by Max Brand
CHAPTER XXI
THE DANCE
Jacqueline could never back a horse in that gown, or even sit sidewisein the saddle without hopelessly crumpling it, so they walked to theschoolhouse. It was a slow progress, for she had to step lightly andcarefully for fear of the slippers. He took her bare arm and helpedher; he would never have thought of it under ordinary conditions, butsince she had put on this gown she was greatly changed to him, nolonger the wild, free rider of the mountain-desert, but a defenseless,strangely weak being. Her strength was now something other than theskill to ride hard and shoot straight and quick.
Greatest wonder of all, she accepted the new relation tacitly, andleaned more and more weight on his hand, and even looked up and laughedwith pleasure when he almost lifted her over a muddy runlet. It wasall new, very strange, and, oddly enough, not unpleasant. Each wasviewing the other from such an altered point that neither spoke.
So they came to the schoolhouse in this silence, and reached the longline of buggies, buckboards, and, most of all, saddled horses. Theyflooded the horse-shed where the school children stabled their mountsin the winter weather. They were tethered to the posts of the fence;they were grouped about the trees.
It was a prodigious gathering, and a great affair for themountain-desert. They knew this even before they had set foot withinthe building.
They stopped here and adjusted their masks carefully. They were madefrom a strip of black lining which Jack had torn from one of the coatsin the trunk which lay far back in the hills.
Those masks had to be tied firmly and well, for some jester might tryto pull away that of Pierre, and if his face were seen, it would bedeath--a slaughter without defense, for he had not been able to concealhis big Colt in these tight-fitting clothes. Even as it was, there wasperil from the moment that the lights within should shine on that headof dark-red hair.
As for Jack, there was little fear that she would be recognized. Shewas strange even to Pierre every time he looked down at her, for shehad ceased to be Jack and had become very definitely "Jacqueline." Butthe masks were on; the scarf adjusted about the throat and bare,shivering shoulders of Jack, and they stood arm in arm before the doorout of which streamed the voices and the music.
"Are you ready?"
"Yes."
"Pierre--if they should find us out--"
"Never in a thousand years. Are you ready?"
"Yes."
But she was trembling so, either from fear, or excitement, or both,that he had to take a firm hold on her arm and almost carry her up thesteps, shove the door open, and force her in.
A hundred eyes were instantly upon them, practised, suspicious eyes,accustomed to search into all things and take nothing for granted; eyesof men who, when a rap came at their door, looked to see whether or notthe shadow of the stranger fell full in the center of the crack beneaththe door. If it fell to one side the man might be an enemy, andtherefore they would stand at one side of the room, their hands uponthe butt of the six-gun, and shout: "Come in." Such was the battery ofglances from the men, and the color of Pierre altered, paled.
He knew some of those faces, for those who hunt and are hunted neverforget the least gestures of their enemies. There was a mightytemptation to turn back even then, but he set his teeth and forcedhimself to stand calmly, adjust the absurd eye-glass on his nose, andstare about the room.
The chuckle which replied to this maneuver freed him for the moment.Suspicion was lulled. Moreover, the red-jeweled hair of Jacqueline andher lighted eyes called all attention almost immediately upon her. Sheshifted the golden scarf--the white arms and breast flashed in thelight--a gasp responded. There would be talk to-morrow; there werewhispers even now.
It was not the main hall that they stood in, for this school, havingbeen built by an aspiring community, contained two rooms; this smallerroom, used by the little ones of the school, was now converted into ahat-and-cloak room, and here also were a dozen baskets and boxes filledwith comforters and blankets.
It was because of what lay in those baskets that the men and the womenwalked and talked softly in this room. They were wary lest they shouldarouse a sound which not even the loudest music could quite drown--asound which makes all women sit up straight and sniff like huntedanimals at bay, and makes all men frown and glance about for places ofrefuge.
