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

was.”

 

“Not too old to be made what I want.”

 

And his hands passed through a significant gesture of molding the

empty air. The boy met his eye dauntlessly.

 

“I suppose,” he said, “that I’ve a pretty small chance of getting

away.”

 

“Just about none, Pierre. Come here.”

 

Pierre stepped closer and looked down the hall into another room.

There, about a table, sat the five grimmest riders of the

mountain-desert that he had ever seen. They were such men as one could

judge at a glance, and Pierre made that instinctive motion for his

six-gun. “The girl,” Jim Boone was saying, “kept you pretty busy

tryin’ to make a break, and if she could do anything maybe you’d have

a pile of trouble with one of them guardin’ you. But if I’d had a good

look at you, lad, I’d never have let Jack take the job of

guardin’ you.”

 

“Thanks,” answered Pierre dryly.

 

“You got reason; I can see that. Here’s the point, Pierre. I know

young men because I can remember pretty close what I was at your age.

I wasn’t any ladies’ lap dog, at that, but time and older men molded

me the way I’m going to mold you. Understand?”

 

Pierre was nerved for many things, but the last word made him stir. It

roused in him a red-tinged desire to get through the forest of black

beard at the throat of Boone and dim the glitter of those keen eyes.

It brought him also another thought.

 

Two great tasks lay before him: the burial of his father and the

avenging of him on McGurk. As to the one, he knew it would be childish

madness for him to attempt to bury his father in Morgantown with only

his single hand to hold back the powers of the law or the friends of

the notorious Diaz and crippled Hurley.

 

And for the other, it was even more vain to imagine that through his

own unaided power he could strike down a figure of such almost

legendary terror as McGurk. The bondage of the gang might be a

terrible thing through the future, but the present need blinded him to

what might come.

 

He said: “Suppose I stop raising questions or making a fight, but give

you my hand and call myself a member—”

 

“Of the family? Exactly. If you did that I’d know it was because you

were wantin’ something, Pierre, eh?”

 

“Two things.”

 

“Lad, I like this way of talk. One—two—you hit quick like a two-gun

man. Well, I’m used to paying high for what I get. What’s up?”

“The first—”

 

“Wait. Can I help you out by myself, or do you need the gang?”

 

“The gang.”

 

“Then come, and I’ll put it up to them. You first.”

 

It was equally courtesy and caution, and Pierre smiled faintly as he

went first through the door. He stood in a moment under the eyes of

five silent men.

 

The booming voice of Jim Boone pronounced: “This is Pierre. He’ll be

one of us if he can get the gang to do two things. I ask you, will you

hear him for me, and then pass on whether or not you try his game?”

 

They nodded. There were no greetings to acknowledge the introduction.

They waited, eyeing the youth with distrust.

 

Pierre eyed them in turn, and then he spoke directly to big Dick

Wilbur.

 

“Here’s the first: I want to bury a man in Morgantown and I need help

to do it.”

 

Black Gandil snarled: “You heard me, boys; blood to start with. Who’s

the man you want us to put out?”

 

“He’s dead—my father.”

 

They came up straight in their chairs like trained actors rising to a

stage crisis. The snarl straightened on the lips of Black

Morgan Gandil.

 

“He’s lying in his house a few miles out of Morgantown. As he died he

told me that he wanted to be buried in a corner plot in the Morgantown

graveyard. He’d seen the place and counted it for his a good many

years because he said the grass grew quicker there than any other

place, after the snow went.”

 

“A damned good reason,” said Garry Patterson. As the idea stuck more

deeply into his imagination he smashed his fist down on the table so

that the crockery on it danced. “A damned good reason, say I!”

 

“Who’s your father?” asked Dick Wilbur, who eyed Pierre more

critically but with less enmity than the rest.

 

“Martin Ryder.”

 

“A ringer!” cried Bud Mansie, and he leaned forward alertly. “You

remember what I said, Jim?”

 

“Shut up. Pierre, talk soft and talk quick. We all know Mart Ryder had

only two sons and you’re not either of them.”

 

The Northerner grew stiff and as his face grew pale the red mark where

the stone had struck his forehead stood out like a danger signal.

 

He said slowly: “I’m his son, but not by the mother of those two.”

 

“Was he married twice?”

 

Pierre was paler still, and there was an uneasy twitching of his right

hand which every man understood.

