by Max Brand
CHAPTER XXV
JACQUELINE WAITS
Jacqueline ran between and caught the hand of her father, crying:
"Are you going to finish the work of McGurk before he has a chance tostart it? He hunted the rest down one by one. Dad, if you put outPierre what is left? Can you face that devil alone?"
And the old man groaned: "But it's his luck that's ruined me. It's hisdamned luck which has broken up the finest fellowship that ever mockedat law on the ranges. Oh, Jack, the heart in me's broken. I wish toGod that I lay where Gandil lies. What's the use of fighting anylonger? No man can stand up against McGurk!"
And the cold which had come in the blood of Pierre agreed with him. Hewas a slayer of men, but McGurk was a devil incarnate. His father haddied at the hand of this lone rider; it was fitting, it was fate thathe himself should die in the same way. The girl looked from face toface, and sensed their despondency. It seemed that their fear gave herthe greater courage. Her face flushed as she stood glaring her scorn.
"The yellow streak took a long time in showin', but it's in you, allright, Pierre le Rouge."
"You've hated me ever since the dance, Jack. Why?"
"Because I knew you were yellow--like this!"
He shrugged his shoulders like one who gives up the fight against awoman, and seeing it, she changed suddenly and made a gesture with bothhands toward him, a sudden gesture filled with grace and a queertenderness.
She said: "Pierre, have you forgotten that when you were only a boy youstood up to McGurk and drew blood from him? Are you afraid of him now?"
"I'll take my chance with any man--but McGurk--"
"He has no cross to bring him luck."
"Aye, and he has no friends for that luck to ruin. Look at Gandil,Jack, and then speak to me of the cross."
"Pierre, that first time you met you almost beat him to the draw. Oh,if I were a man, I'd--Pierre, it was to get McGurk that you rode out tothe range. You've been here six years, and McGurk is still alive, andnow you're ready to run from his shadow."
"Run?" he said hotly. "I swear to God that as I stand here I've nofear of death and no hope for the life ahead."
She sneered: "You're white while you say it. Your will may be brave,but your blood's a coward, Pierre. It deserts you."
"Jack, you devil--"
"Aye, you can threaten me safely. But if McGurk were here--"
"Let him come."
"Pierre!"
"I mean it."
"Then give me one promise."
"A thousand of 'em."
"Let me hunt him with you."
He stared at her with a mute wonder. She had never been so beautiful.
"Jack, what a heart you have! If you were a man we could rule themountains, you and I."
"Even as I am, what prevents us, Pierre?"
And looking at her he forgot the sorrow which had been his ever sincehe looked up to the face framed with red-gold hair and the dark treebehind and the cold stars steady above it. It would come to him again,but now it was gone, and he murmured, smiling: "I wonder?"
They made their plans that night, sitting all three together. It wasbetter to go out and hunt the hunter than to wait there and be trackeddown. Jack, for she insisted on it, would ride out with Pierre thenext morning and hunt through the hills for the hiding-place of McGurk.
Some covert he must have, so as to be near his victims. Nothing elsecould explain the ease with which he kept on their track. They wouldtake the trail, and Jim Boone, no longer agile enough to be effectiveon the trail, would guard the house and the body of Gandil in it.
There was little danger that even McGurk would try to rush a hostilehouse, but they took no chances. The guns of Jim Boone were given athorough overhauling, and he wore as usual at his belt theheavy-handled hunting knife, a deadly weapon in a hand-to-hand fight.Thus equipped, they left him and took the trail.
They had not ridden a hundred yards when a whistle followed them, thefamiliar whistle of the gang. They reined short and saw big DickWilbur riding his bay after them, but at some distance he halted andshouted: "Pierre!"
"He's come back to us!" cried Jack.
"No. It's only some message."
"Do you know?"
"Yes. Stay here. This is for me alone."
And he rode back to Wilbur, who swung his horse close alongside.However hard he had followed in the pursuit of happiness and the goldenhair of Mary Brown, his face was drawn with lines of age and his eyescircled with shadows.
He said: "I've kept close on her trail, Pierre, and the nearest she hascome to kindness has been to send me back with a message to you."
He laughed without mirth, and the sound stopped abruptly.
"This is the message in her own words: 'I love him, Dick, and there'snothing in the world for me without him. Bring him back to me. Idon't care how; but bring him back.' So tell Jack to ride the trailalone to-day and go back with me. I give her up, not freely, butbecause I know there's no hope for me."
But Pierre answered: "Wherever I've gone there's been luck for me andhell for every one around me. I lived with a priest, Dick, and lefthim when I was nearly old enough to begin repaying his care. I cameSouth and found a father and lost him the same day. I gambled formoney with which to bury him, and a man died that night and another washurt. I escaped from the town by riding a horse to death. I wasnearly killed in a landslide, and now the men who saved me from thatare done for.
"It's all one story, the same over and over. Can I carry a fortunelike that back to her? Dick, it would haunt me by day and by night.She would be the next. I know it as I know that I'm sitting in thesaddle here. That's my answer. Carry it back to her."
