by Max Brand
"Well," said Curly, "you can call it what you want; I'd hate to get caught at it. But you got to step light, chief. You got a bunch of rough customers working for you, and they can scare out a bunch of regular cow-punchers, and they can buy out a lot of tramps like them that are working for Bennett now. But if you was to run into some real fighters on the Bennett range you might have a hand full of trouble."
Al Jenkins nodded. The truth of this was manifest.
"I know that," he agreed. "It's a ticklish business. But, Curly, I'm going to stay by it till I do to him the same as he's done to me in the past. Ain't that fair and square?"
Curly nodded. Such argument seemed to him too clearly established to admit of dispute.
"You got the right of it, chief," he said. "The only thing is that it would look sort of crooked if every one was to find out what's going on. And if some more like Blondy get up on the Bennett ranch, you'll have a lot on your hands."
"No more like him are going to get there," affirmed Jenkins. "One week from to-day I'm going to make a scoop a scoop that'll clean him out and break his heart!"
And he turned away upon his heel and went off, humming to himself. As for Curly, he stared after his master with amazement and awe. Such hardness of heart was to him something to be admired from a great distance. And yet, as he had told Jenkins, the justice of it was unimpeachable. But how were they to stampede Blondy?
Looking toward the end of the veranda, his eye rested upon the slender form of Ronicky Doone in the chair, a form now barely perceptible against the gathering darkness. Curly shook his head. Such a man as this was hardly the force which should be pitted against big Blondy Loring.
Also his heart ached for the fair town of Twin Springs. Just as Al Jenkins said, if big Blondy were allowed to ride unscathed and defiant into Twin Springs and out of it again, the reputation of those who dwelt in the little place would be down at zero.
"What's on old Jenkins' mind?" asked a cow-puncher, coming near him.
"I'll tell you," said Curly solemnly. "Al took me aside and says to me: 'I mislike having this Ronicky Doone picked to stand up to a man like Blondy in the name of Twin Springs. If it was you, Curly,' he says, 'I'd feel a lot better about it.'"
Chapter XVII. WOODEN SLUGS
For Twin Springs the night was a troubled one, as it turned and tossed, full of nervous expectation of the trial of the day to come. For Ronicky Doone, who by force of circumstances had become the champion of the town, the night was long and quiet. For he retired and slept until dawn, the sleep of the blessed. Then he wakened, went to the window, saw the industrious world stirring about its work in the beginning of the cold day, and went back to bed to sleep again. For, as he put it himself: "The best time for sleep is the time you steal for it."
It was midmorning before he rose from his bed, and when he came down the stairs a little later he was given the attention of a king. On every side of him he found anxious faces. Without a murmur, breakfast was served to him late in the dining room, and by the proprietor himself. A score of times he was asked how he felt, and how he had slept; and the whole atmosphere in which he found himself was one of kindly concern more than that, there was at times an air of desperate interest! And Ronicky, remembering the day before, enjoyed every scruple of the altered temperature.
After breakfast he sought as usual his chair on the edge of the veranda, and there he stretched half in sun and half in shade, awaiting the hour of the battle. And the populace of Twin Springs, fast assembling in points of advantage to await the shooting, looked upon their champion with amazement. Al Jenkins, having by common assent been appointed to the position of manager and chief functionary at this shooting, was bewildered.
"Either he's a great bluff," he declared, "or else he's dead sure of himself. But he ain't seeming to worry about the condition his gun is in, or how his nerves might be. He seems to figure that everything is the way it ought to be. I'm going to talk to him a little. The rest of you keep clear of him. Too much talking might be bad for him."
And so saying he approached Ronicky Doone and stood beside him, just as he had stood the day before. Only now how different was his attitude, how different the voice in which he spoke.
"Doone," he said, "you seem to be getting on pretty well."
"Tolerable well," said Ronicky. "Thanks."
"Which I been thinking back to our talk of yesterday," went on Al. "And I been figuring out that I said a lot too much and a lot too loud."
"Forget about it," said Ronicky, "the same as I have forgotten."
