Gruff Garrett - The Old Lawdog: Gruff Garrett Series, #1

By John J. Law

Gruff Garrett is an old US Marshal. He's pushing a little past sixty now, and he's starting to feel the wear and tear of age. Time shows no mercy to anyone as Gruff starts to feel a lot weaker, with a shorter step, trembling hands, and a ticker that always seems to threaten to give out. Gruff is always wondering if it's time for him to call it quits and retire. After all, it's clear that his best years as a marshal are behind him. Or are they?

Gruff just can't turn in his badge and retire as a US marshal. After all, it's all he's ever really known to do in his life. After Ma Edgar Hoyce, an old lady who leads a family of robbers and murderers robs a local bank, it's up to Gruff and two other much younger US marshals to track her and her murderous family down. Gruff thinks he knows where Ma Edgar and her vicious kids are but the young marshals doubt his capabilities. They question his competence because of his advanced age, but Gruff pays them no heed.

The two younger men take one path and Gruff takes another. Gruff takes the right path and manages to track down Ma Edgar and her vicious family. He's found them now, but can he survive a gunfight against them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Outlaws Publishing LLC
• Release date: May 17, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224297955

Book preview

GRUFF GARRETT

THE OLD LAWDOG

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JOHN J. LAW

Table of Contents

Title Page

Gruff Garrett - The Old Lawdog

Chapter One: It Takes One to Know One

Chapter Two: A Bolt of Lightning

Chapter Three: Maker of Monsters

Chapter Four: The Old Lawdog

Also By John J. Law

About the Publisher

Copyright © 2024 by J.C. Hulsey Books

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Cover design by Outlaws Publishing.

Published by Outlaws Publishing.

May 2024

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Chapter One: It Takes One to Know One

Few things were certain in this rough life out in the plains of the old West. Death was one of them, and this was a grim and common fact. Another fact was that Gruff Garrett was old. Garrett was pushing slightly over sixty years, and that made him one of the oldest, active deputy Marshals of the US. Garrett might have taken more pride in that fact, if only his old ticker didn't hurt so much. His advanced age and his chosen profession had taken a toll on his body and heart.

He had already started to show signs of wear and tear. Gruff was starting to pant and catch his breath a lot more. He even felt his heart feel tighten a little now and then, but the old man ignored these instances. Garrett was an old man who still had a lot of pride in himself and what he had accomplished in his long life. It was this pride that was pretty much one of the few things Garrett had left, that Father Time did not take from him.

Aside from his pride, Garrett still also had his keen senses honed from all the gunfights he had survived. Sharp ears and eyes, and a fighting spirit that would not go quietly into the night, still served Garrett well. One might say that the old Marshal still had the essentials and in his line of work, that was pretty much all that mattered.

Chief Marshal Howard Longsdale had been more insistent than usual these days with Garrett. He had suggested to him on more than one occasion to consider retiring from the service. Such prodding’s only seemed to motivate Gruff Garrett even more. For Garrett, his age and any calls for him to take it easy or outright retire, were simply