Читать книгу The Essential Max Brand - 29 Westerns in One Edition - Max Brand - Страница 180

Table of Contents

But the leader seemed quite unperturbed by her words. He turned cheerfully to the circle of men, and they interrupted their own talk to stare at the newcomer.

“Gents,” said Moon, “this is Ronicky Doone. I’ve brought him around to our way of thinking. I want you to take to him, and I’m pretty sure that he’ll take to us. I guess they ain’t anybody here that’d vote agin’ letting Ronicky have a share of the plunder if we find Cosslett’s gold. If they is, speak up!”

Ronicky could see the point of this speech. Without making a definite statement, the bandit allowed it to be clearly inferred that the offer of a share in the gold had been the purchase price of the new member of the band. Now the wave of silence traveled around the circle, and keen eyes looked at him from under grimly gathered brows.

Silas Treat spoke first. “This kid looks tolerable young to me. I got a right to talk. Any gent that’s brought in may be sent out with me to do a little job later on. I want to know what he’ll turn when it comes to taking a trick. How does he ride? How does he shoot? What does he know? What’s he done?”

I’ll answer that,” said the leader. “First place, I’ll answer for him as a fighting man. They ain’t such a thing as luck in a gun play. Or if there is, lucky gents are what we want. I’ve heard about Doone for two years. Take too long to tell you all. But the first of you that gets tangled with him, will find out a bunch of things pronto. About the rest—well, call your hoss, Ronicky!”

Wondering what point there could be in this, Ronicky whistled sharply, and from behind came the swift beating of hoofs. The bay mare shot into the circle of the firelight and stood, a gleaming, beautiful figure, beside her master. There she fidgeted, turning this way and that and eying the bandits with uneasy glances, as though she were not at all pleased to find her owner in such company.

“Look her over, boys,” said Moon. “Is they a hoss in the outfit that can touch her? Is a hoss like that ever going to be run down on the trail? And can’t you judge a gent pretty much by the hoss he rides?”

These words were to a large degree drowned by the murmur which had risen simultaneously from many throats, drawn forth by the exquisite lines of Lou. All doubt at once vanished.

“Glad to see you, pal,” said Silas Treat, advancing across the circle until he loomed huge above Ronicky, and he stretched forth his hand. It was not taken, and Treat drew himself back a pace.

“Gents,” said Ronicky, “I sure appreciate being taken in. But you don’t know me yet. Wait till you’ve found out what I am. If you feel the same way then—why, we’ll shake hands. But you can’t tell in the beginning of some things how they’re going to end. Just leave this up in the air. Later on —well, we’ll know each other a pile better!”

The speech was well received, particularly by Silas Treat.

“That sounds like more sense than I figure on hearing out of a gent ten years older than you, son,” he declared. “All right. We’ll try you out, but I aim to say that I think you’ll live up to standard fine! How about it, boys?”

There was a growl of assent. The bright eyes still probed suspiciously at Ronicky, but there was a willingness now to find some measure of good in him. But Ronicky was delighted because he had avoided giving his hand to the whole circle. That would have tied him down. Now he was frankly on trial with the band and the band was on trial with him. He glanced at Moon and saw that the leader was biting his lips in vexation. He, at least, was clever enough to understand the meaning of Ronicky’s maneuver.

In the meantime, Ronicky sat down, withdrawing a little from the intimate, inner circle about the fire. He looked squarely across at the girl. She was talking quite gayly with her father. Now and then some one of the men addressed a remark to her, and she answered. But always, in flitting here and there, her glance became a blank when it passed over the spot where Ronicky was sitting.

This hurt him; and the injustice was inclined to make him sulk. Yet he could not help admiring her, even impersonally. Here, playing her part among men who might, within two or three days, be the murderers of her father, striving with all her force to gain such a hold upon them that in the crisis she might be able to turn them from their purpose, she was at her very best. Firelight had turned the sand-colored hair to a rich gold; excitement brought color to her cheeks and set her eyes gleaming.

“Look here,” said a voice from the far side of the circle. “Ain’t you going to change seats after a while, Treat? D’you sit beside the lady all evening?”

“I ain’t heard her shouting out loud for you to come and rescue her,” said Treat.

“You see,” explained the girl, “I plan to take Si back with me.”

“And why not me, too?” came a chorus.

“Because you’re all known men,” she answered. “But Si carries his mask about with him.”

Silas Treat stroked the dense mustaches and beard which had inspired the remark and grinned down at the girl. As the laughter died, Baldy McNair slipped into a place beside Ronicky.

“You were lying up in the barn the other night,” he said. “You heard me and Marty talking, I understand?”

“That’s it.”

“And that was what started you going?”

“Yep.”

Baldy McNair sighed.

“Well,” he murmured at length, “you started on the trail of doing a pretty good thing. I’m sort of sorry, partner, to see you wind up in this joint. But—that ain’t my business.”

Ronicky looked steadily into the open eyes of the ruddy-faced man.

“I’ll get to know you better,” he said. “I’d like to, a pile.”

In the meantime, the outlaw chief had taken a place just behind Jerry Dawn, and gradually he drew her attention away from the circle and into earnest conversation with himself. Ronicky noted the changes from positive distaste, which she could barely conquer at first, to interest and then even to excitement. What they said was pitched well beneath the sustained chatter of the men, but by the expression of the girl Ronicky knew that she was by no means unhappy in the company of Moon.

