by Max Brand
"Why don't you answer?" she asked suddenly. "Are you sick? Or do you think I don't mean it? I tell you, here is the key!"
She held it up. It came to Ronicky that in spite of his manacled hands he could leap at her, knock her down, tear the key from her, and unfasten his own bonds by using a little dexterity of wrist and fingers. But the thought was a distant and unreal picture to him. He could never use violence against her. The danger even could not persuade him to a serious consideration of that possibility.
"You're wasting your time," he answered her finally. "I won't give you that promise, ma'am."
The jerk of the hand which held the light and the corresponding flutter and leap of the flame, told how much she was startled by this announcement. She could not speak at once. Finally she said: "But I'm not joking with you. I'm offering you your liberty really. Otherwise your promise wouldn't mean anything."
"I can't give it," said Ronicky.
"But," she went on, "you don't understand. They might even kill you in the morning. They are going to be told how you stole up behind Charlie Loring and tried to oh, when our men hear that, they'll be simply mad with rage, Ronicky Doone. Keep that picture in mind. Our cow-punchers are rough very rough!"
He watched her steadily. She had come a little nearer. People always do when they are persuading.
"Yes, I know that they're rough," he replied, "but still I can't promise."
"Why not?"
"I couldn't hold up my head if I did. A man has one thing that's worth more'n his life, lady, and that's his honor."
"Honor!" gasped Elsie Bennett. "Honor from you!"
She recovered at once.
"I didn't mean to say that. I didn't mean to hurt you unnecessarily. But a man who would slip up with a revolver behind another man and still worry about such scruples as "
She paused.
"I'm sorry," said Ronicky. "But I told you before. You're just wasting your time!"
She passed a hand across her forehead. This time she came so close that he could make her out quite distinctly. And in that dim light, against the velvet darkness, she seemed to Ronicky as lovely as a jewel and as radiant. And he felt again the sense of awe with which he had first looked at her, though then that emotion had been covered with a more profound feeling of shame.
"I try to make out what can be in your mind and behind your words," said the girl faintly. "But I can't. You bewilder me. You seem to be throwing away a "
"Miss Bennett," said Ronicky, "I figure that you'll have to work it out this way: that if you believe everything Charlie Loring said about me, you never can understand."
"You ask me to put him down as a liar?"
"I don't ask that. Only maybe he's mistaken."
"Ah, yes. I'm foolish to say so, but I can't help it. I was interested from the very first. It was hard to believe of you all that my father, for instance, believes. And I'm half prepared to sympathize with any good explanation you can offer. You had no chance to talk downstairs. Will you talk now to me?"
He was sharply tempted, but he shook his head.
"Words ain't going to help me none," declared Ronicky. "Nope! What's needed is a little action. When I've done a few things, maybe you'll be willing to take another think. But if I talk to-night, Blondy Loring will talk in the morning. And what he says will wipe out what I say."
It was such frank, clear-cut talk that she was amazed and showed her surprise.
"You really don't intend to buy your liberty with a promise?" she asked.
"Look here," said Ronicky argumentatively, "you talk as if a promise I gave might be worth something."
"Of course!"
"Then you figure that my honor is worth something. And if it is, I sure can't wait around after Charlie Loring has knocked me down and lied about me! Miss Bennett, I got to fight back!"
"Then you can't expect me to help you!"
"Why not? I'll give you this promise that I won't hurt him on this ranch. Will that suit you? And if I ever get the upper hand with him, I'll promise to go easy for your sake."
At this she smiled in frank scorn. It was plain that her mind was unable to grasp the possibility of big Charlie Loring being defeated by any man that lived.
"Very good," she said thoughtfully. "Suppose I let you go and trust to your promise it seems to me that I'm doing a great deal for a very small return and no security at least none that a bank would take."
"It'll be the first time," said Ronicky, "that I've had this sort of a favor done me. But wait and see. In the end, maybe, I can pay you back."
She bit her lip and looked down at the floor, and by that he knew that she would do as he wished.
"I'm going to take your word and let you go," she said at the last. "And your word is simply that you'll never come back to the Bennett Ranch to hunt down Charlie and lie in wait for him on the range."
He nodded, and Elsie Bennett without another word unlocked the handcuffs and stepped back from him, a little frightened by the possibilities of what he might do. He reassured her with a smile and by chafing his wrists to restore the circulation. Then, as she backed toward the door, he followed her to it.
She put out the candle before she stepped into the hall. There, swallowed again in the gloom, they exchanged some whispered words.
"I suppose it's for the sake of your name that I'm doing this," she said. "But there's such a fine free swing to that name Ronicky Doone that I couldn't hold all the evil against you that my father does, for instance."
"I've noticed it before," said Ronicky Doone, "that a good woman don't need any long list of reasons for doing a good thing. God bless you for this one!"
She could literally feel the quiver of the gesture with which he jerked his liberated hands above his head and shook them at nothingness, rejoicing in his freedom. Then he turned down the stairs, but with his foot on the first step he turned back again toward the dim form in the hall.
"And when they start in damning me to-morrow and the days that come after," he said, "will you keep a place in the back of your brain where you cache away a couple of good, man-sized doubts? Just wait to be showed?"
