by Max Brand
The two men started a little at the sight of an emissary from the hostile camp, but they stepped back to allow Curly to enter. He availed himself of the offer only by stepping into the doorway, so that he could look about the room at leisure, and also appear to the eyes of the girl, framed in the most impressive manner to bring out his size.
“Al Jenkins,” began Curly, in the manner of one in great haste, “told me to rush out here as fast as I could and tell you that you was needed in Twin Springs tomorrow at noon.” He turned to Charlie Loring directly. “And he says for you to bring your favorite shooting irons with you because—”
There was a shrill cry from the girl. She sprang up and came running toward them.
“You fool!” snarled Charlie Loring at Curly.
The rancher turned to his daughter.
“Keep back,” he said. “Don’t be bothering us now. It’s kind of late for you to be pretending a pile of interest in what happens to Charlie, after you turned loose the rat that Charlie trapped out here. You go on out of the room and don’t be troubling us.”
She backed toward the door to which he had pointed.
“Oh, Charlie,” she pleaded, “promise me that—”
“Later,” said Charlie Loring. “I’ll promise you later. Just now I’ve got to talk to this man. Don’t worry, Elsie. Don’t keep bothering about what happens to me, because—”
Curley looked gloomily toward the girl and big Blondy, as the latter went to escort her from the room.
“She’s out of her head about him,” sighed Curly to himself. “Curse it, that’s what comes of a gent being close around where there’s some action in sight. He gets the action, and the rest of us that stays off in the background get nothing but the whiff of his dust, as he rides over the sky line.”
These were the reflections which Curly interrupted, as big Blondy Loring and the rancher turned back toward their visitor. But now he was surprised to find that Blondy Loring was not exhibiting the anger which Curly had reckoned upon. Of course it had been a tactless thing to do—this announcement of the danger which impended over the head of Blondy, in the presence of the girl. And of course Curly had made that announcement with a full understanding of what he was doing, and with the purpose of beating the bird out of the bush, so to speak, and discovering what was the real attitude of beautiful Elsie Bennett to the big cow-puncher.
He had now found out and greatly to his own dissatisfaction. And he glowered at Bennett and Loring, as they came hastily toward him, having shut Elsie away.
“What’s up?” asked Stephen Bennett.
“Well, I’ll tell you,” said Curly. “Last night Ronicky Doone comes riding into town with a yarn about how he came out here and licked you, Loring, and made you take water. And when—”
“What!” shouted Bennett and his new foreman in loud unison. “Why, the truth is that—”
But Curly held up his hand.
“I ain’t out here arguing, gents,” he declared. “I’m just, out here spreading the news around. I’m telling you what’s been told to us in the town. If you want to talk, go into Twin Springs and do your talking in there. What Doone told us was that he came out here and tried to get Loring to fight, and that Charlie wouldn’t fight, and that he stepped up and punched Charlie Loring in the Jaw and dropped him flat on his back, and that when Charlie waked up, he didn’t reach for his gun but just crawled over to Ronicky, begging him not to shoot. And—”
There was a hoarse cry from Charlie Loring.
“I’ll kill him for this!” he shouted. “The dog.”
“The yaller hound,” cried the rancher. “Why, son, right here in this room I—”
“Oh, I know,” said Curly, “you and Charlie know all the facts of the case, and you’re agreed on ’em fine and slick. But I ain’t out here arguing, as I said before. I’m just circulating with the news of what they’re talking about in Twin Springs. Now I’ve told you, and I’m about through. The next thing that comes, though, is something that you might sort of want to hear. When we up and asked Doone how he’d prove what he said to be true, he said: ‘Just go out and ask Charlie Loring if he wants to come in and meet me to-morrow at noon in front of the hotel. I’ll be here waiting.”
“And that’s why I’m out here, Loring. To-morrow at noon the boys will be waiting and watching for you. Just come in and let your gun talk for you. Good luck!”
He turned, but as he turned, he heard Bennett crying to his foreman: “It’s a trap all laid for you, Charlie, but I ain’t going to let you go. I ain’t going to let you go!”
“Hell.” answered Charlie Loring. “I got to go!”
“Sure,” chuckled Curly, as he swung into the saddle, “he’s got to go.”
And he rode away with the happy smile of one who is conscious of having performed a good deed.
CHAPTER XVI
JENKINS TALKS TO HIS HENCHMAN
All the way back to Twin Springs, Curly retained that joyous smile, for he had with him the sense of a perfectly fulfilled piece of work. When he arrived in the dusk, he sauntered onto the veranda of the hotel, only to be instantly surrounded by a score of curious men, all anxious to learn the facts of the case as the Bennetts might have retold them. But Curly made sure that his voice would carry to the drowsy form of Ronicky Doone, where the latter lay stretched at his ease, partly in sun and partly in shadow.
“When I went out and told ’em what had happened,” he said, “I didn’t get no cheers out of ’em. When I told ’em that Ronicky Doone was going to wait for Charlie Loring here at the hotel until noon to-morrow, Bennett and Charlie just started laughing, and they kept on laughing until I looked around behind me to find out where the joke might be. But pretty soon, out of what they said, I made out that they thought that Doone was just bluffing, and that he’d rather stay to see snow in the desert than stay to see Charlie Loring come riding into the town.”
There was a murmur from the men, and many heads turned to watch the news taking effect upon Ronicky Doone. They only saw one slender hand, bearing the inevitable cigarette, rise slowly from his lips, and the white haze of smoke drifted upward, dissolving slowly in the dusky air.
