“I’ll Kill You Smiling, John Sevier” by Steve Frazee

 

The sheriff's voice had lost his calmness. He was saying: “When you lay that money on a bar, don't it bother you, Moxon? Don't you remember how you made it?”

“My way suits me,” Moxon said. “If you don't understand me, I don’t understand men like you who keep bragging what a peaceful village you've got. When I show up to help you keep it that way, you get edgy.”

A tight, terse short story from a solid author.

It first appeared in the 12/1955 issue of Swank magazine.

It was later anthologized into the Leisure paperback titled Nights of Terror.

This story and his “Learn the Hard Way” [also reviewed in this blog] show just how dark, how noir the genre can be.

Elmore Leonard went on to high praise for producing work like this; Frazee and others are equally worthy of this praise by my estimation.