Read Online Silvertip's Roundup by Max Brand - Free Book Online Page B

of the neck.
    â€œWalk, son,” said Babe.
    He took Taxi into a hallway, down it, and through a door into a small room. Taxi made no effort to escape, partly because he knew that if he made a sudden lunge, that one hand might almost break his neck; partly he was quiet because he knew that Pokey was following, carrying a lantern and holding the sawed-off shotgun under his right arm. Only the rankest fools in the world take chances when there is a sawed-off shotgun in the field against them.
    Pokey hung the lantern on a peg in the wall.
    There was nothing in the room except a wooden cot with a pair of blankets thrown across the canvas.
    â€œLemme stay and look,” said Pokey, leering.
    â€œYou get out,” answered Babe.
    Pokey left, cursing his luck. “I’m goin’ to have a crack at what you leave of him, one day,” said Pokey, as he went out.
    â€œYeah,” answered Babe. “Maybe the buzzards are goin’ to have their chance at this hombre.”
    He locked the door behind Pokey and put the key in his trousers pocket.
    Taxi, seeing all of that room at a glance, saw that there was nothing that could in the least degree serve him as a weapon — nothing except a leg of the cot, if he had a chance to pull it off.
    If he could get at the lantern and put it out, then in the darkness that ensued, he might be able to do something with this man beast. But he was by no means sure.
    He had been at a zoo and seen an orang-utan smile, the lips wrinkling back, fold after fold, until the big canines were exposed. Babe was smiling at him the same way now. His mouth was a huge slit, but the lips were much larger than they needed to be. They were thin, and they had to pucker up in the center so that they would fit with some closeness over the teeth. And the teeth themselves, at the corners of the mouth, were extra long and extra sharp.
    Taxi realized, with a sense of curious surety, that this man could hardly be blamed for anything he did with his life. There was not room for a proper brain under that cramped forehead. The back of the head actually sloped forward from the bulge of the vast neck. There was very little to the neck. Taxi felt that if he tried for a flying stranglehold a mere lowering of the vast, craggy chin would break his arm.
    However, the strongest rocks may be split if they are tapped at the proper place. The proper place to tap the human rock is just beside the point of the chin.
    â€œAll right,” said the brute. “Take off your coat, kid. I don’t want no padding on you when I start patting you.”
    Taxi slid obediently out of his coat, seeing that his jailer was also peeling off a coat and exposing a shirt of thick red flannel. It was a perfect opportunity. Taxi spun suddenly to give the full weight to his punch. He took a flying hitch step forward and slammed his right fist, like a lump of iron, right on the button.
    The shock started his arm trembling to the shoulder. The shudder of that vibration went right through his body.
    It was his right hook delivered as he never had sent it home before. Paddy had said that even a giant would fall if that punch landed fairly on the button, but surety must be made extra sure.
    The delivery of the blow had swung him off to the left, leaning forward. Now, as he straightened himself, he swayed all his weight, all his lifting power, all his savage despair, into two driving uppercuts. They landed, one, two, right under the chin of Babe, and Taxi stepped lightly back to let the ruin fall.
    But Babe was not falling.
    There was a red streak on the side of his chin where the force of the first blow had actually split the tough hide against the bone, but in the buried, apelike eyes of Babe there was no sign of dimness. He was smiling. He had not even continued his attempt to pull off the coat which was now wedged over his elbows.
    He bobbed his vast head up and down in short nods, because his abbreviated neck did not allow him