“Pretty soon Charlie was able to talk for laughing,” said Curly raising his voice still more, because it seemed impossible that his words could have carried to the impassive form in the distance without bringing forth some sign of life; and he boomed now: “When Charlie could talk after he’d eased up on the laughing, he says to me that when noon shows up to-morrow he’ll probably be sliding into town. Not that he expects to find any Ronicky Doone around, but so’s he can have a laugh at the dumbbells in Twin Springs that would believe a yarn like the one Doone told us.”
This remark brought forth a loud howl of rage from the crowd. They became so excited that they forgot to watch the face of Ronicky. That is, all failed to watch him except Al Jenkins and Curly. And they saw Ronicky close his eyes, as he inhaled another deep breath of the smoke, and then smile, as he blew it forth into nothingness.
Al Jenkins pulled his henchman to one side. “I don’t believe that he even heard what you was saying,” he declared to Curly.
“I dunno,” said Curly. “I sure was watching him all the time and trying to get some sort of action put of him. But I guess he’s made up solid.”
“He’s a queer sort,” said Jenkins. “Either he’s a fighting devil, or he’s a coward and fine actor. Any way you take him, he’s different from anything that we’ve ever had in Twin Springs.”
“Yes, he is,” admitted Curly. “I never seen his like except once back in Omaha. I was a young feller, then. I had just come into a little stake that an uncle of mine left to me when he died. It was only a couple of thousand, but it looked good to me. Well, I had my wallet bulging with this loot, and I was walking down the street when—”
“When you met this gent you’re leading up to, eh?” snorted Al Jenkins. And he went on, interrupting gracelessly: “Now tell me the truth about what you saw out
there.”
“Plain facts?” sighed Curly.
“That’s what I want. If you can separate yourself from your dreams about what things might be, and see ’em the way they really are, I’d sure take it kind of you, Curly!”
“Well,” said Curly, “she loves him.”
“Who loves what?”
“Elsie and Blondy.”
A terrific stream of oaths burst forth from the lips of Al Jenkins. “Liar” was the mildest term he applied to Curly for having brought this news to Twin Springs.
“Liar, am I?” cried Curly at last, drawing himself up. “Lemme tell you what happened! When they opened the door the first thing they done was to flip out their guns—it was that nacheral for them to go for their gats when they seen one of your men around. And—”
“Curly, if you lie about this I’ll print the lie on hot iron and make, you eat it!”
“These are honest truths,” said Curly sadly. “It’d make a dog sick, the amount of suspicion I got to live with around these parts.”
“Go on, then!”
“Well, when I out and told Charlie that he was going to be waited for with a gun at noon to-day, she let out a screech that you gents would have heard in Twin Springs, here, if you’d yanked the stuffing out of your ears and! been listening! Never heard such a holler in my life, not since the time Hugh Tully’s wife seen the coyote playing with her two-year-old boy and—”
Here Al Jenkins exploded again.
“You told Blondy that, with the girl inside of hearing distance?”
“Sure.”
“You ought to be tarred and feathered, Curly. You got no sense, and you got no feeling.”
“I done it on purpose,” protested Curly. “I wanted to find out if there was anything between her and Blondy. And I sure succeeded.”
Another stream of curses issued from the lips of Jenkins.
“It ain’t possible,” he declared at last. “She’s worth ten like him. She’s too good for any man I’ve ever seen, if she’s half as good as her mother, but a big, thick-skulled fellow like that Loring, why—”
He broke off with a groan.
“Go on, Curly. What happened then?”
“She goes and throws her arms around Loring’s neck.
“‘Dearest,’ says she, ‘you’ll break my heart if you—’”
“Shut up,” bellowed Jenkins. “I can’t stand even listening to it. How could you stand hearing it and seeing it?”
“Well,” proceeded the truthful Curly, “she was run out of the room by Blondy and her father, and then they come back to me and asked me if I was plumb crazy, because they wouldn’t believe that this gent calls himself Ronicky Doone is really going to wait for Blondy to come in to-morrow. Do you believe it, chief?”
“If he’s using his right name,” said Jenkins, “he’ll do that and more.”
“Then how come he tried to murder Blondy from behind.”
“Maybe Blondy lied about it.”
“But old Bennett and the girl both seen Blondy carry Doone into the house.”
“Now,” groaned Jenkins, “I dunno what to think. All I know is this: that if Blondy Loring rides into town tomorrow and don’t find nobody waiting for him, or if he comes in and cleans up on Ronicky Doone, Twin Springs as a town ain’t going to have no more name than a jack rabbit around these parts.”
Curly nodded.
“They’s a worse thing than that,” he said. “Some of the boys take to Blondy real strong. They say that if a gent like Blondy will stick to Bennett, Bennett can’t be so bad. And, besides, I’ve heard ’em talking that you’re kind of hard on the old man, the colonel, as they call him.”
“Colonel nothing!” shouted Jenkins. “All it needs is a little bit more,” Curly declared, “and Bennett can have a fine crew of hands working out on his ranch, and then the rustling stops!”
He lowered his voice and became serious as he said this. Jenkins also glanced guiltily around.
“You talk like it was murder,” he muttered at length. “But all I’m doing is what was done to me. Bennett busted me the same way that I’m busting him. Besides he stabbed me in the back when I thought he was my friend. But what I’m doing to him he knows I’m doing.”
“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.”
