by Max Brand
Ronicky Doone found Hugh and his daughter a little removed. He dropped his canvas bag with its precious contents of gold at the feet of Dawn.
“I never would of taken it in the first place,” he said simply, “except to get more for you. There you are and welcome, Hugh; and if I could get more away from ’em and give it to you, I would. It’s yours by right.”
Hugh Dawn clutched the bag, his eyes glittering.
“Son,” he said, “I’ve always swore by you. But this is just too much, and—”
His daughter drew his hands from the canvas.
“Dad!” she cried in shame. “You’re not going to take it?”
“It’s his,” said Ronicky cheerfully. “It’s his — or else it lies there where it is. I don’t want it!”
“You don’t want it?” echoed the girl, staring up to him.
Money had always been scant and hard earned in her life. She saw this fellow giving her father what was the equivalent of the salary of forty years of school teaching, and her head turned at the mere thought of it.
“I don’t want it,” said Ronicky firmly. “Tell you why. I don’t figure a gent can ever get something for nothing. If you’re going to get money, you got to work for it some way. What work have I done to get this? Nope, I don’t want it.”
“You’ve worked as much as anyone,” said Hugh Dawn, urged on by a glance of his daughter to refuse the money.
“Well,” said Ronicky, “even if I have, I don’t want it. They’s been too many lives lost over the stuff to suit me. You take my share, partner. You couldn’t force the stuff on me. Not for a free gift!”
He leaned over the older man, who sat speechless before such generosity.
“Now’s the time to begin watching, Hugh. Watch every step. And when the pinch comes, get your back against my back!”
He straightened, turned, and was gone.
“Is it possible?” breathed the girl. “Is it possible that he can mean it? Gave all of that to us?”
“Look here!” exclaimed her father gruffly. “You’ve been letting Jack Moon poison you again’ Ronicky. But I tell you straight: wild as Ronicky is, his heart is cleaner than the gold in that sack. A pile cleaner! And his little finger is worth more’n all of Jack Moon. Moon? You think he’ll let me go now, and live up to his word? Wait and see, girl. Wait and see!”
She caught her breath.
“Then let’s go ask him now. Ask him for liberty to start, dad!”
He got to his feet unwillingly.
“It’s no good forcing Jack’s hand,” he said faintly.
“I tell you,” insisted the girl, “he’s a better man than we dreamed. If he hasn’t told me the truth, then there’s no truth in any living man! Dad, he means to do all he can for us!”
“That,” said her father, “is what you said about Ronicky Doone. And now you’ve changed your mind.”
“Ronicky Doone has some purpose,” she insisted. “Jack explained him. He means well enough. He acts on impulse. Just now he has given you gold. In ten minutes he may murder you to get it back again! That’s his character — as unstable as wind!”
Her father merely snorted in answer.
“All right,” he said. “I’m going to walk right up to Jack and tell him I’m ready to start. And you see what happens!”
She followed at a distance of a few paces. And it was her wide, frightened eyes of which Jack Moon was aware, not the strained face of Hugh himself.
“Jack,” said the suppliant, “I’ve come to ask you to live up to the promise you made. I want to know when I can start home to Trainer.”
The answer of the leader was made instantly.
“Any time you want — now, if you say the word!”
It staggered Hugh more than a blunt refusal. He could merely gape at Moon, and the latter was conscious of the flush of happiness which overspread the face of the girl. It was a dangerous game he was playing, and for the sake of bringing that flush into her face it well might be that he was giving her up forever. He went on smoothly enough.
“Blaze away for Trainor this minute if you want, Hugh. They’s two things agin’ it, but neither of them is me and what I want. You’re free as the wind to start, and good luck go with you. But it’s a tolerable bad trip in the night, riding through those mountains, and even if you got easygoing hosses you’re apt to be plumb tired before you hit Trainor to-morrow. But they’s another thing. Hugh” — here his voice lowered and grew gentry confidential— “you’d ought to get more’n one share of this stuff. Try to hang on. I’m going to see what can be done for you.”
