The Pistol Read Online Free PDF Page A

that he had let O’Brien borrow the pistol and do it. After that he crawled around in the field for perhaps five minutes being whipped in the face by the dried grass stems and getting seeds in his nose while his clothes got soaked from the dew. He saw nothing and heard nothing. Finally, he stood up, cautiously at first, and then walked back openly to the fence feeling foolish but still worried about O’Brien shooting him.
    “It’s me!” he called in a hoarse whisper. “For God’s sake don’t shoot me, now.”
    “Come on,” O’Brien called softly.
    It was Mast’s first experience in combat against an enemy, if it could actually be called that, and he felt he had conducted himself very well. Even if it had turned out there wasn’t any enemy. He also felt a great warmth of friendship for O’Brien, having shared this experience with him.
    “What’d you find?” O’Brien said when he got back. He was still crouched down with his rifle.
    “Nothing,” Mast said in a normal voice. “It must have been just a piece of loose rock that fell off.”
    O’Brien unloaded his piece and stood up. He laughed, still a little nervously, and slapped Mast on the back heavily. “I don’t mind tellin’ ya it sure made me nervous.”
    “Me too,” Mast grinned warmly.
    “But a pistol like that’s perfect for that kind of a job,” O’Brien said enviously.
    “Sure is.” Mast released the clip from it and then ejected the live shell in the chamber into the palm of his other hand, always an awkward procedure.
    “Here, let me help you,” O’Brien offered. “I’ll hold it while you put the round back in the clip.”
    “Sure,” Mast grinned and handed him the pistol. And that was when it happened. When Mast looked up from replacing the shell in the clip and held out his hand, it was to find O’Brien standing two paces off with the pistol stuck in his belt.
    “Hey, come on,” Mast protested, “Quit horsing around,” and reached for his pistol. O’Brien stepped back a couple of more steps and stood grinning at him toothily and impudently.
    “I got it now,” he said. “And I mean to keep it, And whatta ya gonna do about it?”
    “But you can’t do something like that!” Mast said. He was deeply and sincerely shocked, if only at the sheer dishonesty, sheer trickery, of it. Only a moment before they had been warm buddies sharing a danger. He still could not believe O’Brien could really do it. He had to be joking. ‘You just can’t!” he said.
    “Can’t I?” O’Brien grinned complacently. “I did, didn’t I? And what you gonna do? You can’t take it away from me. And you know it. You couldn’t whip me in a fight, Mast.” He grinned again. “So what are you gonna do?”
    “I can turn you in to Sergeant Pender,” Mast said, disliking himself for saying it; but a fury of blind rage, that worst of all angers which is the anger of outraged helplessness, was rising in him steadily.
    O’Brien merely grinned. “For what? For taking a pistol off you that you ain’t supposed to have? That pistol’s not on the records, and you know it. You told me you bought it. So: that pistol was stole from the Army. By somebody. All’s would happen would be Pender’d take it away from both of us.” Once again, O’Brien grinned, toothily, and settled the pistol more firmly into his belt. “Anyway, you wouldn’t turn me in and be a pigeon, would you now, Mast? ’Cause I’d have to beat hell outta you, then. And I don’t want ta do that.”
    Mast stood rooted, every moral ethic in him violated. Not only to have done it by such a sneaky subterfuge, but to have done it immediately after they had warmly shared a danger that might have been truly serious, was incredible. It was inconceivable to him. And then to threaten him with a beating, too! Because it was true that he would stand no chance in a fist fight with O’Brien, no chance at all. Helpless outrage flamed all through Mast.
    “Maybe you can beat me up. And