by Max Brand
“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 requests, 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 answered 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.
“Why don’t you answer?” she asked suddenly. “Are you sick? Or do you think I don’t mean it? I tell you, here is the key!”
She held it up. It came to Ronicky that in spite of his manacled hands he could leap at her, knock her down, tear the key from her, and unfasten his own bonds by using a little dexterity of wrist and fingers. But the thought was a distant and unreal picture to him. He could never use violence against her. The danger even could not persuade him to a serious consideration of that possibility.
“You’re wasting your time,” he answered her finally. “I won’t give you that promise, ma’am.”
The jerk of the hand which held the light and the corresponding flutter and leap of the flame, told how much she was startled by this announcement. She could not speak at once. Finally she said: “But I’m not joking with you. I’m offering you your liberty—really. Otherwise your promise wouldn’t mean anything.”
“I can’t give it,” said Ronicky.
“But,” she went on, “you don’t understand. They might even kill you in the morning. They are going to be told how you stole up behind Charlie Loring and tried to—oh, when our men hear that, they’ll be simply mad with rage, Ronicky Doone. Keep that picture in mind. Our cow-punchers are rough—very rough!”
He watched her steadily. She had come a little nearer. People always do when they are persuading.
“Yes, I know that they’re rough,” he replied, “but still I can’t promise.”
“Why not?”
“I couldn’t hold up my head if I did. A man has one thing that’s worth more’n his life, lady, and that’s his honor.”
“Honor!” gasped Elsie Bennett. “Honor—from you!”
She recovered at once.
“I didn’t mean to say that. I didn’t mean to hurt you unnecessarily. But a man who would slip up with a revolver behind another man—and still worry about such scruples as—”
She paused.
“I’m sorry,” said Ronicky. “But I told you before. You’re just wasting your time!”
She passed a hand across her forehead. This time she came so close that he could make her out quite distinctly. And in that dim light, against the velvet darkness, she seemed to Ronicky as lovely as a jewel and as radiant. And he felt again the sense of awe with which he had first looked at her, though then that emotion had been covered with a more profound feeling of shame.
“I try to make out what can be in your mind and behind your words,” said the girl faintly. “But I can’t. You bewilder me. You seem to be throwing away a—”
“Miss Bennett,” said Ronicky, “I figure that you’ll have to work it out this way: that if you believe everything Charlie Loring said about me, you never can understand.”
“You ask me to put him down as a liar?”
“I don’t ask that. Only—maybe he’s mistaken.”
“Ah, yes. I’m foolish to say so, but I can’t help it. I was interested from the very first. It was hard to believe of you all that my father, for instance, believes. And I’m half prepared to sympathize with any good explanation you can offer. You had no chance to talk downstairs. Will you talk now—to me?”
He was sharply tempted, but he shook his head.
“Words ain’t going to help me none,” declared Ronicky. “Nope! What’s needed is a little action. When I’ve done a few things, maybe you’ll be willing to take another think. But if I talk to-night, Blondy Loring will talk in the morning. And what he says will wipe out what I say.”
It was such frank, clear-cut talk that she was amazed and showed her surprise.
“You really don’t intend to buy your liberty with a promise?” she asked.
“Look here,” said Ronicky argumentatively, “you talk as if a promise I gave might be worth something.”
“Of course!”
“Then you figure that my honor is worth something. And if it is, I sure can’t wait around after Charlie Loring has knocked me down and—lied about me! Miss Bennett, I got to fight back!”
“Then you can’t expect me to help you!”
“Why not? I’ll give you this promise—that I won’t hurt him on this ranch. Wil
l that suit you? And if I ever get the upper hand with him, I’ll promise to go easy for your sake.”
At this she smiled in frank scorn. It was plain that her mind was unable to grasp the possibility of big Charlie Loring being defeated by any man that lived.
“Very good,” she said thoughtfully. “Suppose I let you go and trust to your promise—it seems to me that I’m doing a great deal for a very small return and no security—at least none that a bank would take.”
“It’ll be the first time,” said Ronicky, “that I’ve had this sort of a favor done me. But wait and see. In the end, maybe, I can pay you back.”
She bit her lip and looked down at the floor, and by that he knew that she would do as he wished.
“I’m going to take your word and let you go,” she said at the last. “And your word is simply that you’ll never come back to the Bennett Ranch to hunt down Charlie—and lie in wait for him on the range.”
He nodded, and Elsie Bennett without another word unlocked the handcuffs and stepped back from him, a little frightened by the possibilities of what he might do. He reassured her with a smile and by chafing his wrists to restore the circulation. Then, as she backed toward the door, he followed her to it.
She put out the candle before she stepped into the hall. There, swallowed again in the gloom, they exchanged some whispered words.
“I suppose it’s for the sake of your name that I’m doing this,” she said. “But there’s such a fine free swing to that name—Ronicky Doone—that I couldn’t hold all the evil against you that my father does, for instance.”
“I’ve noticed it before,” said Ronicky Doone, “that a good woman don’t need any long list of reasons for doing a good thing. God bless you for this one!”
She could literally feel the quiver of the gesture with which he jerked his liberated hands above his head and shook them at nothingness, rejoicing in his freedom. Then he turned down the stairs, but with his foot on the first step he turned back again toward the dim form in the hall.