Riders of the Silences

by Brand, Max

  "The first swing of the hammer it met something hard, but not as hard as iron. The thing crunched with a sound like an egg under a heavy man's heel. And when that crowd heard it they looked sick. God, how sick they looked! They didn't wait for no second swing, but they beat it hard and fast through the door with me after 'em. They scattered, but I kept right on and didn't never really stop till I reached the mountain-desert and you, Jim."

  "Which is a good yarn," said Bud Mansie, "but I can tell you one that 'll cap it. It was——"

  He stopped short, staring up at the door. Outside, the wind had kept up a perpetual roaring, and no one noticed the noise of the opening door. Bud Mansie, facing that door, however, turned a queer yellow and sat with his lips parted on the last word. He was not pretty to see. The others turned their heads, and there followed the strangest panic which Pierre had even seen.

  Jim Boone jerked his hand back to his hip, but stayed the motion, half completed, and swung his hands stiffly above his head. Garry Patterson sat with his eyes blinked shut, pale, waiting for death to come. Dick Wilbur rose, tall and stiff, and stood with his hands gripped at his sides, and Black Morgan Gandil clutched at the table before him and his keen eyes wandered swiftly about the room, seeking a place for escape.

  There was only one sound, and that was a whispering moan of terror from Jacqueline. Only Pierre made no move, yet he felt as he had when the black mass of the landslide loomed above him.

  What he saw in the door was a man of medium size and almost slender build. In spite of the patch of gray hair at either temple he was only somewhere between twenty-five and thirty. But to see him was to forget all details except the strangest face which Pierre had ever seen or would ever look upon in all his career.

  It was pale, with a pallor strange to the ranges; even the lips seemed bloodless, and they curved with a suggestion of a smile that was a nervous habit rather than any sign of mirth. The nerves of the left eye were also affected, and the lid dropped and fluttered almost shut, so that he had to carry his head far back in order to see plainly. There was such indomitable pride and scorn in the man that his name came up to the lips of Pierre: "McGurk."

  A surprisingly gentle voice said: "Jim, I'm sorry to drop in on you this way, but I've had some unpleasant news."

  His words dispelled part of the charm. The hands of big Boone lowered; the others assumed more natural positions, but each, it seemed to Pierre, took particular and almost ostentatious care that their right hands should be always far from the holsters of their guns.

  The stranger went on: "Martin Ryder is finished, as I suppose you know. He left a spawn of two mongrels behind him. I haven't bothered with them, but I'm a little more interested in another son that has cropped up. He's sitting over there in your family party and his name is Pierre. In his own country they call him Pierre le Rouge, which means Red Pierre, in our talk.

  "You know I don't like to be dictatorial, and I've never crossed you in anything before, Jim. Have I?"

  Boone moistened his white lips and answered: "Never," huskily, as if it were a great muscular effort for him to speak.

  "This time I have to break the custom. Boone, this fellow Pierre has to leave the country. Will you see that he goes?"

  The lips of Boone moved and made no sound.

  He said at length: "McGurk, I'd rather cross the devil than cross you. There's no shame in admitting that. But I've lost my boy, Hal."

  "Too bad, Jim. I knew Hal; at a distance, of course."

  "And Pierre is filling Hal's place in the family."

  "Is that your answer?"

  "McGurk, are you going to pin me down in this?"

  And here Jack whirled and cried: "Dad, you won't let Pierre go!"

  "You see?" pleaded Boone.

  It was uncanny and horrible to see the giant so unnerved before this stranger, but that part of it did not come to Pierre until later. Now he felt a peculiar emptiness of stomach and a certain jumping chill that traveled up and down his spine. Moreover, he could not move his eyes from the face of McGurk, and he knew at length that this was fear—the first real fear that he had ever known.

  Shame made him hot, but fear made him cold again. He knew that if he rose his knees would buckle under him; that if he drew out his revolver it would slip from his palsied fingers. For the fear of death is a mighty fear, but it is nothing compared with the fear of man.

