The Max Brand Megapack

by Max Brand

  “Mad?” he smiled. “No, I think that’s one of the best lies you ever told me, Jack.”

  Their eyes met, hers very wide, and his keen and steady. The she gripped at the butt of her gun, an habitual trick when she was very angry, and cried:

  “Do I have to sit here and let you call me—that? Pierre, pull a few more tricks like that and I’ll call for a new deal. Get me?”

  She rose, whirled, and threw herself sullenly on her bunk.

  “Come back,” said Pierre. “You’re more scared than angry. Why are you afraid, Jack?”

  “It’s a lie—I’m not afraid!”

  “Let me see that glove again.”

  “You’ve seen it once—that’s enough.”

  He whistled carelessly, rolling a cigarette. After he lighted it he said: “Ready to talk yet, partner?”

  She maintained an obstinate silence, but that sharp eye saw that she was trembling. He set his teeth and then drew several long puffs on his cigarette.

  “I’m going to count to ten, pal, and when I finish you’re going to tell me everything straight. In the mean time don’t stay there thinking up a new lie. I know you too well, and if you try the same thing on me again—”

  “Well?” she snarled, all the tiger coming back in her voice.

  “You’ll talk, all right. Here goes the count: One—two—three—four—”

  As he counted, leaving a long drag of two or three seconds between numbers, there was not a change in the figure of the girl. She still lay with her back turned on him, and the only expressive part that showed was her hand. First it lay limp against her hip, but as the monotonous count proceeded it gathered to a fist.

  “Five—six—seven—”

  It seemed that he had been counting for hours, his will against her will, the man in him against the woman in her, and during the pauses between the sound of his voice the very air grew charged with waiting. To the girl the wait for every count was like the wait of the doomed traitor when he stands facing the firing-squad, watching the glimmer of light go down the aimed rifles.

  For she knew the face of the man who sat there counting; she knew how the firelight flared in the dark-red of his hair and made it seem like another fire beneath which the blue of the eyes was strangely cold and keen. Her hand had gathered to a hard-balled fist.

  “Eight—nine—”

  She sprang up, screaming: “No, no, Pierre!”

  And threw out her arms to him.

  “Ten.”

  She whispered: “It was the girl with yellow hair—Mary Brown.”

  CHAPTER XXXIV

  TIGER-HEART

  It was as if she had said: “Good morning!” in the calmest of voices. There was no answer in him, neither word nor expression, and out of ten sharp-eyed men, nine would have passed him by without noting the difference; but the girl knew him as the monk knows his prayers or the Arab his horse, and a solemn, deep despair came over her. She felt like the drowning, when the water closes over their heads for the last time.

  He puffed twice again at the cigarette and then flicked the butt into the fire. When he spoke it was only to say: “Did she stay long?”

  But his eyes avoided her. She moved a little so as to read his face, but when he turned again and answered her stare she winced.

  “Not very long, Pierre.”

  “Ah,” he said, “I see! It was because she didn’t dream that this was the place I lived in.”

  It was the sort of heartless, torturing questioning which was once the crudest weapon of the inquisition. With all her heart she fought to raise her voice above the whisper whose very sound accused her, but could not. She was condemned to that voice as the man bound in nightmare is condemned to walk slowly, slowly, though the terrible danger is racing toward him, and the safety which he must reach lies only a dozen steps, a dozen mortal steps away.

  She said in that voice: “No; of course she didn’t dream it.”

  “And you, Jack, had her interests at heart—her best interests, poor girl, and didn’t tell her?”

  Her hands went out to him in mute appeal.

  “Please, Pierre—don’t!”

  “Is something troubling you, Jack?”

  “You are breaking my heart.”

  “Why, by no means! Let’s sit here calmly and chat about the girl with the yellow hair. To begin with—she’s rather pleasant to look at, don’t you think?”

  “I suppose she is.”

