Free The Axman Cometh by John Farris

run over by a road grader or dropped off a roof, and the guarantee specifically excludes that kind of careless wear and tear. You been around tools your whole life, and you know what I'm telling you is true."
    "I'm saying this chainsaw's a no-account piece of shit, and I want my money back from the one I give it to in the first place, and that's you!"
    Shannon lays her school notebook down beside the cash register and drifts toward the back of the store, which is narrow and deep and only about fifteen feet wide, crammed with floor-to-ceiling bins and shelves, smelling mustily of nails, varnish, raw rope, cold steel. There are no other customers at the moment. She can see Dab with the dissatisfied chainsaw owner, a chronic sorehead and town troublemaker named Leon Burtis , behind the pebbled-glass partition.
    "Dab? It's me!" Shannon calls to her father, thinking her presence may cool the dispute, because she's afraid of Leon Burtis and some other Burtises , younger, who are marking time at the high school until they are old enough to be excused from formal education. Both heads turn momentarily, but they
    can't see out and she can't see in.
    Dab says, "With you in a minute, honey." The watercooler belches a big floppy bubble inside the five-gallon bottle and Shannon heads toward it for a drink.
    Leon Burtis says, "I don't have no more time to waste on this matter. Do I get my money back or not?"
    "Not from me," Dab says firmly.
    "Well, you are a cocksucking son of a bitch, and God damned if I'll ever do another dime's worth of business in your fucking store."
    "You won't use that kind of language in here as of right now, because that's my daughter outside!"
    Shannon steps back from the water- cooler near the office door, tilting her head a little to see inside. Leon Burtis has long sun-reddened forearms and his knuckly hands have formed fists. Dab, not small by any means but a couple of inches shorter, just stares him down. Leon's nostrils are flared as big as his ears. His eyes have no definition, they are just an electric blue glow of rage, and sweat beads stand out among the few reddish hairs still sprouting from the crown of his head. Shannon can't swallow; rage and violence in others always chokes her up, freezes her in place. Leon looks at her looking in on him. His taut mouth flinches as if he is going to spit out more choice profanity. Dab won't look away or back off an inch but there is no truce between them, the air they breathe is laced with black powder close to the flash point. Shannon hears the little bell over the front door, but she doesn't look around to see who it is.
    Shannon says, "Could I get you a cup of water, Mr. Burtis ? You look awfully hot."
    Now she has his full attention; before he can say yes or no or refocus on Dab, Shannon quickly pulls a pleated cup from the dispenser and fills it, enters the office as Dab, lowering his hands, takes a step back to make room for her. Once she is more or less in between the two men, the tension of their confrontation lessens and Leon, with a faint show of politeness but no apology, dampens his ire with the cup of Mountain Valley spring water. Then he crushes it in his fist.
    Shannon smiles and moves back toward her father, leaving the doorway open.
    "We were all sorry to hear about Leona," Shannon says.
    He clears his throat and there is something besides rancor simmering in his eyes, not grief but defeat: despite all the anger he can muster, the world will have its way with him. His daughter, a pretty fair barrel-racer, hung around with some of the bigger names in bronc and bull-riding until she was accidentally kicked in the head by a mustang; recently she passed on after two years in a coma. Leon stares at the unworkable chainsaw he has dumped on Dab's desk, is reminded, perhaps, of Leona, clears his throat more loudly and contemptuously, brushes past Shannon and goes quickly down the single aisle of the store, veering past the customer who entered a little