He shook his head in wonder. It seemed utterly impossible that she could stay near him for an instant—near this man whose known crimes were too numerous for memory, and whose unknown deeds made probably an even blacker record. But he knew that women have strange powers of forgetfulness. The past of Jack Moon no doubt was beginning to grow dim in her mind. The present was all she was capable of knowing. Even the future danger impending over her father was probably forgotten for the moment. All she saw, all she heard, were the handsome face, the smooth voice of Jack Moon, leader of men.

Indeed, between a king and the ruler of a pirate crew there is a similarity. To be a single robber is a despicable thing; to be a mighty leader of robbers is to be—a Tamerlane, perhaps. And if Jack Moon were not in the latter class, he was certainly not in the first. An air of superiority clothed him. Among such fellows as these, he seemed a giant. When the thought of his crimes obtruded, might she not be tempted to a greater pity than condemnation? Hitherto he had struck no one of hers. Her father was still safe. And as to what he had done in the rest of the world, were not all women full of forgiveness for handsome, smooth-tongued rascals?

Sick at heart, finally he turned away and stepped out into the darkness of the trees. This, then, was the reward of service!

Ronicky could gladly have walked on through the forest and the night, and left it all behind him. What had happened to Jerry Dawn? What had become of her trust in him, her enthusiastic admiration? Now she seemed to regard the outlaw chief, terrible Jack Moon, as a friend!

If that were her attitude, was it not better to shake the whole matter from his attention and let Hugh Dawn and his daughter solve their own problem? One thing held him, and that a potent chain—his word passed to Dawn to see him through the trouble.

Accordingly he came back and entered the clearing. Things were rapidly settling down for the night, since most of the men were worn out by the labors of the day. Half a dozen were already preparing their bunks in the shacks. Moon stood in front of the little hut which had been reserved for Jerry Dawn, and he was talking with the girl before she went in to sleep. Her father sat entirely alone—but watched by how many wolfish eyes!—near the fire.

Ronicky went straight to him and sat down at his side.

“Hugh,” he said, “what’s come over Jerry? Has she lost her head? Has she gone mad, talking to Moon like that? Look at ‘em over there! You’d think he wasn’t himself. You’d think he wasn’t planning to get your scalp if he can! You’d think he was an old family friend or a suitor, or something like that!”

Hugh Dawn did not turn his head. But he smiled sorrowfully at the younger man.

“It’s Moon getting in his work,” he said. “You can’t beat Jack Moon! No way of doing it!”

“That’s foolish talk! Anybody can be beaten!”

“Can they? Well, maybe. I don’t pretend to know everything.”

“Moon has the strength of twelve men behind him. Thirteen to two is the odds against us. Little more than six to one is hard odds, but it’s been beat before.”

“He’s got more than that on his side, son. He’s got our weaknesses.”

Ronicky Doone, after all, was very young, very impetuous, and not extremely thoughtful. “I don’t follow that,” he admitted.

“I’ll show you,” said Hugh. “What’s your weakness and Jerry’s weakness, far as Jack’s concerned? Your honor. Your word’s good, and so’s hers. He’s made you promise something—I don’t know what. Anyway, he’s brought you in here, and he’s keeping you. And he’s got Jerry to promise not to try to run away.”

“But what could he do if she did run away? What could I do? How can we bring help? The minute outsiders come, Moon would put a bullet through your head. She knows it; I know it.”

“Sure. Maybe that’s what Moon’s worked on. Anyway, he’s done it. He’s tying your hands with your weaknesses.”

“But Moon’s own word is good as gold. You told me so yourself.”

“Sure it is. Because his price has never been bid.”

“But doesn’t Jerry realize what you understand—that though I seem to be down here as one of Moon’s men—”

He stopped, realizing that his promise to Moon kept him from explaining.

“She ain’t the reasoning kind,” said the older man. “She jumps to a conclusion the way a hoss jumps a fence into a new pasture. All she knows is that you’re here, and that you seem to be one of Moon’s men.”

“But she talks to Moon like a friend, yet she sure knows that he’s a murderer a hundred times over!”

“She’s never seen him do a murder. And the things that count with women are the things they’ve seen. They’re a practical lot, and you can lay to that. She thought Moon was a skunk at first. That was because she liked you. Now she thinks you’re one of Moon’s men, and so you’re worse than Moon. How Jack got you, I don’t ask. You’re here and that’s the main point.”

“But, man, will you put in a word with her for me?”

“It’s no good. Moon’s got her all trained against you.” It was strange to see the big fellow surrender so entirely to the very presence of the outlaw chief. All hope seemed to have left.

“It’ll come out right in the end,” insisted Ronicky. “You have his word that if the gold’s found, you go free.”

“His word? He’ll find a way to keep me. Think he’ll give me up, knowing that when I leave Jerry goes with me and he sees the last of her?”

Ronicky gasped.

“You think he wants to—to marry her?”

“I dunno. I’ve never known him to waste time on a girl before. Jerry’s the first.”

Sweat stood out on the forehead of Ronicky. At last he muttered: “Anyway, you’re safe as long’s she’s with you here!”

“Safe?” Hugh Dawn laughed without mirth. “You wait and see. A gun’ll go off by accident, in the end—or a rock’ll roll down a hill as I’m walking beneath it. That’s the way it’ll happen.”

“Then,” cried Ronicky, “let’s you and me pull out guns and grab the girl and make a break for it! Are you going to stay and get murdered?”

“No use,” and Hugh Dawn sighed. “I’m watched. I couldn’t run a step without getting dropped. Same way with you. You can’t beat Jack Moon!”