Ronicky Doone's Reward by Max Brand (ebook offline reader .txt) 📕
And now he saw Blondy slowly produce cigarette papers and tobacco. He saw the cigarette manufactured; he saw it placed between Blondy's lips; he saw the sulphur match separated carefully from the rest of the pack; he saw the cigarette lighted; he saw the handsome head of Blondy wreathed in thin blue-brown smoke.
And every other person on the veranda was following every act with similar exactitude of interest and observation. For they had instantly seen the throwing of the gage. The unspoken challenge of Blondy, as plain as words could have stated it, was this: "I shall stand here calmly upon the veranda, roll my cigarette, light and smoke it, and then depart. And if I am able to do this in peace, then I shall consider myself at liberty to go forth into the world and tell other men that I have bearded the citizens of Twin Springs and come off unscathed."
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In the first place there were eight men, which was a larger number than generally gathered together going to and from a ranch. In the second place they rode well bunched together and went along at a steady gait as though they were in a businesslike mood and had a distinct destination just before them.
And above all, as they drew nearer, a rather small bay horse, which even in the distance showed the utmost delicacy and beauty of line, flashed into the lead and then turned suddenly into the very driveway which led to Al Jenkins’ house!
Jenkins forgot all about the high-built bonfire behind him. He uttered an exclamation of the keenest wonder and interest.
“It’s Ronicky Doone!” he cried. “It’s Ronicky Doone, boys, and if I ain’t mistaken, he’s here to raise trouble with me!”
The announcement caused a burst of consternation. The defeat of Blondy Loring in the center of Twin Springs had been spectacular enough to impress even the dullest minds and the least apprehensive spirits. But the sight of such a man, riding at the head of seven followers who, so far as was known, might be men of his own caliber, was a thunderbolt to their plans and their confidence. They packed in close around the rancher and waited eagerly for his decision.
Immediately they grew nervous when he did not give a command for them to turn the heads of their horses and start traveling in the opposite direction. Especially now that the advancing party swarmed around the house, apparently found at once that there was no one in it, and then straightened out for the place where Jenkins and his smaller party waited.
Freckles voiced the opinion of the others.
“If Ronicky Doone is working for Bennett,” he said, “and if he’s got us, eight to four, don’t it seem sort of nacheral and wise for us to vamoose, chief?”
But Al Jenkins waved the thought aside.
“If Blondy Loring on his little bunch of gray lightning couldn’t ride away from that bay mare, what chance do you think we’d have with our hosses? No, if he wants to talk to us, let him come up here and talk. I’m going to stay right here, but the rest of you can do what you want to do.”
They made no reply, but, reigning their horses back, they prepared to wait for the attack.
It came with a rush and a swirl. Up the hill dashed the eight in a scattered line, but what Al Jenkins looked at was not the row of horses, stretching in a hard gallop up the slope, but the riders who spurred them on. He thought that he had never seen seven such formidable characters. There was a wide-shouldered man in a red shirt riding right behind Ronicky Doone, an ugly man, the ugliest that Al Jenkins could remember encountering. And he had a purposeful manner about him that suggested great readiness with weapons. At one end of the line there was a man famine-thin and very tall. And his lean face had the ferocious eagerness of a shark. And all the other men in between were hardly less impressive. If it came to a show-down, “God pity my men,” thought the rancher.
In the meantime he summoned a cheerful smile and rode out a pace or two in the front. Ronicky brought the bay mare to a halt immediately before him.
He had expected a triumphant defiance in the manner of the fighting youth. He was agreeably surprised when Ronicky came to him with a smile and an outstretched hand. They shook hands to the mutual bewilderment of the opposing parties, both of which were glowering darkly at one another.
“I’m mighty glad to see you again,” said Ronicky. “We’re lined up on the wrong sides in this party, it looks like, but I’m aiming to play clean and fair, Mr. Jenkins!”
Al Jenkins was so relieved that he broke into laughter and smote Ronicky a tremendous blow on the shoulder.
“I’ve never yet worked crooked,” he said, “and I ain’t going to begin. But what you driving at, Ronicky?”
The explanation of Ronicky was brief and wholly to the point.
“I’ve come down with some partners of mine,” he said, “to give things a look around these parts. We aim to be friends of Steve Bennett, all of us. And being friends of his. we thought maybe you might like to know that we was around in this neighborhood.”
“Sure.” said Al Jenkins, falling at once into the spirit of this talk. “I’m a public-spirited man, son, and I’m always interested in the folks that call on my neighbors. You’re going to stay with Steve Bennett for a while?”
“Sure! We’re his new hands. Me and the boys figured that maybe he’d be losing some of his hands before long, and that he’d want to take on a few more.”
“Right.” replied Al Jenkins. “His whole gang quit just this morning. But I didn’t know that he ever used a crowd as big as eight, outside of a rush season?”
“But this,” said Ronicky, “is a rush season with Bennett, though I suppose that you’d never guess it.”