"I think I shall," said the girl. "At least I'll honestly try to!"
"Then good-by!"
"Good-by," said Elsie Bennett, and he felt her leaning above him in the darkness, as he glided down the steps.
The consummate noiselessness of that descent roused the old alarm and suspicion in the heart of Elsie Bennett. She hurried to her own room on the front of the big house and leaned out the window to watch her freed prisoner depart. She had a great and swelling desire suddenly to rouse the people in the house and endeavor to reclaim the fugitive. It seemed madness, this thing she had done. It was sending danger of death to hover over the head of Charlie Loring.
And then, out of the night beneath her window, she heard a faint whistle. It was keyed so high that it pierced to a great distance. The whistle was repeated. Ronicky Doone was standing beneath the window waiting for what?
There came a rapid beat of hoofs. The form of a horse glimmered in the night, and Ronicky Doone swung into the saddle and disappeared at a rapid gallop.
With a beating heart she watched him fade out.
"He can't be all bad," said Elsie Bennett. "He can't be all bad when he has a horse that comes to his whistle."
Chapter XIV. JENKINS GETS A JOLT
Of all the winged things in the world, there is nothing that flies so fast as rumor, and of all rumors there is none so fleet as bad news.
Ronicky Doone reached Twin Springs late, very late. And he slept till noon at the hotel. When he wakened he found that the town knew more about his adventure of the night before than he knew himself. He could tell by the first face he confronted down the stairs that all was known at least from the viewpoint of Blondy Loring.
Another man would have lost all appetite for the day when he confronted that expression of sneering disgust on the face of the hotel keeper. But Ronicky Doone merely drew the belt of his t
rousers tighter and walked into the dining room for lunch.
He ate it in profound silence. Not a man spoke to him except one or two who happened to catch his eye full upon them, and they favored him with a muffled grunt. Plainly he was in the deepest disgrace into which it is possible for a man to fall; at least in the West.
He finished his lunch slowly, however, admirable testimony that his nerve was as cold as steel in a crisis, and he looked up unabashed when the proprietor of the hotel paused at his table in his round of the room to inquire after the comfort of his guests.
"Look here," said the proprietor, looking out the window above the head of Ronicky, so that he might not be forced to encounter the eyes of the despicable gunman who stole upon his victims from behind. "Look here, Doone, I got a terrible rush of business coming, and when I looked over the list I seen how I'd reserved all the rooms. I'll have to use your place to-night, so I guess you'll be moseying along to-day." And he turned his back without further explanation. But the hand of Ronicky shot out and touched his arm.
"Turn around," said Ronicky.
The other turned a quarter of the way.
"Look me in the eye," said Ronicky.
Reluctantly it was done.
"I'll stay till I'm good and ready to go," said Ronicky. "You write that down in red and start betting on it. I'll stay here till I can't pay for my room no more. That's final."
The proprietor started to hurl a loud protest upon Ronicky's head. But apparently he found something in the eye of Ronicky that was in sharp contrast with the reports of Ronicky's meeting with Blondy Loring, which had been retailed throughout the town during the morning. At any rate the host retreated to a corner, muttering like a dog over a bone.
And Ronicky rose, stretched himself, carelessly picked up every disgusted, scornful eye that dwelt upon him, and then sauntered out of the room.
As on the day before, he selected the one, large, easy chair on the veranda and bore it to the edge of the shadow, where he stretched out luxuriously in the sun; and while the heat seeped through his tissues and filled him with a pleasant drowsiness, he smoked a cigarette and watched the smoke drift up, blue-brown in the sun, rising sometimes a considerable distance until it vanished in a touch of the wind.
In the meantime Ronicky was thinking, buried in the most profound reflection. He was picking up one idea at a time and turning it and examining it, as an expert raises and turns a jewel, criticizing every tiny facet. And all this he did with a sleepy face. For the brow of a philosopher is never wrinkled.
The other men began to troop out. He heard the jingling of their spurs as from a great distance. Loud laughter somewhere jarred on his ear; and the murmur of other voices made a smooth current bearing one on toward sleep. Ronicky Doone regarded them not. He was forgetting the village of Twin Springs rapidly. He was totally occupied with the more vitally engrossing problem of how he could draw to him big Blondy.
For it stood to reason that Charlie Loring would never come to meet him. For some reason the big fellow had wished to avoid a man-to-man conflict with Ronicky. No matter what that reason was and Ronicky could not discover it if it had made Charlie take the risk of being shot while he sprang barehanded upon Ronicky in the barn, it would make him resort to other and stranger methods to avoid the conflict. Since Ronicky could not hunt him down on Blondy's own range, Ronicky must induce his quarry to come to his place.
He was still struggling with this great problem when a heavy foot crunched on the boards near him, and a cloud of smoke billowed across him. Ronicky turned and saw big Al Jenkins standing there, and the look on Al's face was by no means an invitation to cordial talk.
"I been hearing things," was what Jenkins said, "and the things that I been hearing about you, stranger, is enough to turn a man's hair gray. It seems that you ain't Ronicky Doone at all. It seems that you just been wandering around and using his name promiscuous without being him at all!"
