Corkscrew and Other Stories (8 page)

We could hear our company long before we could see them. Two horses—but they made enough noise for ten—coming lickety-split down to the lighted door.

Big 'Nacio, in front, was out of the saddle and had one foot in the doorway before his horse's front feet—thrown high by the violence with which the big man had pulled him up—hit the ground again. The second rider was close behind him.

The bearded man saw the corpse. He jumped at it, swinging his quirt, roaring:

“
Arriba, piojo!
”

The mandolin's tinkling stopped.

I scrambled up.

Big 'Nacio's whiskers went down in surprise.

His quirt caught a button of the dead man's clothes, tangled there, the loop on its other end holding one of Big 'Nacio's wrists.

His other hand went to his thigh.

My gun had been in my hand for an hour. I was close. I had leisure to pick my target. When his hand touched his gun-butt, I put a bullet through hand and thigh.

As he fell, I saw Milk River knock the second man down with a clout of gun-barrel on back of his head.

“Seems like we team-up pretty good,” the sunburned boy said as he stooped to take the enemy's weapons from them.

The bearded man's bellowing oaths made conversation difficult.

“I'll put this one you beaned in the cooler,” I said. “Watch 'Nacio, and we'll patch him up when I come back.”

I dragged the unconscious man halfway to the cellar door before he came to. I goaded him the rest of the way with my gun, shooed him indoors, shooed the other prisoners away from the door, and closed and barred it again.

The bearded man had stopped howling when I returned.

“Anybody riding after you?” I asked, as I knelt beside him and began cutting his pants away with my pocket knife.

For answer to that I got a lot of information about myself, my habits, my ancestors. None of it happened to be the truth, but it was colorful.

“Maybe we'd better put a hobble on his tongue,” Milk River suggested.

“No. Let him cry!” I spoke to the bearded man again. “If I were you, I'd answer that question. If it happens that the Circle H. A. R. riders trail you here and take us unawares, it's a gut that you're in for a lynching.
Ahorcar
, understand?”

He hadn't thought of that.

“
Sí, sí
. T'at Peery an' hees hombres. T'ey
seguir—mucho rapidez!
”

“Any of your men left, besides you and this other?”

“No!
Ningún!
”

“Suppose you build as much fire as you can out here in front while I'm stopping this egg's bleeding, Milk River.”

The lad looked disappointed.

“Ain't we going to bushwack them waddies none?”

“Not unless we have to.”

By the time I had put a couple of tourniquets on the Mexican, Milk River had a roaring fire lighting the buildings and most of the saucer in which they sat. I had intended stowing 'Nacio and Milk River indoors, in case I couldn't make Peery talk sense. But there wasn't time. I had just started to explain my plan to Milk River when Peery's bass voice came from outside the ring of light.

“Put 'em up, everybody!”

XIV

“Easy!” I cautioned Milk River, and stood up. But I didn't raise my hands.

“The excitement's over,” I called. “Come on down.”

Ten minutes passed. Peery rode into the light. His square-jawed face was grime-streaked and grim. His horse was muddy lather all over. His guns were in his hands.

Behind him rode Dunne—as dirty, as grim, as ready with his firearms.

Nobody followed Dunne. The others were spread around us in the darkness, then.

Peery leaned over his pony's head to look at Big 'Nacio, who was lying breathlessly still on the ground.

“Dead?”

“No—a slug through hand and leg. I've got some of his friends under lock and key indoors.”

Mad red rims showed around Peery's eyes in the firelight.

“You can keep the others,” he said harshly. “This hombre will do us.”

I didn't misunderstand him.

“I'm keeping all of them.”

“I ain't got a damned bit of confidence in you,” Peery growled down at me. “You ain't done nothing since you been here, and it ain't likely you ever will. I'm making sure that this Big 'Nacio's riding stops right here. I'm taking care of him myself.”

“Nothing stirring!”

“How you figuring on keeping me from taking him?” he laughed viciously at me. “You don't think me and Irish are alone, do you? If you don't believe you're corralled, make a play!”

