The Lawmen Read Online Free

bearded man, wearing only his trousers, ran after her.
    “Bitch!” the bearded man shouted. He kicked the woman in the rear, knocking her to the ground. She got up and started to run away. The man caught up to her from behind and hit her alongside the head with a terrific right hand. The blow lifted the woman off the ground. She somehow managed to keep her feet as she landed, but she was dazed and hurt and stumbling.
    The bearded man went for her again. “Give me my money!” He turned the helpless woman around, grabbing the front of her dress and slapping her face.
    Clay ran forward. “Hey! Stop that!”
    The bearded man looked over his shoulder.
    “I’m the marshal,” Clay said. “What’s going on here?”
    The bearded man held onto the woman with one hand and pointed with the other. “This whore stole twenty-five dollars from me. Took it out of my pocket while I was sleeping.”
    “That ain’t so,” the woman sobbed through bloodied lips. “I didn’t take nothing from him. He’s drunk. I don’t know what he did with his money.”
    “You lying bitch.” The bearded man raised his fist to hit her again.
    Clay grabbed the man’s wrist. “I said, stop.”
    The bearded man turned and swung his left hand at Clay, who ducked the blow and kneed the man in the groin. The man bent over with a loud woof, his face scrunched up in pain. Clay let go of the bearded man’s arm and with his own right hand slugged the man in the jaw. The man dropped to the ground and lay motionless.
     Clay caught the battered woman and steadied her. She was blond, of medium height. She might have been pretty when she was younger. Her longish nose was skewed to one side where it had once been broken, and there was a deep scar down each side of her face, from cheekbone to jaw.
    “You all right?” Clay asked her.
    The woman struggled to get her feet planted beneath her. Her eyes swam into focus. “I been better, I guess. Been worse, too. I’ll survive. Thanks, Marshal. . . ?”
    “Chandler. Clay Chandler.”
    “Then thanks, Clay Chandler. I'm Julie Bennett.”
    Julie moved her head gingerly, opening and closing her bloody mouth as if to make sure that everything was still working. She touched the side of her head, where the bearded man had hit her, and winced. “Thanks for the help. A lot of law types don’t care what happens to girls on the Line.”
    “I’m new to the job,” Clay explained. “I figure you should treat everybody the same.”
    She tossed him a look. “You must be new, if that’s what you think.”
    Clay couldn’t help staring at the scars on her cheeks. She noticed and said, “You’re wondering about my face.”
    “No, I-”
    “It’s all right, everybody does. I got in trouble with the Hopkins gang.”
    “The Hopkins gang? Who are they?”
    “You don’t know about them?”
    “No,” Clay said.
    “You will. They run this town. They have their fingers in everything—and everybody. I used to work at Francie de Lisle’s place. I complained about how much of my money I had to give to the Hopkins brothers. Then I started holding out on them, just a few dollars now and then. They found out about it, and ...” Her voice tailed off.
    Clay’s eyes narrowed. “What did they use on you—a straight razor?”
    Involuntarily she touched her right cheek. “Yeah. Two of ’em held me down, and Lee Hopkins did the job. Lee likes
    that kind of work. The vet sewed me up. I lost my job at Francie’s after that. I had to take up one of these cribs. That means less money for me, and no protection. I’m just hanging on now, trying to make ends meet.”
    “Why don’t you leave?” Clay asked.
    “Leave for where? Things ain’t going to be better for me anyplace else, not with a face like this.”
    The bearded man was sitting up now, rubbing his jaw. Clay hauled him to his feet. “If I see you beating up a woman again, they’ll be putting your head together with screws. You got that?”
    “Yeah,” groaned the