by Max Brand
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!
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.
XXVII. THE MAN WITH 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.
Here the way widened out into a perfect little amphitheater, with a hundred exits from the pit. Pausing in the very center of the place Ronicky looked around him in amazement; for it was like a gigantic trap, contrived with the labor of a myriad men and during countless years. Suppose that an attacking party should pour into this place, hurrying as they saw the opening before them — they would be lost, condemned to massacre. Ringing those summits in any direction, a few expert marksmen, lying in perfect security for themselves, could demolish hundreds in a few seconds. Or if they tired of bullets and wished to make a quick destruction, there were the rocks here, as everywhere, masses upon masses of rocks which only needed that one be pried loose at the top of a slope in order to send a vast volley of them thundering to the bottom.
So rapt in interest was he by the natural features of the fortifications, that Ronicky Doone allowed himself to be easily surprised by a horseman who wandered into the amphitheater from behind. When Ronicky turned his head he saw a cow-puncher sitting at ease in the saddle, twisted sideways, with one foot out of the stirrup and one hand combing his long mustaches.
Ronicky looked at him with surprise. He was like a man out of a book. This was one of those formidable-appearing punchers who are described so often in books, but whom Ronicky had never seen before in real life.
“How are you, partner?” exclaimed Ronicky.
“Hello,” said the other.
“You sure must have velvet on your hoss,” said Ronicky.
“Oh, I dunno. You was so darned set on seeing everything in here that I guess you didn’t listen particular careful. Wasn’t that it?”
“Maybe. I sure can hear him now, plenty loud.”
For, as the cow pony on which the other was mounted took a few steps into the arena, each footfall beat up long echoes, riding the overlooking slopes.
“Well,” said the stranger, “I dunno what you think about it, but I figure that I was sent up here on a wild-goose chase!”
“You were?” asked Ronicky.
“Yes, sir. I was told that up here the mountain was just plain climbing with outlaws and man-eaters.”
“Did you come up hunting ’em?” asked Ronicky, amused.
The other chuckled and nodded. His voice and manner by no means bore out his formidable mustaches. The one was as soft as a child’s, and the other was perfectly calm and gentle.
“Anyways,” he said, “if I did come up here hunting for ’em, it don’t seem no ways likely that I’ll find none — unless you’re one of ’em?”
And here he looked sharply at Ronicky, though with a smile still lingering in the corners of his eyes, as though he were willing to laugh heartily at his own suggestion, as soon as Ronicky gave him the clew.
“Well,” said Ronicky, “you can’t never tell. I might be. Just my saying no wouldn’t prove nothing, I guess.”
“I dunno,” replied the other, combing his mustaches gravely. “All them that I’ve ever knowed always get tolerable hot under the collar when they’re accused of being crooks.”
“That,” said Ronicky, “is because most of the stick-up gents and yeggs that you meet wandering around these parts are a ratty low gang. But I guess you’re new around here, eh?”
“I’m new, all right,” said the other. “I just come in from away out Denver way. I don’t just exactly fit in, I find. So I ain’t breaking my heart trying to find a job. I’m just spending a little time and money and trying to get used to new ways. “.
“You’ve made a long jump,” said Ronicky, “all the way from Denver to here!”
“I’m used to long jumps,” said the other, and a slight cloud crossed his forehead. “But go on. You was about to tell me that them that hang out up here are not the same lot of yeggs that wander around most places?”
“Sure they ain’t,” said Ronicky. “Want me to tell you why?”
“Go ahead.”
“Well, it’s a long ways to the top of this mountain, ain’t it?”
“Tolerable long.”
“And it takes a lot of muscle and patience to make the trip, don’t it?”
“Reasonable much.”
“Well, partner, all the yaller-livered crooks I’ve ever knowed hate work; and all the downright smart ones know that they got to work, for what they get, just the same as them that are living inside of the law. And all these gents that make headquarters on the top of old Mount Solomon — you can lay to it that they’re a uppish crew!”
“If it takes work either way,” said the man of the whiskers, “why don’t they stay where they won’t have to climb so far? Why don’t they just remain down below and work like the rest of us?”
“Because they like the taking of a chance,” said Ronicky. “Speaking personal, I don’t give much for a gent that won’t take a chance once in a while. And these boys up here — well, they just nacherally figure it out that they can do better by taking this sort of a chance than they can by staying below and playing the game like the rest of us do.”
“H’m,” said the other, and he scratched his chin. “You talk pretty convincing,” he chuckled after a moment. “You make it look so dog-gone different from what I was
thinking that I’m half minded to try to find some of them gents and ask how about joining up with ’em. I wonder how it would be best to go about that, eh?”
“Why,” said Ronicky carelessly, “you wouldn’t have to look at all.”
The other started.
“What?” he asked.
“Sure you wouldn’t,” said Ronicky. “Why, these men up here are pretty wise, ain’t they? They want new men all the time, don’t they? Well, you can lay to it that when a man rides up to the top of Solomon Mountain, he gets a pretty good looking-over!”
“H’m,” said the other. “You don’t say! You sure talk familiar. Maybe you’ve had a pal that joined up?”
“No, I’m just using common sense.”
“Maybe you think that you and me are being spied on?”
“Maybe.”
“They’re sizing us up from behind one of them rocks, maybe?”
“Nope, they wouldn’t do that. All the looking in the world don’t help as much for sizing up a gent as it does to have a couple of words with him and see how he talks. No, sir!”
“What would they do then?”
“Oh, when a man comes up to the top of the mountain, most like they’d send out a man to see him.”
“You don’t say! Just walk a man right out and let him start in talking to you?”
“No, they’d probably put him onto a hoss and let him ride out.”
“What would he say?”
“Oh, they’s a big enough pile of things that he could say, partner. Just anything to start up the conversation. But of course they’d have to pretend to be plumb innocent. Just happened to be riding up on the top of the mountain, you see?”
“Like me, say, or you?”
“That’s right,” said Ronicky. “And to ease the conversation along he’d probably say that he come from some place a long ways off — Denver, maybe.”
The other laughed, but his eye was sober. “Well,” asked Ronicky suddenly, “what have you decided about me, partner? Will I do for a try?”