The Max Brand Megapack (231 page)

Ronicky did not pause to dissect possibilities. That was not his habit. He was instantly out of the door and going across the clearing at a stealthy pace.

Was it Moon himself who wandered about the camp and spied on Hugh Dawn, fearful lest the man steal away with his share of the gold during the night?

Another moment and Ronicky was crouched just under the wall of the cabin. Slowly, inch by inch—how painful was the movement!—he raised his head and looked into the interior of the shack from the window at the side of the building.

He was right. The stalker had aimed at entering the shack of Dawn, for the back door of the little house was still ajar, and standing framed in it was the figure of the intruder. Hugh Dawn himself lay near the wall, his right arm thrown loosely about the sack which contained his share of Cosslett’s plunder.

Ronicky Doone drew his revolver and waited.

The progress of the thief, if that were indeed his purpose, was infinitely slow. His forward glide was hardly faster than the steady drifting of the second hand around the dial of a watch. Presently, he leaned above the sleeper and laid hold on the canvas bag. With a cautious slowness he began to lift the burden.

The straining eyes of Ronicky now enabled him to see more details. When the bag began to be moved, for instance, he saw the hand of Dawn stir, and as it stirred a bright bit of steel was raised and poised in the hand of the thief. Now the bag, however, was safely drawn above the encircling arm of Dawn.

It was the gold itself which betrayed the thief. For as he came on his feet with that burden, the rotten old boards which floored the shack gave under him, and there was a faint squeak as board rubbed against board.

Instantly the sleeper wakened with a gasp that promised to be his last, for the knife flashed up in the hand of the thief. No mistaking that motion. He meant to strike, and he meant to strike home. Ronicky Doone fired.

When he leaped around the corner of the house and sprang through the door, he saw Hugh Dawn standing with a revolver in each hand, while a still form lay on the floor before him. Those two guns jumped up and were leveled against Ronicky.

“Don’t shoot!” cried Ronicky. “Light your lantern. Quick, Hugh! Is it Moon?”

And all his heart rose up in hope that it might indeed be the master criminal.

“You, Ronicky?” breathed Dawn. “I might of knowed you’d be the one to keep watch over me tonight when I trusted to Moon’s word, like a fool, and figured myself safe. Here’s a light. I seen the knife drop in his hand when you shot. Fifth part of another second, and I’d be where he is now!”

His trembling hands ignited a lantern, and as the smoking flame rose Ronicky turned the dead man upon his back. They both looked down into the sullen, relaxed features of Bud Kent. The bullet had struck him in the back of the head and came out again squarely between the eyes, a grisly wound. In falling, the canvas bag had struck the floor beside the victim, and part of the gleaming contents had tumbled beside him. If ever gold had killed a man, here was a sample! Ronicky turned to Hugh Dawn, the latter trembling from the narrowness of his escape.

“Now,” he said, “we’re in for thunder and battle, Dawn. Guard the house, I’m going to try to get Jerry in here, or otherwise the swine Moon will—”

He stopped, for the sound of clamoring voices broke in upon him. Then there was a rush of running feet and shouting across the clearing and the well-known bass thunder of Jack Moon’s voice calling: “Steady, boys, and get back here. I’ll do the exploring!”

Ronicky jumped to the front door.

Every man of the band was out in the clearing, and guns gleamed in every hand. Jack Moon was striding toward the shack at a long-gaited run. It was too late to reach Jerry Dawn unless she would come at his call.

“Jerry!” he shouted. “Jerry Dawn!”

And he halted Moon with a clear-ringing warning: “Get back, Moon, or I’ll drill you through!”

The bandit stopped as the frightened face of Jerry appeared at the door of her shack.

“Jerry!” called Ronicky Doone. “Come here, quick! Don’t stop for nothing!”

“Si!” shouted Moon in counter warning. “Get the girl and keep her from that throat-cutter. Jerry, if you trust Ronicky, you trust a man that’s just done murder!”

That word was decisive. She shrank back from the door with a cry of terror, and at the same time Silas Treat, who had apparently been running up from the other side of the shack, out of sight of Ronicky, swerved into view for a moment and then sprang into the shack with the girl. Taken by surprise though he was, Ronicky managed to get in a shot, but his aim was so hurried that, even at that short distance, he missed. He was only able to knock the hat from the head of the big man, and the wide sombrero fluttered clumsily toward the ground.

