Read Online Corkscrew and Other Stories by Dashiell Hammett - Free Book Online

to tell me?” Peery demanded.
    â€œIsn’t that enough?”
    â€œYeah. Now if I was you, I’d ride right back to Corkscrew and go to bed.”
    â€œYou mean you don’t want to go back with me?”
    â€œNot any. If you want to try and take me, now—”
    I didn’t want to try, and I said so.
    â€œThen there’s nothing keeping you here,” he pointed out.
    I grinned at him and his friends, pulled the sorrel around, and started back the way I had come.
    A few miles down, I swung off to the south again, found the lower end of the Circle H. A. R. draw, and followed it down into the Tirabuzon Cañon. Then I started to work up toward the point where the rope had been let down.
    The cañon deserved its name—a rough and stony, tree and bush-choked, winding gutter across the face of Arizona. But it was nicely green and cool compared to most of the rest of the State.
    I hadn’t gone far when I ran into Milk River, leading his horse toward me. He shook his head.
    â€œNot a damned thing! I can cut sign with the rest of ’em, but there’s too many rocky ridges here.”
    I dismounted. We sat under a tree and smoked some tobacco.
    â€œHow’d you come out?” he wanted to know.
    â€œSo-so. The rope is Peery’s, but he didn’t want to come along with me. I figure we can find him when we want him, so I didn’t insist. It would have been kind of uncomfortable.”
    He looked at me out of the end of his pale eyes.
    â€œA hombre might guess,” he said slowly, “that you was playing the Circle H. A. R. against Bardell’s crew, encouraging each side to eat up the other, and save you the trouble.”
    â€œYou could be either right or wrong. Do you think that’d be a dumb play?”
    â€œI don’t know. I reckon not—if you’re making it, and if you’re sure you’re strong enough to take hold when you have to.”
    X
    Night was coming on when Milk River and I turned into Corkscrew’s crooked street. It was too late for the Cañon House’s dining-room, so we got down in front of the Jew’s shack.
    Chick Orr was standing in the Border Palace doorway. He turned his hammered mug to call something over his shoulder. Bardell appeared beside him, looked at me with a question in his eyes, and the pair of them stepped out into the street.
    â€œWhat result?” Bardell asked.
    â€œNo visible ones.”
    â€œYou didn’t make the pinch?” Chick Orr demanded, incredulously.
    â€œThat’s right. I invited a man to ride back with me, but he said no.”
    The ex-pug looked me up and down and spit on the ground at my feet.
    â€œAin’t you a swell mornin’-glory?” he snarled. “I got a great mind to smack you down, you shine elbow, you!”
    â€œGo ahead,” I invited him. “I don’t mind skinning a knuckle on you.”
    His little eyes brightened. Stepping in, he let an open hand go at my face. I took my face out of the way, and turned my back, taking off coat and shoulder-holster.
    â€œHold these, Milk River. And make the spectators behave while I take this pork-and-beaner for a romp.”
    Corkscrew came running as Chick and I faced each other. We were pretty much alike in size and age, but his fat was softer than mine, I thought. He had been a professional. I had battled around a little, but there was no doubt that he had me shaded on smartness. To offset that, his hands were lumpy and battered, while mine weren’t. And he was—or had been—used to gloves, while bare knuckles was more in my line.
    Popular belief has it that you can do more damage with bare hands than with gloves, but, as usual, popular belief is wrong. The chief value of gloves is the protection they give your hands. Jaw-bones are tougher than finger-bones, and after you’ve pasted a tough face for a while with bare knuckles you find your hands aren’t holding up