The Pistol Read Online Free PDF

maybe you will. But at least you won’t get to keep that pistol, I promise you that. It’s mine. And I bought it. And I want it back.”
    “Ah, come on now, Mast. You don’t mean that. Come on, you might as well give me the holster and the clips. They won’t do you no good without the pistol.”
    “You’ll never get them. You’ll have to take them off me first, if you do. And I’ll throw them over the cliff first.” The thought of his pistol gone, taken, no longer his, and taking with it his margin of safety, his chance of being saved, brought a hollow, sick feeling to the pit of Mast’s stomach. “Of all the dirty, sneaking, lying, cheating, lowdown sneakthieves in the world, you’re the worst, O’Brien. You take the cake.” But the words were useless, worse than useless. What were words?
    O’Brien apparently felt the same thing, because he merely grinned at Mast. “Call me anything you want. Come on, gimme them clips and holster.”
    “No.”
    O’Brien shrugged. “Okay. I can pick some up someplace else. I got the important thing, and that’s the pistol.
    “Look, Mast. I’ll try to be reasonable with you. And you try to be reasonable. Okay?” O’Brien squared his shoulders, patted his new pistol, grinned briefly, and settled himself to talk intelligently. “You don’t need this pistol, Mast. What do you need this pistol for? You’re a rear-rank rudy in the third squad a the third platoon. A ordinary rifleman. I’m the first scout in my platoon. You know what that means? I’ll be the first guy in, anywhere we go, me and my partner the second scout. I’m the guy who’ll be sneaking through the brush getting my ass shot off. What if I got captured? Did you ever see them Samurai sabers them Jap officers carry? You know what they do to prisoners? They cut them in two with them sabers. And I’m the first scout. I really need this pistol. It might be just the extra edge might save my life someday. It might really actually save my life, save me .” O’Brien paused weightily, to let this sink in. “You realize what that means? to a first scout?” He paused again. “While look at you: a rear-rank rudy of a rifleman with a education: with a education yet! Why, you might even be working in the orderly room someday. You might be. You might really be working in the orderly room. So what do you need with this pistol?” He stopped and plumped his knuckles powerfully on his hips, his argument complete.
    Mast listened to him with outraged, furious astonishment. O’Brien really thought he had a right to his, Mast’s, pistol. Had a right to just take it. O’Brien had convinced himself he was morally right in his barefaced thievery. Not only morally right, but righteous, he was! And what was more, he really believed it. Furiously, ardently, Mast wished he was big enough or strong enough to whip him, to beat him up, and take his pistol back. But he wasn’t.
    “Now, I’d like to be fair with you, Mast,” O’Brien said. “I really would. Hell, I’d even give you ten bucks for it, if I hadn’t lost almost all my money playing poker, I really would. Now, be a good boy, and gimme them clips and holster.”
    “You’ll never get them.” Suddenly an idea struck Mast, a clever idea. He had seen it in a movie once. He might not be able to whip O’Brien, but there was no reason he couldn’t outsmart him. Making himself look defeated, Mast stepped back and turned around to pick up his rifle where it lay alongside O’Brien’s. “And don’t think you can take them off me,” he said. “If you try, I’ll buttstroke you so help me God.” Bending to pick up his rifle as he spoke, he caught it at the balance with his right hand and at the same time picked up a large, loose rock with his left, concealing it against his leg. Then he stepped back, dejectedly.
    “Don’t worry,” O’Brien grinned at him toothily. “I can awys git clips.” He sidled up to his own rifle. “Just you don’t try nothing