In the meantime, the rest of the band in the clearing had dived for cover, and as they did so they sent a volley which crashed into the solid log walls of the hut about the doorway where Ronicky stood. He himself took to cover, calling to Hugh Dawn to turn down the flame of the lantern so as to give the enemy a dimmer target.

An instant of silence settled over the battlefield. In that breathing space Ronicky turned to his older companion and found Dawn cool and steady as a rock. The time had come for action now, and the big fellow was ready. He had now taken his post in the corner of the shack, covering, in that fashion, both the rear door and the single window to the east, facing the hut which now contained his daughter and Silas Treat.

“Get out of line!” warned Ronicky hastily. “Get out of line, Hugh! They’ll be trying pot shots at the window and at the door pretty pronto.”

The other nodded and stepped back. And then they heard the wailing voice of Jerry Dawn crying: “Dad! Oh, dad! Are you there? Are you safe?”

He roared the answer: “Safe and sound, girl, thanks to Ronicky Doone! Murder they can call it if they will, but it was Bud Kent or me. Ronicky dropped Bud in time to save my neck. Watch yourself, Jerry, and come to us when you can! You—”

A shouting rose in the clearing, and then a crackle of guns, which Ronicky shrewdly guessed was more to drown the sound of Hugh’s voice than in the hope of dropping one of the two.

Then came a frightened cry: “Dad! Help!”

But it was Ronicky Doone who responded to that call.

“They’re taking her away from the shack!” he cried to Dawn. “The dogs!”

He started for the door with a fierce murmur, like that of a bull terrier before it springs at the throat of an enemy. Hugh Dawn hurled himself after his companion and gathered the smaller man into the huge embrace of his arms, where Ronicky strove vainly to worm his way toward liberty, writhing and twisting and panting.

“Let me go, Hugh!” he shouted. “Let me get at em!”

“You fool!” gasped Dawn. “Don’t you know that the minute you show your head it’ll be loaded with bullets? And when you go, I go, too! One man can’t hold two doors and a window. Ronicky, for both our sakes we got to play safe!”

Ronicky Doone, weak with rage and disappointment, submitted and stood leaning against the wall.

“They’ve got her,” he groaned. “And now they’ll ride off with her, Hugh. They’ve got her and most of the money that Cosslett buried. And now—Heaven knows what’ll happen! When I had that chance to fight Moon man to man, why didn’t I take it?” He added sadly: “Now I’ve lost everything!”

“She’ll come to no harm in their hands,” insisted the girl’s father.

“No harm?” said Ronicky. “They won’t lay a hand on her. I know that. But the main danger is that Moon has a chance to talk to her, the snake! And no one knows what he’ll be able to persuade her to!”

“After he’s sent a man to murder me? After he’s taken her and is keeping her away from me by force? After he’s set a siege to the cabin where I am? D’you think he can persuade away all those things?”

“He could persuade the angels that he was one of ’em, if he had a chance,” said Ronicky gloomily. “Hush! There’s the devil himself calling to us.”

“Doone! Ronicky Doone!” called the voice of Jack Moon.

“I hear you,” answered Ronicky. “Talk out, Moon.”

“Do I get a truce?” said Moon. “If I come out to talk to you, Ronicky, will you and Hugh promise to gimme a chance to get back safe? I want to tell you—”

“Come out,” said Ronicky. “You know I won’t plug you. I wish I was the kind that would take an advantage. But I ain’t your brand of man, Jack Moon!”

Without waiting for a further assurance, Jack Moon appeared across the clearing at the door of the shack facing that of Ronicky and Hugh. He advanced until he was three paces from Ronicky, who remained in the shadow at the door.

“Stop there!” commanded Ronicky. “That’s close enough for talk.”

“If you don’t trust me,” said Moon, “right enough! But here I am one man against two, and yet you’re afraid.”

Ronicky answered indirectly.

“Watch the back of the house, Hugh,” he directed, “and watch sharp. If a head or a hand shows, take a potshot. They might try to rush from behind while Moon chats here in front. Now go on and talk, Moon. I suppose you want the body of Kent?”

“Was it Bud Kent you murdered, Ronicky?”

“Murdered? And you mean to say you didn’t send him? You didn’t send him to knife Hugh and get Hugh’s share of the stuff?”

