by Max Brand
When Charlie covered his face, the doctor, as though satisfied, stepped back and left Loring to digest the substance of those whispers, while he walked back and forth through the room. And there was a sort of strut to his stride, as the pace of one who has done a good deed. Yet it seemed a very cruel thing that he had done to poor Charlie Loring, Blondy the big puncher of the Bennett Ranch.
He turned again to his patient and this time saw that Blondy had turned his head so as to observe him, and in the eyes of the patient there was a consuming, a withering hatred. It made the doctor start, and then, shrugging his shoulders, he cast the horror from him.
Again he went to Blondy.
“I’ll tell you the crowning hell of all your case, Loring,” he said. “I’ll tell you at once. It’s this: the girl wanted to marry you before because she thought that you were a sort of a knight that had just stepped out of the pages of one of the old fool books that she’d been reading. And now she wants to marry you to save you from yourself!”
He made a gesture, calling heaven to witness the prodigious absurdity of this. And then he strode up and down the room through two or three turns.
“It’s ghastly! It’s positively ghastly!” he declared to the world at large and to Blondy Loring in particular. Then he paused beside the bed and shook his forefinger at the sufferer.
“But you can bet your bottom dollar that matters will go no farther than this!” he vowed. “You can lay your last cent on that, Loring. And the reason that I’m telling you all of the things that I know about you is so that you will be in my power—and know that you are in my power!”
He looked down thoughtfully.
“If you tell what you know,” said Loring, “you break your oath which you took when you became a doctor.”
The doctor glanced up hastily and, as he did so, saw the face of Blondy suddenly convulsed to a wolfish ferocity. A veritable devil had peered out for the instant, as from behind a mask.
“Break my oath?” asked the doctor sadly. “That, Loring, is something I never expected that I could do. But my honor as a doctor is worth less than the soul of this girl. Never dream, Loring, that I’ll let it be thrown away on you!”
Loring raised his hand in sudden surrender and closed his eyes as though physically, mentally he had given way under the sudden strain. But it was a false surrender.
“You’ll try nothing like that?” asked the doctor.
“Nothing like that,” whispered Charlie Loring.
But his mind was ceaselessly revolving the problem. There was some way of evading the danger from the doctor, and he would find that way.
CHAPTER XXX
NEWS FROM TWIN SPRINGS
Almost at once Ronicky Doone found himself adopted by the man who had first met up with him. He was drawn out from the main chamber where, for that day, at least, the outlaws of Mount Solomon had established their headquarters, and he was taken into a small adjoining room or rather cave, where Montana Charlie had taken up his own quarters on this date.
But Ronicky noted that there were no permanent features of furniture in the cave. Indeed it would be difficult in the extreme to bring up such luxuries to the top of Mount Solomon. Moreover if they led a shifting life, moving here and there, the probabilities were that they could not possibly carry their conveniences with them. Montana Charlie soon explained the whole matter in detail.
The originator of the scheme of making Mount Solomon a stronghold for his kind, had drawn up a complete plan by which it should operate. And one of the first things which he laid down as an inviolable rule was that there should be no articles of furniture either brought up the mountains or made at the top.
The idea was that such things would tend to fix the life of the citizens of Mount Solomon in the furnished caves, whereas, ideally, they should be constantly wandering. Moving from cave to cave they could leave fewer traces of habitation. And, also, if they lived on what they carried on their horses up the slope, they would not be tempted to stay too long on the crest. Ronicky was surprised by this point in the rules and their purposes. But the point was readily explained.
“This,” said Montana Charlie, “is just sort of a camping place for overnight. It ain’t a place for gents to hang out when they are flush and want to spend their money. It’s just a place where they can duck to when the whole land is hot on their trail; and it’s the sort of a place where they can come to meet up with some of their pals, and here they can fix up their layouts for their next jobs. But nobody, not even the best, can lay up here for more than one week. If a gent comes in on a Sunday, he has to go out some time before midnight the next Sunday. And that’s the way it works all the time.”
“But who sees to it that the rules are kept?” asked Ronicky.
“Why, the majority,” said Montana cheerfully. “You see this is a real democracy, partner! Or, rather, it’s like a club. We elect our members.”
“Am I elected then?” asked Ronicky.
“Nope, only part way. I brought you in. That means that you can stay with us in this one hang-out. But before you can begin to circulate around, you got to be taken around by somebody else. Any two can elect you, and it takes more’n half to keep you out on a vote.”
Ronicky nodded, surprised at the wisdom of these arrangements which provided for the safety of all.
“Who fixed up these rules?” he asked at length.
“Who d’you think?” asked the other. “Why, it was ‘Kit’ himself.”
He said this as one delivering a master stroke, and Ronicky managed to muster enough surprise to suit the occasion.
“Kit?” he echoed. “Not Kit!”
“Yep, Christopher was the boy that done it. There was some up to that time that figured that Kit was just good for gun plays and that sort of thing. But when he planned how the boys was to use Mount Solomon, we changed our minds about him.”
“What does he get out of it?” asked Ronicky. “Does he get the right to dig out a part of the profits of everybody that hangs out here regular?”
