Riders of the Silences

by Brand, Max

  It would have been easy for him to meet that look on the morning of this day, but after that night's work in Morgantown he had to brace his nerve mightily to withstand it.

  She said: "You can't budge the tree?"

  "Yes—in a minute; I will try again."

  "You'll only hurt yourself for nothing. I saw how you strained at it."

  The greatest miracle he had ever seen was her calm. Her eyes were wide and sorrowful indeed, but she was almost smiling up to him.

  After a while he was able to say, in a faint, small voice: "Are you very cold?"

  She answered: "I'm not afraid. But if you stay longer with me, you may freeze. The snow and even the tree help to keep me almost warm; but you will freeze. Go for help; hurry, and if you can, send it back to me."

  He thought of the long miles back to Morgantown; no human being could walk that distance against this wind; not even a strong horse could make its way through the storm. If he went on with the wind, how long would it be before he reached a house? Before him, over range after range of hills, he saw no single sign of a building. If he reached some such place it would be the same story as the trip to Morgantown; men simply could not beat a way against that wind.

  Then a cold hand touched his, and he looked up to find her eyes grave and wide once more, and her lips half smiling, as if she strove to deceive him.

  "There's no chance of bringing help?"

  He merely stared hungrily at her, and the loveliest thing he had ever seen was the play of golden hair beside her cheek. Her smile went out. She withdrew her hand, but she repeated:

  "I'm not afraid. I'll simply grow numb and then fall asleep. But you go on and save yourself."

  Seeing him shake his head, she caught his hands again, and so strongly that the chill of her touch filled his veins with an icy fire.

  "I'll be unhappy. You'll make me so unhappy if you stay. Please go."

  He raised the small, white hand and pressed it to his lips.

  She said: "You are crying!"

  "No, no!"

  "There! I see the tears shining on my hand. What is your name?"

  "Pierre."

  "Pierre? I like that name. Pierre, to make me happy, will you go? Your face is all white and touched with a shadow of blue. It is the cold. Oh, won't you go?" Then she pleaded, finding him obdurate: "If you won't go for me, then go for your father."

  He raised his head with a sudden laughter, and, raising it, the wind beat into his face fiercely and the particles of snow whipped his skin.

  "Dear Pierre, then for your mother?"

  He bowed his head.

  "Not for all the people who love you and wait for you now by some warm fire—some cozy fire, all yellow and bright?"

  He took her hands and with them covered his eyes.

  "Listen: I have no father; I have no mother."

  "Pierre! Oh, Pierre, I'm sorry!"

  "And for the rest of 'em, I've killed a man. The whole world hates me; the whole world's hunting me."

  The small hands tugged away. He dared not raise his bowed and miserable head for fear of her eyes. And then the hands came back to him and touched his face.

  She was saying tremulously: "Then he deserved to be killed. There must be men like that—almost. And I—like you still, Pierre."

  "Really?"

  "I almost think I like you more—because you could kill a man—and then stay here for me."

  "If you were a grown-up girl, do you know what I'd say?"

  "Please tell me."

  "That I could love you."

  "Pierre—"

  "Yes."

  "My name is Mary Brown."

  He repeated several times: "Mary."

  "And if I were a grown-up girl, do you know what I would answer?"

  "I don't dare guess it."

  "That I could love you, Pierre, if you were a grown-up man."

  "But I am."

  "Not a really one."

  And they both broke into laughter—happy laughter that died out before a sound of rushing and of thunder, as a mass slid swiftly past them, snow and mud and sand and rubble. The wind fell away from them, and when Pierre looked up he saw that a great mass of tumbled rock and soil loomed above them.

  The landslide had not touched them, by some miracle, but in a moment more it might shake loose again, and all that mass of ton upon ton of stone and loam would overwhelm them. The whole mass quaked and trembled and trembled, and the very hillside shuddered beneath them.

  She looked up and saw the coming ruin; but her cry was for him, not herself.

  "Run, Pierre—you can save yourself."

