One Was a Soldier Read Online Free PDF Page A

taking this pain-in-the-ass job to support her kids.
    In the case of the shaved-head army guy in front of her, it had made taking on a small-town thug and his posse seem like a good idea. He had paid for it with a split lip and battered face.
    When she arrived at the bar, he’d been getting the worst of it from a group of the Dew Drop’s finest: skinny-shanked guys with ropy muscles and nicotine-stained teeth. The big black guy in camo pants looked like he could have taken on two, maybe even three of them, but five tilted the odds way out of his favor.
    Hadley had waded in, rapping elbows and knees with her extendable baton, giving it her best Russ Van Alstyne impression: hard voice, big presence, short commands. A pair of construction-worker types helped her take hold of Soldier Boy and drag him back into the jukebox corner; the locals retreated behind one of the pool tables.
    Now, she noticed the soldier kept looking toward a trio of girls backed against the bar. Two of them had long acrylic nails and streaked hair scraped back in Tonya Harding ponytails, but the third was a blunt-fingered natural brunette with a Dutch Boy bob. Short. Practical. Like maybe it fit under a helmet. Tears had smeared the girl’s makeup, but she looked more angry than upset. “Tally, get your ass over here,” a good-looking guy in a Poison T-shirt and steel-capped boots yelled; in response, the girl flipped him the bird.
    The soldier lurched forward. Hadley blocked his path. “Sir, you have got to stay here.” The man wiped his bloody nose on the back of his hand and stared over her shoulder. “Sir? Are you listening to me?” Hadley slapped her baton into her palm for emphasis.
    The man shrugged off the hands holding him. Hadley nodded to the two guys behind him, letting them know it was okay, even though she was worried it wasn’t. The air in the Dew Drop sparked with the tension of a boxing ring between rounds. “What’s your name, soldier?”
    “Nichols,” he said. “Chief Warrant Officer Quentan Nichols.”
    “What are you doing here, Chief Warrant Officer Nichols?”
    Finally, he focused on her. “You ask that of everybody who visits this podunk town? Or just the black folks?”
    She thumbed toward the pool table. In the light cast by the hanging lamp, she could see the good ol’ boys scowling and glaring at the CWO. Poison T-shirt was at the center, speaking fast and low to the guy next to him. “I want to know why that man and his buddies were trying to take you apart.”
    “Maybe they’re down on the army.” His eyes darted back to the angry brunette. This guy was a worse liar than her eleven-year-old.
    She pointed the baton toward the girl. “You know her?”
    Nichols jerked his attention back to Hadley. “We were talking.”
    “Uh-huh.” She slapped the baton into her palm one more time. “Stay here.”
    She crossed the scarred wooden floor toward the bar, her boots sticking with every second step. She was maybe five feet away from the girl, close enough to read the IN MEMORIAM tattoo circling her arm, when she heard the thud of footsteps and the shouts and she whirled to see the locals charging Nichols. Shit! Dumb, sophomore mistake. She should’ve shut those assholes down once and for all before talking with anybody else.
    Somebody bumped her from behind, sending her stumbling. She staggered upright, baton at the ready, but it hadn’t been aimed at her. The brunette had joined the melee, punching and kicking at the white boys like Xena, Warrior Princess, while her girlfriends screamed and wailed.
    Hadley breathed in deep and bellowed, “Break it up!” One of the construction workers, a fresh-faced blond with pierced ears and impressive muscles, came in on Nichols’s side. Oh, great. Hadley advanced toward the nearest man, baton extended, and whacked him: back of the thigh, side of the arm. He staggered away, howling, but two more roughnecks came off their bar stools in defense of the home team, causing