  "I've asked you a question," said McGurk. "What's your answer?"

  There was a quiver in the black forest of Boone's beard, and if Pierre was cold before, he was sick at heart to see the big man cringe before McGurk.

  He stammered: "Give me time."

  "Good," said McGurk. "I'm afraid I know what your answer would be now, but if you take a couple of days you will think things over and come to a reasonable conclusion. I will be at Gaffney's place about fifteen miles from here. You know it? Send your answer there. In the mean time"—he stepped forward to the table and poured a small drink of whiskey into a glass and raised it high—"here's to the long health and happiness of us all. Drink!"

  There was a hasty pouring of liquor.

  "And you also!"

  Pierre jumped as if he had been struck, and obeyed the order hastily.

  "So," said the master, pleasant again, and Pierre wiped his forehead furtively and stared up with fascinated eyes. "An unwilling pledge is better than none at all. To you, gentleman, much happiness; to you, Pierre le Rouge, bon voyage."

  They drank; the master placed his glass on the table again, smiled upon them, and was gone through the door. He turned his back in leaving. There was no fitter way in which he could have expressed his contempt.

  CHAPTER XIV

  MCGURK

  The mirth died and in its place came a long silence. Jim Boone stared upon Pierre with miserable eyes, and then rose and left the room. The others one by one followed his example. Dick Wilbur in passing dropped his hand on Pierre's shoulder. Jacqueline was silent.

  As he sat there minute after minute and then hour after hour of the long night Pierre saw the meaning of it. If they sent word that they would not give up Pierre it was war, and war with McGurk had only one ending. If they sent word that Pierre was surrendered the shame would never leave Boone and his men.

  Whatever they did there was ruin for them in the end. All this Pierre conned slowly in his mind, until he was cold. Then he looked up and saw that the lamp had burned out and that the wood in the fireplace was consumed to a few red embers.

  He replenished the fire, and when the yellow flames began to mount he made his resolution and walked slowly up and down the floor with it. For he knew that he must go to meet McGurk.

  The very thought of the man sent the old chill through his blood, yet he must go and face him and end the thing.

  It came over him with a pang that he was very young; that life was barely a taste in his mouth, whether bitter or sweet he could not tell. He picked a flaming stick from the fire and went before a little round mirror on the wall.

  Back at him stared the face of a boy. He had seen so much of the grim six in the last day that the contrast startled him. They were men, hardened to life and filled with knowledge of it. They were books written full and ready to be ended. But he? He was a blank page with a scribbled word here and there. Nevertheless, he was chosen and he must go.

  Having reached that decision he closed his mind on what would happen. There was a vague fear that when he faced McGurk he would be unmanned again and frozen with fear; that his spirit would be broken and he would become a thing too despicable for a man to kill.

  One thing was certain: if he was to act a man's part and die a man's death he must not stand long before McGurk. It seemed to him then that he would die happy if he had the strength to fire one shot before the end.

  Then he tiptoed from the house and went over the snow to the barn and saddled the horse of Hal Boone. It was already morning, and as he led the horse to the door of the barn a shadow, a faint shadow in that early light,
fell across the snow before him.

  He looked up and saw Jacqueline. She stepped close, and the horse nosed her shoulder affectionately.

  She said: "Isn't there anything that will keep you from going?"

  "It's just a little ride before breakfast. I'll be back in an hour."

  It was foolish to try to blind her, as he saw by her wan, unchildish smile.

  "Is there no other way, Pierre?"

  "I don't know of any, do you?"

  "You have to leave us, and never come back?"

  "Is he as sure as that, Jack?"

  "Sure? Who?"

  She had not known, after all; she thought that he was merely riding away from the region where McGurk was king. Now she caught his wrists and shook them.

  "Pierre, you are not going to face McGurk? Pierre!"

  It was sweet and bitter-sweet that the child should wish him to stay, and it made the heart of Pierre old and stern to look down on her.

  "If you were a man, you would understand."