  With that terror threatening him from above, he rose and started to run down the hill. A moan of woe followed him, and he stopped and turned back, and fought his way through the wind until he was beside her once more.

  She was wringing the white, cold hands and weeping:

  "Pierre—I couldn't help it—but when you left me the whole world went out, and my heart broke. I couldn't help calling out for you; but now I'm strong again, and I won't have you stay. The whole mountain is shaking and falling toward us. Go now, Pierre, and I'll never make a sound to bring you back."

  He said: "Hush! I've something here which will keep us both safe. Look!"

  He tore from the chain which held it at his throat the little metal cross, and held it high overhead, glimmering in the pallid light. She forgot her fear in wonder.

  "I gambled with only one coin to lose, and I came out to-night with hundreds and hundreds of dollars because I had the cross. It is a charm against all danger and against all bad fortune. It has never failed me."

  Over them the piled mass slid closer. The forehead of Pierre gleamed with sweat, but a strong purpose made him talk on. At least he could take all the foreboding of death from the child, and when the end came it would be swift and wipe them both out at one stroke. She clung to him, eager to believe.

  "I've closed my eyes so that I can believe."

  "It has never failed me. It saved me once when I fought a big bobcat with only a knife. It saved me again when I fought two men. Both of them were famous fighters, but neither of them had the cross. One of them I crippled and the other died. You see, the power of the cross is as great as that. Do you doubt it now, Mary?"

  "Do you believe in it so much—really—Pierre?"

  Each time there was a little lowering of her voice, a little pause and caress in the tone as she uttered his name, and nothing in all his life had stirred Red Pierre so deeply with happiness and sorrow.

  "Do you believe, Pierre?" she repeated.

  He looked up and saw the shuddering mass of the landslide creeping upon them inch by inch. In another moment it would loose itself with a rush and cover them.

  "I believe," he said.

  "If you should live, and I should die—"

  "I would throw the cross away."

  "No, you would keep it; and every time it touched cold against your breast you would think of me, Pierre, would you not?"

  "When you reach out to me like that, you sort of take my heart between your hands."

  "And when you look at me like that I feel grown-up and sad and happy both together. But, listen, Pierre, I know why I cannot die now. God means us to be so happy together, doesn't He? Because after we've been together on such a night, how can we ever be apart again?"

  The mass of the landslide toppled right above them. She did not seem to see.

  "Of course we never can be."

  "But we'll be like a brother and sister and something more."

  "And something more, Mary."

  She clapped her hands and laughed. The laughter hurt him more than her sobbing, for as she lay wrapped in her thick furs, even the pale, cold light could not make her pallid.

  The blowing hair was as warm as yellow sunshine to the heart of Pierre le Rouge, and the color of her cheeks was as dear to him as the early flowers of spring in the northland.

  "I'm so happy, Pierre. I was never so happy.
"

  And he said, with his eyes on the approaching ruin:

  "It was your singing that brought me to you. Will you sing again?"

  "I sang because I knew that when I sang the sound would carry farther through the wind than if I called for help. What shall I sing for you now, Pierre?"

  "What you sang when I came to you."

  And the light, sweet voice rose easily through the sweep of the wind. She smiled as she sang, and the smile and music were all for Pierre, he knew, and all the pathos of the climax was for him; but through the last stanza of the song the rumble of the approaching death grew louder, and as she ended he threw himself beside her and gathered her into protecting arms.

  She cried: "Pierre! What is it?"

  "I must keep you warm; the snow will eat away your strength."

  "No; it's more than that. Tell me, Pierre! You don't trust the power of the cross?"

  "Are you afraid?"

  "Oh, no; I'm not afraid, Pierre."

  "If one life would be enough, I'd give mine a thousand times. Mary, we are to die."

  A small arm slipped around his neck—a cold hand pressed against his cheek.

  "Pierre."

  "Yes."

  The thunder broke above them with a mighty roaring.

  "You have no fear."