Al Jenkins sighed. This was more than he could have hoped. At the same time he reserved a deep suspicion in his brain. These smooth-speaking fellows were apt to carry a poisoned knife.
"I was just wondering," said Jenkins, "if you wouldn't want to oil up your gun and get it warmed up a bit. I got all the ammunition that you want ready and handy for you, and there's a nice clear stretch right behind the hotel where you could unlimber a few slugs, if you felt like it."
"Thanks," said Ronicky Doone. "But shooting plumb jars my hands. I don't do no more of it than I can help. You see?"
Al Jenkins gasped.
"You don't practice much?" he asked.
"I practice a bit now and then," said Ronicky. "But I figure that a gent has to trust a lot to luck when it comes to hitting anything with a revolver."
Jenkins merely turned on his heel and hurried away. This was an attitude before a mortal combat which he had never before encountered, and which he never expected to find again. He turned into the hotel and in the lobby he sat down panting in the circle of serious-faced men. They became doubly concerned when they noted the expression on his face.
"What's happened?" they asked. "Is Doone losing his nerve?"
"I dunno," groaned Jenkins. "He beats me. He's just different! He says that he doesn't do much practicing because it jars his hands too much!"
His gasp found a score of echoes.
"Anyway," went on Jenkins, "the only thing that we can do is to wait and hope. Here, Curly! You go out and start talking to Doone and telling him some stories that'll cheer him up. Just talk about anything so long as it'll keep his mind off the subject of what's about to happen to him. But I'm afraid that it ain't going to be much good. That gent out there that calls himself Ronicky Doone is just some nut that's got a pet illusion that he's a gun fighter. But go ahead, Curly. Do what you can!"
Feeling that the hopes of Twin Springs were, to no small degree, resting upon his shoulders, Curly sauntered out upon the veranda, tightening his belt as he went and rolling a thousand possible topics in his mind. Actually to be encouraged to talk was a new experience for Curly. After all, the quality for which they so often laughed at him or abused him, they were now coming to applaud as a rare talent.
Going to Ronicky he broached conversation easily on the first topic that came into his head, which happened to be the fine make of boots which now clothed the feet of the cow-puncher. And when Ronicky replied with the usual kindness and quiet of voice, Curly drew up a chair and sat down. He would have passed from the topic of the boots to some kindred vein, but Ronicky rather abruptly stopped him with the question: "What d'you know about this Blondy Loring that I'm going to meet up with to-day, partner?"
Curly scratched his head. He had an idea that the last thing his employer wanted him to do was to talk about Loring with the champion. But a great and evil idea popped into his head. He could not resist it. As a matter of fact, he knew nothing at all about Loring. Neither did any one else in Twin Springs, except that Blondy had come into that part of the country some few weeks before, and that since then he had been the active partisan of Bennett. Other than this, Blondy was a perfect stranger to them all. It was the very meagerness of his knowledge that supplied so powerful a stimulus to the brain of Curly.
He sighed as he leaned back in the chair.
"Blondy Loring?" he said. "Sure I know about him. I used to live across the street from him in his own home town."
"The devil I didn't! Me and Loring was pals together when I started to school "
"You look eight years older than Blondy, though."
"Blondy? Who said anything about Blondy? I said Loring Blondy's brother, Jack Loring. Him and me went to school together. But Jack ran away before he got through the third grade and never was heard of again. Sure I know Blondy Loring."
"Well, what d'you know about him?"
"Nothing that's good," said Curly sadly. "I sure don't know nothing that's good about him. He was always a devil from the time that he sicced his dog on my old cat, Jerry, the best squirrel catcher I ever seen. His dog killed Jerry. I never seen such a cat; and while the dog was chewing up old Jerry, Blondy Loring stood right across the street, dancing and clapping his hands together. That's the kind he was when he was a kid."
Ronicky Doone, shifting a little in his chair, turned a keen glance upon Curly. But the face of the latter was impenetrably sad. He had that gift which only comes after years of practice he began to believe his own lies as soon as he started to fabricate them.
