The Badger Game

By Avram B. Cross

Bradly Smith, an ex-GI, who, before he settles down, wants to see America and meet its people. His first adventure finds him in Florida with a phony preacher and a wife with a very curious come-on

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mystery & Thriller Publishing
• Release date: Sep 13, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223862048

Book preview

All rights reserved

No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means - graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or information storage and retrieval systems - without the prior permission in writing of the publishers

The storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

Bradly Smith, an ex-GI, who, before he settles down, wants to see America and meet its people. His first adventure finds him in Florida with a phony preacher and a wife with a very curious come-on

I

BRADLY Smith, the young man going around the country to see what there was to see and experience in the world. He wasn’t very tall, but he was formed perfectly, with good broad shoulders, full chest, narrow hips, and well-shaped legs. His features were exceptionally regular, his skin like smooth-grained white oak, his eyes dark and luminous, while his hair was extremely black and slightly wavy. His most attractive quality, however, was that he was not vain in the least, showing no evidence of being aware of all his good physical traits; they were just there.

Actually, Bradly was not especially interested in women. But his looks continually so attracted them that, not out of his own choice, he often found himself in situations that would not permit him to ignore them. Then, if he felt like it, he would respond. Sometimes, when he didn’t feel like it, difficulties followed, for Bradly had learned, beyond anything else, the truth of the axiom about there being no greater wrath than that of a woman scorned.

Bradly tried to avoid fights, especially over women, if he could. Even at 24 he had had enough of fighting. Taken out of college between his sophomore and junior years by the Army to fight in Korea, he had had enough of fighting. He had killed largely to prevent himself from being killed, and became very proficient at it, a skilled, legal murderer, not in the muscle-bound he-man manner, but rather in that of the smarter, shrewd way of quietly being ready, if pushed too far, to meet any challenge.

After returning from Korea, Bradly felt restless and didn’t know what he wanted to do. He didn’t care, right away, to return to college. He decided to get around the country and look at it and at its people. He wasn’t sure what he was searching for. Perhaps it was an inner peace disturbed by war, or for some understanding of the turoils of present-day life.

Whatever it was, his restlessness carried him, one day in Florida, on a truck on which he had hitched a ride, to a spot not far from the town ahead where a grove of live oaks was set just off the road. Here, under their great limbs from which Spanish moss dripped,