by Max Brand
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.”
“Not that I didn’t do enough,” said the outlaw sadly. “Yes, I got so that I didn’t care what become of me. They hated me; they were hunting me. So I just hit back at ’em. What I needed I took, and I took it at the point of a gun, simply because I didn’t have a chance to make money by honest work.”
“I believe it!” she cried. She made a gesture to show that a vast burden was falling from her heart. “Oh, Charlie, I’ve known all this before—all about the terrible things you’ve done. You told of them when you were delirious; one by one you told about them—horrible things that you’ve done, or planned to do. But that’s in the past. That’s forgotten. All the things you’ve done were in other places. And people don’t know your face. You can stay here in Twin Springs when you’re well, or on our ranch—if we still have it!”
“On your ranch?” asked Charlie softly, and he drew at her hand until she was close to him. “Elsie, it’s the love of you that kept me on your ranch, do you know that? And if I’m ever a good man again, it’d be the love of you that has made me. Elsie, do you care even half of a little bit for me?”
He expected her to wince with joy, grow crimson, and pale in turn. Instead, to his profound astonishment, she simply pressed his hand gently and looked down at him with a peculiar, brooding quiet in her eyes which reminded him of the look of motherhood.
“Poor Charlie!” she said. “Do you really care as much as that?”
It amazed and shocked him. Was she pitying him?
“I wish—I profoundly wish,” she was saying, “that I could say I love you. But love is something made up of fire and wonder. Isn’t it?”
“Book talk,” said Charlie, hoarse with shame and anger.
“And in real life, too. But I haven’t it in me, Charlie, the thing that makes you red in the face and white about the lips. I have no emotion as intense as that for you.”
She was attributing the color of his anger to love. He could have laughed in her face, had he dared!
“But at least I respect you, I see the possibilities of a fine manhood in you, Charlie. And if I could help you to realize your possibilities—why, what more could any woman wish for in her life? If I could be a true helpmate to you—do you understand what I am trying to say, Charlie?”
He cast his hand across his eyes as though to hide his emotion, and his emotion was a raging shame. She was daring to talk down to him—to Charlie Christopher—to the adored of a hundred pretty girls, in a hundred scattered towns through the mountains. He wanted to cut at her with scornful jests and throw her loving-kindness back in her face. But, instead, he must lie there and endure it all for fear of death. And it was almost worse than death to Charlie, this trial of pride!
She was continuing, her voice the soul of gentleness: “But even if I wish to help you in all that a woman can help a man, even if I should be your wife, Charlie, and should try to bring more happiness into this wild, strong life of yours—I couldn’t stir to help you. The doctor knows all that I know! And he hates you so much that if he thought we were to be married, he would expose you and turn you over to the law!”
Even as she spoke, Charlie saw the loophole through which he must escape if he escaped at all. And he sprang at the chance.
“The doctor? That old fool!”
“Fool? He saved your life, Charlie!”
“Of course! And he’s a good man, Elsie, but the trouble is that he thinks I’m worse than I am. However, as much as he hates me, he loves you. And if once you and I were man and wife, do you think that he’d even dream of accusing me? No, no! He would never do it! He’d rather die first, Elsie!”
She pondered on what he said for a moment. “If we were actually married—if we were man and wife.” Then the whole idea came home to her.
But he was continuing with his persuasion.
“Besides, Elsie, I can’t trust him the way it is. As soon as I get a little better he may turn me over to the sheriff. I got no guarantee. But if you and I were married, he’d grind his teeth maybe, but he’d have to give up and give in! He’d feel like cursing me, but he wouldn’t betray me. Ain’t that clear?”
It was almost too clear. For the moment she looked at him doubtfully. This was strangely like cowardice. This was strangely like shielding himself behind her. But in an instant, as he smiled at her in his excitement, she forgot the ugly suspicion. He was brave, if ever a man were brave. Besides, what he suggested was dangerously intriguing. It meant marriage by stealth. It would be an undoing of the stern old doctor’s precautions. It only needed that they should take him by surprise, or render him helpless for a few short moments.
