Free The Story Keeper by Lisa Wingate

attention, startled away his daydream. He shifted to rise, realizing he’d left his pistol in the saddle pack   —a foolish oversight, given Ira’s warnings.
    “Whoever ya is, better git talkin’.”
    Ira’s threat was met by the click of another gun.
    “Jus’ leave it be where it lay.” The voice pressed from the darkness, and after it, the steps of a man, his boots compacting the carpet of leaves.
    Ira stiffened, let the rifle rest, index finger still circling the trigger guard.
    “Shuck yer hand off’n it, friend.”
    Rand caught a familiar tone in the voice, and the pulse in his neck bolted. The man from Brown Drigger’s store   —the one with the pockmarked face? He hoped it wasn’t so, but the thing Ira had feared seemed to be coming to pass.
    The intruder materialized at the edge of the lantern light, his ready pistol solidifying Rand’s fears.
    Ira rested his elbows on his knees, turning his palms up and squinting over his shoulder, attempting to see behind himself. “No need’n that. Yer welcome to come set-along, if’n you got a mind.” The words were cordial, even relaxed, but the muleteer’s face told another story. His gaze shifted rapidly from the gun to the wagon. “Ain’t offerin’ no troublesomeness. Just holt up fer the night here, then be headin’ on down to Whistler Holler by morn. Keep’ta my own bidness.”
    The scar-faced man entered camp, circled, and stood left of the lantern, so as to keep a bead on both of them.
    Rand’s breath shuddered inward. Many times his father had told stories of having experienced situations like this during the War of Secession, but Rand had never been involved in anything of the nature.
    Now his mind raced. He imagined the consequences of his choices, pictured his dear, sweet mother standing over his grave, wailing alongside his young sisters and his grandmother, the family irreparably broken by an ill-fated decision upon which he’d stubbornly insisted. Or worse yet, his family never knowing his fate at all   —his resting place an unfound, unmarked corner of these mountains, his bones scattered by the wind and the weather and whatever creatures would come after these men departed the area.
    “When a feller lights off not sayin’ his far’-thee-wells, can’t help to wonderin’ where he might be headed, and who he’s headin’ t’see.” The intruder squinted at Ira over the barrel of the pistol.
    What would a bullet feel like? Rand wondered. What would be the sensation as it tore through flesh and bone?
    “Ain’t goin’ to see no-some-ever person. Nosir. Be quittin’ in the country, is all. Ain’t one to git twixt things. Want no part of it.”
    The pockmarked man tasted his bottom lip, thoughtfully savoring the salt of his own skin. Sweat beaded there despite the cold. “I’d reckon such a feller might be goin’ to warn some’un. Let the gal’s daddy know I be watchin’ out fer ’im. Maybe git some a her people to come on me whenevers I ain’t lookin’. Rise a blood feud.”
    “Said I don’ want no hand in it.” Ira’s voice rose, insistent or desperate or both. “Don’ be knowin’ her people. Wouldn’t have nary’thing to do with it if’n I did. Girl’s a Melungeon. I keep clear a them six-fingered devils, what’s left of ’em round these parts. Give me the all-overs just thinkin’ of ’em.”
    “That so, is it?” The man swung his pistol in Rand’s direction,wiggled the barrel. “And what a this here young sap? Don’ seem he got him much to say of it.”
    “He don’ know nothin’. Ain’t none but a kid come up from Charleston-town. A Jasper wantin’ to git a look at the mountain. He ain’t got none t’say.” Ira delivered a glare Rand’s way, cautioning him not to enter the discussion. But Rand could feel the words building inside him, pressing upward, gaining strength, eclipsing even the wild hammer strikes of his heart and the pounding of blood in his ears.
    The pockmarked man caught the