Riders of the Silences (22 page)

And she summoned her most winning smile. It was wasted, she knew at once, for
the stranger hardened perceptibly, and his lip curled slightly in scorn or
anger. In all her life Mary had never met a man so obdurate, and, moreover, she
felt that he could not be wooed into a good humor.

"If you'd gone farther up the gorge," said the other, "you'd of found the
best sort of a campin' placewater and everything."

"Then I'll go," said Mary, shrinking at the thought of the strange, cold
outdoors compared with this cheery fire. But she put on the slicker and started
for the door.

At the last moment the host was touched with compunction. He called: "Wait a
minute. There ain't no call to hurry. If you can get along here just stick
around."

For a moment Mary hesitated, knowing that only the unwritten law of Western
hospitality compelled that speech; it was the crackle and flare of the bright
fire which overcame her pride.

She laid off the slicker again, saying, with another smile: "For just a few
minutes, if you don't mind."

"Sure," said the other gracelessly, and tossed his own slicker onto a bunk.

Covertly, but very earnestly, Mary was studying him. He was hardly more than
a boyhandsome, slender.

Now that handsome face was under a cloud of gloom, a frown on the forehead
and a sneer on the lips, but it was something more than the expression which
repelled Mary. For she felt that no matter how she wooed him, she could never
win the sympathy of this darkly handsome, cruel youth; he was aloof from her,
and the distance between them could never be crossed. She knew at once that the
mysterious bridges which link men with women broke down in this case, and she
was strongly tempted to leave the cabin to the sole possession of her surly
host.

It was the warmth of the fire which once more decided against her reason, so
she laid hands on one of the blocks of stone to roll it nearer to the hearth.
She could not budge it. Then she caught the sneering laughter of the man, and
strove again in a fury. It was no use; for the stone merely rocked a little and
settled back in its place with a bump.

"Here," said the boy, "I'll move it for you."

It was a hard lift for him, but he set his teeth, raised the stone in his
slender hands, and set it down again at a comfortable distance from the fire.

"Thank you," smiled Mary, but the boy stood panting against the wall, and for
answer merely bestowed on her a rather malicious glance of triumph, as though he
gloried in his superior strength and despised her weakness.

Some conversation was absolutely necessary, for the silence began to weigh on
her. She said: "My name is Mary Brown."

"Is it?" said the boy, quite without interest. "You can call me Jack."

He sat down on the other stone, his dark face swept by the shadows of the
flames, and rolled a cigarette, not deftly, but like one who is learning the
mastery of the art. It surprised Mary, watching his fumbling fingers. She
decided that Jack must be even younger than he looked.

She noticed also that the boy cast, from time to time, a sharp, rather
worried glance of expectation toward the door, as if he feared it would open and
disclose some important arrival. Furthermore, those old worn shirts hanging on
the wall were much too large for the throat and shoulders of Jack.

Apparently, he lived there with some companion, and a companion of such a
nature that he did not wish him to be seen by visitors. This explained the lad's
coldness in receiving a guest; it also stimulated Mary to linger about a few
more minutes.

Not that she stayed there without a growing fear, but she still felt about
her, like the protection of some invisible cloak, the presence of the strange
guide who had followed her up the valley of the Old Crow.

It seemed as if the boy were reading her mind.

"See you got two horses. Come up alone?"

"Most of the way," said Mary, and tingled with a rather feline pleasure to
see that her curtness merely sharpened the interest of Jack.

The boy puffed on his cigarette, not with long, slow breaths of inhalation
like a practised smoker, but with a puckered face as though he feared that the
fumes might drift into his eyes.

"Why," thought Mary, "he's only a child!"

Her heart warmed a little as she adopted this view-point of her surly host.
Being warmed, and having much to say, words came of themselves. Surely it would
do no harm to tell the story to this queer urchin, who might be able to throw
some light on the nature of the invisible protector.

"I started with a man for guide." She fixed a searching gaze on the boy. "His
name was Dick Wilbur."

She could not tell whether it was a tremble of the boy's hand or a short
motion to knock off the cigarette ash.

