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

overnight. It ain’t a place for gents to hang out when they are flush and want to spend their money. It’s just a place where they can duck to when the whole land is hot on their trail; and it’s the sort of a place where they can come to meet up with some of their pals, and here they can fix up their layouts for their next jobs. But nobody, not even the best, can lay up here for more than one week. If a gent comes in on a Sunday, he has to go out some time before midnight the next Sunday. And that’s the way it works all the time.”

“But who sees to it that the rules are kept?” asked Ronicky.

“Why, the majority,” said Montana cheerfully. “You see this is a real democracy, partner! Or, rather, it’s like a club. We elect our members.”

“Am I elected then?” asked Ronicky.

“Nope, only part way. I brought you in. That means that you can stay with us in this one hang-out. But before you can begin to circulate around, you got to be taken around by somebody else. Any two can elect you, and it takes more’n half to keep you out on a vote.”

Ronicky nodded, surprised at the wisdom of these arrangements which provided for the safety of all.

“Who fixed up these rules?” he asked at length.

“Who d’you think?” asked the other. “Why, it was ‘Kit’ himself.”

He said this as one delivering a master stroke, and Ronicky managed to muster enough surprise to suit the occasion.

“Kit?” he echoed. “Not Kit!”

“Yep, Christopher was the boy that done it. There was some up to that time that figured that Kit was just good for gun plays and that sort of thing. But when he planned how the boys was to use Mount Solomon, we changed our minds about him.”

“What does he get out of it?” asked Ronicky. “Does he get the right to dig out a part of the profits of everybody that hangs out here regular?”

“Nope, he don’t. The surprising thing is that Kit don’t ask for a darn thing except one. And that one thing is that he’s to be allowed to stay here just as much as he pleases. And even that he don’t use as much as he might!”

Ronicky sketched for the satisfaction of his imagination the picture of an all-wise and deep-seeing crook who had seen the possibilities of the mountain and had planned to gather around him for his own protection as well as for theirs a host of expert fighters. There were always enough men present, Charlie told him, to insure the presence of two or three guards who, posted upon a few prominent places on the tops of the ridges, could keep an easy survey sweeping across the sides and make sure that no unwanted stranger climbed toward the top.

And when a man was observed climbing, glasses were at once focused on him. If he were recognized as a friend, he was, of course, allowed to come on at his pleasure. But if he were not so recognized, he was surveyed as a possibility. It might be that he would prove to be some man of the law. And in that case he would find the top of the mountain totally deserted in appearance, while spies watched him from covert. Or, if he seemed a promising youth, a man would be sent out, as Montana Charlie had been sent, to encounter him and examine him cautiously. Conducted in this fashion and adhering strictly to the rules which had been laid down by the celebrated gun fighter, Christopher, the “club” on top of Mount Solomon gave promise of flourishing for an indefinite period. The beautiful part of its organization was that it depended upon no central head who, knowing things and having a power which none of the others possessed, could make or break the rest by his guidance. This was a group which produced its leader from among its own numbers. This was fortunate, for Christopher had been absent for months.

These details Ronicky listened to with the greatest interest. He was only surprised by the name of the leader, Christopher. This was his first incursion in these lands, but he had heard in the north of an outlaw of that name. However there was no atmosphere of celebrity attaching to the name of Christopher, surely not enough to make him the accepted founder of such an institution as this. Perhaps this was the first “great” thing which he had done, and from what Montana Charlie had said Ronicky gathered that this must be the case.

Here the narrative of Montana broke off sharply, and canting his head to one side he listened to the voice of a man who had just entered the larger rock-chamber and was greeted with a rumble of voices from the outlaws.

“It’s Cook,” said Montana, raising himself eagerly. “It’s old Cook himself. He’s come in with the news, I guess. It must be something pretty important”

“Where’s he come from?” asked Ronicky carelessly.

“From Twin Springs,” was the answer, and Ronicky caught his breath sharply.

What an irony of Fate it was that his entry had been so successful, only to have his exit blocked by a man who would be sure to know all about the shooting of Blondy Loring? He could only hug one faint hope to his bosom, and that was that Cook had gone to Twin Springs after the shooting took place, so that he had not seen Ronicky himself.

“And he’ll have some news about Kit,” said Montana Charlie. “He’ll know how the old man is coming along, and he will be able to tell us whether Kit is going to be able to get back on his feet or not”

“Christopher is sick?” asked Ronicky.

“Sure! Don’t you know that? Ain’t you been in Twin Springs?”

