Riders of the Silences, Max Brand [best books for 8th graders txt] 📗

CHAPTER 1

It seemed that Father Anthony gathered all the warmth of the short

northern summer and kept it for winter use, for his good nature was an

actual physical force. From his ruddy face beamed such a kindliness

that people reached out toward him as they might extend their hands

toward a comfortable fire.

 

All the labors of his work as an inspector of Jesuit institutions

across the length and breadth of Canada could not lessen the good

father’s enthusiasm; his smile was as indefatigable as his critical

eyes. The one looked sharply into every corner of a room and every

nook and hidden cranny of thoughts and deeds; the other veiled the

criticism and soothed the wounds of vanity.

 

On this day, however, the sharp eyes grew a little less keen and

somewhat wider, while that smile was fixed rather by habit than

inclination. In fact, his expression might be called a frozen

kindliness as he looked across the table to Father Victor.

 

It required a most indomitable geniality, indeed, to outface the rigid

piety of Jean Paul Victor. His missionary work had carried him far

north, where the cold burns men thin. The zeal which drove him north

and north and north over untracked regions, drove him until his body

failed, drove him even now, though his body was crippled.

 

A mighty yearning, and a still mightier self-contempt whipped him on,

and the school over which he was master groaned and suffered under his

régime. Father Anthony said gently: “Are there none among all your

lads, dear Father Victor, whom you find something more than imperfect

machines?”

 

The man of the north drew from a pocket of his robe a letter. His lean

fingers touched it almost with a caress.

 

“One. Pierre Ryder. He shall carry on my mission in the north. I, who

am silent, have done much; but Pierre will do more. I had to fight my

first battle to conquer my own stubborn soul, and the battle left me

weak for the great work in the snows, but Pierre will not fight that

battle, for I have trained him.

 

“This letter is for him. Shall we not carry it to him? For two days I

have not seen Pierre.”

 

Father Anthony winced.

 

He said: “Do you deny yourself even the pleasure of the lad’s company?

Alas, Father Victor, you forge your own spurs and goad yourself with

your own hands. What harm is there in being often with the lad?”

 

The sneer returned to the lips of Jean Paul Victor.

 

“The purpose would be lost—lost to my eyes and lost to his—the

purpose for which I have lived and for which he shall live. When I

first saw him he was a child, a baby, but he came to me and took one

finger of my hand in his small fist and looked up to me. Ah,

Gabrielle, the smile of an infant goes to the heart swifter than the

thrust of a knife! I looked down upon him and I knew that I was chosen

to teach the child. There was a voice that spoke in me. You will

smile, but even now I think I can hear it.”

 

“I swear to you that I believe,” said Father Anthony.

 

“Another man would have given Pierre a Bible and a Latin grammar and a

cell. I gave him the testament and the grammar; I gave him also the

wild north country to say his prayers in and patter his Latin. I

taught his mind, but I did not forget his body.

 

“He is to go out among wild men. He must have strength of the spirit.

He must also have a strength of the body that they will understand and

respect. He can ride a horse standing; he can run a hundred miles in a

day behind a dog-team. He can wrestle and fight with his hands, for

skilled men have taught him. I have made him a thunderbolt to hurl

among the ignorant and the unenlightened; and this is the hand which

shall wield it. Ha!

 

“It is now hardly a six month since he saved a trapper from a bobcat

and killed the animal with a knife. It must have been my prayers which

saved him from the teeth and the claws.”

 

Good Father Anthony rose.

 

“You have described a young David. I am eager to see him. Let us go.”

 

Father Victor nodded, and the two went out together. The chill of the

open was hardly more than the bitter cold inside the building, but

there was a wind that drove the cold through the blood and bones of

a man.

 

They staggered along against it until they came to a small house, long

and low. On the sheltered side they paused to take breath, and Father

Victor explained: “This is his hour in the gymnasium. To make the body

strong required thought and care. Mere riding and running and swinging

of the ax will not develop every muscle. Here Pierre works every day.

His teachers of boxing and wrestling have abandoned him.”

 

There was almost a smile on the lean face.

 

“The last man left with a swollen jaw and limping on one leg.”

 

Here he opened the door, and they slipped inside. The air was warmed

by a big stove, and the room—for the afternoon was dark—lighted by

two swinging lanterns suspended from the low roof. By that

illumination Father Anthony saw two men stripped naked, save for a

loincloth, and circling each other slowly in the center of a ring

which was fenced in with ropes and floored with a padded mat.

 

Of the two wrestlers, one was a veritable giant, swarthy of skin,

hairy-chested. His great hands were extended to grasp or to parry—his

head lowered with a ferocious scowl—and across his forehead swayed a

tuft of black, shaggy hair. He might have stood for one of those

northern barbarians whom the Romans loved to pit against their native

champions in the arena. He was the greater because of the opponent he

faced, and it was upon this opponent that the eyes of Father

Anthony centered.

 

Like Father Victor, he was caught first by the bright hair. It was a

dark red, and where the light struck it strongly there were places

like fire. Down from this hair the light slipped like running water

over a lithe body, slender at the hips, strong-chested, round and

smooth of limb, with long muscles leaping and trembling at every move.

 

He, like the big fighter, circled cautiously about, but the impression

he gave was as different from the other as day is from night. His head

was carried high; in place of a scowl, he smiled with a sort of

eagerness, a light which was partly exultation and partly mischief

sparkled in his eyes. Once or twice the giant caught at the other, but

David slipped from under the grip of Goliath easily. It seemed as if

his skin were oiled. The big man snarled with anger, and lunged more

eagerly at Pierre.

 

The two, abandoning their feints, suddenly rushed together, and the

swarthy arms of the monster slipped around the white body of Pierre.

For a moment they whirled, twisting and struggling.

 

“Now!” murmured Father Victor; and as if in answer to a command,

Pierre slipped down, whipped his hands to a new grip, and the two

crashed to the mat, with Pierre above.

 

“Open your eyes, Father Anthony. The lad is safe. How Goliath grunts!”

The boy had not cared to follow his advantage, but rose and danced

away, laughing softly. The Canuck floundered up and rushed like a

furious bull. His downfall was only the swifter. The impact of the two

bodies sounded like hands clapped together, and then Goliath rose into

the air, struggling mightily, and pitched with a thud to the mat.

 

He writhed there, for the wind was knocked from his body by the fall.

At length he struggled to a sitting posture and glared up at the

conqueror. The boy reached out a hand to his fallen foe.

 

“You would have thrown me that way the first time,” he said, “but you

let me change grips on you. In another week you will be too much for

me, bon ami.”

 

The other accepted the hand after an instant of hesitation and was

dragged to his feet. He stood looking down into the boy’s face with a

singular grin. But there was no triumph in the eye of Pierre—only a

good-natured interest.

 

“In another week,” answered the giant, “there would not be a sound

bone in my body.”