Ronicky Doone's Reward by Max Brand (ebook offline reader .txt) 📕

It seemed at first, by the savage and animal-like snarling of Blondy, that this was indeed his purpose, to half strangle Ronicky in mid-air and then finish the work by dashing him upon the ground. Never had Ronicky dreamed that a mere man could possess such herculean powers.

“You rat!” breathed Charlie Loring, and then, as though the surety of his victory restored his mental balance to some degree, he turned and strode forward through the door of the barn, still bearing Ronicky securely trussed in his arms.

It was in vain that Ronicky kicked and squirmed and struggled to be free. He was of average weight and of vastly more than average strength and activity, but caught unprepared, his agility neutralized by the surprise attack, he was perfectly helpless, and now every struggle only served to make the grip of Charlie sink more deeply into his body.

Then Ronicky went sick, almost fainted, as the sickening degradation to which he was going to be exposed was revealed to him. It was the purpose of Charlie Loring to take his captive straight into the big house and there, before Bennett and Elsie Bennett and whatever hands might be on the place, show Ronicky helpless in his hands!

Every step of the way the certainty grew until at last, as they reached the door of the bouse, Ronicky gasped: “Blondy, if you take me inside like this, you’ll have to kill me; because if you don’t I’ll get you sure for this.”

“Bah!” answered Blondy. “When I get through with you, Doone, you ain’t going to be able to lift your hands as high as your head for a year. Just lay to that and keep your mouth shut. I’m running this little party from now on!” And he kicked open the door and strode into the house.

The room in which he entered held both Bennett and the girl. There was no chance for Ronicky to steel himself against the shock. But all in a flash he found himself before them, and then he was crashed down into a chair with a force that stunned him, and his gun belt was torn from him. After that, Blondy stood behind the chair, with a revolver jammed against Ronicky’s neck.

And the latter looked miserably at Bennett and the girl.

Of course they had risen, as Blondy entered, the girl with an exclamation which identified her, if identification was needed, as she whom Ronicky had encountered near the brook so short a time before. And now that he could see her in the full light of the room, he felt that Al Jenkins had not exaggerated in his description of her. Blue, starry eyes and lighted hair of gold and features modeled with exquisite nicety, Ronicky had never before seen such a face in all his wide wanderings. Scorn and anger now made her eyes wide.

“That’s he!” she cried to a whiteheaded man. “That’s the man who spoke to me, I know! Oh, Charlie, I was right! He was sneaking somewhere near, and he followed you!”

“The hound!” growled the old man, shaking his venerable locks in detestation of such rascally work. And he folded his arms across his thin chest and glowered at Ronicky. He looked like a picture of a type — that type which is supposed to be represented in the gentlemen of the South, with fluffs of hair grown long, and wide mustaches made to bristle out in spikes or tufts, according to the fancy of the wearer, and nicely pointed beard. They have weary, droop-lidded eyes, these men of the fanciful Southland; they have erect, martial bearing, and their manner can rise to great heights of pomposity.

Such, in every detail, was the picture of Stephen Bennett who had conducted the long war against Al Jenkins. He had won at first, but now he was fallen on declining fortunes. The room in which he and his daughter had been reading, showed unmistakable signs of the loss of money. It had at one time been furnished with some elegance, for that section of the country. But the upholstery on the chairs was now sadly worn. The very pictures on the wall seemed to have faded. And only under the shelter of the great round center table did the carpet retain the pristine vigor of its color and design.

In the costume of Steve Bennett the same disrepair showed. He was wearing a long Prince Albert of faded cloth which went most inappropriately with the rather unclean riding boots on his feet and the much cheaper trousers. But he wore that Prince Albert in the way that makes one address the possessor as “colonel”; and he thrust out his breast as though it supported a row of medals.

In this fashion he looked down upon Ronicky Doone, striding toward him so brusquely and towering so high and so close above him that Ronicky would not have been surprised if the bony old fist had been dashed into his face.

In the meantime big Blondy was telling a strange story. He was pouring grain into the feed box of the gray, he declared, when he heard what was much like the sound of a stealthy footfall behind him. He had waited cautiously for a moment until he made sure that he who approached was close to him; and then he had whirled and discovered Ronicky Doone, stealing up with leveled revolver.

In the same motion with which he had whirled, he struck the weapon from the hand of the astonished Ronicky, and the next moment the would-be murderer was helpless in his arms. And here he was. He, Blondy, wanted to turn the hound loose and kick him off the place after disarming him, but he decided that it might not be well to leave such a sneak to wander near the premises. And for that reason he had decided to bring him in and allow Steve Bennett and Elsie to have a chance to pass judgment upon the villain.

This astounding story he told with the utmost fluidity and even with an air of indifference. It was not, he insisted, because he had the slightest desire to persecute this treacherous rascal, that he had brought him here. But something should be done as an example.

It was typical of father and daughter that, when the sordid recital was ended, the former drew closer, and the latter drew back.

“To think that I was within arm’s reach of him tonight!” breathed Elsie. “And — and that I thought his laugh was frank and manly! Oh!” Words failed her. Her father spoke. “This — this vermin,” he said, “ought to be tried in the courts of the law, Loring. But we ain’t got courts of law around Twin Springs.”

He shook his head and took a turn through the room, with one hand thrust into the breast of his coat and the other crossed upon the small of his back.

“Yes, sir,” he said, “the damnation truth — pardon me, Elsie — but it is the damnation truth that there ain’t justice to be had in the courts where the influence of that snake, Jenkins, reaches. There ain’t any justice, and there ain’t any chance of justice. He’s got folks so much in the palm of his hand that they can’t put him and wrongdoing in the same sentence, or even in the same day. Because he spent some money on a road, they got him worked up into a saint. I never seen anything like it! And more than that, if he wants to back up a man, there ain’t any power that dares to put out a hand to stop the man that Al Jenkins has picked. And all that Jenkins would need to do to keep this murderer of his — “

“Father!” cried the girl. “Do you really think that he sent this — this creature to kill Charlie Loring?”

“Do I think it? Bah! I know it! I know the workings of his reptile mind! And what can we do? If we harm this man seriously we’ll have to answer for it in the courts which Jenkins controls. If we don’t harm him, a flock of Jenkins’ other assistants of the same sort will be out here and after us! No sir! It ain’t any trouble to Jenkins if I have just a bunch of worn-out tramps working my range for me, men that’ll close their eyes when the rustlers want to run off some cows. That don’t mean nothing to Jenkins, but when it comes to letting me have a real honest-injun man like Charlie Loring, why, that’s a different yarn altogether. He’s going to get Loring away from me. If he can do it with fair play, well enough; but if he can’t he’ll try dirty means. So he’s sent this hound out here. Charlie, I near forget myself when I think of it!”

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 tomorrow 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