The astonishment of Hugh Dawn was as great as though the ground had opened before his feet. He blinked. He tried to speak.
“You mean—” he began.
“I mean what I say,” said Jack Moon, smiling. “If you’re in doubt, just ask your daughter. I’ve told her everything. Now go back to your shack and go to sleep. Main reason being because you need rest, and I aim to get you on your way before sunup. No use letting the rest of the crowd know that you’ve slipped away. I may decide to tell ’em that you’ve just given us the slip. But if you want to go now, start — and I’ll see that they ain’t a hand raised to stop you!”
Hugh Dawn hesitated, then nodded. The dominant tone of the outlaw overwhelmed him.
“You’re mostly always right,” he admitted, “though it sure strikes me dumb having you thinking on my side of things like this!”
The hand of Moon fell gently on the shoulder of his old follower.
“Partner,” he said, “I’ve been thinking on your side ever since I saw your girl. The father of a girl like that is all right!”
He had allowed his voice to swell as though in the stress of his honest emotion, and from the corner of his eye he studied the effect of his words upon the girl. He was amply rewarded by the shining of her eyes.
“I wanted to throw a scare into you, Hugh. I sure wanted to do that. But I never meant to do any more — after I seen you and the girl together at Cosslett’s the other night. Before that I figured you were no good, you see? Just a traitor to me and the crowd and your word of honor. Afterward I seen why you had to leave us, and I didn’t much blame you. With a daughter like that to take care of, you’d of been a no-good skunk to of stayed with me. Go back to your shack now, Hugh. Have a sleep. I’ll tend to all the rest!”
He struck him lightly and reassuringly on the shoulder as he spoke, and Hugh Dawn flushed with gratitude. After all, his was a hearty nature, and the reaction from his long suspicion of Moon was sudden and violent.
“Jack,” he said, in an uneven voice, “I been thinking a lot of hard thoughts about you. I been telling the girl she was a fool to believe you, but I see that you’re straight, after all. No matter what you’ve done to others, you’re playing a white game with me, and if a pinch ever comes later on when I can help you, lay to it that I’m your man!”
He shook hands strongly with Moon and turned away.
His daughter swung in beside him with tears bright in her eyes. “I told you,” she was saying. “He’s a good man at heart, dad, just as I said he was!”
“He’s been changed,” muttered her father, with great emotion, “and it’s you that’s done the changing; almost by his account you are, Jerry. And Heaven bless you for it. It’s the smile of your mother that you’ve got. Jerry. And that’s what’s saved me this time from a dog’s death!”
He had picked up his own gold and the share which Ronicky had given him, and under that great weight he walked with slow, short steps toward the shack in which he had spent the preceding night. From the door, where he deposited it, he and Geraldine looked back at the party around the camp fire.
It had been growing wilder and noisier during the past hour. The camp fire had been built up to a comfortable height, so that the heat of it carried even to the shack where the girl and her father stood. It threw, also, a terrible and living light on the faces of the band of Jack Moon where they sat in groups of four,
playing cards. Three groups of four, and on the table before each player was a glittering little pile of yellow metal. Usually gambling was a silent and serious effort, but tonight, with raw gold for the stakes, they played like madmen, shouting and calling from table to table. Pounds of gold were wagered on a single hand, and the loser laughed at his losses. For they had seen a fortune taken out of mother earth that day, and, if this were gone, might there not be another horde some place, discoverable by such lucky fellows as those who followed that prince of leaders, Jack Moon? Such, at least, seemed to be their spirit as they played poker. The unshaven faces grew more and more animal-like as, from the distance, the firelight seemed redder and the shadows blacker than ever.
“They’re terrible men,” said the girl. “Ah, dad, what if Jack Moon should lose control of them!”
“Him?” The father chuckled confidently. “He’ll never lose control. Little you know Jack Moon, girl, if you think that any dozen men can get the upper hand of him!”