  “H-m! rather poor taste not to be sure of it. Well, let it go. You’ve always had rather queer taste in women, Jack; but, of course, being a long-rider, you haven’t seen much of them. At least her name is delightful—Mary Brown! You’ve no idea how often I’ve repeated it aloud to myself and relished the sound—Mary Brown!”

  “I hate her!”

  “You two didn’t have a very agreeable time of it? By the way, she must have left in rather a hurry to forget her glove, eh?”

  “Yes, she ran—like a coward.”

  “Ah?”

  “Like a trembling coward. How can you care for a white-faced little fool like that? Is she your match? Is she your mate?”

  He considered a moment, as though to make sure that he did not exaggerate.

  “I love her, Jack, as men love water when they’ve ridden all day over hot sand without a drop on their lips—you know when the tongue gets thick and the mouth fills with cotton—and then you see clear, bright water, and taste it.”

  “She is like that to me. She feeds every sense; and when I look in her eyes, Jack, I feel like the starved man on the desert, as I was saying, drinking that priceless water. You knew something of the way I feel, Jack. Isn’t it a little odd that you didn’t keep her here?”

  She had stood literally shuddering during this speech, and now she burst out, far beyond all control: “Because she loathes you; because she hates herself for ever having loved you; because she despises herself for having ridden up here after you. Does that fill your cup of water, Pierre, eh?”

  His forehead was shining with sweat, but he set his teeth, and, after a moment, he was able to say in the same hard, calm voice: “I suppose there was no real reason for her change. She can be persuaded back to me in a moment. In that case just tell me where she has gone and I’ll ride after her.”

  He made as if to rise, but she cried in a panic, and yet with a wild exultation: “No, she’s done with you forever, and the more you make love to her now the more she’ll hate you. Because she knows that when you kissed her before—when you kissed her—you were living with a woman.”

  “I—living with a woman?”

  Her voice had risen out of the whisper for the outbreak. Now it sank back into it.

  “Yes—with me!”

  “With you? I see. Naturally it must have gone hard with her—Mary! And she wouldn’t see reason even when you explained that you and I are like brothers?”

  He leaned a little toward her and just a shade of emotion came in his voice.

  “When you carefully explained, Jack, with all the eloquence you could command, that you and I have ridden and fought and camped together like brothers for six years? And how I gave you your first gun? And how I’ve stayed between you and danger a thousand times? And how I’ve never treated you otherwise than as a man? And how I’ve given you the love of a blood-brother to take the place of the brother who died? And how I’ve kept you in a clean and pure respect such as a man can only give once in his life—and then only to his dearest friend? She wouldn’t listen—even when you talked to her like this?”

  “For God’s sake—Pierre!”

  “Ah, but you talked well enough to pave the way for me. You talked so eloquently that with a little more persuasion from me she will know and understand. Come, I must be gone after her. Which way did she ride—up or down the valley?”

  “You could talk to her forever and she’d never listen. Pierre, I told her that I was—your woman—that you’d told me of your scenes with her—and that we’d laughed at them together
.”

  She covered her eyes and crouched, waiting for the wrath that would fall on her, but he only smiled bitterly on the bowed head, saying: “Why have I waited so long to hear you say what I knew already? I suppose because I wouldn’t believe until I heard the whole abominable truth from your own lips. Jack, why did you do it?”

  “Won’t you see? Because I’ve loved you always, Pierre!”

  “Love—you—your tiger-heart? No, but you were like a cruel, selfish child. You were jealous because you didn’t want the toy taken away. I knew it. I knew that even if I rode after her it would be hopeless. Oh, God, how terribly you’ve hurt me, partner!”

  It wrung a little moan from her. He said after a moment: “It’s only the ghost of a chance, but I’ll have to take it. Tell me which way she rode? No? Then I’ll try to find her.”

  She leaped between him and the door, flinging her shoulders against it with a crash and standing with outspread arms to bar the way.

  “You must not go!”

  He turned his head somewhat.

  “Don’t stand in front of me, Jack. You know I’ll do what I say, and just now it’s a bit hard for me to face you.”

