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

They carried him into the hotel and placed him in the proprietor’s own room. Nothing was too good for a dying man. They brought the doctor, he who had pronounced Oliver Hopkins dead before his time. But on this occasion he did not jump to conclusions. He had been shamed in the eyes of the entire town by his mistake of a few days before. Now he would make certain not to fall into the same error. He would recall what had been drummed ceaselessly into his brain during his first year in the West — that men toughened by a constant life in the wind and all weathers are sure to die hard.

And, while they waited for the doctor’s verdict, the men of Twin Springs came around Ronicky Doone and congratulated him, and Al Jenkins apologized frankly and humbly for the insults which in the near past he had heaped upon the head of Ronicky. But the warmth of the townsmen received somewhat of a damper from the bearing of Ronicky Doone. He was smoking again in the most nonchalant manner. He received their congratulations with modesty — with more than modesty — indifference. And such coldness was a terrible thing to see. They began to draw back from him.

In short he was too deadly a marksman to be altogether pleasant company. When a man is so sure with his weapons that he kills another between smokes, without lifting an eyebrow or changing color, he is not altogether a comfortable companion. Yet the utter indifference of Ronicky Doone to the thing he had done continued until big Curly broke through the group and drew Ronicky to one side.

“Ronicky,” he said, “if you pull a gun on me for what I’m going to tell you, I won’t blame you. Nobody would blame you.”

“Go ahead,” said Ronicky. “I ain’t a gun-fighter every day of my life. Go ahead, Curly.”

“Well,” said the wretched Curly, “from what I’ve found out, you were figuring on using fake slugs on Blondy — you were figuring on using wooden slugs that would just knock him down if they were planted right. Is that the straight of it?”

“Who told you that?” asked Ronicky. “Who’s been spreading that sort of talk around about me?”

“You were seen to dump ‘em out of your gun,” said Curly. “I got one in my pocket now. But the point is this — that you dumped out them wooden slugs after I talked to you. And what I want to know, Ronicky, is: Did you dump ‘em out because of what I said to you?” Ronicky paused. Then the cigarette crumpled between his fingers. He caught Curly by the shoulder with fingers that gripped deep in his flesh.

“Curly,” he gasped, “don’t tell me that what you said ain’t the truth. Don’t tell me that!” But Curly dropped his head.

“Being sorry ain’t a help — it’s that wagging tongue of mine. I can’t stop it when it gets started, Doone.”

If he expected denunciation or violence from Ronicky, however, he was mistaken. The smaller man merely glided past him like a ghost and fled through the door of the hotel.

“What did you do to bring him to life?” asked some one. “What yarn did you tell him this time, Curly?”

But the miserable Curly went away trailing his feet in the deep, soft dust and answering nothing.

Outside the door of the proprietor’s room Ronicky confronted the doctor, as that worthy came out. And there was something ominous in the softness with which he closed the door.

“What’s the news?” asked Ronicky sharply.

But the doctor raised his hand, as one who protests against too much noise in a holy place. And the cold dread came to Ronicky that it was the nearness of death which had awed the doctor.

“I fear,” said the doctor sadly, “that there is no hope. Where — “

“You lie!” groaned Ronicky.

“Young man?” queried the doctor sternly. “Where, I was about to say, can we get in touch with his family?”

Ronicky started for the door, but the doctor barred the way.

“No one must enter. He is now in a state of coma. If he wakens from that condition, then we may begin to hope. But I fear — I greatly fear he will never waken.”

“Carry the news out to the Bennett place, then,” said some one softly. “He done this thing for the sake of old Bennett — in a way. Bennett sure had ought to take care of him.”

“You don’t know him!” snarled Al Jenkins in answer. “But I’ll see that the boy is cared for. If there’s a bunch of bills, send ‘em to me. I ain’t no friend to Bennett nor none of them that fight for him, but when they get past fighting for him and are flat on their backs, they’ll find that I ain’t as hard as they think.”

He was as good as his word. Not a penny was another person allowed to contribute to the care of Charlie Loring. In the meantime two men were chosen to go to the Bennett Ranch bearing the news that Loring had fallen in battle.

And Ronicky Doone sat down to wait in the lobby, regardless of the men around him, though nearly all of them strove to draw him into conversation. He was waiting on the reports which were sent out from the sick room. On the whole they told a steady story of decline, or else there was “no change.”

Ronicky had paid the doctor liberally to have these ten-minute reports sent out. And once, when the physician himself came out and walked up and down, not displeased at his opportunity to allow the world to see him engaged in the battle with death, Ronicky went up to the good man and inquired again.

“It’s just as I sent you word,” said the doctor. “There is little use in watching him closely. The bullet entered adjacent to the — “

But Ronicky waved the technical details away. He had heard them rehearsed three or four times before, because the description contained several large words which the doctor was fond of turning over his tongue’s tip.

“I don’t give a hang about the facts. I just want to know what’s in your mind?”

“Facts — you don’t care — my mind?” stammered the doctor. “My boy — “

“Listen to me,” said Ronicky, and at the same time he stuffed his entire stock of money into the coat pocket of the doctor. “You are going back into that room, and you’re going to stick with Blondy Loring until there ain’t a chance left for him. And every minute that you’re in there you’re going to keep hammering the same thought at him; that he’s going to get well!”

“But, Doone, he can’t hear a word — he’s senseless.”

“He’ll feel your thinking. He can’t help it. And, besides, if you go in there to watch a man die, you’re going to see him die. But if you go in there to keep a man from dying, you got half a chance in ten of bringing him through. Go on back!”

And the doctor went. It was not altogether the money that persuaded him. His heart was kindly enough and generous enough, but now and then most of us need to be shaken together, so to speak, and brought to a crisper sense of things. And this was what Ronicky had done for the doctor. He sent the good man back in a fighting humor, and for half an hour no message came out of the room.

In the meantime the townsmen were baffled by the change in Ronicky. They had seen him perfectly indifferent one moment and wildly anxious the next. They had seen him sneering at the man who lay bleeding at his feet. And now they saw him pacing nervously up and down through the lobby, throwing himself into a chair, rising, and pacing again, and never stopping movement of one kind or another.

He offered no explanation. And Curly waited wretchedly until he was sure that Ronicky would not speak of the lie which had been told him. When Curly was sure that this explanation was not forthcoming he offered one of his own to the others.

“He looked like he was taking everything easy,” said Curly. “He was even rolling a cigarette with Blondy dying at his feet. But all the time there wasn’t really nothing going on inside of his head. It was just misty in there. But after a while the mist cleared off. He seen what he’d done. He heard that Blondy was dying, and then he come out of it with a jump and got the way you see him now.”

This explanation had to pass.

Al Jenkins approached Ronicky with an excellent proposal to the effect that Ronicky should come out to his ranch with him and look around until he found a place on it that suited him. Then he was to name his own salary.

“And there you’ll stay,” said the rancher, “until I’m through with Bennett. Maybe you think, lad, that I ain’t a man that remembers. But when you knocked over big Blondy you took the wind out of Bennett’s sails. He’s done for now. And when I clean up the old hound and back him off the range, the same way that he done with me years back, I’ll be thinking that you had a hand in the shaping of the game, son!”

But Ronicky refused to listen to him. He thanked the rancher for the offer. But just now, he declared, he could not think and did not wish to think of anything but the condition of Charlie Loring.

“There’s a pile of ranches in the world,” said Ronicky. “But there ain’t another Charlie Loring. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, maybe, or whenever there’s a decision about Charlie. Up till then my time belongs to him!”

“If you’re that fond of him,” grumbled the rancher, “why did you ever pull a gat on him?”

But Ronicky turned