The Night Horseman

by Max Brand

  CHAPTER XXII

  PATIENCE

  There is one patience greater than the endurance of the cat at the holeof the mouse or the wolf which waits for the moose to drop, and that isthe patience of the thinking man; the measure of the Hindoo's movelesscontemplation of Nirvana is not in hours but in weeks or even in months.Randall Byrne sat at his sentinel post with his hands folded and hisgrave eyes steadily fixed before him, and for hour after hour he did notmove. Though the wind rose, now and again, and whistled through theupper chambers or mourned down the empty halls, Randall Byrne did notstir so much as an eyelash in observance. Two things held himfascinated. One was the girl who had passed up yonder stairs so wearilywithout a single backward glance at him; the other was the silent battlewhich went on in the adjoining room. Now and then his imaginationwandered away to secondary pictures. He would see Barry meeting BuckDaniels, at last, and striking him down as remorselessly as the houndstrikes the hare; or he would see him riding back towards Elkhead andcatch a bright, sad vision of Kate Cumberland waving a careless adieu tohim, and then hear her singing carelessly as she turned away. Suchpictures as these, however, came up but rarely in the mind of Byrne.Mostly he thought of the stranger leaning over the body of old JoeCumberland, reviving him, storing him with electric energy, paying back,as it were, some ancient debt. And he thought of the girl as she hadturned at the landing place of the stairs, her head fallen; and hethought of her lying in her bed, with her arm under the mass of brighthair, trying to sleep, very tired, but remorsely held awake by that samepower which was bringing Joe Cumberland back from the verge of death.

  It was all impossible. This thing could not be. It was really as bad asthe yarn of the Frankenstein monster. He considered how it would seem inprint, backed by his most solemn asseverations, and then he saw thefaces of the men who associated with him, pale thoughtful faces strivingto conceal their smiles and their contempt. But always he came back,like the desperate hare doubling on his course, upon the picture of KateCumberland there at the turning of the stairs, and that bent, brighthead which confessed defeat. The man had forgotten her. It made Byrneopen his eyes in incredulity even to imagine such a thing. The man hadforgotten her! She was no more to him than some withered hag he mightride past on the road.

  His ear, subconsciously attentive to everything around him, caught afaint sound from the next room. It was a regular noise. It had therhythm of a quick footfall, but in its nature it was more like thesound of a heavily beating pulse. Randall Byrne sat up in his chair. Afaint creaking attested that it was, indeed, a footfall traversing theroom to and fro, steadily.

  The stranger, then, no longer leaned over the couch of the oldcattleman. He was walking up and down the floor with thatcharacteristic, softly padding step. Of what did he think as he walked?It carried Byrne automatically out into the darkest night, with a windin his face, and the rhythm of a long striding horse carrying him on toa destination unknown.

  Here he heard a soft scratching, repeated, at the door. When it cameagain he rose and opened the door--at once the tall, shaggy dog slippedthrough the opening and glided past him. It startled Byrne oddly to seethe animal stealing away, as if Barry himself had been leaving. Hecalled to the beast, but he was met by a silent baring of white fangsthat stopped him in his tracks. The great dog was gone without a sound,and Byrne closed the door again without casting a look inside. He wasstupidly, foolishly afraid to look within.

  After that the silence had a more vital meaning. No pictures crowded hisbrain. He was simply keyed to a high point of expectancy, and therefore,when the door was opened silently, he sprang up as if in acknowledgmentof an alarm and faced Barry. The latter closed the door behind him andglided after the big dog. He had almost crossed the big room when Byrnewas able to speak.

  "Mr. Barry!" he called.

  The man hesitated.

  "Mr. Barry," he repeated.

  And Dan Barry turned. It was something like the act of the wolf themoment before; a swift movement--a flash of the eyes in something likedefiance.

  "Mr. Barry, are you leaving us?"

  "I'm going outside."

  "Are you coming back?"

  "I dunno."

