Free The Main Death and This King Business by Dashiell Hammett

hold me. On my knees in the mud, I huddled into that cavity.
    The soldier came into sight through a chink between boards. Bright metal gleamed in one of his hands. A knife, I thought. But when he halted in front of my shelter I saw it was a revolver of the old-style nickel-plated sort.
    He stood still, looking at my shelter, looking up the road and down the road. He grunted, came toward me. Slivers stung my cheek as I rubbed myself flatter against the timber-ends. My gun was with my blackjack—in my gladstone bag, in my room in my hotel. A fine place to have them now! The soldier’s gun was bright in his hand.
    Rain began to patter on boards and ground. The soldier turned up the collar of his coat as he came. Nobody ever did anything I liked more. A man stalking another wouldn’t have done that. He didn’t know I was there. He was hunting a hiding place for himself. The game was even. If he found me, he had the gun, but I had seen him first.
    His sheepskin coat rasped against the wood as he went by me, bending low as he passed my corner for the back of the pile, so close to me that the same raindrops seemed to be hitting both of us. I undid my fists after that. I couldn’t see him, but I could hear him breathing, scratching himself, even humming.
    A couple of weeks went by.
    The mud I was kneeling in soaked through my pants-legs, wetting my knees and shins. The rough wood filed skin off my face every time I breathed. My mouth was as dry as my knees were wet, because I was breathing through it for silence.
    An automobile came around the bend, headed for the city. I heard the soldier grunt softly, heard the click of his gun as he cocked it. The car came abreast, went on. The soldier blew out his breath and started scratching himself and humming again.
    Another couple of weeks passed.
    Men’s voices came through the rain, barely audible, louder, quite clear. Four soldiers in sheepskin coats and hats walked down the road the way we had come, their voices presently shrinking into silence as they disappeared around the curve.
    In the distance an automobile horn barked two ugly notes. The soldier grunted—a grunt that said clearly: “Here it is.” His feet slopped in the mud, and the lumber pile creaked under his weight. I couldn’t see what he was up to.
    White light danced around the bend in the road, and an automobile came into view—a high-powered car going cityward with a speed that paid no attention to the wet slipperiness of the road. Rain and night and speed blurred its two occupants, who were in the front seat.
    Over my head a heavy revolver roared. The soldier was working. The speeding car swayed crazily along the wet cement, its brakes screaming.
    When the sixth shot told me the nickel-plated gun was probably empty, I jumped out of my hollow.
    The soldier was leaning over the lumber pile, his gun still pointing at the skidding car while he peered through the rain.
    He turned as I saw him, swung the gun around to me, snarled an order I couldn’t understand. I was betting the gun was empty. I raised both hands high over my head, made an astonished face, and kicked him in the belly.
    He folded over on me, wrapping himself around my leg. We both went down. I was underneath, but his head was against my thigh. His cap fell off. I caught his hair with both hands and yanked myself into a sitting position. His teeth went into my leg. I called him disagreeable things and put my thumbs in the hollows under his ears. It didn’t take much pressure to teach him that he oughtn’t to bite people. When he lifted his face to howl, I put my right fist in it, pulling him into the punch with my left hand in his hair. It was a nice solid sock.
    I pushed him off my leg, got up, took a handful of his coat collar, and dragged him out into the road.
    IV
INTRODUCTIONS
    White light poured over us. Squinting into it, I saw the automobile standing down the road, its spotlight turned on me and my