The Max Brand Megapack (260 page)

He decided to do neither, but sat perfectly still; and now Cook halted two paces away, with an oath that rang up and down the cave.

“It’s Doone!” he called. “It’s Ronicky Doone! What is he doing here?”

There was a shout from the others. In an instant a solid semicircle of men hemmed in Ronicky, and each of them was perilously prepared for shooting. Ronicky rolled up to his feet slowly, so that they could watch his every motion, and he confronted them with his arms folded high, for in this fashion they were most clearly able to see that his hands were kept well away from his revolver.

“I’m Ronicky Doone,” he said quietly, “and I guess I’ve jammed into a sort of a mess.”

He could see that they were too unutterably amazed at his presence to make head or tail of him.

“D’you mind,” he asked, “if I try to tell you just why I’ve come up here?”

They were falling back a little, as he stepped out where the light fell clearly upon his face. Now they studied him with scowls of the most intense interest, and he looked gradually from one to another until he had surveyed the entire group as he spoke.

“I’ll tell you what,” he said. “A shooting is a pile easier to think about than it is to do. I thought that shooting up Blondy would be plumb satisfactory, but when I seen him drop it made me sick. And when I heard how the Bennett place would go bust with Blondy off of it, it made me a lot sicker. On top of that I seen the girl, and she made me sicker still!”

He sighed and went on: “I made up my mind that, even if I’d pushed Blondy off the stage for a while, I’d try to keep his work from going smash all around. So I went out to the Bennett place to see what I could do. And the first and last thing I seen that I had to do was to get men, plenty of men, fighting men, to stave off Al Jenkins when he starts to clean up the ranch and rustle off the cows. And I made up my mind that I’d take a chance. I’d go up to Mount Solomon, try to play the part of being one of you gents, and finally get half a dozen of you to come down and spend a week’s vacation just riding the range for Bennett! Well, I was held up for the most part of the week by a lot of bad luck. And now I’ve got roped by Cook, and I guess a plan that looked sort of crazy to start with is sure turning out crazy all around! But I’ve told you the straight of this yarn so’s you can know just where to figure me.”

He stepped back again and leaned once more against the rock wall. For a moment the outlaws were bewildered. Then Cook, edged back toward the exit by the necessity of his sudden departure, spoke before he left.

“Boys,” he said, “go easy on believing a yarn like that. It sounds too saintly to be true. And just put this inside of your heads: if the gents in Twin Springs ever wake up to the fact that the man they got on the sick bed down there is Christopher, it may come in pretty handy to us and to Christopher if we have somebody up here that we could trade in for him. Ain’t that reasonable? Keep the gent that knocked Blondy over, for them, and if they’re men they’ll trade even Christopher to see that no harm comes to Doone. Anyway keep thinking about that hard and fast. I got to go!”

He disappeared. But he had fired a shot which, it seemed, was to sink the ship of Ronicky’s hopes. The certainty of Cook was all they needed.

Quickly they rehearsed the possibilities. They dared not turn him loose at once and let him go. He had learned too much about the men and the ways of Mount Solomon. And yet if they kept him as an exchange, he would carry an even greater knowledge away with him when he left.

They decided that the only thing to do was to follow the advice of Cook and keep Ronicky Doone a secure prisoner until they were assured that Christopher was back on his feet and safely out of the town.

“And when Kit is up on his feet and back among us once more,” suggested the man in the red shirt, “we don’t have to worry none about what to do with Doone. Because maybe Kit will have a couple of suggestions about that, all out of his own head!”

This suggestion brought an ominous laugh, and Ronicky saw that he was fettered again. To be restrained by big Curly had been bad enough. But to be a captive in the hands of all these fighters was a thousand times worse. Five seconds later they had his gun, and he was more helpless than the rope of Curly had rendered him.

CHAPTER XXXIII

LORING LIES

The hope which had glowed in the eyes of Blondy Christopher, as he lay in his bed and stared at the girl, continued until it was a flame. He spoke her name softly. She did not respond at once, but the complete relaxation of her features and her body changed. He spoke again, and her eyes were suddenly open.

