The Max Brand Megapack (252 page)

There was a rustling of the bedclothes, as Charlie Loring stirred his nervous arms.

“If I can only get it over with in a rush,” he was saying in a mutter. “If I can only get at him and kill him—shoot him down before I got to stand up to them eyes of his—them clear, straight-looking eyes!”

Here the girl caught her breath in something between a sob and a gasp of horror, and the sound apparently broke into the delirious mind of the man, for his talking ceased.

“Does it mean that he was really afraid of Ronicky Doone?” asked the girl faintly. “Oh, doctor, tell me true!”

The doctor lowered his paper, cleared his throat, scratched his head. In short he had not the slightest idea what to answer.

“It might be true, and then again it mightn’t,” he said. “The mind turns a lot of corners from the truth in a delirium, sometimes. But then again a man will tell the naked truth.”

“It can’t be the truth here,” sighed Elsie Bennett. “Don’t you see? He’s saying to face Ronicky Doone! And that would mean that he—that he had not told the truth about how he offered to fight Ronicky in the barn at our place. But he said that Ronicky was afraid—that Ronicky crawled and begged to get out of it and—”

“Miss Bennett,” said the doctor, “they say that Ronicky Doone was able to face Charlie Loring fairly well today. At least he shot with a steady hand. We have evidence yonder on the bed for that.”

“But that may have been shame.”

“Shame?”

“Oh, don’t you see? In private, with no one to see, Ronicky Doone may have shrunk from Charlie. And Ronicky Doone impressed me as a man who might. He is proud—he is terribly proud. But perhaps it is only the pride that makes him want to appear brave to the crowd. He doesn’t care at all what any one man thinks.”

“What gave you such an insight into the character of Doone?”

“I saw him. I talked with him.”

“H’m!” said the doctor in heavy disapproval.

They were speaking very softly, lest their voices should disturb the wounded man, and Ronicky listened with a strange fascination to the changing emotions so subtly expressed by the voice of the girl, fear, sorrow, horror, all in a murmur hardly louder than a whisper.

“And now this terror that keeps coming back to Charlie in his delirium—”

“Well,” asked the doctor: bluntly, “what if he is afraid of Ronicky Doone? I understand that a lot of men have feared that young man.”

Ronicky guessed that she shivered at this.

“But that would mean—” She paused and did not complete her sentence.

Ronicky waited in a bitter suspense. Would she see the truth?

“No,” she cried at length, “it isn’t right. I won’t believe him against himself. It was no lie that he told to us when he carried Ronicky Doone into the house. And I’ll wait till he is well and able to talk for himself before I think of it again!”

“That sounds sensible,” said the doctor. “That sounds mighty sensible.”

With a sigh Ronicky stole back through the gathering shadows and then stepped from the veranda onto the ground. He felt a shutter had been lifted, and he had seen his future course as it must be.

CHAPTER XXII

RONICKY DECIDES

What that course must be he dared not, however, reve
al to himself in a single flash of comprehension. It was too much for his mind to grasp at one stretch. There were results involved which spun out before him in a dizzy succession. He could not see exactly where they would lead him.

But step by step he went down the trail until he decided that it was time to put his thoughts into the realization of action. He went straight into the front of the hotel, found Al Jenkins, as usual, with a dense group rotating around him, and drew him to one side.

“Mr. Jenkins,” he said, “you’ve been sort of hard on me once, but, take you all in all, you’ve been pretty square, Jenkins, or at least you’ve tried to be square, and so—”

“Wait!” said the big man.

And laying his mighty grip upon the shoulder of Ronicky he fairly swept him through the night outside, pungent with dust raised by a horse which had just pounded by at a canter.

“When a man begins like you just done,” chuckled Al Jenkins, “the best thing to do is to dodge him and get him to think of something else as quick as you can. I can’t get you to thinking of something else, but as least I can get you out here by ourselves. Now, Ronicky, you were getting all ready to tell me a piece of bad news. Do you have to tell me still?”

“It won’t mean much to you,” said Ronicky, “but what I have to say is that I’ve made up my mind. I thought at first that I was going to be able to get out of Twin Springs without taking any sides in the fight that was going on. But now I see that everything I do has brought me in deeper and deeper. And now I’ve picked my side in the fight, and I’m sorry to say that I’m against you!”

There was a grunt from Jenkins, an absurdly realistic imitation of the sound a man makes when he has received a heavy body blow.

“But,” he protested, “you can’t mean it, Ronicky. You’re crazy about the girl.”

“I never said that,” said Ronicky.

“Sure you didn’t,” agreed Jenkins. “But I say you’re wild about her. Well, if you fight on her side, you’ll be fighting on the same side with Blondy Loring. And that means you’ll be fighting his fight. Don’t you see that now that he’s down and out she’s got to stay with him, and that her loyalty wouldn’t let her desert Blondy for anybody else—that little fool!”

“I see all that,” said Ronicky gloomily. “But the point is—I’ve made up my mind!”

Jenkins was silent a moment, and then he laid his hand kindly on Ronicky’s shoulder.

“My boy,” said he, “if you were like the main run of the young gents that I meet nowdays, I’d let you go and say nothing about it. You ain’t going to make me or break me. But I’ll take time out and tell you that if you buck up against me, you’d better be bucking up against a stone wall. Understand?”