“They ain’t no use trying to persuade you different,” said the leader gravely, “if you look at it that way. But use sense, Ronicky, and you’ll see that it didn’t mean anything to me to wipe Hugh out of the way! You know what means more to me than anything else, and that’s the good opinion of Jerry. Would I get that if I had her father killed?”

“You’d of talked her into thinking that you didn’t send Kent.”

“And I didn’t!”

“You lie, Moon. I saw you talking to him.”

“He was asking me for money. He lost all his share, and he wanted another stake to gamble with. I wouldn’t give him anything, and the dog came here to steal. Ronicky—and you, Dawn—I want you to listen to sense. The boys are red-hot for action. They want the scalps of both of you, and if they’s any more resistance, they’ll get your scalps! But you know the way I stand. I’ve got to get you off if I can, for the sake of the girl and what she’ll think. Boys, if you’ll come out with me and give yourselves up and trust me, I can get you scot-free, I think. Otherwise, you’re no better’n dead.”

“I trusted you once before,” said Hugh Dawn, “and near got my gullet opened for it. No more of that, Moon. I ain’t a plumb fool!”

“No use trying to argue you out of that,” said Moon, “if you’ve got your mind all set that way. But you’ll see how it comes out. The boys’ll roast you out of the shack. But that’s up to you. Meantime, give me Kent’s body, and I’ll take it back—and Heaven help you for what’s coming!”

Hugh Dawn raised the dead man and gave the burden to the waiting arms of the leader, who now turned his back and trudged slowly away, bearing his grisly load.

Then Dawn turned with a gray face to Ronicky. “I’d forgot the danger of fire,” he said. “D’you think he’ll use it?”

“He’ll use anything, if he can get at us. But we got to wait and see. How much water have we here?”

Hugh Dawn raised his canteen and shook it. There was a sound of water slushing inside the tin.

“One quart,” he said.

That was their total supply.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Moon’s Sincerity

Covered by the forest, three men watched the hut which was the fortress of Dawn and Ronicky. Eight remained to receive the leader and his burden, Bud Kent’s body. Behind the shelter of the shacks which cut them away from the sight and the guns of Ronicky and Dawn, the outlaws stood in a loosely formed circle and stared silently down into the face of Kent. There was no expression of sorrow from those fierce fellows. They had seen too many companions drop before. But there was a universal turning of eyes to the direction of hidden Ronicky and his companion.

Jerry Dawn, her face hidden in her hands, leaned almost fainting against a tree near by, with Silas Treat, her guard, close to her.

“Si,” ordered the commander, “take Miss Dawn away. Give her a walk through the trees.”

She submitted to Treat’s touch, and they disappeared among the forest’s shadows.

“Now, boys,” said Jack Moon, “you see the luck that’s followed us?”

A dead and ominous silence greeted his speech.

“Are you set on giving the house a rush?” he asked.

“Why not fire?” suggested the crafty Baldy McNair.

“Why not a torch and a signal fire to call everybody in the mountains this way?” the leader countered, with a sneer.

It was something the others had not thought of. But now Baldy returned on a different tack.

“We can get close to them in the shack that stands alongside of theirs. There won’t have to be no forest fire. We can throw burning sticks onto the roof of their house and rout them out that way, and then the rest of us can stand by and plug them when they try to run. Ain’t that simple enough?”

“Mighty simple!” again Jack Moon sneered. “Too simple. The logs of that shack are soaked as wet as they can be from the rains of the last week. And there’s been too much shade over the house for the rain to get all dried out again. Most you could do would be to start a slow fire smoldering, and we can’t wait for a slow fire to eat into that cabin.”

The argument seemed unanswerable.

“But,” persisted McNair, “we got to do something. Otherwise, we’ll be a laughing stock. What’s mostly kept us safe all of this time? The fact that nobody knew our faces or what we were like. It was just known that Jack Moon and his band were worse than the devil, and that we couldn’t be follered and found. But if gents get to know that we’ve let two men sift through our fingers, and if those two gents go out and give a description of what we look like and all that, how long d’you think we’ll last? Boys, we’ll be signing our own death warrant if we let them two go free! They got to die. And they got to die, even if it costs the chief the good liking of that girl yonder!”

“Boys,” said Moon, “let’s do the wise thing. I ain’t going to stay here and waste words talking and arguing with Baldy McNair about his crazy idea that I want the girl. I’m willing to admit that we’d ought to make a final try at the cabin, and we’ll attempt to plug the gents that’s in it.