"I won't lie and tell you I'm sorry, because I'm a fool and still havea ghost of a hope, but this will be hard news to tell her, and I'drather give five years of life than face the look that will come in hereyes."
"I know it, Dick."
"But this is final?"
"It is."
"Then good-bye again, and--God bless you, Pierre."
"And you, old fellow."
They swerved their horses in opposite directions and galloped apart.
"It was nothing," said Pierre to Jack, when he came up with her anddrew his horse down to a trot. But he knew that she had read his mind,and for an hour they could not look each other in the face.
But all day through the mazes of canon and hill and rolling ground theysearched patiently. There was no cranny in the rocks too small forthem to reconnoiter with caution. There was no group of trees they didnot examine.
Yet it was not strange that they failed. In the space of every squaremile there were a hundred hiding-places which might have served McGurk.It would have taken a month to comb the country. They had only a day,and left the result to chance, but chance failed them. When theshadows commenced to swing across the gullies they turned back and rodewith downward heads, silent.
One hill lay between them and the old ranch-house which had been theheadquarters for their gang so many days, when they saw a faint driftof smoke across the sky--not a thin column of smoke such as rises froma chimney, but a broad stream of pale mist, as if a dozen chimneys werespouting wood-smoke at once.
They exchanged glances and spurred their horses up the last slope. Asalways in a short spurt, the long-legged black of Jacquelineout-distanced the cream-colored mare, and it was she who first toppedthe rise of land. The girl whirled in her saddle with raised arm,screamed back at Pierre, and rode on at a still more furious pace.
What he saw when he reached a corresponding position was theranch-house wreathed in smoke, and through all the lower windows wasthe red dance of flames. Before him fled Jacqueline with all the speedof the black. He loosened the reins, spoke to the mare, and sheresponded with a mighty rush. Even that tearing pace could not quitetake him up to the girl, but he flung himself from the saddle and wasat her side when she ran across the smoking veranda and wrenched at thefront door.
The whole frame gave back at her, and as Pierre snatched her to oneside the doorway fell crashing on the porch, while a mighty volume ofsmoke burst out at them like a puff from the pit.
They stood sputtering, coughing, and choking, and when they could lookagain they saw a solid wall of red flame, thick, impenetrable,shuddering with the breath of the wind.
While they stared a stronger breath of that wind tore the wall offlames apart, driving it back in a raging tide to either side. Thefire had circled the walls of the entire room, but it had scarcelyencroached on the center, and there, seated at the table, was Boone.
He had scarcely changed from the position in which they last saw him,save that he was fallen somewhat deeper in the chair, his head restingagainst the top of the back. He greeted them, through that infernalfurnace, with laughter, and wide, steady eyes. At least it seemedlaughter, for the mouth was agape and the lips grinned back, but therewas no sound from the lips and no light in the fixed eyes.
Laughter indeed it was, but it was the laughter of death, as if thesoul of the man, in dying, recognized its natural wild element and hadburst into convulsive mirth. So he sat there, untouched as yet by thewide river of fire, chuckling at his destiny. The wall of fire closedacross the doorway again and the work of red ruin went on with acrashing of timbers from the upper part of the building.
As that living wall shut solidly, Jacqueline leaped forward, shouting,like a man, words of hope and rescue; Pierre caught her barely intime--a precarious grasp on the wrist from which she nearly wrenchedherself free and gained the entrance to the fire. But the jerk threwher off balance for the least fraction of an instant, and the nextmoment she was safe in his arms.
Safe? He might as well have held a wildcat, or captured with his barehands a wild eagle, strong of talon and beak. She tore and raged in awild fury.
"Pierre, coward, devil!"
"Steady, Jack!"
"Are you going to let him die?"
"Don't you see? He's already dead."
"You lie. You only fear the fire!"
"I tell you, McGurk has been here before us."
Her arm was freed by a twisting effort and she beat him furiouslyacross the face. One blow cut his lip and a steady trickle of hotblood left a taste of salt in his mouth.
"You young fiend!" he cried, and grasped both her wrists with acrushing force.
She leaned and gnashed at his hands, but he whirled her about and heldher from behind, impotent, raging still.
"A hundred McGurks could never have killed him!"
There was a sharp explosion from the midst of the fire.
"See! He's fighting against his death!"
"No! No! It's only the falling of a timber!"
Yet with a panic at his heart he knew that it was the sharp crack of afirearm.
"Liar again! Pierre, for God's sake, do something for him. Father!He's fighting for his life!"
Another and another explosion from the midst of the fire. Heunderstood then.
"The flames have reached his guns. That's all, Jack. Don't you see?We'd be throwing ourselves away to run into those flames."
Realization came to her at last. A heavy weight slumped down suddenlyover his arms. He held her easily, lightly. Her head had tilted back,and the red flare of the fire beat across her face and throat. Theroar of the flames shut out all other thought of the world and cast awide inferno of light around them.