  “Pierre, I feel as if there were a hand squeezing my heart small, and small, and small. Pierre, I’d die for you!”

  “I know you would. I know you would, partner. It was only a mistake, and you acted the way any cold-hearted boy would act if—if some one were to try to steal his horse, for instance. But just now it’s hard for me to look at you and be calm.”

  “Don’t try to be! Swear at me—curse—rave—beat me; I’d be glad of the blows, Pierre. I’d hold out my arms to ’em. But don’t go out that door!”

  “Why?”

  “Because—if you found her—she’s not alone.”

  “Say that slowly. I don’t understand. She’s not alone?”

  “I’ll try to tell you from the first. She started out for you with Dick Wilbur for a guide.”

  “Good old Dick, God bless him! I’ll fill all his pockets with gold for that; and he loves her, you know.”

  “You’ll never see Dick Wilbur again. On the first night they camped she missed him when he went for water. She went down after a while and saw the mark of his body on the sand. He never appeared again.”

  “Who was it?”

  “Listen. The next morning she woke up and found that some one had taken care of the fire while she slept, and her pack was lashed on one of the saddles. She rode on that day and came at night to a camp-fire with a bed of boughs near it and no one in sight. She took that camp for herself and no one showed up.

  “Don’t you see? Some one was following her up the valley and taking care of the poor baby on the way. Some one who was afraid to let himself be seen. Perhaps it was the man who killed Dick Wilbur without a sound there beside the river; perhaps as Dick died he told the man who killed him about the lonely girl and this other man was white enough to help Mary.

  “But all Mary ever saw of him was that second night when she thought that she saw a streak of white, traveling like a galloping horse, that disappeared over a hill and into the trees—”

  “A streak of white—”

  “Yes, yes! The white horse—McGurk!”

  “McGurk!” repeated Pierre stupidly; then: “And you knew she would be going out to him when she left this house?”

  “I knew—Pierre—don’t look at me like that—I knew that it would be murder to let you cross with McGurk. You’re the last of seven—he’s a devil—no man—”

  “And you let her go out into the night—to him.”

  She clung to a last thread of hope: “If you met him and killed him with the luck of the cross it would bring equal bad luck on some one you love—on the girl, Pierre!”

  He was merely repeating stupidly: “You let her go out—to him—in the night! She’s in his arms now—you devil—you tiger—”

  She threw herself down and clung about his knees with hysterical strength.

  “Pierre, you shall not go. Pierre, you walk on my heart if you go!”

  He tore the little cross from his neck and flung it into her upturned face.

  “Don’t make me put my hands on you, Jack. Let me go!”

  There was no need to tear her grasp away. She crumpled and slipped sidewise to the floor. He leaned over and shook her violently by the shoulder.

  “Which way did she ride? Which way did they ride?”

  She whispered: “Down the valley, Pierre; down the valley; I swear they rode that way.”

  And as she lay in a half swoon she heard the faint clatter of galloping hoofs over the rooks and a wild voice yelling, fainter and fainter with distance:

  “McGurk!”

  CHAPTER XXXV

  JACK HEARS A SMALL VOICE

  It came back to her like a threat; it beat at her ears and roused her, that continually diminishing cry: “McGurk!” It went down the valley, and Mary Brown, and McGurk with her, perhaps, had gone up the gorge, but it would be a matter of a short time before Pierre le Rouge discovered that there was no camp-fire to be sighted in the lower valley and whirled to storm back up the cañon with that battle-cry: “McGurk!” still on his lips.

  And if the two met she knew the result. Seven strong men had ridden together, fought together, and one by one they had fallen, disappeared like the white smoke of the camp-fire, jerked off into thin air by the wind, until only one remained.

  How clearly she could see them all! Bud Mansie, meager, lean, with a shifting eye; Garry Patterson, of the red, good-natured face; Phil Branch, stolid and short and muscled like a giant; Handsome Dick Wilbur on his racing bay; Black Gandil, with his villainies from the South Seas like an invisible mantle of awe about him; and her father, the stalwart, gray Boone.

