Corkscrew and Other Stories by Dashiell Hammett

matter, so the stockholders figure, is that you original inhabitants of this end of the state are such a hard lot that peaceful farmers don’t want to come among you.
    â€œIt’s no secret from anybody that both borders of this United States are sprinkled with sections that are as lawless now as they ever were in the old days. There’s too much money in running immigrants over the line, and it’s too easy, not to have attracted a lot of gentlemen who don’t care how they get their money. With only 450 immigration inspectors divided between the two borders, the government hasn’t been able to do much. The official guess is that some 135,000 foreigners were run into the country last year through back and side doors. Compared to this graft, rum-running—even dope-running —is kid stuff!
    â€œBecause this end of Orilla County isn’t railroaded or telephoned up, it has got to be one of the chief smuggling sections, and therefore, according to these men who hired me, full of assorted thugs. On another job a couple of months ago, I happened to run into a smuggling game, and knocked it over. The Orilla Colony people thought I could do the same thing for them down here. So hither I come to make this part of Arizona nice and lady-like.
    â€œI stopped over at the county seat and got myself sworn in as deputy sheriff, in case the official standing came in handy. The sheriff said he didn’t have a deputy down here and hadn’t the money to hire one, so he was glad to sign me on. But we thought it was a secret—until I got here.”
    â€œI think you’re going to have one hell of a lot of fun,” Milk River grinned at me, “so I reckon I’ll take that job you was offering. But I ain’t going to be no deputy myself. I’ll play around with you, but I don’t want to tie myself up, so I’ll have to enforce no laws I don’t like. If you want to have me hanging around you sort of loose and individual-like, I’m with you.”
    â€œIt’s a bargain. Now what can you tell me that I ought to know?”
    He blew more smoke at the ceiling.
    â€œWell, you needn’t bother none about the Circle H. A. R. They’re plenty tough, but they ain’t running nothing over the line.”
    â€œThat’s all right as far as it goes,” I agreed, “but my job is to clean out trouble-makers, and from what I’ve seen of them they come under that heading.”
    â€œYou’re going to have one hell of a lot of fun,” Milk River repeated. “Of course they’re troublesome! But how could Peery raise cows down here if he didn’t get hisself a crew that’s a match for the gunmen your Orilla Colony people don’t like? And you know how cowhands are. Set ’em down in a hard neighborhood and they’re hell-bent on proving to everybody that they’re just as tough as the next one—and tougher.”
    â€œI’ve nothing against them—if they behave. Now about these border-running folks?”
    â€œI reckon Bardell’s your big meat. Whether you’ll ever get anything on him is another thing—something for you to work up a lather over. Next to him—Big ’Nacio. You ain’t seen him yet? A big, black-whiskered Mex that’s got a rancho down the cañon—four-five mile this side of the line. Anything that comes over the line comes through that rancho. But proving that’s another item for you to beat your head about.”
    â€œHe and Bardell work together?”
    â€œUh-huh—I reckon he works for Bardell. Another thing you got to include in your tally is that these foreign gents who buy their way across the line don’t always—nor even mostly—wind up where they want to. It ain’t nothing unusual these days to find some bones out in the desert beside what was a grave until the coyotes opened it. And the buzzards are getting fat! If the