Ronicky made no answer, fearing to expose his ignorance. Luckily at that moment, while Montana Charlie was waiting for his response, the newly arrived man in the other part of the cave began to speak, and Montana was instantly all ears, putting away the gun belt he had been repairing, in order to listen.

“He’s doing fine,” said Cook. “He ain’t on his feet. Matter of fact he’s a considerable long distance from being on his feet. But the girl is treating him fine. Never leaves him night or day.”

“It’s about time she should pay some attention to him,” answered another, “after all the months that he’s been working for her old man and waiting for his pay.”

“Well,” said Cook, “you can lay to it that she’s paying him back all that he ever done for her father and her. The doctor says that without her he’d never have been able to pull Kit through. Poor Kit! I had a look at him the other day. Couldn’t get near to look at him before. But the doctor finally let me open the door and take a squint at him. What I seen would have made your head spin. You remember him with the complexion of a girl in a high wind? Well, he’s as pale as ashes, all you can see of him, except that he’s got a faded yaller beard over the most of his face. He’s mighty thin, and he looks plumb played out.”

“I know,” said another. “I know that look that comes onto a gent after he’s been pretty near to dying. There’s a sort of a shadow lying all over him. Like he didn’t care much what he’d been near to. Sort of dull-like. Ain’t that the way that Christopher looks now?”

“Not a bit,” said Cook. “He had an eye that was on fire. He give me a look and a signal to come nearer the minute he clapped his eyes onto me. But when I tried to come in the doctor shuts me out.

“‘I just wanted to show you that he’s better and that his head is cleared,’ said the doc. ‘Now run along and tell the rest of his friends that he’s all right.”

“And so I couldn’t do nothing but what he said. I went out and told everybody, and everybody seemed mighty glad to hear. Yes, sir, you wouldn’t never think that Christopher would have many friends in a place like Twin Springs. But gents that would run a mile if you just whispered the name of C. L. Christopher into their ear, now smile and grin and want to know all about Charlie Loring!”

This brought a chuckle of amusement from the crowd, but Ronicky Doone sat with his head bowed toward the ground. It had burst upon him like a shell exploding. The tall fair-haired youth who had impressed him so favorably in Twin Springs, when he had ridden into the town, was no other than the known desperado and youthful bandit, Christopher. He had apparently made no effort to disguise himself beyond taking the first two of his real names, and so he had made himself known as Charlie Loring instead of Charlie L. Christopher.

The consummate boldness of it stunned Ronicky. And still his brain refused to grasp the whole truth. He found points which stuck in his crop, so to speak. What, for instance, could have induced such a man as Christopher to accept employment as a cow-puncher on a ranch? Yet was that not answered by the beauty of Elsie Bennett? Yes, for her sake he had played the game and striven to pose as an honest man.

Swift confirmation was coming from the round of talk in the next apartment of the cave.

“I’m glad he’s out of it,” said one. “But after all he’s only got what was coming to him for being such a fool and trying to live two lives instead of one. Ain’t I right, boys?”

“Maybe,” they answered, “but that don’t keep us from being sorry. Besides,” said one, “you got to admire him for the way he worked things. Think of him riding down to drag Doone’s hoss out of the river that day!”

“Yes,” said another, “that’s something that I never could make out. Why did he make that play about the hoss?”

“So’s folks would never be able to make a guess about what he really was,” said another. “He wanted to make ‘em think — even when he thought that he was running away from a bunch that were riding to get him for murder — that he was the honest young gent who was plumb drove against his will into shooting to kill. He knowed quick that if he made that play to save the hoss, while he was running for his life, that no jury in the mountains would ever hang him. Besides, the news of that must sure have made the girl’s heart start beating quick.”

“But this Ronicky Doone,” said another. “How come that he was able to beat the chief to the draw?”

“Because he waited and kept right on waiting until Kit’s nerve begin to rub thin. He held off and held off until Kit got nervous. And you know what he is then. He ain’t half of a man. He needs to act right on the spur of the moment. And some day somebody else that knows how the trick is done, is going to wait out on Kit until his nerve is gone, and then he’ll kill him plumb easy.”

“H’m,” said a companion. “That sounds easy, but I’d hate to be taking the chance.”

And the general chuckle confirmed this last opinion.

“Let’s go out and get some more news out of Cook,” said Montana cheerfully. “That’s sure good news about Kit being on the way to getting well, eh?”

“Yes,” replied Ronicky and rose reluctantly to his feet.

He had come to