“Nope, he don’t. The surprising thing is that Kit don’t ask for a darn thing except one. And that one thing is that he’s to be allowed to stay here just as much as he pleases. And even that he don’t use as much as he might!”
Ronicky sketched for the satisfaction of his imagination the picture of an all-wise and deep-seeing crook who had seen the possibilities of the mountain and had planned to gather around him for his own protection as well as for theirs a host of expert fighters. There were always enough men present, Charlie told him, to insure the presence of two or three guards who, posted upon a few prominent places on the tops of the ridges, could keep an easy survey sweeping across the sides and make sure that no unwanted stranger climbed toward the top.
And when a man was observed climbing, glasses were at once focused on him. If he were recognized as a friend, he was, of course, allowed to come on at his pleasure. But if he were not so recognized, he was surveyed as a possibility. It might be that he would prove to be some man of the law. And in that case he would find the top of the mountain totally deserted in appearance, while spies watched him from covert. Or, if he seemed a promising youth, a man would be sent out, as Montana Charlie had been sent, to encounter him and examine him cautiously. Conducted in this fashion and adhering strictly to the rules which had been laid down by the celebrated gun fighter, Christopher, the “club” on top of Mount Solomon gave promise of flourishing for an indefinite period. The beautiful part of its organization was that it depended upon no central head who, knowing things and having a power which none of the others possessed, could make or break the rest by his guidance. This was a group which produced its leader from among its own numbers. This was fortunate, for Christopher had been absent for months.
These details Ronicky listened to with the greatest interest. He was only surprised by the name of the leader, Christopher. This was his first incursion in these lands, but he had heard in the north of an outlaw of that name. However there
was no atmosphere of celebrity attaching to the name of Christopher, surely not enough to make him the accepted founder of such an institution as this. Perhaps this was the first “great” thing which he had done, and from what Montana Charlie had said Ronicky gathered that this must be the case.
Here the narrative of Montana broke off sharply, and canting his head to one side he listened to the voice of a man who had just entered the larger rock-chamber and was greeted with a rumble of voices from the outlaws.
“It’s Cook,” said Montana, raising himself eagerly. “It’s old Cook himself. He’s come in with the news, I guess. It must be something pretty important.”
“Where’s he come from?” asked Ronicky carelessly.
“From Twin Springs,” was the answer, and Ronicky caught his breath sharply.
What an irony of Fate it was that his entry had been so successful, only to have his exit blocked by a man who would be sure to know all about the shooting of Blondy Loring? He could only hug one faint hope to his bosom, and that was that Cook had gone to Twin Springs after the shooting took place, so that he had not seen Ronicky himself.
“And he’ll have some news about Kit,” said Montana Charlie. “He’ll know how the old man is coming along, and he will be able to tell us whether Kit is going to be able to get back on his feet or not.”
“Christopher is sick?” asked Ronicky.
“Sure! Don’t you know that? Ain’t you been in Twin Springs?”
Ronicky made no answer, fearing to expose his ignorance. Luckily at that moment, while Montana Charlie was waiting for his response, the newly arrived man in the other part of the cave began to speak, and Montana was instantly all ears, putting away the gun belt he had been repairing, in order to listen.
“He’s doing fine,” said Cook. “He ain’t on his feet. Matter of fact he’s a considerable long distance from being on his feet. But the girl is treating him fine. Never leaves him night or day.”
“It’s about time she should pay some attention to him,” answered another, “after all the months that he’s been working for her old man and waiting for his pay.”
“Well,” said Cook, “you can lay to it that she’s paying him back all that he ever done for her father and her. The doctor says that without her he’d never have been able to pull Kit through. Poor Kit! I had a look at him the other day. Couldn’t get near to look at him before. But the doctor finally let me open the door and take a squint at him. What I seen would have made your head spin. You remember him with the complexion of a girl in a high wind? Well, he’s as pale as ashes, all you can see of him, except that he’s got a faded yaller beard over the most of his face. He’s mighty thin, and he looks plumb played out.”
“I know,” said another. “I know that look that comes onto a gent after he’s been pretty near to dying. There’s a sort of a shadow lying all over him. Like he didn’t care much what he’d been near to. Sort of dull-like. Ain’t that the way that Christopher looks now?”
“Not a bit,” said Cook. “He had an eye that was on fire. He give me a look and a signal to come nearer the minute he clapped his eyes onto me. But when I tried to come in the doctor shuts me out.
“‘I just wanted to show you that he’s better and that his head is cleared,’ said the doc. ‘Now run along and tell the rest of his friends that he’s all right.”
“And so I couldn’t do nothing but what he said. I went out and told everybody, and everybody seemed mighty glad to hear. Yes, sir, you wouldn’t never think that Christopher would have many friends in a place like Twin Springs. But gents that would run a mile if you just whispered the name of C. L. Christopher into their ear, now smile and grin and want to know all about Charlie Loring!”
This brought a chuckle of amusement from the crowd, but Ronicky Doone sat with his head bowed toward the ground. It had burst upon him like a shell exploding. The tall fair-haired youth who had impressed him so favorably in Twin Springs, when he had ridden into the town, was no other than the known desperado and youthful bandit, Christopher. He had apparently made no effort to disguise himself beyond taking the first two of his real names, and so he had made himself known as Charlie Loring instead of Charlie L. Christopher.
