The Max Brand Megapack (255 page)

All of this Ronicky noted without at first taking any comfort to himself. But, as he worked himself to his sitting posture and then continued by climbing to his feet, he was given a thrill of sudden hope by the sight of the eyes of the sleeper, still closed. He took a step. The floor creaked heavily beneath him. And still the snoring of the other continued uninterrupted.

What this liberty of the moment could gain for him he could not tell. There was no manner of escaping from the cabin. The window was too small for him to work his way through it. The door was heavily bolted and locked, and there was no way for him to get the key unless he could reach under the shoulders of the sleeper who slept upon the guns and the key.

Nothing in the cabin showed any sign of life. There was nothing to catch the light of the increasing day except the chimney of the lantern. But even this gave Ronicky his first hope, combined as the sight of it was, with the heavy sleep of Curly.

He went to the side of the cabin. On a small shelf there was a bunch of sulphur matches. He worked off one of the matches with his teeth. Then, using his teeth again, he lifted the lantern from its peg to the floor. He knelt with his back to it, and by careful manipulation he managed to work off the chimney. Once the glass squeaked against one of the guards, but the sleeper still slept.

Then he crouched still more, picked up the matches, and went across the room to the stove. He turned his back to it and strove to scratch a match. But the process, which was so simple when he had a free hand, now proved strangely difficult. He could give no easy, smooth flexion of hand and wrist to make the match travel swiftly over a surface and by the friction ignite the head. The match broke under his hand, and he had to cross the room and work off another match with his teeth.

He returned to the stove. The surface of this was at once smooth and rough enough to give him a promise of igniting the match. Finally it succeeded. The flame spurted, and Ronicky hurried back toward the lantern. But his haste set up a current of air in which the match went out.

Again he returned and repeated the performance; an agony of suspense was growing in him every moment. For now the light of the day was increasing rapidly, and at any moment that light might pry open the eyes of the sleeper.

This time he succeeded in igniting the wick of the lantern. No sooner did the flame rise from it than he knelt again and thrust into the fire the stout rope which bound his wrists together.

It was no easy task. He swung his wrists as far as he could to one side and then twisted his head until his neck threatened to break. But still it was hard to keep the rope accurately above the flame. And when at last it did remain long enough in the flame to begin to burn, there was an immediate complication.

For it sent up a strong, pungent smoke, and Ronicky glanced in alarm at big Curly. It was utterly impossible that he should continue to sleep very much longer in an atmosphere such as this was now becoming.

And to give point to his dread, Curly coughed heavily, raised himself upon his elbow, and then turned and began snoring again!

Ronicky, warned back to his work by the sear of the flame against his wrist, as he watched Curly, thrust the rope into the fire once more, and now he heard a light crackling. For the fire was eating into the heart of the stout rope, and the strands were parting, one by one, though there was still strength enough in what remained to have held a horse.

There was still another complication. Not only did the fire eat straight up through the rope, but it began, as well, to spread sidewise and it threatened to eat into his flesh, also, in a very few seconds.

He could only wait, with the perspiration pouring out on his forehead. Presently more strands of the rope parted with a light snap, but at the same time the volume of the smoke increased, and there was a sneeze from the bunk where Curly was sleeping. Ronicky dared not look. He twisted his head still farther, turned still more; and peered at the burning rope. The fire was edging to his skin, and though the central part of the rope between his wrists was a glowing, blackening mass, he could not tell whether or not the fire had reached the heart of the rope.

In the meantime there was a creaking of the bunk, and Ronicky turned his head in time to see the hands of Curly raised toward his face, where he was slowly rubbing his eyes. Was the cow-puncher about to waken? Or was this simply a motion in his sleep? Or would the rubbing work some of the stinging smoke from the rope into his eyes?

Slowly Curly sat up on the bunk, turned, and directed his dull, sleep-hazy eyes toward Ronicky. At the same time, while he frowned, unable to comprehend, the fire touched both the wrists of Ronicky, and he jumped to his feet, unable to restrain the start under the spur of that pain.

