Chick Orr came through the crowd, into the room.
I stood up, sticking my gun back in its holster.
“I’ve got nothing on you, Chick, yet,” I said slowly. “You know better than I do whether there is anything to get or not. If I were you, I’d drift out of Corkscrew without wasting too much time packing up.”
The ex-pug squinted his eyes at me, rubbed his chin, and made a clucking sound in his mouth.
His gold teeth showed in a grin.
“ ’F anybody asks for me, you tell ’em I’m off on a tour,” and he pushed out through the crowd again.
When the doctor came, I took him up the hall to my room, where he patched my neck. The wound wasn’t much, but my neck is fleshy, and it bled a lot—all over me, in fact.
After he had finished, I got fresh clothes from my bag and undressed. But when I went to wash, I found the doctor had used all my water. Getting into coat, pants and shoes, I went down to the kitchen for more.
The hall was empty when I came upstairs again, except for Clio Landes.
She went past me without looking at me—deliberately not looking at me.
I washed, dressed, and strapped on my gun. One more angle to be cleaned up, and I would be through. I didn’t think I’d need the .32 toys any more, so I put them away. One more angle, and I was done. I was pleased with the idea of getting away from Corkscrew. I didn’t like the place, had never liked it, liked it less than ever since Milk River’s break.
I was thinking about him when I stepped out of the hotel—to see him standing across the street.
I didn’t give him a tumble, but turned toward the lower end of the street.
One step. A bullet kicked up dirt at my feet.
I stopped.
“Go for it, fat boy!” Milk River yelled. “It’s me or you!”
I turned slowly to face him, looking for an out. But there wasn’t any.
His eyes were insane-lighted slits. His face was a ghastly savage mask. He was beyond reasoning with.
“Put it away!” I ordered, though I knew the words were wasted.
“It’s me or you!” he repeated, and put another bullet into the ground in front of me. “Warm your iron!”
I stopped looking for an out. Blood thickened in my head, and things began to look queer. I could feel my neck thickening. I hoped I wasn’t going to get too mad to shoot straight.
I went for my gun.
He gave me an even break.
His gun swung down to me as mine straightened to him.
We pulled triggers together.
Flame jumped at me.
I smacked the ground—my right side all numb.
He was staring at me—bewildered. I stopped staring at him, and looked at my gun—the gun that had only clicked when I pulled the trigger!
When I looked up again, he was coming toward me, slowly, his gun hanging at his side.
“Played it safe, huh?” I raised my gun so he could see the broken firing-pin. “Serves me right for leaving it on the bed when I went downstairs for water.”
Milk River dropped his gun—grabbed mine.
Clio Landes came running from the hotel to him.
“You’re not—?”
Milk River stuck my gun in her face.
“You done that?”
“I was afraid he—” she began.
“You—!”
With the back of an open hand, Milk River struck the girl’s mouth.
He dropped down beside me, his face a boy’s face. A tear fell hot on my hand.
“Chief, I didn’t—”
“That’s all right,” I assured him, and I meant it.
I missed whatever else he said. The numbness was leaving my side, and the feeling that came in its place wasn’t pleasant. Everything stirred inside me. …
XVII
I was in bed when I came to. Dr. Haley was doing disagreeable things to my side. Behind him, Milk River held a basin in unsteady hands.
“Milk River,” I whispered, because that was the best I could do in the way of talk.
He bent his ear to me.
“Get the Jew. He killed Vogel. Careful—gun on him. Talk self-defense—maybe confess. Lock him up with others.”
Sweet sleep again.
Night, dim lamplight was in the room when I opened my eyes again. Clio Landes sat beside my bed, staring at the floor, woebegone.
“Good evening,” I managed.
I was sorry I had said anything.
She cried all over me and kept me busy assuring her she had been forgiven for the trickery with my gun. I don’t know how many times I forgave her. It got to be a damned nuisance. No sooner would I say that everything was all right than she’d begin all over again to ask me to forgive her.
“I was so afraid you’d kill him, because he’s only a kid, and somebody had told him a lot of things about you and me, and I knew how crazy he was, and he’s only a kid, and I was so afraid you’d kill him,” and so on and so on.
Half an hour of this had me woozy with fever.
“And now he won’t talk to me, won’t even look at me, won’t let me come in here when he’s here. And nothing will ever make things right again, and I was so afraid you’d kill him, because he’s only a boy, and …”
I had to shut my eyes and pretend I had passed out to shut her up.
I must have slept some, because when I looked around again it was day, and Milk River was in the chair.
He stood up, not looking at me, his head hanging.
“I’ll be moving on, Chief, now that you’re coming around all right. I want you to know, though, that if I’d knowed what that—done to your gun I wouldn’t never have throwed down on you.”
“What was the matter with you, anyhow?” I growled at him.
His face got beet-color and he shuffled his feet.
“Crazy, I reckon,” he mumbled. “I had a couple of drinks, and then Bardell filled me full of stuff about you and her, and that you was playing me for a