  "I know; because of your father. I do understand, but oh, Pierre, it makes me so unhappy—so terribly sad, Pierre."

  Inspiration made her catch her breath.

  "Listen! I can shoot as straight as almost any man. We will ride down together. We will go through the doors together—me first to take his fire, and you behind to shoot him down."

  "I guess no man can be as brave as a woman, Jack. No; I have to see McGurk alone. He faced my father alone and shot him down. I'll face McGurk alone and live long enough to put my mark on him."

  "But you don't know him. He can't be hurt. Do you think my father and—and Dick Wilbur would fear any man who could be hurt? No, but McGurk has been in a hundred fights and never been touched. There's a charm over him, don't you see?"

  "I'll break the charm, that's all."

  "You're only a boy, Pierre."

  "I, also, carry a charm with me. Good-by."

  He was up in the saddle.

  "Then I'll call dad—I'll call them all—if you die they shall all follow you. I swear they shall, Pierre!"

  He merely leaned forward and touched the horse with his spurs, but after he had raced the first hundred yards he glanced back. She was running hard for the house, and calling as she went. Pierre cursed and spurred the horse again.

  Yet even if Jim Boone and his men started out after him they could never overtake him. Before they were in their saddles and up with him, he'd be a full three miles out in the hills. Not even black Thunder could make up as much ground as that.

  So all the fifteen miles to Gaffney's place he urged his horse. The excitement of the race kept the thought of McGurk back in his mind. Only once he lost time when he had to pull up beside a buckboard and inquire the way. After that he flew on again. Yet as he clattered up to the door of Gaffney's crossroads saloon and swung to the ground he looked back and saw a cluster of horsemen swing around the shoulder of a hill and come tearing after him. Surely his time was short.

  He thrust open the door of the place and called for a drink. The bartender spun the glass down the bar to him.

  "Where's McGurk?"

  The other stopped in the very act of taking out the bottle from the shelf, and his curious glance went over the face of Pierre le Rouge. He decided, apparently, that it was foolish to hold suspicions against so young a man.

  "In that room," and he jerked his hand toward a door. "What do you want with him?"

  "Got a message for him."

  "Tell it to me, and I'll pass it along."

  Pierre met the eye of the other and smiled faintly.

  "Not this message."

  "Oh," said the other, and then shouted: "McGurk!"

  Far away came the rush of hoofs over a hard trail. Only a minute more and they would be here; only a minute more and the room would be full of fighting men ready to die with him and for him. Yet Pierre was glad; glad that he could meet the danger alone; ten minutes from now, if he lived, he could answer certainly one way or the other the greatest of all questions: "Am I a man?"

  Out of the inner room the pleasant voice which he dreaded answered: "What's up?"

  The barkeeper glanced Pierre le Rouge over again and then answered: "A friend with a message."

  The door opened and framed McGurk. He did not start, seeing Pierre.

  He said: "None of the rest of them had the guts even to bring me the message, eh?"

  Pierre shrugged his shoulders. It was a mighty effort, but he was able to look his man fairly in the eyes.

  "All right, lad. How long is it going to take you to clear out of the country?"

  "That's not the message," answered a voice which Pierre did not recognize as his own.

  "Out with it, then."

  "It's in the leather on my hip."

  And he went for his gun. Even as he started his hand he knew that he was too slow for McGurk, yet the finest split-second watch in the world could not have caught the differing time they needed to get their guns out of the holsters.

  Just a breath before Pierre fired there was a stunning blow on his right shoulder and another on his hip. He lurched to the floor, his revolver clattering against the wood as he fell, but falling, he scooped up the gun with his left and twisted.

  That movement made the third shot of McGurk fly wide and Pierre fired from the floor and saw a spasm of pain contract the face of the outlaw.

  Instantly the door behind him flew open and Boone's men stormed into the room. Once more McGurk fired, but his wound made his aim wide and the bullet merely tore up a splinter beside Pierre's head. A fusillade from Boone and his men answered, but the outlaw had leaped back through the door.

