TREASURE KILLS (Legends of Tsalagee Book 1) by Phil Truman

Artie jerked his arm away. Jimmy Mack smirked and advanced swinging a roundhouse haymaker. Artie ducked under it and came up with a quick right jab to Jimmy Mack’s nose, sending him backwards a couple of steps with a surprised look; then cupping his hands around his schnoz when it started to bleed.
    Artie, fists clenched, watched Jimmy Mack and his gangsters for a few seconds to see if they’d retaliate. None came, so Artie quickly went about his business, washed his hands and left the restroom. Jimmy Mack stayed, crying and bleeding into one of the sinks; his boys stood beside their dethroned leader, looking confused.
    Jimmy Mack never bothered Artie again. In fact, offensive and defensive tackle Jimmy Mack Botts eventually became tailback and linebacker Artie Lancaster’s biggest attack dog when they both became players on the high school football team.
    But Galynn became another matter. She continued to bother Artie, even more so since he’d stood up to Jimmy Mack. Not only did she admire and appreciate his courage, but the act also stopped Jimmy Mack and his gang from taunting her. Galynn and Artie became fast friends in grade school, girlfriend-boyfriend in the middle years, and steadies in high school. Artie won a football scholarship to a small college in Missouri, and Galynn found grant money and scholarships to study art at Oklahoma University.
    On a warm summer night in ’95, the night before Artie had to leave for Missouri, they sat out on Galynn’s front porch swing and made each other promises. They promised they would write every day, and that they would remain steadfast and continue to love each other deeply and always. But love, and promises made from love in the summer of eighteen year olds, have no foresight. Young love has ardor and intensity, even good intentions; but rarely does it have persistence.
    Artie found himself so run over and beat up by athletes bigger and stronger and older than himself, so brow-beaten by coaches at his every mistake, that he fell quickly into a pit of discouragement. His loneliness intensified and he retreated further into the world of his one bright longing—his true love Galynn. He diligently kept the promises he’d made with Galynn. She, on the other hand, did not.
    By mid-November Galynn’s communications had became less ardent and less frequent. When the two returned home for the Christmas break, Artie found Galynn warm, but not as affectionate. When he asked her what was wrong she replied, “Nothing. I just have a lot of stress at school.” She then sat with her arms folded across her chest and looked sadly away from him.
    Artie, confused and angry, could only ponder the mystery of why such opposite ways of dealing with stress existed in men and women. A thought intruded that perhaps another possibility existed, but he refused to consider it.
    The week before Spring Break, in March of ’96, Artie received his Dear John letter. It came in the middle of spring football drills, and it had two effects on him—it broke his heart and crushed his spirit. Artie decided he didn’t want to return to school the next fall, that he needed to take a semester or two off to sort things out and decide what he wanted to do.
    Through that summer, he hung around home helping his dad managed the little farm, such as it was—a few cows, a few chickens, and twenty acres of hay meadow—and his dad’s small welding business. Artie didn’t return to school that next fall and spring, nor the year after that.
    When he visited Arlene’s, Artie would always ask Jo Lynn how Galynn was doing. He hoped it sounded more like a question in polite conversation than a serious query.
    Jo Lynn was nobody’s fool when it came to hound dog expressions on broken-hearted boys, especially the one on the face of the boy whose heart her own daughter had broken. Jo Lynn had always thought Galynn and Artie were meant for each other. She didn’t think Galynn would find anybody better than the kind,