Now and then some girl came panting and flushed from the dance-hallwithin and tiptoed to one of these baskets, and raised an edge of ablanket and looked down at the contents with a singular smile. Pierrehung up his hat, removed his gloves slowly, nerving himself to endurethe sharp glances, and opened the door for Jacqueline.
If she had held back tremulously before, something she had seen in theeyes of those in the first room, something in the whisper and murmurwhich rose the moment she started to leave, gave her courage. Shestepped into the dance-hall like a queen going forth to address devotedsubjects.
The second ordeal was easier than the first. There were many timesmore people in that crowded room, but each was intent upon his ownpleasure. A wave of warmth and light swept upon them, and a blare ofmusic, and a stir and hum of voices, and here and there the sweet soundof a happy girl's laughter. They raised their heads, these two wildrangers of the mountain-desert, and breathed deep of the fantasticscene.
It was marvelous, indeed, that so much gay life could exist within thearms of those gaunt, naked hills beyond the windows. There was noattempt at beauty in the costumes of the masqueraders. Here and theresome girl achieved a novel and pleasing effect; but on the whole theystrove for cheaper and more stirring things in the line of thegrotesque.
Here passed a youth wearing a beard made from the stiff, red bristlesof the tail of a sorrel horse. Another wore a bear's head cunninglystuffed, the grinning teeth flashing over his head and the skin drapedover his shoulders. A third disfigured himself horribly by paintingafter the fashion of an Indian on the war-path, with crimson streaksdown his forehead and red and black across his cheeks.
But not more than a third of all the assembly made any effort tomasquerade, beyond the use of the simple black mask across the upperpart of the face. The rest of the men and women contented themselveswith wearing the very finest clothes they could afford to buy, andthere was through the air a scent of the general merchandise storewhich not even a liberal use of cheap perfume and all the drifts ofpale-blue cigarette smoke could quite overcome.
As for the music, it was furnished by two very old men, relics of thedays when there were contests in fiddling; a stout fellow of middleage, with cheeks swelled almost to bursting as he thundered outterrific blasts on a slide trombone; a youth who rattled two sticks onan overturned dish-pan in lieu of a drum, and a cornetist of real skill.
In an interlude, before very long, he would amuse with a solo,including all sorts of runs and whistling notes, and be a source oftalk for many a month to come.
There were hard faces in the crowd, most of them, of men who had settheir teeth against hard weather and hard men, and fought their waythrough, not to happiness, but to existence, so that fighting hadbecome their pleasure.
Now they relaxed their eternal vigilance, their eternal suspicion.Another phase of their nature weakened. Some of them were smiling andlaughing for the first time in months, perhaps, of bitter labor andloneliness on the range. With the gates of good-nature opened, averitable flood of gaiety burst out. It glittered in their eyes, itrose to their lips in a wild laughter. They seemed to be dancing morefuriously fast in order to forget the life which they had left, and towhich they must return.
And through all the cheapness there was a great note of poetry as well;but one caught this only by a sense of intuition, or by rememberingthat these were the conquerors of the bitter nature of themountain-desert. There was beauty here, the beauty of strength in themen and a brown loveliness in the girls; just as in the music, theblatancy of the rattling dish-pan and the blaring trombone were morethan balanced by the real skill of the violinists, who kept a hi
gh,sweet, singing tone through all the clamor.
One could close his ears to the rest of the noise, if he strove to doso, and hear nothing but that harmonious moaning of the strings, steadyand clear, like the aspirations of a man divorced from the facts of hisweakness and his crudeness in practical life.
And Pierre le Rouge and Jacqueline? They stood aghast for a momentwhen that crash of noise broke around them; but they came from a lifewhere there was nothing of beauty except the lonely strength of themountains and the appalling silences of the stars that roll above thedesert. Almost at once they caught the overtone of human joyousness,and they turned with strange smiles to each other, and it was "Pierre?""Jack?" Then a nod, and she was in his arms, and they glided into thedance.
