The Essential Max Brand - 29 Westerns in One Edition. Max Brand
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“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