  "He's hurt," thundered Boone. "By God, the charm of McGurk is broken. Dick, Bud, Gandil, take the outside of the place. I'll force the door."

  Wilbur and the other two raced through the door and raised a shout at once, and then there was a rattle of shots. Big Patterson leaned over Pierre.

  He said in an awe-stricken voice: "Lad, it's a great work that you've done for all of us, if you've drawn the blood from McGurk."

  "His left shoulder," said Pierre, and smiled in spite of his pain.

  "And you, lad?"

  "I'm going to live; I've got to finish the job. Who's that beside you? There's a mist over my eyes."

  "It's Jack. She outrode us all."

  Then the mist closed over the eyes of Pierre and his senses went out in the dark.

  CHAPTER XV

  GOLD HAIR

  Those who are curious about the period which followed during which the title "Le Rouge" was forgotten and he became known only as "Red" Pierre through all the mountain-desert, can hear the tales of his doing from the analists of the ranges. This story has to do only with his struggle with McGurk, and must end where that struggle ended.

  The gap of six years which occurs here is due to the fact that during that period McGurk vanished from the mountain-desert. He died away from the eyes of men and in their minds he became that tradition which lives still so vividly, the tradition of the pale face, the sneering, bloodless lips, and the hand which never failed.

  During this lapse of time there were many who claimed that he had ridden off into some lonely haunt and died of the wound which he received from Pierre's bullet. A great majority, however, would never accept such a story, and even when the six years had rolled by they still shook their heads and "had their doubt on the matter" like Wouter Van Twiller of immortal memory.

  They awaited his return just as certain stanch old Britons await the second coming of Arthur from the island of Avalon. In the mean time the terror of his name passed on to him who had broken the "charm" of McGurk.

  Not all that grim significance passed on to "Red" Pierre, indeed, because he never impressed the public imagination as did the terrible ruthlessness of McGurk. At that he did enough to keep tongues wagging.

  Cattlemen loved to tell those familiar exploits of the "two sheriffs," or that "thousand-mile pursuit of Canby," with its half-tragic, half-humorous
conclusion, or the "Sacking of Two Rivers," or the "three-cornered battle" against Rodriguez and Blond.

  But men could not forget that in all his work there rode behind Red Pierre six dauntless warriors of the mountain-desert, while McGurk had been always a single hand against the world, a veritable lone wolf.

  Whatever kept him away through those six years, the memory of the wound he received at Gaffney's place never left McGurk, and now he was coming back with a single great purpose in his mind, and in his heart a consuming hatred for Pierre and all the other of Boone's men.

  Certainly if he had sensed the second coming of McGurk, Pierre would not have ridden so jauntily through the hills this day, or whistled so carelessly, or swept the hills with such a complacent, lordly eye. A man of mark cannot bear himself too modestly, and Pierre, from boots to high-peaked, broad-brimmed sombrero, was the last word in elegance for a rider of the mountain-desert.

  Even his mount seemed to sense the pride of his master. It was a cream-colored mustang, not one of the lump-headed, bony-hipped species common to the ranges, but one of those rare reversions to the Spanish thoroughbreds from which the Western cow-pony is descended. The mare was not over-large, but the broad hips and generous expanse of chest were hints, and only hints, of her strength and endurance. There was the speed of the blooded racer in her and the tirelessness of the mustang.

  Now, down the rocky, half broken trail she picked her way as daintily as any debutante tiptoeing down a great stairway to the ballroom. Life had been easy for Mary since that thousand-mile struggle to overtake Canby, and now her sides were sleek from good feeding and some casual twenty miles a day, which was no more to her than a canter through the park is to the city horse.

  The eye which had been so red-stained and fierce during the long ride after Canby was now bright and gentle. At every turn she pricked her small sharp ears as if she expected home and friends on the other side of the curve. And now and again she tossed her head and glanced back at the master for a moment and then whinnied across some echoing ravine.