I believed him, but—

“That doesn't make any difference. If I were a grub-line rider, or a desert rat, or any lone guy with no connections, you'd rub me out quick enough. But I'm not, and you know I'm not. I'm counting on that. You've got to kill me to take 'Nacio. That's flat! I don't think you want him bad enough to go that far. Right or wrong, I'm playing it that way.”

He stared at me for a while. Then his knees urged his horse toward the Mexican, 'Nacio sat up and began pleading with me to save him.

Slowly I raised my right hand to my shoulder-holstered gun.

“Drop it!” Peery ordered, both his guns close to my head.

I grinned at him, took my gun out slowly, slowly turned it until it was level between his two.

We held that pose long enough to work up a good sweat apiece. It wasn't restful!

A queer light flickered in his red-rimmed eyes.

I didn't guess what was coming until too late.

His left-hand gun swung away from me—exploded.

A hole opened in the top of Big 'Nacio's head. He pitched over on his side.

The grinning Milk River shot Peery out of the saddle.

I was under Peery's right-hand gun when it went off. I was scrambling under his rearing horse's feet.

Dunne's revolvers coughed.

“Inside!” I yelled to Milk River, and put two bullets into Dunne's pony.

Rifle bullets sang every which way across, around, under, over us.

Inside the lighted doorway Milk River hugged the floor, spouting fire and lead from both hands.

Dunne's horse was down. Dunne got up—caught both hands to his face—went down beside his horse.

Milk River turned off the fireworks long enough for me to dash over him into the house.

While I smashed the lamp chimney, blew out the flame, he slammed the door.

Bullets made music on door and wall.

“Did I do right, shooting that jigger?” Milk River asked.

“Good work!” I lied.

There was no use bellyaching over what was done, but I hadn't wanted Peery dead. Dunne's death was unnecessary, too. The proper place for guns is after talk has failed, and I hadn't run out of words by any means when this brown-skinned lad had gone into action.

The bullets stopped punching holes in our door.

“The boys have got their heads together,” Milk River guessed. “They can't have a hell of a lot of caps left if they've been snapping them at 'Nacio since early morning.”

I found a white handkerchief in my pocket and began stuffing one corner in a rifle muzzle.

“What's for that?” Milk River asked.

“Talk.” I moved to the door. “And you're to hold your hand until I'm through.”

“I never seen such a hombre for making talk,” he complained.

I opened the door a cautious crack. Nothing happened. I eased the rifle through the crack and waved it in the light of the still burning fire. Nothing happened. I opened the door and stepped out.

“Send somebody down to talk!” I yelled at the outer darkness.

A voice I didn't recognize cursed bitterly, and began a threat:

“We'll give yuh—”

It broke off in silence.

Metal glinted off to one side.

Buck Small, his bulging eyes dark-circled, a smear of blood on one cheek, came into the light.

“What are you people figuring on doing?” I asked.

He looked sullenly at me.

“We're figurin' on gettin' that Milk River party. We ain't got nothin' against you. You're doin' what you're paid to do. But Milk River hadn't ought of killed Peery!”

Milk River bounced stiff-legged out of the door.

“Any time you want any part of me, you pop-eyed this-and-that, all you got to do is name it!”

Small's hands curved toward his holstered guns.

“Cut it!” I growled at Milk River, getting in front of him, pushing him back to the door. “I've got work to do. I can't waste time watching you boys cut up. This is no time to be bragging about what a desperate guy you are!”

I finally got rid of him, and faced Small again.

“You boys want to take a tumble to yourselves, Buck. The wild and woolly days are over. You're in the clear so far. 'Nacio jumped you, and you did what was right when you massacred his riders all over the desert. But you've got no right to fool with my prisoners. Peery wouldn't understand that. And if we hadn't shot him, he'd have swung later!

“For Milk River's end of it: he doesn't owe you anything. He dropped Peery under your guns—dropped him with less than an even break! You people had the cards stacked against us. Milk River took a chance you or I wouldn't have taken. You've got nothing to howl about.

