Max Brand (24 page)

The heart of Mary Brown beat faster, though she could not see, but
only felt the coming of the stranger.

The only sign she saw was in the horses, which showed an increasing
uneasiness. Her own mare now shared the restlessness of the tall bay,
and the two were footing it nervously here and there, tugging at the
tethers, and tossing up their heads, with many a start, as if they
feared and sought to flee from some approaching catastrophe—some vast
and preternatural change—some forest fire which came galloping faster
than even their fleet limbs could carry them.

Yet all beyond the pale of her camp-fire's light was silence, utter
and complete silence. It seemed as if a muscular energy went into the
intensity of her listening, but not a sound reached her except a faint
whispering of the wind in the dark trees above her.

But at last she knew that the thing was upon her. The horses ceased
their prancing and stared in a fixed direction through the thicket of
shrubbery; the very wind grew hushed above her; she could feel the new
presence as one feels the silence when a door closes and shuts away
the sound of the street below.

It came on her with a shock, thrilling, terrible, yet not altogether
unpleasant. She rose, her hands clenched at her sides and her eyes
abnormally wide as they stared in the same direction as the eyes of
the two horses held. Yet for all her preparation she nearly fainted
when a voice sounded directly behind her, a pleasantly modulated
voice: "Look this way. I am here, in front of the fire."

She turned about and the two horses, quivering, whirled toward that
sound.

She stepped back, back until the embers of the fire lay between her
and that side of the little clearing. In spite of herself the
exclamation escaped her—"McGurk!"

The voice spoke again: "Do not be afraid. You are safe, absolutely."

"What are you?" "Your friend."

"Is it you who followed me up the valley?"

"Yes."

"Come into the light. I must see you." A faint laughter reached her
from the dark.

"I cannot let you do that. If that had been possible I should have
come to you before."

"But I feel—I feel almost as if you are a ghost and no man of flesh
and blood."

"It is better for you to feel that way about it," said the voice
solemnly, "than to know me."

"At least, tell me why you have followed me, why you have cared for
me."

"You will hate me if I tell you, and fear me."

"No, whatever you are, trust me. Tell me at least what came to Dick
Wilbur?"

"That's easy enough. I met him at the river, a little by surprise, and
caught him before he could even shout. Then I took his guns and
let him go."

"But he didn't come back to me?"

"No. He knew that I would be there. I might have finished him without
giving him a chance to speak, girl, but I'd seen him with you and I
was curious. So I found out where you were going and why, and let
Wilbur go. I came back and looked at you and found you asleep."

She grew cold at the thought of him leaning over her.

"I watched you a long time, and I suppose I'll remember you always as
I saw you then. You were very beautiful with the shadow of your lashes
against your cheek—almost as beautiful as you are now as you stand
over there, fearing and loathing me. I dared not let you see me, but I
decided to take care of you—for a while."

"And now?"

"I have come to say farewell to you."

"Let me see you once before you go."

"No! You see, I fear you even more than you fear me." "Then I'll
follow you."

"It would be useless—utterly useless. There are ways of becoming
invisible in the mountains. But before I go, tell me one thing: Have
you left the cabin to search for Pierre le Rouge in another place?"

"No. I do not search for him."

There was an instant of pause. Then the voice said sharply: "Did
Wilbur lie to me?"

"No. I started up the valley to find him."

"But you've given him up?"

"I hate him—I hate him as much as I loathe myself for ever
condescending to follow him."

She heard a quick breath drawn in the dark, and then a murmur: "I am
free, then, to hunt him down!"

"Why?"

"Listen: I had given him up for your sake; I gave him up when I stood
beside you that first night and watched you trembling with the cold in
your sleep. It was a weak thing for me to do, but since I saw you,
Mary, I am not as strong as I once was."

"Now you go back on his trail? It is death for Pierre?"

"You say you hate him?"

"Ah, but as deeply as that?" she questioned herself.

