by Max Brand
He fairly swelled with a poisonous anger. But the detestation in the face of the girl was what bowed the head of Ronicky and crushed his spirit. It made little difference that this was all blindest injustice. What mattered was that she should be able to scorn him so utterly. Out of that pit of wretchedness he could never climb to good esteem, he felt.
"Which all narrows the thing down," said the rancher, "and leaves us only one thing to do, namely, to call the boys together at breakfast to-morrow and turn Ronicky over to them. Just let Charlie Loring stand up and tell 'em what he's told us, and then let the boys be alone for five minutes with this Ronicky Doone. When they're through with him, I guess he'll be punished enough!"
He rubbed his hands violently together. The perfect thought grew upon his mind and entranced him.
"There'll be justice done!" he cried.
And Ronicky Doone looked in horror at Charlie Loring to see if he would protest, but the handsome face of the big man was set and hard, and his eyes were glittering. No doubt remained that the mind of Loring was made up. The greatest possible evil that could be inflicted upon Ronicky Doone was, in the eyes of Loring, the greatest possible good. Only the girl cried out in a protest for which Ronicky could have blessed her.
"But father!" she exclaimed. "That's worse than death, almost, if they mob him! You know what happened to that man of ours when he "
"I do remember," said Stephen Bennett, "and that's just exactly why I propose to see to it that the same thing happens to Ronicky Doone. Our man very foolishly tried to steal a cow. This man tried to steal a human life. Does that answer you, Elsie?"
And Ronicky knew. Three or four times he had seen such things happen, though luckily his hands were clean of guilt. But he had seen the lynching of a horse thief, and more than that, he had seen the mobbing of a sneak who attempted a murder not a fair fight, gun to gun, and man to man, but a shooting from behind, just of the nature of which big Blondy was about to accuse him. What had happened to that man had been so terrible that Ronicky had never dared recall the picture in its entirety.
And now he was in the same situation. The full and consummate cruelty of the rancher struck home in his mind, and he merely bowed his head still lower.
Of what use were words?
Chapter XII. OLD-FASHIONED IRONS
He would never forget what followed. Old Steve Bennett left the room, was gone for a minute, and then returned with an accompanying sound of clanking iron. When he reappeared he carried manacles in his hand.
"Old-fashioned irons, but strong," he told Charlie Loring. "Like a lot of old-fashioned things, they don't look as good as they really are." And he snapped them over the wrists of Ronicky. Here the girl protested again.
"Charlie father!" she exclaimed, coming between them and Ronicky. "There's something wrong about all this. He he might have something to say. Why don't we give him a chance to talk to explain perhaps to put forward his side of the story."
Charlie Loring fired into a rage at once.
"D'you think there is another side to the story?" he asked.
"No, no! Don't lose your temper, Charlie. I only mean that he should have a chance to talk. Men have that right in a law court. Why shouldn't we give him that right here?"
"Nobody's stopping him from talking," said Charlie Loring, but the scowl with which he turned upon Ronicky was thunderous in blackness. "Go ahead and tell your little lie, Ronicky. We ain't stopping you!"
He stepped back, his face working and pale, and the fingers with which he rolled his cigarette were uneasy at their work.
"Look at him!" said Ronicky Doone. "Does he look like a gent that's just finished telling the truth, or like a liar that figures his lie might possibly be found out?"
"You " cried Charlie Loring. He crushed the cigarette to shapelessness and stepped a long stride toward Ronicky, but Elsie Bennett faced him and pushed him back with the lightest pressure of her hand.
"Why, Charlie!" she cried, and again, "Why, Charlie!"
"Al Jenkins is right," thought Ronicky in the depths of his miserable heart. "She's an angel! She'll look right through him!"
Charlie Loring was facing the girl in desperation.
"You weren't going to strike him when his hands are in the irons?" she asked, wonder and a tinge of scorn giving her voice an edge.
"I I've stood a good deal from him, Elsie," said the big man. "I saved his hoss to-day and might have throwed my life away doing it, with that posse of madmen spurring down the trail to get at me. And after doing that for him, he comes and tried to kill me from behind. Ain't that enough to make a gent forget himself?"
"I suppose it is," said Elsie Bennett and turned toward Ronicky, with a peculiar mixture of loathing and curiosity. He met her glance. His own eyes widened to meet it. For a moment they stared steadily at each other, and with all his might he was sending the message to her through that glance: "Don't you see that I'm an honest man?"
Some of the loathing finally passed from her expression. She came a little closer and no longer held her skirts together, as though in touching him they might float against a permanent defilement.
"Talk," she said. "Tell us what you have to say to explain yourself!"
Ronicky Doone smiled and shook his head.
"I tell you seriously," said the girl, "that if you don't talk you'll be given to-morrow morning, a terrible punishment for what you've tried to do."
Again he shook his head, again he smiled faintly, and Steve Bennett said angrily: "Don't you see that he ain't able to frame a lie to fit? That's the only reason he ain't wagging his tongue this minute, girl!"
She turned troubled eyes to her father and then looked back to Ronicky.
"I don't know," she whispered more to herself than to the others. "But you two know so much more than I do. Surely you won't make a mistake!"
