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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“How do you know?” asked Ronicky, an ugly suspicion beginning to grow in his mind, as he watched the face of the tall man.
“I’ll tell you why,” said Skinny. “I know because I know that he’s already tried this settling-down idea!”
This announcement brought an incredulous roar from the others. What, Christopher married? They could not and would not believe it. But Bud persisted.
It was a full year and a half before, he said, that he and Christopher had been working on a “job” together, and that during their adventure they had encountered a pretty black-eyed girl who made a complete conquest of Blondy. Twelve hours after they met they were married, and he, Skinny, was the witness to the ceremony.
He told the story with so many details that there was no doubting him. He would not have had the imagination to furnish forth the story so completely.
As for Ronicky Doone, while the band of outlaws exclaimed, he was silent, stunned, and thoughtful. Yet it seemed to him that only a kindly Fate had revealed these tidings to him through the lips of Skinny. And a hope, which he had carefully stifled, burst into a blaze of joyous strength.
But what had been the purpose of Blondy Christopher, as it was revealed by the information which Skinny had just given them? Did Blondy really have a big and generous heart? Had the beauty of the girl simply worked upon him like water on a sandy soil and brought forth a surprising fruit? Had his months of labor at the Bennett place been only to help Elsie Bennett by helping her father?
It was a fine thing to think about, but another grim doubt arose in the heart of Ronicky, and he shook his head at the prospect He could not help doubting the existence of such altruistic virtues in the heart of the big man. What should he do next, therefore, in the light of all that he had heard? He must get to the girl at once and watch over her and keep her safe!
There would be only a brief stay on the Bennett ranch. But here he was abruptly recalled to the way and to the story of Skinny, which had been proceeding all the time, but to which his own thoughts had strongly deafened him.
“And when I got the letter from her,” Skinny was saying, “I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t feel like riding two hundred miles so’s a girl could cry on my shoulder and ask me to bring her husband back to her. If Kit was tired of her, that was Kit’s business. But after a while I couldn’t help remembering her happy face, when she stood up beside Kit and married him and swore she’d stay by him, and he swore he’d stay by her! I got to thinking about that so much that finally I couldn’t stand it no longer. And that’s why I lit out a couple of weeks ago. I went right down to see Ruth. And what d’you think she done when she seen me? She led me into the next room and showed me a baby asleep in a cradle. And there she picks it up and starts crying over it and telling me how bad she and the baby need Kit.
“It sure put a dent in me to hear the way she went on about it. I done what I could for her, and I promised that I’d sure enough get Kit back to her. So then I hotfooted it back here, but when I landed yesterday I heard all this yarn about Kit being laid up with a slug through the middle of things. Then I started to thinking. I’d sworn to Kit that I’d never tell a soul about him being married, but I figure that the best thing for all the three of them is to tell what I know, so that Kit’ll be shamed into going back and taking care of the two of them. The girl would sure do her best to make him happy, and if he’s any kind of a man he’d ought to be happy to have a Charlie junior hanging around his house. Am I right, boys?”
They replied with great vehemence that he was, and then a moment of damning silence held the group. Plainly they did not think many favorable things about the conduct of Kit in this affair, and if he had been there he might have learned various strongly worded opinions at first hand.
“It’s plumb bad,” said the man in the red shirt. “This is something that Kit’ll have to fight hard to live down. I never guessed anything as black as this about him!”
And that was the concensus of opinion, as they rattled into the open space beside the Bennett house. Their shout brought a slow opening of the door, and then a shrill cry of joy, as old Bennett cast the door wide and ran out to them.
“Ronicky Doone!” he cried. “You’ve come back after all! You’ve come back after all! And all these gentlemen ready to work for me? But not work first, lads! It’s gun play that I’m needing! They’re swarming yonder through the hills! I’ve gone up and seen ‘em. I spotted three with my own eyes, and they got a lot more lying here and there. They got every man of mine off the ranch, and now they’re ready for their drive.”
He was close to an hysteria of excited joy; he began to stammer thanks, orders, prayers, but Ronicky Doone was giving quiet and efficient directions, sending off his warriors in three directions, two pairs and a group of three. It would go hard with any skulkers who encountered any of that array!
