Free Trail of the Mountain Man by William W. Johnstone Page A

his horse and looked at Preacher Morrow swinging an axe. The preacher had removed his shirt and was clad only in his short-sleeve undershirt. Smoke’s eyes took in the man’s heavy musculature and the fluid way he handled the axe.
    A lot more to him than meets the eyes, Smoke thought. A whole lot more.
    Then Smoke’s eyes began to inspect the building site. Not bad, he thought. Jackson’s big store across the road, and the offices of the others in one long building on the opposite side of the road. The cabin’s would be behind the offices, while Jackson and his wife and brother would live in quarters behind but connected to the store.
    Smoke’s eyes caught movement to his left.
    â€œEverything meet with your approval, Mister Jensen?”
    Smoke turned Drifter toward the voice. Ed Jackson. “Looks good. The preacher’s a pretty good hand with an axe, wouldn’t you say?”
    â€œOh ... him? ’Bout the only thing he’s good at. He’s a sissy.”
    Smoke smiled, thinking: Shopkeeper, I hope you never push that preacher too hard, ’cause he’ll damn sure break you like a match stick.
    Hunt, Colton, Haywood, and their wives walked out to where Smoke sat Drifter. He greeted the men and took his hat off to the ladies. Bountiful was not with the group and Smoke was grateful for that. The woman was trouble.
    Then he wondered where the shopkeeper’s brother was. He wondered if Bountiful and Paul might be ...
    He sighed and put his hat back on, pushing those thoughts from him. He dismounted and ground-reined Drifter.
    â€œGoing into town to vote, Mister Jensen?” Hunt asked.
    â€œNo point in it. One-sided race from what I hear.”
    â€œOh, no!” Colton told him. “We have several running for mayor, half a dozen running for sheriff, and two running for city judge.”
    â€œTilden Franklin’s men will win, believe me.”
    â€œMister Franklin seems like a very nice person to me,” Ed said, adding, “not that I’ve ever met the gentleman, of course. Just from what I’ve heard about him.”
    â€œYeah, he’s a real prince of a fellow,” Smoke said, with enough sarcasm in his voice to cover hotcakes thicker than molasses. “Why just a few days ago he was nice enough to send his boys up into the high country to burn out a small rancher-farmer named Wilbur Mason. Shot Wilbur and scattered his wife and kids. He’s made his boast that he’ll either run me out or kill me, and then he’ll have my wife. Yeah, Tilden is a sweet fellow, all right.”
    â€œI don’t believe that!” Ed said, puffing up.
    Smoke’s eyes narrowed and his face hardened. Haywood looked at the young man and both saw and felt danger emanating from him. He instinctively put an arm around his wife’s shoulders and drew her to him.
    Smoke said, his eyes boring into Ed’s eyes, “Shopkeeper, I’ll let that slide this one time. But let me give you a friendly piece of advice.” He cut his eyes, taking in, one at a time, all the newcomers to the West. “You folks came her from the East. You do things differently back East. I didn’t say better, just different. Out here, you call a man a liar, you’d better be ready to do one of two things: either stand and slug it out with him or go strap on iron.
    â€œNow you all think about that, and you’ll see both the right and wrong in it. I live here. Me and my wife been here for better than three years. We hacked a home out of the wilderness and made it nice. We fought the hard winters, Indians a few times, and we know the folks in this area. You people, on the other hand, just come in here. You don’t know nobody, yet you’re going to call me a liar. See what I mean, Shopkeeper?
    â€œNow the wrong of it is this: there are bullies who take advantage of the code, so to speak. Those types of trash will prod a fellow into a fight, just