"Make a mistake? Of course not! The hound knows what he's done, and he knows what he has to expect if he's caught trying to do it. He'll have the nerve to take his dose without whining beforehand, I hope!"
This from Charlie Loring, and again Ronicky Doone favored the big man with an eloquent glance. The girl had stepped back again, but still she studied the prisoner, as if her mind were not yet entirely made up, as though she still leaned toward mercy.
"If there is a mistake," she said at last, as Ronicky rose in obedience to a command from Loring, "it's a most terrible one. I warn you of that, Charlie!"
Charlie Loring turned at the door.
"What's the matter, Elsie?" he asked. "Good Lord, if you almost believe his silence, what would you do if he started talking?"
But she made no answer, merely bowing her head in thought. And the last Ronicky saw of her, as he went through the door, was the gold of her head against the blue-gray of the faded wall paper.
Then he turned his eyes to the front and followed old Steve Bennett, as the latter mounted the steps, with a lamp raised high above his head and the lamplight brilliant in the edges of his white and misty hair. Just behind him followed Charlie Loring, revolver in hand.
"Watch yourself every minute," Charlie advised Steve Bennett. "This fellow is apt to try some snake trick almost any minute."
Ronicky plodded on. He might cast himself suddenly back down the stairs and trust to luck that movement would surprise Loring. But he had a shrewd idea that if he tried such a maneuver a forty-five slug, would tear through his vitals. He slowed up, thinking of this problem, and was prodded in the small of the back by the muzzle of the big gun. Yes, it would not do to attempt a surprise movement while Charlie Loring walked behind him with a gun. In the upper hall they turned aside into the first room, and there the lamp was placed on the floor.
There was no other place for it. The room was denuded of all furniture. Dust was thick on walls and floor, and an atmosphere of unutterable desolation pervaded the apartment.
"You make yourself comfortable here," said the old man with a grim humor. "Just take as much room as you want. And if you got any requ
ests, holler."
He turned his back to leave.
"Are you going to leave this light here?" asked Charlie Loring.
"Why not? Or would it be too much comfort for him if he could have the light to see by?"
"The thoughts he has to think ain't going to be much more pleasant in the light than in the dark," chuckled Charlie. "But the hound might dump the lamp over and trust to luck that the flames would bite down through the floor, and so he could get loose. We'll leave him no light, I guess. What about the window?"
"There ain't nothing that he can climb down by without using his arms. If he tries to get out that way, we won't have to bother the boys with him in the morning."
This thought pleased Steve Bennett, and he continued to chuckle the rest of the time that he was in the room. This was not long, for Charlie said that he wished to have a moment alone with Ronicky, and the rancher obligingly stepped out of the room. When he was gone, the big man stepped over to the prisoner, holding the lamp high. There he waited, his forehead covered with wrinkles of doubt and thought which were deeply outlined in shadows which struck up from the lamp in his hand. And his whole face in that manner was made older in appearance.
"Ronicky," he said very softly, "I hate what I've been doing. I hate it like death. But I had to do it. And now I've got in so deep that I've got to go through with it"
"You think you will," said Ronicky, "but you'll change your mind. You'll change your mind when the morning comes, Charlie. That's why I didn't talk downstairs, I wanted to give you a chance to work out of this all by yourself, because I know you ain't snake enough to do what you're trying to do."
Charlie Loring waited and said nothing. A hundred things seemed to be pressing toward the tip of his tongue, but none of them was formed into words.
"Good Heaven!" he muttered at last. "I only wish "
His wish was never expressed, but turning hastily on his heels, he literally fled out of the room and slammed the door heavily and locked it behind him.
Ronicky heard his steps descending the stairs, and a little later he could make out the voices, as the girl and her father and Charlie talked. And by the sharp sounds he knew that a hot argument was in progress. For a time he strained his ears to make out the words, but after a while he abandoned that effort, because each syllable was sufficiently removed to blur.
This continued for some time, and after that he heard them go off to bed, Charlie Loring remaining in the house. This struck Ronicky as odd indeed. The report had it that Charlie was a new man on the Bennett ranch, but while the other cow-punchers slept in the bunk house, which he had distinguished by its lights, he, the new hand, was given the privilege of sleeping in the owner's house. And the granting of that privilege showed what a poor judge of human nature Bennett was. It was enough to raise a revolt among self-respecting cow-punchers. Only tramps and loafers would submit to the making of such distinctions, no matter how necessary Charlie might have made himself to Bennett, or how agreeable to the girl.
He heard the voices of Charlie and Elsie now mount the stairs until they reached the hall just opposite his door, and now he could understand the words they spoke.
"Stop thinking about him," Charlie Loring was saying to her. "You just stop worrying about him, will you? What he gets won't be more'n what's coming to him."
"If I could stop thinking about him, Heaven knows I would. But it was his silence, Charlie, that unnerved me, and that calls my mind back to him now. I can't forget it that and the way he had of looking at me."
"Hush, he may hear you."
"What difference does it make if he hears?"
"I know, but Elsie, are you really angry?"
"No, no, I'm trying not to be. Good night!"
"Wait!"
