Ronicky Doone's Reward by Max Brand (best ereader for students .txt) 📖

No word had risen in his dull brain, but he contrived to bring forth an immense laugh which fairly shook the pillars supporting the veranda. More than all, that laughter broke the spell. It dissolved the bewilderment of the other cow-punchers and made them capable of action. It roused their brains until they could function smoothly once more.

“Hey!” cried a man directly behind Blondy. “Hey, big fellow!”

Blondy did not turn, did not answer. Instead he drew forth cigarette papers and tobacco, and again the heart of Ronicky Doone went out to him. He was taking the hardest way out. He was going to try to stay there on the veranda until he had smoked a second cigarette clear down to the butt.

“He don’t know his name!” called another cow-puncher cheerily. “Ring a bell for him. Maybe that’ll bring him.”

“Maybe he’s like a hoss — he sleeps standing!”

But these rough jests apparently had no effect upon Blondy. He took out a cigarette paper. He held it with thumb and forefinger ready to sift the tobacco into it. The tobacco fell in a small brown stream, some grains caught by the heavy, warm wind and sent winking away through the sunshine and into the shadow to the feet of Ronicky Doone. And he felt as though they bore a message and an appeal to him, as the one fair-minded human being present. But how long could it be before big Blondy was forced by the taunts to turn and face the crowd, or else lose his honor and self-respect by enduring the baiting? And, once he turned, they would probably make for him and swamp him in a real old-fashioned rough-house.

Yet his nerve was iron, this tall, yellow-haired youth! He stood as jauntily, as easily as ever. For only that one instant had his self-control been shaken, when he struck the other cigarette too strongly and knocked off both ash and fire. Now his hands were steady again.

Ronicky saw the cord of the tobacco sack caught between the teeth of Blondy and the top of the sack pulled shut. He saw the tobacco and the papers stowed away in the shirt-breast pocket. And now with a deft twist the cigarette was rolled. Ah, but just as Ronicky felt like cheering, came a second calamity. Those fingers were under a hard-forced control. They tore the paper in a deep rent. In vain Blondy strove to moisten the paper so that it would hold. For when he lighted the cigarette, it refused to draw, and presently from the torn place a few grains of tobacco fell.

It brought another roar of laughter from the big aggressive puncher.

“What sort of a puncher are you, bud?” he bellowed. “Ain’t you been raised to roll your own? Hey, gents, here’s one that was raised with a silver spoon in his mouth. He had a greaser hired to roll his smokes for him, he did! Ha, ha, ha!”

Again he roared with laughter, joined by the entire assemblage on the veranda, and Blondy turned suddenly on his heel. And when he turned his face was a revelation. It was as gray as dust. The mouth and the eyes were framed in deeply incised lines. That mouth was pressed straight, and the eyes were shadowed by beetling brows. All the energy of Blondy had been exhausted in fighting the silent battle, with his back turned to the crowd. And now his strength was gone. He was weak. The only way he could maintain his honor was by rushing instantly into action. If be waited any longer he was afraid that he would become a trembling coward.

And Ronicky Doone, who had seen men crushed and made worthless vagabonds through mental pressure alone, set his teeth at the sight of Blondy’s face. Even the cow-punchers along the veranda sensed that the matter had passed beyond the realm of horseplay and tomfoolery. There was a sudden change. Tragedy was in the air. Every laugh stopped short. Now, if Blondy had been calm, all trouble could have been averted. But he was not calm. He dared not wait any longer. He was afraid of what he himself would do, and that is the most horrible fear in the world. It makes men run from a shadow; and it makes men storm forts.

“And I’d like to know,” cried Blondy, “what in thunder all this talk and this laughing is about! Can anybody tell me?”

No one answered. But there was a settling forward in the chairs, as every man there came to the swift and melancholy realization that this affair must end in disaster. Open insults were being cast in the face of the town of Twin Springs. Such things could not be tolerated.

“You, there,” went on Blondy, pointing out the big man. “Seems to me that I’ve heard you make some kind of remark while my back was turned. Well, it ain’t turned any more. I’m looking right at you, friend, and I’m waiting to hear when you talk up. Am I going to have to listen long?”

The big man did not stir. At last he sighed. Was he going to back out of the quarrel? Ronicky Doone and the others looked with sick anxiety at him, for it is easier to watch a man die than to watch him accepting a shame. But the big man was not going to be shamed. It was needless for his neighbor on the right to whisper: “Great guns, Oliver Hopkins, say something!”