She sat up on the couch, swaying slightly from side to side, still drugged by unsatisfied needs of sleep, white with exhaustion, and rendered to the eye of Blondy far from beautiful by the disarray of her hair. She had to pucker her brows into a frown before she could focus her misted glance upon him. But then she smiled instantly.

“How she loves me!” thought Blondy. “How she loves me—the little fool!”

A tolerant warmth filled him. He stretched out his hand to her with a great pity and scorn. And she stood by the bed holding that big hand to which the strength was so rapidly returning. Indeed, so swiftly was his vigor coming back that it made him grind his teeth to think that he could not leap up on his feet and break through these foolish bonds which held him. But, no; instead of that he must lean upon a weak woman for help and turn to her for his aid.

In the meantime he looked curiously into her face. He must know how far he could go with her, and he must learn it quickly. And yet he must not press her too soon. The color had sprung back into her cheek at a single step, as she stood looking down upon him. And one or two dexterous touches had done wonders for the disarrayed hair. Her eyes, too, were cleared, and all in all she was not easily recognizable for the girl at whom he had been staring the moment before, as she lay on the couch.

He placed his other hand over hers, pressing it lightly, but she warned him back and made him lie in a more composed position. He must be careful, she declared. If he moved with unnecessary violence he might start a hemorrhage which would kill him in a few moments. But he merely laughed at her, and he could see that his recklessness pleased her.

A great idea dawned in his brain, as he lay there looking up to her smile. If she could smile upon him, though she knew all that the doctor knew about him, her faith must be indestructible.

“I’ve been walking in a sort of a cloud,” he told her, gathering the gloomiest possible expression to his face. “Seems to me like I’ve been living in a solid block of night, d’you know?”

“You’ve been delirious,” she said gently. “But you’re better, much better now. Did you want something? You called me?”

“I want something, yes,” he said slowly, looking down, as though it was hard to face her. “I—I want a listener. I’ve got to talk to you, Elsie.”

“About nothing that will excite you!”

“It won’t excite me. It’s something that I’ve got to talk
off
my mind. You see?”

She nodded.

“And you’re the only one that I dare tell it to!”

At this she grew more serious than before, but she was by no means afraid to hear. Straightway he plunged into the narration. He had had to make up his mind on the spur of the moment, and he had to invent as he went. He must cling as closely as possible to the truth, the truth which he had revealed during his delirium. But he must qualify the brutal facts of his life so far that the girl would see them in a new light.

After all it was a simple tale which he told her. He merely dragged in an imaginary person and then built all the guilt of his career around the newcomer. There was one thing which must be explained away before all else, and that was the act of highway robbery with which his career had begun.

“It all started one evening,” he said to the girl. “There was a friend of mine called, but even now I can’t tell you what his name was. Only, he was the best friend I had, I thought. He came to me, scared stiff and looking for help. Seems that he was hard up against it for money, and the reason was that he’d taken a lot of coin out of the safe where—”

He stopped with a sharp click of his teeth and frowned.

“I’m afraid I’m talking too much.”

“Oh, I’ll remember nothing,” said the girl. “It’s all sealed and forgotten, as far as I am concerned.”

“Well, I sure trust you, Elsie,” said the outlaw, with a quiet pretense of trust which almost convinced himself. “Anyway my partner was sure a gone goose if he didn’t get five hundred. And there was no way he could get it except from me. But I didn’t have a cent. I’d been raised expecting to have enough to live easy on without even lifting a hand. But there was a crash, and I got nothing. Well, I sat by myself thinking things over. There was my best friend nearly wild for the want of a miserable five hundred, and me with my hands tied, you might say. Well, Elsie, I’m one that takes the wants of his friends to heart more than he takes his own.”

“I believe it, Charlie,” she cried. “I do believe it, indeed!”

And the thrill in her voice trickled pleasantly into his consciousness and filled his eyes with a moisture of self-esteem, self-pity.

“Anyway,” went on Blondy Christopher with a short gesture, as though he refused to dwell upon his own virtues at any great length, “anyway I left the house and went out to walk and to try to think of some way to raise five hundred. I went to everybody I knew, but it seemed that they didn’t know me well enough to give me that money.”