"But kids often change," said Ronicky. "I've knowed the worst kids in the world to turn into good men. And I've seen the best of 'em go bad when they get started out. Maybe it's the same way with Blondy. Have you knowed him since he was a kid?"
"Knowed him all his life, off and on," said Curly curtly. "If I didn't know him personal, I knowed them that was close to him. He's a plain bad one, Doone. D'you know what he is?"
He leaned forward. His face was drawn, his brow puckered, his eyes straining at the grisly truth.
"What?" asked Ronicky, aghast.
"He's a man-killer!"
Ronicky sat bolt erect in his chair.
Curly flopped back in his.
"A man-killer!" breathed Ronicky.
"You hear me saying it! Tha4t's what he is!"
"H'm," said Ronicky. "Him a man-killer?"
"That's what I said. Why, down in Tuxson "
But Ronicky Doone had risen from his chair and was pacing up and down the veranda, with short, quick steps. Finally he jumped down from it and disappeared around the corner of the hotel, leaving the narrative of how Blondy Loring killed two men on the same day in Arizona, unfinished behind him. Curly went back into the lobby of the hotel, as the entrance hail with the stove in the center, was called.
"Well?" they asked him. "Why did you leave so soon?"
"He was restless," said Curly. "He couldn't sit still and listen to me talking long. He got up and left."
"What did you talk to him about?" asked one. "About one time up in Montana I was riding range in the winter for "
Here a man came running in from the front of the hotel and tossed a cartridge into the lap of Al Jenkins. "What's that?" he asked.
Al Jenkins looked it over quickly and then looked up with a start.
"It's a wooden slug!" he exclaimed. "Where did you get this?"
"I was around behind the hotel a while back," said the man. "And I seen Ronicky Doone or him that lets on to be Ronicky Doone break his gun open and dump out a whole cylinder full of these. Then he loaded up with some new ones out of his cartridge belt, and he kicked the dummies into the dust before he went away. He give a hard look around, like he'd have done a murder if anybody'd seen him. But he didn't get a sight of me. "After he went on, I sneaked out and picked up that. I couldn't believe my eyes at first. What might he be doing with wooden plugs like that in his gat?"
There was a subdued muttering of comments. But Curly rose from his chair and started for the door. It was his news that Blondy was a man-killer that had made Ronicky load his weapon with real slugs; but what a dauntless courage was his if he had been determined, before that, to fight with fake bullets? Curly reached the door.
"Blondy's coming!" called some one across the street. "He's ahead of time."
Chapter XVIII. DOONE DRAWS
And Curly stepping through the doorway saw that it was indeed the truth. Swinging around the bend of the street, nearly at the far side of the village, came a big man on a small horse at least the rider was so much larger than the average that he made the horse seem small. It was Blondy Loring, and he was coming fast, while at the end of the veranda was Ronicky Doone, stretched again in his usual chair, with his hands folded behind his head!
And Curly, in an agony of spirit, stood undecided. He felt like a murderer. If Charlie Loring were killed in the fight that was to come, he Curly, would be to blame for having deliberately lied about Bennett's foreman. But now it was too late to speak and tell the truth, he decided. In another moment Loring would be upon Ronicky, and the letter's nerves must not be upset by conflicting statements.
He glanced across the street. It seemed that hundreds were in view, crowding windows, placed everywhere that they could be in safety, at the same time commanding a view of the battle to be. He saw women; he saw white-faced girls and round-eyed boys. But there was no one there who felt as Curly did. With all his faults, he had a kindly heart, and now he honestly wished that the place of one of the fighters could be given to him. He saw the dust curling up above the head of Blondy, as the latter came rushing on. But what was the matter with Ronicky? Why did he not arise?
Ah, now he sat up, and Twin Springs breathed a sigh of relief. He sat up, and he was rolling a cigarette. Incredible though it seemed, he was going to smoke while he encountered this formidable foeman.