“But suppose some of them should lose a great deal and remember that you have money and—”
“Long as Moon is on our side, we’re safe as though we had a thousand. Stop worrying. Go to sleep — and trust in Jack Moon. Fear him when he’s agin’ you; but trust him like a rock when he’s behind you. No, sir, no dozen men can handle him. But if it come to a pinch — I dunno; yonder may be a man that’d give him a hard rub!”
“Where?”
“Close to that pine.”
He pointed again, and she made out the form of Ronicky Doone where he stood with his arms folded across his chest, looking on at the games.
“He doesn’t play,” she remarked.
“He’s smelling trouble,” said her father, “and that’s why he’s keeping his nerves steady. If him and the chief meet up, then’ll come the big noise and the big trouble, girl. You lay to that! One nacheral fighting man is worse’n a hundred common ones to handle!”
XX. BEATEN
AS HUGH DAWN disappeared inside his shack, Jerry strolled slowly toward her own hut. She recalled the man who had brought her and her father safely from the house when Moon and his band stole toward it. She recalled the keen face of Ronicky when they worked over the puzzling record through which Cosslett had left trace of his buried treasure. Swift of hand, steady of eye, resourceful of brain — after all, her father might be right, and in the slender figure of Ronicky there might be locked sufficient power to match the big body and the strong brain of Jack Moon. What the eyes told her was simply an overwhelming contrast; what the memory told her equaled the scales to some extent. But how could her father speak of Ronicky and Moon as though they were antagonists, when Ronicky was now, it seemed, a member of Moon’s own band? Did he mean that the two might battle for supremacy inside the band?
She swerved directly so as to pass close to Ronicky Doone, and she noted that he paid not the slightest heed to her. At that, she paused. He had admired her before, she knew. Perhaps it might have been more than admiration, but now he looked past her into thin space.
“Ronicky!” she murmured, as she paused near him.
His glance turned upon her swiftly, and he nodded; but then his eyes traveled past her again and toward those groups of gamblers, flashing from face to face as though he found the twelve an intricate and dangerous study. Why was that? she wondered.
“I’ve come to tell you, Ronicky,” she went on, “that our troubles are ended. Jack Moon is going to let dad leave in the morning. In fact, we can leave now, if we wish!”
“You can?” cried Ronicky, in such a tone of amazement that she stared at him. “Then — then how quick can you get going?”
“But we’re not going to go until the morning.”
Ronicky sighed. “I thought not,” he muttered. “I s’pose Moon told you it’d be better to wait till there was some light on the trails over the mountains. He’s deep!”
“You hate him blindly,” insisted the girl. “But that isn’t the point. In the morning I may leave without having a chance to see you again. Now that you’ve taken up this terrible life, I suppose I’ll never see you again after tomorrow!”
“I sure take it kind,” said Ronicky, but his voice was cold, “that you’ve wasted any time thinking about that.”
“Oh, Ronicky,” cried the girl, “I know you’re close to hating me for things I’ve said to you in the last few days, but it’s always been because it hurt me to see you go the way you’ve gone. But to the end of my life, Ronicky, I’ll keep hold on my first impression of you, generous and brave, and kinder than any man who has ever come into my life. I want you to know this before I see you for the last time!”
To her surprise, the tribute merely made him smile, and there was no gentleness in his face.
“You ain’t seeing me for the last time,” he declared. “And — Heaven willing — tomorrow ain’t going to be the last day, either. Jack Moon’ll see to that.”
“You think he doesn’t mean what he’s promised? That he’ll keep us after all?”
Ronicky merely smiled. And she was angered again.
“You hate him,” she said fiercely, “merely because you know that he sees through you; and that — that’s contemptible! I came here to tell you how sorry I am that you’ve gone the way you are going — but now I only have to say that I scorn your suspicions — and I scorn you!”
But as she turned away she saw that he still was paying no heed to her but kept his eager, intent gaze fixed upon the gamblers.