“The hard-hearted wretches!” cried Elsie.

“And finally, as I was drifting along on the edge of the town, I seen old William Lucas walking out there. He went with his head down and his hands stuck in the hollow of his back, like he was afraid that he would break in two if he didn’t hold himself together. I thought back about all I’d heard of Lucas. There was a man that could let me have a thousand times five hundred, if he was a mind. He always went with a couple of thousand dollars in his wallet, lest he should come across a good chance of picking something up mighty good and cheap for ready cash. And how had he got his money? By pressing in on them that worked hard and honest, but that couldn’t quite meet the interest that the old hound got out of them. All along his way of life he’d left wrecks behind him. Big men had killed themselves, women had busted their hearts, and kids had starved, just because old Lucas wanted to squeeze out a few more dollars. I thought about all that, Elsie, when I seen him. And it made me bitter. D’you know how bitter a gent can feel about a thing like that?”

“But no matter how you felt,” she cried, “you surely wouldn’t have hurt a helpless old man like that to get some money away from him?”

“Hurt him?” Charlie laughed. Here, at least, he was telling the truth, and he rejoiced in the memory of the encounter. “Didn’t I say that he always carried a couple of thousand along with him? Well, do you think that old skinflint would have gone out with all that money and nothing but his own withered-up hands to protect it? You don’t know Lucas! No, sir, he never stirred that he didn’t have a couple of big-nephews of his along, regular bulldogs they were! They’d as soon shoot a man down as a dog. They’d both had their killings to their credit. Anyway, when I looked at them three, I said to myself that it sure wouldn’t be harming the world none if I took from Lucas five hundred dollars to save my best friend. So I fixed up a mask out of my handkerchief and—”

“Oh, Charlie!”

“It was for my friend, I tell you!”

“I know, but—go on, go on!”

“I slipped around in front of ’em, jumped out, and stuck ’em up.”

“You did what?”

“Shoved my gun under their noses and asked them to put their hands up. The old man was yaller. He stuck his hands up quick enough, but his two nephews just let out growls like a coupla of bulldogs. They both dived to the side and went for their guns.”

Here he paused significantly, while the girl trembled with excitement.

“When the smoke cleared away,” said Charlie sadly, “they was both on the ground, and I was still on my feet, and the old man was begging for mercy!”

“You—you didn’t hurt him?”

“Hurt an old man like him? Of course not! I just took his wallet and went on my way!”

“And the two—the two—they—they weren’t dead, Charlie?”

“But they weren’t dead,” said Charlie. “They were hurt considerable, because a forty-five slug ain’t exactly a needle going through a gent. But they both got well, and I paid their doctor bills!”

The last was a grace note in the way of a lie of which he had not thought until the spur of the moment, but the effect of it was completely to convince the girl. Instantly she was all flushed with pleasure.

“Oh, that was a fine thing to do, Charlie! And your friend? Your money saved him?”

“He turned straight and never touched the coin of other folks afterward,” lied Charlie Christopher calmly. “A month later he was married to one of the finest girls you ever laid eyes on. They got twin boys and a little girl now.”

Elsie gasped, and Charlie looked sharply at her. Had he piled this on a little too thick? He had not. Starry-eyed she was looking into the dim future.

“But that’s something that I got no right to think about,” said Charlie gloomily. “It’s the one thing that I want more’n anything else—that’s kids of my own, I take to ’em nacheral, but I can never have one!”

“Why not? Oh, why not, Charlie?”

“Because of the life I led,” said Charlie. “What I done when I held up Lucas was only a start. I was seen and recognized. And after that, no matter how hard I tried to go straight, they wouldn’t let me. If I went into a town and started to work quiet and honest, pretty soon somebody would drift into town that had heard of me, and then I’d have to get out. They hunted me the way they’d hunt a wolf. Nobody in the whole range of the mountains ever done anything real bad that wasn’t blamed onto me. Why, sometimes I’ve heard crimes laid up to me so thick and so horrible, that I almost got to believing that I done them myself.”

“Yes, yes!” she said eagerly. “I can see perfectly how that might be.”