The consummate boldness of it stunned Ronicky. And still his brain refused to grasp the whole truth. He found points which stuck in his crop, so to speak. What, for instance, could have induced such a man as Christopher to accept employment as a cow-puncher on a ranch? Yet was that not answered by the beauty of Elsie Bennett? Yes, for her sake he had played the game and striven to pose as an honest man.
Swift confirmation was coming from the round of talk in the next apartment of the cave.
“I’m glad he’s out of it,” said one. “But after all he’s only got what was coming to him for being such a fool and trying to live two lives instead of one. Ain’t I right, boys?”
“Maybe,” they answered, “but that don’t keep us from being sorry. Besides,” said one, “you got to admire him for the way he worked things. Think of him riding down to drag Doone’s hoss out of the river that day!”
“Yes,” said another, “that’s something that I never could make out. Why did he make that play about the hoss?”
“So’s folks would never be able to make a guess about what he really was,” said another. “He wanted to make ’em think—even when he thought that he was running away from a bunch that were riding to get him for murder—that he was the honest young gent who was plumb drove against his will into shooting to kill. He knowed quick that if he made that play to save the hoss, while he was running for his life, that no jury in the mountains would ever hang him. Besides, the news of that must sure have made the girl’s heart start beating quick.”
“But this Ronicky Doone,” said another. “How come that he was able to beat the chief to the draw?”
“Because he waited and kept right on waiting until Kit’s nerve begin to rub thin. He held off and held off until Kit got nervous. And you know what he is then. He ain’t half of a man. He needs to act right on the spur of the moment. And some day somebody else that knows how the trick is done, is going to wait out on Kit until his nerve is gone, and then he’ll kill him plumb easy.”
“H’m,” said a companion. “That sounds easy, but I’d hate to be taking the chance.”
And the general chuckle confirmed this last opinion.
“Let’s go out and get some more news out of Cook,” said Montana cheerfully. “That’s sure good news about Kit being on the way to getting well, eh?”
“Yes,” replied Ronicky and rose reluctantly to his feet.
He had come to the test. Would Cook know him as the conqueror of Blondy Loring Christopher? If so, his lease on life was short indeed! Yet he could do nothing other than follow his companion.
CHAPTER XXXI
A DOUBLE DILEMMA
In the meantime in the hotel at Twin Springs the doctor rested content. He had, he felt, effectually tied the hands of his patient, and now he had only to sit back and watch the recovery of the body of a man whose mind, he knew, was irretrievably damned.
For out of the ravings of Blondy Loring, both he and the girl had learned the truth, that the seemingly lighthearted, harmless cow-puncher was in reality the dreaded outlaw, Christopher. And this was the truth which he had whispered into the ear of Blondy to paralyze the resistance of the big wounded fellow.
It had been a hard task for the girl to be convinced. No matter what damning details dropped from the lips of Blondy during his sickness she would not believe that he could be guilty. Though the entire facts about a robbery were given in a fairly consecutive story by Blondy, yet she declared that he might have heard the story from some other person, and so he had repeated them with the peculiar vividness which any tale receives when it drops from the lips of a delirious person.
It was only when tale after tale was told in part or in the whole, by exact description or by inference, that she began to be shaken in her belief. And whereas at first sh
e had beaten down all of the doctor’s attempted arguments by simply saying: “Look at his face! How can you believe such things of him?”—she at last changed her attitude.
Her attitude, in short, was altered to one which was most difficult for the doctor to combat. Instead of pointing to him as she had done in the first place, and demanding who could believe wrong of a man with a face so nobly chiseled, she now pointed to him and demanded to know who could possibly believe that evil was ineradicably planted in his soul?
When this question was first asked in a trembling voice and with shining eyes, the doctor was too dumfounded to answer.
“I don’t know about it. I’m not the sky pilot of the town,” he said. “Evil in his soul? Well, since it is nothing that can be cut out with a knife, or rooted out with medicine, I can’t pretend to argue about it. I won’t answer you.”
“Because you have a blind prejudice against him,” said the girl hotly. “But I tell you, doctor, there is something in instinct, and instinct tells me—”
Here the doctor threw up both hands and groaned. “Instinct!” he said. “That’s the last resort of my dear wife. And I’ve learned not to run against that wall of rock. If you’ve come to the question of instinct, this is no longer an argument. But go on, and I’ll try to listen calmly.”
“I knew you would act in this manner,” said Elsie Bennett sadly. “You wouldn’t understand how, the first moment I laid eyes on him, I said to myself that there was something he needed, and which I could give him.”
“H’m,” said, the doctor.
“It was instinct!” cried Elsie Bennett. “And though my faith was shaken for a little while by—by—by what we’ve found out—”
“By the fact that we now know Blondy Loring is the thief, hypocrite, and murderer, Charlie Christopher?”
The array of unbeautiful words jolted at her shrewdly and made her head come up by jerks and stole her color away.