"Did you say 'was' Dick Wilbur?"

"Yes. Did you know him?"

"Heard of him, I think. Kind of a hard one, wasn't he?"

"No, no! A fine, brave, gentle fellowpoor Dick!"

She stopped, her eyes filling with tears at many a memory.

"H-m!" coughed the boy. "I thought he was one of old Boone's gang? If he's
dead, that made the last of 'emexcept Red Pierre."

It was like the sound of a trumpet call at her ear. Mary sat up with a start.

"What do you know of Red Pierre?"

The boy flushed a little, and could not quite meet her eye.

"Nothin'."

"At least you know that he's still alive?"

"Sure. Any one does. When he dies the whole range will know about itdamn
quick. I know
that
much about Red Pierre; but who doesn't?"

"I, for one."

"You!"

Strangely enough, there was more of accusation than of surprise in the word.

"Certainly," repeated Mary. "I've only been in this part of the country for a
short time. I really know almost nothing about thethe legends."

"Legends?" said the boy, and laughed with a voice of such rich, light music
that it took the breath from Mary. "Legend? Say, lady, if Red Pierre is just a
legend the Civil War ain't no more'n a fable. Legend? You go anywhere on the
range an' get 'em talking about that legend, and they'll make you think it's an
honest-to-goodness fact, and no mistake."

Mary queried earnestly: "Tell me about Red Pierre. It's almost as hard to
learn anything of him as it is to find out anything about McGurk."

"What you doing?" asked the boy, keen with suspicion. "Making a study of them
two for a book?"

He wiped a damp forehead.

"Take it from me, lady, it ain't healthy to join up them two even in talk!"

"Is there any harm in words?"

The boy was so upset for some unknown reason that he rose and paced up and
down the room in a nervous tremor.

"Lots of harm in fool words."

He sat down again, and seemed a little anxious to explain his unusual
conduct.

"Ma'am, suppose you had a well plumb full of nitroglycerin in your back yard;
suppose there was a forest fire comin' your way from all sides; would you like
to have people talk about the nitroglycerin and that forest fire meeting? Even
the talk would give you chills. That's the way it is with Pierre and McGurk.
When they meet there's going to be a fight that'll stop the hearts of the people
that have to look on."

Mary smiled to cover her excitement.

"But are they coming your way?"

The question seemed to infuriate young Jack, who cried: "Ain't that a fool
way of talkin'? Lady, they're coming every one's way. You never know where
they'll start from or where they'll land. If there's a thunder-cloud all over
the sky, do you know where the lightning's going to strike?"

"Excuse me,", said Mary, but she was still eager with curiosity, "but I
should think that a youngster like you wouldn't have anything to fear from even
those desperadoes."

"Youngster, eh?" snarled the boy, whose wrath seemed Implacable. "I can make
my draw and start my gun as fast as any manexcept them two, maybe"he lowered
his voice somewhat even to name them"PierreMcGurk!"

"It seems hopeless to find out anything about McGurk," said Mary, "but at
least you can tell me safely about Red Pierre."

"Interested in him, eh?" said the boy dryly.

"Well, he's a rather romantic figure, don't you think?"

"Romantic? Lady, about a month ago I was talking with a lady that was a widow
because of Red Pierre. She didn't think him none too romantic."

"Red Pierre had killed the woman's husband?" repeated Mary, with pale lips.

"Yep. He was one of the gang that took a chance with Pierre and got bumped
off. Had three bullets in him and dropped without getting his gun out of the
leather. Pierre sure does a nice, artistic job. He serves you a murder with all
the trimmings. If I wanted to die nice and polite without making a mess, I don't
know who I'd rather go to than Red Pierre."

"A murderer!" mused Mary, with bowed head.

The boy opened his lips to speak, but changed his mind and sat regarding the
girl with a somewhat sinister smile.

"But might it not be," said Mary, "that he killed one man in self-defense and
then his destiny drove him, and bad luck forced him into one bad position after
another? There have been histories as strange as that, you know."

