by Max Brand
“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 trousers 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 Ro
nicky. “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.
Al Jenkins was perspiring with anger and uneasiness. He was a fighter, but no gunman.
“What d’you want to do?” he said.
“Wait here,” said Ronicky. “Wait here for Blondy Loring.”
He had not thought of it before. It needed the badgering of the rancher to force him into this inspired conclusion and solution of the difficulty.
“Wait for him here? Wait for Loring, the gent that—”
“That’d take a little trouble off your hands, wouldn’t it? You and the boys wouldn’t have to kick me out of town. You could just wait until big Blondy comes along, and then he’d do the job for you. Ain’t that satisfactory?”
Al Jenkins paused. It might be—there was one chance in many—that the youth was not bluffing. And if he were not bluffing, it was a bitter shame that Twin Springs should miss the beautiful spectacle that was promised.
“What d’you mean?” asked Al to draw out Ronicky.
“I mean just this,” said Ronicky Doone. “If Blondy Loring was to take it into his head that it’d be a good thing to do to come into town and have a chat with me, I’d be right here and waiting for him, say at noon tomorrow. You might send him word, if you want to!”
CHAPTER XV
CURLY CARRIES A MESSAGE
Two minutes later Al Jenkins, whose word ruled Twin Springs, and whose nod shook it as truly as the nod of Homer’s Zeus ever shook Olympus, was busied in the hotel, telling the boys about the agreement which had been made. Ronicky Doone was to stay there quietly at the hotel, while word was sent to Blondy Loring that his enemy awaited him here. It was to be, in a way, a repetition of the incursion of the day before. Then Charlie Loring had cantered into town for the first time, an unknown quantity. He had taken the townsmen by surprise and swept them off their feet. If he came to-morrow he would not have that advantage.
On the other hand, if he came in to-morrow, their hands would be tied. He would be coming for the express purpose of disposing definitely of a man whom he had twice before beaten. And if he did that he could go away, and they were in honor bound not to hamper his going.
So the matter of which Al Jenkins spoke was reviewed from two angles by the crowd, and while there were many favorable voices for it, there were many against it who declared that the town, in effect, ought to wash its own dirty linen. They should kick the pseudo Ronicky Doone out of their precincts and let him do as he would on the outside.
To this Al Jenkins returned the rather pointed observation that if any single man cared to do the kicking, he was welcome to the task, but that he, Al Jenkins, was not at all eager for the task because he had a lingering suspicion that this stranger might be the real and actual Ronicky Doone in person, in which case the kicking was apt to be accompanied with difficulties in the shape of large slugs of lead driven as hard as powder could drive.
The remarks of Jenkins were at least so taken to heart that, though several young men who hankered for a reputation loitered near Ronicky’s post that afternoon, none of them ventured to actually disturb the dreamer. And that evening he went into supper, the center of attention once more, even though that attention were hardly as favorable to him as it had been twenty-four hours previous. At least Twin Springs had decided to keep its utter condemnation in abeyance until Ronicky had been given another chance to redeem himself.
In the meantime Al Jenkins had selected from the ranks of his retainers a hardy and devoted servant. This was no other than “Curly.” He derived his name from the quantity of hair which was twisted tight around his head in dense, glistening masses of blue-black. Curly had no other name than the one drawn from his hair. He came out of nowhere. He had no past; he answered no questions with the truth. In short he was a big, powerful, round-cheeked, swarthy-skinned, merry-eyed individual who parried all inquiries about his past with lies, the first that came to his mind.
It was impossible to extract the truth out of Curly. Also it was impossible to corner him with a quantity of his own lies and embarrass him.
He simply refused to worry. If an old woman asked him about his childhood, he was apt to tell a particularly pathetic tale of a fond mother who died young, of the cruel stepmother who came into the house; of cruel and insidious persecution which finally drove him out of the house to find his own fortune where he might.
If a young woman asked him the same question. Curly answered according to her complexion. If she were dark, he told her of the plantation in the sunny South which he called home, and to which he would some day return to claim his own. If she were a blonde, he related a pretty fable of meadow lands and rich orchards and mighty barns, well stocked; this was the paternal estate which must on a day become his. And to it he would assuredly go, but only when his taste for freedom was dulled. In the meantime he preferred to wander.
These wild yarns of Curly had opened the door to many a lady’s heart, but of late years they had accomplished little for him. And when he began to talk men relaxed their minds and their attentions and allowed themselves to revel in the fancies and the cunning inventions of the story-teller. This was the man who started for the Bennett place. Such an errand was not one which Al Jenkins would have easily intrusted to another of his men. For when a Jenkins adherent and a Bennett met on soil which was not neutral, there was generally a crash which started echoes flying through the hills. But Curly was such a good-natured soul that Jenkins felt he could safely be trusted to get to the Bennett Ranch and off again with his message. So he waved him down the road and then sat down to chuckle and wonder how Curly would deliver the message. Certainly that fertile brain would not pass the challenge through his hands without embroidering some new designs unheard of by the creators. But no matter what he said, or how strong he made it, the purpose would be answered by bringing Charlie Loring back into town either to expose the cheat, or to battle with the stranger.
It was a blithe day for Curly. Rocking down the road on his cow pony, he sent his whistle thrilling before him until he came in view of the house of Bennett. Then he hastened his gait and rode on headlong, arriving with his horse in a lather. He flung himself down to the ground, rushed to the door, and beat on it with the butt of his quirt. Two pairs of footsteps came hurrying to answer him. He was confronted when the door was jerked open, by both Charlie Loring and Steve Bennett. And in the distance his quick eyes took in the form of beautiful Elsie Bennett, with a lapful of sewing.