 

He barely whispered. “No; damn you!”

 

But Black Gandil loved evil.

 

He said, with a marvelously unpleasant smile: “Then she was—”

 

The voice of Dick Wilbur cut in like the snapping of a whip: “Shut up,

Gandil, you devil!”

 

There were times when not even Boone would cross Wilbur, and this was

one of them.

 

Pierre went on: “The reason I can’t go to Morgan town is that I’m not

very well liked by some of the men there.”

 

“Why not?”

 

“When my father died there was no money to pay for his burial. I had

only a half-dollar piece. I went to the town and gambled and won a

great deal. But before I came out I got mixed up with a man called

Hurley, a professional gambler.”

 

“And Diaz?” queried a chorus.

 

“Yes. Hurley was hurt in the wrist and Diaz died. I think I’m wanted

in Morgantown.”

 

Out of a little silence came the voice of Black Gandil: “Dick, I’m

thankin’ you now for cuttin’ me so short a minute ago.”

 

Phil Branch had not spoken, as usual, but now he repeated, with rapt,

far-off eyes: “‘Hurley was hurt in the wrist and Diaz died?’ Hurley

and Diaz! I played with Hurley, a couple of times.”

 

“Speakin’ personal,” said Garry Patterson, his red verging toward

purple in excitement, “which I’m ready to go with you down to

Morgantown and bury your father.”

 

“And do it shipshape,” added Black Gandil.

 

“With all the trimmings,” said Bud Mansie, “with all Morgantown

joinin’ the mournin’ voluntarily under cover of our six-guns.”

 

“Wait,” said Boone. “What’s the second request?”

 

“That can wait.”

 

“It’s a bigger job than this one?”

 

“Lots bigger.”

 

“And in the meantime?”

 

“I’m your man.”

 

They shook hands. Even Black Gandil rose to take his share in the

ceremony—all save Bud Mansie, who had glanced out the window a moment

before and then silently left the room. A bottle of whisky was

produced and glasses filled all round. Jim Boone brought in the

seventh chair and placed it at the table. They raised their glasses.

 

“To the empty chair,” said Boone.

 

They drank, and for the first time in his life, the liquid fire went

down the throat of Pierre. He set down his glass, coughing, and the

others laughed good-naturedly.

 

“Started down the wrong way?” asked Wilbur.

 

“It’s beastly stuff; first I ever drank.”

 

A roar of laughter answered him.

 

“Still I got an idea,” broke in Jim Boone, “that he’s worthy of takin’

the seventh chair. Draw it up lad.”

 

Vaguely it reminded Pierre of a scene in some old play with himself

in the role of the hero signing away his soul to the devil, but an

interruption kept him from taking the chair. There was a racket at the

door—a half-sobbing, half-scolding voice, and the laughter of a man;

then Bud Mansie appeared carrying Jack in spite of her struggles. He

placed her on the floor and held her hands to protect himself from

her fury.

 

“I glimpsed her through the window,” he explained. “She was lining out

for the stable and then a minute later I saw her swing a saddle

onto—what horse d’you think?”

 

“Out with it.”

 

“Jim’s big Thunder. Yep, she stuck the saddle on big black Thunder and

had a rifle in the holster. I saw there was hell brewing somewhere, so

I went out and nabbed her.”

 

“Jack!” called Jim Boone. “What were you started for?”

 

Bud Mansie released her arms and she stood with them stiffening at her

sides and her fists clenched.

 

“Hal—he died, and there was nothing but talk about him—nothing done.

You got a live man in Hal’s place.”

 

She pointed an accusing finger at Pierre.

 

“Maybe he takes his place for you, but he’s not my brother—I hate

him. I went out to get another man to make up for Pierre.”

 

“Well?”

 

“A dead man. I shoot straight enough for that.”

 

A very solemn silence spread through the room; for every man was

watching in the eyes of the father and daughter the same shining black

devil of wrath.

 

“Jack, get into your room and don’t move out of it till I tell you to.

D’you hear?”

 

She turned on her heel like a soldier and marched from the room.

 

“Jack.”

 

She stopped in the door but would not turn back. “Jack, don’t you

love your old dad anymore?” She whirled and ran to him with

outstretched arms and clung to him, sobbing. “Oh, dad,” she groaned.

“You’ve broken my heart.”