There was a swish of dust spurting sidewise, as Blondy twisted his horse to a halt and swung down from the saddle. Straight toward Ronicky he strode, his left hand clenched, his right hand ungloved and carried frankly near the butt of the revolver that was exposed in the holster on his thigh. His face was set, almost convulsed with his emotions. Never had Curly seen such battle fury, and he half felt that the story which he had told to Ronicky Doone might after all be the true one concerning Bennett's foreman.
"Doone!" cried Charlie Loring.
Ronicky lifted his head. At the same instant the right hand of Blondy Loring flipped around the butt of his revolver and jerked it almost all the way from the sheath. But the other combatant did not stir. He merely followed the gesture with studious eyes and continued to calmly roll his cigarette, smoothing it into shape as a perfect cylinder. Then he placed it in his mouth and drew out matches. And there was a groan from the good men of Twin Springs. Was this strange fellow about to disgrace the town by taking water from Charlie Loring, as he had been reputed to have done once before?
"You dirty hound!" Loring was crying, so that every one could hear. "You been talking about me here in town.. You been lying about me! You know why I'm here!"
"You're talking sort of loud," said Ronicky Doone, mouthing the words with some clumsiness, as he kept the cigarette in his lips and lighted it. "This ain't a high wind, Loring. I can hear you tolerable well even when you speak nacheral. Or maybe you want all of them folks at the windows to hear you, eh?"
In spite of the quiet tone in which he spoke, his words were audible for a considerable distance. For all of Twin Springs was holding its breath, except one irrepressible dog in the back yard of one of the houses. He had been barking most of the morning, barking at the flies that flew past him, barking at the chain which held him. And he barked at this juncture.
At the sharp noise Blondy Loring started a little and changed color, though why that should be, Curly, for one, could not imagine. He noticed now, also, that the red was fading quickly from the face of Loring and turning to a gray.
"I've brought a gun with me, same as you asked me to," said Blondy. "And I see you got one with you. Let's see why you wear it."
"Sure," nodded Ronicky Doone. "There's lots of time for that. But I ain't ready yet. I ain't near ready, Loring!"
"You're going to show the yaller streak again, eh?"
"Maybe you'd call it that, but I'm one of them that like to take things slow and easy. Right now, for instance, I got an idea that you're a sneaking hound, but I'm just letting that
idea filter around through my head until I'm plumb certain. Then then I'm going to kill you, Loring!"
He spoke it softly, but he spoke it with a savage satisfaction, and to the amazement of Curly, big Loring winced. Then Curly began to see some purpose in the delay of Doone. If, indeed, the smaller man possessed nerves of steel, as he seemed to, he was trying to break down the poise of Loring by taunts and by prolonging that critical moment which precedes actual combat.
"I give you ten seconds," said Loring, with a sudden burst of curses, in a voice that was pitched almost femininely high and small. "I give you ten seconds for getting out your gun and defending yourself if you can. I call on the rest of you gents of Twin Springs to hear me when I tell him. Because I mean business and business quick!"
But Ronicky Doone merely laughed. It was a fearful thing to watch him laughing in the face of a hysterical fighter such as Loring.
"You're talking plumb foolish," he assured the big man. "We ain't going to shoot according to when you get ready. We're going to have a signal; and when the signal comes, we'll shoot." He jumped down from the edge of the veranda. He stood at ease before Blondy, with one hand draped from his hip and a smile on his lips. And still his left hand was occupied with the cigarette. He seemed to be in the act of casually opening conversation with the big man. And very big indeed did Blondy seem by contrast with the slender, agile form which confronted him.
"You and the rest of 'em have framed some trick," exclaimed Blondy, falling back. "I got odds of a hundred to one against me in here. Before I give you a chance to take advantage of me, I'm going to "
"What?" asked Ronicky.
The answer was deadly silence, and beads stood out glistening on the forehead of Blondy Loring.
"You listen to me, and I'll tell you what you're going to do," said Ronicky. "You're going to wait right here with me until we hear the yap of that dog behind one of the houses yonder. And when the dog yaps, I'm going to shoot; that's your signal, Loring!"
And he blew out a cloud of cigarette smoke and through it stared steadily at Loring.