The innuendoes were hugely to the taste of the cow-punchers on both sides, and they grinned at each other with a mutual understanding. Now Ronicky and Al Jenkins drew to one side.
“It means that your game is called off, Jenkins,” said Ronicky. “These boys of mine may not be as many as the ones that you’ve got working for you. But they got something better than numbers — they got good steady hands and quick trigger fingers. Look ‘em over, Jenkins. And, besides, they’re better than they look!”
“In one sense I suppose that they are,” said Jenkins gloomily. His good humor was rapidly vanishing, as he saw the chance for action on this day removed. Then he added with a touch of malice: “I’d like to have the history of every one of that gang. I think it might be interesting to people — particularly to the sheriff!”
“Sure it would be,” said Ronicky. “It would be mighty interesting. But it would be awful hard on the gent that started out to collect the news. And he’d waste a pile of hossflesh doing it. I hope you ain’t aiming at that right away?”
Jenkins sighed.
“Right now,” he said, “it looks like I got to postpone the deal. You know what I mean. But sooner or later, it don’t make no difference, Bennett has got to go down. You won’t have your friends with you all the time! You won’t even be here all the time yourself, Ronicky!”
Ronicky nodded.
“I’m only asking a fighting chance for the girl,” he said.
“So’s her father can gamble it away?” asked Jenkins.
“I’ll tend to him,” said Ronicky. “Don’t you be worrying about that. And in the meantime, Jenkins, I know that I’ve got the upper hand. You can beat Bennett and me together next month; but this month him and me have the upper hand. Is that clear?”
“Clear,” admitted Jenkins through his teeth. “Son, does it come into your head that one of these days I may make you sweat for interfering?”
“I’ve sweated already over this job,” admitted Ronicky frankly. “And I guess that I’ll sweat again. Good-by, Jenkins. Here’s the last thing I got to say: if your men should happen to be riding promiscuous around on the Bennett place in the next few days, my boys are apt to be going around with rifles all ready to shoot quick — they’re as nervous as that!”
And he swung Lou around.
“What does it all mean?” asked the dazed followers of Al Jenkins, gaping after Ronicky and his men, as the wild riders plunged down the slope toward the house again.
“It means,” said Al Jenkins savagely, “that I’ve been beat at the last minute by a kid half my age. It means that I’ve been a blockhead and fool not to jump Bennett a week ago when I had him down and out. I’ve waited too long. I’ve tried to give him a sporting chance to fight for his life, and now I’m dynamited by this man of powder and lightning! Look at him go!”
There was a gloomy admiration mingled with his anger, as he saw Ronicky dart out to the head of his men, the beautiful bay mare running smoothly as flowing water.
“And now maybe it’ll take me another year of waiting till I get Bennett rounded up.”
As for Ronicky Doone, riding at the head of his little band, he felt singing and laughter overflowing in his heart. Truly the story of these past six days had been a crowded narrative, and now he was coming to the reward of honest labor, and that reward was sweet in the prospect. He could go to Elsie Bennett and say to her:
“Here is your father preserved, your ranch retained, and all is well for a little longer. The great Al Jenkins has been foiled!” What would she say in reply? He did not guess; that part was a happy blur.
Just as evening fell, he and his men hurried up the trail toward the Bennett place.
“That pile of wood was to make the smoke that was to start the drive,” Ronicky declared confidently to the outlaws. “And as long as we don’t see that behind us, we’re safe enough, and there’s no big cause for hurry. He won’t try anything to-day. And if he does, there’ll be a fight. I guess you boys ain’t unwilling?”
They grinned broadly at the thought Unwilling? Unwilling to take part in a fight in which they would not have the banded powers of the law against them, but in which they would be defending a man’s legal rights against the aggressions of another? Such a battle would be after their inmost wishes.
Above all they were delighted by the thought that they were fighting the battle of their leader, and that while he lay helpless in Twin Springs, feeling that all of his work in the name of Bennett had been in vain, they, his men from Mount Solomon, were fighting his fight unknown to him.
“But what beats me,” said the tall man who was usually known as “Bud,” though “Skinny” was also a favorite name, “what beats me is that Kit should waste so much time over a girl like Elsie Bennett I dunno how his mind works. Or maybe he’s getting reformed!”
“Why not?” asked Ronicky. “Why shouldn’t he reform and settle down and marry? He’s not known in this part of the country. Matter of fact, his face doesn’t seem to be well known in any part!”
But Skinny merely shook his head.
“Sure,” he said. “It would be all fine for Blondy to settle down with a wife. But in the first place he ain’t the kind that settles down.”
“How do you know?” interrupted Ronicky. “She’s pretty enough to tame wilder men than Christopher ever was!”
“Is she? I dunno but what she is,” said Skinny. Here he paused and looked around so as to bring all eyes upon him. And since they were walking their horses up a steep grade and had plenty of leisure to make their observations, they turned readily to the speaker.
“I dunno but what she is pretty enough to
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