The ending of that interview had been marked by Jack Moon, and when he saw the girl toss her head and turn away he smiled with satisfaction. It meant that his most daring scheme had met with perfect success. Only by using Ronicky Doone as a foil had he been able to worm his way into the confidence of the girl. Now he was on the high road to success. That road was a difficult and long one to travel, even now. But much might be done with caution and steady diplomacy. Great problems still confronted him. Hugh Dawn must be disposed of. And terrible Ronicky Doone must be brushed from the way. Most difficult of all, the girl must listen to him when he decided to talk as he had never yet talked to any human being.
There would be time for these things. Meanwhile, the last few minutes had brought about a state of affairs for which he had been watching and waiting.
The gambling had ceased to be a gay and noisy affair. The exuberance of spirits which naturally followed the finding of the gold had gradually died away, and the silence of the gaming hall now brooded over the little groups, each squatted cross-legged about saddle blankets. The winner now dragged in his stakes with a glint of the eye. The loser saw his gold go with a savage out- thrust of the lower jaw.
The losers were more numerous than the winners. Silas Treat had almost cleaned out the entire stakes of his own group. Baldy McNair had well nigh emptied the pockets at another blanket. Indeed, in each group there gradually came to be one corner toward which there was a steady drifting of profits. There was a natural reason. The best gamblers had avoided one another’s company, and each had selected a place where he would have a chance for uninterrupted fleecing.
In only one place had things gone amiss, and that was with the most expert gambler of all, Bud Kent. The little bow-legged, broad-shouldered fellow ordinarily was a steady winner, and this night he saw a chance to win, at his own blanket, a hundred thousand dollars in better than cash. So, with glinting eyes, he had settled to his task. But fate, called luck among gamblers, was against him. His three of a kind was invariably topped by a higher three. And once a flush was beaten by a higher flush! When he bluffed, someone was sure to call him. When he nursed the betting cautiously in the beginning to keep from betraying the real strength of his hand, someone was sure to call him, and his winnings were paltry. And at length, plunging his last four pounds of metal on a full house, he lost his final scrap of the treasure and rose from the blanket — broke!
Not a word, not a glance followed him. The remaining three shifted their places a little and closed the g
ap which he had left, as well-drilled soldiers close the gap where a comrade falls in the charge. Each of the three had shared in the plundering of Bud; each of the three was confident he could keep on winning from his companions. But Kent went gloomily to the leader.
“You seen that?” he said, in a deep voice of disgust.
“I seen it.” The chief nodded.
“Can you beat it?”
“Hard luck,” said Jack Moon, who knew perfectly what was coming.
“Well, sir,” went on Bud Kent, “there lies a hundred thousand in gold, and if I hadn’t hit that last streak of bad luck I’d of cleaned the whole thing up. Eh?”
“Maybe you would,” said the leader.
“Maybe? I’d of been sure to! Ain’t I played with all these gents time and again and always trimmed them? They can’t sit in the same game with me. Only the luck held steady for them and steady against me. But a couple more hands would of changed things. Luck? I never seen it hold like this! See that brace of bullets and the three nines I held? And four measly deuces come out and beat me!”
He groaned at the thought.
“If you was to back me,” he said suddenly, “I could clean out the whole mess. If you was to back me, I’d split the winnings with you, Jack.”
“Thanks,” said Jack Moon soberly.
“I’d make it two parts for you and one part for me,” persisted Bud Kent.
“I can’t do it, Bud,” said Moon as kindly as possible. “You know how it is with me. If I backed you, then the next fellow who went busted would come and ask me to back him. And then the next and the next. Of course you and me know that it’s different with you. We know that you sure can gamble. But the other boys wouldn’t see it that way. They’d think that because I backed you I ought to back them. They’d accuse me of playing favorites. That’s clear, ain’t it, Bud?”
“But you wouldn’t have to say anything,” suggested Bud. “Just slip me a handful of the stuff and—”