  A great joy swelled in the throat of Doctor Byrne. He felt like shoutingin triumph; yet he remembered once more how the girl had gone up thestairs, wearily, with fallen head. He decided that he would do what hecould to keep the stranger with them, and though Randall Byrne lived tobe a hundred he would never do a finer thing than what he attemptedthen. He stepped across the room and stood before Barry, blocking theway.

  "Sir," he said gravely, "if you go now, you will work a great sorrow inthis house."

  A glint of anger rose in the eyes of Barry.

  "Joe Cumberland is sleepin' soun'," he answered. "He'll be a pile restedwhen he wakes up. He don't need me no more."

  "He's not the only one who needs you," said Byrne. "His daughter hasbeen waiting impatiently for your coming, sir."

  The sharp glance of Barry wavered away.

  "I'd kind of like to stay," he murmured, "but I got to go."

  A dull voice called from the next room.

  "It's Joe Cumberland," said Byrne. "You see, he is not sleeping!"

  The brow of Barry clouded, and he turned gloomily back.

  "Maybe I better stay," he agreed.

  Yet before he made a step Byrne heard a far-away honking of the wildgeese, that musical discord carrying for uncounted miles through thewindy air. The sound worked like magic on Barry. He whirled back.

  "I got to go," he repeated.

  And yet Byrne blocked the way. It required more courage to do that thanto do anything he had ever attempted in his life. The sweat poured outfrom under his armpits as the stranger stepped near; the blood rushedfrom his face as he stared into the eyes of Barry--eyes which now heldan uncanny glimmer of yellow light.

  "Sir," said Byrne huskily, "you must not go! Listen! Old Cumberland iscalling to you again! Does that mean nothing? If you have some errandout in the night, let me go for you."

  "Partner," said the soft voice of Barry, "stand aside. I got no time,I'm wanted!"

  Every muscle of Randall Byrne's body was set to repulse the stranger inany effort to pass through that door, and yet, mysteriously, against hiswill, he found himself standing to one side, and saw the other slipthrough the open door.

  "Dan! Are ye there?" called a louder voice from the room beyond.

  There was no help for it. He, himself, must go back and face JoeCumberland. With a lie, no doubt. He would say that Dan had stepped outfor a moment and would be back again. That might put Cumberland safelyto sleep. In the morning, to be sure, he would find out thedeception--but let every day bury its dead. Here was enough trouble forone night. He went slowly, but steadily enough, towards the door of whathad now become a fatal room to the doctor. In that room he had seen hisdearest doctrines cremated. Out of that room he had come bearing theashes of his hopes in his hands. Now he must go back once more to try tofill, with science, a gap of which science could never take cognizance.

  He lingered another instant with his hand on the door; then he cast itwide bravely enough and stepped in. Joe Cumberland was sitting up on theedge of his couch. There was colour in the old man's face. It almostseemed, to the incredulous eyes of Byrne, that the face was filled out atrifle. Certainly the fire of the old cattleman's glance was lessunearthly.

  "Where's Dan?" he called. "Where'd he go?"

  It was no longer the deep, controlled voice of the stoic; it was thealmost whining complaint of vital weakness.

  "Is there anything I can do for you?" parried Byrne. "Anything you needor wish?"

  "Him!" answered the old man explosively. "Damn it, I need Dan! Where ishe? He was here. I _felt_ him here while I was sleepin'. _where is he?_"

  "He has stepped out for an instant," answered Byrne smoothly. "He willbe back shortly."

  "He--has--stepped--out?" echoed the old man slowly. Then he rose to thefull of his gaunt height. His white
hair, his triangle of beard andpointed moustache gave him a detached, a mediaeval significance; aportrait by Van Dyck had stepped from its frame.

  "Doc, you're lyin' to me! Where has he gone?"

  A sudden, almost hysterical burst of emotion swept Doctor Byrne.

  "Gone to heaven or hell!" he cried with startling violence. "Gone tofollow the wind and the wild geese--God knows where!"

  Like a period to his sentence, a gun barked outside, there was a howl ofdemoniac pain and rage, and then a scream that would tingle in the earof Doctor Randall Byrne till his dying day.