Higher and higher rose the fires, and the wind cut off great fragmentsand hurried them off into the night, blowing them, it seemed, straightup against the piled thunder of the clouds. Then the roof sagged,swayed, and fell crashing, while a vast cloud of sparks and livid firesshot up a hundred feet into the air. It was as if the soul of oldBoone had departed in that final flare.
It started the girl into sudden life, surprising Pierre, so that shemanaged to wrench herself free and ran from him. He sprang after herwith a shout, fearing that in her hysteria she might fling herself intothe fire, but that was not her purpose. Straight to the black horseshe ran, swung into the saddle with the ease of a man, and rodefuriously off through the falling of the night.
He watched her with a curious closing of loneliness like a hand abouthis heart. He had failed, and because of that failure even Jacquelinewas leaving him. It was strange, for since the loss of the girl of theyellow hair and those deep blue eyes, he had never dreamed that anotherthing in life could pain him.
So at length he mounted the mare again and rode slowly down the hilland out toward the distant ranges, trotting mile after mile withdownward head, not caring even if McGurk should cross him, for surelythis was the final end of the world to Pierre le Rouge.
About midnight he halted at last, for the uneasy sway of the mareshowed that she was nearly dead on her feet with weariness. He found aconvenient place for a camp, built his fire, and wrapped his blanketabout him without thinking of food.
He never knew how long he sat there, for his thoughts circled the worldand back again and found all a prospect of desert before him andbehind, until a sound, a vague sound out of the night startled him intoalertness. He slipped from beside the fire and into the shadow of asteep rock, watching with eyes that almost pierced the dark on allsides.
And there he saw her creeping up on the outskirts of the firelight,prone on her hands and knees, dragging herself up like a young wildcathunting prey; it was the glimmer of her eyes that he caught firstthrough the gloom. A cold thought came to him that she had returnedwith her gun ready.
Inch by inch she came closer, and now he was aware of her restlessglances probing on all sides of the camp-fire. Silence--only thecrackling of a pitchy stick. And then he heard a muffled sound, soft,soft as the beating of a heart in the night, and regularly pulsing. Ithurt him infinitely, and he called gently: "Jack, why are you weeping?"
She started up with her fingers twisted at the butt of her gun.
"It's a lie," called a tremulous voice. "Why should I weep?"
And then she ran to him.
"Oh, Pierre, I thought you were gone!"
That silence which came between them was thick with understandinggreater than speech. He said at last:
"I've made my plan. I am going straight for the higher mountains andtry to shake McGurk off my trail. There's one chance in ten I maysucceed, and if I do then I'll wait for my chance and come down on him,for sooner or later we have to fight this out to the end."
"I know a place he could never find," said Jacqueline. "The old cabinin the gulley between the Twin Bears. We'll start for it to-night."
"Not we," he answered. "Jack, here's the end of our riding together."
She frowned with puzzled wonder.
He explained: "One man is stronger than a dozen. That's the strengthof McGurk--that he rides alone. He's finished your father's men.There's only Wilbur left, and Wilbur will go next--then me!"
She stretched her hands to him. She seemed to be pleading for her verylife.
"But if he finds us and has to fight us both--I shoot as straight as aman, Pierre!"
"Straighter than most. And you're a better pal than any I've everridden with. But I must go alone. It's only a lone wolf that willever bring down McGurk. Think how he's rounded us up like a herd ofcattle and brought us down one by one."
"By getting each man alone and killing him from behind."
"From the front, Jack. No, he's fought square with each one. Thewounds of Black Gandil were all in front, and when McGurk and I meetit's going to be face to face."
Her tone changed, softened: "But what of me, Pierre?"
"You have to leave this life. Go down to the city, Jack. Live like awoman; marry some lucky fellow; be happy."
"Can you leave me so easily?"
"No, it's hard, devilish hard to part with a pal like you, Jack; butall the rest of my life I've got hard things to face, partner."
"Partner!" she repeated with an indescribable emphasis. "Pierre, Ican't leave you."
"Why?"
"I'm afraid to go. Let me stay!"
He said gloomily: "No good will come of it."
"I'll never trouble you--never!"
"No, the bad luck comes on the people who are with me, but never on me.It's struck them all down, one by one; your turn is next, Jack. If Icould leave the cross behind--"
He covered his face, and groaned: "But I don't dare; I don't dare! Ihave to face McGurk. Jack, I hate myself for it, but I can't help it.I'm afraid of McGurk, afraid of that damned white face, that lowered,fluttering eyelid, that sneering mouth. Without the cross to bring meluck, how could I meet him? But while I keep the cross there's ruinand hell without end for every one with me."
She was white and shaking. She said: "I'm not afraid. I've one friendleft; there's nothing else to care for."
"So it's to be this way, Jack?"
"This way, and no other."
"Partner, I'm glad. My God, Jack, what a man you would have made!"
Their hands met and clung together, and her head had drooped, perhapsin acquiescence.