For instantly he spoke: “I sure dunno why you’re talking to me, you nester. What you mean by talking up loud while they’s growed men around?”

“Growed men around?” cried Blondy, trembling with anger, as the fear was convened into fighting rage, to which he gave the rein until it galloped. “Growed men around? Why, I ain’t seen that kind of men around these parts. They tell me that they don’t have that kind of men around this town of Twin Springs!”

It had come. There was no turning from that remark. It had to be answered with the pulling of a gun. Ronicky Doone marked the companions of the big man drawing away to the right or the left, to keep clear of the bullets when they flew. And he decided that he would do his best to stop the murder, or murders, before they took place. He rose and stepped between the two combatants, turning his back to the big man and his face to Blondy.

“Blondy,” he said, “I guess this here has gone about far enough. There ain’t any need in you two boys making a killing party out of what ought to be only a joke!”

He was a slender, boyish figure standing between those two mighty men of war, as Oliver Hopkins rose from his chair to confront Blondy. But though the spirit of the whole group had been expressed by Ronicky Doone, it was by no means possible to stop Blondy’s course of anger through mere words. He was wild with rage.

“And who in hell are you?” he roared at Ronicky.

“A gent that means well by you, Blondy,” said Ronicky gently.

“You talk too smooth to mean well by anybody. You sat back there and laughed at me a minute ago.”

“I didn’t laugh at anyone,” said Ronicky; and though he set his jaw, he continued to smile.

“You lie,” said Blondy.

Would Ronicky Doone draw a gun? No, no, he was no hair-trigger man-killer to shoot at the first opportunity. He merely raised a protesting hand.

“You can do the talking now, Blondy,” he said. “You and me can find plenty of time to argufy about these things later on. Right now we had ought to talk hoss sense, and hoss sense means for you to sit down and me to — “

But the big man felt that he was being stifled with words. He brushed all kindness away.

“I don’t know you,” he roared. “Who are you?”

“Ronicky Doone,” said Ronicky.

At that announcement two or three of the watchers pricked up their heads and gasped. But the name had no influence with Blondy. He merely shook his big head and scowled more heavily than before.

“Get out of my way,” cried Blondy. “These boys want something out of me, and they’re going to get it. They’ve been raising trouble too long, right here in Twin Springs. It’s about time that somebody stepped up and asked ‘em what was what. And I’m the gent to do it. Stand out of the way, Doone, or I’ll knock you out of the way!”

“Blondy!” pleaded Ronicky.

“Curse you, then. Take it!” shouted the madman and smashed out with his great right fist, a blow made quick as the stroke of a snake’s head by the loosing of his power of anger. In vain Ronicky Doone cast up a guard. The blow smashed through his blocking forearm, brushed that guard aside, and thudded heavily on his forehead. He was bent almost double backward and fell with a shock that made the floor of the veranda shake. And, as he fell, the blow to the back of his head so paralyzed him that he lay stretched out, incapable of movement, but still his mind and his eye were clear.

The striking of the blow had been enough to clear the brain of Blondy. He gasped in amazement at the prostrate form of Ronicky, as though he were waking from a dream. Then he whirled on his heel, strode to his horse, jerked the reins loose, and flung himself into the saddle.

A deep shout of protest and excitement rose from the men on the veranda at this point, half of them clamoring that he should not be permitted to get away, and the other half saying that there would be another day to make up for this, and that there was no need in staining the repute of Twin Springs on account of a fist fight and some foolish words.

They even tried to drag Oliver Hopkins back, as he started forward. But here they could not prevail. Slow to have an idea seep into his mind, he was, nevertheless, sure as death, once he was started. Now he cast away men from either arm and leaped to the ground beyond the veranda, a magnificent figure of a man, straight, sinewy, active in spite of his great bulk.

“Look here,” he cried, “nobody can fight my fights for me. I don’t need to have anybody do it. Blondy, you got to get off that hoss and talk business to me for what you’ve done!”

“I’ll see you in China first,” cried Blondy.

“You’ve said enough. Blondy, get off that hoss, or I’ll — “

He gripped his revolver as he spoke, but before the barrel had been jerked clear there was a wink and flash of steel in the hand of Blondy, as the latter made a lightning draw. The gun exploded, and Hopkins cast up both arms, hurling the revolver far from him. As it fell in a shining arc, Hopkins whirled and toppled forward upon his side. Ronicky, drawing himself up upon one hand, looked down from the edge of the porch and saw the big benumbed face and heard the fallen giant gasping: “It hadn’t ought to have happened — it ain’t right! It was all because of an accident that — “

And then he fainted.