The Essential Max Brand - 29 Westerns in One Edition. Max Brand
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of emotion in that laughter. The perfect torture, which had been wringing the soul of the man of the sneer, projected through the laughter.
“I ask your pardon, my dear,” said John Mark to Ruth. “I should have guessed. You found him; he confessed why he was here; you took pity on him —and—” He brushed a hand across his forehead and was instantly himself, calm and cool.
“Very well, then. It seems I’ve made an ass of myself, but I’ll try to make up for it. Now what about Caroline? There seems to be a whole host of you Westerners annoying her.”
“Only one: I’m acting as his agent.”
“And what do you expect?”
“I expect that you will send for her and tell her that she is free to go down with me—leave this house—and take a ride or a walk with me.”
“As much as that? If you have to talk to her, why not do the talking here?”
“I dunno,” replied Ronicky Doone. “I figure she’d think too much about you all the time.”
“The basilisk, eh?” asked John Mark. “Well, you are going to persuade her to go to Bill Gregg?”
“You know the name, eh?”
“Yes, I have a curious stock of useless information.”
“Well, you’re right; I’m going to try to get her back for Bill.”
“But you can’t expect me to assent to that?”
“I sure do.”
“And why? This Caroline Smith may be a person of great value to me.”
“I have no doubt she is, but I got a good argument.”
“What is it?”
“The gun, partner.”
“And, if you couldn’t get the girl—but see how absurd the whole thing is, Ronicky Doone! I send for the girl; I request her to go down with you to the street and take a walk, because you wish to talk to her. Heavens, man, I can’t persuade her to go with a stranger at night! Surely you see that!”
“I’ll do that persuading,” said Ronicky Doone calmly.
“And, when you’re on the streets with the girl, do you suppose I’ll rest idle and let you walk away with her?”
“Once we’re outside of the house, Mark,” said Ronicky Doone, “I don’t ask no favors. Let your men come on. All I got to say is that I come from a county where every man wears a gun and has to learn how to use it. I ain’t terrible backward with the trigger finger, John Mark. Not that I figure on bragging, but I want you to pick good men for my trail and tell ‘em to step soft. Is that square?”
“Aside from certain idiosyncrasies, such as your manner of paying a call by way of a cellar window, I think you are the soul of honor, Ronicky Doone. Now may I sit down?”
“Suppose we shake hands to bind the bargain,” said Ronicky. “You send for Caroline Smith; I’m to do the persuading to get her out of the house. We’re safe to the doors of the house; the minute we step into the street, you’re free to do anything you want to get either of us. Will you shake on that?”
For a moment the leader hesitated, then his fingers closed over the extended hand of Ronicky Doone and clamped down on them like so many steel wires contracting. At the same time a flush of excitement and fierceness passed over the face of John Mark. Ronicky Doone, taken utterly by surprise, was at a great disadvantage. Then he put the whole power of his own hand into the grip, and it was like iron meeting iron. A great rage came in the eyes of John Mark; a great wonder came in the eyes of the Westerner. Where did John Mark get his sudden strength?
“Well,” said Ronicky, “we’ve shaken hands, and now you can do what you please! Sit down, leave the room—anything.” He shoved his gun away in his clothes. That brought a start from John Mark and a flash of eagerness, but he repressed the idea, after a single glance at the girl.
“We’ve shaken hands,” he admitted slowly, as though just realizing the full extent of the meaning of that act. “Very well, Ronicky, I’ll send for Caroline Smith, and more power to your tongue, but you’ll never get her away from this house without force.”
13. DOONE WINS
A servant answered the bell almost at once. “Tell Miss Smith that she’s wanted in Miss Tolliver’s room,” said Mark, and, when the servant disappeared, he began pacing up and down the room. Now and then he cast a sharp glance to the side and scrutinized the face of Ronicky Doone. With Ruth’s permission, the latter had lighted a cigarette and was smoking it in bland enjoyment. Again the leader paused directly before the girl, and, with his feet spread and his head bowed in an absurd Napoleonic posture, he considered every feature of her face. The uncertain smile, which came trembling on her face, elicited no response from Mark.
She dreaded him, Ronicky saw, as a slave dreads a cruel master. Still she had a certain affection for him, partly as the result of many benefactions, no doubt, and partly from long acquaintance; and, above all, she respected his powers of mind intensely. The play of emotion in her face—fear, anger, suspicion—as John Mark paced up and down before her, was a study.
With a secret satisfaction Ronicky Doone saw that her glances continually sought him, timidly, curiously. All vanity aside, he had dropped a bomb under the feet of John Mark, and some day the bomb might explode.
There was a tap at the door, it opened and Caroline Smith entered in a dressing gown. She smiled brightly at Ruth and wanly at John Mark, then started at the sight of the stranger.
“This,” said John Mark, “is Ronicky Doone.”
The Westerner rose and bowed.
“He has come,” said John Mark, “to try to persuade you to go out for a stroll with him, so that he can talk to you about that curious fellow, Bill Gregg. He is going to try to soften your heart, I believe, by telling you all the inconveniences which Bill Gregg has endured to find you here. But he will do his talking for himself. Just why he has to take you out of the house, at night, before he can talk to you is, I admit, a mystery to me. But let him do the persuading.”
Ronicky Doone turned to his host, a cold gleam in his eyes. His case had been presented in such a way as to make his task of persuasion almost impossible. Then he turned back and looked at the girl. Her face was a little pale, he thought, but perfectly composed.
“I don’t know Bill Gregg,” she said simply. “Of course, I’m glad to talk to you, Mr. Doone, but why not here?”
John Mark covered a smile of satisfaction, and the girl looked at him, apparently to see if she had spoken correctly. It was obvious that the leader was pleased, and she glanced back at Ronicky, with a flush of pleasure.
“I’ll tell you why I can’t talk to you in here,” said Ronicky gently. “Because, while you’re under the same roof with this gent with the sneer” —he turned and indicated Mark, sneering himself as he did so —“you’re not yourself. You don’t have a halfway chance to think for yourself. You feel him around you and behind you and beside you every minute, and you keep wondering not what you really feel about anything, but what John Mark wants you to feel. Ain’t that the straight of it?”
She glanced apprehensively at John Mark, and, seeing that he did not move to resent this assertion, she looked again with wide-eyed wonder at Ronicky Doone.
“You see,” said the man of the sneer to Caroline Smith, “that our friend from the West has a child-like faith in my powers of—what shall I say —hypnotism!”
A faint smile of agreement flickered on her lips and went out. Then she regarded Ronicky, with an utter lack of emotion.