  "Mary, if I had died alone I would have dropped down to hell under my sins; but, with your arm around me, you'll take me with you. Hold me close."

  "With all my heart, Pierre. See—I'm not afraid. It is like going to sleep. What wonderful dreams we'll have!"

  And then the black mass of the landslide swept upon them.

  CHAPTER IX

  RIDERS OF THE SILENCES

  Down all the length of the mountain-desert and across its width of rocks and mountains and valleys and stern plateaus there is a saying: "You can tell a man by the horse he rides." For most other important things are apt to go by opposites, which is the usual way in which a man selects his wife. With dogs, for instance—a quiet man is apt to want an active dog, and a tractable fellow may keep the most vicious of wolf-dogs.

  But when it comes to a horse, a man's heart speaks for itself, and if he has sufficient knowledge of the king of beasts he will choose a sympathetic mount. A dainty woman loves a neat-stepping saddle-horse; a philosopher likes a nodding, stumble-footed nag which will jog all day long and care not a whit whether it goes up dale or down.

  To know the six wild riders who galloped over the white reaches of the mountain-desert this night, certainly their horses should be studied first and the men secondly, for the one explained the other.

  They came in a racing triangle. Even the storm at its height could not daunt such furious riders. At the point of the triangle thundered a mighty black stallion, his muzzle and his broad chest flecked with white foam, for he stretched his head out and champed at the bit with ears laid flat back, as though even that furious pace gave him no opportunity to use fully his strength.

  He was no cleanly cut beauty, but an ugly headed monster with a savagely hooked Roman nose and small, keen eyes, always red at the corners. A medieval baron in full panoply of plate armor would have chosen such a charger among ten thousand steeds, yet the black stallion needed all his strength to uphold the unarmored giant who bestrode him, a savage figure.

  When the broad brim of his hat flapped up against the wind the moonshine caught at shaggy brows, a cruelly arched nose, thin, straight lips, and a forward-thrusting jaw. It seemed as if nature had hewn him roughly and designed him for a primitive age where he could fight his way with hands and teeth.

  This was Jim Boone. To his right and a little behind him galloped a riderless horse, a beautiful young animal continually tossing its head and looking as if for guidance at the big stallion.

  To the left strode a handsome bay with pricking ears. A mound interfered with his course, and he cleared it in magnificent style that would have brought a cheer from the lips of any English lover of the chase.

  Straight in the saddle sat Dick Wilbur, and he raised his face a little to the wind, smiling faintly as if he rejoiced in its fine strength, as handsome as the horse he rode, as cleanly cut, as finely bred. The moon shone a little brighter on him than on any others of the six stark riders.

  Bud Mansie behind, for instance, kept his head slightly to one side and cursed beneath his breath at the storm and set his teeth at the wind. His horse, delicately formed, with long, slender legs, could not have endured that charge against the storm save that it constantly edged behind the leaders and let them break the wind. It carried less weight than any other mount of the six, and its strength was cunningly nursed by the rider so that it kept its place, and at the finish it would be as strong as any and swifter, perhaps, for a sudden, short effort, just as Bud Mansie might be numbed through all his nervous, slender body, but never too numb for swift and deadly action.

  On the opposite wing of the flying wedge galloped a dust-colored gray, ragged of mane and tail, and vindictive of eye, like its down-headed rider, who shifted his glance rapidly from side to side and watched the ground closely before his horse as if he were perpetually prepared for danger.

  He distrusted the very ground over which his mount strode. For all this he seemed the least formidable of all the riders. To see him pass none could have suspected that this was Black Morgan Gandil.

  Last of the crew came two men almost as large as Jim Boone himself, on strong steady-striding horses. They came last in this crew, but among a thousand other long-riders they would have ridden first, either red-faced, good-humored, loud-voiced Garry Patterson, or Phil Branch, stout-handed, blunt of jaw, who handled men as he had once hammered red iron at the forge.