“I know,” admitted Ronicky. “I’ve imagined a good lot of things about you, Jenkins. I know you put on your gloves when you begin to work. I know that you’ve got all the odds on your side.”

“Hang it!” exploded the rancher. “I half begin to think that that’s why you’re against me. You got a sneaking idea that because Bennett is the under dog you ought to help him. Is that it?”

“That hound!” said Ronicky. “I tell you straight I ain’t wasting any thoughts on him.”

Jenkins sighed and began to speak.

“When we meet up,” he said, “remember that I’ll be bound on a blood trail—if it has to be one. But no matter what I have to climb over to get to the end of it, I’m going to smash Bennett before I’m through. Is that clear? And when you and me smash together head-on, I got an idea that you’ll be the one that falls. Keep all them things in mind, son, before you make up your mind for good and all. Will you?”

“Thanks,” said Ronicky. “I’ll have my own gloves on.”

“You realize that you’ll be all alone? You know that there ain’t a real man on the whole Bennett place? You realize that the old man is going busted, anyway, because he’s up to the ears in debt? And you realize that I’ve got every decent man in the country right behind me?”

“I know all that.”

“Then,” said Jenkins, “God help you. Good-by and good luck!”

He caught the hand of Ronicky in a great pressure, turned on his heel, and before he reached the veranda steps Ronicky heard him humming again. Then Ronicky himself started around the corner of the building. He paused a moment as he passed the spot where he had stood to confront Charlie Loring earlier that day. Where would the result of the firing of that shot some time place him?

In the shed, he saddled the bay mare and led her out. He left her near the front of the hotel, went to his room, made his pack quickly and deftly, and came down again. A moment later he was galloping through the night on the back of Lou and facing a strange future, indeed.

Knowing the lay of the land better now, he bore off to the right until he reached the road running up the valley to the Bennett place, and on this smooth going the mare made excellent time, never checked her pace until the buildings of the ranch rolled up into his view.

Ronicky dismounted at the side of the ranch house and knocked at the door.

“Come in!” called a voice which he recognized as belonging to the rancher.

He opened the door and stood in the presence of Steve Bennett. His effect was magical. It brought Bennett jumping out of his chair and placed him in a straddle-legged position in front of the fireplace, his gaunt right hand clutching at the butt of his revolver.

Whatever the other faults of the father of Elsie Bennett, cowardice was not one of them. A fire burned up in his buried eyes, and color flared in his cheeks, while he set his teeth and stood ready to fight and kill, or be killed, for apparently he took it for granted that this must be the reason for Ronicky’s coming.

But the latter kicked the door shut behind him. He dared not expose himself by turning aside for an instant from the malignant face of the other.

“Now,” said Ronicky, “we can talk.”

“Aye, we can. About what, though?

“About Charlie Loring.”

“I know all that. But mind yourself, Doone. I got four of my men in yonder room. If I call ’em—”

“Don’t lie. I know that you ain’t got a man in the house except yourself.”

“And what if that were the truth? I ain’t as old as I look. I could give you a game that would warm up your face before you saw the finish of Steve Bennett, lad!”

Ronicky nodded, grinning a fierce appreciation. He liked the hardy fellow better than he could ever have dreamed he might like him.

“About Loring,” he began saying. “I’ve come to tell you that Loring ain’t dead yet.”

“I knew that. I figure that I’d have heard Elsie wailing and crying for him if he was. And the devil knows how long he’ll be lying yonder and my girl with him. There ain’t a soul here to do the cooking that—”

Ronicky stopped him with a gesture and an ugly look. Such cold indifference to the welfare of his champion was more than the cow-puncher could stand. But he presently restored himself and leaned against the wall, watching the rancher closely all the time.

“Sit down,” said Bennett, “now that you’re here.”

“I’ll stand up for a while,” said Ronicky. “I like the feel of a wall behind me. It has a sort of an honest way about it.”

He looked Bennett straight in the eyes as he spoke, but he relaxed his vigilance enough to start rolling a cigarette.

“First of all,” said Ronicky, “you got a week to get ready in. Jenkins is giving you that much time before he comes after you.”

The upper lip of Bennett lifted. Otherwise, he made no sign that he understood.

“A week is a long time,” he said at length. “By that time I’ll be ready to run his dirty gang of cutthroats off the range.”

“How?” asked Ronicky.

“Are you asking me to tell you? All I got to say is that I can get the men for it.”

“You can’t,” said Ronicky. “There ain’t enough fighting men in the mountains that would hire under you to fight against Al Jenkins.”

A single deep-voiced curse was the reply of Bennett.

“That,” said Ronicky, “is why I’ve come out here.”

“Get finished with your chatter,” said Bennett. “I hate your infernal croaking, but, if you’re bound to talk, I suppose that I got to listen. Blaze away and finish up.”

He lighted a cigarette of his own making and closed his eyes as he inhaled the smoke. His face at once assumed the appearance of great age and deathly thinness. Then, opening his eyes as he blew forth the smoke, he was looking out to Ronicky through a thin veil, and for the moment Ronicky caught the impression—a very ghost of an impression—of a startlingly handsome face, poetic, unusual. That was the face of the man who had married the mother of Elsie Bennett.