Jack laughed again, but most of the music was gone from the sound, and it was
simply a low, ominous purr.

"Sure," he said. "You can take a bear-cub and keep him tame till he gets the
taste of blood, but after that you got to keep him muzzled, you know. Pierre
needs a muzzle, but there ain't enough gun-fighters on the range to put one on
him."

Something like pride crept into the boy's voice while he spoke, and he ended
with a ringing tone. Then, feeling the curious, judicial eyes of Mary upon him,
he abruptly changed the subject.

"You say Dick Wilbur is dead?"

"I don't know. I think he is."

"But he started out with you. You ought to know."

"It was like this: We had camped on the edge of the trees coming up the Old
Crow Valley, and Dick went off with the can to get water at the river. He was
gone a long time, and when I went out to look for him I found the can at the
margin of the river half filled with sand, and beside it there was the
impression of the body of a big man. That was all I found, and Dick never came
back."

They were both silent for a moment.

"Could he have fallen into the river?"

"Sure. He was probably helped in. Did you look for the footprints?"

"I didn't think of that."

Jack was speechless with scorn.

"Sat down and cried, eh?"

"I was dazed; I couldn't think. But he couldn't have been killed by some
other man. There was no shot fired; I should have heard it."

Jack moistened his lips.

"Lady, a knife don't make much sound either going or coming outnot much more
sound than a whisper, but that whisper means a lot. I got an idea that Dick
heard it. Then the river covered him up."

He stopped short and stared at Mary with squinted eyes.

"D'you mean to tell me that you had the nerve to come all the way up the Old
Crow by yourself?"

"Every inch of the way."

Jack leaned forward, sneering, savage.

"Then I suppose you put the hitch that's on that pack outside?"

"No."

Jack was dumfounded.

"Then you admit"

"That first night when I went to sleep I felt as if there were something near
me. When I woke up there was a bright fire burning in front of me and the pack
had been lashed and placed on one of the horses. At first I thought that it was
Dick, who had come back. But Dick didn't appear all day. The next night"

"Wait!" said Jack. "This is gettin' sort of creepy. If you was the drinking
kind I'd say you'd been hitting up the red-eye."

"The next evening," continued Mary steadily, "I came about dark on a
camp-fire with a bed of twigs near it. I stayed by the fire, but no one
appeared. Once I thought I heard a horse whinny far away, and once I thought
that I saw a streak of white disappear over the top of a hill."

The boy sprang up, shuddering with panic.

"You saw what?"

"Nothing. I thought for a minute that it was a bit of something white, but it
was gone all at once."

"Whitevanished at oncewent into the dark as fast as a horse can gallop?"

"Something like that. Do you think it was some one?"

For answer the boy whipped out his revolver, examined it, and spun the
cylinder with shaking hands. Then he said through set teeth: "So you come up
here trailin'
him
after you, eh?"

"Who?"

"McGurk!"

The name came like a rifle shot and Mary rose in turn and shrank back toward
the wall, for there was murder in the lighted black eyes which stared after her
and crumbling fear in her own heart at the thought of McGurk hovering near,of
the peril that impended for Pierre. Of the nights in the valley of the Crow she
refused to let herself think. Cold beads of perspiration stood out on her
forehead.

"You foolyou fool! Damn your pretty pink-and-white faceyou've done for us
all! Get out!"

Mary moved readily enough toward the door, her teeth chattering with terror
in the face of this fury.

Jack continued wildly: "Done for us all; got us all as good as under the sod.
I wish you was in Get out quick, or I'll forgetyou're a woman!"

He broke into a shrill, hysterical laughter, which stopped short and finished
in a heart-broken whisper: "Pierre!"

At that Mary, who stood with her hand on the latch, whirled and stood
wide-eyed, her astonishment greater than her fear, for that whisper told her a
thousand things.

Through her mind all the time that she stayed in the cabin there had passed a
curious surmise that this very place might be the covert of Pierre le Rougehe
of the dark red hair and the keen blue eyes. There was a fatality about it, for
the invisible Power which had led her up the valley of the Old Crow surely would
not make mistakes.