Ronicky Doone's Reward (1922) (14 page)

"He was restless," said Curly. "He couldn't sit still and listen to me talking long. He got up and left."

"What did you talk to him about?" asked one. "About one time up in Montana I was riding range in the winter for "

Here a man came running in from the front of the hotel and tossed a cartridge into the lap of Al Jenkins. "What's that?" he asked.

Al Jenkins looked it over quickly and then looked up with a start.

"It's a wooden slug!" he exclaimed. "Where did you get this?"

"I was around behind the hotel a while back," said the man. "And I seen Ronicky Doone or him that lets on to be Ronicky Doone break his gun open and dump out a whole cylinder full of these. Then he loaded up with some new ones out of his cartridge belt, and he kicked the dummies into the dust before he went away. He give a hard look around, like he'd have done a murder if anybody'd seen him. But he didn't get a sight of me. "After he went on, I sneaked out and picked up that. I couldn't believe my eyes at first. What might he be doing with wooden plugs like that in his gat?"

There was a subdued muttering of comments. But Curly rose from his chair and started for the door. It was his news that Blondy was a man-killer that had made Ronicky load his weapon with real slugs; but what a dauntless courage was his if he had been determined, before that, to fight with fake bullets? Curly reached the door.

"Blondy's coming!" called some one across the street. "He's ahead of time."

Chapter
XVIII. DOONE DRAWS

And Curly stepping through the doorway saw that it was indeed the truth. Swinging around the bend of the street, nearly at the far side of the village, came a big man on a small horse at least the rider was so much larger than the average that he made the horse seem small. It was Blondy Loring, and he was coming fast, while at the end of the veranda was Ronicky Doone, stretched again in his usual chair, with his hands folded behind his head!

And Curly, in an agony of spirit, stood undecided. He felt like a murderer. If Charlie Loring were killed in the fight that was to come, he Curly, would be to blame for having deliberately lied about Bennett's foreman. But now it was too late to speak and tell the truth, he decided. In another moment Loring would be upon Ronicky, and the letter's nerves must not be upset by conflicting statements.

He glanced across the street. It seemed that hundreds were in view, crowding windows, placed everywhere that they could be in safety, at the same time commanding a view of the battle to be. He saw women; he saw white-faced girls and round-eyed boys. But there was no one there who felt as Curly did. With all his faults, he had a kindly heart, and now he honestly wished that the place of one of the fighters could be given to him. He saw the dust curling up above the head of Blondy, as the latter came rushing on. But what was the matter with Ronicky? Why did he not arise?

Ah, now he sat up, and Twin Springs breathed a sigh of relief. He sat up, and he was rolling a cigarette. Incredible though it seemed, he was going to smoke while he encountered this formidable foeman.

There was a swish of dust spurting sidewise, as Blondy twisted his horse to a halt and swung down from the saddle. Straight toward Ronicky he strode, his left hand clenched, his right hand ungloved and carried frankly near the butt of the revolver that was exposed in the holster on his thigh. His face was set, almost convulsed with his emotions. Never had Curly seen such battle fury, and he half felt that the story which he had told to Ronicky Doone might after all be the true one concerning Bennett's foreman.

"Doone!" cried Charlie Loring.

Ronicky lifted his head. At the same instant the right hand of Blondy Loring flipped around the butt of his revolver and jerked it almost all the way from the sheath. But the other combatant did not stir. He merely followed the gesture with studious eyes and continued to calmly roll his cigarette, smoothing it into shape as a perfect cylinder. Then he placed it in his mouth and drew out matches. And there was a groan from the good men of Twin Springs. Was this strange fellow about to disgrace the town by taking water from Charlie Loring, as he had been reputed to have done once before?

"You dirty hound!" Loring was crying, so that every one could hear. "You been talking about me here in town.. You been lying about me! You know why I'm here!"