"It may not be death for Pierre. I have ridden the ranges many years
and met them all in time, but never one like him. Listen: six years
ago I met him first and then he wounded me—the first time any man has
touched me. And afterward I was afraid, Mary, for the first time in my
life, for the charm was broken. For six years I could not return, but
now I am at his heels. Six are gone; he will be the last to go."

"What are you?" she cried. "Some bloodhound reincarnated?"

He said: "That is the mildest name I have ever been called."

"Give up the trail of Pierre."

And there, brought face to face with the mortal question, even her
fear burned low in her, and once more she remembered the youth who
would not leave her in the snow, but held her in his arms with the
strange cross above them.

She said simply: "I still love him."

A faint glimmer came to her through the dark and she could see deeper
into the shrubbery, for now the moon stood up on the top of the great
peak above them and flung a faint light into the hollow. That glimmer
she saw, but no face of a man.

And then the silence held; every second of it was more than a hundred
spoken words.

Then the calm voice said: "I cannot give him up."

"For the sake of God!"

"God and I have been strangers for a good many years."

"For my sake."

"But you see, I have been lying to myself. I told myself that I was
coming merely to see you once—for the last time. But after I saw you
I had to speak, and now that I have spoken it is hard to leave you,
and now that I am with you I cannot give you up to Pierre le Rouge."

She cried: "What will you have of me?"

He answered with a ring of melancholy: "Friendship? No, I can't take
those white hands—mine are so red. All I can do is to lurk about you
like a shadow—a shadow with a sting that strikes down all other men
who come near you."

She said: "For all men have told me about you, I know you could not do
that."

"Mary, I tell you there are things about me, and possibilities, about
which I don't dare to question myself."

"You have guarded me like a brother. Be one to me still; I have never
needed one so deeply!"

"A brother? Mary, if your eyes were less blue or your hair less golden
I might be; but you are too beautiful to be only that to me."

"Listen to me—"

But she stopped in the midst of her speech, because a white head
loomed beside the dim form. It was the head of a horse, with pricking
ears, which now nosed the shoulder of its master, and she saw the
firelight glimmering in the great eyes.

"Your horse," she said in a trembling voice, "loves you and trusts
you."

"It is the only thing which has not feared me. When it was a colt it
came out of the herd and nosed my hand. It is the only thing which has
not fought me, as all men have done—as you are doing now, Mary."

The wind that blew up the gorge came in gusts, not any steady current,
but fitful rushes of air, and on one of these brief blasts it seemed
to Mary that she caught the sound of a voice blown to whistling
murmur. It was a vague thing of which she could not be sure, as faint
as a thought. Yet the head of the white horse disappeared, and the
glimmer of the man's face went out.

She called: "Whatever you are, wait! Let me speak!"

But no answer came, and she knew that the form was gone forever.

She cried again: "Who's there?"

"It is I," said a voice at her elbow, and she turned to look into the
dark eyes of Jacqueline. "So he's gone?" asked Jack bitterly.

She fingered the butt of her gun.

"I thought—well, my chance at him is gone."

"But what—"

"Bah, if you knew you'd die of fear. Listen to what I have to say. All
the things I told you in the cabin were lies."

"Lies?" said Mary evenly. "No, they proved themselves."

"Be still till I've finished, because if you talk you may make me
forget—"

The gesture which finished the sentence was so eloquent of hate that
Mary shrank away and put the embers of the fire between them.

"I tell you, it was all a lie, and Pierre le Rouge has never loved
anything but you, you milk-faced—"

She stopped again, fighting against her passion. The pride of Mary
held her stiff and straight, though her voice shook.

"Has he sent you after me with mockery?"

"No, he's given up the hope of you."

"The hope?"

"Don't you see? Are you going to make me crawl to explain? It always
seemed to me that God meant Pierre for me. It always seemed to me that
a girl like me was what he needed. But Pierre had never seen it.
Maybe, if my hair was yellow an' my eyes blue, he might have felt
different; but the way it is, he's always treated me like a kid
brother—"

"And lived with you?" said the other sternly.

