Free The Axman Cometh by John Farris Page A

while ago.
    Dab whistles in a low tone through his
    teeth.
    "Arguing with Leon is like trying to nail Jell-0 to the wall."
    "I thought he was going to hit you," Shannon says, still worried, a tingling in her hands and around her heart.
    Dab cradles his right fist affectionately in his left. "Well, if he had," he says. Dab fought in the navy, and was runnerup in his division, the Fifth Fleet championships in '43. Overweight now, he knows he could still give a good account of himself. But the trouble with fighting a Burtis is that it's like issuing a challenge to the whole clan: they just keep coming around looking for satisfaction.
    "Do you want a drink of water?" Shannon asks him.
    "I'll get some myself," Dab says, laying a hand on her shoulder for a moment. "See if you can help that man that came in."
    "Sure."
    Like half of the adult males in town, their customer on this Monday afternoon is wearing a plain Western-style shirt and jeans, a pair of boots with bulldogger's heels and a rancher's straw Stetson. His hair is coarse and worn in a style known locally as military Mohawk. But, although he has the cheekbones, he's too pale to be tribal. His sleeves are rolled up. He has powerful forearms without a trace of hair on them. His hands are long, but not those of a workingman. They're well cared-for, the nails clean and neatly clipped.
    "I wonder if you dropped this?" he says with a smile, extending one of the invitations to Dab's surprise birthday party.
    "Oh, it must have fallen out of my notebook; thanks," Shannon says, retrieving the invitation. She lowers her voice. "I wouldn't want Dab to see this. Trying to keep it a secret, and so far it's working."
    He leans against the counter near the cash register. "Oh, a surprise birthday party." He glances at the back of the store, remembering to keep his voice as low as Shannon's. "Mr. Hill? That's your father?"
    “'Uh-huh. Dab's going to be fifty."
    "That's an important milestone, all right. I'm Autry Smith. Nice to meet you—"
    "Shannon." His voice is deep, cultivated. Like a radio announcer's. No placeable accent. Not a Kansan, as far as she can tell, nor a Westerner, although he seems at home in the rig he's wearing. She shakes his hand, looking into his eyes, which are a dark chocolate color. His face is widest at eye level, his brows heavy but plucked, only a millimeter of space between them over his high-bridged nose. He has an easygoing smile and not a tooth out of line. He must be about thirty, Shannon thinks. Unlike the recently departed Leon Burtis , a man furiously at odds with himself and everyone else, Autry Smith has an unmistakable air of competence, even command. So that could be it: he's one of the jet jockeys from the nearby air base, enjoying an afternoon out of uniform. She glances at the class ring on his finger.
    "That's not KU, is it?"
    "No, West Point."
    " Ohhh ."
    "I'm stationed at Fort Riley," he says, obligingly holding up his hand so that Shannon can get a better look at his ring.
    "What brings you down this way?"
    "I had some time off, so I'm visiting an old friend of my father's, Colonel Bark Bonner. He's retired now, has a place ten miles south of here. The colonel's got a bad hip and hasn't been keeping his place up, so I thought I'd do a few repairs." Autry Smith takes a list from his breast pocket, which Shannon scans.
    "Just take me a couple of minutes to get all of this together. Would you like some cold water, uh—sir—I don't know what your rank is."
    "Captain, but why don't you call me Autry?"
    "That's like Gene, right?"
    He hums the first few bars of "Back in the Saddle Again," and they both laugh.
    "Same spelling, even if I can't carry a tune. Autry's an old family name. We could be distantly related. But I'm from Rhode Island, not Tioga, Texas."
    "No kidding," Shannon says, bustling around, picking up flashlight batteries, tape, twine, safety goggles, a hard hat, a hammer, a chisel, and four different kinds of nails, including a