"You're talking sort of loud," said Ronicky Doone, mouthing the words with some clumsiness, as he kept the cigarette in his lips and lighted it. "This ain't a high wind, Loring. I can hear you tolerable well even when you speak nacheral. Or maybe you want all of them folks at the windows to hear you, eh?"

In spite of the quiet tone in which he spoke, his words were audible for a considerable distance. For all of Twin Springs was holding its breath, except one irrepressible dog in the back yard of one of the houses. He had been barking most of the morning, barking at the flies that flew past him, barking at the chain which held him. And he barked at this juncture.

At the sharp noise Blondy Loring started a little and changed color, though why that should be, Curly, for one, could not imagine. He noticed now, also, that the red was fading quickly from the face of Loring and turning to a gray.

"I've brought a gun with me, same as you asked me to," said Blondy. "And I see you got one with you. Let's see why you wear it."

"Sure," nodded Ronicky Doone. "There's lots of time for that. But I ain't ready yet. I ain't near ready, Loring!"

"You're going to show the yaller streak again, eh?"

"Maybe you'd call it that, but I'm one of them that like to take things slow and easy. Right now, for instance, I got an idea that you're a sneaking hound, but I'm just letting that idea filter around through my head until I'm plumb certain. Then then I'm going to kill you, Loring!"

He spoke it softly, but he spoke it with a savage satisfaction, and to the amazement of Curly, big Loring winced. Then Curly began to see some purpose in the delay of Doone. If, indeed, the smaller man possessed nerves of steel, as he seemed to, he was trying to break down the poise of Loring by taunts and by prolonging that critical moment which precedes actual combat.

"I give you ten seconds," said Loring, with a sudden burst of curses, in a voice that was pitched almost femininely high and small. "I give you ten seconds for getting out your gun and defending yourself if you can. I call on the rest of you gents of Twin Springs to hear me when I tell him. Because I mean business and business quick!"

But Ronicky Doone merely laughed. It was a fearful thing to watch him laughing in the face of a hysterical fighter such as Loring.

"You're talking plumb foolish," he assured the big man. "We ain't going to shoot according to when you get ready. We're going to have a signal; and when the signal comes, we'll shoot." He jumped down from the edge of the veranda. He stood at ease before Blondy, with one hand draped from his hip and a smile on his lips. And still his left hand was occupied with the cigarette. He seemed to be in the act of casually opening conversation with the big man. And very big indeed did Blondy seem by contrast with the slender, agile form which confronted him.

"You and the rest of 'em have framed some trick," exclaimed Blondy, falling back. "I got odds of a hundred to one against me in here. Before I give you a chance to take advantage of me, I'm going to "

"What?" asked Ronicky.

The answer was deadly silence, and beads stood out glistening on the forehead of Blondy Loring.

"You listen to me, and I'll tell you what you're going to do," said Ronicky. "You're going to wait right here with me until we hear the yap of that dog behind one of the houses yonder. And when the dog yaps, I'm going to shoot; that's your signal, Loring!"

And he blew out a cloud of cigarette smoke and through it stared steadily at Loring.

The latter glanced aside, and even behind him, and fell back again.

"What's the matter?" asked Ronicky Doone. "Don't you like close attention?" He added: "But I do! I want to get close enough to watch the way your eyes work, Loring!"

And he stepped nearer, smiling.

"Curse you!" gasped Charlie Loring with inexpressible horror and rage in his voice. "Curse you!"

"Watch for the dog barking, partner," advised Ronicky. "That's what we got to keep an ear open for. He's talking to both of us when he speaks again."

The hand of Loring made a convulsive movement. It almost seemed that he was about to tear the gun from its holster without awaiting the signal. And once, but this must have been merely the effect of a gust of wind fluttering his clothes, he seemed to tremble.

