The room went quiet. Everyone had been staring and listening to Fred, he had that kind of charisma, but when Fred made the challenge, everyone turned to D-Day, whose jaw had dropped.
“You want to fight me?” he asked incredulously.
“Yep, unless you’re a coward.”
“Oh, I know all about your skills with a pistol, McCoy. That’s not going to happen, but I’ll take you on in a fistfight and we’ll see who the coward is.”
Fred surprised everyone with his response.
“Fists then,” Fred replied. “And I know all about that hideout knife you got in your boot. If you try to pull it out, I’ll kill you.”
First Sergeant Crumby, who had been sitting quietly in the back of the room, snickered loudly. D-Day heard it. His expression of astonishment turned to an angry sneer.
“You got it, old man. Everybody says you’re tough. I’m about to show them different. Outside, right now.”
Fred stood, put his hat on, and walked out. Everyone jumped up and started moving toward the door before President VanAllen could adjourn the meeting.
Chapter 14 – The Fight
Word had travelled fast. A crowd was already gathering when Fred, who had stopped off in the cafeteria, walked out the door. Nobody knew it, but he’d taken a small dab of lard and smeared it on his face. Ambling over to the crowd, he took off his gun belt and handed it to Sammy. Handing over his knife, he leaned close.
“If anyone pulls out a weapon, toss me my pistol if you can, otherwise, you know what to do.”
Sammy nodded solemnly.
D-Day and his wife walked out a minute later and paused when they saw the crowd. Ruby whispered something to her husband, who grinned and began taking off his heavy shirt.
“That woman might try something too, keep an eye on her,” Fred whispered.
“You got it,” Sammy whispered back.
Fred turned to face D-Day. The man had stripped down to a stained wife-beater, showing a plethora of faded, poor-quality tattoos. Still, there was whipcord lean muscle in his arms, much like Fred’s, and he had a few scars here and there that did not come from a surgeon’s knife.
Fred did a little stretching, but not much. Rachel had him doing yoga every morning before breakfast. He hated to admit it, but he had grown to like the stretching routines. D-Day stopped him with a curt whistle.
“You ready for your ass-whipping or you going to stand there and do a jazzercise routine?”
Fred did not bother answering. Instead, he walked toward D-Day, closing the distance until they were about ten feet apart. D-Day flexed his muscles and began circling Fred, occasionally throwing out a jab to test the distance.
Fred had no illusions. He was in his fifties. His reflexes weren’t what they once were. Back when he shot Calvin Malloy not too long ago, the grouping of the two bullet holes were almost an inch apart. He hadn’t shot that badly in years. Fred pivoted as D-Day circled, watching, waiting.
After throwing a couple of ineffective jabs without a response, D-Day interpreted Fred’s hesitance as fear. He smirked and charged in, faked a left, and threw a right hook. Fred ducked and simultaneously sidestepped under the hook. He twisted his hips and drove his right fist into D-Day’s liver, all within a half-second.
D-Day gasped in pain and stumbled back. Fred stepped in and punched him in the mouth with his left, and as D-Day kept stumbling and trying to cover up, Fred followed in and continued with a barrage of punches.
Even though Fred was clearly winning the fight, he reluctantly admired the fact that D-Day seemed to have a head made of concrete and was still putting up a fight. He knew he had to end it before he got too winded or the man caught him with a lucky punch.
D-Day managed to graze Fred’s head with a right, but Fred parried the follow-up left and delivered an uppercut to D-Day’s chin. D-Day’s head snapped back, and his knees began to buckle. Fred wasted no time; he tucked his chin in, squared up, and put all his weight into another thunderous punch into the man’s jaw.
Spittle flew from his mouth from the impact and he went down, hitting the frozen ground with a loud thud. Fred took no chances. His intention was to finish the fight by planting the heel of his boot between D-Day’s eyes. He missed.
Instead, his heel connected with D-Day’s mouth. The noise of crunching teeth caused the crowd to emit an audible gasp. Fred stepped back and watched D-Day while he took some deep breaths. Satisfied the man was out of action, he gazed at the crowd.
“Anybody else feel the need to insult my mother?”
There were several grins and a few more shakes of the head. Fred grunted and walked back over to Sammy. Ruby ran over to D-Day and crouched beside him. She put a hand to his bloody face and tried to shake him back to consciousness without success. She then looked up at Fred with pure, unadulterated hatred in her eyes. Standing, she pulled a thirty-eight snub-nosed revolver out of her waistband.
Before she could act further, her wrist was suddenly seized in a vice-like grip. First Sergeant Crumby had been watching her the whole time. When he saw her go for her gun, he ran up behind her. He grabbed her left shoulder with his other hand and squeezed tightly as he shook the revolver out of her hand. He then leaned in and put his mouth to her ear.
“You try to commit murder in front of me, I’ll kill you and your man, right here, right now. You got it?”
“You’re hurting me!” she screamed.
The first sergeant let go of her and she ran off, leaving her so-called husband lying on the ground, groaning in misery. Jeremiah picked up the revolver
