Riders of the Silences (28 page)

And all at once he knew that the moon was broad and bright and fair, and the
heavens clear and shining with golden points of light. Once more the cry. He
raised his arms and waited.

So Mary, running through the wilderness of boulders, was guided straight and
found Pierre, and before the morning came, they were journeying east side by
side, east and down to the cities of culture and a new life; but Jacqueline, a
thousand times quicker of foot and surer of eye and ear, missed her goal, went
past it, and still on and on, running finally at a steady trot.

Until at last she knew that she had far overstepped her mark and sank down
against one of the rocks to rest and think out what next she must do. There
seemed nothing left. Even the sound of a gun fired she might not hear, for that
sharp call would not travel far against the wind.

It was while she sat there, burying Pierre in her thoughts, a white shape
came glimmering down to her through the moonlight. She was on her feet at once,
alert and gun in hand. It could only be one horse, only one rider, McGurk coming
down from his last killing with the sneer on his pale lips. Well, he would
complete his work this night and kill her fighting face to face.

A man's death; that was all she craved. She rose; she stepped boldly out into
the center of the trail between the rocks.

There she saw the greatest wonder she had ever looked on. It was McGurk
walking with bare, bowed head, and after him, like a dog after the master,
followed the white horse. She shoved the revolver back into the holster. This
should be a fair fight.

"McGurk!"

Very slowly the head went up and back, and there he stood, not ten paces from
her, with the white moon full on his face. The sneer was still there; the eyelid
fluttered in scornful derision. And the heart of Jacqueline came thundering in
her throat.

But she cried in a strong voice: "McGurk, d'you know me?"

He did not answer.

"You murderer, you night-rider! Look again: it's the last of the Boones!"

The sneer, it seemed to her, grew bitterer, but still the man did not speak.
Then the thought of Pierre, lying dead somewhere among the rocks, burned across
her mind. Her hand leaped for the revolver, and whipped it out in a blinding
flash to cover him, but with her finger curling on the trigger she checked
herself in the nick of time. McGurk had made no move to protect himself.

A strange feeling came to her that perhaps the man would not war against
women; the case of Mary was almost proof enough of that. But as she stepped
forward, wondering, she looked at the holster at his side and saw that it was
empty. Then she understood.

Understood in a daze that Pierre had met the man and conquered him and sent
him out through the mountains disarmed. The white horse raised his head and
whinnied, and the sound gave a thought to her. She could not kill this man,
unarmed as he was; she could do a more shameful thing.

"The bluff you ran was a strong one, McGurk," she said bitterly, "and you had
these parts pretty well at a standstill; but Pierre was a bit too much for you,
eh?"

The white face had not altered, and still it did not change, but the sneer
was turned steadily on her.

She cried: "Go on! Go on down the gorge!"

Like an automaton the man stepped forward, and after him paced the white
horse. She stepped between, caught the reins, and swung up to the saddle, and
sat there, controlling between her stirrups the best-known mount in all the
mountain-desert. A thrill of wild exultation came to her. She cried: "Look back,
McGurk! Your gun is gone, your horse is gone; you're weaker than a woman in the
mountains!"

Yet he went on without turning, not with the hurried step of a coward, but
still as one stunned. Then, sitting quietly in the saddle, she forgot McGurk and
remembered Pierre. He was happy by this time with the girl of the yellow hair;
there was nothing remaining to her from him except the ominous cross which
touched cold against her breast. That he had abandoned as he had abandoned her.

What, then, was left for her? The horse of an outlaw for her to ride; the
heart of an outlaw in her breast.

She touched the white horse with the spurs and went at a reckless gallop,
weaving back and forth among the boulders down the gorge. For she was riding
away from the past.

The dawn came as she trotted out into a widening valley of the Old Crow. To
maintain even that pace she had to use the spurs continually, for the white
horse was deadly weary, and his head fell more and more. She decided to make a
brief halt, at last, and in order to make a fire that would take the chill of
the cold morning from her, she swung up to the edge of the woods. There, before
she could dismount, she saw a man turn the shoulder of the slope. She drew the
horse back deeper among the trees and waited.

He came with a halting step, reeling now and again, a big man, hatless,
coatless, apparently at the last verge of exhaustion. Now his foot apparently
struck a small rock, and he pitched to his face. It required a long struggle
before he could regain his feet; and now he continued his journey at the same
gait, only more uncertainly than ever, close and closer. There was something
familiar now about the fellow's size, and something in the turn of his head.
Suddenly she rode out, crying: "Wilbur!"

He swerved, saw the white horse, threw up his hands high above his head, and
went backward, reeling, with a hoarse scream which Jacqueline would never
forget. She galloped to him and swung to the ground.

"It's meJack. D'you hear?"

He would not lower those arms, and his eyes stared wildly at her. On his
forehead the blood had caked over a cut; his shirt was torn to rags, and the
hair matted wildly over his eyes. She caught his hands and pulled them down.

"It's not McGurk! Don't you hear me? It's Jack!"

He reached out, like a blind man who has to see by the sense of touch, and
stroked her face.

"Jack!" he whispered at last. "Thank God!"

"What's happened?"

"McGurk"

A violent palsy shook him, and he could not go on.

"I knowI understand. He took your guns and left you to wander in this hell!
Damn him! I wish"

She stopped.

"How long since you've eaten?"

"Years!"

"We'll eatMcGurk's food!"

But she had to assist him up the slope to the trees, and there she left him
propped against a trunk, his arms fallen weakly at his sides, while she built
the fire and cooked the food. Afterward she could hardly eat, watching him
devour what she placed before him; and it thrilled all the woman in her to a
strange warmth to take care of the long-rider. Then, except for the disfigured
face and the bloodshot eyes, he was himself.

"Up there? What happened?"

He pointed up the valley.

"The girl and Pierre. They're together."

"She found him?"

"Yes."

He bowed his head and sighed.

"And the horse, Jack?" He said it with awe.

"I took the horse from McGurk."

"You!"

She nodded. After all, it was not a lie.

"You killed McGurk?"

She said coolly: "I let him go the way he let you, Dick. He's on foot in the
mountains without a horse or a gun."

"It isn't possible!"

"There the horse for proof."

He looked at her as if she were something more than human.

"Our Jackdid this?"

"We've got to start on. Can you walk, Dick?"

"A thousand miles now."

Yet he staggered when he tried to rise, and she made him climb up to the
saddle. The white horse walked on, and she kept her place close at the stirrup
of the rider. He would have stopped and dismounted for her a hundred times, but
she made him keep his place.

"What's ahead of us, Jack? We're the last of the gang?"

"The last of Boone's gang. We are."

"The old life over again?"

"What else?"

"Yes; what else?"

"Are you afraid, Dick?"

"Not with you for a pal. Seven was too many; with two we can rule the range."

"Partners, Dick?"

How could he tell that her voice was gone so gentle because she was seeing in
her mind's eye another face than his? He leaned toward her, thrilling.

"Why not something more than partners, after a while, Jack?"

She smiled strangely up to him.

"Because of this, Dick."

And fumbling at her throat, she showed him the glittering metal of the cross;
an instinct made him swerve the horse away from her.

"The cross goes on, but what of you Jack?"

A long silence fell between them. Words died in the making.

The great weight pressing down on that slender throat was like the iron hand
of a giant, but slowly one by one the sounds marshalled themselves:

". . . God knows " It was the passing of Judgment. "God knows
not I."

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