“Hell!” cried Curly, and reached for his gun.

At the same instant, under the tug of his tightened muscles, the ropes which bound the wrists of Ronicky parted. He was free to fight!

CHAPTER XXVI

FREE AND
AWAY

No, it was only a false sense and promise of freedom, for, as Curly reached for the gun, and Ronicky leaped forward, his arms swung at his sides, dead weights. The binds had been on them so long that, for the time at least, the blood flowed too sluggishly in them. They were paralyzed.

He changed his mind and his purpose as he lurched forward. He had intended to lash out with his fists. But that would never do. He would not have been able to hit the mark, and if he did he would have no force. Instead of striking with his fist he used his whole body as a projectile. He sprang from the floor and, hurling himself forward, swung in mid-air a little to one side, presenting a hard shoulder with all of his driving weight behind it. And with this he crashed into the body of Curly, half raised from the bunk and half turned to reach for his gun.

The big man was driven with a crash against the side of the shack. Such was the force that the board on which they struck bulged out. Ronicky struck for the head of the other, but his hand was limp and helpless!

With a groan of rage he sprang back, just as Curly, the gun having slipped from his grip in the surprise of that attack, turned with a bellow of rage and fear and determination to grapple with his far slighter opponent.

By a scant inch Ronicky evaded that grip. And Curly, following his lunge blindly, tumbled off the bunk and rolled on the floor. He struck the legs of Ronicky. Down they went. Down they went together, and Curly, with a single turn, was on top, pinioning the body of Ronicky against the floor with his great bulk.

So suddenly awakened from sleep, no doubt his mind was not yet half recovered. He was still in a dream, a nightmare. And the yell with which Curly realized his position of advantage and prepared to take advantage of it had no human quality in it. It was simply a brute roar of fury.

His fists were heavy and strong enough, but they were not the weapons he had in mind. He reached, instead, for the last billet of firewood which he had cut the night before and which was now beside the stove. This he gripped, heaved up and prepared to strike. The blow would have dashed out the brains of Ronicky.

He had no power to interpose. Blood was coursing tinglingly through his arms again, as he fought, but still their old strength had not returned. But he struck up, and the red-hot fuming rope end which was attached to his wrist jabbed into the face of Curly. At once there was a shriek of pain. Again Ronicky struck with that red-hot weapon, and a shower of sparks was thrown off, as it ground into the flesh of Curly’s face.

Dropping the billet of wood, he reeled back to his feet with a scream of horror and pain. For the moment he was blinded. That moment sufficed Ronicky to regain his own feet and tear the rope ends from his scorched wrists. Now, free at last from all bondage and with the power returned to his arms, he could face the other with his full strength.

But Curly was no longer a mere man; he was a huge maniac. His sleep-deadened mind had been startled into wakefulness. Then in a moment he had been struck by pain and fear, and for the moment at least his reason was unhinged. His blackened face contorted with his fury and he made straight at Ronicky, his great hands outstretched. Ronicky dived under those reaching arms and struck into the body and up to the face of the monster, with all his might.

It was like striking a falling wall. Curly still came on. Ronicky dodged and struck again. This time Curly was staggered, for the blow had caught him squarely on the point of the chin, but one shake of his head drove the haze away from his mind, and the next instant his grip was on Ronicky’s shirt.

Ronicky whirled in terror. The cloth parted and ripped away in the fingers of Curly. Ronicky was free, but he found himself cornered. There was no chance to dodge. Straight at him came Curly, shouting wildly in exultation and fury. Ronicky dropped to his knees, hoping that the rush would carry the big man straight over him and stun him against the wall. At the same time his right hand closed on cold metal, and he jerked the fallen revolver from beneath the bunk.

His first hope was only partially true. Curly crashed against the wall, but he was not stunned. The next instant his weight dropped upon Ronicky, pinning the latter to the floor. In two seconds of fierce struggling Ronicky was flattened, and a great hand was tearing for a grip at his throat.

