Ronicky Doone's Reward, Max Brand [android e book reader .txt] 📗

It was a woman’s voice; the first sound coming as though she was half choked by surprise, and the second shrill with terror. Ronicky ranged his horse behind the shrubs, just as she darted out, an indistinct figure in the night, He halted her with a shout, at the same time peering on all sides to make out the light of her home, but there was no such light in view. She seemed to have been standing there in the thicket by choice. Ronicky had heard, however, of female tramps, though even in his wide wanderings he had never seen one. But such she must unquestionably be.

“Look here,” he said, “there ain’t any call for running. I ain’t going to harm you. Who might you be?”

She paused at the side of a tree, more distinctly visible to him, now that he was able to fix her with his eyes. Moreover she was wearing a dress of some light color which helped to define her in the night.

“Who are you?” she asked in turn. “And what are you doing here, off the road?”

The first sound of her voice convinced Ronicky that he had been wrong in his surmise about the female tramp. Never in the world could there be a wanderer of the road with such a voice. He could guess at other things, too, having once heard her speak. She had courage, or her voice would not have been so even. She had surprising courage considering the youth which her voice suggested, and the lateness of the hour and the midnight dark.

“Me?” answered Ronicky, with as much daylight good humor as he could manage to throw into his voice, “Why, I’m just a stranger out riding for the sake of the ride.”

She remained silent, as one who did not believe what she had heard, but who considered that it would be bad policy to dispute with the unknown.

“I might be asking you,” said Ronicky, “what you’re doing out here at this time of night — away from the road?”

“Oh, I’ll tell you how to reach it,” she said, not answering this question. “You start over to your right and keep going till you reach a fence. Then ride down the fence, turning north until you come to a gate. That gate opens onto the road to Twin Springs. I suppose that’s the place you’re trying to find?”

“That’s the place I’ve just left,” said Ronicky, “and I don’t worry about the road. My hoss and me — we sort of get along where there ain’t no road to speak of.”

Again she was silent, but what little she had spoken left such a pleasant impression on Ronicky that he paused and hunted through his mind for the means of prolonging the talk.

“I’d an idea,” he murmured at length, “that maybe you was lost yourself, being out here alone in the night. You see?”

Still she did not speak, and he could see by the increasing dimness of her figure that she was slowly drawing back from him. All at once Ronicky Doone began to laugh.

“Lady,” he said, “it’s sure a queer thing what the sun does to us. If this was by daylight, you wouldn’t think nothing of meeting me here, but because it’s night, you figure that there’s danger. Is that it?”

“There’s no danger of course,” said the girl, her voice as steady as ever, in spite of her retreat. Then suddenly she was laughing, also. “Who are you?” she asked.

“My name,” he answered, “don’t matter particular. I’m just drifting through. Most like I’ll never be in this valley again. What might the valley be, lady?”

“If you’ll never see it again,” she answered, “I don’t suppose the name matters much.”

“Oh, if you’re going to put it that way,” said Ronicky, “I’ll tell you. My name is Ronicky Doone.”

“Ronicky Doone!” she gasped, and then again she repeated: “Ronicky Doone! You’re the man that Charlie Loring — “

She stopped short, but Ronicky continued for her in perfect good nature. “Is that big Blondy’s name? Yes, I’m the man that Charlie Loring knocked down and beat up, and then he got away clean, and I didn’t do a thing to him!”

“But, oh,” she broke in, “you’re the man whose horse he saved from the river, so you bear him no grudge, of course!”

“No grudge?” asked Ronicky. “Well, he saved the hoss right enough, but he also knocked me flat when I’d done nothing to him. For saving Lou I’d sure like to save a dozen hosses for him, but for knocking me down — but women can’t understand things like that.”

“Can’t we? But we do! And you’ve come up here trying to find him in the dark because you don’t care to face him in the daylight. Oh, how cowardly!”

If she had struck him suddenly in the face Ronicky Doone could not have been more surprised. He fumbled for an answer, found no polite rejoinder, and was still, a silence which she instantly interpreted as a confession. Certainly if she had been afraid before, all fear now vanished, as she came swiftly toward him and only halted when she was under the very nose of the mare. And she stood there, regardless of the fearless and inquisitive muzzle which Lou poked toward her. For the bay mare had the trust of those animals which have never endured pain from the hand of man. In her fury, however, the girl paid no heed to that reaching head.

“Before you can do what you hope to do,” she said fiercely, “you’ll have to be ten times the man that you are. Oh, I know what stories they brought out — about Ronicky Doone the gun fighter and the man-killer, but no man who hunts in the dark and sneaks around to strike from behind can ever beat Charlie Loring. No man!”

She stopped. He heard her panting with her rush of anger, as she waited for his retort, but he only said, light breaking in on him: “I guess this is Hanshaw Valley? And you’re Elsie Bennett?”

“What of that?” she asked.

“Only that I won’t be bothering you no more,” said Ronicky Doone dryly, and he turned Lou away into the darkness.

“Wait! Wait!” she cried after him, but Ronicky had had enough of facing such guns in battle. He sent Lou away at a brisk canter and shot away out of view over the next swell of ground, and the calling of the girl died out behind him.

No sooner was the rim of the hill between them, however, than he turned about and slipped back in the direction from which he had come until his head was just above the edge of the hill. There he paused: scanning the shrubbery beside the water carefully, he was able to make out the dim outlines of the upper part of the body of the girl, as she stood among the bushes with the flat surface of the pool behind her.

There was only one reason why she should be standing there, it seemed to Ronicky, and that was to meet Blondy. It had occurred to him as soon as he guessed her identity. This was a secret meeting place which she and the big fellow had agreed upon, and now that he was in trouble she was waiting out for him here, confident that he would come, if that were possible, and then she could tell him the good news, without which he might wander on for days and days, unknowing. She could tell him that death did not hang over his head after all, for big Oliver Hopkins had recovered. And then they would go happily back to the house together. And on the way she would tell him how she had met his enemy, Ronicky Doone, and how Ronicky had slipped away into the night.

If all of these surmises proved correct, then that blind ride into the darkness from Twin Springs had taken him directly to his enemy. The thought warmed his heart. There was only a matter of a few minutes to wait now, before he received verification of his suspicions. For in the distance he heard the sound of a jogging horse. And then, as that sound approached, he made out the shadowy form of a horseman who approached the stream and the wide pool from the farther side. This traveler presently halted his horse and sent a low-pitched, wavering whistle up the hill, which was immediately answered by another from the shrubs by the water.

The heart of Ronicky leaned, as he saw that his guess had been perfectly accurate. Now the rider urged his mount, so it seemed, straight into the water, though Ronicky shrewdly guessed that he was riding out on a firm sand bar, from which the easiest leap would carry him safe to the farther shore. Presently the rider was in the shrubs, off the horse, and beside the girl.

So hushed was the night air that Ronicky could hear the murmur of their voices distinctly. Then after a moment or two they began to walk toward the hill, with the vague form of the gray horse drifting along behind them. No matter how queenly Elsie Bennett might be — and from the