She knew the minister who would come to her in no matter what situation, and at her will he would perform the ceremony. And she thought of nothing else—just the excitement and the opportunity, as she felt it to be, of helping Charlie Christopher. But that she was binding herself for life to a man she did not love and whose past was black with crime—this slipped out of her thoughts.
Charlie, lying tense in the bed, knew by the dawning radiance in her face that she was swinging around to the acceptance of his proposal.
CHAPTER XXXIV
RONICKY PREVAILS
The men of Mount Solomon took the story which Ronicky Doone had told them as a joke. Had they detected anything overcunning in the narrative which he presented for their inspection, they might have resented the attempt to pull the wool over their eyes. But the truth, exactly as he told it, seemed so entirely absurd that they laughed heartily, and still more heartily whenever they thought of it.
And afterward, when they found that he was quite willing to be laughed at, and even would smile with them, they liked him for it and accepted him as a whole-hearted good fellow. For he had proved both courage and fighting skill in downing Christopher, and this adventure onto Mount Solomon was only an excess of foolhardiness.
They even began to banter him about his good intentions in riding to Mount Solomon and posing as a recruit for the band, all for the sake of leading some half dozen fighters down to mask the batteries of terrible Al Jenkins.
“Maybe,” they suggested, “you’re kind of fond of Charlie and hate to see his work wasted on the Bennett place.”
“That’s just it,” said Ronicky. And they roared with laughter at the thought of it. “And why,” they asked, “are you so thick with Charlie?”
“He saved my hoss,” said Ronicky. This brought fresh laughter. Everything he said seemed to amuse them. They threw back their heads and shouted with pleasure at the thought of a man venturing his neck to repay the saving of a horse. For horses in their minds were simply the tough, ugly little cow ponies of the Western mountains.
Ronicky cut their laughter short. With a low whistle he brought a short neigh of response, and then out of the entrance passage flashed the bay mare and came straight to him, dancing eagerly and tossing her head at the strangers. Her beauty brought a volley of admiration and curses from the outlaws. To them such speed as her shapely body and strong legs represented, might mean the difference between freedom and imprisonment, or life and death. And then a wave of Ronicky’s hand sent her back to her original hiding place.
There was no need of words. The sight of the ma
re had been enough to convince them of the importance of the action whereby Christopher had drawn her from the very grip of death. And they looked at Ronicky with a renewed respect and interest.
But they went back in their banter to another subject: the pretense of Ronicky that he would attempt to persuade them to go down and ride herd for Steve Bennett.
“How would you go about persuading a gent to leave off a free life and the ability to do what he wants, in order to go down there and be the slave of another man?” they asked.
Ronicky’s answer was ready.
“You sure got a lot of fine freedom up here,” he said. “Living in a hole like rats and sitting on stones—that’s a fine freedom, gents. But I’d rather be a slave and live easy, while I’m living. We’re a long time dead.”
This pointed remark brought something of a growl from them.
“You’d have us leave off and work on cows, eh? Twelve hours a day running the doggies?”
“How many hours do you work at your jobs that you got now?” he asked them.
“Only when we feel like it!” They answered him in a chorus. Evidently this was one point which they relished most.
“Sure,” said Ronicky, “you only work when you feel like it, but it seems to me that you must feel like it all the time. There’s old Cook. He just come in from a hard trail, and he had to go right out again. He didn’t have time to do much more’n say hello. But didn’t he want to stay here? Sure he did, only he was due a long ways off, and if he misses connections at the other end of that ride he’ll have to turn around and come clear back, living on hope most of the way, going and coming. I sure don’t cotton to that sort of a life, boys, because, take me by and large, you’ll find me a lazy cuss! I like the ease of punching cows.”
They regarded him almost agape. Such reasoning was beyond them, although the bitter truth of the last remark he had made was bearing in on the mind of every one of them. They, all of them, had ridden their trails which had no ending, and they had turned back from a lost goal, hungry and weary and hopeless.