Riders of the Silences (26 page)

Once she had reached a decision, it was characteristic that she moved
swiftly. Also, there was cause for haste, for by this time Pierre must have
discovered that there was no one in the lower reaches of the gorge and would be
galloping back with all the speed of the cream-colored mare which even McGurk's
white horse could not match.

She ran from the cabin and into the little lean-to behind it where the horses
were tethered. There she swung her saddle with expert hands, whipped up the
cinch, and pulled it with the strength of a man, mounted, and was off up the
gorge.

For the first few minutes she let the long-limbed black race on at full
speed, a breathless course, because the beat of the wind in her face raised her
courage, gave her a certain impulse which was almost happiness, just as the
martyrs rejoiced and held out their hands to the fire that was to consume them;
but after the first burst of headlong galloping, she drew down the speed to a
hand-canter, and this in turn to a fast trot, for she dared not risk the
far-echoed sound of the clattering hoofs over the rock.

And as she rode she saw at last the winking eye of red which she longed for
and dreaded. She pulled her black to an instant halt and swung from the saddle,
tossing the reins over the head of the horse to keep him standing there.

Yet, after she had made half a dozen hurried paces something forced her to
turn and look again at the handsome head of the horse. He stood quite
motionless, with his ears pricking after her, and now as she stopped he whinnied
softly, hardly louder than the whisper of a man. So she ran back again and threw
the reins over the horn of the saddle; he should be free to wander where he
chose through the free mountains, but as for her, she knew very certainly now
that she would never mount that saddle again, or control that triumphant steed
with the touch of her hands on the reins. She put her arms around his neck and
drew his head down close.

There was a dignity in that parting, for it was the burning of her bridges
behind her. When "King-Maker" Richard of Warwick, betrayed and beaten on the
field, came to his last stand by the forest, he dismounted and stabbed his
favorite charger. Very different was this wild mountain girl from the armored
earl who put kings up and pulled them down again at pleasure, but her heart
swelled as great as the heart of famous Warwick; he gave up a kingdom, and she
gave up her love.

When she drew back the horse followed her a pace, but she raised a silent
hand in the night and halted him; a moment later she was lost among the
boulders.

It was rather slow work to stalk that camp-fire, for the big boulders cut off
the sight of the red eye time and again, and she had to make little, cautious
detours before she found it again, but she kept steadily at her work. Once she
stopped, her blood running cold, for she thought that she heard a faint voice
blown up the canon on the wind: "McGurk!"

For half a minute she stood frozen, listening, but the sound was not
repeated, and she went on again with greater haste. So she came at last in view
of a hollow in the side of the gorge. Here there were a few trees, growing in
the cove, and here, she knew, there was a small spring of clear water. Many a
time she had made a cup of her hands and drunk here.

Now she made out the fire clearly, the trees throwing out great spokes of
shadow on all sides, spokes of shadows that wavered and shook with the flare of
the small fire beyond them. She dropped to her hands and knees and, parting the
dense underbrush, began the last stealthy approach.

Up the same course which Jacqueline followed, Mary Brown had fled earlier
that night with the triumphant laughter of Jack still ringing in her ears and
following her like a remorseless, pointed hand of shame.

There is no power like shame to disarm the spirit. A dog will fight if a man
laughs at him; a coward will challenge the devil himself if he is whipped on by
scorn; and this proud girl shrank and moaned on the saddle. She had not
progressed far enough to hate Pierre. That would come later, but now all her
heart had room for was a consuming loathing of herself.

Some of that torture went into the spurs with which she punished the side of
the bay, and the tall horse responded with a high-tossed head and a burst of
whirlwind speed. The result was finally a stumble over a loose rock that almost
flung Mary over the pommel of the saddle and forced her to draw rein.

Having slowed the pace she became aware that she was very tired from the trip
of the day, and utterly exhausted by the wild scene with Jacqueline, so that she
began to look about for a place where she could stop for even an hour or so and
rest her aching body.

Thought of McGurk sent her hand trembling to her holster. Still she knew she
must have little to fear from him. He had been kind to her. Why had this scourge
of the mountain-desert spared her? Was it to track down Pierre?

It was at this time that she heard the purl and whisper of running water, a
sound dear to the hearts of all travelers. She veered to the left and found the
little grove of trees with a thick shrubbery growing between, fed by the water
of that diminutive brook. She dismounted and tethered the horses.

By this time she had seen enough of camping out to know how to make herself
fairly comfortable, and she set about it methodically, eagerly. It was something
to occupy her mind and keep out a little of that burning sense of shame. One
picture it could not obliterate, and that was the scene of Jacqueline and Pierre
le Rouge laughing together over the love affair with the silly girl of the
yellow hair.

That was the meaning, then, of those silences that had come between them? He
had been thinking, remembering, careful lest he should forget a single scruple
of the whole ludicrous affair. She shuddered, remembering how she had fairly
flung herself into his arms.

On that she brooded, after starting the little fire. It was not that she was
cold, but the fire, at least, in the heart of the black night, was a friend
incapable of human treachery. She had not been there long when the tall bay,
Wilbur's horse, stiffened, raised his head, arched his tail, and then whinnied.

She started to her feet, stirred by a thousand fears, and heard, far away, an
answering neigh. At once all thought of shame and of Pierre le Rouge vanished
from her mind, for she remembered the man who had followed her up the valley of
the Old Crow. Perhaps he was coming now out of the night; perhaps she would even
see him.

And the excitement grew in her pulse by pulse, as the excitement grows in a
man waiting for a friend at a station; he sees first the faint smoke like a
cloud on the skyline, and then a black speck beneath the smoke, and next the
engine draws up on him with a humming of the rails which grows at length to a
thunder.

All the while his heart beats faster and faster and rocks with the sway of
the approaching engine; so the heart of Mary Brown beat, 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 catastrophesome vast and preternatural changesome forest
fire which came galloping faster than even their fleet limbs could carry them.

Yet all beyond the pale of her campfire's light was silence, utter and
complete silence. It seemed as if a veritable 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 the great blue 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 and a blackness came
across her mind 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 feelI 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 the lashes against your
cheekalmost 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 youfor 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 uselessutterly 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 himI 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 methe 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 radiance 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 oncefor 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 handsmine are so red. All I can do is to lurk about you like a shadowa
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."