Ronicky covered a yawn. He turned his head a little and considered Jenkins with solemn gravity. But he did not speak, and this silence caused the lower jaw of Jenkins to thrust out. He even made a motion with his big hands, as though he were about to grasp Ronicky and break him like a stick of kindling. He gathered himself into control after a moment, and he went on: "I suppose that that don't mean much in your life, son. But around Twin Springs we're a queer lot of people. And we take every man for what he says he is. That's why, when we hear that a gent has been telling a flock of lies about himself, it riles us, son it sure riles us terrible!"
And he waited, grinding his teeth with increasing fury. Here Ronicky Doone yawned again, and this caused Jenkins to stamp with such convulsive energy that the board beneath his heel cracked loudly. He had to shift to one side to avoid a possible fall through the broken flooring.
"D'you hear me talk?" he roared at last. "D'you hear what I'm saying to you?"
"Yes," said Ronicky gently.
"And what d'you think about it?"
The voice of Ronicky was more gentle than ever.
"You're too old," he said, "for me to tell you what I think. That's all."
Al Jenkins, the fearless, the battle-hardened, the man-breaker, was struck purple. His face swelled. Dark veins stood out on the temples.
"You insulting young rat!" he thundered. "I got a mind to tear the hide off of you and "
He paused. Ronicky Doone had swung to a sitting posture. It was amazing to watch him. A cat does not glide from deep sleep to wakefulness more suddenly or completely. One second her eyes are dull; the next they are balls of baleful fire. And the change in the face of Ronicky Doone was hardly less.
"Back up," he said. "You're right on the edge of a cliff. Back up and start pawing for a good road," said Ronicky. "Now tell me what you want."
In fact the rich man gave back a short step in his astonishment. He had had much to do with men of all kinds, and cowards among them. And he had more use for a mangy dog, he often said, than for a man with a streak of "yaller" in him. Yet the actions of Ronicky Doone were not at all such actions as one would ordinarily attribute to a coward. His eye did not waver. His voice did not shake. And the hand with which he removed the cigarette from his lips was steady as a rock.
Also, it was to be noted, and be sure the glance of Al Jenkins did not fail to note, that the hand which held the cigarette was the left hand, and that the right hand dangled carefully near the hip of the youth. Jenkins glowered at him uneasily. Literally, he was mentally and physically upon one foot.
"I'll tell you what we want," he went on, his voice now somewhat abated in violence. "We want you to get out of this town, Doone, or whatever your name is. There's some here that think we'd ought to make an example of you. But there's others, like myself, that ain't for no tar-and-feather party. It makes too much talk, and Twin Springs is plumb agin' talk. Is that plain?"
"That all sounds like English. Couldn't be clearer if I'd read it in a book," said Ronicky Doone.
"Then start moving," said Jenkins. "We allow you about ten minutes to pack up and start. Lemme see you do something."
"Sure," said Ronicky. "Look all you want." And he turned and stretched out at ease along the big chair.
Al Jenkins gasped, blinked, and then said: "Son, don't make no mistake. We don't want to start no party around here. But if we have to we'll stage one all trimmed in red pepper one that'll keep you stinging for a year and a day. Are you going to git?"
"No," said Ronicky, without turning his head, "I ain't going to git."
And he drew forth his cigarette tobacco and papers. The head of Al Jenkins spun like a top. Was he seeing correctly? Was this the despicable coward of whom they had been told this morning, who, the very night before, had sneaked up behind big Blondy and attempted to blow off the head of the cow-puncher? Was this that dastardly assassin who had been released from his due and merited punishment by the foolish mercy of a girl?
And staring closely at Ronicky Doone, the rancher saw that the eyes of Ronicky, though
apparently fixed straight before him, were in reality inclined a little toward him, and that the lips of the slender fellow were a little compressed, just a trifle compressed and colorless.
Jenkins fell into another quandary. He knew suddenly that this man was either a coward acting a part with consummate skill, or else he was a fighting man who lay there in a wild, senseless passion, inviting the entire town to attack him and rejoicing in the prospect of a kill. So shocking was the very thought of this second possibility that Al Jenkins recoiled a little more and became entirely uncertain. There was one clew to cowardice. Cowards generally try to talk themselves out of corners. And this man was silent.
On the other hand Al was so old a veteran that he knew that there are exceptions necessary to the proving of every rule. And in his wisdom he could not be sure that Ronicky was not a "yellow liver" playing a role. What could he do? Should he call in the townsmen to share in the mobbing of a fighter, or should he kick a coward off the porch, chair and all, and then jump after him and bring him wriggling in his arms back to the crowd, just as it was reported big Blondy had borne the same man into Bennett's house the night before?
Hesitation and too much thought is not the mother of strong action. Al Jenkins sighed, paused, and noticed the slender grace and surety of the fingers which were whipping the cigarette into shape. It was placed in the lips of Ronicky, and now it was lighted.
At this, Jenkins frankly cursed in his bewilderment.
"Hang it, man," he said, "you know what we've heard. Tell us your side of the story. We're willing to give you a hearing."
"Thanks," said Ronicky Doone, but he said not a word more.