  All these had gone, and there remained only Pierre le Rouge to follow in the steps of the six who had gone before.

  She crawled to the door, feeble in mind and shuddering of body like a runner who has spent his last energy in a long race, and drew it open. The wind blew up the valley from the Old Crow, but no sound came back to her, no calling from Pierre; and over her rose the black pyramid of the western peak of the Twin Bears like a monstrous nose pointing stiffly toward the stars.

  She closed the door, dragged herself back to her feet, and stood with her shoulders leaning against the wall. Her weakness was not weariness—it was as if something had been taken from her. She wondered at herself somewhat vaguely. Surely she had never been like this before, with the singular coldness about her heart and the feeling of loss, of infinite loss.

  What had she lost? She began to search her mind for an answer. Then she smiled uncertainly, a wan, small smile. It was very clear; what she had lost was all interest in life and all hope for the brave to-morrow. Nothing remained of all those lovely dreams which she had built up by day and night about the figure of Pierre le Rouge. He was gone, and the bright-colored bubble she had blown vanished at once.

  She felt a slight pain at her forehead and then remembered the cross which Pierre had thrown into her face. Casting that away he had thrown his faintest chance of victory with it; it would be a slaughter, not a battle, and red-handed McGurk would leave one more foe behind him.

  But looking down she found the cross and picked up the shining bit of metal; it seemed as if she held the greater part of Pierre le Rouge in her hands. She raised the cross to her lips.

  When she fastened the cross about her throat it was with no exultation, but like one who places over his heart a last memorial of the dead; a consecration, like the red sign or the white which the crusaders wore on the covers of their shields.

  Then she took from her breast the spray of autumn leaves. He had not noticed them, yet perhaps they had helped to make him gay when he came into the cabin that night, so she placed the spray on the table. Next she unpinned the great rubies from her throat and let her eye linger over them for a moment. They were chosen stones, each as deeply lighted as an eye, if there ever were eyes of this blood
-red, and they looked up at her with a lure and a challenge at once.

  The first thought of what she must do came to Jacqueline then, but not in an overwhelming tide—it was rather a small voice that whispered in her heart.

  Last, she took from her bosom the glove of the yellow-haired girl. Compared with her stanch riding gloves, how small was this! Yet, when she tried it, it slipped easily on her hand. This she laid in that little pile, for these were the things which Pierre would wish to find if by some miracle he came back from the battle. The spray, perhaps, he would not understand; and yet he might. She pressed both hands to her breast and drew a long breath, for her heart was breaking. Through her misted eyes she could barely see the shimmer of the cross.

  That sight made her look up, searching for a superhuman aid in her woe, and for the first time in her life a conception of God dawned on her wild, gay mind. She made a picture of him like a vast cloud looming over the Twin Bear peaks and breathing an infinite calm over the mountains. The cloud took a faintly human shape—a shape somewhat like that of her father when he lived, for he could be both stern and gentle, as she well knew, and such gray Boone had been.

  Perhaps it was because of this that another picture came out of her infancy of a soft voice, of a tender-touching hand, of brooding, infinitely loving eyes. She smiled the wan smile again because for the first time it came to her that she, too, even she, the wild, the “tiger-heart,” as Pierre himself had called her, might one day have been the mother of a child, his child.

  But the ache within her grew so keen that she dropped, writhing, to her knees, and twisted her hands together in agony. It was prayer. There were no words to it, but it was prayer, a wild appeal for aid.

  That aid came in the form of a calm that swept on her like the flood of a clear moonlight over a storm-beaten landscape. The whisper which had come to her before was now a solemn-speaking voice, and she knew what she must do. She could not keep the two men apart, but she might reach McGurk before and strike him down by stealth, by craft, any way to kill that man as terrible as a devil, as invulnerable as a ghost.