But she did not wait. Her steps hurried away down the hall. The heavy stride of Charlie Loring carried his two hundred and more pounds of flesh a little way after her. and then he turned and went slowly in the opposite direction, a door finally closing that sound away.
Chapter XIII. DELIVERANCE
The knowledge that the others were awake, even though they were unseen and no matter how hostile to him they might be, had kept Ronicky company, as he lay in his dark room. But, as the voices died out and all the house finally slept, he passed into a new state of alertness. It was something as sharp as that emotion to which he worked himself when he was preparing to step in and fight Charlie Loring to the death. But where there had been a fierce joy and excitement in that prospect, there was only a dreary feeling of doom in this.
Yet it was not a dull surrender. His mind kept fighting against the facts for a time and striving to contrive a means of escape. But when he got stealthily to his feet and went to the window, he saw that the rancher had spoken the truth, so far as he could make out by the starlight. There was no sign of a ledge beneath the window on which he could have secured sufficient purchase for his feet. So he returned to his place by the wall, where he sat down cross-legged and resumed his black reflections.
The time would not be very long, now, before the morning came and the tragedy with it. It might not be actual death that he would come to, but it would be something closely akin to death. He would be nearly a murdered man before the cow-punchers were through with one whom they would be led to consider a treacherous man-killer.
His hope had been that Charlie Loring could not carry the thing through. He would be forced to repent before the moment came to execute his diabolical plan.
And, as he thought of this he was brought back with a shock to the consideration of Loring and his impulses. For what could be the reason underlying and explaining the big fellow's actions? Nothing could have been finer than the actions of Loring in Twin Springs earlier on that same day, when he faced the crowd for the sake of an idea and Elsie Bennett. No doubt the consummate loveliness of the girl explained part of the reckless gallantry with which Charlie Loring had ridden into Twin Springs and flirted with death. But the beauty of Elsie Bennett could surely have nothing to do with the generous and big-hearted carelessness with which he again risked his safety in order to ride down the slope and save Lou from the waterfall.
The memory of that act increased the rhythm of the pulse of Ronicky Doone. It had been as fine a thing as he had ever witnessed. And now could he believe that such a man, capable of such actions, was the cunning trickster and dastard which Charlie Loring had shown himself to be on this night.
Now the wonder of it appalled him, and he bowed his head.
There was only one thing remaining for him to do, and that was to accept the villainy of Charlie Loring as an accomplished fact and, putting this and all hope behind him, turn toward the morning and the dangers which loomed before him. He must steady his nerve until it was iron. He must be ready to endure the most horrible tortures of shame and of actual physical agony when he faced the cow-punchers. And for this he already began to set his teeth.
Indefinitely the silence of the night had worn on when Ronicky heard another sign of life in the house, just loud enough to be audible above the night whispers which went to and fro in the big place. This sound was a light creaking in the hall, a creaking which advanced slowly, but regularly, toward the door of his room and stopped. It occurred to Ronicky that some of the cow-punchers on the place might well have heard of his capture, and that they had made up their minds to kidnap him from the house of the owner and take him out for a lynching, or for an ordeal nearly as terrible. So he waited breathlessly until the door opened, and through the opening a strong, cold draught blew over him. But with the wind he heard a rustling of garments at the door.
When it was closed he knew that Elsie Bennett was with him in the dark. But there was no striking of a light. Only the whisper of her gown told of her progress across the floor. She came straight to the center of the floor and paused there, quite close to Ronicky.
"Ronicky Doone!" she called, for there was a quality in her whisper that made it like a cry of alarm.
"Here!" he answe
red in the same tone.
He could tell by the breath she drew and the flutter of skirts that she had drawn suddenly away from the sound of his voice.
"Be quiet!" she cautioned him. "It is I, Elsie Bennett. I've come to do you no harm. But be quiet make no noise, or it will be the worse for you."
In spite of his situation he could not help smiling. There was so much frightened childishness in her caution. She had not come to harm him!
A match scratched, and presently a long, trembling flame grew up from a candle. She shielded it with one gleaming hand so that her own face was thrown in deeper shadow, while a pale glow fell upon Ronicky Doone, as he rose to his feet and stood frowning at the light. No doubt he looked villainous enough, but he set his teeth when she gave back from him in manifest fear. She began to talk rapidly, to get the message with which she had come out of her mind, so that she could be gone.
"Ronicky Doone," she said, "I've come to save you you understand? I've come so that you may be let loose on condition."
"All right," said Ronicky.
"On condition" and here a forefinger was raised in stiff caution "that you give me your solemn word of honor that you will never harm Charlie Loring on account of all that has happened between you two. I have a key here which will fit the irons that are on your wrists, and I'll set you free. But only if you promise never to hurt him!"
Ronicky stared patiently at her. It made him feel sadly wicked and ancient to witness such innocence. He waited until the last sound of her vibrating and eager voice had died away from his ear, for it seemed to cling there. It was odd that he should feel so detached. It was as though he stood in the distance and looked in upon this scene, noting down coldly the questions and answers. And always, as they talked, his glances were prying past that single gleaming hand and the pale circle of the candle glow and trying to get at the reality of her face; and he could never succeed.