was something entirely different. The riders were coming abreast of Johnson now and the nearest man half-turned in his saddle to face Allen directly, eyes firmly on Allen’s badge as he smiled broadly and tipped his officer's hat in a formal greeting.

Johnson answered with a casual wave of his hand, and then the riders were past him, clopping down the dusty street at a measured pace, covering half the town’s length before they began reining in front of the Red Rock bank meeting up with a sixth man who was there scouting ahead of their entry to the bank.

Something which Allen Johnson could not name, perhaps an omen of sorts, or a latent memory was nagging at the back of his mind; something about the strangers, and about the former rebel officer in particular. Allen turned back into the shady interior of his office, crossing to the roll top desk and pulling open a drawer which held his stack of currently wanted posters. The man might not be listed there, in fact probably was not, but there was still something about him which set Allen Johnson’s teeth on edge, and the marshal meant to find out what that something was.

It was cooler inside the Red Rock bank, but the mounting heat reached there as well, and the head teller Peter Davis was perspiring freely beneath his starched white shirt. He scanned the bank lobby counting the waiting customers automatically hoping that the trade would thin out enough for him to take his lunch break on time for the first time in a week.

The stranger in the old military hat was next, stepping up to the teller’s window now with a broad smile of swaggering self-insurance. Peter Davis answered that smile with a rehearsed one of his own.

Yes, sir may I help you? he asked

The stranger nodded curtly, I would like to withdraw my entire account, he said his voice carried a soft drawl which Davis mentally placed somewhere east of the Louisiana line.

Sir? I beg your pardon? the head teller was flustered, confused by the man’s request. Davis prided himself on his working knowledge of the bank’s every depositor, and this stranger was not among them.

The man retained his smile as he repeated himself, "I said I want