And even then he did not use the muzzle of the gun. But, reversing his hold to the barrel, he smashed the heavy, steel-bound butt of the weapon into the face of his foe. He saw a crimson stain start across the forehead of Curly, and then the whole bulk of the other became a limp burden from which he easily rolled.

Ronicky looked down at the sprawling, senseless figure in alarm. It seemed impossible that one blow should have robbed the big frame of its strength. Then, alarmed by the red stream which was trickling down the face of the injured man, he knelt and listened to the breast. The heart beat strong and steadily, though slow, and Ronicky knew that it was only the stunned condition of a moment from which Curly would recover in five minutes. There was no need of staying to help him.

It was better to leave before he recovered, and so avoid the necessity of either binding the big fellow or else continuing the battle. He reached for the key beneath the blankets on the bunk, found it almost at once, and then hurried for the door.

Once outside he lost no time. Lou was hastily saddled, and then, swinging into the stirrups, he started across the clearing. He had not passed over half the distance when he heard a sort of strangled shout behind him and he saw Curly coming in pursuit.

Never in his life had Ronicky seen so terrible a figure. The face was blackened by the charred rope end, and yet it was covered with crimson from the blow with the revolver’s butt. His features were convulsed by the frenzy of rage and pain—surely a temporary madness—and his great arms were outflung.

Even Loring himself might well have turned and fled at the sight of this raging demon temporarily clad in human flesh. And Ronicky blessed the speed of Lou and clapped her on the flank.

Her answer was a gallop that sent him rushing among the trees, while the wild shouting of Curly died away in the distance behind them. In a few minutes more Ronicky Doone was safe and free again on the trail up the narrow gorge which led toward the ragged crests of Solomon Mountain.

He was free, and his work lay clear before him. But there was one great difference; whereas he had had six whole days in which to accomplish his ends before, he now had a mere twenty-four hours. And there was the pain in his blackened wrists to tell him what manner of men he had to match and beat in that space of time. Perhaps it was the bulldog in him, rather than the reasoning man, that made him simply thrust out his jaw and urge Lou on up the trail to the mountain.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE MAN WI
TH THE MUSTACHES

He had never had a very definite plan. With the greater part of a week before him, he had felt that no finely drawn plan was needed. But he must first of all learn the all-important fact: was Blondy Loring still alive, or was he dead from the effects of the wound? Was he, Ronicky Doone, a murderer—no matter under what mitigating circumstances—or was he merely a man who had struck down another while rightfully defending himself from violence?

But this news he could learn, no doubt, as well at the top of Solomon Mountain as in Twin Springs itself. So he kept steadily on his way.

It was the bright, hot middle of the morning before Lou came to a sweating halt on the first thing which approached level land at the crest, and Ronicky looked about him with interest. He had heard often of this mountaintop, but it was the first time he had ever seen Solomon Mountain.

It was a rather small, very high plateau, so far as he could make out. Some great outcropping of the rock-fold had thrust up a great prominence here. The top of that table-land had been scored and worn away, not in the symmetrical shape of a single top, but in a hundred small summits, carved in a fantastic manner, with a hundred different patterns drawn freely out of the brain of the carver. Twisting passages ran in every direction. On either hand he could choose half a dozen different courses to run in any way he wished to travel. No wonder, he thought to himself, that men living beyond the law had chosen to live here. For here they could not be cornered by a thousand men. It would take more than that to watch the exits.

Ronicky continued down the first passage that opened before him, shivering a little as he looked around him. The sides went sheer up on either hand to ragged edges above him. Five hundred men could be in hiding among the rocks, within a radius of a hundred feet, and while they watched his every movement, he could not see a thing. A child could have destroyed the greatest giant that ever walked through the pages of fable, in such a place as this pass. It had only to topple a rock loose somewhere above and let it bound down toward the enemy. If the rock missed its mark, it mattered not, for it would also knock loose in its course half a dozen other stones which projected from the slope, and these would volley down with it to crush the stranger.