“I've got ten prisoners in there, and I've got a lot of guns, and stuff to put in 'em. If you make me do it, I'm going to deal out the guns to my prisoners and let 'em fight. I'd rather lose every damned one of them that way than let you take one of 'em away from me!

“All that you boys can get out of fighting us is a lot of grief—whether you win or lose. This end of Orilla County has been left to itself longer than most of the Southwest. But those days are over. Outside money has come into it; outside people are coming. You can't buck it! Men tried that in the old days, and failed. Will you talk it over with the others?”

“Yeah,” and he went away in the darkness.

I went indoors.

“I think they'll be sensible,” I told Milk River, “but you can't tell. So maybe you better hunt around and see if you can find a way through the floor to our basement hoosgow, because I meant what I said about giving guns to our captives.”

Twenty minutes later Buck Small was back.

“You win,” he said. “We want to take Peery and Dunne with us.”

XV

Nothing ever looked better to me than my bed in the Cañon House the next—Wednesday—night. My grandstand play with the yellow horse, my fight with Chick Orr, the unaccustomed riding I had been doing—these things had filled me fuller of aches than Orilla County was of sand.

Our ten prisoners were resting in an old outdoor store-room of Adderly's, guarded by volunteers from among the better element, under the supervision of Milk River. They would be safe there, I thought, until the immigration inspectors—to whom I had sent word—could come for them. Most of Big 'Nacio's men had been killed in the fight with the Circle H. A. R. hands, and I didn't think Bardell could collect men enough to try to open my prison.

The Circle H. A. R. riders would behave reasonably well from now on, I thought. There were two angles still open, but the end of my job in Corkscrew wasn't far away. So I wasn't dissatisfied with myself as I got stiffly out of my clothes and climbed into bed for the sleep I had earned.

Did I get it? No.

I was just comfortably bedded down when somebody began thumping on my door.

It was fussy little Dr. Haley.

“I was called into your temporary prison a few minutes ago to look at Rainey,” the doctor said. “He tried to escape, and broke his arm in a fight with one of the guards. That isn't serious, but the man's condition is. He should be given some cocaine. I don't think it is safe to leave him without the drug any longer. I would have given him an injection, but Milk River stopped me, saying you had given orders that nothing was to be done without instructions from you.”

“Is he really in bad shape?”

“Yes.”

“I'll go down and talk to him,” I said, reluctantly starting to dress again. “I gave him a shot now and then on the way up from the rancho—enough to keep him from falling down on us. But I want to get some information out of him now, and he gets no more until he'll talk. Maybe he's ripe now.”

We could hear Rainey's howling before we reached the jail.

Milk River was squatting on his heels outside the door, talking to one of the guards.

“He's going to throw a joe on you, chief, if you don't give him a pill,” Milk River told me. “I got him tied up now, so's he can't pull the splints off his arm. He's plumb crazy!”

The doctor and I went inside, the guard holding a lantern high at the door so we could see.

In one corner of the room, Gyp Rainey sat in the chair to which Milk River had tied him. Froth was in the corners of his mouth. He was writhing with cramps. The other prisoners were trying to get some sleep, their blankets spread on the floor as far from Rainey as they could get.

“For Christ's sake give me a shot!” Rainey whined at me.

“Give me a hand, Doctor, and we'll carry him out.”

We lifted him, chair and all, and carried him outside.

“Now stop your bawling and listen to me,” I ordered. “You shot Nisbet. I want the straight story of it. The straight story will bring you a shot, and nothing else will.”

“I didn't kill him!” he screamed. “I didn't! Before God, I didn't!”

“That's a lie. You stole Peery's rope while the rest of us were in Bardell's place Monday morning, talking over Slim's death. You tied the rope where it would look like the murderer had made a getaway down the cañon. Then you stood at the window until Nisbet came into the back room—and you shot him. Nobody went down that rope—or Milk River would have found some sign. Will you come through?”