Then Ronicky turned to face the old man alone.
The excitement of the game still kept Elsie Bennett employed. Only the adventure of it was brought home to her mind. In the morning what would people say when they knew that she had married Blondy Loring? And she herself — how strange it would be to know that she was bound for life to him!
She began what she felt was to prove a life of obedience to her husband by letting him lay all the plans; and he made those plans with a cunning which delighted and surprised her. The license had to be obtained, and that was no easy matter to arrange secretly. And after the license had been obtained, there was the necessity of getting the doctor out of the room long enough to permit her friend, the minister, to come in and perform the ceremony.
To accomplish these desirable ends the outlaw gave full directions, going into every detail, and at noon she issued from the hotel to get the license. It entailed a brief and exciting interview with a boy who had gone to the same village school with her, but who assumed a tremendously judicial air when he heard of her business. Finally he was persuaded to move the sanctity of his office to the hotel during the noon hour, and there in the bedroom the necessary questions were asked and answered, and the license was issued.
After that she went in search of the minister. She found the good man walking in his garden, which was in the rear of his house. For the Reverend Philip Walt on had brought back from England this purely English taste. The back of his house was turned to the street in Twin Springs, and the front of it faced on a little garden which he had laid out, planted, and cared for in all its growth with his own hands. It was not big enough, to be sure, for a man of any length of stride to pace up and down in with much comfort. But Philip Walton was a very little man, with a very little withered body and legs in proportion, and a stride which had never been very long or very elastic, was now shortened still more by an advancing age. Two things about him remained young: his quick glance and the crispness with which he spoke. But though his accent and enunciation were as brisk as ever, the voice was sadly inclined to crack, and the glance, no matter though it were as quick as ever in its birdlike suddenness of movement, was filmed over.
He was a tremendously cheerful little man. Nothing could dull and diminish his good humor. His family history was one of continued tragedy. A poverty-stricken and work-laden childhood had passed into an early manhood of heartbreaking study, and this was lightened by only the briefest of romances which terminated, a month after his wedding, in the death of his wife. But from that moment on a curse seemed to hang over his relations, until eventually he was left the last of his clan. Yet, when he heard the quick step of the girl, he turned to face her with a smile as gay as her own and an impulsive movement of his hand in greeting.
Under the shade of the arbor she sat down beside him. It was hardly large enough to accommodate them both, and there she told him her great news. He listened gravely, eagerly; and when she had concluded, he shook his head.
“When I was a boy,” he began, unheeding the sigh with which she greeted this introduction to a story, “I had an uncle who was fond of saying: ‘That which begins in the shadow is apt to end in the shadow: if you want your plants to live and flourish, put them in the sun!’ And that, Elsie, is what I have done in my garden. And that, child, is what I strongly advise that you do with your life. Keep in the sun. Never do things in the shadow.”
“You’ve heard so many evil things about him,” said Elsie, “that you’re prejudiced against poor Charlie. Confess that that’s it!”
But still he shook his head, smiling at her.
“I don’t listen to evil gossip,” he said. “Such stuff doesn’t stay in my mind. Because, you see, I have hardly sufficient space to crowd in all the pleasant things I know. But aside from all that — and I’m afraid it’s a rather foolish reason — I’m standing against you here simply because you wish to do this thing in such secrecy. That is all! You don’t want any one to know. I must come to you and marry you and promise not to tell a soul until you say that I may. You say that this will not be for long. But how do I know? Tomorrow you may change your mind. You may come begging that I still delay telling the world my great news. And you know that I never can resist you when you seriously want me, Elsie!”
She smiled kindly at him.
“But,” he said, “a marriage under the rose — I don’t know anything in the world that could be more distasteful to me. Will you believe me, my dear, and will you try to think on my side of the question a little bit?”
She promised that she would, and no sooner had she promised than she began to attack him again with such an array of arguments that poor Mr. Philip Walton held his withered little hands over his ears and shook his head and laughed at her.
“Of course I shall go there when you wish me to,” he said. “I am protesting merely to make an honorable surrender possible, and so that I may reserve the right to say I told you so,
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