"Like two men! D'you understand how a woman could be the bunky of a
man an' yet be no more to him than—than a man would be. You don't?
Neither do I, but that's what I've been to Pierre le Rouge.
What's that?"

She lifted her head and stood poised as if for flight. Once more the
vague sound blew up to them upon the wind. Mary ran to her and grasped
both of her hands in her own. "If it's true—"

But Jack snatched her hands away and looked on the other with a mighty
hatred and a mightier contempt.

"True? Why, it damn near finished Pierre with me to think he'd take up
with—a thing like you. But it's true. If somebody else had told me
I'd of laughed at 'em. But it's true. Tell me: what'll you do
with him?"

"Take him back—if I can reach him—take him back to the East."

"Yes—maybe he'd be happy there. But when the spring comes to the
city, Mary, wait till the wind blows in the night and the rain comes
tappin' on the roof. Then hold him if you can. D'ye hear? Hold him
if you can!"

"If he cares it will not be hard. Tell me again, if—"

"Shut up. What's that again?"

The sound was closer now and unmistakably something other than the
moan of the wind.

Jacqueline turned in great excitement to Mary:

"Did McGurk hear that sound down the gorge?"

"Yes. I think so. And then he—"

"My God!"

"What is it?"

"Pierre, and he's calling for—d'you hear?"

Clear and loud, though from a great distance, the wind carried up the
sound and the echo preserved it: "McGurk!"

"McGurk!" repeated Mary.

"Yes! And you brought him up here with you, and brought his death to
Pierre. What'll you do to save him now? Pierre!"

She turned and fled out among the trees, and after her ran Mary,
calling, like the other: "Pierre!"

After that call first reached him, clear to his ears though vague as a
murmur at the ear of Mary, McGurk swung to the saddle of his white
horse, and galloped down the gorge like a veritable angel of death.

The end was very near, he felt, yet the chances were at least ten to
one that he would miss Pierre in the throat of the gorge, for among
the great boulders, tall as houses, which littered it, a thousand men
might have passed and repassed and never seen each other. Only the
calling of Pierre could guide him surely.

The calling had ceased for some moments, and he began to fear that he
had overrun his mark and missed Pierre in the heart of the pass, when,
as he rounded a mighty boulder, the shout ran ringing in his very
ears: "McGurk!" and a horseman swung into view.

"Here!" he called in answer, and stood with his right hand lifted,
bringing his horse to a sharp halt, like some ancient cavalier
stopping in the middle of the battle to exchange greetings with a
friendly foe.

The other rider whirled alongside, his sombrero's brim flaring back
from his forehead, so that McGurk caught the glare of the eyes beneath
the shadow.

"So for the third time, my friend—" said McGurk.

"Which is the fatal one," answered Pierre. "How will you die, McGurk?
On foot or on horseback?"

"On the ground, Pierre, for my horse might stir and make my work
messy. I love a neat job, you know." "Good."

They swung from the saddles and stood facing each other.

"Begin!" commanded McGurk. "I've no time to waste."

"I've very little time to look at the living McGurk. Let me look my
fill before the end."

"Then look, and be done. I've a lady coming to meet me."

The other grew marvelously calm.

"She is with you, McGurk?"

"My dear Pierre, I've been with her ever since she started up the Old
Crow."

"It will be easier to forget her. Are you ready?"

"So soon? Come, man, there's much for us to say. Many old times to
chat over."

"I only wonder," said Pierre, "how one death can pay back what you've
done. Think of it! I've actually run away from you and hidden myself
among the hills. I've feared you, McGurk!"

He said it with a deep astonishment, as a grown man will speak of the
way he feared darkness when he was a child. McGurk moistened his white
lips. The white horse pawed the rocks as though impatient to be gone.

"Listen," said Pierre, "your horse grows restive. Suppose we stand
here—it's a convenient distance apart—and wait with our arms folded
for the next time the white horse paws the rocks, because when I kill
you, McGurk, I want you to die knowing that another man was faster on
the draw and straighter with his bullets than you are. D'you see?"