  Each of them should have ridden alone in order to be properly appreciated. To see them together was like watching a flock of eagles every one of which should have been a solitary lord of the air. But after scanning that lordly train which followed, the more terrible seemed the rider of the great black horse.

  Yet the king was sad, and the reason for his sadness was the riderless horse which galloped so freely beside him. His son had ridden that horse when they set out, and all the way down to the railroad Handsome Hal Boone had kept his mount prancing and curveting and had ridden around and around tall Dick Wilbur, playing pranks, and had teased his father's black until the big stallion lashed out wildly with furious heels.

  It was the memory of this that kept the grave shadow of a smile on the father's lips for all the sternness of his eyes. He never turned his head, for, looking straight forward, he could conjure up the laughing vision; but when he glanced to the empty saddle he heard once more the last unlucky shot fired from the train as they raced off with their booty, and saw Hal reel in his saddle and pitch forward; and how he had tried to check his horse and turn back; and how big Dick Wilbur, and Patterson, and mighty-handed Phil Branch had forced him to go on and leave that form lying motionless on the snow.

  At that he groaned, and spurred the black, and so the cavalcade rushed faster and faster through the night.

  They came over a sharp ridge and veered to the side just in time, for all the further slope was a mass of treacherous sand and rubble and raw rocks and mud, where a landslide had stripped the hill to the stone.

  As they veered about the ruin and thundered on down to the foot of the hill, Jim Boone threw up his hand for a signal and brought his stallion to a halt on back-braced, sliding legs.

  For a metallic glitter had caught his eye, and then he saw, half covered by the pebbles and dirt, the figure of a man. He must have been struck by the landslide and not overwhelmed by it, but rather carried before it like a stick in a rush of water. At the outermost edge of the wave he lay with the rocks and dirt washed over him. Boone swung from the saddle and lifted Pierre le Rouge.

  The gleam of metal was the cross which his fingers still gripped. Boone examined it with a somewhat superstitious caution, took it from the nerveless fingers, and slipped it into a pocket of Pierre's shirt. A small cut on t
he boy's forehead showed where the stone struck which knocked him senseless, but the cut still bled—a small trickle—Pierre lived. He even stirred and groaned and opened his eyes, large and deeply blue.

  It was only an instant before they closed, but Boone had seen. He turned with the figure lifted easily in his arms as if Pierre had been a child fallen asleep by the hearth and now about to be carried off to bed.

  And the outlaw said: "I've lost my boy to-night. This here one was given me by the will of—God."

  Black Morgan Gandil reined his horse close by, leaned to peer down, and the shadow of his hat fell across the face of Pierre.

  "There's no good comes of savin' shipwrecked men. Leave him where you found him, Jim. That's my advice. Sidestep a red-headed man. That's what I say."

  The quick-stepping horse of Bud Mansie came near, and the rider wiped his blue, stiff lips, and spoke from the side of his mouth, a prison habit of the line that moves in the lock-step: "Take it from me, Jim, there ain't any place in our crew for a man you've picked up without knowing him beforehand. Let him lay, I say."

  But big Dick Wilbur was already leading up the horse of Hal Boone, and into the saddle Jim Boone swung the inert body of Pierre. The argument was settled, for every man of them knew that nothing could turn Boone back from a thing once begun. Yet there were muttered comments that drew Black Morgan Gandil and Bud Mansie together.

  And Gandil, from the South Seas, growled with averted eyes:

  "This is the most fool stunt the chief has ever pulled."

  "Right, pal," answered Mansie. "You take a snake in out of the cold, and it bites you when it comes to in the warmth; but the chief has started, and there ain't nothing that'll make him stop, except maybe God or McGurk."

  And Black Gandil answered with his evil, sudden grin: "Maybe McGurk, but not God."

  They started on again with Garry Patterson and Dick Wilbur riding close on either side of Pierre, supporting his limp body. It delayed the whole gang, for they could not go on faster than a jog-trot. The wind, however, was falling off in violence. Its shrill whistling ceased, at length, and they went on, accompanied only by the harsh crunching of the snow underfoot.