Ronicky Doone's Treasure by Max Brand (leveled readers TXT) 📕

I know that Ronicky Doone was never untrue to my father. Jack Moon, heaven pity you, because as sure as honesty is stronger than crime, Ronicky Doone is going to kill you here on this hill. And all your tricks won’t help you!”

He looked to the side.

There came the pursuer, drawing his mare back to a long and swinging canter as he saw that the outlaw no longer fled.

Moon knew that, whatever happened, he had already lost Jerry. “Stand by,” he said. “Watch Ronicky Doone go down. And before I go, I’ll tell you the truth. I’ve made my play, and I’ve lost; but I’ll show you how little you’ve won. It wasn’t a bluff that I told my boys to run back there in the hollow. I told them to rush the house and shoot to kill. And that’s what they done. Doone got away — to be finished by me. But your father is dead back yonder in the hollow. Otherwise, wouldn’t he be there with Ronicky? He’s dead, and that’s the end of his story. And now I’ll finish Ronicky’s.”

He saw her lips part and her eyes widen with horror; then he shut out the picture by whirling his horse toward the oncoming rider.

Ronicky Doone made out no detail of that conversation, of course, but its general tenor was unmistakable. There sat the girl with her head bowed, and her face covered by her hands. Here was Jack Moon cantering toward him.

He stopped Lou on the crest of the hill and slipped from the saddle. Why should he imperil her life by putting her in the way of a chance bullet, so long as the enemy were coming on to fight the battle out bravely, man to man, in fair contest? The good mare followed him a pace or two, whinnying softly as though to ask why he had left the saddle, but he checked her advance with a sharp word, and she halted obediently, lifting her head and pricking her ears in curiosity.

Half a dozen paces from her, Ronicky paused and dropped his right hand on his hip, for the approaching rider had also slipped his revolver into the holster now. Though he did not follow Ronicky’s humane example and dismount, he came on with one hand raised in the time-honored fashion of those who request a truce. Ronicky raised his own left hand as signal that the truce was granted, and the outlaw halted not more than half a dozen paces away, still in the saddle.

He waited, his head high, his clear eye sparkling with alertness. Not a movement of the sweat-brightened body of the horse, not a stir of the face of the outlaw, escaped him.

That face was set with unutterable grimness, though Jack Moon was striving to relax his expression and adopt one of careless self-confidence. He so far succeeded that he was able to smile down to Ronicky.

“I see,” he said, “that you’re so plumb tired of living that you pretty near wore out your hoss trying to get close to me.”

“I see,” answered Ronicky, with a smile to match that of the big fellow, “that you’re so plumb fond of life that you wore out two horses trying to get away from me.”

Unquestionably, if there were an advantage in that exchange of words, it lay on the side of Ronicky Doone. Since, in a manner, this was the first blow for him, Jack Moon set his teeth and strove to drive away the gloomy foreboding which flooded his mind. The words of the girl, too, rang through his memory. She had been strangely confident that her champion must win. That confidence had gleamed in her steady eyes, and the memory of that light now served to darken the vision of the outlaw. But he must rouse himself from this depression. In another moment his life would be staked upon his speed of hand, his lightning surety of eye, and he would be mated against a fighter such as he had never before in his life faced.

Accordingly, he stared straight into the eyes of Ronicky Doone. He had many a time made men cringe under the weight of his dominant will, but now the glance of Ronicky clashed against his own with equal force. This was to be no cheaply won victory!

But the youngster was smiling — no, he was sneering.

“Your nerve’s going, Moon,” he was saving calmly. “You’d better make your play now before it’s all gone.”

“Make my play now? Make my play first? I ain’t sunk to that, kid!”

“You’ll sink to that now,” said Ronicky Doone. “Because you’re wilting, Jack. The skunk in you is coming out to the surface. You’re beat, and you know it. If you wait a minute more, you’ll begin begging for life!”

The sweat poured out on the forehead of Jack Moon. For it was true! And he did know it. A great weakness was sweeping over him. The nervous, lean fingers of Ronicky Doone fascinated him. How could he expect to beat the speed of those fingers with his own great paws? If only the smaller man were within grip —

But he must act at once. Behind him the girl would look on. But the moment his hand moved for his gun there would be a convulsive downward flick of the hand now hanging so loosely, so carelessly at the hip of Ronicky. How cool the man was! What a devil of surety was in him!

The chestnut, impatient, pranced a little and turned sidewise toward Ronicky. Then the trick came to the outlaw. The horse would be his bulwark. Mighty must be the bullet that could plow through the body of a horse and reach him. Quick as thought he flung himself down along the chestnut, whipping out his revolver as he fell, and, encircling the neck of the horse with his left hand, he leveled the revolver and fired under the throat of his mount point-blank at Ronicky Doone.

But swift though his maneuver had been, it was slow compared with the lightning gun play of Ronicky. At the first twitch of the big man’s body, the gun had been conjured into those lean fingers, and as the right shoulder and chest of the outlaw surged down on the other side of the horse — after all, it was an old Indian trick — the blaze of Doone’s gun beat that of the man-killer’s by a split part of a second. A small interval, indeed, very small — but just long enough to send the soul of a man winging from its body.

Jack Moon, without a sound, without a groan, slipped out of the saddle and landed with heavy inertness on the ground, face down, and Ronicky Doone touched his shirt sleeve, where the bullet had flicked through the cloth.

He went to Jack Moon and gave the fallen man a cursory examination. It had been instant death. Ronicky looked down with a sort of childlike wonder. How could one bullet have opened the way for the passage of the vital spirit from that enormous frame, so cunningly made for strength and endurance, so trained to feats of strength? How could one bullet have stopped forever the machinations of that crafty brain?

Ronicky went slowly to the girl.

She still sat with her face bowed in her arms, but when he came near, still covering her eyes, she reached out one hand toward him, fumbling like a blind person.

“Ronicky!” she whispered.

“Yes?” he said gently.

“Dad?”

“All’s well with him, thank Heaven!”

“Thank Heaven, and thanks to you. Oh, Ronicky, what have you done for us?”

“Only helped your dad fight a ghost out of his past,” said Ronicky Doone as gently as before. “Now that the ghost’s gone, let’s forget all about it!”