Ronicky Doone was saying: "I want you to hark back to what you been saying about me, Loring. I want you to remember what you been saying about how I tried to sneak up behind you and murder you with your back turned to me, Loring. And how, when you turned around and knocked me down, I crawled to you and begged you not to shoot! Keep thinking about that, Loring. Because the rest of the folks in Twin Springs are thinking about it now. They're all thinking; they're keeping it in mind, that yarn that you spun about me. And if they believe it, then I'm a fool!"

Loring moistened his dry, white lips, and he could not answer. And it seemed to Curly, though the idea was so strange that he never dared to mention it to another soul so long as he lived, that big, blond Charlie Loring was actually in fear; at least his face was the white mask of fear and rage commingled.

Then the dog barked.

Blondy Loring with a gasping intake of breath a gasp of actual joy, as the moment for action came upon him grasped at his weapon and brought it out with the skill of one who has practised the movement until the execution of it is perfected to the last detail. But Ronicky Doone whipped out his gun almost carelessly and without even coming to an erect position from his slouching pose. The gun exploded, but Blondy Loring's gun did not.

It was not yet raised to the level when the slug from Ronicky's gun struck him. And with a sweep of his arm he flung his unexploded gun from him, clutched at his breast, and fell.

Ronicky Doone did not stir. He stood staring scornfully down at his victim. When the others ran in they found that the bullet had cut straight through the body of big Blondy. He was no better than dead, to all appearances.

Most amazing had been that fall. And more amazing still were the words which they heard the stricken man murmuring: "Thank God that it's over!"

Chapter
XIX. WAITING

They carried him into the hotel and placed him in the proprietor's own room. Nothing was too good for a dying man. They brought the doctor, he who had pronounced Oliver Hopkins dead before his time. But on this occasion he did not jump to conclusions. He had been shamed in the eyes of the entire town by his mistake of a few days before. Now he would make certain not to fall into the same error. He would recall what had been drummed ceaselessly into his brain during his first year in the West that men toughened by a constant life in the wind and all weathers are sure to die hard.

And, while they waited for the doctor's verdict, the men of Twin Springs came around Ronicky Doone and congratulated him, and Al Jenkins apologized frankly and humbly for the insults which in the near past he had heaped upon the head of Ronicky. But the warmth of the townsmen received somewhat of a damper from the bearing of Ronicky Doone. He was smoking again in the most nonchalant manner. He received their congratulations with modesty with more than modesty indifference. And such coldness was a terrible thing to see. They began to draw back from him.

In short he was too deadly a marksman to be altogether pleasant company. When a man is so sure with his weapons that he kills another between smokes, without lifting an eyebrow or changing color, he is not altogether a comfortable companion. Yet the utter indifference of Ronicky Doone to the thing he had done continued until big Curly broke through the group and drew Ronicky to one side.

"Ronicky," he said, "if you pull a gun on me for what I'm going to tell you, I won't blame you. Nobody would blame you."

"Go ahead," said Ronicky. "I ain't a gun-fighter every day of my life. Go ahead, Curly."

"Well," said the wretched Curly, "from what I've found out, you were figuring on using fake slugs on Blondy you were figuring on using wooden slugs that would just knock him down if they were planted right. Is that the straight of it?"

"Who told you that?" asked Ronicky. "Who's been spreading that sort of talk around about me?"

"You were seen to dump 'em out of your gun," said Curly. "I got one in my pocket now. But the point is this that you dumped out them wooden slugs after I talked to you. And what I want to know, Ronicky, is: Did you dump 'em out because of what I said to you?" Ronicky paused. Then the cigarette crumpled between his fingers. He caught Curly by the shoulder with fingers that gripped deep in his flesh.

"Curly," he gasped, "don't tell me that what you said ain't the truth. Don't tell me that!" But Curly dropped his head.

"Being sorry ain't a help it's that wagging tongue of mine. I can't stop it when it gets started, Doone."

If he expected denunciation or violence from Ronicky, however, he was mistaken. The smaller man merely glided past him like a ghost and fled through the door of the hotel.

"What did you do to bring him to life?" asked some one. "What yarn did you tell him this time, Curly?"