Corkscrew and Other Stories Read Online Free PDF Page A

by Bardell, I went into the back room to meet the poker players. There were only four of them. The other six card tables, the keno outfit, and the dice table were idle.
    One of the players was the big-eared drunk who had made the welcoming speech at the hotel. Slim Vogel was the name. He was a Circle H. A. R. hand, as was Red Wheelan, who sat beside him. Both of them were full of hooch. The third player was a quiet, middle-aged man named Keefe. Number four was Mark Nisbet, a pale, slim man. Gambler was written all over him, from his heavy-lidded brown eyes to the slender sureness of his white fingers.
    Nisbet and Vogel didn’t seem to be getting along so good.
    It was Nisbet’s deal, and the pot had already been opened. Vogel, who had twice as many chips as anybody else, threw away two cards.
    â€œI want both of ’em off’n th’ top—this time!” and he didn’t say it nicely.
    Nisbet dealt the cards, with nothing in his appearance to show he had heard the crack. Red Wheelan took three cards. Keefe was out. Nisbet drew one. Wheelan bet. Nisbet stayed. Vogel raised. Wheelan stayed. Nisbet raised. Vogel bumped it again. Wheelan dropped out. Nisbet raised once more.
    â€œI’m bettin’ you took your draw off’n th’ top, too,” Vogel snarled across the table at Nisbet, and tilted the pot again.
    Nisbet called. He had aces over kings. The cowpuncher had three nines.
    Vogel laughed noisily as he raked in the chips.
    â€œâ€™F I could keep a sheriff behind you t’ watch you all th’ time, I’d do somethin’ for myself!”
    Nisbet pretended to be busy straightening his chips. I sympathized with him. He had played his hand rotten—but how else can you play against a drunk?
    â€œHow d’you like our little town?” Red Wheelan asked me.
    â€œI haven’t seen much of it yet,” I stalled. “The hotel, the lunch-counter—they’re all I’ve seen outside of here.”
    Wheelan laughed.
    â€œSo you met the Jew? That’s Slim’s friend!”
    Everybody except Nisbet laughed, including Slim Vogel.
    â€œSlim tried to beat the Jew out of two bits’ worth of Java and sinkers once. He says he forgot to pay for ’em, but it’s more likely he sneaked out. Anyways, the next day, here comes the Jew, stirring dust into the ranch, a shotgun under his arm. He’d lugged that instrument of destruction fifteen miles across the desert, on foot, to collect his two bits. He collected, too! He took his little two bits away from Slim right there between the corral and the bunkhouse—at the cannon’s mouth, as you might say!”
    Slim Vogel grinned ruefully and scratched one of his big ears.
    â€œThe old son-of-a-gun done came after me just like I was a damned thief! ’F he’d of been a man I’d of seen him in hell ’fore I’d of gave it to him. But what can y’ do with an old buzzard that ain’t even got no teeth to bite you with?”
    His bleary eyes went back to the table, and the laughter went out of them. The laugh on his loose lips changed to a sneer.
    â€œLet’s play,” he growled, glaring at Nisbet. “It’s a honest man’s deal this time!”
    Bardell and I went back to the front of the building, where the cowboys were still knocking the balls around. I sat in one of the chairs against the wall, and let them talk around me. The conversation wasn’t exactly fluent. Anybody could tell there was a stranger present.
    My first job was to get over that.
    â€œGot any idea,” I asked nobody in particular, “where I could pick up a horse? One that can run pretty good, but that isn’t too tricky for a bum rider to sit.”
    The Milk River hombre was playing the seven ball in a side pocket. He made the shot, and his pale eyes looked at the pocket into which the ball had gone for a couple of seconds before he straightened up. Lanky Dunne was